Founders and Patriarchs
The Fathers of the Greek Church. By Hans von Campenhausen. (A. and C. Black, 25s.) Letters from Vatican City. By Xavier Rynne. (Faber, 30s.) ONE of the most interesting features of the Ecumenical Movement is the appearance of
more and more representatives of the Orthodox Church at the various councils, assemblies, movements and so forth to which it has given birth. There they are, in increasing numbers, un- familiar-looking Christians with their black robes and prophetic beards, and their different versions of what an Orthodox friend of mine once translated in a pamphlet as 'Greek-clergy- man-top-hat.' Their impact is varied. Stout anti- papal Protestants welcome views on the Bishop of Rome as uncompromising as their own.
Reassured, they find on closer acquaintance that beliefs about the Blessed Virgin or the Saints or the Liturgy, which they had supposed held ex- clusively by Roman Catholics or their Anglican imitators, are widely and sincerely shared by these anti-papal Catholics. Removed from the field of mere prejudice they find new ways open- ing towards the understanding of the nature of Catholic Christendom.
Anglicans, uneasily aware of the strong Protestant undertones of the World Council of Churches, and alarmed about its possible Bevel-
• opment into a kind of super-Church, welcome the clear and definite witness to the historic faith and to the true nature of the Church, on the part of Orthodox representatives. All Christians know that on the Orthodox has fallen the main weight of hatred of the Church in our genera- - tion, and that despite assurances to the contrary and temporary lulls, the extirpation of religion in all its forms is still a fundamental part of. Communist policy. It is our Orthodox brethren who continue to experience at first hand its grievous consequences. For all these reasons there is a growing desire amongst Christians in this country to know more about them; here are three books to help them. Professor Hans von Campenhausen in his brief biographies of twelve of the Greek Fathers takes us back to those who helped to form the life and faith of the Church in its early days. He has deliberately eschewed technical terms and has written in an easy style which it is much to be hoped will lead to his book being widely read.
At a tithe when somewhat slick sneers at some of these Early Fathers have been put over in a• series of television lectures the views of an expert on their period should be a valuable cor- rective. The 'Byzantine Christianity' of Eusebius of Caesarea, for example, is clearly explained. Dr. Zernov's book is concerned with the oppo- site end of the story, with our own times, but the tale he tells receives much light on both its normal and its stranger aspects from Dr. Campenhausen's book. Many will read with special interest what he has to say of the tragic story of the last of the Romanovs, and the almost incredible part played in it by the disreputable monk Rasputin. Here, too, we are linked up with the far distant past. The orgiastic sect of the Khlysty to which he belonged, which taught that the soul of a man 'possessed of the Holy Ghost' could not be polluted by any carnal transgression, awakens echoes of some of the
mediaeval Cathars and Messalians of Eastern origin. But this is only a small part of a large and illuminating book from which Western Christians can learn much. The chapter on Divine Wisdom brings us a new understand- ing of the Russian religious mind with 'its recognition of the potential holiness of matter, the unity and sacredness of the entire creation and man's call to participate in the divine plan for its ultimate transfiguration.' The chapter on the meeting with the Christian West is helpful, and it was a good idea of Dr. Zernov to include a number of photographs of leading Orthodox personalities in his book. They help to illustrate the book in more than just the literal sense of that word.
Rediscovering Eastern Christendom is a series of essays in memory of Dom Bede Winslow, that great and much loved intermediary between East and West. The tangled story of Orthodox- Catholic relations is told, perhaps a little optim- istically, by Father Bernard Leeming. It is not an easy essay to read but those who tend to grow impatient with the theological complica- tions about the Procession of the Holy Spirit will be helped if they persevere with it. Brother George Every contributes an interesting essay on that most elusive and sometimes perverse of liturgists, Edmund Bishop, and John Lawrence has a beautifully written essay on Anglicans and Orthodoxy. There is a common emphasis in most of the essays on the harm done by what Mr. Lawrence calls the `conversionist approach,' and its dangers are seen at their most subtle in the encounter between Christianity and Islam about which Norman Daniel writes. 'Non- theological factors' in our divisions have their importance recognised (how much good was done to inter-Church relationships by those wonderful Russian choirs, as Dr. Zernov points out). On the theological factors involved in approaches to unity Professor Florovsky con- tributes a masterly essay entitled 'The Problem of Ecumenical Encounter.' It is much to be hoped that Anglicans and Methodists will read it before they converse with one another.
Letters from Vatican City has been hailed in some quarters as a kind of series of revela- tions of the proceedings of the Vatican Council. In fact it is an enterprising journalistic expan- sion of material available to everyone from Roman Catholic and newspaper stories. It makes interesting reading for .the devoted Council fan : opinions will differ as to the validity of some of its pictures and conclusions. Leone Algisi's biography of John XXIII will be valued by many. It is a straightforward piece of work free from hagiology, although perhaps a shade too uncritical of its hero at times. It well illustrates the life of full and varied experience, sustained by piety and patience, which prepared the way for the short but wonderful papacy. After ex- perience of Boris of Bulgaria, Ataturk, Metaxas. and Charles de Gaulle, little wonder that Pope John was able to deal with 'the prophets of doom,' as he called them, at the Curia.
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