How shall I sing that majesty which angels do admire?

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

Patrick Comerford

Monday 29 September 2014

Saint Michael and All Angels

5 p.m., The Eucharist

Readings: Genesis 28: 10-17; Psalm 103: 19-22; Revelation 12: 7-12; John 1: 47-51.

May I speak to you in the name of + the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Earlier this month, during a week of intense study and work, I took a much-needed break one afternoon and went for a walk across Coe Fen, a large expanse of meadowland on the east bank of the River Cam, in the heart of Cambridge.

Coe Fen means “Cows’ Fen.” Cows are grazing on the grassland, and so you must be careful where you step. I was only a few steps away from the Fitzwilliam Museum and many of the colleges, and still out of earshot of the tourists and the punts. The neighbouring piece of meadow on the other side of the river is known as Sheep’s Green.

It was easy to imagine I was in rural England, in the Fens of East Anglia.

Perhaps because of that remote feeling, one of the bridges and one of the islets on this stretch of the river are known as Crusoe Bridge and 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)

Another small bridge links Coe Fen with the Leys School, where the music master was once Kenneth Naylor (1931-1991), who wrote the tune for our hymn this evening, How shall I sing that majesty? (Irish Church Hymnal 468, New English Hymnal, 373).

Naylor called this tune Coe Fen. And as I strolled across Coe Fen that sunny, sun-kissed afternoon, lifted up by the splendour of God’s creation, I realised why he had chosen the name Coe Fen for his setting for a hymn that praises God for the wonders of God’s creation – in which we are lifted up by the beauty of God’s creation and join the “celestial choir” in praising God.

Because of Naylor’s setting, this hymn became No 1 in the ‘Top 5 Hymns’ listed in the Church Times/RSCM survey.

The hymn, by John Mason (1645-1694), is based in part on today’s psalm, Psalm 103. The writer contrasts God’s heavenly glory, splendour and majesty with our inadequacies and frailties, and reminds us how, when we attempt to sing of God’s glory, all our human efforts appear feeble and pathetic.

John Hutton’s ‘Screen of Saints and Angels’ at the entrance to Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

How do you imagine, envisage, that “celestial choir”? What is your image of an angel?

Is an angel a fluffy little cherub with white wings and pudgy cheeks, floating above the earth on white fluffy clouds?

Is an angel some “new age” figure, easily dismissed because of those angel books on the “Mind and Spirit” shelves in bookshops?

Is Saint Michael the patron saint of shoppers at Marks and Spencer and all others who have made the shopping malls their earthly cathedrals?

Or is an angel for you like the Archangel Michael, depicted, for example, by Jacob Epstein’s bronze sculpture, Graham Sutherland’s tapestry, and John Hutton’s ‘Screen of Saints and Angels’ in Coventry Cathedral, inviting you to reflect on our values today, to enter into the triumph of good over evil, to join Christ in Glory?

Sir Jacob Epstein’s bronze statues of Saint Michael and the Devil on the wall outside Coventry Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Where the Archangel Michael is mentioned by name in the Bible, in the Book of Daniel, the Epistle of Saint Jude and the Book of Revelation, he represents relying on the strength of God and the triumph of good over evil.

Saint Michael’s traditional virtues were standing up for God’s people and their rights, taking a clear stand against manifest evil, firmly opposing oppression, violence and corruption, while seeking forbearance and mercy, clemency and justice – virtues we must keep before us in ministry and mission as messengers of God.

His name Michael (Hebrew, מִיכָאֵל; Greek, Μιχαήλ) asks the question: “Who is like El (the Lord God)?”

In today’s world, where angels and archangels are often the stuff of fantasy, science fiction and new-age babble, we need a reminder that angels are nothing more than – but nothing less than – the messengers of God, the bringers of good news, who invite us to join in the triumph of good over evil and to enter into and become wrapped up in God’s glory:

ten thousand times ten thousand sound
thy praise; but who am I?

“Who am I?” It is a question we all ask ourselves when we first hear God’s call to mission and ministry.

But we do not struggle alone, like some Robinson Crusoe stranded on his own tiny island. Even when we feel alone and vulnerable, we are part of the great heavenly host of archangels and angels, patriarchs and prophets, apostles and saints, martyrs and missionaries.

I may not feel as powerful and agile as the Archangel Michael in battling for the world and confronting evil. But we do this in the company of the great heavenly host, strengthened by God alone. For we should always be prepared, like Michael and the angels, to ask and to answer the question: “Who is like the Lord God?”

And the story of the Archangel Michael, whose name asks: “Who is like El (the Lord God)?” invites me and invites you this afternoon to consider who we are as we stand before the throne of God the Creator, in all his majesty and glory, now and for ever more.

And so may all we think say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Collect:

Everlasting God,
you have ordained and constituted the ministries
of angels and mortals in a wonderful order:
Grant that as your holy angels always serve you in heaven,
so, at your command,
they may help and defend us on earth;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Post Communion Prayer:

Lord of heaven,
in this eucharist you have brought us near
to an innumerable company of angels
and to the spirits of the saints made perfect.
As in this food of our earthly pilgrimage
we have shared their fellowship,
so may we come to share their joy in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Saint Michael above the main door into Saint Michael’s in Lichfield … what does this story say to you today? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

How shall I sing that majesty (ICH, 468; NEH, 373)

1 How shall I sing that majesty
which angels do admire?
Let dust in dust and silence lie;
sing, sing, ye heavenly choir.
Thousands of thousands stand around
thy throne, O God most high;
ten thousand times ten thousand sound
thy praise; but who am I?

2 Thy brightness unto them appears,
while I thy footsteps trace;
a sound of God comes to my ears,
but they behold thy face.
They sing, because thou art their Sun;
Lord, send a beam on me;
for where heav’n is but once begun,
there alleluias be.

3 Enlighten with faith’s light my heart,
inflame it with love’s fire;
then shall I sing and bear a part
with that celestial choir.
I shall, I fear, be dark and cold,
with all my fire and light;
yet when thou dost accept their gold,
Lord, treasure up my mite.

4 How great a being, Lord, is thine,
which doth all beings keep!
Thy knowledge is the only line
to sound so vast a deep.
Thou art a sea without a shore,
a sun without a sphere;
thy time is now and evermore,
thy place is everywhere.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This reflection was shared at the Michaelmas Eucharist in the institute chapel on Saint Michael’s Day, 29 September 2014.

An old bookshop in a narrow alley filled with charm from another age

David’s … dating from 1896 and hidden away in a side alley in the heart of Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

I changed my Facebook banner photograph a few days ago, putting up a photograph of a well-known antiquarian bookshop in Cambridge, and was surprised by the response. Obviously, many people were charmed by this photograph of David’s bookshop in Saint Edward’s Passage.

Cambridge, as you might expect, is a wonderful place for rummaging through the shelves of bookshops, both new and second-hand. Apart from the unique Cambridge University Bookshop, which claims to be the oldest shop in Cambridge, and the ubiquitous Waterstones on Sidney Street, there are bookshops in surprising side streets and on little corners, and book stalls in the market square at Market Hill.

One of the problems with Ryanair in the past was the baggage restrictions also imposed a limit on the number of books I could buy and take back with me during a stay in Cambridge. But Ryanair has become much more friendly and flexible, and the biggest temptation last week was to push Ryanair’s flexibility to the limit with the number of books I wanted to buy.

For years, a favourite bookshop for many was Galloway and Porter at 30 Sidney Street, right beside Sidney Sussex College where I was staying. But sadly the shop closed its doors a few years ago.

Poignancy was piled on sadness when the shop closed – for this was one in the rare group of bookshops that had been in business continuously for more than a century.

It first opened its doors in 1902 and took its name from its founders, Sidney Galloway and Charles Porter. I’m sure there must have been many jokes among Sidney Sussex undergraduates about Sidney Porter – and it is worth remembering that the staff at the Porter’s Lodge in Sidney Sussex are among the kindest and most helpful.

Sidney Galloway later left the shop in Sidney Street to start his own bookshop. But Galloway and Porter continued down to the third generation until it was bought a few years ago by a new owner Paul Ogden. It had remained at its original location at 30 Sidney Street, and was spread through three floors, with low prices, a great stock that was renewed regularly and a staff who gave browsers and buyers alike caring attention.

It was known for academic titles but also for second-hand and bargain books. In the face of mounting losses, Paul Ogden admitted he was been unable to sort out its financial problems. It finally closed its doors after 103 years in business with the loss of 13 jobs. Close by, the Oxfam Bookshop is still at No 28 Sidney Street.

The entrance from King’s Parade leading into Saint Edward’s Passage (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

However, the little gem that I photographed early one morning last week is G. David, at 16 Saint Edward’s Passage and known to everyone simply as “David’s.”

Saint Edward’s Passage runs between the Guildhall and the Tourist Office and King’s College, and David’s is tucked into a corner in this tiny alleyway, facing the north-west corner of the Church of Saint Edward, King and Martyr.

Saint Edward’s Passage curves around the Church of Saint Edward, King and Martyr (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Saint Edward’s Passage curves around the Church, and both the passage and the shop – painted in bright blue and white that remind me of Greece and the Mediterranean on bright summer days – have the appearance of remaining unchanged and undisturbed for centuries.

I passed this shop every morning on my way from Sidney Sussex College to the early morning Eucharist in Saint Bene’t’s Church in Bene’t Street.

The original G David was a Parisian bookseller who started selling his books from a stall in the central market square in Cambridge, and he opened this shop in 1896. This shop remains unique to Cambridge, with no branches in any other town. David’s deals in antiquarian, second-hand and remaindered books, as well as maps, prints and engravings. The specialities include fine bindings, natural history, science, standard sets, travel and literature.

This is a bookshop to browse in, but not to while away an hour or two. This is a bookshop to while away a full morning, a full afternoon or even a full day. It was no place for someone snatching an hour or two book-shopping before catching the train to Stansted Airport.

The Senate House and Great Saint Mary’s reflected in the window of Ryder and Ames on the corner of King’s Parade and Saint Mary’s Passage (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Close by is the shop of Ryder & Amies, on the corner of King’s Parade, university outfitters for over 150 years.

At first, this was a gentleman’s tailoring and robe outfitters, established around 1850. The business was founded by Joseph Ryder (1831-1900). In 1896, the year David’s moved into Saint Edward’s Passage, Edward William Amies (1862-1941) took on a partnership with Joseph Ryder.

Edward William Amies was a founder member of the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce and was Mayor of Cambridge in 1927-1928. Joseph Ryder’s grandsons did not have any children, and so the Ryder family’s link with the business came to an end. Today it is run by the fifth generation of the Amies family.

Before leaving, I ended up in the Cambridge University Press shop, at Number 1 Trinity Street opposite Senate House and across from Great Saint Mary’s, the University Church.

The Cambridge University Press published its first book in 1584, making it the oldest publishing house in the world. CUP’s list of publications include Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica, John Milton’s Lycidas, Ernest Rutherford’s Radio-activity, and Noam Chomsky’s Language and Mind.

I ended up with a signed copy of a new book by Nicholas Chrimes, Cambridge, Treasure Island in the Fens, which was published in 2009 and is now in its second edition.

When I return there may be more time to browse in David’s … if I book an extra piece of baggage with Ryanair.

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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

Running and rowing with the smallest pub and the smallest club in Cambridge

King Street, behind Blundell Court in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge ... the street gives its name to the King Street Run, although there are only half a dozen pubs there today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

King Street runs from the corner behind Blundell Court, where I am staying in Sidney Sussex College, to the junction with Jesus Lane. The student bar is below me on the ground floor, but King Street is behind me and has been a more interesting place for some of the participants in the summer school to find a place to meet and talk in the evenings. The street is well-known for its pubs, but it is also notorious for the King Street Run, a pub crawl in which students try to quaff a pint in each pub on the street in quick succession and in the quickest time.

Today there are only half a dozen pubs on King Street – far fewer than the number at the height of great student pranks, and they are better known for their individual charm than their reputation for student drinking binges.

The King Street Run … the pub takes its name from the race (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

The King Street Run continues, and although only four pubs are listed in the race, runners are still required to consume eight pints. The run was banned in 1964 by the Cambridge University Proctors, but was revived in the mid-1970s and again in 1982. The current record of 14 minutes 05 seconds is held by John Philips of the Cambridge Hash House Harriers, but ties are awarded to anyone who completes the run in under an hour.

The Champion of the Thames … was this Scullion’s favourite club? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

The Champion of the Thames is named after an oarsman who won a sculling race on the Thames before moving to Cambridge in 1860. He asked that all mail to him should be addressed to “The Champion of the River Thames, King Street, Cambridge.”

The rowing connection continues, and a rowing club known as the “Champion of the Thames” is sponsored by the pub.

The pub is thinly disguised in Tom Sharpe’s novel Porterhouse Blue, where Scullion’s favourite pub is named ‘The Thames Boatman.’

The sign on the corner of The Champion of the Thames (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

The Champion of the Thames is one of the smaller pubs in Cambridge and is also known for a corner sign directed at students taking part in the King Street Run:

“This HOUSE is dedicated towards those splendid FELLOWS who make DRINKING a pleasure, who reach CONTENTMENT before CAPACITY and who, whatever the DRINK, can take it, hold it, enjoy it, and STILL remain GENTLEMEN.”

Saint Radegund … the smallest pub in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

At the top of King Street, at the Four Lamps Roundabout and the junction with Jesus Lane, opposite the Wesley Methodist Church, is Saint Radegund. This is neither a church nor a college. Although Saint Radegund’s College is a fictional, all-female college in Rosy Thornton’s campus satire, Hearts and Mind (2007), Saint Radegund is the smallest pub in Cambridge.

The pub is the starting point, or the finishing point, of the King Street Run and is named after a sixth century Thuringian princess and Frankish queen who is associated with Jesus College: the full name of Jesus College is the College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge.

Jesus College was established in 1496 by John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, on the site of the 12th century Benedictine nunnery of Saint Mary and Saint Radegund. The nuns’ refectory, became the college hall, and the former lodging of the prioress became the Master’s Lodge.

The sign outside Saint Radegund bears an uncanny resemblance to the coat of arms of Jesus College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

On first looking at it, the sign outside Saint Radegund bears an uncanny resemblance to the coat of arms of Jesus College (right). The pub is home to the Cantabrigensis Hash House Harriers, a successful rowing club, a well-known cricket team – all encouraged or started by the late Terry Kavanagh, who was the landlord between 1992 and 2009. The present landlord is James Hoskins.

Inside, the pub is decorated with blades, photographs, plaques and other ephemera celebrating the successes of the Saint Radegund Boat Club.

The Saint Radegund Boat Club was formally ratified in 2001, being initially a “bumps only” crew for three years. This was due mainly to the enthusiasm and patience of the club’s original coach and captain John Whitney. The club has been the holder of the John Jenner Trophy for two consecutive years and runners-up twice more. Saint Radegund crews have also “won their blades” in the town bumps on a number of occasions.

The first boat to compete on the River Cam in the name of the St Radegund did so in 1998, when members of the Cantabrigensis Hash House Harriers entered a boat in that year’s Town Bumps.

Saint Radegund’s successes on the river are celebrated in the interior decoration of the pub (Photograph: Patrick Cmerford, 2014)

For the succeeding two years, the Saint Radegund ‘River Rats’ rowed under the banner of the Free Press Boat Club, and began the new Millennium near the top of the Third Division. In 2001, a second Saint Radegund crew entered the Bumps in the ‘Metric Tonne’ boat. In the 2002, the men’s ‘River Rats’ and ‘Son of Tonne’ boats were joined by the St Radegund’s first ever women’s boat.

The St Radegund Boat Club was then formed with the landlord Terry Kavanagh as commodore and John Whitney as captain. The club became independent of the Free Press (by then the X-Press Boat Club) and joined the Cambridgeshire Rowing Association in its own right. Other non-college clubs on the river include the Cambridge ’99 Boat Club, the Cantabrigian Rowing Club, the City of Cambridge Rowing Club, the Rob Roy Boat Club, the X-Press Boat Club and the Champion of the Thames Boat Club, some of them based in the CRA boathouse.

The X-Press Boat Club was once the boat club of the Free Press Public House, but is now associated with The Cambridge Blue after the landlord switched pubs. The name of the club was supposed to change to the Cambridge Blue Boat Club, but this was blocked after objections were raised by the university.

The St Radegund Boat Club bought its first boat from Saint Neot’s Rowing Club after the 2006 Bumps, and renamed the boat Vera after Dame Vera Lynn. Soon afterwards it bought its first set of oars, and painted them in the distinctive club colours.

For a time, the club used the facilities of Jesus College boathouse and then rowed from Corpus Christi. The club currently occupies the Joint Colleges Boat House and has four boats on the river, one Four and three Eights.

The club says “serious training takes place of course in the St Radegund Pub after outings.” The smallest club on the River Cam is proud of its roots in the smallest pub in Cambridge.

Like the Eagle on Bene’t Street, the pub ceiling has been adorned with the candle signatures of locals and notable guests. Friday night in Saint Radegund is Vera Lynn Appreciation Society night, when large G&Ts are served to the sounds of the wartime forces sweetheart.

Perhaps the Saint Radegund Boat Club is just a more mature version of the King Street Run.

Celebrating the excesses of the King Street Run in a sign at the King Street Run (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

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).

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.