Ecumenical Council Research Articles

Patriarch Tarasios: An exponent of Byzantine church diplomacy in relation to Rome and the bishop of Constantinople

On September 24, 787, the works of the VII Ecumenical Synod were opened in the ‘Saint Sophia’ Church in Nicaea, after the first attempt, on August 7, 786, had failed. Although the nominal presidency was held by the legates of Pope Adrian I, the effective presidency was exercised by Patriarch Tarasios of Constantinople. A skilful church diplomat, with experience, gained as an imperial secretary and a remarkable theologian whose authority was imposed even during his election as a patriarch amongst the laity, Tarasios meticulously and clairvoyantly prepared for the deployment of the Nicene synod. This is noticeable from the agreement made with the papal legates regarding the reading of the letters of Pope Adrian I whose content directly concerned the persona of the patriarch, agreeing to omit those compromising paragraphs, from the procedure of re-welcoming in the communion of the church of some former iconoclastic bishops, by correctly managing the resistance of the monks to whom he gave satisfaction regarding the patristic and traditional argumentation of the cult of the holy icons and by rejecting point-by-point the dogmatic decision of the iconoclastic synod of Hieria (754), a rejection of which the patriarch Tarasie is in all probability the author. Satisfied with the success of the synod, whose craftsman he indeed was, Patriarch Tarasios was able to communicate to both Pope Adrian I and the emperors and clergy of Constantinople that the unity of the Church residing in Christ had been restored and that the place in the church and due honour of the holy icons had been restored through the synodal decision of 302 participants. The success of the Seventh Ecumenical Council is unequivocally because of the tactful and competent preparation and management of Patriarch Tarasios.Contribution: The perspective we promote on the events highlighted in the study, could contribute to unblocking the theological dialogue between Orthodox and Catholics on the issue of papal primacy, the study thus promotes HTS as an important forum for mediating interfaith dialogue.

Clergy Participation in Elections, Political Parties and Government from the Perspective of Secular and Church Law

This article presents a comparative analysis of solving the issue of Orthodox clergy's participation in elections, political parties and public bodies previously and in modern times from the standpoint of secular and church law. At different stages of history, there were both times when the clergy took active part in the legislative bodies of our country and abstained from it. The relevance of this question is conditioned by the following fact: while the Church is unified and its establishments are inviolable, there are historically many states of many types, and the relations between them should always be adjusted specifically to each case. There is no general theoretical formula that would suit them all. The clergy participated in political parties, elections and the State Duma before the revolution, but the results of this participation were very mixed. In the post-Soviet years, after the constitutional crisis of October 1993, the Church made the only right decision. At an expanded session on October 8, 1993, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church adopted a resolution that instructed clergy to refrain from participating in the elections to the Federal Assembly as candidates for deputy, and to abstain from membership in political parties under the penalty of prosecution. As for the Church law, the canons of the Orthodox Church do not permit clergymen to hold secular positions of authority. This is confirmed by the Apostolic Rules and decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. Adopted in 2000 by the Jubilee Council of Bishops, “The Fundamentals of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church” reflected the official position of the Moscow Patriarchate in its relations with the state and secular society . The Fundamentals formulate a concept of the state-church relations, the key concept of which is “the cooperation between state and church”. However, by prohibiting the clergy to participate in government bodies, the Church emphasizes its another resource: the participation of Orthodox laymen in the activities of government bodies and parties. The contemporary challenges include an enormous increase in the influence of the Internet, mass media, the ethical problems of modern technology, the lack of an Orthodox component in educational programs — they are only a few problems and challenges to the dialogue between church and state.

THE HOLY TRINITY OF HRYGORIY SKOVORODA

The article is devoted to the study of a problem, which has not yet been noticed for the one that deserves in-depth study that is divergences between Н. Skovoroda and the Christian Church in the sense of The Holy Trinity. To reproduce the whole context of problems in this article, some phases, paradoxes and features of formation of the relevant church dogma were traced the attention is drawn to the fact, that the doctrine of the Trinity of God contained in the Christian Scriptures (The Bible) is implicit and received a conceptual explication in patristic and in the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils. The trinary God was established in Christianity when, after the centennial discussions, the church recognized Jesus Christ as God. The opinion, that the church-Christian doctrine is based on theism and The Skovoroda's doctrine on pantheism is manifested. The former one is based on the transcendent God, and the latter one on the immanentization of transcendence, the church divides by the nature of the Creator and the Creation, but Skovoroda brings them together. This fundamental difference in metaphysical and theological positions of parties is seen as a factor that creates significant differences in theology, Christology and triadology. Skovoroda’s God is the God of mystics. According to the experience of the philosopher, He is not only outside the world and person, but also inside them, holding them together. This theological immanence determines the Christological one. Skovoroda’s universal Christ (was taken separately from the Jesus-man) is the God's presence, or God's truth of the Man in man. The church teaches about only one Son of God and Skovoroda about the potential ability to God’s adoption and the transformation of each person into Christ, and therefore about "Holy Family," whose representatives are (Moses, Elijah, etc.) realized this potential to Jesus. The author finds the keys to Skovoroda’s triadology primarily in the catechism of the philosopher (in the "Initial Door…") and his last dialogue (in "The Serpent Flood"). According to the conclusions of the study, Skovoroda’s God was not the orthodox God-Trinary God of Christians, but, obviously, “the One true God” (John 17: 3) of Jesus Christ himself. Therefore, made consistent with faith in this God Trinary God, which sometimes doubles as a semi-hidden "internal one", based on pantheism and non-canonical Christology, and the "upper one", which is terminologically similar to the triadology of Nikeo of Constantinople’s symbol of faith.

The Service of the Romanian Orthodox Church to Migrants

Through the concrete steps taken by its members (clergy, believers, and monks), from 1998 until now, the Romanian Orthodox Church has carried out extensive actions to monitor and solve the migration crisis.
 Thanks to this approach, initiated and improved by its current Primate, His Beatitude, Patriarch Daniel, both in the country and in the diaspora of our Church, the phenomenon of migration was not only be monitored, but also solved both in accordance with Church rules and with State laws, as well as those of the Law of the European Union, that is, of the EU Member States.
 From our article, the informed reader will be also able to see that, in its actions for monitoring and solving the migration problem, our Church has taken into account both the guidelines issued by the bodies of the Ecumenical Council of Churches and the guiding principles stated by the leaders of the two Churches, Catholic and Orthodox, namely, His Holiness, Pope Francis, and His Beatitude, the Ecumenical Patriarch, Bartholomew I, in their joint Declarations on the issue of migration, hence the ecumenical nature of the approach to the issue of migration.

Lutheran service to the migrants. Global and Polish experiences

The article presents Lutheran engagement for migrants, using the examples of activities undertaken by the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland, as well as by the Lutheran World Federation, which is the biggest global organisation of Lutheran Churches all over the world. In case of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession the text provides an overview of the initiatives undertaken since 2015 in service to the migrants on the parish and Church levels, as well as in cooperation with ecumenical partners (including the activities within the Polish Ecumenical Council and in cooperation with the Catholic Church). In case of the Lutheran World Federation, the first step was to present the theological justification for the Federation’s engagement in the work for migrants, and the next one — to outline the characteristics of the work of the Department for World Service (Federation’s humanitarian agency) in 2018.

What Is a Composite Hypostasis? Leontius of Jerusalem, Maximus the Confessor and the Nestorian Challenge

Abstract At the Fifth Ecumenical Council the concept of a ‘composite hypostasis’ was enshrined in dogma. This implied that after the incarnation the divine and human natures had the status of parts that constituted a single whole. In order to make this concept intelligible a comparison was drawn with the human compound where two different natures, the soul and the body, formed one being. In the seventh century Maximus, the foremost Chalcedonian theologian of the time, came to the conclusion that the differences between the incarnated Word and a human individual were too great for a strict comparison to be useful. Yet he continued to defend the notion of composition. Indeed, his views on this point have been lauded as an important step in the development of doctrine. This article seeks to show that composition itself had become problematic, and that it was relentless Nestorian polemic that induced Maximus, and his contemporary Leontius of Jerusalem, to change their understanding of the concept.

Theological views of A. V. Kartashev on the Chalcedonian Definition

This article analyzes the works of A. V. Kartashev not as a historian, but as a Christian theologian. In the attempt to determine the sources of theological views of A. V. Kartashev on the Chalcedonian Definition, the author established his ideological connection with V. S. Solovyov. The analysis of general religious ideas of V. S. Solovyov and A. V. Kartashev underlines particular importance of the idea of divine-humanity for the latter. Analyzing Kartashev's reflections on the Chalcedonian Definition, the author distinguishes the three theological directions in his interpretation: doctrine of the Church, doctrine of Ecumenical Councils, and doctrine of Biblical Revelation. The heritage of the prominent A. V. Kartashev, namely his works on the history of the Church, currently enjoy great popularity.  However, there are yet no critical studies on most of the theological views of A. V. Kartashev, as well as the research of the origin of these ideas. A detailed analysis of each vector of comprehending divine-humanity in the texts of the theologian reveals contradiction of the views of A. V. Kartashev to the patristic Orthodox theology. It is demonstrated that leaning on the interpretation of the Chalcedonian Definition of V. S. Solovyov, A. V. Kartashev developed the ideas that contradict the doctrine of the Orthodox Church. In his works, the author introduced and proliferated the new Christian theology, which replaced previous traditional foundations of the Orthodox theology. The acquired results contribute to further critical studies of the works of A. V. Kartashev.

A THEOLOGICAL SUPPORT, FROM CHALCEDON, TO THE SHROUD IMAGE NATURAL FORMATION

The fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon (451 AD) sanctions, for the Holy Church very important conclusions regarding the nature of Christ. The above results do not contrast, but rather open to a natural formation of the Shroud body image. This occurs because it was affirmed in Chalcedon that Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, has two natures, one human and one divine, “inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably”, which coexist in one person (hypostasis). Consequently, the monophysitism of Eutiche and of the Egyptian, Syrian and Armenian Churches, was rejected. Now, the Resurrection of the Nazarene is a Transcendental event that, according to those like us who support the natural formation of the Shroud body image, acted only on the corpse leaving the burial linen in the Immanent, under the dominion of the natural sciences. So, the Miracle of the Resurrection shows the divine nature of Christ, while the Shroud body image formation, the human one..

(No) Sympathy for the Devil?

Abstract As a successor and strong supporter of Origen, though not an uncritical one, Didymus the Blind has long been presented as advocating controversial theological views, notably the apokatastasis. Along with Origen and Evagrius, Didymus’ views on this were condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council in 553 CE. In order to better understand Didymus’ theology, it is important to consider his notion of spiritual conflict and its ramifications for the friends and enemies of God. The purpose of this paper is to examine Didymus’ theology of enmity with God, in particular his interpretation of key biblical passages that indicate certain characters as enemies of God, namely Satan, the demons, and Judas Iscariot. The paper will address such questions as should Christians have any sympathy for Satan and the demons? Was Judas’ betrayal merely the selling out of Jesus based on greed, or was there a deeper betrayal of the teacher-student relationship? How do God’s enemies contrast with Didymus’ understanding of the friends of God? In addition to considering Didymus’ exegesis of these characters, the paper will examine his treatment of the New Testament command to love one’s enemies. Didymus’ doctrinal and exegetical texts will both be considered to establish his theology of spiritual conflict. Finally, these considerations will be contextualized within Didymus’ own theological milieu, where the blind scholar seems to be aware of mounting criticism of his theology, perhaps by his own students, and even possibly the conflicts swirling around several of his prominent former students (Evagrius, Jerome and Rufinus).

St. Gregory Palamas’s gnoseology in light of the dogma of the incarnation of Christ

This article is devoted to the problem of correspondence between the gnoseology of St. Gregory Palamas and the teachings of the Orthodox Church. His gnoseology contains two theses that caused a significant controversy in the 14th century in the Byzantine Empire. These are the uncreated nature of the Tabor Light and the possibility to know God by His uncreated energies, but not by His essence. The author turns directly to the Christological confessions and other dogmatic texts of the Ecumenical Councils to solve the problem. This method has not been largely used. As a general rule, the “palamites” and “antipalamites” used to refer to some particular father or plunged into a strictly philosophical discourse. At the same time, it was not fully taken into the account the fact that the Acts of the Ecumenical Councils contain information to adequately assess St. Gregory’s gnoseology. The article concisely presents the main theses of St. Gregory Palamas’s gnoseology, approved by the local Council of 1351 held in Constantinople. The theses are compared to the confession of the Council of Chalcedon. The texts of the subsequent Ecumenical Councils are considered to be as clarifying as the Chalcedonian confession. The views of St. Gregory’s main opponents are also analyzed in the article. Particular attention is paid to the meaning of key terms in the considered dogmatic texts. The article also takes into account the philosophical aspect of the problem, and expounds one of the arguments of St. Gregory in favor of the uncreated nature of the Tabor Light, which is based on the idea of the inability of human nature to emit light. As a result of the research, it was established that both theses of St. Gregory contradict the doctrine of the Ecumenical Councils about Christ. Instead of St. Gregory’s dubious gnoseology, the Ecumenical Councils offer to cognize the divinity of the Trinity inseparably from the flesh of Christ, and not only in energy, but also essence and hypostasis. As for the natural science argument of St. Gregory, it is refuted by the data of modern science, which proved the existence of biophotons. This discovery, according to the author, does not contradict, but only confirms the Christology of the Ecumenical Councils.

The Future of Catholic Theology: A Question

The Future of Catholic Theology:A Question Joseph T. Lienhard S.J. One who predicts the future inevitably sees it as an extension of the present; radical innovations and ruptures cannot be foreseen. The railroad barons of the nineteenth century might have anticipated faster coast-to-coast trains; they could not have foreseen that, a century later, most passengers would cross the country through the air. Secretaries in early twentieth-century offices might have looked forward to more efficient typewriters; they could not have foreseen that their successors would sit in front of computer screens. Predicting the future of theology could be just as risky. But theology is not technology; it lives as the continuation of its own past. Revelation ended with the death of the last apostle; no third testament will be discovered and canonized. Tradition will continue to mean what has been handed down and received. And yet theology is carried out by living theologians, who do more than hand on the past: they reflect on the meaning of Scripture and Tradition for their own age, and on the message that the faith can offer that age. Racism, feminism, colonialism, environmentalism, for example, have entered theological reflection only in recent decades, at least as featured topics. In other words, theology is in continuity with its past in a way that other fields are not. I want to read a theologian who has mastered Augustine and Aquinas; I do not want to go to a doctor who follows the teachings of Galen. This essay, which is admittedly impressionistic, will fall into three parts. The first is an overview of Catholic theological eras in the past century and a half, roughly preconciliar, conciliar, and postconciliar. The second is an interpretation of these eras using categories on the meaning of "being" drawn from the work of Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI. The third presents some thoughts on the present state of theology and the directions it may be taking. [End Page 97] Three Eras of Catholic Theology The "Pian" Century, 1846–1958 As an exercise, reflection on the past century and a half may be enlightening. A helpful starting point is the "Pian century," if "century" is taken a little broadly: from the election of Pius IX in 1846 to the death of Pius XII in 1958. (I lay a certain claim to the era since Pius XII died during my thirty-day retreat as a first-year Jesuit novice.) The era is also bracketed by two ecumenical councils, Vatican I (1869–70) and Vatican II (1962–65). The century may have been the high-water mark of papal authority, although that statement could easily be debated. The tone of much of the century was defensive, stoutly affirming Catholic faith and teaching as a barricade against rationalism, modernism, and historicism. It was the century of the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX (1864) against the many errors of his time,1 the decree Lamentabili Sane promulgated under Pius X (1907) against the errors of the Modernists,2 and the encyclical Humani Generis promulgated by Pius XII (1950) against new tendencies in sacred science—that is, theology.3 The Pian century was also a Marian century, bracketed by the definition of the Immaculate Conception of Mary in 18544 and the definition of the bodily assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1950.5 Marian piety flourished, encouraged by the apparitions of Mary at Lourdes in France (1858) and Fatima in Portugal (1917). Theology, in that era, was dominated by neo-Scholasticism, encouraged by Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Aeterni Patris,6 which mandated the teaching of Christian philosophy in Catholic schools according to the mind of St. Thomas Aquinas. The characteristics of that century are easy to enumerate: neo-Scholastic theology, taught in Latin in Rome and in most seminaries, often as much Aristotelian as Thomistic, from textbooks written in Latin by [End Page 98] professors at the pontifical universities in Rome; resistance to, and anxiety about, modern culture, exemplified in the Syllabus of Errors and the condemnation of modernism; fear of post-Kantian historicism, especially when applied to the Bible; and the intellectual near-paralysis in biblical studies that...

The Slaves of the Churches: A History by Mary E. Sommar

Reviewed by: The Slaves of the Churches: A History by Mary E. Sommar Michael Flexsenhar III Mary E. Sommar The Slaves of the Churches: A History New York: Oxford University Press, 2020 Pp. 280. $34.95. The opportunity to read about Christians in the Roman Empire and Christians in the early Middle Ages, both in a single volume, is rare and welcome. The enduring human practice of slavery has unfortunately made that reading possible. Mary E. Sommar's sweeping book, The Slaves of the Churches, brings together an abundance of texts from the first to the fourteenth century and beyond in order to trace "the church's own norms concerning ecclesiastical unfree dependents and the evolution of these norms over time, with attention to how they were affected by the social, economic, political, and legal developments of the larger society" (2–3). The book analyzes mainly "canonical texts," that is, "all of the canons of the 'ecumenical' councils" as well as the "synodal material" up to the ninth century and the "normative canonical material from the twelfth-and thirteenth-century 'classical' period of canon law" (7). Included is also a "random sample" of letters, charters, sermons, and royal proclamations from the "various societies" (7). That massive collection of writings related to slavery in Christianity is the book's primary strength. The approach is Catholic church history—perfectly understandable for a medievalist whose "scholarly home turf" is western canon law (1)—but it is difficult to find any canon law before the ecumenical councils, if not later. As a result, an approach focused on "[t]he early Christian church" (27) before any institution existed to enforce a nominal "orthodoxy," is thorny, and anachronistic, when applied to the New Testament (Chapter Two) or even the patristic writings (Chapter Three). Scholars of the New Testament and early Christianity may find this early portion of the book wanting. It succeeds in compiling and discussing a wealth of passages dealing with slavery, but sacrifices depth for breadth. In a book that queries church leaders and authorities about their "ecclesiastical servile dependents," [End Page 302] it is also curious that Katherine Shaner's Enslaved Leadership in Early Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2018) is referred to only once and in brisk passing as "an intriguing perspective on the ideas about slavery found in 1 Timothy" (35n92). Philologists and lexicographers might be disappointed as well that throughout the book, the Greek word for "slave" is displayed with an umlaut (δοϋλος) rather than with a circumflex. Slavery in the imperial church (Chapter Four) relates the key issue of the church's inalienable property (res ecclesiae) and the regulations over how to properly manage it, including the servi ecclesiarum. The outcome: "there was almost no way to escape ecclesiastical servitude" (103). Within these pages, the discussion of freeing slaves by means of a church ceremony (manumissio in ecclesia) was particularly intriguing, although the book does not describe how exactly the ceremony unfolded or the impact that ritualizing manumission had in the long run (77–83). Sommar discusses Augustine's views of slavery (85–89), but Gregory of Nyssa receives a more robust analysis than any other figure in the chapter, since Gregory "has often been hailed as the only one of the early church teachers to speak out against slavery" (99; also 65, 103–4). Sommar concludes, however, that Gregory clearly saw slave ownership as normal, even for those who embraced the ascetic life (102). While the chapter challenges the idea that Gregory opposed slavery, it does not actually spar with any scholars who hold that idea. Sommar only twice cites Chris De Wet's recent books on slavery in early Christian thought (30n68 and 65n4), but does not integrate De Wet's analyses, whether on Nyssa or on John Chrysostom (64–65), either of which would go a long way towards explaining the formation of the "norms" that Sommar seeks to trace out. Equally perplexing, Ilaria Ramelli's Social Justice and the Legitimacy of Slavery (Oxford University Press, 2017) is entirely absent from this book, even though Ramelli's work dissects texts from ancient Judaism to late antiquity—including several of Gregory's—and investigates specifically early Christian authors' own...

The Role of the Roman Aristocrats in the Diplomatic Communication of Byzantium and Persia in the Middle of the 6th Century

The author examines the features of diplomatic relations between the Persian state and the Roman empires in the middle of the 6th century. The author concludes that the Roman aristocrats who arrived in Constantinople in 546 and participated in the V Ecumenical Council were involved in the settlement of relations between the old opponents. The sources are the works of Procopius of Caesarea and the Acts of the Church Council of 553. The author defines a list of diplomats engaged in negotiations with the Persians in 551—552, and also demonstrates that Byzantine military leaders and politicians turned to the Romans for consultations, since the previous truces concluded with by the Persians, were short-lived. This tactic has brought results. With the participation of experienced Roman senators in the negotiations, the empire retained Lazica, took control of the port of Fasias, and secured its eastern borders.

Crisp on Conciliar Authority

In Analyzing Doctrine: Toward a Systematic eology, Oliver Crisp infers from a general principle concerning God’s providential care for the church that it is implausible that God would allow substantial error on the central theological promulgations of an ecumenical council. is conclusion is then used specifically against contemporary neo-monothelites, who consciously contravene the dyothelite teachings of the third Council of Constantinople. In this paper, I raise several doubts about the inference utilized by Crisp against these neo-monothelites, and I seek to point to a more promising manner of upholding the deliverances of the ecumenical councils.

Ad utriusque imperii unitatem? Anastasius Bibliothecarius as a Broker between Two Cultures and Three Courts in the Ninth Century

In 870, Anastasius, former (and later once again) librarian of the papal bibliotheca and chancellery, well-known erudite and former anti-pope, reached the pinnacle of his career as a diplomat. While exiled from Rome for a crime committed by his cousin, he was an important member of a mission sent to Constantinople by the Carolingian emperor and lord of Italy Louis II. He was sent there to negotiate a marriage alliance between Louis’s daughter and only surviving child Ermengard and a son of the upstart Byzantine emperor Basil I, which was ultimately to serve to bind the two empires together in the fight against the Saracens, southern Italy and Sicily. While there, Anastasius also joined the papal delegation at the Eighth Ecumenical Council, which was there in the pope’s stead to formally depose Patriarch Photius and negotiate the case of Bulgaria. We thus see Anastasius as a diplomat and cultural broker between Latin and Greek ecclesiastic and lay culture and between three courts. He composed a letter about his dealings in the East for Pope Hadrian II in 870, and thus we have an invaluable first-hand eyewitness account. While most negotiations started in 869 and 870 between the East and the West ultimately failed or were rendered pointless by political change, Anastasius shows us that 870 was a great chance for all sides. And while most parties involved lost something by the failure of the exchanges, Anastasius himself regained and kept a powerful position in the papal administration once again.

Koncyliarystyczne źródła nowożytnych pojęć prawnych na podstawie myśli Mateusza z Krakowa

The article aims to present the background of changes in the transition from medieval fief property to more individualized modern model. Conciliarism is considered to be an important factor supporting these changes. The conciliarist idea was presented on the basis of De squaloribus Curiae Romanae by Matthew from Cracow. Fiefdom ownership has been characterized as a legal construct where private legal rights are combined with the prerogatives of public authority. In turn, modern property resembles more structures known from Roman law, which are characterized by far-reaching sovereignty in disposing of property rights. In the course of the argument, it was shown that the issues determining the changes in the area of private law were the conciliarist ideas, such as the superiority of the Ecumenical council’s authority over the pope, the binding of public authority by law, and the separation of private law from the prerogatives of public authority.

Ius principale e canones: un incrocio funzionale tra fonti del diritto tardoantico

The law of the Catholic Church, the ius canonicum, after the consolidation of the apostolic tradition and the emergence of the monarchical episcopate, has been formally structured mostly thanks to the decisions of the ecumenical councils. Despite the authority of the Roman law, in the 5th century C.E. and in particular on the basis of the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon (a. 451), a strong interaction between canones and leges was established: such reciprocal exchanges were balanced by an absolute autonomy in the respective spheres of competence of ius canonicum and ius saeculare.

Cities, Saints, and Communities in Early Medieval Europe: Essays in Honour of Alan Thacker ed. by Scott DeGregorio and Paul Kershaw

Reviewed by: Cities, Saints, and Communities in Early Medieval Europe: Essays in Honour of Alan Thacker ed. by Scott DeGregorio and Paul Kershaw Stephen J. Joyce DeGregorio, Scott, and Paul Kershaw, eds, Cities, Saints, and Communities in Early Medieval Europe: Essays in Honour of Alan Thacker ( Studies in the Early Middle Ages, 46), Turnhout, Brepols, 2020; hardback; pp. 408; 8 b/w illustrations, 9 b/w tables; R.R.P. €100.00; ISBN 9782503565040. Celebrating some four decades of the significant contribution of Alan Thacker to early medieval studies, editors Scott DeGregorio and Paul Kershaw have collated eighteen articles themed primarily around Thacker's most prominent interest, the English scholar Bede (c. 673–735). The articles, from a range of notable contributors, investigate questions of saintly cults, heresy, episcopal relations, biblical exegesis, and reception. [End Page 205] Kershaw's overview of Thacker's career and contributions, including a useful bibliography of his work, is followed by Mark Handley's exploration of the surviving epitaph of the Merovingian king, Childebert (d. c. 558) and its connection to the cult of the Spanish martyr, Vincent of Saragossa (d. c. 304). Tom Brown subsequently examines the cults of early medieval Ravenna, pointing to the surprisingly strong local identity projected by an 'international' city. Subsequently, Catherine Cubitt analyses the impact of the controversial Lateran Council of 649 and the martyrdom of Pope Martin (d. c. 655) on the construction of the Frankish Life of Bishop Eligius (d. c. 660). She argues for strong links between Rome and Francia and Anglo-Saxon actors associated with the revised mission to Canterbury in the 660s in a broader contest between Rome and Constantinople over Monotheletism. Moving to Bede, the late Jennifer O'Reilly investigates Bede's relationship with Monotheletism, noting the paucity of his direct criticisms of the heresy. Focusing on his Commentary on Mark, she argues that Bede's exegesis reveals awareness of the rulings of both the Lateran Council of 649 and the Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople of 680–81 and their rejection of Monothelitism. Faith Wallis follows on with the theme of heresy in her examination of Bede's Commentary on Proverbs. She notes his move away from the term perfidia ('treachery') as a defining characteristic of heresy, to that of a lack of eruditi and a failure in teaching. Peter Darby turns to Bede's defence against the charge of heresy in his Letter to Plegwine (c. 708). In examining Bede's use of Augustine of Hippo in the rhetorical structuring of his letter, he makes a strong case that, even in his early years, Bede presented himself as a commanding authority. Following on, Clare Stancliffe explores Bede's relationship with his diocesan bishop, Acca. Nuancing a revisionist trend that has reoriented Bede's close relationship with Acca, she argues that Bede's relationship with his diocesan bishop was one of both personal encouragement and personal challenges. Moving to a wider context, the late Richard Sharpe examines a brief episode in the Life of Bishop Wilfrid concerning his short sojourn at the court of the king of Wessex, Caedwalla (d. c. 689), constructing a timeline for the chaotic 680s, where Wilfrid's shadowy role in Caedwalla's ruthless rise to power is given more context. Bede's complex relationship with the Irish is then explored by Barbara Yorke. In examining his approach to reporting miracles as they relate to saintly bishops in his Ecclesiastical History, she posits that Bede preferred the standards promoted by the Irish bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne (d. c. 651). Scott DeGregorio then returns to Bede's midlife crisis in the year 716, as framed by the departure and death of his beloved abbot, Ceolfrith. He links Bede's Commentary on i Samuel to a shift in thinking that was to dominate his later works, that of the damaging influence of the rectores inertes. Picking up on the theme of the importance of the perfecti as it relates to reform, Arthur Holder examines Bede's approach to 'divine vision'. While Bede emphasized the rarity of those who could see God in this world, the longing for a foretaste of heaven shaped his pastoral strategies for reforming the Church. Moving...

ПЕРСПЕКТИВИ КОНСТИТУЦІЮВАННЯ УКРАЇНСЬКОЇ ПОМІСНОЇ ЦЕРКВИ

The article analyzes the process of formation of the newly created Local Ukrainian Church at the present stage. Ukrainian church life is a dynamic process. The church is constantly moving forward and must respond to societal requests and problems. It is determined that the institutional design of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine takes place in a multi-religious environment. Therefore, the article predicts that today in Ukraine, there is no reason to talk about the United Church in the future. It has been established that the proclamation of the independence of the Ukrainian Church took place as a significant event of the last decade on a church-wide scale. Today, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine is on the path of universal recognition. The study found that over the past century, two diametrical concepts of understanding the structure of Ecumenical Orthodoxy have been formed. In particular, Fanar insisted and continues to insist on his own primacy and special status in the world church, and the reason for this is the canons of the Ecumenical Councils and the age-long tradition of Christianity of the Eastern rite. Instead, the Russian Orthodox Church declares the existence of Local Churches in the general system of Orthodoxy as a certain confederation of independent and fully autonomous entities. It has been proved that the future recognition of the newly formed Ukrainian Church by other Local Churches depends on the acceptance of the position of a certain party. It is determined within this study that the Ukrainian church issue is a kind of watershed in terms of the main controversial issues that have troubled the Ecumenical Church in recent centuries. Therefore, it has been proved that the settlement of the Ukrainian question is of great importance not only for the Orthodox believers of Ukraine, but also for the whole Orthodoxy. This sets a precedent for the currently unrecognized churches of Macedonia and Montenegro. The article claims that none of the Local Churches emerged in an independent status completely painlessly. Most countries that have received autocephaly in our time have been waiting for decades for world recognition of their own church. Therefore, the recognition of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine by only a part of the Local Churches is a natural process. It is established that autocephaly in modern conditions of society development and hybrid war is a vital condition for the country's survival. It has been studied that in modern conditions the Kyiv Church has received a great credit of trust in the eyes of the Ecumenical Patriarch. Today it is necessary to unite for the future recognition of the Ukrainian status by other Local Churches. The consolidated Kyiv metropolitanate may become the largest national Orthodox church in the world, which will significantly change the balance in the structure of the Universal Orthodoxy.

Editorial: Conciliar Trinitarianism

Much recent work in analytic theology concerned with Trinitarian doctrine has been limited both by: (1) a narrow focus on the apparent inconsistency of the doctrine and (2) little regard for the historical context in which the doctrine developed. This special issue represents an effort to overcome these limitations in two ways. First, following Timothy Pawl’s definition of “Conciliar Christology,” we define “Conciliar Trinitarianism” as the conjunction of claims about the Trinity in the first seven Ecumenical Councils. Rather than speculative attempts at reconciling, say, sentences taken from the Athanasian Creed, or the common parlance of contemporary, Western Christians, the papers in this issue all address specifically Conciliar Trinitarianism. Second, the special issue brings together both analytic philosophers and patristics scholars in a format in which, in several cases, a scholar from one field responds to a scholar from another. We hope that this will help to jump-start some further conversations between scholars in analytic philosophy and in patristics, as we believe both fields can benefit from a deeper mutual engagement in the study of Conciliar Trinitarianism.