'Wise Men Hunt after Truth'—Introducing St Eustathius of Thessalonica

In a post back in March called ‘Robert Fitzgerald on Homer’, I quoted a passage from Fitzgerald’s postscript to the Odyssey where the famous translator made a reference to ‘the twelfth century archbishop of Thessaloniki, Eustathius’. [1] I myself then added in brackets the title ‘Saint’ just before the archbishop’s name. This took a little research, as I am ashamed to admit that I knew nothing of this man despite having lived in his city for two years. The warrant for the title was discovered in this excellent article (worth looking at for the beautiful images of Vatopaidi’s frescoes) from the online edition of Pemptousia, the magazine of faith and culture published by the Athonite Monastery of Vatopaidi, where Efthymios Tsigaridas refers to St Eustathius as ‘one of the most important spiritual figures of the 12th century’. [2]

Well, in the hustle and bustle of life, I managed to forget about St Eustathius—until yesterday. I was finally reading Peter Leithart’s Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture, recommended to me by no less an authority than Esteban Vazquez, and happened to skip ahead a little bit, when I found this:

Christ was the ‘true Orpheus’, who brought his bride back from Hades, and Odysseus tied to the mast was a type of Jesus on the cross, resisting the siren temptations of the world. [3] Eustathius, twelfth-century bishop of Thessalonica, repeats a commonplace about the plant Hermes gives Odysseus to protect him from Circe’s magic:

By Hermes Homer most tellingly indicates the logos and by moly he indicates paideia, our spiritual education that is to say; for this can only be developed with great travail, ek molou, and by means of suffering and misfortune. The root of moly is black because the beginnings of paideia are always dark as shadows and extraordinarily ill-formed. Therefore our spiritual development is as the carrying of a heavy load and in no wise sweet. Yet moly has a flower and it is white as milk, for the end that paideia aims at and seeks to achieve, lies before us in a gleaming brightness and all is sweet and satisfying. Hermes it is who gives us this moly, and this is nothing less then those logos-inspired directives which do not by any means lie ready for the human understanding to grasp. For moly comes from God and is a gracious gift. [4]

At last my slumbering curiosity was aroused! Prevented by a faulty internet connection from making the mistake documented in this post, I searched through my own volumes at home until I came across the following passage in Vasiliev’s History of the Byzantine Empire:

Among the celebrated figures of the twelfth century in the field of general culture belongs also the talented teacher and friend of Michael Acominatus, the archbishop of Thessalonica, Eustathius, ‘the most brilliant luminary of the Byzantine world of learning since Michael Psellus’ (Gregorovius, Geschichte der Stadt Athen, I, 205, 207). He received his education in Constantinople, became deacon of the church of St Sophia, and was a teacher of rhetoric. He wrote most of his works there, but his historical writings and various occasional compositions he wrote later at Thessalonica. Eustathius’ house in Constantinople was a sort of school for young students; it became a center around which the best minds of the capital and youths anxious to learn collected. As religious head of Thessalonica, the city next in importance to the capital, Eustathius devoted much of his energy to raising the spiritual and moral standard of contemporary monastic conditions, which sometimes created enemies against him among the monks. From a cultural point of view his repeated appeals to the monks not to squander the treasures of the libraries are very interesting; he wrote: ‘Woe to me! Why will you, O dunces, liken a monastic library to your souls? As you do not possess any knowledge, you are willing to deprive the library also of its scientific means? Let it preserve its treasures. After you there will come either a man of learning or an admirer of science, and the first, by spending a certain time in the libraries, will grow more clever than he was before; the other, ashamed of his complete ignorance, will, by reading books, find that which he desires’ (Migne, PG CXXXV, 836). Eustathius died between 1192 and 1194. His pupil and friend, the metropolitan of Athens, Michael Acominatus, honored his memory with a moving funeral oration. 

A thoughtful observer of the political life of his epoch, an educated theologian who boldly acknowledged the corruption of monastic life, as well as a profound scholar whose knowledge in ancient literature secured him an honorable place not only in the history of Byzantine civilization but also in the history of classical philology, Eustathius is undoubtedly a prominent personality in the cultural life of Byzantium in the twelfth century. His literary legacy may be divided into two groups: in the first group are his vast and accurate commentaries on the Iliad and Odyssey, on Pindarus, and some others; to the second group belong the works written at Thessalonica: a history of the conquest of Thessalonica by the Normans in 1185; his very important correspondence; the famous treatise on the reforms of monastic life; an oration on the occasion of the death of the Emperor Manuel, and other writings. Eustathius’ works have not yet been adequately used for the study of the political and cultural history of Byzantium. [5]

Leaving no print stone unturned, I even ransacked Lesky’s History of Greek Literature for references to Eustathius—the most interesting of which was: ‘In the commentary on the two poems compiled by Eustathius, archbishop of Thessalonica from 1175, a good deal of ancient criticism and exegesis survives, embedded in a prolix exposition. The work of the four men [‘scholars who were influention in transmitting Alexandrian learning to posterity’] was known to him through the commentary of Apion and Herodorus.’ [6] Stephen Scully (on whom there will be more in future posts) quotes the archbishop on the sanctity of the polis: ‘Not only is Thebes (in the Troad) called sacred [hiere], but so is every polis, as it guards those within, which [act of guarding], indeed, is divine [theion] (at Il. I.366).’ [7]

Kazhdan’s and Epstein’s Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh & Twelfth Centuries yielded a bit more. There is the remark that ‘Eustathios was one of the best-educated scholars of his time, an excellent representative of the self-conscious, intellectual elite of twelfth-century Byzantine society....Eustathios’s influence on his associates is evident in their quotations from his works and in their imitations of his literary style.’ [8] There is a longish passage on the expansion of ‘naturalistic detail...into a spacial and social dimension’ [9] in St Eustathius’s writing, [10] supplemented by a sizeable excerpt from his description of the fall of Thessaloniki to the Normans in the Appendix. [11] But more interestingly, there are the following observations concerning his Homeric criticism:

Homeric criticism became more profound and varied in the twelfth century. Though Eustathios of Thessaloniki was familiar with the ancient commentaries, now lost, his exegesis was often the fruit of his own consideration. He did not restrict himself to the interpretation of difficult words and grammatical constructions; rather he attempted to understand Homeric heros in terms of contemporary linguistic usage, ethnography, political institutions, and cultural life. Also included in his explanations of the text are popular folkloric elements—dwarfs in England (Inglika) who used arrows tiny as needles, inhabitants of Taurika, probably the Kievan Rus, who made wooden books out of boxes. [12]

When I finally exhausted the possibilities on my shelves, the internet had returned and I duly poked around a bit. From the Orthodox, there was a rather second-rate article on ‘Hellenic Paideia &Church Fathers’ by Demetrios Constantelos, author of the lamentable Marriage, Sexuality, & Celibacy: A Greek Orthodox View, in which by far the most interesting comment on St Eustathius is a quotation from the funeral oration preached for him by Michael Acominatus—‘all young students of literature sought his company, and his home was truly a shrine of the Muses, another Academy, Stoa, and Peripatos.’ [13]

More imporantly, there was a great treatment of St Eustathius in Philip Schaff’s History of the Christian Church (found here, at CCEL). Schaff informs us, ‘His education was carried on in the convent of St Euphemia, but he became a monk in the convent of St Florus. He early distinguished himself for learning, piety and eloquence...’ He then writes glowingly of the Saint, ‘He was a model bishop, pious faithful, unselfish, unsparing in rebuke and wise in counsel, “one of those pure characters so rarely met among the Greeks [!]—a man who well knew the failings (superstition, mock-holiness and indecorous frivolity) of his nation and his times, which he was more exempt from than any of his contemporaries” (Neander IV, 530-1).’ [14]

It took me longest to find again something I had actually seen when I originally looked into the question of St Eustathius’s sanctity—Anthony Makrinos’s faculty page at the University College London website. Makrinos specialises in St Eustathius, and has Book 1 of his commentary on the Odyssey forthcoming from Brill. I look forward to tracking down some of Makrinos’s articles.

But I have saved the best for last. At the Notre Dame library site, I found a pdf of a translation by David Jenkins, David Bachrach, and Darin Hayton of the ‘introduction’ to St Eustathius’s commentary on the Iliad. I urge all to read the entire thing, and I am tempted to repost much of it here, but this post has already become intolerably long. I will content myself with one central controversial question:

However, since this work is full of myths there is the risk of wondering whether he runs afoul. First of all, these Homeric myths are not intended to be humorous. They are instead the phantoms or veils of noble thoughts. Some are molded by him to fit his subject matter, while others naturally allegorize his themes. Finally, many of these myths that were composed by the ancients and drawn aptly into his poetry are not allegories specifically related to the Trojans at all, but rather are used as those who first composed them intended. But a man so prolific in wisdom did not delight in myths alone. For if wisdom is truthful observation, then the wise man observes truthfully. How can we say that Homer did not do the same? He performed his art by bringing together many elements and mingling them together in his work. Thus, he first entices and charms by surface appearance then captures in this net, so they say, those who shrink from the subtlety of philosophy. Then, having given them a taste of the sweetness in truth, he sends them off to proceed as wise men to hunt after truth in other places. Moreover, he becomes the model for creating credible myths in order that he mgiht lead those eager to learn in this technique just as he does in all others. But it is especially remarkable that, although his work is full of myths, he is not shunned but loved. [15]

I’d love to see more of the Homeric criticism, and I’d also like to see more research on St Eustathius from an Orthodox theological perspective (I’m not sure that there’s been any to speak of—he’s not even mentioned in Fr Meyendorff’s Byzantine Theology). I’d be particularly interested in learning more about the veneration of the Saint. Despite the icon at Vatopaidi, [16] I’ve yet to see any references to a feastday or hymnography for him.

[1] Robert Fitzgerald, ‘Postscript’, The Odyssey, by Homer, tr. Robert Fitzgerald (NY: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1998), p. 476.

[2] Efthymios N. Tsigaridas, ‘The Wall-paintings of the Nave’, Pemptousia—accessed 13 June 2012, here.

[3] The Christian reading of Odysseus tied to the mast goes back at least to Clement of Alexandria, whose reference to the scene I first discovered here on the late, great blog, Ora et labora (Felix Culpa, wherever you are, you are in our prayers!), and later in the source from which it’s quoted there—Alan Jacobs’s wonderful A Theology of Reading: The Hermeneutics of Love (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2001), p. 13. Unfortunately, however, Jacobs believes such readings are not compatible with the ‘hermeneutics of love’ (not merely his own idea, but one based on St Augustine). I think Leithart is more on target here when he observes that the Christian allegorical reading of the pagans ‘reflects a profound insight into the supremacy and universality of Christ’ (p. 181).

[4] Peter Leithart, Deep Exegesis: The Mystery of Reading Scripture (Waco, TX: Baylor, 2009), pp. 180-1.

[5] A.A. Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire 324-1453, Vol. 2, tr. (Madison, WI: U of Wisconsin, 1976), pp. 495-6.

[6] Albin Lesky, A History of Greek Literature, tr. Cornelis de Heer & James Willis (London: Duckworth, 1996), p. 77.

[7] Stephen Scully, Homer & the Sacred City (Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1994), p. 21.

[8] A.P. Kazhdan & Ann Wharton Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in the 11^th & 12^th Centuries (Berkeley, CA: U of California, 1985), p. 218.

[9] Ibid., p. 216.

[10] Ibid., pp. 216-8.

[11] Ibid., p. 261-2.

[12] Ibid., p. 134.

[13] Demetrios J. Constantelos, ‘Hellenic Paideia & Church Fathers: Educational Principles & Cultural Heritage’, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America—accessed 13 June 2012, here.

[14] Philip Schaff, ‘Eustathius of Thessalonica’, History of the Christian Church, Vol. IV: Medieval Christianity from Gregory I to Gregory VII, AD 590-1073—accessed 13 June 2012, here.

[15] Eustathios of Thessaloniki, ‘Critical Remarks on Homer’s Iliad: Introduction’, tr. David Jenkins, David Bachrach, & Darin Hayton, Byzantine Studies Collection, Hesburgh Libraries—University of Notre Dame—accessed 13 June 2012, here.

[16] The only other reference I’ve seen to him so far as a Saint is in the title of Constantelos’s source—Agios Eustathios Praktika Theologikou Synedriou ['Saint Eustathios—Acts of the Theological Conference'], ed. Christoforos Kontakis (Thessaloniki 1989). I have of course looked in the indexes to the Prologue from Ochrid and the HTM Great Horologion.

Eucharistic Ontology: An Addendum on Fr Nicholas Loudovikos in English

In this post from the Spring of 2009, I strongly recommended the theology of Protopresbyter Nicholas Loudovikos of the University Ecclesiastical Academy of Thessaloniki. At that time, I wrote that ‘none of Fr Loudovikos’s work has, to my knowledge, yet been published in English’, but added, ‘If I remember correctly, an English translation of another book, Η Ευχαριστιακή Οντολογία (Athens: Domos, 1992), is in the works...’ I’m afraid I must admit that around the time that I wrote the original post, at least one of Fr Nicholas’s articles—a fine critique of some of the theological positions of his former teacher, the renowned Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon—was already being published in English under the title, ‘Person Instead of Grace & Dictated Otherness: John Zizioulas’ Final Theological Position’, The Heythrop Journal XLVIII (2009), pp. 1-16. I should have noted this and at least written an addendum to the original post some time ago.

Well, as many of you may know already, the second statement has proved to be correct, and the said translation having been completed, the first statement is now doubly if not triply untrue. Holy Cross Press has published this book, which when I talked with him in 2007 Fr Nicholas spoke of often as one of his more important, under the title, A Eucharistic Ontology: Maximus the Confessor’s Eschatological Ontology of Being as Dialogical Reciprocity (Brookline, MA: Holy Cross, 2010). Here is Fr Andrew Louth’s blurb about the book as posted on Amazon:

In this remarkable book, Fr Nikolaos Loudovikos brings his profound knowledge of the greatest of Byzantine theologians, St Maximus the Confessor, into dialogue with the recent currents of philosophy and theology in the West. This in itself is rare enough, but his central claim—that who we really are is disclosed in our final destiny in God—is one that he shows is rooted in our participation in the Eucharist. This is an intellectually demanding work, but in it Fr Loudovikos never loses sight of the fact that what he has to say bears directly on how we understand what it is to live as a Christian in the twenty-first century.

I myself have not yet read the book in Greek, much less English (though if there remain any generous readers out there willing to help a brother out, I would be delighted to find a copy in the mail!), but I have little doubt that it will prove to be very much worthwhile. The title may sound a bit unwieldy and pretentious, though it doesn’t strike me as nearly so bad in Greek, but Fr Loudovikos is a theologian who really must become better known in the English-speaking world. Order this book now!

'Our Sacred Pair of Enlighteners'—Ss Cyril & Methodius

Today, 11 May on the Church’s calendar, we celebrate the memory of the Holy Apostles to the Slavs, Cyril & Methodius of Thessaloniki (9th c.). I posted on these great Saints on their feastday last year, and have mentioned them and their mission numerous other times (see these posts), so this will likely be brief post. Sir Dimitri Obolensky calls Ss Cyril & Methodius ‘the greatest of all missionaries who worked among the Slavs’, and singles out St Cyril as ‘a linguistic genius’ who ranks ‘among the greatest philologists Europe has ever produced’. [1] Though widely renowned as the inventor of an alphabet, generally agreed to be the ‘Glagolitic’, R. Auty credits the Saints with the ‘establishment’ of the Old Church Slavonic literary language itself. [2] Here is the account of the lives of these two holy brothers in the Prologue:

They were brothers from Salonica, of eminent and wealthy parents, Leo and Maria. The elder brother, Methodius, spent ten years as an officer among the Slavs in Macedonia, and thus learned the Slavic language. [3] After that, Methodius went off to Olympus and gave himself to monastic asceticism, and Cyril (Constantine) later joined him there. When the Khazarite king, Kagan, sought preachers of the Christian faith from the Emperor Michael, the Emperor commanded that these two brothers be found and sent to the Khazars. They converted Kagan to the Christian faith and baptised him, together with a great number of his nobles and an even greater number of the people. After some time, they returned to Constantinople, where they compiled a Slavic alphabet of 38 letters and began to translate the service books from Greek to Slavonic. At the invitation of Prince Rastislav, they went to Moravia, where, with great devotion, they spread and confirmed the Faith, made more copies of the books, brought them priests and taught the young. They went to Rome at the invitation of the Pope, and Cyril fell ill and died there, on February 14th, 869. Then Methodius returned to Moravia and laboured at the confirming of the Faith among the Slavs until his death. After his death—he entered into rest in the Lord on April 6th, 885—his disciples, the Five Followers, with St Clement as bishop at the beginning, crossed the Danube [4] and moved towards the south, to Macedonia, where, from Ochrid, they continued the work among the Slavs that Cyril and Methodius had begun in the north. [5]

In another essay from the same book I have already quoted, Obolensky considers Ss Cyril and Methodius in their distinct rôle as Byzantine missionaries, or more properly, missionaries of the East Roman empire. Thus, they were missionaries and diplomats, a ‘double rôle’ which ‘resulted from the close relationship . . . between the evangelical ideal of the Byzantine Church and the foreign policy of the empire.’ The (Greek-speaking) Romans of this period directly identified ‘the Pax Romana and the Pax Christiana’, believing that they had been uniquely ‘consecrated to the service of Christ by the emperor Constantine, and were therefore the new chosen people who had the duty to bring the Gospel to the barbarians of the whole world.’ Obolensky goes on to write:

To such an ambassador was naturally attached something of the pomp and majesty of his political sovereign. Missionaries and diplomats of Byzantium, Cyril and Methodius were also Byzantines of their time, typical representatives, no matter how eminent, of the cultural elite of their period. The revival of monastic spirituality and of humanistic scholarship in the ninth century, which some historians have termed the ‘Byzantine renaissance’, remained imprinted on their thought and their careers. Methodius the monk and Cyril the scholar, professor at the University of Constantinople and pupil of [Saint] Photius [the Great], the greatest humanist of the age, admirably personified these two aspects of Byzantine civilization of the ninth century. This was a period in which the intellectuals and statesmen of Byzantium believed more than ever in their empire’s world-wide mission. [6]

I thought this an interesting dimension to a portrait of the Saints. It is rightly noted that they were so enlightened as to bring Christianity to the Slavs in the Slavs’ own language. As St Cyril wrote in his ‘Prologue’ to the Slavonic translation of the Gospels (which I have posted in full here):

. . .
Lest having an unenlightened mind,
And listening to the Word in foreign tongue,
You hear it like the voice of a copper bell.
For Saint Paul, in teaching, said this:
‘In offering my prayer up to God
I would rather speak five words
That all my brethren understand,
Than a multitude of incomprehensible words.’ [7]

But while it is thus undoubtedly correct in a certain sense to speak of the ‘baptism’ of Slavic culture, we mustn’t forget the extent to which the emerging Slavic Christianity was a Byzantine one speaking in the Slavonic language. Drawing on the renowned Russian literary historian and Slavicist, Dmitri S. Likhachev, [8] Anthony-Emil Tachiaos writes:

When they accepted Orthodoxy from Byzantium, the Slavic people simultaneously accepted a multitude of cultural and educational elements as well, the main vehicle of which was the Byzantine texts circulating amongst them in Slavic translation. And whereas the Slavs had only their popular oral tradition of folktales and songs, the Byzantines gave them an entire written tradition all at once. So the acquisition of the written word—as well as the other elements of which it was the bearer—cannot be described as ‘influence’, but rather as a wholesale transplantation of Byzantine culture into the Slavic world. [9]

Finally, I will just mention that the Apostles to the Slavs make a happy appearance in Elizabeth Kostova’s excellent vampire novel, The Historian (about which I have already posted here, here, here, and here), when the Bulgarian scholar Anton Stoichev welcomes students to his house to celebrate the feastday of the Saints:

You know, this is my favorite holiday. We have many saints’ days in the church calendar, but this one is dear to all those who teach and learn, because it is when we honor the Slavonic heritage of alphabet and literature, and the teaching and learning of many centuries that have grown from Kiril and Methodii and their great invention. [10]

In conclusion, here are the Troparion and Kontakion of the Saints, from the Great Horologion:

Dimissal Hymn of Saints Cyril & Methodius. Fourth Tone

Since ye were equal in character to the Apostles, and teachers of the Slavic lands, O divinely-wise Cyril and Methodius, pray to the Lord of all to strengthen all nations in Orthodoxy and unity of thought, to convert and reconcile the world to God, and to save our souls.

Kontakion of Saints Cyril & Methodius. Third Tone

Let us honour our sacred pair of enlighteners, who, by translating the divine writings, have poured forth for us a well-spring of divine knowledge from which we draw abundantly even unto this day: We call you blessed, O Cyril and Methodius, ye that stand before the throne of the Most High and intercede fervently for our souls. [11]

[1] Sir Dimitri Obolensky, Byzantium & the Slavs (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 1994), p. 207.

[2] R. Auty, ‘Introduction’, Handbook of Old Church Slavonic, Part II: Texts & Glossary (London: U of London, 1968), p. 1.

[3] Obolensky actually states that he was ‘a governor of a Slavonic province of the Empire (op. cit., p. 206).

[4] For some reason, St Nicholas does not mention that the Five Followers were actually imprisoned and sold into slavery by the Frankish clergy in Moravia. See Obolensky, p. 210.

[5] St Nicholas (Velimirović), The Prologue from Ochrid, Vol. 2, tr. Mother Maria (Birmingham: Lazarica, 1986), p. 166.

[6] Obolensky, p. 244.

[7] Qtd. in Thomas Butler, ‘Introduction’, Monumenta Bulgarica: A Bilingual Anthology of Bulgarian Texts from the 9th to the 19th Centuries (Ann Arbor: Michigan Slavic, 2004), p. xxii.

[8] On whom see this fascinating interview at the website of the ROCOR cathedral in Washington, DC, as well as this article in The New Yorker.

[9] Anthony-Emil N. Tachiaos, Cyril & Methodius of Thessalonica: The Acculturation of the Slavs (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 2001), p. 130.

[10] Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian (NY: Back Bay, 2006), p. 491.

[11] The Great Horologion, tr. Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Boston: HTM, 1997), pp. 480-1.

'We Long for Your Church'—Saints of Thessaloniki

Today, the Third Sunday of Pascha, besides the well-known commemoration of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, the great city of Thessaloniki also commemorates the Synaxis of her many Saints. Among these, she counts first of all the holy Apostle Paul, who exhorted the Thessalonians to ‘stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle’ (II Thess. 2:15). But immediately after St Paul comes Thessaloniki’s Great Martyr, St Demetrius the Myrrh-gusher, whose relics continue to pour forth miracles even to this day. Perhaps next in fame are the great Apostles to the Slavs, Ss Cyril and Methodius, to whom all Slavs are eternally indebted for bringing them the Gospel in their own language. Finally, we must not neglect to note the great Archbishop, St Gregory Palamas, who so courageously defended the Faith against the heresies of Barlaam and Akindynos. But these five are only the most renowned of a multitude of cœlestial luminaries standing before the throne of God in intercession for Thessaloniki. As Sophia Ahtaridis writes:

Thus, this city justifies the boast of the Apostle Paul when he wrote in his Second Epistle to the Thessalonians: ‘We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth; so that we ourselves boast of you in the churches of God for your patience and faith in all the persecutions and tribulations that ye endure’ (1:3-4). [1]

In his fascinating book on Ss Cyril and Methodius, Professor Emeritus Anthony-Emil N. Tachiaos of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki writes:

Apart from bathing in the fount of Greek education at the houses of their teachers, Drungarius Leo’s remarkable children also acquired further knowledge from their life in the ‘Thessalonians’ great and noteworthy city, protected by God’, where they gradually became acquainted with the burning issues of the Empire. Thessalonica was a school in itself—the Empire’s second city after Constantinople, with the marks of each historical epoch deeply etched upon its face. Thessalonica was Byzantium’s gateway to the West, the Empire’s eye, which was firmly fixed upon the ‘Western regions’—that is, the vast expanse of its dominions extending from the Macedonian capital to Sirmium and Dalmatia, or in other words the whole of Illyricum. Thessalonica stood upon the road which linked ancient Rome with the new Rome, Constantinople, and indeed, until 732 the city came under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Rome itself. Within its walls profound deposits and traditions had been laid down and survived at successive notional levels. Beginning at the time of the illustrious Macedonian Kings, and continuing on through the Hellenistic and Roman eras, they passed on to subsequent generations Greek and Latin memories and wisdom, which were all fused together by a common catalyst, the Greek Christian tradition. Their enduring symbols, the city’s magnificent monuments bore living witness to these traditions. All this, together with the contemporary historical events that were being acted out in the broader environs of the city, formed another kind of school for Constantine [St Cyril] and Methodius. [2]

As a resident of this God-protected city for two years, this commemoration of her Saints has special meaning for me. It was one of my great pleasures to walk up and down the streets of Thessaloniki, stopping at her many churches, old and new, [3] to venerate the relics of her Saints—St Demetrius, St Gregory Palamas, St Theodora, St David, St Basil the Confessor, and others—and to encounter there the pious clergy, monastics, and simple faithful, many of them perhaps modern Saints in their own right. Profoundly moved by these experiences, I wrote the following poem (dated 15 February 2002), which stands as my humble attempt at a tribute to the heavenly beauties of this city:

Salonika

Encircled by ancient walls,
On the slope of a hill by the sea you lie,
Your dazzling churches and ruined mosques
Sleeping in a garden of our vain edifices.
You’ve stood firm, lady,
Since the days of Philip and Alexander,
Since your Apostle’s letters,
Since your emperor’s palace,
Through invasions of Avars and Bulgars
And your fall to the Turk,
Since the welcoming of Abraham’s children
And the horrors of your occupation.
And even now the ghosts of your Roman splendour
Haunt your little old streets,
Hallowed by centuries of faith,
And the uncreated light of a spiritual aristocracy
Gleams in the eyes of your merchants,
And you live still
Under your martyred Patron’s spear
And your holy Archbishop’s prayers.

In conclusion, here are two troparia from an Old Church Slavonic canon for St Demetrius believed to have been written by St Methodius, Equal-to-the-Apostles. As Thomas Butler notes, ‘The poet is evidently a native of Thessaloniki. He is homesick for his city, as he recalls its annual celebration of Demetrius’s feast day, October 26.’ [4]

Hear now your poor supplicants, O glorious one, and heed our prayers, as we have become separated far from your radiant shrine, and our hearts burn within us as we long for your church, holy one—to worship there again some day through your prayers.

Why, O wise one, should we—your miserable slaves—alone be deprived of your beauty, travelling through foreign lands and towns for the love of the Creator, blessed one, warriors for the humiliation of the cruel trilinguals and heretics? [5]

(The painting of Byzantine Thessaloniki is the work of Thanasis Bakogiorgos, who to my knowledge still runs his beautiful shop, Porphyra, near the Plateia Navarino. Incidentally, on the right side of the centre wall, just opposite the large domed church of St George’s Rotunda, is where the modern Aristotle University of Thessaloniki is.)


[1] Sophia Ahtaridis, Foreword, Byzantine Monuments of Thessaloniki, by Constantine Cavarnos (Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, 1995), p. x.

[2] Anthony-Emil N. Tachiaos, Cyril & Methodius of Thessalonica: The Acculturation of the Slavs (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 2001), p. 6.

[3] Constantine Cavarnos notes, ‘Thessaloniki, the second city of Greece from the point of view of size and importance as an administrative and cultural center, is the most glorious one from the standpoint of Byzantine monuments. It boasts of more than a dozen beautiful, awe-inspiring Byzantine churches’ (Cavarnos, p. 19).

[4] Thomas Butler, Monumenta Bulgarica: A Bilingual Anthology of Bulgarian Texts from the 9th to the 19th Centuries (Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic, 2004), p. 31.

[5] Ibid., p. 41.

'An Ornament for Us Thessalonians'—St Theodora of Thessaloniki

I’m afraid I must apologise once again for posting about a Saint belatedly. I had intended to do this Thursday while out of town with my dad overnight, but I stupidly left my computer cord in a friend’s car, and, the battery on my computer being completely dead, was unable to accomplish my design. St Theodora and dear readers, forgive me!

Yesterday, 29 August on the Church’s calendar, we celebrated the memory of the Holy Theodora of Thessaloniki (812-892). As a former Thessalonian, I have a close connection to St Theodora. Although nothing of her monastery has survived except the foundations, much of it was rebuilt in the last century, and St Theodora’s relics as well as those of St David of Thessaloniki are enshrined in two chapels in the current katholikon. Today, with its Byzantine courtyard, St Theodora’s Monastery is a lovely and peacful oasis in the middle of the bustling city. When we lived in Thessaloniki, we used to visit the Saints’ relics frequently, and I have fond memories of one of the hieromonks who lived there. I once led an enormous group of Romanian pilgrims as well as a quartet of Protestants from Oklahoma there to see the relics and the beautiful frescoes. I shall always remember it fondly, and hope to return again soon.

According to Alice-Mary Talbot, St Theodora’s is by far the longest biography ever written of a Byzantine holy woman . . .’ (Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation, ed. Alice-Mary Talbot [Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1996], p. 161; the Life of St Theodora and Talbot’s introduction to it are available online in pdf format here). Veneration of the Saint slacked off a bit for some centuries, but was eventually revived. As Gregory, ‘the least of clerics’ (p. 236) and her hagiographer, writes:

Thus, since the auspicious day of the annual commemoration of our blessed mother Theodora is upon us (she who truly appeared to be a gift of God), and has compelled all of us to leave our occupations in the city and to flock together to this revered and inviolate treasury of miracles, it is not right for us to return whence we came empty-handed without having hear any of her good deeds as inspiration. Even though we are not aided by the passage of time, we should not for this reason keep silent about our mother’s revered accomplishments; on the contrary, we should loudly proclaim to the ends [of the world] the fruit of her piety which she grants generously to all, the demonsration of her miracles which have recently appeared and are genuine, an ornament for us Thessalonians. (Talbot, p. 164)

As a very brief overview, here is the account of St Theodora from the Prologue (St Nicholas [Velimirović], The Prologue from Ochrid, Vol. 3, trans. Mother Maria [Birmingham: Lazarica, 1986], p. 254):

A wealthy and devout woman, she lived on the island of Aegina, but, when the Arabs over-ran the island, she moved to Salonica. There, she gave her only daughter to a monastery, where she received the monastic name Theopista. Her husband Theodorinus died very soon, and then Theodora became a nun. She was a great ascetic. She often heard angelic singing, and would say to her sisters: ‘Don’t you hear how wonderfully the angels are singing in heavenly light?’ She entered into rest in 879, and a healing myrrh flowed from her body, which gave healing to many. [Unfortunately, St Nicholas has the year wrong. Talbot notes, ‘The hagiographer carefully details her age at each phase of her career, and also provides some absolute dates, such as her death on 29 August, 6,400 years after the creation of the world, which corresponded with the sixth regnal year of emperor Leo VI ( = 892)’ (p. 160).]

It is worth quoting from the Prima Vita some more detailed accounts of her spiritual life and especially her two major ascetic struggles. First, here is Gregory on St Theodora’s study of the Scriptures:

24. And since she had heard the Lord saying, ‘Search the Scriptures’ (Jn 5:39), when she was ordered by the superior to assume responsibility for the care of the church, she gladly accepted. For just as she loved to [cover] her body with modesty, so she also loved to feast her soul with the constant study and hearing of the Holy Writ, because, as the psalm says, ‘her pleasure is truly in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth she meditate day and night’ (Ps 1:2). Thus she was revealed to be like a tree planted by the brooks of waters, bringing forth the suitable fruit in each season (cf. Ps 1:3). For although we have been given many great commandments by the Creator through which, if we wanted, we could wipe away the wrinkle of the soul and purify our mind from the mist of worldly cares in order to receive the incomprehensible divine illumination, she managed to carry out each of them in an extraordinary manner. (Talbot, pp. 184-5)

Apart from the usual obediences, St Theodora’s first major podvig (ascetic feat) came when her only surviving child, her daughter St Theopiste, was transferred to her monastery from another one. It seems the Saint, not yet having completely mortified her natural affections in accordance with our Lord’s words in Lk 14:26, was excessively attached to her daughter and told the abbess that she could not bear to see her poorly clothed and subsisting on meagre food. Even after a rebuke, she was found to be neglecting spiritual instructions to dote on the girl, and they defended themselves calling each other ‘daugher’ and ‘mother’. Finally, the abbess said to them: ‘By dispensation of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit and all the holy fathers and my sinful self, from this moment on you are forbidden to speak even one word to each other’ (Talbot, p. 188). At this point, Gregory writes:

29. . . . O the docility of those spiritual sheep, who know they should heed only the voice of their shepherd and refuse to follow any other! . . . How great a fire must have inflamed their emotions, and what kind of a sharply whetted sword must have cut their hearts grievously, as they did not speak to each other at all for so many years, especially when a burdensome task was imposed on one of them and they wanted to talk to one another like sisters, to help each other, and could not! How often did the Devil craftily prompt them to disobey the order, and they tearfully entreated the Lord, saying, ‘Set a watch, O Lord, on my mouth and a strong door about my lips’ (Ps 140:3 LXX)? They were never seen to utter a complaint against the superior for suppressing their use of words and not allowing them to use speech as do all humans who are endowed with the ability to talk. For they were often consoled by repeating to themselves the divine verse of David, ‘I waited patiently for the Lord, and He attended to me’ (Ps 39:1 LXX).

30. Thus they spent fifteen years, never conversing with each other. But in the fifteenth year of the penance it so happened that the blessed Theodora fell ill, and all the nuns begged the superior to release them [from their penance]. And she did so after delivering many admonitions. And by the grace of God [from then on] both of them remained unaffected and untroubled by their bond of kinship, and up to the time of the blessed Theodora’s departure unto the Lord they conversed and talked with each other as with the other nuns, giving no thought to their relationship. Nor hereafter did the daughter address her mother as mother, nor did the mother address her daughter as daughter. The blessed Theodora, through her total submission and true humility, totally destroyed and trampled under foot every proud vanity and arrogance that is hateful to God, and banished all passions from her boy and soul through the power of the Holy Spirit which guided and protected her; and while still living this transitory life she died, wanting to live the eternal life. (Talbot, pp. 189-90)

Gregory describes St Theodora’s second major podvig immediately after this, beginning in chapter 31 of the Life. During a particularly cold winter, a cauldron of water was spilled next to where St Theodora’s rush-mat for sleeping lay, and without asking a blessing of her abbess, the Saint moved the mat away from the water. Thus, the abbess, in order to bring her ‘to anchor in the calm of obedience’ (Talbot, p. 191), ordered her to spend the night in the courtyard of the monastery. According to Gregory:

33. When these words struck the ears of [Theodora], who had not at all given up hope that she would fall into many temptations, because of the blessed state which lies in hope for those who struggle, she prepared herself to endure all suffering, in accordance with the one who said, ‘If thou comest to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for temptations. Set thy heart aright and constantly endure, and depart not away, that thou mayest be increased at thy last end’ (Sir 2:1-3). And again making her customary obeisance [to the superior], she went out to the assigned spot, paying no heed to the extremely bitter weather and the torrential downpour of rain at that time and icy cold and violent blasts of wind. Thus from evening on she spent the night outdoors, sitting on both feet [i.e., she was squatting down on her heels]. For she was unable to sit down all the way because of the rainwater flowing beneath her. O, what a marvel! The angels were astonished to see such a terrible sight, a woman, the soft and weakest vessel (I Pet 3:7), thus spending the night in the open air, being assailed by constant pelting of rain and frozen by the cold because of the order of the mother superior. What person now or in the past has ever known a woman to show such obedience and to wrestle in such contests? Around midnight when the rain stopped and the bitter air became even colder because a lot of snow had fallen, the raindrops froze and stuck to the tattered garment that covered her head and shoulders.

34. When it was time for the nocturnal psalmody, the superior assembled the nuns in the chapel, and clearly described her [Theodora’s] noble struggles, and accordingly heaped much praise on her for each of them; and through her [praises] she magnified [Theodora] and devised precepts of obedience for the nuns. Subsequently, like water flowing downhill unimpeded from a spring, her flowing speech came to her present feat of endurance; greatly marveling at these [trials], she said, ‘I am sure that God might not unreasonably number her among the forty martyrs who endured bitter cold and wind for His sake and might deem her worthy of the same rewards, because although she had lived a life of luxurious abundance amid the pleasures of the world, when she was sore tried by suffering in our cenobitic community, she never turned her attention to the sensation of pain, but even now, when she is congealed by the cold, she endures because of her love for God.’

And while she was still speaking, one of the nuns, who was the blood sister of the superior, said to her quietly: ‘This very night, my lady, I saw a luminous and brilliant crown, whose beauty and brilliance is impossible for me to describe, descending from heaven. And as I was wondering to whom this brilliant crown belonged, I heard a voice saying: “This is Theodora’s.”’ And since the superior was afraid that the blessed Theodora might somehow hear this and be lifted up with pride and fall into condemnation (I Tim 3:6), like a wise and knowledgeable person she gave thanks to God and said, ‘Be careful, my sister, and take care to tell no one what you saw.’

35. And she immediately ordered the blessed [Theodora] to come into the church. So she entered, all white with snow on her exterior, while her soul within was shining with heavenly light. And again making her customary obeisance, she asked for forgiveness and would not rise until she heard the words of pardon. Afterwards, when she was asked privately by the nuns how she had spent the night, taking confidence in her love for them she said: ‘Believe me, my sisters, once I accepted with utter faith the penance [imposed] by the superior, I did not experience rain or any other painful affliction during the night, but was joyful and happy and seemed to be sitting in a bath.’ (Talbot, pp. 191-3)

Finally, I urge all to read, in chapter 16-19 (Talbot, pp. 231-5) of Gregory’s account of the translation of St Theodora’s relics, appended to the Vita, the story of the healing from smallpox of the narrator’s little sister Martha that prompted him to tell of the life and miracles of St Theodora. It is a touching personal account, as Gregory writes, ‘Tears come to me as I summon up in my mind the image of that child, with most of her limbs lifeless and hanging limp from every part of her body; such was the tension in both tendons from the severe hemorrhage’ (Talbot, p. 233). After two visions of the Saint, the little girl is healed: ‘For shortly thereafter the girl became as healthy as she had been before her illness, and walking on her own feet she came with her mother to the sarcophagus of the blessed Theodora, her savior, and offered up the thanksgiving which was due to God Who loves mankind and to the saint’ (Talbot, p. 235).

According to this site, St Theodora’s monastery ‘ceased to operate as a monastery in the 18th c. and its katholikon became a parish church. The current temple was built in 1937 in place of an 18th-c. one, which was destroyed in the fire of 1917. In 1975 it became a men’s monastery. Below the wing which looks onto Hermes Street the foundations of the Byzantine katholikon are preserved.’ There is another interesting page on St Theodora here. In the icon above, she is depicted with her daughter, St Theopiste.

One final point: I am somewhat troubled by Talbot’s introduction to the Life of St Theodora, because of the implication on pp. 159-60, and especially on p. 161, in the reference to the Saint’s daughter, St Theopiste, as an ‘ambitious abbess’, that the glorification of St Theodora was the result of some sort of scheming plot, ‘a carefully orchestrated campaign’, as Talbot says (p. 159). Though such a view may be in keeping with the hermeneutics of suspicion so frequently cultivated in academia, it is anathema to Orthodox Christians, who believe the holiness of the Saints to be revealed by God and only recognised by human beings.

'On a Garden Tree Like a Singing Bird'—St David of Thessaloniki

Today, 26 June on the Church’s calendar, we celebrate the memory of the Holy David of Thessaloniki (c. 450-540), the Dendrite. According to Kyle Smith, St David spent three years in an almond tree outside the walls of Thessaloniki before building a cell close by where he spent a further twenty years (‘Dendrites & Other Standers in the History of the Exploits of Bishop Paul of Qanetos & Priest John of Edessa’, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 12.1, p. 119—available here). The earliest mention of St David is in the Leimonarion (also known as the Pratum Spirituale) of St John Moschus, a ‘delightful collection of tales dating from about the year 600’ (John Wortley, Translator’s Note, The Spiritual Meadow (Pratum Spirituale), by John Moschos, trans. John Wortley [Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian, 1992], p. ix). There, St John writes:

We went to the same Abba Palladios with this request: ‘Of your charity, tell us, father, where you came from, and how it came about that you embraced the monastic life’. He was from Thessalonica, he said, and then he told us this: ‘In my home country, about three stades beyond the city wall, there was a recluse, a native of Mespotamia whose name was David. He was a man of outstanding virtue, merciful and continent. He sspent about twenty years in his place of confinement. Now at this time, because of the barbarians, the walls of the city were patrolled at night by soldiers. One night those who were on guard-duty at that stretch of the city-walls nearest to where the elder’s place of confinement was located, saw fire pouring from the windows of the recluse’s cell. The soldiers thought the barbarians must have set the elder’s cell on fire; but when they went out in the morning, to their amazement, they found the elder unharmed and his cell unburned. Again the following night they saw fire, the same way as before, in the elder’s cell—and this went on for a long time. The occurrence became known to all the city and the countryside. Many people would come and keep vigil at the wall all night long in order to see the fire, which continued to appear once or twice but was often seen, I said to myself: ‘If God so glorifies his servants in this world, how much more so in the world to come when He shines upon their face like the sun? This, my children, is why I embraced the monastic life.’ (pp. 52-3)

For more details of St David’s life, however, we must turn elsewhere. Unfortunately, I do not currently have access to A. Vasiliev’s translation of the 8th-c. Life (‘Life of David of Thessalonica’, Traditio: Studies in Ancient Medieval History, Thought and Religion 4 [1946], pp. 115-147). But Archimandrite Nektarios (Serfes) has posted an account of St David’s life from The Orthodox Word 6.3 (32), May-June 1970, pp. 121-7, and John Sanidopoulos has also compiled an impressive post about St David at Mystagogy (Sanidopoulos has also linked to a highly informative article in Greek here, at the website of the Metropolis of Thessaloniki, but he seems to have reproduced all of the most important information in his own post). Although it mistakenly identifies the Saint’s birthplace as Thessaloniki, I will just take a couple of things from the Orthodox Word account to fill out our picture of the Saint’s Life. But I urge everyone to read it in full, as well as the wonderfully informative post at Mystagogy.

First of all, the article contains an interesting account of St David’s motivation in undertaking the podvig of the dendrite life, for we learn that it was precisely through the reading of the Lives of the Saints that he received the Holy Spirit’s inspiration:

Reading the Sacred Scriptures by day and by night, the righteous one marvelled at the virtues of the Saints, both those who were before the Law and those who were after the Law. He observed how God glorified them because they obeyed His commandments and were pleasing to Him as was meet. . . .

While reading the lives of the righteous ones who struggled after the saving Incarnation of the Saviour and who accomplished such marvellous struggles, he marvelled-especially at the life of Simeon of the Wondrous Mountain, and of the other Simeon, and of Daniel and Patapius the Stylites, who spent their lives living in the open, without shelter, tormented by the winds, rains, and snows. As he read the lives of these men, he wept and came to such compunction that he decided to undergo a similar life of affliction for as long as he, the ever-memorable one, could, so that he might find rest with the Saints after death.

One day, therefore, he became so fervent with zeal and his heart so filled with compunction, that he climbed up an almond tree that was by the left side of the church. He remained there upon a branch of the tree where he made a small bench as well as he could, and there he struggled in ascetic labors with wondrous patience, tormented by the winds, the rains and the snows, burned by the searing heat of the sun in summer, and suffering many other afflictions. O the fortitude of this much-suffering martyr, that the ever-memorable one should undergo such hardship! The other stylites had some security, for their pillars were constructed and stood fast, and what is more, when they slept or had some other need, the pillars were immobile. But this adamantine man swayed always in the branches of the tree, and never had any repose, but was tormented by the rains and the winds and suffered greatly from the snows.

Then we learn that, in response to entreaties that he come down in order to guide a group of disciples, the Saint insisted that he would only descend after three years, and even then only at the express command of the Lord—since it was from Him that he received the call to this life. So at last, we are told:

When the three years had passed, a holy angel appeared unto him saying, ‘David, the Lord has heard your supplication and grants unto you this favor for which you have asked many times, that is, that you be humble-minded and modest, and that you fear Him and worship Him with proper reverence. Come down, therefore, from the tree and live in sacred silence in your cell, blessing God until you accomplish one other act of love; then shall you find comfort of soul and rest from bodily travail.’ During the whole time that the angel spoke with him, the righteous one listened with fear and trembling. When he that appeared disappeared, the righteous one gave thanks unto God, saying, ‘Blessed is God who has had mercy on me.’

St David’s descent was greeted with great reverence, and even the Archbishop of Thessaloniki, Dorotheus, and the clergy of the metropolis came out to meet him. But after the Liturgy had been celebrated and all had partaken of a meal, the great ascetic retired to his new cell to take up once again his solitary prayer, though he was now accessible to his disciples and to those who came to him with their needs.

Among these, indeed, after many years, was the city of Thessaloniki itself, the status and welfare of which was threatened by a certain imperial decree dividing the prefecture and creating a second archbishop for the northern part. The successor to Dorotheus to the archiepiscopal see, Aristeides, begged the venerable man to undertake a mission to the Emperor St Justinian to intercede on behalf of the city. At first he refused, but then, according to the Orthodox Word article:

The righteous one then remembered the prophecy of the angel, and he said these words to the Metropolitan: ‘May the Lord's will be done, holy master. Yet, be it known unto you that, through your prayers and with God as my helper, the Emperor will grant me whatever I request of him; but as for David, you will not see him alive again to speak with him. For on my return to you from the palace, when I am yet one-hundred and twenty-six stadia from my poor cell, I shall depart for my Master.’

The Archbishop, however, took this as a mere excuse and exhorted him to imitate Christ in thus laying down his life for others.

Then the thrice-blessed one went forth from his cell and all worshipped [that is, venerated] him; for his countenance was a marvellous sight; the locks of his hair fell down to his belt and his beard down to his feet; his venerable face was handsome and comely, just like Abraham's and everyone who saw him marvelled. He took with him two of his disciples, Theodore and Demetrios; these men were pious and virtuous, and were like David, not only in the comeliness of the soul, but also in that of the body.

In Constantinople, St David was received as the earthly angel that he was, and even the Empress Theodora said to her husband, ‘The supremely-good God has taken compassion on us, Master, and has sent His angel unto your majesty on this day from the city of Thessalonica; and in truth, it seemed to me that I saw Abraham.’ The narrative then continues:

On the following day, when the whole Senate had gathered, the Emperor gave orders for the righteous one to be brought in. When the Saint entered, he placed live coal and incense in his hands and, together with his disciples, he censed the Emperor and the whole Senate without his hands being burned at all from the fire, even though he took more than an hour censing, until he had censed all the people. All were astonished as they beheld this wonder. Rising from his throne, the Emperor received him gladly and with much reverence, and he, in turn, received the gifts of the Metropolitan of Thessalonica from the hands of the Saint. . . . Not only did he fulfill the written requests of the Thessalonians, but with great willingness, he carried out the righteous one's other requests as well, and, in accordance with the custom, signed them in vermillion. With his own hand, he gave them to the righteous one and told him, ‘Pray for me, venerable Father.’ Afterwards, he dismissed him and sent him on his way with a great escort, even as it was meet.

Thus, the Saint departed, but, true to his word, he fell asleep in the Lord aboard ship ‘at the promontory which is called Emvolos’ when he was ‘yet one hundred and twenty-six stadia’ from his cell. He asked his disciples to bury him at the monastery, and having blessed and admonished them, St David’s soul departed amid the fragrance of incense and the chanting of a cœlestial choir. His relics were treasured at the monastery until the 13th century, when they were carted off by the Latins. Thanks to God, and through the efforts of Metropolitan Panteleimon of blessed memory, they were returned to the city of Thessaloniki in 1978, and now repose in the katholikon of the Monastery of Agia Theodora between Agia Sophia and Plateia Aristotelous in the midst of the city. There, in a chapel on the south side decorated with frescoes of the Saint’s life, I was blessed to venerate them many times.

Interestingly, the location of St David’s cell and monastery is not known for certain. While I had always believed it was at the small church now called Όσιος Δαυίδ, or Λατόμου, the article at the Metropolis website points out that the dedication of this church to St David only dates to 1921 (having previously been dedicated to the Prophet Zechariah), and ‘there is no relationship between it and the ancient monastery’.

I shall conclude with the Kontakion, in Tone 1, of the Saint:

An ever-blossoming garden, bearing fruits of virtues, thou didst appear on a garden tree like a sweet-singing bird; but all the more didst thou take into thy heart paradise, the Lord's tree of life, and having cultivated it, O divinely-wise one, by it thou dost nourish us with grace: ever pray for us, O David all-blessed.

'Listen All Slavs'—Ss Cyril & Methodius, Equals-to-the-Apostles

This morning, 11 May on the Church’s calendar, we celebrated the memory of Ss Cyril and Methodius, Equals-to-the-Apostles and Enlighteners of the Slavs. One can find accounts of their lives in the Prologue, as well as Bulgakov’s Handbook (although there seems to be no evidence for Bulgakov’s bald assertion that the Saints’ father was a ‘Bulgarian Slav Voivode’), and another account here, at the website of Bishop Alexander (Mileant) of blessed memory, though the English translation of this last is a little shoddy. Furthermore, I have posted previously on St Cyril here, and on one of the brothers’ disciples, St Naum, here.

Those of us in the various Slavic Churches owe a tremendous debt to Ss Cyril and Methodius. In his wonderful biography of these Saints, the Emeritus Professor of Slavic Ecclesiastical History and Literature at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Anthony-Emil Tachiaos, has written (Cyril and Methodius of Thessalonica: The Acculturation of the Slavs [Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary, 2001], p. x):

In the realization of this process [the bringing of the Slavs ‘into the Greek Empire’s cultural and spiritual sphere’], which was to have decisive consequences and amifications throughout European history, two brothers were summoned to play the leading role. Hailing from the celebrated city of Thessalonica [Thessaloniki], their names were Constantine-Cyril and Methodius. The acculturation of the Slavs, which was probably the most important event of the ninth century, was inseparably bound up with the creation of the Slavonic script and transmission to the Slavs of the cultural values of Greek education and spiritual life. This achievement was exclusively due to the two Thessalonian brothers, who have therefore acquired a well-deserved place in the consciousness of the Slav peoples as their apostles and teachers.

Tachiaos notes that even the Western churches have begun to acknowledge the tremendous achievements of the Saints, their contributions to universal Christianity as well as to European culture. He points out that John Paul II declared them 'co-patrons' of Europe, a 'friendly and welcome gesture' about which Tachiaos nevertheless notes, '[I]n the Orthodox Church the ecclesiastical authority does not confer titles and attributes upon the saints: it simply ratifies and codifies what the people already feel' (p. 143).

To give a little taste of the Saints themselves, I shall post a verse Prologue to the Slavonic translation of the Gospels that is attributed to St Cyril, known during his lifetime as 'Constantine the Philosopher' (as for St Methodius, see two stanzas of his canon to St Demetrius here). From good old Thomas Bulter, ed. and trans., Monumenta Serbocroatica: A Bilingual Anthology of Serbian and Croatian Texts from the 12th to the 19th Century (Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic, 1980), pp. 7-15:

A Homily by our Blessed Teacher
Constantine the Philosopher

This is a Prologue to the Holy Gospels.
Just as the Prophets had foretold before,
Christ is coming to gather the nations,
For He is a Light to the whole world.
Now they said: the blind will see,
And the deaf will hear the written word;
They will know God as they should.
Therefore, listen all Slavs:
For this gift is given by God,
A divine gift for the right side,
A divine gift for souls, never decaying,
For those souls that accept it.
And this is the gift: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
They teach all the people, saying:
Those of you who see the beauty of your souls
Love one another and rejoice.
And those of you who wish to cast off the darkness of sin
And to put aside the corruption of this world,
And who wish to attain life in paradise
And to escape the burning fire,
Pay attention now with all your minds!
Hear, all you Slavic people,
Hear the Word, for it comes from God,
The Word which nourishes men’s souls,
The Word which strengthens hearts and minds,
The Word which prepares all to know God.
For just as there can be no joy without light
For the eye seeing all God’s creation,
But instead everything is neither beautiful nor visible,
So, likewise, every soul without letters
Does not see God’s law well,
The sacred law of the Scriptures,
The law revealing Paradise.
For how can hearing that has not heard the thunder’s roll
Be afraid of God?
And nostrils that haven’t smelled a flower—
How can they sense God’s wonder?
And a mouth that has no taste for sweetness
Makes a man like a stone.
Even more does the unlettered soul
Appear dead in men.
And we, brethren, reflecting on all this,
Give you the proper advice,
Which will free all men from the life of cattle and from lustful desire;
Lest having an unenlightened mind,
And listening to the Word in foreign tongue,
You hear it like the voice of a copper bell.
For Saint Paul, in teaching, said this:
‘In offering my prayer up to God
I would rather speak five words
That all my brethren understand,
Than a multitude of incomprehensible words.’
Now what man doesn’t understand this?
Who will not make use of wise parables
Telling us right counsel?
For just as corruption awaits the flesh,
Everything decaying and putrefying worse than pus,
When it doesn’t have its nourishment,
So, too, does every soul perish
When it doesn’t have divine life,
When it doesn’t hear the Word of God.
But let us relate another parable, a very wise one,
O men loving one another
And wishing to grow in God!
For who does not know this true faith?
Like the seed falling on the fertile ground
It falls in the same way on the hearts of men
Which need the rain of God’s letters
So that the divine fruit may grow.
Who can tell all the stories
Which expose nations without books,
Speaking in an unintelligible voice?
Even if one knows all languages
One cannot express their powerlessness.
But let me add my own parable,
Imparting much wisdom in a few words:
Naked are all nations without Scriptures,
Weaponless, unable to fight
With the adversary of our souls,
Ready for the prison of eternal torment.
But you nations that don’t love the enemy,
And truly intend to fight against him,
Open diligently the doors to your minds,
Having received now the sturdy weapons
Forged by the Scriptures of the Lord,
Which irritate the devil’s head very much.
For whoever accepts these Scriptures—
To you Christ speaks His wisdom
And strengthens your souls,
Together with the Apostles and all the Prophets.
And whoever says their words
Will be capable of killing the enemy,
Bringing to God a fine victory,
And fleeing the stinking decay of the flesh,
Of the flesh whose life is like a dream.
Not falling, but standing firm,
They will appear before God as courageous men,
Standing at the right side of God’s throne,
When with fire He will judge nations,
Rejoicing with the angels through all ages,
Eternally praising the merciful God,
Always in Psalms from the Scriptures,
Singing to God Who is merciful toward man:
Because to Him is proper every kind of glory,
Honor and divine praise always,
Together with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
Through all ages, and from all creation.
Amen.

'Christ Is All in All'—Protopresbyter Nicholas Loudovikos

I have made one previous reference on this blog to the modern Greek theologian, Protopresbyter Nicholas Loudovikos, a very warm and brilliant man whom I had the tremendous blessing to meet and speak with at some length a couple of years ago. I shall always cherish the memory of walking with him through a small park near the ecclesiastical school where he teaches in Thessaloniki, as he told me about his extraordinary experiences with Elder Porphyrios and urged me to continue my theological studies. As none of Fr Loudovikos’s work has, to my knowledge, yet been published in English (with, as we shall see, one slight exception), I thought it worth giving him a brief introduction to readers of Logismoi.

As well as being a spiritual son of Elder Porphyrios, Fr Loudovikos was also a student of Fr John Romanides and of Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon. Here is my translation of the brief bio on this page, where one can also find three of Fr Loudovikos’s articles in Greek:

Protopresbyter Nicholas Loudovikos was born in Volos in 1959. He studied psychology, pedagogy, theology, and philosophy in Athens, Thessaloniki, Paris (Sorbonne [Paris IV] and the Institut Catholique de Paris), and at Cambridge. He is a doctor of theology of the University of Thessaloniki (1990). He worked at the research centre for Early Christianity, Tyndale House, Cambridge, and taught or gave seminars at the Centre for Advanced Religious & Theological Studies (C.A.R.T.S.) at the Theology School of the University of Cambridge, at the University of Durham, also giving lectures at other universities or research centres.

Today he is Professor of Dogmatics and Philosophy at the Higher Ecclesiastical School of Thessaloniki, a scientific associate—writer at the postgraduate theology program of the Open Greek University and part-time lecturer at the Orthodox Institute of the University of Cambridge.

When I met Fr Loudovikos back in 2007, after much harassment he gave me copies of three of his books:

1) Θεολογική Ηστορία της Αρχαίας Ελληνικής Φιλοσοφίας, Βιβλίο Πρώτο. Οι Προσωκρατικοί—ο Σωκράτης—ο Πλάτων [A Theological History of Ancient Greek Philosophy, Book One: The Pre-Socratics, Socrates, Plato] (Thessaloniki: Pournaras, 2003).

2) Ορθοδοξία και Εκσυγχρονισμός. Βυζαντινή Εξατομίκευση, Κράτος και Ιστορία, στην προοπτική του ευρωπαϊκού μέλλοντος [Orthodoxy and Modernisation: Byzantine Individualisation, Empire, and History, in the outlook of the European future] (Athens: Armos, 2006).

3) Η Αποφατική Εκκλησιολογία του Ομοουσίου—Η αρχέγονη Εκκλησία σύμερα [The Apophatic Ecclesiology of the One Essence: The Early Church Today] (Athens: Armos, 2002).

If I remember correctly, an English translation of another book, Η Ευχαριστιακή Οντολογία (Athens: Domos, 1992), is in the works, but none of the above titles have been rendered into our Anglo-Saxon tongue as of yet. Now, if I had the time just now, I would translate the synopsis from the back cover of the first book and the titles of a few of the essays collected in the second (just to give a hint of its quite varied contents, it contains essays on Kierkegaard, ecclesiology, the nature of the soul, the Byzantine empire, Feuerbach, the poet Kavafy, and Photios Kontoglou). But I’m afraid that shall have to wait.

On the other hand, as I mentioned, there is a slight exception to my statement that Fr Loudovikos’s work has not been translated into English yet. The third chapter of Part I (pp. 68-93) of the last book, Η Αποφατική Εκκλησιολογία του Ομοουσίου, has already been Englished (though not without mistakes) by Fr Deacon Chrysostom Nassis and included as an appendix to that work (pp. 359-84). Obviously, this saves me some time, but even still, it’s a long chapter and I don’t want to make the necessary sacrifice of sleep to transcribe all, or even much of it for this post. I’ll give you the last paragraph as a taste of what Fr Loudovikos has to offer. Fortuitously, this paragraph focuses on the Eucharist, making it rather aproppriate for Holy Thursday:

Thus, we learn in the Divine Eucharist the mode of the fulfillment of our charismata. Moreover, the Divine Eucharist is that which sustains but also judges this fulfillment as a manifestation of Christ in each charisma and in their communion. Naturally, we speak here of the Eucharist as the ontological pre-modeling of the eschatological coming of Christ, which vivifies and transforms but also judges. This is why eucharistic participation is primarily an ascetic action, an action of a crucified prohairesis (disposition), an action marked by pain in searching out the grace of the consubstantial conjoining of all beings in the image of the Trinitarian consubstantiality, precisely through the ecclesiastical charismata and hierarchies. Thus, prohairesis (disposition) and sacraments, hierarchical structures and charismata, ascetic struggles and institutions confess together that ‘Christ is all in all’. (p. 384)

Finally, for those who know Modern Greek, in addition to the site I linked to above, there are mp3s, a video, and an article of Fr Loudovikos’s here.

Addendum: Please see this post for an update on Fr Loudovikos's work in English.

'The Herald of Grace & Light'—St Gregory Palamas

On this day, the second Sunday of Great Lent, we celebrate the memory of our Father among the Saints, Gregory Palamas, Archbishop of Thessaloniki and Wonder-worker. I am breaking with my usual ‘Menaion, not Triodion’ policy today because have a very close connection to this Saint, having lived in his city for two years, visited at least two of the places he lived on the Holy Mountain, visited the temple where he was enthroned as archbishop as well as the one dedicated to him, venerated his relics many times, and even crawled into and prayed in the cave where he lived for a time. For starters, here is the brief Life of this holy Hierarch whom the great Palamite scholar Panagiotes Chrestou, in the title of his biography, has called ‘the Herald of Grace and Light’ (Ο Κήρυξ της Χάριτος και του Φωτός: Ο άγιος Γρηγόριος ο Παλαμάς, Αρχιεπίσκοπος Θεσσαλονίκης, 2nd ed. [Kouphalia, Greece: Holy Monastery of St Gregory Palamas, 1986]), from the Prologue:

Gregory's father was an eminent official at the court of Emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus. The gifted Gregory, completing his secular studies, did not want to enter the service of the imperial court, but withdrew to the Holy Mountain and was tonsured a monk. He lived a life of asceticism in the Monastery of Vatopedi and the Great Lavra. He led the struggle against the heretic Barlaam and finally defeated him. He was consecrated as Metropolitan of Thessalonica in the year 1347. He is glorified as an ascetic, a theologian, a hierarch and a miracle-worker. The Most-holy Theotokos, St John the Theologian, St. Demetrius, St Anthony the Great, St John Chrysostom and angels of God appeared to him at different times. He governed the Church in Thessalonica for thirteen years, of which he spent one year in slavery under the Saracens in Asia. He entered peacefully into rest in the year 1360, and took up his habitation in the Kingdom of Christ. His relics repose in Thessalonica, where a beautiful church is dedicated to him.

His complete writings are many, and a great deal has been written about the man as well as his work. Last year on the Sunday of St Gregory Palamas, Felix Culpa compiled a helpful list of links—including two of his own previous posts, although he has mislinked to the second one, as well as most of the text of Metropolitan Hierotheos’s book—on St Gregory. I also highly recommend this paper by the 'other' Fr Alexander. Fr Stephen Freeman has already posted a typically eloquent appreciation of Palamite theology on his blog. There is also a good list of excerpts, mostly from the Dialogue Between an Orthodox and a Barlaamite, here at Nicene Truth. I am just going to excerpt a few things of my own here now, and hopefully more will follow tomorrow afternoon (I have already posted part of St Gregory's homily for today here): 1) a brief quote from ‘The Declaration of the Holy Mountain In Defense of the Holy Hesychasts’, written by St Gregory, 2) the decision of the hesychastic Synod of 1347, one of several councils that upheld the teaching of St Gregory as expressing the Orthodox Faith, 3) and the Exapostilarion of St Gregory, which was sung for him during the All-Night Vigil earlier this evening (or will be in Matins tomorrow for those from the Greek and Arab churches).

First, the excerpt from St Gregory’s ‘Defense’ (The Philokalia: The Complete Text, Vol. IV, trans. G.E.H. Palmer, et al. [London: Faber, 1995], p. 418):

The mysteries of the Mosaic law, once foreseen in the Spirit by the prophets alone, have now become doctrines known to all alike and openly proclaimed. Similarly the way of life according to the Gospel has its own mysteries; and these are the blessings of the age to come which are promised to the saints, and which are now disclosed prophetically to those whom the Spirit accounts worthy, but only to a limited extent and as a pledge and a foretaste.

Now the Synodal Tome of 1347 (qtd. in Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos, St Gregory Palamas as a Hagiorite, trans. Esther Williams [Levadia, Greece: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1997], pp. 390-1):

But also if anyone else at all is ever caught either thinking or saying or writing against the said most worthy priest-monk Gregory Palamas and the monks with him, or rather against the holy theologians and this Church, we both vote against him for these things and put him under this condemnation, whether he be of the hiearchy or the laity. We have many times proclaimed most worthy this respected priestmonk Gregory Palamas and the monks agreeing with him. They neither write nor think anything that differs from the divine words, having examined them and understood them exactly. And they champion the divine words, or rather our common devotion and tradition in all ways, as is proper, defending them as in every respect higher than what not only they but also the Church of God and the former synodal volume regard as sophistries. And we also declare them to be very safe defenders of the Church and its faith, and its champions and helpers.

And here is the Exapostilarion (from The Lenten Triodion, trans. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos [Ware] [South Canaan, PA: St Tikhon’s Seminary, 1994], p. 329):

Hail, glory of the fathers, voice of the theologians, tabernacle of inward stillness, dwelling-place of wisdom, greatest of teachers, deep ocean of the Word. Hail, thou who hast practiced the virtues of the active life and ascended to the height of contemplation; hail, healer of man's sickness. Hail, shrine of the Spirit; hail, father who though dead art still alive.