Byzantine Hagiography

Saints and their making continue to inspire great interest, and not just among ecclesiastical historians or theologians. A recent book helps us to understand Byzantine hagiography: Stephanos Efthymiadis, ed., The Ashgate Research Companion to Byzantine Hagiography (Ashgate, 2011), 464pp.

About this book, the publisher tells us:

Hagiography is the most abundantly represented genre of Byzantine literature and it offers crucial insight to the development of religious thought and practice, social and literary life, and the history of the empire. It emerged in the fourth century with the pioneering "Life of St Antony" and continued to evolve until the end of the empire in the fifteenth century, and beyond. The appeal and dynamics of this genre radiated beyond the confines of Byzantium, and it was practised also in many Oriental and Slavic languages within the orbit of the broader Byzantine world. This Companion is the work of an international team of specialists and represents the first comprehensive survey ever produced in this field. It will consist of two volumes and is addressed to both a broader public and the scholarly community of Byzantinists, Medievalists, historians of religion and theorists of the narrative. The present volume covers, first, the authors and texts of the four distinctive periods during which Greek Byzantine hagiography developed, and then the hagiography produced in Oriental and Slavic languages and in geographical milieux around the periphery of the empire, from Italy to Armenia. A second volume will deal with questions of genres and the social and other contexts of Byzantine hagiography.

The Trinity-Sergius Lavra and the Heart of Russia

I earlier noted several recent books all treating broadly the question of the relationship between monasticism and the formation of Russian identity. One of those is Scott Kenworthy, The Heart of Russia: Trinity-Sergius, Monasticism, and Society after 1825 (A Woodrow Wilson Center Book) (Oxford University Press, 2010), xv+528pp.

I have finally had a chance to read it at the behest of Reviews in Religion and Theology, for which I have written a justly laudatory review. I cannot reproduce here my review of this deeply impressive book, but let me simply say that anyone who knows anything about Russian Orthodoxy and monasticism, and Russian cultural history more widely, knows the importance of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra--the heart of Russia indeed--and such an important institution has now found the important book it deserves. This, in my estimation, is church history at its best: a lucid, lavishly detailed examination of one institution (or, rather, set of institutions) through which one can clearly see and understand wider developments in Russian history, including not least the 1917 Revolution--a microcosmic view, in other words, that helpfully opens to the macrocosmic, the former helping us to more deeply understand the latter.

In addition, the second factor making this such an achievement is that Kenworthy manages something many historians do not: to be both objective in telling his story but theologically literate and sympathetic at the same time. Anyone interested in Russian history generally in this time-period, and Russian Orthodox history, as well as Russian monasticism in particular, cannot afford to overlook this superlative work of scholarship, which has already won the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer prize of the American Society for Church History. 

Is Matthew Levering Predestined to Make Us All Look Like Slackers?

Last week I was very graciously invited to lecture at the University of Dayton in Ohio. My visit there was arranged by Matthew Levering, and he is even more impressive in person than in writing, not least for his enormous humility in the face of so many superlative accomplishments. His rate of publishing makes one's jaw drop; it utterly shatters on the floor when you realize that in addition to the ten or more books he has authored by himself in the last decade (and for major publishers, chiefly Oxford), he has edited that many books again, published untold articles and reviews, edits the journal Nova et Vetera, and has a young and large family.

Readers may recall my interview with him and Gilles Emery on their recent The Oxford Handbook of the Trinity (Oxford Handbooks in Religion), a wonderful collection I highly recommend. You may also be interested in my review of his Christ and the the Catholic Priesthood: Ecclesial Hierarchy and the Pattern of the Trinity,
which is an outstandingly thorough-going theological engagement on the question of hierarchy and priesthood as seen in numerous figures East and West, including especially John Zizioulas--as well as Afanasiev, Schmemann, and Evdokimov.

In addition he has written many books on Scripture and exegesis, on Thomas Aquinas, natural law, sacraments, and, one of his most recent, which he promised to send me, Predestination: Biblical and Theological Paths, a book that engages much of Eastern theology. It will receive attention on here in due course. But the book does raise the question: is he predestined to make the rest of us look like slackers and layabouts?

On a more serious note, what is, above all, most impressive about his work is how precisely--and, it seems, almost effortlessly--he embodies the role described in the gospels of the householder who brings out of his storeroom treasures both old and new. I admire Levering because in an age when--as Alasdair MacIntyre acidly observed more than thirty years ago--most Western theology is in a state of intellectual disrepair lower at any time than since the start of the second millennium, Levering is able to speak to our age and its questions in a manner not enough of us attempt today. He faces the challenges of our age and does not cravenly capitulate to the latest intellectual fashion of the bien pensants, but neither does he respond with a ham-fisted assertion of creedal propositions one must blindly accept: neither a Quisling nor a Savonarola he. Instead, in careful, lucid, respectful prose, he engages the challenges and questions, and seeks to answer them ex traditione or, if you will, ex corde Ecclesiae, bringing out the treasures of the faith in a way that is fresh and inviting. We very much need more of this, and so we must pray he lives until either his fortieth birthday or the publication of his thousandth book--whichever comes first!

Contesting Origen

Is there any figure in early Eastern Christianity more controverted than Origen of Alexandria? Is there any other man whose legacy may have been more ill-served, or certainly more picked over, by his so-called friends? He continues to inspire a great deal of scholarly attention today, as he has for nearly 1800 years since his death. A new book adds to this attention:

Demetrios Katos, Palladius of Helenopolis: The Origenist Advocate (Oxford Early Christian Studies, 2012), 288pp. 

This book, the publisher tells us, is:

• The first monograph devoted to the life, work, and thought of Palladius of Helenopolis (ca. 362-420), who is a key source for the lives of John Chrysostom, Theophilus of Alexandria, and Evagrius of Pontus, and in the topics of asceticism, spirituality, pilgrimage, hagiography, gender construction, and Origenism.

• Offers a new reading of of Palladius' Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom and his Lausiac History.

• Clearly written to be accessible to readers without prior knowledge of Palladius' writings.

This book is the first monograph devoted to the life, work, and thought of Palladius of Helenopolis (ca. 362-420), an important witness of Christianity in late antiquity. Palladius' Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom and his Lausiac History are key sources for our knowledge of John Chrysostom's downfall and of the Origenist controversy, and they both provide rich information concerning many notable ecclesiastical personalities such as John Chrysostom, Theophilus of Alexandria, Jerome, Evagrius of Pontus, Melania the Elder, Isidore of Alexandria, and the Tall Brothers.

Demetrios S. Katos employs late antique theories of judicial rhetoric and argumentation, theories whose significance is only now becoming apparent to late antique scholars, to elicit new insights from the Dialogue regarding the controversy that resulted in the death of John Chrysostom. He also demonstrates that the Lausiac History deliberately promoted to the imperial court of Pulcheria a spiritual theology that was indebted to his guide Evagrius and more broadly to the legacy of Origen, despite Jerome's recent attacks against both. Palladius emerges from this account not merely as a peripatetic monk, his own preferred self-portrait that has prevailed in most modern accounts, but as an ecclesiastical statesman who passionately supported both the causes and ideas of his associates in the most pressing controversies of his day. 

The study will also be valuable for scholars of late antiquity working in the areas of asceticism, spirituality, pilgrimage, hagiography, and early Christian constructions of gender, for all of which Palladius' works are important sources.

Electing a New Pope...of Alexandria

It was with sadness that I learned of the death of Pope Shenouda III, the Coptic patriarch of Alexandria. In fact, just last weekend in Los Angeles, before hearing of the news of his death, I had a conversation with one Orthodox Christian who told me that a new Coptic monastery in southern California was apparently built recently in part to be a place of refuge and possible retirement for the Coptic pope. Now that is not to be. Eternal memory!

He has had a very difficult papacy over the last several decades as the plight of Coptic Christians in Egypt has gone from bad to worse. It is surely a mercy that he has been spared any more of this suffering, which looks only to worsen in the months and years ahead if current trends are any indication.

Certain aspects of the press have been amusingly shocked at how the obsequies are unfolding, with Copts coming to see and reverence the fully vested body of the late patriarch, as here:

But this is a good and healthy thing, as I have argued before. And it is not entirely uncommon in the Christian East. I know that Syriac hierarchs have been recently buried in a similar manner, as you can see here in the Malankara church.

What comes next? Unlike the Roman pope, there are no "cardinals" in the Coptic Church to meet in secret conclave to elect a successor. Instead, the Coptic Church's procedures have varied over time, as I demonstrate in my Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity.

In the main, the election has historically involved many parts of the Coptic Church and is not confined merely to other hierarchs: usually lower clergy, and laity, vote on a new patriarch, often using the ancient biblical method of finally selecting a candidate by lot.

Regardless of method used this time, let us pray for a man of great strength for he shall surely need it in the trials that lie ahead.

Gabriel Said Reynolds on Islam and the Quran

In the coming weeks, I hope to feature an interview with Gabriel Reynolds of the University of Notre Dame and author of a book due out in April: The Emergence of Islam: Classical Traditions in Contemporary Perspective (Fortress Press, 2012), 248pp.


About this book, the publisher tells us:

Gabriel Said Reynolds tells the story of Islam in this brief illustrated survey, beginning with Muhammad's early life and rise to power, then tracing the origins and development of the Qur’an juxtaposed with biblical literature, and concluding with an overview of modern and fundamentalist narratives of the origin of Islam. Reynolds offers a fascinating look at the structure and meaning of the Qur'an, revealing the ways in which biblical language is used to advance the Qur'an's religious meaning. Reynolds' analysis identifies the motives that shaped each narrative—Islamic, Jewish, and Christian. The book’s conclusion yields a rich understanding of diverse interpretations of Islam’s emergence, suggesting that its emergence is itself ever-developing.

Reynolds is an accomplished scholar in the area, and author of such other recent studies as The Qur'an and Its Biblical Subtext and Critique of Christian Origins: A Parallel English-Arabic Text. As so much of Islam grew up in Eastern Christian areas--Syria, Egypt, Armenia, inter alia--and as Eastern Christians, long before their Western counterparts, had to learn to live with Islam, this book promises to be of great interest to Eastern Christians today. 

Milka Levy-Rubin on Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire

The plight of non-Muslims (chiefly Eastern Christians and Jews) under Islam continues today often to be both ignored and manipulated for political reasons. It is therefore a happy and welcome development to have serious scholarly attention paid to this question of religious minorities under Islamic domination in a new book: Milka Levy-Rubin, Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire: From Surrender to Coexistence (Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization, 2011), 288pp.

I asked the author for an interview, and here are her thoughts.

AD: Tell us a bit about your own background

I studied history and received all my degrees from the Hebrew University. During my MA studies I specialized in the history department in medieval studies. My MA thesis was on the medieval maps of Jerusalem (published in Hebrew in Sefer Yerusalayim, eds.  J. Prawer and H. Ben-Shammai, Jerusalem 1991; short version in English in N. Rosovsky, ed., City of the Great King). I also worked on travelers to the Holy Land in the Byzantine and medieval periods. My attraction to the history of the Near East stood at the basis of my decision to write my PhD on The Patriarchate of Jerusalem after the Arab Conquest (in Hebrew). This was possible because besides the knowledge of Greek and Latin which I acquired during my studies at the Hebrew University, I had already had good command of the Arabic language and some acquaintance with the history of  Islam, which I studied in high school. I have since then been writing mostly on issues related to the transition from Byzantine to Arab rule including issues of language, culture, conversion to Islam, changes in settlement pattern in Palestine, and relations between Christians and Muslims.

AD: What led you to focus on the Islamic rules governing the treatment of non-Muslim minorities?

My special interest in the legal status of the non-Muslims originated in the first chapter of my PhD, which dealt with the treatment of the non-Muslims (dhimmis) by the central as well as the local authorities. In this chapter I reported about new findings regarding the legal status of the dhimmis in Palestine upon which I came in an unpublished manuscript of a Samaritan chronicle from the Early Muslim period. After receiving my PhD I published an annotated translation with an introduction of this text (M. Levy-Rubin, Continuatio of the Samaritan Chronicle of Abu L'Fath Al Samiri Al Danafi (Darwin Press 2002).

AD: The so-called Pact of 'Umar is important in your narrative. Briefly tell us what that was and its significance.

The Pact of  'Umar is the canonic text defining the status of non-Muslims under Muslim rule throughout the Middle Ages and afterwards. This is why understanding the circumstances and process of its formation as well as its sources is essential for the understanding of the question of the status of the non-Muslims under Muslim rule.
  

AD: You begin by noting that a "key working assumption" is that Muslims did not derive ex nihilo the rules for Jews, Christians, and other minorities. Where, then, did those rules originate? What are some of the main pre-Islamic sources for them?

It is agreed by scholars that the text of Shurut 'Umar as we know it developed quite some time after the Muslim conquest, probably c. 800 CE. In the first chapter of my book I strive to demonstrate that the initial conquest agreements signed between the Muslim conquerors and the conquered population, which are preserved in the Muslim sources, reflect in general authentic agreements. These were based, in my opinion, on an ancient and longstanding tradition which existed throughout the Ancient Near East from antiquity. Following this tradition, it was, in my view,  the conquered population which asked to have these agreements signed. This was done in order to secure  in writing the rights promised them by the conquerors before they actually surrender. These agreements bear no hint of the rules which will appear later in Shurut 'Umar. About a century later, after Muslims and non-Muslims began to have more intensive daily contact as well as friction, the Muslim rulers felt a need to set down a new set of rules, which suited the changing circumstances.

Regarding the pre-Islamic sources: Shurut 'Umar are very specific regarding the status of prayer-houses of non-Muslims, as well as issues of dress, appearance, and public behaviour. It is quite obvious that the rule allowing the continuing existence and repair of prayer houses, yet prohibiting the building of new ones and the enlargement of existing ones, relies on an identical law regarding Jewish prayer houses under Byzantine rule; likewise the rules regarding the prohibition on owning Muslim slaves, and the rules regarding the preference given to Muslims in inheritance.

In my research I discovered, however, that the rules regarding the appearance of non-Muslims seem to have originated in Sasanian society (the Sasanian dynasty ruled Iran from 226 until the Mulsim conquest). The Sasanians strove to preserve  a strict social hierarchy, a hierarchy expressed first and foremost through appearance and public behaviour. In chapter 5 of my book Non-Muslims in the Early Islamic Empire: From Surrender to Coexistence, I try to demonstrate that it was this principal which stands at the basis of the demand that non-Muslims not ride horses, wear special robes, carry weapons, have seals or hold public office, and that they make way for the Muslims, hit the clapper (naqus) during the call to prayer only softly and do not hold public processions. The demand that they wear special distinguishing signs and not resemble the Muslims in their dress is based on the Sasanian concept that the lower class is to dress humbly, according to their social status.

AD: How widely and consistently were the rules enforced, and by whom?

 

Chapter 4 discusses this question. To judge by some of the evidence found in the Samaritan chronicle as well as in several other sources, by the ninth century Shurut 'Umar was conceived as the rule to be enforced on non-Muslims, and was indeed enforced quite effectively not only in Baghdad but in the rural areas of Palestine. There are also mentions of such enforcement in the tenth century. However, this does not mean that this was consistent, and there is no doubt that there were times and places in which these rules were conveniently ignored, and then again times in which the rulers insisted on strict enforcement of the Shurut. The latter became more common during the Mameluk period when the Shurut were strictly and consistently enforced.

AD: What are some of the most outstanding features of the Islamic treatment of minorities? Were there any surprises as you were undertaking your research?

The outstanding features include the authenticity of the surrender agreements which are characterized most of the time by freedom of religion and preservation of both private and communal property in return for the acceptance of Muslim rule and payment of the jizya; another surprising discovery was the finding that Iranian social concepts were adopted by the Muslims and were applied now on a religious basis, meaning that the upper strata of Iranian, as well as Christian and Jewish society which was until then privileged, was to lose its higher social standing and status symbols if it did not convert to Islam. I was also surprised by the evidence of the wide enforcement of the Shurut already during the second half of the ninth century.  

AD: As you are no doubt aware, much of the recent discourse surrounding the treatment of Jews and Eastern Christians in the early Islamic empire has been heavily politicized, indeed polarized: often this treatment is either glorified as evidence of pre-modern "tolerance" or condemned as "dhimmitude." What, in your estimation, is the best way to characterize the treatment of minorities in the early Islamic imperial period covered by your book--or is such treatment too broad and too varied, across time and the region, to permit generalizations?

No doubt the last statement is true, and such generalizations are bound, at the least, to be inaccurate. However, I must add a word of warning. I believe that trying to apply the values of modern Western society is bound to fail. Societies in antiquity in the East, and in fact Western society up until the 18th century, were hierarchichal. Formal social hierarchy represented the right social order. Equality and tolerance are modern values. The Muslims, as ruling conquerors, naturally saw themselves as the ruling class who set the rules for the conquered lower classes. The latter were therefore naturally humiliated, yet they had certain rights and were officialy protected by the Muslim ruler. The rest depended on the specific circumstances. In comparison to the West, the  non-Muslims were much better off, as Mark Cohen has shown in his well-known book Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages.

AD: If we were to move from the early imperial period to the later Ottoman period and its so-called millet system, would we see any continuities in the treatment of Jews and Christians under the Ottomans?

Shrut 'Umar continue to be the binding rules regarding the non-Muslims.

AD: the publisher sums up Milka Levy-Rubin's book for us thus: 

The Muslim conquest of the East in the seventh century entailed the subjugation of Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and others. Although much has been written about the status of non-Muslims in the Islamic empire, no previous works have examined how the rules applying to minorities were formulated. Milka Levy-Rubin's remarkable book traces the emergence of these regulations from the first surrender agreements in the immediate aftermath of conquest to the formation of the canonic document called the Pact of 'Umar, which was formalized under the early 'Abbasids, in the first half of the ninth century. What the study reveals is that the conquered peoples themselves played a major role in the creation of these policies, and that these were based on long-standing traditions, customs, and institutions from earlier pre-Islamic cultures that originated in the worlds of both the conquerors and the conquered. In its connections to Roman, Byzantine, and Sasanian traditions, the book will appeal to historians of Europe as well as Arabia and Persia.

Historical Dictionary of Byzantium

Scarecrow Press, as I have noted before (here and here), has a long series of "dictionaries" they continue to bring out. The two or there I have seen have been of a high quality. In December they released another: John H. Rosser, Historical Dictionary of Byzantium (Scarecrow Press, 2011), 672pp.

About this book, the publisher tells us:

The Byzantine Empire dates back to Constantine the Great, the first Christian ruler of the Roman Empire, who, in 330 AD, moved the imperial capital from Rome to a port city in modern-day Turkey, which he then renamed Constantinople in his honor. From its founding, the Byzantine Empire was a major anchor of east-west trade, and culture, art, architecture, and the economy all prospered in the newly Christian empire. As Byzantium moved into the middle and late period, Greek became the official language of both church and state and the Empire’s cultural and religious influence extended well beyond its boundaries. In the mid-15th century, the Ottoman Turks put an end to 1,100 years of Byzantine history by capturing Constantinople, but the Empire’s legacy in art, culture, and religion endured long after its fall.

In this revised and updated second edition of the Historical Dictionary of Byzantium, author John H. Rosser introduces both the general reader and the researcher to the history of the Byzantine Empire. This comprehensive dictionary includes detailed, alphabetical entries on key figures, ideas, places, and themes related to Byzantine art, history, and religion, and the second edition contains numerous additional entries on broad topics such as transportation and gender, which were less prominent in the previous edition. An expanded introduction introduces the reader to Byzantium and a guide to further sources and suggested readings can be found in the extensive bibliography that follows the entries. A basic chronology and various maps and illustrations are also included in the dictionary.

Antique Papal Authority

Students of the papacy, after having read and ordered for their 500 closest friends copies of my Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity, will be interested in a recently published book from Cambridge University Press and authored by Kristina Sess: The Formation of Papal Authority in Late Antique Italy: Roman Bishops and the Domestic Sphere (CUP, 2011, 338pp.).


This book, the publisher tells us,

is the first cultural history of papal authority in late antiquity. While most traditional histories posit a "rise of the papacy" and examine popes as politicians, theologians, and civic leaders, Kristina Sessa focuses on the late Roman household and its critical role in the development of the Roman church from ca. 350-600. She argues that Rome's bishops adopted the ancient elite household as a model of good government for leading the church. Central to this phenomenon was the classical and biblical figure of the steward, the householder's appointed agent who oversaw his property and people. As stewards of God, Roman bishops endeavored to exercise moral and material influence within both the pope's own administration and the households of Italy's clergy and lay elites. This original and nuanced study charts their manifold interactions with late Roman households and shows how bishops used domestic knowledge as the basis for establishing their authority as Italy's singular religious leaders.

Islam and Christianity: Comparing Theologies

The encounter between Islam and Christianity, as I have noted before, remains enormously significant for our time. A recent publication continues the exploration of these two traditions together: John Renard, Islam and Christianity: Theological Themes in Comparative Perspective (University of California Press, 2011), 344pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us:

In light of the widespread public perception of incompatibility between Islam and Christianity, this book provides a much-needed straightforward comparison of these two great faith traditions from a broad theological perspective. Award-winning scholar John Renard illuminates the similarities as well as the differences between Islam and Christianity through a clear exploration of four major dimensions--historical, creedal, institutional, and ethical and spiritual. Throughout, the book features comparisons between concrete elements such as creedal statements, prayer texts, and writings from major theologians and mystics. It also includes a glossary of technical theological terms. For western readers in particular, this balanced, authoritative work overturns some common stereotypes about Islam, especially those that have emerged in the decade since September 11, 2001.

I sent this book out for specialized review, and that review will be published in Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies in the spring of 2012. Our reviewer, Brenda Llewellyn Ihssen, calls Renard's book "not only an academic achievement but nearly an artistic achievement as well, as it is a beautiful analysis of two faiths for which the author obviously has great respect and affection. Renard’s analysis makes a significant and thoughtful contribution."

Vestments in Byzantium

Finally set for review later this month is what looks to be a fascinating book on a topic rarely studied adequately: Warren T. Woodfin, The Embodied Icon: Liturgical Vestments and Sacramental Power in Byzantium (Oxford Studies in Byzantium, 2012, 384pp.).

About this book the publisher tells us that it is "extensively illustrated with images from a variety of media" and "includes a handlist of surviving vestments of Byzantine provenance and a clear, comprehensive exposition of the vestments of the Byzantine rite and their history." We are further told that:

In spite of the Orthodox liturgy's reputation for resistance to change, Byzantine liturgical dress underwent a period of extraordinary elaboration from the end of the eleventh century onwards. As part of this development, embroideries depicting holy figures and scenes began to appear on the vestments of the clergy. Examining the surviving Byzantine vestments in conjunction with contemporary visual and textual evidence, Woodfin relates their embroidered imagery both to the program of images used in churches, and to the hierarchical code of dress prevailing in the imperial court. Both sets of visual cross-references serve to enforce a reading of the clergy as living icons of Christ. Finally, the book explores the competing configurations of the hierarchy of heaven as articulated in imperial and ecclesiastical art. It shows how the juxtaposition of real embroidered vestments with vestments depicted in paintings, allowed the Orthodox hierarchy to represent itself as a direct extension of the hierarchy of heaven.

Drawing on the best of recent scholarship in Byzantine liturgy, monumental painting, and textile studies, Woodfin's volume is the first major illustrated study of Byzantine embroidered vestments to appear in over forty years.

Orthodox Challenges Today

Hieromonk Calinic, a Romanian Orthodox priest with a doctorate from the Catholic University of America, has just published a new book: Challenges of Orthodox Thought and Life (2012; 185pp).


About this book, the publisher tells us:

A challenge - something which causes us to free ourselves from distraction and to focus our spiritual and mental energy in order to achieve a goal. A challenge demands effort and dedication. If met, it grants the goal as its reward. In Orthodox Christianity, the goal is salvation, our union with God in Christ. "Challenges of Orthodox Thought and Life" presents a series of short essays centered around essential and provocative questions of Christian belief and life, all meant to bring the reader into the spiritual arena, where the decisive challenge of salvation is presented. Based on the Holy Scriptures, engaging the living and patristic Tradition and informed by contemporary scholarship, these short reflections provide a source-book of knowledge and inspiration for a vibrant Orthodox faith in today's world.

I hope to interview the author in the coming weeks.  

Authority in the Russian Church (2)

I noted before Christmas the advent of a new book treating authority in the Russian Church, a topic which I spent some time on in my Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity. Where my treatment is necessarily relatively brief, and also includes many other Orthodox structures, Vitali Petrenko is able to analyze the Russian Church alone in great depth: The Development of Authority Within the Russian Orthodox Church: A Theological and Historical Inquiry (Peter Lang, 2011), xii+310pp.

I have now had a chance to read it in conjunction with the lecture I am putting together to give at the Huffington Institute's 2012 symposium "Pan-Orthodoxy in North America: Towards a Local Church."


Petrenko's is a very impressive book that takes a much wider sweep than I was expecting, and is all the more rewarding for it. It started off as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Durham under the formidable Orthodox scholar Andrew Louth. But the transformation from dissertation to book has been smoothly and professionally accomplished, and this is a finely written and edited book that deserves to be read by all those interested in the history of Russian Orthodoxy in general, as well as by those interested in ecclesiological questions.

The first two chapters, treating authority very widely in the ante-Nicene and Constantinian eras, initially appeared as rather superfluous--the sort of belabored detail that doctoral students have to put in so that their jury knows how widely read they are. But once you get to the third, and especially fourth, chapters, you realize how smartly Petrenko has woven key themes from those first two chapters into later ones. Certain themes thus recur throughout the history told here, especially those of "caesaro-papism," symphonia in the Byzantine and post-Byzantine periods, and the role of various forms of apocalyptic literature--most famously in Filofei's letter at the start of the sixteenth century proclaiming Moscow the "third Rome" after the fall of Rome and Constantinople--in giving the nascent Muscovite state a sense of its role in the world and in shaping what we would later call Russian nationalism.

That apocalyptic plays a role earlier than I had realized, and Petrenko argues that we can already find hints of it as early as the life of Feodosii Pecherskii in the eleventh century and the composition of The Paterik of the Kievan Caves Monastery. 
That apocalyptic also expresses a certain de haut en bas attitude towards "the Greeks" which recurs over a long period and intensifies as we get towards the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Two events really bring this attitude out in egregious ways. First, prior to leaving for the Council of Florence, Metropolitan Isidore is instructed by the Tsar Basil II basically to sabotage any move towards union with the Latins whom many East-Slavs had disdained from the ninth century onward: "you are going to the Eighth Council, which should never take place according to the rules of the holy fathers; when you return from it, bring us back our ancient Orthodoxy" (120-21).


With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in May 1453, Russian churchmen increasingly argued that they should have nothing to do with a church whose subjugation to Islam was as a result (as many Byzantine Greeks themselves readily conceded) of Greek weakness, sinfulness, and general infidelity to the Lord. How could Russia receive bishops or even general direction from a patriarch now living in captivity to a heathen religion? This issue increasingly motivates an independent streak in the Church, leading ultimately to severing relations with Constantinople in the 1589 elevation of the metropolitan of Moscow to the status of patriarch.

But Russian assertion of its autonomy increasingly leads the church and country to attempt to assume a role of "universal apostolic" (136) leadership over all Orthodox Christians throughout the entire world--a concern which, though Petrenko does not discuss it, would remain prominent in Russian foreign policy through the Crimean War and in the lead-up to World War I and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. 

Russia, according to this mindset, is now both the "third Rome" and a "chosen nation succeeding the nation of Israel in its vocation to the rest of the world..., [an] understanding...promoted...by Filofei" (137). But there is a problem with the assertion of "apostolicity" and this, of course, leads to the famous attempt to "prove" that the apostle Andrew (the first-called, let us not forget) visited Kievan Rus', a legend famously analyzed by Francis Dvornik in his landmark book The Idea Of Apostolicity In Byzantium And The Legend Of Apostle Andrew.

Petrenko's analysis of the infamous raskol of Patriarch Nikon is a lucid treatment that does not, as he notes more than once, cover everything. But that is not a problem insofar as this territory has already been previously covered in first-class studies, including Paul Meyendorff's Russia, Ritual, and Reform: The Liturgical Reforms of Nikon in the 17th Century to say nothing of the multi-volume series from Cambridge University Press and William Palmer's pen, starting with History of the Condemnation of the Patriarch Nicon by a Plenary Council of the Orthodox Catholic Eastern Church Held at Moscow A.D. 1666-1667.

When we get to the twentieth century, and the twilight of the Romanovs, the book starts to run out of steam a bit, but not before disclosing something I had not heard before: Tsar Nicholas II forbade the convocation of a council in 1905 and 1907 and said that the solution to a lack of patriarch was simple: he "nominated himself," a move he would fulfill by abdicating in favor of his son, taking monastic vows, and then being ordained (201, f.n.11).

Only towards the end, and briefly, does Petrenko undertake a closer analysis of some of the modern statutes governing ecclesiastical life in the Russian Church in the twentieth century. Here he argues even more strongly than I did in my Orthodoxy and the Roman Papacy: Ut Unum Sint and the Prospects of East-West Unity that the Russian Church, especially since 1945, has been structured and governed in a heavily centralized fashion. 
Petrenko quotes Bulgakov here: the Russian Church suffers "from 'actual and psychological papalism'" (213). The reasons for this, in part, have to do with the fact that Stalin wanted to continue using the Church for his own purposes, and so wanted control over its patriarch and, through a super-strong patriarch, over all other bishops and clergy. Stalin's vision, in fact, was, according to Petrenko, to create  a "Moscow Vatican" (219) in a fight for ideological control and global domination of all other Christians and many others besides. Stalin also supported the calling, in 1948, of an "eighth ecumenical council" as a means of asserting Russian supremacy in global Orthodoxy.

Petrenko seems to take a dim view--or at least quotes several others who do--of the revised statutes of 2000. My own analysis of them was that they were not nearly as centralized as the 1945 statutes and returned to some limited degree to a greater practice of synodality or sobornicity. But others do not share that view, and instead see the revised statutes as backwards steps that have "suppressed the principle of sobornost" (248) and in so doing have "transferred 'the fullness of authority within the Russian Orthodox Church from the Local Sobor to the Arkhiereiskii Sobor. Effectively this established a Church which in its main outlook is opposed to Orthodox canons'" and to the decrees and decisions of the 1917-18 council (249, quoting G. Yakunin, "Podlinnyi lik Moskovskoi Patriarkhii," 2002).

One final note: Petrenko's book is very useful in helping us to understand the long history of mutual mistrust between Moscow and Constantinople, a serious problem still bedeviling relations between them today and causing problems and delays in the lead-up to the much-promised but much-delayed "great and holy council." These problems go back, as we saw, to the fourteenth century and earlier, but were especially pronounced in the twentieth century's fights over the granting of autocephaly to various churches, not least the OCA.

Missteps are few in this book: there is only one noteworthy typo when, on p.114, he dates the East-West schism to 1053 instead of the more conventional 1054. I would quibble somewhat with the sub-title of Petrenko's book insofar as it is heavy on the history, but light on the theology.

But two other more substantial questions arise in reading this book: first, Petrenko virtually ignores the Reformation and Counter-Reformation periods and the rise of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in which the Union of Brest took place. These are not small events at all, and have loomed large in at least contemporary Russian views of, and relations with, the West so it is odd that they pass by without comment.

And this points to the second omission in this book: several authors whose works are not noted at all, including Boris Gudziak (in treating not just the Union of Brest, but also the creation of the Moscow patriarchate as such); Sophia Senyk's work on the history of Kievan Christianity; and perhaps especially Hyacinthe Destivelle's very important work Le Concile de Moscou (1917-1918).

All in all, however, The Development of Authority Within the Russian Orthodox Church: A Theological and Historical Inquiry is a fine history lucidly narrated and abundantly sourced. It should be on every bibliography in Russian Orthodox history and theology, especially ecclesiology.

Theophilus of Edessa

Thanks to the work of such as Sidney Griffith and others, we are increasingly aware of how influential Christians, especially Christian scholars, were in the opening centuries of the new Islamic empire, and how much of Islamic culture is in fact derivative of an aboriginal Christian culture. Along comes a new translation of an ancient scholar's works that furthers our understanding of all this: Robert G. Hoyland, trans, Theophilus of Edessa's Chronicle: And the Circulation of Historical Knowledge in Late Antiquity and Early Islam (Liverpool University Press, 2011), 224pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Theophilus of Edessa was a Greek astrologer and scholar in the court of the Muslim caliphs in the eighth century. Making use of his fluency in Greek, Syriac, and Arabic, he brought together historical sources from each language to comprise a single chronicle that charted world-changing events in the Near East from 590–750 CE, among them the Arab conquests, the rise to power of a Muslim Arab dynasty, and the last great war of antiquity, between Byzantium and Iran. Though no longer extant, Theophilus’s work is known from extensive citations by later historians, and Robert Hoyland has here collected and translated these citations to present the scope of the original text. Included are translations of four chronicles, several of which are being made available here for the first time to the English-language reader.

Christian Civilization

Wiley-Blackwell, as I have noted numerous times over the past year, has been publishing major reference works--dictionaries and encyclopedias, inter alia--on a variety of topics connected to Eastern Christianity. Now, more widely, another encyclopedia has just been released: George Kurian, ed., The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization (4 volume set) (2012), 2790pp.

About this collection the publisher tells us:

The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization is a comprehensive reference work on the history and impact of Christianity. Over 1,400 entries provide an in-depth and dynamic look at Christianity both through its history and the way it has shaped societies around the world. Through a clear and attractive format, a series of interlocking major themes is explored, including: key theological ideas; global and regional history; worship; society and Christianity; literature; music; art; architecture; education; politics; law, and scholarship. Uniting these themes is an understanding of Christianity as a truly global phenomenon with strong denominational and regional identities.The entries are written by a team of over 350 scholars and teachers from over 24 countries. Together they present a wealth of current research in a clear, concise, and attractive format. The Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization is an essential reference for students, researchers, academics, and practitioners.

Changing Churches

One of the most influential essays I read in the late 1990s was by the priest Richard John Neuhaus of blessed memory: "The Unhappy Fate of Optional Orthodoxy." Using John Shelton Reed's book Glorious Battle: The Cultural Politics of Victorian Anglo-Catholicism as his point de départ, Neuhaus, with his usual wonderful style, made many good points, but his central thesis was that in the liberal realignment of Christianity at the end of the twentieth century, orthodoxy and catholicity were no longer viable in Lutheran and Anglican traditions especially: they could only be underwritten by Orthodoxy and Catholicism. Projects of "traditionalist" Lutherans or "continuing" Anglicans were doomed to incoherence, schism, infighting, and failure. As anyone who has followed the unhappy agonies of the Anglican Communion in the last decade and more must admit, Neuhaus was right. 

Such unhappy developments in many Protestant traditions have often led to the growth in both Catholicism and Orthodoxy in recent years as many people leave for either Rome or Constantinople in search of apostolic Christianity. (Amy Slagle treats converts to Orthodoxy in her recent splendid book, which I discussed here.) In the coming weeks, I hope to feature an interview with the two authors of a new book detailing their own exodus from Lutheranism: one for Catholicism and the other for Orthodoxy. New from Eerdmans we have Mickey Mattox and A.G. Roeber, Changing Churches: An Orthodox, Catholic, and Lutheran Theological Conversation (February 2012), 368pp.


About this book the publisher tells us:

Sharp controversies — about biblical authority, the ordination of women, evangelical "worship styles," and the struggle for homosexual "inclusion" — have rocked the Lutheran church in recent decades. In Changing Churches two men who once communed at the same Lutheran Eucharistic table explain their similar but different decisions to leave the Lutheran faith tradition — one for Orthodoxy, the other for Roman Catholicism.

Here Mickey L. Mattox and A. G. Roeber address the most difficult questions Protestants face when considering such a conversion, including views on justification, grace, divinization, the church and its authority, women and ministry, papal infallibility, the role of Mary, and homosexuality. They also discuss the long-standing ecumenical division between Rome and the Orthodox patriarchates, acknowledging the difficult issues that still confront those traditions from within and divide them from one another.

As I say, stay tuned for an interview with Mattox and Roeber. 

The Revolting Funeral Industry

I recently read this article and then came across a short promotional video done by a "funeral professional" on helping you to choose the right casket. Both were ghastly, of course, but the video deserves some kind of prize for being such a perfectly gruesome example of everything in the American funeral industry that everyone--from Jessica Mitford to Evelyn Waugh--has rightly and mercilessly criticized and satirized over the years.

In the video a prim woman in soft lighting talks in carefully modulated tones, with schlocky music in the background, about different caskets you can buy, carefully highlighting only two types: expensive hardwood and more expensive metal ones. (No Jewish pine boxes for her!) Her voice was flat as she discussed the wooden options, but when she came to steel, and still more to copper and bronze ("semi-precious metals"), her voice rose and pace quickened, as though salivating at the prospects of higher profits on these meretricious models. Then she started in on the "personalization features" including "Lifesymbols," a trademarked term that would seem to include a variety of tacky baubles to glue to the outside of your box to reflect your (dread word) "lifestyle." (Will the worms give pause, before doing their work, to contemplate with suitable admiration your emblazoned fetish for motorcycles, baseball, Elvis, or whatever?) Only think what deliciously satirical fun Waugh, who saw relatively tame examples in 1950s California of American funeral practices, could have had with such rich offerings from today's industry! But it is entirely of a piece with so much of what passes for "normality" in North American funeral practices today as anyone who has had recent experience with them will readily attest.

How refreshing, then, to read J. Mark and Elizabeth J. Barna, A Christian Ending: a Handbook for Burial in the Ancient Christian Tradition (Divine Ascent Press, 2011), xiii+169pp.

Unlike me, these authors (both Orthodox Christians: Mark is a deacon in the Orthodox Church of America) have enough virtue to keep any polemical and satirical impulses firmly in check, and note in their introduction that they are not writing an "indictment or condemnation" of the funeral industry, nor a theological manual about death but, as their subtitle suggests, a practical handbook on how to face death in its most unvarnished form: by caring for a person at the time of death, and by washing, dressing, transporting, praying over, and ultimately carrying to the church and then cemetery the bodies of those who have died. And they have done just that with an admirable detail that provides enough information without being too gruesome or gratuitous, retaining a certain level of sober restraint and dignity. This book should be required reading for all Christians who still remember that caring for the dead is one of the so-called corporeal works of mercy. 

Even more impressive, the authors have included aspects of Orthodox theology around death, and generous excerpts from Orthodox liturgical texts, but have written their book in such a way that it is never off-putting to non-Orthodox Christians. It is ecumenical in the best sense, and should appeal to a wide range of Christians who wish to regain control over dying, death, and burial by turning back the tide of cloyingly treacly euphemisms, monstrously over-priced caskets, and the whole revolting racket that is the modern funeral industry. Indeed, there is much here that even non-Christians, interested in a more "green" option for death and burial, will find beneficial. There is no shying away here from the fact that death is part of life, and works best when we do not contaminate corpses--and then land and water-tables--with dozens of carcinogenic chemicals for cosmetic purposes. The body is ordained to return to the earth whence it came, and there is no need to delay or deny this process or to be squeamish about it. Much of this reminds me of the treatment of death in rural Greece, as documented in Juliet du Boulay's lovely book Cosmos, Life, and Liturgy in a Greek Orthodox Village on which I have commented previously.

While being respectful of the fact that some people may still wish to involve a funeral home in some or all of their arrangements, the Barnas demystify the process in such a way that the reader has a good sense of how to simply bypass funeral homes entirely. With some leg-work, you can ensure that you never turn the body over to strangers but tend for it yourself from death to burial if you have the skills and community support, ideally from your parish which, if organized in advance, can help in any number of ways, including especially keeping vigil and praying the Psalter over the body around the clock. Many will tendentiously try to tell you--often using threatening pseudo-legal language--that you "must" be embalmed, or "must" be buried in a vault, or "must" have a coffin, but in most cases across the country there are no such requirements and those telling you otherwise will usually back down if they realize you know what they are talking about and will not be intimidated or bullied into spending $7000-10,000 or more, as many do on the "average" funeral. 

The authors reflect, in a very accessible and conversational style, on their own experience caring for the dead over the years, and from that experience are able to offer many helpful practical guidelines. They also include a useful reference list to books and websites useful in obtaining such things as burial shrouds, incense, oils for anointing, liturgical texts, and information for burial of war veterans in the United States. In addition, an appendix includes sample forms you can fill out detailing how you want your body handled, and how you want your funeral to proceed. Anyone who wants to take control of one's own arrangements will find much that is useful in  A Christian Ending: a Handbook for Burial in the Ancient Christian Tradition, and I  commend it to all those so interested. 

Theological Anthropology in Jean-Claude Larchet

Those familiar with the world of francophone Orthodoxy will at once recognize the important contributions of Jean-Claude Larchet, whom Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies has published in the past, and whose works we have reviewed. At the end of last year, another of his books was released: Personne et nature: La Trinité — Le Christ — L'homme: Contributions aux dialogues interorthodoxes et interchrétiens contemporains (Éditions du Cerf, 2011), 416pp.

About this book the publisher tells us:

Les notions de personne (ou d'hypostase) et de nature (ou d'essence) sont des notions de base de la théologie trinitaire, de la christologie, de l'anthropologie et de la spiritualité chrétiennes. Élaborées progressivement et avec peine, tant en elles-mêmes que dans leurs relations, durant les six premiers siècles, elles ont été au cœur des controverses et des dialogues théologiques de toutes les époques. Presque tous les désaccords et tous les accords concernant la foi ont mis en cause leurs définitions, leur déséquilibre ou leur équilibre.

Aujourd'hui encore, ces notions restent au cœur des discussions théologiques entre chrétiens en quête d'unité, qu'il s'agisse du dialogue entre orthodoxes et catholiques ou protestants sur la question du « Filioque », du dialogue entre l'Église orthodoxe et les Églises non chalcédoniennes sur la personne et les natures du Christ, ou encore du débat suscité par les théories personnalistes de certains représentants du mouvement néo-orthodoxe grec qui entendent, à tort ou à raison, contrebalancer tant l'essentialisme de la théologie latine que le piétisme de certaines formes de spiritualité orthodoxe.

Les études rassemblées dans ce volume constituent des contributions majeures à ces différentes dimensions du dialogue interchrétien et interorthodoxe contemporain, et plusieurs d'entre elles, écrites il y a plusieurs années (mais actualisées pour la présente édition), restent régulièrement citées comme des travaux de référence.

Derrière l'aspect critique de ces textes, on trouve en effet un réel approfondissement des concepts mis en jeu et, au-delà de leur caractère engagé et circonstanciel, une réflexion théologique de portée universelle susceptible d'intéresser tous les chrétiens soucieux d'approfondir leur foi.

Ordinary Time at the Sunset of the Western Empire

It has been the trend for some time to eschew "meta" or "macro" histories and instead write very focused "micro" histories of very particular periods and regions. A recent book takes us in that direction to a limited extent:  Giusto Traina, 428 AD: An Ordinary Year at the End of the Roman Empire (Princeton University Press, 2011), 232pp.

Traina is taking early Christian history in a new, and much needed, direction, attending to the seemingly "everyday" existence of "ordinary" people. This is an approach for more of which the great Byzantine liturgical historian Robert Taft called in his book Through Their Own Eyes: Liturgy as the Byzantines Saw It.


About this book the publisher tells us:

This is a sweeping tour of the Mediterranean world from the Atlantic to Persia during the last half-century of the Roman Empire. By focusing on a single year not overshadowed by an epochal event, 428 AD provides a truly fresh look at a civilization in the midst of enormous change--as Christianity takes hold in rural areas across the empire, as western Roman provinces fall away from those in the Byzantine east, and as power shifts from Rome to Constantinople. Taking readers on a journey through the region, Giusto Traina describes the empires' people, places, and events in all their simultaneous richness and variety. The result is an original snapshot of a fraying Roman world on the edge of the medieval era. The result is an original snapshot of a fraying Roman world on the edge of the medieval era.

Readers meet many important figures, including the Roman general Flavius Dionysius as he encounters a delegation from Persia after the Sassanids annex Armenia; the Christian ascetic Simeon Stylites as he stands and preaches atop his column near Antioch; the eastern Roman emperor Theodosius II as he prepares to commission his legal code; and Genseric as he is elected king of the Vandals and begins to turn his people into a formidable power. We are also introduced to Pulcheria, the powerful sister of Theodosius, and Galla Placidia, the queen mother of the western empire, as well as Augustine, Pope Celestine I, and nine-year-old Roman emperor Valentinian III.Full of telling details, 428 AD illustrates the uneven march of history.

As the west unravels, the east remains intact. As Christianity spreads, pagan ideas and schools persist. And, despite the presence of the forces that will eventually tear the classical world apart, Rome remains at the center, exerting a powerful unifying force over disparate peoples stretched across the Mediterranean.