It just struck me, in the event that I find any information that may seem useful or interesting, is there any possibility in swapping e-mail address’?

Blessings,

-Veritas

Thank you for your response; your words carry much weight, since you have made clear that you are indeed a busy man; certainly sloth has nothing to do with the delay of your book, of that I am certain. Thanks for the heads up on Metochites; I will certainly check it out when I have a bit more time.(also I am very much interested in the annotations of Palamas and Bessarion here)

As for the Roman Primacy: I can, in large part, agree with you. Seems to me, that many of my Catholic brethren(including many apologists), have forgotten that our Eastern brothers did indeed enjoy their church’s autonomy; that is to say, they, justly, felt themselves a church that could deal with issues themselves, often times without the see of Rome. Nicetas’ words to Anselm in their dialogue come to mind here. However, when real strife struck their churches, from the extant writings of the fathers and clergy, it seems evident that the venerable faithful of the East had no problems with appealing to Rome on major doctrinal issues(and not just in the manner of the Council of Sardica), and even, as Dvornik points out in his ‘Byzantium and the Roman Primacy’, it was also very possible, although rare, for even Constantinople in the 9th Century to make appeals to Rome, even on disciplinary grounds. It seems to me that the notion of the Pentarchy, wherein all patriarchs are of equal status, is something that cannot be too firmly held to. My readings over Nicea II have brought me to that basic conclusion, in the not too distant past. But, allow me to clarify. I also agree with you that Rome’s practice of that Primacy has developed some over the years(and here, surprisingly, I have heard many Catholic apologists assert that it has not), and if we are to be united with our Eastern brethren once again, the Catholic church must realize this, and I think, in large part, it has. One example I may offer is that of Pope St Loe the Great. When sending his Tome to Chalcedon, he did not instruct the council to accept it and be done; rather, he encouraged discussion, and the council itself, discussed Leo’s Tome with those views already seen as orthodox, by way of St. Cyril.

I’ll stop here, as it would seem I’ve begun to ramble, a rather frequent occurence from my end. Suffice it to say, I, too, eagerly await the reconciliation of the Catholic/Orthodx churches; a united communion that can only be achived through the Holy Spirit.

Peace and God bless,

-Veritas

P.S.- One little note, if you’re ever interested in a good balanced acount of the Roman Primacy, you may find Klaus Schatz’s great work ‘Papal Primacy: From its Origins to the Present’ of good use. It really is a good work. Blessings again Peter.

Thank you for stopping by and leaving a message. You ask some large and important questions. Concerning the book, its appearance is not yet imminent. There are many reasons for this, and I hope that sloth is not too considerable a part of the explanation. Part of the problem is that I am doing this work by myself, outside of a strictly academic context, and while having to find some way of supporting myself financially. Although I have taken on a job at a bookstore, this is not a real solution to the problem; for one thing, it does not provide enough to live on, for another thing, when I was working there more or less full time I found it impossible to make any progress on Bekkos when coming home exhausted from standing at a cash register most of the day. So, in brief, economic factors are a large part of the delay. Also, about a year ago, I learned that there is another scholar, in Europe, who has now started working on Bekkos; I have been in touch with him by e-mail and telephone, and we have exchanged translations and ideas. By mutual agreement, I am working more on the earlier stuff (things written by Bekkos while he was still Patriarch), while he is working on the later stuff, that is to say, Bekkos’s controversy with Gregory of Cyprus — which is, in certain respects, the more interesting part of Bekkos’s work. To some extent, I think, the discovery that another person is working on the material acted as a large distraction for awhile, and caused a couple of translation projects that I was working on to hang in the air — a translation of Bekkos’s De pace ecclesiastica, a translation of the annotations of Gregory Palamas and Bessarion of Nicaea upon Bekkos’s Epigraphs (where Palamas tries to refute Bekkos and Bessarion, in turn, defends him); also, my translation of the Epigraphs, while complete, is still in real need of revision. Also, this blog, last year, was felt to be a distraction, and I put it aside for a few months.

One recent result of my research on Bekkos is already on this blog, although few people seem to have taken notice of it. One of Bekkos’s closest friends and colleagues was the archdeacon George Metochites; after Bekkos, Metochites, and the archdeacon Constantine Meliteniotes had all been sent into exile, Metochites began writing a three-volume work that has been given the title Historia Dogmatica, the “Dogmatic History.” It is a very important historical source for the whole period of the Union of Lyons and especially for the controversy that followed it, what one scholar has referred to as a period of “Crisis in Byzantium,” when the unionists were ousted and the Orthodox response to Western trinitarian teaching took its most definitive shape. Unfortunately, Metochites’ Greek is very dense; he is by no means easy reading. For this reason, I have been trying to come up with at least a kind of Table of Contents to the work, a kind of map to point myself and others to those places where they are likely to find what they are looking for. Anyway, you might find that of some interest; a link to it is on the sidebar.

As for my thoughts on the Roman Primacy: as you’ve probably noticed, I’ve somewhat studiously been avoiding the question here on this blog, except for various comments here and there. It is, indeed, a very large question. On the whole, as an Orthodox Christian, I try to hold on to some hope that the ongoing dialogue between the Churches will actually agree to something, which would allow communion to be restored. It seems clear to me that those who assert that the position of the Bishop of Rome in the early Church was simply that of a primus inter pares, perhaps on the model of the Archbishop of Canterbury within the Anglican Church, are not being historically truthful. There are many important occasions in the early Church where the Bishop of Rome exercised an effective authority on behalf of the whole Church, acted in a decisive way to uphold the Church’s teaching. And there are important testimonies to the authority of the Roman Church from a number of saints of the Eastern Church; St. Maximus the Confessor and St. Theodore the Studite are two that come to mind. On the other hand, there is also evidence from the early Church of numerous saints finding cause to question Rome’s decisions and policies, or otherwise leading one to think that the way papal authority was conceived of was not quite the way it is currently exercised within the Roman Church’s communion. St. Cyprian’s (and St. Firmilian’s) disagreements with Pope Stephen over the validity of heretical baptism is one example; St. Basil’s unhappiness with Pope Damasus’s approach to the ecclesiastical situation in the East is another. Even in the case of John Bekkos, some people have argued, what one sees is not a simple readiness to take orders from an ecclesiastical superior so much as it is a readiness to see, in the Western tradition, the same basic faith as is present in the Greek Christian tradition. The assumption is that, along with ecclesiastical order, there is also a basic equality in Christ, in this case the equal validity of these two traditions. There were popes at the time of the Union of Lyons who were telling the Greeks to add the Filioque to the Creed and to use unleavened bread in the Eucharist; Bekkos, politely but firmly, told them no. As an Orthodox Christian, while I recognize that the current situation of the Church is abnormal and impaired, the history of the various Eastern Churches in union with Rome does not give me great confidence that that is the way God wills for healing the impairment. I agree, in other words, with the Balamand Declaration: uniatism as a method cannot be the answer the Church seeks for the problem of Christian division. (And that applies also to Orthodox uniatism, i.e., the idea that everything will be back to normal if we promulgate a “Western rite.”) My hope, in short, is that the theological conversation that the Churches are engaged in will be a serious and genuine one, that those engaged in it will realize the responsibility that weighs upon them in the sight of God to seek Christ’s will for his Church, and that it will bear fruit.

Peace be also with you.

Peter

I am what most would refer to as a “lurker”; while not posting at all, I still rather enjoy the many informative and interesting articles you post for public view. Also, your many translations I have found most useful; I thank you, and not so much because you have done me a favor here; but rather, the pursuit of scholarship itself, thanks you. I eagerly await the publishing of your book on Bekkos, and if I may be so bold as to ask: Is the release of such erudition soon upon us? No need to feel any overwhelming inclination to answer my question here, good sound sholarship takes time, and I am confident that your forthcoming work shall ooze with it.
As a Catholic, I was, however, wondering your thoughts on the Roman Primacy. Do your opinions on this matter carry you farther than some of your Orthodox brethren wish you to go? As it would seem, you’ve encoutered a bit of that already. Ive heard great things about Oliver Clement’s work, in response to JP II’s Ut Unum Sint; I hope to purchase a copy soon. I realise this is a complex question, just wondered some of your thoughts on the topic.

Peace in Christ,

-Veritas

Please email me your current postal address, as I seem to have lost my address book in the mountains of boxes after my recent move…

My best,
Martha Keen

Please send me your email address as soon as you can.

I trust that you are well.

Christian Holland

Thanks for your encouragement. I really wish I could give you a fixed date for the appearance of this book on John Bekkos. As it is, I cannot. The practical necessities of making a living in the midst of an uncertain economy are starting to weigh on me; I put the Bekkos work aside most of last month in order to compile an index for someone else’s book, and it looks likely that, in the near future, I will get a 9-to-5 job at a bookstore or library to help make ends meet. Although I am committed to finishing the book, my immediate objective is to publish some articles on Bekkos and the Church fathers; that presumably should help me persuade a college or seminary somewhere to employ me as a teacher.

Since you live in the Chicago area, you should get in touch with the people who are trying to start Transfiguration College (see http://www.transfigurationcollege.org/). In particular, talk with John Wiesner. I’ve done a lot of work with him, and he’s a good man.

Peter