Beyond Boswell's Tendentious Pamphleteering

Well do I remember the controversy in the mid-90s when a handsome young historian at some school or other started putting it about that Christians, especially in the East, had been hiding for centuries some ritual that he claimed was a proto-marriage liturgy for same-sex couples. The "mainstream" media, with their usual dreary lack of imagination and empty-headed cheerleading, pounced on this, of course, and spread this nonsense far and wide, tarting it up with pity because this "revolutionary" finding was authored by a man who would not enjoy the results, dying of AIDS in the same year as his book appeared. I read first the book and then, with great relish, one take-down after another in scholarly journals by serious historians and theologians (Robin Darling Young among them) who showed  that John Boswell's Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe had tendentiously ginned up a case for pre-determined conclusions, and made the evidence fit those conclusions because today's politics seemed to demand doing so. It was my first awareness of the uses and abuses of history by Christians.

Now we have a serious Byzantinist examining this evidence anew in her just-released book: Claudia Rapp, Brother-Making in Late Antiquity and Byzantium: Monks, Laymen, and Christian Ritual (Oxford UP, 2016), 368pp. 

About this book we are told:

Among medieval Christian societies, Byzantium is unique in preserving an ecclesiastical ritual of adelphopoiesis, which pronounces two men, not related by birth, as brothers for life. It has its origin as a spiritual blessing in the monastic world of late antiquity, and it becomes a popular social networking strategy among lay people from the ninth century onwards, even finding application in recent times. Located at the intersection of religion and society, brother-making exemplifies how social practice can become ritualized and subsequently subjected to attempts of ecclesiastical and legal control.

Controversially, adelphopoiesis was at the center of a modern debate about the existence of same-sex unions in medieval Europe. This book, the first ever comprehensive history of this unique feature of Byzantine life, argues persuasively that the ecclesiastical ritual to bless a relationship between two men bears no resemblance to marriage. Wide-ranging in its use of sources, from a complete census of the manuscripts containing the ritual of adelphopoiesis to the literature and archaeology of early monasticism, and from the works of hagiographers, historiographers, and legal experts in Byzantium to comparative material in the Latin West and the Slavic world, Brother-Making in Late Antiquity and Byzantium examines the fascinating religious and social features of the ritual, shedding light on little known aspects of Byzantine society.

New Publication from the Pope!

Catholics have grown weary of papal speeches and interviews, whether on airlines or in other fora. The endless yammering has turned even the most caricatured ultramontane fantasies or the most outrageous Protestant polemics about "papolatry" into reality: the pope as oracle, ceaselessly pontificating on matters large and small, well beyond his brief and far exceeding any authority he has, and thereby causing far more confusion than clarity. 

How much better the example of the other pope, the one whose use of the title, according to some historians, pre-dates that of the Roman bishop's adoption of it. I refer, of course, to the Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria, successor to St. Mark.

Perfectly timed for this Lenten season is a book about repentance hot off the presses from St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, which has just put into my hands: †Pope Shenouda III, The Life of Repentance and Purity, 2nd. Eng. ed., trans. H.G. Bishop Suriel (SVS Press, 2016), 322pp.

About this book, now in a second issue from the late pope (who died in 2012), the publisher tells us:

The Life of Repentance and Purity provides readers with a comprehensive overview of the practice of repentance and purity, essential aspects of Christian life. Pope Shenouda III draws on Scripture, the Church Fathers, his own experience of desert monasticism, and his experience as a shepherd to millions of Christians to provide a practical understanding of how to live a life of continually turning to God.

My advice to you, instead of saying, I promise you that I will repent, O Lord, say to the Lord: Restore me, and I will return (Jeremiah 31:18). Ask for repentance as a good gift from him, for he himself promised this, saying: I shall give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you (Ezekiel 36.26). 

The Coptic Studies Series at St Vladimir s Seminary Press was conceived with a two-fold purpose: to increase the accessibility of the many treasures of Coptic Orthodox Christianity to a wider English-speaking audience; and to cross-pollinate the spiritual minds of Coptic Orthodox Christians and their Eastern Orthodox brethren with the knowledge of a common faith in the incarnate Word of God who is the true source of all wisdom and knowledge.

I am delighted at both this book, and also this new Coptic Studies Series from SVS Press. I am delighted because I have an abiding affection for the Copts thanks to my friendship with Iman Nashed, through whom I was first introduced to the writings of Pope Shenouda in the mid 90s, and to the Coptic tradition in Canada, at whose flagship parish of St. Mark's in Scarborough I gave lectures over the years. The Copts in Egypt have suffered enormously over the years at the hands of Muslims in Egypt but all the while have been a faithful witness to the gospel. In addition, they are second to nobody in the number and rigor of their fasting days each year. They are a model to us all.

Marriage: Law and Sacrament

Given the on-going turmoil in the Catholic Church over the disciplines of marriage, divorce, re-marriage, and annulments, as well as the potential for turmoil at the upcoming 'great and holy synod' of Orthodoxy, whose agenda includes the topic of marriage, this forthcoming study may be of wide interest: Philip Reynolds, How Marriage Became One of the Sacraments: The Sacramental Theology of Marriage from its Medieval Origins to the Council of Trent (Cambridge UP, 2016), 1077pp.

About this hefty tome the publisher tells us:

Among the contributions of the medieval church to western culture was the idea that marriage was one of the seven sacraments, which defined the role of married folk in the church. Although it had ancient roots, this new way of regarding marriage raised many problems, to which scholastic theologians applied all their ingenuity. By the late Middle Ages, the doctrine was fully established in Christian thought and practice but not yet as dogma. In the sixteenth century, with the entire Catholic teaching on marriage and celibacy and its associated law and jurisdiction under attack by the Protestant reformers, the Council of Trent defined the doctrine as a dogma of faith for the first time but made major changes to it. Rather than focusing on a particular aspect of intellectual and institutional developments, this book examines them in depth and in detail from their ancient precedents to the Council of Trent.

We are also given the table of contents:

 1. Marriage as a sacrament
Part I. Augustine:
2. Marriage in Augustine's writings
3. Bonum prolis, bonum fidei: the utility of marriage
4. Bonum sacramenti: the sanctity and insolubility of marriage
Part II. Getting Married: Consent, Betrothal, and Consummation:
5. Betrothal and consent
6. Consummation
7. From competing theories to common doctrine in the twelfth century
Part III. The Twelfth Century: Origins and Early Development of the Sacramental Theology of Marriage:
8. Introduction to the sentential literature on marriage
9. The theology of marriage in the Sententiae
10. Hugh of Saint-Victor
11. The early doctrine of marriage as one of the sacraments
Part IV. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries: Development of the Classical Doctrine:
12. Marriage as union
13. Scholastic sexual ethics
14. Marriage as a sacrament
15. The question of grace
16. Human contract and divine sacrament
Part V. The Council of Trent:
17. On the eve of the General Council
18. The Sacrament of marriage at Bologna and Trent
19. Clandestine marriage: Bologna, 1547
20. Clandestine marriage: Trent, 1563.

The Fathers on the Scriptures

I was startled yesterday to receive in the mail the latest catalogue from Fortress Press containing news of a forthcoming publication by a promising young scholar killed almost exactly a year ago. This collection which Matthew Baker co-edited with Mark Mourachian is a fitting posthumous memorial to the former: What is the Bible?: The Patristic Doctrine of Scripture (Fortress, 2016), 224pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

The patristic doctrine of Scripture is an understudied topic. Recent scholars, however, have shown considerable interest in patristic exegetical strategies and methods—from rhetoric and typology, to theory and method; far less attention, though, has been paid to the early Christian understanding of the nature of Scripture itself. This volume explores the patristic vision of the Bible—the understanding of Scripture as the word of life and salvation, the theological, liturgical, and ascetical practice of reading—and is anchored by keynote essays from Fr. John McGuckin, Paul Blowers, and Michael Legaspi.
The purpose is to reopen a consideration of the doctrine of Scripture for contemporary theology, rooted in the tradition of the Church Fathers (Greek, Latin, and Oriental), an endeavor inspired by the theological vision of the twentieth century's foremost Orthodox Christian theologian, Fr. Georges Florovsky. Our interest is not in mere description of historical uses of Scripture or interpretive methods, but rather in the very nature of Scripture itself and its place within the whole economy of creation, revelation, and salvation.

The publisher also gives us the table of contents, and we see here a considerable number of highly respected Orthodox scholars contributing chapters:

1. The Exegetical Metaphysic of Origen of Alexandria—J. A. McGuckin
2. A “Doctrine of Scripture” from the Eastern Orthodox Tradition—Oliver Herbel
3. “He Has Clothed Himself in Our Language—Matthew Baker
4. John Chrysostom on the Nature of Revelation and Task of Exegesis—Bradley Nassif
5. Barsanuphius, John, and Dorotheos on Scripture: Voices from the Desert in Sixth-Century Gaza—Alexis Torrance
6. The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ as “Saturated Phenomenon”—Paul M. Blowers
7. Scripture as Divine Mystery—Brock Bingaman
8. The Bible as Heilsgeschichte—Nikolaos Asproulis
9. The Gospel According to St. Justin the New—Vladimir Cvetkovic
10. Reality and Biblical Interpretation—John Taylor Carr
11. Merely Academic—Michael C. Legaspi

Who Has Authority Over Christian Art?

I was discussing iconoclasm in the West, especially in the Latin Church following Vatican II, with some of my students this week, noting with them that iconoclasm is always a prelude to a new politics, and is always bound up with questions of power. That latter question comes in for new examination in a collection just released, with chapters on evangelicalism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy: L.F. Gearon, Religious Authority and the Arts: Conversations in Political Theology (Peter Lang, 2015), 286pp.

About this book we are told:

The transcripted conversations that represent the substance of this volume are the result of a research project funded by the United Kingdom’s Arts and Humanities Research Council. The product of nearly three years of interviews conducted with senior religious figures from a diversity of religious traditions, this book represents a physical and political-theological journey around England – from metropolitan capital through provincial cities and rural hinterlands, from rural episcopal palaces to industrial estates, from London mansion houses to remote mountain monastery – and provides a snapshot of how religious leaders and authority figures respond to contemporary issues of freedom of expression. Religious Authority and the Arts has a substantial introduction that situates the conversations within a theological, political, and cultural framework.

Gleaming Silver Lights

Boris Jakim has emerged as the single-most prolific translator of East-Slavic theology today, having translated many of Sergius Bulgakov's books for Eerdmans over the last decade and more, including Relics and Miracles: Two Theological Essays, The Lamb of God (Bulgakov's Christology), The Comforter (Bulgakov's pneumatology), and a lovely collection of Bulgakov's theological orations, Churchly Joy: Orthodox Devotions for the Church Year. 

Jakim has also been involved in translating other prominent figures, including the great writer Dostoevsky's The Insulted and Injured as well as his Notes from the House of the Dead.

Additionally, other well-known Slavophiles have entered into English through Jakim, including Pavel Florensky's The Pillar and Ground of the Truth: An Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters and S.L. Frank's The Meaning of Life as well as his Light Shineth In Darkness: An Essay In Christian Ethics And Social Philosophy.

Late last year, Jakim complied and translated a new collection: The Brightest Lights of the Silver Age: Essays on Russian Religious Thinkers (Semantron Press, 2015), 244pp.

About this book we are told:

The great Russian philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev set for himself the task of revealing to the western world the distinctive elements of Russian philosophy: its existential nature, eschatologism, religious anarchism, and preoccupation with the idea of Divine Humanity. In the present collection of essays (the first volume of Berdyaev’s essays ever to appear in English translation), he attempts to define “the new religious consciousness” as it emerged in Russia in the first decade of the 20th century. Berdyaev, like Merezhkovsky and Blok (among others), believed that the dawn of the new century would bring an end to the old atheistic and positivistic world-view and the beginning of a new era of the spirit. The other essays treat such figures as Tolstoy, Solovyov, Rozanov, Bely, Florensky, and Bulgakov--all of them giants of Russian religious thought.

“Nikolai Berdyaev’s essays, like his longer works, are always insightful, penetrating, passionate, committed--expressions of the whole person. They are as intensely alive now as when they were first written. In them Berdyaev enters into genuine dialogue with his fellow thinkers from the great period of Russian religious philosophy. We are indebted to Boris Jakim for the excellence of both the selection and the translation.”--RICHARD PEVEAR, translator of War and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov

“Nikolai Berdyaev managed to play two roles in the Russian religious renaissance of the twentieth century. He was a passionate participant in the movement, but also one of its astute critics. His genius in both roles is on full display in this collection of essays assembled and beautifully translated by Boris Jakim. Berdyaev’s portraits of his peers provide us with a concise, colorful, and deep-thinking compendium of all the main themes that occupied the Russian religious thinkers of his generation--the last generation to come of age in Russia before the Revolution of 1917. With the centennial of that great upheaval at hand, we can see more clearly than ever the relevance of revisiting religious-philosophical debates which, far from being over, retain their freshness as vehicles for thinking not just about the future of Russia but about the spiritual challenges facing the modern world.”--PAUL VALLIERE, author of Modern Russian Theology.

“Nikolai Berdyaev, the existentialist Russian philosopher of freedom and creativity, in this collection of selected essays on key figures representative of Russia’s Silver Age, is unabashed in both his praise and criticism of them. Lyrical is his style, his analyses are no less cogent and cutting at times. The translator, Boris Jakim, has taken careful pains in his effort to bring out the best in Berdyaev’s literary and social criticism as he discusses the thought of such notables as Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Lev Tolstoy, Vladimir Solovyov, Vasily Rozanov, Lev Shestov, Alexander Blok, Pavel Florensky, and Sergius Bulgakov, along with a penetrating essay on theosophy and anthroposophy in Russia.”--ROBERT F. SLESINSKI, author of Pavel Florensky: A Metaphysics of Love

The Oldest Church in the World

Michael Peppard's new book, The World's Oldest Church: Bible, Art, and Ritual at Dura-Europos, Syria (Synkrisis) (Yale UP, 2016), 344pp. has just been published.

Given the ongoing conflicts in the region, and the recent and ongoing iconoclastic vandalism of ISIS when it comes to ancient Christian sites, this book could not be more timely in recording Christian history in a region where it is fast being extirpated and destroyed.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Michael Peppard provides a historical and theological reassessment of the oldest Christian building ever discovered, the third-century house-church at Dura-Europos. Contrary to commonly held assumptions about Christian initiation, Peppard contends that rituals here did not primarily embody notions of death and resurrection. Rather, he portrays the motifs of the church’s wall paintings as those of empowerment, healing, marriage, and incarnation, while boldly reidentifying the figure of a woman formerly believed to be a repentant sinner as the Virgin Mary. This richly illustrated volume is a breakthrough work that enhances our understanding of early Christianity at the nexus of Bible, art, and ritual.

Early Christian Devotion to the Mother of God

Yale University Press just sent me their latest catalogue, and in it we find several new and forthcoming works of interest, not least the Orthodox scholar Stephen Shoemaker's Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion (Yale UP, July 2016), 320pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

For the first time a noted historian of Christianity explores the full story of the emergence and development of the Marian cult in the early Christian centuries. The means by which Mary, mother of Jesus, came to prominence have long remained strangely overlooked despite, or perhaps because of, her centrality in Christian devotion. Gathering together fresh information from often neglected sources, including early liturgical texts and Dormition and Assumption apocrypha, Stephen Shoemaker reveals that Marian devotion played a far more vital role in the development of early Christian belief and practice than has been previously recognized, finding evidence that dates back to the latter half of the second century. Through extensive research, the author is able to provide a fascinating background to the hitherto inexplicable “explosion” of Marian devotion that historians and theologians have pondered for decades, offering a wide-ranging study that challenges many conventional beliefs surrounding the subject of Mary, Mother of God.

Shoemaker is the author of several important works, including  The Death of a Prophet: The End of Muhammad's Life and the Beginnings of Islam, about which I interviewed him here.

Shoemaker has also turned his hand to Mariology in other recent studies, including The Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary's Dormition and Assumption,which appeared in 2006 in the prestigious scholarly Early Christian Studies series from Oxford University Press.

Additionally, he is the translator of Maximus the Confessor's work The Life of the Virgin,which was also published by Yale in 2012. 

Dorothy Day and the Church of Our Time (I)

Is it a violation of the supposed spirit of Lenten humility to draw attention to one's latest publication? Regardless, here it is: a volume I co-edited along with my colleague and friend Lance Richey, based on the conference held last May here at the University of Saint Francis on the life and work of Dorothy Day: Dorothy Day and the Church: Past, Present, and Future (Solidarity Hall Press, 2016), 434pp.

Lance and I, along with many others, helped to organize a fantastic group of speakers from France, Canada, and across these United States. We were happy that most of them agreed to publish their papers after the conference. 

This is a rich collection, and the size of it makes the price very affordable indeed. I will have more to say about the contents in the days ahead, but let me here note what a pleasure it was to work with Solidarity Hall Press, a relatively young publisher with a fantastic crew, especially its publisher Elias Crim; and then with the book designer, Paul Bowman of New York, who did a lovely job on cover, art, and layout. Solidarity Hall has already published one book of significance, and their unique model positions them very well indeed for further publishing and other ventures.

Here is the standard blurb about the book, with more details to follow:

From the introduction by Lance Richey: “The University of Saint Francis and Our Sunday Visitor sponsored the conference ‘Dorothy Day and the Church: Past, Present and Future’ in Fort Wayne on May 13–15, 2015. In planning it, we kept in mind (not without some trepidation) Dorothy’s own complaint on academic conferences in her April 1966 On Pilgrimage column: ‘That is the trouble with such conferences. There are too many workshops, too many meetings, so many speakers, making the sessions too long.’ The enthusiastic response we received to our announcement threatened to make her warning only too prescient. More than 120 attendees, scholars and workers, gathered together to celebrate both her remarkable life and enduring legacy for the Church. This volume gathers together most of the papers and homilies given at this conference, offering a breadth and depth of material which will benefit both casual and scholarly readers, and both students and practitioners of her experiment in gospel living.”

The Church of Smyrna

On my bedside table for bedtime reading is a book I have started but not yet finished: Marjorie Housepian Dobkin, Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of a City. It is a fascinating if deeply depressing book documenting the destruction not only in the post-war period but also as the Greco-Turkish wars wound down and the Ottoman Empire gave way to the rise of modern Turkey.

Along comes a more recent book to look at Smyrna, but in the ancient period: The Church of Smyrna: History and Theology of a Primitive Christian Community (Peter Lang, 2015), 402pp.

Part of Lang's Patrologia series, this book, the publisher tells us,

deals with the theology of the Church of Smyrna from its foundation up to the Council of Nicaea in 325. The author provides a critical historical evaluation of the documentary sources and certain aspects particularly deserving of discussion. He makes a meticulous study of the history of the city, its gods and institutions, the set-up of the Jewish and Christian communities and the response of the latter to the imperial cult. Finally, he undertakes a detailed analysis both of the reception of the Hebrew Scriptures and the apostolic traditions, as well as examining the gradual historical process of the shaping of orthodoxy and the identity of the community in the light of the organisation of its ecclesial ministries, its sacramental life and the cult of its martyrs.

The Lost World of Byzantium

Interest in all things Byzantine remains as high as ever, as I have noted on here many times.

A book published late last year continues this trend and deepens our knowledge: Jonathan Harris, The Lost World of Byzantium (Yale UP, 2015), 280pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

For more than a millennium, the Byzantine Empire presided over the juncture between East and West, as well as the transition from the classical to the modern world. Jonathan Harris, a leading scholar of Byzantium, eschews the usual run-through of emperors and battles and instead recounts the empire’s extraordinary history by focusing each chronological chapter on an archetypal figure, family, place, or event.

Harris’s action-packed introduction presents a civilization rich in contrasts, combining orthodox Christianity with paganism, and classical Greek learning with Roman power. Frequently assailed by numerous armies—including those of Islam—Byzantium nonetheless survived and even flourished by dint of its somewhat unorthodox foreign policy and its sumptuous art and architecture, which helped to embed a deep sense of Byzantine identity in its people.

Enormously engaging and utilizing a wealth of sources to cover all major aspects of the empire’s social, political, military, religious, cultural, and artistic history, Harris’s study illuminates the very heart of Byzantine civilization and explores its remarkable and lasting influence on its neighbors and on the modern world.

The Fast Approaches

Great Lent in the West is very early this year, beginning tonight for Byzantine Christians on the new calendar--about as early as it can be--and in the East, or at least those parts of it using the Julian paschalion, it is very late, about as late as it can be.

I refer you here to my attempt to think through some of the questions that arise when one discusses fasting. 

My exasperation, and my hope, about solving the calendar question is fully on display here.

Regardless of which calendar you are on, I direct you here to some suggested books for Lent.

The Mind of Christ and a Psychoanalytic Mind (I)

Continuing with some further thoughts on Christianity and psychoanalysis (see here and here for recent thoughts; and here and here for earlier reflections), let us pause to ask ourselves: What does it mean when St. Paul says that Christians should "put on the mind of Christ?" if one's mind is not functioning or flourishing as well as it could? Does one simply muddle along and hope that "divine grace, which heals infirmities and replenishes that which is lacking" (as the Byzantine prayer of ordination begins) will do so? Or does one seek out human help? And if so, from whom, and to what end? Should it be mere alleviation of symptoms, or eradication of the presenting issue? Or does there need to be a more far-reaching and "structural" transformation so that one may indeed fully "let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus"?

For some Christians, the prospect of broad or far-reaching psychic change raises so many and such fearful questions and concerns that it remains a step untaken, which is a pity. But for those who--while acknowledging that modern psychology may have a different anthropology or moral philosophy than Christianity does--nonetheless can see their way towards benefiting from what is good in modern psychology, then they open themselves up to a lot of potential healing, which can only be regarded as a God-given gift.

Modern psychology has of course developed greatly since Freud's death in London in 1939, with new schools and "techniques" developing since the 1950s, leading many people, from the 1960s until quite recently, ready to proclaim the death of psychoanalysis. But I find it fascinating how there seems to be increasing evidence of the efficacy of psychoanalysis over more modern forms of therapy, as noted in this fascinating article. As the author notes--rightly, in my view--the chief advantage and long-term benefit of psychoanalysis is that it "may restructure the personality in a lasting way, rather than simply helping people manage their moods."

That notion of a re-structured mind comes out in a very interesting book written by the analyst Fred Busch, Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind: A psychoanalytic method and theory (Routledge, 2013). Busch writes in a low-key manner with a refreshing lack of ideological rigidity, jargon, or hubris. He intercalates passages from well-known literary works with short case-studies from his own practice to illustrate what he means. This is a rewarding book that pays re-reading. As the publisher tells us about it:

Bringing a fresh contemporary Freudian view to a number of current issues in psychoanalysis, this book is about a psychoanalytic method that has been evolved by Fred Busch over the past 40 years called Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind. It is based on the essential curative process basic to most psychoanalytic theories - the need for a shift in the patient's relationship with their own mind. Busch shows that with the development of a psychoanalytic mind the patient can acquire the capacity to shift the inevitability of action to the possibility of reflection.

Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind is derived from an increasing clarification of how the mind works that has led to certain paradigm changes in the psychoanalytic method. While the methods of understanding the human condition have evolved since Freud, the means of bringing this understanding to patients in a way that is meaningful have not always followed. Throughout, Fred Busch illustrates that while the analyst's expertise is crucial to the process, the analyst's stance, rather than mainly being an expert in the content of the patient's mind, is primarily one of helping the patient to find his own mind.

Creating a Psychoanalytic Mind will appeal to psychoanalysts and psychotherapists interested in learning a theory and technique where psychoanalytic meaning and meaningfulness are integrated. It will enable professionals to work differently and more successfully with their patients.

In later installments, I hope to give further thoughts on two other books I'm making my way through now: Donald Spence's fascinating if controverted Narrative Truth and Historical Truth: Meaning and Interpretation in Psychoanalysis,which, I think, has potential for Christians struggling to think through our collective ecclesial memories of the past, especially traumatic memories (e.g., Greek Christians and the Fourth Crusade).

The other book is a new collection I have started: Earl D. Bland and Brad D. Strawn, eds., Christianity & Psychoanalysis: A New Conversation (IVP Academic, 2014). I shall have more to say about it anon.

Church in the Making

In the year when at long last Orthodoxy is set to hold its much-anticipated 'great and holy synod,' discussions of conciliarity, synodality, and ecclesiology are very much in the air as I have noted on here and elsewhere.

Those who have read widely in contemporary ecclesiology will be long familiar with the on-going struggle to think through the implications of such pious nostrums as "the Church is an icon of the Trinity," a notion to which many give lip-service but do not always consider in any serious detail. One such book does, as I noted on here several years ago, is Radu Bordeianu's splendid study, Dumitru Staniloae: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology. I interviewed him here about the book.

Another book has just been released that also takes up obvious Trinitarian themes in ecclesiology: Nikolaos Loudovikos, Church in the Making: An Apophatic Ecclesiology of Consubtantiality (SVS Press, 2015), 296pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Over the past fifty years, Orthodox theologies of ecclesiology have been revoling around competing schools of ecclesiology one universal, the other eucharistic. Father Loudovikos, in this masterful interconnected series of studies, moves beyond this dialectic by exploring the very mode of the Church s existence.
In the end, it is the profound theological insights of St Maximus the Confessor that propel Father Loudovikos beyond the familiar borders of ecclesiology and into a new way of understanding the Church s self that is indissolubly linked to the human person and his participation in the divine Love that is God.

Byzantine and Islamic North Africa

We live, happily, in a boom time for scholars concerned with early Christian-Muslim interactions and relations. I have documented many of these recent books on here over the years, and there are many more set for release this year, as we shall presently see, including this collection in the Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposia and Colloquia series from Harvard University Press: Susan T. Stevens and Jonathan Conant, eds., North Africa under Byzantium and Early Islam (2016, 328pp.).

About this book we are told:

The profound economic and strategic significance of the province of “Africa” made the Maghreb highly contested in the Byzantine period—by the Roman (Byzantine) empire, Berber kingdoms, and eventually also Muslim Arabs—as each group sought to gain, control, and exploit the region to its own advantage. Scholars have typically taken the failure of the Byzantine endeavor in Africa as a foregone conclusion. North Africa under Byzantium and Early Islam reassesses this pessimistic vision both by examining those elements of Romano-African identity that provided continuity in a period of remarkable transition, and by seeking to understand the transformations in African society in the context of the larger post-Roman Mediterranean. Chapters in this book address topics including the legacy of Vandal rule in Africa, historiography and literature, art and architectural history, the archaeology of cities and their rural hinterlands, the economy, the family, theology, the cult of saints, Berbers, and the Islamic conquest, in an effort to consider the ways in which the imperial legacy was re-interpreted, re-imagined, and put to new uses in Byzantine and early Islamic Africa.

The Bishop of Rome in Late Antiquity (III): the Fifth Century's Cautions and Caveats

In two previous installments discussing The Bishop of Rome in Late Antiquity, edited by Geoffrey Dunn of the Australian Catholic University, we noted some of the historiographical challenges such a book as this both poses and must also itself wrestle with; and then we discussed very briefly some of the fascinating insights of the fourth century, especially those pertaining to Pope Siricius, in whose letters (decretals) scholars increasingly detect the move from being merely bishop of Rome to a more universal primate or pope in a Petrine vein.

Now, let us turn our attention to the fifth century. The editor leads off this section with his chapter, "Innocent I and the First Synod of Toledo." Once again the interactions between the Spanish church and Roman bishop come in for close examination.

But quite apart from the particular conclusions Dunn reaches, I want to underscore the important hermeneutical and historiographical challenges this chapter itself gives witness to by its drawing of different conclusions after examining the same evidence as the two authors in the immediately previous section treating Roman-Spanish interactions, especially in Siricius's letters. Those earlier authors, discussed in my second part of this review essay, found evidence of a universalizing tendency and the beginnings of some kind of papal primacy extending beyond the Latin Church, or at the very least beyond Western Europe; but Dunn looks at the evidence and says that the interactions show a certain pre-eminence is being claimed by the Roman bishops, but only in juridical-appellate terms--not, that is, in either legislative or executive terms.

In this regard, Dunn's conclusions echo--as he very briefly acknowledges--what seems to have been the view of the council or synod of Serdica (Sardica) (modern Sofia in Bulgaria) in 343, which argued in favor--it would seem--of Rome functioning as a court of appeal that would not make the final decisions, but hear regional appeals, and then find other regional actors to re-try a case or to consider an appeal at the regional level.

Serdica has recently come in for renewed scholarly attention, not least in Hamilton Hess's The Early Development of Canon Law and the Council of Serdica and in Christopher Stephens's volume, Canon Law and Episcopal Authority: The Canons of Antioch and Serdica.

I think the enormously important and valuable lesson to draw from Dunn's chapter, and the other two chapters, as well as from the rest of The Bishop of Rome in Late Antiquity (to be discussed in future parts), must be this: one must approach history with great humility and caution, aware that trying to draw definitive and binding conclusions admitting of no difference on the basis of conflicting, ambiguous, and incomplete briefs is a dangerous and likely foolish thing to do. History can be instructive but not normative, as Taft famously said.

Dunn and the two preceding authors, all looking at the same evidence, draw conclusions that differ in some important respects. All three, in my judgment, have made perfectly plausible cases, with judicious reasoning and careful display of the evidence, for why they have interpreted matters as they have. In doing so, they have reminded us once again why an appeal to the past will not solve the problems of the present. Catholic apologists fondly imagining the first millennium gives copious and unambiguous evidence of a Vatican I-like primacy will be discombobulated by this as much as Orthodox polemicists dismissing the very concept of Roman primacy as a perfidious power-grab by the Latins.

Primacy in the Church (I)

I was greatly delighted, almost exactly a year ago, to get a call from John Chryssavgis, archdeacon to the Ecumenical Throne and a well published scholar in his own right, asking me to be part of this two-volume collection he was editing on the theme of primacy in the Church. I was flattered to be sharing the page with such august company as the metropolitans of Pergamon and Diokleia, scholars such as Brian Daley and Christiaan Kappes, and my friend Nick Denysenko, inter alia.

The first volume has just come out from St. Vladimir's Seminary Press: Primacy in the Church: The Office of Primate and the Authority of Councils (Volume 1). The details are below.

A second volume will follow, and that volume will include my own essay--an update, as it were, on Dvornik's Byzantium and the Roman Primacy that looks in part at the fate of the principles of accommodation and apostolicity in the twenty-first century.

But for now, look at the riches in the first volume. Both volumes will be absolute must-haves for any library, public or private, that is serious about its collections in ecclesiology, Orthodoxy, and ecumenism.

The publisher tells us the following about volume I:

PRIMACY IN THE CHURCH is a careful and critical selection of historical and theological essays, canonical and liturgical articles, as well as contemporary and contextual reflections on what is arguably the most significant and sensitive issue in both inter-Orthodox debate and inter-Christian dialogue—namely, the authority of the primate and the role of councils in the thought and tradition of the Church.

Volume One examines the development and application of a theology of primacy and synodality through the centuries. Volume Two explores how such a theology can inform contemporary ecclesiology and reconcile current practices. Chryssavgis draws together original contributions from prominent scholars today, complemented by formative selections from theologians in the recent past, as well as relevant ecumenical documents.

The publisher also gives us the contents of the first volume:

Foreword, Metropolitan Kallistos [Ware] of Diokleia

Introduction, John Chryssavgis

The Meaning and Exercise of “Primacies of Honor” in the Early Church, Brian E. Daley,SJ

The Apostolic Tradition: Historical and Theological Principles, John Chryssavgis

St Irenaeus of Lyons and the Church of Rome, John Behr

Primacy, Collegiality, and the People of God, Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia

Mark of Ephesus, the Council of Florence, and the Roman Papacy, Christiaan Kappes

The Ethical Reality of Councils: An Anglican Perspective, Paul Valliere

Primacy and the Holy Trinity: Ecclesiology and Theology in Dialogue, John Panteleimon Manoussakis

A Liturgical Theology of Primacy in Orthodoxy, Nicholas Denysenko

Primacy and Eucharist: Recent Catholic Perspectives, Paul McPartlan

Primacy in Orthodox Theology: Past and Present, Metropolitan Maximos [Vgenopoulos] of Selyvria

Primacy in the Thought of John [Zizioulas], Metropolitan of Pergamon, Aristotle Papanikolaou

Primacy in the Thought of Stylianos [Harkianakis],Archbishop of Australia, Philip Kariatlis

Primacy, Ecclesiology, and Nationalism, Metropolitan John [Zizioulas] of Pergamon

Primacy and Synodality: An Essay Review of Contemporary Theological Literature, Nikolaos Asproulis

The Petrine Office: An Orthodox Commentary, Paul Evdokimov

The Idea of Primacy in Orthodox Ecclesiology, Alexander Schmemann

The Primacy of the Ecumenical Patriarchate: Developments since the Nineteenth Century,
Metropolitan Maximos [Christopoulos] of Sardis

The Ecumenical Patriarchate in the Twentieth Century, John Meyendorff

Ecclesial Communion, Conciliarity, and Authority:The Ravenna Document

Position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the Problem of Primacy in the Universal Church.


The volume has also attracted some high-octane praise:

"This is an important two-volume work on the issue of primacy in the Church. The subject is significant, and has attracted attention resulting in the publication of numerous studies produced in many countries and in different languages. The relevant bibliography is enormous. The present work constitutes a selection of articles and short studies, and offers a very helpful picture of the various aspects, questions, and problems related to the central topic.

The contributors to the two volumes are well-known theologians who have dealt with the issue extensively. The editor and contributor of four articles, Fr John Chryssavgis, is to be commended and congratulated because he managed—cooperating with St Vladimir’s Seminary Press—to place at the disposal of Church authorities and theologians a valuable resource on a crucial issue."

~His Eminence Archbishop Demetrios, Primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

"The theology of the Church has in the last few decades become once again an area of real interest and creativity, as our attention has been drawn back to the role of the sacramental Body of Christ in our human liberation into divine communion. Yet when it comes to the details of inter-confessional dialogue, the temptation is still strong to revert to familiar and comfortable positions, with—among other things—an assumption that historic polarizations over primacy and collegiality are fixed and given quantities. These excellent essays insist on going deeper. They do not pretend to resolve the issues that still divide Christians, issues over the charism of the Petrine office or the limits of sacramental fellowship or the authority of the episcopate; instead, they represent a clear and searching exploration of fundamental matters starting from first principles. We need more reflection of this quality. This book will be a major resource for all who believe that the ecumenical encounter is still a powerfully energizing context for theological thought."

~Rowan Williams, Master of Magdalene College (Cambridge University) and former Archbishop of Canterbury

"I have eagerly looked forward to such a publication on primacy and synodality in the Church, which is the central issue between the Eastern and Western Church. These two volumes include research from a broad range of leading theologians, predominantly Orthodox and Catholic, on the present state of such discussions. I have long been convinced that there can be reconciliation between East and West if the question of primacy is properly redefined and resolved, primarily on the Roman side: on the one hand, not solely as an authoritarian primacy of jurisdiction and, on the other hand, not simply as an ineffective primacy of honor, but primarily as an inspirational and mediatory pastoral primacy at the service of the whole contemporary ecumenical Church. In the recent past, John XXIII exemplified such a primacy; and today, the same could be expected of Pope Francis. His fraternal encounters with the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew are a promising step forward in addressing these vital issues."

~Hans Küng, Professor Emeritus of Ecumenical Theology at the University of Tübingen

The Crusades and Art

Those of us who listen to the rhetoric emanating out of ISIS will have heard their ritualistic invocation of "the Crusaders" and been amazed at the fatuous anachronism involved in using that epithet to describe modern Western nation-states, including the United Kingdom and United States whose motives--whatever they are--have nothing to do with advancing Christianity at the expense of Islam. Anyone--Muslim or especially Christian--who thinks that is simply delusional.

Perhaps more than any other phenomenon in Western history, the Crusades are, as I have often noted on here over the years, the most consistently, tendentiously, and deliberately distorted and misunderstood of all controversial struggles. Books continue to examine the Crusades from many angles. A new book does likewise, moving into a relatively understudied area: art history and the Crusades: Elizabeth Lapina et al, eds., The Crusades and Visual Culture (Ashgate, 2016), 288pp.

About this scholarly collection, we are told:

The crusades, whether realized or merely planned, had a profound impact on medieval and early modern societies. Numerous scholars in the fields of history and literature have explored the influence of crusading ideas, values, aspirations and anxieties in both the Latin States and Europe. However, there have been few studies dedicated to investigating how the crusading movement influenced and was reflected in medieval visual cultures. Written by scholars from around the world working in the domains of art history and history, the essays in this volume examine the ways in which ideas of crusading were realized in a broad variety of media (including manuscripts, cartography, sculpture, mural paintings, and metalwork). Arguing implicitly for recognition of the conceptual frameworks of crusades that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries, the volume explores the pervasive influence and diverse expression of the crusading movement from the twelfth through the fifteenth centuries.

The publisher also gives us the table of contents:

Introduction, Elizabeth Lapina, April Jehan Morris, Susanna A. Throop, and Laura J. Whatley; The Frankish icon: art and devotion in the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, Lisa Mahoney; The role and meanings of the image of St. Peter in the crusader sculpture of Nazareth: a new reading, Gil Fishhof; The vision of the cross and the Crusades in England before 1189, John Munns; A constellation of Crusade: the Resafa heraldry cup and the aspirations of Raoul I, Lord of Coucy, Richard A. Leson; Pictorial and sculptural commemoration of returning or departing crusaders, Nurith Kenaan-Kedar; ‘If I forget you, O Jerusalem…’: King Phillip the Fair, Saint George, and Crusade, Esther Dehoux; The Crusaders’ Holy Land in maps, P.D.A. Harvey; The Crusader loss of Jerusalem in the eyes of a 13th-century virtual pilgrim, Cathleen A. Fleck; Looking back: the Westminster Psalter, the added drawings, and the idea of ‘retrospective Crusade’, Debra Higgs Strickland; The visual vernacular: illustrating Jean de Vignay’s ‘Crusade’ translations, Maureen Quigley; Crusading responses to the Turkish threat in visual culture, 1453-1519, Norman Housley; Reframing the Crusade in the Piccolomini Library: Pinturicchio’s ‘standing Turk’ in Siena Cathedral, 1502-1508, Nora S. Lambert; Select bibliography of secondary literature, Index.

Before and after Mohammad

The more we read about the origins of Islam, the less we can say we know with adamantine certainty. The historiographical issues surrounding its origins have been well known to scholars for some time and include things like the late dating of many texts, the fact that the earliest records are either unavailable or else notoriously unreliable because of their tendentious and triumphalist agendas, and the unwillingness to admit just how much Islam borrowed from surrounding cultures. A recent publication continues to help us understand this process of borrowing: Garth Fowden, Before and After Muhammad: The First Millennium Refocused (Princeton UP, 2015), 248pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Islam emerged amid flourishing Christian and Jewish cultures, yet students of Antiquity and the Middle Ages mostly ignore it. Despite intensive study of late Antiquity over the last fifty years, even generous definitions of this period have reached only the eighth century, whereas Islam did not mature sufficiently to compare with Christianity or rabbinic Judaism until the tenth century. Before and After Muhammad suggests a new way of thinking about the historical relationship between the scriptural monotheisms, integrating Islam into European and West Asian history.

Garth Fowden identifies the whole of the First Millennium--from Augustus and Christ to the formation of a recognizably Islamic worldview by the time of the philosopher Avicenna--as the proper chronological unit of analysis for understanding the emergence and maturation of the three monotheistic faiths across Eurasia. Fowden proposes not just a chronological expansion of late Antiquity but also an eastward shift in the geographical frame to embrace Iran.

In Before and After Muhammad, Fowden looks at Judaism, Christianity, and Islam alongside other important developments in Greek philosophy and Roman law, to reveal how the First Millennium was bound together by diverse exegetical traditions that nurtured communities and often stimulated each other.

If I Light Origen on Fire, What Happens to His Spirit?

As I have shown on here many times over the years, interest in Origen of Alexandra has remained very high, perhaps higher than any other Alexandrian father certainly, and many other patristic figures besides. Late this year, a collection first published nearly eight decades ago will be released in a newly re-translated edition with an updated scholarly apparatus: Hans Urs von Balthasar and Robert J. Daly, ed., Spirit and Fire: A Thematic Anthology of The Writings of Origen (T&T Clark, 2016),464pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Originally published in German in 1938, this highly acclaimed volume presents more than one thousand selections from the various extant writings of Origen, the great Alexandrian theologian. Robert J. Daly, S.J., has re-translated the majority of these texts from the original Greek and Latin, added the scriptural references in the translated texts and an index, and included updated bibliographical information.

This volume comprises thoughts of one of the greatest of ancient theologians as seen through the eyes of an almost equally prolific successor in the same central Christian enterprise. The book remains a great resource for anyone interested in patristic theology, early Christian mysticism, and early interpretation of Scripture. This Cornerstones edition has a new introduction written by Robert J. Daly, S.J.

Christianity in Korea

Though little known today, there is evidence that Eastern Christians once made it as far as the Korean peninsula in the first millennium before largely disappearing across far Eastern and Central Asia as the Assyrian Church of the East (inter alia), once a vastly sprawling body all down the Silk Road, was gradually rolled up and its communities lost thanks to Tamerlane and others.

A recent study looks at Christianity in Korea today, and acknowledges the considerable role played by Eastern Orthodox Christians there in the modern period: Sebastian C.H. Kim and Kristeen Kim, A History of Korean Christianity (Cambridge UP), 373pp.

About this book we are told:

With a third of South Koreans now identifying themselves as Christian, Christian churches play an increasingly prominent role in the social and political events of the Korean peninsula. Sebastian Kim and Kirsteen Kim's comprehensive and timely history of different Christian denominations in Korea includes surveys of the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions as well as new church movements. They examine the Korean Christian diaspora and missionary movements from South Korea and also give cutting-edge insights into North Korea. This book, the first recent one-volume history and analysis of Korean Christianity in English, highlights the challenges faced by the Christian churches in view of Korea's distinctive and multireligious cultural heritage, South Korea's rapid rise in global economic power and the precarious state of North Korea, which threatens global peace. This History will be an important resource for all students of world Christianity, Korean studies and mission studies.

The Russian-Engineered Conflict in Ukraine

As we enter further into 2016, we enter into the third year of sustained violence against Ukraine on the part of Russia. It is easy to lose sight of this conflict with ISIS and Syria eating up so much headline space. A recent book helps us to understand not just what has happened, but why: Serhy Yekelchyk, The Conflict in Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford UP, 2015), 208pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

When guns began firing again in Europe, why was it Ukraine that became the battlefield? Conventional wisdom dictates that Ukraine's current crisis can be traced to the linguistic differences and divided political loyalties that have long fractured the country. However this theory only obscures the true significance of Ukraine's recent civic revolution and the conflict's crucial international dimension. The 2013-14 Ukrainian revolution presented authoritarian powers in Russia with both a democratic and a geopolitical challenge. President Vladimir Putin reacted aggressively by annexing the Crimea and sponsoring the war in eastern Ukraine; and Russia's actions subsequently prompted Western sanctions and growing international tensions reminiscent of the Cold War. Though the media portrays the situation as an ethnic conflict, an internal Ukrainian affair, it is in reality reflective of a global discord, stemming from differing views on state power, civil society, and democracy.

The Crisis in Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know explores Ukraine's contemporary conflict and complicated history of ethnic identity, and it does do so by weaving questions of the country's fraught relations with its former imperial master, Russia, throughout the narrative. In denying Ukraine's existence as a separate nation, Putin has adopted a stance similar to that of the last Russian tsars, who banned the Ukrainian language in print and on stage. Ukraine emerged as a nation-state as a result of the imperial collapse in 1917, but it was subsequently absorbed into the USSR. When the former Soviet republics became independent states in 1991, the Ukrainian authorities sought to assert their country's national distinctiveness, but they failed to reform the economy or eradicate corruption. As Serhy Yekelchyk explains, for the last 150 years recognition of Ukraine as a separate nation has been a litmus test of Russian democracy, and the Russian threat to Ukraine will remain in place for as long as the Putinist regime is in power. In this concise and penetrating book, Yekelchyk describes the current crisis in Ukraine, the country's ethnic composition, and the Ukrainian national identity. He takes readers through the history of Ukraine's emergence as a sovereign nation, the after-effects of communism, the Orange Revolution, the EuroMaidan, the annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, the war in the Donbas, and the West's attempts at peace making. The Crisis in Ukraine is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the forces that have shaped contemporary politics in this increasingly important part of Europe.

The Councils of the Orthodox Churches

Some publishers have the luck of timing on their sides. In this year leading up (one hopes!) to the much-promised and much-delayed "great and holy synod" of Orthodoxy, we will see published in April a hefty edited collection, part of the Corpus Christianorum Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Generaliumque Decreta (CCCOGD 4) series from Brepols Press: Alberto Melloni, ed.,The Councils of the Orthodox Churches in the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Era (approx. 900 pp.).

About this volume the publisher tells us:

This volume comprises the critical edition – sometimes the very first critical edition – of the Councils of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, namely those sharing the professoin of faith defined in the first seven Ecumenical Councils (COGD 1). Among them one may find the Protodeutera (861), the Council of Constantinople of 879, the Tomos Unionis (920), the Local Synods of Constantinople against the Syro-Jacobites (1030) and against John Italos (1082), the Council on ‘My Father is greater than me’ (1166), on the Filioque (1285) and on Palamas (1341-1351), the Synod of 1484, annulling the so-called union of Florence (COGD 2), the Synods about Lucaris, the Panorthodox Synods of Jerusalem (1672) and Constantinople (1872), the Local Synods of Constantinople (1691 and 1755), and additional materials, like the Patriarchal decision of annullment of the Excommunications between Rome and Constantinople (paralleled in COGD 3).

It also includes the first publication of five synodika of Orthodoxy: Georgian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Russian and the Greek synodikon with a new edition of the oldest surviving version of the latter (eleventh century), which was the basis for the subsequent translations. Moreover the volume will represent the Conciliar tradition of the Patriarchate of Moscow and of all Russias, including the Stoglav (1551), and the Councils of Moscow of 1666/7 and 1917/8 and more recent Councils of the 21st Century.

Among the editors of the critical editions Hilarion Alfeeev (Moscow), Frederick Lauritzen (Venice), Bernadette Martin Hisard (Paris-Rome), Giovanni Guaita (Moscow), Vassa Kontouma (Paris), Kirill Maksimovič (Moscow), Riccardo Saccenti (Bologna), Michel Stavrou (Paris), Tatijana Subotin Golubović (Belgrade), Anna Maria Totomanova (Sofia). The editorial staff includes Frederick Lauritzen, Georghios Vlantis, Cyril Hovorun, Davide Dainese.

Melloni is no stranger to editing such collections of this. I have on my shelf his invaluable 2005 collection which he co-edited with Silvia Scatena, Synod and Synodality: Theology, History, Canon Law and Ecumenism in New Contact.

That collection was very useful when I was giving no little thought to the questions of synodality and patriarchal structures in the life of the Church, East and West, in my Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity.

Christian and Muslim Conversions in Late Antiquity

One of the unanswered, and unanswerable, questions in early Christian-Muslim encounters is how many people abandoned Christianity when it was politically or economically feasible for them to do so in order to hitch a ride with a newly ascendant Islam. In many places, such people simply dropped out of sight, and nothing like a mass census of them has ever been possible. At the same time, while conversion out of Islam to something else is officially a capital offense in Islamic law, that does not mean it never happened--though here, too, such conversions were often hidden for obvious reason. This whole process of conversion--how it happened, how many converts there were, and what their motives were--is a complex business indeed.

A volume released last year from Ashgate sheds light on the process of what it means to "convert" to or from Christianity, Islam, and other traditions: Arietta Papaconstantinou, ed., with Neil Mclynn and Daniel Schwartz, Conversion in Late Antiquity: Christianity, Islam, and Beyond (Ashgate, 2015), 396pp.

About this book we are told:

The papers in this volume were presented at a Mellon-Sawyer Seminar held at the University of Oxford in 2009-2010, which sought to investigate side by side the two important movements of conversion that frame late antiquity: to Christianity at its start, and to Islam at the other end. Challenging the opposition between the two stereotypes of Islamic conversion as an intrinsically violent process, and Christian conversion as a fundamentally spiritual one, the papers seek to isolate the behaviours and circumstances that made conversion both such a common and such a contested phenomenon. The spread of Buddhism in Asia in broadly the same period serves as an external comparator that was not caught in the net of the Abrahamic religions. The volume is organised around several themes, reflecting the concerns of the initial project with the articulation between norm and practice, the role of authorities and institutions, and the social and individual fluidity on the ground. Debates, discussions, and the expression of norms and principles about conversion conversion are not rare in societies experiencing religious change, and the first section of the book examines some of the main issues brought up by surviving sources. This is followed by three sections examining different aspects of how those principles were - or were not - put into practice: how conversion was handled by the state, how it was continuously redefined by individual ambivalence and cultural fluidity, and how it was enshrined through different forms of institutionalization. Finally, a topographical coda examines the effects of religious change on the iconic holy city of Jerusalem.

A Coptic Biography

As an inveterate reader of biographies, as well as a scholar of Eastern Christianity with a special fondness for the Coptic Church, I am doubly looking forward to the release of this new study at the end of June: Youssef Boutros Ghali, A Coptic Narrative in Egypt: A Biography of the Boutros-Ghali Family (I.B. Tauris Press, 2016), 256pp.

About this book we are told:

A short walk from the glistening Nile nestled in a dusty Cairo street lies the Coptic Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, known locally as the Boutrosiya. If one were to enter through one of the seven doors, walk down the columned central aisle past Venetian mosaics and silk curtains, they would find the tomb of Boutros Pasha Ghali. Resting on two steps of black marble, decorated with colourful crosses, are written his last words: 'God knows that I never did anything that harmed my country'. The first Copt to be awarded the title of Pasha, the career of Boutros Pasha Ghali inextricably linked his family's fate to that of Egypt. From early whispers of independence to the last Mubarak government and the United Nations, the Boutros-Ghali's have not only been a force in the political, cultural and religious life of Egypt, but internationally. This book traces the illustrious history of this family from 1864 to the present day. Through assassinations, wars and elections, it illuminates the events that have shaped Egyptian and Coptic life, revealing the family's crucial role in the creation of modern Egypt and what their legacy may mean for the future of their country.