Contemplative Traditions, theory and practice - Keynote address by His Eminence Kallistos Ware

all speakers this year come from a diaspora where maybe one or two possible acceptance the Diaspora could say to have three centers America the continent and the British islands this year we celebrate the theological in tribution of the Diaspora for the future of Earth rocks theology in a special way we also celebrate the particular importance of the British islands without any doubt I would argue that the aspera has been heavily dependent on what happens and happened in the British islands it's a bit funny today to talk about the beach islands with a election going on so everyone is laughing now and continental sometimes make fun of the self-confidence at which people especially English people seem to carry with them rich insularity insightful he was famously demonstrated by the old 1940s newspaper headline fog in channel continent cut off once again this seems to be in the foreground in the present upcoming election for the House of Commons and the potential famous exit by Britain from the continent in the context of its it seems strange at Lee at least this gathering here in this background and almost funny that this year's award is more or less a celebration of British Orthodox contribution to overawe quality and East increase in studies but insularity is far from a contribution we see in orthodoxy from the British Islands instead it is characterized by openness humour belief in the future a dialogue communication and an orthodoxy open to the Western Christian world and the famous nest of office development in the British islands is now sitting here on my right hand metropolitan kallisto's he is in many ways the far of the British orthodoxy and the way we have approached Western Christianity from the of rock side and it could have been different if it wouldn't for people like Matt Bouldin kalisto's and rule of young beer and many others it has shaped an openness towards studies at universities and a way of approaching dialogue and communication that would not be self-evident without the contribution of the British Islands so instead of insularity we celebrate openness dialogue and communication this year and we cannot do it without opening this conference with metropolitan kallisto's welcome metropolitan your eminence [Applause] now I have an abstract if you would like to distribute it please to all the participants I have somewhat changed my title I say three representatives of the Russian religious Renaissance surges Bulgakov george florovsky and vladimir lossky I'll wait till you get the abstract the 20th century has been for members of the Orthodox Church a time of great suffering but also a time of renewed hope to severe trials befell the Orthodox people at the start of the century the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the Asia Minor disaster of 1922 223 followed by the tragic exchange of populations yet christ is the lord of history who in his compassion brings good out of evil this is notably the case with the 1917 Russian Revolution for as a direct result of the collapse of the Orthodox Empire of Russia and the bitter persecution of the church that followed enormous numbers of Russians fled to the west and in the Russian diaspora more particularly in Paris there occurred during the period 1920 to 1945 a remarkable flowering of Orthodox theology a creative renewal of our holy tradition from which we in the 21st century are still benefiting this afternoon I will attempt to assess three aspects of the influence of 20th century Russian theologians upon the 21st century when I was ordained priest fifty-three years ago I asked the bishop broad-range me for his guidance concerning my future ministry always have three points in your sermon he said he was not the first person to give such advice not less and not more so today I shall follow his instructions and have three points in my address actually I find that it is quite enough to have only one point in a sermon and I fear that all too many of the sermons to which we listen have no point at all when I was consecrated Bishop I likewise asked the presiding High Rock for his guidance in my future Episcopal minister II always fold up your own vestments he said don't leave it to the Deacons indeed I shall follow his instructions when I fold up my wrath on at the end of the present colloquy but for the moment they become to my three points let us reflect then on a triad of themes in the heritage of the 20th century Russian diaspora first the understanding of the immigration thinkers concerning the nature of theology and more particularly their insistence upon the connection between theology and prayer secondly their debt to the early foreigners their teaching concerning the Neo patristic synthesis and third their appreciation of the beauty of God as regards the first point I should refer particular to vladimir lossky as regards the second to arch priest george florovsky as regards the third to arch priest surges Bulgakov all three worked in Paris fallible Gourcuff was Dean of the Orthodox Institute of censor juice in Paris and here father floral ski also taught before he migrated to the United States both of them belonged to the Russian diocese in Western Europe that was under the ecumenical Patriarchate Loski for his part did not teach at the Institute of since urges for he belonged to the much smaller group in France that was a subject to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate and the two jurisdictions of the ecumenical and of the Moscow Patriarchate did not get on very well in the 1920s and 30s I remember Bishop Anthony bloomed saying to me many years later that as a young man belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate he was convinced that the Orthodox under the ecumenical Patriarchate the Russian diocese under metropolitan of Logie did not possess valid sacraments and was without divine grace he didn't hold that view later in life but but that shows you something of the spirit that prevailed at that time two of my three examples were priests one was a layman all three were buried needless to say there are many other members of the Russian immigration who also made an important contribution to the theology of the Diaspora Nicholas Vijaya for example bishop cassia Petrobras or Mir a lot Borodin Paul F da chemo father Capri and Karen to these two I shall briefly refer in due course and more recently father XR - Navin and father john meyendorff it is an impressive and brilliant constellation but among them all floral ski and vulgar Cove and Loski oh the outstanding representatives of Russian diaspora theology I'm happy to be speaking about them at this symposium in honor of father and rule of four we may regard him as a true continued ater in the 21st century all that was best in these three thinkers the first thing I look at the theme of theology and prayer the leading thinkers of the 20th century diaspora were strongly opposed to any understanding of theology that views it primarily as an academic discipline as a science that is rational and systematic in its approach on the contrary they believed that there is the integral connection an essential unity between theology and prayer between doctrine and mystical experience in the often quoted words of his address of pontus disciple of the Cappadocia and fathers and hermit in the Egyptian desert if you are a theologian you will pray in truth and if you pray in truth you are a theologian perhaps he was using the term theology in a rather different sense for what we give it today so Verdi may Loski writes at the beginning of his classic the mystical theology of the Eastern Church the Eastern tradition has never made a sharp distinction between mysticism and theology between personal experience of the divided mysteries and the dogma affirmed by the church far from being mutually opposed theology and mysticism support and complete each other one is impossible without the other if the mystical experience is a personal working out of the content of the common faith theology is an expression for the profit of all of that which cannot be experienced by everyone there is therefore no Christian mysticism without theology but above all there is no theology without mysticism incidentally I don't myself very much like the word mysticism which was never used by the fathers they spoke of mystical mystical prayer mystical contemplation but they never used the abstract noun mysticism so Loski writes the mystical element of religion is the perfecting and crown of all theology it is theology par excellence invention of loskis book calls to my mind the excellent work already mentioned by father Andrew life with a similar title the origins of the Christian mystical tradition many years ago in the bibliography to buy a book on the Orthodox Church I said that father Andrews book was excellent and I'm still of that opinion loskis understanding of theology is closely followed by the contemporary Greek religious philosopher Christos Eon arouse in the Orthodox Church and tradition he states theology has a very different meaning from the one we give it today it is a gift from God a fruit of the interior purity of the Christian spiritual life theology is identified with the vision of God with the immediate vision of the personal God with the personal experience of the Transfiguration of creation by uncreated grace theology he continues is not a theory of the world not a mystical amidst a metaphysical system but an expression and a formulation of the church's experience it is not he writes an intellectual discipline but an experiential participation a communion let us notice here the keywords personal experience interior purity the Transfiguration of the created world and the vision of God generous is making the same fundamental point as Loski all authentic theology is ultimately mystical theology generous is stress on the place of personal experience in theology recalls the threefold distinction between the different kinds of theologian that is made by son Gregory Palamas first of all he says there are the Saints those who possess personal experience of the divine and uncreated energies and they are the true theologians then secondly there are those who do not have personal experience of the divine energies or only do so to a very limited degree but who trust the Saints and they too can be good theologians thirdly there are those as Gregory Palamas who lack personal experience of the divine energies and who do not trust the saints and they are bad theologians many of us here I speak for myself do not claim to be in the first category of theologians for although called to be Saints we are all too weak and indecisive in our response to that call but we look with reverence to those who are Saints and we may hope through their prayers and by God's mercy to find a place in the second category those who put their trust in God's Holy Ones power of rational thinking is indeed a gift from God and is to be used to the full theology however is not primarily an intellectual system but rather it is a field of vision in which all things on earth are seen in their relation to things in heaven first and foremost through liturgical celebration let us keep in view the double meaning of the term orthodoxy docks are signifies on the one hand belief or opinion and on the other hand glory and praise so orthodoxy is at one at the same time both right belief in God and right glory of God in this way theology when it is truly such unites faith and worship on this interpretation of what theology is we may distinguish without separating four independent sources of interdependent sources of theology first Holy Scripture second the dogmatic writings of the fathers texts such as the five theological orations bison gregory of nazi answers or the exact exposition of the orthodox faith excesses a creavy's of the son John of Damascus all the Triads in defense of the holiest castes bison Gregory Palamas third the mystical treatises of the fathers such as the work on the life of Moses by some gregory of nyssa the areopagitica corpus the ascetic homeless by Sentai some assyrian and the hymns of divine love bison Simeon the theologian writings such as these are an important source of theology forth another source of theology is the liturgical texts contained in the service books of the church as father capri and Karen used to remark the quad s the clearness in church is a chair of theology and father Sergius Bulgakov used to affirm that he imbibed his theology from the bottom of the Eucharistic chalice I noted this connection that the standard work of Greek academic theology the three-volume dogmatix of the orthodox catholic church by Panagiotis trend bellas published in 1959 261 draws extensively on the first two of these four sources the Bible and the dogmatic writings of the fathers but it largely and deliberately ignores the third and fourth sources the mystical and liturgical texts Trombetta Sivan said that things like the Areopagus writings or sad eyes of the Syrian Orson Simeon the theologian are not theology fortunately this is not the case with the theologians of the 20th century Russian diaspora and with their successors in the 21st century who have in this way obtained a more balanced and a more profound understanding of theology than is to be found in the dogmatix of the eminent Greek professor so I still find Perrigo two-stepped rebelliousness dogmatix very useful as a work of reference but it is not exciting a second distinctive feature of the theologians of the 20th century Russian diaspora is the appeal that they make to the fathers this appeal is summed up in the slogan used by george florovsky neo patristic synthesis i do not recall this particular phrase was employed by vladimir lossky but it implies applies exactly to his best-known work the mystical theology of the Eastern Church which I have to say is exactly an example of to be of what neo patristic synthesis means the qualification neo in floral skis slogan deserves to be given full emphasis he did not regard the fathers merely as witnesses from the distant past but he sought to treat them as contemporaries thus he did not ask only what did the father say in the fourth or fifth century but what would they be saying if they were alive today we have to kindle again the creative fire of the father's he asserted his motto was not so much back to the father's but rather forward with the father's in this way floral ski was opposed to a mere theology of repetition what is required of us is a daring and creative reinterpretation of the patristic heritage applying it to the questions and problems of our own time faithfulness to holy tradition has has to be always faithfulness to living tradition we are to treat the puristic heritage not just as a venerable collection of accepted statements but we are to look beyond the letter to the inner spirit so that we acquire what for Oskie called the patristic mind the word he uses for mind is floor Nima as he insisted to follow the father's does not mean just to quote them to follow the father's means to acquire their mind therefore anima elsewhere referring to this patristic for anima Flores who spoke of the existential attitude and the spiritual orientation of the father's beneath the bewildering variety of trends and tendencies in the purest akhira we are to discern the fundamental unity and cohesion of the father's teaching that is why along with near floor Oscars the term synthesis at the Anglican Orthodox meeting in Moscow during the summer of 1976 I recall how a member of the delegates raised the question what was meant by the phrase the mind of the father's one of the Anglicans present the Reverend Marc Santa beta Bishop provided an excellent description the father's method of theology whereby theology is linked with prayer the representative of the Church of Greece present at that meeting professor John Roman Edie's endorsed this definition he didn't always agree with what other people said but at their pass he said that is precisely what I mean by the father's theological method I think that floral ski would likewise have agreed with Marc Santa in this way or his understanding of the patristic mind that the theologian is called to acquire is directly linked with the first theme of which we have spoken the connection between theology and worship in speaking of near patristic synthesis floral he is making the same basic point as Loski and Jana as that theology and mystical experience support and complete each other and the theology is to be identified with the vision of God along with his favorite phrases new patristic synthesis and the mind of the father's Flores used to speak also of Christian Hellenism he did not use this phrase in a narrowly ethnic or chauvinistic sense at the same time he believed that Hellenism under the sign of the Cross as he put it has actually become as it were I quote his words the perennial category and pattern of Christian thought and life the New Testament he pointed out is forever a Greek book and the Christian message as expressed it is definitive form by the father's makes use of Greek theology and thought forms so Russian though he was floor Oskie urged his readers let us be more Greek to be more truly ethnic to be truly Orthodox when I quit those words to a Greek audience I usually have applause floral skiers notions of near patristic synthesis and the patristic mind as also his notion of christian hellenism have undergone searching criticism in the 21st century he has been accused not without reason of oversimplification and of vagueness are there not many conflicting viewpoints in the patristic writings in speaking therefore of a synthesis in referring to the patristic mind as if there were only one such mind something single and homogeneous is he not in danger of conflated the father's with all their theological diversity too closely into a unified whole indeed by what criterion do we discern the contents of this neo patristic synthesis what doctrinal teachings does it include and what does it exclude floral ski fails to indicate this in precise and explicit terms I've also uneasy about the concept of Christian Hellenism what about the tradition of the Latin fathers and the Syriac fathers actually floral ski himself made heavy use of st. Augustine and he often quotes him he says we should render to God say to gusted as a Greek father I think he's cheating there [Music] nevertheless despite these shortcomings floor ski has provided us in general terms with an inspiring Charter for theological inquiry a charter challenging in its possibilities and deeply Orthodox in its principles certainly it is a program that has inspired me personally in my study in writing over the past 60 years three leading Greek theologians during the past half century metropolitan Jones is ulis of Pergamum father John Roman Iggy's and four and professor Christos anarres all belong in a broad sense to the movement of near patristic synthesis advocated by flora offski Metropolitan Jones azules in particular started under floral ski and dedicated his book Communion and other nurse to floor of skis memory the concept of Roby Orsini has developed by Roman Edie's birth some similarity to floral skis Christian Hellenism although Roman Edie's goes much further in his development of this theme than floor Oscar das thus with good reason it can be claimed that floor of skis influence continues to be dominant during the 21st century now I come to my third theme define beauty beauty will save the world says Prince Myshkin in dostoyevsky's novel the idiot divine beauty forms one of the light motifs in the Book of Psalms out of Zion comes the splendor of his beauty some 49 alias 50 Thanksgiving and beauty are before him Psalm 95 and of the Messianic King it is affirmed you are more fair in beauty than the sons of men here we have a third theme in the heritage of the 20th century Russian diaspora the vision of God as surpassing beauty this is a topic developed in particular by father Sergius Bulgakov in his works the icon and its veneration and the Lamb of God I should not be speaking about Bulgakov's sociology tonight because I could never understand what it's about using the threefold distinction of the gold the true and the beautiful bulgor cough rites God is good he is goodness itself God is true he is truth itself God is glorious and his glory is beauty itself God's a revelation in of himself in the Holy Trinity rites polakov god's wisdom is realized in beauty beauty is an objective principle in the world revealing to us the divine glory it reveals and renders transparently clear the meaning of the names of things things are transfigured and made luminous by beauty they become the revelation of their own abstract meaning so Wright's bulgar cause we humans Bulgakov continues are not only called to come contemplate this divine beauty but we are invited by God to extend its light throughout the created around through our active Transfiguration our active participation in the Transfiguration of the cosmos this we do in many different ways through science and technology through poetry music and art and above all through iconography writing of a broths or religious pictures another member of the Russian diaspora Nicholas CERN of states that the icons or oh brats are where I quote not merely paintings they were dynamic manifestations of man's spiritual power to redeem creation through beauty and art the colors and lines of the OU brats were not meant to imitate nature the artists aimed at demonstrating that men and animals and plants and the whole cosmos could be rescued from their present state of degradation and restored to their proper image the OU brats were pledges of the coming victory of a redeemed creation over the Fallen one the artistic perfection of an icon was not merely a reflection of the celestial glory it was a concrete example of matter restored to its original harmony and beauty and serving as the vehicle of the Spirit the icons were part of the transfigured cosmos with these words of zernov Booga cough would have been in full agreement we may ask how beauty is different from truth and goodness here I think we may reflect on the Greek word for beauty or the beautiful Carlos and that is related ativy logically to the verb Callao I call the distinctive element of beauty is that it is attractive truth and goodness are not always attractive but beauty calls out to us beauty draws us to itself and beauty in this way expresses the attractiveness of God in words parallel to those of bulgar cough another member of the Russian diaspora in Paris Paul after chemo of wrote a significant book on iconography entitled the art of the icon theology of beauty drawing the world out of nothing right served hakeem of the Creator as a divine poet composed his symphony in six days the hexa he Mehran and in each of his acts he saw that it was beautiful thereafter he move has in mind Genesis 1:31 usually translated God saw everything that he had made and behold it was very good but the term used here in the Septuagint version of Genesis is not the usual word for goodness cthis but the word kalos which means not only good but beautiful and so to convey the full text of the Genesis phrase the full sense of the Genesis text we might say and God saw everything that he had made and behold it was altogether good and beautiful after hema of adds that the beauty of the icon does not merely look back to the beginning recalling the primordial beauty of the original creation but it also looks forward to the end it possesses an eschatological significance acting says I've talked him off as an open window on the eighth day while emphasizing the joyful character of the beauty of the icon f da chemos is careful to qualify this by saying that the contemplation of the icon presupposes an ascetic culture this theology of divine beauty as expressed by F da Kimo among others has not remained merely a theoretical ideal but it was accompanied during the second half of the 20th century by recovery of the authentic tradition of iconography in Russia as we know from the 17th century and at the Greek world from the 19th century icons came to be depicted in a realistic westernizing style copying Renaissance artists such as Raphael or Murillo in the last 80 years however there has come to pass a truly inspired recovery of the aesthetic vision of Byzantine and Slav iconography of the Golden Age more especially of the 14th and 15th centuries a recovery of the testimony of pan Salinas co-founder Greek and sedan roubloff in the Greek world this recovery we might always call it an iconographic already nature chiefly with pontius contour glue who not only wrote about the theory of iconography but also applied this theory in practice through his wall paintings and his panel icons but the Russian diaspora also played its own part in the movement of renewal above all through the work of Leonid whose Pinsky who like count of glue was both a writer on the theology of the icon and equally himself a working iconographer this I canna graphical renewal alike in the Greek world in Russia and in the West continues uninterrupted also during the 21st century the beginning of a philosophy States Plato is to feel a sense of wonder but if a sense of wonder is The Fountainhead of philosophy it is equally the life-giving source of theology without this feeling of transcendent amazement we shall never be first-class scientists and we shall never be creative theologians the luminous of the Russian diaspora vladimir lossky with his insistence on the bond Beyond between theology and prayer short floor of ski with his program of neo patristic synthesis and surges Bulgakov with his dedication to divine beauty have each in his own way done much to awaken this sense of wonder throughout the Orthodox world and far beyond it all of us have serious reasons to be unfailingly grateful to them may their memory be eternal thank you [Applause]

Channel: Sankt Ignatios College

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Keywords: Sankt Ignatios, Sankt Ignatios College, Education, Theology, Stockholm School of Theology, University College Stockholm, Enskilda Högskolan Stockholm, EHS, Contemplative Traditions, Theory and Practice, Sigtuna conference, Orthodox, Christianity, Orthodoxy, Kallistos Ware, Eminence, Sergius Bulgakov, Georges Florovsky, Florovsky, Bulgakov, Vladimir Lossky, Lossky, Metropolitan Kallistos, Metropolitan, Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

Id: pnSD0NZByQs

Length: 47min 8sec (2828 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 24 2020