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Publisher: SVS Press, Yonkers, New York, 2015
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http://www.svspress.com/the-ways-of-orthodox-theology-in-the-west/
The Ways of Orthodox Theology in the WestThe story of Orthodox Christianity’s relationship with the Westplays a pivotal role in the construction of Orthodox identity. That story took a decisive turn in the twentieth century. Suddenly, Orthodox thinkers, particularly those from the formerRussian Empire, found themselves living in foreign lands and looking at Orthodoxy through the other end of the looking glass— the West. It was from there that Orthodox theologians were faced with the greatest challenge to their collective religiousidentity: What did it mean to be Eastern Orthodox outside of the East?
"This book is a powerful witness to the dynamism of the Orthodox tradition and the great fruits it bore in the twentieth century. Here we can see how the legacy of Byzantine Orthodoxy spread and then the transition to the consciousness that Orthodoxy must always be local and the attempts and hopes to make this a reality, together with the engagement with modernity and Western theology and philosophy..."
— From the Foreword by Fr John Behr
AUTHORS
IVANA NOBLE is Professor of Ecumenical Theology at the Protestant Theological Faculty of Charles University, Prague, and responsible for a research project on Orthodoxy in the West, in which all four authors participate.
KATERINA BAUEROVÁ teaches at the Protestant Theological Facultyof Charles University, Prague, where she also earned her doctorate.
TIM NOBLE taught missiology at the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague.
PARUSH PARUSHEV is former Academic Dean and Rector of the International Baptist Theological Seminary in Prague.
Contents
Foreword (John Behr)IntroductionChapter 1: Religious, cultural and political development of Orthodoxlands till the Fall of the Byzantine Empire (Ivana Noble and Parush Parushev)
Byzantine roots of OrthodoxyMission of Cyril and MethodiusChristianisation of RussiaPower struggle within Eastern Christianity and the Great SchismRussia in the period of the Mongolian KhanateHellenism v. hesychasm: in search of the Byzantine identityThe Hesychasm of the Slav ChristiansFall of Constantinople and the Ottoman YokeOrthodoxy in Greece and in the Balkans after the fall of the Ottoman Empire
Chapter 2: Russian Orthodoxy on the journey to modernity (Ivana Noble)
The Rise of Russia as the “Third Rome”Autocephality of the Russian Church and her turn to the WestOld BelieversReforms, decline and new prospectsRediscovery of hesychasmSlavophilesThe Transition from scholasticism to neo-patristicsReligious grounding of social reformSophiology
Chapter 3: Orthodox mission in America and Western Europe before 1920 (Tim Noble)
Sources of inspirationThe Beginnings of Mission in Alaska Bishop InnocentConsequences of the sale of Alaska Theology of mission in Orthodox AlaskaMission in the United States The Development of Russian Orthodoxy in AmericaSyrian Orthodoxy and Tikhon’s dream of a pan-Orthodox AmericaThe Greek Orthodox Church in AmericaOrthodoxy in EuropeOrthodoxy in FranceOrthodoxy in GermanyOrthodoxy in BritainThe heritage of mission, ethnic divisions and pan-Orthodox vision
Chapter 4: Confrontation of Russian Orthodox Church with the revolution and with the new regime (Ivana Noble)
Russian society and church on the eve of the First World WarSituation of the church during the civil war and famine The beginning of GULAGRenovationist versus Patriarchal churchDeclaration of loyalty and the formation of the underground churchThe impact of jurisdictional changes in the Diaspora on the situation in Russia The question of the future of Russian Orthodoxy
Chapter 5: The Ways from the Diaspora to local churches(Kateřina Bauerová a Tim Noble)
Forced emigration and the ‘philosophers’ boat’ “Russia outside Russia” in BerlinHelp from the Orthodox Slavs: Belgrade and Sofia “Russian Action” in Masaryk’s Czechoslovakia YMCA and the Russian student movement
Russian ParisTheological Institutes of St. Serge and St. Denis Russian Orthodoxy in America after the First World WarThe influence of the situation in Russia on jurisdictional changes in AmericaSevered roots of common missionThe Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North AmericaTheological Seminaries of St Vladimir and Holy CrossMulti-national Orthodoxy in FranceStruggle for the unity of Orthodoxy in BritainChanges in the Orthodox Diaspora in GermanyPlurality against unity in church organisation, unity againstplurality in theology?
Chapter 6: The Experience and theology of the Russian immigrants(Kateřina Bauerová)
The beginning of the journey“The seal of homelessness”: The Losskys and Bulgakovs in CzechoslovakiaIntegration into the life in PragueDivided religious situationThe beginning of a further journey “The contrast of different worlds”: Nicolas Berdyaev inBerlin Meeting together in Paris: The Berdyaevs, the Bulgakovs and theLosskysStruggle with the break-up of belonging caused byjurisdictional division of jurisdictionsConflict between sophiology and neo-patristicsThe end of one stage of life in emigration
Chapter 7: „Going even to the very end“: Witness of the martyrs(Kateřina Bauerová)
Florensky’s family islandConcrete forms of spiritual and intellectual lifeThe search for the wholeness of truth in anti-nominalism “Gulag, this is the heart of Russia”Russian beginnings of the life-journey of Mather MariaSkobtsova Journey toward a new type of monasticism in emigrationThe war and the challenges to stand on the side of the victimsSources of openness and freedom in the theology of AlexanderMenMen’s Priestly service in the time of totalitarianismFreedom for unity, unity in pluralityRoots growing into other worlds
ConclusionBibliography
FOREWORDJohn Behr
The tradition, theology, and lived reality of the Orthodox Church is
perhaps best compared to a symphony, diachronically and
synchronically polyphonous, comprised of different voices, each
lending their own particular tonality and timbre, in a composition
not composed by any particular voice but by God who, as St Irenaeus
of Lyons put it, “harmonizes us to the symphony of salvation.” No
movement is a repeat of what went before, but neither does any
strike out to play its own tune. To understand the dynamics of this
symphony, to see each voice in its own place and in the larger
context of the symphony as a whole, and to bring to light its
variegated riches, requires both comprehension of the broad sweep of
history and the focused histories of particular figures, and also
sympathetic understanding of the theological, ecclesial, and social
issues that are being worked out through these eras and life-spans.
This is exactly what the authors of this book have offered us; not
simply a sketch of Orthodox dogmatic theology as presented by
various leading theologians of the past century, nor simply a
history of events and figures, but rather the symphony of orthodoxy
as it has been played over the last centuries. Their intention had
initially been to study the remarkable phenomenon of the way in
which émigré theologians were forced to think through again their
identity and their voice in exile, a situation with which Orthodoxy
had not dealt for many centuries, and which they did with such
vigor, courage, openness, and intellectual and spiritual integrity.
But as they continued their investigations, it became clear that it
was necessary to take a longer historical perspective and include a
broader geographical reach to do justice to this movement of the
symphony. Although any aspects of this era have been studied, and
increasingly so, this book is the first attempt to convey the multi-
faceted ways that Orthodox theology has taken over recent centuries,
played out in one volume.
The change from the twentieth century to the twenty-first, though
just a calendar day, opens up a vista with a properly historical
perspective. For those within the Orthodox tradition, the lived
memories are often still too close to home for them to be able
assess individual aspects or the broader canvas. That scholars with
theological and historical sensitivity and insight—as Ivana Noble,
Kateřina Bauerová, Tim Noble and Parush Parushev clearly are—have
taken this upon themselves, is a wonderful contribution to
scholarship and to the Orthodox tradition. Here we can see how the
legacy of Byzantine Orthodoxy spread to the Slavic lands and then to
the West, with the revival of hesychasm and the renewed attention to
the Fathers, and then the transition from a diaspora in exile to the
consciousness that Orthodoxy must always local and the attempts and
hopes to make this a reality, together with the engagement with
modernity and Western theology and philosophy, as this was lived out
particular figures, such as Bulgakov, Berdyaev, Florovsky, Mother
Maria, Schmemann, Meyendorff, Romanides, and Staniloae. This book is
a powerful witness to the dynamism of the Orthodox tradition and the
great fruits it bore in the twentieth century. Now that that
particular era has concluded (though not, of course, the issues with
which it grappled), by rehearsing its score, this book will surely
also contribute in its own way to the symphony as it is played in
the twenty-first century.
Introduction
How did Orthodox theology in the 20th century come to the West?
How was it linked to home churches which experienced ruptures
that led to the disappearance of old ways of life, and only
rarely to the discovery of new ways? What treasures from the
tradition belonged to the fundamental outlook of people whose
past bore with it such a great burden that they had to learn to
look forward with hope? It is with questions such as these that
our book will deal, leading the reader from the legacy of
Byzantium, through the mission to the Slavs, but also through
the Mongol Khanate and the Ottoman Sultanate, to the present.
In it we will trace how the spiritual, ecclesial, cultural and
intellectual life of Orthodoxy came to the West thanks to the
first modern missions, but also especially because of the
forced emigration of thousands of believers, who sought in
their new surroundings ways of understanding and passing on the
inheritance of faith and hope they had brought with them, and
ways of opening up the new possibilities that grew out of them.
On the cover of the book there is a mosaic of characters who
have contributed to the formation of Orthodoxy in the West,
either because their influence transcended boundaries and
divisions or directly because of what they lived through.
Hopefully after reading our book, the reader will be able to
match fates and names to more of these faces. Also on the cover
is a picture of the church of St. Seraphim at 91 rue Lecourbe
in the 15th arrondissement of Paris. This place fascinated us from
the very first time we visited it. From the street you enter
through a small passageway where dustbins are usually stored.
The passageway opens into another world. You see a wooden
chapel with a small blue dome reminiscent of a Christmas tree
bauble. Inside the church are two trees, one dead, one living,
both built into the structure. The church was deliberately
built around them, apparently when both were still alive. In
the liturgy French and Church Slavonic are used
interchangeably. Among the congregation are young French
families, students from many countries, Slav immigrants and
Arab Christians. Fr. Nicolas Černokrak, the then dean of the
Institut St. Serge, who invited us to the church, where he
regularly serves, introduced us to people who carried from
their childhood memories of how their families fled from Russia
through Czechoslovakia, where President Masaryk greatly helped
them. Not far from the church, at 77 rue de Lourmel, lived
Mother Maria Skobtsova, who, along with Fr. Dimitry Klepinin,
cared for the neighbourhood poor both before and during the
war. In the church there are icons she painted, liturgical
vestments which she sewed, and people ready to show you both
and tell you what they remember of those times.
We wanted to photograph the church and put the photo on the
cover of the book, but, despite the best efforts of our
friends, Kristýna Orbdliková and Fr. Christophor Panaitescu,
who are much more talented photographers than we are, we became
aware that our experience of the dead and living trees inside
the church could not be caught in that way. A so instead of a
photograph there is a drawing which is based on their photos
and in which, even if not exactly, is contained not only what
we saw but also what it meant for us.
The symbol of journey is one we have borrowed from some of the
authors with whom we will deal in the book. One of them is
Nikolai Berdyaev, who in 1926 founded a journal in Paris called
The Way (Put’)1 in which he tried to give a space to all streams
of Russian émigré Orthodoxy, so that all could enjoy a free and
public debate, sharing their problems with the church, and
their spiritual, theological and philosophical ideas. The
symbol of Ways is also found in the two volume work published
by Fr. George Florovsky in Paris in 1937-1938 and containing a
fundamental critique of Russian religious thinking, entitled
Ways of Russian Theology.2 In this work Florovsky dealt with the
question of why in attempts to transpose the tradition through
the key of modern Western philosophy these ways ended up
deviating. Both these senses of journey – Florovsky’s critical
understanding and Berdyaev’s free and open one – are taken up
with gratitude in the title of our work, The Ways of Orthodox
Theology in the 20th Century in the West.
This book has a long pre-history. For over a decade some of us
have lectured on the theology of those 20th century Orthodox
writers who, rooted in their own tradition, entered into
dialogue with Western thought. These were mainly theologians
1 The full title was Puť: Organ russkoj religioznoj mysli [Путь: орган русской религиозноймысли].We look in more detail at this journal in Chapter 6, in the parts“Meeting together in Paris: The Berdyaevs, the Bulgakovs and the Losskys”and “Struggle with the collapse of belonging caused by jurisdictionaldivision”.2 George Florovsky, Puti Russkogo bogoslovija. YMCA Press, Paříž, 1937. [ПутиРусского Богословия. YMCA Press, Париж, 1937 = Georges Florovsky, Ways of RussianTheology. Nordland Pub. Co., Belmont, 1979].
from Russian émigré families who lived in the West, such as Fr.
George Florovsky, Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Fr. John Meyendorff
or Paul Evdokimov, but also there were others who through their
experience of totalitarian regimes came to a radically non-
totalitarian understanding of Christian faith and praxis,
people such as Fr. Dumitru Stãniloae or Fr. Alexander Men and
even Western converts to Orthodoxy such as Olivier Clément or
Metropolitain Kallistos Ware.
Their theology which creatively developed the legacy of the
Church Fathers allowed us to value the eschatological
perspective which we see in icons, where the determining
perspective is given neither by the writer of the icon, nor by
its observer, but by the One who speaks through it. This is the
iconic understanding of tradition, in which perspective is
reversed and in which God, not humanity, is the point of
departure. In his mercy God gives humanity a share in the
divine mystery, in the divine communion of the Holy Trinity. He
irrupts into human history as its beginning and its fulfilment,
reveals from his side his will and opens the way to conversion,
a way which leads to communion with God and with each other, so
that united with the whole of creation we may be fully human,
children of God.
The discourse of the theologians mentioned above and their life
stories led us however to seeing the need to fill out their
eschatological starting point concerning “the human way of
understanding God’s action in history”.3 The attempt to
3 See Pavel Ambros, “Návrat k pramenům a postavení křesťana v modernímsvětě: Poznámky k diskuzi o povaze vzthu metodologie církevních dějin apraktické teologie”, in Jiří Hanuš (ed.), Eseje o povaze církevních dějin, CDK, Brno,
understand more the complicated context in which the lives and
theology of Orthodox thinkers in the West were enmeshed led us
to valuing historical perspectives. We needed to complement
eschatology with history and move from the past to the future,
concentrating on the development, without however feeling the
need to accept modern concepts of progress, rightly criticised
by Orthodox theology.4
In our study we needed to investigate what preceded the
rediscovery of the legacy of the Church Fathers in modern times
and what happened in connection with this discovery. We needed
to look at the church, society and culture in which the changes
in theological paradigm were played out, from Orthodox neo-
scholasticism dependent on Roman Catholic and Protestant
theologies to an independent creative expression of tradition.
Researching the changes in theology and church practice in pre-
revolutionary Russia and subsequently in the jurisdictionally
divided diaspora showed us that if we want to at least
partially understand the specific theological history of modern
Orthodoxy we have to return to its roots. In terms of Russian
Orthodoxy this also meant investigating at least in general
outline the other branches which grew out of these roots and
which became entangled with Russian Orthodoxy. It was then
necessary that at least in broad sweeps we looked also at the 2012, p.9-24, here p.16.4 Cf Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition I: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600). University Of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1975, p.7-8; Credo: Historical andTheological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition. Yale UniversityPress, New Haven – London, 2003, p.21; Andrew Louth, “Is development ofDoctrine a Valid Category for Orthodox Theology?”, in Valerie Hotchkiss –Patrick Henry (eds.), Orthodoxy and Western Culture: Collection of Essays honoring JaroslavPelikan on his Eightieth Birthday, St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Crestwood, 2005,p.45-63.
Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian stories before and after the fall
of the Ottoman Empire, as well as at the Romanian situation.5
Alongside this we also became aware that Orthodoxy in the West
did not arrive only after the revolution in Russia and that it
would be necessary to research in more detail the history and
contribution of the Orthodox missions in the past.
Even if our task expanded, our main interest remained the same.
This was to examine the people by whom and the ways in which
spiritually and intellectually integrated theological concepts
were created, in which critical thought communicated with
liturgical practice and mystical experience and tradition with
modern and postmodern culture, and the Christian East with the
Christian West.
For the historical self-reflection of Orthodox theology and the
church, we have relied on previous studies. Here there is not
room to mention all of them and references will be found in the
footnotes in the individual chapters. Now we can simply
summarise briefly the process by which we have tried to follow
the development of the understanding of Orthodoxy’s own
theological and ecclesial history in modern times and to tell
5 Here we encountered the limit of what can be fitted into one, albeitcollective, book. We regret the absence in the book of the historical storyand profile of Albanian and Montenegrin Orthodoxy as well as theconflictual Macedonian question. Basic historical information about theseareas and their religious, cultural and national development can be foundin Jan Rychlík et al., Mezi Vídní a Cařihradem: Utváření balkánských národů. Vyšehrad,Praha, 2009. We have also not looked at the history and theology of theNear Eastern (Oriental) Orthodox Churches and theological schools, eventhough such an overview would also be enriching, given that they and theirheritage are an integral part of Orthodoxy in the West. Here we can pointto the work of Monika Šlajerová, Palestinská církev dnes: Politická a teologickáproblematika na pozadí situace církví v Sýrii, Libanonu a Jordánsku. Pavel Mervart, ČervenýKostelec, 2009.
this history from several sides at once, perhaps like a cubist
painter, friend of the iconographer, wanting to catch one image
from different points of view. Because we wanted to tell the
story of Russian emigrés and the multi-streamed theology of
renewal which they brought to the West, we needed at least at a
basic level to understand and make clear the process by which
Russian Orthodoxy was formed, both in continuity and
discontinuity with Byzantine Orthodoxy. Into this process other
voices and perspectives entered. In order that we could ever
finish the book, we could include only some of them and within
them we did not have space for the playing out of the
cacophonous and symphonic tones. Alongside Russian Orthodoxy
references will also be found in the book to Greek, Bulgarian,
Serbian and Rumanian Orthodoxy.
We have followed the historical self-reflection of Orthodoxy
encountering the West in modern times through the Berlin
lectures of the Bulgarian Professor Stefan Cankov from Sofia,
collectively published in Czech as Pravoslavné křesťanství východní:
Jeho podstata a současný stav.6 A more detailed exposition of the
history of modern Russian thought is to be found in Fr. George
Florovsky, in his critical work Ways of Russian Theology,7 and in
Nikolai Onufrijevich Lossky, History of Russian Philosophy.8 A further
attempt at a self-understanding of the legacy is found in the
6 See Stefan Cankov, Pravoslavné křesťanství východní: Jeho podstata a současný stav. Ligapravoslavné kultury, Vyškov na Moravě, 1931. We thank Dilian Nikolčev ofthe Sofia Theology Faculty for a rare copy of this book.7 See Florovsky, Puti russkogo bogoslovija.8 See Nikolaj Onufrijevich Losskij, Istorija russkoj filosofii. Svarog i K., Moskva,2000. [История русской философии. Сварог и К, Москва, 2000 (poprvé vyšlo1951) = Dějiny ruské filosofie. Refugium, Velehrad, 2004].
anthology edited by Fr. Alexander Schmemann, Ultimate Questions,9,
which presents and to a certain extent harmonises the different
streams of pre-revolutionary philosophy and theology which came
with the emigrants from Russia to the West. John Meyendorff
picked up on his work in his studies Byzantine Theology and
Byzantium and the Rise of Russia.10 In these works he attempted to link
with historical precision Russian religious thought and
Byzantine theology, with the older heritage, which, according
to him and to other representatives of the neopatristic school,
can be held in a synthesis which must then have a fundamental
influence on church practice and theology in any period.11
Among contemporary Russian works we have made use of the book
by Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk, Orthodox
Christianity: Vol 1. The History and Canonical Structure of the Orthodox Church,12
which concentrates on the prehistory of modern Orthodoxy and
thus places contemporary theology and the present church
situation into a broader context.
9 See Alexander Schmemann (ed.), Ultimate Questions: An Anthology of Modern RussianReligious Thought. Mowbrays, London – Oxford, 1965.10 See John Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes.Fordham University Press, New York, 1974; Byzantium and the Rise of Russia: A Study ofByzantino-Russian Relations in the Fourteenth Century. CUP, Cambridge – London – NewYork, 1981.11 The following studies examine this theme in more detail: Ivana Noble,“History Tied Down by the Normativity of Tradition? (Inversion ofPerspective in the Orthodox Theology, its Challenges and its Problems)”, inLieven Boeve et al. (eds.), Tradition and the Normativity of History. 2 Vols. Peeters,Leuven, forthcoming 2012; “Patristic Synthesis or Non-Synthetic Dialectics?A Critical Evaluation of John Meyendorff‘s Contribution”, in Joost vanRossum – Goran Sekulovski (eds), The Legacy of Fr John Meyendorff, Scholar andChurchman (1926-1992). YMCA, Paříž, forthcoming.12 Ilarion Alfejev, Pravoslavije I: Istorija, kanoničeskoje ustrojstvo i veroučenije PravoslavnojCerkvi. Serenskij Monastyr, 2008. [Иларион Алфеев, Православие I: История,каноническое устройство и вероучение Православной Церкви. Серенский Монастырь, 2008= Hilarion Alfeyev, Orthodox Christianity: Vol.1 The History and Canonical Structure of theOrthodox Church. St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, Crestwood, 2011].
From the Greek setting we have worked with sources which employ
a critical understanding which establishes Orthodox identity as
something that must necessarily be in opposition to modernity
or postmodernity and to the West. We have proceeded from the
theologians of the neopatristic synthesis, Fr. John Romanides,
Metropolitan John Zizioulas and Christos Yannaras, whose book
Orthodoxy and the West13 has brought forth a whole series of
significant reactions from the contemporary generation of Greek
Orthodox theologians, expressed for example in the book
Orthodox Constructions of the ‘West’,14 but also in conferences organised
by Volos Academy, who kindly passed on to us their materials.15
From Serbia we have made good use of a short but important
study by Fr. Radovan Bigović,16 The Orthodox Church in the 21st Century,17
which gives a contextual explanation of contemporary problems
of nationalism, religious tolerance, ecumenical relations,
social engagement and political stance, which enter into
dialogue with tradition. As far as Romania goes, we have rather
drawn on studies which have enabled to see the historical
situation through figures such as Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae and
13 See Christos Yannaras, Orthodoxy and the West: Hellenic Self-identity in the Modern Age.Holy Cross Orthodox Press, Brooklyn, MA, 2006.14 See George Demacopoulos – Aristotle Papanikolaou (eds.), OrthodoxConstructions of the ‘West’. Fordham University Press, New York, 2012.15 These were lectures linked to the programmes “Theology, politics andcontemporary challenges” (2010/11), “Orthodoxy in the 21st Century”(2009/10), and to the conference “‘Neopatristic Synthesis’ in‘Postpatristic’ Theology: Can Orthodox Theology be Contextual?” (2010). Weare especially grateful here to the director of the academy, PantelisKalaitzidis, and his colleague Eleni Kassalouri.16 Fr. Radovan Bigović, one of the leading Serbian theologians, professor atthe Orthodox Theology Faculty in Belgrade, died suddenly on 31.5.2012, agedonly 56. We were unable to thank him for the material for writing thisbook, and thus we do so at least in this form.17 Radovan Bigović, The Orthodox Church in 21st Century. Konrad Adenauer Stiftung,Belgrade, 2009.
Petre Ţuţea.18 From Bulgaria we had a certain advantage in as
far as one member of our team of authors comes from that
country. Among other works mentioned in the individual
chapters, we have drawn on the work of Ivan Stoyanov, History of
the Bulgarian Revival.19
It is now time to say something about how we wrote this book.
The names of the main authors of each chapter are always placed
at the beginning. We all read each other’s chapters, corrected
mistakes, made additional comments and notes, and helped to
keep the focus on the main theme without getting lost in
details. We thought of ways to maintain any differences in
interpretation, if such an occasion arose, but in the end we
did not need to do this. On the other hand we had long debates
over the extent to which we should load the text with citations
of sources in original alphabets and how to transliterate
names. Thanks to the linguistic capabilities of Parush Parushev
we tended to a more complicated version, and so where sources
are in Russian, Bulgarian or Serbian, we give in the
bibliography the respective Cyrillic versions with Latin
transliteration and translation, hoping that this will be of
use to the reader who is interested in the field. As for the
names, we have to a large extent favoured the version which is
18 See Alexandru Popescu, Petre Ţuţea: Between Sacrifice and Sucide. Ashgate, Aldershot– Burlington, 2004; Lucian Turcescu (ed.), Dumitru Stăniloae: Tradition and Modernityin Theology. Center for Romanian Studies, Iaşi – Palm Beach, Oxford, 2002; Emil Bartos, Deification in Eastern Orthodox Theology: An Evaluation and Critique of the Theology of Dumitru Stăniloae. Paternoster – Wipf and Stock, Eugene, 2007; Radu Bordeianu, Dumitru Stăniloae: An Ecumenical Ecclesiology. T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 2011.19 See Ivan Stojanov, Istorija na Balgarskoto Vazraždane. “IBIS”, Veliko Tarnovo,2010 [Иван Стоянов, История на българското Възраждане. Велико Търново,Издателство „ИВИС,” 2010, in Bulgarian = History of the Bulgarian Revival].
found in the Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Christian East,20 with thanks to
Pavel Ambros SJ for having partially solved the problem before
us. Those names which are not in the dictionary we have tried
to transliterate in a similar way. Kateřina Bauerová checked
the references to primary sources and prepared the subject
index, Tim Noble and Parush Parushev corrected the footnotes
and bibliography and Ivana Noble worked throughout on
structuring the book as well as giving a final check of the
content of the book so that the chapters came together as a
whole. She is also the main author of the introduction and the
conclusion.
The book is divided into seven chapters. In the first chapter
we will look at the religious, cultural and political
development of Orthodox countries after the fall of the
Byzantine Empire. In doing this we will try to show why the
variety of Orthodoxy and its inner conflicts, which we will see
later in the 20th century in the West, have a long and complex
history. In this chapter we will see how the Byzantine roots of
Orthodoxy are read backwards through the question of
succession. We will trace the role played in these processes by
Greek language and culture, the theocratic structure of the
empire based on Roman law and the liturgical, theological and
spiritual bases, confirmed by church councils. We will also
look at Byzantine mission. The history will be told from
different perspectives, Greek and Bulgarian, Serbian and
Russian. With the mission of Cyril and Methodius, so
fundamental for our country, we include in more detail in 20 See Edward G. Farrugia – Pavel Ambros, Encyklopedický slovník křesťankého Východu.Refugium, Olomouc, 2008.
footnotes Czech sources and references to the ongoing debate
about the legacy of Cyril and Methodius. Most attention however
will be given to Orthodox interpretations and their memory of
that form of mission which included new nations and cultures
within the mystery of salvation in Christ. We will follow how
it is narrated that this mission made the newly Christianised
nations equal to their older Christian brothers and sisters,
while at the same time maintaining a union between East and
West, that in their time was able to prevail over the demands
for a broadened sphere of influence. Further parts of the
chapter will follow the Christianization of Russia against the
backdrop of power struggles within the Eastern Christian world,
as well as the gradual alienation and subsequent schism between
Eastern and Western churches. The territorial, cultural and
political plurality of Orthodox countries after the fall of
Byzantium will be followed through crisis situations and their
often equally crisis resolutions: Russia in the time of the
Mongol Khanate, the conflict between hellenism and hesychasm in
the time preceding the fall of Byzantium, the conquest of
Constantinople and the Ottoman oppression, and all this again
from the perspective of the Greeks but also of the Bulgarians
and Serbs, and finally the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, the
coming into being of nation states and the struggle for the
shape of Orthodoxy in the Balkans.
In the second chapter we turn in more detail to Russia. We will
follow its rise at the end of the 15th century after the
casting off of the Mongol yoke, at a time when it was the only
independent Orthodox land, but also the paradoxes which were
present in its apocalyptic self-identification as the “Third
Rome”.21 We will see how at the time of gaining autocephality,
the Byzantine legacy faded into the background and was
unreflectedly replaced by the heritage of the Mongol Khanate on
the one side and by comparison to the West on the other. The
desire to appropriate for itself Western scholastic forms of
thought and ordering of church life were mixed with and
sometimes even led to the rejection and demonization of the
West, often an internalised vision of the West as a reference
point of mimetic desire.22 Through the changes in Russia from
the Palaiologoi to the Romanovs we will examine not only the
ecclesio-political situation but also the forms of theology and
spiritual life. We look behind the implementation of church
reforms and reactions to them, including the development of the
Old Believers’ movement which drew in part on an idealised
picture of the past, but also on the living out of a particular
spiritual practice and its theological reflection, which would
be the scene of struggle as Russia emerged into modernity. We
will look at the environment in which gradually a multi-sourced
renewal movement came into being, beginning with the
rediscovery of hesychasm, moving through Slavophilism to the
critique of neo-scholasticism and the return to the Church
21 In this second chapter we also show that the expression “Third Rome” isfound already before the raising of Moscow to the status of Patriarchateand consequently has its place in the self-identification of the Tsar assuccessor of the Roman Emperor and in the theocratic understanding ofRussian Orthodoxy. See Chapter 2, footnote 5.22 For a detailed analysis of the role of the West in the self-identification of Orthodoxy, for which there will not be sufficient spacein our book, it would be interesting to use the mimetic theory of RenéGirard, as he lays it out in his works Violence and the Sacred. John HopkinsUniversity Press, Baltimore – London, 1977; The Scapegoat, John HopkinsUniversity Press, Baltimore, 1985.
Fathers, to the search for a Christian base for social reforms
in the country and to sophiology. We demonstrate how the
different streams came together and acted as a mutual
inspiration, and in what way they contributed to the vision of
modern Orthodox mission, which subsequently formed the shape of
Orthodoxy in the West in the 20th century, albeit in absolutist
Russia on the path to historical tragedy they did not have time
to fully develop.
The third chapter takes us to Orthodox mission in America and
Western Europe before 1920. We begin with the Russian Orthodox
mission to Alaska and the Aleutian Isles at the turn of the
18th and 19th centuries, a period when the indigenous peoples
were being exploited by the Russian-America Company, which had
begun colonising the American continent in the previous
century. In the story of the monks from Valaam Monastery we see
the ways in which they related to their own tradition, to their
self-understanding of monastic life from its ancient Christian
sources, as a life linking being for God with being for the
other, where a special place was reserved for the poor and
oppressed,23 and also to Saints Cyril and Methodius and St.
Stephen of Perm, whose emphasis on the acceptance and
development of local cultures, on education and the building up
of local church structures inspired the missionary activity
among the Aleut, Yupik, Athaban and Tlingit. In the life and
work of the hermit St Herman and Bishop St Innocent
(Veniaminov), we see the struggles with the inculturation of
Orthodoxy first against attempts at Russification and then 23 See Michael Oleksa (ed.), Alaskan Missionary Spirituality. St Vladimir’s SeminaryPress, Crestwood, 2010, s.6-7.
after the sale of Alaska to the United States in 1867 against
attempts at Americanisation. We will see how this tradition
gave rise to a vision of a plural but united Orthodoxy on the
American continent, which was championed before the revolution
in Russia by Bishop Tikhon (Vasily Ivanovich Belavin), but also
how this pan-Orthodox vision was threatened from the very
beginning. The chapter will also sketch how Orthodoxy spread
through the United States especially through Greek, Slav and
Arab immigrants, who brought with them ties to their home
churches, to their own culture and language and formed their
“Orthodox identity” primarily on ethnic lines, and created
their own independent parishes, often without being aware of
relationships to others. The last part of the chapter looks at
the beginnings and form of Orthodox communities in Western
Europe, especially in France, Germany and Great Britain, to
which countries over the course of the 20th century a huge
number of people would come from Eastern Europe, from Greece
and from the Balkans.
In the fourth chapter on the confrontation between the Russian
Orthodox Church and the revolution and the Bolshevik regime we
turn first to Russia on the eve of the First World War. We go
on to examine the changes in the way the relationship between
church and state were organised and the attempt at church
reform, with the Moscow Council which began just before the
Bolshevik revolution, the election of the Moscow Metropolitan
Tikhon, formerly bishop in north America, and up to the renewal
of the office of Patriarch. We show the path taken by the
church during the revolution, the Civil War and the famine, its
violent annihilation, the first mass trials, the widespread
persecution of the church and attempts at breaking it up from
within. We will trace the changes in Communist anti-church
policy, the forms of interference and KGB infiltration, the
quick or gradual liquidation of class enemies, the setting up
of Gulag camps, from the time of Lenin, through Stalin,
Khrushchev and Brezhnev, but also how alongside and often
against each other there appeared in the church a broad and
often unnoticed range of positions from martyrs to
collaborators. It will be necessary at least briefly to
consider the Renovationist attempt to take the church over and
the division of the Patriarchal church (the Tikhonites) into
what we might call a middle-of-the-road group represented by
the later Patriarch Sergei (Stragorodski) and the underground
church which did not accept Sergei’s declaration of loyalty. Of
interest will be the theological arguments to legitimise
different stances vis-à-vis an atheist and violent state, but
also the conflicting understandings of what is simply basic and
non-negotiable for a Christian life. Alongside this examination
of the break-up of the structure of the life of the church in
Russia, its struggles for faith, humanity and hope in extreme
circumstances of threat, we will at least briefly attend to the
influence of jurisdictional changes in the diaspora, how the
life of the church in exile penetrated into the life of the
church at home, and what legacy this period left for the
Russian Orthodox Church.
With the fifth chapter, the perspective changes, as we look at
how the revolution in Russia influenced the situation of
Orthodoxy in the West. We concentrate on the journeys by which
the Western diaspora gradually changed from a church of
emigrants to local churches.24 We begin on the continent of
Europe, in Berlin, Sofia, Belgrade, Prague, the first temporary
homes of a great number of the escapees. We try to gain a
handle on the political, social, cultural and religious
situation in which the Russian communities sought to find their
space. We will look in greater detail at the aims, process and
results of Masaryk’s “Russian Action”,25 at a time when most
people still believed that the Bolshevik revolution would not
last for long, and that it made sense to prepare a new
generation of the Russian intelligentsia abroad which would
then play its part in the building up of a democratic Russia.
Using the example of the YMCA and Russian Student Movement we
will then see the move from this plan to the realisation that
the stay in the diaspora would be more permanent and that it
would be necessary to come to terms with and change the new
surroundings. The example of the main centre of Russia outside
of Russia, Paris, shows how a concentration on the past and
openness to the future struggled with each other, and how this
struggle fed into the formation of different jurisdictions and
into the forms of theological study. Here we will also examine
24 In the chapter itself we distinguish between the use of emigrant andimmigrant. We will use “emigrant” when the emphasis is on the leaving ofthe mother country, and, analogously to the term “homeless”, “immigrant”will be used when the emphasis is on the coming to new surroundings, whicha new home is to be built.25 As part of Masaryk’s help for Russians the Slavonic Library was foundedin Prague in 1924. We have gratefully availed ourselves of its resourcesfor the writing of this book. The library was originally known as “TheRussian Library of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs”. See Zdeňka Rachůnkováet al., Slovanská knihovna: průvodce. Národní knihovna České republiky Slovanskáknihovna, Praha, 2002.
which directions of the renewal of religious life and theology
from pre-revolutionary Russia found a new voice in the
diaspora. We then turn to the American continent. Here we look
at how the dream of a united mission continued and what
elements of it became incarnated in the creation of the local
autocephalous Orthodox Church of America (OCA). We will however
also consider the situation of the Greek archdiocese and other
ethnic groups who did not join the OCA. Here too we examine the
new theological schools which came into being in this
jurisdictionally divided situation. As we come back to Europe
at the end of the chapter, the underlying question is how it
was or was not possible to find unity amidst the jurisdictional
and ethnic interests which rather led to the fragmentation of
Orthodoxy in the West. Using as examples France, Britain and
Germany, we look at the changes in the situation since these
places were home to the first generation of Russian emigrants.
We return to that period in the sixth and seventh chapters, but
with a different methodology and with other questions.
Concentrating on “small histories of everyday life”,26 we try
26 We can refer here in terms of method to the school around the Annalesd‘histoire économique et sociale, which in the late 1920s, as Jiří Hanuš notes,shifted attention from the kind of facts which were previously consideredas historically significant and thus broadened the horizon of history toinclude neighbouring disciplines. Historians of this school regarded anyhuman activity as relevant and often chose previously unusual themes, suchas “the history of childhood, death, madness, climate, smell, gesture,women, reading and silence”. In place of a structural analysis, theyconcentrated on the dynamics of events in their long-term perspective andtried to look at history not from above but from below, through theimpressions of “how ordinary people lived”, recognising that they had togive up any pretence of objectivity, and that “our thoughts do not capturereality directly”, because “we always see from a particular biased point ofview”. Jiří Hanuš, Pozvání ke studiu církevních dějin. CDK, Brno, 1999, p.32-33.Kateřina Bauerová took the expression “small history of everyday life” fromJiřina Šiklová, see “Úvod” in Pavla Frýdlová (ed.), Všechny naše včerejšky,
to reconstruct in as much detail as possible the inner and
outer environment out of which grew the convictions, positions,
questions, anxieties, fears, readiness to take risks, to search
and experiment of the first generation of Russian emigrés. The
sixth chapter shows the life stories of the families of Nikolai
Lossky, Fr. Sergei Bulgakov and Nikolai Berdyaev. We travel in
their footsteps through Prague, Berlin and Paris, and
concentrate on their experiences as related in their diaries
and other sources with which we were unable to work in the
preceding chapters. We will also be able to look in more detail
at their theology, in which their experience is imprinted. At
the end of the chapter we turn to the conflict over sophiology
which broke out around Fr. Sergei Bulgakov in Paris and in
which Fr. George Florovsky and Vladimir Lossky were involved
as opponents. Here we follow the breakdown of the former unity
of the pre-revolutionary revival movements, and ask why in
emigration plurality became threatening for the representatives
of the neo-patristic synthesis. Tracking how their position
became if not the only acceptable one than at least dominant
for the subsequent generations of Orthodox theologians in the
West we will also ask what were the consequences of the loss of
the nourishment coming from the complementary alternatives.
The search for a lost cohesion takes us in the seventh chapter
to a detailed investigation of three martyrs, Fr. Pavel
Florensky, Mother Maria (Skobtsova) and Fr. Alexander Men. We
show how in situations27 in which they were forced to the
Gemi, Praha, 1988, p.7.27 Fr. Pavel Florensky died in the Gulag in 1937, though the exactcircumstances of his death remain unknown. Mother Maria was shot in 1945(the precise date is unknown) in the concentration camp at Ravensbrück,
margins, they still managed to maintain and cultivate unity in
plurality without losing contact with common theological roots.
The chapter starts with the ways Soloviev’s religious and
philosophical thought, in which wholeness dominated, became
formative for all three people mentioned above. At the same
time we show how Slavophile, hesychast and neo-patristic
influences were combined, just as they were an inspiration for
the movement seeking Christian roots for social reform. With
Florensky we will see the search for the wholeness of truth in
antinomianism and the emphasis on the need to turn away from
egoism. We will show that for him one of the forms of egoism
was being intellectually closed and so also how he suggested
avoiding this, and how Florensky brings into dialogue
everything that is real, true, good and beautiful, all
different fields of human endeavour. With Mother Maria we
concentrate on her understanding of ascetic non-possession,
related also to intellectual certainty and spiritual wealth. We
will see how she looks at new monasticism, inner freedom,
reminiscent of permanent pilgrimage more than guaranteed
existence, so that social reform comes from within, from a
radical option for the most needy. With Men we will find
theological arguments in favour of solidarity and cooperation
with others, expressed in an open attitude to Catholicism and
to other Christian confessions, whose theology he knew, and how
he made friendships with people so that together they could try
where she had been deported from France for organising help for Jews. Fr.Alexander Men was murdered at the very end of the communist regime, on 9thSeptember 1990, knocked down not far from home and killed by an axe. Themurderer was never caught and there is still disagreement over the circleshe came from and who hired him.
to overcome the legacy of schism through openness, shared
prayer and work.28 With him we see how plurality is maintained
in his interest in Christian unity, and how he used his
investigations of other religions, especially Judaism, to which
he had personal ties, as a defence of the place of the other,
who must not fall under the sway of state or even church
ideology. The chapter presents the theology and lives of these
three martyrs as part of the inheritance which can enrich 20th
century Orthodoxy in the West and the East, teaching it how
thanks to the freedom of the Spirit it is possible to find even
in extreme circumstances new and life-giving ways to live and
share the living and multi-layered treasure of Christian
tradition.
In the conclusion to the book we return to the question of the
shape of the historical narrative of Orthodox theology in the
West in the 20th century. We argue that it contains a mixture
of the different strands which were considered in the preceding
chapters. Recognising the impossibility of including all voices
and of giving a complete picture, we look here at the
paradoxical co-existence of a wonderful widely open theology
alongside exclusivism emerging from prior ethnic, political or
theological choices. We will look for answers concerning where
the individual forms of exclusivism come from, and whether it
is possible to come to terms with and heal them. Returning to
the details which the chapters on the life and work of
missionaries, emigrés and martyrs captured allows us to focus 28 Rather than official ecumenism, which in Russia was known to infiltratedby the KGB, Men was interested in initiatives such as Taizé or L’Archecommunities, and he supported new forms of trans-confessional mission andwas a founder member of the renewed Russian Bible Society.
again on the idea of unity in plurality. We show how the
concrete forms of life with which these people struggled can
contribute to the contemporary search for the authentic face of
Orthodoxy in the West, and how it can enrich post-modern
Christianity.
The book is part of the grant project “The Symbolic Mediation
of Wholeness in Western Orthodoxy” (GAČR P401/11/1688) and we
wish to express our thanks for support received to the Czech
Grant Agency, as well as the Protestant Theology Faculty of
Charles University, where the project is being carried out.
Thanks are also due to the International Baptist Theological
Seminary in Prague where several of our team also teach, both
for practical help and for ongoing interest in the results of
our work. We also thank the libraries of both institutions
along with Slavonic Library for being able to make use of their
resources and help.
An indispensable role in the writing of this book was played by
research visits to the Institut St. Serge in Paris, to
theological schools and the academy in Thessaloniki, Athens and
Volos, to the Theology Faculties in Sofia and Velko Turnovo and
to St Vladimir’s Seminary in New York. The book would not have
been possible without the openness and readiness of the
leadership of these institutions and consultations with
specialists in the field and work in their libraries. On
occasions reference will be found in the footnotes to our
records of conversations, the content of which we have thought
relevant. We do not use for these direct speech, since these
are not authorised tape-recordings, but rather our notes, for
which our conversation partners bear no responsibility.
Special thanks are due to the deans of St Serge and St
Vladimir’s, Fr. Nicolas Černokrak and Fr. John Behr, who have
supported us in our project from the beginning. Among others it
is necessary to mention from Paris Fr. John Breck, Joost van
Rossum, Fr. Nicolas Lossky, Fr. Nicolas Ozolin and
Archimandrite Grigorios Papathomas, to whom we are grateful for
the valuable introduction to the situation of Orthodoxy in
France. We would also like to record our thanks to the Dean of
the School in Thessaloniki, Michael Tritou and to the heads of
the two sections of the School, Dimitros Kaimakis and Christou
Oikonomou for the welcome in their faculties. Thanks are also
due to Kyriakoule Papademetriou, Evangelii Amoiridou,
Aikaterini Tsalampouni, Eleni Oikonomou, Dimitriu Moschos, Fr.
Basil Thermos, Stavros Yangazolou, Nikos Asproulis, Konstantin
Agoras, Denie Athanasopoulou-Kyprou, Fr. Antoniu Pinakoulas,
Sortis Goumelas and particularly Eleni Kassalouri, Pantelis
Kalaitzidis and Athanasios Papathanasiou for introducing us to
the situation of Greek Orthodoxy and sharing their work with
us.
For help with understanding the situation in Bulgaria we are
grateful to the Deans of the Faculties, Alexandr Omachevsky and
Dimitri Popmarinov Kirov, and to the teachers in these
faculties, Daljan Nikolchev, Konstantin Nushev, Bojidar
Antonov, Svetoslav Rybolov, Ljubomir Tenekedzhiev, Marijan
Stojadin, Stefka Kanchev, Fr. Dobromir Dimitrovov, as well as
to Nevena Dimitrova, Kalin and Slava Janakiev and by no means
least to Tanya Petrova, Atanas Atanasov and other colleagues.
A fundamental contribution to our work was a stay in St
Vladimir’s Seminary. Here we are grateful for consultations
which we could hold with Fr. John Behr, Peter Bouteneff, Paul
Meyendorff, Richard Schneider, John Barnet, David Wagschal, Fr.
Chad Hatfield, Abbot Gerasim Eliel, and from Fordham University
Aristoteles Papanikolaou a Matthew Baker.
Alongside Orthodox institutions and theologians we would like
also to thank for their support and help colleagues from the
Ecumenical Institute in Leuven, especially Peter DeMey, Jesuits
from Campion Hall in Oxford, the library of Heythrop College in
London and the community of Sisters of St Joseph in Plzen who
have supported our project in various ways.
It is also necessary to thank others who have contributed to
bringing the book to a close. These include Miroslav Zvelebil,
who translated the third chapter from English and Kateřina
Krnáčová, who translated part of the fifth chapter, Kateřina
Kyslíková, who helped us with transliteration and Blanka
Košáková, who did the language corrections. Finally we thank
the publishers CDK, and especially Jiří Hanuš, for their
ongoing support.
This book comes out of the desire to understand the historical,
cultural and social contexts in which Orthodox theology in the
20th century has brought a movement of renewal to the West. The
infelicity of some of the expressions will certainly betray the
fact that it was not written by Orthodox writers. It is a view
from without, albeit an engaged one. We ourselves understand
the work as an expression of gratitude for everything which we
have been able to take from Orthodox theologians of the 20th
century and their contemporary friends, for their viewpoints
and positions, which have enabled us to deepen and broaden our
Christian life, even if lived in a different Church setting.
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