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Posted on 11/22/2002 10:22:39 PM PST by Destro
THE FALL OF ORTHODOX ENGLAND
Vladimir Moss
It is true what I say: should the Christian faith weaken, the kingship will immediately totter.
Archbishop Wulfstan of York, The Institutes of Polity, 4 (1023).
INTRODUCTION: ENGLAND, ROME, CONSTANTINOPLE, NORMANDY
On October 14, 1066, at Hastings in southern England, the last Orthodox king of England, Harold II, died in battle against Duke William of Normandy. William had been blessed to invade England by the Roman Pope Alexander in order to bring the English Church into full communion with the “reformed Papacy”; for since 1052 the English archbishop had been banned and denounced as schismatic by Rome. The result of the Norman Conquest was that the English Church and people were integrated into the heretical “Church” of Western, Papist Christendom, which had just, in 1054, fallen away from communion with the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, represented by the Eastern Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. Thus ended the nearly five-hundred-year history of the Anglo-Saxon Orthodox Church, which was followed by the demise of the still older Celtic Orthodox Churches in Wales, Scotland and Ireland.
This small book is an account of how this came to pass.
The Beginning of the End
Now the English had been perhaps the most fervent “Romanists” of all the peoples of Western Europe. This devotion sprang from the fact that it was to Rome, and specifically to Pope St. Gregory the Great and his disciples, that the Angles, Saxons and Jutes owed their conversion to the Faith in the late sixth and early seventh centuries. From that time English men and women of all classes and conditions poured across the Channel in a well-beaten path to the tombs of the Apostles in Rome, and a whole quarter of the city was called “Il Borgo Saxono” because of the large number of English pilgrims it accomodated. English missionaries such as St. Boniface of Germany carried out their work as the legates of the Roman Popes. And the voluntary tax known as “Peter’s Pence” which the English offered to the Roman see was paid even in the difficult times of the Viking invasions, when it was the English themselves who were in need of alms.
However, the “Romanity” to which the English were so devoted was not the Franco-Latin, Roman Catholicism of the later Middle Ages. Rather, it was the Greco-Roman Romanitas or Romiosini of Orthodox Catholicism. And the spiritual and political capital of Romanitas until the middle of the fifteenth century was not Old Rome in Italy, but the New Rome of Constantinople. Thus when King Ethelbert of Kent was baptized by St. Augustine in 597, “he had entered,” as Fr. Andrew Phillips writes, “‘Romanitas’, Romanity, the universe of Roman Christendom, becoming one of those numerous kings who owed allegiance, albeit formal, to the Emperor in New Rome…” Indeed, as late as the tenth century the cultural links between England and Constantinople remained strong, as we see, for example, in King Athelstan’s calling himself basileus and curagulus, titles ascribed to the Byzantine emperor.
We may tentatively point to the murder of King Edward the Martyr in 979 as the beginning of the end of Orthodox England. Only six years before, his father, King Edgar the Peaceable, had been anointed and crowned as head of the Anglo-Saxon “empire” in Bath Abbey, next to the still considerable remains of Imperial Rome. And in the same year he had been rowed on the River Dee at Chester by six or eight sub-kings, including five Welsh and Scottish rulers and one ruler of the Western Isles. But then the anti-monastic reaction of King Edward’s reign was followed by the murder of the Lord’s anointed. “No worse deed for the English was ever done that this,” said the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; and while it was said that there was “great rejoicing” at the coronation of St. Edward’s half-brother, Ethelred “the Unready”, St. Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, sorrowfully prophesied great woes for the nation in the coming reign.
He was right; for not only were the English successively defeated by Danish pagan invaders and forced to pay ever larger sums in “Danegeld”, but the king himself, betrayed by his leading men and weighed down by his own personal failures, was forced to flee abroad in 1013. The next year he was recalled by the English leaders, both spiritual and lay, who declared that “no lord was dearer to them than their rightful lord, if only he would govern his kingdom more justly than he had done in the past.” But the revival was illusory; further defeats followed, and in 1017, after the deaths both of King Ethelred and of his son Edmund Ironside, the Danish Canute was made king of all the English. Canute converted to the faith of his new Christian subjects; and the period of the Danish kings (1017-1042) created less of a disruption in the nation’s spiritual life than might have been expected. Nevertheless, it must have seemed that God’s mercy had at last returned to His people when, in 1043, the Old English dynasty of Alfred the Great was restored in the person of King Ethelred’s son Edward, known to later generations as “the Confessor”.
It is with the life of King Edward that our narrative begins.
(Excerpt) Read more at romanitas.ru ...
What is described above is the RC doctrine of transubstantiation, particularly the statement that the bread and wine cease to exist. This is not Orthodox doctrine.
Orthodox doctrine does not negate the created nature of the bread and wine. Instead, the Eucharist is understood as symbol (symbolon) but in the original Greek meaning of the term. A symbol is the place at which two disparate meet, in this case the Uncreated and created.
The Uncreated does not negate the created.
The break and wine, then, remain bread and wine while also becoming the body and blood of Christ. The Holy Spirit transforms the gifts, but does not change the gifts' created nature. Rather, the created and Uncreated coexist, they become one. The created becomes the means by which the Uncreated is revealed.
Hope this helps. It is basic Orthodox teaching. I am surprised that you would find the Council of Trent to be of greater authority than the teachings of your own church. This is all in line with our underlying theme of the Incarnation.
I am finished debating this issue. I have debated it here many, *countless*, hundreds of times, perhaps. Ask any older freeper how often we have done this debate here on the religion forum.....
I have spoken to clergy in Russian, Greek, and Romanian churches in this area and rec'd the above same answer from them all, as I have from the OCA clergy. Your opinion does not carry the weight of their teachings. I am very sorry if that offends you.
Both coexisted in the person of Christ. He was fully God and fully man - the God/Man.
In the Eucharist, we are joined to Christ by body and blood, we become one with His humanity so that through Him we might encounter divinity. This would not be possible if the bread and wine somehow ceased being a created thing.
Even Orthodox theologians do not agree with what you and your clergy are saying, nor does anyone dismiss it as "basic Orthodox teaching," but rather as a difficult issue that never goes out of date.
The concept you and allegedly your clergy espouse -- that the Body is inside the bread and Blood inside the wine -- is known as cosubstantiation, of which Marthin Luther is the author. So, if you think that my giving some recognition (not primacy), in principle, to the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation is worth your scorn, what is one to say of embracing the theory born in a schism of a schism that even most Portestants reject?
As Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow wrote in his Longer Catechism, concerning the changing of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, "this none can understand but God; but only this much is signified, that the bread truly, really and substantially becomes the very true Body of the Lord, and the wine the very Blood of the Lord."
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Consubstantiation is one of the beliefs held by Christians about the Eucharist.
It holds that during the sacrament the Body of Christ enters the bread, and the Blood of Christ enters the wine, but they continue to be also bread and wine.
Today some Christian faiths, notably Anglicanism and Lutheranism, profess the doctrine of Consubstantiation. In England in the late 14th century, there was a political and religious movement known as Lollardy. Among much broader goals, the Lollards affirmed a form of consubstantiation -- that the Eucharist remained physically bread and wine, while becoming spiritually the body and blood of Christ. Lollardy was effectively ended with the execution of John Badby for heresy by burning at the stake.
MarMema, you need to revisit Orthodoxy and get back on the right track, because you have taken the wrong exit in my opinion and are teaching that which is not of Orthodox faith.
Have a nice Lent and Pascha.
Then maybe your priest can explain why is Orthodox teaching different from consubstantiation, as defined and explained in #124.
And then finally you can tell you your priest why you are using his words verbatim without giving him credit or without giving specific sources.
Prove it.
Provide evidence that you have cause to believe that the translation is illegitimate.
Otherwise, you're just making accusations with ZERO evidence. In which case, the cited author's scholarly credentials outweigh your own, his translational authority may be presumed superior to your own, and your charge is dismissed as baseless and utterly unsubstantiated.
No way, Destro. I accept the translations of the Fathers when I read them in scholarly works unless I have evidence of mis-translation (which I have done in some cases; cf. Irenaeus on Domitian/Domitius) -- and in such cases, I research, collate, and produce the evidence to back up my charges.. If you want to impugn the authority of MY cited translations, produce evidence of your charge.... and no, if you want to indict a scholarly translation, it's not MY job to do YOUR homework.
So -- substantiate your charge. Otherwise, your post is irrelevant.
By the way, this is just more of the same dissimulation technique that's been foisted on me this whole thread. It won't wash, sorry.
I, in the spirit of argumentative charity, presume scholarly Honesty on the part of Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic authors, unless I have clear evidence of malfeasance.
You, OTOH, just unfairly presume scholarly Dishonesty on the part of Protestants, and that with ZERO evidence (in fact, with contravening evidence against you, such as the fact that Erigina's book denying the Carnal Presence in the Eucharist was burned -- if he was misquoted, why burn the book?).
Nice work if you can get it. "The greatest of these is charity", huh?
(from Wikipedia)
This of why the former is plasphemy, and you will know the answer.
I have no intention of "resisting"... when instead of merely "resisting" the Devil's Divisions between faithful Orthodox and Protestants, I can mount a counter-attack against his hateful wiles by seeking Common Ground between our two great and ancient Faiths.
The following is a direct citation from The Old Orthodox Prayer Book, which was brought to my attention by my beloved Dutch Reformed comrade-in-Calvinism "Jean Chauvin" (trust the Dutch Reformed to do the scholarly work of seeking mutual understanding, while we Scot Presbyterians are busy with theological brawling).
My most merciful and all-merciful God and Lord Jesus Christ, Who of Thy great love didst come down and take flesh to save all: Again, O Savior, save me by Thy grace, I pray Thee.
For if Thou shouldst save me for my works, this would not be a grace, but rather an obligation, not a grace or a gift. Yea, my Christ who art abundant in generosity and ineffable in mercy, Thou hast said: He that believeth in me shall live and shall never see death.
If, then, faith in Thee saveth the desperate, lo, I believe; save me, for Thou art my God and Creator.
Let my faith be reckoned in place of works, and seek not deeds which would justify me.
But may my faith alone suffice instead of any deeds; may it answer for me, may it justify me, may it make me a partaker of Thine eternal glory. Let not Satan seize me and boast that he hath torn me from Thy hand and fold, O Word.
But whether I will it or not, save me, O Christ my Savior. Go before me quickly, quickly, for I am perishing! Thou art my God from my mother's womb.
Grant that I may love Thee, O Lord, as formerly I loved sin itself, and that I may work for Thee earnestly and without laziness, as I once worked for deceitful Satan.
From the Canon to Jesus in Old Orthodox Prayer Book, Priest Pimen Simon, Priest Theodore Jurewicz and Hieromonk German Ciuba, trans. and ed., pp. 150-151.
(And to those Eastern Orthodox who have [IMHO, unfairly] accused me of mis-quotation -- surely I have not mis-quoted this prayer, being taken directly from the website of Saint Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church of Dallas, Texas.)
My accusers on this thread have made many Hard and Uncharitable accusations against my Honesty, accusations which I have believed to be baseless and unwarranted -- and, I will admit, in defense of my Honesty I have been Hard (and perhaps even Uncharitable) towards them.
But let us not forget -- Satan tries to create divisions at the margin. Envious as he is of the Joy of self-sacrifing Christian Love (being that dominating Individual Power is his only satisfaction, as he seeks the greatest Individual Power over all, as it has been from the beginning) -- the Ancient Adversary seeks to deny us our Common Love, and instead magnify our Differences.
Well, I say against him -- without denying our Differences, let us instead magnify our Common Love. On this Great Lent, let us "resist the Devil, and he will flee from us". Let us Pray Together.
And this Calvinist will happily admit: with the exceptions of the Messiah and the Psalmist, NOBODY writes better Prayers than do the Eastern Orthodox ("Three are we; Three are Ye; have Mercy on us, O God!" -- the prayer of the Three Orthodox Hermits, twelve words which cannot be improved).
Let the Eastern Orthodox write the Prayer, and let Calvinist "Amens" echo in Humble Joy.
When the Eastern Orthodox writes the Prayer... will they permit the Calvinists to partake of the antidoron, and echo our worship from the alcoves?
Or will we allow Satan to divide us at the margins... magnifying our Differences, even from Prayers which we ought Truly Pray Together?
For myself, as a committed Calvinist Presbyterian, I have certain serious Theological Differences with the Eastern Orthodox (some, not all). I also have some Ecclesiological Differences -- although given that both Presbyterians and Orthodox affirm the Biblical standard of Conciliar (Non-Papal) Government of the Church, our differences here are not so profound.
But for today, I am not here to magnify differences. For all accusations which have been cast against my Honesty on this thread -- I lay it aside. I here and now tell my Grudges to "get thee behind me". I freely forgive. It is Great Lent, is it not? (You Eastern Orthodox will have to tell me; Calvinists lack a proper Liturgical Calendar). Let us not merely "resist" the Devil, let us counter-attack. Let us Pray Together. And let the Old Orthodox Prayer Book be our guide.
Written by the Eastern Orthodox, this Prayer is as fine (or better) than you will find in any Calvinist Prayer-Book.
I will Pray this fine, incredible, beautiful Eastern Orthodox Prayer.
But... Will we Pray Together?
I hope so. Best, OP
You might enjoy this website's information.
Which book?
I read the entirety of the (available excerpts of) "Orthodox Christianity and the English Tradition" as soon as you linked it, several days ago.
I have also been diligent to read the above-linked Article and supporting evidence on the Saint Nicholas Russian Orthodox site.
If I have otherwise missed some article of study you should like me to consider, it is not intentional on my part. But (if it is not inconvenient) please direct the matter to my specific attention in your next post. (I have read several Links, and am not sure which one your question concerns -- honestly, no offense).
best, OP
Vladimir Moss is also the author of
The Saints of Anglo-Saxon England
and
and
I might... but I ran site-specific GOOGLE searches on the Link. "Erigina" (or "Eriugina"), "Sedulius", "Gallus", and "Claudius Scotus" returned essentially ZERO results.
This is like a website on "Roman Catholicism" returning ZERO results on "Athanasius", "Jerome", and "Augustine". HUH?!
If this is "ORTHODOX ENGLAND on the 'net" ~~ where are the Scottish Fathers?
History is History. One cannot define the Celtic Orthodox Church without reference to Erigina, Gallus, Claudius Scotus -- and yes, the most prolific of them all, the Ultra-Predestinarian Celtic Orthodox Father Sedulius Scotus. Not anymore than one could chronicle the History of the Western Latins without reference to Augustine.
best, OP
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