Father Seraphim Rose and 20th-Century Orthodoxy

Father Seraphim Rose

The decision of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) to consider the late Father Seraphim Rose as a candidate for canonisation as a saint has sparked off a great deal of controversy online, with some saying what a great saint he was, and some saying that such a great sinner could never be a saint.

I don't want to join that argument; it's not for me to decide, and I know I won't be called upon to make that kind of judgement. But as a missiologist and church historian it think it could be interesting to reflect on his place in mission and church history.

Before the 1960s Orthodoxy was little known among English-speaking people. Orthodox people living in countries where English was widely spoken might build churches, but the services were usually in Greek, Russian, Bulgarian or other non-English languages. After the Russian Revolution some Russian refugees lived in exile in Western Europe and through the ecumenical contacts they made began to make Orthodoxy better-known to a select few in Western denominations, often in academic circles.

One of these exiles was Nicolas Zernov, who influenced an Anglican student, Timothy Ware, who became Orthodox in 1954, and eventually succeeded his mentor as Spalding Professor of Eastern Orthodox Theology at Oxford University. Zernov had already been instrumental in founding the Fellowship of St Alban & St Sergius, which encouraged ecumenical contact between Orthodox and Anglicans.

In the early 1960s both Zernov and Ware wrote books on the Orthodox Christian faith in English. Ware's book The Orthodox Church has been reprinted several times as has Zernov's The Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century. Timothy Ware became a monk, taking the monastic name of Kallistos, and later served as a bishop. Through his writings he influenced a growing number of English-speaking people, both in Britain itself and in the Commonwealth.

On the other side of the world, in California, USA, Eugene Rose, who was brought up as a Methodist, later became an atheist and then a student of Chinese religions, became interested in Orthodoxy. His spiritual father was Bishop John (Maximovich) of San Francisco (now better known as St John of Shanghai and San Francisco), who was, like Nicolas Zernov, an exile from the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Eugene Rose became Orthodox, and felt called to the monastic life, and with a friend, Gleb Podmoshensky, formed a monastery in Northern California, where Rose, when tonsured, took the monastic name of Seraphim, after St Seraphim of Sarov. There they began publishing a magazine, The Orthodox Word, and also translated and published several Orthodox books in English.

To these two sources of Orthodox literature in English may be added a third. Another group of Russian exiles had set up an Orthodox seminary in Paris for training clergy, mainly for the Russian diaspora. Some of them crossed the Atlantic and set up St Vladimir's Seminary in New York, and St Vladimir's Seminary Press also began publish Orthodox works in English.

From these three, and other sources, flowed an increasing volume of Orthodox literature in English.

In 1966 I went to England to study theology at the University of Durham as an Anglican. Some of the staff and fellow students at St Chad's College were interested in Orthodoxy to some extent, and in 1968 I went on a two week course on Orthodox theology for non-Orthodox theological students, sponsored by the World Council of Churches. It consisted of a week of lectures at Bossey in Switzerland, and Holy Week and Pascha at St Sergius Institute in Paris.

In July 1968 I returned to South Africa, having passed the Diploma in Theology course at Durham, and spent a term at St Paul's College, Grahamstown, where all the other students were busy preparing for their final exams, while I was free to read whatever I liked, and discovered some Orthodox books in the library, including one by Fr Alexander Schmemann of St Vladimir's in New York, called The World as Sacrament, later published in an expanded versions as For the Life of the World. It impressed me a great deal and seemed to provide the answer to some of the biggest problems I found with Western theology. At that stage I hoped that the Anglican Church would grow closer to Orthodoxy, and when, some years later I found that it wasn't, but was actually moving further away, I became Orthodox. The point of this personal excursus is that my movement to Orthodoxy was shaped mostly by the Paris/New York stream, rather than the California and Oxford streams.

It was when our family became Orthodox in 1987 that we were part of a move to start an Orthodox mission society, the Society of St Nicholas of Japan, that I became aware of Father Seraphim Rose. Among the activities of the Society of St Nicholas, was the selling of Orthodox books, mostly in English. We also appealed for literature to give away free and some people sent us back issues of The Orthodox Word. Some asked for his books, which we ordered. We also had some copies of his biography, Not of this World, one copy of which was damaged, so we could not sell it, and I kept it and read it, and was interested to discover that he was in San Francisco at about the time the Beat Generation authors were active there.

From the biography I gathered that Fr Seraphim Rose was critical of the St Vladimir's school that produced Orthodox literature in English in New York. The criticisms weren't very specific, There were some things that he wrote in his books that I was critical of too -- I'll return to those later. But the main point here is that during the 1960s there was a greatly increased production of Orthodox literature in English from three main sources -- Oxford, England; New York, USA; and California, USA,

It seems that the time was ripe for it.

And the timing seems remarkably exact. Bishop Kallistos Ware and Father Seraphim Rose were contemporaries, born within a month of each other in 1934.

What is more, those who were major influences at the time they were becoming Orthodox, Bishop John of San Francisco and Nicolas Zernov, were also close contemporaries, born within two years of each other. Both were exiles from the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, and both, in their journeys into exile, arrived in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1921, and studied there between 1921 and 1925. Both were part of the Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia, and so must have known each other during that time.

These three streams of Orthodox literature in English had different emphases, which may have had the effect of appealing to a range of different temperaments. The result was, in most English-speaking countries, an increased interest in Orthodoxy, and a growing use of English in Orthodox services.

The "Oxford stream", if I may call it that, appealed especially to academic and ecumenical circles. Zernov began with ecumenical outreach, forming the Fellowship of St Alban and St Sergius to make contact with Anglicans.

The St Vladimir's/New York stream was mainly concerned earlier immigrant groups who had come from Orthodox countries in Europe and Asia to the USA before the Bolshevik revolution, which had cut off financial support from Moscow, and so was concerned with becoming an American Orthodox Church. The children and grandchildren of the original immigrants were becoming increasingly English speaking. It was concerned to provide clergy for parishes, and was therefore more focused on parish ministry. It was also to some extent academic and ecumenical.

Father Seraphim Rose, once he had become Orthodox, wanted to be a monk, and, with a friend, started a monastery, and so the vision of Orthodoxy that he promoted was largely monastic.

At the risk of over-simplification, then, one could say that the Oxford stream was academic, the New York stream was parochial, and the California stream monastic.

Father Seraphim Rose, or Eugene Rose, as he then was, had a vision of being a missionary, and, with the blessing of Bishop John of San Francisco, formed a missionary brotherhood of St Herman of Alaska with his friend Gleb Podmoshensky and a couple of others. The first thing they did was to open an Orthodox Bookshop. They were offered space on the cathedral premises, but they preferred to have it on a public street nearby. It became a kind of Orthodox information centre. One family that came to them, the Andersons, had been Roman Catholics, and involved with the Catholic Worker movement of Peter Maurin and Dorothy Day, and they became Orthodox.

Their next project was to start a magazine, The Orthodox Word, and Bishop John chose the title. The aim was to provide English-speaking people sources of the Orthodox Faith, which they did, mainly from monastic sources, interspersed with notes and other articles they themselves wrote.

After the death of Bishop John they felt the call not merely to read about the monastic life, but to live it, so they bought a piece of lonely isolated land near the small village of Platina in northern California, and moved themselves and their printing press to it. A few years later they were tonsured as monks, and Eugene Rose became Seraphim, and he was later ordained as a priest. Fifteen years after moving to Platina, in 1982, Father Seraphim died. By then thousands of people had been influenced by him, either personally, or through publications of the St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood.

After Father Seraphim's death things tended to fall apart, and some of the pieces fell into dubious places. I will not say much about that here, as there is information on it from other sources. The main point here is that Father Seraphim Rose was influential in spreading Orthodoxy among English-speaking people at a time when few of them knew much about it.

Much of the material came from traditional Orthodox sources, and so passed on some important aspects of Orthodox tradition. I have been one of its beneficiaries, and so have several other people I have known.

But there is another side to it as well.

Before he became Orthodox, Eugene Rose came under the influence of several other schools of thought, both religious and secular. Among other things he studied Eastern Religions at the American Academy of Asian Studies in San Francisco. Among his teachers were Alan Watts, a renegade Anglican priest who had become a Zen Buddhist, and Gi-ming Shien, a teacher of Chinese philosophy. He also became particularly interested in the writings of René Guénon, a French philosopher. As his biographer puts it, "For Eugene, he became... a single vantage point from which he could view the myriad fruits of man's immorial search for meaning." And Father Seraphim later wrote, "Guénon was the chief influence on the formation of my own intelectual outlook."

René Guénon (1886-1951) was a French philosopher who developed an ideology of Traditionalism as an antidote to modernity. He was antimodern, and believed that traditional forms of religion, any religion, were better than non-traditional forms. Eventually be became a Muslim.

Orthodoxy regards Holy Tradition as very important, so when Eugene Rose discovered Orthodox Christianity, it appealed to him because it seemed to be the most traditional form of Christianity. But there is a difference between tradition and Traditionalism.

In the modern age, conservatives tend to value tradition, and seek to balance the notion of progress with the value of what has been inherited from the past. Conservatives like to change things slowly and carefully. But to the right of conservatives are Reactionaries, who want to restore the past, the status quo ante, whether that past was real or imagined. Such people are not merely traditional, they are traditionalist. They value tradition for its own sake, and develop traditionalism into an ideology.

Traditions can be good or bad. The English word "tradition" comes from the Latin traditio, meaning to hand over, to deliver. The New Testament Greek word is paradosis. Whether traditions are good or bad depends on what is handed over, to whom, and why. It is good to hand over, or pass on, the gospel of Christ to those who have not heard it. St Paul urges the Thessalonian Christians to "stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle" (2 Thess 2:15).

But handing over Jesus to be crucified was not a good tradition. A person who hands over their country to an enemy is called a "traitor", which also comes from the Latin traditio. During times of persecution Christians who handed over holy things to the police were called traditores.

So "tradition" is not good per se, it is good when something good is handed over to the right people for a good purpose. For the Orthodox, not all tradition is holy tradition. Some traditions are distinctly unholy.

But for traditionalists tradition is something good in itself, and can easily become an idol, and traditionalism becomes an ideology and a form of idolatry.

Other traditionalist philosophers have followed Guénon. Among them are Julius Evola (1890-1974) of Italy and Alexandr Dugin of Russia.

Evola advocated that "differentiated individuals" following the left-hand path use dark violent sexual powers against the modern world. For Evola, these "virile heroes" are both generous and cruel, possess the ability to rule, and commit "Dionysian" acts that might be seen as conventionally immoral. For Evola, the left-hand path embraces violence as a means of transgression (Wikipedia).

Dugin valued the esoteric forms of religion rather than the exoteric. In his youth be belonged to the Yuzhinsky circle, which was part of the Soviet "occult underground" an esoteric counterculture preoccupied with reading and experimenting with Western esoteric and occult literature in conjunction with Eastern religious texts.

Dugin declared that "Traditionalism is not a history of religions, not a philosophy, not a structural sociological analysis. It is more of an ideology or meta-ideology that is totalitarian to a considerable extent and places rather harsh demands before those who accept and profess it".

Father Seraphim Rose did good work in publishing and distributing the works of Orthodox monastic fathers, but in his own writings we should perhaps be careful to see what sort of spectacles he is looking through. It is better to look at traditionalism through Orthodox spectacles than to look at Orthodoxy through traditionalist spectacles.

The Day we met a Saint

Thirty years ago today we met a man I believe should be numbered among the Saints. 

On Monday 1 April 1996 I spent most of the day working at my job as an editor at the University of South Africa, editing a Science of Religion study guide. When I got home, Fr Nektarios Kellis phoned. 

He was a missionary priest in Madagascar, and said he was on his way back to Madagascar from
Zimbabwe, and was staying in a hotel near the airport waiting for his connecting flight which only left the next morning. The hotel he was staying in was in an industrial area, so there was nothing to do there. Going for a walk among dark empty factories closed for the night was not an appealing prospect, so he tried to phone someone just to talk to. He had my phone number as a contact, and so he phoned me.

I had never met Fr Nektarios, but I knew of him from a student of his whom I had met in Nairobi the previous year when I was doing research for my doctoral thesis on Orthodox mission methods. As part of my research I had interviewed Jean Christos Tsakanias, who came from Madagascar. 

He told me that the Orthodox Church there had been started by Greeks in 1953, and had been purely Greek. It had closed in 1972, when foreigners, including the priest, had been expelled after political disturbances on the island. It had remained closed until last year, when the Greek community made announcements in various periodicals, and an Australian priest, Archimandrite Kellis, had come to the
island, and began active mission right away. They were then under Bishop Chrysostomos of Zimbabwe, who had already ordained several local priests, and the Divine Liturgy was celebrated in the Malagasy
language. 

It sounded as though Father Nektarios had achieved an amazing amount in the 18 months he had been there. Jean Christos told me he would travel with Fr Nektarios down the east coast of Madagascar, and when he saw a village without a church he would stop, and ask the chief of that place if he could meet any people who might be interested in Orthodox Christianity. If the chief agreed, he would make a date to return and speak to the people, and if any were interested, would start a new parish there. In this way he started about 12 parishes within 18 months.

So when Fr Nektarios phoned on that Monday afternoon I didn't just want to alleviate his boredom by chatting on the phone, I wanted to meet him. My wife Val then worked in Klipfontein, which was halfway to Kempton Park, where the airport was, so she went to fetch Fr Nektarios from the hotel after work and brought him to our house in Kilner Park, Pretoria. I thought we could take him out to supper, so he could be with people instead of just sitting in a hotel room. 

We took him down to Johannesburg to show him the parish we then belonged to, the Church of St Nicholas of Japan in Brixton. Then we looked for a place to eat, but being Monday, all the restaurants were closed. 

We took him to see Fr Chrysostom, then our parish priest, and then took him back to his hotel at 11 pm. 

In the course of all this driving around Father Nektarios told us a bit of how he had got to Madagascar. He had been in Adelaide, South Australia, as chaplain to an old age home, and read an article in a publication from Greece about Madagascar, appealing for a priest there. It turned out later that the article was phony -- no one in Madagascar was appealing for a priest, just someone in the magazine office thought it would be a good idea.  But he thought God was calling him to Madagascar anyway, though he had a difficult job persuading his bishop, who was reluctant to lose a priest from his diocese. Eventually the bishop allowed him to go only because he saw that he would be resentful if forced to stay. 

Father Nektarios had been visiting Zimbabwe, where the Patriarch of Alexandria was blessing a monument to the first bishop, who had died in Bulawayo. While they were there the Metropolitan of
Zimbabwe, Archbishop Chrysostomos, had had a heart attack, and had only just come out of hospital, so Fr Nektarios had stayed until he was well enough to go home, and so only now was he returning to Madagascar. There were no direct flights from Harare to Madagascar, which was why he had had to come to Johannesburg and stay overnight. 

Fr Nektarios was very interested in mission and was keen to see mission happening in Mocambique and other places in the diocese. He thought we should go to Zambia, where there were several people who wanted to become Orthodox.

Well, that was thirty years ago, and a lot has happened since then. Madagascar was later made a diocese in its own right, and Fr Nektarios was elected as its first bishop. Sad to say, he was killed in a helicopter crash along with several other clergy, including the Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria, Petros VII, on 11 September 2004.

May their memory be eternal!

 

 

Are Roman Catholics and Orthodox about to unite?

There has been quite a lot of talk in the blogosphere about an imminent reunion between Orthodox and Roman Catholics. Father Milovan writes about it in “The Arrogant Papal Brow” | Again and Again. The Roman Pope has visited several Orthodox countries recently, and there has also been a proliferation of Byzantine-style ikons in Roman Catholic churches, as this Orthodox writer notes OCA - Q & A - Orthodox Influences on Roman Catholicism:

Of course, it is difficult to objectively detail influences Orthodoxy has had on Roman Catholicism. Very often an individual or a small group of individuals may have contact with Orthodoxy, digest certain things which they discovered, and incorporated them into the life and thought of their communion, generally without the knowledge of the Orthodox. Last May I encountered a Roman Catholic priest from France who operates a school for young adults interested in missionary and evangelistic outreach. He gave me a copy of the school's magazine, which sported photographs of the school's chapel, the interior of which was completely frescoed in Byzantine iconography. Other pictures revealed another small chapel filled with icons, as well as the priest himself in Orthodox vestments celebrating the Eucharist. Odd as all of this might be -- imagine how one would react to find an Orthodox church in which the Sacred Heart statue was prominently displayed! -- it does show that, in many ways great and small, Orthodoxy has had some influence, even if it is only external.

The last point, about the Sacred Heart, indicates, however, that there is still a very long way to go. Why is it that, as an Orthodox Christian, I find this Byzantinised image of the Sacred Heart (found at Clerical Whispers: Prayer To The Sacred Heart) quite shocking, and almost a desecration?

I don't mind if Roman Catholics use Byzantine ikons, but this image strikes me as abuse rather than use. It indicates that the gulf is much wider than we think.

Unity is a lot more than Orthodox and Roman Catholic bishops visiting and being polite to each other. I'm all in favour of them doing that, and even doing the same thing with Anglican and Zionist bishops, but it doesn't mean that reunion is imminent.

Some think that it is only a few minor theological issues that can be sorted out quickly. But it’s not just papal primacy and the Filioque that keep us apart, but a millennium of history. We differ in soteriology (Anselm’s theory of the atonement, which swept the west, never got much traction in Orthodoxy), ecclesiology (the Orthodox temple versus the Roman monolith and the Protestant heap of stones) and missiology (Roman missiologists believe that Orthodox missiology is derived from Origen).

All these have led to a different culture and ethos, and this is just as much theology as the kind of theology that is written in books. And so before there can be any reunion, these things must be faced and examined.

So if Roman Catholics want to have images of the Sacred Heart, I think it would be better if they stuck to ones like the one on the left.

Unlike some writers, I don't think a hasty marriage is imminent. We are far closer to the Oriental Churches, like the Copts and Armenians, than we are to the Roman Catholics, and I don't see reunion happening there very quickly. I'll believe it when I see an agreement that the next Pope of Alexandria to die will not be replaced, but that the other one will simply move in to succeed him and that thereafter there will just be one. But I see no sign of that happening yet.

Update

Some other posts that point to differences that need to be examined and sorted out before we can say that the time is ripe for reunion:

• Original Sin
• Missiology
• Soteriology

The Pope in Gauteng

Yesterday I had to take my son Simon to work in Johannesburg, and went to St Thomas's Church in Sunninghill where the Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and all Africa was paying a visit. After a service in the church, the Patriarch had lunch with some of the parishioners.

One of the contrasts between Orthodoxy in America and Orthodoxy in South Africa is that in South Africa there is not the same ecclesiastical apartheid that one finds in America. St Thomas's is largely a Serbian parish. The parishioners are, for the most part, Serbian immigrants and their descendants, and they use the Serbian language in their services. But the Antimension on the Altar is signed by His Beatitude Theodoros, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa. People of all races and ethnic groups are welcome at St Thomas's, and one of the gifts presented to the Pope by Archimandrite Pantelejon was a picture drawn by his 7-year-old niece in Serbia, showing her uncle baptising black children in Johannesburg. Some of those who regularly attend St Thomas's are black South Africans from Klipfontein View, who used to belong to Tembisa, but find it easier to get to St Thomas's.

The picture shows Pope Theodoros II with Archimandrite Pantelejmon, the Rector of St Thomas's Church.



The Archbishop of Johannesburg and Pretoria, Metropolitan Seraphim, says that we should not refer to the "Greek Orthodox Church", but rather "The Orthodox Church of South Africa", or the "African Orthodox Church" because though there are Greek, Russian and Serbian parishes in the archdiocese, which maintain ethnic traditions and have services in those languages, the Orthodox Church is one church. So while the Patriarch visited St Thomas's, he was shown a classroom attached to the church hall, which is a Serbian School, and children are taught the Serbian language and history, and he approved of it. But in spite of the variety of ethnic groups and traditions, we are still one Orthodox Church, under one bishop and one Pope and Patriarch, and nobody asks the question, so common among Americans "What juridiction are you?" In South Africa, thank God, that question is meaningless.

Every year a different bishop from Serbia visits St Thomas's for their patronal feast in October, but the visiting bishops are always given a formal reception by Metropolitan Seraphim at the Metropolis as well, and Metropolitan Seraphim makes a point of atending at least part of the celebrations of the patronal feast (panigyri).

Among the guests at lunch yesterday were Father Daniel, the new priest of the Church of St Sergius of Radonezh in Midrand, and Fr Seraphim (in the world Matthew van Niekerk), the first South African to be tonsured as a monk in South Africa, who is at the moment caring for the Greek parish in Klerksdorp.



Fimi of the Patriarch of Alexandria: Tone 4

His Beatitude Theodoros
Most Divine and Most Holy
Our Father and Shepherd, Pope and Patriarch
Of the Great City of Alexandria
Of Libya, Pentapolis and Ethiopia
Of all the land of Egypt and All Africa
Father of fathers, Shepherd of shepherds
Bishop of bishops, thirteenth in line of the Apostles
And Judge of the Universe, Many Years!

A Baptist minister visits an Orthodox Church

Not for Lightweights | Real Live Preacher:

Last Sunday was the 4th of 13 in my sabbatical time. Each of them is precious to me. Each week I am choosing a place and a way to worship. I’m not a church tourist, hoping to see new things. I’m seeking spiritual experiences. I want to worship. Saturday night Jeanene and I still hadn’t decided where to go. I experienced something common to our culture but new to me. The “Where do you want to go to church - I don’t know where do YOU want to go to church” conversation. I found the Saint Anthony the Great website. It's an Orthodox church that has beautiful Byzantine art in the sanctuary. We decided to go there.

I've been reading blogs where people discuss "attractional" versus "missional" churches, and have struggled to make sense of these terms. They just don't seem to fit my understand or experience of church. And, perhaps this real live preacher 's experiwnce can give a clue about why "attractional" versus "missional" seems such a false dichotomy.

This one has been doing the rounds on Facebook.

Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee

Saturday 7 February 2009 is visitors night at St Nicholas of Japan Orthodox Church in Brixton, Johannesburg. Here are some notes to help visitors know what is happening.

Vespers begins at 6:30 pm on Saturday, but is actually the first service of Sunday, so the themes of the hymns belong to the Sunday.

Sunday 8th February 2009

• Tone 1 - 34th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
• SUNDAY OF THE PUBLICAN AND THE PHARISEE
• (Beginning of the Lent Triodion)
• Sunday of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia
• Afterfeast of the Meeting of Christ in the Temple

Tone 1 - this refers to the Octoechos, eight sets of melodies for hymns which are used in succession, so that after eight weeks we begin again at Tone 1. These are called the Resurrectional Tones, because every Sunday is a commemoration of Christ's resurrection. A hymn from the Octoechos, called a Troparion or Apolytikion, is repeated at every service. The Troparion of Tone 1 is:

When the stone had been sealed by the Jews;
While the soldiers were guarding Thy most pure Body
Thou didst rise on the third day, O Saviour,
Granting life to the world.
The powers of heaven therefore cried to Thee, O Giver of Life:
Glory to Thy Resurrection, O Christ!
Glory to Thy Kingdom!
Glory to Thy dispensation, O Thou who lovest mankind.

This Sunday marks a transition - the feast of the meeting of Christ in the Temple (Feb 2nd), forty days after his birth, looks back to Christmas. The Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee looks forward to Great Lent, which begins with Vespers on Sunday 1 March, which is known as the Vespers of Forgiveness, where all members of the congregation ask and offer forgiveness to each other.

You will notice that the prayer of the Publican, Lord have mercy, is very prominent in public Orthodox worship. In private prayer it is often expanded into what is sometimes called the "Jesus Prayer": Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

The hymns of Vespers therefore follow these themes: First, the resurrection (which we remember every Sunday); Second, the Publican and Pharisee; Third, the Meeting of Christ in the Temple. Some of the saints of the day may also be commemorated:

• Great Martyr Theodore Stratelates ("the General"), of Heraclea (319)
• Prophet Zechariah (c 520BC)
• St Sava (Sabbas) II, Archbishop of Serbia (1268-1269)
• St Kegwe, Monmouthshire (6th)
• St Oncho (Clonmore 600)
• St Cuthman of Steyning, Hermit (8th)
• St Elfleda, Abbess of Whitby (714)
• Martyr Conitus of Alexandria (249)
• SS. John and Basil of the Kiev Caves

From the Revised Julian (New Style) Calendar

OCA - Lives of all saints commemorated on this day: "Afterfeast of the Meeting of our Lord in the Temple

The sixth day of the Afterfeast of the Meeting of the Lord falls on February 8. The hymns of the day speak of Christ fulfilling the Law by being brought to the Temple, and of how the Theotokos 'reveals to the world its Creator, and the Giver of the Law.'"

OCA - Lives of all saints commemorated on this day: "Greatmartyr Theodore Stratelates 'the General'

The Great Martyr Theodore Stratelates came from the city of Euchaita in Asia Minor. He was endowed with many talents, and was handsome in appearance. For his charity God enlightened him with the knowledge of Christian truth. The bravery of the saintly soldier was revealed after he, with the help of God, killed a giant serpent living on a precipice in the outskirts of Euchaita. The serpent had devoured many people and animals, terrorizing the countryside. St Theodore armed himself with a sword and vanquished it, glorifying the name of Christ among the people"

The structure of Vespers

The core of Vespers goes back to the Old Testament: "When Aaron sets up the lamps in the evening, he shall burn it, a perpetual incense before the Lord from generation to generation" (Exodus 30:8).

So at the heart of Vespers are lights and incense. There is a procession of priests, deacons and other ministers with lighted lamps and incense, which comes from the north door of the sanctuary, and goes to the holy (central) door, and the altar and its lamps are censed by a deacon, while the congregation sings the hymn:

O gladsome light of the holy glory of the immortal Father: heavenly holy blessed Jesus Christ!
Now that we have come to the setting of the sun, and beheld the light of evening, we praise the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
For meet it is at all times to praise Thee, Son of God and Giver of Life
Therefore all the world doth glorify Thee.

Then is sung:

The Lord is King! He is robed in majesty
For he has established the world so that it should never be moved!
Holiness befits Thy house, O Lord, for evermore!
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Followed by intercessions and led by a deacon, after which it is sung again, interspersed with hymns (Aposticha) on the themes of the day.

You can find more information on Vespers here:

• Orthodox Worship: Vespers
• 12 rhings I wish I had known on my first visit to an Orthodox Church
• Vespers - Orthodox Wiki
• What is Vespers? - a blogger writes for a friend visiting Vespers
• An emerging church Christian visits Vespers

If you don't have time to read them all, at least try to read the first one.

Xenophilia versus xenophobia

There have been many media reports of incidents of xenophobia recently, where the homes of illegal aliens and refugees have been burnt down (sometimes with the people inside) that this comment on Roger Saner's blog Beyond the Boerewors Curtain: Zimbabwe for the weekend comes as a refreshing change:

A few of us have started the 100% tip challenge. It works like this: when we eat at a restaurant we ask the waiter where they're from. If they're from Zimbabwe we tip them 100%. It's amazing how many Zimbabweans are working in Gauteng, serving as a lifeline to their family's back home.

Of course once the word spreads in the catering industry you'll probably find that every single waiter in every single restaurant is an expatriate Zimbabwean! But it's the thought that counts.

Last night at the Vespers of Love at St Nicholas of Japan Orthodox Church in Brixton, Johannesburg, we read the Gospel in several different languages, as is the custom. At the end of the service Azar Jammine, one of the parish leaders, remarked that when we started the parish 21 years ago, we wanted it to be a truly multi-ethnic Orthodox Church, and that vision was being realised right now: the priest, from Kenya, read the gospel in Swahili. A Congolese student read it in Latin. An student Angolan read it in Portuguese. A Greek read it in Turkish.

And somehow some of the words we sang seemed to stand out more than usual:

This is the day of resurrection.
Let us be illumined by the feast. Let us embrace each other.
Let us call "Brothers" even those that hate us, and forgive all by the resurrection, and so let us cry:

Christ is risen from the dead
Trampling down death by death
And upon those in the tombs bestowing life.

We sing it every year. But this year it seemed more real. Let us call "Brothers" even those that hate us. Let us replace xenophobia by xenophilia.

Best Orthodox Christian Blogs

If you scroll down on the sidebar of this blog you'll find a list of "Top theology blogs". It's interesting, but there are very few Orthodox blogs listed there, and I thought I'd create a list of Orthodox Christian blogs, and added some of my favourite ones.

UPDATE

The feature on Amazon has been discontinued, so there's not much point in wasting your time in it. This post is retained for historical interest only.

But if you are looking for something similar, have a look here.

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The list is not exhaustive, and doesn't even have all the Orthodox blogs I read. But it's a start, and anyone who would like to add more is welcome to do so, and to comment on them. If you add a blog, please don't forget to add the URL so that others can find it.

Update - NB

To add a blog, enter the NAME of the blog or web journal you want to add, and click on "ADD".

When it has been added, click on the "Add link" and add the URL of the blog or web journal. DON'T put the URL in the name field, because clicking on it won't take you to the blog, but only to the description of it on the Unspun site. Items on the list that are not blogs or web journals, or have no links to the URL, will be removed.

See the comments below for more information, or if you want to ask questions about this.

You can find the list of Best Orthodox Christian blogs here.

Russian Church on Kosovo UDI

The West and Nato opted for military rather than diplomatic solutions to the tensions in the former Yugoslavia, which simply exacerbated the tensions. .

South Africa, which abandoned apartheid and had a Truth and Reconciliation Commision, perhaps has a better mo0del to offer than apartheid and UDI.

clipped from www.interfax-religion.com The Russian Orthodox Church has called on Albanians in Kosovo to understand disastrous consequences of the unilateral recognition of the region's independence. "We would like the Albanian side, which admitted this, to understand that this path is disastrous and to seek reconciliation with Serbians," priest Georgy Ryabykh, a representative of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, told Interfax-Religion. Any decision concerning several parties cannot be made unilaterally, as it could lead to the escalation of the conflict, he said. "That is why in case of the escalation of the situation in Kosovo, the responsibility will lie with the Albanian side that dared for this unilateral step," the priest said. Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and all Russia has many times stated that the Kosovo status issue should not be solved disregarding the opinion f the Serbian people.

Persecution and tradition

Protestants often denounce "tradition" as something evil, and yet tradition is what keeps the church going in times of persecution.

Hat tip to A conservative blog for peace

clipped from chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it In effect, among the victims of the atomic bomb in Nagasaki, two thirds of the small but vibrant Japanese Catholic community disappeared in a single day. It was a community that was nearly wiped out twice in three centuries. In 1945, this was done through an act of war that was mysteriously focused on this city. Three centuries before, it was by a terrible persecution very similar to that of the Roman empire against the first Christians, with Nagasaki and its "hill of martyrs" again the epicenter. And yet, the Japanese Catholic community was able to recover from both of these tragedies. After the persecution in the seventeenth century, Christians kept their faith alive by passing it on from parents to children for two centuries, in the absence of bishops, priests, and sacraments.

In the Orthodox Church one saw the same thing in the same country, though in the far north. Fr Nikolai Kasatkin went to Japan in 1861, officially as chapl;ain to the Russian consulate at Hakodate, but in his heart as a missionary to proclaim the gospel of Christ to the Japanese people.

He learnt the Japanese language, and gave lessons in Russian language and culture to Japanese who wanted to learn. As part of the lessons on Russian culture, he talked about the role of the Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Christian faith in Russian history, culture and society.

Some samurai (members of the military class) heard of this and one of them, Sawabe by name, went to see the Russian priest, accused him of "destroying Japanese culture", and threatened to kill him if he did not stop. Father Nikolai said, You have not heard what I have said to people. Should you not hear first, before making such accusations?

Sawabe agreed to hear, and, having heard, brought two fellow samurai to hear, and became the first to ask to be baptised. But then the Japanese government began to clamp down on Christianity, and so the three scattered to their homes in the country, but as they went they told friends and family about what they heard, and soon there was a flourishing Japanese Orthodox Church. Father Nikolai returned to Russia where he was consecrated bishop and by his death in 1914 there were more than 20000 Orthodox Christians in Japan. He is now known as St Nicholas of Japan.

His method of evangelism was simple, and was the same as that advocated by St Paul: "what you have heard from me before many witnesses entrust to faithful men who wil be able to teach others" (II Tim 2:2). That is the essence of tradition (paradosis), and that is how the Church has been able to withstand and survive through persecution at many different times and places.

10-20-30

I’ve been tagged for the 10-20-30 meme by Matt Stone. It has to do with what you were doing 10, 20, and 30 years ago. My story?

10 years ago

Sunday, 26 October 1997

We went to Divine Liturgy at the Church of the Annunciation. They had moved back into the church, and the new ikons by Maria Manetta were beautiful. They seemed to glow with a light of their own.

That was from my journal. The Church of the Annunciation in Pretoria is the biggest Orthodox temple in the Southern Hemisphere, and Maria Manetta was an ikonographer from Greece who had just finished installing new ikons in the dome, and while the church was filled with scaffolding services were held in the hall (hence "moved back into the church".

I was working at the Editorial Department of the University of South Africa, and was also working on my doctorate in Missiology. Our daughter Bridget had just gone to study theology in Greece (10 years later she's still there, working on her masters).

20 years ago

Monday, 26 October 1987
I went to work by car, and read Orthodoxy and the religion of the future, which seemed to regard the charismatic movement as demonic and pagan, as Ann d'Amico does. In the afternoon I left work early and went past Bishop's House, and lent Rich Kraft some of my Foghorn magazines, about Osborne computers. He said Pete & Isobel Beukes were staying with them, and were thinking of coming to work in Pretoria. I went to Makro, where I hoped to be able to buy a cheap microwave oven, but they were all sold out. I bought some envelopes and a tin of coffee instead. We had letters from Theophilus Ngubane and Nora Pearson. Theophilus said that several clergy were leaving Zululand diocese, including the new dean, Father Kow. It sounded quite sad. In the evening I took Bridget to the junior school choir at DSG.

That was my journal entry. Rich Kraft was the Anglican bishop of Pretoria, whom I had known for many years, since he had been university chaplain when I was a student. Pete Beukes was an Anglican priest from Zululand as was Theophilus Ngubane, and Pete's wife Isobel had been a fellow-student with me at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg. DSG was St Mary's Diocesan School for Girls in Pretoria, where our daughter Bridget was in Standard III (Grade 5).

I was working in the Editorial Department at the University of South Africa, and we were about to be received into the Orthodox Church (on 8 November).

30 years ago

Wednesday 26 October 1977

Someone phoned from the Archbishop's office in Bishopscourt, saying that Cathy Thomas, of the Daily News, was asking what was happening with the SB and the church in Utrecht. I explained that the papers had published half the story, in relation to the opening of my letter to Lawrence Wood by the Department of the Interior, and so I thought they should have the full story, at least as far as I knew it, to keep the record straight. I also had a letter today from the Secretary for the Interior, saying that my application for the renewal of my passport had not been successful. The letter was dated 7 October, and thus after my letter to Lawrence Wood had been opened by the Department of the Interior, so I can only conclude that if one wants a passport, one does not write to opposition members of parliament. I sent a photostat of the letter from the Secretary for the Interior to Lawrence Wood for his information, but felt that he would not do much, as there is to be a general election at the end of November, and he will not be standing, but will be stepping down for his son Nigel, who will stand for the New Republic Party in his place. I don't think the New Republic Party stands much of a chance in the election. They are too new as a party, and will not have had time to get themselves organised. Wynand Rautenbach is the local leader in Melmoth, and Doris Leitch is also involved, but they did not seem to be at all well organised, and the announcement of the general election had obviously caught them on the wrong foot.

I had recently moved from Utrecht to Melmoth in Zululand, where I was Rector of All Saints Anglican Church, and Director of Training for Ministry in the Anglican Diocese of Zululand. What had happened in Utrecht was that one of our churches had been closed at gunpoint my a Mr Klingenberg of Commondale, who owned the land on which the church stood, apparently at the behest of the Security Police, who had also hired a Mocambiquan refugee to spy on us. Lawrence Wood was an opposition MP for Berea, formerly of the United Party, which had just become the New Republic Party, and was virtually wiped out in the elections, and it disappeared from the political scene soon afterwards.

I tag Dion, David and the Young Fogey.

Days of the dead and Halloween

In the recent synchroblog on Halloween, several bloggers say Halloween as a kind of day of the dead. See, for example: Morehead's Musings: Rethinking Evangelical Postures on Halloween.

John Morehead also referred to an earlier post, where he compared it with the Mexican Day of the Dead Morehead's Musings: Imaginarium, Cornerstone and Days of the Dead.

Several of the synchrobloggers, coming from an Evangelical Protestant background, remarked on the lack of an adequate approach to death in their theological tradition. I thought it might be useful to put together a slightly fuller description of some other Christian approaches to this.

In the Western Christian tradition, Hallowe'een, or All Hallows Eve, is the Vigil of All Saints Day, observed on 1 November, which is followed by All Souls Day, on 2 November.

In Anglo-Catholic practice, in the past (which was based on Roman Catholic practice), there would be the first Evensong of All Saints on Halloween, followed by Mattins and Eucharist on 1 November, and the second Evensong in the evening of 1 November. All these are joyful services, in white vestments, celebrating the saints in heaven.

On 2 November, All Souls Day, there would be Mattins and Requiem Mass in black vestments, with unbleached candles, followed by the Absolutions of the Dead at a catafalque. There would be Evensong on the evening of All Souls.

The Orthodox Church does not have a single "Day of the Dead", like the Western All Souls Day. Every Saturday is a "day of the dead". In addition, there are at least five Soul Saturdays during the year. These are on the Saturday of Meatfare (just before Lent), the 2nd, 3rd and 4th Saturdays in Lent, and the Saturday before Pentecost. In some traditions there is another Soul Saturday later in the year.

On these days it is customary to hold a Memorial Service (Panikhida, Mnemosyne), sometimes called a Requiem, but unlike Western practice, it does not take the form of a Requiem Mass. Parts of Psalm 119 are sung, and there are various hymns and prayers, and then the blessing of koliva. The main ingredient of koliva is boiled wheat, a reminder of resurrection. At the end everyone eats some of the koliva.

The same memorial service is used on the 3rd, 9th and 40th day after a person's death, and annually thereafter. It is probably the service most familiar to most people in Orthodox countries. Even people who are not regular churchgoers will usually attend memorial services for members of their families.

This is just a very simplified description of some Christian observances for the dead.

Memory Eternal -- Pope Petros VII

This is the third anniversary of the death of His Beatitude Petros, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, who was killed in a helicopter crash on 11 September 2004.

He was the spiritual leader of Orthodox Christians on the African continent, as the secular media would say. Several other clergy were killed with him on that day, including three bishops, so it was a severe blow to the Church in Africa.

Among those killed was His Grace Nectarios, Bishop of Madagascar, whose short period in that country as a missionary priest and later bishop was amazing.

Father Nectarios Kellis was a priest in Australia, and he read in a magazine published in Greece that a priest was needed in Madagascar, because they had been without a priest since 1972, when political changes had led to the expulsion of many foreigners, including the Greek priest.

Father Nectarios asked his bishop if he could go, but the bishiop said no, he needed him in Australia. As the computer fundi for the diocese, he would be hard to replace. But later the bishop relented. I can see that you will just be miserable if you don't go, said the bishop, so go with my blessing.

Father Nectarios went to Greece, and found the author of the article, so see how he could make contact with the people in Madagascar who were appealing for a priest. He was told that there weren't any. The person who wrote the article had made it up -- he had just seen that there hadn't been a priest there for a long time, and thought it would be nice if there was one.

Father Nectarios set out for Madagascar not knowing what to expect, and arrived there in 1994. He found two churches, neither in use, one in the capital, Tananarive, and one of the coast. There was a local family that was acting as caretakers of the church in Tananarive, and I met a member of this family, a young man, at the Makarios III Orthodox Theological Seminary in Nairobi in November 1995. I was then doing research for my doctoral thesis on "Orthodox mission methods", and was interviewing the students (who came from various parts of Africa) to find out how the Orthodox Church was growing in their home countries.

The story I heard from Madagascar was quite amazing. Father Nectarios had been there for 18 months, and had started 15 new parishes in that time. He travelled down the coast taking the student with him, and when he saw a village with no church, would speak to the chief of the village and ask if he could come on a date to be arranged to explain the Orthodox Christian faith to anyone interested. Then a few weeks later he would return and speak to the people there, and then gather the interested people to catechise them and baptise them, and so 15 new parishes had been started within 18 months.

Six months later I met Father Nectarios in person.

At that time Madagascar fell under the Archbishopric of Zimbabwe, and Father Nectarios had travelled to Bulawayo where the Patriarch was blessing a memorial in the local church. While they were there, the Archbishop of Zimbabwe suffered a heart attack, so Father Nectarios stayed on for a few days to look after him. When he eventually returned to Madagascar, he had to change planes in Johannesburg, and as the plane for Madagascar only left the following morning he was booked into a hotel overnight near the airport. The hotel was in Isando, an industrial area, all over factories, where there is nothing to do and nothing to see, but the seminary student had given him my phone number, so he phoned me, and we said we would fetch him and show him around a little, rather than leave him sitting in a lonely hotel room. It was Monday 1 April 1996, in the middle of Great Lent, and we wanted to take him to supper at a restaurant, but finding a restaurant open on a Monday in Gauteng is not easy, never mind one that serves fasting food. Still, we took him round to see some churches and a priest we found at home, and while we were going around he told us the story of how he had found himself in Madagascar. He was quite a delightful character, short, with a reddish hair and beard, and he spoke Australian with a Greek accent.

Later Madagascar was made into a separate diocese, and Father Nectarios was consecrated as its bishop, and served there until his death on 11 September 2004. His successor was Father Ignatios Sennis, who had served as a priest in Calcutta (Kolkata) in India, where he served mainly among the very poor people.

The 11 September 2004 was a sad day for the Orthodox Church in Africa, and for those who died and their families we pray: Memory Eternal!

Women clergy leaving the Episcopal Church

According to Ad Orientem: Women priests leaving the Episcopal Church? Alice Linsley is doing a survey of women clergy who are leaving the Episcopal Church in the USA.

Alice Linsley herself was one who left to join the Orthodox Church, and knows of others who have done so, but would like to find out more. If anyone has information about this, please pass it on.

The Caucasian Church is flourishing

When I think of Caucasians I think first of Stalin, who was probably the most famous Caucasian of the last century or two, the former seminarian who tried to destroy the Church and propagate atheism. Under his rule more than 200000 clergy and monastics were killed, and many more were sent to concentration camps.

But what is happening in his homeland, Georgia, today?

What is happening to the Christian faith he once tried to destroy?

The Church is flourishing, that's what.

Read all about it in Notes from a CommonplaceBook, travellers tales, with beautiful pictures, of a recent visit to Georgia.

Well he would, wouldn't he?

No surprises here: Vatican: Non-Catholics 'wounded' by not recognizing pope.

A 16-page document, prepared by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which Pope Benedict used to head, described Christian Orthodox churches as true churches, but suffering from a "wound" since they do not recognize the primacy of the Pope.

But the document said the "wound is still more profound" in the Protestant denominations -- a view likely to further complicate relations with Protestants.

If it weren't so, we'd all have been Uniate long ago. That's one of those areas of disagreement that still has to be hammered out before the churches can be reunited. The Orthodox, of course, see it from a different viewpoint. The "wound" is the claim of the Pope of Rome to "universal ordinary jurisdiction", and perhaps his claim to be "the" Pope. We have a Pope in Alexandria, and as far as we are concerned, he is "the" Pope. The one in Rome is just the head of a non-Orthodox denomination.

All sorts of people seem to be getting their knickers in a knot over this document. But that's just silly. Would they rather that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith pretended to be what they are not, or that their ecclesiology is other than what it is? How can we have dialogues and discuss differences in ecclesiology if everyone is pretending that their ecclesiology is something else? Christian unity is not brought about by papering over the cracks and pretending that differences don't exist. We need to face the differences honestly. Let's face it: Roman Catholic ecclesiology is dffierent from Orthodox ecclesiology, and different from most Protestant ecclesiologies. The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith is just being honest. Would we prefer it if they weren't?

Baptism at St Thomas's Church, Sunninghill

On Sunday 17 June eight members of our mission congregations at Klipfontein View and Mamelodi were baptised St Thomas's Serbian Orthodox Church at Sunninghill Park, Johannesburg.

There was also a team from the Orthodox Christian Mission Centre in the USA, who are visiting South Afrrica on a short-term mission for the next few weeks.

St Thomas's is the closest Orthodox Church to Klipfontein View, and the candidate from Mamelodi was a cousin of most of those from Klipfontein view.

There are more pictures of the baptism on my LiveJournal.

Orthodox Christian blogs

Matt Stone in Australia asked about Orthodox Christian blogs, and asked for people to compile a list. Sally Coleman in England took it up (I was going to say "The UK", but after the Scottish elections I'm not sure how much longer it will last).

Here's the meme:

Can anyone recommend some good Orthodox Christian blogs? I have been searching around and come up with a couple, but I'm looking for more to broaden my horizons.

What I thought might be a cool idea, in the interests of ecumenism, is to create a meme to help aggregate some of the best Orthodox blogs together.

To participate, simply copy the list you'll find below into a post on your own blog, add 3-5 blogs to the bottom of the list and note the country of origin. Preference should be given to Orthodox bloggers that demonstrate an ecumenical spirit, that is, who engage with folk beyond their own immediate tradition. Encourage others to do the same. Oh, and the aim is get as a wide cross section as possible, so I am looking for a variety of traditions - Coptic, Greek, Russian - from a variety of countries and not just your own.

The list could get long but that's basically the point of the exercise. When you’ve done all the above, leave a trackback or comment below, or link to this post, so I can keep track of who ends up being recommended.

Matt & Sally's list is:
Notes from Underground
Strannik
Orthodox Monk
Ancient Faith Radio
Glory to God for All Things

Though two of them don't really seem to be blogs.

I'll repeat my comment to Matt: My nominations would the the same as 4 out of 5 of my nominations for the "Thinking Blogger Award" at Notes from underground: Thinking blogger award, and I see you already have one of them.

But here they are again:

• The Scrivener - Sympathy for the befuddled, the bookish & the believing
• Glory to God for all things - Life, journey of faith, Orthodox Christianity and religion in culture.
  
• Notes from a commonplace book - Common-place Book: n. a book in which common-places, or notable or striking passages are noted; a book in which things especially to be remembered or referred to are recorded.
• +Seraphim's Journal - an amazing collections of thoughts and jottings inspired by literature, art, places and friends, by an Orthodox bishop

Matt asks for a trackback, but I've found it difficult to get trackbacks to Typepad blogs to work, but I'll try to link to it here and here. But if those don't work, this should.

Anyway, if you know of any good Orthodox Christian blogs not listed above, please let Matt know.

From communist youth to Orthodox monks

Most of us have read in the newspapers and seen graphic images on television of the violence and destruction of the Wars of the Yugoslav succession, when Yugoslavia tore itself apart (often with outside assistance) during the 1990s.

But even in the midst of the destruction, there were signs of hope, as some, at least, pursued more preaceful ideals. Among these is a new generation of Orthodox monks. They grew up under the communist system, indoctrinated at school with atheism, and now have turned to a life of prayer and repentance.

There is much talk nowadays, especially in "emerging church" circles, about a "new monasticism", but in the former Yugoslavia the youth have opted for a restoration of the old monasticism.

And now the man who has been at the centre of the monastic revival in Serbia, His Grace Artemije, Bishop of Raska and Prizren, will be visiting South Africa, and will speak on the topic Orthodox monasticism, and the revival of the monastic life in Serbia after communism at St Thomas's Orthodox Church, Sunninghill Park, Gauteng on Saturday 5th May 2007 at 5:00 pm. If anyone is interested in attending, you will find more information here. Anyone who is interested in Christian monasticism, new or old, is welcome to attend.

How to get there

From Johannesburg, Pretoria, East Rand, West Rand, take the N1 freeway to the Rivonia Road offramp, then turn North towards Leeukop prison. About 2km from the freeway exit the road narrows, and just before it narrows there is a turn-off to the right, and almost immediately one turns to the left, then right again, and the entrance to the church parking is just round the corner. There will be a sign that says "Church Parking" at the gate.

If you have any questions, please use the comment form below.

Orthodox Holy Week

The following Orthodox blog has some very useful material for Holy Week.

I printed it out for our mission congregations and others may find it useful too: Orthodox Holy Week

Here are some pictures of how we began Holy Week in Johannesburg last night.

To all my Orthodox friends: kali anastasi (good resurrection!)