The joys of academic research in CITI return at an interfaith consultation

The Church of Ireland Theological Institute … the venue for today’s Interfaith Consultation

Patrick Comerford

It is more than a year since I left the staff of the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. But I was back in CITI in Dublin today [7 September 2018] to take part in an interfaith Consultation organised by the Interfaith Working Group of the Church of Ireland.

The main speaker was Bishop Toby Howarth, Bishop of Bradford, who has worked extensively on interfaith relations in the Church of England. He spoke in the morning on the report Generous Love: the truth of the Gospel and the call to dialogue, produced by the Anglican Communion Network for Inter Faith Concerns (Nifcon) and discussed how the Church of England approaches interfaith issues.

Bishop Toby Howarth has worked extensively on interfaith relations in the Church of England. He was born in Kenya, and before his appointment as Bishop of Bradford, he worked in Pakistan, was a tutor at Crowther Hall and the Selly Oak colleges in Birmingham, Inter-Faith Adviser to the Bishop of Birmingham, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Secretary for Inter-Religious Affairs and the National Adviser for Inter-Religious Affairs for the Church of England.

After lunch, I was invited to chair the session at which the Revd Suzanne Cousins, of Moville, Co Donegal, presented her MTh dissertation, Generous Love in Multi-Faith Ireland, which was published earlier this year and was launched by Archbishop Michael Jackson in CITI [14 March 2018].

I had the privilege of supervising Suzanne’s research at CITI and TCD, and it is always a supervisor’s particular joy when a student’s dissertation is recommended for publication as a book by both the external examiner – in this case the Revd Dr Adrian Chatfield of Ridley Hall, Cambridge – and the Court of Examiners.

While she was working on this dissertation in 2015-2016, Suzanne also received the Oulton Prize for Patristics, which enabled her to join me at the summer school in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies. The topic for the summer school that year was ‘Christian Faith, Identity and Otherness: Possibilities and Limitations of Dialogue in Ecumenical and Interfaith Discourse’ [31 August to 2 September 2015].

She quotes me in a number of places in her book, and she is generous when she says in her acknowledgements when she says: ‘I am especially grateful to my academic supervisor, the Revd Canon Patrick Comerford, for generously sharing with me his time, wisdom and expertise, and for his example of living engagement’ (p 5).

Her book identifies theological and pastoral challenges and concerns for clergy assisting their parishioners in everyday Christian-Muslim relationships. It is the eighth in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute’s ‘Braemor Studies’ series and is published by Church of Ireland Publishing (CIP).

This dissertation was a journey for both of us. It took Suzanne to many places I too enjoy, from Istanbul to Cambridge. Reading it once again this week in preparation for today’s consultation.

Listening to her presentation this afternoon also brought back many memories of the process of supervision, many cups of coffee in Dublin, and even discussions in Sidney Sussex College and in cafés in Cambridge.

Earlier this morning, at our opening worship, I was asked to read from the Old Testament: ‘For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and in every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the Lord of hosts’ (Malachi 1: 11).

Later in the afternoon, the consultation discussed and ways forward for the Church of Ireland in the area of interfaith work, and we explored ways we can move forward towards a better future for all.

Today’s consultation was organised by the Church of Ireland Interfaith Working Group, which is chaired by the Bishop of Limerick and Killaloe, the Right Revd Kenneth Kearon. It had been planned for last March but was rescheduled because of severe weather problems.

The report Generous Love, which was central to our discussions today, is available HERE.

A book brings back memories of many cups of coffee and discussions in cafés in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

A new book brings back memories of many cups of coffee

Patrick Comerford

The Interfaith Working Group of the Church of Ireland has organised a consultation on interfaith matters in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Dublin, next Friday [2 March 2018].

The consultation is being introduced by Bishop Kenneth Kearon of Limerick and Killaloe, who chairs the Interfaith Working Group, and the speakers include Bishop Toby Howarth of Bradford and the Revd Suzanne Cousins of Moville, Co Donegal.

Bishop Toby Howarth has worked extensively on interfaith relations in the Church of England.

Before his appointment as Bishop of Bradford, he was Inter-Faith Adviser to the Bishop of Birmingham, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Secretary for Inter-Religious Affairs and National Adviser for Inter-Religious Affairs for the Church of England.

In the morning session, he is speaking on the report Generous Love: the truth of the Gospel and the call to dialogue, produced by the Anglican Communion Network for Interfaith Concerns, and on how the Church of England approaches interfaith issues.

I have been invited to chair the afternoon session when the Revd Suzanne Cousins will present her dissertation, Generous Love in Multi-Faith Ireland, which is being published at a book launch in CITI later next month [14 March 2018].

Her book is the published version of her MTh dissertation for TCD, which I had the joy of supervising at CITI. While she was working on this dissertation in 2015-2016, Suzanne also received the Oulton Prize for Patristics, which enabled her to join me at the summer school in Sidney Sussex College organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies. The topic of the summer school that year was ‘Christian Faith, Identity and Otherness: Possibilities and Limitations of Dialogue in Ecumenical and Interfaith Discourse’ [31 August to 2 September 2015].

She quotes me in a number of places in her book, and she is generous when she says in her acknowledgements (p 5): ‘I am especially grateful to my academic supervisor, the Revd Canon Patrick Comerford, for generously sharing with me his time, wisdom and expertise, and for his example of living engagement.’

This dissertation was a journey for both of us. It took Suzanne to many places I too enjoy, from Istanbul to Cambridge. Reading it this week brings back many memories of the process of supervision, many cups of coffee in Dublin, and even discussions in cafés in Cambridge and in Sidney Sussex College.

Memories of a summer school in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph; Patrick Comerford)

The Church of Ireland Gazette today [23 February 2018]carries this news report on Suzanne’s new book on the back page:

Forthcoming Braemor Studies book
looks at Christian-Muslim engagement
in the Church of Ireland

Generous Love in Multi-faith Ireland: Towards mature citizenship and a positive pedagogy for the Church of Ireland in local Christian-Muslim mission and engagement is the title of a new book to be launched in March by the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Revd Michael Jackson.

Written by the Revd Suzanne Cousins, the book is the eighth in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute’s ‘Braemor Studies’ series and is published by Church of Ireland Publishing (CIP).

It straddles the fields of Missiology and History of Religions, and is influenced by [Jurgen] Moltmann’s Theology of Hope, [Miroslav] Volf’s Theology of Embrace, and by the biblical hermeneutics and theological ethics of [Paul] Ricoeur (inhabiting the text, equivalence, superabundance and economy of gift).

The author reflects on the creative approach of the fourth-century-saint, Ephrem the Syrian, to interpreting Scripture and teaching orthodoxy. The question of the oneness and plurality of God as a theological concern for some Christians is explored, and whether the referents ‘God’ and ‘Allah’ are to the same God though differently understood is discussed, along with the contribution of Volf and others to this debate.

In addition, the theology and eirenic praxis of Christians who engaged with Muslims in the early Islamic world, including Francis of Assisi, are examined, while the desire of present-day Christians to be faithful in their allegiance to Jesus Christ – to his uniqueness, divinity, and status and identity as Lord – while engaging locally in Christian-Muslim encounter, is also explored.

Finally, the book identifies theological and pastoral challenges and concerns for clergy assisting their parishioners in everyday Christian-Muslim relationships.

In keeping with the inter-faith theme of the book, was extended to Shaykh Dr Umar Al-Qadri, the Head-Imam of Al-Mustafa Islamic Education & Cultural Centre Ireland, has accepted an invitation to attend the launch which will take place on Wednesday 14th March at 6.00pm at the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Dublin.

Copies of the book will be available for sale at the launch and thereafter through the Church of Ireland’s online bookstore and through the Book Well in Belfast for €6/£5.

A book that brings back memories of many cups of coffee and discussions in cafés in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Joseph Armitage Robinson, a Cambridge theologian from an Irish family

Joseph Armitage Robinson (1858-1933), a Cambridge theologian and patristic scholar with Irish-born parents

Patrick Comerford

Over the past few weeks, I have been putting the finishing touches to a chapter on Preaching and the Eucharist, for consideration for a proposed book on preaching in the Anglican tradition.

As part of my research, I was looking at what Patristic writers had to say about preaching at the Eucharist and found myself reading Joseph Armitage Robinson’s St Irenaeus, the Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching translated from the Armenian with Introduction and notes (London: SPCK, 1920).

In his ‘Preface’ to this scholarly treatment of a work by Robinson writes:

‘The wonder of Irenaeus is the largeness of his outlook. No theologian had arisen since Saint Paul and Saint John who had grasped so much of the purpose of God for his world. “The Making of Man,” to borrow Tennyson’s great phrase, is his constant theme. Even though he was forced to be controversial, he was never merely negative; and the last of his books Against Heresies ends on the keynote of the whole – that man shall at length be made “after the image and likeness of God.” This is to him the meaning of all history; and for that reason the centre point of history is the Incarnation. So Christ came “to link up the end with the beginning,” or in St Paul’s words, (which Irenaeus never tires of repeating,) “to gather up into one all things” in himself.’

During my study week in Cambridge earlier this month, speaker after speaker regularly referred to similar words from Saint Irenaeus during the IOCS summer conference in Sidney Sussex College: “The Glory of God is the living man; And the life of man is the vision of God.” The same words are inscribed on the memorial stone commemorating Archbishop Michael Ramsey in Canterbury.

But I also found myself musing for some time on that last sentence, ‘So Christ came “to link up the end with the beginning,” or in St Paul’s words, (which Irenaeus never tires of repeating,) “to gather up into one all things” in himself.’ To link up the end with the beginning ... I wondered whether TS Eliot had read Robinson, and whether those words had any bearing on his opening and closing words of ‘East Coker,’ set in Somerset:

In my beginning is my end ...
In my end is my beginning.

Joseph Armitage Robinson (1858-1933) was a Cambridge theologian with honorary doctorates from Göttingen, Halle, Trinity College Dublin and Glasgow. He was part of a lengthy theological tradition that included Charles Gore, Joseph Lightfoot, Fenton Hort, Brooke Westcott and John Wordsworth, and that reached back to figures like Van Mildert, Waterland, Burnet, Cosin, Andrewes and Hooker. He was one of the great Patristic scholars in the Church of England at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, and was Dean of Westminster Abbey (1902-1911) and then Dean of Wells Cathedral (1911-1933) until his death.

Armitage Robinson was part of the generation of Cambridge theologians that followed the great Dublin-born Patristic scholar, Fenton John Anthony Hort (1828-1892), who, with Brooke Westcott, was the editor of The New Testament in the Original Greek. But I was surprised to discover in recent days that Robinson also had strong Irish family connections, for both his father and his mother were Irish-born.

He was born the son of a poor Somerset vicar in Keynsham, between Bristol and Bath. His father, the Revd George Robinson, was born in Co Monaghan and educated at TCD (BA 1844, MA 1859). He was ordained in the Church of Ireland but moved to England in 1847, where he was curate in Saint James’s, Clapham, and then Vicar of Keynsham, Somerset (1854-1870) and Vicar of Saint Augustine’s, Everton, Liverpool (1870-1881). He died in 1881 in Marseilles, where he was buried. Armitage Robinson's mother, Henrietta Cecilia, was a daughter of Arthur Forbes, of Craigavad, Co Down, and George and Henrietta had 13 children, including six sons who were in holy orders, which was a record, and two daughters who were deaconesses.

Armitage studied classics and theology at Christ’s College, Cambridge (BA 1881, MA 1884, BD 1891, DD 1896), where he was a Fellow from 1881 to 1889. After his ordination (deacon 1881, priest 1882), Robinson was a Domestic Chaplain to Lightfoot, who had become the Bishop of Durham (1882-1884). But he soon returned to Cambridge as Dean of Christ’s College (1884-1890). He also served as Assistant Curate of Great Saint Mary’s, the university church in Cambridge (1885-1886), Vicar of All Saints’ Church, Cambridge (1888-1892), which I wrote about earlier this month, and Norrisian Professor of Divinity (1893-1899). At Cambridge, he was also the Lady Margaret Preacher (1895, 1906), and during that time he was also Examining Chaplain to the Bishop of Bath and Wells (1888-1891), a Prebendary of Wells Cathedral (1894-1899) and the Select Preacher at Oxford University (1898).

He became Rector of Saint Margaret’s, Westminster (1899-1900), and was a Canon of Westminster Abbey (1899-1902). Then in 1902, he became a chaplain to King Edward VII, and he was the Dean of Westminster Abbey from 1902 until 1911, when he became Dean of Wells. As Dean of Wells, he had close links with Downside Abbey and too part in the bilateral Anglican-Roman Catholic Malines Conversations.

He received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin (DD) in 1908, and in 1920 he returned to his father’s alma mater as the Donnellan Lecturer. His lectures in TCD were published as Barnabas, Hermas and the Didache: Being the Donnellan Lectures Delivered Before the University of Dublin in 1920 (London: SPCK, 1920).

While he was Dean of Westminster Abbey, he was made an honorary Fellow of Christ’s College in 1905, an honour he held until his death. He was knighted in 1932, shortly before he died at Upton Noble in Somerset on 7 May 1933.

His clerical brothers included Canon Arthur William, DD (1856-1928), a canon of Canterbury and the author of several books. He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, and for a short time was his father’s curate at Saint Augustine’s, Everton (1879-1881). He was the Select Preacher at Cambridge on five occasions (1889, 1892, 1894, 1904 and 1907), and his son was the famous if controversial theologian and bishop, John AT Robinson (1919-1983), author of Honest to God.

Other brothers included the Revd John Robinson, who died while he was a CMS missionary in Nigeria, Canon Charles Henry Robinson (1861-1925), who died while he was Editorial Secretary to SPG, and Canon Forbes Robinson (1867-1904), Fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge, author of Translation of Coptic Gospels and Letters to His Friends, curate of All Saints’ Church, Cambridge (1891-1892) while his brother Armitage was the vicar, Chaplain of Emmanuel College, Cambridge (1891-1896), Chaplain and Junior Dean of Christ’s College (1896-1904).

Another brother, Edward Forbes Robinson (1864-1921), was a missionary teacher in South Africa, where he died, and Dr Frederick Augustine Robinson (1870-1906), who was a Medical Missionary with the Universities’ Mission to Central Africa (UMCA), died in 1906 in Natal.

The Robinsons are an outstanding clerical, theological and missionary family, but until recently I was not aware of their strong connections with both Cambridge and Ireland. I think they may be worth looking at again and writing about them more fully.

(Edited, 23.09.2015)

Where part of Salvation is for sale at £2 and Oliver Cromwell is among the saints

Second hand theological books for sale at £2 each in Cambridge yesterday (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

You can buy part of Salvation for £2 in Cambridge, and visiting one Cambridge church you could imagine Oliver Cromwell is hailed as a saint.

I intended to visit David’s Bookshop – one of the nest second-hand bookshops I know – during my week of study leave in Cambridge, but found it was blocked off yesterday [3 September 2015] as the film crews decked it out in 1950s for filming a new series of Grantchester, based on the sleuth-vicar novels by James Runcie.

Instead, I found myself rummaging through baskets outside another nearby second-hand bookshop, where all theological books were priced at £2, including Doctrines of Salvation, Volume II.

Period cars ready for filming a new series of ‘Grantchester’ in King’s Parade, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Around the corner, King’s Parade had a number of period cars being used as props for Grantchester, whose author, James Runcie, is a son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury, Robery Runcie.

Saint Bene’t’s Church, Cambridge, where Michael Ramsey was Vicar for a year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Another former Archbishop of Canterbury, Michael Ramsey, had close connections with Cambridge, and was briefly Vicar of Saint Bene’t’s Church in the late 1930s.

Michael Ramsey was born in Cambridge on 14 November 1904. His father, Arthur Stanley Ramsey (1867-1954), was a Congregationalist and a mathematics don and later President (1915-1937) at Magdelene College; his mother, Mary Agnes Ramsey (1875-1927), was a socialist and a suffragette.

The future archbishop spent his childhood in the late Victorian academic environment of Cambridge and attended the famous Choir School of King’s College before going on to Sandroyd in Surrey and then to Repton, where the young headmaster was Geoffrey Fisher, later to be Ramsey’s immediate predecessor as Archbishop of Canterbury.

On leaving Repton, Ramsey won a scholarship to Cambridge and in 1922 he entered Magdalene College, where his father was President of the college. As a student, he was President of the Cambridge Union in 1926 and his support for the Liberal Party won him praise from HH Asquith.

At Cambridge, he was strongly influenced by his reading of William Temple and the lectures by the New Testament scholar Edwyn Clement Hoskyns, the Anglo-Catholic Dean of Corpus Christi College.

He received a second class in the classical tripos or examinations in 1925. By then he had decided to study for the Anglican priesthood. After a year of graduate study he received a first class in the theological tripos, and on the advice of Eric Milner-White he entered Cuddesdon College near Oxford in 1927 to train for ordination.

His mother died in a car crash that year, and shortly afterwards his brother Frank, a brilliant economist at Trinity College, also died suddenly. Michael Ramsey went through a period of acute depression and did not return to Cuddesdon for a term.

He was ordained deacon in 1928, and priest in 1929. Two years later, in December 1938, he returned to Cambridge as the Vicar of Saint Bene’t’s Church.

However, he remained only a year in Cambridge this time before moving to Durham as a Canon of Durham Cathedral and Van Mildert Professor of Divinity at Durham University.

During his 10 years at Durham (1940-1950), his interest in the Eastern Orthodox Church became widely known, as did his support of Anglo-Catholicism. His interest in the Eastern Orthodox concept of “glory” influenced his favourite book, The Transfiguration 1949.

The Pepys Library at Magdalene College, where Michael Ramsey was a student and his father was a don (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

He returned to Cambridge the following year when he was appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge and a Fellow of Magdalene College in 1950. He expected to settle into academic life in Cambridge for life, and was surprised to be appointed Bishop of Durham.

Later in life, he was an honorary fellow of both Magdelene College and Selwyn College, Cambridge. His memorial stone in Canterbury is inscribed words from Saint Irenaeus that were quoted regularly this week during the IOCS summer conference in Sidney Sussex College: “The Glory of God is the living man; And the life of man is the vision of God.”

Emmanuel Church in Trumpington Street, where Michael Ramsey went to church as a boy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Archbishop Ramsey is still remembered fondly in Saint Bene’t’s, where the Ramsey Rooms, created at the west end of the south aisle in 2002, beside the tower, are used for Sunday School and other meetings.

But he is also remembered in Emmanuel United Reformed Church, the former Congregationalist Church beside Little Saint Mary’s Church on Trumpington Street, where his father was once an elder.

The church traces its origins back to early Puritans in Cambridge and the eventual foundation of a dissenting chapel in Downing Place, near the present site of Downing College.

When the Downing Place Chapel close, the congregation moved, and the present church opened across the street from Corpus Christi College in 1874.

As a boy, Michael Ramsey contemplated the stained-glass lancet windows in Emmanuel Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The story of the church is told on panels around the side, and recall that as a child Michael Ramsey attended the church with his father. However, his biographer, the Cambridge church historian Owen Chadwick, who died earlier this year, recalled:

“The young Michael found Emmanuel Church austere, and later, when he knew what that meant, puritan. They sat in the family pew. He thought the extemporary prayer very long and hard to bear. The sermons were livelier, for the resident minister Carter was a cultivated man. Michael’s sister found him a fidget in church and thought it was fidgeting to excess. He whiled away the time by contemplating the stained glass lancet windows behind the preacher and the holy table.”

Oliver Cromwell and John Milton in the central pair of windows in the apse in Emmanuel Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The six lancet windows in the apse that helped Michael Ramsey while away those Sunday mornings depict, to the left, two 16th century Puritan martyrs, Henry Barrow of Clare College and John Greenwood of Corpus Christi College; to right, the Puritan Francis Holcroft of Clare College, who was among the ‘ejected ministers’ in 1662, and Joseph Hussey, the first Puritan minister of the meeting house from which Emmanuel evolved; and in the centre Oliver Cromwell of Sidney Sussex College and the poet John Milton of Christ’s College.

The windows, which were installed in 1906, and came from the workshops of William Morris & Co, who also supplied many of the windows in All Saints’ Church in Jesus Lane.

These are the six “Puritan saints” of Cambridge, and I found it interesting to think that Michael Ramsey spent so much time contemplating Oliver Cromwell above the holy table in Emmanuel Church, while I have often dined at a table beneath the portrait of Oliver Cromwell in Sidney Sussex College.

Some reflections on this morning’s Eucharist in Saint Bene’t’s Church

The Church looking out onto the World … the door in Saint Bene’t’s Church, Cambridge, looking out onto Bene’t Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

This is my last day in Cambridge following this year’s summer conference organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies. As usual, I began the day with a five-minute walk from Sidney Sussex College to Saint Bene’t’s Church, where I have been attending the early morning Eucharist at 8 a.m. throughout this week.

This morning, the associate priest at Saint Bene’t’s, the Revd Rachel Nichols, presided at the Eucharist, and in the Calendar of the Church we remembered Saint Gregory the Great.

The readings were: Ecclesiasticus 47. 8-11; Psalm 100; 1 Thessalonians 2. 3-8; and Mark 10. 42-45.

Rachel read from Exciting Holiness:

“Gregory was born in 540, the son of a Roman senator. As a young man he pursued a governmental career, and in 573 was made Prefect of the city of Rome. Following the death of his father, he resigned his office, sold his inheritance, and became a monk. In 579, he was sent by the Pope to Constantinople to be his representative to the Patriarch. He returned to Rome in 586, and was himself elected Pope in 590. At a time of political turmoil, Gregory proved an astute administrator and diplomat, securing peace with the Lombards. He initiated the mission to England, sending Augustine and forty monks from his own monastery to refound the English Church. His writings were pastorally oriented. His spirituality was animated by a dynamic of love and desire for God. Indeed, he is sometimes called the ‘Doctor of Desire.’ For Gregory, desire was a metaphor for the journey into God. As Pope, he styled himself ‘Servant of the servants of Go’' – a title which typified both his personality and ministry. He died in 604.”

In a week in which many of the discussions have been about Orthodoxy, ecumenism and dialogue, it was interesting to reminded that Gregory was a bridge between the Church of the West and the Church of Constantinople.

But it was interesting too to be reminded of his role in initiating the mission to England, sending Augustine to refound the English Church.

At the back of the church, I picked up the September edition of Franciscan, the magazine of the Society of Saint Francis. This edition is devoted to the Radical Orthodoxy movement, with essays by Alison Milbank, James Walters, Toby Wright and Steve Holinghurst debating a movement that has been strongly influenced by Anglican theologians in Cambridge and that seeks to find our way back to the roots of an orthodox Christian perspective that gives rise to a much more holistic view of God’s world.

In some ways, these essays bring together many of my experiences this week in Cambridge, both at the IOCS summer conference and at the Eucharist in Saint Bene’t’s in the early morning.

Collect:

Merciful Father,
who chose your bishop Gregory
to be a servant of the servants of God:
grant that, like him, we may ever long to serve you
by proclaiming your gospel to the nations,
and may ever rejoice to sing your praises;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

Post Communion:

God of truth,
whose Wisdom set her table
and invited us to eat the bread and drink the wine
of the kingdom:
help us to lay aside all foolishness
and to live and walk in the way of insight,
that we may come with your servant Gregory
to the eternal feast of heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Making use of the ‘Gyp Room’ on Staircase M late at night

The mystery and the meaning of the ‘Gyp Room’ were soon unveiled (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

Do you know what is a tripos? Or what is a gyp-room? What was a ten-year man? What was the Wooden Spoon?

Did you know the May Balls and the May Bumps take place in June?

Cambridge has its own vocabulary, its own peculiar names for places, and its own language. It takes so long to master them that Cambridge University Press has a guide to these special words and usages by Frank Stubbings, Bedders, Bulldogs and Bedells: A Cambridge Glossary.

But if you have mastered this vocabulary and this peculiar set of names, then you know that Jesus Ditch separates Jesus Common from Jesus Close, you know Christ’s Pieces from Parker’s Piece, and you know where the apostrophe goes in Queens’ College. And you know too that the “Cambridge week” goes from Thursday to Wednesday, why we divide on Friday, and that the new year is starting on 1 October.

A court in a Cambridge college is not somewhere to face trial and punishment, but is the equivalent of an Oxford quad.

Climbing the stairs to M3 in Cloister Court (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

In Cambridge colleges, including Sidney Sussex, students often identify with their stairs, which becomes a place for making friendships and sharing resources. This week I am staying on Stairs M in Cloister Court … in previous years, for example, I have stayed in Blundell Court, in Garden Court, on Stairs C overlooking Hall Court and on Stairs H in Chapel Court, among others.

When I was staying on Stairs K in Cloister Court some years ago, I wondered whether there was a room numbered K9. Now that I am on Stairs M this year, I wondered, just for a moment, whether there was an MI5 or MI6, which might have been perfect for the Cambridge spies.

My rooms this week are at the end of Cloister Court, looking out onto the gardens and Jesus Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

My rooms this week are at the end of Cloister Court, looking out onto the gardens and Jesus Lane. As I was checking out my bearings and location after my arrival, searching for the bathroom, I was reminded of another strange usage in the Cambridge vocabulary.

My rooms are part of a set and without having to go out onto the landing and the stairs I have immediate access to the shared kitchen, which is labelled: “Gyp Room.”

The gyp, the bedder and the porter are all figures you expect to come across in Porterhouse or some other Tom Sharpe novel set in a Cambridge college.

At one time, college servants did everything from patrolling the college grounds to polishing boots and boiling eggs. The colleges – and students – could not have functioned without them.

In the 1840s, Charles Astor Bristed described the bedders or bed-makers as “the women who take care of the rooms … For obvious reason they are selected from such of the fair sex as have long passed the age at which they might have had any personal attractions.”

The gyp, he said, was “a college servant, who attends upon a number of students … [who] calls them in the morning, brushes their clothes, carries parcels for them … and waits at their parties and so on.” Each gyp typically worked for all the occupants of a staircase.

So a “Gyp” was a type of manservant in Cambridge colleges, and in Oxford they were known as scouts.

The term may date back to the mid-18th century and perhaps comes from an obsolete word gippo meaning a menial kitchen servant, but originally denoting a working man’s short tunic, and this in turn is derived from an obsolete French word jupeau.

Clear instructions for staff and students (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The Gyps no longer exist, but their memory survives in the name used for the “Gyp room.” This was once the room where a gyp awaited a call from his gentlemen, but today it is a small, basic kitchen for the use of college members, both staff and students.

And the “Gyp Room” on Staircase M in Cloister Court has been an important place for making late-night coffees throughout this week.

I close the door behind me on M3 and the Gyp Room check out of Sidney Sussex College later this morning.

The facilities of the Gyp are basic but welcome when coffee is needed late at night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

An afternoon walk along the River Cam as summer lingers a little in Cambridge

A panoramic view of the River Cam from Fort St George to the Sidney Sussex boathouse (Photograph: Patrick Comerford. 215; click on photograph for a larger image)

Patrick Comerford

This has been such a busy week in Cambridge that there have only been few opportunities to get out from the IOCS conference in Sidney Sussex, and then only for short walks through the cobbled streets to Saint Bene’t’s Church each morning or along Trinity Lane and by the Backs and the Banks of the River Cam at lunchtime.

When the conference ended late this afternoon, I went for a stroll first along Sidney Street and Bridge Street, and popped into Magdalene College where Archbishop Rowan Williams is now the Master.

Magdalene College was founded in 1482 and refounded in 1542. The first foundation was as a Cambridge hostel for Benedictine monks from Crowland Abbey, to the north of the river, under the shadow of Castle Hill. After the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538, Lord Audley of Audley End founded the present college.

The Pepys Building in Second Court in Magdalene College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

I particularly wanted to see the Pepys Building in Second Court, which houses the Pepys Library. It is regarded as the principal ornament of “Mags” and is a building of considerable architectural interest.

The building was probably not completed until the early 18th century. The original plan was probably for a more modest, all-brick building until the project was revived in 1677.

The diarist Samuel Pepys made three subscriptions to the building fund, although there is no formal evidence of his intention to bequeath his Library to the College, and of his hope to have it placed in “the new building” until his will, dated 1703, just before his death.

The back of the Pepys Building looks like a Jacobean manor house, but the front is neo-classical and in Ketton stone.

The west front is delightful, but there is a lopsided rhythm to it and it is slightly asymmetric. The middle window on the first floor is not central, the distance between the second and third windows is greater than that between their equivalent pair on the other side, and so on.

The frieze inscription, Bibliotheca Pepysiana 1724, records the date of the completion of the Pepys Library. Above this inscription is the coat of arms of Samuel Pepys with his motto: Mens cujusque is est quisque, a quotation from Cicero’s De re publica VI.26, “What a man’s mind is, that is what he is,” or more simply “The mind’s the man.”

To each side are the coat-of-arms of two college benefactors, though neither contributed to this building: Sir Christopher Wray, to the left, and Peter Peckard (quartering Ferrar) to the right, both added probably around 1813.

Audley Cottage recalls Lord Audley … there is a rustic feeling about these cottages on Chesterton Lane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Around the corner from Magdalene College, Audley Cottage on Chesterton Lane is named after the college founder. A row of cottages here retains a rustic charm, and some of the pubs along Chesterton Lane and Chesterton Road, such as the Boathouse, take their names from life on the river.

After crossing the river at Victoria Bridge, I walked along the south bank of the Cam, with the boathouses on the opposite side, as far as the boathouse of Sidney Sussex Boat Club, and then turned back to stop for a glass of wine at the Fort St George In England (to give it its full name), an old pub on the south bank of the river and on the edge of Midsummer Common.

Fort Saint George is the oldest pub on the River Cam (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

This is the oldest pub on the River Cam. It is a Grade II listed timber-framed building dating in part from the 16th century. The name is commonly abbreviated to just “Fort St George,” but the pub is often known simply as “The Fort.” The full name reflects a supposed resemblance to the East India Company’s Fort St George at Madras (now Chennai) in India.

This sprawling pub looks much larger from the outside than it is inside. It has three rooms of differing sizes and styles: the large open wooden-floored bar area, a traditional dark snug, and a light (dining) room, with windows overlooking the river. Outside, there is a large pleasant pub garden, on two sides, and a substantial covered area overlooking the Common.

Over the years, it has been much altered and enlarged, but it retains much of its charm. The walls are lined with photographs from the 1960s and 1970s of winning boat clubs, the snug to the right of the main entrance has some ancient panelling, and a sign over the bar boats proudly: “Welcome to Fort St George, proudly serving Cambridge since the 16th century.”

Fort Saint George claims it is “proudly serving Cambridge since the 16th century” (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The building dates from the 16th century, with alterations and additions in the 19th century and later. It was refurbished most recently in 2008. It is timber-framed, rendered and painted, in part refaced or rebuilt in brick, especially the east and west gables and the ground floor south front. It is a two-storey building with modern casement windows, three below and five above and one small-paned sash window.

Originally the building had a T-shaped plan, but the 19th century additions make it difficult to see this. The first floor has an overhang on carved timber brackets, there are some chamfered ceiling beams, a great central brick stack, and an old tile roof.

During the high summer, the pub has a reputation of being rowdy and unpleasant. During many events on the Common, such as Midsummer Fair, it often closes to avoid trouble.

But on an early evening like today’s, it was a rather pleasant place to sip a glass of wine and watch life go by on the river.

Strolling through Jesus Green in the early evening sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

I walked back through Midsummer Common and Jesus Green, and by Jesus Ditch to Park Street, where the ADC Theatre, the home of the Cambridge Footlights. Its initials stand for The Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club, the oldest and largest student drama society in Cambridge.

The first performances on the site were staged in 1855. As the Club expanded, the students bought the building, originally the Hoop Inn, and turned it into the ADC Theatre. The freehold of the building is still owned by the members of the Club today.

It was just another few minutes before I was back in my rooms in Sidney Sussex College.

A glass of white wine at Fort St George … it was possible to imagine that this was still summer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The challenge to find common ground in dialogue and conversation

Sidney Sussex College seen from Green Street this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

After wrestling with the differences between dialogue and conversation and the problems of engaging in interfaith dialogue this morning, we started talking at the summer school in Sidney Sussex College this afternoon [2 September 2015] about the different ways of Christians engaging in ecumenical dialogue.

This year’s IOCS summer conference has been looking at ‘Christian Faith, Identity and Otherness: Possibilities and Limitations of Dialogue in Ecumenical and Interfaith Discourse.’

The conference came to a close this afternoon with a panel discussion chaired by Dr Christoph Schneider of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

We were challenged us to think of how we can use our imagination creatively in ecumenical dialogue, and offered a model from Greek theatre.

With illustrations from the play Oedipus the King by Sophocles, the speaker drew comparisons between Oedipus and Moses. Oedipus is confused about his identity, as Moses is at the beginning of his life. Oedipus goes blind at the end of his life, and Moses never saw the Promised Land.

Sophocles never knew of Moses, but there is much common ground in both stories.

Greek theatre needs imagination and intuition, and perhaps we need to draw on these too in difficult theological situations, such as dialogue.

How do I assert something, and how do I react when someone opposes me, and how do I respond to how I feel? Being aware of these issues allows me to engage in direct encounters in ecumenical dialogue with introspection and intimacy and creativity.

There were interesting discussions about Orthodox attitudes to Lectio Divina, and the use of imagination in prayer, which is generally discouraged in Orthodoxy as imaginative and with the danger of delusion or idolatry.

But could comparisons be drawn with praying the Jesus Prayer in front of an icon?

We also discussed whether the word “antimony” can be used interchangeably in theology with “paradox.” Immanuel Kant popularised the term which for him may be used for something that is theoretically impossible yet nevertheless is.

We moved on to discuss the place of anthropology and psychology in theology, and the relationship between religion and science.

We were reminded of the well-known saying from Saint Irenaeus: “The glory of God is a human being that is alive; and the life of a human being consists in beholding God” (Against Heresies, Book 4, 20:7).

But we also thought about the confusion that arise between nature and grace when we engage in dialogue.

Trinity Lane during a stroll through Cambridge this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

When interfaith dialogue is more about talking than about listening

In the churchyard at Saint Bene’t’s, Cambridge, this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

We talk at a speed of 200 to 250 words a minute but can listen at 300 to 500 words a minutes. So, when another person is talking, it is easy to get side-tracked by my own thoughts – which may well be triggered by one thing that the speaker says. When I lose track of a conversation, rather than lose face and become embarrassed, I can find myself nodding, smiling and hoping that the other people in the conversation do not notice.

Someone once said: “We have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionally.”

Do we listen to each other when we engage in inter-faith dialogue? We faced this question this morning [2 September 2015] at the annual conference of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

This year’s conference, which is taking place this week in Sidney Sussex College, is looking at ‘Christian Faith, Identity and Otherness: Possibilities and Limitations of Dialogue in Ecumenical and Interfaith Discourse.’

This morning, Dr Gorazd Andrejč of the Woolf Institute, Cambridge, talked about the role of ecumenical and interfaith dialogue when he asked us to consider: “Dialogue, Conversation or Discursive Encounter – How Relevant are the Conceptual Distinctions?”

Dr Gorazd Andrejč of the Woolf Institute speaking at the IOCS summer conference in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, this morning (Photograph: Dragos Herescu, 2015)

Dr Andrejč, a philosopher and theologian from Slovenia, is a Junior Research Fellow at the Woolf Institute, and a research associate at Saint Edmund’s College, Cambridge. His academic interests include the ways in which religious language, belief-attitudes and felt experience are intertwined, especially in Christianity, and inter-religious and religious-secular relations, especially in Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Britain.

Before joining the Woolf Institute in 2013, he was a lecturer at the University of Exeter, where he designed and taught philosophy of religion courses.

The Woolf Institute is a global leader in the academic study of relations between Jews, Christians and Muslims. The institute was established in Cambridge in 1998, with close links to the university, and once shared space in Wesley House, Cambridge, with the IOCS.

Dr Andrejč explained this morning that what is called dialogue is not necessarily dialogue, and how there is a pre-dialogue stage before or instead of inter-faith dialogue.

Instead of talking about inter-faith dialogue, he asked, are there times when we should talk about communications instead, for communications need not be trusting, and can even be hostile or aggressive?

When we stop communicating, we can keep on talking at each other, even though genuine communications may be lacking.

For example, when the Church Father quoted rabbinical sources, there was no dialogue with living Jewish authorities. Yet there had been some discursive encounter, even though it was marked by manipulation and misunderstanding.

It happens today, for example, he suggested, when a Serbian Orthodox leader quotes out of context from a sermon by a Bosnian Muslim. There is an encounter even if there is no communications or dialogue. He wondered whether such instances more common than dialogue.

What is really going on when people say they are engaging in inter-faith dialogue? On the surface it may look like dialogue, but something else may be going on with people taking positions.

He suggested that inter-faith dialogue is different in different cultures and for different traditions. We need to be aware of the different types of communications and interactions between religions that are not dialogue but have positive contributions to creating co-existence. We also need to be aware of who is being ignored and who is struggling to be listened to in inter-faith encounters. Who is invited to the table, and who is excluded?

King’s Parade, Cambridge, in this morning’s sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Later this morning, Dr Brandon Gallaher, Lecturer in Christian Theological Studies in the University of Exeter, introduced us to “The One Logos and the Many Logoi: Reflections towards an Orthodox Comparative Theology.”

His background is in systematic theology, and has worked in Japan, with a post-doctoral fellowship at Doshisha University, Kyoto, last year [October 2014] and again this year [late Spring-Summer 2015], with first-hand experience of Buddhism and Shintoism. Through the encouragement of Archbishop Rowan Williams, who was his external examiner, he also became involved in the “Building Bridges” project.

He drew comparisons and a distinction between “comparative theology” and the “theology of religions,” he looked at Orthodoxy and other religions, and asked why Orthodoxy has not produced much theological work in either field.

There has been a long association between Orthodoxy and other religions, living beside other religions in the Middle East, South India and since the 19th century in Japan.

There has not been much Orthodox theological reflection drawing on this experience, although he cited examples from John Garvey, Metropolitan Georges Khodr, David Bentley Hart, Alexander Men, Mar Paulos Gregorios, David Flood and Dr Mangala Frost of the IOCS, who spoke at the conference yesterday afternoon.

The Vatican paper Nostra Aetate (1965) opened Roman Catholics to engagement with world religions. Why has something similar not developed in Orthodoxy?

The development of Orthodox theology has been tied in recent decades to the Russian diaspora, and has concentrated on a neo-Patristic synthesis, with a retrieval of sources in Church Fathers and Liturgy that was grasping for identity. They were interested only in Christianity, especially in the West, and not in other religions.

The major figures in this tradition developed their theology in ecumenical dialogue with other Christians, and were closely involved in the early years of the World Council of Churches.

He looked at diaspora and post-diaspora theology before asking why there is a need for an Orthodox comparative theology?

Well, he said, we are not living in Byzantium, we are living the reality of post-modernity. A second reason is that in secular society today, religions are brought together and forced to deal with one another in finding common cause and in response to civil society. A third reason is created by the persecution of Christians by radical Islam in the Middle East.

He summarised the standard Western models of theology of religions as exclusivism, pluralism and inclusivism. Exclusivism says that salvation only comes through Christ by faith, and some adherents hold to double election, while others say there is no salvation outside the Church, and still others are open to the possibility of receiving the Gospel after death (see I Peter 3).

However, exclusivism does not answer problems of those who lack access to the Gospel.

Pluralists argue that all religions are equal paths to salvation, to God, or to the nameless reality, mapped onto the Trinity. Some pluralists say that all religions are true if they embody certain universal, ethical codes.

However, it leaves questions about agnosticism, about dogmatic relativism and about they create what Gavin D’Costa calls a “religious Esperanto” or their own religions.

Inclusivists argue that all are saved by Christ, but this may be through being true to one’s conscience or through following after the end of their being but not necessarily through a direct encounter with the Gospel. He looked at the work of Karl Rahner and Sergei Bulgakov in this area.

George Linbert is critical of all these models, saying they have a soteriological fixation. He says that completely different religions cannot talk to each other without distorting their essential meanings.

The worst-case scenario is that dialogue ends before it even starts. When dialogue continues it often lacks attention to truth or to the presence of Christ in other religions.

He finds these models abstract and have typical Western theological obsession with determining whether someone is saved or not. Citing Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, he suggested Orthodoxy has a “trusting agnosticism” on salvation, and sees it as a process.

He shared his experience of looking for Jesus everywhere while he was working in Japan. If Christ is at the heart of creation, we need to look for his face everywhere.

The Russian theologian Sergei Bulgakov (1871-1944) uses the image of the Temple and its inner circle or Holy of Holies, which is the Orthodox Church, and the outer court, where we find other Christian Churches. They too are ecclesial and part of the Church, with a grain of Orthodoxy and with a relationship to the Holy of Holies.

The limits of the Church do not exist, but extend to all creation, and the periphery of the Church is at the ends of creation, where we still see the holy face of Christ.

Justin Martyr said in the 2nd century that whatever was well said belongs to Christianity, and seeds of the Word are scattered everywhere. Maximus the Confessor (ca 580-662) said the one Logos is many logoi.

How can these ideas be applied to religions today? And can they be applied to non-Abrahamic religions, such as Buddhism and Hinduism? Are they seeking after the One in whom all things hold together?

Any Orthodox approach to comparative theology needs to be Trinitarian and Christological, he said. But it also has to be ecclesiological, Patristic, prayer-bent and dialogical.

The challenge is in discerning the Cross as the watermark of Divine Love in everything in creation.

Time to read The Irish Times during a break this morning (Photograph: Dragos Herescu, 2015)

Some morning thoughts on stretching out my hand for the Body of Christ

‘Holy, holy, holy’ … a hassock in Saint Bene’t’s Church, Cambridge, this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

Each morning this week I have been attending the early morning Eucharist at 8 a.m. in Saint Bene’t’s Church, which is just five minutes stroll from Sidney Sussex College. This morning, the associate priest at Saint Bene’t’s, the Revd Rachel Nichols, presided at the Eucharist.

About a dozen people are present each morning this week. After sharing the peace, we move into the chancel area for the Eucharistic prayer, and gather around the Altar in a semi-circle, symbolising physically that though we are many we are one body.

As I received the host in my outstretched hand this morning, it struck me that this was the same hand that I stretched out only moments earlier to a complete stranger.

The hand that I put forward to receive the Body of Christ is the same hand that stretched forward to receive a stranger as part of the Body of Christ.

Looking out onto the world from the porch in Saint Bene’t’s Church, Cambridge, this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Bikes divide town and gown, but Cambridge is the city of cycles

Cycling is a two-way opportunity in one-way Sidney Street in front of Sidney Sussex College means having to look both ways (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

There are bicycles everywhere in Cambridge, even in the most improbable places. They are on the streets, on the footpaths, chained to church railings, abandoned against college walls, tethered to lampposts, bike rack and street signs, or posing with colourful advertising.

Sometimes, you have to watch your back carefully and watch out with caution, because there are even bikes going both ways on one-way streets, all legally, and even making right turns where there are right turns.

As I look out the window from my rooms in Cloister Court in Sidney Sussex College, there is a large bicycle shop on Jesus Lane, Primo Cycles, squeezed between two pizzerias.

Primo Cycles on Jesus Lane, below my rooms in Sidney Sussex College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The city has over 30 cycle shops, and there bike hire signs throughout the city, hiring, repairing and selling old and new bikes. Students and tourists alike can hire bicycles from a short-term arrangement like a half-day up to a full term.

Many people here boast that Cambridge is the “city of cycling,” and it is said that one in five journeys here is made on a bike. Some people even claim the use of bicycles in Cambridge is the highest rate in the English-speaking world.

About 120,000 people live in Cambridge, including 43,000 students. But it is not only students who cycle around Cambridge. The ordinary people of Cambridge – shop workers, office staff, stay-at-home parents, people in the service industries and the professions – all cycle too.

Cycles piled up between Mong Hall and South Court in Sidney Sussex College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The most dense cycle usage in Cambridge is in a few streets in the centre and on routes used mainly by students. So students are partly responsible for the high number of cyclists here. Yet, you might ask, where else would a third of the people agree to being banned from owning a car in the city in which they live?

Undergraduates are not normally allowed to keep a car or a motorcycle in Cambridge, nor are they issued with parking permits. Although there are exceptions, for instance for physically disabled students, most students do not drive in the city.

Advertising bicycles on a bike outside Great Saint Mary’s Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

This means many cycle shops in Cambridge will have sold out of second-hand bikes within days of the undergraduates arriving back later this month. Second hand-bikes are advertised on notice boards around the University and throughout Cambridge, in local newspapers … even on colourful parked bikes.

The many special cycle ways are marked with blue signs with a white bicycle, and this helps cyclists to avoid the busier roads. But the rules for cyclists are confusing, even for people like me who have been coming to Cambridge for years.

Some streets allow buses and bicycles only, and many one-way streets are on fact two-way for bicycles. I have to remember to look both ways when I step out the wicker gate in Sidney Sussex College onto Sidney Street – although this is a one-way street for the restricted traffic allowed in, it is a two-way street for cyclists.

And yet the law can have its own rigour. It is against the law to cycle at night without working front and rear lights and rear reflector, and it is against the law to cycle with either a broken front or rear brake.

Cycling restrictions can be introduced at short notice (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Cyclists complain that speed limits are high for cars, cycle-lanes are narrow, cyclists are expected to share lanes with buses, many residential roads are so designed that they are often used by cars as rat-runs, and cyclists often find they are forced to use rough surfaces on busy roads.

Shopping streets in the centre of Cambridge are essential parts of many direct and safe routes across the city, but they have often been closed to cyclists. Although some of these streets have been partly restored as cycling routes, some of the one-way restrictions only make sense for cars yet still apply to bikes too.

On the other hand, although paths through the parks are narrow and are shared with pedestrians, they are relatively pleasant for cyclists.

Cycling on Trinity Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Cambridge students who cycle are usually young, well-educated and confident but who still need to be careful with their money. Those who form the cycling habit at University tend to continue to cycle afterwards, so cycling in Cambridge also benefits from the fact that many students remain in the city after graduating to work with of the hi-tech companies.

However, there has long been a divide between “town” and “gown” in Cambridge, and there is a correlation here between cycling and affluence.

Car usage is much higher among “town” people, and for them riding a bike can be seen as an indication that someone is poor. In this way, cycling has become one of the ways that the two groups are identified and divided.

Cycling means one is definitely “gown” and in turn many cyclists complain of a high level of intolerance from car drivers.

But despite these conditions and complaints, Cambridge remains the city of cyclists and cycles.

Cambridge remains the city of cyclists and cycles (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Are there meeting points with Muslims and Hindus in dialogue with Orthodoxy?

Sunshine and flowers in Chapel Court in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

The summer conference in Sidney Sussex College moved from ecumenism to inter-religious dialogue this afternoon when Dr Dominic Rubin spoke about “Orthodox-Muslim interaction in Russia today: between ideology and theology,” and Dr Mangala Frost spoke on “Karma and the Cross: a dialogic study of suffering.”

Dr Rubin teaches at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and his expertise is in inter-religious relations in Russia and the former Soviet republics.

He asked whether Russia is the bridge between Europe and Asia, and whether Islam is the new communism, the new enemy, in the west.

He shared his experience of talking to large numbers Russian Muslims about their belief and their identity. Although he said this is not dialogue, it involves taking the first step towards dialogue.

Deep dialogue is not happening in Russia, but then he wondered whether it is taking place anywhere else.

He pointed out that power structures influence dialogue, and recalled that the preamble to the Russian religious law recognises four traditional religions in Russia, with Russian Orthodox Church first among equals, alongside Jews, Muslims and Buddhists. But Baptists and Roman Catholics, for example, are not mentioned.

The law makes it easier to get permission to build an Orthodox Church than to build a mosque.

The four religions were chosen to reflect philosophy of Eurasianism. This theory was developed in 1913-1931, and the founding figures included the Russian Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky.

A significant influence on the doctrine of the Eurasianists is found in an essay by the Russian Orthodox theologian, Nikolai Berdyaev, “The Sources and Meaning of Russian Communism.” However, Florovsky later withdrew his support, accusing it of raising the right questions but posing the wrong answers.”

Eurasianism idealises Genghis Khan, the Mongols and the Tartars. The Orthodox and Muslims in Russia. Muslims and Orthodox have inherited this situation and have to talk to and negotiate with one another.

He described a recent visit to Kazan, the capital of Tatarstan. With a population of over 1.1 million, this is the eighth most populous city in Russia. The population consists mostly of ethnic Russians (48.6%) and ethnic Tatars (47.6%), and the Kazan Kremlin is a World Heritage Site.

The multi-ethnic city is famous for Muslims and Christians living side-by-side in peace, and an artists who is a Sufi Muslims brought him on an intimate tour of a Russian Orthodox monastery.

Yet people can say outrageous things about who is the rightful owner of the land and the city’s heritage.

Is this dialogue? Is it even diapraxis?

Surviving mediaeval glass in a window on the stairs to the Old Library in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Dr Frost (IOCS) spoke later this afternoon on “Karma and the Cross: a dialogic study of attitudes to suffering.”

She juxtaposed two different approaches to suffering, with a dual perspective as a former Hindu who understands karma, and as an Orthodox Christian who feels she has something to offer Hindus a fresh understanding of Christianity.

She hopes to improve mutual understanding, without necessarily finding agreement.

She identified three intertwining but distinct Hindu traditions.

For the Monist strand, suffering is unreal or an illusion (maya), and so too is evil. The suffering body has no part in one’s real identity.

The second, more popular strand, Karma, suffering is real and a punishment for past actions or actions in past lives.

The third perspective, Bhakti, sees suffering as real but synonymous with birth. In this tradition, devotional love is met by God’s grace which can cancel out karma. This tradition subverts the Karma theory.

The appeal of karma provides a description of human nature. Its appeal lies in its offer of consolation, in offering an instant palliative and an answer to the problems of evil, it offers a justice in which sin is punished and virtue is rewarded, a type of “poetic justice,” and leads to hope rather than fatalism.

In Orthodox theology, the Fall is the rupture of communion with God, sin is “missing the mark,” death is not a “punishment from an angry God,” but the inevitable consequence of ruptured communion, and the Resurrection is the conquest of death and is the key to coping with suffering.

In Orthodox theology, answers to all problems, especially those of evil and suffering, come from an unswerving focus on the joy of Christ’s Resurrection. The Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ are treated as an integral story of human salvation. In and through his Resurrection, Christ is seen as restoring once again what was lost – a full communion with and participation in the life of God.

Christians are called to be human icons of the divine image we bear.

Where Christianity, especially Orthodox Christianity, differs from Hindu traditions is to take the discussion about suffering beyond virtue-oriented, conventional moralism to the volatile, metaphysical dimension where the human-divine encounter seems to fail utterly for the believer.

She quoted Saint Mark the Ascetic in the Philokalia:

“Every suffering tests our will, showing whether it is inclined to good or evil. That is why an unforeseen affliction is called a test, because it enables a man to test his hidden desires.”

She said Christian belief in “a suffering God” who entered history to redeem it poses the most serious challenge to believers in Karma. Such a belief has rippling effects on the identity of those who chose to follow him.

Christians believe that in suffering for us, with us, and overcoming the ultimate evil of death, Christ, the God-Man, has changed forever the meaning of suffering.

Matthew the Poor, a Coptic monk, reflecting on suffering as participation in God’s work of redemption, said: “Now, if we can undergo suffering on the level of his suffering, not just as a consequence of sin, but as participation in the suffering of love, self-sacrifice, and redemption.”

In conclusion, she offered a reappraisal: “Paul spoke of the Cross as ‘foolishness’ to the Greeks and a ‘stumbling block’ to the Jews. On the whole, Hindus view the Cross with respect due to a holy man, but do they fully understand or appreciate the challenge the Cross poses to a Karmic view of life? I hope they are persuaded to reconsider.”

But she added: “Equally, I hope that the Orthodox become aware of the temptation to shrink, or distort, the awe-inspiring cosmic mystery of the Cross into simplistic strategies of comfort that come dangerously close to Karma.”

Once again, the day concludes with Vespers in the Chapel and dinner.

Two contrasting Orthodox views on the purpose of ecumenical dialogue

Sunshine in the gardens in Sidney Sussex Colege, Cambridge, this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

This year’s summer conference in Sidney Sussex College is looking at ecumenism and dialogue, and we got down to some of the “nitty-gritty” problems in dialogue this morning when Dr Razvan Porumb and the Revd Dr Alexander Tefft spoke in very different and contrasting ways of the opportunities and limitations in ecumenism from different Orthodox perspectives.

Dr Porumb is a Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer and Development Officer at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge. He recently completed his PhD through the IOCS and the Cambridge Theological Federation on the topic of “Orthodoxy and Ecumenism. Towards Active Metanoia.”

This morning Razvan spoke on “Orthodoxy and ecumenism: towards active metanoia.”

He pointed out that for most Orthodox theologians, the Orthodox Church sees itself as the Church named in the Creed, and this influences all dialogue with other Christians. They regard others as deficient, and dialogue is about bringing other Christians to Orthodoxy.

Drawing on Florovsky, Bulgakov, and Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, he said most Orthodox theologians argue that schisms throughout history are created by chosen to leave the unity of the Orthodox Church, and talks on unity are about the return of schismatic groups to the one church, the Orthodox Church.

He said the Orthodox Church, claims an exceptional position, and has an exceptional role in the ecumenical task, with responsibility for reuniting the Church.

Orthodox theologians see the existence of others as never the result of a separation, but see others as having left the Church, and that the Orthodox Church has maintained unity.

In offering another working paradigm for an increasingly plural world, Razvan spoke of the Trinity as the supreme structure of unity, and he asked whether the unity of Orthodoxy is maintained for the benefit of the Orthodox Church alone, or for the benefit of all Christians and for all humanity.

He suggested a shift of perspective would come with more humble and penitent approach, and that we must struggle towards lost unity.

Quoting Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, he said “We know where the Church is, but cannot be sure where it is not, paraphrasing.”

He suggested a new paradigm would involve journeying together. He told the story of a saint who met a woman who had been sitting in her room and never moving out. He asked her why she stayed sitting in her house. “I am not sitting here,” she told him. “I am on a journey and I starting from here.”

He said unity or catholicity is core to Christian identity, and the search for unity seeks not the sum of the parts but the fullness of the Church. He spoke of unity as a spiritual exercise and of ecumenism as dynamic, and they require spiritual exercise and action. This is a calling for all and not just a specialised few, and ecumenical participation is as much about prayer as it is about dialogue.

There is a risk involved, with the fear of the loss of identity and of betraying inheritance. But there is a need for patience, for impatience is the cause of much of the present impasse in ecumenism.

Drawing on the work of the Romanian theologian Dumitru Stăniloae (1903-1993), author of The Dogmatic Orthodox Theology (1978), he offered an image of human consubstantiality, a Trinitarian model for humanity, and a koinonia of diversities.

Razvan was introduced by his colleague, Father Dragos Herescu, who is Assistant Lecturer and Secretary of the Institute. He is currently working on a doctorate with Durham University, exploring the secularisation paradigm in the social and religious context of Eastern Orthodoxy, with particular focus on Romania.

Father Dragos also teaches at undergraduate level on the degree programmes offered through the IOCS and the Cambridge Theological Federation. He serves for Saint John the Evangelist Romanian Orthodox parish in Cambridge, and, as part of the Institute’s liturgical life, leads the small Byzantine choir.

Praying the chapel in Sidney Sussex College during this week's summer conference (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Later this morning, the Revd Dr Alexander Tefft (IOCS) spoke on “Integrism and the Limits of Dialogue.”

Father Alexander is chaplain at IOCS and a tutor for the distance learning courses. A graduate of Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in the US, he is also Parish Priest of the Orthodox Parish of Saint Botolph, meeting at Saint Botolph-Without-Bishopsgate, near Liverpool Street, London. He has been Assistant to the Dean of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of the British Isles and Ireland and theological advisor to its ordination committee.

He argued that dialogue not always what it seems. Present ecumenical dialogue assumes pluralism is inevitable if not desirable, and both parties must be treated equally.

But he asserted: “If there can be no heresy, there can be no orthodoxy.”

He accepted that his position risks of being labelled sectarian or even fundamentalism. He said there is a fine line that divides heretics and schismatics, but a sect remains a sect and the Church remains the Church. Vestiges are vestiges and do not make a Church.

The Orthodox Church is the Church, and the Church, the Body of Christ, cannot be divided, he said. She is the only Church and the only Church, he said. Is it possible to be a Christian outside the Orthodox Church? Christians and the Church are not synonymous.

There can be no churches outside the Church, he said, and the sacraments and traditions are experienced only in the Orthodox Church.

A hassock in Saint Bene’t’s Church, Cambridge, this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Today [1 September] is the beginning of the New Year in the Orthodox Church. A pious tradition of the Orthodox Church says that Christ began preaching the good news of his mission on 1 September when he entered the synagogue, he was given the book of the Prophet Isaiah to read, and he opened it and found the place where it is written:

18 ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

20 And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. 21 Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ (Luke 4: 18-21)

Orthodox tradition also holds that it was in September that the Hebrews entered the Promised Land. In Biblical and Mediterranean lands, the summer harvest was completed, the crops were stored, and this was a time when people began preparing for a new agricultural cycle; and so it was the appropriate time for new beginnings. In the services for the New Year, the Church beseeches God for fair weather, seasonable rains, and an abundance of the fruits of the earth.

I began this morning attending the early morning Eucharist at 8 a.m. in Saint Bene’t’s Church, close to Corpus Christi College and King’s College. The Revd Richard Ames-Lewis presided at the Eucharist, and the Gospel reading was that same passage from Saint Luke’s Gospel.

Sometimes we come together in ways that are unexpected and that may surprise us.

In the afternoon, Dr Dominic Rubin (Higher School of Economics, Moscow), addresses “Orthodox-Muslim interaction in Russia today: between ideology and theology,” and Dr Mangala Frost (IOCS) speaks on “Karma and the Cross: a dialogic study of suffering.”

Once again, the day concludes with Vespers in the Chapel at 5.30 p.m. and dinner at 6.30 p.m.