Dr Peter Gilbert, of De unione ecclesiarum (one of a few blogs by an Orthodox Christian I can bear to read) has just posted the text of a lecture he recently gave to the Youngstown, Ohio chapter of the Society of St John Chrysostom. Please leave any comments you have at Dr Gilbert’s blog.

I will only reproduce here a quote of St Gregory the Theologian, which seems to sum up so well the history of theological wrangling between Greek and Latin Christianity:

Others, mutually divided, drive East and West
into confusion, and God has abandoned them to their flesh,
for which they make war, giving their name and their allegiance to others:
my god’s Paul, yours is Peter, his is Apollos.
But Christ is pierced with nails to no purpose.
For it’s not from Christ that we’re called, but from men,
we who possess his honor by hands and by blood.
So much have our eyes been clouded over by a love
of vain glory, or gain, or by bitter envy,
pining away, rejoicing in evil: these have a well-earned misery.
And the pretext is the Trinity, but the reality is faithless hate.
Each is two-faced, a wolf concealed against the sheep,
and a brass pot hiding a nasty food for the children.

[Poem 2.1.13, To the Bishops, vv. 151-163; PG 37, 1239-1240]

minaret

The entire world was  abashed when the results of a poll against the construction of new minarets in Switzerland have been published.

The extreme right party – Swiss People’s Party (SVP) – launched such a gross campaign against the minarets, using posters showing a woman with a burqa facing a Swiss flag covered with missile-shaped minarets, that everybody expected a defeat of the populist party.

But inf fact a majority of 57.7 % voted for the ban of minarets construction in Switzerland.

The Swiss People Party clearly exploited the irrational fear of “extensive islamisation” of the country and wanted to stop the Muslim tsunami…

But what tsunami ?  There are 400.000 Muslims in Switzerland, out of a total population of 7.739.000 inhabitants. Most of them work and are perfectly integrated in Swiss social life.  There are about 400 mosques in Switzerland and… 4 minarets!

So, people voted mostly against a fantastical fear, against a thread that merely doesn’t exist.  They attacked the symbol of a ghost, the ghost of winding up in an alien invasion…

But the result is a wider gap between communities and broader misunderstanding.  Muslims are sad and disappointed : they believed their Swiss neighbors trusted them.  They discover that it is so easy to trigger an irrational fear among normal populations…

The Swiss themselves are astonished.  They expected the proposal to be wiped away as a dirty cloth.  And yet, a majority of them heard the poisoned discourse of an extremist party and followed it… Some even said “I am ashamed to be Swiss today”.

Who knows at what extend the trust between the communities has been broken ? Who can tell to what extreme will the next moves be ?

The limits of direct democracy

How was this possible ?

The Swiss 1848 federal constitution defines a system of direct democracy which includes the right to organize a referendum on a topic, as long as they gather 50.000 signatures within 100 days (find more in this Wikipedia article).

That’s what happened with the minarets.  The Swiss People Party gathered the sufficient number of signatures and proposed the ban against the future construction of minarets.

This also shows the limits of a direct democracy.  The results of a referendum are highly dependent of how the question was asked and the topic presented to the voters.  In this case, it was a fearful and hateful  campaign that triggered the all process.  And the results are a shameful blow to the religious freedom of 400.000 people in a country which  has been  boasting about its religious  tolerance for centuries…

But, is a democracy that legally denies freedom of religious practice still a democracy ? When a democratic state denies its fundamental values in such a way, is it still a democratic state ?

Political reactions

In Switzerland itself, politicians are rather annoyed and you can see they don’t feel at ease about this vote (see the reaction of Micheline Calmy-Rey, Swiss Foreign Minister on this Guardian Video).

Abroad, reactions vary : the democrats are astonished and don’t understand why a centuries old democracy such Switzerland came to vote this way.  Populists and extreme right parties , such as the Lega Nord in Italy, are already taking the opportunity to promote such hatred and exclusion at home…

The United Nation warned the Swiss authorities even before the ban was proposed, arguing that it was an obvious discrimination, calling it “an unjustified restriction of religious freedom.  Now, legal expert of the UN are examining the legal issues of this election.

It was time. Dalilah looked at her house one more time, just to have the last glance. ‘I promise, I will come back again,’ she mumbled to herself. Then, she slowly pulled her last luggage toward the taxi. This was the last ride to the airport. Then, having to wave goodbye to all her dear friends and relatives before her final set-off to her final destination. She felt relief yet uncertain – intertwined with other mixed feelings which continually dragged her to down and down. Her stomach was twisted, yet again!

She wanted to console and convince herself, that this journey would be the best and the last ride of her life. Her search for true love has finally ended.  Dalilah’s body trembled a little. She smirked. Such a heavy feeling. She felt as if her lunch was reaching the tip of her throat. ‘I should be happy. I should be happy.’ She murmured again.

The Journey

Excitement hit her the moment the plane hit touchdown.  Adrenaline rushed down her spine. Dalilah turned to her daughter. She was still  resting on the headrest. She snored all through the journey. A soft voice hit the intercom informing the passengers about the local weather and having a safe journey. Dalilah looked around and saw the other passengers started to grab their belongings from the compartments. Most signs on the headboard were blinking. Everybody was ready to leave the plane.

Dalilah was nervous. Quickly she grabbed her handbag and searched for her passport. Felt very intense, Dalilah immediately shook her daughter’s shoulder. Groaning and mumbling slightly in Chinese, Jasmine stretched her body like a lazy cat. She abhor her mother shuddering her like that. She didn’t like the entire journey in general. Nevertheless, she was eager to see this famous land of the tulips with her two eyes. Being a teenager and curious to the bones, Jasmine took the opportunity to follow her mother thinking that this would be a great experience in her lifetime.

Waiting in the waiting hall made Dalilah more and more nervous. She looked at her wrist watch all the time. Suddenly a warm kiss landed on her neck and she immediately knew who that was. She turned and returned the kiss.

“I am very hungry, honey.” She passed part of her luggage to Maarten. “Ok, let’s go and have lunch.” Maarten walked toward the train station. Dalilah hesitated, ” didn’t you bring the car?” She couldn’t imagine having to drag all the luggage into the train and traveled back home. She had a long journey on the plane and to think having to drag those heavy luggage on another long trip home, that was unrealistic and insensitive.

“I reckon, since you are here and we are very close to Amsterdam, I think it would be nice if we go and have lunch there. “

“But, honey…. I just arrived. I’m tired like hell.”

“Yeah, but hon…. I haven’t been to Amsterdam. We can just do it now.”

“Honey… I am REALLY tired… it was a very long journey. I don’t want to go and visit Amsterdam now. Why don’t we do it some other time?” Dalilah sounded rather irritated. Jasmine kept silent.

“No. I want to do it now. I have paid for the train tickets. I don’t want to waste money to come here again.”

Dalilah had no choice but to go. Having had to drag all the luggages she didn’t enjoy much from the short trip. Her body was deteriorating. Her energy drained. She couldn’t even think properly anymore. Maarten, on the other hand, got more and more excited. He wanted to show Dalilah his homeland immediately. He forgot about the tiredness. He was just overwhelmed to see Dalilah there. He wanted to share everything. Finally, she arrived!

(Thanks to our good friend Evagrius for news of an upcoming academic conference organized by the Orthodox Christian Studies Program at Fordham University. Registration for the Conference will begin in February.)

Orthodox Constructions of the West

(The Solon and Marianna Patterson Triennial Conference for the Theological and Historical Examination of the Orthodox/Catholic Dialogue)

June 28-30, 2010

Concept and Abstract:

In preparation for the publication of Orthodox Readings of Augustine (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008), the co-founding directors of the Orthodox Christian Studies Program were struck by ways in which Orthodox authors, especially in the twentieth century, had created artificial categories of “East” and “West” and then used that distinction as a basis for self-definition. The history of Orthodox Christianity is typically narrated by Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike as developing in the ‘East’, which is geographically ambiguous, but usually refers to the region in Europe east of present-day Croatia, Hungary and Poland. In contemporary Orthodoxy, ‘West’ refers not simply to a geographical location, but to a form of civilization that was shaped and influenced by Latin Christendom, which includes both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. The “West,” thus, represents a cluster of theological, cultural and political ideas against which Orthodox self-identify. In other words, Orthodox self-identification often engages in a distorted apophaticism: Orthodoxy is what the “West” is not.

Given that much of the Orthodox world has until recently suffered oppression from the Ottomans and the Communists, one can read the creation of the “East-West” binary as a post-colonial search for an authentic Orthodox identity in the wake of such domination. After centuries of repression, it is not surprising that the Orthodox recovery of identity would take the form of opposition to that which is seemingly the religious, cultural and political “Other.” The question that the conference will attempt to answer is whether such a construction has as much to do with Orthodox identify formation vis-à-vis the West as it does with genuine differences. By creating this opposition to the “West,” do Orthodox communities not only misunderstand what Western Christians believe but, even more egregiously, have they come to believe certain things about their own tradition and teachings that are historically untrue? The importance of addressing these questions is not simply limited to the theological realm. There is evidence of anti-democracy and anti-human rights rhetoric coming from traditional Orthodox countries that have recently been liberated from communism, and this rhetoric often associates liberal forms of democracy and the notion of human rights in general as “Western” and, therefore, not Orthodox. In other words, the self-identification vis-à-vis the “West” is affecting the cultural and political debates in the traditional Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe. Insofar as this conference addresses the broader theme of identity formation, its impact is potentially far-reaching, as it hopes to influence the production of theological, cultural and political ideas within contemporary Orthodoxy.

The purpose of this conference is to explore how these artificial binaries were first created and, by exposing them, make possible a more authentic recovery of the rich Orthodox tradition that is unfettered by self-definition vis-à-vis the proximate other. It is also expected that the deconstruction of false caricatures of West will impact the discussion on culture and politics throughout the Orthodox world, as well as assist in moving the ecumenical conversation forward.

On 17 December 1999, the United Nation General Assembly designated the 25 November as the Day for the Elimination of Violence against  Women. Since 1981, women activists marked this day as a day against violence.

Based on country data available, up to 70 per cent of women experience physical or sexual violence from men in their lifetime.

Excerpts of the UNIFEM Fact Sheet : violence against women worldwide

- In the United States, one-third of women murdered each year are killed by intimate partners.

- In South Africa, a woman is killed every 6 hours by an intimate partner.

- Women and girls constitute 80 % of the estimated 800,000 people trafficked annually, with the majority (79 %) trafficked for sexual exploitation.

- And so on, and so on…  You can see the whole Fact Sheet by clicking here.

The Say NO campaign

Say NO – UNiTE to End Violence against Women is a global call for action, launched in November 2009, on ending violence against women and girls. It is presented by UNIFEM as a contribution to advance the objectives of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s campaign UNiTE to End Violence against Women through social mobilization. UNIFEM Goodwill Ambassador Nicole Kidman is the Spokesperson of Say NO.

The Lingua Franca Foundation is participating to the Say NO campaign with the Safety Net Project

The Lingua Franca Foundation participates to the Say NO campaign.  We published a web page and are proposing the Safety Net Project as an action for the Elimination of the violence against the women.

We’ll inform you of the progress of this project and these actions throughout the coming weeks.

A young genius

His name is Pranav Mistry and he is the perfect model of new stunningly brilliant Asian students who are busy reshaping our future.  He is currently studying in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT’s Media Lab.  Before joining MIT he worked as a UX Researcher with Microsoft. He received his Master in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and Master of Design from IIT Bombay.

But, above all,  he is the inventor of SixthSense, a wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the digital world.

And now, he is developing an unbelievable number of new projects like a programming language for children or sticky notes that are understood by your computer…  You can find all this on his website : www.pranavmistry.com

In this jaw-dropping video, he tells us how we use objects in the real world and how we can create bridges between the real world and objects and/or data from the numeric realms. And how he was led to create his strange but true invention…

The Asian Gold Rush

I wanted to introduce Pranav Mistry to you, not only because he is one of the most brilliant and creative minds of his generation, but because he is the perfect illustration of a interesting phenomenon : Asia is sending more and more students to America.

The three major “sending countries are India, with 103,000 students (up 9 percent from last year); China, with 98,000 students (up 21 percent), and South Korea, with 75,000 students (up 9 percent).” (Source : Miami Herald, 21-11-2009).

From last year, “The total number of Asian students rose more than 9 percent, while the total number of Latin American students rose by 5 percent. The number of European students rose by 4.5 percent, including a 5 percent increase from Spain.”

More and more, highly trained and skilled students are leaving their Asian homeland to study in the US and contribute to the development of science and technology.

But this trend is also good news for the business sector because the most brilliant Asian students who are staying in the US will facilitate future contacts between Asian and American companies and universities.

The other side of this story is that “the gap among developing nations is widening : While Asian countries are sending more students to some of the world’s best colleges, Latin American countries are lagging behind. (…) South Korea, with a population that is less than half that of Mexico, is sending more than five times more students to U.S. colleges than Mexico. And Vietnam, a poor but increasingly globalized Communist-ruled country with a population that is less than half that of Brazil, is sending more than twice more young people to U.S. universities than Brazil.”

Moreover, most of these Asian student graduate in science and technology.

The conclusion is this : Asian countries are investing in very high standards  of education while some other regions of the world are not focusing on the training of their new generation. On the long run, this will make the difference…

]]> http://linguafrancafoundation.org/2009/11/20/east-vs-west-the-myths-that-mystify/ Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:40:54 +0000 Marco Bertolini http://linguafrancafoundation.org/2009/11/20/east-vs-west-the-myths-that-mystify/

Devdutt Pattanaik is a self-taught mythologist.  He is currently Chief Belief Officer at Future Group in Mumbai.

In this video of a TED India Conference 2009, he is explaining how myths can shape our vision of THE World and My World and how we can understand each other.  Through the story of Alexander the Great and a gymnosophist, 326 years before Christ, he analyzes how their beliefs about life and death shaped their thoughts and feelings.  This is a great intercultural lesson with loads of humor…

But ancient myths can also provide resources to understand our modern world and the cultural conflicts that prevent business people around the world to work together…

Find more on Devdutt Pattanaik’s home page.

If the World Wide Web is a worldwide and global information system, so far it was all but universal.  People could only write in Latin alphabet whatever language they used and whatever writing system they were taught in.

Egypt just put an end to the Western writing system domination by publishing the first domain name in Arabic.

Learning Arabic writing

As the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) opened registration for non-Latin domain names, Information Technology Minister Tarek Kamel said at a U.N. sponsored Internet conference that his government had filed an application to register the domain “.masr” – or “.Egypt” — written entirely in Arabic.

It took six years of discussions and technical work to get ICANN to the point of approval, even if most than half of the 1.6 billion Internet users don’t write a Latin alphabet based language…  The Chinese are the most numerous Internet surfers outside the Latin realm.

This opening towards non-Western writing systems is meant to allow many Eastern languages speakers to surf on the Net in their own idiom, but, in the same time, it will close access to Westerners.  So the big Internet Ocean will look more like real world with its geographic and cultural diversities…

Dalilah waited some news from Maarten after he left to his homeland. They had had several contacts through emails and phone calls. Maarten reassured her that everything would be all right since he sensed some uncertainty from Dalilah’s voice whenever they talked. Not knowing what was happening on the other side of the world, Dalillah put all her trust onto Maarten. After all, he’s my husband now, she thought. What could go wrong?

After some legal arrangement in the Netherlands, Maarten told Dalilah to start preparing for her journey to a new home. During that time, Maarten persistently urged Dalilah to sell her business and her property – reassuring her that a new beginning awaited her there with full hope. It wasn’t easy to find a buyer to take over her business, nor to sell her property in a very short period of time. Dalilah didn’t understand either why she needed to sell her property – after all she would like to retire one day in Malaysia with Maarten by her side. Maarten did mention about that idea too over and over again – telling her that Malaysia would be the most ideal retirement place for him. She believed him because she knew there was a lot of truth in it. No doubt about that. Maarten had showed Dalilah that he truly enjoyed his life in Malaysia.

The pressure of wanting to be with her husband and simultaneously needed to sell everything she had made Dalilah very confounded. Some friends couldn’t comprehend her reactions because they detected something wasn’t right with the big move. Especially when she needed to ‘get rid’ of her ’stuff’ in Malaysia in order to be with her husband. If the husband was understanding enough, this topic shouldn’t even worth thinking of. After all, it was her property, her belonging. Not his. Others took advantage by dragging her down to almost bankruptcy. They offered such ludicrous amount of money that she almost fainted! All in the game of ‘good business’.  Dalilah was desperate. Yet again.

Eventually, after all the troublesome and heartache of having to sell her business, Dalilah decided to keep her house and sold her car – for a ridiculously low price! She wanted to cry since she couldn’t bare to see the amount of loss she accumulated. How could this be possible? Nonetheless, everything she did was out of love. Perhaps this was the sacrifice people were talking about, she thought. Being single is one thing, being married is another, she thought even more.

It was nearly time to depart.  She looked around her house. Most of the flower pots were gone. She gave them away to friends and neighbours. She almost cleared the front yard. There were plenty of dead leaves heaping up next to her left foot. Slowly she placed them into a barrel and when it was almost full, her children came and finished her work. They were all helping Dalilah to clear up the mess, including clearing the entire house before completely waving it goodbye. Maarten was there, sitting on the lazy chair sipping ice-tea without lifting a finger. Only after Dalilah almost finished scrubbing the tiles on the veranda, he came and took the brush and completed her work – but made such a big fuss saying he sweated his butt off as if he did a tonne of work. How pathetic!

It was time to leave. Dalilah decided to bring her daughter with her while her son stayed behind. It was an intense farewell since she had never parted with any of her children before. With heavy heart, she hugged her son and promised him that she would come and visit him every year until they would be united again. Maarten also gave his promise to take care of Dalilah’s children in front of family and friends at the airport. He told Dalilah’s son that he would do all in his powers to bring him to live with Dalilah in the Netherlands. This moved Dalilah even more. she was touched by what he said. She held tight all his words and promises. This will be a new beginning for me, she said to herself. And to all my children.

I am proud to feature this interesting article by Catholic friend of the blog and frequent commenter, Michaël de Verteuil –

Of the two Patriarchs of Constantinople most closely associated with the East-West schism, Michael Cerularius (Keroularios) is clearly the lesser figure in Orthodoxy. Unlike Photius, Michael was not a great scholar and was not declared a saint after his death. As the latter schism was to become definitive, Michael correspondingly suffered more at the hands of Catholic historiography. In its more extreme forms, he stands accused of hubris, deceit, mendacity, treachery, and even homicidal intent. The purpose of this brief historical note is to offer a more nuanced picture which may help rehabilitate his reputation in the eyes of Catholic readers.

Michael Cerularius was born in a minor senatorial family probably around the year 1000.  He served initially as a court official under Emperor Michael IV the Paphlagonian (ruled 1034-1041) until implicated in subversive intrigues with Constantine Monomachus circa 1040. Exiled, and pressured to become a monk to preclude him from further political ambitions, he accepted the tonsure following the sudden suicide of his brother.
Michael’s fortunes changed in 1042, when the Emperor died and Michael’s former co-conspirator was recalled to the capital and crowned as Constantine IX (1042-1055). Michael was made principal secretary to Patriarch Alexius I, and succeeded to the patriarchal throne one year later in 1043.  While Catholic historiography tends to portray him as having been from the very first an extremist leader of the “anti-Latin” party then most closely associated with the Studium monastery, this seems unlikely to have been the case. Michael owed his rapid preferment to imperial patronage rather than ecclesiastic politics, and had only been a monk for two years prior to his promotion. In any event, his relations with the Papacy appear to have been largely untroubled and non antagonistic for most of the next decade until 1052.

In that year, Michael ordered the Latin churches serving the important Italian merchant community in Constantinople to conform to established Byzantine practice and cease offering unleavened communion bread. In 1053, at Michael’s apparent invitation, Metropolitan Leo of Ochrid in Bulgaria (modern Macedonia) wrote a letter to Bishop John of Trani in Apulia for circulation to “all the bishops of the Franks and the most venerable Pope.” This letter condemned in harsh terms typical Latin liturgical practices, including the use of Eucharistic “azymes.” Michael then circulated to the other three Eastern Patriarchs a treatise composed by the studite monk Nicetas that further attacked Latin liturgical practices, describing them as “horrible infirmities” and Latins themselves as “dogs, bad workmen, schismatics, hypocrites and liars.” Faced with continuing defiance by the Latin churches nominally under his jurisdiction in Constantinople, he ordered them closed. When these instructions were further ignored, a mob led by studite monks and his chancellor (chartophylax) Nicephorus broke into the Latin tabernacles and reportedly trampled the “invalidly” consecrated Eucharistic bread underfoot.

Given the heated polemic atmosphere that surrounded and followed these events, it is not easy to determine with precision what provoked this series of anti-Latin outbursts. The use of unleavened bread was already long been a point of contention between the Greek and (non Chalcedonian) Armenian Churches.The recruitment in recent years of warlike Armenian officers into the Byzantine army may have helped bring the issue to the fore, but the most likely cause of this new dispute with the West lay in developments in southern Italy.
Between most of the mid 6th to 10th centuries, Sicily and much of southern Italy had been under some form of direct or indirect Byzantine control. Much of the population had been ethnically Greek or hellenized, and the area had been forcibly transferred from Western to Eastern ecclesiastical jurisdiction by the iconoclast Emperor Leo the Isaurian (ruled 718-41). As a result of these factors, by the time of the gradual Muslim conquest of Sicily and southern Italy, most of the local churches were either following or had been deeply influenced by some form of the Byzantine rite.

By 1040, Norman mercenaries formerly in the pay of the Eastern Empire began a campaign of conquest on their own behalf against the various Lombard duchies and the Byzantine catepanate that then dominated the south of the peninsula.  Despite papal opposition to these destabilizing encroachments, the Normans were solidly Latin in their Christianity. They thus understandably proceeded to replace in the areas they controlled Byzantine rite bishops with Latin ones as vacancies opened up. By 1050, a progressively Latinized episcopate had begun to substitute Latin liturgical practices for Eastern ones, and this notably involved the use of unleavened bread.

It may be this perceived Latin “aggression” against the Byzantine rite and Michael’s claimed patriarchal jurisdiction in southern Italy that prompted his restrictions against the Latin rite churches of Constantinople. This would also explain why the relatively pro-Byzantine John of Trani would have been an appropriate recipient for Leo of Ochrid’s letter. Even the invitation to John to share the letter with “the venerable Pope” makes sense in this context, as ironically Pope Leo IX (1048-54, later canonized in the West) was then in loose confinement not far away in Benevento after having been captured by the Normans at the battle of Civitate in June of 1053.

It is probably from this position of weakness in Benevento that Pope Leo sent his three legates to confer with Constantine and Michael with a view both to resolving the outstanding religious issues, and to incidentally secure support for the Pope’s own release and against his Norman enemies. The three legates were Humbert Cardinal bishop of Silva Candida, the Pope’s cousin and chancellor Cardinal Frederick (later elected as Pope Stephen IX, 1057-58), and Archbishop Peter of Amalfi. On their way, the legates were briefed on conditions in Constantinople by Argyrus, a member of the local Lombard aristocracy from Bari then serving as Byzantine catepan (katepano) for southern Italy. Argyrus had argued sharply with Michael during an earlier visit to the capital over the catepan’s inability to receive the Eucharist in its unleavened form, and thus numbered among the Patriarch’s personal enemies.

That the legates’ mission was not fully successful would probably be an understatement. With the Emperor matters went reasonably well. The alliance against the Normans was duly signed and, with Constantine’s stern encouragement, Nicetas was forced to retract his incendiary accusations and publicly burn copies of his letter. With Michael, however, the mission got off to a disastrous start.  The Patriarch found the legates disrespectful and was shocked by the hectoring tone of the papal letter Humbert had drafted. Relations with Leo had always been formally correct and, given the Pope’s plight, Michael might have expected an offer of a return to the status quo ante rather than what amounted to a demand for a humiliating public retraction and submission. While court officials attempted to broken discussions between the Patriarch’s staff and the legates, Michael steadfastly refused to have anything further to do with them, preferring to treat them instead as impostors sent to discredit him by Argyrus.

In the meanwhile, Pope Leo had made his own peace with the Normans and been released.  He died shortly thereafter, leaving the position of the legates in Constantinople untenable. With the negotiated alliance now bereft of much of its point, and the Patriarch still refusing to address any of their demands, the legates drafted a bull excommunicating Michael, Leo of Ochrid and their supporters. This the legates deposited on the altar of Sancta Sophia on 16 July, departing for Rome two days later.  Michael responded by calling a synod of local bishops which exonerated him and in turn excommunicated the legates.

Before turning to the historical reception of these excommunications, it might be worth considering Michael’s actions for what they might imply for ecumenical efforts in our own time between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.  Significantly, at no time did Michael ever deny Leo’s substantive primacy (though he clearly had a less expansive understanding of its scope than Humbert), nor did he presume to excommunicate the Pope. While he clearly opposed the filioque or the liturgical use of unleavened bread as abuses, he never cited these as sufficient grounds for schism. Instead of contesting papal authority head on, he preferred the less confrontational approach of challenging the legates’ credentials. The closure of the Latin churches of Constantinople might have been an extreme gesture, but such action remained well within his canonical discretion as local ordinary. His sponsorship and circulation of the writings of Nicetas and Leo of Ochrid may also have been tactless and provocative, but by failing to pen such missives himself, he left the way open for what he must have considered a reasonable and face-saving compromise for all concerned, i.e. reciprocal guarranties for the Latin churches in Constantinople and the Byzantine rite churches in Italy.  There is also nothing to link the Patriarch directly to sacrilege of Nicephorus (who may have been an imperial appointee) against the Latin Eucharist. In fact, Michael never took any steps explicitly indicating a definitive break with Rome, let alone with the West generally.

The whole episode seems to have been largely ignored by contemporary Byzantine historians until the mid-13th century, at which time Orthodox historiography began to present Michael as a stalwart defender of Orthodoxy against Roman pretensions, and herein lies a tale.
In 1089 Pope Urban II (1088-1099) wrote to Emperor Alexius I Comnenus enquiring as to why the bishop of Rome no longer figured in the diptychs of the Church of Constantinople.  The question was duly passed on to the Patriarchate which, after a search of its archives, purported not to know when or why communion with Rome had ceased. One does not have to ascribe excessive importance to the events of 1054 to see in this exchange a coy exercise in diplomatically convenient institutional amnesia.  After Constantine’s death in 1055, Michael had presided in the space of two years over three successive coronations only to quarrel in 1058 with Isaac I Comnenus (Emperor 1057-1059, died 1061) over some confiscated Church property. Isaac charged the Patriarch with having ordered the making of purple slippers (part of the imperial regalia) either for his own use or that of his nephew, the Emperor’s rival Constantine Ducas (Michael’s nephew by marriage). Michael was then deposed and sent into exile, suffering a shipwreck along the way and dying of his injuries.

The resulting uproar contributed to Isaac’s eventual abdication. The Comneni never forgot, however, and Alexius I and his court had little interest in exalting his uncle’s old nemesis and snubbing the Papacy he hoped would help him recruit military assistance in the West against the Turks. It is not until after the failed reunion council of Lyons in 1274 that Byzantine scholars felt a need to recast Michael as a great champion of Orthodoxy, possibly in order to demonstrate a historically consistent but dubious chain of opposition to Rome stretching from Photius to a much later Patriarch Michael III of Anchialus (1170-1178) who, unlike his 11th century namesake, would famously dismiss the Pope as a “heretical layman.”

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the highest spiritual figure for the world’s 250 million Orthodox Christians, arrived in Washington on Sunday night for a week of lectures and meetings highlighting his interest in environmental health as a religious issue. He is scheduled to meet with President Obama on Tuesday, Vice President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday.

Although it has only about 4 million adherents in the United States, the Orthodox Church is the second largest Christian community in the world after the Catholic Church. It is concentrated in Eastern Europe, Russia and the Middle East.

Experts say Bartholomew, who calls himself “the green patriarch,” has been in office 18 years and has tried to make spiritual issues into public policy issues. His U.S. trip was scheduled around a symposium he organized last month in New Orleans about the health of the Mississippi River.

He also plans to speak about health care and terrorism.

More sensitive is another of his priorities: religious freedom in Turkey, where he is based. The Turkish government has limited the practice of Orthodox Christianity, including closing a seminary in the 1970s. The past three U.S. presidents– including Obama in April– have publicly advocated for the reopening of the seminary and religious freedom advocates hope the issue will be resolved as a condition for Turkey to join the European Union.

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Dalilah was rather lonely. She looked around and to her amazement, she saw love everywhere. Everywhere else but unfortunately love never stayed long in her life. Envious with all her girlfriends’ love fortune, she promised herself that she would not end up alone in the desert island. She wanted the same. She wanted to be loved and to give love.

Being such a hard headed woman, Dalilah was not the type to flaunt her body. She valued her self worth, although sometimes that didn’t help her much getting into the dating game. She felt more lost and isolated. Most of her girlfriends spent most of their nights partying out – enjoying their youth. Whilst Dalilah, being rather conservative, she decided that true love would come crawling at her feet one day. The honourable way.

Looking at her life and constantly comparing it with her close mates, she felt more and more desperate. After her first divorce, she only had two serious relationships, which tragically to say, ended up in total disaster. At one point, she concluded that she was destined not to experience love, nor to give love – until she met Maarten.

Dalilah got acquainted with Maarten many years back – but only as friends. She wasn’t ready to open up to him – or to any man for that matter – especially to someone who differs entirely from her background. Maarten was there mostly for work. His employer sent him to the East to promote their company. To Maarten, the East is not some strange remote place anymore since he was almost awarded as the ‘frequent flyer’ from the Dutch Airlines! Maarten wanted to blend in – including having relationships with the local women. He tried his best and unfortunately failed many times over. Somehow he didn’t seem to learn from his mistakes. Maarten was also hard headed. Just like Dalilah.

After 7 years of friendship, somehow fate brought them together. Dalilah was ecstatic. She dreamed of the prince charming on the white horse. The red carpet treatment.

The relationship itself was rather chaotic even from the very beginning. Maarten wanted everything easy for him. Being the youngest in the family, Maarten was rather a spoilt brat. He always got what he wanted, sometimes even at someone else’s expense! He didn’t seem to care and was very selfish. He wanted the red carpet treatment from Dalilah instead.  Maarten knew that being a white man, he had the upper hand on getting attention from the local women. He felt that he was the master of the dating game. Nevertheless, for someone like Dalilah, she didn’t believe in wooing any man. Not coming from her part of the world. Dalilah believed in being pampered, in being the centre of attention, in being the woman in Maarten’s life. She felt ackward having to pay his meals whenever he came to visit. It was rather weird having to please a man since it looked so backward eventhough Maarten reminded her that it was out-dated and so old fashioned to woo a woman nowadays. He  reminded her that they lived in the modern times now – men and women being equals and so forth.  Maarten was also extremely thrifty with money. Every cent was considered a loss unless used for future investment. This kind of mentality didn’t exist in Dalilah’s vocabulary. To her, spending money on the loved ones was considered as an investment as well. There were times they had had fights because of  this – for their way of thinking clashed in so many ways, and yet they decided to stay together and wanted to go further in their relationship.

To go back to the first chapter of Dalilah’s Diary, click here.

Audiofanzine provides a full review of EastWest/Quantum Leap Silk. Audio examples are included.

From my favorite Orthodox blog, Prof. Peter Gilbert’s De Unione Ecclesiarum –

I finally have some good news to report. Today I received an e-mail from the Managing Editor of the journal Communio, informing me that the Summer 2009 issue is now, at last, in print, and that they have decided to feature my article on “John Bekkos as a Reader of the Fathers” on their website. A link to the website, showing the contents of their current issue, is http://www.communio-icr.com/latest.htm; a permanent link to the article, in PDF format, is http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/gilbert36-2.pdf

A few choice bits from the article, emphasis mine (but please read the whole thing before commenting) –

John Bekkos, who served as Patriarch of Constantinople during the years of the Union of Lyons (1275–1282) and who not merely accepted that union as a practical political necessity but defended it on the grounds of its theological truth, is not a popular man in much of the Christian East; many people view him as a traitor to Orthodoxy. He earns this reputation by virtue of having defended the view that the Latin doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit, the teaching that the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son as from a single principle, is reconcilable and compatible with Greek patristic tradition.

… How far John Bekkos did or did not convert to Catholicism is a legitimate question; but it is not the question I chiefly wish to ask in this paper. I mention it here merely to give one specimen of new thinking about John Bekkos, thinking that presents some hope that long-entrenched views about him—the automatic assumption of his estrangement from the mind and heart of Orthodoxy—might be due for reassessment. Bekkos is increasingly being recognized as an early practitioner of what is now called “ecumenism.” The word “ecumenism” did not exist in Bekkos’s day, and it may be doubted whether he would have looked favorably on all modern varieties of it—whatever people may say about him, John Bekkos was not a doctrinal relativist—but that Bekkos was, in some sense, a thirteenth-century Orthodox ecumenist can hardly be denied. What is vital to note is that Bekkos consciously modeled his “ecumenism” upon the practice of the fathers of the Church. He saw the effort to move beyond verbal differences to a recognition of fundamental doctrinal agreement, where such agreement in truth existed, as an essential part of the fathers’ theological work. Christian faith is, in the final analysis, a faith not in words, but in things—and intellectual effort is sometimes needed to get beyond mere words to the realities that words signify. The fathers were willing to engage in that intellectual effort in order to preserve the unity of the Church; Bekkos saw himself as following in their footsteps.

… I would contend that his reading of the fathers of the Church provides real insight into what the fathers, or some of them at least, were saying. To dismiss John Bekkos as an “anthologist,” a man who “juggles texts” or collects them mechanically without any genuine insight into their meaning, is to perpetrate a gross misrepresentation. Bekkos was a theologian; and his continuing ecumenical significance has to be based on the very real possibility that some of his readings of the patristic evidence are true.

The central part of the present article attempts to substantiate the claim that Bekkos’s patristic interpretation is an insightful one, that is, that he sees important aspects of the fathers’ teaching that others have missed. In particular, I shall argue (a) that Bekkos rediscovers something that may be called “Old Nicene” theology, (b) that, in line with this theology, Bekkos identifies a certain “logic” to the way the fathers speak about divine substance, (c) that crucial to Bekkos’s understanding of the trinitarian doctrine of the fathers is a recognition of what I would call “referential causality,” and (d) that, contrary to the claims of some, the reliability of most of Bekkos’s patristic citations is not in doubt, and that, for those texts whose genuineness is in doubt, there is reason to think that at least some of them are authentic.

… Whether or not one calls John Bekkos’s change of mind regarding the orthodoxy of the Latin Church a “conversion,” it seems undeniable that John Bekkos did, in fact, change his mind about the orthodoxy of the Latin Church as a result of the things he read while in prison in 1273 and immediately after his release from jail—basically, as a result of an intense study of the Greek Church fathers and of the interpretations of the fathers given by men like Niketas of Maroneia and Nikephoros Blemmydes. After publicly stating that the Latins were heretics, he came to see them as orthodox Christians, differing from Christians of the Greek Church, not in the essentials of their belief, but in the manner in which the one, common faith was expressed.

… John Bekkos was not a juggler of texts or an anthologist, but a man who was concerned to state the logical coherence of traditional Christian belief in the Trinity, and to state it in such a way as to show that the insights of the Latin and Greek Christian traditions are ultimately harmonious. He saw, and I think saw correctly, that the Filioque debate had deep historical roots; this debate arose out of earlier misunderstandings concerning person and substance in God. Bekkos sees Photius and Gregory of Cyprus as teaching, not Cappadocian theology pure and simple, but a kind of neo-Cappadocianism that, by radicalizing the person/substance distinction through logical premises which the Cappadocians themselves do not state, draws from this distinction consequences which the Cappadocians themselves do not draw. They could not have drawn these consequences, because to do so would have disallowed much of their own stated thought; they would not have done so, because they recognized that those who spoke differently than they did nevertheless shared with them one faith.
The Cappadocians practiced a kind of ecumenism; John Bekkos, in his role as bishop and teacher, thinks that he is authorized and obliged to do the same in the circumstances of his own time. The Cappadocians, in their day, articulated the mystery of the Trinity in a way that differed, in some significant respects, from the way St. Athanasius or St. Epiphanius or Pope St. Damasus articulated it; yet the Cappadocians strove to maintain communion with St. Athanasius and St. Epiphanius and Pope St. Damasus. Similarly, St. Maximus, in his day, recognized that the Latin-speaking Church articulated the mystery of the Holy Spirit’s procession in a way that differed from the way most Greek-speaking Christians did; yet he strove to maintain the bonds of communion, and said that he had never known the fathers to disagree with each other in thought, even though, very often, they disagree with one another verbally. John Bekkos thinks that reasons of Christian truth and love oblige him to imitate these holy men.

… Trinitarian language becomes meaningless if it loses its concrete moorings in the revelation of God in Christ. John Bekkos understood that, as there is no approaching the Father except through the Son, so there is no knowing the Holy Spirit’s eternal relation to the Father except, implicitly or explicitly, through the Son. The Spirit does not lead to the Father except through the Son, nor does the Spirit come forth from the Father to us except through the Son. When theologians deny a mediation of divine being, when they confidently assert an ontology that makes the Son’s mediation of the Spirit’s ousia impossible, one must ask how they have acquired this mystical knowledge of the Father that shunts the Son off to the side.

John Bekkos did not shunt off the Son. He worshiped God the Logos, and logic played a role in how he worshiped him. He had no use for a “spirituality” that was not true rationality, just as he had no use for any new Spirit who is not through the Son. He was a diligent, painstaking researcher who cared about fact, because he cared about truth; but he did not worship the status quo. Pachymeres and others testify to Bekkos’s faith that, even if his own generation failed to appreciate what he had tried to do, future generations would understand. Time may yet prove him right.

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By David J. Melling (1943-2004)

(Many thanks to De Unione Ecclesiarum for the text of this article.)

Early in his ministry as a Non-Juror Anglican priest, the saintly William Law published a sequence of “Letters to a Lady inclined to enter the Church of Rome.” (1732-3) His advice to the Lady was that she, like other laymembers and junior clergy of the Anglican Church, was in no way responsible for the schism separating her and her fellow Anglicans from the Greek and Roman Churches. There is, he argued, no way of escaping the reality of schism, since every history determines that each of us is “necessarily forced into one externally divided part, because there is no part free from external division.” The divisions cannot be escaped by simply changing one’s ecclesiastical allegiance, he tells her, since that action resolves the schism with the Church entered at the price of schism with the Church abandoned. He counsels her to stay where she is, but to love the Greek and Roman Churches with the same love she has for her own Church. Law attributes the schism that divides the Churches to “the unreasonable quarrels and unjust claims of the governors on both sides.” He sees schism as caused by the failings and shortcomings of hierarchs, and as something affecting only the external reality of the Church’s life. Law is not, of course, writing of all kinds of schism. His position flows from the belief that the Roman, Greek and English Churches, whatever their differences in theological tradition and styles of worship, are alike in being effective means of attaining “christian holiness.” He does not have the same positive view of any Christian bodies which are merely human institutions and lack the full means of sanctification.

In Eastern Christian tradition, schism between ecclesial communities is not always read as William Law reads it. Eastern theology has tended to stress the intimate unity of faith and sacrament and to see schism as a sign of heresy. Roman Catholic theology, on the other hand, has generally distinguished more sharply between schism, in which both the separated communities may be fully orthodox and retain a full sacramental life, and formal heresy which involves the rejection of the Church’s dogmatic teaching. Roman Catholic sacramental theology has tended to regard heretical sacraments as invalid by reason of heresy only in those cases when the heresy explicitly denied the Church’s dogmatic teaching about the sacraments. The consequence of such a denial is obvious: a heretical priest who does not believe in the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the Real Presence or the Apostolic Succession can hardly be the presiding minister at a Divine Liturgy, consecrating this bread and this wine to become the Body and Blood of Christ, since that is precisely what he does not believe he is authorised to do and what he believes does not come about even when a Catholic or Orthodox priest celebrates the Mass. Roman Catholic tradition differs from Eastern Orthodox in the relative status it accords the canons of the Ecumenical Councils. In Catholic theology, the infallibility attaching to the dogmatic definitions of the Councils is sharply distinguished from the relative degree of authority accorded their disciplinary and legal decisions. Orthodox Christians would not normally go so far as to claim the disciplinary canons of the Ecumenical Councils are absolutely immutable and irreformable, but tend to see them as reformable only by the authority of another Ecumenical Council.

This attitude to the legislation of the Ecumenical Councils explains in part the bitterness of the schism between Old Calendarists and New Calendarists in the Greek world. The Old Calendarists have consistently and vehemently denied the right of Patriarchs, Hierarchs and local synods to alter the calendrical arrangements laid down in the canons of the Council of Nicaea. Given the nature of what they see as a grave breach of Orthodox ecclesiastical discipline, some, but not all, Old Calendarists have gone further, and invoking the authority of St. Basil the Great, have seen New Calendarists not only as schismatics, but as a religious body whose sacraments are devoid of grace. Interestingly, this schism as the Old Calendarists see it does indeed conform in part at least to William Law’s characterisation of schism, since what the Old Calendarists object to is precisely what they see as high-handed, unlawful and unreasonable action by the Church’s hierarchs. This was equally an issue in the schism between the Old Believers and the Russian Orthodox Church. In both cases, what was judged by their opponents to be the illegitimate use of Hierarchical authority to alter the calendar in the one case, the service books in the other, was interpreted not merely as imposing on the Church untraditional and objectionable legislation, but also as signifying a drift into heresy that made schism both inevitable and a matter of inescapable duty. William Law, however, in speaking of the schism between the Roman and English Churches emphasises that the “unreasonable quarrels and unjust claims of the governors” were on both sides. An authoritarian and assertive Papacy had found its own claims reflected in the distorting mirror of Henry VIII’s assertion of his own divine right to rule as “Supreme Head” of the English Church. The Old Believers and Old Calendarists reflect the position not of the Vatican in relation to the Church of England, but of the Catholic Recusants, loyal to the religion they inherited from their fathers and mothers, and unable to accept the changes imposed by state authority. Conservative dissent is always an embarrassment to church authorities. It is not obvious exactly how one can become a heretic by standing fast on yesterday’s orthodoxy.

Law’s argument that schism as such is fundamentally a matter of the external reality of the Church is of particular significance if we attempt to interpret the schism between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. The mutual excommunications of 1054, while furnishing a fine example of the “unreasonable quarrels and unjust claims” which Law identifies as the fundamental cause of schism, were neither the origin nor the legal basis of the schism. Had they been so, the lifting of the excommunications by the Pope and the Ecumenical Patriarch would have brought the schism to an end. It continues. The schism between Catholics and Orthodox continues, yet the full ecclesial life of both Churches also continues. While the absence of external institutional unity may be a cause of suffering and something to deplore, it has not prevented either Church from producing a rich crop of saints, from engaging in Apostolic missionary work, from serving the needy, from finding within its own spiritual resources the means for renewal.

The notion that Western and Eastern Churches were ever identical in theology, ritual and social life, is pure fantasy. Theological differences existed in the days when the Church of the Roman Empire was a legal unity. The typically Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin as inherited guilt is to be found in the doctrinal canons of the early sixth century councils of Carthage and Orange, and the latter council even went so far as to condemn the typical Eastern view that what is inherited from Adam and Eve as a consequence of their sin is our mortality. The dogmatic canons of the latter council were confirmed by Pope Boniface II. Eastern and Western Churches had different rules concerning the bread to be used in the Eucharist, different rules for fasting, clerical celibacy, the ordination of eunuchs, and later, the legitimacy of fourth marriages and the permissibility of divorce even during the period when the Churches were in full communion.

The schism between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches did not begin, nor was it completed in 1054. Indeed, one wonders at exactly what point in history many communities realised they were in schism from the other church. The failed reunion councils, the intrusion of Latin bishops in the wake of the Crusades, the sack of Constantinople and the profanation of Hagia Sophia in 1208 and the consequences of the Fall of the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Turks all helped crystallize out a pattern of relations that still managed to retain some fluidity even into the seventeenth century. The establishment of Eastern Catholic jurisdictions in the Patriarchate of Antioch and in the east of Poland helped considerably to confirm the external separation of the two Church institutions. The external separation spread and became firm. But what changed in the life of ordinary parishes? Some experienced a shift in hierarchical authority. Some experienced the arrival of new religious orders. In traditional Orthodox and Latin Catholic communities nothing took place. The life of the local Church carried on as before. Where things did change, it was not as a direct result of the schism, but as a result of the local changes taking place in the life of one Church or the other — e.g., the implementation of the reforms of the Council of Trent.

The heart of the life of every Catholic or Orthodox church, is the celebration of the Divine Liturgy. In the Liturgy we find ourselves called to communion with Our Lord, to eat mystically His Body and Blood in the form of bread and wine, to become one with Him, to be incorporated in Him. Our communion with Christ draws us into the life of the Holy Trinity. It is by the Power of the Holy Spirit He became a human being; it is by the Power of the Holy Spirit that the mystery of the Eucharist incorporates us in Christ. The Liturgy we celebrate here in our churches is an image of the Eternal Liturgy of the Court of Heaven. The barriers between Heaven and Earth are broken as the power of the Holy Spirit makes this holy table the Throne where the Son of God becomes present amongst us. Christ is “a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek” [Heb.5, 6] the one true High Priest of all humanity. He is the Son and Word of God, Who has put on our humanity so that we may share His Divinity. He is the one perfect Sacrificial Victim who “has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.” [Heb.9, 26] He offers Himself once and for all, not in the sanctuary of the earthly Temple, but entering “into Heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” [Heb.9, 24] His death on Calvary is the visible historical realisation of Christ’s sacrifice for us. In the Eucharistic Liturgy, the same High Priest is present offering Himself to the Father for us, and inviting us to the Mystic Feast where He Himself becomes our food and drink so that we become one with Him, becoming by His grace what He is by nature. The Son of God offers Himself to us to make us too children of God. But we stand in separate churches, hear different priests recite the ancient words of the anaphora, communicate from separate chalices. To that extent, precisely to that extent, the schism between Catholics and Orthodox is real. But we communicate together in the Body and Blood of the one Anointed, we put on the one Christ in Baptism and are incorporated in the one Anointed in the Mystical Supper. It is our communion with Him, and in Him with one another that is the fundamental basis of our relation to each other. In the most basic and the most important sense, we are in communion with one another and always have been. In Him we are in communion with each other in a sense far more important than that in which, because of the schism between the churches, we are separated. We are united in Christ by His Holy Spirit, and divided outwardly by the inherited habit of schism.

Understandably in this century of ecumenical politics and ecclesiastical bureaucracy, there is a broad pattern of exploratory discussions and negotiations underway aimed at the removal of the scandal of schism. Whatever may be agreed by such a path, for the Orthodox it will be necessary to find the consent of the Church in a way other than by Patriarchal or Synodical decree, unless the decree be that of what is recognised as an Ecumenical Council. The immediate response of the Monks of Mount Athos to the recent agreement between representatives of the Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox makes clear exactly what problems such negotiations will face. The theologians and hierarchs involved in the Orthodox-Oriental Orthodox discussions have published a report that shows a true spirit of conciliation and mutual acceptance. Unfortunately, it proceeds from and addresses the mind-set of those who are prepared to see the proceedings of Ecumenical Councils in their historical and political relativity, and are ready to renegotiate relations amongst Churches without demanding formal acceptance of the dogmatic definitions of the Seven Councils. There may be many Orthodox who share such an outlook: they do not include the Holy Epistasia of Mount Athos or the many thousands who will stand in solidarity with the Athonite Community in seeing the definitions of the Ecumenical Councils as infallible and irreformable, as divinely inspired, and as the only possible basis for unity.

A process of growing together based on mutual trust and respect offers a much more realistic model for future developments than the repetition of ancient errors by the construction of eirenic but ambiguous documents and the validation of proposals for reunion by Patriarchal fiat or Synodical decree. Face to face, local communities can experience for themselves the reality of their oneness in Christ — or they can discover precisely the opposite. The zeal for full union will come from mutual knowledge, shared experience and profoundly respectful love: it can also come from the vivid awareness of the reality of our present communion with each other in Christ. That is not to say the hierarchs have no role in promoting the removal of schism. Pope John Paul II has made a major personal contribution in the last few months with the two letters Orientale Lumen and Ut Unum Sint. Sadly, the publicity given the second of these encyclicals has almost totally overshadowed the first, a document of immense importance for Catholic-Orthodox relations, emphasising, as it does, the need for Western clergy and theologians to become far better acquainted with the Eastern tradition of theology and Christian worship. Indeed, the Encyclical shows a warm sympathy for and a profound awareness of Eastern theology. It also offers an unusual opportunity for Orthodox and Eastern Catholics to co-operate in responding to the Pope in creating opportunities for Western brethren to learn more of our shared Eastern tradition. Co-operation between Orthodox and Eastern Catholics may seem an odd thing to recommend. For many Orthodox “Uniatism” remains an offensive and illegitimate method of Vatican proselytism. Whatever the truth of such a charge, there is a need for Orthodox Christians to face the challenge of the deep loyalty to Rome shown by many Eastern Catholic communities, even in the face of contemptuous treatment by Latins, even of appalling humiliations, the ultimate being that revealed by the late Melkite Patriarch Maximos IV when he disclosed, that in the aftermath of the then patriarch’s opposition to the definition of Papal infallibility at the first Vatican council, His Beatitude had been forced to the ground before the Papal throne while Pius IX placed his foot on his head. Loyalty in the face of such provocation merits at least astonished respect.

The draft agreement between Catholic and Orthodox theologians reached at Balamand in 1993 proposes a helpful way forward here, in proposing a formal rejection by the Catholic Church, Latin as well as Eastern, of “proselytizing among the Orthodox.” Once it becomes clear to the Orthodox that this commitment is serious, (and at the moment that is very far from clear) the possibility will grow of precisely the open and co-operative dialogue between Eastern Catholics and Eastern Orthodox that the Balamand agreement envisages. It has, however, to be recognised that in both Catholic and Orthodox Churches there remain zealots and integrists who will defend forever a maximalist ecclesiology which leaves no room for any ecumenical activity whatsoever, since it sees schism as defining the boundaries of the Church of Christ, outside of which there exist heretical conventicles devoid of sacramental grace. In the Orthodox Church such interests still have a powerful voice, as Patriarch Bartholomaeos has discovered to his cost, facing demonstrations protesting against his brotherly relationship with the Pope, and denunciation of him as trying to drag the Orthodox Church into union with Rome.

There are, indeed, specific problems in the relation of Catholic and Orthodox Churches that the present Ecumenical Patriarch’s very public role has made vividly evident to many Orthodox. The Ecumenical Patriarch’s role as senior hierarch of the Orthodox communion is far more fragile than his public image sometimes suggests. In Rome he may look like the Eastern counterpart of the Pope, and the vigour with which he has exercised and even developed his role in the Orthodox Church may give plausibility to that image, but the fact remains that he is not the linear superior of the chief hierarchs of other autocephalous Churches, but only the first among equals among them, and that is something very different. Orthodox tradition, moreover, has never recognised any hierarchical role above that of the local bishop as of divine authority. Any higher layer of authority and responsibility derives from Synodical or sometimes even state decision. There is nothing inevitable or immutable in the Primacy of Constantinople. Nor can the Ecumenical Patriarch assert his authority to guarantee the Orthodox Church’s acceptance of the policy he espouses. The same arguments that establish the ecclesiastical and human origin of the patriarchates are deployed by Orthodox to reject Catholic claims of divine institution for the Roman Papacy, and of course to reject any claims to Papal supremacy. (Not, of course, to the Primacy of Rome, that is a quite different and relatively uncontroversial matter.) It is, then, very helpful to see the Pope is clearly aware that his own office as interpreted by Vatican theologians and canonists is experienced by Christians of other traditions as a major obstacle to unity. In his encyclical Ut Unum Sint he calls for a “patient and fraternal dialogue” on the nature and exercise of his primacy. This is a welcome and helpful development.

Progress in extricating ourselves from the bad habit of schism involves a reappraisal of what is central to our Christian heritage and what is transitory and peripheral, what is essential and what is merely a matter of cultural tradition. When we return to the heart and centre of our faith, we find ourselves together in Christ. If we lose the living awareness of our oneness in Christ and identify ourselves simply in terms of a particular community’s history and interests, we find a chasm yawning at our feet. The full flourishing of the spirit of schism is not merely external separation and institutional rivalry, its fruit can be tasted at the point where religious identity becomes a means of justifying political and ethnic conflict.

Recent Meeting Could Mark Turning Point

By Robert Moynihan

WASHINGTON, D.C., SEPT. 21, 2009 (Zenit.org)- Sometimes there are no fireworks. Turning points can pass in silence, almost unobserved.

It may be that way with the “Great Schism,” the most serious division in the history of the Church. The end of the schism may come more quickly and more unexpectedly than most imagine.

On Sept. 18, inside Castel Gandolfo, the Pope’s summer palace about 30 miles outside Rome, a Russian Orthodox Archbishop named Hilarion Alfeyev, 43 (a scholar, theologian, expert on the liturgy, composer and lover of music), met with Benedict XVI, 82 (also a scholar, theologian, expert on the liturgy and lover of music), for almost two hours, according to informed sources. (There are as yet no “official” sources about this meeting — the Holy See has still not released an official communiqué about the meeting.)

The silence suggests that what transpired was important — perhaps so important that the Holy See thinks it isn’t yet prudent to reveal publicly what was discussed.

But there are numerous “signs” that the meeting was remarkably harmonious.

If so, this Sept. 18 meeting may have marked a turning point in relations between the “Third Rome” (Moscow) and the “First Rome” (Rome) — divided since 1054.

Archbishop Hilarion was in Rome for five days last week as the representative of the new Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow.

One key person Archbishop Hilarion met with was Cardinal Walter Kasper. On Sept. 17, the cardinal told Vatican Radio that he and Archbishop Hilarion had a “very calm conversation.”

Cardinal Kasper also revealed something astonishing: that he had suggested to the archbishop that the Orthodox Churches form some kind of “bishops’ conference at the European level” that would constitute a “direct partner of cooperation” in future meetings.

This would be a revolutionary step in the organization of the Orthodox Churches.

Papal-Patriarch encounter?

Cardinal Kasper said a Pope-Patriarch meeting was not on the immediate agenda, and would probably not take place in Moscow or Rome, but in some “neutral” place (Hungary, Austria and Belarus are possibilities).

Archbishop Hilarion himself revealed much about how his Rome visit was proceeding when he met on the evening of Sept. 17 (before his meeting with the Pope) with the Community of Sant’Egidio, an Italian Catholic group known for its work with the poor in Rome.

“We live in a de-Christianized world, in a time that some define — mistakenly — as post-Christian,” Archbishop Hilarion said. “Contemporary society, with its practical materialism and moral relativism, is a challenge to us all. The future of humanity depends on our response… More than ever before, we Christians must stand together.”

A report from Interfax, the news service of the Moscow Patriarchate, on Sept. 18 revealed that Archbishop Hilarion spoke to the Pope about “cooperation between the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches in the area of moral values and of culture” — in particular during the “Days of Russian Spiritual Culture,” a type of exhibit with lectures scheduled for spring 2010 in Rome. (One might imagine that the Pope himself could attend such an exhibition).

In memory of the visit, Archbishop Hilarion gave the Pope a pectoral cross, made in workshops of Russian Orthodox Church, the report said, Interfax reported.

Today, an Interfax report supplied details of Hilarion’s remarks this morning in the catacombs of St. Callixtus.

“Denied by the world, far from human eyes, deep under ground in caves, the first Roman Christians performed the feat of prayer,” Hilarion said. “Their life brought the fruit of holiness and martyr heroism. The Holy Church was built on their blood shed for Christ.”

Then the Church came out of the catacombs, but Christian unity was lost, the archbishop said.

Archbishop Hilarion said that human sin is the cause of all divisions, while Christian unity can be restored only in the way of sanctity.

“Each of us, conscientiously fulfilling a task the Church has given him or her, is called to personally contribute to the treasury of Christian sanctity and work to achieve God-commanded Christian unity,” the archbishop said.

A second Interfax report today added further information about the meeting with the Pope.

Growing influence

“During a talk with Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk pointed out the status of Orthodox believers in Western Ukraine where three Orthodox dioceses had been almost eliminated as a result of coercive actions of Greek Catholics in late 1980s and early 1990s,” Interfax reported.

Archbishop Hilarion “stated the need to take practical steps to improve the situation in Western Ukraine,” within the territories of Lvov, Ternopol and Invano-Frankovsk Dioceses, the report said.

Meanwhile, in Russia itself, the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church, headed by Patriarch Kirill, seems to be growing, though not without opposition.

The rise in Russia of Kirill and his increasing influence in legislative matters seems to be arousing opposition from the “siloviki,” forces connected with the old KGB.

In an article in the current issue of Argumenty Nedeli, Andrey Uglanov says that Kirill’s extraordinary activity has attracted attention from some who do not like to have their positions questioned, let alone challenged. And that has become Kirill’s “big problem.”

These “siloviki,” Uglanov says, have been offended by Kirill’s “anti-Stalinist and anti-Bolshevik actions,” including his appearance at the Solovetsky stone in Moscow’s Lubyanka Square on the very Day of the Memory of the Victims of Political Repression.

In this context, Hilarion’s visit to Rome takes on even more importance.

The Russian Orthodox Church is a power in Russia, but it faces opposition and needs allies.

What is occurring in Hilarion’s visit to Rome, then, may have ramifications not only for the overcoming of the “Great Schism,” but also for the cultural, religious and political future of Russia, and of Europe as a whole.

It is especially significant, in this context, that Hilarion, Kirill’s “Foreign Minister,” has some of the same deep interests as Benedict XVI: the liturgy, and music.

“As a 15-year-old boy I first entered the sanctuary of the Lord, the Holy of Holies of the Orthodox Church,” Hilarion once wrote about the Orthodox liturgy. “But it was only after my entrance into the altar that the ‘theourgia,’ the mystery, and ‘feast of faith’ began, which continues to this very day.

“After my ordination, I saw my destiny and main calling in serving the Divine Liturgy. Indeed, everything else, such as sermons, pastoral care and theological scholarship were centered around the main focal point of my life — the liturgy.”

Liturgy

These words seem to echo the feelings and experiences of Benedict XVI, who has written that the liturgies of Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday in Bavaria when he was a child were formative for his entire being, and that his writing on the liturgy (one of his books is entitled “Feast of Faith”) is the most important to him of all his scholarly endeavors.

“Orthodox divine services are a priceless treasure that we must carefully guard,” Hilarion has written. “I have had the opportunity to be present at both Protestant and Catholic services, which were, with rare exceptions, quite disappointing… Since the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council, services in some Catholic churches have become little different from Protestant ones.”

Again, these words of Hilarion seem to echo Benedict XVI’s own concerns. The Pope has made it clear that he wishes to reform the Catholic Church’s liturgy, and preserve what was contained in the old liturgy and now risks being lost.

Hilarion has cited the Orthodox St. John of Kronstadt approvingly. St. John of Kronstadt wrote: “The Church and its divine services are an embodiment and realization of everything in Christianity… It is the divine wisdom, accessible to simple, loving hearts.”

These words echo words written by Cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, who often said that the liturgy is a “school” for the simple Christian, imparting the deep truths of the faith even to the unlearned through its prayers, gestures and hymns.

Hilarion in recent years has become known for his musical compositions, especially for Christmas and for Good Friday, celebrating the birth and the Passion of Jesus Christ. These works have been performed in Moscow and in the West, in Rome in March 2007 and in Washington DC in December 2007.

Closer relations between Rome and Moscow, then, could have profound implications also for the cultural and liturgical life of the Church in the West. There could be a renewal of Christian art and culture, as well as of faith.

All of this was at stake in the quiet meeting between Archbishop Hilarion and Benedict XVI on Friday afternoon, in the castle overlooking Lake Albano.

September 16, 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,

Today we pause to reflect on the figure of the Eastern monk Symeon the New Theologian, whose writings exercised a noteworthy influence on the theology and spirituality of the East, in particular, regarding the experience of mystical union with God.

Symeon the New Theologian was born in 949 in Galatia, in Paphlagonia (Asia Minor), of a noble provincial family. While still young, he went to Constantinople to undertake studies and enter the emperor’s service. However, he felt little attracted to the civil career before him and, under the influence of the interior illuminations he was experiencing, he looked for a person who would direct him through his moment of doubts and perplexities, and who would help him progress on the way to union with God.

He found this spiritual guide in Symeon the Pious (Eulabes), a simple monk of the Studion monastery in Constantinople, who gave him to read the treatise “The Spiritual Law of Mark the Monk.” In this text, Symeon the New Theologian found a teaching that impressed him very much: “If you seek spiritual healing,” he read there, “be attentive to your conscience. Do all that it tells you and you will find what is useful to you.” From that moment — he himself says — he never again lay down without asking if his conscience had something for which to reproach him.

Symeon entered the Studion monastery, where, however, his mystical experiences and his extraordinary devotion toward the spiritual father caused him difficulty. He transferred to the small convent of St. Mammas, also in Constantinople, where, after three years, he became director –  the higumeno. There he pursued an intense search of spiritual union with Christ, which conferred on him great authority.

It is interesting to note that he was given there the name of “New Theologian,” notwithstanding the fact that tradition reserved the title of “Theologian” to two personalities: John the Evangelist and Gregory of Nazianzen. He suffered misunderstandings and exile, but was restored by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Sergius II.

Symeon the New Theologian spent the last phase of his life in the monastery of St. Macrina, where he wrote the greater part of his works, becoming ever more famous for his teachings and miracles. He died on March 12, 1022.

His best known disciple, Nicetas Stathos, who compiled and re-copied Symeon’s writings, prepared a posthumous edition, followed by a biography. Symeon’s work includes nine volumes, which are divided in theological, gnostic and practical chapters, three volumes of catechesis addressed to monks, two volumes of theological and ethical treatises, and a volume of hymns. Nor should we forget his numerous letters. All these works have found an important place in the Eastern monastic tradition down to our day.

Symeon focuses his reflection on the presence of the Holy Spirit in those who are baptized and on the awareness they must have of this spiritual reality. Christian life — he stresses — is intimate and personal communion with God; divine grace illumines the believer’s heart and leads him to the mystical vision of the Lord. In this line, Symeon the New Theologian insists on the fact that true knowledge of God stems from a journey of interior purification, which begins with conversion of heart, thanks to the strength of faith and love; passes through profound repentance and sincere sorrow for one’s sins; and arrives at union with Christ, source of joy and peace, invaded by the light of his presence in us. For Symeon, such an experience of divine grace is not an exceptional gift for some mystics, but the fruit of baptism in the life of every seriously committed faithful — a point on which to reflect, dear brothers and sisters!

This holy Eastern monk calls us all to attention to the spiritual life, to the hidden presence of God in us, to honesty of conscience and purification, to conversion of heart, so that the Holy Spirit will be present in us and guide us. If in fact we are justly preoccupied about taking care of our physical growth, it is even more important not to neglect our interior growth, which consists in knowledge of God, in true knowledge, not only taken from books, but interior, and in communion with God, to experience his help at all times and in every circumstance.

Basically, this is what Symeon describes when he recounts his own mystical experience. Already as a youth, before entering the monastery, while prolonging his prayer at home one night, invoking God’s help to struggle against temptations, he saw the room filled with light. When he later entered the monastery, he was given spiritual books to instruct himself, but the readings did not give him the peace he was looking for. He felt — he recounts — like a poor little bird without wings. He accepted this situation with humility, did not rebel, and then the visions of light began to multiply again. Wishing to be certain of their authenticity, Symeon asked Christ directly: “Lord, are you yourself really here?” He felt resonate in his heart an affirmative answer and was greatly consoled. “That was, Lord,” he wrote later, “the first time you judged me, prodigal son, worthy to hear your voice.” However, this revelation did not leave him totally at peace either. He even wondered if that experience should not be considered an illusion.

Finally, one day an essential event occurred for his mystical experience. He began to feel like “a poor man who loves his brothers” (ptochos philadelphos). He saw around him many enemies that wanted to set snares for him and harm him but despite this he felt in himself an intense movement of love for them. How to explain this? Obviously, such love could not come from himself, but must spring from another source. Symeon understood that it came from Christ present in him and all was clarified for him: He had the sure proof that the source of love in him was the presence of Christ and that to have in oneself a love that goes beyond one’s personal intentions indicates that the source of love is within. Thus, on one hand, we can say that, without a certain openness to love, Christ does not enter in us, but, on the other, Christ becomes the source of love and transforms us.

Dear friends, this experience is very important for us, today, to find the criteria that will indicate to us if we are really close to God, if God exists and lives in us. God’s love grows in us if we are really united to him in prayer and in listening to his word, with openness of heart. Only divine love makes us open our hearts to others and makes us sensitive to their needs, making us regard everyone as brothers and sisters and inviting us to respond with love to hatred, and with forgiveness to offense.

Reflecting on the figure of Symeon the New Theologian, we can still find a further element of his spirituality. In the path of ascetic life proposed and followed by him, the intense attention and concentration of the monk on the interior experience confers on the spiritual father of the monastery an essential importance. The young Symeon himself, as has been said, had found a spiritual director who greatly helped him and for whom he had very great esteem, so much so that, after his death, he also accorded him public veneration.

And I would like to say that this invitation continues to be valid for all — priests, consecrated persons and laypeople — and especially for young people — to take recourse to the counsels of a good spiritual father, capable of accompanying each one in profound knowledge of oneself, and leading one to union with the Lord, so that one’s life is increasingly conformed to the Gospel. We always need a guide, dialogue, to go to the Lord. We cannot do it with our reflections alone. And this is also the meaning of the ecclesiality of our faith, of finding this guide.

Thus, to conclude, we can summarize the teaching and mystical experience of Symeon the New Theologian: In his incessant search for God, even in the difficulties he met and the criticism made of him, he, in a word, allowed himself to be guided by love. He was able to live personally and to teach his monks that what is essential for every disciple of Jesus is to grow in love and so we grow in knowledge of Christ himself, to be able to say with St. Paul: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).

Vietnamese beauty, Angie Vu Ha, on the cover of East&West Magazine February 2009 issue, photographed by Ha Quay.

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The Benedictine Monastery of St Mary on Mount Athos

Dom Leo Bonsall

Eastern Churches Review 2:3 (1969), pp. 262-7 (footnotes omitted)

BENEDICTINE contacts with the Church of the East have been many and varied, but the foundation of the abbey of St Mary on Mount Athos and its continuing existence during a period when official relations between Rome and Constantinople were at a very low ebb is perhaps the outstanding example of monastic co-operation transcending the estrangement of East and West. The full history of the monastery has never been written, for much of it is shrouded in mystery. There are very few documents and the dating of some of these is difficult; all that visibly remains of the buildings is a tower and a few walls on the eastern side of the Athonite peninsula. It is hardly surprising that one of the first Benedictine foundations in the East should have been made by monks from the maritime city republic of Amalfi: Amalfitan merchant ships were trading throughout the area, and monks from that city continued their founding work with the monastery of St Mary the Latin in Jerusalem, and another monastery in Constantinople itself.

The first mention of the followers of St Benedict coming to the Holy Mountain is contained in the lives of the Georgian saints John and Euthymius who founded, round aboout 980, the lavra of Iviron (that is, Iberon, the monastery of the Iberians or Georgians). The following account is given in a Greek akolouthia from Athos:

Before the foundation of the lavra of Iviron, the monk Beneventus, the brother of an Italian prince, arrived on Athos with six of his disciples, wanting to live there. He became an intimate friend of John and his son Euthymius and all three decided to leave the lavra of Saint Athanasius, where they lived, and found an independent lavra. The [Amalfitans] returned home to obtain the things needed for the construction of a new monastery. Being held up, however, on their journey, they found when they returned that the lavra of Iviron had been established and was being governed by Euthymius, to the displeasure of his father, John. Then Beneventus bought a piece of land and built a new monastery which had many monks, the greater part coming from Amalfi; in fact the monastery took the name of the Amalfitans, and was consecrated to the memory of the Most Holy Mother of God.

The official life of the two Georgian saints was originally written by another monk of Iviron, George the Hagiorite, about 1045, or thirty years after the death of Euthymius. The Bollandist Paul Peeters, SJ, published in 1922 a definitive Latin translation of this work, in which there is a passage telling how the founders of Iviron reacted to the arrival of the Latin monks:

Further, while Father John was alive, a certain monk arrived from the land of the Romans, a man famous for his virtue, to whose worth the lands of both the Romans and the Greeks bore witness, the brother of the duke of Benevento, of a most noble family. This man arrived with six disciples on this Holy Mountain in order to pray. When our fathers saw that he was outstanding in the gifts of grace they received him as a friend and one of themselves. They treated him with the greatest kindness and invited him to make his home among them, saying ‘Both you and we are alike pilgrims’. They persuaded him with great difficulty, for he desired to live in a separate monastery . . . . And so he built a pleasant monastery in which he gathered many brothers. With the help of our fathers the whole work was completed . . . and to this day there exists on the Holy Mountain this monastery of the Romans, who live a regular and edifying life [probe ac rite] according to the Rule of Holy Benedict whose life is described in the Book of Dialogues.

One of the great figures on Athos at this period was St Athanasius: monks flocked to hear and speak with him from all over the world and the Benedictine founders were no exception. Athanasius’ biographer tells how the western monks brought the saint a jar of caviar, which, of course, the saint did not eat, though he accepted it so as not to offend them. It is very interesting to note the friendship of the Benedictines with St Athanasius, for one finds in the rules of his followers many signs of the influence of the Rule of St Benedict.

Modern commentators are unanimous that the account of the arrival of the western monks given by George the Hagiorite is to be preferred to the first one cited above. Peeters holds that it is to be regarded as a document ‘of great importance not only for the religious history of Athos, but also for the political and religious history of the period.’ So the arrival of the Latin monks has to be placed not only during the lifetime of St John but also during that of St Athanasius. St John and St Euthymius arrived on Athos about the year 970 and began building Iviron about 980, so the foundation of St Mary’s took place some time between 980 and 1000. A. Pertusi narrows this down further to 985-90, and quotes a document of the Great Lavra dated 984, signed by two of the Latin monks, John and Arsenius.

The monastery of Iviron was famous for its learning, and the extant works of the Latin monks lead us to believe that they were of comparable intellectual standing. This could explain the continuing friendship between the two monasteries. As examples of literary activity in the Amalfitan monastery, we have Latin versions of several hagiographical works, certainly including the ‘Account of the miracle of St Michael in Chonae’ translated by one Leo, who calls himself a monk of the Latin monastery on Athos; other similar manuscripts may well be from the same source, and it has been suggested that the transmission to the West of the legend of Barlaam and Joasaph links Iveron and the Amalfitan monastery.

The Benedictine historians of the 11th century do not mention the Amalfitan foundation: in fact, they rather confuse matters. The chronicler of Monte Cassino, Leo of Ostia, tells of the election of Manso, twenty-eighth abbot of Monte Cassino, in 986: ‘He became abbot through the influence of the princes of his family and not through the vote of the monks.’ He goes on to tell bow after Manso had taken up his office several of the best monks decided that they could not live under him and left the monastery; among them was one Joannes Beneventanus who went to the East, to Jerusalem, Sinai, and then to Mount Athos. Leo is quoted in the Dialogues of Pope Victor III:

. . . He went to Jerusalem, and then spent six years on Mount Sinai in the service of God. Then he went to Greece, where he remained some time on the mountain which is called the Holy Mountain (in monte qui Hagionoros dicitur).

However, Leo says that John was a hermit on Athos, and far from founding and ruling a monastery on his own, it seems that John was under an abbot on the Holy Mountain and that it was due to this man’s advice that he returned to Monte Cassino:

Not long afterwards the most holy Father Benedict appeared in a vision to that same John, giving him the pastoral staff which he was holding in his hand, and advising him to return as quickly as possible to Monte Cassino. At the first light of dawn he explained religiously to the abbot of the monastery the vision which he had seen. The abbot, being a man of foresight and discretion, seeing the will of God in this vision, looked at him and said: ‘Brother John, return with all speed to your monastery, lest you seem disobedient to the great father who has appeared to you in a vision. It seems to me that almighty God has decided to place you over his flock, and has chosen you, in his mercy, to watch over his sheep.’ In obedience, therefore, to this vision and advice he returned across the sea, with Christ as his guide, and returned to his monastery. He was made prior by the most holy John (who was then abbot, but through infirmity was unable to bear such a great burden). Not long afterwards, by the counsel and choice of the brethren, he was appointed abbot by the same venerable father.

So John of Benevento, though certainly on Athos during the period, would seem not to be the founder of St Mary’s.

There was on Athos at the same time a Georgian hermit called Gabriel, from whose life a little more information can be gained about the early Latin monks:

The venerable priest Gabriel had a great spiritual love for the holy old man, the great Leo the Roman, who, each time he came to visit our fathers, used to take a cell next to that of Gabriel and there spend the day.

From the eastern sources, therefore, the founder of the monastery was Leo the Roman, a brother of the duke of Benevento. There is, it must be noted, no other record of the duke of Benevento of the period, Pandulf II, having a brother called Leo who was a monk. The John of Benevento, it would seem, was a monk of Monte Cassino who came to the Holy Mountain at the same period, between 993 and 996-7, for spiritual advice (possibly from the abbot of St Mary’s) and then returned to Monte Cassino to become abbot.

This is the only information available on the founding of the monastery. It used to be thought, for example by Dom Rousseau, that much more information was probably to be found in the archives the Great Lavra. Pertusi, however, assures us that the documents published by himself, P. Lemerle, and A. Guillou are all that the Great Lavra possesses on St Mary’s.

The first documentary evidence we have of St Mary’s is the signature in Latin of John of Amalfi, presumably the successor of Leo, on a document dated 991. Perhaps it was still this same John who signed documents in 1012, 1016, and May 1017. As stated above, it was about 1045 that the Georgian monk George described the western monks as living ‘probe ac rite’ according to the Rule of St Benedict. At the same period a minute of imperial civil service notes and approves the decision of the Grand Council of Mount Athos to allow the monks of St Mary’s to possess a boat, not for any commercial usage but for the needs of the monastery.

In 1081, Benedict, abbot of the imperial monastery of the Amalfitans, signs a document, and the emperor of the period, Alexius I, confirms to the convent of the Amalfitans certain lands which are described in great detail. The words ‘imperial monastery’ should be noted; they indicate a very flourishing period for the Benedictines, as they now have the same title as the Great Lavra, Iviron and Vatopedi, the three most ancient lavras on the Holy Mountain. In 1083 another act of the Athonite Council, about the reconstruction of the monastery of Xenophon, has the signature of the monk Demetrios, abbot of the Amalfitan monastery. It is remarkable that, contemporary with the increasing tension typified by the quarrel between Cerularius and Rome, the Benedictines of Athos were not only living their lives peacefully, but taking a full part in the government of the Holy Mountain and enjoying imperial patronage.

Another collection of acts, of the council dated 1097, bears the signature of Vitus, abbot of the Amalfitan monastery. There is a further reference to the monastery in acts dated 1169, on the acquisition of the monastery of St Pantileimon of Thessalonika by the monastery of Rossikon on Athos. This carries among others the signature in Latin of the abbot of St Mary of the Amalfitans.

Agostino Pertusi published in 1958 three new documents on the Amalfitan monastery, [24] preserved in the Great Lavra of St Athanasius. It is very difficult to date the documents, but after extensive researches Pertusi formed the opinion that they date from about the year 1287. Their authenticity has been confirmed since his first publication. They tell of the donation of the monastery of the Amalfitans to the Great Lavra and the confirmation of that transfer by the patriarch and the emperor. At the time that the donation was made the convent was very poor, the house was in ruins, and the remaining monks had no one capable of taking responsibility for its upkeep. A lot of factors may have contributed to this sad situation: the source of vocations much have been drying up, the republic of Amalfi declined politically after 1137, religious tensions and conflicts between East and West were becoming more and more intense, and Andronicus II pursued an anti-Roman policy.

It is interesting to speculate what happened to the survivors, if there were any, at the time of donation. We do not know. The local tradition says that they all left, taking with them their belongings, but this tradition seems dubious in the light of the documents of donation. It seems more probable that they did not leave but were absorbed in the Great Lavra. So ended Benedictine life on Athos, after lasting about three hundred years.

As Dom Rousseau pointed out, the monks of the Holy Mountain have good reason since the demise of St Mary’s to be suspicious of the West: for example, the foundation of Propaganda, in 1636, of a school on Athos to educate the monks, and the attempts of the Jesuits in the 17th century to found a mission there to convert them! Other similar activities have not helped the relations between western and eastern monasticism. Consideration was given by the West to refounding a Benedictine monastery on Athos, but this idea was so displeasing to the monks of the Holy Mountain that in 1924 they incorporated a clause into the constitution by which they are governed, forbidding such a foundation. How different from the arrival of the Amalfitans, when the Athonites not only gave them one of the most beautiful sites on the mountain, but helped them to build their monastery! But now that the ecumenical patriarch himself, on whom the Holy Mountain directly depends, has done so much to change the old atmosphere of suspicion, may it be no longer a vain hope that co-operation between East and West might again become a reality here, in one of the most holy places in the world?

Orrologion has posted the original text of the “Twelve Differences between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches” by Teófilo de Jesús along with excellent responses to each of the twelve points from Fr Alvin Kimel, of Pontifications* fame, who in his extended period of discernment after leaving the Episcopal Church studied the claims of both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy in great depth.

Some excerpts:

On Primacy. Is it true that the Orthodox Church rejects totally any understanding of ecclesial headship? What about the bishop of a diocese? Does he not wield and embody a divine authority given to him by Christ Jesus? Is he not the head of his community, which precisely is the Church? And when Catholics speak of the Pope as the earthly head of the Church, are they in any way denying that Christ alone is properly head of the Church? When Catholics speak of the primacy of the Pope, are they exalting the Pope above the Episcopate, as if their power and authority derived from him? And are Orthodox theologians incapable of entertaining an authentic primacy within the episcopal college for the bishop of Rome? …

On Conciliarity. The Catholic Church understands the Church precisely as a communion of particular Churches and local dioceses; moreover, the Church as the universal Church is not to be understood as simply the sum or collection of all particular Churches: each diocese is itself a truly catholic body … Catholic ecclesiology is so much more complex and diverse than is sometimes appreciated …

On Original Sin. I’m sure there are differences between Catholic construals of anthropology and Orthodox construals of anthropology (please note the plural); but I do not believe that this is because the Catholic Church authoritatively teaches a forensic imputation of original sin and the Orthodox Church does not. Why do I say this? Because it is not at all clear to me that the Catholic Church authoritatively teaches the *forensic* imputation of Adam’s guilt to humanity. I know that some (many?) Catholic theologians have sometimes taught something like this over the centuries, but the Catholic Church has strained over recent decades to clarify the meaning of Original Sin not as the forensic transfer of Adam’s guilt but as the inheritance of the Adamic condition of real alienation from God–i.e., the absence of sanctifying grace … Important differences on the nature of original exist between St Augustine and magisterial Catholic teaching …

On Liturgical Reform. I agree here that there are important differences between Catholic and Orthodox liturgical praxis at the present time. Sadly, many sectors of the Catholic Church appear to have uncritically embraced the thesis that the Church must adapt her liturgy to the spirit of the modern age. This has been disastrous for Catholic life and spirituality. One does see signs, however, that the insanity is passing.

On Grace and Deification. While perhaps it might have been true at some point in the past that Catholic theologians tended to reduce grace to a created power, this cannot be asserted today. Catholic theologians are quite clear that everything begins with and centers around Uncreated Grace. Catholic theologians do have a problem with some of the Palamite construals of grace and the popular Orthodox rejection of any notion of created grace–they do not see how the Palamite position does not lead to the annihilation of human nature–but this does not mean that Catholic theologians and poets cannot envision an eschatological life as full and vivid as the Orthodox. Surely Dante’s Paradiso may be invoked at this point. But I do acknowledge a difference of homiletical and ascetical emphasis between Catholics and Orthodox on theosis, sanctifying suffering, and the life of the resurrection.

* I was inspired to begin blogging after reading Pontifications, though I am not nearly as erudite and well-spoken as Fr Kimel and some of his interlocutors, both Catholic and Orthodox.

Bill knows how to cover a tune like Heard it through the Grapevine; he is always subtle in his playing and works beautifully with textures and dynamics. His bright telecaster tone shimmers waves of color over the steady pulse of Kenny Wollesen and Viktor Krauss. His playing is very textural but even his most undefined sizzles of sound float into a deep place within the pocket. Electronics allow bill to sear through the speakers with distorted wires of lightning and caress the bass with electricity. His delayed and looped squiggles provide the spicing but the meat is bills fat electric tone on Blues for Los Angeles. Kenny Wollesen knows exactly where the ground is and he beats the time into it every chance he gets. Bills fragmented chordal playing is brilliant and effective in filling up all the sonic space. The music grows forth from their ears, it’s solid, thick and meaty but also relaxed. You can tell a lot about someone from their music. Bill is a soft spoken fellow who moves lightly despite his size. However, there is a spark within him from which endless cacophony spews. Bills ability to pair beauty and dissonance is on full display during the West set. I feel that Bill cares so much about the music that comes through him that we as listeners have no choice but to care about it to. His concentration seems so absolute that it is impossible to be unfocused on his music. Shenandoah is a masterpiece of dynamics and it is beautiful beyond description. Bill builds it like a card house that eventually crumbles in distorted brilliance. The melody is always present within Bills improvisation; It seems like he is always humming the melody and his improvisation acts as a counterpoint. All Bill needs is the melody. Bill sings with effects, he sings life.

A friend forwarded me a couple of gems from a recently published text which purports to be “an Orthodox catechism for our times” and “a book with the big answers to the big questions every person asks themselves about faith, science and doubt” –

Western Christianity, in all its expressions (whether Catholic, Protestant or so-called Western Orthodox) shares the same ontological and dualistic ecclesiology. Following Plato’s dualism, Western Christianity speaks of a God outside the box and creates a church inside the box. For the West, the Kingdom of God exists in heaven, but it is men who create the Kingdom of God on earth.

Western worship, regardless of whether it is Catholic, Protestant or Western Orthodox so-called, is man-made.

I can think of no better example of the kind of pseudo-intellectual pablum that David Bentley Hart identifies as “something of a cottage industry in the Orthodox Church—especially among converts—to discover and ‘market’ ever newer ancient differences between Eastern and Western Christian theology, morality, devotion, spirituality, politics, cuisine, or whatever else one can think of.”

Or, as I’ve seen it called somewhere on the net, “Pop Byzantine.”

I’m told the back cover of this exciting new book bears the endorsement of Orthodox bishops. Kyrie eleison.

P.S. I’m also told that the author, a former Baptist seminarian, seems to be enamored of biblical higher criticism, e.g. the tired old “documentary hypothesis.” What such late 19th century unbelieving German protestant blather has to do with Orthodox Christian catechesis is beyond me. “Western captivity” indeed.