FRIENDS OF MOUNT ATHOS BOOK REVIEW
© 1993
The Orthodox Church. By Timothy Ware [Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia]. 2nd edition. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993. 359 pages. Price p/b £7.99. ISBN 0-14-014656-3.
Ever since its first publication in 1963 Timothy Ware's The Orthodox Church has been a standard introduction in English
to Orthodoxy, particularly for western Christians wishing to discover something
of what Khomiakov described as 'a new and unknown world', an embodiment of
Christianity which is so different from both Roman Catholicism and
Protestantism. It has provided an account of those historical circumstances
and events which have helped to shape Orthodoxy from the beginning to the
present day, describing the development of the Church within the Byzantine empire,
the conversion of the Slavs, the story of the Church
under Islam, and finally the witness of Orthodoxy both under communism and in
diaspora in the West. It has given a concise account of Orthodox beliefs and
doctrines, of its public liturgical worship, and of private devotion, and of
Orthodoxy in the ecumenical movement.
There have been important developments in
Orthodoxy's ecumenical relations since 1963, and revolutionary changes in its
political situation since
1989. In this new edition Bishop Kallistos takes full account of both, and it
is in the historical and ecumenical sections that most of the new material has
been added, to bring the story right up to 1992.
The chapter
on 'Orthodoxy and the Militant Atheists' now traces the events which have given
the churches in the former communist countries of the former Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe a freedom they have not enjoyed
for many years. It indicates the positive and negative elements in their
present situation, which offers many new opportunities. But the churches are
ill-equipped to take advantage of them, and the moral authority
of their leadership is weakened by their perceived compromise with communist
regimes.
The chapter on 'Greeks and Arabs' is able to
record the remarkable revival of monastic life on Mount Athos, and the growth
of the influence of the Holy Mountain in Orthodoxy at large. It takes note of
the weakening
of links between church and state in Greece and the decline there in church
attendance, while recording the renewal of theology and theological teaching.
The continuing decline of the Greek Orthodox population
in Istanbul is noted. The book was published just too soon to be able to record
the admission of its first Arab member to the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre
in the Patriarchate of Jerusalem. The first
beginnings of Arab participation in the leadership of that important Arab
church in the Holy Land, hitherto led exclusively by Greeks, is a significant
development in Middle Eastern Orthodoxy. But it does describe
the remarkable renewal of the Arab Patriarchate of Antioch and its influential
role within world Orthodoxy.
Since 1963 the Orthodox Church has entered
fully into the ecumenical movement, and has begun official international
theological dialogues
with the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion, as well as with
Lutheran and Reformed Churches. The new edition gives a concise account of the
progress made in the first two, and of the difficulties and frustrations that
have emerged in recent years. They include the tensions which have arisen
between Orthodox and Roman Catholics as a consequence of the re-emergence of
the Uniate Churches in
the Ukraine and Transylvania, and the problem caused for the Orthodox by the
ordination of women to the priesthood in the Anglican Communion. The most
significant ecumenical development for the Orthodox
has been the doctrinal agreement reached between Chalcedonian and
non-Chalcedonian Orthodox on Christo logy during unofficial conversations in
1964-71 and reaffirmed officially in 1989-90. There is now
a firm basis for the restoration of communion between these two families of
churches of eastern tradition.
Two further additions deserve notice. The
section on 'God in Trinity' has been expanded to include a discussion of the
different Orthodox assessments of the significance of the Filioque: that of the 'hawks', such as
Vladimir Lossky, who see it as a heresy which has distorted not only theology
but ecclesiology, and that of the 'doves', who believe that this divergence
between east and west is less fundamental and capable of resolutiion
through dialogue. In the section on 'Holy Orders' there is a discussion of the
question of the ordination of women. Elsewhere the author notes that the
present Patriarch of Alexandria is in favour of it: here,
while the chief arguments against it are summarized, the existence is noted of
a small but growing minority within Orthodoxy who feel that the
whole question has still to receive the thorough theological examination it
deserves.
These judicious discussions of contentious
issues further add to the value of this revised edition, while the greatly
enlarged section on Further Reading guides the student of Orthodoxy through the
abundant material that has been published in the past thirty years.
Fr HUGH WYBREW
Oxford