Welsh saints to adorn Orthodox church

icwales.icnetwork.co.uk ^ | Jan 24 2005 | Rhodri Clark

[Destro]

Welsh saints to adorn Orthodox church

Jan 24 2005

Rhodri Clark, Western Mail

A CHURCH in North Wales could be decorated with frescoes of hundreds of Welsh saints to cement its links with ancient Celtic Christianity.

The long list of Welsh saints includes each one commemorated in a place name starting with "Llan", as well as St Patrick and others remembered mainly for their work outside Wales.

Father Deiniol, who founded the Wales Orthodox Mission more than 20 years ago, said there were so many saints that there would not be enough room in his Blaenau Ffestiniog church for each one.

"We could include one from every part of Wales," said Fr Deiniol, known locally as Y Tad Deiniol.

A religious artist in Colwyn Bay has expressed interest in the job, but would first have to learn how to paint icons in the traditional Orthodox style.

Fr Deiniol has decided against building an onion tower - a powerful symbol of Orthodox churches in Russia and elsewhere - on his former Anglican church in Blaenau Ffestiniog.

"We thought about that once but we asked, 'What would that be saying?' It's very foreign. We're not Russians or Greeks, we're Welsh. The onion tower is not part of our tradition."

He is chaplain in Bangor and Aberystwyth, where some of the university students are from Greece, Russia and other countries with a predominantly orthodox faith. Services at his church in Blaenau Ffestiniog can attract up to 300 people at key festivals in the calendar such as Easter.

The history of Fr Deiniol's mission will be retold in an hour-long documentary on S4C on Tuesday, February 1.

[Destro]

THE ORTHODOX CHURCH IN CONTEMPORARY WALES

THE FALL OF ORTHODOX ENGLAND

[ILL]

I am not all that surprised. From what I remember the Celtic Tribes conquered most of the European continent from year 120 to about year 960. Their Southernmost tribe (The Scordists, or Scordiacs - not sure how to spell it) has even made contacts with Alexander the Great in today's Greece and/or Macedonia year 330. Early Eastern Orthodox Christianity was found among the native tribes of this Southern part of Europe and obviously some Celtic tribes took it back home from there.

So much more the shame that those early Orthodox Christian Shrines are now being defaced and burned in Kosovo (bordering both Greece and Macedonia) by the Muslim Albanians who wish to erase the trace that any other people ever lived there except them. History is a damn powerful tool if you know how to study everything and connect the dots on a map.

[Destro]

The Gauls the Greeks encountered in Alexander's time have little to do with the British Isles becoming Christian.

The Celtic British/Welsh and Anglo-Saxons who followed them were "orthodox" because they were converted at a time when the Christian Church was the same through out the world. The Christian schisms did not happen in earnest until the Middles Ages.

Pre-Schism Christianity in its Celtic and Latin forms survived in the British isles because of its isolation. So when the Pope broke with Constantinople the British and Celts did not follow the Pope's new Latin version Christianity. So the Pope blessed William the Conqueror aka William the Bastard's claim to England. The Normans went about eliminate the original Anglo-Saxon and Celtic confessions.

[Destro]

By the Pope's new Latin version Christianity I mean the introduction of the filioque into the Christian creed and their excommunication of the Eastern Church - which the Celts and Angl-Saxons did not abide by.

[ILL]

I take it back, you're absolutely right. I completely forgot that the Christian schism took place only in 1084 and the final one at 1204. I appologize, for a moment there I completely forgot what was and is common knowledge.