| Classics of Western Spirituality [unnumbered series]. NY: Paulist Press,. See especially: Athanasius, Saint Patriarch of Athanasius, d. 373. Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus. (Translation and introduction by Robert C. Gregg; preface by William A. Clebsch. 1980. xxi, 166 p. Translation of Vita S. Antonii.) Cassian, John, ca. 360-ca. 435. Conferences. (Translation and preface by Colm Luibheid; introduction by Owen Chadwick. 1985. xv, 208 p.) Ephraem, Syrus, Saint, 303–373. Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns. Translated and introduced by Kathleen E. McVey. 1989. xiii, 474 p.) Gregory, of Nyssa, ca. 335-ca. 394. Life of Moses. (Translation, introduction, and notes by Abraham J. Malherbe and Everett Ferguson; preface by Joh n Meyendorff. 1978. xvi, 208 p. Cistercian Studies series; n. 31. Translation of De vita Moysis. Bibliography: p. 139–140.) Gregory Palamas, Saint, 1296–1359. Triads: Apology for the Holy Hesychasts. (Edited, with an introduction by Joh n Meyendorff; translation by Nicholas Gendle; preface by Jaroslav Pelikan. 1983. xiii, 172 p.) John, Climacus, Saint, 6th cent. The Ladder of Divine Ascent. (Translation by Colm Luibheid and Norman Russell; notes on translation by Norman Russell; introduction by Kallistos Ware; preface by Colm Luibheid. 1982. xxviii, 301 p. Translation of: Scala paradisi.) Nicodemus, the Hagiorite, Saint, 1748–1809. Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain: A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel. (Translation and foreword by Peter A. Chamberas; introduction by George S. Bebis; preface by Stanley S. Harakas. NY: Paulist Press, 1989. xiii, 241 p.) (Classics of western spirituality.) Translation of Symvouleftikon Encheiridion. Pseudo-Macarius. The Fifty Spiritual Homilies; and, The Great Letter. (Translated and edited with an introduction by George A. Maloney; preface by Bishop Kallistos Ware. 1992. xviii, 298 p. Includes bibliographical references 289–293.) Symeon, the New Theologian, Saint, 949–1022. The Discourses. (Translation by C. J. de Catanzaro; introduction by George Maloney; preface by Basile Krivocheine. 1980. xvii, 396 p. Translation of Catecheses.) |
| 37-94; this version has been made, not directly from the Greek, but from the Russian translation (sometimes very free) by Bishop Theophan the Recluse. For selections in French, translated directly from the Greek, see J. Gouillard, Petite Philocalie de la prière du cœur (2nd edition, Paris 1968), pp. 177-97. The life of St Gregory, composed by his disciple Kallistos, Patriarch of Constantinople during 1350-3 and 1355-63, has been edited by N. Pomialovskii, Zhitie izhe vo sviatykh otsa nashego Grigoriia Sinaita ( Zapiski Istoriko-Filologicheskago Fakul’teta Imperatorskago S.-Peterburgskago Universiteta, xxxv: St Petersburg 1894-6). Kallistos knew Gregory personally, living with him for some years, and also gathered material from other disciples: Life, 3 (ed. Pomialovskii, 2,27-3,5). His testimony is thus of primary importance. Relatively little has been written about Gregory of Sinai in modern times. There is an article, old but still valuable, by J. Bois, ‘Grégoire le Sinaïte et l’hésychasme à l’Athos au XIVe siècle’, Echos d’Orient, v (1901-2), pp. 65-73; compare also the brief but perceptive sketch in J. Meyendorff, St Grégoire Palamas et la mystique orthodoxe (Paris 1959), pp. 67-71. For further bibliography, see H.-G. Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich 1959), p. 695; S. G. Papadopoulos, in Thriskevtiki kai Ithiki Enkyklopaideia, vol. iv (Athens 1964), col. 707; J. Darrouzès, in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité, vol. vi (Paris 1967), cols 1013-14. I have not seen the unpublished dissertation of W. Pandursky (Marburg 1945). When Palamas arrived on Athos c. 1317, Gregory of Sinai was also on the Mountain; both Gregories left around the same time, c. 1325-8, because of the Turkish incursions, and both then went to Thessalonika. When Gregory of Sinai returned briefly to Athos during the 1330s, Palamas was once more there. Gregory of Sinai and Palamas were both associated with the same area of Athos: the north-eastern side, between Iviron and Lavra. |
| As a consequence of improved relations between the Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Church of Greece, Metropolitan Germanos was recalled in 1923. With his return to Greece, the formal division of the Greek Orthodox in America into two rival ecclesiastical jurisdictions should have come to an end. But it did not. The division between the Royalists and the Venizelists in the United States persisted and also continued to manifest itself in the parishes. Under the leadership of Royalists, a small number of parishes continued to oppose the authority of Archbishop Alexander and the three newly consecrated bishops of the archdiocese: Bishop Philaret (Ioannides) of Chicago, Bishop Joachim (Alexopoulos) of Boston, and Bishop Kallistos (Papageorgakopoulos) of San Francisco. 125 The schismatic movement was reinvigorated with the arrival in the United States in 1923 of Metropolitan Vasilios (Komvopoulos) of Chaldea. A strong supporter of the Royalist cause, this hierarch refused to accept his recent appointment as Metropolitan of Chaldea. Upon arriving in the United States, the metropolitan went to Lowell, Massachusetts, where the representatives of thirteen Royalist parishes proclaimed him to be the head of the autocephalous metropolis of America and Canada. Although the Ecumenical Patriarchate deposed Vasilios on 10 May 1924, he continued his activity in the United States and was viewed by the Royalists as a martyred hero. His qualities as a preacher, liturgist, and administrator aided him in his struggle against the authority of the canonical archdiocese. 126 The introduction of the new calendar (revised Julian) in 1923 further aggravated the division in America. Following the lead of its mother church and in harmony with the Church of Greece, the canonical archdiocese adopted the new calendar and abandoned the old Julian calendar, which was thirteen days «behind.» This change, however, did not affect the manner of reckoning the date of Pascha (Easter). The rival metropolis under the leader of Metropolitan Vasilios retained the use of the old calendar. Thus, in addition to their political stance, the Royalist parishes also had an ecclesiastical issue to employ in their struggle against the archdiocese and patriarchate. The political views of the Royalists were merged with the religious views of the «old-calendarists,» and the union led to the increase of hostility. Among the Slavic Orthodox, the old calendar (Julian) generally continued to be followed both in this country and abroad. 127 |
| I fall down upon the support and sustenance offered to me by Your Eminences and Your Graces and plead for your ceaseless intercession and the pastoral care of you and your brother Hierarchs. I offer heartfelt gratitude to His Holiness the Patriarch, to His Eminence Metropolitan Hilarion, First Hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad and beloved pastor of our flock in the diaspora, and to all the members of the Holy Sobor of Bishops for the confidence and trust you are laying upon me today. Especially I am grateful for the prayers and confidence of our Archpastor in this God-preserved Diocese, His Eminence Archbishop Kyrill of San Francisco and Western America, and to my spiritual father and elder co-struggler in monasticism, His Grace Bishop Theodosy of Seattle. I offer my gratitude to God for the grace and love shown to me by so many brother clergy and monastics throughout my life, both in this land and abroad; to the beloved parishioners of St Tikhon’s orphanage Church, by whose prayers and love I have been sustained day by day; and to the multitude of parishioners, spiritual children and students across the world whose lives have uplifted my own. I offer my gratitude to His Eminence Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia, and with particular love and tenderness I call to mind the Elder Aimillianos of the Holy Mountain of Athos, who, through his spiritual children, so powerfully opened unto me the beauty of the true theology of the Church of Christ. Knowing the depth of insufficiency that separates me from the truly holy hierarchs of our living memory, I call upon the aid of all those who have faithfully upheld the traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia and handed to us, incorrupt, the great Pearl of salvation: the ever-memorable Metropolitans Anthony, Anastasii, Philaret, Vitaly and Lavra, Archbishop Tikhon of San Francisco, and many others whose legacy has left an imprint on my soul and set an example before my eyes. Likewise, the God-inspired hierarchy of the whole plenitude of the Russian Church: especially the ever-memorable Patriarch Alexei II of Moscow and All Russia and the ever-memorable Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, by whose instruction I was first urged towards the clerical life. These true Pastors of both homeland and diaspora have inspired in me the deepest love of our Russian Orthodox Church, of the Russian People who have received me like an adopted son, and of the sacred culture preserved through times of extraordinary trial as a gift to every people, culture and tongue — even to the whole world, which so desperately needs it now. |
| Scientific activity can be treated as a cosmic eucharistic work (a “cosmic liturgy”). Science thus can be seen as a mode of religious experience, a view obvious to those scientists who participate in ecclesial communities but as yet undemonstrated to those outside such communities. This idea is an inspiration behind this book. I am very happy to point out that apart from my Orthodox background and scholarship, I have been deeply influenced by the ideas of Thomas Torrance. By referring to Patristic ideas, Torrance strongly advocated that the mediation between theology and science be established based on the unity of their ontological grounds, which should be anticipated if one believes in the incarnation in the Logos of God. The cosmic liturgy of human creativity thus coincides with the contemplation of the Logos of God made intelligible, by whom this world was made and in whom the universe is hypostatically inherent. Many events and circumstances, as well as many colleagues, teachers and friends, contributed directly and indirectly to the writing of this book. I would like to acknowledge those who were crucial to its completion. My son, Dmitri, was not only a witness of my work on this book for the past four years but also my spiritual companion and the invisible keeper of my hypostatic balance between heavenly thoughts and the practicalities of life. I am enormously grateful to him as well for computer support, particularly with the figures. I am cordially grateful to George Horton, a first reader of this book, for many suggestions and, in particular, for checking my English. I would like to thank my colleagues the Institute of Orthodox Studies in Cambridge for help with the theological side of this book, in particular Bishop Basil (Osborne) of Sergievo, Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, Mother Joanna (Moore), George Bebawi, Markus Plested, and Andrew Louth. The work on this book was carried out during three years of my involvement in the Oxford Templeton Seminars, where many of the book’s ideas were tested. |
| “Protestants come looking for the Church of the first centuries of Christianity, which is, of course, Orthodoxy’s claim. Many people come through personal contacts, and through reading books. Bishop Kallistos Ware’s book, The Orthodox Church, did much for Orthodoxy in Europe, as well as the writings of Vladyka Anthony Bloom, and Fr. Sophrony. Naturally, nowadays very many people are becoming Orthodox through mixed marriages. “Most people are converted to Orthodoxy through the Russian Church rather than the Greek, because the Greek immigrants come here with the intention of earning money and returning to Greece. The immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe come to live permanently. However, there are many cases where a Dutch person goes to Greece for a sunny vacation, sees the piety in the villages, steps into a beautiful church, then looks for that Church in Holland. Orthodoxy is definitely growing in Europe.” The sisters of the convent. The young man is a monastic aspirant bound for Mt. Athos The sisters of the convent. The young man is a monastic aspirant bound for Mt. Athos The Asten convent is also visited by members of the “new” immigration from formerly communist countries, who are now becoming parishioners in local Orthodox churches, where there are many Dutch converts. The immigrants are learning to live in a very different society. “If there is good communication, this can make for a good combination—in theory, anyway. It is a challenge—God’s challenge. As far as infrastructure and activities are concerned, however, the Coptic Church is better organized here than the Orthodox. “It can take ten or more years for a Dutch person to become Orthodox. The priest is also cautious, testing a person’s stability and intention for about one year before baptism.” There has been talk in the past of organizing a “Dutch Orthodox Church,” but Mother Maria believes it is too early. “There are difficult historical considerations. What makes things complicated is that Western Europe is historically the diocese of Rome. With the return to Orthodoxy—that is, of the people, but not of the Roman Church itself—we have the uncanonical situation of more than one bishop in a city. In France and in the U.S. there are Orthodox committees (such as SCOBA), where bishops meet from all different canonical jurisdictions, and work together on issues. So in Holland, the Orthodox are at least able to work together, and a natural ‘local Orthodoxy’ can form.” |
| Many people have helped me, either directly or indirectly, in putting this book together. I would like to acknowledge the help and advice and ideas (whether I have paid heed or not) of Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia, Mother Thekla, Catherine Osborne, Maurice Wiles and Fr Huw Chiplin. My greatest debt is, however, to Carol Harrison, who might be expected to have endured something as General Editor of this series, but as my wife has made this possible in more ways than I could say. Andrew Louth Feast of our holy father and confessor, Michael, Bishop of Synnada, 1995 ABBREVIATIONS AL On the Ascetic Life Amb. Ambigua (Books of Difficulties) CC Centuries on Love CCSG Corpus Christianorum. Series Graeca CT Centuries on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God Ep. Epistula LP On the Lord’s Prayer Myst. Mystagogia Opusc. Opuscula theologica et polemica QT Questions to Thalassius PG Patrologia Graeca Introduction LIFE AND TIMES St Maximus the Confessor was born in AD 580 in the Byzantine Empire, or the Roman Empire, as he and its inhabitants would have called it. Fifteen years earlier the great Emperor Justinian had died, at the end of a long reign (527–565) in which he had sought to restore the Roman Empire to its former glory. To a considerable degree he had succeeded. When his uncle, Justin I, died, the sway of the Emperor in Constantinople had shrunk to the Eastern end of the Mediterranean–the Balkan peninsula (including Greece), Asia Minor (and on the other side of the Black Sea Cherson–in the Crimea), Syria, Palestine and Egypt. The Western part of the Mediterranean world was ruled by the leaders of various barbarian tribes, even if several of these claimed to rule on behalf of the Emperor in Constantinople. By 565 the Roman Empire was more like the Empire the first Emperor, Augustus, had created: a union of the lands surrounding the Mediterranean–mare nostrum, our lake, as the Romans called it. North Africa had been reconquered in 533; Italy was restored to direct Byzantine control after a long drawn-out war that lasted from 535 to 554; and the Byzantines established themselves in the south-east corner of Spain, with their capital in Cordova, in 554. Much of Constantinople had been rebuilt during Justinian’s reign, including the ‘Great Church’, the church dedicated to the Holy Wisdom –Hagia Sophia. |
| A similar orientation can be seen in some of his prominent disciples such as Bishop Atanasije Jevti and Bishop Amfilohije Radovi, patristic scholars trained in Athens and closely involved with the current revival in Greek theology. Communities outside Eastern Europe have acquired an increasingly prominent role in world Orthodoxy. In 1942, a chance encounter with Russian émigré theological writings inspired a group of young Orthodox Lebanese and Syrians to found the Orthodox Youth Movement, which was to make Antioch one of the foremost heirs to the Paris renewal. Paris itself continues to be an important theological centre: the tradition of the émigré thinkers has been carried on by such figures as Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, Fr Cyrille Argenti, Olivier Clément and Fr Boris Bobrinskoy, and by a younger generation of theologians from Russian, Greek and French backgrounds. In Britain, the spirit of the renewal had been represented since the 1920s mainly through the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius and its leaders such as Nicolas and Militza Zernov and Nadejda Gorodetzky. It gained momentum after the Second World War through the ministry of Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) at the head of the Russian diocese, and Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), whose unconventional monastery in Essex is both a meeting place for pilgrims from all over the world and a strong presence in the Anglo-Greek community. The Orthodox presence in Britain includes such internationally known theologians as Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, who during his years as lecturer at Oxford supervised large numbers of graduate students from around the world. The journals Sobornost and, more recently, Sourozh (1980–2006) have been an important source of theological writing in English, along with St Vladimir " s Theological Quarterly and the Greek Orthodox Theological Review in America. In 1948, Fr Georges Florovsky and other leading theologians from Paris left for America, to be followed shortly by Alexander Schmemann and John Meyendorff. |
| WIDER INFLUENCE OF THE PATRISTIC REVIVAL There are other ways of seeing how Orthodox Christians have drawn on the Fathers as they have sought to articulate their vision in a rapidly changing world. One important area is that of spirituality: the vision of the Fathers, their quiet confidence in God " s creation and providence, and their wholeness, inform attempts to develop a spirituality that would heal the anxieties and divisions of the modern secularist and consumerist West. Bishop (now Metropolitan) Kallistos has been especially associated with this dimension of the «Neo-patristic synthesis»; he and others have pursued this in relation to modern ecological questions (e.g. the various initiatives of the current Ecumenical Patriarch, and the writings of Metropolitan John of Pergamon, John Chryssavgis, Elizabeth Theokritoff and others). In this connection, too, we find something deeper: no mere patristic revival or survival, but a veritable continuation of the patristic tradition, mediated largely through the monastic liturgical office, in the teaching of monastic spiritual Fathers, such as Elder Cleopa of Sihastria (Romania) or St Silouan of Athos. Other examples can be found in Orthodox reflection on ecclesiology in the twentieth century. In the diaspora, Orthodox theologians (Russians, especially, to begin with) found the question of ecclesiology particularly pressing. For centuries, Orthodox had lived with a Byzantine (»Justinianic») understanding of the relationship between Church and state as being characterised by symphonia. Even under the Ottomans, this understanding was only modified (though «distorted» might be a better word). With the experience of diaspora, and also of atheist Communism, such an ecclesiology became untenable. Orthodox theologians looked back, behind the »Constantinian revolution», and found in St Ignatius of Antioch, who died a martyr in the Flavian Amphitheatre under the Emperor Trajan, the outlines of a «eucharistic ecclesiology», according to which the Church, gathered together under the presidency of the bishop, is constituted by the eucharistic celebration. »The Eucharist makes the Church»: this understanding of the Church made sense of church as it then (and now) existed – a gathered community, not the religious dimension of a political entity. The first to sketch out such a eucharistic ecclesiology was Fr Nicolas Afanasiev, one of the professors at the St Sergius Institute in Paris. His insights were developed in the fifties and sixties by the Greek theologians, Fr John Romanides and Metropolitan John Zizioulas. The idea of the Church as rooted in the Eucharist was developed in a different way, drawing its inspiration from the patristic understanding of the Divine Liturgy by Fr Alexander Schmemann, Dean of St Vladimir " s Orthodox Seminary until his death in 1983. |
| On the Holy Icons, trans. C. P. Roth, Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1981. Theodulf of Orléans On the Holy Spirit, ed. PL 105, cols. 239–76. Secondary reading (a select bibliography) Afanasiev, N., The Church of the Holy Spirit, trans. Vitaly Permiakov, ed. M. Plekon, Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Alfeyev, Bishop Hilarion, The Mystery of Faith. An Introduction to the Teaching and Spirituality of the Orthodox Church, ed. Jessica Rose, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2002. " Orthodox theology on the threshold of the 21st century: will there be a renaissance of Russian theological scholarship?» Ecumenical Review 52.3 (July 2000), 309–25. Orthodox Witness Today, Geneva: WCC Publications, 2006. The Spiritual World of St Isaac the Syrian, Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 2000. Andreopoulos, A., Metamorphosis. The Transfiguration in Byzantine Theology and Iconography, Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2005. Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Commission, Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue: The Dublin Agreed Statement (1984), London: SPCK, 1984; repr. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1997. Arseniev, N., Mysticism and the Eastern Church, trans. A. Chambers, Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1979. Ayres, L., Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to Fourth Century Trinitarian Theology, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Baggley, J., Doors of Perception. Icons and Their Spiritual Significance, Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1988. Barrois, G., The Fathers Speak. St Basil the Great, St Gregory Nazianzus, St Gregory of Nyssa, Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1986. Scripture Readings in Orthodox Worship, Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1977. Baum, W. and Winkler, D., The Church of the East, London: Routledge, 2003. Behr, J., Formation of Christian Theology, vol. I: The Way to Nicaea, Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2001. Formation of Christian Theology, vol. II. The Nicene Faith, Pts 1–2, Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2004. The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death, Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2006. Behr, J., Louth, A. and Conomos, D. (eds.), Abba. The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West. Festschrift for Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2003. |
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