By Fr.
Stephen Freeman
My
parish is having its first festival this Saturday (May 14). It was decided that
since it fell on St. Brendan’s Day, we would make the festival a celebration of
Celtic Christianity. It has given the parish an opportunity to study and think
about the wonderful Orthodox history of the British Isles and to think about
Orthodoxy in a context beyond Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. One of the
great champions of the Orthodox saints in Britain, Ireland and Western Europe,
was the great saint, John of Shanghai and San Francisco (Maximovitch). I offer
some thoughts on the Celts. If you’re in the area, join us on Saturday anytime
from 11 am-7 pm.
My
“inside minor” when I was doing doctoral studies in theology at Duke, was the
history of the Church in the British Isles, particularly during what is now
termed “Late Antiquity.” That period was formerly known as the “Dark Ages,” but
this was a title invented by moderns in order to create a narrative of history
in which all things were wondrously evolving towards modernity. Most of the
narrative surrounding the Dark Ages is false. It shows up in movies in strange
ways as well. Film makers seem to think that everything should be dirty, poorly
lit, and foggy. A few choice scenes in Monty Python films do a wonderful send
up of such nonsense.
When you
begin reading primary materials from the period, they seem strangely familiar,
particularly if you happen to be an Orthodox Christian. The Venerable Bede’s
History of the English People is, doubtless, the best place to start. Although
his work is not primarily concerned with the Celts, they do play an important
part.
What is
seen is not some alternative version of Christianity (as many moderns would
like to pretend), but a thoroughly Orthodox incarnation of the Church with
proper attention to its native culture. This is a hallmark of the Orthodox – we
love cultures! Many people today like to point to the Orthodox and our ethnic
groups (Greek, Russian, Romanian, Serbian, etc.), and mock such divisions as
being an ethnic captivity of the Church. It is nothing of the sort. From the
beginning, the early Church carried the gospel into various lands and
immediately began the task of translation and enculturation. One and the same
faith was planted everywhere, but was everywhere unique and appropriate to its
people.
It was
only later that Latin became a “Church language” in the West, suppressing other
cultures. The mission to the English (Angles) had a decidedly Latin flavor (it
was initiated by St. Gregory the Great of Rome). But even this early work had a
very Orthodox take. The missionary Bishop, Augustine of Canterbury, wrote
letters to St. Gregory asking for guidance. He noticed that there were
different customs and practices in place among the Celtic Christians (as well
as in the Church in Gaul). St. Gregory’s answer reveals the Orthodox approach:
Augustine’s
Second Question. Whereas the faith is one and the same, why are there
different customs in different churches? and why is one custom of masses
observed in the holy Roman church, and another in the Gailican church?
Pope
Gregory answers. You know, my brother, the custom of the Roman church in
which you remember you were bred up. But it pleases me, that if you have found
anything, either in the Roman, or the Gallican, or any other church, which may
be more acceptable to Almighty God, you carefully make choice of the same, and
sedulously teach the church of the English, which as yet is new ln the faith,
whatsoever you can gather from the several churches. For things are not to be
loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things. Choose,
therefore, from every church those things that are pious, religious, and
upright, and when you have, as it were, made them up into one body, let the
minds of the English be accustomed thereto.
The
regularization of all things was a much later development in the West (as well
as in the East to a certain degree). But, to this day, there remain many
different practices among various Orthodox Churches.
Perhaps
the most striking aspect of Celtic Christianity was the role of monasticism.
The missions to the Celts occurred mostly after the rise of desert monasticism,
indeed, they were pretty much coincident. For whatever reason, monastic
Christianity and all that accompanies it took deep root among the Celts and the
English as well. Some historians seem to exaggerate monastic authority among
the Celts and suggest that even bishops were subject to them. Lately that claim
has been largely refuted.
But the
monastics in the British Isles, like the monastics across the Christian world
of Late Antiquity, became a primary force within the whole of Church life. They
were missionaries. They were librarians. They were copyists. They were authors.
They were hymnographers. They were a hedge against the power of the state. They
were protectors of Orthodox teaching.
The
notion popularized in the eponymous book, How the Irish Saved Civilization,
does not exaggerate the importance and the role played by monastics. Today’s
conversations surrounding the “Benedict Option,” are referring to an essential
part of this monastic role. Frankly, I do not think anything less than a
radical renewal and growth of monasticism within Orthodoxy will meet the crisis
of the coming deluge.
It is
exciting to me that people want to study and understand this part of Orthodoxy,
whether among the Celts, the Brits, the Russians, Greeks or whomever. The
suburbanized consumer Church of contemporary Christianity is a vanguard of
failure and apostasy. Civilization needs saving yet again.
Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2016/05/12/festival-celtic-orthodoxy/
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