'Most Honoured Cultivator of Piety'—St George the Trophybearer

Today, 23 April on the Church’s calendar, we celebrate the memory of the Great Martyr and Victorious Wonderworker, George the Trophybearer (†303). [1] Here is the account of his life in the Great Horologion:

George, this truly great and glorious Martyr of Christ, was born of a father from Cappadocia a nd a mother from Palestine. Being a military tribune, or chiliarch (that is, a commander of a thousand troops), he was illustrious in battle and highly honoured for his courage. When he learned that the Emperor Diocletain was preparing a persecution of the Christians, Saint George presented himself publicly before the Emperor and denounced him. When threats and promises could not move him from his steadfast confession, he was put to unheard-of tortures, which he endured with great bravery, overcoming them by his faith and love towards Christ. By the wondrous signs that tookplace in his contest, he guided many to the knowledge of the truth, including Queen Alexandra, wife of Diocletian, and was finally beheaded in 296 in Nicomedia.

His sacred remains were taken by his servant from Nicomedia to Palestine, to a town called Lydda, the homeland of his mother, and then were finally transferred to the church which was raised up in his name. (The translation of the Saint’s holy relics to the church in Lydda is commemorated on November 3; Saint Alexandra the Queen, on April 21.)

Through the centuries Saint George has shown himself to be a swift and present helper to all who call on him with faith, whether on land or sea, to the uttermost ends of the earth; yet so many miracles have been worked at his tomb in Lydda (the present-day Lod0, that when Palestine was in the hands of the Moslems, they took half of his church and turned it into a mosque, which may still be seen to this day, dedicated in his honour and testifying to the abundant power of his intercession. [2]

I posted extensively on St George last year, as can be seen if one clicks on the ‘St George’ label in the sidebar. At any rate, I will certainly not be able to devote so much attention to him this year, if only because I’ve already used most of my material. I have, however, come across two interesting books in the meantime, both of which examine the history of the cult of St George from a fairly secular, English perspective. Both also include extensive discussions of the story of St George’s slaying of the dragon (on which I have posted here and here). By far the shorter and simpler of the two, Giles Morgan’s St George: Knight, Martyr, Patron Saint & Dragonslayer is a helpful overview and an attractive little volume, but it lacks notes and illustrations. St George: Hero, Martyr & Myth by mediaeval and art historian Samantha Riches has better notes, copious illustrations, and is in general a fuller account. It is also a handsome, coffeetable-sized book. One of the many interesting things I’ve learned from these books is the foundation in 1871 by John Ruskin of the ‘Guild of St George’. Riches writes:

Perhaps the most interesting of the associations that have taken St George as their tutelary saint is the Guild of St George, founded by the aesthete, writer and political thinker John Ruskin in 1871 with the principal aim of furthering and assisting agricultural society in England. One of the first goals of the organisation was to purchase land for agriculture ‘which shall not be built upon but cultivated by Englishmen with their own hands’; another was to persuade member of the upper classes of English society that agriculture was an honourable occupation ‘consistent with high thoughts and noble pleasures’. The list of objectives of the Guild includes not only the acquisition and cultivation of land, and the building of farms and houses for agricultural labourers alongside the repair of buildings in impoverished rural areas, but also the offer of financial grants and the erection of educational establishments. Besides the teaching of agricultural skills, there was also an intention to create museums of art and natural history ‘for the cultivation of taste and intelligence among rural labourers and craftsmen’ . . . . The Ruskin Museum at Meersbrook Park in Sheffield formed a lasting monument to the ambition to edify, but at the outset this aspect of the Guild’s work was secondary: ‘there were to be the schools of St George, the Museums of St George, and always first and foundationally the land of St George’. The creed of beliefs of the companions, or members, of the Guild, included the following:

‘I will not kill or hurt any living creature needlessly, nor destroy any beautiful thing, but will strive to save and comfort all gentle life, and guard and perfect all natural beauty upon the earth.’ [3]

The sentiments expressed in this credo sum up a combination of interests—nature, art and chivalry—which were clearly important to Ruskin himself. It is likely that St George appealed to him as a figure of chivalry, although the choice of patron of the new organisation will almost certainly have been influenced by the saint’s links with agriculture, and perhaps also metalworking. Ruskin is known to have had a long-standing personal interest in the concept of chivalry. . . . He claimed that a specific painting of St George and the dragon (from a cycle of the dragon legend by Vittore Carpaccio, c. 1505-7, at the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice) represented a perfection of chivalry, reading into the image a moral lesson in the use of physical power for noble purposes. . . . In Fors Clavigera, the series of open letters which he wrote to the working classes of the British nation between 1871 and 1884, Ruskin made it clear that he considered St George to be the essence of a Christian gentleman. The letters dealt directly with the problems of capitalism: he planned that the Guild of St George should evolve into a utopian rural society where the land would be worked for the greater good, where English people could flourish far from the corrupting influence of city life. . . . [4]

Apart from my own posts, however, I would also refer the reader to the excellent posts produced by John Sanidopoulos around the time of the New Calendar feastday a couple of weeks ago. In one post (here), John has a number of videos featuring Greek folk songs about the Great Martyr, while in another (here) he reposts a collection of ancient references to the Saint, including the following inscription from the lintel of a St George church—formerly a pagan temple—dating to 515 at ‘Zorava in the late Roman province of Arabia’:

The abode of daimones has become the house of God. The light of salvation shines where darkness caused concealment. Where sacrifices to idols occurred, now there are choirs of angels. Where God was provoked, now He is propitiated. A certain Christ-loving man, the town-councillor John, son of Diomedes, offered a gift to God from his own property, a beautiful building, after installing within it the worthy body of the martyr George, who appeared to this John not in a dream, but manifestly. [5]

John also links (here) to Budge’s translation of ‘The Passion of St George’ by the blessed Abba Theodotus, 4th- & 5th-c. Bishop of Ancyra in Galatia (in full here). A note in the manuscript which introduces the Passion calls the Saint ‘the martyr of Diospolis of Palestine, the sun of the truth, the star of the morning, the mighty man of the Galileans from Melitene and the valiant soldier of Christ’. The Passion itself concludes with Abba Theodotus’s appraisal:

Behold now, O beloved brethren, we have told you these things of the great honours which God has vouchsafed to the valiant soldier of strength, the mighty athlete, Saint George, whose festival is celebrated this day throughout all earth and heaven, and of the remainder of his glory and of the mighty and exalted honour he holds in the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of Christ the King. And now O beloved, blessed of God, since we know of a truth that Saint George has drawn nigh to God in this manner and has obtained freedom to enter into the presence of the Holy Trinity at all times and to show favour to every one, let us make ourselves champions, through love, of our poor brethren and strangers; let us love one another, let us keep innocence, and it shall come to pass to all of us, O beloved, that Saint George will, through our Lord Jesus Christ, show favour to us, and have compassion upon us, and forgive us our sins, and bless the gathering together of our people, small and great, old men and young men, and widows and virgins.

I shall conclude with the Kontakion of the Saint, taken from the Great Horologion:

Kontakion. Fourth Tone
Thou Who wast raised up

Having been cultivated well by the Lord God, * as the most honoured cultivator of piety * thou has now gathered sheaves of virtues for thyself; * for, as thou didst sow with tears, * thou dost reap with rejoicing; * with thy blood didst thou contest * and thou now hast received Christ. * And by thine intercessions, O Saint George, * thou grantest all the forgiveness of trespasses. [6]

Addendum: I was just surprised to learn that there is a Guild of St George, inspired by Ruskin, that is still in existence. According to their website:

Today the Guild is a charitable Education Trust, which tries to put Ruskin's ideas into practice. Its purpose has never been to pursue specifically Ruskinian or antiquarian projects. It aims to work in the spirit of Ruskin's Company, but to pursue those values in contemporary ways. It works through a number of properties. It has an educational art collection, built up by Ruskin and supplemented since, in the Millennium Gallery, Sheffield. It owns some farmland and woodland in the Wyre Forest, near Bewdley, Worcestershire, which it manages in an environmentally friendly manner. It owns a number of houses in the Arts and Crafts style in the Hertfordshire village of Westmill; these are let at affordable rents and maintained as buildings of quality.

It also provides scholarships and awards across a variety of subjects close to Ruskin's heart. It recently funded the very successful national Campaign for Drawing, and it provided the finance for a nine-year cycle of Triennial Exhibitions in the Millennium Gallery, which have Ruskin at the heart of them but extend his concerns into the present century. It has also begun organising a series of open symposia on issues of current importance. These are designed to question the political truisms of our day, much as Ruskin questioned those of his. The Guild is also, at present, supporting work in the regeneration of old orchards and hay meadows in the Wyre Forest area, and it helped to build an architecturally striking study centre on its land, The Ruskin Studio.

[1] I take this date from David Hugh Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 5th ed. (Oxford: Oxford U, 2004), p. 213.

[2] The Great Horologion, tr. Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Boston: HTM, 1997), pp. 465-6.

[3] One can read the full ‘creed’ in John D. Rosenberg, ed., The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from His Writings (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), pp. 415-6.

[4] Samantha Riches, St George: Hero, Martyr & Myth (Thrupp, UK: Sutton, 2000), pp. 199-200. Giles Morgan mentions it briefly in St George: Knight, Martyr, Patron Saint & Dragonslayer (Edison, NJ: Chartwell, 2006), pp. 111-2.

[5] The source is given as F. Trombley, Hellenic Religion & Christianization c.370-529 II (Leiden, 1995), p. 363.

[6] Horologion, p. 466.

'I, Too, Was Included in Her Prayer'—Søren Kierkegaard

Today, 5 May, is the birthday of the influential Danish philosopher, Søren Åbye Kierkegård (1813-1855). Constantine Cavarnos numbers Kierkegaard among ‘the modern Western philosophers who were motivated by the love of truth, and not by the love of fame or egotism’ and calls him ‘Christian in spirit.’ [1] He is sometimes regarded as the father of existentialism, but according to C. Steven Evans, this is anachronistic and, likely, inaccurate, if existentialism ‘is defined as the denial that there is such a thing as a human essence of nature’. Evans concludes, ‘In the end he must be seen as his own person, a unique Christian presence with sensibilities that are in many ways Greek and premodern . . . He remains “the individual” he wrote about, and to whom he dedicated many of his works.’ [2] Here is the entry on Kierkegaard in Benét’s Reader’s Encyclopedia:

Kierkegaard, Søren Aabye (1813-1855) Danish philosopher. The early years of Kierkegaard’s life were dark and cheerless, his home a lonely, gloomy place. Kierkegaard published his first philosophical wokrs under pseudonyms. In contrast to Hegel’s objective philosophy, he proposed, in such works as Stadier paa Livets Vei (Stages on Life’s Way, 1845) and Gjentagelsen (Repetition, 1843), a system based on faith, knowledge, thought, and reality). In Enten Eller (Either-Or, 1843), he discusses the razor-edge decision made by man’s free will, which determines his personal relation to God. In 1846 events in his private life led him to experience a deeper commitment to Christianity and to attack with new vigor orthodox, organized religion. For Kierkegaard the relation with God must be a lonely, agonizing experience of a man’s inner solitude. During his lifetime he was not recognized in Denmark as a genius; a rebel against secure bourgeois morality, he was mocked and reviled for his unorthodox views and for the strange, ungainly figure he cut on the cheerful streets of Copenhagen. The 20th-century revival of Kierkegaard was initiated by the German philosophers Heidegger and Jaspers, and furthered by members of the French existentialist movement, notably Sartre and Camus. [3]

Apart from his intense opposition to Hegel, I know little about the broad contours of Kierkegaard’s philosophy. One point, however, on which I have learned something, albeit largely secondhand, is Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the Patriarch Abraham’s sacrifice as involving a ‘teleological suspension of the ethical’. [4] In Fear & Trembling, ‘Problem I’, the Dane argues that God’s command that the Patriarch Abraham sacrifice his son, Isaac, and the approval of Abraham’s willingness to do so when commanded, demonstrate that there is a level above that of ethical behaviour which a relationship with God requires. One might say that God is above the good, at least insofar as we understand it. Kierkegaard himself typifies the ethical stage by Socrates, [5] and thus Peter Kreeft [6] has aptly contrasted this notion of the ‘teleological suspension of the ethical’ with the central conclusion of Plato’s Euthyphro (11a)—that, in Grube’s somewhat awkward translation, ‘the god-loved and the pious’ are ‘altogether different from each other’. [7] In other words, Socrates concludes that the good is above the gods. But, naturally, he is talking about ‘the gods’ and not ‘God’, since a good deal of the problem arises from the fact that, according to Euthyphro 8a ‘the same things are considered just by some gods and unjust by others’. [8] Thus, Kreeft has suggested that we traditional Christians (from which company I believe he excludes Kierkegaard) solve this dilemma by identifying God Himself with the Good, a view which entails a closer relationship between God and the human conscience. But I don’t believe Kreeft really adequately answers the problem, which still remains, of whether human sacrifice is, then, in keeping with God’s ‘goodness’. [9]

I would also point the reader towards the interesting treatments of Kierkegaard by the Russian émigré philosopher, Lev Shestov, and, more briefly, by Hieromonk Nicholas (Sakharov). In his major work, Kierkegaard & Existential Philosophy, Shestov compares the Danish philosopher directly with Dostoevsky. Citing a passage from the Journal on closeness to God through the ‘shaking’ of man’s being, Shestov writes:

On this point he comes so close to Dostoevsky that without fear of exaggeration we can call Dostoevsky the double of Kierkegaard. Not only their ideas but their methods of searching for truth are perfectly similar and equidistant from the whole content of speculative philosophy. [10]

In his study of the theology of Elder Sophrony, Fr Nicholas looks briefly at convergences and divergences between, on the one hand, Kierkegaard and Karl Barth, and on the other, Nicholas Berdyaev and Elder Sophrony. He argues that the latter ‘(indirectly) support Barth’s and Kierkegaard’s attack on the objective dimension in the knowledge of God’, understanding knowledge of God not as ‘objectification’ but as ‘participation, union with the subject matter and entering into co-operation with it.’ [11] But there is a ‘fundamental difference’ between them in that Elder Sophrony believes firmly in the ‘possibility of the actual immediate experience of the infinite transcended by the finite’, whereas Kierkegaard believes finitum non capax infiniti, and the basis of his and Barth’s ‘theologizing is faith in the scriptural revelation’, in other words, experience mediated through the text. [12]

Unfortunately, I must admit that I have only ever read bits and pieces of Kierkegaard’s work. But one that has always stuck with me is an excerpt I first saw quoted years ago in a book by Tony Campolo. It is from an 1836 entry in Kierkegaard’s Journal:

I have just come back from a party where I was the life and soul. Witticisms flowed from my lips. Everyone laughed and admired me—but, I left, yes, that dash should be as long as the radii of the earth's orbit ——— and wanted to shoot myself. [13]

Kierkegaard would have been about 23 at the time that he wrote this. As stark and full of despair as it seems, the sentiments cannot be so very far from things that all thinking, feeling persons have experienced when for a moment we are, in Thomas Gray’s words, ‘far from the madding crowd’. God be with us then.

Also, commenting on the despair Tolstoy describes in his Confession, David Patterson observes, ‘Tolstoi had contracted what Kierkegaard calls the sickness unto death.’ [14] Not having read the essay of that title, I was a little bit skeptical. It seemed rather unlikely that such a personal problem would just happen to match a description given by a very different philosopher. But I was indeed impressed with the aptness of the comparison when I read the following:

The concept of the sickness unto death must be understood, however, in a peculiar sense. Literally it means a sickness the end and outcome of which is death. Thus one spekas of a mortal sickness as synonymous with a sickness unto death. In this sense despair cannot be called a sickness unto death. But in the Christian understanding of it death itself is a transition unto life. In view of this, there is from the Christian standpoint no earthly, bodily sickness unto death. For death is doubtless the last phase of the sickness, but death is not the last thing. If in the strictest sense we are to speak of a sickness unto death, it must be one in which the last thing is death, and death the last thing. And this precisely is despair.

Yet in another and still more definite sense despair is the sickness unto death. It is indeed very far from being true that, literally understood, one dies of this sickness, or that this sickness ends with bodily death. On the contrary, the torment of despair is precisely this, not to be able to die. So it has much in common with the situation of the moribund when he lies and struggles with death, and cannot die. So to be sick unto death is, not to be able to die—yet not as though there were hope of life; no, the hopelessness in this case is that even the last hope, death, is not available. When death is the greatest danger, one hopes for life; but when one becomes acquainted with an even more dreadful danger, one hopes for death. So when the danger is so great that death has become one’s hope, despair is the disconsolateness of not being able to die.

It is in this last sense that despair is the sickness unto death, this agonizing contradiction, this sickness in the self, everlastingly to die, to die and yet not to die, to
die the death. . . . [15]

Finally, lest it be thought that Kierkegaard is all gloom, here is a charming passage from Either/Or that I’ve only just read:

In our church services the congregation has always failed to make upon me a truly salutary impression. And yet there was one year of my life when I came pretty close to the idealized conception. It was in one of our churches here in the city [Copenhagen]. The church itself attracted me greatly, the clergyman who I heard every Sunday was a right reverend personality, a unique figure, who knew how to bring out old and new from the experiences of an eventful life; he was perfectly in place in the pulpit. As a priest he satisfied completely my soul’s ideal demand, he satisfied it as a figure, satisfied it as an orator. I was glad every Sunday to think that I was to go to hear him. But what increased my joy and made perfect for me the impression of divine worship in this church was another figure, an elderlywoman, who likewise attended every Sunday. She used to come a little before the service began, and I likewise. Her personality was for me an image of the congregation, and thinking of her I forgot the disturbing impression of the parish clerk at the church door. She was a woman of a certain age, apparently about sixty years old, but was still beautiful, her features noble, her look full of a certain humble dignity, her countenance expressive of deep, pure, feminine character. She looked as if she had experienced much, not precisely stormy events, but as a mother who had borne life’s burdens and yet had preserved and attained the ability to rejoice over the world. So when I saw her coming far down the aisle, when the sexton had met her at the church door and now as a servant was deferentially escorting her to her seat, then I knew she would also pass the pew where I sat. So when she went by I always rose and bowed to her. For me there was so much implied in this bow, it was as though I would beg her to include me in her supplications. She entered her pew, giving a kidnly greeting to the sexton, she remained an instant on her feet, she bowed her head, held a handkerchief an instant before her eyes as she prayed—it would take a pithy preacher to makee so strong and salutary an impression as did the solemnity of that venerable woman.

It sometimes came into my mind that perhaps I, too, was included in her prayer, for to woman it belongs essentially to pray for others. [16]

In conclusion, it is interesting to note that while Kierkegaard was not, of course, Orthodox, and as I have suggested, does not always line up with Orthodoxy, according to Wikipedia the Episcopal and some Lutheran church(es) apparently consider him to be some sort of saint, though they commemorate him in the Autumn, and not today. (Note the comment below, however, by Extollager, making it clear that confessional Lutherans do not regard Kierkegaard so highly!)


[1] Constantine Cavarnos, Orthodoxy & Philosophy (Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, 2003), p. 184.

[2] C. Steven Evans, ‘Kierkegaard, Søren Abye’, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed., ed. Robert Audi (Cambridge: Cambridge U, 1999), p. 470.

[3] Katherine Baker Siepmann, ed., Benét’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, 3rd ed. (NY: HarperCollins, 1987), pp. 529-30.

[4] Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling & The Sickness Unto Death, tr. Walter Lowrie (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1954), p. 67.

[5] Frederick Copleston, SJ, Modern Philosophy, Part II: Schopenhauer to Nietzsche, Vol. 7 in A History of Philosophy (Garden City, NY: Image, 1965), p. 113.

[6] In his audio course on the history of ethics.

[7] Plato, ‘Euthyphro’, tr. G.M.A. Grube, Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper, assoc. ed. D.S. Hutchinson (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), pp. 10-1.

[8] Ibid., p. 7.

[9] About this problem, I myself am tempted to say two things. First, it is important to factor in the significance of humility in Abraham’s obedience. The Patriarch did not consider himself such a judge of the good as to know better than God. Second, although this is an extreme example, it really does seem to be in keeping with the widely acknowledged ‘teleological’ orientation of Orthodox ethics. We may not like the idea of a readiness to sacrifice one’s child, but if we are not to deify a list of rules, then theoretically at least it seems to me that we must allow for a situation where God may call for it.

[10] Leon Shestov, ‘Kierkegaard & Dostoevsky’, tr. James M. Edie, Russian Philosophy, Vol. III: Pre-Revolutionary Philosophy & Theology, Philosophers in Exile, Marxists & Communists, ed. James M. Edie, et al. (Chicago: Quadrangle, 1969), p. 243.

[11] Hieromonk Nicholas (Sakharov), I Love Therefore I Am: The Theological Legacy of Archimandrite Sophrony (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 2002), pp. 52-3.

[12] Ibid., p. 54.

[13] Copied from a source I’ve forgotten. It is A. Hannay’s translation, noted ‘I A 161’ according to J.C. Lund’s and H.P. Barfod’s system.

[14] David Patterson, ‘The Movement of Faith as Revealed in Tolstoi’s Confession’, Harvard Theological Review 71.3-4 (1978), p. 230.

[15] Kierkegaard, pp. 150-1.

[16] Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, Vol. II, tr. Walter Lowrie, rev. Howard A. Johnson (Princeton: Princeton U, 1974), pp. 318-9. The last line reminds me of Solzhenitsyn’s wonderful short story, ‘Matrona’s Home’.

A Sober, if Futile, Ecumenical 'Dialogue'

I have recently, and for the first time on this blog, I believe, been called an ‘Extremist’ for my criticisms of the ecumenical movement. But, to be fair, even those mature enough to rise above name-calling—first and foremost, the estimable John Sanidopoulos—appear to suspect that I cannot recognise even the possibility of sober ecumenical dialogue. A perfect way to prove them wrong has occurred to me.

Among the Orthodox delegates to the Anglican-Orthodox Joint Doctrinal Commission, which met in Moscow in 1976, were exactly two of the men that have been pointed out to me as saintly personalities involved in the ecumenical movement—Archbishop Basil (Krivoshein) of Brussells (MP) and Protopresbyter John Romanides. While I can’t say much about the members of the Anglican delegation—the only ones I know anything about are Canon A.M. Allchin and Revd Hugh Wybrew—I still feel that this meeting was largely an exercise in futility. Certainly, the Anglican Communion as a whole only seems farther from Orthodoxy than ever before.

But that having been said, from a perusal of those exchanges chosen for publication from among the discussions of various points of the resulting ‘Moscow Agreed Statement’, it is clear that in many ways we have an ecumenical dialogue carried on as well as it possibly could be in our day, thanks in no small part to the Orthodox delegates I have named. I shall offer two examples. First, from the discussion concerning section I.2 of the Agreed Statement:

Professor Romanides: There is a close connection between the whole question of inspiration and revelation and the distinction between the essence and energies of God. . . . I wish to ask the Anglicans this question: When the Old and New Testaments speak of the revealed glory of God do the Anglicans consider this glory to be created or uncreated? And if they regard it as uncreated do they consider it to be the essence of God?

The Bishop of Truro [Right Revd Graham Leonard]: I am certain that Professor Romanides and I believe the same things. But I wish to ask Professor Romanides: Is it necessary to my salvation to speak about the relation of God to creation in terms of the essence-energies to distinction? Cannot this teaching be expressed in other terms?

Professor Romanides: We can speak, as the Bible does, in terms of the depth of God and of the glory of God. The Holy Spirit searches the depth of God; but can man do this? There is something that man sees, but something else that he does not see. . . .

Bishop [Robert E.] Terwilliger [Suffragan of Dallas]: I am happy about the essence-energies distinction. But how early is it? Is it found in the early Christian sources?

Professor Romanides: The distinction has roots both in Judaism and in the Greek philosophical tradition. The Church uses the distinction not for philosophical but for experiential reasons.

Archbishop Basil: We should differentiate between (i) the fact itself, as expressed in what the Old and New Testaments tell us concerning the glory of God; and (ii) the terminology, which was used in the Patristic period but not fully developed until the time of St Gregory Palamas. It is difficult to require the Anglicans to accept the terminology of the later period. But do they accept what is said on this matter by the Cappadocians, and especially St Gregory of Nyssa?

The Bishop of Truro and Bishop Terwilliger: Yes.

Professor [Eugene R.] Fairweather: The distinction between essence and energies, as made in thesis 2 [of the Truro sub-commission], is radically unacceptable to many Anglicans. They would consider it unbiblical to affirm that the divine nature or essence is for ever excluded from human knowledge. Also the doctrine of the divine simplicity makes such a distinction problematical. The widely-held Anglican (and Western) view is that, in his present state, man does not receive the essence of God; but, although man will never comprehend or wholly grasp the essence of God, he will at the Last Day see the very being of God.

Bishop [Richard] Hanson: I agree with Dr Fairweather. According to the normal Western view, God is incomprehensible, in the sense that God’s nature can never be wholly grasped by man. But in his state of glory, man will see and know God himself. The Orthodox have their own way of stating this; but this way should not be made compulsory for the Anglicans. . . .

Dr Constantine Scouteris: We Orthodox do not seek to force the Anglicans to accept what they find uncongenial; we ask them to express their own tradition in a positive way.

Archbishop Basil: We are faced by a difference between the Cappadocian and the Augustinian traditions. The Cappadocians represent ancient Christian thought. Augustinianism is a deviation from this. The essence-energies distinction is an intellectual distinction, but it is at the same time a real distinction, because based on the reality of God.

Bishop Hanson: The Cappadocians must be understood in the context of the particular historical situation which they faced; they were concerned to answer the virulent rationalism of the Eunomians. In that situation the response of the Cappadocians is intelligible. But the West has its own reasons to adhere to Augustinianism, which expresses the same convictions in another and equally legitimate way.

Professor Romanides: . . . I return to my earlier question: In the Anglican view, is the revealed glory of God uncreated? If it is, is it the essence of God?

Professor Fairweather: It is a revelation of the uncreated through the medium of the created.

Professor Romanides: Here you follow Augustine.

Canon Allchin: I myself prefer the Orthodox to the Augustinian approach. But Anglicans wish to find room for both; they see advantages in both, but each presents certain difficulties. [1]

The insistence here on the importance of the essence/energies distinction by Fr Romanides and Archbishop Basil—culminating in the latter’s observation that Augustinianism ‘is a devition’ from ‘ancient Christian thought’—is greatly to be commended. Here is another exchange, this one from the discussion of section III.10.(ii)—‘The mind (phronema) of the Fathers, their theological method, their terminology and modes of expression have a lasting importance in both the Orthodox and Anglican Churches’: [2]

Archbishop Stylianos: . . . What Orthodox value is not just the terminology but the message and mind (phronema) of the Fathers.

Professor Galitis: Instead of ‘the Patristic period’, we should say ‘the Fathers’. We do not wish to restrict the Fathers chronologically.

Bishop Hanson welcomed the phrase ‘mind of the Fathers’. We Anglicans, he said, do not always admire the hermeneutical methods of the Fathers, but we do respect the conclusions to which the Fathers came.

The Revd Mark Santer: Let us say ‘the Fathers’ method of theology, whereby theology is linked with prayer’.

Professor Romanides: That is precisely what I mean by the Fathers’ theological method. [3]

Now, the Anglicans make some very revealing statements in both of these exchanges, some of which strike me as (perhaps unwittingly) ironic, and the Orthodox allow much to slide. But keeping in mind that all is provisional and preparatory, since Orthodox could not know at the time that Anglicans would deliberately ignore Orthodox sensibilities by introducing the novel practice of ordaining women, this is on the whole an admirable example of theological dialogue on the part of the Orthodox delegates. Because of changes on both sides—for instance, the rejection of the essence-energies distinction by an important Orthodox ecumenist, Met. John (Zizioulas), and the increasing abandonment of any kind of traditional theological or moral standards by much of the Anglican Communion—such a dialogue would be difficult to produce today. But it stands as a witness that in theory, at least, genuine discussion of theological differences can be had.


[1] Archim. Kallistos (Ware) & the Revd Colin Davey, eds., Anglican-Orthodox Dialogue: The Moscow Agreed Statement (London: SPCK, 1977), pp. 46-8.

[2] Ibid., p. 84.

[3] Ibid., p. 56.

War & Peace Summer Reading Schedule

Owen White of Ochlophobist fame has just prepared a reading schedule for and, based on a brief conversation we had, suggestions for how to proceed with online discussion of Leo Tolstoy’s War & Peace, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Anyone is welcome to join us and to contribute to the discussion through e-mails, blog posts, and/or comments.

W&P reading begins May 5

We are using the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation.

The reading schedule is as follows:

Volume One: May 5 – May 25

Volume Two: May 26 – June 8

Volume Three: June 9 – June 29

Volume Four: June 30 – July 20

Epilogue & Appendix: July 21 – August 18

Thus each segment is given a few weeks. There is not much to read in the Epilogue & Appendix, but still a three week time slot granted, which should give slackers who get behind some extra time to finish the book.

Bloggers should feel free to post on anything having to do with any portion of the book at any time they see fit, though the above schedule should be kept in mind insofar as keeping up with discussion, generally speaking. Bloggers who wish to participate should let Aaron at Logismoi and/or Owen the Ochlophobist know so that we can publicize all of the bloggers involved in the reading and keep track of their posts, to help facilitate a broader discussion.

For those too daunted by Tolstoy (most of us are, I believe, at least a little daunted!), or more interested in Orthodox theology than novels, I also recommend participating in Felix Culpa’s group reading of The Moral Idea of the Main Dogmas of the Faith by Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), founding chief hierarch of the Russian Church Abroad. One can see the details and schedule here. I myself will be rereading this book concurrently with Tolstoy. It is interesting to note that it is in part directed explicitly against Tolstoy’s heterodox religious ideas.

Finally, for the truly insane reader, there is talk of an online discussion group to read German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit this summer as well. More details on this as they become available.

On Hieromonk Clement (Sederholm)

A recent comment on this post, by ‘a Lutheran (conservative Missouri Synod-type) with many years’ interest in Orthodoxy’, suggested the idea of a little post on Hieromonk Clement (Sederholm) (1830-1878), the 19th-c. Lutheran convert to Orthodoxy, monk of Optina, and biographer of the first two Optina Elders, Ss Leonid and Anthony. I don’t have a lot to offer, but I know of passages on Fr Clement in two of my books—Leonard Stanton’s The Optina Pustyn Monastery in the Russian Literary Imagination and Fr Sergius Chetverikov’s Life of the Optina Elder, St Ambrose. First, here is the passage from Fr Chetverikov:

As if to strengthen the physically infirm Elder, the Lord sent him right at that time several active and devoted assistants. In 1863 Constantine Karlovich Sederholm became numbered among the skete brethren. He was the son of the senior pastor of a Protestant [Lutheran] church in Moscow, a man with a university education and a friend of T.I. Philipov and the poet B.N. Almazov, a master of the Greek language and literature, who had at one time been an attache for the Over-Procurator of the Holy Synod, Count Alexei P. Tolstoy. He had travelled to the East and was well acquainted with the condition of the churches in the Middle East, and had been converted from Protestantism to Orthodoxy ten years before in that very Skete by Elder Macarius. He was a deeply religious man and devoted to Orthodoxy, which he had felt drawn to from his very childhood.

When he joined the Skete, Sederholm became one of Elder Ambrose’s closest disciples. He helped him with his voluminous correspondence, as well as the publication of books that continued during Fr Ambrose’s time as it had been in Fr Macarius’ time.

In monasticism Sederholm received the name Clement, and, having lived for fifteen years in the skete, he died of pneumonia in 1878. (His biography was written by Constantine N. Leontiev and entitled: Fr Clement Sederholm, a Hieromonk of Optina Monastery (Moscow, 1882), and published by the Kazan-Ambrose Shamordino Convent.) [1]

Here is what Stanton has to say about Fr Clement (it looks like he has confused the father’s name with that of his son):

The author [of the Life of Elder Leonid of Optina], Karl (later Father Kliment) Zedergol’m, died in 1878, before Dostoevsky’s last visit to Optina. Zedergol’m was a cantakerous man of great culture and learning. He was at home both in a monastic setting and in the inner circles of Russia’s literary beau monde. He graduated in classics from Moscow University in 1853, having written a master’s thesis on Cato the Elder that [Constantine] Leont’ev, his biographer, called both stimulating and controversial. In the same year, Zedergol’m converted from Lutheranism to Orthodoxy. (His father was the head Lutheran pastor in Moscow at the time.) Zedergol’m was at home in the brilliant Moscow salons, particularly Mrs Elagin’s with its erudite ferment of German Romantic thought and Slavophilism. He was a protégé of Ivan Vasil'evich Kireevskii, Russia’s first original philosopher, and counted among the friends of his youth some of the leading lights of the Moscow literary intelligentsia, including Tertii Filippov and the ‘young editors’ of The Muscovite. After a brief career as a layman working in the Holy Synod, Zedergol’m entered Optina Pustyn in 1862 and soon became a monk and a priest as well. He was never himself an elder, nor was he possessed of a sufficiently irenic disposition ever to have been considered for elderhood. He devoted himself to literary endeavors at Optina, as a translator of spiritual works from Latin and Greek into Russian, as the author of the elders’ biographies, and as secretary to Elder Amvrosii. [2]

In this post, Christopher Orr discusses a recent book on Fr Clement which contains Leontiev’s biography, eliciting in the comments an impromptu translation of the opening paragraphs, rendered by one John Hogg. Here is Hogg’s translation:

Father Clement Sederholm, Hieromonk of the Optina Hermitage

Constantine Leontyev

I

In the spring of 1878, in April, Hieromonk Clement, in the world Constantine Karlovich Sederholm, passed away from inflammation of the lungs. He was not yet fifty years old.

Fr Clement was neither an eloquent preacher nor did he have the exterior appearance of a bodily ascetic that would capture the imagination. He was also not one of the famous spiritual fathers or elders whose spiritual guidance and advice is sought not only by monks but also by laypeople of all conditions and ages. He didn’t live long enough to occupy an administrative position. He had only just been made the abbot of one of the monasteries of the Kaluga province when his days were cut short by an unexpected and early death.

Fr Clement wrote and printed but you could not really say either that his publications were numerous, nor especially influential nor did they contain anything particularly biting, uniquely characteristic, or really anything out of the ordinary.

In spite of all of these things that he was not, nevertheless, Fr Clement was a remarkable person and an even more remarkable monk.

His merits, his story, and his role were completely unique and to leave them in oblivion would be the greatest injustice.

Here is a short history of his previous life in the world. Instead [of] a dry and sequential listing of events, instead of the usual formulaic list of obituaries, I will give you what he himself told me in two or three chats about his earliest childhood.

Constantine Karlovich Sederholm’s father was the Reformed Superintendent of Moscow. He had a few other brothers. One of them was in the last campaign of the Caucus army as a general. He passed away a little bit earlier than Fr Clement. This is what he himself told me: ‘Our family was a good and well respected family, but you know, it was a dry, German family. Protestantism didn’t repulse me at all but nor did it attract me. I didn’t like our church service. I experienced a completely different feeling when I happened to be in an Orthodox Church. I had strong religious needs but everything that our pastors used to say wasn’t quite in accord with my heart and it didn’t satisfy me.’

Finally, in a series of posts here, Ручьёв of Incendiary—at Orr’s instigation—has translated ten letters of Fr Clement to his Father. Here is the tenth letter:

In your last letter you asked me how I, without an alphabet [the basics?], want to make a grammatical, historical exegesis in order to penetrate into the meaning of Scripture. Academic exegesis is, all the same, an invention of the mind, and the mind did not come from exegesis, therefore, even though it helps many, it is not such an urgent necessity. By the way, if there will be the possibility, I will try to acquire exegesis. Many have the correct understanding even without exegesis, and many others are mistaken in their exegesis as a few Swiss pastors, who consider it unnecessary to believe in the Holy Trinity, in the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Name in which they were baptized. By the way, if you re-read my last letter you would see that I only asked what can be done without exegesis. I openly admit to you that in your letter I did not find any answer to my questions. So, for example, I asked you to explain the Apostolic words (Jude 1:19) that people, having separated themselves from the unity of faith, are natural (1 Cor. 2:14) and do not have the Spirit. You pass over that place in silence and say only that a Christian must strive for unity. Why does not the Apostle not say that about those who do not strive for unity, but only about those who separate themselves from it? You have not explained this. In place of this you object to opinions which I never said and against trends which our Church never had. For example, you speak about those who say that they already perfectly attained to the truth of everything holy and about those who want to cover up human errors in the Church with divine rules. What gave you cause for this I do not know. About the first, I never spoke and never even thought. The second has a bit of truth in relationship to the Roman church, against which you justly object to in many things, but that does not concern our Church, which you very often do not separate from the Roman Church. That which concerns the Church itself, I find contradictions in you. At first you, as it were, agree that it is from God, but then, as it were, reject its divine beginning and relate it to an institution. Well, no. The Church is the pillar and ground of truth [I Tim. 3:15], and the Lord said, I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it [Matt. 16:18]. What kind of comparison can be made here with an institution? I don’t understand.

Well, I wrote to you what came to mind and what was passed to the pen.

January 25, 1864

[1] Fr Sergius Chetverikov, Elder Ambrose of Optina (Platina, CA: St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1997), pp. 149-50.

[2] Leonard Stanton, The Optina Pustyn Monastery in the Russian Literary Imagination (NY: Peter Lang, 1995), p. 152.

Pevear's Intro to Dostoevsky's Demons

I have written before (here) about the Orthodox translators of Russian literature, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, whose rendition of War & Peace a few of us Ortho-bloggers are beginning to read. I believe I have also commented on the extraordinary introductions Pevear has written for the translations, my admiration for which I was just reminded of when I finished reading that for War & Peace this evening. Here, however, are two passages from one of my favourites, Pevear’s introduction to Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Demons (sometimes known as The Possessed):

Dostoevsky called the novel Demons, we would suggest, precisely because demons in it do not appear, and the reader might otherwise overlook them. The demons are visible only in distortions of the human image, the human countenance, and their force is mesaurable only by the degree of the distortion. What this means for an understanding of demonic possession in the novel may be elucidated by a passage from The Brothers Karamazov. Alyosha and Ivan Karamazov are talking about the murder of their father. Alyosha suddenly turns to his brother and says: ‘It was not you who killed father . . . You’ve accused yourself and confessed to yourself that you and you alone are the murderer. But it was not you who killed him, you are mistaken, the murderer was not you, do you hear, it was not you! God has sent me to tell you that.’ In fact, Ivan was their father’s murderer, if only in an ‘intellectual’ sense. But Alyosha is talking about something else. He seems to mean that the evil in Ivan is not him, is not identical with him, is not his esseence. Ivan is in danger of taking it for his essence, of ‘damning’ himself and losing himself entirely. He is on the verge of madness. Alyosha’s message is truly meant to save him. The world of Demons—the provincial town with its society, its administration, its older and younger generations, its club members and revolutionaries—is in a condition similar to Ivan’s. The title is perhaps Dostoevsky’s message to us that ‘it is not them’. [1]

Pevear identifies the demons of the novel with the various ideas that ‘possess’ its charactres, including the ideas similar to Dostoevsky’s own which possess the charactre of Shatov. Then Pevear asks:

Is it not an exaggeration, even a sort of mystification, to give the status of ‘demons’ to mere ideas? But, in the first place, there are no mere ideas in Dostoevsky, there are what Mikhail Bakhtin, in his Problems in Dostoevsky’s Poetics, calls ‘voice-ideas’, ‘voice-viewpoints’, ‘idea-images’, ‘idea-forces’, ‘idea-heroes’. There is no neutral, impersonal truth. ‘It is not the idea itself that is the “hero of Dostoevsky’s works” . . . but rather the person born of that idea’. Bakhtin pretends to a scientific analysis and therefore avoids evaluation of the ‘ideological content’ of Dostoevsky’s works, but implicit at least in his analysis is the possibility of an evil or alien idea coming to inhabit a person, misleading him, perverting him ontologically, driving him to crime or insanity. Dostoevsky portrays this phenomenon time and again. . . .

The person born of the idea may be distorted and even destroyed by it. But to make such a judgment, one must have some way of measuring the distortion, some image of the undistorted person. And, again, if Dostoevsky is to be true to his poetics, this cannot be an abstract idea of principle. Bakhtin acknowledges the existence of this ‘measure’ in a passage that is rather obliquely worded, but is crucial for an understanding of his own concept of ‘polyphony’, not to mention Dostoevsky’s novel: [2]

Pevear then quotes the following passage from Bakhtin’s Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics:

. . . what unfolds before Dostoevsky is not a world of objects, illuminated and ordered by his monologic thought, but a world of consciousnesses mutually illuminating one another . . . Among them Dostoevsky seeks the highest and most authoritative orientation, and he perceives it not as his own true thought, but as another authentic human being and his discourse. The image of the ideal human being or the image of Christ represents for him the resolution of ideological quests. This image or this highest voice must crown the world of voices, must organize and subdue it. Precisely the image of a human being and his voice, a voice not the author’s own, was the ultimate artistic criterion for Dostoevsky: not fidelity to his own convictions and not fidelity to convictions themselves taken abstractly, but precisely a fidelity to the authoritative image of a human being. [3]

Then Pevear concludes:

The openness of Dostoevsky’s novels is an openness to this image; his polyphony has no other aim than the silent indication of its presence. Ideas that deface or distort this ‘authoritative image of a human being’ in a person are indeed acting like demons, and are them. [4]

Finally, although Pevear does not mention her, the Bulgarian-born French post-structuralist Julia Kristeva helps us contextualise the ‘polyphony’ to which Bakhtin and Pevear refer:

[Dostoevsky’s] dialogism, his polyphony undoubtedly spring from multiple sources. It would be a mistake to neglect that of Orthodox faith whose Trinitarian conception . . . inspires the writer’s ‘dialogism’ as well as his praise of suffering at the same time as forgiving. [5]

[1] Richard Pevear, ‘Foreword’, Demons, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, tr. Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky (NY: Vintage, 1994), pp. xiv-xv.

[2] Ibid., pp. xvii-xviii.

[3] Qtd. in ibid., pp. xviii-xix. Sorry, I don't have my copy of Bakhtin at the moment or I would give the page number in the source.

[4] Ibid., p. xix.

[5] Julia Kristeva, Black Sun: Depression & Melancholia, tr. Leon S. Roudiez (NY: Columbia U, 1989), p. 214.

'The Lives of the Saints Are Applied Dogmatics'—On the Glorification of St Justin

By now, most English-speaking Orthodox should be aware that the Holy Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church has glorified among the Saints our Holy Father Justin (Popović) of Čelje (1894-1979), the renowned Serbian traditionalist theologian and opponent of ecumenism. As the Serbian Church has decreed that St Justin is to be commemorated 1 June on the Church’s calendar, which will fall on 14 June according to the civil calendar, I will save my usual hagiographic post until that day. But on the occasion of his glorification, I wanted to take the opportunity to say just a couple of things.

First of all, in light of the ongoing attempts by Orthodox ecumenists to marginalise and caricature those who would call them to a more faithful witness (see for instance the Encyclical of the Patriarch of Constantinople on the Sunday of Orthodoxy this year, posted here by Andreas), it is helpful to recall that St Justin was decidedly among the latter. Indeed, the statements that follow may appear very harsh to some, but we can be certain that St Justin wishes only to ‘speak the truth in love’. In his essay, ‘Humanistic Ecumenism’, St Justin writes:

Ecumenism is the common name for the pseudo-Christianity of the pseudo-Churches of Western Europe. . . . All of pseudo-Christianity, all of those pseudo-Churches, are nothing more than one heresy after another. . . . [1]

Without repentance and admittance into the True [Orthodox] Church of Christ, it is unthinkable and unnatural to speak about unification of ‘the Churches’, about the dialogue of love, about intercommunion . . . .

The contemporary ‘dialogue of love’, which takes the form of naked sentimentality, is in reality a denial of the salutary sanctification of the Spirit and belief in the truth (2 Thess. 2:13), that is to say the unique salutary ‘love of the truth’ (2 Thess. 2:10). The essence of love is truth; love lives and thrives as truth. . . . [2]

The heretico-humanistic separation of and detachment of love from truth is a sign of the lack of theanthropic faith and of the loss of theanthropic balance and common sense. At any rate, this was never, nor is it the way of the Fathers. The Orthodox are rooted and founded only ‘with all of the saints’ in truth, and have proclaimed in love this theanthropic life-saving love for the world and for all of the creation of God from the time of the Apostles until today. . . . [3]

I do not think I need to go on. It is obvious that the teachings of St Justin are diametrically opposed to those of the Orthodox ecumenists, led by the Patriarch of Constantinople himself. What the glorification among the Saints of our holy Father Justin emphasises is only something the Orthodox defenders of Tradition have known all along—we are supported by the witness of the Saints and Holy Fathers. Those holy men who have struggled in asceticism, the Elders, Confessors, and Martyrs of the Church, it is they that have denounced the Orthodox participation in the ecumenical movement. Its supporters, on the contrary, may have good people, ‘decent fellows’ among them, but they do not have Saints.

St Justin has emphasised in a number of his essays the priority of lived Orthodoxy, of the three-fold path of purification, illumination, and deification, over abstract, academic theology. I will quote a few of these at some length. In ‘The Inward Mission of Our Church’, St Justin writes:

The Ascetics are Orthodoxy’s only missionaries. Asceticism is her only missionary school. Orthodoxy is ascetic effort and it is life, and it is thus by effort and by life that her mission is broadcast and brought about. The development of asceticism . . . this ought to be the inward mission of our Church amongst our people. The parish must become an ascetic focal point. But this can only be achieved by an ascetic priest. Prayer and fasting, the Church-oriented life of the parish, a life of liturgy: Orthodoxy holds these as the primary ways of effecting rebirth in its people. The parish, the parish community must be regenerated and in Christ-like and brotherly love must minister humbly to Him and to all people, meek and lowly and in a spirit of sacrifice and self-denial. And such service must be imbued and nourished by prayer and the liturgical life. This much is groundwork and indispensable. But to this end there exists one prerequisite: that our Bishops, priests, and our monks become ascetics themselves. That this might be, then: Let us beseech the Lord. [4]

In his ‘Introduction to the Lives of the Saints’, St Justin emphasises the theological nature of the Saints’ incarnate witness:

Saints are people who live on earth by holy, eternal Divine truths. That is why the Lives of the Saints are actually applied dogmatics, for in them all the holy eternal dogmatic truths are experienced in all their life-creating and creative energies. In the Lives of the Saints it is most evidently shown that dogmas are not only ontological truths in themselves and for themselves, but that each one of them is a wellspring of eternal life and a source of holy spirituality. [5]

In addition, the Lives of the Saints contain in themselves Orthodox ethics in their entirety, Orthodox morality, in the full radiance of its Divine-human sublimity and its immortal life-creating nature. . . . For this reason the Lives of the Saints are indeed experiential ethics, applied ethics. Actually, the Lives of the Saints prove irrefutably that Ethics is nothing other than Applied Dogmatics. . . . [6]

And what else are the Lives of the Saints but the only Orthodox pedagogical science. For in them in a countless number of evangelical ways, which are completely worked out by the experience of many centuries, it is shown how the perfect human personality, the completely ideal man, is built up and fashioned, and how with the help of the holy mysteries and the holy virtues in the Church of Christ he grows into ‘a perfect man, according to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ’ (cf. Eph. 4:13). . . .

If you wish, the Lives of the Saints are a sort of Orthodox Encyclopedia. In them can be found everything which is necessary for the soul which hungers and thirsts for eternal righteousness and eternal truth in this life, and which hungers and thirsts for Divine immortality and eternal life. . . . [7]

Finally, in his essay on ‘The Theory of Knowledge of St Isaac the Syrian’, St Justin notes something that should be fundamental to any Orthodox attempt to engage in learning and rational thought, the necessity of purification for acquiring right knowledge:

The character of a man’s knowledge depends on the disposition, nature, and condition of his organs of understanding. At all levels knowledge depends intrinsically on the means of understanding. Man does not make truth; the act of understanding is an act of making one’s own a truth which is already objectively given. This integration has an organic character, not unlike that of the grafting of a slip onto a vine, or its life in and from the vine (cf. John 15:1-6). Understanding is, then, a fruit on the tree of the human person. As is the tree, so are its fruits, as are the organs of understanding, so is the knowledge they engender.

Analyzing man by his empirical gifts, St Isaac the Syrian finds that his organs of understanding are sick. ‘Evil is a sickness of the soul’, whence all the organs of understanding are made sick (Letter 4). . . . [8]

A feeble soul, a diseased intellect, a weakened heart and will—in brief, sick organs of understanding—can only engender, fashion, and produce sick thoughts, sick feelings, sick desires, and sick knowledge. [9]

The healing and purification of the organs of human knowledge are brought about by the common action of God and man—by the grace of God and the will of man. On the long path of purification and healing, knowledge itself becomes purer and healthier. At every stage of its development, knowledge depends on the ontological structure and the ethical state of its organs. Purified and healed by a man’s striving in the evangelical virtues, the organs of knowledge themselves acquire holiness and purity. A pure heart and pure mind engender pure knowledge. The organs of knowledge, when purified, healed, and turned towards God, give a pure and healthy knowledge of God and, when turned towards creation, give a pure and healthy knowledge of creation. [10]

Although it may not be immediately clear, these passages are directly relevant to what I have said above regarding St Justin’s witness against ecumenism. While the Orthodox ecumenists might pay lip service to what St Justin is saying in these various passages, they do not seem to realise the logical conclusion of his teachings. If Ascetics and Saints are our only teachers, if a soul must have undergone ascetic purification in order to correctly understand truth and reality, then it is precisely men like St Justin himself to whom we must listen when our path becomes uncertain, not worldly hierarchs and clever academic theologians.

The essays I have just quoted have been such an enormous influence on me, shaping my thinking and my studies in so many incalculable ways, that it is a great joy to me to have lived to see the glorification of Father Justin among the Saints. May the work of this divinely inspired and holy man continue to influence and guide the faithful.


[1] St Justin (Popović), Orthodox Faith & Life in Christ, ed. Fr Asterios Gerostergios (Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine & Modern Greek Studies, 1994), p. 169.

[2] Ibid., p. 170.

[3] Ibid., p. 172.

[4] Ibid., pp. 30-1.

[5] Ibid., p. 44.

[6] Ibid., p. 46.

[7] Ibid., p. 47.

[8] Ibid., pp. 120-1.

[9] Ibid., p. 122.

[10] Ibid., pp. 139-40.