The story at the end about the architect and the Prince remind me of one I heard long ago about the builder of the Taj Mahal having his hands severed so that he could never again build anything to rival it's beauty. Grimly fascinating!
It’s all very beautiful and initially quite alluring. I became Orthodox as an adult and increasingly I notice the gulf between my Western outlook and the Eastern way of the Orthodox.
I wonder if Christ and the Holy Spirit had any of this in mind on the day of Pentecost? Schisms versus unity, buildings versus a People, power versus service. The early church turned an Empire on its head. How did they contribute to that I wonder.
Especially since Moldova and Wallachia were on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire, client stares rather than centrally ruled provinces. Yet the Middle Eastern influence still penetrated.
Last month I spent a long weekend at Holy Dormition, a Romanian monastery in Michigan, US, attending the anniversary of the repose of Archimandrite Roman Braga of blessed memory. As an Antiochian Orthodox convert, I found this introduction to Romanian Orthodoxy immersive and compelling.
As you probably know, Father Roman wrote profoundly on the future of Orthodoxy in the Americas - perhaps worth reviewing before your trip in the fall? This was a fascinating blog - thanks.
There is a Romanian monastery in western Pennsylvania as well, founded in 1967. Its foundress was Mother Alexandra (the former Princess Ileana of Romania). One of the reasons she chose the site was that it reminded her of her home. It's about 40 mi. NW of Pittsburgh.
What is a mosque-baptized cathedral if not the perfect icon of God’s refusal to be confined? The Voivode’s architects (whether by pragmatism or unconscious revelation) built a temple that proclaims the scandal of particularity: Christ does not shatter the world’s beauty to replace it, but assumes it, as flesh assumed the Word. Those Allah-etched bricks, those arabesque arches twisting like vines around the Pantocrator’s gaze. This is no mere cultural hybrid. It is a sacramental insistence that even the stones of empire can be made to sing the liturgy.
And Manole himself, crafting wings from scraps? Of course he fell. The artist always does when he tries to escape the paradox. There is no purity to be had, only the dizzying truth that even our plummeting is part of the descent that brings heaven into the dirt. The cathedral still stands. The prayers still rise. And the Christ who rules from its dome is the same one who, somewhere, must be smiling at the cheek of it all… this holy thief of a church, stealing fire from Islam’s forge to light its candles.
This is how God works though, isn’t it? Not by erasing borders, but by haunting them. Not by refusing the world’s materials, but by hallowing them in ways that scandalize both the zealot and the skeptic. The Voivode’s mosque-that-isn’t whispers what the Incarnation shouts: nothing is so profane that cannot be made to bear the weight of glory. Not even a Sultan’s bricks. Not even our own tangled, borrowed, half-ruined selves.
Your comment makes me remember that the family tree of the Jewish Messiah has people in it who were born from an episode of incest, and the shocking story of David and Bethsheba who later bore Solomon won't go away either...
New meanings enter the world to be attached to the old objects that, though remaining, will not stand still.
This works for the better, but for the worse too, and sometimes it makes me melancholy.
Yes, it’s astonishing how the old wounds in the family line of the Messiah, incest, betrayal, murder, remain visible, even as they are transfigured by grace. It’s a good reminder to me that redemption doesn’t erase the scars of history, it transforms them… even as the ache of the past still echoes in the soul.
Yes. We are not a succession of identities ; the world is not a succession of identities which are constantly replaced by what follows in progression. We, and the world, are held in a way that striking a string at one spot makes it resonate and vibrate next to others, with multiple layers of simultaneous music in HARMONY. Poly-phony.
Thank you for this visit, Paul. I would be curious to hear what you have to say about the differences between the Romanian people you are meeting, and the ones you meet elsewhere. The differences in culture, since you are seeing all of this first hand, and I can't.
"The result, over the last thousand years, has been Western and Eastern Christian Churches which, while they share the same fundamental theology, are quite different in many ways in their practice, approach and traditions. Orthodoxy, to my mind, has best preserved the Christian tradition as it was before the ‘Great Schism’ of 1054..."
Paul, I think that the differences in practice, approach and traditions date back to beginning of Christianity, definitely to the Second century. It was all a culture war, with the most recent battles seen in the attempts to Latinize the Eastern Catholic Churches. IMO the battle over papal supremacy was a secondary issue, despite it being the 'detonator' of the schism.
They certainly pre-date the schism by a long way. But would the schism have happened without the power claims of the Pope? Impossible to say of course, but I wonder what the trigger would have been if so.
I wonder often if Eastern and Western approaches to the faith are fundamentally incompatible or if an accommodation can be made. I'm not sure.
I can't believe they are totally incompatible, if they are then one or both are no longer Christian. Personally, I see your efforts and those of other Easterners as sowing the seeds for future 'accommodations', though I would prefer to call it understanding, respect, and love. You are doing God's work Paud.
I would say the schism would have not happened without the power claims, and I think that the Council of Ferrara/Florence (1439) proves it, as it is another attempt for the same power claim.
My interpretation:
The circumstances were dire for the East (Byzantines) with the Ottomans at their gates and the West/Pope saw an advantage in this.
The Laetentur Caeli contained the first formal conciliar definition of Papal primacy and the main points were as follows:
1. Papal primacy
2. Filioque
3. Eucharistic bread
4. Purgatory
The Byzantine emperor and the vast majority of the delegation accepted the conditions and the lone dissenting voice against the bull was that of St Mark of Ephesus.
Therefore, to me, this attempt for "unification" cointaing the same power play shows that the papal primacy was the major straw that broke the unity in the first place, though indeed it is more political then theological.
Also I interpret the fall of Constantinople some years later as a direct consequence of the Byzantines accepting the false doctrine.
And I see Protestantism as a direct consequence of the same power play with Luther rejecting the papal authority.
I don't think accomodations can be made while the papal primacy is demanded.
The building exterior is not aesthetically sound by any conventions of the architecture of any culture. It’s out of universal scale and its ornamentation is derivative. The interior is a somewhat different story. The whole enterprise feels to me a visual symbol not of a harmony of Christian and Arabic, but their mutual unease and possible incompatibility, as difficult as that is to consider. (See Aayan Hirsi Ali. It would be difficult to imagine a Gothic cathedral with a woman slowly dying within its walls.) Really fascinating building though, Paul, and thanks as always for these unusual places.
Many years ago I was privileged to be in southern Portugal. Our guide pointed to a church on a nearby hill, which had been a mosque after it had been a church after it had been built by the Romans as a pagan temple.
There is a Romanian Orthodox monastery near my home - the only Orthodox monastery in Ireland. It's where I was baptised. The Romanian church is very active here and has been very welcoming. I think this is where God led me.
So - NOT to stir up a big debate - but I see you always refer to the Roman Catholic church ‘splitting from’ the Eastern Church. In most every online source I quickly find they state it the other way around. (Which I suspect irritates you and is at least partially why you make a point to state it other way around.) I am no church historian - so maybe there are in fact definitive arguments one way vs another - but as a Roman Catholic reader I find it irksome, though I can understand why as a follower of the Eastern Church you’d prefer to refer to the split that way. My (very) limited understanding is that both Pope Leo IX and Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople mutually excommunicated each other. So far as I can tell BOTH have ‘unbroken’ linneages to the ‘original’ early church fathers. So in the interests of mutual encouragement and support could we not simply say BOTH parted company without any attempt to re-argue who split from who? I suspect both sides want to lay claim to ‘original’ & blame on the other side. But maybe we just set that aside in the interests of brotherly dialog and growth in faith & practice. I dunno - just my 2 pence worth from a loyal Catholic reader. 🤷♂️ You gotta do you. 👊
The split ended up being mutual, but it was initiated by Rome. There had been a lot of back and forth, with the Patriarch of Constaninople and the Bishop of Rome battling over various issues, but the split began when Pope Leo IX sent a delegation to Constantinople to demand that the Patriarch there recognise him as head of all the Christian churches.
The Patriarch refused to do this - in accordance with Christian tradition, which had never recognised one Bishop from any of the regional churches as supreme governor of all the others. In response, Leo's Papal delegation issued a writ of excommunication against the Patriarch of Constantinpole. They served this writ by marching into Hagia Sophia during a divine liturgy and slapping the writ down on the altar. Quite the hostile act! Apparently the priest ran after them begging to take it back, but they refused.
In response to this, the Patriarch then excommunicated the Pope, and it was all downwhill from there.
I always try hard not to involve myself in Catholics-vs-Orthodox battles, because I think they are deeply unproductive, and I also think that love of Christ ought to be able to overcome these things. I agree entirely about the brotherly dialogue. But it is the case that Rome excommunicated the Eastern church, and that the split was primarily about the Pope's claim to power, so when I write about the history, that's what I write. Not that the Orthodox are blameless by any means, but I'm afraid I still think that this power claim is the central problem that the Christian church has. Until the Roman Bishop stops claiming the right to rule the entire church, the various schisms will continue. Encouragingly, it seems that Popes from JP2 onward have recognised this themselves. Francis certainly did. It would certainly be nice not to have to argue about it ever again ...
I am in the interesting position of being a lone island of Orthodoxy in still fairly Catholic rural Ireland. I've avoided arguing with my neighbours though. They don't seem to care much about these theological matters. They trouble intellectuals, but most people just get on with their lives. Perhaps there is hope there!
Indeed. I mean - truth matters so I understand the desire to get things ‘right’ - but sometimes in a disagreement ‘winning’ becomes more important than resolving amicably - with devastating consequences sometimes. Power struggles seem to be part of our fallen nature. Refusal to submit to God is what got us into this mess. Best to you brother! 🙏
A good (and moreover fair) look at how they separated is Fr. Alexander Schmemann's "The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy". I'm grossly oversimplifying here, but he said that East and West practically lost touch with each other for over a century, during which time Rome was first dominated by the Franks (who imparted something of a cultural bias against the East), and then had to find a way to reform and re-assert itself. Rome emerged from this time with a new self-conception of its own authority, but having lost something of its history and changed its praxis. During this time, the East had its own crises, and by the time the two were regularly in touch again, they each no longer knew how to love the other, for they could no longer quite recognize each other.
Differences in praxis (the East uses leavened bread, the West had changed to unleavened, for instance), poor communications and bad misunderstandings (the decrees of the 7th Council, which refuted iconclasm, were badly translated into Latin and conveyed the wrong meaning, but the error was not discovered for a century), and competition over turf and rites in northern Europe (Cyril and Methodius were holding liturgies in Slavic, while the Franks insisted that only Latin was valid - the Franks eventually browbeat Rome on this), had put a strain on what was already (to borrow a modern turn of phrase) a long distance relationship.
But the 1054 schism in itself need not have been that important at the time. Caused quite the scandal, but the Papal legate in Constantinople was acting on his own authority since the Pope who sent him had then died. Remember, the 1st Crusade was a later Pope's attempt to help the East (got a bit out of hand though), so that 1054 business might well have been forgotten if it were not for a series of later events. Things like Papally-authorized Norman invasions of Greece, and of course the fall-out of the Fourth Crusade, were what made the division irreparable. Schmemann also faults a long-standing Eastern sense of self importance that kept them ignorant of western Europe, and tone-deaf to Roman issues - fine when you're powerful, not so fine when you no longer hold strong cards.
Put simply, things could have been mended at several points between 1054 and 1204, had either side recognized that they were actually breaking. And I do agree with your point that we should be careful of saying that one side actually split from the other - really it was that they both fell apart.
Very informative. Thank you! My reading pile is SO deep and time SO limited that I likely won’t get to your recommended book - but I’ll add it to my list and do appreciate the suggestion. 🙏👊
The story at the end about the architect and the Prince remind me of one I heard long ago about the builder of the Taj Mahal having his hands severed so that he could never again build anything to rival it's beauty. Grimly fascinating!
There seem to be a lot of similar tales from across the world. Who'd be an architect for a king?!
There's also a story (which I believe has been debunked) that Ivan the Terrible blinded the architect who built St. Basil's.
Sometimes it's good not to stand out.
It’s all very beautiful and initially quite alluring. I became Orthodox as an adult and increasingly I notice the gulf between my Western outlook and the Eastern way of the Orthodox.
I wonder if Christ and the Holy Spirit had any of this in mind on the day of Pentecost? Schisms versus unity, buildings versus a People, power versus service. The early church turned an Empire on its head. How did they contribute to that I wonder.
I suppose He knew it was on the cards, which is why he preached a radical simplicity that most of us never seem to commit to, myself included.
Church history is not unlike capitalism: lots of problems, but we're sorta stuck with it.
"Fierce wolves will come among you..." "Behold, I am with you until the end." Everything praises God whether it would or not.
The strange mixture of Arabic and Christion is fascinating.
Especially since Moldova and Wallachia were on the fringes of the Ottoman Empire, client stares rather than centrally ruled provinces. Yet the Middle Eastern influence still penetrated.
Last month I spent a long weekend at Holy Dormition, a Romanian monastery in Michigan, US, attending the anniversary of the repose of Archimandrite Roman Braga of blessed memory. As an Antiochian Orthodox convert, I found this introduction to Romanian Orthodoxy immersive and compelling.
https://dormitionmonastery.org/
As you probably know, Father Roman wrote profoundly on the future of Orthodoxy in the Americas - perhaps worth reviewing before your trip in the fall? This was a fascinating blog - thanks.
I visited there when I first became Orthodox (1996) and I lived in MI.
There is a Romanian monastery in western Pennsylvania as well, founded in 1967. Its foundress was Mother Alexandra (the former Princess Ileana of Romania). One of the reasons she chose the site was that it reminded her of her home. It's about 40 mi. NW of Pittsburgh.
https://www.orthodoxmonasteryellwoodcity.org/home
What is a mosque-baptized cathedral if not the perfect icon of God’s refusal to be confined? The Voivode’s architects (whether by pragmatism or unconscious revelation) built a temple that proclaims the scandal of particularity: Christ does not shatter the world’s beauty to replace it, but assumes it, as flesh assumed the Word. Those Allah-etched bricks, those arabesque arches twisting like vines around the Pantocrator’s gaze. This is no mere cultural hybrid. It is a sacramental insistence that even the stones of empire can be made to sing the liturgy.
And Manole himself, crafting wings from scraps? Of course he fell. The artist always does when he tries to escape the paradox. There is no purity to be had, only the dizzying truth that even our plummeting is part of the descent that brings heaven into the dirt. The cathedral still stands. The prayers still rise. And the Christ who rules from its dome is the same one who, somewhere, must be smiling at the cheek of it all… this holy thief of a church, stealing fire from Islam’s forge to light its candles.
This is how God works though, isn’t it? Not by erasing borders, but by haunting them. Not by refusing the world’s materials, but by hallowing them in ways that scandalize both the zealot and the skeptic. The Voivode’s mosque-that-isn’t whispers what the Incarnation shouts: nothing is so profane that cannot be made to bear the weight of glory. Not even a Sultan’s bricks. Not even our own tangled, borrowed, half-ruined selves.
Your comment makes me remember that the family tree of the Jewish Messiah has people in it who were born from an episode of incest, and the shocking story of David and Bethsheba who later bore Solomon won't go away either...
New meanings enter the world to be attached to the old objects that, though remaining, will not stand still.
This works for the better, but for the worse too, and sometimes it makes me melancholy.
Yes, it’s astonishing how the old wounds in the family line of the Messiah, incest, betrayal, murder, remain visible, even as they are transfigured by grace. It’s a good reminder to me that redemption doesn’t erase the scars of history, it transforms them… even as the ache of the past still echoes in the soul.
Yes. We are not a succession of identities ; the world is not a succession of identities which are constantly replaced by what follows in progression. We, and the world, are held in a way that striking a string at one spot makes it resonate and vibrate next to others, with multiple layers of simultaneous music in HARMONY. Poly-phony.
"You meant it for evil, God meant it for good."
Thank you for this visit, Paul. I would be curious to hear what you have to say about the differences between the Romanian people you are meeting, and the ones you meet elsewhere. The differences in culture, since you are seeing all of this first hand, and I can't.
Remarkable!
"The result, over the last thousand years, has been Western and Eastern Christian Churches which, while they share the same fundamental theology, are quite different in many ways in their practice, approach and traditions. Orthodoxy, to my mind, has best preserved the Christian tradition as it was before the ‘Great Schism’ of 1054..."
Paul, I think that the differences in practice, approach and traditions date back to beginning of Christianity, definitely to the Second century. It was all a culture war, with the most recent battles seen in the attempts to Latinize the Eastern Catholic Churches. IMO the battle over papal supremacy was a secondary issue, despite it being the 'detonator' of the schism.
They certainly pre-date the schism by a long way. But would the schism have happened without the power claims of the Pope? Impossible to say of course, but I wonder what the trigger would have been if so.
I wonder often if Eastern and Western approaches to the faith are fundamentally incompatible or if an accommodation can be made. I'm not sure.
I can't believe they are totally incompatible, if they are then one or both are no longer Christian. Personally, I see your efforts and those of other Easterners as sowing the seeds for future 'accommodations', though I would prefer to call it understanding, respect, and love. You are doing God's work Paud.
This sounds good to me. I don't know if I'm doing God's work, but then who ever knows?
I would say the schism would have not happened without the power claims, and I think that the Council of Ferrara/Florence (1439) proves it, as it is another attempt for the same power claim.
My interpretation:
The circumstances were dire for the East (Byzantines) with the Ottomans at their gates and the West/Pope saw an advantage in this.
The Laetentur Caeli contained the first formal conciliar definition of Papal primacy and the main points were as follows:
1. Papal primacy
2. Filioque
3. Eucharistic bread
4. Purgatory
The Byzantine emperor and the vast majority of the delegation accepted the conditions and the lone dissenting voice against the bull was that of St Mark of Ephesus.
Therefore, to me, this attempt for "unification" cointaing the same power play shows that the papal primacy was the major straw that broke the unity in the first place, though indeed it is more political then theological.
Also I interpret the fall of Constantinople some years later as a direct consequence of the Byzantines accepting the false doctrine.
And I see Protestantism as a direct consequence of the same power play with Luther rejecting the papal authority.
I don't think accomodations can be made while the papal primacy is demanded.
The building exterior is not aesthetically sound by any conventions of the architecture of any culture. It’s out of universal scale and its ornamentation is derivative. The interior is a somewhat different story. The whole enterprise feels to me a visual symbol not of a harmony of Christian and Arabic, but their mutual unease and possible incompatibility, as difficult as that is to consider. (See Aayan Hirsi Ali. It would be difficult to imagine a Gothic cathedral with a woman slowly dying within its walls.) Really fascinating building though, Paul, and thanks as always for these unusual places.
I think the styles are quite incompatible, I agree. Byzantine and Gothic are incompatible too. They are their own worlds.
I like the weirdness, though.
Many years ago I was privileged to be in southern Portugal. Our guide pointed to a church on a nearby hill, which had been a mosque after it had been a church after it had been built by the Romans as a pagan temple.
I visited a small church in Romania which was a repurposed Roman temple too. I may write about it here.
I am Russian Orthodox. I'm curious as to why you chose Romanian Orthodoxy over another branch of Orthodoxy.
There is a Romanian Orthodox monastery near my home - the only Orthodox monastery in Ireland. It's where I was baptised. The Romanian church is very active here and has been very welcoming. I think this is where God led me.
So - NOT to stir up a big debate - but I see you always refer to the Roman Catholic church ‘splitting from’ the Eastern Church. In most every online source I quickly find they state it the other way around. (Which I suspect irritates you and is at least partially why you make a point to state it other way around.) I am no church historian - so maybe there are in fact definitive arguments one way vs another - but as a Roman Catholic reader I find it irksome, though I can understand why as a follower of the Eastern Church you’d prefer to refer to the split that way. My (very) limited understanding is that both Pope Leo IX and Patriarch Michael Cerularius of Constantinople mutually excommunicated each other. So far as I can tell BOTH have ‘unbroken’ linneages to the ‘original’ early church fathers. So in the interests of mutual encouragement and support could we not simply say BOTH parted company without any attempt to re-argue who split from who? I suspect both sides want to lay claim to ‘original’ & blame on the other side. But maybe we just set that aside in the interests of brotherly dialog and growth in faith & practice. I dunno - just my 2 pence worth from a loyal Catholic reader. 🤷♂️ You gotta do you. 👊
The split ended up being mutual, but it was initiated by Rome. There had been a lot of back and forth, with the Patriarch of Constaninople and the Bishop of Rome battling over various issues, but the split began when Pope Leo IX sent a delegation to Constantinople to demand that the Patriarch there recognise him as head of all the Christian churches.
The Patriarch refused to do this - in accordance with Christian tradition, which had never recognised one Bishop from any of the regional churches as supreme governor of all the others. In response, Leo's Papal delegation issued a writ of excommunication against the Patriarch of Constantinpole. They served this writ by marching into Hagia Sophia during a divine liturgy and slapping the writ down on the altar. Quite the hostile act! Apparently the priest ran after them begging to take it back, but they refused.
In response to this, the Patriarch then excommunicated the Pope, and it was all downwhill from there.
I always try hard not to involve myself in Catholics-vs-Orthodox battles, because I think they are deeply unproductive, and I also think that love of Christ ought to be able to overcome these things. I agree entirely about the brotherly dialogue. But it is the case that Rome excommunicated the Eastern church, and that the split was primarily about the Pope's claim to power, so when I write about the history, that's what I write. Not that the Orthodox are blameless by any means, but I'm afraid I still think that this power claim is the central problem that the Christian church has. Until the Roman Bishop stops claiming the right to rule the entire church, the various schisms will continue. Encouragingly, it seems that Popes from JP2 onward have recognised this themselves. Francis certainly did. It would certainly be nice not to have to argue about it ever again ...
Thanks Paul for your response. Much appreciated. Sadly - family members argue. <sigh> I pray one day unity will be restored.
I am in the interesting position of being a lone island of Orthodoxy in still fairly Catholic rural Ireland. I've avoided arguing with my neighbours though. They don't seem to care much about these theological matters. They trouble intellectuals, but most people just get on with their lives. Perhaps there is hope there!
Indeed. I mean - truth matters so I understand the desire to get things ‘right’ - but sometimes in a disagreement ‘winning’ becomes more important than resolving amicably - with devastating consequences sometimes. Power struggles seem to be part of our fallen nature. Refusal to submit to God is what got us into this mess. Best to you brother! 🙏
A good (and moreover fair) look at how they separated is Fr. Alexander Schmemann's "The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy". I'm grossly oversimplifying here, but he said that East and West practically lost touch with each other for over a century, during which time Rome was first dominated by the Franks (who imparted something of a cultural bias against the East), and then had to find a way to reform and re-assert itself. Rome emerged from this time with a new self-conception of its own authority, but having lost something of its history and changed its praxis. During this time, the East had its own crises, and by the time the two were regularly in touch again, they each no longer knew how to love the other, for they could no longer quite recognize each other.
Differences in praxis (the East uses leavened bread, the West had changed to unleavened, for instance), poor communications and bad misunderstandings (the decrees of the 7th Council, which refuted iconclasm, were badly translated into Latin and conveyed the wrong meaning, but the error was not discovered for a century), and competition over turf and rites in northern Europe (Cyril and Methodius were holding liturgies in Slavic, while the Franks insisted that only Latin was valid - the Franks eventually browbeat Rome on this), had put a strain on what was already (to borrow a modern turn of phrase) a long distance relationship.
But the 1054 schism in itself need not have been that important at the time. Caused quite the scandal, but the Papal legate in Constantinople was acting on his own authority since the Pope who sent him had then died. Remember, the 1st Crusade was a later Pope's attempt to help the East (got a bit out of hand though), so that 1054 business might well have been forgotten if it were not for a series of later events. Things like Papally-authorized Norman invasions of Greece, and of course the fall-out of the Fourth Crusade, were what made the division irreparable. Schmemann also faults a long-standing Eastern sense of self importance that kept them ignorant of western Europe, and tone-deaf to Roman issues - fine when you're powerful, not so fine when you no longer hold strong cards.
Put simply, things could have been mended at several points between 1054 and 1204, had either side recognized that they were actually breaking. And I do agree with your point that we should be careful of saying that one side actually split from the other - really it was that they both fell apart.
Very informative. Thank you! My reading pile is SO deep and time SO limited that I likely won’t get to your recommended book - but I’ll add it to my list and do appreciate the suggestion. 🙏👊
You ought to see my nightstand. And the floor around my nightstand. And various other heaps around the house... Then there are my wife's stacks...
Lol - sounds very familiar! 👊