It's not at all a bad piece of work; and considering how often traditionally Orthodox nations get invaded, it's also a needed one. Nonetheless, anyone who could chant "Rite Chanted in Time of Attack by Aliens" without giggling about Space Invaders....is, well, a hell of a lot holier than moi.
Friday, September 03, 2004
Friday, May 21, 2004
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Two Derived from New York
I've never lived in New York, but I do have decent memories of the last time I was there (when I was 10). I wouldn't mind being there now, at least for a few hours, to go see the Met's Byzantium: Faith and Power 1261-1557 expo. I rather negatively reviewed the New York Times ' take on it a while back, but the photos I've seen are nothing less than spectacular.
To make up some for knocking the Times, I should mention that they're one of the best folks on the Africa beat. Not so much in their analyses, perhaps, but in the obscurity of the issues they dig up. Nicholas Kristof is one of the best for finding random weirdness in the remotest parts of the Earth.
I mention this now because they just ran an article on US military training in Africa:
The United States is working with the countries of the so-called Sahel, the impoverished southern fringe of the Sahara, to shore up border controls and deny sanctuary to suspected terrorists. The program, called the Pan-Sahel Initiative, was begun with $7 million and focused on Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad. It is being expanded to include Senegal and possibly other countries.
When I lived in Kenya, we often interacted with the US forces in the middle of the Sahel. Most African armies could use more training, but then the training likely went both ways: After the 1998 embassy bombings it was widely believed that the Kenyan police did most of the "interrogation." Anyway, the picture here is of the man thought to be the al Qaeda agent behind most of Kenyan terrorism, Fazul Abdullah Muhammad. A year before this article ran, I was unwittingly in his hometown, Siyu. It sports a really cool 19th century Zanzibarian fortress, a single Landrover, and a Koranic school. If you ever are out the Kenyan coast way, I highly recommend taking a sail out to Paté Island for a visit. There's all sorts of interesting history (Portuguese, Arab, Omani, Indian, Somali, even Chinese).
Milk
In the life of Moses, in Hebrew folklore, there is a remarkable passage. Moses finds a shepherd in the desert. He spends the day with the shepherd and helps him milk his ewes, and at the end of the day he sees that the shepherd puts the best milk he has in a wooden bowl, which he places on a flat stone some distance away. So Moses asks him what it is for, and the shepherd replies, “This is God’s milk.” Moses is puzzled and asks him what he means. The shepherd says, “I always take the best milk I possess, and I bring it as an offering to God.” Moses, who is far more sophisticated than the shepherd with his naïve faith, asks, “And does God drink it?” “Yes,” replies the shepherd, “He does.” Then Moses feel compelled to enlighten the poor shepherd and he explains that God, being pure spirit, does not drink milk. Yet the shepherd is sure that He does, and so they have a short argument, which ends with Moses telling the shepherd to hide behind the bushes to find out whether in fact God does come to drink the milk. Moses then goes out to pray in the desert. The shepherd hides, the night comes, and in the moonlight the shepherd sees a little fox that comes trotting from the desert, looks right, looks left, and heads straight towards the milk, which he laps up, and he disappears into the desert again. The next morning Moses finds the shepherd quite depressed and downcast. “What’s the matter?” he asks. The shepherd says, “You were right, God is pure spirit and doesn’t want my milk.” Moses is surprised. He says, “You should be happy. You know more about God than you did before.” “Yes, I do,” says the shepherd, “but the only thing I could do to express my love for Him has been taken away from me.” Moses sees the point. He retires into the desert and prays. In the night in a vision, God speaks to him and says, “Moses, you were wrong. It is true that I am pure spirit. Nevertheless I always accepted with gratitude the milk which the shepherd offered me, as the expression of his love, but since, being pure spirit, I do not need the milk, I shared it with this little fox, who is very fond of milk.”
- Begining to Pray, Met. Anthony Bloom of Sourozh (of Blessed Memory)
Saturday, May 01, 2004
If You'll Permit Me a Really Outlandish Connexion...
I know almost nothing about Cyprus. What with the recent referendum and today's EU celebrations, the island-nation's been in the news quite a bit. Here's the only really remote tie I have to Cyprus. I used to live in Kenya, East Africa; the first president of Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta was a friend of the president of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios. As an eventual result of this friendship, the Orthodox Patriarchal Seminary/Makarios Theological School was established near Nairobi. All this makes for an interesting study in Orthodoxy, nationalism, and geopolitics - a study upon which I'm not qualified to pontificate. Just recently, though, I scored some Orthodox hymnography in Swahili from that very seminary. I'm all for standardized liturgical practice, but it was nonetheless refreshing to hear the African voice breaking through the traditional tones.
Friday, April 30, 2004
That's Metropolitan Soterios to you, mister
Metropolitanate of Korea
According the the decision of the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on 20th April, 2004 the Orthodox Church in Korea being under the auspices of the Metropolitan Dionysios/Joseph of New Zealand as Exarch of Korea for 33 years from the year of 1970 has been elevated to the Metopolitnate of Korea. His Eminence Sotirios of Korea has been in Korea from 1975 as missionary priest and assistant Bishop to His Eminence Dionysios of New Zealand. There are 6 Orthodox Communities and 1 monastic community with 7 local clergymen, 1 Greek missionary priest, 1 nun, 1 volunteer from Greece and 1 novice, along with 2,500 local faithful.
That's the official press release. I've edited it some because Metropolitan Dionysios retired and has been replaced by Metropolitan Joseph, who is/was the Exarch of Korea. What does all this mean? Well, from a letter sent to the English speaking community:
His Grace's elevation means that the Orthodox Church in Korea will take a greater step toward independence. Rather than answering to the Archbishop in New Zealand, His Eminence Soterios will answer directly to the Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople. The Orthodox Church in Korea will not become autocephalous, but it will take an equal membership with all the other elements of Orthodoxy that make up the realm of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as an equal metropolitanate. His Eminence's enthronement ceremony is scheduled for June 20 at our cathedral in Seoul.
In other words, the Korea church only has to send one report a year to the Patriarch, and the rest of the time it pretty much does as it wants. It can't concecrate or supply its own bishops, but as a Metropolitan See it has a right to a bishop - as an Exarchate it was merely blessed with one. This establishes the Orthodox hierarchy in Korea pretty much until there's no one here to lord over. (And maybe even after that - some day there might be a titular bishop of Korea well after Korea's done and gone.)
The date given for the enthronenment might be wrong; Fr. Daniel also told me June 27th. Nonetheless, the event should draw a lot of local bigwigs - Metropolitan Nikitas of Hong Kong, Metropolitan Joseph, a bishop or two from Russia, and maybe even Metropolitan Daniel of Japan. There'll be reps from a bunch of churches, too.
Right now His Eminence is off in Greece and Istanbul chillin' with Bart and collecting loot. He won't be back for a month or more.
What's most interesting about all this, though, is that Soterios has been made Metropolitan of Korea - not South Korea, not titular bishop of Zelon, but Korea. Now it wouldn't really matter if North Korea were included, since Christian presence there in general is minimal. But while the Dear Leader was trekking across Russia a few years back he happened to visit an Orthodox church somewhere out in the boonies. He decided it was cute and wanted one to decorate his capital; so now one is being built in Pyongyang and some boys were sent to Russia to get themselves ordained. For those of you who don't know, there's more than a wee bit of bad juristictional blood between Lexie and Bart. So the MP could see this as a power grab.
Regardless, relations on the ground between North and South are remarkably good. I can't say much for obvious reasons, but here's a (slightly censored) communiqué:
Encounter with the Orthodox Representatives from North KoreaHis Eminence Sotirios and Protopresbyter Daniel Na met Chairman Yuri and Vice-Chairman Petros of the Orthodox Organization in Pyung-Yang, North Korea at Mt. Kum-Kang in North Korea from 20th April through 22nd April 2004 in order to discuss mutual cooperation for the construction work of the Holy Trinity Orthodox Church Building at Dong-Baik Dong, Pyung-Yang City, North Korea which will be completed in April of 2005. The Chairman and Vice-Chairman were baptized in Moscow when they visited there in January 2004. They are the first Orthodox Christians in North Korea along with four other students who are studying in Moscow to be Orthodox priests in 2005.
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Friday, April 23, 2004
"...someone of foreign speech among men of other tongues."
Whence comes the name of this blog? It's common, even expected, for a blog to have strange "catchy" name. The reasons for this one's name are manifold. Bascially I like the word:
η ξενιτεια (xs’en-i-te-i-ah) a wondering abroad. From the deponent verb ξενιτευω, to live abroad (Liddell & Scott Greek-English Lexicon).
In modern Greek, as I understand it, there is a connotation of nostalgia and is the term for “diaspora.” Patristically speaking, it is a monkish word, applied a class of monastics who wander instead of being fixed to a particular hermitage or monastery. Often it is used to mean “pilgrimage”, though sometimes of an open-ended sort. But the strongest and most well known use is best translated “renunciation” or “exile”, usually self-imposed and frequently psychological rather than simply physical. Far and away the most famous text is this:
There is such a thing as exile, and irrevocable renunciation of everthing in one’s familiar surroundings that hinders one from attaining the ideal of holiness. Exile is a disciplined heart, unheraled wisdom, an unpublicized understainding, a hidden life, masked ideals. It is unseen meditation, the striving to be humble, a wish for poverty, the longing for what is divine. It is an outpouring of love, a denial of vainglory, a depth of silence.
...I mean separation from their relations for the sake of hardship and simplicity which drives on the lovers of this good. Yet for all that it is praiseworthy, it requires discretion, since not every kind of exile is good if taken to extremes.
....Exile is a separation from everything, in order that one may hold on totally to God. It is a chosen route of great grief. An exile is a fugitive, running from all relationships with his own relatives and with strangers.
....A true exile, despite his possession of knowledge, sits like someone of foreign speech among men of other tongues.
From "On Exile", The Ladder of Divine Ascent, by Saint Monk John of the Ladder (Lestvichnik/Klimatikos/Climacus), also called Scholasticus and the Sinaita.
As far as I know, there is only one use of it in the LXX:
Instead whereof thou gavest them a burning pillar of fire, both to be a guide of the unknown journey, and an harmless sun to entertain them honourably. The Book of Wisdom 18:3.
So the literal sense is simply "wandering", extended metaphorically to be a "retreat from the world."
St. John goes on to cite the two most important instances of xeniteia:
There is no greater example of renunciation than that great man [Abraham] who heard the command, "Leave your country and your family and the house of your father" (Gen. 12:1). Obediently he went to a foreign country where the language was different.
...let us remind ourselves at once of Him Who came down from heaven for our benefit and exiled Himself to earth.
So that that should explain many of the interests apparent in this present blog. It should also throw light on the "On Exile: in land, spirit" part of the gloss. As for the "and imagination", I'll comment eventually on the spiritual side of what St. John has to say about that; what is generally meant, however, is my interest in literature and travel-writing. Again, there is the twofold nature of the word at work - on one hand I'm interested in literature that devotes itself to expatriatism and foreign-ness, but also those works that serve as a means of psychological and spiritual retreat.