An Introduction To The Christian Orthodox Churches: January 2002
An Introduction To The Christian Orthodox Churches: January 2002
An Introduction To The Christian Orthodox Churches: January 2002
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J OH N BI NNS
published by the press syndicate of the university of cambridge
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom
C John Binns 2002
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
v
List of illustrations and maps
Illustrations
Between pages 144 and 145
1. The Haghia Sophia in Istanbul – the interior of the dome
2. A boy receives communion during the liturgy at a church in Crete
3. Epiphany procession at a monastery near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
4. Fresco of Bishop Nikolai Velimirovi ć at Kaona, Serbia
5. The church of the monastery of Anba Bishoy, wadi el-Natrun,
Egypt
6. The remains of the column of St Symeon Stylites at Qal’at Sima’an,
Syria
7. The domes of St Sergius’ monastery, Sergiev Posad, Russia
8. The burial place of the head of John the Baptist in the Ummayad
Mosque at Damascus, Syria
9. Monument to the dead of the Second World War at Kraljevo, Serbia
10. The doorkeeper of the church in a village in the Tur Abdin, Turkey
11. A monk planting a tree on Mount Athos, Greece
12. The Syrian Orthodox Archbishop of the Euphrates visits a
Chaldaean village, Syria
Maps
1. The Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches xii
2. The non-Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches xiii
3. The expansion of the Eastern Church xiv
vi
1
Introduction: identifying Orthodoxy
1
Identifying Orthodoxy
The three Patriarchs of Antioch who reside in the Street called Straight
are not the only bishops to hold this title. Some thirty miles to the west
is the Lebanese capital, Beirut, and here are a further two occupants of
this see: the leaders of the Antiochian Syrian Maronite Church (usually
known simply as the Maronites), and of the Syrian Catholic Church.
There used to be a sixth Patriarch of Antioch, of the Latin Catholic
Church, but this title is no longer used.
This variety becomes even more evident in the life of the parishes of
the interior of Syria. To the east of the country is the Syrian diocese of
the Gezirah, and here I once spent a day visiting homes in the Syrian
Orthodox parish of Nasra’a with Fr Louis, the parish priest. He told
me that there were in the parish 300 Syrian Orthodox families, 130
Armenian Catholic, sixty Syrian Catholic, five Syrian Protestant, four
Armenian, three Assyrian Church of the East, and two Chaldaean. The
Syrian Orthodox priest knows them well and many of them attend his
church.
The life of the Christian communities in Syria shows clearly that there
is not one single Eastern Orthodox Church, nor one doctrinal tradition
which can be called Orthodoxy. The varied composition of the ecclesi-
astical life of modern Syria provides clear demonstration of the division,
complexity, richness and turbulence of the history of the Christianity
of the East. The Christians of Syria are conscious both of the diversity
of Church life and also of their shared culture and history. Since they
form a minority within a predominantly Muslim state, they are more
conscious than some other Christians of the tradition which binds them
together. So here we are vividly aware of both the unity and diversity
that is a marked feature of the Christian life of the East.
This diversity is less apparent in other areas. Both Russia and Greece,
for example, are self-consciously Orthodox and, what is more, Byzantine
Orthodox countries. From this perspective, the history of Orthodoxy
is identical with the history of one Church tradition. Since the West
is usually more aware of Church life in these countries, it is easy to
understand Orthodoxy mainly in these terms.
This book takes the Syrian experience as a starting-point. It recog-
nises that the Orthodox Churches originate from a common background
which has shaped the nature of the life of the Churches. It also seeks
to show the differing forms of Christian living which have developed
through a turbulent history. The turbulence is suggested by the fact that
2
Byzantine Orthodox culture
none of the five Patriarchs of Antioch has been able to remain in his
episcopal see, since the ancient city of Antioch is now called Antakya
and falls within the boundaries of modern Turkey, a city with numerous
mosques but no living churches.
Damascus is the place where Paul’s change of life began; and Antioch,
about 200 miles to the north, is the place where the name ‘Christian’ was
first used (Acts 11.26). From here the Church spread east, west, south
and north. From the perspective of this book, these two ancient cities
have a central place in the Eastern Christian world. To the north and
south lie the two largest Orthodox Churches. To the east extends the
greatest – but finally temporary – missionary expansion of the Church.
To the west is the cultural and theological source of Orthodoxy. These
Churches of Russia, Ethiopia, the East and Constantinople will all be
discussed in the course of this book.
3
Identifying Orthodoxy
the events that led to the formation of the Eastern Empire was the con-
version of the Emperor Constantine to Christianity. The significance of
this event may be exaggerated since the Church was widespread before
the Emperor’s conversion and paganism continued to be influential after
it. The Emperor’s new faith nonetheless gave the Christian Church a
new status within the Empire, and inaugurated a new stage in the his-
tory of the Church. As a result, the Christian Church was set on-course
to become the official state religion, a far cry from the revival move-
ment within Judaism initiated in rural Palestine by the prophet Jesus of
Nazareth. The conversion of Constantine had an impact nobody could
have guessed at the time. As a result, this book begins its account of the
life of the Eastern Churches at this point in history, three centuries after
the life, death and resurrection of the founder, and refers to the events
and personalities of the first centuries of the history of the Church only
in passing.
Byzantium – named after its mythological founder, Byzas the son of the
sea-god Neptune – was a Greek settlement founded in the seventh cen-
tury bc at the place where the Bosphorus opens into the Sea of Marmara,
between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, where there is a natural
and easily defended harbour. It caught the attention of the Emperor
Constantine, who selected it as the site of the new capital city of the
eastern part of the Roman Empire. The Emperor began to build here in
325, and five years later the new capital was dedicated with the name of
Constantinople – the City of Constantine. It remained as the imperial
capital for more than a thousand years, a city of unparalleled wealth,
prestige and piety. The Empire over which it presided fluctuated in size.
It reached its largest extent under the Emperor Justinian (527–65), when
it included most of Italy, the Balkans as far north as modern Hungary,
Egypt, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine, the North African coast, and
even parts of Spain. This massive tract of territory was reduced in size, at
first gradually and then drastically, when in the seventh century the Arab
armies overwhelmed the Eastern provinces of Syria, Egypt and Palestine,
then swept on towards Constantinople. But although Syria and Egypt
were not reconquered, the Byzantine Empire regained the ascendancy
in Asia Minor and remained a formidable power at least until the
Crusades in the eleventh century. In 1204 disaster struck, when the capi-
tal city of Constantinople itself was conquered by the Western armies of
the Fourth Crusade. The Crusaders had unfortunately decided that the
4
Byzantine Orthodox culture
5
Identifying Orthodoxy
6
Byzantine Orthodox culture
7
Identifying Orthodoxy
of its music, art and liturgy should not lead us to ignore the Eastern and
Orthodox Churches which fell outside the Empire and spoke different
languages – Coptic, Syriac, Armenian and others. Byzantium had an
influence on these too, however. This happened partly through shared
linguistic and cultural traditions that flourished both within and beyond
the boundaries of the Empire, and partly through the negative influ-
ence of being a dominant political power, which smaller groups reacted
against and seceded from. So in the chapters that follow we will ex-
plore both common patterns shared by the Eastern Churches, and also
recognise points of divergence.
Evaluations of the contribution of the Byzantine Empire to Christian-
ity vary. For many, it was a creative and life-giving cultural synthesis of
a Hebrew religious awe and a Greek search for philosophical truth. For
these, the task facing the Church today is to leave behind the centuries
of political subjection to Ottoman or Communist rule and of intellec-
tual dependence on Western theology and philosophy, and to recover
the vitality and creativity of the Byzantine centuries. A modern Greek
theologian, Christos Yannaras, has said that the way to health of the
Church is to recognise the cultural greatness of Byzantium and to present
a Hellenistic corrective to Western individualism. Others fear that a de-
sire to recreate the spirit of Byzantium will result in a rigid conservatism
and an identification of the Church with a specific cultural form, while
the task of the Church is to present the apostolic faith to modern genera-
tions, in the West as well as the East. Alexander Schmemann, the former
dean of St Vladimir’s Seminary in New York, admitted in his posthu-
mously published journals to a deep distaste for all things Byzantine.3
Whether the Byzantine Empire is seen as a highpoint of Christian civil-
isation or as merely one relative cultural form of a universal faith, the
significance of the millennium of Byzantine civilisation in shaping the
Orthodox Church must be acknowledged.
3
See C. Yannaras, Philosophie sans rupture (Geneva 1986), p. 7. A. Schmemann, The
Journals of Father Alexander Schmemann 1978–1983 (New York 2000), is an example
of an unusually frank criticism of a Byzantinist approach.