Paideia

returning to tumblr

brief foray into blogging full time proved to be not my jam. I am more aphoristic in internet sharing. so back to the tumblr I go.

http://dangreeson.tumblr.com/

St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary - New and Historic Era Begins

St. Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary has ushered in a new era with the election of the Very Reverend Alexander Atty of the Antiochian Archdiocese to the position of Dean and Chief Operating Officer.

Father Alexander brings with him over thirty years of experience as parish priest and chief administrator.  He pastored one of the largest Pan-Orthodox parishes in the nation, St. Michael the Archangel Church in Louisville, KY.

Under his direction this vibrant and flourishing Orthodox community undertook several building projects to reach out to and provide for the needs of their parish and others in the surrounding area. These projects, totaling over five million dollars, include the parish chapel, parish hall, education center, retirement community as well as housing for individuals with special needs, the first of its kind for the Orthodox faithful of North America.

Fr. Alexander is joined by his wife, Khouria Olga, and their two children, Katherine and Alexander.  Fr. Alexander holds a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Philadelphia, a Master of Divinity from St. Vladimir's Seminary, as well as a Doctorate in Ministry from Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

Father Alexander brings with him a clear understanding of the many needs of the seminary community as well as a clear vision for the future health and sustainability of the institution.

via stots.edu

The black habit does not save

“Do not be in a hurry to multiply the monks. The black habit does not save. The one who wears a white habit and has the spirit of obedience, humility, and purity, he is a true monk of interiorized monasticism.” -  St. Tikhon of Zadonsk

Fr. Alexander Golitzin: Liturgy and Mysticism

Fr Alexander is one of the best kept "secrets" of Modern Orthodox academics. He has done a ton of great work. These two pdfs are just more evidence of the penetrating mind of Fr Alexander. What I like best is the grappling with the Old Covenant, a topic not much discussed in contemporary Orthodox publications.

Liturgy and Mysticism: The Experience of God in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Part I

Liturgy and Mysticism: The Experience of God in Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Part II

See more here at the Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism seminar @ Marquette.

millinerd.com: Metaphysical Summer

Matt Millinerd writes an informative post.

Attempts to overcome metaphysics having been shown to be themselves irrepressibly metaphysical, metaphysics is again in the air.  Consider Dan Siedell's compelling review of Gabriel Bunge's The Rublev Trinity. Siedell quotes philosopher Jean-Luc Marion's Crossing the Visible, where he suggests that Nicaea II, the council that vindicated icons, "formulates above all and—perhaps the only—alternative to the contemporary disaster of the image." Siedell then takes the philosopher's insight into firm art historical terrain:  "The icon is the theological foundation of all painting, secular and religious."  We can hope any who missed this crucial insight from Sidell's God in the Gallery will get it this time around.

The fiercely brilliant (and if you doubt that adjectival combination, read the last paragraph of this review) art critic Maureen Mullarkey provides a remarkable testimony to just such an insight.  After years of hesitation, and despite extensive experience in New York both reviewing and creating contemporary art, Mullarkey has come around to seeing the wisdom of the Byzantine aesthetic.  Spend a considerable amount of time not just reading Patristics, but marinating in the Orthodox liturgy, and you'll likely agree.

What does this have to do with metaphysics?  Everything.  Interest in the icon is not just for those who like painting.  The wisdom of Byzantine art was not in its style but in the iconic, symbolic horizon to which that style successfully testified.  Fruitful as the icon may be for painters and art historians, it would be a mistake, one almost laughable in its small-mindedness, to limit the Byzantine iconic perspective to the realm of "art". Consider a not so familiar passage of John of Damascus:

We see images in creation which faintly reveal to us the reflections of God, as when, for instance we speak of the Holy and eternal Trinity imaged by the sun, or light, or a ray, or by a spurting fountain, or a gushing stream, or a river, or by the mind, or speech, or the spirit within us, or by a rose bush, or a flower, or a sweet fragrance (De imaginibus oratio I).

No narrow "art theory" there.  Icons are merely the fish that swim in that ocean.  (An ocean, incidentally, in which the Protestant Jonathan Edwards swims just as happily.)  The word for that ocean, following Aristotle, is "metaphysics." Like all words that have been around for a while, it's been abused and misused, but it's eminently recoverable.  Abusus non tollit usum.

The thing that Siedell is after, that Mullarkey intuitively grasps, and that Damascus and Edwards effortlessly understood, is a thick metaphysical horizon.  Make no mistake, the word is getting out on this.  In the latest Mars Hill Audio journal, Ken Meyers interviewed Stratford Caldecott, James Matthew Wilson and Thomas Hibbs to discuss the kind of realism that can sustain such metaphysical grit.  I highly recommend shelling out the few bucks to listen in, but the same idea is on offer, at considerable length, in one of Wilson's essays, entitled Saint Augustine and the Meaning of Art.  Even if symbolism and meaning have been systematically eviscerated thanks to a fashionable academic cyclone that has long since passed, there is nothing about such a turn of events that prevents the immediate recovery of the previous symbolic arrangement.  In Wilson's memorable words:

The meaning of the world that we usually describe as constituting culture, or a culture... does not depend primarily upon our social conventions. Rather, the signs of a culture are founded on natural signs, and, indeed, are themselves natural signs in whose fashioning our intellects cooperate, and for whose knowledge and joy they exist. Given how destructive the wars and social changes of the last century have been—above all the change in thought that has tried to reduce even the human person to a fungible fact for exploitation—we should take great comfort in that fact. The meaning of things, which our cultures may embrace and develop, nonetheless does not depend on us for their existence. And so, when we see a painting or some other work of art—the remnants, say, of some half-ruined memorial statue, in some empty square, at the edge of a red-light district in Brussels—we are seeing not the illegible signs of a lost culture. We are seeing a sign whose meaning has, for the moment, been lost to us, and whose intelligibility only awaits someone with reason, sense, and patience enough to uncover it.

Call them Neo-Byzantine, Edwardsian or Maritanian, there seem to be an increasing number of such someones.  But - and this is Wilson's point - it wouldn't even matter if there were not.

via www.millinerd.com

Christian Ethics in a Technological Age | Mere Orthodoxy

Chris Benson over @ Mere Orthodoxy has announced a book I have already ILL'ed. This looks interesting!

"I recently broadcast new and upcoming titles of interest, but a clear stand-out emerges. Here’s the career of an inquiry.

First, there was Lewis Mumford’s Technics and Civilization (1934).

Then there was Martin Heidegger’s “The Question Concerning Technology” (1953).

Then, Jacques Ellul’s Technology and Society (1954).

Next, Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964).

After that Neil Postman’s Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992).

And now, almost two decades after the last book, Brian Brock’s Christian Ethics in a Technological Age (2010) promises to change everything . . . .

Christian Smith (University of Notre Dame): Christians are often so naive about the power of technological culture in our lives. Brian Brock isn’t. With sobering realism and Trinitarian clarity of vision, Brock shuts down happy optimism and focuses hope only in cross and resurrection, as worked out in the nitty-gritty particularities of our lives. The voices of Bonhoeffer, Barth, and Augustine, which Brock here brings to bear on the overwhelming domination of technology, are a gift to any seeking an alternative vision.

Stanley Hauerwas (Duke Divinity School): This is as good a treatment of Heidegger’s account of technology as any that we have, and a more appropriate theological response. Brian Brock is going to be one of the most important theologians of the future.

Michael Banner (Trinity College, University of Cambridge): A considered and mature statement of a serious position on a highly pertinent topic . . . . An extremely valuable contribution.

Bernd Wannenwetch (University of Oxford): Remarkable . . . . It is easy to criticize the technocratic spirit, but  much harder to point out an alternative. The books does.

John Webster (University of Oxford): A fine treatment, both in its scope and its perceptive analysis. . . . Brian Brock articulates judgments with force and clarity.

Hans Ulrich (University of Erlangen): Brock’s Christian Ethics in a Technological Age is not just one more contribution to the ethical and moral discourse on technology assessment. It pushes that discussion to a whole new level by meeting the need for a fundamental reflection on the ethical challenges presented by modern technology."

via mereorthodoxy.com

Ad Orientem: A liturgical occurrence

I am visiting the family back in upstate New York for a little bit and today went off to the 9:30 AM divine liturgy at one of the eight(!) local Orthodox parishes that are within a convenient drive of my father's house. The liturgy was reasonably well attended for midsummer and was unremarkable until the time came for the last major censing by the deacon. The priest was at the altar with the doors open when suddenly a small boy, not more than four or five years old, broke loose from his parents and ran up towards the altar and... charged right through the doors and started tugging on the priests vestments.

I can now relate that the sudden and simultaneous intake of breath on the part of a couple of hundred people creates a very distinctive sound. But the silence that followed was almost painful. The parents... visibly horrified seemed not sure of whether or not to rush up and add to the chaos in the sanctuary. This was coupled with a deep silence from everyone else frantically trying to avert their eyes from what was at the least surely going to prove a terrible embarrassment if not a major catastrophe.

Then in a few seconds the crisis was ended. The priest looked over his shoulder and after a moment of visible (and understandable) shock, smiled and I thought he was going to laugh. With a quick motion of his hand he called over the deacon who had been in the process of censing and calmly relieved the deacon of his censor. He then bent over and handed the censor to the little boy, showing him how to hold it and swing it, and then directed him to finish censing the iconostasis and assorted icon stands.

Off went the overjoyed little boy, with the deacon hot on his trail, happily censing everything that looked even remotely like an icon. OK OK he almost knocked over a candle stand but the deacon saved the day. After he was done the deacon relieved him of the censor and quietly guided the happiest child in the city back to his parents.

I have no idea how many church canons or liturgical rubrics were violated today. But I can tell you that there was not a dry eye in the church.

via ad-orientem.blogspot.com

Photos from our Life in Bloomington

http://picasaweb.google.com/chelsea.elizabeth.greeson/BloomingtonTimes#

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Photos of friends, family, and good times in Bloomington, IN, please enjoy!