The Orthodoxy of England before 1066

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Daniel
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Post by Daniel »

CGW wrote:

...I find sprinkled around various self-proclaimed Orthodox information sites the assertion that the Norman conquest changed England from Orthodox to Roman Catholic. Those of us who are students of the period know this to be the sheerest nonsense

Care to refute or clarify this? I am curious what it was that turned England from Orthodox to Latin.

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CGW
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UnOrthodox England

Post by CGW »

Daniel wrote:
CGW wrote:

...I find sprinkled around various self-proclaimed Orthodox information sites the assertion that the Norman conquest changed England from Orthodox to Roman Catholic. Those of us who are students of the period know this to be the sheerest nonsense

Care to refute or clarify this? I am curious what it was that turned England from Orthodox to Latin.

Before I begin, let me state a few qualifications. I am myself an amateur, and specifically of the late Saxon period. My specific interests run earlier, from the 600s up to 800 or so. If I need heavier weaponry, as it were, I do know a PhD in Old English literature to draw on, however.

Now, the very phrase "from Orthodox to Latin" is in a critical sense nonsense. As far as rite is concerned, England was Latin well before 1066, and before that it was Celtic. Eastern rites were never used in Britain until quite recently (by Eastern immigrants and, one supposes, chanceries). The celtic rite was suppressed through the Council of Whitby, a council which, as it happens, precedes the development of Eastern rites into their present appearance. There is a certain vagueness surrounding the difference between Celtic and Roman practice, but it's clear that the Celts didn't have iconostases and numerous litanies inserted into their rite.

As far as theology is concerned, I doubt that the question can be definitively answered. The problem is the timeframe. 1054 to 1066 is a blink of an eye as far as documentation of the period is concerned; establishing the spread of the filioque on the continent is hard enough, on those terms. But it is certain that the Normans and Saxons were in every sense part of a church which was as uniform in practice as it could be in that period (which is to say, not all that uniform). The English church was not a separate jurisdiction, either before or after the conquest. And it cannot be said to have a theological system separate from that of Rome itself.

Daniel
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Re: UnOrthodox England

Post by Daniel »

CGW wrote:

Now, the very phrase "from Orthodox to Latin" is in a critical sense nonsense.

Then maybe we should qualify these terms first.

Orthodox is easy, every one knows it means 'right glory'. This obviously is irrespective of liturgical practices. Even in the East there have been several litgurical practices. The Coptic is differnt from the Ethiopian and so on and so forth, and then those are different from the Byzantine.

By Latin, I mean, quite frankly, 'heretical'. Maybe a better word would be 'Frankish'.

So, when I say 'Orthodox to Latin' I mean from holding the True Faith to hold a heretical faith.

I have been told by Byzantine studies student that after the Norman conquest that some of the English soldiers went to Constantinople to fight for the Emperor, as opposed to staying and fighting for a heretic.

Savva24
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Re: UnOrthodox England

Post by Savva24 »

CGW wrote:

Now, the very phrase "from Orthodox to Latin" is in a critical sense nonsense. As far as rite is concerned, England was Latin well before 1066, and before that it was Celtic. Eastern rites were never used in Britain until quite recently (by Eastern immigrants and, one supposes, chanceries). The celtic rite was suppressed through the Council of Whitby, a council which, as it happens, precedes the development of Eastern rites into their present appearance. There is a certain vagueness surrounding the difference between Celtic and Roman practice, but it's clear that the Celts didn't have iconostases and numerous litanies inserted into their rite.

.

Dear CGW,

I don't think anyone who makes the claim that England went from Orthodox to Latin in that time period was ever talking about the rite of services going from Eastern to Western. That would be a pretty rediculous assumption; whether they were wholly or partly Latin or more Celtic in rite makes no difference. What we are talking about is oneness of faith, untouched by Latin heresies, between pre-Norman England and the Orthodox East. What I remember reading when I was in highschool in some non Orthodox historical sourses was that the Pope was very invested in a Norman victory so as to ensure his extent to the Brittish Isles.

This is a very interesting topic and would love to continue the disscussion if you wouldn't mind. I hope we can discuss in a friendly and edifying environment where we both could learn. Perhaps Nicholas can cut off the last several posts here and move them to a new topic entitled something like, ''The Orthodoxy of England before 1066''.

Thank you,

In Christ,

Nicholas (savva)

Bogatyr
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Trondheim.

Post by Bogatyr »

The norman conquest was as much a roman conquest as it was a frankish conquest. The conquest was blessed by the pope. The English church prior to 1066 was dependent upon Trondheim which remained LOYAL to Constantinople until the 14TH century. This is the reason WHY there was a vast Anglo-Saxon immigration after the conquest to places like Kievan Rus', Constantinople and Norway. The Varangians and Saxon Britons were kin. Meyendorff writes of the Varangian legion in Constantinople. Many Saxons became members of it.
ORTHODOXIA I THANATOS!
Rostislav Mikhailovich Malleev-Pokrovsky

OrthodoxyOrDeath

Post by OrthodoxyOrDeath »

There was never any such thing as a Western or Eastern "rite". It was all simply the same, which just so happen to be what the Orthodox still use.

If anyone would like to speak of a Western "rite", please explain exactly what that was.

Bogatyr
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Rites

Post by Bogatyr »

Specifically what they mean are the local adaptations of the two main liturgical traditions, the Antiochian and the Alexandrian. The West did indeed have local variants of BOTH traditions. The Church Of Rome and her liturgy were initially under the heavy influence of the North African Church. Their liturgy was Alexandrian in character. Later immigrations and influences tempered it--for instance the Greek immigrations of the 7TH century--where Antiochian elements were added. Today's roman "rite" then is a product of that evolution. This became the liturgical tradition of the West when Rome began to centralize ecclesiastical power. In other parts of the West, prior to this, the liturgical tradition was definitely Antiochian with various local adaptations, the Gallican, the Mozarabic, the Milanese. The Milanese was the most Byzantinized and most beautiful. The Celtic liturgy is still interesting in really labelling, because most of it is not extant. What has come down to us suggests a composite form, much like the early rite of Rome with heavy Alexandrian elements as most of the evangelizers were either Egyptian monks or had professed in Egyptian monasteries. All these variant liturgies were eventually abolised or romanized.
The Church of Africa ascribed to the Alexandrian Tradition which has for the most part perished in Byzantine Orthodoxy. The rest of the East ascribed to the Antiochian tradition, of which Byzantine liturgics are a local adaptation and what truly survives in Byzantine Orthodoxy, the only purer Antiochian Liturgy left is that of St. James.
Orthodoxia I Thanatos!
Rostislav Mikhailovich Malleev-Pokrovsky

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