Celtic Comeback II: Seeking roots in Ireland, Eastern Orthodox shepherd seeks Celtic flock

(Original article title of this article was Eastern Orthodox shepherd seeks Celtic flock but the link @ www.reporternews.com/religion/matt0321.html is no longer working. The exact same article is published on the author's web site withe the title below.)

There is nothing unusual about a man with a name like Geoffrey O'Riada serving as a priest in Belfast.

But this particular clergyman will cause raised eyebrows next year when he returns to the land of his ancestors to start a mission. For Geoffrey O'Riada is a very unusual name for an Eastern Orthodox shepherd and Belfast is an unusual place to gather an Eastern Orthodox flock.

O'Riada is convinced his mission makes perfect sense when viewed through the lens of Celtic history. He also believes today's revival of interest in Celtic spirituality is a sign that many are searching for ancient roots and rites.

"The Celts had their own unique and beautiful approach to the Christian faith and were part of the one, undivided church before the split between Rome and the East," he said. "Now, a growing number of people like me believe it's time for Orthodoxy to return to the West, including to lands such as Ireland where it once thrived and produced generations of saints."

O'Riada's "Celtic Orthodox Christianity home page" on the World Wide Web features an icon of a bishop wearing green vestments and gold Celtic crosses, along with a famous prayer linked to St. Padraig, or Patrick. "May Christ be in the mouth of everyone who thinks of thee, Christ in the mouth of those who speak to thee, Christ in every eye that seeks thee, Christ in every ear that hears thy words, O blessed Padraig, our father."

The goal of O'Riada's research is to cover the history of Christianity in the British Isles -- from the viewpoint of Eastern Orthodoxy -- through the crushing of the Celtic church in the Norman Conquests of the 11th and 12th centuries. The site includes pages of essays, biographies of saints, prayers and a timeline of the bloody and convoluted history of Christianity among the Irish, Scottish, Welsh and English peoples. This timeline is 18 pages long and doesn't even address the rise of Protestantism.

When he reaches Belfast, O'Riada will almost be starting from scratch. There is one Eastern Orthodox parish in all of Ireland and that's a Greek parish, with a multi-ethnic congregation, in Dublin. A recent survey found 80 self-identified Orthodox Christians in Northern Ireland. There is, however, a Greek restaurant in Belfast that sells icons.

O'Riada himself is a Canadian of Irish and English descent. His father's side of the family emigrated from County Mayo in Ireland during the potato famine of 1845. He currently is a deacon and finishing his studies at Holy Cross Orthodox Seminary in Brookline, Mass.

"Our approach in this mission will not be to poach sheep from other flocks," he said. "We intend simply to live and worship as Orthodox Christians, manifesting a spiritual and liturgical life that is organically connected to the early church and to the life of the early Irish saints. ... Our desire is to invite western Christians -- Protestants and Roman Catholics -- to discover their roots. ... We want to become a beacon, a light on a hill."

Millions of Roman Catholics are, of course, convinced they already have solid roots into the Irish soil and most Protestants will simply see the Orthodox as another brand of Catholicism. Meanwhile, a surge of Western converts, especially in the United States, is raising questions for Orthodox leaders.

It will be impossible to take academic lessons learned from archeology and manuscripts and turn them, overnight, into a living faith practiced by people in a modern land, said O'Riada. The mission will be able to use many ancient Celtic prayers, honor Celtic saints and to embrace a legacy of Celtic art. There are ancient hymns and chants that can be blended with English-language versions of Orthodox rites.

"We are talking about trying to recover a tradition that was handed down from generation to generation. That will take time," he said. "But we can begin. We need to begin. ... The explosion in interest in Celtic Christianity reflects a profound dissatisfaction with the rationalistic and juridical forms of Christianity which have dominated the West. There is a deep thirst today for ancient, authentic faith."

Terry Mattingly (www.tmatt.net) teaches at Palm Beach Atlantic University and is senior fellow for journalism at the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities. He writes this weekly column for the Scripps Howard News Service.

I just found part one of the posted article:

Celtic comeback I -- searching for roots

EDITOR'S NOTE: The first of two columns. It happened every year in the weeks just before St. Patrick's Day.

"Without fail, publishers would start putting out the same drivel. You'd see books of Irish blessings and Irish stories and Irish saints and Irish whatever and all of it would be green. Everything would be green -- the covers, the printing, everything," said Catholic writer Thomas Cahill, author of the 1995 bestseller, "How the Irish Saved Civilization."

In a strange way, it's getting harder to spot this annual surge. Somewhere along the way, the tartan tide washed in and never receded. These days, the Celts are on the march year round. There's more to this than St. Patrick's Day parades, a legacy of great literature and tenors singing songs that make people cry in their ale.

For things Celtic, this is a new age. Visit most music stores and, instead of a few offerings by the Chieftains, shoppers will find racks of new Celtic music, from ethereal lullabies to foot-stomping reels. There has been a similar surge of interest in Celtic history, fiction, art and spirituality. The latter can appeal to everyone from those seeking pop-pagan mysticism to Christian pilgrims searching for their roots in the bloody soil of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany and the Isle of Man.

Some people become interested in Celtic spirituality because they want to reject what they perceive as traditional Christianity, said Cahill. Others become fascinated with the Celtic past because they are seeking traditional Christianity.

"One reason Celtic spirituality is so attractive is that it's foreign, but not too foreign. It's familiar, but not too familiar. It's Western, but there is this sense of the Eastern to it, as well," he said. "The Celtic church offered a Christianity that was whole and undivided. It came before the division of East and West, let alone the division between Protestant and Catholic."

But there's a problem. Today, Celtic Christianity is -- quite literally -- in ruins. It's hard to join a church that can best be seen in the fallen remnants of ancient abbeys and in priceless, handwritten manuscripts on museum shelves. Interest in Celtic Christianity may be on the rise, but modern seekers won't be able to find congregations bearing that label in a telephone book.

Where should they go? Truth is, several churches can lay claim to some piece of the shattered Celtic cross and their claims often clash. Church history in England is as complex as a Celtic knot.

Celtic bishops took part in the first Christian councils, soon after the era of the apostles. Their churches were influenced both by missionaries from Roman Britain, such as St. Patrick, and Eastern monasticism. Celtic pilgrims traveled to Rome, but also to Jerusalem, Antioch and Constantinople. As Cahill's book notes, Celtic scribes and missionaries played a pivotal role in the preservation of Western culture and the spread of Christianity during the chaotic era after the fall of Rome. The Church of Rome gained control of England in the Norman Conquest of 1066, soon after the bitter 1054 division of Christianity into the Catholic West and the Orthodox East. Then the Church of England successfully broke with Rome in 1533. Yet, Anglicanism and its children were born out of a compromise between Rome and those who were protesting the teachings of Rome. Instead of returning to Celtic traditions, Anglicanism blended many of Rome's structures with the innovations of the surging Protestants.

Celtic Christianity remained buried in the rubble left by invaders and reformers.

"The Celtic church was suppressed and suppressed and, finally, it was crushed," said novelist Stephen Lawhead of Oxford, who is best known for weaving Celtic history and myths into his "Pendragon" cycle and "The Song of Albion" trilogy. "But that is part of the whole appeal of this. Celtic Christianity is like the fly caught in amber. It's frozen in time. It died before it could mutate into something else. This is why so many people yearn for it. This also speaks to the rootlessness that so many Americans feel."

NEXT WEEK: Deacon Geoffrey O Riada's dreams of Celtic Orthodoxy. (See above)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.