Byzantium
05/11/2010
04/18/2010
Athos Agion Oros : Trip to Athos: Mylopotamos library day
I enjoy the consistently beautiful pictures posted on the Athos Agion Oros blog. ESPECIALLY ones focused around the books/libraries found on Mt. Athos!
"To end day one I will show the pictures of the library of Mylopotamos. First of all I have to thank father Ioachim for taking the time to show us this special place and secondly our thanks go to Giannis, who used his influence to make this possible.
The library of Mylopotamos, Father Ioachim and pilgrim Bas
For me this visit to the library brought back memories to that special day in 1986, when my friend Pieter and I visited the library of Docheiariou, accompanied by a Greek professor from Thessaloniki, who explained us everything about the very old books we were allowed to hold in our hands and look though it. Most of the parchment books were eaten by bookworms and had holes in it........ The professor put the books on microfilm."
book: Akolouthia 1901
(notice the dolphin and anchor- this is the symbol of the Aldine Press, a famous Renaissance printer. Erasmus, yes the Erasmus, even lived with them for a time)
Check the link below for more beautiful pictures!
via athos.web-log.nl
04/06/2010
02/23/2010
George Florovsky - St Gregory Palamas and the Tradition of the Fathers
The beginning of a great essay from Fr. Georges Florovsky on St Gregory Palamas
'Following the Holy Fathers' . . . It was usual in the Ancient Church to introduce doctrinal statements by phrases like this. The Decree of Chalcedon opens precisely with these very words. The Seventh Ecumenical Council introduces its decision concerning the Holy Icons in a more elaborate way: 'Following the Divinely inspired teaching of the Holy Fathers and the Tradition of the Catholic Church.' The didaskalia of the Fathers is the formal and normative term of reference.
Now, this was much more than just an 'appeal to antiquity.' Indeed, the Church always stresses the permanence of her faith through the ages, from the very beginning. This identity, since the apostolic times, is the most conspicuous sign and token of right faith-always the same. In the famous phrase of Vincent of Lerins, in ipsa item catholica ecclesia magnopere curandum est ut id teneamus quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est (Commonitorium, cap. 2.3). The Church holds fast to what has been always believed, everywhere and by all. Yet, 'antiquity' by itself is not an adequate proof of the true faith. Moreover, the Christian message was obviously a striking 'novelty' for the 'ancient world', and, indeed, a call to radical 'renovation.' The 'Old' has passed away, and everything has been 'made New.' On the other hand, heresies could also appeal to the past and invoke the authority of certain 'traditions.' In fact, heresies were often lingering in the past.(1) Archaic formulas can often be dangerously misleading. Vincent of Lerins himself was fully aware of this danger. It would suffice to quote this pathetic passage of his: 'And now, what an amazing reversal of the situation! the authors of the same opinion are adjudged to be Catholics, but the followers-heretics; the masters are absolved, the disciples are condemned; the writers of the books will be children of the Kingdom, their followers will go to Gehenna'-Et o mira rerum conversio! Auctores ejusdem opinionis catholici, consectatores vero haeretici judicantur; absolvuntur magistri, condemnantur discipuli; conscriptores librorum filii regni erunt, adsertores vero gehenna suscipiet (Commonitorium, cap. 6). Vincent had in mind, of course, S. Cyprian and the Donatists. S. Cyprian himself was facing the same situation.' Antiquity' as such may happen to be just an inveterate prejudice: nam antiquitas sine veritate vetustas erroris est (Epist. 74). And again: Dominus, Ego sum, inquit, veritas. Non dixit, Ego sum consuetudo (Sententiae episcoporum numero 87, cap. 30). It is to say -'old customs' as such do not guarantee the truth. 'Truth' is not just a 'habit.'
The true tradition is only the tradition of truth, traditio veritatis. This tradition, according of S. Irenaeus, is grounded in, and secured by, that charisma veritatis certum, which has been 'deposited' in the Church from the very beginning and has been preserved by the uninterrupted succession of Episcopal ministry: qui cum episcopatus successione chasisma veritati. certum acceperunt (Adv. haereses, IV.40.2). 'Tradition' in the Church is not a continuity of human memory, or a permanence of rites and habits. It is a living tradition-depositum it cannot be counted inter mortuas regulas. Ultimately, tradition is a continuity of the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, a continuity of Divine guidance and illumination. The Church is not bound by the 'letter.' Rather, she is constantly moved forth by the 'spirit.' The same Spirit, the Spirit of Ttuth, which 'spake through the Prophets,' which guided the Apostles, is still continuously guiding the Church into the fuller comprehension and understanding of the Divine truth, from glory to glory.
'Following the Holy Fathers' . . . This is not a reference to some abstract tradition, in formulas and propositions. It is primarily an appeal to holy witnesses. Indeed, we appeal to the Apostles, and not just to an abstract 'Apostolicity.' In the similar manner do we refer to the Fathers. The witness of the Fathers belongs, intrinsically and integrally, to the very structure of Orthodox belief. The Church is equally committed to the kerygma of the Apostles and to the dogma of the Fathers. We may quote at this point an admirable ancient hymn (probably, from the pen of S. Romanus the Melode). 'Preserving the kerygma of the Apostles and the dogmas of the Fathers, the Church has sealed the one faith and wearing the tunic of truth she shapes rightly the brocade of heavenly theology and praises the great mystery of piety.'(2)
The Church is 'Apostolic' indeed. But the Church is also 'Patristic.' She is intrinsically 'the Church of the Fathers.' These two 'notes' cannot be separated. Only by being 'Patristic' is the Church truly 'Apostolic.' The witness of the Fathers is much more than simply a historic feature, a voice from the past. Let us quote another hymn-from the office of the Three Hierarchs. 'By the word of knowledge you have composed the dogmas which the fishermen have established first in simple words, in knowledge by the power of the Spirit, for thus our simple piety had to acquire composition' - Τω λόγω της γνώσεως συνιστάται τα δόγματα, α το πριν εν λόγοις απλοίς κατεβάλλοντο αλιείς εν γνώσει δυνάμει του Πνεύματος, έδει γαρ και ούτω το απλούν ημών σέβας την σύστασιν κτήσασται. There are, as it were, two basic stages in the proclamation of the Christian faith. 'Our simple faith had to acquire composition.' There was an inner urge, an inner logic, an internal necessity, in this transition -from kerygma to dogma. Indeed, the teaching of the Fathers, and the dogma of the Church, are still the same 'simple message' which has been once delivered and deposited, once for ever, by the Apostles. But now it is, as it were, properly and fully articulated. The apostolic preaching is kept alive in the Church, not only merely preserved. In this sense, the teaching of the Fathers is a permanent category of Christian existence, a constant and ultimate measure and criterion of right faith. Fathers are not only witnesses of the old faith, testes antiquitatis. They are rather witnesses of the true faith, testes veritatis. 'The mind of the Fathers' is an intrinsic term of reference in Orthodox theology, no less than the word of the Holy Writ, and indeed never separated from it. As it has been well said recently, 'the Catholic Church of all ages is not merely a daughter of the Church of the Fathers -, she is and remains the Church of the Fathers.'(3)
The main distinctive mark of Patristic theology was its 'existential' character, if we may use this current neologism. The Fathers theologised, as S. Gregory of Nazianzus put it, 'in the manner of the Apostles, not in that of Aristotle' -αλιευτικώς, ουκ αριστοτελικώς (Hom. 23. 12). Their theology was still a 'message,' a kerygma. Their theology was still 'kerygmatic theology', even if it was often logically arranged and supplied with intellectual arguments. The ultimate reference was there still to the vision of faith, to spiritual knowledge and experience. Apart from life in Christ theology carries no conviction and, if separated from the life of faith, Theology may degenerate into empty dialectics, a vain polylogia, without any spiritual consequence. Patristic theology was existentially rooted in the decisive commitment of faith. It was not a self-explanatory 'discipline' which could be presented argumentatively, that is αριστοτελικώς without any prior spiritual engagement. In the age of theological strife and incessant debates, the great Cappadocian Fathers formally protested against the use of dialectics, of Aristotelian syllogisms', and endeavoured to refer theology back to the vision of faith. Patristic theology could be only 'preached' or 'proclaimed'-preached from the pulpit, proclaimed also in the words of prayer and in the sacred rites, and indeed manifested in the total structure of Christian life. Theology of this kind can never be separated from the life of prayer and from the exercise of virtue. 'The climax of purity is the beginning of theology', as S. John the Klimakos puts it: Τέλος δε αγνείας υπόθεσις θεολογίας (Scala Paradisi, grade 30).
On the other hand, theology of this type is always, as it were, 'propaideutic', since its ultimate aim and purpose is to ascertain and to acknowledge the Mystery of the Living God, and indeed to bear witness to it, in word and deed. 'Theology' is not an end in itself. It is always but a way. Theology, and even the 'dogmas', present no more than an intellectual contour' of the revealed truth, and a 'noetic' testirnony to it. Only in the act of faith is this contour' filled with content. Christological formulas are fully meaningful only for those who have encountered the Living Christ, and have received and acknowledged Him as God and Saviour, and are dwelling by faith in Him, in His body, the Church. In this sense, theology is never a self-explanatory discipline. It is constancy appealing to the vision of faith. What we have seen and have heard we announce to you.' Apart from this 'announcement' theological formulas are empty and of no consequence. For the same reason these formulas can never be taken 'abstractly', that is, out of total context of belief. It is misleading to single out particular statements of the Fathers and to detach them from the total perspective in which they have been actually uttered, just as it is misleading to manipulate with detached quotations from the Scripture. It is a dangerous habit 'to quote' the Fathers, that is, their isolated sayings and phrases; outside of that concrete setting in which only they have their full and proper meaning and are truly alive. 'To follow' the Fathers does not mean just 'to quote' them. 'To follow' the Fathers means to acquire their 'mind', their phronema.
Now, we have reached the crucial point. The name of 'Church Fathers' is usually restricted to the teachers of the Ancient Church. And it is currently assumed that their authority depends upon their 'antiquity', upon their comparative nearness to the 'Primitive, Church', to the initial 'Age' of the Church. Already S. Jerome had to contest this idea. Indeed, there was no decrease of 'authority'; and no
decrease in the immediacy of spiritual competence and knowledge, in the course of Christian history. In fact, however, this idea of 'decrease' has strongly affected our modern theological thinking. In fact, it is too often assumed, consciously or unconsciously, that the Early Church was, as it were, closer to the spring of truth. As an admission of our own failure and inadequacy, as an act of humble self-criticism, such an assumption is sound and helpful. But it is dangerous to make of it the starting point or basis of our 'theology of Church history', or even of our theology of the Church. Indeed, the Age of the Apostles should retain its unique position. Yet, it was just a beginning. It is widely assumed that the Age of the Fathers' has also ended, and accordingly it is regarded just as an ancient formation, 'antiquated' in a sense and 'archaic.' The limit of the 'Patristic Age' is variously defined. It is usual to regard S. John of Damascus as the 'last Father' in the East, and S. Gregory the Dialogos or Isidore of Seville as 'the last' in the West. This periodization has been justly contested in recent times. Should not, for instance, S. Theodore of Studium, at least, be included among 'the Fathers'? Already Mabillon suggested that Bernard of Clairvaux, the Doctor mellifluous, was 'the last of the Fathers, and surely not unequal to the earlier ones.(4) Actually, it is more than a question of periodization. From the Western point of view 'the Age of the Fathers' has been succeeded, and indeed superseded, by 'the Age of the Schoolmen', which was an essential step forward. Since the rise of Scholasticism 'Patristic theology' has been antiquated, has become actually a 'past age', a kind of archaic prelude. This point of view, legitimate for the West, has been most unfortunately, accepted also by many in the East, blindly and uncritically. Accordingly, one has to face the alternative. Either one has to regret the 'backwardness' of the East which never developed any 'Scholasticism' of its own. Or one should retire into the 'Ancient Age', in a more or less archaeological manner, and practise what has been wittily described recently as a 'theology of repetition.' The latter, in fact, is just a peculiar form of imitative 'scholasticism.'
Now, it is not seldom suggested that, probably, 'the Age of the Fathers' has ended much earlier than S. John of Damascus. Very often one does not proceed further than the Age of Justinian, or even already the Council of Chalcedon. Was not Leontius of Byzantium already 'the first of the Scholastics'? Psychologically, this attitude is quite comprehensible, although it cannot be theologically justified. Indeed, the Fathers of the Fourth century are much more impressive, and their unique greatness cannot be denied. Yet, the Church remained fully alive also after Nicea and Chalcedon. The current overemphasis on the 'first five centuries' dangerously distorts theological vision, and prevents the right understanding of the Chalcedonian dogma itself. The decree of the Sixth Ecumenical Council is often regarded as a kind of an 'appendix' to Chalcedon, interesting only for theological specialists, and the great figure of S: Maximus the Confessor is almost completely ignored. Accordingly, the theological significance of the Seventh Ecumenical Council is dangerously obscured, and one is left to wonder, why the Feast of Orthodoxy should be related to the commemoration of Church's victory over the Iconoclasts. Was it not just a 'ritualistic controversy'? We often forget that the famous formula of the Consensus quinquesaecularis, that is, actually, up to Chalcedon, was a Protestant formula, and reflected a peculiar Protestant 'theology of history.' It was a restrictive formula, as much as it seemed to be too inclusive to those who wanted to be secluded in the Apostolic Age. The point is, however, that the current Eastern formula of 'the Seven Ecumenical Councils' is hardly much better, if it tends, as it usually does, to restrict or to limit the Church's spiritual authority to the first eight centuries, as if 'the Golden Age' of Christianity has already passed and we are now, probably, already in an Iron Age, much lower on the scale of spiritual vigour and authority. Our theological thinking has been dangerously affected by the pattern of decay, adopted for the interpretation of Christian history in the West since the Reformation. The fullness of the Church was then interpreted in a static manner, and the attitude to Antiquity has been accordingly distorted and misconstrued. After all, it does not make much difference, whether we restrict the normative authority of the Church to one century, or to five, or to eight. There should be no restriction at all. Consequently, there is no room for any 'theology of repetition.' The Church is still fully authoritative as she has been in the ages past, since the Spirit of Truth quickens her now no less effectively as in the ancient times.
....continue with link below
02/16/2010
Millinerd's review of an El Greco Exhibit
“Do you know what you’re looking at?” The monk’s question, spiked with condescension, annoyed me. I had endured the expense and bureaucratic hassle to secure entry to Mount Athos, and I, so I thought, knew exactly what I was looking at. It was a fresco in the portico of the Great Lavra Monastery depicting the Seventh Ecumenical Council (at which the veneration of icons was vindicated), and I fired this information back to the inquiring monk. He was unimpressed. Years later, visiting the current exhibition at the Onassis Center, an exquisite assembly of post-Byzantine icons, I sympathized with the monk. Standing amidst a gaggle of admirers drawn by the validation of a favorable New York Times review, I looked with frustration as gallery visitors attempted to wring aesthetic messages from these irreducibly religious images. Against my better judgment, a question stirred within me, silently directed at a gallery of innocent art-lovers: “Do you know what you’re looking at?”
It is a legitimate query, because when viewing icons, we educated viewers rarely do. The problem is not our lack of education, but the nature of the one most of us received. Giorgio Vasari, the father of art history, was right about many things. But he began his Lives of the Artists by slaughtering a sacrificial lamb, the “incompetent… crude, stiff, and mediocre… dead tradition of the Greeks.” Which is to say, the very aesthetic insemination that gave us the Renaissance was, for Vasari, blank sterility. We know better now, and need no longer indulge Italian ex nihilo fantasies. In the last several decades, Byzantine art historians have permanently altered our understanding of neglected Eastern contributions to Italian art. To say this is not to denigrate undeniable Tuscan accomplishments, but only to contextualize them. Recently studied Byzantine frescoes and the discovery of icons at St. Catherine’s Monastery show that Byzantine painters in fact anticipated Cimabue and Giotto’s innovations centuries beforehand; but historical circumstances permitted these images little chance to condition the late-blooming discipline of art history, an opportunity which fell instead to Vasari. Hence, his primordial murder of the icon festers beneath this most enchanting of disciplines, and Byzantine blood, like the blood of Abel, repeatedly cries out from the art historical ground.
New York City has not been completely deaf to the sound. In 1944, the Metropolitan Museum of Art was surprised by the popularity of a show displaying copies of the mosaics of Hagia Sophia, one of which still quietly overlooks the medieval sculpture gallery. Since, the museum has been periodically clothed itself in Byzantine splendor: The Age of Spirituality (1977), The Glory of Byzantium (1997) and Byzantium: Faith and Power (2004). Sensitive to the religious nature of these items, the opening of the latter even featured the blessing of an Orthodox priest, incense and all. But what makes this next tryst in New York’s Byzantine affair so unique is its chronology. Most previous shows have, generally speaking, cauterized the Byzantine aesthetic with the end of the Empire in 1453. But The Origins of El Greco: Icon Painting in Venetian Crete bursts these academic bonds – the Vasarian vise grips - entirely. 1453 may have marked the end of the Byzantine political power, but it was a new beginning for the icon. Recent research in Venetian archives have revealed how thousands of icons were pumped into Western territories from Crete, pouring into Venice at the height of the Renaissance, flooding into Florence under Vasari’s very nose. The icon, we now know, never disappeared; it was ignored.
Some of the best of these icons are located in Heraklion, Athens, St. Petersburg, and Corfu, whose museums have generously ensured this exhibition contains some of the finest and most representative examples of such imagery. As art objects from American museums hasten, by threat of lawsuit, back to Europe, it is assuring to see the temporary reverse, thanks to magnanimous loans extended to this particular exhibition. There are far too many surprises here to relate, but each shows the persistence of the icon in an age when it was supposed to have gone away: Andreas Pavias’ crucifixion gives Northern Renaissance detailing a run for its money; Georgios Klontzas’ illustration of a Marian Hymn rivals the torque of the Baroque; a snowball of souls swells in the hand of God above an icon of David and Solomon; Arius, the fourth century heretic who confined the divine nature of Christ, is himself confined in Michael Damaskinos’ icon of the Council of Nicea; what may be a long dispersed triptych of El Greco’s is here reunited for the first time.
Some of the most sumptuous holes in the history of art are on offer in this exhibition. In a sixteenth century Virgin of the Passion, scuffs have afflicted the simple wood surface, clustering to create gold-flecked craters that no artist, however inspired, could have conceived. In a fifteenth century Noli me tangere, these wounds of time appear again, like benign gunshots in the resurrected body of Christ. We rehearse the evolution from wood to canvas and from tempera to oil, and for good reason. But the icons on display here show us what was lost in the transition. Canvas cannot age the way these wooden panels have. As with wine, so with icons: Far sweeter now than at the hour of inception.
Holes are one thing, lines another, and it is the linear quality of the late Byzantine and Cretan icons that give them their tender severity, and one can trace the gradual loss of this arresting linearity in the show. Again, we weren’t supposed to think this. The exhibition itself refers to how one Cretan artist “distance[s] himself from the rigidity of the Byzantine style.” On the contrary, we might suggest he succumbs to Venetian softness. Compare the two Virgin Lactans in the exhibition - the intentionally juxtaposed Eastern and Venetian styles – and see for yourself which of them contains more power. The Venetian Mary hints at San Sulpician sentimentality; the Eastern Mary, bare breast notwithstanding, is still the Theotokos, the all-holy bearer of God. But not for long. As Italian prints saturated the Mediterranean, late icon painters were hypnotized by Bronzino and Parmigianino, and many could not help but yield. Thanks to the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Bronzino exhibition, one can walk uptown in the same day to fathom this appeal.
And what of El Greco? He is not the point of the show as much as the bait. A similar strategy was employed this season with the opening of the spacious post-Byzantine wing of the Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens. A temporary, and not terribly impressive, Andy Warhol exhibit was displayed in conjunction with a very impressive collection of later icons, simply because recognizable names are the only way to lure a population conditioned by art history inside. If you want full blown Spanish era El Greco head to the Met or the Frick, but at the Onassis Center one can currently see something arguably better: Where he came from, and where – towards the end of his life – he returned. Here is the El Greco who complained, in the margins of his copy of Lives of the Artists, that Vasari (and generations of art historians after him) misunderstood the Byzantine style. Only here can we see how El Greco’s whirling western skies were persistently haunted by golden ones, just as art history is haunted by her hidden foundation: The icon, her Byzantine ghost.
h/t Millnerd
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