Orthodox Spirituality as experienced by an Anglican visitor to Greece

At the Divine Liturgy in the village church in Tsesmes, near Rethymnon, Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

There is a story in the Orthodox Church that when Vladimir, Prince of Kiev, was still a pagan at the end of the tenth century, he sent out envoys to discover the true religion and to advise him on what should become the state religion.

The envoys first visited the Muslim Bulgars of the Volga, and found no joy among them ‘but mournfulness and a great smell.’ In Germany and Rome, they found the worship and liturgy was without beauty. But when the envoys reached Byzantium, they were so dazzled by the splendour of the liturgy in the great church of Aghia Sophia they instantly decided that Orthodoxy should be the faith of the Slav people. ‘We knew not whether we were on heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendour or beauty anywhere upon earth. We cannot describe it to you: only this we know, that God dwells there among humans, and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places. For we cannot forget that beauty.’

The riches of Orthodox spirituality need to be understood in Ireland today, not merely because of the beauty of the liturgy but for practical and ecumenical reasons too:

● Who are the Christians caught in conflicts in the Middle East, in Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon, or between the extremes of militant Zionism and militant Islam?

● Four EU member states have an Orthodox majority – Greece, Cyprus, Romania and Bulgaria.

● How did Orthodox spirituality sustain people in Soviet Russia or in Ceausescu’s Romania?

● What was the role of faith in the horrors of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia?

● What expressions of spirituality are sustaining the people of Greece in the current economic and political crisis?

● How should I behave when I visit a church while on holiday in Greece, Cyprus or Russia?

Orthodoxy is the fastest growing Christian tradition in Ireland today. There are Greek, Russian, Romanian, Antiochene and Georgian churches, many of them using former Church of Ireland parish churches. In addition, there is a variety of what are known as Oriental Orthodox parishes, including Indian Orthodox, Syrian Orthodox and Coptic Orthodox communities, as well as the Mar Thoma Church, which has its roots in Syrian and Indian Orthodoxy but is in full communion with the Anglican Communion.

Understanding Orthodox spirituality is a key to understanding modern literature – from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov to the novels of Nikos Kazantzakis, the poems of Yiannis Ritsos or JD Salinger’s Franny and Zooey – or the music of composers like Rachmaninov, Stravinsky and John Taverner. Orthodox spirituality also explains the themes in some modern movies – from Zorba the Greek to My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.

Worship in church

I have spent time in many Orthodox countries, experiencing the life of churches and monasteries in Greece, Romania, Cyprus, Albania and Egypt, especially on Mount Athos, Mount Sinai, and Patmos, and in Crete, Thessaloniki, Athens and the Greek islands. This year, I visited a number of monasteries and churches in Crete, where I also spent time in the studio of a leading icon writer. I also spent a short retreat in an Orthodox monastery in Essex, and for the past ten years I have been a regular student on courses in Cambridge organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

Although the majority of Greeks see Orthodoxy as an essential ingredient in their national and cultural identity, Church attendance figures on Sunday mornings are surprisingly low, with high numbers among those who are middle-aged or older. Many Greeks only come to church for baptisms, weddings and funerals, for the major church holidays and local festivals, especially Easter, and to mark their name day. Often people in resorts try to forestall questions by explaining their need to open shops, restaurants or hotel reception desks early on Sunday mornings. When young parents come with their recently baptised children so that they can receive the Eucharist, they often arrive late, just in time for the child to receive Communion, and the parents rarely take Communion themselves.

Even regular churchgoers are casual about attendance and participation. They greet one another with hugs and kisses, constantly chatter, and leave it to the cantors to chant the responses and those parts that Anglicans would always expect to join, such as the Gloria, Creed, Trisagion (Sanctus and Benedictus) and the Lord’s Prayer. Few people ever receive Communion on a Sunday morning – apart from the children brought by their parents, there may only be four or five communicants in any church.

Yet everyone understands and follows the Liturgy in their own reverential ways. There is silence and reverence at the most appropriate times, including the Gospel procession and reading, the invocation of the Holy Spirit (epiclesis) and words of institution, the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, and when others come forward to receive the Sacrament. No-one ever comes into a church without lighting candles and kissing the main icons. During the Liturgy, people come forward intermittently to the side doors of the icon screen with the names of people they want prayers for. The sermon at the end seldom lasts for more than three to five minutes – and there is much incense … and much ringing of bells.

The prósphoron is the loaf of bread used in the Divine Liturgy. Holy Communion is received as bread and wine mixed together in one large chalice and is administered with a long, ladle-like spoon. The antídoron is ordinary bread that that comes from the remains of the prósphoron and is blessed but not consecrated. This bread is distributed to all at the end of the Liturgy, and many people take home small portions to family members who have not been to church.

In the midst of this relaxed formality, priests never abandon the liturgical tradition or vary it to suit their own personal preferences, prejudices or impulses. The variety or chaos throughout Anglicanism on a Sunday morning is not possible in the Orthodox Church, and would never be contemplated.

The life of an Orthodox Christian is one of prayer. In the Orthodox tradition, it is the person who truly prays who is a theologian and a God-seer. The purpose of all life is to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to become one with Christ, so that we may ‘become participants in the Divine Nature’ (II Peter 1: 4), or θέωσις (theosis) as it is called in the Orthodox tradition. A life of prayer is a life of active love for all people and is filled with mercy, forgiveness and love. For the Orthodox, all hours are appropriate for prayer and all places good. It is sufficient that we want to pray; learning comes after that. However, five specific aspects are keys to understanding Orthodox spirituality: the Liturgy; Daily and Personal Prayer; Icons and Prayer; the Jesus Prayer; and the monastic life.

The Liturgy

The word Orthodoxy means, primarily, not right doctrine but right worship or praise, and doctrine is understood first and foremost within the context and setting of the worship of the Church. As the Russian theologian Father Georges Florovsky (1893-1979) writes: ‘Christianity is a liturgical religion. The Church is first of all a worshipping community. Worship comes first, doctrine and discipline second.’ Or, as Metropolitan Kallistos Ware says: ‘Orthodoxy sees human beings as liturgical creatures who are most truly themselves when they glorify God, and who find their perfection and self-fulfilment in worship.’

This word liturgy is well-understood by everyone in Greece. The term is not technical or purely theological. Signs in shops regularly announce ‘Opening Hours’ as ώρες λειτουργίας (ores leitourgías) – the hours of service or the hours for serving the public.

The first experience many people have of Orthodoxy is visiting an Orthodox church. This can be so overpowering that many people agree with the envoys from Kiev who said: ‘This we know, that God dwells there among humans.’ But Orthodox liturgy has had an immense influence on the western liturgical movement, including our understandings of separate Services of the Word and of the Sacrament, a full set of Biblical readings, the Gospel procession and the Offertory procession, the ἐπίκλησις (epiklesis) in the Eucharist, and even the fact that we stand far more often during the liturgy.

Although the Divine Liturgy or the Eucharist is celebrated on most days in monasteries, there is no Orthodox tradition of a daily celebration in parish churches, and the Liturgy is seldom celebrated on weekdays during Lent.

The sense of worshipping the Lord in the beauty of holiness is experienced in the singing and in the decoration of churches, with their frescoes and icons. Singing is often a capella, and generally there are few seats or pews in a church (Canon 20 of the first Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in the year 325 forbids all kneeling on Sundays). There is a mixture of formality and familiarity in Orthodox participation in worship, for the worshipper knows he or she is in the house of their true Father. The church and the liturgy are truly meeting points between heaven and earth.

Traditionally, the daily services in an Orthodox Church can begin with Vespers at sundown, and then include Compline, after the evening meal, the Midnight Office in monasteries, Matins in the morning, usually starting before sunrise, and ‘The Hours.’ These services sanctify the times of the day and include readings from the Psalms and prayers.

Orthodox Christians are taught that their daily prayer should include Morning, Midday and Evening prayers. Personal prayer in homes is often before the family icons. Even when they pray on their own, the Orthodox are still praying with the Church. As Georges Florovsky writes, ‘Personal prayer is only possible in the context of the community. Even in solitude … a Christian prays as a member of the redeemed community, of the Church.’

Icons and prayer

The word icon (εἰκών) simply means a depiction, image or representation. The New Testament describes Christ as the eikon or the image and exact representation of God (Hebrews 1: 3). The Ecumenical Councils declared the incarnation made it permissible to represent God in visual form. But the Orthodox say an icon is written rather than painted, and speak of icon writers rather than icon painters. They pray through but not to an icon, and an icon is given reverence but never worshipped.

Orthodox prayer is also marked by the use of icons. Through the traditional use of icons, the Orthodox Church has had a remarkable influence, not just on aesthetic considerations, but on theology too. The understanding of the Trinity in western theology, for example, has been transformed by the way in which theologians have come to a fresh way of talking about the Trinity because of insights developed through Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Visitation of Abraham.

Alongside copies of Rublev’s icon, the icons on the wall in my study include one of Christ from a monastery in Corfu, an icon of Christ as the Great High Priest from Mount Athos, the Four Martyrs of Rethymnon, a town I have stayed in since the 1980s, and an icon of Saint Catherine of Sinai, patron of the institute where I have studied in Cambridge.

For the Orthodox, the church building, the whole edifice, is one great icon of the Kingdom of God. The frescoes, the icons and the icon screen separating the congregation from the sacred mysteries are not to make a church look pretty or beautiful, but are central to understanding Orthodox worship and life, liturgy and prayers. The icons and frescoes on the walls of a church begin with more worldly scenes at ground level, and work their way up through the Gospel stories and the stories of salvation. In this way, when we are distracted by worldly thoughts during the Liturgy, we are called back to the purpose of worship, until our eyes are drawn ever upwards. In the height of the dome we see the evangelists and angels surrounding the highest and holiest of all, Christ the Pantocrator, the one who rules all and through whom all things are made.

Orthodox homes also have icons on the wall, usually on an east-facing wall in a place where the family can pray together, illuminated by a candle or oil lamp. Besides the practical purpose of making icons visible in otherwise dark corners and dark churches, candles and oil lamps symbolise that Christ is the Light of the World.

The Jesus Prayer

The Jesus Prayer, also called the ‘Prayer of the Heart’ by some Church Fathers, is one of the best known spiritual traditions within Orthodoxy. It is simple: Κύριε Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ, Υἱὲ Θεοῦ, ἐλέησόν με τὸν ἁμαρτωλό (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me the sinner).

The practice of the Jesus Prayer dates from at least the fifth century. It is recommended by Saint John Klimakos of Mount Sinai (523-603) in The Ladder of Divine Ascent. The theology of the Jesus Prayer was most clearly set out by Saint Gregory Palamas (1296-1359), and later in the Philokalia. Today, Mount Athos is a centre of the practice of the Jesus Prayer. The use of the Jesus Prayer is the subject of the Russian classic, The Way of a Pilgrim, which became familiar to many western readers in JD Salinger’s Franney and Zooey (1961).

For the Orthodox, this is a profound and mystical prayer, and it is often repeated continually as a part of personal spiritual practice. The Jesus Prayer is a way of taking one of the most important first steps on the spiritual journey: recognising my own sinfulness, my estrangement from both God and the people around me.

The author of The Way of the Pilgrim says the Jesus Prayer transfigures his relationship with other human beings, giving them form within their proper context: the forgiveness and compassion of the crucified and risen Lord. When it is practised on a continuing basis, the Jesus Prayer becomes automatic. It is prayed repeatedly, often with the aid of a prayer rope, sometimes accompanied by the sign of the cross and even prostrations.

The monastic tradition

Monks often pray the Jesus Prayer many hundreds of times each night in private in their cells. Under the guidance of an Elder, the monk aims to internalise the prayer, so that he is praying unceasingly.

Mount Athos is the most important centre of monastic life in the Orthodox world today. There has been a recent revival in the fortunes of many of the monasteries on the Holy Mountain, with new monks arriving from Cyprus, Romania, Russia and Australia
.
Mount Athos is loved among the Orthodox for nurturing great writers in spirituality and on the life of prayer. Three of the best known of these writers in the 20th century were Saint Silouan (1866-1938), his disciple Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov (1896-1993), founder of Saint John’s Monastery, which I visit each year, and Elder Joseph (died 1959). Although some of these great writers also lived as hermits, they gathered many followers, and were particularly known for their practice of the Jesus Prayer.

Conclusions

The doors of local churches throughout Greece are open throughout the day; people constantly drop in without any self-consciousness to pray, to light candles, to stand in the presence of God. The domes above are constant reminders that the world below is under Christ’s constant care and compassionate love.

It is a Church that is incarnational and rooted in the everyday lives of the people. On Sundays, even for the visitor who cannot understand Greek, it is obvious that the Gospel is being proclaimed, that people are being invited into communion with God and with one another, and that God is being praised. Orthodoxy in the first instance means not holding a particular set of dogmas or doctrines – certainly not holding to a rigid set of prejudices in current debates – but in giving God the right praise.

Introductory Readings

(Bishop) Hilarion Alfeyev, The Mystery of Faith (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 2002).

(Archbishop) Anthony Bloom and Georges LeFebvre, Courage to Pray (London: Darton Longman & Todd Libra, various editions 1973-1974).

(Metropolitan) Anthony (Bloom), The Living Body of Christ (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2008).

E Kadloubovsky and GEH Palmer, Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart (London: Faber and Faber, 1992).

John Anthony McGuckin, Standing in God’s Holy Fire: the Byzantine Tradition (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 2001).

Frederica Mathews-Green, Facing East: a pilgrim’s journey into the mysteries of Orthodoxy (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).

Solrunn Nes, The Mystical Language of Icons (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2004).

Deborah Sheldon, Gospel Icons (Cambridge: Grove Books, 1999).

Graham Speake, Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002).

(Metropolitan) Kallistos Ware (Timothy Ware), The Orthodox Church (London: Penguin, 1997).

(Metropolitan) Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Way (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2002).

Note on contributor:

Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Trinity College Dublin, and a canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin.

This paper was first published in ‘Search’ Vol 39.3 (Autumn 2016), pp 210-217.

The image of Christ Pantokrator in the dome of Saint George’s Church in Panormos, near Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

A summer retreat in a unique monastery in the Essex countryside

A stroll through the Essex countryside in late summer … or was it early autumn (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

Over the past decade, I have spent a day almost each summer on a retreat in the Monastery of Saint John the Evangelist in Tolleshunt Knights in Essex.

The monastery is about 75 km south-east of Cambridge, and these annual visits have been organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies as part of the patristics summer school held each year in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.

Enjoying the footpaths and country lanes of Essex in the summer sunshine (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The journey from Cambridge brings us through the East Anglian countryside and through pretty towns and villages with names such as Saffron Walden and Bishop’s Stortford Braintree, Coggeshall and Tiptree. The area is well-known for fruit farming and jam making, and Tolleshunt Knights is close to Tiptree, which grew up around the Wilkins Jam Factory, built in 1885.

Tiptree is known today because of the jam factory established in 1885 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Three neighbouring villages with the name Tolleshunt emerged in early Norman England – Tolleshunt D’Arcy was acquired by the D’Arcy family, Tolleshunt Major came to the Le Majeur family, and Tolleshunt Knights belonged to the Le Chevallier family, although it may once have belonged to the Knights Templar, who had considerable holdings in Essex.

Mediaeval parish church

All Saints’ Church, the former parish church of Tolleshunt Knights, is a mile or two from the present village (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The old Church of England parish church, All Saints’ Church stands a mile or two from the heart of the present village of Tolleshunt Knights, which suggests the village shifted with changing farming practices over the centuries, or moved to escape the shifting coastal marshes to the south.

There is no evidence of an earlier Saxon church, and All Saints’ Church dates back to the 1140s. One of the tombs in the church is reputedly that of Sir John atte Lee, dated from 1380, and has connections with the legends of Robin Hood.

The south porch of the church dates from the 15th or early 16th century (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

With increasing affluence brought to the area by the wool trade, the church was enlarged in the 14th and 15th centuries. Inside the church there is a 13th century piscina and a 15th century chancel arch. The 15th century south doorway, with partly restored moulded jambs and a two-centred arch, has a moulded label with head-stops of two bishops, one of which is defaced. The south porch dates from the 15th or early 16th century.

In 1768, the church had a timber belfry with two bells and a shingled spire. However, the bell dated 1575 has been stolen, and the other bell has been removed to safe-keeping in the monastery, which also keeps the now-broken font.

All Saints’ Church was altered and repaired in the 19th century. But by the 1920s, it had fallen into disrepair, and by the 1930s it was no longer in use as the parishioners attended the newly-built Saint Luke’s Church in neighbouring Tiptree. The closure of the village school followed in 1935. Tolleshunt Knights gradually lost its other services too, including the railway station, the post office, the village shop and its own local garage. Even the number of pubs has been reduced from five or four to one.

Although funds were raised to repair the church in the late 1930s, with the outbreak of World War II this money was donated to the Spitfire Fund in 1940. By the early 1950s, All Saints’ Church was almost derelict. The final blow came with the great gale in 1953, which brought down a section of the roof. It was clear the restoration of the church was beyond the means of the local community.

Founding a monastery

The Old Rectory and monastic buildings at the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

In 1958, the Church of England agreed to sell All Saints’ Church and the rectory to the Orthodox Church. Since then the church has been carefully restored and is now attached to the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist, which is built around the former rectory in Tolleshunt Knights.

The mixed community of monks and nuns and is the oldest Orthodox religious community in Britain. It was founded by Elder Sophrony (Sakharov) with an initial membership of six drawn from a number of countries.

The monastery at Tolleshunt Knights was built around the old rectory (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Father Sophrony (1896-1993) was originally a painter who developed a longing to devote his art to exploring the nature of Divine reality. He was born Sergei Symeonovich Sakharov in Moscow 120 years ago on 23 September 1896, the son of Russian Orthodox parents.

As a child, he prayed daily, later recalling that he would pray for 45 minutes without stress. Even as a child, he claimed to have experienced the Uncreated Light, but thought casually that every other child had similar experiences.

He studied first at the Academy of Arts, and then at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. But as he came to see the Christian focus on personal love as finite, he fell away from the faith of his childhood and began to explore Eastern mysticism.

A six-winged seraph in a fresco on a ceiling in the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

In 1921, he left Russia and moved first to Italy, then to Berlin, before arriving in Paris in 1922, where his exhibitions attracted much attention from the French media.

In Paris, he realised that ‘I’ in God’s call to Moses (‘I am who I am’) and the Gospel command to love God, were a call to personal relationship. One cannot love a concept, and he found that love is relational. He came to realise that Christ’s precept to love God totally is not psychological but ontological, and that the only way to relate to God is personal, and that the necessity of love is personal.

Following this experience, he returned to the Christianity and the Orthodoxy of his childhood at Easter 1924. He began studying at Saint Sergius Orthodox Theological Institute in Paris, where his lecturers included the theologians Sergius Bulgakov and Nicholas Berdyaev. In 1925, he left Paris for Mount Athos, where he entered the mainly Russian Monastery of Saint Panteleimon.

Father Sophrony was ordained a deacon in 1930, and soon became a disciple of Saint Silouan the Athonite, although the saint had no formal theological education and was never ordained a priest. When Saint Silouan died in 1938, he entrusted his papers to Father Sophrony. On his instructions, Father Sophrony left the monastery to live first at Karoulia, then at a cave near Saint Paul’s Monastery on Mount Athos. There he came to realise the interdependence of all humanity. In 1941, he was ordained priest, and he soon became a spiritual father to many monks on Mount Athos.

The end of World War II and the catastrophe of the Greek Civil War left Father Sophrony in a difficult position as a non-Greek on Mount Athos. In 1947, he returned to Paris, where he moved into a Russian old people’s home in St Genevieve-des-Bois as the assistant chaplain and a father confessor. There his work led to the formation of a small community that centred its prayer life on the Jesus Prayer.

In 1948, he produced his first edition of Staretz Silouan outlining Saint Silouan’s principles, including prayer for the whole world, God-forsakenness and the idea of all humanity being connected. In Paris, he also worked from 1950 to 1957 with Vladimir Lossky who influenced his thinking on many contemporary issues, and his Trinitarian thought and its application to the Church and humanity.

Inside the original monastic chapel in the former Rectory in Tolleshunt Knights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

In 1952, Father Sophrony produced a second edition of Staretz Silouan, which brought Saint Silouan to the attention of a wider public. Meanwhile, the small community he had gathered around wanted to explore the monastic life. With the help of Rosemary Edmunds, they bought the Old Rectory at Tolleshunt Knights in 1958, and the Community of Saint John the Baptist was formed within a year.

From the beginning, this was a mixed community, and the first six members were both monks and nuns. Father Sophrony continued to publish extensively and his books included a translation of Monk of Mount Athos (1973), Wisdom of Mount Athos (1975), His Life is Mine (1977), and We Shall See Him As He Is (1985).

The tomb of Father Sophrony in the crypt in Saint John’s Monastery in Tolleshunt Knights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Meanwhile, a problem emerged for the community when the monastery was told that it could only bury its members there if an underground crypt was built. Father Sophrony said he would not die until the crypt was ready. When he died on 11 July 1993, he was buried in the crypt.

Icons in the monastery

The iconstasis and doors in the original chapel in Tolleshunt Knights are the work of Leonid Ouspensky and Father Gregory Ivanovich Krug (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The original chapel was laid out in the Old Rectory by Father Sophrony. The iconostasis or icon screen in this chapel is the work of two of the most important Russian émigré icon writers of the last century, Leonid Alexandrovich Ouspensky (1902-1987) and his friend and colleague, Father Gregory Ivanovich Krug (1908-1969).

The doors of the iconstasis are the work of Leonid Ouspensky (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Ouspensky, who painted the royal doors in the iconostasis, is known as an important artist and iconographer of the 20th century, and for his seminal books on the theology of icons, written with Vladimir Lossky, including The Meaning of Icons and The Theology of the Icon. These books introduced Western readers to the spiritual and theological understanding of icons.

The monastery refectory has frescoes in the style of Ouspensky (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The influence of Ouspensky and Father Gregory is also seen on the walls of the refectory in the monastery. These are decorated with frescoes and murals using oil and turpentine on plaster, to look like Byzantine frescoes, under the direction of Sister Maria, who had studied iconography in Paris with Ouspensky.

The monastic community today

The Visitation of Abraham ... a fresco on a wall in the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist in Tolleshunt Knights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The Monastery of Saint John the Baptist has been under the authority of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople since 1965. The main spiritual practices are the repetition of the Jesus Prayer for about four hours a day and the serving of the Divine Liturgy three or four times a week, practices that were inspired by Father Sophrony’s experiences on Mount Athos.

The Hegumen or Abbot, Archimandrite Kyrill, is originally from Australia. The community consists of about 40 men and women – the majority are nuns, with a smaller number of monks, and they come from about 14 nations. In the words of one nun, it is ‘a melting pot.’

Patrick Comerford with Father Nikolai Sakharov, a monk of the monastery

Father Nikolai Sakharov, who was a student of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, has a doctorate from Oxford for his thesis, which was published as I Love Therefore I am: The Theological Legacy of Archimandrite Sophrony (2003).

Sister Magdalen, a member of the community, is known throughout the Orthodox world for her work with children and for her books, including Conversations with Children: Communicating our Faith and Children in the Church Today.

During each visit, there has been time for walks in the monastery orchards and gardens, which look out onto the sea and across to Bradwell, or through some of the beautiful countryside surrounding the monastery.

August was turning to September when I went for a walk during this year’s visit, from the monastery to All Saints’ Church and through the green and golden Essex countryside. As I walked back to the monastery, the blackberries were already ripening in the brambles along the side of the road. It was a taste of summer, and it was a taste of autumn, a memory or summer and a promise of autumn.

Memories of summer and promises of autumn in the Essex countryside (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Canon Patrick Comerford lectures in the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This feature was first published in the ‘Church Review’ (Dublin and Glendalough) and the ‘Diocesan Magazine’ (Cashel, Ferns and Ossory) in October 2016.

Introducing the great Orthodox theologians of the last century

‘Modern Orthodox Thinkers, From the Philokalia to the present’ … I am using this book for my spiritual reflections each evening

Patrick Comerford

Four years ago, I began a project that I named the Dead Anglican Theologians Society. It was inspired by a moment during a walking tour of the Dublin churches at the end of the International Eucharistic Congress in 2012, when I was given a booklet produced by an organisation calling itself the Dead Theologians Society.

They were all dead Roman Catholic theologians and some were unusual choices, including Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer (1902-1975), the founder of Opus Dei, who is not among the dead theologians I would like to introduce to young people exploring faith and theology. Indeed, I was disturbed by the emphases in the descriptions of Spain during the Spanish Civil War in that one essay. Also disturbing was the obvious gaps created by giving no place to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), Henri-Marie de Lubac (1896-1991), Yves Marie Joseph Congar (1904-1995), Karl Rahner (1904-1984) or Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) – perhaps the five greatest but dead Roman Catholic theologians of the last century. Nor was there any place for either Oscar Romero or Pope John XXIII.

I started putting together similar profiles of key Anglican theologians of the past, and I have already collected 19 postings – an introduction, biographies of 17 theologians from the past, from Thomas Cranmer to Nicholas Ferrar, and notes six key Anglican composers.

The project has stalled and has been a little neglected in recent years, although I hope to return to it at some stage in the future. I was reminded of it again last night, as I began to prepare a posting for tomorrow morning [25 September 2016] to mark the 390th anniversary of the death of Lancelot Andrewes.

But I was also struck by how, as I set out on this project, I had written four years ago:

… I doubt that there is ever going to be a companion volume that includes Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov (1871-1944), Georges Florovsky (1893-1979), Iustin Popović (1894-1979), Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov (1896-1993), Vladimir Nikolayevich Lossky (1903-1958), Dumitru Stăniloae (1903-1993), Alexander Schmemann (1921-1983), John Meyendorff (1926-1992), John Romanides (1927-2001), and who are, perhaps, the leading dead Orthodox theologians of the last century.

That was four years ago, and I had not realised how wrong I was going to be.

For the past few weeks, I have been using as my late night devotions a book I bought during a conference in Westcott House in Cambridge late last year [13 November 2015] and that covers precisely this field.

Andrew Louth is the author of Modern Orthodox Thinkers, from the Philokalia to the present (London: SPCK), which was published last year.

Father Andrew Louth is perhaps the most important English-speaking academic in the field of Patristics. He is Professor Emeritus of Patristic and Byzantine Studies in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University and is the author of many books, including Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology (London: SPCK, 2013), and the editor of Early Christian Writings (London: Penguin, 1987). I have known him for many years, and he has been my lecturer in Cambridge on courses in Sidney Sussex College organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

Father Andrew Louth lecturing in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, at a recent summer school organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Modern Orthodox Thinkers is an illuminating and very readable introduction to the living theology of the Orthodox Church. Father Andrew covers each of the great Orthodox theologians I named and many more, men and women, who have emerged since the publication of the Philokalia in 1782.

He offers his readers lively and perceptive accounts of the lives, writings and enduring intellectual legacies of the great Orthodox theologians of the past 250 years. In this book, he explores and explains the enduring influence of some of the greatest modern theologians.

Starting with the influence of the Philokalia in 19th century Russia, Father Andrew moves through the Slavophiles, including Vladimir Solov’ev and Pavel Florensky in Russia, and then traces the story through the Christian intellectuals exiled from Stalin’s Russia: Sergeii Bulgakov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Georges Florovsky, Myrrha Lot-Borodine, Vladimir Lossky and Saint Maria of Paris (Mother Maria Skobtsova).

He includes key theologians outside the Russian world: Romanian Dumitru Staniloae from Romania and Justin Popovic from Serbia, who both studied in Paris. He then considers the contributions of the second generation Russians: Paul Evdokimov, John Meyendorff and Alexander Schmemann.

He then turns to the theologians of Greece from the 1960s, including: Ionannis Foundoulis, Vasileios Gondidakis, Metropolitan John Zizioulas, John Romanides, Dimitris Kouttroubis, Christos Yannaras, and Stelios Ramfos.

Some of his choices are lay theologians, such as the late Philip Sherrard, who came from an Irish background, Elisabeth Behr-Sigel and Olivier Clément.

Although Mother Thekla (Sharf) was Russian-born, she is discussed in the context of the English acculturation of Orthodoxy. There are influential monks and spiritual elders, especially Father Sophrony of the Monastery of Saint John in Tolleshunt Knights, Essex, and his mentor, Saint Silouan.

After a chapter on Father Aleksandr Men’, Alexei Losev and Sergei Sergeyevich Avernitsev and theology in Russia under Communism, the book reaches its conclusion with an introduction to Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia (Timothy Ware), whose influence in the English-speaking Orthodox world has been unparalleled, and who is closely associated with the theological vision of the Philokalia, both by spearheading the translation of the Philokalia from Greek into English and by presenting its vision of theology in his own theological reflections.

Both Father Andrew and Metropolitan Kallistos were lecturers again at this year’s summer conference in Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, and this book may have, in part, influenced the conference theme, ‘Contemporary Fathers and Mothers of the Church: Guides for Today’s World.’

Father Andrew admits there are many others he could have included, including the 19th century Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, for example, along with Metropolitan Anthony Bloom and Father Lev Gillett. He might also have included in his list of omissions Saint John of Kronstadt, Seraphim Rose, Elder Paisios, and Mother Gavrilia, to name some names.

But this goes to show that there is room for a second volume, and that Orthodox theology is not about dead theologians. Indeed, Father Andrew shows how contemporary Orthodox theology is like a spring flower that has budded after a harsh winter’s thaw.

As for the Dead Anglican Theologians Society, the blog is still available here. I must return to it soon.

Father Andrew Louth (fifth from left) with participants in this year’s IOCS summer school during a pilgrimage to the monastery in Tolleshunt Knights (Photograph: IOCS, 2016)

A belated introduction to the icons of Leonid Ouspensky

The iconstasis and doors in the original chapel in Tolleshunt Knights are the work of Leonid Ouspensky and Father Gregory Ivanovich Krug (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

I find it startling to stand in front of great works of art that I have seen many times, and to realise for the first time that works I long appreciated are the work of great artists that I know of.

I was in the Monastery of Saint John the Baptist on the edges of the village of Tolleshunt Knights, near Maldon in Essex, last week, not to appreciate the icons but as part of a one-day pilgrimage organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies as part of the summer conference in Sidney Sussex College.

The monastery is a mixed community for monks and nuns, and was founded in the 1950s by Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) (1896-1993). He was originally a painter, born in Tsarist Russia, who lived through World War I and the Russian Revolution, and developed a longing to devote his art to exploring the nature of Divine reality.

He emigrated first to Italy and then to Paris. There he painted before studying theology and finding a vocation to the monastic. He went to Mount Athos, where his spiritual director was Elder Silouan. Many years later, he moved to England and founded the monastery at Tolleshunt Knights.

Naturally, he wanted to see the monastery decorated in the Byzantine tradition. The living room in the old rectory was converted into a chapel, which I have visited many times.

But on Wednesday last [31 August 2016], I learned for the first time that the iconostasis or icon screen in this chapel is the work of two of the most important Russian émigré icon writers of the last century, Leonid Alexandrovich Ouspensky (1902-1987) and his friend and colleague, Father Gregory Ivanovich Krug (1908-1969).

The doors of the iconstasis are the work of Leonid Ouspensky (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Ouspensky, who painted the royal doors in the iconostasis, is known not only as an important artist and iconographer of the 20th century, but also for his seminal books on the theology of icons.

He was born in 1902 in northern Voronezh region, in the Russian village of Golaia Snova, now Golosnovka, where his father Alexander was a member of the local gentry. He went to school 70 km away in Zadonsk, returning home only for school holidays.

By 1917, while he was still in his mid-teens, the young Ouspensky had become a convinced atheist, travelling around schools and tearing down icons. In 1918 he enlisted in the Red Army, but following a severe attack of typhus he was discharged from the army, and found shelter with a cobbler and his family in Krasnodar.

When he recovered, he rejoined the Red Army Zhloba cavalry in the Caucasus in 1920, but he was trapped and captured in battle by a White Army unit. He was saved from a firing squad when a White Russian colonel sent him to an artillery unit.

He retreated with the White Army to Sevastopol and was evacuated to Gallipoli. From there he made his way to Bulgaria, where he worked in a salt plant, a vineyard, a quarry and a coalmine until 1926. Ofttimes he was often starving, and on one occasion he suffered temporary blindness caused by malnutrition.

He was then recruited to work in a factory Le Creusot in France. After he was severely burned in an industrial accident, he moved to Paris to work in a bicycle factory. Meanwhile, Leo Tolstoy’s daughter, Countess Tatiana Lvovna Sukhotina-Tolstaya (1864-1950), was instrumental in opening a Russian Academy of Arts in Paris in 1929, at which many well-known artists taught.

Already, Ouspensky had a love for painting and he enrolled in part-time classes in the academy. There he met the artist George Ivanovich Krug, who later became a monk as Father Gregory, and his future wife. The artists and students worked together and spent holidays at the summer villa of the artist Konstantin Andreyevich Somov in Normandy.

Ouspensky began earning a living by designing scarves for large fashionable shops in Paris, and he soon painted his first icon. However, once he had finished the icon he destroyed it, believing he had done something inappropriate. He gradually took a more serious interest in icons and developed a religious faith, leading to his return to the Church.

In time, with George Krug, Leonid decided to leave secular painting and to devote himself exclusively to icon writing. He began by taking lessons from the Russian iconographer Sergei Fyodorov, but did not have enough money to pay for lessons. Later, he would say that his real teachers were the antique Russian icons he found in Paris shops.

In the late 1930s, he followed George Krug and joined the Brotherhood of Saint Photius, a circle of Orthodox theologians, intellectuals, and artists in Paris. Each member of the Brotherhood worked in his own field. Vsevolod Palashkovski was a liturgist; Maxim Kovalevsky was a great and talented master of Church singing and a choir director; his brother, the future Archpriest Evgraf Kovalevsky, was a brilliant canonist; Vladimir Lossky was already a famous theologian; Georgii Ivanovich Krug and Leonid Alexandrovich Ouspensky were icon writers.

When the Germans marched into Paris in 1940, he was pressganged into working in Germany, but he went underground, and he continued to paint and restore icons in hiding.

In 1942, he married Lydia Alexandrevna Miagkov, and they returned to Paris in August 1944 after the German withdrawal. When a French theological institute, L’Institut Saint Denis, was founded in 1944, he taught the course in icon painting, and he continued to teach for the next 40 years.

In 1945, Leonid and Lydia applied to have their Soviet citizenship restored, and this was granted in 1946.

In 1948, he published L’Icone, Vision du Monde Spirituel, which was soon translated into Greek and published in Athens. In 1952, the book was published as The Meaning of Icons in collaboration with the Russian theologian Vladimir Lossky.

When the Moscow Patriarchate began theological pastoral courses in Paris in 1954, Ouspensky taught the course on the theology of icons. This course led to his monumental Theology of the Icon written in collaboration with Vladimir Lossky and published in French in 1960, and in English in 1978. New versions were in French in 1980, in Russian posthumously in 1989, and in English in 1992.

Orthodox iconography had been in full decline since the 17th century, and Ouspensky set out to rediscover the genuine sources of Eastern Christian art and to recover the tradition surrounded Russian icons.

His books introduced Western readers to the spiritual and theological understanding of icons. He writes: ‘It is not the purpose of the icon to touch its contemplator. Neither is it its purpose to recall one or the other human experience of natural life; it is meant to lead every human sentiment as well as reason and all other qualities of human nature on the way to illumination.’

‘The entire visible world as depicted in the icon is to foreshadow the coming Unity of the whole creation, of the Kingdom of the Holy Ghost,’ he wrote.

Soon after he founded his monastery, Father Sophrony, who had also worked as an artist in Paris, invited Leonid Ouspensky and his friend Father Gregory to decorate the icon screen and the doors in the chapel in the old rectory in Tolleshunt Knights.

In 1958, Leonid and Lydia visited Russia for the first time since their exile in the 1920s. They became frequent visitors to Russia, and each visit to Russia was rich and unforgettable in its own way, providing opportunities for continuing first-hand research and the study of old icons.

In 1969, he was invited to lecture in the Sorbonne in Paris, and in 1969 he gave five lectures at the Theological Academy in Saint Petersburg – then Leningrad. The Russian Orthodox Church honoured him with the Order of Saint Vladimir before he died on 11 December 1987. He is buried in the Russian cemetery in Sainte Genevieve des Bois in the southern suburbs of Paris.

His monumental Theology of the Icon (Theologie de l’icóne), which has been translated into English, Italian, Greek, Romanian, and Polish, and posthumously into Russian, remains a major reference work and continues to be influential.

His icons, which are found in numerous churches, monasteries, chapels and cathedrals and in private collections, are characterised by their perfection of technique, purity of style, and depth of theological and spiritual expression. For Ouspensky and icon was not an aesthetic creation, but, as Metropolitan Anthony Bloom wrote, they were ‘a vision in lines and colours of the Divine World, and it pervaded, conquered, and transfigured the fallen world.’

The iconstasis in the original chapel in Tolleshunt Knights is the work of Father Gregory Ivanovich Krug and Leonid Ouspensky (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Ouspensky’s friend and co-worker, Father Gregory (Krug) was an émigré Russian Orthodox priest and iconographer working in France in the 20th century and he too was involved in the Brotherhood of Saint Photius and in the renaissance of the Byzantine iconographic tradition.

Father Gregory was born George Ivanovich Krug in St Petersburg in 1908. His mother was Russian Orthodox Christian and his father was a Lutheran of Swedish origin, and he was raised in the Lutheran tradition.

After the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, the family moved to Estonia and at the age of 19 George became an Orthodox Christian. He began studying art, first, in Tallin and then in Tartu, which was the intellectual and cultural hub of Estonia.

In 1931, he moved to Paris to continue his studies at the Academy of Art. He began his career as an iconographer when he studied with Sergei Fyodorov, Dimitri Stelletsky and Julia Reitlinger (Sister Jean).

In the late 1930s, Krug and Ouspensky joined the Brotherhood of Saint Photios along with Vladimir Lossky.

During World War II, Krug began to suffer from depression and was hospitalised. Helped by his spiritual father, he recovered enough to leave the hospital and became a monk at the Skete of the Holy Spirit, near Mesnil-Saint-Denis.

There he took the monastic name Gregory, and dedicated himself to writing icons and frescoes at the skete. He also painted frescoes in the Russian Patriarchal Cathedral in Paris, where he worked in collaborated with Leonid Ouspensky. They also worked together in the chapel in monastery in Tolleshunt Knights. Father Gregory died in 1969.

Father Gregory developed his own unique way of expressing the principles of Byzantine iconography, producing icons that are stylistically unique. His work is clearly rooted within the Byzantine iconographic tradition, and yet there is also something of a contemporary sort of quality to it as well.

Aidan Hart points out that his techniques include his use of darts of white highlights that float over a sea of uneven colour. He also used over-sized irises and pupils for his eyes to give an impression of tenderness, sadness devoid of sentimentality, and of a deep interior life.

Father Gregory’s icons stand above all for a marriage of freedom within and a deep respect for the Church’s iconographic tradition. His work an unhealthy type of fear that so easily leads to lifeless copying, yet respects the traditions of the Church.

The influence of Ouspensky and Father Gregory is also seen on the walls of the refectory in the monastery. These are decorated with frescoes and murals using oil and turpentine on plaster, to look like Byzantine frescoes, under the direction of Sister Maria, who had studied iconography in Paris with Leonid Ouspensky and Father George Drobot.

Looking out onto the world … a window in the chapel in the Old Rectory in Tollesuhunt Knights (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Signs of the times on the old houses in Portugal Place

Portugal Place is a pretty street in Cambridge, running from Saint John’s College and Bridge Street to Portugal Street and Jesus Green (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

Portugal Place is a much photographed street in Cambridge and it features in many guide books and on postcards and calendar. For people who know Cambridge, this is a popular link between the heart of the city and Jesus Green and beyond. Yet many visitors pass it by on their way from the centre of Cambridge to the punts for hire at Magdalene Bridge.

The short, narrow street runs east from Bridge Street to Portugal Street and on to Jesus Green and the River Cam, and faces back towards the chapel of Saint John’s College at the east end. It is just a two-minute walk from Sidney Sussex College, and I walked along it many times this week during breaks at the summer conference organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

I decided to walk back along Portugal Place after a morning walk along the River Cam and by the boat clubs yesterday [1 September 2016] before I left Cambridge this week following the summer conference in Sidney Sussex College organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.

Portugal Place is ‘an attractive antidote to the adjoining commercial streets’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Portugal Place is a narrow, picturesque street and is fully pedestrianised. It has been described as ‘an attractive antidote to the adjoining commercial streets.’ It consists mainly of residential properties, although there are some low-key commercial and retail units.

It is said that some of the most interesting and most colourful characters in Cambridge have lived here in houses that date mainly from the 18th and 19th century. More recently, No 19 was the home of Francis Crick (1916-2004), the molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist, most noted for being a co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule in 1953 with James Watson.

Portugal Place leads north-east from the main Roman and mediaeval route through this part of Cambridge. In its earliest form, this was a lane along the side of Saint Clement’s Churchyard. The date of foundation of Saint Clement’s Church is disputed. It may be a Scandinavian dedication and so belong to the short-lived Danish occupation of Cambridge (ca 886-917).

However, there is no independent evidence that the church predates the Norman conquest, and most of the street is much later in date, with gradual extensions northwards in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.

Most of the properties on Portugal Place are set on the edge of the footpath (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Most of the properties on Portugal Place are set on the edge of the footpath, and there is a feeling of a small square at a kink in the lane just east of the church. The south-west vista is closed by North Court with views of the chapel beyond at Saint John’s College.

To the north-east, the vista is blinkered and leads to Portugal Street and Jesus Green and beyond. Nearby is a multi-storey car park, but the tall holly tree in Saint Clement’s churchyard adds some greenery at the west end of Portugal Place.

The iron railings and balustrades in front of the houses are a key feature, and the variety of roof heights and chimneys provide the skyline with some interesting and eye-catching details. Street lighting is provided by reproduction heritage columns.

A recent report recommended repaving throughout in York stone and repairing the railings would improve the street scene, and suggested that interest could be added to the street by providing details of some of the former residents.

Allama Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), poet and philosopher lived at No 17 Portugal Place (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

A sign at No 17, one of the pretty houses ‘Allama Muhammad Iqbal, Born 1877 Died 1938 Poet-Philosopher of Pakistan lived here 1905-6 while at Trinity College.’ It is an interesting anachronism, for although he is often described as t‘ Spiritual father of Pakistan,’ the state of Pakistan was not formed or delineated for more than a decade after his death.

A representation of the Double Helix … a reminder that Francis Crick (1916-2004) once lived at No 19 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

This narrow street turns right at this point, and No 18 is the Hawks Club. Next door, Nos 19 and 20 share a number plate and an eye-catching sculpture above the doors is a representation of the Double Helix, a reminder without any accompanying words that Crick once lived here.

However, like most people, I imagine, I more inclined to associate Crick, James Watson and the Double Helix with the Eagle in Bene’t Street.

A sign at No 12 Portugal Place makes errors in not just one but two classical languages (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Whatever about the potential of more signs like this, a sign placed on railings on No 12 Portugal Place last year upset many classicists in Cambridge. Reports said the owners of the building were so perturbed by the number of bicycles left chained to the railings by students that they erected this angry sign in both classical Greek and Latin.

The notice is intended to warn cyclists that all bicycles will be ‘removed or destroyed.’ However, it seems the sign-writer might have benefitted from some further tutoring. Despite appearing to be the work of a well-educated person, critics quickly pointed out that the wording includes a number of mistakes.

Dr Rupert Thompson of Selwyn College, a classics lecturer, said: ‘It’s trying to say, “bicycles left here will be destroyed”.’ But he pointed out that the second word on the sign, ληφθεντεσ, actually means ‘taken’ not ‘left.’ In other words, bicycles taken here will be destroyed.

‘It’s definitely trying to be ancient Greek but it’s not quite,’ he said, the BBC quoted him as saying. He said both lines of the Greek inscription use the wrong letters. ‘I don’t know what to make of it really, but it’s very amusing and it’s absolutely great to see this in the city.’

Professor Mary Beard of Newnham College, a leading Cambridge and international classicist, said the Latin – Duae rotae hic relictae perimentur – may be correct, but she pointed out that it translates literally as ‘two wheels left abandoned here will be removed.’

Students were critical too and said the sign for being pompous, elitist and patronising. All this week, I noticed a bicycle chained to the railings in defiance – or in ignorance – of the intended meaning of the sign.

A chained bicycle that defies the sign on the railings at No No 12 Portugal Place (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Others might have pointed out that Greek speakers were available in plentiful supply: Saint Clement’s hosted the Greek Orthodox parish for many years, or that Sidney Sussex College, the annual venue for the summer school of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, is just two or three minutes walking distance.

Sidney Sussex College has its own ‘Bridge of Sighs’ on Sussex Street

The Sidney Sussex Bridge on Sussex Street … one of the newest bridges in Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

The bridges on the River Cam are an important part of the tourist trail in Cambridge. The classical bridge at Clare College is said to be the oldest bridge spanning the River Cam. The bridges at Silver Street and Magdalene College are popular gathering places for people hiring punts. The Mathematical Bridge at Queens’ College is surrounded by myth and legend about its building. And the ‘Bridge of Sighs’ at Saint John’s College is one of the most photographed bridges in London, alongside Tower Bridge and London Bridge.

The ‘Bridge of Sighs’ at Saint John’s College, was described by Queen Victoria as the most ‘pretty and picturesque’ feature of Cambridge University. But, despite its appearances of antiquity, it dates only from 1831.

But Sidney Sussex College, where I have been staying this week during the summer conference of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, also has its own ‘Bridge of Sighs,’ albeit one that is 160 years younger than its counterpart in Saint John’s College.

The bridge at Sussex Street is only a quarter of a century old, which may explain why it goes without comment in most guide books. But antiquity never explains popularity. Although I may have taken this bridge for granted for too long, I have passed under it almost every day I have been in Cambridge for the past decade.

This enclosed footbridge crossing Sussex Street was built in 1991 to connect the historic site of Sidney Sussex College on the north side of the street with new residential accommodation built in the inter-war years at Sussex House on the south side.

Although this bridge lacks the antiquity of most of the better-known bridges that cross the River Cam, it is a pleasant and eye-catching late 20th century addition to the streetscape of Cambridge and it blends in well with the neo-Georgian 1930s buildings on each side of Sussex Street.

The buildings lining Sussex Street were built for Sidney Sussex College in 1928-1939 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The buildings lining Sussex Street are a planned mixed-use development and were built for Sidney Sussex College in 1928-1939. They include a shopping arcade, offices and college accommodation.

The south side dates from 1928-1932, and is three storeys with dormer attics. The wall materials are red brick with a stone arcade.

The ground floor consists of an open-bowed or crescent-shaped colonnade or arcade of 11 bays, the cornice supported on unfluted Roman Doric columns. The range of shops includes late 20th century plate-glass display windows.

The upper arcade is reached by balustraded stone staircase on the east and west side that provides access to offices, the top storeys and the dormer attic.

The lower floor has 12/12 homed sashes, the upper floor has 8/8 homed sashes, and there are hipped roofs with dormers. The comers of elevation have rusticated quoins.

The north side of the street was completed in 1938-1939, and the building line is along the back edge of the pavement. Here there is a 10-bay arcade of Roman Doric columns supporting offices lit through 12/12 homed sashes to the first floor and 8/8 homed sashes to the second floor. The hipped roofs have two tiers of dormers.

The college accommodation to the rear is reached by a terrace and stair. There are additional four-storey and dormer attic corner blocks to each side at the east and west ends of the street.

Nikolaus Pevsner describes Sussex Street as the ‘best piece of pre-war urban planning in Cambridge’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The architect for this development was ER Barrow, who also designed the Royal Masonic Trust for Girls in Great Queen Street, Covent Garden, London, in 1923. He later used his ideas in Sussex Street for a classical colonnade combined with Jacobean mullions and gables when he was commissioned by Saint John’s College, Oxford, to design Belsyre Court in North Oxford in 1935.

The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983) describes Sussex Street as the ‘best piece of pre-war urban planning in Cambridge.’

Sussex Street runs between Sidney Street to the south-west and the junction of King Street and Hobson Street to the north-east. To the south and parallel with Sussex Street is Hobson’s Passage.

Historically, the line of this street dates back to at least mediaeval times, and it is thought there may be archaeological deposits at a depth of 1.5 to 2 metres. Stray finds of Roman pottery and coins as well as pottery from later periods have been made in the vicinity, but the potential for prehistorical finds is low and for Roman finds is rated as moderate.

Montagu House on the corner of Sidney Street and Sussex Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

However, the potential for mediaeval finds is regarded as high and there is evidence for mediaeval occupation at the west end of the street. In the Middle Ages, Sussex Street was known as Little Walles Lane. It marked part of the southern boundary of the Franciscan or Grey Friars Priory, and the street ended at the King’s Ditch, a less elegant name that has since been transformed into Hobson Street King Street.

The Franciscan Friary was established on this site around 1325. Sidney Sussex College, which was founded in 1596 by Lady Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex, stands on the site of the mediaeval Franciscan house.

No 1-20 Sussex Street are now listed as Grade II buildings and they have names that reflect key people associated with the history of Sidney Sussex College: Montagu House, Sidney House, Kent House, Harrington House and Sussex House, with, appropriately, Sidney House and Sussex House at each end of the south side of the street. These two blocks of buildings also include No 29 and 31 Hobson Street, and No 23, 24 and 25 Sidney Street.

Sidney House on the corner of Sidney Street and Sussex Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The ‘Bridge of Sighs’ at the east end of Sussex Street is a late 20th century addition linking the two blocks of college residences and offices, and is dated 1991. The bridge was designed by the Cambridge architectural practice, Pleasance Hookham and Nix, who have offices near Sidney Sussex, on a corner close to Magdalene College.

The bridge opened on 3 September 1991 and links Stairs X, Y and Z on Hobson Court, South Court and Staff Court with the offices, rooms and accommodation above the colonnade and shops on the south side of Sussex Street.

The keystone on the west side is decorated with the Sidney Sussex College arms (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

The bridge has two keystones, one on either side of the bridge. The keystone on the west side is decorated with the Sidney Sussex College coat of arms, in their unique shape of lozenge rather than a shield, and with the date 1991 beneath.

The the keystone on the east side is decorated with the porcupine that features as logo in many parts of Sidney Sussex, and that is derived from the supporters on he coat of arms of Lady Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex, the founder of Sidney Sussex College in 1596.

The keystones were designed and carved by the Cardozo Kindersley Workshop in Cambridge. The letter-cutter and sculptor David Kindersley (1915-1995) was apprenticed to Eric Gill in 1934-1936 before starting his own workshop near Cambridge in 1946. He was joined in 1976 by Lida Lopes Cardozo, beginning a partnership that lasted until David’s death. The workshop moved to its present address in Victoria Road, Cambridge in 1977.

The keystones were carved and painted, using platinum rather than silver leaf, which would turn black. The unusual Guiting stone is from Gloucestershire.

The keystone on the east side is decorated with the porcupine that features as logo in many parts of Sidney Sussex (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Five years later after the bridge was built, the buildings were listed and Sussex Street was fully pedestrianised in 1996, the 400th anniversary of the foundation of Sidney Sussex College.

Sussex Street is now an attractive neo-Georgian shopping street. It is popular and busy stret, lined with specialist shops and cafés on the ground floors and offices and student rooms above.

The colonnade features a wide variety of specialist shops in beautiful surroundings. Here too are shops with everything for the musician with pianos, instruments and sheet music, a bridal and ball gown shop, hair and beauty salons, a lingerie and swimwear shop, a leather goods shop and the Cambridge Toy Shop.

A recent report recommended some minor improvements to street furniture on Sussex Street, particularly at the Sidney Street end. It identified a key challenge as the attempt to reduce the occasional night vandalism without recourse to ugly shop security measures or unsightly street furniture. It also suggested formal cycle parking may help to reduce the incidences of cycles being chained to railings.

The shop windows remain open and bright even at night time, but.

The landscaping of Sussex Street is restricted to two silver birches in the centre of the street. Between them, an obelisk with attached street lighting was erected in 1996 to mark the pedestrianisation of the street 20 years ago.Tthe bicycle parking proposals have still not been put in place

A set of architectural walking tours of Cambridge can be downloaded here.