The Glories of Ethiopian Christianity

When I teach Eastern Christian iconography, I always reserve my favourite tradition, the Ethiopian, to the end, after we have been utterly exhausted by the seemingly endless surfeit of Byzantine images, and only moderately sobered up by the Coptic tradition. I tell my students to keep an eye on the Ethiopian tradition for its academic study is only now coming into its own.

That study will be greatly edited by three recent books, highly praised by the venerable and eminent historian Peter Brown in a recent NYRB essay I read with great delight. Here is the choicest bit:

In 1441 Ethiopian monks visited Rome. They told Pope Eugenius IV...that the Ethiopians were somewhat surprised that they had received no word from any pope in eight hundred years. It was time for that negligence to be remedied. However, they reassured Eugenius that they would report back to their master that the pope seemed to be a good Christian!

The arc of the essay is to point out what a formidable cultural stronghold Ethiopia was, far surpassing all the patronizing nonsense later talked about it by Roman and European Christians and historians, including that execrable old fool Gibbon. Ethiopian Christianity, in Brown's mind, must be counted at least as strong and important a tradition as the Latin, Greek, or Syriac. He advances an interesting thesis, worthy of debate by theologians, that perhaps Ethiopia's being miaphysite or monophysite (he uses the terms interchangeably, which is not without problems) is what abled them to form such a stronghold of Christianity that was never swallowed up by Islam. 

In any event, Brown draws our attention to three recent publications, all of which he praises. The first of these is A Contextual Reading of Ethiopian Crosses Through Form and Ritual: Kaleidoscopes of Meaning by Maria Evangelatou (Gorgias Press), 382pp. Brown praises this as a "book of stunning beauty." About it the publisher further tells us this:

Ethiopia is unique among Christian lands for the incomparable prominence of the cross in the life of its people and for the inexhaustible variety and intricacy of decorative patterns on cross-shaped objects of all kinds. Crosses of wondrous diversity and sophistication are extensively used in religious and magic rituals, as well as in the daily social interactions and personal experiences of people in a variety of contexts. This book explores the ways in which Ethiopian crosses reflect and shape a broad range of ideas, from religious beliefs to interrelated socio-political values, and from individual notions of identity and protection to cultural constructs of local and universal dimensions. Thus the cross of the Ethiopian tradition emerges as the sacred matrix that encompasses the life of the world in both its microcosmic and macrocosmic dimensions; and as the social and cultural nexus through which and with which people interact in order to shape and express personal and communal identities and hopes.The investigation includes textual and visual evidence, as well as aspects of Ethiopian history and cultural tradition, and highlights elements of both continuity and change. Special attention is given to religious rituals in which crosses guide the participants to internalize abstract ideas central to their culture, through sensorial experience and interaction. A main objective of this analysis is to contribute to an understanding of visual creations as interactive depositories and therefore also generators of ideas, with an influential role in identity formation, socio-cultural interactions and the construction of power relations.

The second book he notes, and praises equally highly, is Samantha Kelly, A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea (Brill, 2020), 606pp. About this book the publisher tells us this:

A Companion to Medieval Ethiopia and Eritrea introduces readers to current research on major topics in the history and cultures of the Ethiopian-Eritrean region from the seventh century to the mid-sixteenth, with insights into foundational late-antique developments where appropriate. Multiconfessional in scope, it includes in its purview both the Christian kingdom and the Islamic and local-religious societies that have attracted increasing attention in recent decades, tracing their internal features, interrelations, and imbrication in broader networks stretching from Egypt and Yemen to Europe and India. Utilizing diverse source types and methodologies, its fifteen essays offer an up-to-date overview of the subject for students and nonspecialists, and are rich in material for researchers. 

Contributors are Alessandro Bausi, Claire Bosc-Tiessé, Antonella Brita, Amélie Chekroun, Marie-Laure Derat, Deresse Ayenachew, François-Xavier Fauvelle, Emmanuel Fritsch, Alessandro Gori, Habtemichael Kidane, Margaux Herman, Bertrand Hirsch, Samantha Kelly, Gianfrancesco Lusini, Denis Nosnitsin, and Anaïs Wion. 

The third and final book is Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe by Verena Krebs  (Palgrave, 2021), 325pp. About this book the publisher has this to say: 

This book explores why Ethiopian kings pursued long-distance diplomatic contacts with Latin Europe in the late Middle Ages. It traces the history of more than a dozen embassies dispatched to the Latin West by the kings of Solomonic Ethiopia, a powerful Christian kingdom in the medieval Horn of Africa. Drawing on sources from Europe, Ethiopia, and Egypt, it examines the Ethiopian kings' motivations for sending out their missions in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries - and argues that a desire to acquire religious treasures and foreign artisans drove this early intercontinental diplomacy. Moreover, the Ethiopian initiation of contacts with the distant Christian sphere of Latin Europe appears to have been intimately connected to a local political agenda of building monumental ecclesiastical architecture in the North-East African highlands, and asserted the Ethiopian rulers' claim of universal kingship and rightful descent from the biblical king Solomon. Shedding new light on the self-identity of a late medieval African dynasty at the height of its power, this book challenges conventional narratives of African-European encounters on the eve of the so-called 'Age of Exploration'.

From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt

First released in hardcover in 2014, and then this past May in paperback, Maged Mikhail's From Byzantine to Islamic Egypt: Religion, Identity and Politics after the Arab Conquest joins a series of other recent publications (discussed here and here) examining what happened to Christian populations after the conquest of Islam in the early seventh century.

As with Penn and Hoyland, Mikhail's book begins by noting that when Arab Muslims encountered residents of Egypt, what began in that encounter was not the complete replacement of one culture by another, but the great co-mingling of many ideas and practices. Thus he also issues a correction and caution against seeing the year 641 as some kind of radical break.

He begins by noting important issues with texts and their interpretation. In some ways, there are problems of abundance. In others, as is well known, there are problems of scarcity and unreliability among Arabic texts. With these latter, the biggest problem is the length of the period in which they circulated orally, subject to all manner of revision and emendation. You can only imagine what that does to the reliability of the tales retailed thereby.

But Christian texts are not without their own problems. Focusing on the well-known History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria, Mikhail notes the textual variants in the two main recensions of that key document for so much of Alexandrian ecclesiastical history.

All this pales, he suggests, in the light of the massive doctrinal controversies that so marred Egypt, the frontline of the fight between Chalcedonians and non-Chalcedonians. Anything and everything has been touched and tarred by this, and the fact that the Coptic Church emerged as a non-Chalcedonian church has been used to explain all kinds of things, no matter how far-fetched. Here a good deal of the influence is still felt by W.H.C. Frend's study from 1972, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement.

It is now exceedingly difficult, Mikhail says, to see which, if any, of the Coptic Christians in Egypt believed in the comical and amateurish notion of "monophysitism" that has come down to us as a belief in a "single divine nature." It was, in other words, a heresy held by nobody. Rather, Coptic Christians were concerned that Chalcedon was suspectible of a "Nestorian" interpretation, and to guard against this they preferred the well-known Cyrillian formula "of two natures" rather than Chalcedon's "in two natures."

As a result of getting this clear, Mikhail says we must now reject the idea that the "monophysites" suffered from an "intrinsic inability to resist Islamic theology." To be sure, the intrusion of Islam did eventually force greater co-operation among the various Christian groups in Egypt, but it was a much longer and messier process than many imagined. And here, too, he also debunks the slanderous nonsense that the Copts, hating their "Byzantine" "overlords" turned around to "welcome" the Islamic invaders. This lie has been debunked again and again, and it comes in for fresh demolition here in a book marked by careful sifting of the evidence (the notes and bibliography run to well over 100pp) and very much worth your time if you have any interest in Coptic, Egyptian, Islamic, Arabic, and doctrinal history.

The Ecumenical Councils: An Interview with Sergey Trostyanskiy

From the first moments of its inception, this blog has sung the praises of Gorgias Press for its devotion to Eastern Christian publications in a collection unrivaled by anyone for its vastness. Here is but the latest of many offerings, a book I previously noted: Seven Icons of Christ: An Introduction to the Oikoumenical Councils (Gorgias Press, 2016). It will be a welcome addition to any classroom covering these most important gatherings in church history. The book follows a helpful standard format and will make not only primary documents, but up-to-date scholarship on the seven councils, accessible to students of our day.

The timing of this book is significant insofar as the topic of councils, and their status, has of course been greatly debated in these last days as most of the Orthodox churches have assembled on Crete for the long-expected council that has been in preparation for most of the last century. I asked the editor, Sergey Trostyanskiy, for an interview about this collection, and here are his thoughts.

AD:  Tell us about your background

ST: I am currently a Research Fellow of the Sophia Institute of Byzantine and Eastern Orthodox studies, New York and Union Theological Seminary, New York. I hold a PhD from Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York. My research interests include Byzantine history and philosophy.

AD: What led you to put together this collection?

ST: The idea of this volume was introduced to me by John A. McGuckin who is my mentor and also, at the time, supervised by doctoral thesis on St. Cyril of Alexandria. Whatever this giant communicated to me was indeed some sort of categorical imperative. The rational behind the volume was to come up with a more up-to-date volume on the Councils that can be used by graduate and undergraduate students of Patristic thought possibly extending its readership to all interested in the subject.


AD: How do you see your book as different from other treatments of the Seven Ecumenical Councils (e.g., Leo Davis’s book from 1988; or more recently Stephen Need)?

We thought that the degree of discernment and theological import of those studies did not fully exhaust the subject. Leo David’s book, despite its merits, used certain conceptual tools that at this point appear quite antiquated, so to say. Stephen Need’s recent account has many merits as well. But again, this book did not exhaust the subject at stake (which is indeed inexhaustible). Our particular emphasis was on explicating the philosophical foundations of the Councils. Moreover, we aimed to provide more up-to-date reference sources for the subject matter.

AD: How has recent scholarship on the councils held up vis-à-vis earlier studies? Has there been a lot of historical revision, or is there greater continuity?

The science of Christ was set in motion a few millennia ago. Since then it keeps rethinking its own foundational sources. We can think of modern scholarship as a midrash on patristic literature. Indeed, it revolves around certain themes. Thus, there is a certain thematic and semantic continuity between any scholarly efforts (more or less modern) to make sense of this very aporetic subject (i.e. the nature of God, of Christ, etc.). In general, the science of Christ remains vibrant and moves alone swiftly, constantly reevaluating and reassessing its own historical and speculative accounts.

At this moment the question should be confined within the boundaries of the late-eighteenth to early twentieth-century scholarship. We can thus speak of “modern scholarship” within this time-frame. My opinion is that, in general, “modern scholarship” aimed to make sense of Patristic literature so as to properly elucidate its contents by rediscovering its historical horizons and philosophical underpinnings. In other words, the right exegesis of Patristic literature was the final end of Patristic studies during that time. This is indeed not to say that in many instances the studies of Patristic literature were ideologically leveraged, thus reading modern concerns into ancient sources and approaching the subject apologetically. This pattern indeed aimed at subverting the original intention of exegetical studies, practicing rather an eisegesis of Patristic literature. Even so, the idea of being faithful to the source marked off that period. The studies of the councils in general followed the same path.

I should say that there has been a major shift in Patristic studies in the second half of the twentieth century (since c. the 1970s). The subject area nowadays no longer appears simple but rather over-complex. Various clichés of the previous centuries and decades had being reevaluated and an increasing number of studies published. This ascent of interest in Patristic literature was also accompanied by an oikoumenical movement which sought to find common grounds between Chalcedonian and Non-Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. As a result, a more sympathetic hearing was given to certain great miaphysite scholars of Patristic time.

The same can be said of various heterodox figures and movements of the same era. The agenda of restoring the reputation of the “heretics” found its implementation in the restoration of certain great figures of the time as Orthodox. Their theology was reset as reflecting diverging “theologumena” rather than subverting the purity of faith as reflected in doctrine. Hence, a certain “relativist” trend became fashionable among the scholars, one that tried to wash away oikoumenically established demarcation lines between Orthodoxy and heresy. Even so, more recent scholarly endeavors were not bound by the necessity of framing research within an oikoumenically correct rhetoric.

As far as the studies of the councils are concerned, all these aspects should be taken into account. Here we have more or less the same patterns of thought operative. Moreover, in the last few decades there was an attempt to translate the proceedings of the councils into modern languages. Richard Price’s translation of Chalcedon and Constantinople II, for instance, gave scholars and the general audience an opportunity to read ancient documents in English for the first time in history.

To conclude: the science of Christ and of its foundational oikoumenical pillars (i.e. Councils) is as vibrant as it has ever been. Its development can be described as discontinuous continuity or as a continuous revision of its own method and sources, one that remains faithful to the sources through the constant critical reassessment of its own feeble methodological and ideological roots.

AD: In the lead-up to the Orthodox great and holy council on Crete this week, there has been some discussion of two issues. First, some called for recognizing an 8th, and perhaps even 9th, council as “ecumenical” by the Orthodox East. Did you have any thoughts on that? Is the number seven somehow “sacred” for some, so that no additions to the list of “ecumenical” councils could be entertained?

Indeed, there is a certain numerological or, rather, arithmological significance attached to the numbers. If we apply Iamblichus’ arithmology to the subject at stake we may perhaps say that, in a sense, the non-Chalcedonian triad in this volume is completed by the Chalcedonian hebdomad. Even so, we may perhaps ascend to a composite number 21 (according to the Roman Catholic count) which is divisible not only by itself and unity but also by 3 and 7 (thus having 3 and 7 as its elements). At any rate, seven seems preferable for various reasons, firstly, because it represents the golden mean between the two extremes (Miaphysite and Roman Catholic), and secondly because it has a structural affinity to the Incarnate Christ. As we learn from Nicomachus of Gerasa: “its structure has been collected and gathered together in a manner resembling unity since it is altogether indissoluble, except into something which has the same denominator as itself; or because all things have brought their natural results to completion by its agency.” Thus, this volume comes to rest at number seven. We can indeed supply a speculative numerological account for the subject matter. However, I bet, not many bishops will endorse it. So, we shall better set it aside and say that, even if the number seven has a certain sacred dimension, nothing prevents Orthodoxy from extending the number of councils to 8 or 9 or 21, etc. for the sake of reinforcing unity and attaining other good things that would benefit the Orthodox Churches and their people.

AD: The second question is over the status of the Crete gathering, which remains much in dispute. Normally, of course, a council is accounted “ecumenical” in retrospect. But are there clear criteria consistently applied from 325-787 that might guide future discussions of whether the 2016 gathering is “ecumenical” or not? 

There was indeed a set of criteria for a council to be accounted oikoumenical (I briefly delineated some criteria in the volume). Even so, in some cases not all criteria were fulfilled and not all conditions satisfied by particular councils. However, the following generations of bishops endorsed such “formally impure” councils as oikoumenical. More important was the fact that for the collective phronema of the time these councils were marked off by the work of the Spirit made manifest through the gathering of the bishops. I think the formal criteria represent sufficient but not necessary conditions for a council to acquire the status of oikoumenical. It is the combination of formalities and the work of the Spirit that are thought of as both necessary and sufficient conditions for oikoumenisity.

In a sense there is a diminished degree of ecumenicity that we could already contemplate in the Seven Councils (based on their diminished representational quality after the Non-Chalcedonian fraction of Christendom was alienated from mainstream Orthodoxy and later on when the Latin Church suspended its participation in the last Council). The degree of ecumenicity of the newly proposed 8th council is indeed even more diminished as it includes only Orthodox (Chalcedonian) Churches. Hence, it is rather Pan-Orthodox (i.e. Chalcedonian Orthodoxy) or quasi-oikoumenical.

AD: Your own five-fold definition of “ecumenical” (p.1) notes in the third point the presence of the emperor to convoke a council. In the absence of an emperor today, is it impossible to have any council attain the status of “ecumenical”?

It the context of the modern world characterized by the fractured political units (mainly national states) and by the policy of separation between Church and State (adapted according to certain precepts of the Enlightenment that disjoined religion and politics), the absence of the emperor combining both political and ecclesiastical functions is indeed an obstacle for convening a council that can overcome “national interests” and rivalry between ecclesiastical groups so as to attain to the level of oikoumenisity.

AD: If, say, an aspiring graduate student were looking for a thesis topic in the area of the ecumenical councils, what areas, if any, remain unexplored or underexplored? What avenues of conciliar scholarship still need attention?

In my opinion, philosophical underpinnings of Patristic thought is the area of studies that was most neglected by “modern scholarship” because in its quest for “purity” of Patristic thought it incidentally purged it of its proper conceptual foundation. Thus, the link between late antique and early Christian thought was de-emphasized purposely. However, at this point, this policy seems to fall out of favor. Hence, the study of the philosophical horizons of Patristic and conciliar thought is a great avenue of scholarship that needs further attention.

AD: Sum up your hopes for this book, and who in particular will benefit from reading it

This book is designed to present to a wide Christian audience interested in Christian doctrinal development, these seven key iconic moments of intellectual history that formulate the classical profession of Jesus Christ as the Word of God Incarnate. The critical essays in this book, specially commissioned for this project by the Sophia Institute of Byzantine Studies and prepared by advanced scholars of the Early Church, set out an exposition of the proceedings of the Seven Ecumenical Councils; a review of the chief works of the major protagonists associated with the councils; the immediate intellectual aftermath; as well as a considered reflection or commentary on the theological ekthesis (theological profession) of each council. The end result is a book whose critical value should make it required reading by specialists, but also will allow it to serve as a solid and scholarly introduction to the subject for both undergraduate and graduate level students.

AD: If you were invited to give a presentation to the bishops assembled this month in Crete, offering them any advice or warnings or suggestions from the seven ecumenical councils, what would you say?

Well, the proposed council is not a typical one since no issues relating to doctrine are at stake at the moment, all concerns being centered on canon law and ecclesiastical discipline and issues associated with them. In a sense this reduced agenda is easier to deal with. Even so, taking into account the presence of significant disagreements on the issues of canonical territories, those of leadership and rank, etc., and the absence of imperial power capable of resolving any issues by arguments or by cutting the Gordian knot and thus appeasing the rival fractions and overriding their squabbles, I see that the only means of persuasion available for the resolution of contentious issues is discussion and argument. But that can go on and on. As the history of the Councils clearly demonstrated, the work of the Spirit and that of the Imperial power used to go hand in hand. If one element is absent, the means of persuasion by force is removed from the scene; the management of affairs by argument led by the Spirit is the only available option. I have no expertise on the subject of the proposed council, but I think that the council should move on under the guidance of the Spirit, who is the sole choir master in this case that can conduct the bishops and orchestrate any conciliar gatherings. Hence, the collective phronema of the Church leaders should reflect on or be the work of the Spirit.

AD: Having finished this collection, Seven Icons of Christ: An Introduction to the Oikoumenical Councils, what are you at work on now in your research?

I am finalizing a monograph entitled St. Cyril of Alexandria’s Metaphysics of the Incarnation (forthcoming, Peter Lang, 2016) and editing (with Theodore Dedon) a collected volume of essays entitled Love, Marriage and Family in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition, also with Theodore Dedon (forthcoming: Gorgias Press, 2016).

Cyril of Alexandria's Christology

The Catholic University of America Press continues their invaluable tradition of publishing translations of ancient patristic texts. In their fall catalogue, they tell me of one such volume set for release around Christmas: St. Cyril of Alexandria, Three Christological Treatises, trans. Daniel King (CUA Press, 2014), 200pp.


About this book we are told:

Cyril, bishop of Alexandria from 412 to 444, is renowned both as one of the most authoritative of all the fathers of the church, and at the same time as one of the most controversial of all church politicians. He oversaw the final extinguishing of pagan religion from Alexandria, and also spent the height of his career as a statesman and an author fighting the doctrines of Nestorius, whose excommunication he brought about at the Council of Ephesus (431). Having spent the first fifteen years of his episcopate writing extensive commentaries on Scripture, from 429 onwards Cyril turned his enormous learning and talent for penning and distributing polemic tracts to the development of doctrinal orthodoxy after he sensed that the new ideas coming out of Constantinople threatened the very core of the Christian doctrines of Incarnation and salvation. The three treatises here translated into English for the first time all belong to the period around the ecumenical council. On Orthodoxy to Theodosius was written for the emperor, a year before the council met, with the aim of persuading him that Nestorius's sermons were heretical and that his task as leader of both church and state was to ensure right religious observance. The Defense against the Bishops of Oriens and the Defense against Theodoret were written in the months leading up to the council when Cyril found himself required to defend his notorious "Twelve Chapters (or Anathemas)," which many bishops in other parts of the empire felt had gone too far in an anti-Nestorian direction. All three works were key parts of Cyril's battle for orthodoxy and mark key moments in the church's progress towards the definition of Christological orthodoxy that was made at Chalcedon.

The Culture of "Heresy"

It has been fashionable in academic circles for decades to sneer at the concept of heresy and to always put that term and its cognates in scare quotes, seeing heresy merely as some crude will-to-power over political enemies. When confronted with this, I always think of a 1932 essay by the great English writer Evelyn Waugh denouncing the fashion for refusing to condemn anything: "there are still things worth fighting against."

Equally fashionable, however, particularly in so-called traditionalist circles, is the condemnation of anyone and everyone as "heretical" who does not hew to your own sanctimonious ideology masquerading as theology, Church history, "holy Tradition," etc. These people are constantly cherry-picking what they like, ignoring what they don't, and turning everything into "confessional propaganda" (Taft) and "soteriological exclusivism" (Hryniewicz) with which to bludgeon everyone else.

And then there is the third group which I often find among my students, who know nothing about Dogmengeschichte and who therefore assume that doctrine and creeds are not terribly important, and certainly not worth fighting over (they are utterly baffled, and not a little disdainful, when reading about conflict at and after ecumenical councils, especially Chalcedon). Creeds, they assume, must merely have "fallen from heaven one year during Good Friday luncheon" (to use another Waugh line from his uproarious historical novel Helena).

All three groups err--the first by neglect, the second by excess, the third by ignorance. The first group ignores the very real danger, as Richard Weaver famously put it, that Ideas Have Consequences. To have erred in defining the nature of Christ or some other matter could potentially have been fatal to the whole Christian enterprise. But fatal for human relations, and certainly for Christian unity, is the impulse to damn people whose positions you scarcely understand, whom you tendentiously and self-righteously caricature and anathematize in hysterical-polemical modes that may prove, upon sober reconsideration, to have been grossly misleading. That, surely, is what many Eastern Christians have done with Chalcedon. We have spent hundreds of years condemning each other in our hymnody and hagiography when careful examination by competent scholars today has revealed that much of the split was based on linguistic misapprehension and misunderstanding, as Kenneth Yossa's indispensable book Common Heritage, Divided Communion: The Declines and Advances of Inter-Orthodox Relations from Chalcedon to Chambésy makes clear (as I noted here).

These thoughts were brought to mind in two ways: first in reading the newly translated  Icons and the Name of God by Sergius Bulgakov (whom some, of course, infamously rushed to condemn as heretic early in the 20th century). I'm giving a lecture next year with a colleague (a specialist in Western Renaissance religious art, especially in Italy) on iconoclasms East and West and thus was led to read Bulgakov, who carefully lays out the arguments of the iconoclasts and rightly notes that they were a lot more intellectually sophisticated and theologically compelling than we often give them credit for. The same can and has been said about the so-called Arians in the Nicene period, whose arguments, as Khaled Anatolios's splendid book makes clear, were far from the hoary stereotypes Byzantine hymnody conjures up--even if they were, indeed, still wrong. (To be clear: I do believe, in fact, that heresy exists, and needs to be condemned, but the nature of the condemnation must proceed very carefully and usually only after a long period of very careful and painstaking consideration once passions have cooled so that we do not end up boxing ourselves in with condemnations that we later realize were based not on what someone actually said but on what their enemies (or, worse, their so-called friends!) tendentiously and maliciously claimed they said. As Evagrius, Origen, Augustine, and Bulgakov, inter alia, can tell you, that's a sure-fire way to slander someone and in so doing, no glory is brought to the Truth Himself. Such "condemnations," moreover, are not the province of individual apologists or bloggers, but of the Church herself only through her conciliar organs. Such condemnations, finally, must always be presented graciously in merciful and medicinal terms with a view to bringing the wayward back, not to shunning them forever. Why people who gleefully engage in such shunning and shrill condemnations think theirs a productive strategy is a great mystery to me. Such antics only serve to poison relations, drive people in the opposite direction, and ensure that no reconciliation takes place. Surely 1600 years after Chalcedon, the breech still not completely healed, we realize that?)

I was, in the second instance, put in mind of these thoughts upon receipt of a new book published at the end of September: Andrew P. Roach and James R. Simpson, eds., Heresy and the Making of European Culture: Medieval and Modern Perspectives (Ashgate, 2013), 440pp.

About this book we are told:

Scholars and analysts seeking to illuminate the extraordinary creativity and innovation evident in European medieval cultures and their afterlives have thus far neglected the important role of religious heresy. The papers collected here - reflecting the disciplines of history, literature, theology, philosophy, economics and law - examine the intellectual and social investments characteristic of both deliberate religious dissent such as the Cathars of Languedoc, the Balkan Bogomils, the Hussites of Bohemia and those who knowingly or unknowingly bent or broke the rules, creating their own 'unofficial orthodoxies'. Attempts to understand, police and eradicate all these, through methods such as the Inquisition, required no less ingenuity. The ambivalent dynamic evident in the tensions between coercion and dissent is still recognisable and productive in the world today. 

We are given the table of contents and note that the first article is by one of Orthodoxy's leading theologians in the anglophone world and the rest of the volume does not ignore Orthodoxy either:

Introduction, Andrew P. Roach and James R. Simpson; Part I The Wheat and The Tares: The rebaptism of heretics in the Orthodox canonical tradition, Kallistos Ware; Heresy and political legitimacy in Al-Andalus, Maribel Fierro; The burning of heretical books, Alexander Murray; Lombard religiosities reconsidered: ‘Arianism’, syncretism and the transition to Catholic Christianity, Marilyn Dunn. Part II Inventing Heresies: Perceptions of heresy in historiographical and hagiographical sources of Aquitaine and the Loire Valley during the high Middle Ages, Julien Bellabre; The Bogomils’ folk heritage: false friend or neglected source?, Maja Angelovska-Panova and Andrew P. Roach. Part III Approaching Literary and Narrative Sources: Why God keeps sending his angels: domestic disturbance and Joseph’s doubts about Mary in Chester and York, Judith R. Anderson; Vernacular poetry and the spiritual Franciscans of the Languedoc: the poems of Ramon de Cornet, Catherine Léglu; Heretic Hussites: Oswald von Wolkenstein’s ‘Song of Hell’ (‘Durch Toren Weis’), Sieglinde Hartmann; Dogging Cornwall’s ‘secret freaks’: Béroul on the limits of European orthodoxy, James R. Simpson. Part IV Law and the Inquisition: ‘Heresy’ in Quercy in the 1240s: authorities and audiences, Claire Taylor; Heresy, orthodoxy and the interaction between canon and civil law in Theodore Balsamon’s commentaries, Peter Petkoff; Fighting clergy, church councils and the contexts of law: the cutting edge of orthodoxy or the ambiguous limits of legitimacy?, Daniel Gerrard; ‘Famosus est et satis publicum’: factionalism and the limits of doctrine in the case against Meister Eckhart, Alessandra Beccarisi; The Inquisition in medieval Bohemia: national and international contexts, Eva Doležalová; Clerical illegitimacy in the diocese of Sodor: exception or rule in the late medieval Church?, Sarah Thomas. Part V Heresy, Place and Community: Learning by doing: coping with Inquisitors in medieval Languedoc, James Given; Travels and studies of Stephen of Siwnik (c. 685-735): re-defining Armenian orthodoxy under Islamic rule, Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev; Catharism and heresy in Milan, Faye Taylor; Church reform and witch-hunting in the diocese of Lausanne: the example of Bishop George of Saluzzo, Georg Modestin. Part VI Distant Mirrors: Heresies, Orthodoxies and Modernities: Between medieval and modern beholding: Heidegger, Deleuze and the Duns Scotus affair, Philip Tonner; Heresy and its afterlives in Communist-era Poland, John M. Bates; Not just price: scholastic economic theology and fair trade, Robert I. Mochrie; Index.

Armenian Christology

The Armenian Church is of course counted as one of the so-called Oriental Orthodox Churches. In the last forty years, however, the whole business of the divisions after Chalcedon have come in for fresh re-examination on all sides, and dialogues between Orientals and Catholics, and between Orientals and Byzantines, have both revealed that the Chalcedonian divide was never as wide as imagined, and has today been largely bridged. Now we have a new book examining Armenian Christology:

Mesrob Krikorian, Christology of the Oriental Orthodox Churches: Christology in the Tradition of the Armenian Apostolic Church (Peter Lang, 2010), 309pp. 


The Armenian priest and theologian Daniel Findikyan will review this in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies in 2011.

Overcoming the Chalcedonian Divide

Kenneth F. Yossa, Common Heritage, Divided Communion: Advances of Inter-Orthodox Relations from Chalcedon to Chambésy (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2009), x+272pp.

Many people today, so ill educated in even recent history and having no knowledge of doctrinal history, seem to imagine the creeds fell from heaven during luncheon one Friday afternoon. These innocents continue to be slack-jawed when they hear of the debates and divisions in the aftermath of Chalcedon, and even more astonished when they hear that those divisions are still not healed. Many, perhaps most, Orthodox faithful in particular are unaware that things have advanced to such a point today that neither side of the Chalcedonian divide can justly or correctly be condemned as "heterodox."  But many misunderstandings continue to abound about Chalcedon and its aftermath. I noted earlier a recent book about all this, but thought I would post my longer review (from Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies) of a superb new book by the Romanian Catholic priest Kenneth Yossa because he helps us to see precisely where we are, and what we must do to heal the Oriental-Byzantine divide. 

Yossa's first two chapters synthesize the history of doctrinal definitions and divisions in the early Church, centering, of course, on Chalcedon. This part of the book would function very well on its own as an introduction to the ecumenical councils. He is able to describe an enormous terrain of considerable complexity, but do so in a way that never loses its focus or overwhelms the reader in a mass of tangents or distractions. 

The third chapter focuses on the beginning of Orthodox ecumenical dialogue in 1960s. The first (unofficial) 1964 Aarhus (Denmark) consultation, followed by the 1967 consultation in Bristol, England, both, in a matter of days, produced an agreement on the part of theologians and bishops on both sides stating that neither side was guilty of “the heresy suspected of it by the other” (100). The Bristol consultation also produced the (to my mind) astonishing statement that “dogmatic formulae can be transcended by the experience of the Church, which can complete them and extend them…safeguarded by the holy limits of Revelation.” If that is not an endorsement of the concept of “development of doctrine” that some Orthodox theologians sneeringly dismiss whenever Catholics raise the notion, then I do not know what is. 

After continued unofficial and official meetings over the next two decades, progress was made to such a point that, in 1990 in Chambésy, both affirmed that “we have now clearly understood that both families have always loyally maintained the same authentic Orthodox Christological faith, and the unbroken continuity of the apostolic tradition, though they have used Christological terms in different ways” (124). They went on to call for the lifting of “all anathemas and condemnations” and a consequent restoration of full eucharistic communion. As things have turned out, the greater difficulty has proven to be not the Christological debate, but the anathemas and condemnations each side hurled at the other. To retract these now would seem to suggest that the canonical and liturgical texts were somehow in error, a mind-boggling notion for many. 

Since 1993, no formal meeting of all representatives of Churches on both sides has taken place, and no individual Church on either side of the divide has actually ratified the agreed statements. Worse, in the late 1990s, as the Orthodox Churches in Eastern Europe continued to emerge from their communist pasts, some of them—the Georgian in particular—actually repudiated the earlier agreed statements, unhelpfully calling them “unacceptable.” This sad development followed on shortly from the Georgian Church’s withdrawal, in 1997, from the World Council of Churches. 

The situation in the Middle East, however, is much more positive, as Eastern and Oriental Churches there have continued the work of drawing closer to one another. The Coptic and Greek patriarchs of Alexandria, and the Greek and Syriac patriarchs of Antioch, have produced very similar agreements on limited sacramental sharing, catechetical co-operation, and other pastoral matters. Here, as in Europe, the focus has “shifted from the ‘what’ of the Christology to the ‘how’ of ecclesiology” (148). Today both sides need to grapple with the role of councils and their reception, with anathemas of saints and fathers, and with jurisdictional questions (“one bishop to one city”). 

A further question has arisen in this dialogue as in the Eastern Orthodox-Catholic one: what is the real meaning and purpose of lifting an anathema or excommunication if it does not in fact lead to a shared sacramental life around one eucharistic table? If we are not excommunicated from one another, but yet not sharing one chalice, then what are we? Is there some kind of half-way house to unity? 

Yossa recognizes that we need a widespread healing of memories, and much work must be done at the level of what he variously calls “local ecumenism” or “popular ecumenism.” He notes that “very little, if anything, has changed in the popular view regarding ‘Monophysites’ in the West and in most Eastern Orthodox communities” (185). Both sides need to overcome the ancient mentality which continues today to condemn the other side as “heretical” and, tediously, to slander all laborers for unity as guilty of the “pan-heresy” of “ecumenism.” Difficult though ecumenical dialogue and progress may be, Christians of all traditions need to realize that the will of Christ for unity among His followers is not something we can chuck because it is laborious, or condemn because it does not fit into straitened and simplistic categories of our own devising. After sixteen centuries of division, when the Byzantine and Oriental Orthodox have already come so far and unity is so agonizingly close, can any of us afford to continue to try the Lord’s patience by failing to advance towards the full and complete unity He demands of us?