Finding Rich Orthodox Heritage through Western Saints
Those of us whose ancestors are French,
Irish, Scandinavian, German, Italian or other British or European nationality,
would do well to remember that we too have a rich Orthodox heritage. Unhappily,
it has in many cases been buried under a thick layer of Catholic and Protestant
history.
Despite
the universality of the Holy Orthodox Church, it is not infrequently that
converts confess to feeling “out of place” in the Russian, Greek, Serbian, or
other ethnic tradition which, with few exceptions, dominates parish life in the
Orthodox West. This is a natural outcome of the circumstances in which
Orthodoxy spread to the West: it was primarily an immigrant rather than a
missionary movement. Today, however, a majority of converts come from a West
European stock that is neither Slavic nor Greek. Those of us whose ancestors
are French, Irish, Scandinavian, German, Italian or other British or European
nationality, would do well to remember that we too have a rich Orthodox
heritage. Unhappily, it has in many cases been buried under a thick layer of
Catholic and Protestant history. It would, however, serve not only our own
interests, but the interest of the Orthodox Church as a whole, were we to bring
to light that treasury of Western saints and their rich legacy, of which we are
the unworthy inheritors.
This
process was begun in earnest by a true apostle of our own day, Archbishop John
Maximovitch, of Blessed Memory. While living in Paris as ruling Archbishop of
Western Europe, he was inspired by a love for the Church to begin collecting
information on early saints of the West, together with their pictures or icons.
Thus he began a task of promoting amongst Orthodox living in the West, a
consciousness of, and a devotion to, those saints who had lived in the West
before the Schism of 1054. In 1952 he spoke on this subject before a Sobor of
Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, presenting for their
consideration a list of pre-schism Western saints for inclusion in the Orthodox
calendar.
A similar
task was undertaken by one who was himself an Orthodox saint of the West, St.
Gregory, Pope of Rome—also known as St. Gregory the Great, or St. Gregory the
Dialogist. Writing at the end of the sixth century, he compiled a book honoring
the memory of the saints of Italy for the edification and instruction of his
fellow countrymen. The book is written in the form of a dialogue between
himself and his deacon Peter, from whose comments it is clear that we are not alone
in our ignorance of these holy and illustrious men of God.
Peter: “I
do not know of any persons in Italy whose lives give evidence of extraordinary
spiritual powers. This land of ours has undoubtedly produced its virtuous men,
but to my knowledge no signs or miracles have been performed by any of them; or
if they have been, they were till now kept in such secrecy that we cannot even
tell if they occurred.”
Gregory:
“On the contrary, Peter, the day would not be long enough for me to tell you
about those saints whose holiness has been well established and whose lives are
known to me either from my own observations or from the reports of good,
reliable witnesses.”
St.
Gregory proceeds to recount a veritable ‘Paradise of the Fathers’ of the West.
These men and women, by whose prayers the dead were raised, the sick healed,
who calmed the seas and tamed wild beasts, were in no way behind their fellow
laborers of the East in their ascent of the ladder of virtue. Amantius,
Eleutherius, Fortunatus, Boniface, Donatus, Honoratus, Cerbonius-these are but
a few to whom we are introduced in St. Gregory’s Dialogues. The second book of
the Dialogues is devoted entirely to the life of St. Benedict of Norcia, a
monastic father of the West. Unable to confine his love and enthusiasm for God’
s saints to Italy, St. Gregory crosses over to Spain, a country which had
Christian settlements as early as the first century.
Going
north into France, we again discover a whole army of Orthodox saints: the
desert- dwellers of the Jura Mountains, the monastic fathers of Lerins, the
saintly bishops of Poitiers, Tours, Paris, Lyons. Numbered among their ranks is
St. Clotilde, Queen of France (d. 545), by whose prayers her husband, Clovis,
King of the Franks, received the faith of Christ where again we are fortunate
in having primary sources available to us in English: St. Gregory of Tours’
History of the Franks contains some lives of saints, while his magnificent Vita
Patrum (Life of the Fathers) was translated by Hieromonk Seraphim Rose.
In his
Introduction to this series, Fr. Seraphim writes: “The 20th-century Orthodox
Christian will find little that is strange in the Christianity of 6th-century
Gaul; in fact, if he himself has entered deeply into the piety and spirit of
Orthodoxy as it has come down even to our days, he will find himself very much
at home in the Christian world of St. Gregory of Tours.” St. John Maximovitch
included several of these saints in his own list, among them St. Germanus of
Auxerre and his companion St. Lupus (St. Loup) of Troyes.
Crossing
the Channel to England, we find a wealth of Orthodox saints all but unknown
even to those living there! The discovery, not long ago, of the relics of St.
Edward the Martyr, a 10th century King of England, has brought attention to the
historical presence of Orthodoxy in Britain, but work has only just begun in
this fertile field of Orthodox sanctity which could do so much toward the
strengthening of faith among native Britons and those of British heritage. Two
sources on this subject deserve special mention: A History of the English
Church and People by the Venerable Bede and Saints of the British Isles,
compiled by two English converts to Orthodoxy, A. Bond and N. Mabin.
What
convert of Irish ancestry doesn’t have a devotion to St. Patrick? So successful
were the apostolic labors of this wondrous saint that by the sixth century
Ireland had become a genuine Thebaid of the West whose monastics penetrated the
farthest corners of Europe in their missionary zeal. Wales, too, had an illustrious
bishop, St. David, as its patron. Here was another breeding ground of
missionary saints, many of whom are more illustrious in the lands they
evangelized than in their homeland. St. Ninian of Scotland, Amend of Belgium,
Anschar of Sweden . . . There is no country in Europe which does not have an
Orthodox heritage. Let us make an effort to uncover these beacons of
Christianity for our own edification and to the glory of God, wondrous in His
saints.
Source: http://www.pravmir.com/a-convert-heritage-western-saints/
