The Orthodoxy of England before 1066

[Bogatyr]

:ohvey: Firstly, when Russians or Byzantines used the term "varangian", they specifically referred to the rulers of Russia, who were the Ruriks with whom they had contacts. Primary Russian Chronicle, Kluchevsky, Vernadsky, Meyendorff, Pospielowsky, Hrushevsky, et al...read. The codexes you reference DON'T address the Varangians from the Eastern perspective. They were latin and frankish documents. When the Easterners met the Varangians they knew them as rulers who united the country of Rus' and later organized campaigns against Constantinople before being converted in 988 then formed a Varangian legion in Constantinople.
The flowering of Rus' under Jaroslav the Wise produced a pious and Orthodox Kingdom. Primary Chronicle, Kluchevsky, Vernadsky, Meyendorff, Pospielowsky, Hrushevsky, et al...read.
Moss makes clear that a Saxon immigration left after the conquest and some left for Russia with whom their royal house was intermarried, whilst others joined the Varangian legion in Constantinople. The grandmother of Grand Prince Vladimir Monomakh was none other than the daughter of the last Saxon king of England.
The crusades and the religious fervour of Western Europe are readily apparent by any reading of any given, non-revisionist historian. I would recommend Runciman. The era we are talking about is the era of Peter the Hermit and the First Crusade, which was driven by religious fanaticism, not exploitation or material interests. This was an era of great faith in Britain and on the continent. Again, I would refer you to Moss, Runciman, Fr. Hilarion of New Amalfion Monastery in Texas, et al. Read.
The pope also authorized crusades against "schismatics" who would not accept the absolute authority of hildebrand. There were indeed Western churches in Communion with Constantinople and NOT rome after the schism. Trondheim was one of them DUE to relations with Rus'. The English church was a dependency of TRONDHEIM. Concrete evidence WAS THE RITE USED IN ENGLAND WHICH WAS THE SARUM RITE, AN EXACT FORM OF THE RITE OF TRONDHEIM. Their liturgical tradition, hence, was dictated by that liturgical center. Another was the Mozarabic church of Seville. The franks were even ordered in this period to stamp out any bodies within the west who would not submit. Hence, the recurrent crusades against the "gallicans". The issue of the filioque was indeed taken up during the glorification of St. Edward the Confessor by ROCOR. It was seen as a latin accretion which did not affect theosis UNTIL the latin church finally fell away, much like ecumenism is looked upon in our day. Again, Moss, Fr. Hilarion of New Amalfion (he has a egroup on Yahoo called Occidentalis--look it up and educate yourself), Taft, the ROCOR monks of the Monastery of St. Edward the Confessor can clarify this all, Fr. Andrew Phillips of ROCOR also is in England.
Finally, the fact that modern ways of revising history is now so blatently put forward speaks much of the interlocutor. Indeed, he would endorse the marxian theories of exploitation rather than the histories of the period and the regions involved in that era. This is called the prejudice of the moderns and does nothing except apply a revisionist positivism to an era to fit it in modern brackets. That is anachronistic thought and wholely illegitimate. Indeed, the fact that the most basic of histories of the people under discussion is not known, such as the Varangian foundation of Rus' and how THOSE Varangians founded the Varangian legion in Constantinople, shows that the scholarship is faulty and biased and utterly illegitimate, pregnant of a hackneyed, western bias.
Orthodoxia I Thanatos!
Rostislav Mikhailovich Malleev-Pokrovsky
PS It would seem that that rc source was written/updated in the nineteenth century which means that 6, January = 25, December. If not, in the West, Christmas was a FEAST CELEBRATED FOR 12 DAYS.

[CGW]

Firstly, when Russians or Byzantines used the term "varangian", they specifically referred to the rulers of Russia, who were the Ruriks with whom they had contacts.

You've asserted this several times, but every genuine historian I have come across disagrees with this. In fact, I've seen at least one derive "varangian" from "barbarian". Others say that the guard included Scythians and Boyars as well as Norse and English. There are those who maintain that the characteristic of the guard was its tactics as much as anything.

At any rate the sagas I cited are primary sources. Meyendorff is not. The sagas are neither "frankish" not "latin", which you should already know. Given that you are incorrect in so elementary a detail, at this point I am loathe to accept your claims without sources, down to the page number. I do not accept Vladimir Moss as a source. He is not a professional historian, but rather an apologist.

Everyone accepts that many Saxon thegns left England in the aftermath of the Conquest, and that they ended up all over Europe. Attributing a religous meaning to this appears to me to be wishful thinking. It certainly is not necessary to explain their dispersal. At this point I could dive into our library and start pulling out historians, and perhaps I shall (still looking for Dix), but I don't thnk they are necessary in addressing the rest of this post. We note in looking at the Primary Chronicle that it doesn't support your most crucial statements.

Supposition from what you feel to be the general religious tenor of the time isn't sufficient. Non-revisionist history notes the interlocking of the papacy and the various secular powers, and if anything, it is more likely that the same issue with respect to Constantinople and the East is under-studied.

And at any rate, the crucial documents continue to be lacking. There is no evidence (that has been introduced to me, at any rate) that says that William was commissioned by the pope to force the filioque on England.

PS It would seem that that rc source was written/updated in the nineteenth century which means that 6, January = 25, December. If not, in the West, Christmas was a FEAST CELEBRATED FOR 12 DAYS.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a primary source. It is preposterous to claim it as a 19th century redaction, given that the actual manuscripts are much, much older-- the most important appears to have been started in about 891 (copied from a previous version) and then continued to 1093-- the actual manuscript we have today!!

[CGW]

indeed the filioque is but one issue.

Wel, back at the beginning it was being asserted as the issue, but it seems to have fallen by the wayside for lack of any definite evidence.

One thing we must realize when studying this issue, is that particularly where religion is concernced, there is seldom an unbiased opinion. It is indeed within the realm of possibility that monks in England rewrote everything to portray the image of "holy mother rome" and even to wipe out parts of the historical record. Such is not uncommon to have happened in other instances.

Which monks rewrote what? Speculative assertions of this sort are the poorest sort of bias. They attempt to hide what cannot be proven by dismissing any text which gives evidence to the contrary.

[TomS]

According to the book"The Lives of the Holy Apostles", St. Paul brought the faith to Britain. "Journeying to Britain, he abode there for some time, bringing many to the Christian faith" (pg 19, The Lives of the Holy Apostels, Holy Apostels Convent,Buena Vista. Co 1998)

[Bogatyr]

:ohvey: Then it seems he discounts Orthodox scholarship. The term in Russian for "Varangian" is "varjag". That is not barbarian. Yes, it makes sense that "scythians, etc." were part of the Varangian legion BECAUSE THOSE WERE THE PEOPLES OF RUS'. THOSE MANUSCRIPTS WERE NOT KNOWN IN THE EAST. You won't accept any of the sources I cited due to petty and crass bias. It seems you are making it up as you go along, typical of dogmatic and silly liberals... It would seem that you discount everyone else's scholarship except your own. Kluchevsky, Vernadsky, Runciman, Moss, Taft, Fr. Hilarion Of New Amalfion et al ALL RELIED ON PRIMARY SOURCES AND HAD DEGREES from something more than half wit multicultural institutions on their resume. Now we understand what we are dealing with.
Orthodoxia I Thanatos!
Rostislav Mikhailovich Malleev-Pokrovsky
PS CHRISTMAS WAS A HOLIDAY WHICH LASTED !2 DAYS IN THE WEST.
PPS It is utterly laughable the audacity of people who weren't trained in seminary and don't share the same education who seek to denigrate that very education. A lack of maturity and intellectual honesty...

[Bogatyr]

http://www.roca.org/OA/93/93m.htm

Here is a sample of what he terms an "apologist". The erudition should be clear and its use of "primary sources" apparent. The multicurlturalist hacks, however, will only have the world seen in their own image...

Orthodox America

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England on the Eve of the Conquest

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A chapter from The True Church of England: The Orthodox Church in England from the Council of Chelsea to the Death of William the Conqueror, 787-1087, by Vladimir Moss

Opinions have differed radically on the siginificance of the Norman Conquest. Antonia Gransden, in her review of the theories of historians, past and present, has divided them into two main groups, the "cataclysmic" theories and the "continuity" theories. "Cataclysmic" historians stress the enormous and catastrophic changes introduced into English life by the Normans; whereas "continuity" historians stress the continuity before and after the Conquest.

Code: Select all

  Whatever the continuity or lack of it in English secular life and institutions, from a purely ecclesiastical point of view the Conquest must be considered to have introduced a change of religion. This was the change from the Orthodox Christianity of the preceding thousand years to the Roman Catholicism that succeeded it until the Protestant Reformation. Certainly, the major ecclesiastical historians of the first half century or so after the Conquest, Willigm of Malmesbury and Edmer of Canterbury, stressed its cataclysmic effect on the Church, and explained it as God's punishment of the English people for their sins.

  Thus the contact between what the English were on the eve of the Conquest and what they had been in previous centuries was described by William Malmesbury as follows:

  "This [the day of the Battle of Hastings] was a fatal day for England, a melancholy havoc of our dear country brought about by its passing under the domination of new lords. For England had long ago adopted the manners of the 'Angles' which had been very various at different times. In the first years after their arrival they were barbarians in their look and manners, warlike in their usages, heathens in their rites; but after embracing the faith of Christ, in process of time and by degrees, owing to the peace which they enjoyed, they came to regard arms as only of secondary importance, and gave their whole attention to religion. I say nothing of the poor, whom meanness of fortune often restrains from overstepping the bounds of justice; I omit men of ecclesiastical rank whom respect for their sacred profession, or fear of shame, sometimes restrains from straying from the true path; I speak of princes who from the greatness of their power might have full liberty to indulge in pleasure Some of these in their own country, and some at Rome, changing their habit, obtained a heavenly kingdom i and a saintly communion; and many during their whole lives, to outward seeming so managed their worldly affairs that they might disperse their treasures on the poor, or divide them among monasteries. What shall I say of the multitude of bishops, hermits and abbots? Does not the whole island blaze with so many relics that you can scarcely pass a village of any consequence without hearing the name of some new saint? And of how many have all records perished?

  "Nevertheless, with the lapse of time the love of learning and of religion decayed, and some years before the coming of the Normans it had declined. The clergy, content with a very slight measure of learning, could scarcely stammer out the words of the sacraments, and a person who understood gram mar was an object of wonder and astonishment. The monks mocked the rule of their order with fine vestments and with the use of every kind of good. The nobility, given up to luxury and wantonness, did not go to church in the early morning after the manner of Christians, but merely in a casual manner heard Matins and the Divine Liturgy from a hurrying priest in their chambers amidst the blandishments of their wives. The common people, left unprotected, became a prey to the more powerful who amassed riches either by seizing the property of the poor or by selling themselves to foreigners. Nevertheless, it is the manner of this people to be more inclined to dissipation than to the accumulation of wealth. There was one custom repugnant to nature which they adopted: namely, to sell their female servants after they had satisfied their lust with them and made them pregnant, to foreign slavery. Drinking in parties was a universal custom, in which occupation they passed entire days and nights....They were accustomed to eat until they were full and to drink until they were sick. These latter qualities they imparted to their conquerors; as to the rest, they adopted their manners.

  "I would not, however, have these bad propensities ascribed to the English universally. I know that many of the clergy at that time trod the path of sanctity, and I know that many of the laity of all ranks and conditions were well-pleasing to God. Far be it from me to be unjust: my accusation is not indiscriminate. But as in peace the mercy of God cherishes both the bad and the good together, so also does his severity sometimes include them both in tribulation."

  In support of William's view, Edmer writes of the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, that they lived "in all the glory of the world, with gold and silver and various elegant clothes, and beds with precious hangings. They had all sorts of musical instruments, which they liked playing, and horses, dogs and hawks, with which they were wont to talk. They lived, indeed, more like earls than monks."

  But they were not all unworthy; and in describing the terrifying spectacle of God's judgment on the English, let us also note those for whom this judgment served as the occasion of a crown--the crown of martyrdom for Christ...  

  'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of goodwill'; because a grain of wheat, falling into the earth, has died, that it might not reign in heaven alone; even He by Whose death we live, by Whose weakness we are made strong, by Whose suffering we are rescued from suffering, through Whose love we seek in Britain for brethren whom we know not, by Whose gift we find those whom without knowing we sought but who can describe what great joy sprung up here in the hearts of the faithful, for that the nation of the Angles through the cooperation of the grace of Almighty God and the labor of thy Fraternity has cast away the darkness of error, and been suffused with the light of the holy Faith; that with most sound mind it now tramples on the idols, which it formerly crouched before in insane fear; that it falls down with pure heart before Almighty God; that it is re strained by the rules of holy preaching from the lapses of wrong doing; that it bows down in heart to Divine precepts, that in understanding it may be exalted that it humbles itself even to the earth in prayer, lest in mind and soul it should lie upon the earth.    St. Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome, to St. Augustine, first archbishop of Canterbury (597), Epistle XXVIII  

        The pride of the Pope is the reason why the Greeks are divided from the so called faithful..It is we westerners, too fanatical by far, who have been divided from the faithful Greeks and the Faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. John Wycliff, On Christ and His Adversary, 8 (1383)  

  When the Church in the British Isles begins to venerate her own Saints then the Church will grow.. St. Arsenios of Paros (+1877)

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[Bogatyr]

Below is the link for Vladimir Moss' "apologetical" site. I post it to illustrate the comprehensive and scholarship of his position vs a person who doesn't realize Rus' was a Varangian state and doesn't believe the PRIMARY CHRONICLE is a "primary source"...
http://www.romanitas.ru/eng/

Orthodoxia I Thanatos!
Rostislav Mikhailovich Malleev-Pokrovsky