Posted on 10/14/2004 10:36:38 PM PDT by Destro
Excerpt from: Orthodox Christianity and the English Tradition
55. Hastings - 1066-1993
'King Harold was slain, and Leofwine and Gyrth, his brothers, and many good men. This battle took place on the feast of St. Callistus.'
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
Before us a field full of dread,
Bodies in hundreds lying dead,
Steeds riderless wandered at will,
Swords, armour, gnashing, groaning shrill.
Death it was that flew above this field,
Over the fallen and swords steeled.
Death I see, as it drifts and flies,
The souls it seems, yearn to rise
But dare not yet their bodies leave -
Yea, souls these are, not shades of eve.
(Translated from Vladimir Monomach and Gytha, Harold's Daughter, by I. Avtamonov)
Accompanied by Malcolm Dunstall, I made a private visit to the site of the Battle of Hastings on 27 October this year. Malcolm Dunstall is the founder of 'The English Companions', a 300-strong society whose aim is to promote interest in and the values of Anglo-Saxon England. I was thus able to realise a childhood ambition, to go and pray for those who were slain at Hastings by the Invader of 1066 and died calling on the Holy Cross.
Having requested and received permission from 'English Heritage', I was able to serve the Orthodox memorial service with the Canon for Slain Orthodox Warriors. This took place at the Harold-stone, the very site where 927 years ago the fate of the English nation, and so the British Isles and the whole future English-speaking world, was to be sealed.
It is our earnest hope and prayer that by the grace of God this historic anniversary commemoration, taking place on the very site and day of the fateful battle, 14 October according to the Orthodox / Julian / Old English calendar might yet become a regular and public event.
Despite the individual excommunication of Pope Leo IX twelve years before the battle, in 1054, we should not forget that the England of the period was still in communion with those who had not fallen away from the Orthodox Church, in the East. This is proved by the fact that the Norman Invasion was blessed by the Papacy and witnessed to by the many contacts after 1066 between Saxon England and Constantinople, where many thousands of Old English fled with their priests to escape the oppression of the Norman tyrant.
To the Orthodox mind, there is an even more direct link with Hastings. Harold's daughter (born 1056) was to flee England after the Invasion for friendly Denmark and thence Russia. Here she married the future Grand-Prince of Kiev, Vladimir Monomach, in the Cathedral of Our Saviour in Chernigov in April 1074. Vladimir, himself half-Greek, was the grandson of St Anne of Novgorod, who had been baptised by the Glastonbury monk and missionary, St Sigfrid of Sweden. Among the children of Vladimir and Gytha was St Mstislav-Harold (in holy baptism, Theodore, feasted on 15 April), who bore a Slav name as well as that of his maternal grandfather. According to chroniclers, 'no woman in all the world was ever happier than her', Gytha had twelve children, another of whom, George (Yuri), founded Moscow.
In his 200-page epic on Vladimir and Gytha (printed with the blessing of Bishop Hilarion), the Russian poet Igor Avtamonov writes the following:
From sundry lands, like weeds lost root,
With promises of power and loot,
William scraped the scum of the earth,
To steal our homes, land of our birth,
Our wives and kinfolk and cots dear,
To rule as lords and despots here.
The poet concludes Part II, Chapter III, entitled 'At Hastings', with these words:
Harold the King died without fear,
But told us before the slaughter
That if he were to perish here,
We should save Gytha his daughter,
And give to her Old England's crown
That we might cast the Normans down!
May the Lord look down upon us sinners and grant us, who have followed Gytha spiritually and sought to cast the demons down, eternal crowns in the unfading light of His Heavenly Kingdom.
In the sleep of the blessed grant, O Lord, eternal repose to the souls of Thy servants departed this life, Harold, last King of the Old English, his brothers Leofwine and Gyrth, his thegns, and all those who laid down their lives upon this field of battle for the Faith and England and grant them - ETERNAL MEMORY!
October 1993
A somber anniversary that marked the end of the Anglo-Saxon freedom and culture until the Americas.
March 17 / 30 Lulach, Last Orthodox King of Scotland
April 18 / May 1 Molios (Laserian, Laisren, Molaise) (+639), Abbot of Leighlin, Who Brought Southern Ireland to Keep the Orthodox Pascha
What happened to the Magna Carta in 1215?
The Norman French had changed England by then - and the Magna Carta as any good historian will tell you was an agreement between nobles for nobles with a monarchy that was not and never would be English again.
I am a little by the Gregorian but early by the Julian.
"with a monarchy that was not and never would be English again."
How many hundreds of years would the Normans have to live in England before they became English?
I mean, the Angles and the Saxons came from elsewhere, too.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/vikings/asinv.html
I am not arguing for any ethnic purity crap - just eulogizing the loss of culture and memory.
It is a complicated subject after so long a period. I argue not to go back in time but to move forward.
The closest an American can understand to the sentiment are Southeners when they overlook Gettysburg. One way of life came to an end and another came forward.
The only crime after so long is to forget.
"I am not arguing for any ethnic purity crap - just eulogizing the loss of culture and memory."
Okay.
What with all the drinking while that monster, Grendel, keeps coming in and killing drunk men, it's not quite "Lord of the Rings".:)
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