Thanks to my friend Moira (the same one for whom some of you have been praying) for leading me to this icon by Bill McNichols (William Hart McNichols, S.J.).
Here is a short commentary on the icon by the artist.
Showing posts with label Orthodox Church. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orthodox Church. Show all posts
Friday, March 27, 2009
Monday, August 4, 2008
Aleksandr Isayevitch Solzhenitsyn, R.I.P.
Thank Godde for friends who say things better than we can and have more time to say it. My friend Chris has posted a photo of and tribute to the writer Solzhenitsyn, who has just died.
Let me take this opportunity to introduce Chris's new blog, the Gifts of God. You can read a bit about Chris, in his own words, here.
Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy saints:
where sorrow and pain are no more;
neither sighing but life everlasting.
Thou only art immortal,
the creator and maker of man:
and we are mortal formed from the dust of the earth,
and unto earth shall we return:
for so thou didst ordain,
when thou created me saying:
"Dust thou art und unto dust shalt thou return."
All we go down to the dust;
and weeping o'er the grave we make our song:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
From the Orthodox Memorial Service
Trans. W. J. Birkbeck (1869-1916)
It's also in our Episcopal Hymnal to the tune of a Kievan chant -- wish there were a better link than this midi, but you can sing along - or point me to a choral version somewhere online.
Let me take this opportunity to introduce Chris's new blog, the Gifts of God. You can read a bit about Chris, in his own words, here.
Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy saints:
where sorrow and pain are no more;
neither sighing but life everlasting.
Thou only art immortal,
the creator and maker of man:
and we are mortal formed from the dust of the earth,
and unto earth shall we return:
for so thou didst ordain,
when thou created me saying:
"Dust thou art und unto dust shalt thou return."
All we go down to the dust;
and weeping o'er the grave we make our song:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
From the Orthodox Memorial Service
Trans. W. J. Birkbeck (1869-1916)
It's also in our Episcopal Hymnal to the tune of a Kievan chant -- wish there were a better link than this midi, but you can sing along - or point me to a choral version somewhere online.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Cognitive dissonance
I have been reading books and articles related to women in the worldwide church, or rather, to women AS worldwide church.
What's the difference? Sometime in the 1980s a shift happened within churches and in ecumenical gatherings, both the formal ones (e.g. the World Council of Churches) and the informal and new ones (e.g. Women-Church) including feminist groups: the focus of women's language about our church participation --at the grass roots and among theologians-- shifted from a "Please, sir, may I have some more" or "Please let us in" approach to a "We are church and have always been church" approach.
I'm talking about the world church here, church across the board, not just Anglicans, but what is sometimes called the oikoumene, from the Greek and meaning "the whole inhabited earth."
And by the way, the pioneers in this new approach toward women and church have often been Roman Catholic women.
Women are church.
Which doesn't mean that all persons are, in practice, suddenly equal.
Women make up a majority of worshippers in all Christian churches. Go up the hierarchical ladder and you find fewer and fewer of us.
Not that this is the only indicator of women's lives as church; far from it.
Over the last few decades women, many calling themselves feminists, others not, have drawn attention to the destructive and interrelated institutional (as in systemic, as in structural, not individual) webs of sexism, racism, xenophobia, heterosexism, and socio-economic class - based bias (sometimes called "classism").
(Stick with me here, this is not about using ideological jargon, it's about the real lives of real people and where the churches are in relation to these people.)
The same women who have drawn attention to the reality of interlocking oppressions --and therefore the need for interwoven movements for liberation and healing-- have also noted the relation between church teaching and practice on the one hand and social practices harmful to women on the other.
Ways of interpreting the Bible or of offering (or not offering) pastoral care directly affect --and reflect-- the health and well-being of women and their dependent children.
Do you know what the major issue (one of four key issues, but the one that came up most often) was during the World Council of Churches' 1988-1998 Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women?
Violence. Violence against women. In homes. In churches. And of course on battlefields, in migrant camps, on streets, but especially in those other places, home and church, the places that should be the safest. No socio-economic class, race, or nationality was exempt. Women from every country and every church reported this.
That was the major issue brought up by church women. As a Christian issue. As an ecumenical issue. As an issue related to who we say we are as friends and followers and disciples of Jesus and as images, icons, of the living God, the one and holy Trinity.
The other issues lifted up by "the Decade," as it became known, were:
- Women's full and creative participation in the life of the church. (Are women participating in the life of the church to the full extent of their God-given gifts? Are women as well as men of all races, cultures, and economic conditions viewed as the images of God? Do the language and the shape of the liturgy reflect this? Do women have access to theological education? If they have access to it, can they use it to the fullest extent of their abilities? Are they remunerated for it? Do we value the wisdom of church women, whether or not they have formal theological education? Do we reflect this in the way we raise our girl children in the church? )
- The global economic crisis and its effects on women in particular. (Women and their dependent children are disproportionately affected by poverty. Everywhere. U.S., Mexico, Haiti, India, Thailand, Ghana, Brazil, Fiji.)
- Racism and xenophobia and their specific impact on women. (If you are dark-skinned and a woman, you are more likely to be poor. If you are a migrant or immigrant and a woman, your chances of suffering from both poverty and violence increase. So do the risks for your children's health and well-being.)
The method of the Decade during its second half involved visits by a team of four people, usually two women and two men, to local churches around the world. It was the first time in its 50-year history that the WCC used this model of local, person to person visits. The WCC chose to call these visiting teams "Living Letters," using the language of Paul the apostle in the Second Letter to the Corinthians:"You show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." (2 Cor. 3:3, RSV)
(The WCC is now in the middle of a Decade to Overcome Violence whose focus and methodology are in part and quite directly inspired by the Decade in Solidarity with Women. It too has a Living Letters process.)
In the years before the Decade, another WCC project involved a broad number of grass-roots women, extending even beyond the Protestant, Anglican, Pentecostal, and Orthodox members of the WCC to include Roman Catholic and other women. The project, which has become known as "the Community Study," was called the Community of Women and Men in the Church. It lasted from 1978 to 1982 but its roots grew earlier from a number of earlier places and events, including the 1974 WCC conference on "Sexism in the 1970s," the first time a World Council of Churches international gathering used the term "sexism."
The WCC staff person running that 1974 conference on sexism, was a Black South African Anglican named Brigalia Hlophe (or Ntombemhlophe) Bam. Brigalia Bam later served as the Secretary-General of the South Africa Council of Churches. She is now Chair of South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission.
Note the methods or processes by which the two projects, the Community Study and the Decade, came up with their findings: broadly based, grass-roots-involving (and involving church leaders too), ecumenical enterprises involving face to face conversation with much listening, study, and examination of the relationship between faith in Christ and daily life, and the relationship between daily life and the structures and institutions affecting it. A lot of sitting in circles, a lot of breaking or melting of silence, a lot of tension, tears, and anger but also patience, hospitality, and hope.
I know that at Lambeth the Bible study will be participatory and involve a carefully designed process that is not unlike the processes I have described above, though it will of course only involve bishops and their spouses. (With the exception of one duly elected and consecrated Bishop of New Hamphire and his spouse; but I digress.) Gerald O. West, a South African theologian (U. of KwaZulu-Natal) whom we heard speak at the Society for the Study of Anglicanism last November in San Diego, a contextual and liberation-oriented scholar who has also worked with women's concerns and examined approaches to biblical interpretation in the age of HIV/AIDS, has been coordinating the design of the sessions. This reassures me.
But --here it comes-- I confess to having almost the same feeling about Lambeth and GAFCON when I look at them through a feminist lens. Or, if the word "feminist" bothers you, through the lens of women as world church.
Of course, push me against the wall and I'm a Lambeth woman. I'm an Episcopalian --a happy one-- and an Anglican --a heartfelt one-- and Lambeth is my instrument of unity too. (Discussion about the why, what, whether and how of the Instruments of Unity --or Instruments of Communion-- some other time, or not at all.)
But that's part of my point -- the act of pushing against the wall. (Note the violent image.)
Who will be pushed against the wall? Who will push? Who will be outside the circle? Will there be true circles of listening and struggling with difference with integrity, charity, and hope? Will the relation between living Christ's resurrection and building justice be intimate, casual, clear, muddled, ignored, nonexistent?
Both GAFCON and Lambeth raise some of the same questions for me.
Who will be defining the situation?
What is church? Who is church? Where is church?
Who decides? Who interprets? Whom does this benefit?
What is unity? At what cost and over whose backs do we build unity?
What are the truly important matters for the friends of Jesus who call themselves the Body of Christ?
What are the needs of the world and the signs of the times?
Where ought our attention to be directed in these times?
And where, where will be the women and the voices of women, women as church?
I am late with my monthly column for the Episcopal Café because I have been trying to write a carefully worded piece on what ecumenical, worldwide women's questions and wisdom have to say to us in this Lambeth year, a perspective that goes more broadly and deeply than that of Lambeth yet is in some ways marginal to it.
Wherein lies the rub.
The nicely moderate words won't come out and instead I am pondering in public, or perhaps ranting, after realizing suddenly, a few hours ago, that I was having a profound experience of cognitive dissonance. That got me unblocked and writing.
The cognitive dissonance is this: the language and structure and process and concerns of one set of events (Lambeth, GAFCON) seem light years away from the language and structure and process and concerns of the other set of events (the WCC Decade and related gatherings and movements).
I know this is not entirely true. From looking over some of the Lambeth resolutions and some accounts of the last meeting, I see that it is not entirely true. I also see that it is partly true. And GAFCON, which, as most readers of this blog know, is not my thing, may have a participatory process about which I don't know. (Though I would love someone to filter it through the ecumenical experience of women for us. I doubt that any of the reporters or commentators will. Someone, please prove me wrong.)
So that's the lengthy thought for the day, and here I sit.
Can I get a witness?
What's the difference? Sometime in the 1980s a shift happened within churches and in ecumenical gatherings, both the formal ones (e.g. the World Council of Churches) and the informal and new ones (e.g. Women-Church) including feminist groups: the focus of women's language about our church participation --at the grass roots and among theologians-- shifted from a "Please, sir, may I have some more" or "Please let us in" approach to a "We are church and have always been church" approach.
I'm talking about the world church here, church across the board, not just Anglicans, but what is sometimes called the oikoumene, from the Greek and meaning "the whole inhabited earth."
And by the way, the pioneers in this new approach toward women and church have often been Roman Catholic women.
Women are church.
Which doesn't mean that all persons are, in practice, suddenly equal.
Women make up a majority of worshippers in all Christian churches. Go up the hierarchical ladder and you find fewer and fewer of us.
Not that this is the only indicator of women's lives as church; far from it.
Over the last few decades women, many calling themselves feminists, others not, have drawn attention to the destructive and interrelated institutional (as in systemic, as in structural, not individual) webs of sexism, racism, xenophobia, heterosexism, and socio-economic class - based bias (sometimes called "classism").
(Stick with me here, this is not about using ideological jargon, it's about the real lives of real people and where the churches are in relation to these people.)
The same women who have drawn attention to the reality of interlocking oppressions --and therefore the need for interwoven movements for liberation and healing-- have also noted the relation between church teaching and practice on the one hand and social practices harmful to women on the other.
Ways of interpreting the Bible or of offering (or not offering) pastoral care directly affect --and reflect-- the health and well-being of women and their dependent children.
Do you know what the major issue (one of four key issues, but the one that came up most often) was during the World Council of Churches' 1988-1998 Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women?
Violence. Violence against women. In homes. In churches. And of course on battlefields, in migrant camps, on streets, but especially in those other places, home and church, the places that should be the safest. No socio-economic class, race, or nationality was exempt. Women from every country and every church reported this.
That was the major issue brought up by church women. As a Christian issue. As an ecumenical issue. As an issue related to who we say we are as friends and followers and disciples of Jesus and as images, icons, of the living God, the one and holy Trinity.
The other issues lifted up by "the Decade," as it became known, were:
- Women's full and creative participation in the life of the church. (Are women participating in the life of the church to the full extent of their God-given gifts? Are women as well as men of all races, cultures, and economic conditions viewed as the images of God? Do the language and the shape of the liturgy reflect this? Do women have access to theological education? If they have access to it, can they use it to the fullest extent of their abilities? Are they remunerated for it? Do we value the wisdom of church women, whether or not they have formal theological education? Do we reflect this in the way we raise our girl children in the church? )
- The global economic crisis and its effects on women in particular. (Women and their dependent children are disproportionately affected by poverty. Everywhere. U.S., Mexico, Haiti, India, Thailand, Ghana, Brazil, Fiji.)
- Racism and xenophobia and their specific impact on women. (If you are dark-skinned and a woman, you are more likely to be poor. If you are a migrant or immigrant and a woman, your chances of suffering from both poverty and violence increase. So do the risks for your children's health and well-being.)
The method of the Decade during its second half involved visits by a team of four people, usually two women and two men, to local churches around the world. It was the first time in its 50-year history that the WCC used this model of local, person to person visits. The WCC chose to call these visiting teams "Living Letters," using the language of Paul the apostle in the Second Letter to the Corinthians:"You show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts." (2 Cor. 3:3, RSV)
(The WCC is now in the middle of a Decade to Overcome Violence whose focus and methodology are in part and quite directly inspired by the Decade in Solidarity with Women. It too has a Living Letters process.)
In the years before the Decade, another WCC project involved a broad number of grass-roots women, extending even beyond the Protestant, Anglican, Pentecostal, and Orthodox members of the WCC to include Roman Catholic and other women. The project, which has become known as "the Community Study," was called the Community of Women and Men in the Church. It lasted from 1978 to 1982 but its roots grew earlier from a number of earlier places and events, including the 1974 WCC conference on "Sexism in the 1970s," the first time a World Council of Churches international gathering used the term "sexism."
The WCC staff person running that 1974 conference on sexism, was a Black South African Anglican named Brigalia Hlophe (or Ntombemhlophe) Bam. Brigalia Bam later served as the Secretary-General of the South Africa Council of Churches. She is now Chair of South Africa's Independent Electoral Commission.
Note the methods or processes by which the two projects, the Community Study and the Decade, came up with their findings: broadly based, grass-roots-involving (and involving church leaders too), ecumenical enterprises involving face to face conversation with much listening, study, and examination of the relationship between faith in Christ and daily life, and the relationship between daily life and the structures and institutions affecting it. A lot of sitting in circles, a lot of breaking or melting of silence, a lot of tension, tears, and anger but also patience, hospitality, and hope.
I know that at Lambeth the Bible study will be participatory and involve a carefully designed process that is not unlike the processes I have described above, though it will of course only involve bishops and their spouses. (With the exception of one duly elected and consecrated Bishop of New Hamphire and his spouse; but I digress.) Gerald O. West, a South African theologian (U. of KwaZulu-Natal) whom we heard speak at the Society for the Study of Anglicanism last November in San Diego, a contextual and liberation-oriented scholar who has also worked with women's concerns and examined approaches to biblical interpretation in the age of HIV/AIDS, has been coordinating the design of the sessions. This reassures me.
But --here it comes-- I confess to having almost the same feeling about Lambeth and GAFCON when I look at them through a feminist lens. Or, if the word "feminist" bothers you, through the lens of women as world church.
Of course, push me against the wall and I'm a Lambeth woman. I'm an Episcopalian --a happy one-- and an Anglican --a heartfelt one-- and Lambeth is my instrument of unity too. (Discussion about the why, what, whether and how of the Instruments of Unity --or Instruments of Communion-- some other time, or not at all.)
But that's part of my point -- the act of pushing against the wall. (Note the violent image.)
Who will be pushed against the wall? Who will push? Who will be outside the circle? Will there be true circles of listening and struggling with difference with integrity, charity, and hope? Will the relation between living Christ's resurrection and building justice be intimate, casual, clear, muddled, ignored, nonexistent?
Both GAFCON and Lambeth raise some of the same questions for me.
Who will be defining the situation?
What is church? Who is church? Where is church?
Who decides? Who interprets? Whom does this benefit?
What is unity? At what cost and over whose backs do we build unity?
What are the truly important matters for the friends of Jesus who call themselves the Body of Christ?
What are the needs of the world and the signs of the times?
Where ought our attention to be directed in these times?
And where, where will be the women and the voices of women, women as church?
I am late with my monthly column for the Episcopal Café because I have been trying to write a carefully worded piece on what ecumenical, worldwide women's questions and wisdom have to say to us in this Lambeth year, a perspective that goes more broadly and deeply than that of Lambeth yet is in some ways marginal to it.
Wherein lies the rub.
The nicely moderate words won't come out and instead I am pondering in public, or perhaps ranting, after realizing suddenly, a few hours ago, that I was having a profound experience of cognitive dissonance. That got me unblocked and writing.
The cognitive dissonance is this: the language and structure and process and concerns of one set of events (Lambeth, GAFCON) seem light years away from the language and structure and process and concerns of the other set of events (the WCC Decade and related gatherings and movements).
I know this is not entirely true. From looking over some of the Lambeth resolutions and some accounts of the last meeting, I see that it is not entirely true. I also see that it is partly true. And GAFCON, which, as most readers of this blog know, is not my thing, may have a participatory process about which I don't know. (Though I would love someone to filter it through the ecumenical experience of women for us. I doubt that any of the reporters or commentators will. Someone, please prove me wrong.)
So that's the lengthy thought for the day, and here I sit.
Can I get a witness?
Friday, May 2, 2008
"Green Patriarch" honored by Time -- and ABC RW
I have great fondness and respect for His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew. Time Magazine has just recognized him for his religious and environmental leadership, and guess who wrote the tribute?
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Pascha
Christos Anesti! Or if you prefer, Christos Voskres!
It is Orthodox Easter (Pascha), and this comes with prayers for our Orthodox Christian sisters and brothers and thanksgiving for their witness.
Ormonde Plater has a lovely post on this occasion, with music, so I'll just send you there. Thank you, Ormonde.
Episcopal deacon (deaconissimus!) Ormonde Plater blogs at Through the Dust.
It is Orthodox Easter (Pascha), and this comes with prayers for our Orthodox Christian sisters and brothers and thanksgiving for their witness.
Ormonde Plater has a lovely post on this occasion, with music, so I'll just send you there. Thank you, Ormonde.
Episcopal deacon (deaconissimus!) Ormonde Plater blogs at Through the Dust.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Prince John Yurievich Golitzin, RIP
Please pray for the repose of the soul of John, the brother of my friend Katherin, brother-in-law of her spouse, my friend and colleague Ibrahim, and uncle of Katherin and Ibrahim's son Issa.
John died yesterday, February 2 in Marin County, California. Please pray for his family, including his mother Carol, who survives him and who is in hospice care with Alzheimer's Disease.
Vigil will be Monday evening and funeral liturgy Tuesday morning at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in San Anselmo, California.
Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy saints:
where sorrow and pain are no more;
neither sighing but life everlasting.
Thou only art immortal,
the creator and maker of all:
and we are mortal formed from the dust of the earth,
and unto earth shall we return:
for so thou didst ordain,
when thou created me saying:
"Dust thou art und unto dust shalt thou return."
All we go down to the dust;
and weeping o'er the grave we make our song:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
John died yesterday, February 2 in Marin County, California. Please pray for his family, including his mother Carol, who survives him and who is in hospice care with Alzheimer's Disease.
Vigil will be Monday evening and funeral liturgy Tuesday morning at St. Nicholas Orthodox Church in San Anselmo, California.
Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy saints:
where sorrow and pain are no more;
neither sighing but life everlasting.
Thou only art immortal,
the creator and maker of all:
and we are mortal formed from the dust of the earth,
and unto earth shall we return:
for so thou didst ordain,
when thou created me saying:
"Dust thou art und unto dust shalt thou return."
All we go down to the dust;
and weeping o'er the grave we make our song:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.
Friday, February 1, 2008
Friday cat blogging: Chora cat
Chora Church, a.k.a. Holy Saviour in the Country, a.k.a. Kariye Müzesi, Kariye Camii, or Kariye Kilisesi (the Chora Museum, Mosque or Church) is the church with the beautiful Byzantine mosaics, as beautiful as Haghia Sophia in its own way. I spent two hours there. Behind the church, of course, there was a cat. Istanbul, city of cats.
Chora Cat. Photo by Jane Redmont. Click to enlarge.
The back of the church looks like this:
The back of the church looks like this:
Behind Chora. Photos by Jane Redmont. Istanbul, December 2007.
Monday, January 28, 2008
"Ferry to Chalcedon" post preview, and quick Senate vote roundup
Swamped again... Sigh.To the left and below are a few preview photos of my two trips to the Asian side of the Bosphorus. The tale with photos (these and many others) in proper chronological order is under construction.
I am NOT listening to the State of the Onion. I will read it when it's over.
Cloture vote on FISA. Good. For updates on the scoundrel scene, see friends' posts here (Mimi) and here (Buddhapalian) and here (Buddhapalian again, on a not unrelated matter). Longish but worth it.
That's the view from the outdoor deck of the ferry. I froze my fingers taking it just for you.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Mosaics and frescoes from Chora (Kariye) Church
A church sort of day: morning worship with the local Anglicans (smells and bells!) and afternoon at the breathtaking church of St. Saviour in Chora, a.k.a. Kariye. I am up correcting the last of the student papers and calculating final grades, since the grades are due first thing in the a.m., so words will have to wait, but meanwhile, some pictures. The church is now a museum. But the icons still speak.Photos by Dick Osseman. Thanks to Arthur Holder for the URL.
Friday, December 14, 2007
A city of contrasts
Yesterday afternoon: Haghia Sophia, with the tourists. Huge, astounding former church, former mosque, now museum. Imagining Orthodox liturgies resounding under the domes and clouds of incense wafting from huge censors carried by heavily robed clergy.
Photo: inside the Blue Mosque (photo by Temeraire.org)
Then the "Blue" Sultan Ahmet Mosque, where like everyone else I took off my shoes and like all the women covered my head with a scarf. Vast, carpeted, domed also. Men kneeling in the main space, women behind screens in the back.
Yesterday evening: holiday party for Turkcell, the biggest cell phone company in town (my host does business with them and had to make an appearance). No headscarves, no stockinged feet.
Little black dresses, suits and ties, sushi and smoked salmon and Iranian meat pastries, a very young crowd (the average employee age is 27), rock music in the background.
Today: a Sufi service, not the made-for-tourists whirling dervishes but the real thing, in an upper room (Sufism isn't legal here, though it isn't persecuted either), with forty people sitting on cushions, intent, gentle, reverent, chanting, in a decidedly un-tourist neighborhood. (How did I end up there? I have friends in town who are connected with this community and who invited me.)
I will write more about the great divide here. Deep secularists and strict religious practitioners. And then those, fewer, who live on bridges and cross over, now and again or on a daily basis.
Photo: inside the Blue Mosque (photo by Temeraire.org)Then the "Blue" Sultan Ahmet Mosque, where like everyone else I took off my shoes and like all the women covered my head with a scarf. Vast, carpeted, domed also. Men kneeling in the main space, women behind screens in the back.
Yesterday evening: holiday party for Turkcell, the biggest cell phone company in town (my host does business with them and had to make an appearance). No headscarves, no stockinged feet.
Little black dresses, suits and ties, sushi and smoked salmon and Iranian meat pastries, a very young crowd (the average employee age is 27), rock music in the background.
Today: a Sufi service, not the made-for-tourists whirling dervishes but the real thing, in an upper room (Sufism isn't legal here, though it isn't persecuted either), with forty people sitting on cushions, intent, gentle, reverent, chanting, in a decidedly un-tourist neighborhood. (How did I end up there? I have friends in town who are connected with this community and who invited me.)
I will write more about the great divide here. Deep secularists and strict religious practitioners. And then those, fewer, who live on bridges and cross over, now and again or on a daily basis.
Friday, November 2, 2007
Mary, Christ, angels, saints
I put this up on the other blog yesterday for All Saints' Day, and although I don't want to double-post much, I can't resist posting this icon here, because I know some readers here will like it. Also, it is just beautiful.
It is Ethiopian, from the 17th century. Full reference info at Race, Justice, and Love.
To enlarge and see even more of the gorgeous detail, go to the other blog and click on the photo. (This one won't enlarge, for some reason.)
It is Ethiopian, from the 17th century. Full reference info at Race, Justice, and Love.
To enlarge and see even more of the gorgeous detail, go to the other blog and click on the photo. (This one won't enlarge, for some reason.)
Monday, October 1, 2007
Bonus Ethiopian icon
Triptychon: Mary with Jesus and the Archangels Gabriel and Mikael surrounded by various Ethiopian Saints
Friday, September 14, 2007
Rain! (& related religious resources)
Glory hallelujah. It is pouring rain after weeks and weeks of drought in this part of North Carolina.
This doesn't mean the drought is over, but it's something. The oppressive heat has also broken.
See this short, accessible article "Talking about the Weather" by ecofeminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether. (This comes to us courtesy of the Pacific School of Religion (PSR) at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), where Ruether is faculty emerita.) It's several years old, but the points it makes about climate change are even more important today.
How do we talk about the weather? What do we notice? How many weather-related items have you heard on the news this week, from around the world?
And here is a paper on water and the world water crisis, in PDF form (so you can print it out easily) and rather long, but clear, interesting, well-researched, and important, by another Catholic feminist theologian, my friend and colleague Marian Ronan, who teaches at the American Baptist Seminary of the West (ABSW) , which like PSR is a member school of the GTU consortium in Berkeley, California.
His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has been very active in environmental issues in the World Council of Churches and has written a number of beautiful statements, on water especially. This one is in PDF form.
I wonder how many Episcopal people and congregations in our Diocese of North Carolina (one of three Episcopal dioceses in the state of North Carolina) know that we passed a resolution specifically about water in 2003. I knew about our environmental sustainability resolution of this year because I was at Convention in January, but not about this 2003 resolution (available via the Episcopal Ecological Network), which is from before my time in NC and is more than just a statement; it contains action suggestions for stewardship of water. Time to pull it out of mothballs, I think. (And to replace the mothballs with something more environmentally friendly ;-)).
This doesn't mean the drought is over, but it's something. The oppressive heat has also broken.
See this short, accessible article "Talking about the Weather" by ecofeminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether. (This comes to us courtesy of the Pacific School of Religion (PSR) at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), where Ruether is faculty emerita.) It's several years old, but the points it makes about climate change are even more important today.
How do we talk about the weather? What do we notice? How many weather-related items have you heard on the news this week, from around the world?
And here is a paper on water and the world water crisis, in PDF form (so you can print it out easily) and rather long, but clear, interesting, well-researched, and important, by another Catholic feminist theologian, my friend and colleague Marian Ronan, who teaches at the American Baptist Seminary of the West (ABSW) , which like PSR is a member school of the GTU consortium in Berkeley, California.
His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has been very active in environmental issues in the World Council of Churches and has written a number of beautiful statements, on water especially. This one is in PDF form.
I wonder how many Episcopal people and congregations in our Diocese of North Carolina (one of three Episcopal dioceses in the state of North Carolina) know that we passed a resolution specifically about water in 2003. I knew about our environmental sustainability resolution of this year because I was at Convention in January, but not about this 2003 resolution (available via the Episcopal Ecological Network), which is from before my time in NC and is more than just a statement; it contains action suggestions for stewardship of water. Time to pull it out of mothballs, I think. (And to replace the mothballs with something more environmentally friendly ;-)).
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Mary's Day
It's Ferragosto in Italy, a Roman (as in the emperor Augustus) holiday turned Marian, and in the Orthodox, Catholic, and Anglican communions worldwide it is the Dormition, or the Assumption, or the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin. I know an icon of the Dormition would be appropriate, or one of the Assumption, but several blogging friends have posted fine ones, particularly Grandmère Mimi (see the comments too) and Padre Rob+, and also, humorously, MadPriest, who has written one of his better captions. (Do not look at that if you get offended at religious humor. But really, it's quite brilliant.) And I'm short on bloggy research time this week.
What I do want to share, because I have it around and just love it, is a representation of Our Lady of Mercy, from Ravensburg (Germany), in the late 15th century.
Also, à propos of Protestants and Mary (this came up in a comment on Grandmère Mimi's blog) , the latest hottest book on this is Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives on Mary. (See the handy "search inside" feature and have a look at the table of contents.) Some of you (Protestant or not) may be interested in having a look.
What I do want to share, because I have it around and just love it, is a representation of Our Lady of Mercy, from Ravensburg (Germany), in the late 15th century.
Also, à propos of Protestants and Mary (this came up in a comment on Grandmère Mimi's blog) , the latest hottest book on this is Blessed One: Protestant Perspectives on Mary. (See the handy "search inside" feature and have a look at the table of contents.) Some of you (Protestant or not) may be interested in having a look.
Monday, July 23, 2007
from July 15: Olga and Vladimir
Yet another fabulous woman. I can't keep up. I just love the fact that on a single day we celebrate a woman and her grandson. Or, to put it the other way, a boy and his grandmother. How often do you see that kind of pair on a feast day?My Russian is rusty (MadPriest, I wrote this just to get a rise out of you -- I actually only had a year and a half of Russian and it was 35 years ago in college) but if I read correctly, this icon is of Olga and Vladimir, patrons of the church in today's Russia and Ukraine. Why, you ask, does he look so old? Icons aren't meant to be realistic, and Olga and Vladimir didn't do their thing contemporaneously. Which is too bad, because the vision of an older woman and her little grandson bopping around performing a few miracles and talking about Jesus and spreading good deeds is kind of appealing.
According to St. John the Baptist Ukrainian Catholic Church in Newark, New Jersey, Olga was a clever woman and a devoted Christian:
The first Eastern Slav ruler to adopt Christianity was a woman, St. Olga. Olga converted to Christianity in Constantinople while she served as regent for her young son.
According to legend, the Byzantine Emperor, Constantine VII, was much taken by the Kievan ruler and wanted to marry her. Olga respected Constantine VII, and had him be her godfather at her baptism. After her conversion, Constantine did ask Olga to marry him, but wily Olga said no. Since he was her godfather, the marriage was illegal under Church law. Constantine VII's reaction was "Oh Olga, you have outwitted me."
Olga returned to Kiev and unsuccessfully tried to get her people to convert to Christianity in her lifetime. Later on, after her grandson converted the nation to Christianity, Olga was made a saint.
Olga's grandson, Prince Vladimir (called Volodymyr in Ukrainian), was the ruler of Kievan Rus who successfully evangelized the ancestors of today's Ukrainians. According to a legend recounted in the chronicle of the monk Nestor, Vladimir had representatives come from all the major religions. Vladimir rejected Judaism because the Jews were scattered around the world, with no homeland. Vladimir rejected Catholicism (then just Western Christianity) because of its fasts. Vladimir rejected Islam because "drinking is the joy of Rus." Finally, Vladimir accepted the Eastern style of Christianity and married the Byzantine princess Anna, shown here at Vladimir's left. Notice the water in the foreground the mosaic. The water represents the Dniepr river, in which Vladimir's baptism took place.
Vladimir's conversion took place in 988, when the division between Western Christianity (Catholicism) and Eastern Christianity (Orthodoxy), did not officially exist. Only after the Great Schism in 1054 did the Eastern Orthodox-Roman Catholic division became de jure and permanent. The Church in Kievan Rus at the time kept its Eastern Rite, but did stay in contact with the Pope.
* * * * * * *
Two of Vladimir's sons, Boris and Gleb, were later martyred. This is a long family story.
When Olga was baptized, she took the name Elena (Helen in English, Yelena in Slavic languages). Scandinavians call her Helga.Thursday, July 19, 2007
Macrina's Day
July, as I have noted before, is a month of fabulous holy women in the calendar of the saints.
Today, July 19, the Episcopal Church invites us to celebrate Macrina, also known as Macrina the Younger.
Believers and theologians of both the Eastern and Western churches recognize and remember as "The Cappadocians" two Gregories and a Basil, three men whose influence on the spirituality of the church, the theology of the Trinitarian God, and the formation of monasticism --among many other aspects of 4th century and later church life-- is immeasurable. I always include Macrina among "The Cappadocians" when I speak of them.
Elder sister of two of the "Cappadocian Fathers," Gregory of Nyssa and Basil of Caesarea (the other Gregory was their good buddy, known as Gregory of Nazianzus), Macrina was so influential in Gregory's life that he wrote a biography of her. Named for her grandmother (Macrina the Elder), Macrina was really a proto-abbess. She founded a religious community in her home and presided over it with charity and steely will. Her faith commitment was rooted in that of her family. While she was born into a family of means, with land and property and money, she was also in a family familiar with the suffering that comes from commitment; some of her forebears had known persecution because they were Christians.
Today it is hard for most of us to understand an early vow of singleness and celibacy as a positive. For a woman of the ancient world (and later the medieval world) it was, however, an alternative to submission to a man, multiple pregnancies, and early death in childbirth; put more positively, it was a path to cultivating the life of the mind, the life of the spirit, and life in community.
While Basil is known as the author of the early rule for Eastern monks (which the Western founder and Benedict knew) he was --remember this-- the younger brother of Macrina, who established and lived a rule first with her community of women.
Paul Halsall of Fordham University, who has for at least a decade made available all kinds of historical resources, has put Gregory's Life of Macrina online along with an introduction and bibliography. You can find this resource here.
Because she was a woman of the Christian East (Cappadocia is in present-day Turkey), Macrina can be a bridge between East and West in our contemporary conversations.
Interestingly, one of the newest congregations (a project, not a parish) of the Episcopal Diocese of California, a child of the creative St. Gregory of Nyssa Church in San Francisco, is named for Macrina. Naturally, they have a website. It's the first I've heard of a Western Christian congregation named for Macrina. (There are, of course, Eastern Christian ones named for her, including one in a small jurisdiction, the Orthodox Catholic Church in America, an Orthodox but not always "orthodox" community.)
I also named a cat after Macrina last winter. Alas, I turned out to be allergic to her (this was last winter) and had to return her to her friendly foster humans after a few days, and she took back her old name. But perhaps she was Macrina the Elder, and a non-allergifying Macrina the Younger will come someday to stay and will, true to her namesake, run the household and make sure that there is contemplative time and that the hungry are fed.
Foodie postscript: Macrina also has a bakery named after her in the Seattle area. And a Russian Orthodox (ROCOR) women's group in Virginia which is sponsoring a cookbook.
Today, July 19, the Episcopal Church invites us to celebrate Macrina, also known as Macrina the Younger.
Believers and theologians of both the Eastern and Western churches recognize and remember as "The Cappadocians" two Gregories and a Basil, three men whose influence on the spirituality of the church, the theology of the Trinitarian God, and the formation of monasticism --among many other aspects of 4th century and later church life-- is immeasurable. I always include Macrina among "The Cappadocians" when I speak of them.
Elder sister of two of the "Cappadocian Fathers," Gregory of Nyssa and Basil of Caesarea (the other Gregory was their good buddy, known as Gregory of Nazianzus), Macrina was so influential in Gregory's life that he wrote a biography of her. Named for her grandmother (Macrina the Elder), Macrina was really a proto-abbess. She founded a religious community in her home and presided over it with charity and steely will. Her faith commitment was rooted in that of her family. While she was born into a family of means, with land and property and money, she was also in a family familiar with the suffering that comes from commitment; some of her forebears had known persecution because they were Christians.
Today it is hard for most of us to understand an early vow of singleness and celibacy as a positive. For a woman of the ancient world (and later the medieval world) it was, however, an alternative to submission to a man, multiple pregnancies, and early death in childbirth; put more positively, it was a path to cultivating the life of the mind, the life of the spirit, and life in community.
While Basil is known as the author of the early rule for Eastern monks (which the Western founder and Benedict knew) he was --remember this-- the younger brother of Macrina, who established and lived a rule first with her community of women.Paul Halsall of Fordham University, who has for at least a decade made available all kinds of historical resources, has put Gregory's Life of Macrina online along with an introduction and bibliography. You can find this resource here.
Because she was a woman of the Christian East (Cappadocia is in present-day Turkey), Macrina can be a bridge between East and West in our contemporary conversations.
Interestingly, one of the newest congregations (a project, not a parish) of the Episcopal Diocese of California, a child of the creative St. Gregory of Nyssa Church in San Francisco, is named for Macrina. Naturally, they have a website. It's the first I've heard of a Western Christian congregation named for Macrina. (There are, of course, Eastern Christian ones named for her, including one in a small jurisdiction, the Orthodox Catholic Church in America, an Orthodox but not always "orthodox" community.)
I also named a cat after Macrina last winter. Alas, I turned out to be allergic to her (this was last winter) and had to return her to her friendly foster humans after a few days, and she took back her old name. But perhaps she was Macrina the Elder, and a non-allergifying Macrina the Younger will come someday to stay and will, true to her namesake, run the household and make sure that there is contemplative time and that the hungry are fed.
Foodie postscript: Macrina also has a bakery named after her in the Seattle area. And a Russian Orthodox (ROCOR) women's group in Virginia which is sponsoring a cookbook.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Feast of Saints Peter and Paul
16th century Orthodox icon from the Balkans. (Thanks to St. Mary's Orthodox Church in Chambersburg, PA.)
Friday, June 22, 2007
Saint Alban, martyr
What kind of Anglican would I be if I didn't honor Alban, martyr in Britain?
I'm in the middle of a day of writing work, with a bit of travel later on, so I refer you to the great hagiographer of the blogosphere, Padre Mickey, for a biography of Alban and meditation upon his life, but here are a couple of images.
The first, of the martyrdom, is from the middle of the 13th century and the Web tells me it's by the historian and artist Matthew Paris, a monk of St. Alban's. Sounds awfully early to me for a signed work, but if we had Giotto and way before that, Praxiteles, I guess we can have Paris. Who knew? More evidence of the contribution of monasteries to civilization. 
The second is a contemporary Orthodox icon by Adrian Hart. Alban is honored as a protomartyr by the Orthodox Church in the West.
Another Alban-related tip of the hat to my esteemed colleague in Greensboro, Padre Rob, Episcopal priest with an Orthodox heart.
And see (listen) below for a Friday musical meditation.
I'm in the middle of a day of writing work, with a bit of travel later on, so I refer you to the great hagiographer of the blogosphere, Padre Mickey, for a biography of Alban and meditation upon his life, but here are a couple of images.
The first, of the martyrdom, is from the middle of the 13th century and the Web tells me it's by the historian and artist Matthew Paris, a monk of St. Alban's. Sounds awfully early to me for a signed work, but if we had Giotto and way before that, Praxiteles, I guess we can have Paris. Who knew? More evidence of the contribution of monasteries to civilization. 
The second is a contemporary Orthodox icon by Adrian Hart. Alban is honored as a protomartyr by the Orthodox Church in the West.
Another Alban-related tip of the hat to my esteemed colleague in Greensboro, Padre Rob, Episcopal priest with an Orthodox heart.
And see (listen) below for a Friday musical meditation.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Pentecost: images from India
This one is by Solomon Raj, Indian Lutheran theologian and artist.
I also just found this other one, but alas the website on which I located it is not good about quoting sources, so it doesn't say anything except that it's from India. But it is clearly in batik also and the same style as Raj. It might be that the one above is a detail of the one below, but the colors and the flame patterns are slightly different. I was entranced with the first one when I found it a couple of days ago, but having discovered the second, I am taken by those red flames!
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Jackson Kemper, Nicolas Copernicus, and Simeon the Pillar-Dweller
There’s a combo!Today’s People of the Day in the Episcopal Church:
And in the Orthodox Church, Simeon the Pillar-Dweller (521-596). (No icon available so far.) This, by the way, is Simeon Stylites the Younger, not to be confused with Simeon Stylites the Elder, another pillar-dweller.
There seem to be more icons of the elder fellow.
(See also this slightly confusing but fascinating description of Simeon the Elder – or Younger? The dates are a little contradictory in this text. But the picture is great.)
Finally, here is a beautiful icon of Simeon Stylites (definitely the Elder -- I know, it's not his day, but it's a great icon) with two other saints, Stylianus (with a child) and Onouphrious (Humphrey), with the flowing beard carefully arranged for modesty.
More on this fabulous icon here. (Padre Rob is going to like this one.)Holy One of blessing,
You grace us with companions
of varied gifts and temperaments.
Flawed and holy,
they speak to us
of the many paths to you
in the Spirit of Christ, Saviour.
Amen.
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