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The Glastonbury Review - Edition 104 |
Book Reviews
Anthony Sattin, The Pharaoh's Shadow: Travels in Ancient and Modern Egypt, (Victor Gollanz, London: 2000) ISBN 0-575-06397-1 £20.00.
On the occasion I accompanied His Eminence Metropolitan Seraphim on one of his numerous visits to Egypt, I was struck by nothing so much as the prevalence of dust. At the end of the day my robes were somehow of an even deeper black than they'd been in the morning, and, when washed, left a tubful of brackish water not much lighter than the robes themselves. I suppose this is by no means a startling observation, but what perplexed me was that this dust was markedly different from the type I had grown up with on a sheep station in a rather notoriously dusty district of New South Wales. There the dust had been nothing so much as a slightly more refined version of dirt; in Egypt, on the other hand, the dust seemed at once more invasive and enveloping. In short, I suppose, Egyptian dust is hard not to personify; it felt insistent, calculating, indiscriminate, at times comforting and overwhelming, and even a tad malevolent. It was hard to escape the sensation that it was growing over you: stand still for too long and you'd soon take your place with the mummies.
Somehow, unbidden, this rather mercurial Egyptian dust has become the prime metaphor for my experience of Egypt. When I was informed that some of the dust is comprised of many millennia worth of finely dessicated decomposed bodies (though I still cannot figure out the physics of this), I recognised that in Egypt the dead are everywhere, and the living encounter their presence - literally - with every intaken breath.
Anthony Sattin's The Pharaoh's Shadow is the author's attempt to commune, in a literary sense, with the hosts of the Egyptian dead. Sattin's contention, which he somewhat surprisingly presents as something of a startling discovery, is that a goodly percentage of contemporary Egyptian culturo-religious theoria and praxis, whether Islamic or Coptic, is barely concealed antique paganism. That such survivals exist can hardly be a shock, though Sattin can justify his work as something of a discovery on the correct ground that remarkably little of value has been written on the phenomenon to date. Sattin's contribution to this field is thus timely, and will no doubt spark broader enquiry (one hopes of a more scholarly and engaging kind).
It appears that Sattin's motivations for entering upon his quest were highly personal:
"During the past few years I had understood the inevitability of things passing. I had fallen so deeply in love that I knew for sure one lifetime wasn't going to be enough. That feeling of the preciousness of time was heightened when a friend of mine was killed in a plane crash ... I already knew about transience, but with love and death in my life I wanted to believe that some sort of continuity, some sort of eternity was possible." (14)
Having already written about Egypt - and having lived there for extended periods - it was natural for Sattin to focus on that country for his search for 'continuity'. As has often proved the case in previous studies, Sattin began his Egyptological search in England; unlike his predecessors, however, he travelled not to the British Museum, but to Liverpool University. There he examined the papers of Winifred Blackman (died 1950) who was sister to Aylward Blackman, Professor of Egyptology at that institution. Winifred S. Blackman, an Arabic-speaking anthropologist of the first order, lived in Egypt for much of the 1920s and 1930s and produced a remarkable text, The Fellahin of Upper Egypt: Their Religious, Social and Industrial Life, with Special Reference to Survivals from Ancient Times (Harrap, London: 1927).
Aside from the Blackman archives, Sattin's other source of inspiration was another female "Egyptologist": Dorothy Eady (1904-1981). Eady, better known by her Egyptophone pseudonym Omm Sety, "mother of Seti" (she did name her son Seti), published one book during her life (with Hanny el Zeini, Abydos: Holy City of ancient Egypt, LL Co., Los Angeles: 1981). There can be little doubt of Eady's lifelong fascination with Egyptology, but her fame rests primarily with her quasi-Spiritualistic claim to have been the incarnation of a Isian priestess by the name of Bentreshyt, who came to be the concubine of the 19th Dynasty Pharaoh Seti I. The story of Eady's claims of 'astral travel' and 'materialisation' (two very modern concepts, it might be noted) is to be found in Jonathan Cott, The Search for Omm Sety, Doubleday, New York: 1987. (Confusingly, Sattin has changed the spelling of Colt's book to "Umm Seti" throughout his text - even using 'sic' when others have employed the original spelling). After a stroke of good fortune, Sattin was able to trace an unpublished manuscript of Eady's, entitled, unsurprisingly, 'Survivals from Ancient Egypt'.
With Winifred Blackman, Sattin is on a firm foundation - in fact, perhaps a little too firm. Blackman's text is an erudite examination of pharaonic cultural and religious artefacts as they had survived into the mid-1900s. Profusely illustrated, and written in an engaging style, the Blackman book (and the several articles she penned for scholarly journals) remains unsurpassed as an analysis of the trans-temporal continuum of Egyptian life. Blackman's achievement is all the more remarkable given the fact that she lived alone among the fellahin for many years, and became a trusted companion - all in the early twentieth century. Some idea of the tenor of her achievement can be gauged by the patronizing tone of the 'Foreword' appended to her book by R. R. Marett:
"A word in conclusion as to the usefulness of the woman anthropologist. She is sympathetic by nature. She is not politically suspect. She can get at the women [etc. etc.]" (7)
Sattin, who owns to having spent about twenty years in research for his book (as far as I can determine), is over-reliant on Winifred Blackman. The examples of survivals which he employs draw heavily from hers, and add little new information of interest unavailable in very general and readily available books. Perhaps more surprising still is that all of Sattin's illustrations are taken directly from Blackman's Fellahin and archives. These occasionally grainy black-and-whites are admittedly quite lovely, but if Sattin's objective was to isolate survivals from our own times, is this policy not somewhat contradictory? If survivals exist in the age of colour digital cameras, let's have them! I was left with the distinct impression that Sattin came to recognize that his own images couldn't hold a light to Blackman's; unfortunately, much the same could be said of the text.
Of Sattin's fascination with Eady/Omm Sety, not much need be said. I can understand his interest from a phenomenological point of view, but surely any study which claims to be able to discern the subtle presence of antique imagery and practises in the modern Egypt of Mubarak must be methodologically circumspect. Sattin states: "When I first read about Umm Seti [sic] I was skeptical, to say the least ... But the more I read, the less incredible her story sounded" Sattin might well believe she was Cleopatra for all I care, but surely he should bracket his judgement and accept only that which is empirically verifiable.
To the text. I must begin by mentioning a personal prejudice against the use of the term 'survivals'. Sattin, to his credit, has noted his limitations (if in rather elliptical language):
"The question of surviving ancient Egyptian culture touches on Egyptology, anthropology and various other social sciences. I could have written up these encounters from the point of view of either an Egyptologist or an anthropologist (and some members of both disciplines have touched on the subject), but I have training as neither. I am a writer with an interest in travel and history, and have written these encounters as they happened, as a search." (xv)
I also am neither an anthropologist nor an Egyptologist, but I know enough of both to recognize that survivals is a term beholden to discredited nineteenth century paradigms of human evolution. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), the prime theorist of ethnic developmentalism, and (perhaps ironically, as much of his work antedated Darwin) the prototypical 'Social Darwinist', posited an hierarchized evolution in which the 'survivals' of earlier forms (notably, inevitably, the Australasian indigenes) would simply die off - and perhaps should even be encouraged to do so. It might be recalled that it was Spencer, and not Darwin, who coined the phrase 'survival of the fittest': a benign phrase to all but the hounded indigenous peoples of colonised terrain. I am in no way denigrating Spencer's influence on some anthropologists as Blackman (and even Omm Sety!), but - at a remove of 150 years - any sensitive author or editor could be expected to select a less discredited term. It might be added that if Spencer's 'survivals' model has had its day, his other inventions - the dentist's chair and the paper clip - at least ensure his posterity.
Sattin's book probably belongs in the new hybrid genre of travel/history writing, exemplified by the publications of such figures as William Dalrymple, whose From the Holy Mountain (HarperCollins, London: 1997) is of special interest to the Oriental Orthodox. At its best this form is engaging, informative, and entertaining. Sattin's work is diverting in parts, and occasionally amusing in its colourful characters and detail, but somehow never wholly satisfying. In part this is due to the disjunction caused by his intersplicing of historical detail, narrative, and summation of other texts. Mostly, though, I suspect my frustration was with the long preamble which accompanied each survival: what I wanted was more evidence of the survival and less of the author. Indeed, for a book of 200+ pages, there are many fewer examples of cultural artefacts than in Blackman's single chapter 'Ancient Egyptian Analogies' which runs to 36 pages in total.
Most of the survivals deal, perhaps predictably, with fertility issues. The first half of the book is devoted almost exclusively to a few different methods employed by rural (and some urban) women to ensure procreation. The methods in themselves are quite interesting: the use of fetish dolls, stepping backward and forward over ancient tombs and shafts, rolling bodily between sacred stones, and sleeping at the entrances to pyramids. Sattin does not analyze these methods or consider some of their more trans-cultural aspects - such as the notion of analogical sympathy - for such was not his intent:
"My intention when travelling in Egypt was to discover if connections could be made, to be suggestive, not encyclopaedic. I was more interested in what lay at the heart of the matter than in discovering its extent." (195)
While I can appreciate the desire to be suggestive, I suspect that most works of this nature would lean either towards the analytical or the encyclopaedic. Sattin hovers somewhere in the middle and thus tends occasionally to frustrate on both counts..
The second half of the book is devoted to individual incidences of survival. I was highly interested in the idea of snake charmers, but found myself waiting a long time while the author sought out a bona fide magician, rather than several Vaudeville types. After fifteen pages, Sattin encountered (according to him) the real thing, only to note that "he smiled, somewhat sphinx-like, making it clear that there was no chance I was going to find out any more about it from him." (153) The man may well have been an animal trainer of great distinction (apparently he could make a snake wrap around his son's head in the form of a pharaonic crown and also do a Moses number with a snake wrapped around a stick), but was his performance an artefact of ancient Egypt? Or perhaps he'd met Western miracle hunters before?
Sattin waits until the penultimate chapter to discuss the Copts in any great detail. He interviews Professor Zaki Shenouda, director of the Institute of Coptic Studies, as well as Drs. Isaac Fanous and Ragheb Moftah, iconographer and musicologist respectively. Each of these esteemed figures of the Coptic renaissance is asked to comment on the notion of survivals in Coptic forms. Predictably, we are told of the pharaonic tunes maintained in liturgy and psalmody, and of Fanous' resuscitation (reinvention?) of traditional Coptic religious art. Sattin then visits Deir Anba Bishoi (the Monastery of Saint Bishoy) and is taken around by a Bulgarian novice from Sofia by the name of Peter. Peter, whom I have met, may have fine English and be a singular (!) example of Coptic universalism, but he is perhaps not the best judge of pharaonic survivals in Coptic monasticism.
The section on the Copts simply didn't ring with the authority of twenty years of research. Instead, it seemed the author had relied on a lightning visit to the patriarchal compound in Cairo and an overnight trip to the monastery of St. Bishoy (which, surely, is the most Westernized and least traditional of all the monastic centres. Why not Deir el Suryani which lies only 100 metres away? Or the convents of St. Dimiana or St. George?) Crucially, nowhere is there a reference to the author having attended any Coptic liturgical rite. It seems to me that the Coptic Eucharistic liturgies are prime testaments to exactly the sorts of survivals the author sought - though perhaps they didn't have the cachet of fertility rites. Sattin makes passing reference to the forty-day rite of burial of the Copts (which is long-since discontinued, but who's counting?), but ignores entirely other Coptic rites which simply scream 'Pharoah!' If examples are requitred, one need look no further than the survival in popular devotion and cultic praxis of a saint unknown to the Coptic Synaxarion: Abū Tarbū (or Abū Tarabū), whose special provenance is the curing of hydrophobia (rabies). The Service of Abū Tarbū involves seven loaves, seven dates, seven cheeses, and seven prepubescent boys. Seven prayers are recited by the priest, and the boys circle the diseased party seven times with arms joined. It is not improbable that Abū Tarbū, identified with "St. Therapon", is a personification of healing (Uerapeiyv), which clearly indicates the propensity within the Coptic Church for artefacts of pagan antiquity to remain within popular piety. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Pope Shenouda III has suppressed the Service of Abū Tarbū and removed it from authorised translations of Coptic service books for the communities in diaspora. (For the Service cf., e.g., Emile Galtier, 'La Rage en Egypte - Vie de Saint Tarabo, Bulletin de l'Institut Franēais d'Archéologie Orientale, vol. IV (1905), 112-127). Such rites are not far removed from the sorts of ritual adjurations common throughout the antique Coptic magical papyri, and are more clearly relevant to the author's thesis than any example he offers.
There is a tone of sadness in much of Sattin's account. He clearly sees himself as the documentor of a fast-disappearing traditionalism. The two sources of his concern are clear:
"There is another reason for not being exhaustive on the subject [of survivals]: any list I could make at the moment would soon be out of date as the twin forces of Islamic funbdamentalism and creeping Americanization erode the soft borders of Egypt's traditional life." (195)
Aside from the real possibility - if his concerns are justified - that such erosion makes an exhaustive list of surviving pharaonic beliefs and practises all the more necessary, I cannot but think that his twin (indeed, perhaps polar) explanations for the decline of traditional forms are a little bit simplistic. Being handed a 'Coke' or 'Fanta' at a Patriarchal reception in Cairo certainly jolts more than it would at a family barbecue in Brisbane or a picnic in Brighton, but is the reason more to do with our own limited experience of the dynamics of pan-globalism than simple 'Americanization'? Indeed, is the cultural confusion we feel very possibly founded in the conflict between our politico-economic desire for Western hegemony and our romantic need for an Orientalist Eden? And, anyway, does the existence of a Macdonald's or a Burger King really undermine the fabric of cultural adhesion as much as we - sometimes hysterically - believe it will? It is interesting to note that several of Sattin's sources (documentary and personal) come from the American University in Cairo. Is it not also an instrument of cultural imperialism, of 'creeping Americanization'?
Sattin refers in several places disparagingly to Islamic fundamentalism, yet never adequately describes what fundamentalism - let alone Islamic fundamentalism - means in Egypt or to Egypt (or, indeed, to the world). I would argue that the term 'fundamentalism' has no significant lexical or useful semiotic meaning for us, and should be abandoned. Nevertheless, Arab religious terrorism - the bugbear of the West, it would seem - certainly does pose challenges to traditionalisms with which it disagrees (just look - if you were still able - at the Buddhist figurative sculptures of Afghanistan.) Yet one has to ask whether 'Islamic fundamentalism' would not have as one of its objects the curbing of the very 'Americanization' which Sattin argues is erodding 'Egypt's traditional life'?
Such observations, I believe, tend to undermine rather than undergird Sattin's thesis that 'Islamic fundamentalism' (the extreme East?) and 'Americanization' (the extreme West?) are the twin causes of the "detraditionalization" of Egyptian life. I suspect that, while both no doubt have a certain influence in fiddling with the homogeneity of Egyptian culture, the answer lies more squarely in the middle, rather than the extreme fringes. The middle, so to speak, would be the drives of the Egyptian middle classes, who undoubtedly have self-interest in the erosion of those cultural pursuits which reflect the influence of preindustrial, pre-"democratic", uneducated, rural, religionist Egyptian peasantry. The urban Westernizing educated classes, whether by birth Muslim or Christian, are those with the most to gain by the suppression of those pharaonic echoes which have somehow survived into the modern age. Interestingly, they are also those who have the least use for fertility magic - opting for fertility suppression by preference.
For my money, I would trace the literal watershed in the dilution of Egyptian traditional life to the damming (damning?) of the Nile. I must admit to a certain sadness whenever I hear the arcane prayers for 'The River' (changed, in sympathy, to 'The Rivers' for worshippers in diaspora). Unfortunately, though the Nile remains a significant geological divide, it simply does not inundate the flood plains any more, and has not done so for three decades. The Nile is now in essence a mythological river, and with it has gone the southern frontier of antique Nubia (drowned by Lake Nasser) and the splendid noble lotus - that Egyptian architectural motif par excellence. The Nile, it seems to me, is the axis mundi of the Egyptian experience, it defines domain of the Egyptian religious enterprise. (I suspect it is no coincidence that Egypt has been the crucible of religious dualism). Without The River Egyptian mythemes are without their anchor: the death/rebirth cycle is sundered. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the decision to artificially contain the Nile was engineered to nurture the development of an urban middle class.
Sattin's The Pharaoh's Shadow is surely a shadow of what is yet to be written. As far as it goes it is a useful and entertaining taste of the ancient ways which yet inform modern Egyptian life. I happen to think that it has offered little advance on Winifred Blackman's pioneering efforts (though it is a significant improvement on Omm Sety's!); others may disagree. Regardless, the work encouraged me to contemplate the nature of historico-cultural artefacts and to question my resistance to change. On the final page (why not before?) Sattin quotes 'a second-century prophesy [sic], quoted by fifth-century St. Augustine in The City of God:
"'The gods on leaving the earth, will return to heaven, they will abandon Egypt,' it warned. 'That Holy earth, land of sanctuaries and temples, will be completely covered with coffins and corpses. Oh Egypt, Egypt, nothing will remain of your cults, but fables, and later, your children will not even believe them!' The prophet ended with the conviction that 'there will be more dead than living; as for those who survive, it is only by their language that they will be recognized as Egyptian; in their manners they will seem to be men of another race'. (215)
Had Sattin searched for the passage in its original, he would have realised that it is excerpted from an antique Egyptian text, the Asclepius, a tract from the Corpus Hermeticum of the first/second century. Crucially, the Asclepius is significant for its cyclicism. In a later passage the text expresses a much more optimistic note:
"[The god whose power is primary] will restore the world to its beauty of old so that the world itself will again seem deserving of worship and wonder, and with constant benedictions and proclamations of praise the people of that time will honour the god who makes and restores so great a work. And this will be the geniture of the world: a reformation of all good things and a restitution, most holy and most reverent, of nature itself, reordered in the course of time [but through an act of will,] which is and was everlasting and without beginning."
The Pharaoh's Shadow is not all that could be asked of it, but it is a sometimes useful introduction. I suspect that as the secularist march continues through Africa and Asia, anthropologists will be rushing to document such endangered survivals as they are able to find. Thus we need to brace ourselves for an onslaught of varyingly valuable Ph.Ds. and M.As. One can only hope that at some future time the Egyptian dead can really have their say, and thereby let their dust settle.
DEACON BRENDAN FRENCH
Vrej Nersessian, Treasures from the Ark: 1700 Years of Armenian Christian Art (The British Library, London: 2001); 240 pp. + illus. & maps. ISBN 0-7123-4699-6
This admirable book is the catalogue for the sumptuous exhibition of the same name at the British Library from 2 March until 28 May, financed by Vatche & Tamar Manoukian and the Manoukian Charitable Foundation, but is of lasting value to all interested in Armenian history and culture.
The first ninety-eight pages is divided into four excellent chapters. After a short introductory section by Professor Robin Cormack of the Courtauld Institute on 'Armenian Art from a Byzantine Perspective' the first chapter explores 'The Conversion of Armenia to Christianity' from the time of St. Gregory the Illuminator to an examination of the role of monasticism. Chapter two examines 'The Christological Position of the Armenian Church' with particular reference to Chalcedon, whilst the third chapter returns to the historical theme, exploring Armenian-Byzantine relations, relations with the Papacy, the Cilician Kingdom through to contemporary times. The fourth chapter explores 'Sacred Art in Theology and Worship' examining the Holy Scriptures, portraits, the Canon Tables and the nature of Image Worship in Armenia. The catalogue of some 160 items is divided into specific categories: sculpture, metalwork, textiles, carved wood, ceramics, Ottoman Imperial firmans and manuscripts, all provided with a thorough and workmanlike index.
ABBA SERAPHIM
Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate; translated by Haim Watzman (Little, Brown & Co., London: 2000); viii + 612 pp. + illus. & maps. ISBN 0-316-64859-0 £25.00
The book's strange title derives from the receipt signed by Herbert Samuel, Britain's first High Commissioner, on taking over the administration of Palestine from the military: "Received from Major General Sir Louis J. Bols, K.C.B. - One Palestine, complete." When this later sold in auction for $5,000 Samuel angrily reposted that the receipt was a joke rather than an historical document. Sadly Britain's three decades as rulers of Palestine proved one of the less glorious moments in the Empire's annals and created a legacy which was both bitter and bloody.
Tom Segev is an Israeli journalist and historian whose parents settled in Palestine in 1935 as refugees from Nazi Germany. His book is scrupulously fair and balanced and has none of the polemical spirit which so often accompanies discussion of the Palestinian question. In fact Segev employs a style which allows contemporary participants to speak for themselves with an equal balance between Arab and Jew, whilst the British make decisions of unparalleled unfairness and crass insensitivity. If there has to be a villain to this story it is the British politicians who supported the Balfour Declaration and saw it brought to fulfillment.
Whilst the British army was driving the pro-German Ottomans out of Palestine, the politicians in London were deciding the destiny of the Holy Land. It is remarkable how many of the British politicians, civil servants and soldiers - coming from Christian families well versed in the Bible - knew the geography of Palestine almost as well as that of the Home Counties. With this, however, came an idiosyncratic belief in an exclusive and eternal "Promised Land" which proved susceptible to Zionist theories about a Jewish homeland. If some were inspired by an incurable Romanticism - all myth and prophecy - others had fallen victim to the propaganda of anti-Semitism and believed that the Jews secretly controlled the world. If that should be true, reasoned the wily Lloyd George, better to befriend them and benefit Britain by making "a contract with Jewry."
From the first Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the charming Anglophile and head of the Zionist Commission, was treated like the representative of another state and enjoyed ready access to leading British politicians. His shadowy presence is detectable at every stage. In after years Lloyd George described the Balfour Declaration as a prize awarded by a generous and benevolent ruler to his court Jew. The "national home" for the Jewish people might originally have been in East Africa, but after Balfour it had earmarked Palestine and was, to all intents and purposes, a promise to establish a Jewish state.
Palestine, however, was not some uninhabited wilderness but had been the home of Arabs - equally descendants of Abraham - for generations. If initially the British considered it possible to create a homeland for the Jews and Arabs as the "people of Palestine" it was not a view shared by the Zionists. The Arabs lacked the energy and enterprise of the Zionists and were represented by leaders who were easily suborned.
Under the British Mandate Jews were permitted to purchase land, develop agriculture and establish industries and banks. They were allowed to establish new settlements and towns, create an education system and army, whilst the Arabs were ill-educated and tied to the impoverished land until they could be bought off and resettled elsewhere. It was blatantly partisan and created an environment where revolt was the only hope. The liberal belief in democracy and self-determination, so warmly espoused elsewhere, was untenable in Palestine where Arabs were numerically stronger even when Israeli independence was proclaimed. In the 1930s the Jews made up seventeen percent of the total population but with increased emigration, unwittingly aided by Hitler, by 1945 they were thirty percent.
When the British eventually left they claimed that it was "with dignity" but in reality they abandoned Palestine to chaos and disorder and wearily passed the problem to the United Nations, which was totally unable to stem the tide of history. Bitterness and betrayal are the true legacies of the British Mandate and Tom Segev has done us a great service by exposing these facts in his brilliantly constructed and well documented study.
ABBA SERAPHIM
Nicon Patrinacos A Dictionary of Greek Orthodoxy, Minneapolis: Light and Life Publishing, 1984 (4th printing: 1997), with a Foreword by His Grace Archbishop Dimitrios Iakovos, (then) Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in the Americas
In the last forty years a series of dictionaries have been published in the area of Eastern Orthodoxy to complement both the standard reference works on Christianity generally (for example, F.L.Cross (Ed) The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church London, Oxford University Press, 1974) or the very few works, generally out-dated and inadequate, on Orthodoxy specifically (most notably R.L. Langford-James A Dictionary of the Eastern Orthodox Church The Faith Press: London, 1923 reprinted by Burt Franklin, New York: 1976). These have included George Demetrakopoulos Dictionary of Orthodox Theology: A Summary of the Beliefs, Practices and History of the Eastern Orthodox Church Philosophical Linrary: New York, 1964; Peter Day The Liturgical Dictionary of Eastern Christianity Wellwood, Kent: Burns and Oats, 1993 ; Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin and Michael Peterson Historical Dictionary of the Orthodox Church Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 1996 ; and Ken Parry, David Melling, Dimitri Brady, Sydney Griffth and John Healey (Eds) The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity Blackwell Publishers: Oxford, 1999 .
The Dictionary of Greek Orthodoxy was first published in 1984 by the Department of Education of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America in New York, as well as by Hellenic Heritage Publications, which issued a second printing in 1987.
This is a valuable work, albeit one for which the description "encyclopedic dictionary" (the term used in the introductory article, "How to Consult this Dictionary") is unjustifiable. It contains 382 pages of text, followed by an unfortunately less than adequate English-Greek index. The articles range from Alpha-Omega and Abortion, through Baptism, Celibacy, Deacon and Iconoclastic Controversy to Matrimony, Mixed Marriages, Prayer, Suicide and Vestments. The entries range from substantial text on major subjects (for example: Ecumenical Patriarch) or persons (for example: John Chrysostom) or contemporary issues (for example, Lying) through to smaller entries on relatively obscure subjects (for example: Crypt, Evil Eye, Incense and Trikeron). There is a sound mix of subject areas, from theology and morality, through hagiography and liturgy.
The entries on historical subjects provide excellent summaries in concise and readable language. These include: Ecumencial Councils (with a summary of each of the Seven Councils recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Church), Ecumenical Patriarchate, Mount Athos, and The Great Schism. The entries on contemporary moral questions, including abortion, birth control, blasphemy, cremation, divorce and suicide) are well written and useful. They acknowledge and, if briefly, address some of the serious tensions in the application of traditional Orthodox practice in the modern world
There are some useful entries on (essentially) Western theological concepts discussed in Orthodox terms (for example: infallibility, transubstantiation) which, given the unfortunate tendency of some Orthodox writers in the West to adopt such Western theological language provides a helpful, albeit in summary form, alternative perspective.
The author unfortunately lapses into excessive Byzantinism (or, rather, Hellenism) on but few occasions. The entry on "Liturgical Language", sadly, declares that the language of Greek Orthodoxy has always been Greek, and must remain so. Noting (if only by implication) that the liturgical Greek is essentially unintelligible even to Greeks, the author argues that it is nevertheless the only language that can, or should, be used. He appears to argue that Greek texts ought to be translated into English, but that languages other than Greek must never be used in services of worship. Worshippers must learn the langauge to the extent needed for the worshipper not only to understand its meaning but to have its implied feelings transmitted to him. [p. 234] In a strange, and fortunately atypical lapse into irrational and, one might even say, superstitious and magical thinking, Fr Nicon argues that langauge is a vehicle of the most subtle inner states of one's experience and the instrument by which the most sublime thoughts can be rendered understndable and become appropriated by all. Thus, the sounds and grammatical and syntactical inflections of language have come to signify states of being that have been inextricably associated with them. What is called linguistic heritage refers to this inseparable association between the words and the emotional aura a language generates in the hearts and souls of people born and bred in it. [p.233] He carefully avoids the obvious problems for those not born and bred in Greek who, presumably, can never understand the most sublime thoughts of Orthodoxy. One can but wonder where this leaves the great Russian theologians and mystics, to mention but one significant Orthodox group which is not Greek. Interesting, the Dictionary does not include an entry on Phyletism.
The Helleno-Byzantism presumably also determined the lack of reference to the Oriental Orthodox Churches, although, given the work's title, that could hardly be considered a serious flaw. A passing mention is, unfortunately, inaccurate: ...the break became final in the 6th century when the Monophysites consolidated themselves into the Churches of the Coptc and Abyssinians, the Syrian Jacobites, and the Armenians. [p. 379]
Happily, this major, and one or two minor, lapses into obsessive Hellenic ethnocentrism, do not detract from an otherwise excellent reference work, which provides sound and accessible information about Greek Orthodox teaching and worship, with a helpful focus on contemporary practice.
The writing is clear, the English excellent and the proofreading (with one or two minor exceptions) very good. However, there is no bibliography, and no references for any of the articles.
Dr Nicon Patrinacos studied theology, philosophy, psychology and sociology at universities in Greece, Australia and England, and completed his doctorate at Oxford in the field of the philosophy and psychology of religion. After teaching and serving as the Dean of the Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Massachusetts, he became head of the Department of Studies at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America and, later, the Archdiocese's Department of Education, before retiring in 1978.
The Dictionary is one of a wide range of volumes published by Light and Life. They range from Common Ground: An Introduction to Eastern Christianity for the American Orthodox, Health and Medicine in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition and Making Byzantine Vestments, to Contemporary Moral Issues Facing the Orthodox Christian, The Jesus Prayer in Eastern Spirituality and Making God Real in the Orthodox Home.
The Light and Life catalogue can be found at www.light-n-life.com
Victoria Clark, Why Angels Fall. A journey through Orthodox Europe from Byzantium to Kosovo Macmillan: London, 2000 ISBN: 0 333 75185 X
Victoria Clark's book has been published at a time when the eyes of the Western world are regularly focussed on ethno-religious conflicts in which Orthodoxy, in some form, is a factor. Two relatively recent statements by Orthodox leaders place the challenges presented in the book into contemporary context. In June, 2000, the head of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Christodoulos, addressing a political rally in Athens, declared: Hellenism means Orthodoxy. Just what this could possibly mean remains somewhat unclear, but, presumably it implies some inherent (ethnic? genetic?) link between being Greek and being Orthodox. As the Editor of the Eastern Churches Journal, in his commentary on this bizarre assertion, noted: "Hellenism Means Orthodoxy" is an ungodly cross-breeding of phyletism and blasphemy, which at best would reduce Orthodoxy to a Greek Cult ..... If "Hellenism Means Orthodoxy", it would therefore follow that those who are not "Hellenic" are not Orthodox. It would also follow that anybody who is "Hellenic" regardless of his or her convictions (or lack of them) is therefore "Orthodox", in this hitherto-unknown sense of the term. Can ethnicity, or "blood", be a determinant of Orthodoxy?
In April, 2001, the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople issued a statement for the United Nations World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew declared: When human beings are in communion with God, who Himself is the very essence of inexhaustible love, xenophobia - fear of the other - is not possible since human beings do not see each other as strangers, but rather as brothers and sisters in communion with the living Lord. His All Holiness spoke in the spirit of hesychasm (rather than phyletism) when he said: [The Orthodox Church] calls all persons from all walks of life to feel the heartbeat of the Church, to sense the breath of life inhaling and exhaling from her body - the body of Christ - and to experience her maternal love and comfort, thereby being at peace while listening openly to the perspectives of the other with respect and tolerance. And His All Holiness concluded: The Orthodox Church, which heralds the message of love, the Christian Gospel, categorically condemns racism, xenophobia, and all forms of related intolerance as destructive to the vision of peace which God desires and which human beings, organizations of goodwill, and above all the Church, aim to promote. Thus, it would seem that "Hellenism is not Orthodoxy", and nor is it any other "ism", or form of ethnocentrist, racist or xenophobic ideology.
But what is the reality in the Orthodox world? Is it the ethno-religio-political exclusivism of Archbishop Christodoulos (with all its inevitable consequences), or the all-embracing "material love and comfort" of Patriarch Bartholomew? Why Angels Fall seeks to explore this question, and the theological and political tensions related to it.
Why Angels Fall is a confronting, challenging and disturbing book. The fact that it is also a triumph of the skills of journalist, travel writer and historian (as one reviewer commented) makes it even more so. It will doubtless cause offence to the many Orthodox for whom Orthodoxy is less a Christian Faith than an ethno-political position, and contribute to the despair of those who hope Orthodox can be a universal manifestation of Divine Truth. It should be, but doubtless will not be, a prescribed text in every Orthodox seminary (to be studied and reflected upon, rather than denounced).
The author set out on a journey through the lands of Eastern Orthodox Europe after a career as a journalist during which she reported from Romania, Yugoslavia and Russia, covering the Croatian, Bosnian and the first Chechen wars. She began her journey off the Greek coast from Mount Athos, dreaming of being able to land and explore this ancient Orthodox centre. However, her exclusion (because she is a woman), led her to wonder whether more than half of the continent we call Europe is the heartland of not just another branch of the Christian religion but of another culture entirely. From this reflection, she provides an insightful account of the historical separation of (put very simply) West and East, before, during and after the Great Schism of 1054.
Ms Clark's travels took her through Serbia and Macedonia to Greece (including a visit to Patmos), thence to Romania and Russia, and on to Cyprus and finally to Istanbul. The description of her experiences as she travelled is enriched by both personal reflections and historical background, and by the interviews she undertakes with those she meets.
During her travels, Ms Clarke discovers the theme for her book:
The wider story of Eastern Orthodox in Europe is the story of these two unfamiliar-sounding phenomenon - Phyletism and Hesychasm - the one hellish in its practical consequences, the other heavenly in its ideal. The short answer to the question of why angels fall, why Eastern Orthodoxy is able to reach for the angelic heights then plunge to hellish depths, is Phyletism.
Nevertheless, her exploration of the "fall of angels" leads to the conclusion that one of the most important factors in the emergence of Phyletism was the shameful part western Christendom had played in the early history of Orthodoxy.
Phyletism (derived from the Greek phyle: tribe) was condemned as a heresy at a local council at Constantinople in 1870. What might be called "tribalism" or, to use a term from anthropology, ethnocentrism, would seem to be an innate characteristic of human beings. At its gentlest, it is a preference for the culture and the society in which one has been raised and with which one is familiar. It can be phrased in terms of personal preference, or of the inferiority of others. Thus, I can say that I prefer living in Australia, and I prefer the Australian culture and way of life to any others I have experienced. I might also say that there are societies and cultures in which I would not choose to live, some of which I find positively distasteful. This does not, however, lead me to conclude that there is any inherent superiority in Australians as such (or in Australian culture), nor to consider others (even those I do not like) are innately inferior.
However, ethnocentrism is relatively rarely this transparently subjective. It all too readily moves on to assumptions of innate and objective superiority and inferiority. Some of my neighbours do not want Australia being "spoiled" by the entry of large numbers of Middle Eastern migrants, who (so they say) are inherently corrupt, opportunistic, materialistic and immoral. Interestingly, a number of my acquaintances of Middle Eastern origin equally decry Australian culture as being corrupt, opportunistic, materialistic and immoral, thereby posing a danger to their children. The emergence of assumptions about superiority and inferiority leads, alas often inevitably, beyond ethnocentrism and into racism. Racism is a pseudo-biological view of how human beings should be evaluated. Virtues and vices, abilities and disabilities are transmitted from generation to generation through something mysteriously (and, indeed, magically), if not scientifically, referred to as "blood". Once a qualitative scheme of human development has been established, it is an inevitable consequence that people will be ranked on the basis of it. "We" (of course) are superior and possessed of all desirable virtues. To those who are most like us will be attributed some virtues, but not our perfection. "They", who are least like us, can be scaled down from the mediocre to the evil or, in some schemes, the less-than- or semi-human. Racism is popularly equated with the lunatic pseudo-science of the Nazis and the contemporary madness of far Right extremist groups, with their seemingly cloned skinhead fellow-travellers. They talk about maintaining "the purity of the blood", about "racial purity", of "preserving our heritage", and the dangers of inter-marriage (often referred to as "inter-breeding") and miscegenation, and of qualities which are "genetically pre-determined". Of course, there have been, and, alas still are, religious groups which promote and seek to theologically justify and sanction such views. Some of the more bizarre, like the "Church of the Creator", are (perhaps unsurprisingly) found in the Fundamentalist belts of the United States.
Orthodox - Eastern and Oriental - might therefore feel some sense of outage at Ms Clark's suggestion that racism, albeit nicely re-described (re-baptized?) as phyletism, could have any place within the Orthodox Church. However, Ms Clark is far from the first to make such an assertion.
In one of the best contemporary introductions to Orthodoxy for the non-Orthodox world, Daniel Clendenin declares that the Orthodox Church's unrelenting insistence that it alone is the one true church of Christ on earth ..... is somewhat ironic given Orthodoxy's problems of intense nationalism and ethnocentricity vis-į-vis not only non-Orthodox Christians, but also various branches within Orthodoxy. Although officially condemned by the Synod of Constantinople in 1872, phyletism, which is the identification of the interests of the secular state with the Christian church, and even racism remain stubborn and prevalent weaknesses of modern Orthodoxy.
Clendenin, perhaps open to criticism as an "outsider", echoes what contemporary Orthodox scholars have also said. Fr John Meyendorff, for instance, declared that ... the temptation of religious nationalism remains one of the most basic weaknesses of contemporary Orthodoxy. And Bishop Kallistos (Ware) wrote: ... Orthodox - without sacrificing good in their national traditions - need to break away from a narrow and exclusive nationalism: they must be ready to present their faith to others, and must not behave as if it were something restricted to Greeks or Russians, and of no relevance to anyone else. They must rediscover the universality of Orthodoxy.
However, the very state of the Orthodox Churches in the modern world, particularly in Diaspora (that very term being essentially phyletist), would seem to contradict this. As Meyendorff has written: ... the concept that each Orthodox autocephalous or national church has de jure a universal jurisdiction over all members of a particular ethnic group wherever they are found (i.e. the Church of Russia over all the Russians, the Church of Constantinople over all the Greeks, etc) is not only unpractical, because it is often impossible to define ethnicity, but also formally racist and heretical. Christ came to establish on earth a new and holy nation, a tertium genus, a kingdom which is "not of this world". A church whose only function is to maintain ethnic identification loses the character of [the] true "Church of God". It is unable to fulfil its mission, for it is formally exclusive of those who do not belong to its ethnicity. The Church must, says Meyendorff ... be seen as [the] Kingdom of God, as a missionary community, open to all and transcending (not suppressing) all human cultural values. For these values, if they are not transcended, become idols and are, as such, abominations in the eyes of God.
Such an ethnicist approach, as outlined by Meyendorff, reduces Orthodoxy to appearances, superficial elements and worldly symbols. Meyendorff has noted: ... the Church cannot and should not be identified with "ethnicity" unless she is also to be reduced to those superficial "cultural" remnants and lose all existential value for both the old and the young. And he further declared: The Orthodox are unanimous in denouncing the western promoters of Christian "secularism" which reduces Christianity to social causes, but they themselves do the same whenever they use the Church are a mere tool for the preservation of illusory ethnic interests.
Meyendorff concluded: Let us respect and cultivate everything which is precious in our ethnic cultures. But let us also remember that the Church is not an instrument or tool for earthly causes, but a foretaste of God's kingdom for all men.
Ms Clark's book suggests that the Orthodox Church is all too often an instrument or tool for earthly causes, and is far indeed from being a foretaste of God's kingdom for all men. She quotes a nineteenth century Greek song which summarizes this less than universalist view: Albanians, Wallachians, Bulgarians, speakers of other tongues, rejoice! And ready yourselves all to become Greeks. Abandoning your barbaric tongue, speech and customs so that to your descendants they may appear as myths.
The less violent manifestations of phyletism include the unseemly battles in relation to Orthodox jurisdictions, specifically the question of autocephaly. Claims to the right to establish "national" or "ethnic" Orthodox Churches, particularly when the establishment of a "new" church offends what can only be described as the imperial or colonialist claims of an existing church, inevitably lead to what are presented as theological or canonical arguments. The pain of such situations, which, despite such high sounding theological and canonical arguments, is essentially about ethnic politics, is caused, according to a leading theological critic of the situation, by that miserable ecclesiological nominalism which ignores spiritual reality in favor of empty names, claims and titles.
However, arguments about canonical jurisdiction, not matter how heated and unnecessary, are far away from the racism manifested in the worlds explored by Ms Clark. Her journey through Serbia, Macedonia (or to use the currently politically correct term created by pseudo-Orthodox racism, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia), Greece, Romania, Russia and Cyprus moves consideration away from theological discourse and into murder, rape, pillage, genocide (albeit more tactfully described as "ethnic cleansing"), torture, violent revenge and multiple forms of brutality and barbarism. More accurately, and more appalling, Ms Clark's journey does not, in fact, take her entirely away from theological discourse and into some political nightmare zone; it takes her into a political nightmare zone where the protagonists use theology (or, more accurately, pseudo-theology) as justification for their barbarism.
And unlikely people attempt theology. Radovan Karadzic, in an interview with a Serbian Orthodox journal, described himself as the chief defender of our tribe and our Church, hoping to God that we used only as much force as was necessary. He was, he said, inspired by the Holy Spirit in all his policies, and took no decisions without consultation with the Orthodox Church. Perhaps it was not surprising therefore that the Greek Orthodox Church decorated Karadzic with the Order of St Dionysius of Xanthe in 1994, and declared him to be one of the most prominent sons of our Lord Jesus Christ working for peace. While Orthodox hierarchs may rise up and call Karadzic blessed, there are many - wounded or widowed or orphaned or dispossessed by his policies - who may wonder at the source of his inspiration.
Much of the phyletism-induced violence, of course, is directed towards the preservation of territory. Orthodoxy has an unfortunate tendency to focus on kingdoms very much of this world. The focus on "Holy [here insert country of choice]" is but a few steps away from a pseudo-theological rationalization for the "protection" of such "God-given lands", and the "purification" of its territory by "ethnic cleansing" to protect the "pure blood" of those who, by "descent", are claimed to be more truly the sons and daughters of God and to have more rights than, and more rights over, lesser mortals.
If Ms Clark presents a depressing - almost despairingly so - picture of the politics of Eastern Orthodoxy in Europe, the blackness is not wholly unrelieved. Occasional flashes of spiritual light break out of the gloom. And it is this, more than anything, that stimulates Ms Clark's interest. How can the religion that seems to inspire such brutal barbarism also inspire such lofty spirituality? It is to the Orthodox tradition of Hesychasm that Ms Clark looks for the, albeit apparently unequal, counterbalance to the violence.
Hesychasm (derived from the Greek verb meaning: to be quiet) refers to a spiritual tradition in Orthodoxy, specifically developing in the fourteenth century, emphasizing silent meditation and contemplation. It is, perhaps, best known in the contemporary West through the "Jesus Prayer", or the "Prayer of the Heart". The major writings are summarized in The Philokalia (meaning: love of what is beautiful), compiled by St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain (c.1749-1809) and St Makarios of Corinth (1731-1805), and first published in 1782. This is a collection of ascetical and mystical writings drawn from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries.
The Orthodoxy manifested in and illuminated by the Hesychasts and the other spiritually enlightened men and women throughout the ages - in the world but not of the world, manifesting love rather than waging war, shining with the Light of Christ rather than wielding the sword of secular politics - leads to both hope and to despair. If this is the true heart of Orthodoxy, why does it seem to have so little influence on those Orthodox who have attained worldly power? Is it too pessimistic to conclude that in the struggle between hesychasm and phyletism, the darkness may have overcome the light?
The account of past and present horrors perpetrated in the cause of phyletism given by Ms Clark certainly makes depressing reading. Her diagnosis of the problem, more spiritual than political, of contemporary Orthodoxy is, alas, accurate:
The answer to the original question Why Angels Fall, why Europe's Eastern Orthodox Churches have fallen so far from the sublime ideal dreamed up in Byzantium that they are hotbeds of nationalism, a factor weighting every Eastern Orthodox country's political spectrum toward the xenophobic right and an obstacle impeding European unification on western Europe's terms, lies with history. Deadly pride, in the form of a religious nationalism that had its heyday in the nineteenth century but can be traced back to medieval Serbia and Late Byzantium, is why angels fall in Eastern Orthodox Europe.
Her prescription for a resurrection of a spiritual Orthodoxy may be daunting:
The Orthodox East will have to cut away the crust of kitsch that has been doing such a fine job of concealing its spiritual treasures from the world. That heinous religious nationalism, with its persecution and martyr complexes and longing for death and suffering, that targeting of enemies and dangerously emotive habit of spinning petty patterns from the past - mythologies instead of histories - will have to go.
To avoid succumbing to that disease of Europe's Eastern Orthodox Churches, religious nationalism, the heresy of Phyletism, [the Orthodox] might have to rediscover Mount Athos' Hesychast spiritual tradition.
However, her underlying insight into the unifying and healing potential of a truly spiritual (as opposed to an ethno-political) Orthodoxy provides a counter-balance to despair:
The West's belated backlash against soulless materialiam suggests that an awareness of what we lost by tending our bodies and brains at the expense of our spirits is growing. The step to appreciating the best of Orthodoxy is not such a big one to take, even for the unbeliever.
Ms. Clark does not include Middle Eastern Orthodoxy in her account, but, had she, the theme of her book would not have been any less disturbing. Racism is no less prevalent in Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy in the Middle East than in Europe, and arguably it is even more virulent there. Oriental Orthodox clergy have been known to promote the paranoid antisemitic ravings of the fraudulent "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion" as justification for opposition to the State of Israel and as "proof" (at least to the pathologically ignorant) of some international Jewish anti-Christian conspiracy. Ms. Clark's account of clerical obsessions with identifying "the Beast 666", or the Antichrist, and with reading (more correctly, misreading) Old Testament prophecies to provide an agenda for the "End Times", inevitably associated with concepts of "chosen people" and "blood", and with paranoid quests for the "agents of Satan", could have been written in the Middle East no less than in middle Europe.
Ms. Clark's book concludes with a glossary, a chronology, an excellent bibliography, divided into helpful sections, including works on Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Romania, Russia and Cyprus, and a comprehensive index.
Why Angels Fall should be studied as a stark, confronting and discomforting challenge to Orthodoxy, and to its understanding of its place in, and its relationship to, the kingdoms of this world. There is light shining, albeit dimly, in the darkness, and it is in that light that Orthodox men and women can find hope. One might hope that the "angels", having fallen, yet remain "angels" capable of redemption, and that phyletist Orthodoxy may yet, by Divine Grace, be transformed into hesychast Orthodoxy.
FATHER GREGORY TILLETT