Father Godfrey O’Donnell: brought the Romanian Orthodox Church to Ireland

Father Godfrey O’Donnell, Patrick Comerford and Ruth O’Donnell at the IOCS summer school in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, in 2014 (Photograph courtesy IOCS, Cambridge)

It is with great sadness that I learned earlier this month that Father Godfrey O’Donnell had died at his home in Swords, Co Dublin two weeks ago [14 February 2020].

Father Godfrey was instrumental in establishing the first parish of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Ireland, and later he was the first representative of the Orthodox churches in Ireland to serve as President of the Irish Council of Churches (ICC), and co-chair of the Irish Inter-Church Meeting (2012-2014).

I was honoured to have been a guest as his friend at his ordination to the priesthood in the Orthodox Church in 2004, and while I was living in Dublin we continued to meet regularly.

We were often at the same Church gatherings, whether they were Orthodox, Church of Ireland or ecumenical events, and he was a frequent visitor to the Church of Ireland Theological Institute when I was on the staff. When he preached one year during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, I presided at the Eucharist and he was the first Orthodox priest to preach in the chapel of CITI.

We were both students too at various times at the summer courses in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (IOCS).

Father Godfrey O’Donnell was born in Derry, and he was brought up by his widowed mother next door to the Church of Ireland rectory in Queen Street, Derry.

He served as a Jesuit priest for 28 years before leaving the Society of Jesus in 1985. Later, he married Ruth and they then joined the Romanian Orthodox Church. When Father Godfrey joined the Romanian Orthodox church in 1999, he was asked by the Romanian Orthodox Metropolitan Iosif, based in Paris, to help secure a Romanian Orthodox priest for the Romanian community in Ireland.

Father Godfrey was instrumental in establishing the Romanian Orthodox parish in Dublin in 2000, and regular services began in 2001 in the Jesuit chapel in Belvedere College.

He was ordained priest in the Romanian Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Iosif in a six-hour liturgy in the same chapel in 2004. I was his guest at this ordination, which was also attended by representatives of other Orthodox churches, the Church of Ireland, the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutheran Church, the Presbyterian Church and diplomats at the Romanian embassy.

His work in establishing the Romanian Orthodox Church in Ireland and his service to the Romanian Orthodox community were recognised in 2013, when he was honoured with the accolade of ‘Stavrophore,’ the highest award given to married priests in the Romanian Orthodox Church. It gave him the right to wear a cross as a special honour and as a symbol of his service.

He was active in ecumenical and interfaith dialogue, serving for a time as Chair of the Dublin Council of Churches. He represented the Romanian Orthodox Church on the ICC for many years, becoming Vice-President in 2010 and President in 2012. During that time, he was instrumental in strengthening the links between the Orthodox churches and the other churches in Ireland.

In their tribute to Father Godfrey, the co-chairs of the Irish Inter-Church Meeting, the Revd Brian Anderson, President of the Irish Council of Church, and and Irish Inter-Church Meeting, and Bishop Brendan Leahy of Limerick, said: ‘He is remembered with great fondness by all who worked with him in the ecumenical community because of his generosity, gentleness, welcoming nature and dedication to Church unity.’

Father Godfrey, who continued to serve the Romanian Orthodox Church, died at his home in Swords, Co Dublin, on 14 February 2020, aged 80.

With the spirits of the righteous made perfect,
give rest to the souls of thy servants, O Saviour,
preserving them in that blessed life which is with thee,
who lovest mankind.
In the place of thy rest, O Lord,
where all thy saints repose,
give rest also to the souls of thy servants,
for thou alone lovest mankind.

Father Godfrey O’Donnell (right) with the Revd Dr Maurice Elliott, Director of CITI, Patsy McGarry of The Irish Times and Patrick Comerford, at a Christian Unity liturgy in the Chapel of CITI

A photograph from Cambridge for a new book in Bangladesh

Robinson Crusoe Island is a tiny islet in Cambridge where the River Cam splits between Coe Fen and Sheep’s Green (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I am seldom happy about my photographs being used for commercial or political purposes, although I am happy to see them used by educational and faith-based organisations, even when I do share their approach or particular point of view.

It is also a pleasure when publishers ask for permission to use my photographs, although I always ask for an acknowledgement and also ask for a printed version if practicable.

Earlier this week I received a request from MetaKave Publications, a publishing house based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The publishers are preparing a new book, Cambridge: Look Back in Love, by Professor M. Harunur Rashid, based on his memories of studying in Cambridge, where he studied in Fitzwilliam College.

He has been a Professor of English literature and language, a university administrator, a newspaper editor at the Dhaka Courier, and has translated modern poetry and prose in Bangladesh. He is also a noted writer on Sufism and Sufi literature and a commentator on social, political, and cultural life and literary texts.

The publishers want to use a photograph I took last year of Robinson Crusoe Island, a tiny islet in Cambridge where the River Cam splits between Coe Fen and Sheep’s Green.

I have visited Robinson Crusoe Island in Cambridge a number of times, and this photograph was taken on 9 September 2014 during an afternoon break while I was staying in Sidney Sussex College during the annual summer conference organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (IOCS).

Robinson Crusoe Island is a tiny islet in the River Cam, between Coe Fen to the east and Sheep’s Green to the west, on a point on the river south of the weir where Scurdamore’s Punts are moored at Silver Street Bridge and immediately north of the Fen Causeway.

Cattle grazing on Coe Fen in the late summer sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Coe Fen is known beyond Anglicanism as the name the tune composed by Ken Naylor for the hymn How shall I sing that majesty. Naylor was the music master at the Leys School, at the corner of Trumpington Street and the Fen Causeway, and named his tune after Coe Fen, the open space beside the school.

Coe Fen on the east bank of the Cam and Sheep’s Green on the west bank form a natural area that was once important for commercial activity in Cambridge. There was many watermills her, but because the land between the artificially raised banks of the watercourses was liable to flooding it was only suitable for grazing.

Cows grazed on one side of the river on Coe Fen and sheep on the other side, Sheep’s Green, and so they have been named.

By the 19th century, the Fen had become so marshy and boggy that it became necessary to drain it as a measure to prevent the outbreak and spread of diseases. A public subscription in 1833 raised £150 to drain the Fen, and later, in 1912-1914, the level of the Fen was raised by dumping rubbish on it.

On that late afternoon last year, I walked down Trumpington Street to the Leys School, and turned along the Fen Causeway. The Fen Causeway Bridge opened in 1926, and I am told it is sometimes called the Lesbian Bridge because of the graffiti sometimes written on its underside. Instead of checking this out, I joined a footpath south into Coe Fen, where the land is a semi-natural area and cattle still graze.

I walked south until the path meets Vicar’s Brook and then turned west and crossed a narrow bridge that took me onto Sheep’s Green, a small island formed by the way the river has split further north at the weir at Silver Street Bridge.

Sheep’s Green Bridge is a second narrow bridge that was rebuilt in 2006. Here pedestrians and cyclists jostle to give way to each other, and the bridge led me onto Lammas Land, a town park, with a small open air pool for children and a playground.

Lammas was observed on 1 August in England as a harvest festival when loaves of bread were made from the first ripe corn. Areas of green designated as Lammas lands in law were common land for nine months of the year, but passed to the sole use of their owners for the other three months on Lammas.

To the south of Lammas Land is the aptly-named Paradise, a nature reserve and woodland with a central marsh area, wet woodland and a number of riverside mature willows.

Crusoe Bridge, built in 1898-1899, is a steel footbridge with timber deck and supported on four cast-iron columns (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

I walked back north along Lammas Land and walked east along the Fen Causeway for a brief distance, and then turned to the north side of Coe Fen, where I found the bridge that crosses Robinson Crusoe Island to my left or the west.

Stepping across Robinson Crusoe Island and Crusoe Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Crusoe Bridge, which was built in 1898-1899, is a steel footbridge with timber deck and supported on four cast-iron columns. This is the final bridge on the “Upper River” before it reaches the small weir at the mill pond.

Robinson Crusoe Island was once known as Swan’s Nest, but the present name has been in use for more than a century.

The land is deceptive in places here, and many apparently dry channels running through the grass are filled with marshy water, often filled with reeds and damp growth. These channels date back to the time when this area had many mills grinding corn for Cambridge.

Punters on the river between Crusoe Bridge and the weir at Silver Street Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

I crossed Robinson Crusoe Island and the bridge, and enjoyed the spectacle of people enjoying the late summer sunshine in kayaks and punts. But the old boathouse that has been on Robinson Crusoe Island was closed and fenced off, and difficult to see.

Coe Fen and Sheep’s Green are important thoroughfares for cyclists and pedestrians, particularly between the city centre and Newnham, and part of the pathway along the river out towards Grantchester runs through this space.

The river was still busy with tourists and punts that afternoon. I walked on north to the weir and stopped at the Anchor at Silver Street Bridge for a glass of wine. There I sat watching the bustle at the pubs and the punting station at Scudamore’s before returning to the bustle of academic life at Sidney Sussex College.

Signs and wonders for pedestrians on the streets of Cambridge

Petty Cury looking west towards the pinnacles of King’s College Chapel … but what does the name Petty Cury mean? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

In the early mornings this week, I have been slipping out of my rooms in Sidney Sussex College to attend the daily Eucharist in Saint Bene’t’s Church, which is only five minutes’ walk away.

In the early morning, as Cambridge begins to come to life but is still quiet and calm, I am sometimes enamoured by the names of the streets and side passages and some of the street signs.

Most mornings on way to or from Saint Bene’t’s, I have found myself walking along the strangely named Petty Cury, a pedestrianised shopping street opposite the junction of Sidney Street with Christ’s College on the corner of Hobson Street and Saint Andrew’s Street.

Petty Cury links this junction with Market Hill, the venue for outdoor market in the heart of Cambridge, and Guildhall Street. As I walk west down Petty Cury these mornings, an interesting vista opens to the Guildhall, which continues the line of the south side of the street and on to the pinnacles of King’s College Chapel rising above the buildings on the west side of market.

A street sign at the west end of Petty Cury (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

But the name of Petty Cury is intriguing. Where does it come from? And how did it survive the crass developments along the south side of this narrow street in the 1960s and 1970s?

Petty Cury is an old street and the name first appears in documents around 1330, when it is recorded as Petycure. Two generations later, Thomas Furbisshour and his wife Agnes are recorded as living there in 1396.

It is most likely that this unusual name derives from petit (meaning “little”) and cury (meaning “cooks’ row”). Well, at least Samuel Pepys, who was an undergraduate at Magdalene College, Cambridge, offers this derivation in his Diary. So, it appears, there was a number of bakers’ stalls originally lined the sides of the street.

By the 15th century, the street was lined with inns, each with yards behind. But these yards later became some of worst slums in Cambridge by the 19th century. For example, up to 300 people may have lived in the Falcon Yard, which eventually was demolished on the order of the Medical Officer of Health in 1903.

Work on the extension to Boots in the 1950s indicated that that many of the mediaeval remains on this street had not been disturbed and that there was a deep sequence dating back Norman or even Saxon times.

Major changes came in the 1960s, when the entire south side was demolished to make way for the building of the Lion Yard shopping centre. The Lion Yard development destroyed all the remaining archaeology in this street. Limited observations were made, but most of what was there was destroyed unseen.

An extensive underground parking and service area runs under all the retail buildings, making the area below Petty Cury essentially hollow.

Today, Petty Cury is pedestrianised and is one of the primary shopping streets in Cambridge, with national retailers occupying most of the ground floor units … and one good Italian restaurant, Statzione, on the corner at the west end and with tables on the street. The upper storeys of the buildings on the street are mostly in commercial use, with some used for storage and others as office space.

The building of Lion Yard in 1960s and the 1970s means, of course, that we may never be able to trace the history of Petty Cury before the 1300s. Archaeologists say that while the potential for mediaeval finds may still be high, the potential for prehistory or Roman finds is low.

Gonville and Caius College asserts its rights between Saint Mary’s Court and Rose Crescent (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

On my way back from Saint Bene’t’s each morning, another sign that has caught my eyes this week is on the north side of Saint Mary Street, opposite Saint Mary’s University Church. This sign warns all pedestrians walking between Saint Mary’s Court and Rose Crescent that we are stepping on the soil of Gonville and Caius College … although no-one has yet tried to take the ground from under my feet.

A little further along, on the corner with Rose Crescent, a sailor guards a sign letting me know that Trinity Street is also nearby. As Cambridge is some distance inland and not a port city, I wonder how he was marooned up there.

Ahoy there! … the corner of Rose Crescent and Saint Mary Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware celebrates his 80th birthday

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware speaking at the IOCS conference in Cambridge this week (Photograph: IOCS)

Patrick Comerford

The summer schools and conferences organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge would not be the same without the humorous and gently-delivered yet scholarly and authoritative papers presented by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware.

He is the President of IOCS, having served as chair of the board, and has been a lecturer at the summer schools and conferences I have been attending in Cambridge since 2008. This week he spoke at the international conference in Sidney Sussex College on “Florovsky, Lossky and ‘Neo-Patristic Synthesis’.”

Later on Tuesday afternoon I had a valuable opportunity to catch up with him as he waited at the Porter’s Lodge for a taxi to the train that was bringing him back to Oxford. I first recall having him as a lecturer when I was a post-graduate student at the Irish School of Ecumenics in 1982-1984.

Metropolitan Kallistos is a bishop of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and is one of the best-known Eastern Orthodox theologians and writers today. He has been the Bishopric of Diokleia since 1982, and he was made a metropolitan bishop by the Patriarch in 2007.

Participants at the conference in Cambridge this week were delighted to hear that Metropolitan Kallistos celebrates his eightieth birthday today [11 September 2014].

He was born Timothy Ware in Bath on 11 September 1934, and was raised in an Anglican family. Having won a King’s Scholarship, he went to Westminster School. From there he went to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he took a double first in classics as well as reading theology.

On 14 April 1958, at the age of 24, he joined the Orthodox Church, and later he travelled throughout Greece, where he spent much time at the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian in Patmos. He also visited other major centres of Orthodoxy, including Mount Athos and Jerusalem, and spent six months in Canada at a Russian Orthodox monastery.

In 1963, while he was still a lay member of the Orthodox Church, he published the first edition of his book The Orthodox Church under his original name, Timothy Ware. This has since become the standard English-language textbook and introduction to Orthodoxy, and he has gone on to wrote and contribute to many more books and journals.

In 1966, he was ordained priest within the Ecumenical Patriarchate and was tonsured as a monk, receiving the name Kállistos. That same year, he was appointed the Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox studies at the University of Oxford.

He continued to hold that post for 35 years until his retirement. In 1970, he was also appointed to a Fellowship at Pembroke College, Oxford.

In 1982, he was consecrated a bishop with the title Bishop of Diokleia, and was appointed an assistant bishop in the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain.

Although was now a bishop, he remained at Oxford where he continued to lecture in the university as well as serving as the parish priest of the Greek Orthodox community.

He retired in 2001, but he has continued to publish and to lecture on Orthodox theology.

In 2007, the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate elevated the Diocese of Diokleia to the status of a metropolitan diocese. He became a titular metropolitan although he has never had pastoral care of a diocese and he is nominally an assistant bishop in the Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain.

He is President of the IOCS in Cambridge, and a former chair of the board of directors. He also chairs the Friends of Orthodoxy on Iona and the Friends of Mount Athos and serves on the advisory board of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship.

The Orthodox Church, first published in 1963, has run to several editions and has been revised many times. In 1979, he produced a companion volume, The Orthodox Way.

However, his most substantial publications have emerged from his translation work. With GEH Palmer and Philip Sherrard he has undertaken to translate the Philokalia. Four volumes of five published to date, but the fifth volume has yet to appear.

Patrick Comerford and Metropolitan Kallistos Ware at the summer school in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, a few years ago

Trotsky’s surprising encounter with a Russian theologian and priest

Joining the queue for meals in the Hall in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

The final speaker at this year’s summer conference in Cambridge organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies was Dr Christoph Schneider, Academic Director of IOCS.

Dr Schneider was the principal organiser of this week’s conference in Sidney Sussex College and spoke this afternoon [10 September 2014] on “Pavel A Florensky’s ‘Critique of Impure Reason’ and the debate about fideism and onto-theology.”

For the past week, we have been discussing the “Horizons and Limitations of Russian Religious Philosophy.”

Before Vespers in the college chapel, we had an extensive discussion of Russian theology and religious philosophy and the conference papers and contributions later in the afternoon.

Dr Natalia Vaganova from Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University stimulated an unexpected discussion on the unusual working relationship between Father Floensky and Leon Trotsky in the early years of Soviet Russia. Trotsky strongly believed in Florensky’s ability in the electrification of rural Russia, and there are contemporary accounts of the remarkable sight of Father Florensky wearing his priest’s cassock and cross as he worked alongside other leaders of a Government department.

Although Trotsky asked him to wear a suit, Florensky insisted that while he had no parish he was still a priest, and insisted on wearing his cassock and cross and keeping his long priest’s beard. He continued to hold teaching and research positions until 1934.

The discussion later turned to the appropriate use of icons by individuals and in the prayer life of the Church.

The speakers and participants have been truly international this year, with people coming to Cambridge for this conference from Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Austria, Russia, Hungary Greece, Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands, the US and many other countries.

The conference ends tomorrow with the annual pilgrimage to the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex.

Taking part in the Divine community and the mystery of the Resurrection

At Orthodox Vespers in the Chapel of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

In Orthodox theology, theosis (θέωσις) or deification is a transformative process in which the goal is the attainment of likeness to or union with God. As a process of transformation, theosis is brought about by the effects of katharsis (κάθαρσις) or purification of mind and body and theoria (θεωρία).

In Orthodox theology, theosis is the purpose of human life. It offers a very different approach to thinking about salvation than the western theological thinking about redemption and atonement.

This morning [10 September 2014], at the international summer conference in Cambridge organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, we were introduced to theosis in the thinking of Russian philosophers and theologians.

The conference in Sidney Sussex College, which began on Monday morning, is looking at “Horizons and Limitations of Russian Religious Philosophy.”

Dr Ruth Coates speaking at the IOCS summer school in Sidney Sussex College this morning (Photograph: IOCS)

Dr Ruth Coates, senior lecturer in the Russian Department in the University of Bristol, spoke on “Nikolai Berdyaev and the Silver Age Reception of the doctrine of deification.” Dr Clemena Antonova of the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna, spoke on “Seeing God ‘Face to Face’: the visual implications of theosis in Byzantine Theology and Russian Religious Philosophy.”

Ruth Coates specialises in nineteenth-century Russian literature and 19th and early 20th century intellectual history. Her research interests are in the work of the 20th century philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin; in 20th and early 20th century Russian thought; and in Russian Orthodox culture and its influence on secular Russian thought. She has edited The Emancipation of Russian Christianity, and is the author of Christianity in Bakhtin: God and the Exiled Author.

In 2009 she organised the “Vekhi Centenary Conference 1909-2009.” She is the co-organiser, with Dr Sarah Hudspith of Leeds University, of the BASEES 19th century Study Group. Her current project concerns the reception of the doctrine of deification in Russian culture, with a focus on the thought of the late imperial period.

The Russian theologian and political philosopher Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) was born near Kiev into an aristocratic military. He spent a solitary childhood at home, reading widely in his father’s library and learning many languages.

In 1904, he moved with his wife Lydia Trusheff to Saint Petersburg, then the centre of Russian intellectual and revolutionary life. In 1913, after criticising the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was charged with blasphemy, but the trial never took place because of the outbreak of World War I and the subsequent Bolshevik Revolution.

Surprisingly, Berdyaev was able to continue writing, lecturing and publishing for another five years after the October Revolution of 1917. In 1920, he became Professor of Philosophy at the University of Moscow, but he was soon arrested for conspiracy soon after and jailed, and in 1922 he was expelled from Russia in September 1922 with a select group of 160 prominent writers, scholars, and intellectuals.

From Berlin, Berdyaev moved to Paris in 1923, where he continued to write, publish and lecture. He never returned to Russia and died in 1948 in Clamart, near Paris.

Berdyaev was an often critical but practising member of the Russian Orthodox Church. He wrote in Dream and Reality: “When I became conscious of myself as a Christian, I came to confess a religion of God-manhood [Orthodoxy]; that is to say, in becoming a believer in God, I did not cease to believe in man’s dignity and creative freedom. I became a Christian because I was seeking for a deeper and truer foundation for belief in man.”

He was an existentialist and a mystical philosopher, and he felt it was the mystics of the world who came closest to understanding the role of spirit. Many of the philosophers he drew on were mystics, including Meister Eckhart and Jacob Boehme, and he was deeply influenced by Dostoevsky.

The concept of theosis is a central theme in Orthodox theology and spirituality. For Berdyaev, the mystical experience reveals the specific status of humanity as created in God’s image. In our creative life, we can be divinised and, consequently, participate in the divine community.

Berdyaev analyses the process of theosis referring to the most perfect example of Christ. Theosis, in his view, is the aim of human existence. He wrote:

“The idea of theosis was the central and correct idea, the Deification of man and of the whole created world. Salvation is that Deification. And the whole created world, the whole cosmos is subject to Deification. Salvation is the enlightenment and transfiguration of creation and not a juridical justification. Orthodoxy turns to the mystery of the Resurrection as the summit and the final aim of Christianity. Thus the central feast in the life of the Orthodox Church is the feast of Pascha, Christ’s Glorious Resurrection. The shining rays of the Resurrection permeates the Orthodox world.

“The feast of the Resurrection has an immeasurably greater significance in the Orthodox liturgy than in Catholicism where the apex is the feast of the Birth of Christ. In Catholicism we primarily meet the crucified Christ and in Orthodoxy – the Resurrected Christ. The way of the Cross is man's path but it leads man, along with the rest of the world, towards the Resurrection. The mystery of the Crucifixion may be hidden behind the mystery of the Resurrection. But the mystery of the Resurrection is the utmost mystery of Orthodoxy. The Resurrection mystery is not only for man, it is cosmic. The East is always more cosmic than the West. The West is anthropocentric; in this is its strength and meaning, but also its limitation.

“The spiritual basis of Orthodoxy engenders a desire for universal salvation. Salvation is understood not only as an individual one but a collective one, along with the whole world…The greater part of Eastern teachers of the Church, from Clement of Alexandria to Maximus the Confessor, were supporters of apokatastasis, of universal salvation and resurrection. And this is characteristic of (contemporary) Russian religious thought. Orthodox thought has never been suppressed by the idea of Divine justice and it never forgot the idea of Divine love. Chiefly – it did not define man from the point of view of Divine justice but from the idea of transfiguration and Deification of man and cosmos.”

The Cloisters in Sidney Sussex College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Later this morning, Dr Clemena Antonova spoke on “Seeing God ‘Face to Face’: the visual implications of theosis in Byzantine Theology and Russian Religious Philosophy.” She has studied at Edinburgh and Oxford and lectured in England, Bulgaria, Scotland and the US. Her most recent book, based on her PhD thesis at Oxford, is Space, Time, and Presence in the Icon: Seeing the World with the Eyes of God (Ashgate, 2013).

She asked why the corpus of writings on theosis is so often conceptualised in visual terms and through visual metaphors and terms that describe human vision. And she tried to reconstruct a concrete model for the way divine perception works.

She drew on the work of Pavel Alexandrovich Florensky (1882-1937), including his Beyond Vision: Essays on the Perception of Art. Florensky was murdered on the night of 8 December 1937 in a wood near Saint Petersburg, and is listed as a New Martyr and Confessor.

She also drew on the writings of Archbishop Rowan Williams on icons and theosis.

She spoke about “vision beyond vision” which is beyond pure aesthetic experience.

Dr Antonova illustrated her lecture generously with icons, and compared perspective in iconography, which invites us to move beyond time and space, and the use of perspective in the work of the Cubists, especially Picasso.

Getting away from it all on Robinson Crusoe Island

Robinson Crusoe Island is a tiny islet in Cambridge where the River Cam splits between Coe Fen and Sheep’s Green (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

There is an island in the South Pacific that is known as Robinson Crusoe Island or Isla Robinson Crusoe. It is the second largest of the Juan Fernández Islands, and lies 670 km west of the coast of Chile. A neighbouring island is known as Alejandro Selkirk Island.

Robinson Crusoe Island was once known as Más a Tierra (Closer to Land). It was the island that became home to the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk from 1704 to 1709, and is said to have inspired Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe (1719).

To reflect the literary associations of Más a Tierra – but more especially to attract tourists – the Chilean government renamed the place Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.

I was on Robinson Crusoe Island on Tuesday [9 September 2014] – but not in the South Pacific. Instead, I visited Robinson Crusoe Island, a tiny islet in the River Cam, between Coe Fen to the east and Sheep’s Green to the west, on a point on the river south of the weir where Scurdamore’s Punts are moored at Silver Street Bridge and immediately north of the Fen Causeway.

Cattle grazing on Coe Fen in the late summer sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Coe Fen is known beyond Anglicanism as the name the tune composed by Ken Naylor for the hymn How shall I sing that majesty. And during an afternoon break from the IOCS summer school in Sidney Sussex College I had decided to go for a walk by the river at Coe Fen, inspired, of course, by that tune.

Naylor was the music master at the Leys School, at the corner of Trumpington Street and the Fen Causeway, and named his tune after Coe Fen, an open space beside the school.

Coe Fen on the east bank of the Cam and Sheep’s Green on the west bank form a natural area that was once important for commercial activity in Cambridge. There was many watermills her, but because the land between the artificially raised banks of the watercourses was liable to flooding it was only suitable for grazing.

Cows grazed on one side of the river on Coe Fen and sheep on the other side, Sheep’s Green, and so they have been named.

By the 19th century, the Fen had become so marshy and boggy that it became necessary to drain it as a measure to prevent the outbreak and spread of diseases. A public subscription in 1833 raised £150 to drain the Fen, and later, in 1912-1914, the level of the Fen was raised by dumping rubbish on it.

In the late afternoon, I walked down Trumpington Street to the Leys School, and turned along the Fen Causeway. The Fen Causeway Bridge opened in 1926, and I am told it is sometimes called the Lesbian Bridge because of the graffiti sometimes written on its underside. Instead of checking this out, I joined a footpath south into Coe Fen, where the land is a semi-natural area and cattle still graze.

I walked south until the path meets Vicar’s Brook and then turned west and crossed a narrow bridge that took me onto Sheep’s Green, a small island formed by the way the river has split further north at the weir at Silver Street Bridge.

Sheep’s Green Bridge is a second narrow bridge that was rebuilt in 2006. Here pedestrians and cyclists jostle to give way to each other, and the bridge led me onto Lammas Land, a town park, with a small open air pool for children and a playground.

Lammas was observed on 1 August in England as a harvest festival when loaves of bread were made from the first ripe corn. Areas of green designated as Lammas lands in law were common land for nine months of the year, but passed to the sole use of their owners for the other three months on Lammas.

To the south of Lammas Land is the aptly-named Paradise, a nature reserve and woodland with a central marsh area, wet woodland and a number of riverside mature willows.

Crusoe Bridge, built in 1898-1899, is a steel footbridge with timber deck and supported on four cast-iron columns (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

I walked back north along Lammas Land and walked east along the Fen Causeway for a brief distance, and then turned to the north side of Coe Fen, where I found the bridge that crosses Robinson Crusoe Island to my left or the west.

Stepping across Robinson Crusoe Island and Crusoe Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Crusoe Bridge, which was built in 1898-1899, is a steel footbridge with timber deck and supported on four cast-iron columns. This is the final bridge on the “Upper River” before it reaches the small weir at the mill pond.

Robinson Crusoe Island was once known as Swan’s Nest, but the present name has been in use for more than a century.

The land is deceptive in places here, and many apparently dry channels running through the grass are filled with marshy water, often filled with reeds and damp growth. These channels date back to the time when this area had many mills grinding corn for Cambridge.

Punters on the river between Crusoe Bridge and the weir at Silver Street Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

I crossed Robinson Crusoe Island and the bridge, and enjoyed the spectacle of people enjoying the late summer sunshine in kayaks and punts. But the old boathouse that has been on Robinson Crusoe Island was closed and fenced off, and difficult to see.

Coe Fen and Sheep’s Green are important thoroughfares for cyclists and pedestrians, particularly between the city centre and Newnham, and part of the pathway along the river out towards Grantchester runs through this space.

We are enjoying an extended summer this week and the river is still busy with tourists and punts. I walked on north to the weir and stopped at the Anchor at Silver Street Bridge for a glass of wine. There I sat watching the bustle at the pubs and the punting station at Scudamore’s.

Before returning to the bustle of academic life at Sidney Sussex College, I had one more look at the Mathematical Bridge that links one side of Queen’s College with the other across the river. The punters below seemed to be deft enough not be marooned on Robinson Crusoe Island further south.

Punts at the Mathematical Bridge below Silver Street Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Who was William Mong, the ‘rice cooker tycoon’ from Hong Kong?

Dr William Mong … a portrait in the William Mong Building in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

The International Summer Conference organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies is taking place once again this year in the William Mong Hall in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

The William Mong Building is the main lecture theatre in Sidney Sussex College. Our coffee breaks each morning and afternoon make good use of the garden between the William Mong Hall and South Court.

With the Chapel on one side and the rooms of South Court, dating from the early 1930s, on the other side, this sun-filled space provides an ideal space this week to renew old friendships and to make new friends in the autumn sunshine.

Each day, as I work on my laptop at the back of the hall, I am sitting beneath a portrait of William Mong. But who was William Mong? And why is this lecture room and conference space named after him?

Dr William Mong Man Wai (1927-2010) was known in Hong Kong as the “rice cooker tycoon.” He was an entrepreneur and philanthropist and the Chair and Senior Managing Director of the Shun Hing Group, the distributor of Matsushita products (National, Panasonic, Technics) in Hong Kong.

Mong was born in Hong Kong in 1927 and after returning from Beijing to Hong Kong in 1948 he set up Shun Hing Holdings in 1953. He used his father’s business links with Panasonic to import Japanese goods, and went door-to-door to sell the first eight rice cookers.

Many university buildings in Hong Kong and China are named after him. In 1996, the Nanjing Purple Mountain Observatory named Asteroid 3678 the Mong Man Wai Star in recognition of his work to promote economics, science, technology and education in China.

In 1996, he donated £1.5 million to Sidney Sussex College for building a multi-purpose lecture and conference hall.

Queen Elizabeth II and Dr William Mong officiated at the unveiling ceremony of the Mong Building in 1996, and the Mong Hall became the first building named after an Asian in a college in Cambridge University. The building was completed in 1999.

William Mong died from cancer on 20 July 2010. He left behind a fortune estimated to be worth tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars, but multiple lawsuits involving his family and his business interests have continued in legal battles over his fortune for the past four years.

Enjoying the sunshine in a small corner between South Court and the William Mong Building in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

The discussions on Russian religious philosophy continue at summer school

Cloister Court in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

Our discussions of Russian religious philosophy continued this afternoon, when the Greek theologian Revd Professor Nikolaos Loudovikos, University Ecclesiastical Academy of Thessaloniki, spoke on “Created as Uncreated: some remarks on Bulgakov’s Sophiological Christology.”

Father Nikolaos Loudovikos (Νικόλαος Λουδοβίκος) was born in Volos in 1959 and studied in Athens, Thessaloniki, the Sorbonne in Paris, and Cambridge. He received his PhD in 1989 from the Theological faculty of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki for his dissertation, The Eucharistic Ontology in the Theological Thought of Saint Maximus the Confessor.

He is the Director of Studies and a Professor of Dogmatics and Philosophy at the University Ecclesiastical Academy of Thessaloniki and a Visiting Professor at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge.

He was speaking this afternoon in Sidney Sussex College on the second day of the International Summer Conference organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (1871-1944) was a Russian Orthodox theologian and philosopher. As a student, Bulgakov was interested in Marxism and took part in the Legal Marxism movement. Under the influence of writer such as Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky and Solovyov, he rediscovered his religious beliefs. In 1907 he was elected to the Duma.

His early work was influenced by Solovyov and Pavel Florensky, and he was ordained priest in 1918. In 1922, he was one of a group of 160 prominent Russian philosophers expelled from Russia by the Bolsheviks, along with Nikolai Berdyaev and Ivan Ilyin.

In exile, he became professor of Church Law and Theology in Prague and then helped found Saint Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, where he died in 1944.

Bulgakov’s teachings on sophiology are highly controversial, and he was accused of heresy. He was sympathetic to the idea of universal reconciliation, with the reservation that the continuing punishment of the immortal souls of the wicked may be unending since human free choice can never be destroyed.

Bulgakov’s ideas were explored further later this afternoon, when Father Tikhon Vasilyev, who is working on his PhD at Wolfson College, Oxford, spoke on “The Idea of Pseudo-Dionysius and Sergius Bulgakov.”

A quiet corner of Chapel Court in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Following the Fathers to the point where theology and prayer are one

A quiet corner of Cambridge this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

Our discussions of the “Horizons and Limitations of Russian Religious Philosophy” continued in Cambridge this morning [9 September 2014] with an introduction to “Vladimir Lossky and the notion of mystical theology” by the Revd Dr Andrew Louth, and to “Florovsky, Lossky and the notion of Mystical Theology” by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware.

The Revd Dr Andrew Louth is Emeritus Professor of Patristic and Byzantine Studies in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Durham. He was speaking in Sidney Sussex College this morning on the second day of the International Summer Conference organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

Vladimir Nikolayevich Lossky (1903-1958), an influential Orthodox theologian who lived in exile in Paris, emphasised θέωσις (theosis) as the main principle of Orthodox Christianity. Although Russian, he was concerned to address the people among whom he lived, and so most of his work was written and published in French. His major work, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, was published in French in 1944 and in English in 1957.

Father Andrew placed Lossky within the context of contemporary writers on mysticism, including Evelyn Underhill, who rooted her mysticism in the sacramental life of the Church, Baron von Hügel, and the Catholic modernists in France. He also reminded us that in 1975 Archbishop Rowan Williams wrote his DPhil thesis at Oxford “The theology of Vladimir Nikolaievich Lossky: an exposition and critique.”

Lossky was forced into exile from Soviet Russia in his teens and after studying in Prague and at the Sorbonne in Paris he settled in Paris, where he was dean of the Saint Dionysus Institute and taught dogmatic theology, and the professor of dogmatic theology at the Orthodox Institute of St Irene. He died in Paris in 1958.

Lossky, like his close friend Father Georges Florovsky, was opposed to the sophiological theories of Father Sergei Bulgakov and Vladimir Solovyev, who were discussed extensively yesterday.

Lossky’s main theological concern was mystical theology and he is best known for his book, Essai sur la theologie mystique de l’Eglise d’orient (1944), published in English as The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (1957).

Lossky drew extensively on Patristic sources and argued that Orthodox theologians maintained the mystical dimension of theology in an integrated way, while the Western traditions had misunderstood Greek terms such as οὐσία (ousia), ὑπόστᾰσις (hypostasis), θέωσις (theosis) and θεωρία (theoria).

But Lossky also spent much of his time working on the writings on mysticism by Meister Eckhart, and his doctoral dissertation on Eckhart was published shortly after his untimely death. Lossky found many affinities between the thinking of the Dominican friar and Orthodox mystics.

For Lossky, Christian mysticism and dogmatic theology are one and the same, and mysticism is Orthodox dogma par excellence. He wrote:

“The eastern tradition has never made a sharp distinction between mysticism and theology; between personal experience of the divine mysteries and the dogma affirmed by the Church… To put it another way, we must live the dogma expressing a revealed truth, which appears to us as an unfathomable mystery, in such a fashion that instead of assimilating the mystery to our mode of understanding, we should, on the contrary, look for a profound change, an inner transformation of the spirit, enabling us to experience it mystically… There is, therefore, no Christian mystery without theology; but, above all, there is no theology without mysticism… Mysticism is … the perfecting and crown of all theology: as theology par excellence.”

Father Louth went on to say: “Mysticism and theology relate as experience and theory. But experience of what? Ultimately of God.”

But that is not where Lossky begins, he said. He begins by speaking of “personal experience of the divine mysteries,” the term “mysteries” being – not exactly ambiguous, but with at least two connotations – meaning both the sacraments of the Church, and also mysterious truths about the Godhead.

The mysterious truths about God – his existence as a Trinity of love, his creation of the world, his care for the world and his redemption of it, pre‐eminently in the Incarnation – are truths that we experience and celebrate in the Divine Mysteries, or the Sacraments of the Church. It is this that gives Lossky’s presentation such a different orientation from what is normally associated with mysticism in the West: it is not detached from dogma, but rooted in the dogmatic truths of the Christian tradition; it is not indifferent to Church organisation, hierarchy and sacraments, but rooted in the structured life of the Church.

It is not individualistic – indeed individualism is seen to be the deepest flaw in Western Christianity – but rooted in the experience of the Eucharistic community, the Church.

Steps in South Court in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

The writings of Lossky continued to inform us later in the morning as Metropolitan Kallistos Ware introduced us to “Florovsky, Lossky and the notion of Mystical Theology.” He knew both Florovsky and Lossky personally, took them as his mentors while he was at Oxford, and stayed with the Lossky family. Metropolitan Kallistos is the President of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, and is a much-loved lecturer at this summer school each year.

Georges Vasilievich Florovsky (1893-1979) was born in Odessa, the son of a priest. He spent his working life in Paris (1920-1948) as Professor of Patristics and later Professor of Dogmatics, and, after failing to obtain an appointment at Oxford, in the US (1948-1979), where he was a professor at Saint Vladimir’s, Harvard and Princeton. With Sergei Bulgakov, Vladimir Lossky, Justin Popović and Dumitru Stăniloae, Florovsky is one of the more influential Orthodox theologians of the mid-20th century. His pupils included Metropolitan John Zizioulas.

Florovsky was particularly concerned that modern Christian theology might receive inspiration from the lively intellectual debates of the patristic traditions of the undivided Church rather than from later Scholastic or Reformation categories of thought.

Lossky was committed to the Moscow Patriarchate, attaching great importance to links with the persecuted mother church, and disapproved of other Russians loyalties. On the other hand, Florovsky was among the Russians who belonged to the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Florovsky often spoke without notes, something Lossky would never have done at a major public meeting. Florovsky disagreed strongly with Bulgakov, including their ideas on limited inter-communion with Anglicans, but never did so publicly.

His major work is Ways of Russian Theology. His collected works are available in a 14-volume collection published between 1972 and 1989.

He placed Florovsky and Lossky within the context of two 20th century movements in Orthodox theology, Russian religious renaissance and the neopatristic school.

Florovsky is the mastermind of the movement for a return to the Church Fathers. His vision of the neopatristic synthesis became the main paradigm of Orthodox theology.

His evolving interpretation of Russian religious thought, particularly Vladimir Solovyov and Sergius Bulgakov, informed his approach to patristic sources.

Florovsky’s neopatristic theology is often contrasted with the modernist philosophies of Pavel Florensky, Sergius Bulgakov, and other representatives of the Russian Religious Renaissance. He critically appropriated the main themes of the Russian Religious Renaissance, including theological antinomies, the meaning of history, and the nature of personhood, and the distinctive features of Florovsky’s neopatristic theology – Christological focus, “ecclesial experience,” personalism, and Christian Hellenism – are best understood against the background of the Russian religious renaissance.

Bulgakov’s sophiology provides a polemical subtext for Florovsky’s theology of creation, and Florovsky’s theology is marked out by his use of the patristic norm in application to modern Russian theology.

Florovsky was concerned with a living tradition, and Metropolitan Kallistos summarised his thinking as not being “Back to the Fathers” but as “Forward with the Fathers.” He suggested that to follow the Fathers is not to quote them but to acquire their mind, where theology and prayer become one.

He also traced Florovsky’s influence on Anglican-Orthodox dialogue, his advocacy of Christian Hellenism and the debate about whether he had neglected the heritage of the Latin, Syrian and Coptic Fathers, and his role in the ecumenical movement. He understood that the canonical limits of the Church, as understood in Orthodoxy, are not the same as the charismatic limits of the Church.

He recommended two books on Florovsky: Andrew Blane, Georges Florovsky. Russian Intellectual and Orthodox Churchman (Crestwood, New York: Saint Vladimir’s, 1993), and, more recently, Paul Gavrilyuk, Georges Florovsky and the Russian Religious Renaissance (Oxford: OUP, 2013).

Discussing ‘Sophia’ and a ‘Theology of the Body’ while celebrating the Nativity of the Theotokos

Icons of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary) on sale in a shop in Rethymnon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

The Nativity of the Theotokos, celebrating the birth of the Virgin Mary, is one of the Twelve Great Feasts of the liturgical calendar in the Orthodox Church. This feast is celebrated today [8 September].

According to Orthodox tradition, the Virgin Mary was born in Nazareth to the elderly couple Joachim and Anna, who previously had no children, in answer to their prayers. Joachim was descended from the Prophet-King David, while Anna was descended from the first priest Aaron.

The tradition says Saint Joachim and Saint Anna were elderly but had not lost hope in God’s mercy. The story bears many parallels with the story Abraham and Sarah and the birth of Isaac.

When the elderly Joachim brought his sacrifice to the Temple in Jerusalem on one of the feastdays, it is said, the High Priest refused to accept it, considering Joachim to be unworthy since he was childless.

Orthodoxy teaches that the Virgin Mary surpassed in purity and virtue not only all of humanity, but also the angels. She was manifest as the living Temple of God, so the Church sings in its festal hymns: “the East Gate ... bringing Christ into the world for the salvation of our souls.”

Her birth marks the change of the times when the great and comforting promises of God for the salvation of humanity are about to be fulfilled. This event brought to earth the grace of the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of Truth, piety, virtue and everlasting life.

We were reminded of today’s feastday this afternoon when the themes of incarnation, sexuality, sacramental marriage and the understanding of the body as key concepts for Christianity were emphasised by Professor Artur Mrówczynski-Van Allen, of the Institute of Philosophy Edith Stein, ICSCO, Theological Institute Lumen Gentium, Granada.

A Roman Catholic theologian and philosopher now living in Spain, he was speaking on “The Body of Freedom. Theology of the Body as Political Philosophy. Modernity through Saint Ephrem the Syrian and Vladimir Solovyov” at the annual conference or summer school of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies opened in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

He drew extensively on the work of the Russian theologian and philosopher, Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov (1853-1900), including his book The Meaning of Love, in which he introduced the concept of syzygy to denote “close union.”

Solovyov described his encounters with the entity Sophia in his works, Three Encounters and Lectures on Godmanhood among others. His teachings on Sophia, conceived as the merciful unifying feminine wisdom of God is considered unsound by many Russian Orthodox theologians. He never married or had children, but pursued idealised relationships as immortalised in his spiritual love-poetry, including with two women named Sophia.

Solovyov’s thinking was a major subject later in the afternoon when the Russian theologian and philosopher, Dr Natalia Vaganova of Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, spoke on “Russian Sophiology as religio-philosophical synthesis of culture noveau.” She asked whether Sophia is a metaphysical being, but also recalled that Solovyov’s idea of the “embodied Sophia” was popular among his contemporaries and how, during his own lifetime and to his great surprise, there were many applicants for the role, including Anna Schmidt, who proclaimed herself to be Sophia.

Solovyov looked to the establishment of the “perfect social organism, the Church,” and he believed that the universal religion would be the “real embodiment” of Sophia. This religion would have “positive love” as its foundation and this is infinite, universal, absolute love.

Solovyov’s thinking strongly influenced the Russian Orthodox theologian and philosopher Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (1871-1944), whose teaching on sophiology was highly controversial. Saint John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai (1896-1966), in his The Orthodox Veneration of the Mother of God, condemned Bugakov’s sophianism, saying it was as destructive as Nestorianism, and he accused Bulgakov of attempting to deify the Theotokos.

Which brought me right back to considering today’s feastday as we prepared to celebrate it at Vespers in the Chapel of Sidney Sussex College this evening.

The speakers tomorrow are: the Revd Professor Andrew Louth (University of Durham), Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokleia, the Revd Prof Nikolaos Loudovikos (University Ecclesiastical Academy of Thessaloniki), and the Revd Tikhon Vasilyev (University of Oxford).

Late summer sunshine in the Master’s Garden in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Looking at the influence of Russian philosophers on Russian religious and political life today

The Great Court, Trinity College, Cambridge, this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

The annual conference or summer school of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies opened in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, this morning with a paper by Professor Evert van der Zweerde of Radboud University, Nijmegen, who looked at “Sobornst between Theocracy and Democracy.”

This year’s conference is addressing the topic: “Logos – Cosmos – Eros: Horizons and Limitations of Russian Religious Philosophy.” As Western Europe continues to drift further and further from Russia, isolating itself from Russian social, economic, political and intellectual life, this week provides an opportunity to reflect on how Byzantine thought was modified and developed by Russian philosophy, the role Western philosophy played in this process, the relevance of Russian religious philosophy to the contemporary world and the universal scope of Russian religious philosophy.

As Dr Christoph Schneider, the IOCS Director of Studies, reminded us this morning, Russian religious philosophy is of universal scope. It not only joins theology with philosophy, but also emphasises the porosity between theology and all other academic disciplines such as cosmology, metaphysics, aesthetics, linguistics, anthropology, ethics, and the sciences.

The conference is expected to explore how far these vast but largely untapped intellectual resources can help us construct a genuinely Christian vision of God, of the world and of the self in the 21st century.

Professor van der Zweerde asked whether the Russian Orthodox Church has become an integral part of normal Russian political life.

Russia has changed dramatically since Soviet times, with greater freedoms and new generations of Russians who have travelled abroad and brought back new experiences.

Russia has returned to pre-Soviet realities, marked by the publication of philosophical and theological works by thinkers Professor van der Zweerde examined critically in his lecture, including Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev, Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov and Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin, who have become popular again in Putin’s Russia.

The Russian religious and political philosopher Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev (1874-1948) argued for personal liberty, spiritual development, Christian ethics, and a pathway informed by reason and guided by faith. Berdyaev was preoccupied with creativity and in particular with freedom from anything that inhibited creativity, and was opposed to a “collectivised and mechanised society.”

Putin has instructed regional governors to read Berdyaev’s The Philosophy of Inequality. He was a practising member of the Russian Orthodox Church, although often critical of the institutional church.

Berdyaev wrote: “The greater part of Eastern teachers of the Church, from Clement of Alexandria to Maximus the Confessor, were supporters of apokatastasis, of universal salvation and resurrection. ... Orthodox thought has never been suppressed by the idea of Divine justice and it never forgot the idea of Divine love. Chiefly – it did not define man from the point of view of Divine justice but from the idea of transfiguration and Deification of man and cosmos.”

The philosopher, poet and theologian Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov (1853-1900) played a significant role in the development of Russian philosophy and poetry at the end of the 19th century and in the spiritual renaissance of the early 20th century.

Solovyov sought to create a philosophy that could through his system of logic or reason reconcile all bodies of knowledge or disciplines of thought, and fuse all conflicting concepts into a single system. The central component of this complete philosophic reconciliation was the Russian concept of sobornost. He sought to find and validate common ground – or where conflicts found common ground – and by focusing on this common ground to establish absolute unity and or integral fusion of opposing ideas and / or peoples.

Solovyov was one of the sources for Dostoyevsky’s characters Alyosha Karamazov and Ivan Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov. Solovyov’s influence can be seen in the writings of the Symbolist and Neo-Idealist of the later Russian Soviet era. His The Meaning of Love influenced Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata (1889).

He also influenced the religious philosophy of Nicolas Berdyaev, Sergey Bulgakov, Pavel Florensky, Nikolai Lossky, Semen L. Frank, and the poetry and theory of Russian Symbolists, including Andrei Belyi and Alexander Blok. Hans Urs von Balthasar explores his work as one example of seven lay styles that reveal the glory of God’s revelation, in The Glory of the Lord (vol 3).

He wrote: “… if the faith communicated by the Church to Christian humanity is a living faith, and if the grace of the sacraments is an effectual grace, the resultant union of the divine and the human cannot be limited to the special domain of religion, but must extend to all Man's common relationships and must regenerate and transform his social and political life.”

The work of Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin (1883-1954) influenced many 20th-century Russian writers, including Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and the 23 volumes of his collected works have been republished in Russia in the past decade.

In the afternoon, Professor Artur Mrówczynski-Van Allen, of the Institute of Philosophy Edith Stein, ICSCO, Theological Institute Lumen Gentium, Granada, speaks on “The Body of Freedom. Theology of the Body as Political Philosophy. Modernity through Saint Ephrem the Syrian and Vladimir Solovyov.”

Later, the Russian theologian and philosopher, Dr Natalia Vaganova of Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, is to lecture on “Russian Sophiology as religio-philosophical synthesis of culture noveau.

The speakers tomorrow are: the Revd Professor Andrew Louth (University of Durham), Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokleia, the Revd Prof Nikolaos Loudovikos (University Ecclesiastical Academy of Thessaloniki), and the Revd Tikhon Vasilyev (University of Oxford).

Punts on the Backs, behind Trinity College, Cambridge, this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

A week in Cambridge looking at the relevance of Russian religious philosophy to the world today

Strolling past Sidney Sussex College in the heart of Cambridge earlier this summer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

As Western Europe continues to drift further and further from Russia, isolating itself from Russian social, economic, political and intellectual life, I am back in Cambridge this morning [8 September 2014] and spending the next week thinking about the way Byzantine thought was modified and developed by Russian philosophy, what role Western philosophy played in this process, the relevance of Russian religious philosophy to the contemporary world and the universal scope of Russian religious philosophy.

This is my third time back in Cambridge this year, and I am staying in Sidney Sussex College, where I am taking part in the annual conference of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies. The conference opens this morning and continues until Wednesday evening [10 September 2014.

This year’s conference is addressing the topic: “Logos – Cosmos – Eros: Horizons and Limitations of Russian Religious Philosophy.”

The aim of the conference is twofold. First, it aims to discuss and evaluate the reception of Byzantine theology and philosophy by Russian religious thinkers in the 19th and 20th century. The conference investigates the way Byzantine thought was modified and developed by Russian philosophy, and what role Western philosophy played in this process.

It also addresses the question of how far the contribution of Russian thinkers can be regarded as a philosophically and theologically convincing continuation and development of the Byzantine tradition. One of the main tasks in this respect will be to establish the precise relationship between the sophiological tradition and the Byzantine essence-energy distinction.

Secondly, the conference will examine the relevance of Russian religious philosophy to the contemporary world. The characteristic features of this tradition are: all-unity (всеединство, vseedinstvo), epistemological realism, catholicity (собо́рность, sobornost’) and integral knowledge (цельное знание, tsel’noe znanie). These ideas are employed to envisage the transformation of the world towards its ultimate end and constitute a challenge to both modern and post-modern thought.

Russian religious philosophy is of universal scope. It not only joins theology with philosophy, but also emphasises the porosity between theology and all other academic disciplines such as cosmology, metaphysics, aesthetics, linguistics, anthropology, ethics, and the sciences.

The conference is expected to explore how far these vast but largely untapped intellectual resources can help us construct a genuinely Christian vision of God, of the world and of the self in the 21st century.

After registration and coffee, the opening speaker this morning is Professor Evert van der Zweerde of Radboud University, Nijmegen, who is speaking on “Sobornst between Theocracy and Democracy.”

In the afternoon, Professor Artur Mrówczynski-Van Allen, of the Institute of Philosophy Edith Stein, ICSCO, Theological Institute Lumen Gentium, Granada, is speaking on “The Body of Freedom. Theology of the Body as Political Philosophy. Modernity through Saint Ephrem the Syrian and Vladimir Solovyov.”

Later in the afternoon, the Russian theologian and philosopher, Dr Natalia Vaganova of Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, will lecture in Russian on “Russian Sophiology as religio-philosophical synthesis of culture noveau.

The speakers tomorrow are: the Revd Professor Andrew Louth (University of Durham), Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokleia, the Revd Prof Nikolaos Loudovikos (University Ecclesiastical Academy of Thessaloniki), and the Revd Tikhon Vasilyev (University of Oxford).

On Wednesday, the speakers are: Dr Ruth Coates (University of Bristol), Dr Clemena Antonova (Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna), and Dr Christoph Schneider (IOCS).

The conference comes to an end on Thursday morning with the annual visit to the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex.

Outside Sidney Sussex College in Sidney Street, Cambridge, earlier this summer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

‘A winning formula’ … a photograph to help a boat club find corporate sponsors

‘A winning formula’ … my photograph of the boathouse of Jesus College Boat Club in the new appeal brochure launched by the club (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)

Patrick Comerford

I spent most of the working day today [2 September 2014] in the university quarter of Belfast at a joint meeting of the faculties of the Church of Ireland Theological College and Edgehill Theological College.

It is always a positive learning experience to meet and share with staff of another theological college. But sometimes contacts with other universities and colleges can come about in the most unexpected and unusual ways.

While I was on holidays in Greece last week, an email arrived at work from Theo Snudden, the President and Men’s Captain of the Jesus College Boat Club, Cambridge.

The club is launching a new appeal in its search for a company that can commit to supporting JCBC with a sponsorship of £9,500 a year over a four-year period. A new brochure is being produced as part of this appeal, and the club wanted to use a photograph I had taken last year of the boathouse and that I had used in a blog posting about a walk along the banks of the River Cam by the boathouses in July 2013.

Although I am reluctant to have my photographs used for commercial purposes or on commercial websites, I am very happy to have my photograph used in a fundraising effort like this.

The club was founded in 1827, and has steadily built its strength and success, so that JCBC has a long-standing record of accomplishments, including some of the highest honours both in Cambridge and with years of college headships, and nationally with wins at Henley Royal Regatta and the Tideway Head of the River.

Jesus College Boat Club is a large club and often has more than ten boats competing in the May Bumps. Over the years, JCBC has been consistently successful with the 1st Men’s VIII never having dropped below 12th place in the May Bumps and 11th position in the Lent Bumps.

Jesus men have been head of the Lent Bumps on 39 occasions, finishing Head on 159 days; and they have finished head of the May Bumps on 24 occasions, finishing Head on 98 days – which is more than any other boat club, although Jesus men have not been head in either event since 1974.

In the women’s bumps, JCBC crews took the headship of the Lent Bumps in 1985, 1986 and 1987, and headship of the May Bumps in 1988, 1993, 1994, 2005 and 2007.

During the inter-war years the club was coached by Steve Fairbairn, who gave his name to the Fairbairn Cup Races. In 1929, he donated the cup and the races have continued ever since in their current form, a long-distance headrace.

This Fairbairn Cup Race has since become the biggest event on the River Cam during the first term of the year, and it is the only race of its scale to be organised by a Cambridge college. Over 200 rowers take part, with entries from all the Cambridge colleges, many Oxford colleges and local boat clubs and schools.

The course has changed over years because of the closures for bridge repairs or extreme weather conditions. In 1990, Jesus Boathouse Flagpole became the start line, with the finish at the Little Bridge, 4.3 km downstream. Although the cup itself is not presented, the Fairbairn Cup title is awarded to the fastest finishing college men’s VIII.

Now the club needs greater investment in coaching as well as well as additional resources to maintain an expanding fleet of boats and equipment, and has launched this appeal under the slogan: “A winning formula.”

Sponsorship at £9,500 a year over a four-year period offers unique opportunities for a company or business unrivalled and unique promotional opportunities and the promise of an exciting relationship. But it also means the club can continue to offer the best facilities and enable novices to develop into the top level athletes required to sustain JCBC’s success into the future.

Further information is available from Theo Snudden, JCBC President and Men’s Captain, Jesus College, Cambridge CB5 8BL.

Meanwhile, I plan to be back in Cambridge next week for the annual summer conference at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies. The conference, from 8 to 10 September, will address the topic: “Logos – Cosmos – Eros. Horizons and Limitations of Russian Religious Philosophy.”

The speakers this year include: Professor Evert van der Zweerde, Radbound University, Nijmegen; Professor Artur Mrówczynski-Van Allen, Institute of Philosophy Edith Stein, ICSCO, Theological Institute Lumen Gentium, Granada; Dr Natalia Vaganova, Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow; Revd Professor Andrew Louth, University of Durham; Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, University Of Oxford and IOCS; Revd Professor Nikolaos Loudovikos, University Ecclesiastical Academy of Thessaloniki; the Revd Tikhon Vasilyev, University of Oxford; Dr Ruth Coates, University of Bristol; Dr Clemena Antonova, Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna; and Dr Christoph Schneider of the IOCS.

A day in Cambridge celebrating the life and work of John Zizioulas

Westcott House, Jesus Lane, Cambridge ... the venue for today’s one-day conference (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I am in Cambridge today [14 June 2014] for a one-day conference at Westcott House on Jesus Lane, organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

Today’s conference is “On Eschatology Today: A celebration of the life and work of John Zizioulas.”

Metropolitan John Zizioulas (Ιωάννης Ζηζιούλας) is the Metropolitan of Pergamon, chair of the Academy of Athens and one of the most distinguished living Orthodox theologians.

Born in Greece in 1931, he studied in Athens and Harvard, and has worked at the World Council of Churches in Geneva. In 1964, he became Assistant Professor of Church History at the University of Athens. Later, he was Professor of Patristics at the University of Edinburgh (1970-1973), before moving to the University of Glasgow, where he was Professor of Systematic Theology for 14 years. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the Research Institute in Systematic Theology in King’s College, London. In 1986, he became Metropolitan of Pergamon in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and Professor of Dogmatics at the Thessaloniki School of Theology.

In his theological work, Metropolitan John has focused on the twin themes of ecclesiology and theological ontology. His theology reflects the influence of Russian émigré theologians such as Nikolai Afanassieff, Vladimir Lossky and Georges Florovsky.

He has also been significantly influenced by the ascetical theology of Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), founder of the Stavropegic Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex, which I have visited each year as part of the Cambridge summer school programme organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

Metropolitan John’s ecclesiology was first developed in his doctoral dissertation, The Unity of the Church in the Eucharist and the Bishop in during the First Three Centuries, which was published in English as Eucharist, Bishop, Church: The Unity .

However, his best-known book is probably Being as Communion: Studies in Personhood and the Church, a collection of essays first published in English in 1985 by Darton, Longman and Todd in London and by Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press in Crestwood, New York.

In the context of a complete theology that includes extended consideration of the main theological topics, including the Trinity, Christology, eschatology, ministry and sacrament, and the Eucharist, Metropolitan John has put forward a fresh understanding of the person and so of the Church itself, rooted in the writings of the Early Fathers and the Orthodox tradition.

He argues for an ecclesiology that sees the Church not simply as an institution but as a form of existence and a way of being, and he links questions of ecclesiology to existential questions: “The mystery of the Church, even in its institutional dimension, is deeply bound to the being of this world and to the very being of God.”

In his work, he develops critically the Eucharistic ecclesiology of Father Nikolai Afanasiev. He accepts Afanasiefv’s principal contention that the Church is to be understood in terms of the Eucharist. However, he criticises Afanasiev’s understanding as overly congregational and insufficiently episcopal in its emphasis. He advocates an episcopo-centric understanding of the Church, in which the bishop is primarily the president of the Divine Liturgy and the Eucharistic community.

Metropolitan John has also worked on the theology of the person, appealing to the work of Saint Irenaeus and Saint Maximus the Confessor. The primary focus of his work was to develop his own ontology of personhood derived from an extensive investigation of Greek philosophy, patristic writings and rationalist philosophy.

He argues that full humanity is achieved only as person so that we may take part in the Trinitarian life of God. However, an essential component of the ontology of personhood is the freedom to self-affirm the participation in relationship. He continues that humanity initially exists as a biological hypostasis, constrained as to the types of relationships one can have (biological) and to the eventual end of this type of being – death.

He makes use of existentialist philosophers and novelists to show that the only type of ontological freedom in the biological hypostasis is the choice to commit suicide.

He argues that Baptism constitutes an ontological change in the human being, making one an ecclesial hypostasis or person. This rebirth from above gives new ontological freedom as it is not constrained by the limits of biological existence. Such an ecclesial being is eschatological – a paradoxical “now” but “not yet.” The completion of this rebirth from above is the day of resurrection when the body will no longer be subject to death.

The interior of the chapel in Westcott House is marked by its uncluttered simplicity (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Metropolitan John presided at the Divine Liturgy in the college chapel in Westcott House this morning, and is speaking later today on “Eschatology: A Challenge to Orthodox Theology.”

The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Rowan Williams, now Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, is speaking this morning on: “The Eucharist and the End of All Things.”

The Revd Dr Bogdan Bucur, of Duquesne University, is speaking on: “Eschatology Now: Observations on the Emmaus Story in Luke and Mark’s Longer Ending.”

Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, who is a speaker at IOCS summer school in Cambridge each year, is speaking on: “Eschatology and Eucharist: Time and Eternity in the Divine Liturgy.”

The altar in Westcott Chapel, with the icon written by Marianna Fortounatto in 1981 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Westcott House in Jesus Lane is around the corner from Sidney Sussex College, where I have stayed each year for the last six or seven years. It is close to Wesley House and Jesus College. Like the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Westcott is also a member of the Cambridge Theological Federation.

Westcott began as the Cambridge Clergy Training School in 1881, founded by Bishop Brooke Foss Westcott (1925-1901) while he was the Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge, and it was renamed Westcott House in his honour in 1901.

Westcott House prepares men and women for ordination in the Church of England, provides pathways for theological educators and pioneer ministers, and offers continuing education resources and sabbatical opportunities for clergy and laity.

The chapel at Westcott is at the heart of the community life. Its uncluttered simplicity provides ideal sacred space for a range of services from sung high mass to said Morning Prayer, from adoration of the Blessed Sacrament to “prayer and praise” services.

As a worshipping community, Westcott House places the Church of England’s Common Worship at the heart of its life, and the diversity it expresses is reflected among the ordinands. But the Book of Common Prayer has a place there too so that students are immersed in its rhythms and at home with its language.

The Eucharist and the Daily Offices of Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer are at the centre of worship in Westcott House. The Community Eucharist on Thursday evenings is the focus of the worshipping week, and on Sundays, students are sent out in a diaconal spirit to local parish churches and college chapels.

The stark austerity of the chapel at Westcott is dominated by the icon of Christ, commissioned by the Common Room and written by Marianna Fortounatto in 1981. The icon bears his words: “You did not choose me but I chose you” (John 15: 16).

Archbishop Williams, in his book The Dwelling of Light: Praying with Icons of Christ (Canterbury Press, 2003) bases his chapter on the Pantocrator on this icon, writing: “The icon of the Pantocrator in the chapel of Westcott House … was and is for me and many others a profoundly significant image.”

Of its meaning he writes: “The point is simple: face to face with Jesus, there and only there, do we find who we are. We have been created to mirror his life, the eternal life of the one turned always toward the overflowing love of the Father; but our human existence constantly turns away. When we look at Jesus, we see in some measure what he sees, and are drawn to where his eyes lead us ... we look at him looking at us, and try to understand that as he looks at us he looks at the Father.

“In other words, when he looks at us, he sees the love that is his own source and life, despite all we have done to obscure it in ourselves. When we look at him looking at us, we see both what we were made to be, bearers of the divine image and likeness, and what we have made of ourselves.”