Orthodoxy in Western Europe

A review on a book about English literature stereotypes of the Balkans and the Balkan people, based on Edward Said's Orientalism, though it does not attempt to examine the influence of the literary works that it mentions in the British society.

Though Eastern Christians generally regard the Western part of the Church to have split from Orthodoxy permanently in 1054, there have been calls by some to modify the date of this as regards the Anglo-Saxon Church. These Orthodox lay scholars and bishops argue that the Anglo-Saxon Church was more closely aligned with the Orthodox East rather than the Roman Catholic West, as evidenced by the canonisation of St Edward the Confessor and advocacy for the canonisation of King Harold II. This article questions these assertions by looking at the evidence provided by Anglo-Saxon connection to the Western Church, as well as the migration of Anglo-Saxons to Byzantium following the Battle of Hastings, as described in the Játvarðar Saga. It concludes by discussing what implications these findings have for the Orthodox Church in its canonisation of a technically non-Orthodox saint.

An Account of the Norman Conquest of England (1043-1086) from an Orthodox Christian point of view, arguing that the Conquest was not only a political but also a spiritual event, being the destruction of Orthodox Christianity in England and its replacement by Roman Catholicism

While the Latin West remained an integral part of the Orthodox Church (i.e., until the tragic schism between the Western and Eastern Churches in the eleventh century), it produced a number of outstanding Church Fathers and theologians. Among their number such illustrious figures as St Ambrose of Milan, St Augustine of Hippo, St John Cassian, St Benedict of Nursia, St Martin of Tours, St Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, and St Boniface of Crediton are counted. The Orthodoxy of the early Irish Church and her saints has already been shown in a previous essay of ours ('Orthodox Ireland'). However, a scholar who was arguably the greatest Western Orthodox thinker of the Patristic era has remained relatively unknown among Orthodox Christians. His name is John Scottus Eriugena, or John the Irishman.

This is an English version of the article “L’avenir de la « diaspora » orthodoxe”, Contacts 65:243 (Julliet-Septembre 2013), 477-497. The study examines the  grounds and the challenges for the future of Orthodoxy in the West after the fall of Communism and in the face of jurisdictional division and tension.

Βιβλιοκρισία για το βιβλίο της Βέσνα Goldsworthy για τα στερεότυπα της αγγλικής λογοτεχνίας για τα Βαλκάνια και τους ανθρώπους τους, που γράφθηκε πάνω στη λογική του Οριενταλισμού του Εντουαρντ Σαΐντ, αλλά δεν ασχολείται με την επιρροή των λογοτεχνικών έργων στη βρετανική κοινωνία.

For many, Western Rite Orthodoxy is something of an enigma. The juxtaposition of the name “Western Rite” and “Orthodoxy” sounds familiar and exotic, known and unknown simultaneously. And yet, despite the familiar ring inherent, few people truly know Western Rite Orthodoxy and even fewer know it in any great detail. Western Rite Orthodoxy is comprised of those individuals and congregations who, while sharing the same beliefs and official theology as other Orthodox Christians, use one or more Western worship forms familiar to Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Lutherans. According to Western Rite Orthodox themselves, the Western is Orthodox because at one time the West was Orthodox, sharing a common faith and life with the Churches of the Christian East. Thus, Western Rite Orthodoxy is an attempt to recapture that portion of the Church’s heritage lost follow the schism of the Eastern and Western Churches in 1054.

Though the origins of Western Rite Orthodoxy run deep, even back to the very first days of Christianity, and the attempts of the Protestant reformers to unite their cause to the Orthodox Church, the history of the Western Rite Orthodoxy as we know it today begins in the nineteenth century with the work of Julian Joseph Overbeck. Overbeck first requested the modern Orthodox Church to allow liturgical ceremonies using a modified version of the Tridentine rite. Though Overbeck received approval for his project, he was unsuccessful at attracting sustained interest for his ideas and encountered great opposition from the Church of England which perceived Overbeck’s ideas as a threat to their identity. Though Overbeck was not successful, the twentieth century would see a number of successes with Western Rite Orthodoxy, the most prominent being the story of the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate.

Since the Antiochian Western Rite Vicariate was created in 1961, it has grown to over thirty parishes counting twenty thousand members, and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia has recently established a large Western Rite Vicariate. Aside from the two Vicariates in North America, there exist Western Rite parishes and monasteries in the Holy Synod of Milan and ROCOR parishes and monasteries in Australia; in France, there are Western Rite or formerly Western Rite parishes which belong to the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Romanian Orthodox Church, and the Orthodox Church of France. Furthermore, there are a number of independent bodies and groups which identify themselves as Orthodox who use a Western liturgy as their primary liturgical rite.

Despite the phenomenal growth of Western Rite Orthodoxy in the last fifty years, there has been no thorough history of Western Rite Orthodoxy written. There have been short treatments on the history of the Western Rite, though most of these were in scholarly journals or church magazines. A few monographs treat a specific aspect of Western Rite Orthodoxy, such as the Orthodox Church of France or the life of J. J. Overbeck. However, given the large increase in Western Rite parishes and independent ecclesiastical bodies which have arisen in the last fifty years, the time has come to write a full history of Western Rite Orthodoxy which will take account of the movement in all of its various aspects, from ancient unity to medieval separation and reformation era Church union to modern Western Rite Orthodoxy.