FRIENDS OF MOUNT ATHOS BOOK REVIEWS

© 2000

The Synaxarion: The Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church: Volume 2: November, December. By Hieromonk Makarios of Simonopetra; translated by Christopher Hookway. Ormylia, 1999. 619 pages. ISBN 960-86143-1-7. Price h/b £25.00 or US $40.00 (including airmail postage).

One of the striking things about an Athonite katholikon is the way in which the monks and laymen installed in the seats lining the walls of the church form part of the iconography of the building. The serried ranks of the Church triumphant give way to the figures – standing, sitting, or snoozing – of the Church militant. Whatever the spiritual alertness of the occupants of the stalls, the point is quite clear: we belong even now, in this life, to the communion of the saints, to the Church of the eschaton.

This sense of the unity between the heavenly and earthly Church has been part of the Christian tradition from the outset. The early martyrs, for example, were almost immediately held up as paradigms of authentic Christian behaviour to be imitated by the faithful. The celebration of the anniversary of their martyrdom came to serve, as the Martyrdom of Polycarp (AD 155) put it, ‘both as a commemoration of all who have triumphed before, and as a training and a preparation for those whose crown is yet to come’. The cult of the martyrs came to play a decisive role in the formation of Christianity. By the beginning of the third century, if not before, the martyrs were not only being held up as examples for imitation but were also being asked for their intercessions and prayers. As both exemplars and potential intercessors the martyrs had tremendous appeal; accounts of their deaths circulated very widely, often in compilation form. Such primitive martyrologies are the forerunners of the more expansive collections of saints’ lives (and deaths) that rapidly became a staple of Christians the world over. The present work is a fine example of the genre.

Francophone Orthodox have long had the benefit of Fr Makarios’s excellent Le Synaxaire. It is a cause for rejoicing that this work has now begun to appear in English, the present volume being the second in a series of six. Fr Makarios, an Athonite monk of French extraction, has drawn on an impressive array of sources to produce the most comprehensive Orthodox collection of saints’ lives to date. Unlike many earlier Synaxaria, this collection includes a significant number of saints from the pre-schism west. While the balance remains definitely tilted towards the east, the incorporation of western saints is a timely reminder of the catholicity of Orthodoxy.

The reader of these volumes will soon become aware of the sheer diversity of sanctity, encountering martyrs, confessors, virgins, ascetics, passion-bearers, unmercenary healers, almsgivers, prelates, theologians, fools for Christ, and many other types of saint. He will also be struck by the chronological scope of the work, ranging from the Old Testament to a number of saints who died within living memory. This fact points to the important truth that sanctity is not the preserve of the early or the pre-Reformation Church alone, that it remains within the reach of modern (and indeed postmodern) man.

The work also serves as a kind of précis of the historical experience of the Orthodox tradition, encompassing, for example, the early persecutions, the struggles surrounding the formulation of the doctrines of the Trinity and of the Person of Christ, Iconoclasm, Unionism, Hesychasm, the Tourkokratia, and the Asia Minor Disaster. This aspect of the Synaxarion indicates the deeply historical nature of the Christian faith. It is an incarnate religion intimately involved in the world – whether this involvement entails reprimanding emperors or praying for humanity in a remote Athonite cell. The Synaxarion is in this way a kind of sacred history, a record of the interaction between the eternal and the temporal, between God and man.

Thus the Synaxarion is an expression of the simultaneously historical and eschatological nature of Christianity. The fact that it is designed to be read day by day underlines this double character – it is, quite literally, a way of redeeming the time. Reading it daily will greatly enrich the reader’s sense of the liturgical year. It should also be added that it is a pleasure to read, being generally well laid out, amply illustrated, and supplied with a number of very useful footnotes. It has to be said that is not cheap--and here I would express the hope that a paperback edition appear soon--but is none the less well worth it.

It should also be noted that much of the appeal of the book stems from the elegance and clarity of the translation. This has been the work of a long-standing member of the Friends, Christopher Hookway, who died on 23 December 2000, only three months after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour. Christopher was closely connected with Athos, particularly with the monastery of Simonopetra. It is this association that led to his taking on of the translation. Before his death he was able to complete the translation of the third volume (January, February). It will be difficult to find a translator of his literary and spiritual calibre to carry on the work. Having spent much of the last few years in the company of the saints, it is fitting that we can now wish him, in the words of the Orthodox funeral service, ‘rest with the saints [...] where there is neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but life everlasting’. May his memory be eternal!

MARCUS PLESTED

Cambridge