| Elizabeth Theokritoff, Mary B. Cunningham Elizabeth Theokritoff, Mary B. Cunningham Notes on contributors Dr Nicolas Abou Mrad is Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies at Saint John of Damascus Faculty of Theology, University of Balamand (Lebanon), and Lecturer at various non-Orthodox theological schools in Lebanon. He is author of various articles and reviews in biblical theology and literature. The Rt Revd Dr Hilarion Alfeyev holds doctorates from Oxford and Paris. He is currently the Moscow Patriarchate " s Bishop of Austria and Representative to the European Institutions. He has published widely in the areas of Byzantine and Syriac patristics, Church history, dogmatic theology and contemporary theological, moral and social issues. His writings in English include St Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox Tradition (2000), The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian (2000), The Mystery of Faith. An Introduction to the Teaching and Spirituality of the Orthodox Church (2002) and Orthodox Witness Today (2006). The Very Revd Boris Bobrinskoy has served as Dean and Professor of Dogmatic Theology at St Sergius Institute of Orthodox Theology in Paris. A pupil of Georges Florovsky and Nicolas Afanasiev, he has published numerous studies on the theology of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit, the Church, and the Eucharist. Translations of his writings include The Mystery of the Trinity: Trinitarian Experience and Vision in the Biblical and Patristic Tradition, trans. A. P. Gythiel (1999) and The Mystery of the Church (2005). Dr Peter Bouteneff is Associate Professor in Theology at St Vladimir " s Seminary, New York, having served for five years as Executive Secretary for Faith and Order at the World Council of Churches. He has written extensively on Orthodox relations with other churches, as well as on patristic and dogmatic themes. Recent publications include Sweeter than Honey: Orthodox Thinking on Dogma and Truth (2006) and Beginnings: Ancient Christian Readings of the Biblical Creation Narratives (2008). |
| We, the representatives of the Catholic, Islamic and Orthodox communities who have lived in Kosovo for centuries, wish to express our sincere thanks to the Appeal of Conscience Foundation for bringing us together for this unique and important opportunity to deliberate with one another concerning the fates of our peoples. We also wish to thank our generous Austrian hosts for bringing us together in this land of peace and tranquility, so that we could have thoughtful and fruitful discussions. We are grateful for the personal participation and support of the President of Austria, H.E. Dr. Thomas Klestil, Chancellor Viktor Klima, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Vice Chancellor Wolfgang Schossel, and the encouragement of President of the United States, Bill Clinton, the Secretary General of the United Nations, H.E. Kofi Annan, His Holiness Pope John Paul II, the President of the European Community, Chancellor the Federal Republic of Germany, Gerhard Schroder, the Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Azedin Laraki, His All Holiness the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I, His Holiness Patriarch Alexis II of Moscow and All Russia, the World Council of Churches, and many others. Our delegations have come to Vienna from a troubled region, one that has seen much bloodshed and injustice, and we, the emissaries of our faithful, wish to state unequivocally that the war that is now raging in our homeland, where our people are being killed and maimed, and where our homes and places of worship, and our schools and monuments are barbarously being destroyed, is not a war of religions. We state categorically that we are against the killing and destruction, and that we stand for dialogue and negotiation to bring about the peace that God demands of us. We are proud of our homeland and are tied to it by bonds that reach deep into past generations. We want to bequeath that legacy of pride in Kosovo to future generations. We also know only too well our troubled and tragic history. A history that has all too often pitted differing ethnic and religious communities against each other. We know that past conflicts have left deep scars, have caused unspeakable suffering and have brought forth veritable rivers of blood and tears. We cannot ignore those deep wounds and must grieve for those who have suffered. |
| When I was still bishop of Vienna and Austria I participated as an observer on behalf of the Russian Church in the Lambeth Conference – the conference of Anglican bishops which gathers once every ten years. At one of the round tables within the framework of the conference I was asked the question: ‘Why do you speak out against the women’s episcopate, if you have managed to ‘swallow’ the female priesthood? Is there any principle difference?’ Up until then I had never thought about this. But when the question was put so directly, I answered that there is a principle difference because the succession of ecclesiastical authority passes through the direct chain of the ordination of bishops, and this chain goes back directly to the apostles. Priests do not have apostolic succession: they receive ordination from a bishop. If from our point of view we say that a particular bishop incorrectly ordained someone, then we can at least interpret this as a mistaken decision of the bishop but does not impinge on the episcopate as such. But if within the episcopate itself there occur violations which we consider unacceptable, then for us even the theoretical possibility of the recognition of apostolic succession in this episcopate disappears. Indeed, this was one of the topics of the Orthodox-Anglican dialogue as far back as the nineteenth century when the Anglicans wanted to prove that they enjoyed apostolic succession. In the hypothetical instance of our Churches coming together this issue could arise again, but now it can no longer arise as the presence of women in the episcopate closes the door for any discussion of the topic of apostolic succession in the Anglican episcopate. This is what for us is the essential difference between the female priesthood and the female episcopate. And that is why the introduction of female bishops narrows further not only the possibility of coming together, but also the possibility of dialogue. Nonetheless, we will continue this dialogue in the hope that our voice will be heard. |
| The Syriac-Catholic Patriarch Ignace III Yousif Yunan, a resident of Lebanon, also made a call at the conference for a greater commitment on the part of the international community. “With the capture by ISIS of Syriac-Catholic towns such as Qaraqosh tens of thousands of my faithful are fleeing. Aid from the international community would not only help them materially, but also show them that they are not alone and not forgotten.” The Christians of the Middle East were too few and too poor to attract the interest of the industrialised nations, the Church leader continued. Patriarch Ignace also stressed that in the long term the Christian presence in the Middle East could only be guaranteed by separating state and religion. “As an international family we must work towards the separation of state and religion.” In this connection he called on Muslims to reinterpret their Holy Scriptures. “In the 21st century one cannot make an exegesis as though one were in the 7th century.” Archbishop Sharaf criticised the inadequate reaction of Muslims to the actions of ISIS. “When the Mohammed cartoons were published a few years ago in Denmark, millions of Muslims took to the streets worldwide because this was something that was against Islam. ISIS is also seen as un-Islamic. But where are the demonstrations against it?” The conference “Christians in the Middle East: Citizenship, Human Rights and their Future”, organised by the Vatican representation at the UNO in Geneva and held at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, was attended by delegations from the United States, Great Britain, Poland and Austria. Subsequently US Ambassador Keith Harper also received a delegation of Iraqi Church representatives for discussions. Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action. The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, Aid to the Church in Need’s Child’s Bible – God Speaks to his Children has been translated into 172 languages and 50 million copies have been distributed all over the world. While ACN gives full permission for the media to freely make use of the charity’s press releases, please acknowledge ACN as the source of stories when using the material. |
| He described “Theologoumenon”as a theological opinion held by those ancient teachers who had recognized authority in the undivided Church and are regarded as “Doctors of the Church”. All “Theologoumena” should be regarded as permissible, as long as no binding dogmatic authority is claimed for them. Consequently, Filioque, for which the authority of St. Augustine can be quoted, is a permissible theological opinion, provided it is not regarded as a credendum de fide. On the other hand, Bolotov contended that Filioque was not the main reason for the split between the East and the West. He concluded, that Filioque, as a private theological opinion, should not be regarded as an impedimenturn dirimens to the restoration of intercommunion between the Orthodox and Old Catholic Churches. It should be added that the Credal clause was omitted by the Old Catholics in Holland and Switzerland (and put in parentheses in the liturgical books in Germany and Austria, to be ultimately omitted also). That is to say that it was excluded from the formal profession of faith. At this point in the negotiations the doctrine of the Church was mentioned for the first time, to the effect that “Old Catholic” should be regarded as a schism and could be received into communion with the Orthodox Church only on the basis of a formal acceptance of the full theological system of the contemporary Church. This thesis was first substantiated by Fr. Alexis Maltzev, the Russian chaplain at Berlin and a distinguished liturgiologist, in 1898, and then developed by Bishop Sergius (Stragorodsky), at that time Rector of the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg (later the second Patriarch of Moscow, after the Russian Revolution). This contention was strongly opposed by another Russian theologian, Fr. Paul Svetlov, Professor of Religion in the University of Kiev. Probably, he went too far. His definition of the Church was too vague and all-inclusive. In his opinion, the Church was “an invisible or spiritual unity of believers, scattered in all Christian Churches”, ultimately embracing all who would describe themselves as Christians. |
| Q. Under the former Pope, representatives of the Vatican often said they could not influence the Greek Catholics in Ukraine who captured Orthodox churches. Has the situation changed now or things have remained the same? A. While stressing their loyalty to the see of Rome, the Ukrainian Greek Catholics have insisted on their own autonomy. When in 1990 a quadruple commission was set up including the Vatican, Moscow Patriarchate, Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, in order to settle the situation in western Ukraine, the Greek Catholics actually wrecked its work. We have recently suggested that this commission be resumed but the Catholic side has been perfectly indifferent to our proposal. In the course of regular contacts with leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, we have continually raised the question concerning the need to resolve the situation with regard to Orthodox churches in western Ukraine. Both the Pope of Rome and heads of respective Vatican congregations have expressed appreciation of our concern but the problem remains unresolved. Q. The Russian Patriarch and the Pope were supposed to meet in 1997 in Graz, Austria. Ten days before the meeting, they in the Vatican deleted the part of the document to be signed concerning the harm of proselytism and conflict between the Orthodox and the Uniates in Ukraine. Since the 90s, Catholic churches have been opened in more than 200 Russian cities. Have the positions of Moscow and the Vatican become closer when proselytism is discussed now, or everything has remained the same? A. It should be noted that the situation in the Orthodox-Catholic relations in Russia have noticeably improved in the last 10 years. The problem of proselytism is not as acute now as it was in the 90s when Catholic missionaries came to Russia to carry out their active work here. A positive role has been played by the Joint Group for Considering Problems in Relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church in Russia, which was set up in 2004. It has become a good platform for an open and honest discussion between representatives of the two Churches on concrete complicated problems and for a joint work to make recommendations for their solution. |
| I am asked whether similar such processes are taking place on other continents, for example, America. The authors from the Pew Research Center come to an interesting conclusion: the number of non-religious people in a number of European countries (for example, Great Britain, Germany) is comparable to the number in the USA (twenty-four percent among adults are atheists, agnostics or ‘not decided’). But in practice American ‘non-believers’ turn out to be more religious that some EU citizens who identify themselves with religious population groups. [vi] It is a paradox, but Americans, who identify themselves as ‘non-believers’, for some reason state that they absolutely believe in the existence of God. At the same time, in Western Europe this indicator – absolute faith in the existence of God among people who say they have no connection to any religion – hovers from one per cent in Austria, Germany and Great Britain to twelve per cent in Portugal. The surrender by the Christian churches in Europe of their position is none other than the result of three great defeats in the history of Christianity, each of which became a stepping-stone for the next retreat. The first defeat was the division of the Christian East and West with the subsequent division of Western Christendom; the second was the secularization of the divided Christian world which ensured the end of Christian states; the third was the adaptation of many divided Christian denominations to secular values and ideologies instead of Christianizing secularized ideology. The accent upon ‘modernization’, which in essence is the secularization of Christianity, was the main reason why Christianity has been more associated with the role of guarding the cultural and historical heritage and has ceased to become a living faith for people. This ‘modernization’ of Christianity is manifested not only in the acceptance but also in the justification of things in people’s and society’s lives which, if we proceed from Gospel teaching, have always been considered sinful. |
| But, of course, there are not enough priests for all the schools. Therefore, the laity should participate in this case, but those that have received some sort of teaching license from the Church. This is how it is done right now in Austria, Poland, and many Western countries. I think that this is the right mechanism. After all, now sometimes Foundations of Religious Culture is being taught by teachers who are specialists in entirely different areas, who are poorly acquainted with this subject. Question: What is the attitude of the church leadership towards Orthodox public organizations, such as the Union of Orthodox Citizens, the Association of Orthodox Experts, and the Union of Orthodox Banner Bearers, who organize protests, in particular, against gay parades and for defending the construction of 200 churches in Moscow? Metropolitan Hilarion: Here a more competent response could be given to you by another church agency: the Department for Church and Society. I cannot speak concretely and specifically about the attitude of the Church to the organizations you have mentioned, but in general the Church welcomes social movements and public associations that are aimed at protecting the interests of the Church and upholding traditional spiritual and moral values. It is another thing that the defense of these interests and values should be conducted in a civilized manner. And here, of course, different social organizations approach this in different ways. Question: What does the Russian Orthodox Church think about the protests by local residents of some regions of Moscow, who oppose the construction of churches in their regions? Who is behind these actions? How can this be handled? Metropolitan Hilarion: It seems to me that such actions might be instigated by enemies of the Church, or by the peculiarities of one or another place. Because sometimes these citizen actions are motivated by cases, for instance, when the construction of one or another church facility would deprive residents of a park, a place for walking, or playgrounds. But in such cases, decisions are always made that take the interests of citizens into account. As far as I know, there have already been several cases when they planned to build a church in one place, and later it was transferred to another, because the residents of the original place were of a different origin. These questions need to be resolved through negotiations, which is now underway. I see absolutely no potential here for conflict. The Church will never enter into conflict with society and residents. Everyone’s interests will always be taken into account. |
| En el siglo XVIII se siguió vigorosamente la misma política en Transilvania. Allí la mayoría de los cristianos eran rumanos ortodoxos, pero eran considerados como parias. Sólo se reconocían cuatro confesiones occidentales: la romana, la luterana, la calvinista y la unitaria. El clero ortodoxo se hallaba degradado al nivel de los siervos y tenía que soportar el peso de una fuerte tributación y del trabajo manual, de los que estaban exentos otros ministros cristianos. Los seglares ortodoxos eran sistemáticamente oprimidos. La unión con Roma fue ofrecida a los rumanos como inmediato remedio para estos males. Prometieron al clero el mismo tratamiento que a los de confesiones occidentales; a los seglares se les dio la seguridad de una posición mejorada. En 1701 la mayoría de los rumanos de Transilvania aceptaron la unión con Roma, aunque un número sustancial continuó siendo ortodoxo. Este residuo, privado de sus propios obispos, quedó temporalmente bajo la supervisión del clero serbio, pues los serbios se resistían obstinadamente a la política de latinización y habían fracasado todos los esfuerzos de convertirlos en unitas o unificados. Acababan de llegar a Austria y retenían ese espíritu de independencia que habían conservado vivo durante siglos bajo los turcos. Constituían también una valiosa fuerza militar que ocupaba la zona fronteriza entre los otomanos y los Habsburgos, y, por lo tanto, disfrutaban de ciertos privilegios que les eran negados a otros ortodoxos. Su resistencia infundió tanto valor al resto de los cristianos orientales, que los austríacos no pudieron imponer la unión con Roma a todos sus súbditos ortodoxos. El Oriente Cristiano en la Época de su Decadencia (Siglos XV-XVIIl) La caída del Imperio Bizantino a mediados del siglo XV marcó un extraordinario hito en la revolución del cristianismo oriental. Falleció de un colapso el Estado que se creía indestructible, y la reina de las ciudades, elegida por Dios, fue saqueada por los infieles. Desde la época del emperador Constantino los ortodoxos consideraron al Imperio como su escudo protector y le cedieron muchas funciones ejercidas previamente por la propia comunidad cristiana. |
| About 300 of the texts are concerned with scientific mathematical astronomy and belong to the last four centuries B.C.E. Most of them are ephemerides, that is, tables with calculations of the positions of the moon and the five nakedeye planets. The greater part of the remaining texts, however, about 1,300 in number, are nonmathematical and principally observational in nature. The observations date from about 750 B.C.E. to the first century of the Christian era. 266 observational texts are of the utmost importance for establishing the absolute chronology of this whole period. With respect to content, the nonmathematical texts may be subdivided into various categories. By far the largest group are the socalled astronomical “diaries. “These record on a regular basis a large number of phenomena, including the positions of the moon and the planets. It is generally accepted that such “diaries” were kept continuously from the mideighth century B.C.E. onwards. The other categories of texts, which include almanacs (each recording astronomical data for one particular Babylonian year), texts with planetary observations (each giving data for one specific planet), and texts recording lunar eclipses, were apparendy excerpts from the “diaries.” Thus, although only a handful of diaries from the four earliest centuries are extant, quite a number of the observations recorded in other diaries compiled in this early period have been preserved in these excerpts. A comprehensive examination of all the nonmathematical texts was started several decades ago by Dr. A. J. Sachs, who devoted the last thirty years of his life to the study of these texts. 267 Sachs’ work has been continued by Professor Hermann Hunger (in Vienna, Austria), who today is the leading expert on the astronomical observational texts. Both of these authorities were consulted for the following discussion. A. The astronomical diaries A “diary” usually covers the six or seven months of the first or second half of a particular Babylonian year and records, often on a daytoday basis, the positions of the moon and the planets in relation to certain stars and constellations, and also gives details of lunar and solar eclipses. Much additional information is added, such as meteorological events, earthquakes, market prices, and similar data. Sometimes also historical events are recorded. 268 Over 2,000 years old, it is only to be expected that these clay tablets are often fragmentary. |
|
|
