| E. The Later Anglo-Saxon Period. However, in one of the most astonishing reversals in Christian history, King Alfred, inspired by a vision from St. Cuthbert, emerged from his hiding place, defeated the Danish «Great Army» and baptised their king. Then, almost single-handedly, he proceeded to resurrect English Orthodox Christianity and statehood, even translating church books from Latin into English and sending them to his bishops. In the tenth century the English recovery continued under Alfred " s successors, until, by the 970s, the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom, uniting Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Danish populations, emerged as probably the most powerful and civilized country in Western Europe. However, in 979 the young King Edward «the Martyr» was killed, marking the beginning of the end of Anglo-Saxon England. The Vikings invaded again, and in 1016 they conquered the whole country while the English Royal Family went into exile in France. However, the Danish King Canute, who ruled Denmark and Norway as well as England, was converted to the faith of his new subjects, and did not hinder the conversion of Scandinavia by English missionaries. Finally, in 1042, the last descendant of the old English royal line, St. Edward «the Confessor», returned from exile and was anointed king. During his reign, in 1052, the English Church was excommunicated by the Pope of Rome, who was then himself excommunicated by the Great Church of Constantinople in 1054. In January, 1066, King Edward died, having prophesied the fall of Orthodox England. Almost immediately, the Viking Duke William of Normandy laid claim to the throne. When the English people rejected his claim and elected King Edward " s brother-in-law Harold instead, William appealed to the Pope, who blessed him to invade «schismatic» England and its unlawful king. On October 14, in a desperate battle that lasted all day, the Normans defeated the English at Hastings and killed King Harold. In January, 1067 William was crowned in London as the first Catholic king of England, and proceeded to destroy English Orthodox civilization to its foundations, killing perhaps twenty percent of the population – the first genocide in European history. Most of the English aristocracy fled to Constantinople, where the Emperor Alexis gave them a basilica in which to worship and enrolled them in his army. Harold " s daughter, Gytha, fled to Kiev, where she married Great Prince Vladimir Monomakh& |
| The English Language is Very Suitable for Expressing the Theology of the Church Conversation with Bishop Maxim on Sebastian Press (Vasiljevic) of Hum Sebastian Press Publications, which bears the name of the great Orthodox Christian missionary in North America, Archimandrite Sebastian Dabovich, has enriched Christian literature in the English language during the last few years with its valuable translations of the interesting and resourceful works of Serbian theologians to English. Among the authors translated into English are the works of St. Bishop Nikolaj of Zicha (Velimirovic), St. Abba Justin of Celije , Bishop Atanasije Jevtic, Bishop Danilo Krstic, Bishop Ignjatije Midic, Bishop Maxim Vasiljevic, Dr. Nenand Milosevic, Fr. Dr. Vladan Perisic, Bogoljub Sijakovic, Fr. Radovan Bigovic, and there are also books of significance by Christos Yannaras, John Zizioulas, Archimandrite Emilijan of Simonopetra and Fr. Stamatis Skliris. This publishing endeavor is of great significance, not merely because contemporary Serbian theological thought is presented to English speaking readers, but because of the fact that the English language is like the old Greek language during the time of Alexander the Great – a means for global communication, conversation, traffic between continents and nations, among people throughout the globe. The fact that many esteemed Orthodox theologians worked and wrote (and still work) in English speaks of the significance of the English language today – the modern koine language or the lingua franca. For example, Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovich, during his mission in Great Britain, wrote and published his works in English at the beginning and mid 20th century. V. Rev. Alexander Schmemann, Fr. Georges Florovsky, Fr. John Meyendorff — corypheuses of Orthodox theology, initiators of the Orthodox theological awakening in the 20 th century — published their most influential and most famous works in English. Metropolitan John Zizioulas, one of the greatest living theologians today, writes also in English. |
| It should be remembered that, for nearly all of the jurisdictions, the Eucharist Liturgy was celebrated in their own particular liturgical language. The most common were Greek, Church Slavonic, and Arabic. Other languages, such as Albanian, Romanian, and Ukrainian, were used by particular jurisdictions. During this period, English was beginning to be used in some degree by some clergy in certain jurisdictions, but by no means all. Metropolitan Antony (Bashir), an early proponent of the use of English in liturgical services, expressed forcefully his view in 1957 when he said: While we must still minister to many who remember the ways and customs of another land, it is our policy to make the Church in the United States an American Church. In my own Archdiocese, under my administration, we have pioneered in the introduction of English in our services and sermons. From the beginning of my ministry, I began printing English service books, and the training of English speaking priests. We are tied to no sacred language; we recognize all tongues as the creation of God, and employ them in worship. We have no desire to perpetuate anything but the Gospel of Christ, and that we can do as effectively in English as in any other tongue. 227 Not all the leaders of the Orthodox Church in the United States would have stated the case for the liturgical use of English as strongly as Metropolitan Antony did in 1957. While many recognized the pastoral and missionary imperative to introduce the greater use of English into the liturgical services, others emphasized the historic value and cultural significance of the more ancient liturgical languages. Many clergy and laypersons viewed the use of English as an abandonment of ethnic concerns. The language question was by no means resolved between 1950 and 1960. Indeed, it continued to affect all the Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States. Despite the controversies that erupted, the 1950s saw a growing use of English in liturgical services. Often, it was used first at Pan-Orthodox vesper services or Divine Liturgies that brought together clergy and laity from a number of jurisdictions. During the 1950s, these services were often held in conjunction with retreats and conferences. In addition, the first Sunday of Lent, known as the Sunday of Orthodoxy, became a significant day on which clergy and laity from various jurisdictions in a particular city would gather together for the celebration of vespers. These Pan-Orthodox services of worship and prayer did much to bring the Orthodox closer together in professing the same faith and in enabling them to move beyond differences. EARLY ECUMENICAL WITNESS |
| This feeling has been, alas, as we all know, almost totally lost. (To identify the ceremonious with ‘the undemocratic’ is sheer contemporary cant.) The poor Roman Catholics, obliged to start from scratch, have produced an English Mass which is a cacophonous monstrosity (the German version is quite good, but German has a certain natural sonority): But why should we imitate them? Well, lucky for us Orthodox, many of our translators did not feel they needed to “start from scratch,” but produced solid English translations that built on the wording and the spirit of Jacobean liturgical English. The difficulty is that neither the Prayer Book nor the Bible gives us models of how to render the florid rhetoric of Byzantine hymnography in English. I think that Metropolitan Kallistos’s translations (though some may disagree with certain word choices here and there, naturally), do the best job of any translation of bringing together the style of traditional liturgical English (admitting of some careful and limited modernization) and the text of Byzantine hymns. I wish he had gone on to complete Mother Mary’s draft of the Octoechos and Pentecostarion! When we look to the tradition of the English translation of Latin carols and hymns, we see that they are almost always translated metrically, i.e., according to the original Latin meter, so that they can be sung to the same melody, which is composed to fit the text like hand in glove. This is also how the liturgical books prepared by Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline translate Byzantine hymnography, because they intend them to be sung to Byzantine melodies composed for the Greek texts. But a metrical translation is always a paraphrase, and sometimes this can be problematic. In any case, when translating for Russian chant, fidelity to the Greek meter is not required, since Russian chant melodies are by nature expandable and contractible, so as to allow for more or fewer syllables per phrase, as needed. In general, I would love to see a greater poetic sensitivity in our liturgical translations, but one that is rooted in the tradition of English scriptural and liturgical translation that stretches back to the sixteenth century—this too is part of our patrimony as English-speaking Orthodox! However, there are many who strongly disagree with me, thinking that we should create our own style of liturgical texts using 21st century literary English style as the starting point. I take Auden’s approach here: ours is not the right era for this, because we have lost that “instinctive feeling for the formal and the ceremonious which is essential in liturgical language.” By the way, this principle Auden articulates is nothing new, but was present even in the earliest liturgical translations from Greek to Latin. This has been demonstrated by the linguistic historian Christine Morhmann. |
| – And the last question, a very long one. The London Russian Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God has in recent year become predominantly a Russian Diaspora parish. The departure of Metropolitan Antony has played a part, and so did the sharply increased numbers of the Russians living in Britain. And what about the current state of Orthodoxy in the UK? Are there many English-language parishes? Could we say that there are some traditions peculiar to the British Orthodoxy? Do the children of the people who joined the Orthodox Church remain Orthodox when they grow up? Are there many second- and third-generation Orthodox faithful? Is there an interest towards Orthodoxy among British people, and, if so, what kind of interest – a scholarly inquiry into theological and cultural legacy of the Orthodox Church, or a search for a Christianity beyond Protestantism? – That is not so much one question as a whole series of questions. First of all, the development of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Dormition in London into predominantly a Russia diaspora parish, that was a tendency that had already begun before Metropolitan Anthony died. Though it has developed much more since that time. I don’t think Metropolitan Anthony himself particularly confronted this problem of how to work specifically with the new emigration of Russians. But it had begun before he died. As for the situation of English-language Orthodoxy, there has undoubtedly been an enormous development in the last fifty years. For example, I was ordained deacon in 1965, priest in 1966. At that time in the whole of Orthodoxy in Britain there was, I think, only one other English Orthodox priest, Fr. Kyril Taylor in the Moscow Church with Bishop Anthony. And there was an English Orthodox deacon in the Polish Orthodox Church, Fr. Cyril Browne. I can’t remember if there were any other English converts who were clergy at that time. Certainly there were none in the Greek Archdiocese of Thyateira. Today out of about 200 Orthodox clergy in all the different jurisdictions in the British Isles at least a third are English converts. Perhaps, as many as 70 to 80. So there has been an undoubted growth in English Orthodox presence. And these English Orthodox clergy are to be found not only in the Sourozh Diocese of Metropolitan Anthony, or what is now the Deanery under Constantinople. They are to be found notably with the Antiochians, a few with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, quite a large number with the Ecumenical Patriarchate Diocese of Thyateira. So on the level of clergy there’s been an undoubted growth. |
| We ourselves badly use the treasures of Orthodoxy and do not open them to others, like the wicked servants who buried their talents. Would not unification of the Orthodox Church in America lead to its rapid Americanization? Is not Americanization dangerous for the Church? We face the strange fact, that many Orthodox are inclined to recognize the legitimacy of all nationalisms in the Church except American. For Americans who know English only and are not of Orthodox origin there is very often no room in our Church. In the whole United States there are only a few parishes which entirely use English and which do not declare themselves as belonging to any of the nationalities of the Old World, although even these are parts of some national jurisdiction. This situation is abnormal. I hope that there is no necessity to prove that Americans who have lost the link with their former nationality or are recently converted to Orthodoxy, have a full right not only to be Orthodox, but to have American parishes, which would be open to everybody preferring to use English. A denial of such a right and necessity would be contrary to Orthodox tradition since Apostolic times. The number of such parishes even with a favorable attitude from the hierarchy would increase slowly. The majority of Orthodox parishes will not become purely American before two or three generations. This Americanization must be absolutely free and dependent on the free choice of parishioners and their priests. The Americanization of the Orthodox Church would make the union of Orthodoxy psychologically easier and would widen the possibilities for educational and missionary work – the latter on condition of the creation of Orthodox literature in English and of the full translation of all services into English. We must not forget that without educational work in English we are unable not only to spread our Church but even to preserve it from the loss of part of our youth. Our American young people sometimes leave the Church because the spiritual richness of Orthodoxy is not sufficiently shown to it. |
| The Translation of St. Raphael's Thesis Saint Raphael's thesis was only recently translated from its original Greek into English, thanks to the generous gift of time and expertise provided by Rev. Dr. Patrick Viscuso, Professor of Canon Law at the Antiochian House of Studies, and a priest of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Working from a scan of the original 39-page manuscript, Fr. Patrick transcribed the cursive Greek handwriting into Greek text, and then translated the complex theological work into English. Later, based on Fr. Patrick's English translation, the thesis was translated into Arabic by Dr. Adnan Trabulsi, a pediatrician and member of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in Houston, Texas. Brief excerpts in all four versions – the handwritten Greek, Greek text, English, and Arabic – are presented in the museum's touchscreen exhibit. Thesis To Be Published Fr. Patrick Viscuso's English translation and Greek transcription, accompanied by an extensive introduction and appendices, is slated for publication later this year, and will be available through the Antiochian Village Bookstore. The Arabic translation is included in Dr. Adnan Trabulsi's new, three-volume publication on the Arabic works of St. Raphael, which presents many of St. Raphael's articles, sermons, and teachings, and will certainly be of interest to the Arabic-speaking faithful. New Digital Resource for Library In September, during this year's 35th Anniversary celebration of the Antiochian House of Studies, the Antiochian Heritage Library presented a new digital resource that offers the complete text of St. Raphael's thesis in all four language formats: its original handwritten Greek, the Greek text, English, and Arabic. The resource is housed on a dedicated computer at the Antiochian Heritage Library, where scholars may select a preferred language for viewing the manuscript, and then have the option to add another language format for side-by-side comparison. Due to copyright restrictions, this unique digital resource is currently only available on-site at the Antiochian Heritage Library. |
| The English Reformation. L., 1899; Hill G. English dioceses: a History of their Limits. L., 1900; Савин А. Н. Английская секуляризация. М., 1906; Sykes N. Church and State in England in the Eighteenth Century. L., 1930; Knappen M. M. Tudor Puritanism. Chicago, 1939; Sykes N. The Church of England and Non-episcopal Churches in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. L., 1948; Hughes Ph. The Reformation in England: In 3 vol. L., 1950-1954; Stromberg R. N. Religious Liberalism in Eighteenth Century England. Oxf., 1954; Every G. The High Church Party, 1688-1718. L., 1956; Mayfield G. The Church of England: Its Members and its Business. L., 1958; Wilkinson J. 1662 and after: Three Centuries of English Non-conformity. L., 1962; Davies R. E. Methodism. L., 1963; Dickens A. G. The English Reformation. L., 1964; Best G. F. Temporal Pillars: Queen Anne " s Bounty: Ecclesiastical Commissioners and Church of England. Camb., 1964; Fairweather E. R. The Oxford Movement. N. Y., 1964; Ferris P. The Church of England. L., 1964; Collinson P. The Elizabethan Puritan Movement. L., 1967; Bolam C. G. , Goring J. , Short H. L. , Thomas R. The English Presbyterians. L., 1968; Church R. The Oxford Movement: Twelve years, 1833-1845. Chicago; L., 1970; Lehmberg S. The Reformation Parliament, 1529-1536. Stanford; Camb., 1970; Elton G. R. Policy and police: The enforcement of the Reformation. Camb., 1972; Вейш Я. Религия и церковь в Англии. М., 1976; Cragg G. R. The Church and the Age of Reason. Harmondsworth, 1976; Elton G. R. Reform and Reformation: England, 1509-1558. L., 1977; Watts M. R. The Dissenters: from Reformation to the French Revolution. Oxf., 1978; Lake P. Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church. Camb., 1982; Collinson P. Godly People. L., 1983; Lake P. , Dowling M. Protestantism and the National Church in Sixteenth Century England. L., 1987; Tyacke N. Anti-Calvinists: the Rise of English Arminianism, 1590-1640. Oxf., 1987; MacCulloch D. The Later Reformation, 1547-1603. N. Y., 1990; Grell O. |
| - By the way, are there many English people who come to the Orthodox Church from the Anglican Church? - I wouldn't say there are many of them, but they make up a significant part of our flock in London, and especially outside of London. The majority of diocesan priests outside of London are Englishmen. Services are celebrated in English with only some exclamations in Church Slavonic, and the priests in some parishes know very little Russian. Certainly, the majority of them are people who married Orthodox Russians, Ukrainians, Serbs, and so on. This step—to adopt Orthodoxy—was natural for them. First, they came here because they wanted to share interests of their beloved, then they became keen on it and adopted Orthodoxy. Some Englishmen have consciously chosen the Russian Church. Metropolitan Anthony said that of all Orthodox Churches represented in England, the Russian Orthodox Church gives maximum freedom to newcomers. For example, Greeks coming here position themselves not as just Orthodox, but as Orthodox Greeks; services are celebrated only in Greek. The Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the services both in Slavonic and English even in the cathedral, and in some parishes the English language prevails. - What attracts the English in Orthodoxy? Is it the conservatism which they fail to find in the Church of England, or anything else? - Certainly they are attracted by the positive component of the Orthodox teaching, Metropolitan Anthony stressed that Orthodoxy is a return to yourself, to the faith of the ancient undivided Church that existed on the territory of England for many centuries. However, processes developing in the Church of England give impulse to search for a new religious foundation of life. Female priests and bishops, homosexual marriages and ordination of people who promote " non traditional sexual orientation " bother many believers. Some of those who can't accept it just put up with it, others leave the Church—it is not by chance that England today is a very secular country; some people search for something new and come to the Russian Church to find themselves in it. |
| 45-112; Dubois J. Un témoin de la vie intellectuelle à Saint-Germain-des-Prés au IXe siècle: Le martyrologe d " Usuard//RHEF. 1957. T. 43. N 140. P. 35-48; idem. Le martyrologe métrique de Wandelbert: Ses sources, son originalité, son influence sur Usuard//AnBoll. 1961. T. 69. P. 257-293; idem. Les martyrologes du Moyen Âge latin. Turnhout, 1978. (TSMAO; 26); idem. Introduction à la revision du Martyrologe romain//Notitiae. Vat., 1985. Vol. 21. P. 90-100; Westerbergh U. The So-called Martyrologium Erchemperti//Studia Latina Stockholmiensia. Stockholm, Vol. 4. P. 75-87; McCulloh J. M. Hrabanus Maurus " Martyrology: The Method of Composition//Sacris Erudiri. 1978-1979. Vol. 23. P. 417-461; idem. Historical Martyrologies in the Benedictine Cultural Tradition//Benedictine Culture, 750-1050/Ed. W. Lourdaux, D. Verhelst. Leuven, 1983. P. 114-131; idem. Martyrology//DMA. Vol. 7. P. 161-162; Cross J. E. Saints " Lives in Old English: Latin Manuscripts and Vernacular Accounts: The Old English Martyrology//Peritia. 1982. Vol. 1. P. 38-62; Kotzor G. Anglo-Saxon Martyrologists at Work: Narrative Pattern and Prose Style in Bede and the Old English Martyrology//Leeds Studies in English. 1985. N. S. Vol. 16. P. 152-173; idem. The Latin Tradition of Martyrologies and the «Old English Martyrology»//Studies in Earlier Old English Prose/Ed. P. E. Szarmach. Albany (N. Y.), 1986. P. 301-333; Saxer V. Baronio e il Martirologio romano: Antichità paleocristiane e altomedievali del Sorano. Sora, 1985. P. 115-126; Overgaauw E. A. Les deux recensions de la lettre-préface d " Usuard à Charles le Chauve et les trois recensions de son martyrologe//Archivum Latinitatis Medii Aevi. 1988-1989. Vol. 48-49. P. 85-101; idem. Martyrologes manuscrits des anciens diocèses d " Utrecht et de Liège: Étude sur le développement et la diffusion du Martyrologe d " Usuard. Hilversum, 1993; Ó Riain P. The Tallaght Martyrologies, Redated//Cambridge Medieval Celtic Studies. 1990. N 20. P. 21-38; idem. The Martyrology of Óengus: The Transmission of the Text//Studia Hibernica. |
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