An Eighth-Grader on St Athanasius

I just today discovered the (to my knowledge) first issue of Remarkable Providences: The Official Newsletter of Providence Hall Classical Christian School, from the school my daughter attends, and I was struck by a piece on the back page. The students are organized into ‘houses’ (à la Harry Potter), each named after a different Father of the Church. The piece on the back is the first of a series about these houses (the rest of which I shall also post when they are printed) to be written by the prefects. This one is on St Athanasius the Great, the prefect of whose house is Lauren Hill, an eighth-grader of thirteen years! I offer it with only a slight omission, represented by the ellipsis: Lauren’s explanation of the symbolism of the Athanasius House crest.

Born in ca. AD 296, St Athanasius served to bolster the integrity of a church continuously barraged by heretics and schisms. During his tenure as Bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius studied the divinity of Christ and contributed a great deal to the early church’s catechetical instruction. Around AD 330, he was driven into exile by the Bishop of Nicomedia for insisting that there could be no fellowship between the church and one who denied the divinity of Christ. Athanasius remained in exile for the rest of his life, preaching to those who would listen and writing extensively about the church’s teaching on Christology. In ca. AD 373, the ‘Greatest Champion of Catholic Belief’ died surrounded by many other bishops, all mourning the death of such a steadfast, patient, and faithful man.

Providence Hall, being a classical Christian school, thrives not only on the examples of the ancients in their education, but draws upon the examples of the saints as well. St Athanasius, through his perseverance in exile and diligence in preaching the truth, is for students a paramount illustration of how to approach their daily work. Rather than merely ‘getting it over with’, we should diligently complete our work, and, when faced with difficult tests, essays, or presentations, desire to go above and beyond the requirements.

. . .

While it is quite satisfying to see and hear the vigorous support of the students of the House of Athanasius, it is essential that we remember the reason Athanasius has been chosen to shepherd us, albeit indirectly. Just as he called the church to God’s standards, so should we, as students, pursue excellence.

Perhaps Lauren will start her own occasionally hagiographical blog one day! In the meantime, the reverence for the Saints and remarkable prose of Lauren’s piece make it an excellent illustration of why we’ve decided to send our kids to Providence Hall.

Some Book Highlights

I think the time has now come for a brief book update. I’ve recently acquired a few titles that I had wanted for some time and about which I am therefore quite excited.

To begin with the most recent, there arrived at my door last night (rather late for a UPS delivery) a package containing Anthony Esolen’s Ironies of Faith: The Laughter at the Heart of Christian Literature (Wilmington, DE: ISI, 2007), courtesy of Bishop Savas. Attentive readers will recall that I mentioned it here, and that I intended to look into it. Well, as Providence would have it, just before that post Bishop Savas had walked into a Catholic bookstore in a strange city he was visiting, seen this book, and thought to himself, ‘I wonder if Aaron knows about this?’ Anyway, upon learning of my interest, he kindly sent it along, and now I can’t wait to read it. FMG’s blurb is certainly intriguing:

This elegantly written volume will introduce those who think that the church is an irony-free zone to a historic and literature Christianity that searches beyond superficial concepts of irony and mere sarcasm to places of paradox, wisdom, and deep understanding.

Thomas Howard’s comment teeters on the brink of hyperbole: ‘At the risk of sounding frivolous, one really wants to say, “Drop everything and read this.”’ Fortunately, the caveat rescues him somewhat, since as it turns out he’s not really saying, ‘Drop everything and read this.’

Anyway, I’m currently relishing the irony that the notoriously liberal Bishop Savas has (perhaps unwittingly?) purchased a publication of the very conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute. Should I tell him that another item in their catalogue which I own is The Clash of Orthodoxies: Law, Religion, and Morality in Crisis (Wilmington, DE: ISI, 2001), by Robert P. George (author of this)?

The immediately previous book that I will mention is The Holy Grail: History, Legend & Symbolism (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2006), by Arthur Edward Waite (whom I have discussed here). It was Charles Coulombe, primarily in this article, that first got me interested in Waite. I am curious how the eccentric occultist will attempt to discover ‘an almost ab origine claim on a concealed and super-valid mode of Eucharistic Consecration’ or ‘a Super-Apostolical Succession’ in the history of the Grail. Also, it will be interesting to consider Waite’s no doubt frequently extraordinary claims in light of the wonderfully level-headed treatment of the subject by his friend Charles Williams in ‘The Figure of Arthur’ (in Taliessin Through Logres, The Region of the Summer Stars, and Arthurian Torso, by Charles Williams and C.S. Lewis [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1980], pp. 189-274).

Next, God saw fit to send to me a book I have long desired to buy but only ever laid eyes on in libraries: C.S. Lewis’s The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (Oxford: Oxford U, 1959). This was thoughtfully obtained for me by my good friend James Kelly at the astonishing price of $2 at a sale at the Bizzell Library of the University of Oklahoma. Lewis’s The Discarded Image: An Introduction to Medieval & Renaissance Literature and his Preface to Paradise Lost are absolutely two of my all-time favourite books, and I am very excited about reading more of his studies in this area (Andrea Elizabeth has already blogged about this book—take a look through her Lewis category). The opening paragraph of the present study should be sufficient to illuminate what I find so exciting about them:

The allegorical love poetry of the Middle Ages is apt to repel the modern reader both by its form and by its matter. The form, which is that of a struggle between personified abstractions, can hardly be expected to appeal to an age which holds that ‘art means what it says’ or even that art is meaningless—for it is essential to this form that the literal narrative and the significacio should be separable. As for the matter, what have we to do with these medieval lovers—‘servants’ or ‘prisoners’ they called themselves—who seem to be always weeping and always on their knees before ladies of inflexible cruelty: The popular erotic literature of our own day tends rather to sheikhs and ‘Salvage Men’ and marriage by capture, while that which is in favour with our intellectuals recommends either frank animalism or the free companionship of the sexes. In every way, if we have not outgrown, we have at least grown away from, the Romance of the Rose. The study of this whole tradition may seem, at first sight, to be but one more example of that itch for ‘revival’, that refusal to leave any corpse ungalvanized, which is among the more distressing accidents of scholarship. But such a view would be superficial. Humanity does not pass through phases as a train passes through stations: being alive, it has the privilege of always moving yet never leaving anything behind. Whatever we have been, in some sort we are still. Neither the form nor the sentiment of this old poetry has passed away without leaving indelible traces on our minds. We shall understand our present, and perhaps even our future, the better if we can succeed, by an effort of the historical imagination, in reconstructing that long-lost state of mind for which the allegorical love poem was a natural mode of expression. But we shall not be able to do so unless we begin by carrying our attention back to a period long before that poetry was born. In this and the following chapter, I shall trace in turn the rise both of the sentiment called ‘Courtly Love’ and of the allegorical method. The discussion will seem, no doubt, to carry us far from our main subject: but it cannot be avoided. (pp. 1-2)

Finally, another gift of the generous Bishop Savas—St Basil the Great, On Social Justice, trans. Fr Paul Schroeder (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 2009)—arrived a few weeks ago. If I were not trying to read through the recent translation of St Maximus the Confessor (which I mentioned here), I would have finished this book by now. As it is, I plan to finish it and write a thorough review very soon. For now I shall just mention that so far the homilies are of course wonderful and, indeed, astonishing, though I have some misgivings about a few statements in the introduction. Also, I highly recommend the perspicacious comments on St Basil’s teaching in these homilies by my friend Justin (here).

'Prepare Thyself'—The Entry of the Theotokos & Advent

Today, 25 November on the Church’s calendar, we celebrate the Apodosis of the Feast of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple (see last year’s post here). Now, I don’t normally venture much into the realm of offering my own thoughts on spiritual matters, but I was struck by something I heard during the Vigil for the Feast last week. The second Apostichon in Tone 5 from Great Vespers (The Festal Menaion, trans. Mother Mary & Archim. Kallistos [Ware] [South Canaan, PA: St Tikhon’s Seminary, 1998], p. 171) reads:

Ann, truly blessed by God’s grace, led with gladness into the temple of the Lord the pure and ever-Virgin, who is full of grace, and she called the young girls to go before her, lamps in hand. ‘Go, Child’, she said, ‘to Him who gave thee unto me; be unto Him an offering and a sweet smelling incense. Go into the place which none may enter: learn its mysteries and prepare thyself to become the pleasing and beautiful dwelling-place of Jesus, who grants the world great mercy.’

This last line in particular—‘prepare thyself to become the pleasing and beautiful dwelling-place of Jesus’—strikes me as an appropriate thing to apply to ourselves as part of our inward observance of the Advent season. Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) of Nafpaktos notes (The Feasts of the Lord: An Introduction to the Twelve Feasts & Orthodox Christology, trans. Esther Williams [Levadia, Greece: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 2003], pp. 36-7):

According to the holy Fathers (St Gregory of Nyssa, St Maximos the Confessor, St Symeon the New Theologian, St Niketas Stethatos, etc.), what happened physically in the Panagia happens spiritually in everyone whose soul is living in virginity, that is to say, is purified of passions. Christ, who was once born in the flesh, always wants to be born in the spirit in those who wish it, and so He becomes an infant, forming Himself in them through the virtues.

. . . This conception and birth is acquired through following God’s commandments, mainly through the return of the nous to the heart and the unceasing prayer of a single word. Then the person becomes a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Another thought that occurred to me is that much of this preparation must involve listening to God’s Word (at least partly in the sense described in this post). As the first verse at the Alleluia in Tone 8 after the Epistle in the Liturgy for the Feast says, ‘Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear (Ps. 44:11)’ (Menaion, p. 197). Then of course there follows the reading from Luke 10:38-42, 11:27-28, where is emphasised the virtue of St Mary of Bethany ‘which also sat at Jesus’ feet, and heard His word (Lk 10:39)’ (Menaion, p. 129). It seems to me, of course, that this is greatly assisted by, if it does not require, the observation of Advent in the spirit that I have suggested here—i.e., lessening our activity and turning off our televisions, even postponing the Marthan hospitality (in the form of premature ‘Christmas parties’) that Bl Theophylact calls ‘a great virtue which ought not to be scorned’ because ‘it is even greater to give heed to spiritual words’ like St Mary (The Explanation by Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria of the Holy Gospel According to St Luke, Vol. III of Bl Theophylact’s Explanation of the New Testament, trans. Fr Christopher Stade [House Springs, MO: Chrysostom, 1997], p. 121). As Bl Jerome says (The Orthodox New Testament, Vol. 1: The Holy Gospels, trans. Holy Apostles Convent [Buena Vista, CO: Holy Apostles Convent, 1999], p. 333, n. 222):

Be then like Mary; prefer the food of the soul to that of the body. Leave it to thy sister to run to and from and to seek how she may fitly welcome Christ. But do thou, having once and for all cast away the burden of the world, sit at the Lord’s feet and say, ‘I have found Him Whom my soul loves: I held Him, and did not let Him go’ [Song 3:4].

It is interesting to note that this theme of the coming of Christ into the individual soul as a parallel to Advent is not unknown to the West, where it is particularly associated with those strict observers of St Benedict’s Rule, the early Cistercians. Here, for example, is an insightful passage from the Second Sermon for Advent of Guerric of Igny (The Cistercian World: Monastic Writings of the Twelfth Century, trans. Pauline Matarasso [London: Penguin, 1993], pp. 133-2):

It may now happen, therefore, that the Lord will come to you before his actual advent; he may visit you in person before he arrives for all the world to see. . . . And whether to reward desert or ardent striving, this coming of the Lord to the individual soul is frequent in this middle time between his first and final comings, conforming us to the first and preparing us for the last. Assuredly he comes to us now to ensure that his first coming will not have been in vain, and to avoid having to meet us at the last in wrath. In this middle advent he is intent on reforming our spirit of pride and patterning us anew on the humility he showed forth at his first coming, so that one day he may also transfigure our lowly body into the likeness of his glorious body which he will reveal when he comes again. This personal visitation, which imparts to us the grace of the first advent and holds promise of the glory of the last, should be the object of our heart’s desire, the goal of all our striving. And because God loves mercy and truth, he, the Lord, will give grace and glory, bestowing grace on us through his mercy and through truth restoring glory.

Moreover, just as the spiritual advent falls in time midway between the two corporeal comings, so too in essence it partakes equally in each, poised like a mediator between the two. The first coming was hidden and humble; the last will be manifest and marvelous this one indeed is hidden, but also wonderful. We call it hidden, not because the one who is visited is unaware, but because the Lord comes secretly. . . . Unseen and unperceived he comes and goes, he who alone, while present, is the light of the soul and mind, the light by which, invisible, he is seen and, inconceivable, perceived.

'In Her Was All Manner of Philosophy'—St Catherine of Alexandria

Today, 24 November on the Church’s calendar, we celebrate the memory of the Great Martyr Catherine of Alexandria. I posted on St Catherine for her feastday last year (here), so I’ll just add one or two things to what I offered there. First, here is the account of her life in the Prologue (St Nicholas [Velimirović], The Prologue from Ochrid, Vol. 4, trans. Mother Maria [Birmingham: Lazarica, 1986], p. 235):

The daughter of King Constus, she lived with her mother in Alexandria after her father’s death. Her mother was secretly a Christian and, through her spiritual father, brought Katharine to the Christian faith. In a vision, St Katharine received a ring from the Lord Jesus Himself as a sign of her betrothal to Him. This ring remains on her finger to this day. Katharine was greatly gifted by God, exceptionally well-educated in Greek philosophy, medicine, rhetoric and logic, and added great physical beauty to this. When the wicked Emperor Maxentius offered sacrifice to idols and ordered everyone to do the same, St Katharine came with daring before him and denounced his idolatrous errors. The Emperor, seeing that she surpassed him in wisdom and learning, summoned fifty of the wisest men, to dispute with her about faith and put her to shame, but Katharine was wiser than they, and put them to shame. The furious Emperor commanded that all fifty wise men be burned. These wise men, at St Katharine’s prayers, all confessed the name of Christ at the moment of death, and proclaimed themselves Christians. When the martyr was in prison, she brought Porphyrius the general, with two hundred of his soldiers, to the Faith, and also the Empress, Augusta-Vasilissa. They all suffered for Christ. At St Katharine’s martyrdom, an angel of God appeared to her, stopping and breaking the wheel on which she was being tortured, and after that the Lord Christ Himself appeared to her, strengthening her. After many tortures, Katharine was beheaded with the sword at the age of eighteen, on November 24th, 310. Milk flowed from her body in place of blood. Her wonderworking relics are preserved on Sinai.

This article, by one Paul Carus in a 1907 issue of The Open Court, points out that the earliest reference to St Catherine is in a 9th-c. document called the Menologium Basilianum, and reads as follows:

The martyr Aikaterina was the daughter of a rich and noble prince of Alexandria. She was very beautiful, and being at the same time highly talented, she devoted herself to Greek literature as well as to the study of the languages of all nations, and so she became wise and learned. And it happened that the Greeks held a festival in honor of their idols; and seeing the slaughter of animals, she was so greatly moved that she went to the King Maximinus and expostulated with him in these words: ‘Why hast thou left the living God to worship lifeless idols?’ But the Emperor caused her to be thrown into prison, and to be punished severely. He then ordered fifty orators to be brought, and bade them to reason with Aikaterina, and confute her, threatening to burn them all if they should fail to overpower her. The orators, however, when they saw themselves vanquished, received baptism, and were burnt forthwith, while she was beheaded.

Holy Transfiguration Monastery’s Great Horologion (Boston: HTM, 1997), p. 322, clarifies a potential point of confusion over the date:

According to the ancient usage, Saints Catherine and Mercurius were celebrated on the 24th of this month, whereas the holyh Hieromartyrs Clement of Rome and Peter of Alexandria were celebrated on the 25th. The dates of the feasts of these Saints were interchanged at the request of the Church and Monastery of Mount Sinai, so that the festival of Saint Catherine, their patron, might be celebrated more festively together with the Apodosis of the Feast of the Entry of the Theotokos. The Slavic Churches, however, commemorate these Saints on their original dates.

In regards to my earlier post, I’d like to repeat the interesting point that this woman, who has left no written works behind her, has nevertheless traditionally been considered the patron Saint of scholars and philosophers (she is, for instance, the patron of Balliol College, Oxford). Here is a passage from the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine (William Caxton's translation) discussing her philosophical virtues:

First she appeared marvellous in wisdom, in her was all manner of philosophy. Philosophy is divided in three, in theory, in practice, and in logic. Theory is divided in three, that is intellectual, natural, and mathematical. The blessed Katherine had science intellectual in knowledge of things divine, of which she used against the masters, to whom she proved to be but one very God only, and convanquished all the false gods. Secondly, she had science natural of which she used in disputing against the emperor. Thirdly, she had science mathematical, that is a science that be holdeth the forms and the manner of things, and this science had she in despising the earthly things, for she withdrew her heart from all earthly matter. She showed to have this science when she answered to the emperor, when he demanded who she was, and said: I am Katherine, daughter of king Costus, and how she had been nourished in purple. And hereof used she when she enharded the queen to despise the world and herself, and to desire the reign perdurable. The practice is divided in three manners, in ethic, economic, and politic. The first teacheth to inform manners and adorn him with virtues, and that appertaineth to all men. The second teacheth to rule and govern well his meiny, and that appertaineth to them that have men to govern. The third appertaineth to the governors of cities, for she teacheth to govern the peoples, the cities, and the commons. And these three sciences had the blessed Katherine. First, she had in herself all honesty of manners; secondly, she ruled her meiny laudably, which was left to her, thirdly, she informed wisely the emperor. Logic is divided in three, in demonstrative, in probable, and in sophistical. The first pertaineth to philosophers, the second to rhetors and logicians, and the third to sophisters, and these three sciences had Katherine in her, for she disputed with the emperor.

Finally, I shall now, as promised, offer something from the beautiful blog, Under the Oak. The resident blogger there, an Irish Orthodox lady fittingly named Brigit, has discovered an Old Irish poem in praise of St Catherine (here is Brigit’s post, which also features the Irish text; here is her source):

Réalta an chruinne Caitir Fhíona
(Star of the world, Catherine)
Author unknown
Meter: snéadbhairdne

Star of the world, Catherine,
the helper of the Greeks,
Helping the chosen children, saving each,
there at their dying.

Catherine, honored daughter,
branch of virtue,
a face like fresh appleblossom,
green brow.

A green brow on the Greek king's daughter
not captured by a suitor—
in the shade of her cheeks is brightness
and a berry's color.

Berry's color and sun's garland
in crimson cheeks—
many a knee bending from the source
in tufted locks.

In the shape of her curved eyes, Catherine
is not surpassed by Greek women.
Curved eyes do not look at a young man—
bright-toothed dark mouth.

Face like an apple, breast like a swan,
a virgin not violated.
Down is not brighter than her shining white hand—
green eyes, bright cheeks.

The virgin with her cheeks will not be found
without my suit;
stretch your cloak over my madness,
son of Mary.

Brigid of Ireland and Scotland,
the virgin of the islands—
she is the misty-bright flower of the young women,
coral-collared.

Athrachta, helper of Limerick—
speedy enough
is the white-soled young woman of the Boyle,
wax candle.

Gentle white Ciaran, Columcille—
gentle the company—
Patrick, Martin, Mongan, Manann,
Coman, Coireall.

The Trinity, great Mary and Michael—
sunny band—
eleven thousand noble virgins of the Boyle,
flower of pure virgins.

'On the Outside Struggle, on the Inside Serenity'—St Alexander Nevsky

Today, 23 November on the Church’s calendar, we celebrate the memory of St Alexander Nevsky (1263)—in schema Alexis—grand prince of Vladimir. Helene Iswolsky speaks of his ‘heroic valor, exemplary life, and devotion to his faith’ (Christ in Russia: The History, Tradition, & Life of the Russian Church [Milwaukee: The Bruce, 1960], p. 50). Noting that St Alexander was an exception to the general weakness of the princes of 13th-c. Vladimir, John Fennell writes, ‘Not only was he canonized, but he was also regarded throughout Russian history as the great Russian warrior, indeed by some as the saviour of Russia . . .’ (A History of the Russian Church to 1448 [London: Longman, 1995], p. 122). In the Tale of the Life & Courage of the Pious & Great Prince Alexander in the Second Pskovian Chronicle, a Westerner who visited St Alexander is said to have returned to his people telling them, ‘I went through many countries and saw many people, but I have never met such a king among kings, nor such a prince among princes’ (Serge A. Zenkovsky, ed. & trans., Medieval Russia’s Epics, Chronicles, & Tales, rev. & enlarged ed. [NY: Meridian, 1974], p. 227). Here is the account of his life in the Prologue (St Nicholas [Velimirović], The Prologue from Ochrid, Vol. 4, trans. Mother Maria [Birmingham: Lazarica, 1986], p. 232):

The son of Prince Yaroslav, his heart was drawn to God from his youth. He overcame the Swedes on the river Neva on July 15th, 1240, whence he took the name ‘of the Neva’ [Nevsky]. On that occasion, Ss Boris and Gleb appeared to one of Alexander’s generals and promised their aid to the great prince, their kinsman. Among the Golden Horde of the Tartars, he refused to sacrifice to idols or pass through fire. The Tartar Khan valued him for his wisdom, and his physical strength and beauty. He built many churches, and performed innumerable works of mercy. He entered into rest at the age of forty-three [having been clothed in the great schema], on November 14th, 1263 . . .

According to the Tale, St Alexander—

was taller than others and his voice reached the people as a trumpet, and his face was like the face of Joseph, whom the Egyptian Pharaoh placed as the next king after him in Egypt [Gen. 41ff]. His power was a part of the power of Samson and God gave him the wisdom of Solomon and his courage was like that of the Roman King Vespasian, who conquered the entire land of Judea. (Zenkovsky, p. 226)

Christopher Dawson has suggested, and lamented, that in the historical transition from pagan to Christian kingship in northern Europe, ‘the heroic ethos’ associated with the king was lost. Thus, he writes, ‘The royal saints of Anglo-Saxon England were, for the most part, men who were defeated in battle by the pagans, like St Oswald and St Edwin, or men who resigned their crowns to become monks, like St Sebi, of whom it was said that he ought to have been a bishop rather than king’ (p. 73). Dawson considers St Olaf of Norway a rare ‘authentic representative of the Northern heroic tradition’ (Religion & the Rise of Western Culture [Garden City, NY: Image, 1958], p. 96). It strikes me that if Ss Boris and Gleb could be compared to the English Saints Dawson mentions, St Alexander, like St Olaf, is more in line with the heroic ethos, reminding one of the legendary connections of the early Russian rulers to Scandinavia.


He is certainly a champion of Orthodox Russia against the encroachments of Catholicism. Concerning St Alexander’s battle with the ‘pseudo missionary’ Teutonic Knights, there is reproach even in the estimation of the Roman Catholic writer Helene Iswolsky:

Though not supported by the Holy See, they had been called to the Baltic by Bishop Albert and claimed to bring Christianity to the pagans by ‘sword and fire’. After completing the conquest of the seashore, they marched on the land of Russ ignoring the fact that its people had been Christian for more than one hundred fifty years, and regarding them as merely ‘schismatics’. (pp. 48-9)

Of course Iswolsky is quick to claim that in the 13th c. ‘it was not so much dogmatic conflicts, as the differences of rite and liturgical customs which the Russians and the Germans held against each other’ (p. 50). But it is a claim contradicted by an interesting story related in the Tale, a text Zenkovsky notes (p. 225) received its final form already within 20 years of the Saint’s repose:

Once there came to him the envoys of the Pope from Great Rome saying: ‘Our Pope spaketh the following: I have heard that thou art worthy and glorious and that thy land is great. Therefore I send to thee Golda and Gemond, two most wise out of my twelve cardinals, to give you the opportunity of hearing their teaching about Divine Law.’

But Prince Alexander, after consulting with his wise men, answered him, saying:

‘From Adam to the Flood;
from the Flood to the confounding of the languages;
from the confounding of the languages to the birth of Abraham;
from Abraham to the crossing of the Red Sea by the children of Israel;
from the Exodus of the sons of Israel to the death of King David;
from the beginning of the reign of Solomon to the time of Augustus, the Emperor;
from the beginning of the time of Augustus to the birth of Christ;
from the birth of Christ to the Passion and Resurrection of the Lord;
from his Resurrection to his Ascension into heaven;
from his Ascension into heaven to the reign of Constantine;
from the beginning of the reign of Constantine to the First Council;
from the First Council to the Seventh Council,
all the happenings we know well, all of this [sacred history],
and we do not accept your teaching.’

And they returned home empty-handed. (Zenkovsky, pp. 233-4)

St Alexander must be one of the few Saints to have been the subject of a film featuring a respected director as well as a respected composer—Sergei Eisenstein’s Alexander Nevsky (1938), with a score by Sergei Prokofiev. I highly recommend this movie—though he seems not wholly to approve, Fr Anthony Ugolnik points out that despite being a ‘product of “socialist realism”’, in Eisenstein’s film ‘the hero is . . . invested with religious symbolism’ (The Illuminating Icon [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989], p. 254)—but even I must admit that there is some truth to Iswolsky’s characterization of its portrayal of the Catholics as ‘crude’ (p. 49)! Of course there is also a very recent film about St Alexander (HT Andrew Cusack)—Alexander: Battle of the Neva (2008). Judging by the trailer, it looks very exciting indeed!

Here is the apostichon in Tone 2 at Glory from Great Vespers for the Feast of the Translation of St Alexander’s relics (Vigils of the Saints Vladimir & Alexander Nevsky [Bussy-en-Othe, France: Orthodox Monastery of the Veil of Our Lady, n.d.], p. 26):

Come all ye Russian ranks and praise ye the good chief captain; ye powers praise the wise administrator; ye soldiers the bravest of warriors; ye lovers of Orthodoxy a firm confessor ready to be a martyr. Obey your leader and submit, and having seen his end, imitate his faith.

The Troparion of the Feast in Tone 4 offers an interesting extension of the Tale’s comparison of the Holy Prince to the Righteous Joseph the All-Comely:

O Prince Alexander, thou Russian Joseph, reigning not in Egypt but in Heaven, recognize thy brethren and also receive their supplications, increasing, by thy gift for making thy land bear fruit, the corn of its people, fencing thy princely city with prayers and fighting against the adversary for thy heirs, the people who are faithful to God. (p. 26)

Furthermore, it is interesting to note the emphasis in the stichera at Lauds (in Tone 8) on St Alexander’s greater esteem for the heavenly kingdom than for the earthly:

O most glorious wonder! He who is master of the world leaves the world. He who bears the Russian scepter lays it aside; he takes off his purple and covers himself with a burial pall; his head is crowned with a royal diadem that he puts off himself, and he leaves the temporal kingdom on this earth assured of the eternal Kingdom in Heaven where he is crowned with a royal crown. (p. 33)

I conclude with St Nicholas’s ‘Hymn of Praise’ for St Alexander from the Prologue, where we see the implications of the Saint’s piety—as displayed particularly in his tonsure—elabourated in an interesting way:

A knight of Christ, St. Alexander,
A prince of the people and servant of the Lord—
Ruler on earth and slave of the Almighty—
This was the life of Nevsky.
On the outside opulence, on the inside weeping;
On the outside struggle, on the inside serenity;
On the outside illusion, on the inside truth.
Christ was the prize of this hero,
Both in war and deceptive peace.
In torment, Christ was his joy,
In suffering, Christ was his assurance,
In victory, Christ was the victor,
And in death, Christ was his Resurrector!
To him, in both worlds, all was Christ!
He was the end; He was the living goal.
The pious prince was an exemplar to his people,
Of how one should serve the Lord.
O holy Prince, help us also,
By your brilliant power, by your holy prayers!

New Book by Fr Justin (Popovich)

In partial payment for a little proof-reading job I did, Bishop Maxim of the Western American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church has just sent me a copy of their newest publication, Archimandrite Justin (Popovich), Man & the God-Man (Alhambra, CA: Sebastian, 2009), which the Publisher’s website refers to as an ‘anthology of neopatristic syntheses’ (here). Like their previous work (which I mention here), it is a lovely volume—somewhat slim, softbound, with a beautiful mosaic of the face of Christ on the cover. With, as far as I can tell, one exception—‘Sentenced to Immortality: A Homily on the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ’ (pp. 39-43)—, it is all material that has appeared in English before. A number of the pieces, however, are only available in the somewhat rare The Struggle for Faith: A Treasury of Serbian Orthodox Spirituality, vol. 4, trans. Rev. Todor Mika & Rev. Stevan Scott (Grayslake, IL: New Gracanica, 1999). Here is a complete list of the contents:

Preface by Bishop Athanasius (Jevtić)

Perfect God & Perfect Man: Christ is Born!—Hristos se Rodi! (A Nativity Epistle)

The God-man: The Foundation of the Truth of Orthodoxy

The Supreme Value & Infallible Criterion

Sentenced to Immortality: A Homily on the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ

Humanistic & Theanthropic Culture

Humanistic & Theanthropic Education

The Theory of Knowledge of St Isaac the Syrian

A Deer in a Lost Paradise: A Confession

List of Sources

Bibliography of Fr Justin Popovich’s Works

The real surprise is all of the photographs that I’ve never seen published before, plus a large number of icons of Fr Justin, nearly all from Serbia, printed in full colour. This section of the book will be a special treat for all who revere the memory of the great Serbian ‘Abba’ and theologian of the twentieth century, of whom Bishop Athanasius writes in his Preface:

Fr Justin (Popovich) was a deep, multifaceted, Christ-like person—a man of Pauline, biblical, and patristic stature and breadth. He would say of both the Apostle Paul and Dostoevsky that they reached from the bottom of hell to the peak of the third heaven, perhaps because he himself possessed such breadth and dimension. In him was manifested a well-rounded—or, better to say, fully rounded—man, a thinker and philosopher, a wise man and theologian, a struggler and ascetic seer of inexhaustible energy, an evangelical penitent and apocalyptic Christologian (as he was recently called by the monks of Hilandar), a spiritually inspired writer and priestly liturgizer of the Most-High God. Above all else he was an unwavering witness—a true martys (=lifelong confessor=martyr) of Christ the God-man, the All-Wise Creator, God the Son and Logos, the God-sent Messiah and Savior Who came voluntarily into the world and became incarnate as a human being, the historical Jesus Christ, the Divine and Man-loving Restorer, the One worshipped both by man and by the world, by all things created and existing in all realms belonging to God as well as in our very own, however many there may be—the One worshipped as both Savior and salvation, as both the Venerated and the veneration of His Church, that very Church which is a Theanthropic Community, the Body of the God-man, the unity and oneness of all creation with the Living and True God, in the grace of the Holy Spirit, in eternal communion with the Being and Life and Love of the Holy Trinity. (p. 7)

Quo Vadis, Logismoi?

I am pleased to announce, dear readers, that today marks the one-year anniversary of Logismoi (see my inaugural post here). I bring this up, not to toot my own horn, but primarily because it raises a slight problem that has concerned me from time to time over the course of the year. Because so many of my posts concern Saints and Feasts celebrated on a given day, and because so many of those are determined not only by importance but also by my access to resources interesting enough to my mind to warrant a post, I am somewhat at a loss as to how to proceed as those days begin to occur again.

Tomorrow, for instance, is the Feast of the Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple as well as of St Columbanus. Ordinarily I would post about one or both of these, but unfortunately I have already done so (see here and here)! So do I simply repost the original posts, go to the trouble of finding new material (even though I have often used up all of my best stuff the first time round) and maybe include a link to the original post, post on another Saint on that day (often a difficult prospect—I don’t wish simply to copy and paste the Prologue or, worse, the OCA ‘Saint’s Life’ for the day!), or post on something else, ignoring what is often in fact a very important commemoration for the day? If I take the last option, I may find myself posting a good deal less often since I may be hard-pressed to come up with suitable non-hagiographical material every day. If I take the first, it seems like long-time readers are getting cheated.

Well, I welcome, nay, plead for, suggestions. Your two cents may well determine much of the future direction of Logismoi!

In the meantime, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge a blog that I will likely be making much greater use of in the future, and really, that I should not have neglected to make use of before now: the lovely ‘Under the Oak’, a blog ‘dedicated to the saints of Ireland, especially to our national patroness, Saint Brigid of Kildare’ (also the patroness of my lovely wife!). If I’m not careful, I may wind up simply reposting Brigit’s wonderful material as a solution to my anniversary problem mentioned above. Only the forgetfulness arising during a thirteen-day calendar difference can account for my forgetting to link to her material on St Martin of Tours, here, here, and here (Brigit appears to be on the Old Calendar, but for some reason is posting about the Saints on their New Calendar days—perhaps anticipating a largely RC audience?). I have no such excuse for neglecting—in my own Advent post—her posts here and here on the Advent Fast in the Irish Church.

As a sampling of her delightful wares, here is the third of Brigit’s posts on St Martin:

Professor Michael Lapidge has published the text of a hymn to Saint Martin, which although it has been preserved in a collection of materials called the pseudo-Bede Collectaneum published in Basle in 1543, is felt by Lapidge to be of Irish provenance. The prayer to Saint Martin is one of a group of six which have identifiable links with early insular prayerbooks, but scholars have long felt that many of the prayers in Anglo-Saxon prayerbooks derive from Irish sources. Lapidge argues that this prayer to St Martin has obviously originated outside France since it calls for protection against shipwreck for visiting pilgrims, and since early England does not have a literary tradition of veneration of Saint Martin, Ireland is the most likely point of origin. The author goes on to argue for a seventh-century date, based on linguistic analysis and comparisons with other Irish hymns of that period. Lapidge's paper gives only the Latin text, but below is a translation by David Howlett, with some accompanying notes.

Deus Domine Meus 'A New Hiberno-Latin Hymn on Saint Martin'

1. God, my Lord, I am the one responsible for Your death: be patient now with me, who are strong and powerful.
2. I adjure the true God, always one and triune, that I may have power now to go to Saint Martin.
3. I ask now the King of Kings, Who is divine light, that I may be able now, just to visit Saint Martin.
4. Christ, God of gods, Whose majesty is wondrous, make me to lament, healed, before Saint Martin.
5. Direct the way clearly, O Nazarene Jesu, so that I may be able excellently to bewail sins there.
6. For me an aid through shipwreck will be the support of Christ's soldier Martin.
7. I wish to visit you; make me come to you, who are of such great virtue, O my Saint Martin.
8. O my Saint Martin, intercede now, I beg, for me, grieving ill, burdened by the disgrace of sins.
9. O my Saint Martin, for me now intercede, lest the wisps of flame of perennial punishment touch me.
10. O my Saint Martin, beloved of the throng of the heavens, lest I be a sharer of punishment help me.
11. O my Saint Martin, help me that I may enjoy at the end the perennial bread of life.
12. Glory to You, Father, Who are Brother and Mother.

Notes

The first 5 stanzas are addressed to God. The central sixth stanza describes the aid of Saint Martin against shipwreck on the journey from the poet's home, presumably in Ireland, and the shrine of Saint Martin, presumably at Tours. The last 5 stanzas are addressed to Saint Martin. The doxology is addressed to God. The most appropriate occasions for recitation of this hymn might be the two principal feasts of Saint Martin, 4 July and 11 November.

David Howlett, The Celtic Latin Tradition of Biblical Style, (Dublin, 1995), 183-186.