| The meeting between the Firsts Hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church in Havana in 2016 had historical significance. Thanks to the joint declaration signed by Pope Francis and His Holiness Patriarch Kirill which treated the problem of the persecution of Christians as paramount, the topic of the genocide of Christians was finally discussed at many international forums and became part of the world’s agenda. Soon after the historic meeting in Havana, bilateral cooperation in the humanitarian sphere between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church began to develop successfully. In 2016, with the participation of the Kirche in Not Foundation, a joint Orthodox-Catholic delegation visited Syria and Lebanon, met with local religious leaders and visited refugee camps in the Beqaa Valley and held round-table talks with representatives of the local Churches in Zahle and Damascus. As a result of the visit an illustrated catalogue of destroyed Syrian churches was produced; projects for their restoration are now being developed. In September 2017 I visited Lebanon where I met with the hierarchs and representatives of the Churches of Lebanon who carry out their ministry in the Beqaa Valley. The aim of my meeting was to discuss the current humanitarian aid in the region and the humanitarian initiatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, including in the context of inter-Christian and inter-religious cooperation. In the Beqaa Valley, located in the east of Lebanon, a great number of Syrian refugees have found shelter. While Muslims have been placed in specially equipped camps, Christians have to rent accommodation in the cities of Zahle and Baalbek. The Russian Orthodox Church is cooperating also with other Christian confessions in the field of rendering aid to persecuted Christians. In 2017 the Moscow Patriarchate was one of the initiators in holding a world summit in defense of persecuted Christians, which brought the world community’s attention to the unprecedented persecution of Christianity. The summit, organized by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in collaboration with the Russian Orthodox Church, took place in Washington in May 2017. Participating in the summit were representatives of various Christian denominations from 135 countries. Represented were the Local Orthodox Churches, the Roman Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, as well as various Protestant denominations. The summit was visited by US vice-president Mike Pence, with whom I had a conversation. |
| In 1878, Saint Alexis Toth (1853–1909) was ordained as a priest of the Byzantine Rite of the Roman Catholic Church, in Slovakia. After serving for some time as Director of the Prešov Seminary, where he also taught Church History and Canon Law, he was sent in 1889 to Minneapolis, Minnesota, as a missionary priest to serve the Uniate immigrants there. However, when he reported to the local Latin-rite Roman Catholic Bishop John Ireland, upon his arrival in the city, he was rudely rejected. Two years later, he did what he said was “something which I had carried in my heart for a long time, for which my soul longed: that is, to become Orthodox.” In 1891 Bishop Vladimir (Sokolovsky; r. 1888–1891), head of the Russian mission-diocese, personally received Saint Alexis and his 361 parishioners into the Orthodox Church. Soon thereafter, Saint Alexis was invited to serve the Uniate parish in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. After receiving the approximately 500 parishioners’ unanimous decision to become Orthodox, he began his 16 years of ministry there, until his death in 1909. In these years, enduring strong opposition from both Eastern- and Latin-rite Roman Catholics, he guided some 29,000 Uniates in 17 parishes, mostly in Pennsylvania, New York, and Connecticut, into Orthodoxy. In 1994 the mitred Archpriest Alexis was glorified as a saint, with the title “Confessor and Defender of Orthodoxy in America,” in services held at Saint Tikhon’s Monastery in South Canaan, Pennsylvania. The Serbs Attracted by the California Gold Rush, Serbian immigrants began arriving in California in 1850. Some of them became involved in the Russian Orthodox parish in San Francisco established in the 1860s. This was where a Serbian-American child named Sebastian Dabovich (1863–1940) was baptized. In 1892 he became the first native-born American to be ordained as an Orthodox priest. Two years later he built Saint Sava Orthodox Church, the first Serbian Orthodox church in America, in the gold-mining town of Jackson, California. In May 2015, Sebastian was canonized by the Serbian Church and became the first American-born saint of the Orthodox Church. |
| Elements of this story conform to a more widespread typology of tales concerning miraculous images, whether in the Latin or the Orthodox worlds: the role of an ignorant peasant as the finder of the image, the rural setting and the association with prominent features in the landscape. Of particular significance is the motif of lay initiative and resistance to clerical control 962 . In this context, a distinction may be proposed between the cult of images and that of relics. Since the twelfth century, if not before, relics have always required authentication by clerical authority, and as a result have been overwhelmingly concentrated in churches. Of images this is significantly less true. The great majority of particular image cults in both West and East have been established at locations, like the mountain above Rapallo, outside direct clerical control. And even though there has been a recurrent tendency to bring such images under a degree of clerical supervision in dedicated chapels, none the less the cult usually remains to a significant degree in lay hands. In certain aspects, image cults show analogies with the cult of relics. But in the present context we should prefer to emphasise what we see as this important distinction between the two 963 . The object of devotion at Rapallo is unusual in several respects. The Montallegro image is a small (18x5 cm) wooden panel, on which is painted the Dormition of the Virgin (fig. 1). In this iconography it is at once distinguished from the majority of eastern icons venerated in the West, which simply show the Virgin and Child. Indeed, we know of no other case of an isolated Orthodox Festival icon acquiring in the West a status equivalent to that of the Montallegro image. The iconography of the Dormition was of course a Greek invention. In its Orthodox form it was little known in the West, apart from a twelfth-century mosaic in the Byzantinising context of the Martorana chapel in Palermo. The subject was, however, occasionally represented by western artists, and these versions, like Giotto’s painting now in the Berlin gallery, reflect the influence of the eastern model. An interest in the theme may have been felt particularly in late-medieval Tuscany (which lies adjacent to Liguria), where Fra Angelico painted the Dormition on a reliquary panel made for display on the Feast of the Assumption in Santa Maria Novella in Florence, while nearby Prato famously boasted its possession of the girdle which the Virgin was said to have dropped at her Assumption. The Montallegro version gives, within its small compass, a slightly condensed representation of the scene. At the foot of the Virgin’s bed are gathered the Twelve Apostles; at its head stands a single bishop, standing for the three supposed episcopal witnesses to the event; and above just two angels, in place of the usual host, prepare to receive the Virgin’s soul in the form of a swaddled infant. |
| 306 In 1678 21,000 aspers annually to Vatopedi, renovates the chapel of Paramythia; in 1679 builds an aqueduct for Stavronikita; in 1680 builds the chapel of Portaitissa at Iviron; in 1681–2 dedicates the Budisteni skete to Protaton; 400 salt slabs annually; tax exemption; in 1684 dedicates the Valeni de Munte monastery; in 1686 dedicates the Calugareni skete to Stavronikita. 307 In 1689 dedicates the ‘Maria Doamna’ church in Bucharest; in 1691 6,000 aspers to the Lavra monastery and silver for the coffin containing St John Chrysostom’s relics; in 1696 8,000 aspers to Dionysiou; in 1696 21,000 aspers annually to Vatopedi; in 1698 150 talers annually to St Paul’s; in 1692 3,000 aspers annually to Pantokrator; in 1694 dedicated three villages to St Paul’s; in 1703 exempts the Roaba monastery, dedicated to Xenophontos, from all taxes; dedicates the Caciulati monastery to Xenophontos; 11,000 aspers to Xenophontos; in 1704 dedicates the Baia de Arama monastery to Hilandar; in 1708 repairs the north-western cells at Vatopedi; in 1708 builds the west wing of cells, the refectory, two chapels, and general renovations at St Paul’s; in 1709 a coffin/tabernacle for St Gregory the Theologian’s relics at Vatopedi; in 1713 120 aspers to Dionysiou, supplies to Philotheou, and estates to Stavronikita. 308 See a complete table of the dedicated monasteries, sketes, and churches, mentioning the venue, the people who dedicated them, the date, and the monastery they were dedicated to in Ioan Moldoveanu, op. cit., pp. 301–4. 309 Through the secularization of the monastic possessions the Romanian state came into possession of 560,000 hectares of land. 310 Gh. Moisescu, ‘The Romanian Contribution to Sustaining Mount Athos throughout the Ages’ in Romanians and Mount Athos, vol. I, p. 504. 312 Ioan Moldoveanu, op. cit., p. 80. Between 1831 and 1832 the Organic Statute established the following equivalents: 31.5 lei=39.4g gold 990 % or 2.25 lei=6.68g silver 583 % and 1 leu=40 pence. 314 1,466,520 piasters in Moldavia and 19,920,124 piasters in Wallachia. The debts came from the fourth part of the incomes, which the monasteries were required to pay to the state at that time. By 1863 the debt amounted to 28,889,020 piasters. |
| Accelerans gradum ad terminum biennis cursus philosophia prius truncat Tui Sacri Masaei pulsãs obtudit ut post brevi e Lycaeo per templum virtutum Tuarum integraprodeat in publicum. Jl me et Rndime Domine! Equidem consummata aliquando lucem videre jam desperat, si a Tuae Sanctimoniae plenitudine complementum non acceperit, in ipsa melle cruda et immatura apparevit, si ad tuum Phoebo concolorem aspectum excocta non advenerit. Si etenim u Tullius lib. I-mo de orat. [exis]tumat universã philosophiã, in tres partes distributã in Naturae obscuritatem, in discutiendi subtilitatem, in vitam atque mores, nunduam Philosophia nostra (absque ea parte quae vitam et mores concernit tradita) omnibus numeris absoluta spectabitur (nisi) ad Tuum Ferterium accurrat discipula et vitis Sanctorum in quattuor volumina S. S Evangeliorum instar digestis moralibusque aureis Tuis sermonibus compleatur; et quae ethica Tua morali in libris actorum S. S. in ecclesiis ore proposita perfectior expetenda, quae monastica divinior illa quam in anachoretarum solitudine adumbrasti, quae illa sanctior oeconomica quam in coenobiarcharum praesulum Patriarcharum vitis quos Dmnus constituit supra familiam Suam depinxisti, quae illa prudentior politica quam proposuisti in Constantino Magno, Wladimiro, Hlebe, Borysso, Demetrio aliisque orthodoxis caesaribus? proposuisti autem et proponis moralem hanc scientiam tanto melior Stagirita,quanto plus valent facta quam verba, exempla quam praecepta, vita quam doctrina, occinente Claudiano: non sic in lectore sensus humanos edicta valent quam vita regentis; proposuisti insuper non solum in pagina, sed etiam in Те ipso, qui easdem vitas, quas calamo expressisti in papyro, in Те fàctis exprimis, ut aeque proficiat in eruditione Sacra et moribus tam, qui eas legit in foliis exinde in Те non sine admiratione intuetur, hoc cum discrimine quod idem fusius iu charta compe diosius in persona propria repraesentes. Habet tibi gratias Coelum, quod morem solis gerens ejus Zodiacum pia et erudita penna decurristi an potius pervolasti eoque jam fulgentia in perpetuas aeternitates sidera (coelites loquor) Tua sepia illustrasti. Habet gratias orthodoxa tellus, quod latentem in illa tot saeculis thesaurum e tenebris ignorantiae erueris, novum annum novus Тутап sacris annalibus pe.. renis cujus dies non per Planetarum periodos, sed per Tuas, cujus horas, non per gradus ecclipticae, sed per puncta Tua et pneumaticas numerantur. Habet ingentes gratias et mutila nostra philosophia, quod illi S Justini christianam Phiam, S. Catherinae sapientiam aliorumque coelitum, sapientem vitam in supplementum proposueris imitandum unum obnixe desiderans ut tam imperfectam attactu Tuae sanctae manus perficio (as?) et ipse vero vivas annos divorum omnium quorum vitam te annos commissisti post sera lata coronam coaequalem cum digno labore recepturus. |
| 387 Ср. P V, 990D: «beatus Augustinus in uitimis «De ciuitate Dei» libris non ipsa mundi corpora transitura, sed eorum qualitates in melius mutandas uideatur docere». 388 PV, 986D–987A: «utilius visum est eis praedicare terrenorum sensi-biliumque corporum transmutationem in caelestia spiritualiaque corpora, quam penitus corpora et corporalia et sensibilia omnia nunquam esse futura. Tolerabilior quippe carnaliter cogitantibus videtur ad credendum terrenorum corporum in caelestia transitio, quam totius corporalitatis negatio». 389 PV, 987B: «non mutationem corporis terreni in caeleste corpus, sed omnino transitum in ipsum purum spiritum, non in illum, qui aether, sed in illum, qui intellectus vocitatur». Cf. P V, 987BC: «Ambrosius siquidem omnem compositionem aufert, ita ut post resurrectionem corpus et anima et intellectus unum sint, et unum simplex… Gregorius similiter et incunctanter astruit mutationem corporis tempore resurrectionis in animam, animae in intellectum, intellectus in Deum»; 951 A: «mortalia nostra corpora non solum in spiritualia, verum etiam in animas nostras, ut Gregorio placet transibunt». 390 Р V, 914В: «humana corpora, quae nunc localiter distenduntur, incrementis decrementisque variantur et moventur, species quoque eorum.,. in resurrectione futura non erunt, sed in spiritualem naturam, quae locis temporibusque... nescit circumscribe transituras esse naturalis ration edocet»; II, 535B: «mirabili quadam regressione inferiora semper in superiora transeant»; II, 590C: «omnia corpora in incorporeas qualitates atque substantias esse transitura> > ; V, 884AB; «Moles itaque terrena, mortalis, fluxilis, quae ex diversis qualitatibus sensibilium elementorum et assumpta et composita est... naturali corporis substantiaiique superaddita est, solvetur, et in melius mutabitur, in spiritum stabilemque substamiam»; V, 879A: «existimo софога1ет substantiam in animam esse transituram, non ut pereat, quod sit, sed ut in meiiori essentia salva sit. Similiter de ipsa anima intelligendum, quod ita in intellectum movebitur, ut in eo pulchrior Deoque similior conservetur»; V, 874B: «tota siquidem humana natura in solum intellectum refundetur». |
| 5. This leads to a consideration of the practical question: How can the Church in fact unite the two approaches into one synthesis? Is there any way in the Church’s life in which the synthesis of the historical with the eschatological approaches is realized? The early Church seems to offer the answer to this question by pointing towards the eucharist. There is, indeed, no other experience in the Church’s life in which the synthesis of the historical with the eschatological can be realized more fully than in the eucharist. The eucharist is, on the one hand, a “tradition” (παρδοσις) 375 and a “remembrance” (νμνησις). 376 As such it activates the historical consciousness of the Church in a retrospective way. At the same time, however, the eucharist is the eschatological moment of the Church par excellence, a remembrance of the Kingdom, as it sets the scene for the convocation of the dispersed people of God from the ends of the earth in one place, 377 uniting the “many” in “one” 378 and offering the taste of the eternal life of God here and now. 379 In and through the same experience, therefore, at one and the same moment, the Church unites in the eucharist the two dimensions, past and future, simultaneously as one indivisible reality. This happens “sacramentally,” i.e. in and through historical and material forms, while the existential tension between the “already” and the “not yet” is preserved. 380 In the consciousness of the ancient Church this is further emphasized through the use of the epiclesis in the eucharist: the “words of institution” and the entire anamnetic dimension of the Church are placed at the disposal of the Spirit, as if they could not constitute in themselves a sufficient assurance of God’s presence in history. This makes the eucharist the moment in which the Church realizes that her roots are to be found simultaneously in the past and in the future, in history and in the eschata. The result of the recognition of this unique function of the eucharist in the Early Church was to make the eucharist the milieu and the context in which the basic concrete manifestation of apostolic continuity would take place. 381 This centrality of the eucharist has been preserved in the liturgical and canonical tradition of the Orthodox Churches, but Orthodox theology has very often disregarded it, thus making the synthesis between “historical” and “eschatological” problematic. III. Concrete Consequences for the Life of Church |
| [T]he most important reason why Cyril is often depicted as a Miaphysite theologian is the self-perpetuating myth that the mia physis formula would be his favorite formula, which he employed many times. We find this over and over again in the literature on the archbishop … How often does Cyril of Alexandria actually employ the mia physis formula? In the writings of the first two years of the Nestorian controversy we encounter it two times only, once in Contra Nestorium, and once in a quotation in Oratio ad Dominas. In comparison, ‘union/unite(d) according to hypostasis is found seventeen times in Contra Nestorium alone (plus four times ‘according to hypostasis’ with other nouns or verbs), four times in the Second Letter to Nestorius, five times in Oratio ad Dominas (plus once ‘according to hypostasis’ with another phrase), four times in the Third Letter to Nestorius, once in the anathemas (and once ‘separated according to hypostasis’ in Oratio ad Augustas). Therefore, at this stage of the controversy, Cyril’s ‘favorite phrase’ is ‘union/unite(d) according to hypostasis’, certainly not the mia physis formula. However, after Theodoret attacked the expression ‘union/unite(d) according to hypostasis’ as an innovation, Cyril dropped it altogether. It may be added that in Oratio ad dominas, the mia physis formula is found in a quotation from Apollinarius’s Letter to Jovian, which Cyril thought to be written by Athanasius. His explicit reason for this quotation is the occurrence of the epithet ‘Theotokos’, not that it contains the formula. He does not in any way refer to or discuss the formula. In the one time that he speaks of ‘one nature, the incarnate [nature] of the Word himself ’ in Contra Nestorium, it is immediately followed by the analogy of soul and body. Therefore, it should be interpreted in light of this comparison. Before the reunion with the Orientals in 433, there is only one other work of Cyril’s in which he speaks of ‘one nature’ in a christological context, Contra Orientales. We find the same quotation of pseudo-Athanasius which we also encountered in Oratio ad Dominas, now in Cyril’s defence of the eighth anathema, which states that Emmanuel should be honoured with one worship. Obviously, the reason for this quotation is not that it contains the mia physis formula, but that it also speaks of one worship. After citing pseudo-Athanasius, Cyril gives a brief quotation from Nestorius, “Let us confess God in man; let us revere the man who is co-worshipped because of the divine connection with God the Word”, which he discusses. Cyril then refers to an argument which Andrew of Samosata has used against him: he himself has said that the Son is co-seated on the throne with the Father, together with his own flesh; since συν and μετa are the same thing, why does he attack someone who says that the man must be co-worshipped (συν-) with God the Word and co-named (συν-) God? |
| As for relations with the Catholic Church, today we share our positions on many issues including those which disturb people today, namely, the family, marriage, childbearing, bioethics, and protection of Christian values in Europe. Regrettably, Christians are becoming a persecuted and oppressed minority. There has appeared such a notion as Christianophobia. The religious life of Christians is being ousted from public life. This has happened in Europe and this has happened in other countries, and today we together advocate the need to preserve Christian values in the life of the European, and not only European, community, as well as in the modern culture. We have many things in common, and we develop them through dialogue. I do not exclude an opportunity for a meeting at some moment with the Pope of Rome, but we have to cover some way before this meeting is made possible. —Iomuiri Daily: Your Holiness, please allow me to ask this question. Actively developing economically and gaining strength politically, Russia has broadened her influence in the world and increased her cultural importance. What role does the Russian Orthodox Church play in this process? How active is her cooperation with Orthodox Churches in other countries, for instance, Greece and Serbia? Does she help to restore churches and holy places in these countries? —The Russian Church embraces Orthodox believers who live in the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, the Baltics – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Kazakhstan and the Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. In addition, we have a very large diaspora. Although different figures are given, but they amount to several millions people living around the world. For all these people we carry out our pastoral service. To take the diaspora, we are building churches, opening schools, participating together with the state in cultural work to help people study the Russian language. In many places we help our people to be integrated in the society in which they live. In doing so, we take this approach: we are against assimilation, and we are against the situation in which Russian people living in America, Germany or elsewhere cease to become Russian people. We are for them to remain Russians, to be native speakers of Russian and to be Orthodox. But we also stand for their ability to work and live in these new societies, for their knowledge of the laws and readiness to observe them, for their ability to find jobs and work in their own field. A medical doctor often cannot work as a doctor, and many other specialists too are not seen by the local community as qualified enough. In other words, we seek to take care of the life of our people in the diaspora. |
| Potentia enim g-tou g-logou iuxta suam substantiam vitae est semper substantia, secundum quod vita est, et vivefacit et revivefacit et non permittit esse in morte quaecumque vivefacit. In prima igitur motione omnia in vitam adduxit, et ista est descensio g-tou g-logou quod, quoniam a patre exiens, his qui in caelis sunt et angelis aut thronis vel gloriis et huius modi quae sunt dedit suam propriam vitam, potentia patrica: g-logos enim omnium est per quem facta sunt omnia. Et rursus, quod non esset vivefacere, nisi esset materia ad potentiam vivefaciendi, effecta est materia, mortua natura, quae vivefacta suas malitias emisit vivificatione divina et corrupit hominem. Sed g-logos, vita perfecta, conplevit mysterium et apparuit in materia, hoc est in carne et in tenebris. Quomodo enim erat possibile apparere quod fuisset, nisi in carne, hoc est in sensu appareret? Omnia ergo effectus g-logos et in omnibus, et genuit omnia et salvavit et regnavit vita aeterna exsistens. In spiritu ergo iustificatus est; apparuit angelis; veniens ergo; praedicatus est gentibus; fuit igitur antequam veniret; creditus est in mundo. Sic enim et Esaias fatetur prophetans: laboravit Aegyptus et mercimonia Aethiopum; et Sabaim viri altissimi in te ambulabunt et tibi erunt servi et retro te sequentur ligati manicis et te venerabuntur et in te precabuntur, quod in te deus est et non est deus extra te. Tu es enim deus et non sciebamus, deus Israhel. Creditus ergo in mundo, receptus in gloria. Omnis divinitas et ab initio et in initio et postea et semper ab aeternis et in saecula saeculorum. Amen. 27. Vide autem et istud ad g-homoousion, quomodo spiritus dicit Esaiae: in te deus et non est deus extra te. Quod filio dicit domino nostro, manifestum: in te deus, hoc est quod dictum est: pater in me. Aliud autem: et non est deus extra te. In isto verbo omnes haereses praedicit. Ad istud quid dicunt omnes Iudaei et qui dicunt hominem esse Iesum et qui dicunt ex nihilo et fuit quando non fuit? Erat enim deus et semper unus deus. |
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