Yaua, Our Father, Hallowed Be Thy Name! Glorify Thy Name!

1. Give a critical assessment of the book by Aziz Atiya, “History of Eastern Christianity”.

In giving a critical assessment of this book, I have chosen to base it on some questions I have raised. They will help me, I believe to see clearer what are the weaknesses and strengths of this book, and also to understand its purpose and content better.
1) What is A.S. Atiya’s motivation and purpose for writing this book? Is he biased?
2) What is his focus concerning theme? Does the title correspond to this?
3) How does he read history? How does he divide history?
4) How does he outline the chapters? Are the headings understandable and logical?
5) Is the book readable and interesting?
6) Does he fulfill his purpose with the book?

An attempt to answer:
Atiya tells of his purpose, motivation and agenda in the preface and the epilogue of his book. He starts to say that the book is a fulfillment of a lifelong vow. He criticizes other attempts of describing the history of the Eastern Churches for narrowness and lack of understanding. From the start he limited his thesis to the ancient non-Greek family of churches. He says he has tried to see and judge the ‘bare facts’ of the primitive Christianity of the East. He also views his task as a modest work of scholarship and as an act of faith, and says that his ambition has been to establish a base from which others can take over with some measure of confidence. His Hope is that “ the truth and wisdom of the great fathers of the faith are fully revealed to all congregations throughout the world.”[i] He states that he is a member of the Coptic Church by birth and upbringing, and that this may have given him a deeper feeling for the matter he is writing about. And it probably has, but it may also have made him a bit biased. He uses 132 out of 448 pages on the Copts in a history about Eastern Christianity and seem to justify it with: “The place of the Copts in the general history of Christianity has long been minimized…”[ii] Especially since they according to him had led the way for centuries. Though he has a great emphasis on the Coptic Church, he is not negative or particularly critical to the other churches, and he has an ecumenical attitude. The book is printed in 1968 and he praises the current ecumenical movement, the growth of sympathy and understanding of Eastern Christians. In that connection he calls the council of Chalcedon a ‘disaster’, in the sense that it gave the impulse of the deep split between the Catholic-Orthodox and the ancient Eastern churches.

The title of the book could maybe more suitably have been: “The Eastern Christianity in light of the Coptic Church”, since more than ¼ of the book is about the Coptic Church when he is also treating at least 7 other churches. He also seems to use the historic development of the Coptic Church as a model of understanding the development in the other churches.

Atiya is an historian and tries to separate legendary material from scientific material and he seems to have documentation on what he is claiming, even though he’s bibliography is not referring to what he has necessarily used as background for his studies, but are suggestions to the reader for further studies. The divisions he makes of history can generally be described as being in three parts:
1) Origins and development
a) legend, b) founder, c)growth
2) Trials
a) under Islam, b) under persecution (these sometimes coincide).
3) Modern times
a) rediscovery/coming of the missionaries, b) the evolving relationship with other churches and western influence (only treated in the part on the Coptic Church)
In his reading of history he is very positive towards Islam and seem to overlook the great strain of dhimmitude, a slow and subtle way of persecution and oppression. He claims that Christianity in the East was partly ensured by accepting its Islamic environment. This is not right in the case of the Maronite Church who was strengthened and got its very identity from its resistance. Atiya is also against proselytism in the folds of fellow Christians from the ancient Eastern Churches – instead – he argues – the missionaries should strengthen the already existing churches. Another thing is that he sees a strong, seemingly positive link and continuity between the old Pharaonic Egyptian religion and Coptic Christianity.[iii] This might stem from a Coptic pride, in wishing to separate themselves from the Arab Muslims. He does not treat the earlier religions in Iraq, Syria, and the other countries where Christianity took over. Also his claim that monasticism is a purely Egyptian creation[iv] is questionable. Surely there were monastic attempts in other religions, and impulses in other parts of Christianity.

I already mentioned the great emphasis on the Coptic Church in the outlining. Another thing is the lack of emphasis on the Ethiopian Church. In the outlining he has placed it in the part of the Coptic Church, which I’m sure the Etiopians themselves would question. I am not even sure they would agree about how he depicts the Ethiopian Church as a part of the Coptic missionary enterprise. He is also not consequent and systematic in his outlining of content. Sometimes he starts with ‘introduction’ and then goes on to ‘historical background’ or origins and development, and other times he starts directly with the latter. The maps also lacks information on the time they are depicting and who made them.

Atiya has as I mentioned a positive attitude to the Churches he treats, with a hope to restore them. This makes it at times pleasant and interesting to read, though I sometimes loose the big lines in his description of history, because of many details and facts. But if the purpose was to give a richer knowledge and deeper understanding of the Eastern Christianity, and a basis for further research, I believe he has succeeded.


2. “Describe the historic consciousness and the scientific history of a pre-Chalcedonian Church of your own choice.”

The Ethiopian Church

“Any history of the Abyssinian Church must take into account the background of the political history of Ethiopia”.[v] It is therefore important to have an overview of the political landmarks in the history of the nation of Ethiopia to understand the developments within the Church.

First we will deal with the Church’s historical consciousness, their legends and self-understanding in the light of these: secondly we will treat the scientific history of the Church, the history that can be affirmed through documents, archeology and other evidences, and which is firmly established by scholars. I will concentrate on the origins of Christianity in Ethiopia, because that is where most of the legendary material is from.

Time of legend: Little is known scientifically of this area from ancient times, except from some few details from the Egyptian Queen Hatsheput’s expedition in 1520 B.C. At that time it was called the ‘kingdom of Axum’. The legend tells us about a union between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba in the 10th century B.C. This gave rise to the succession to the throne of Ethiopia from Solomon, as the ‘Lion of Judah’, or the ‘king of kings’. The Arc of the Covenant was also supposedly brought from Jerusalem to Axum by king Menelik I, son of king Solomon and the Queen. On this background we can understand the Ethiopian claim of being monotheistic even before the entrance of Christianity.

The next legend is connected with the Acts[vi] account where the Apostle Philip meets the Ethiopian eunuch in the service of ‘Condace, Queen of the Ethiopians’, probably confused with the Queen of Nubia. However, historic evidence shows us that Ethiopia remained pagan until the 4th century A.D. The Ethiopians see themselves as directly linked with both Judaism and the first Christian apostles, while scholars claim another, later link, to Syria and Egypt.

The scientific history:
According to Rufinius[vii], a 4th century Byzantine theologian, Ethiopia’s conversion began with two Syrian boys, Frumentius and Aedisius. The king’s men picked them up from a shipwreck on the Red Sea Coast, and he took them in to his service: The king[viii] appointed Aedisius his cupbearer and Frumentius his secretary and tutor to the young crown prince, Aeizanas. Frumentius gave him a Christian education and the crown prince was later to convert to Christianity after becoming a king, and from then on Christianity was declared the official religion of the state. The two men were both released and Aedisius went back to Tyre, while Frumentius went to Alexandria to tell the news to Athanasius, the patriarch at that time, presumably between the years 341 and 346. He begged Athanasius to send a bishop to provide pastoral care for the growing numbers of Christians in and around Axum, the capital. Frumentius was chosen for the task and appointed by Athanasius himself who gave him the name Anba Salama, ‘the father of peace’. He studied 4 years in Egypt: liturgy, theology and the customs of the Alexandrine Church, before he went back to Ethiopia, with presbyters to help the evangelization and establishing of churches.

The kingdom of Aksum officially adopted Christianity in the 4th century. Aksum was the first civilization anywhere to use the cross of Christ on its coins (around 330 A.D.). Aezanas, the king, used the coins as propaganda to spread his religion by replacing the crescent symbols with the cross. . But it wasn't before the 12th century (and up until the 15th) that Christianity spread, along with the Christian state, to the highlands of central Ethiopia. A remarkable collection of rock-hewn churches dates from this era. They were associated with monks, who were considered on a level with saints and whose lives were often recorded in writing. These monuments and manuscripts are still very important today as the living memory of Ethiopia's Christians.

Aziz S. Atiya describes the winning of Ethiopia for the Gospel ‘a crowning of the labours of the Copts in Africa’. He has also chosen to put Ethiopia under the Coptic Church in the outlining. The Ethiopian Church however, calls itself the ‘Ethiopian Orthodox Tawahedo Church’ on one of their Internet pages.[ix] They tell us that they are often called Coptic from the fact that until the time of Haile Sellaissie in the early fifties, the head of the Church was selected in Alexandria, and it was always an Egyptian. It also says that because of its Orthodox attitude, Ethiopian Christianity never experienced full scale holy wars and coexisted with different rulers and regimes.

Prior to the coming of Islam, Ethiopia experience expansion beyond the Red Sea into Yemen. With Islam, however, the rest of the world knew about Ethiopia only through literary tales. The line of kingship from Solomon was lost, and wasn’t restored again before the end of the 13th century. The Church in Ethiopia was isolated for a very long time, but is now slowly coming out of its isolation, according to Atiya,[x] as it has finally enrolled in the universal family of the World Council of Churches.








3. “Discuss briefly the notions of “heresy” and “orthodoxy in the Early Church on the basis of the article by Rowan Williams, “Does it Make Sense to speak of Pre-Nicene Orthodoxy?””

The book Rowan William has placed his article in is called “The Making of Orthodoxy” a title which is “meant to avoid the bland assumption that what we know as orthodox Christianity simply evolves in an uninterrupted movement of inner logic”.[xi] In his preface he goes on to say that orthodoxy is constructed in the process of both theological and political conflict. All of the contributors of the book he has edited, agrees that ‘orthodoxy’ is a problematic concept.

Rowan William asks if it makes sense to speak of a pre-Nicene orthodoxy, and he answers the question through mainly two scholars, Walter Bauer and Henry Chadwick, with different perspective on the subject.

In the article the acknowledged scholar Walter Bauer talks about ‘orthodoxy’ in Christianity as a ‘late growth’[xii], even though there was early a solid majority opposed to Marcionism and other deviations of what was later to be called heresies. The united ‘orthodox’ body was according to him defined by Rome. In Henry Chadwick’s opinion it was Jerusalem that earlier worked towards a unified, if not uniform orthodoxy; and he also asserts a steady movement towards the dogmatic syntheses of the 4th and 5th century.

Bauer is over all hostile to the idea of doctrinal norms, even though he believes that there was something essential about the Christian faith that unified the believers. According to Schneemelcher’s interpretation of him, this ‘something’ is the relationship with the one Lord, Jesus Christ. The institution, doctrine and the cultus are not essentials, but products of a historical process. Bauer claims that because Paul is subtle and balanced in his writings, he gives many seeds of wildly divergent theologies. In Bauer’s view, Paul identifies orthodoxy by what it is not.

Williams says that Henry Chadwick sketched out how to discern and define the self-perception of the first Christian communities. He describes it as a tension between the two models of self-understanding: ‘the circle’ and the ‘ellipse’. The first one being the unified institution with a definable center providing a norm or touchstone for right belief; and the other being the network of communities linked by their common origins in Jerusalem and the events transacted there at the ‘navel of the earth’.[xiii]

Williams attempts to see whether Bauer’s explicit or Chadwick’s implicit scheme better fits the facts, or if new questions need to be asked. The question is if orthodoxy comes as a result of a steady, single and continuous movement, or if it is a result of an historical accident..

Schneemelcher emphasizes the difference between Bauer and Harnack. Harnack’s degeneration theory says that heresies are degenerations of an already existing orthodoxy. Bauer on the other hand sees heresy as a necessary precondition for orthodoxy. In some sense he sees both heresy and orthodoxy as ‘degenerations’, more radically than Harnack, from the essential faith.[xiv]

The anthropologist Jonathan Z. Smith denies all together such essentialism in understanding religion. Like most anthropologists Smith regard religion as structure and form, rather than content and meaning. He believes that religion is defined by different systems and that the context is the source of meaning. Religion is in his vocabulary ‘locative’, linked with a hierarchy that guards the ‘loci’ of holiness and determines access to them. It can also be founded in common experience, as it is clearly expressed in the Gnostic tradition, but for survival reasons the adherents of the faith will pursue the elements that have staying power, such as institutional, narrative and behavioral elements and norms. It is a crisis in this ‘locative’ religion that leads to a radical separation between social and religious meaning, expressed in a ‘utopian’ or ‘diasporic’ religious speech and practice.

Smith asserts that the unity of Christianity is defined negatively by its complex and ambivalent relationship to Judaism, and positively focused in the words, acts and fate of Jesus. Jesus becomes a forerunner of and martyr for a renewed Israel, and the image of the Jewish diaspora was deployed as a model for the self-understanding of Christian communities, constituted by a common baptism. [xv]

Williams writes that the canonical narrative tradition suggest a mode of preaching where the priority is less the communication of principles than the bringing of the hearer into ‘dramatic’ relation with the subject of the story. This demands a canonization of the story, so that the story will not loose its difference or distance, and thereby it’s converting power.[xvi]

I will end this discussion about the different positions on orthodoxy and heresy, with Williams’ assessment on Bauer and Chadwick. Williams agrees with Bauer that there is a problem in supposing that there have been a single, clearly identifiable ‘mainstream’ from the beginning of Christianity, even though some of the raw material for the ‘imperial’ orthodoxy is already there before 300 A.D. He also agrees with Chadwick that there are “features within the most basic activity of communicating about Jesus that make for the precarious evolution of a ‘normative’ Christianity”.[xvii]








4) “Characterize the autocephalous Churches which exist today.”

The autocephalous churches are one of the three categories comprised in the ‘Orthodox Church’[xviii]. The other two are 1) the autonomous churches, having internal autonomy but remaining dependent on an autocephalous church; and 2) the dependent churches.

‘Autocephalaus’ comes from Greek: ‘auto’ means self, and ‘cephalaus’ means ‘head’ or ‘headed’.[xix] It refers to these churches self-governing status, and it means in practical terms that they have the power to appoint their own patriarchs, catholicos, metropolitans and bishops, and the right to resolve their own internal problems. Still they are in communion with the other Orthodox Churches and with the Ecumenical Patriarch[xx] of Constantinople. They all accepted and have maintained the teachings of the Council of Chalcedon and the six other Ecumenical Councils[xxi], and they all hold on to the historic ecclesial and liturgical traditions of Byzantium. The Orthodox Church is thus a family of self-governing Churches. It is held together, not by a centralized organization or by a single prelate wielding absolute power over the whole body, but by the double bond of unity in the faith and communion in the sacraments. This system has been compared with heads gathering around a table, with the Ecumenical Patriarch at the head of the table, while the Catholic system is more like a hierarchical pyramid. This decentralized system is very flexible and adaptable. Local Churches can be created, suppressed and then restored again easily.

There are today 15 autocephalous churches, but the American one is still not recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Russian Orthodox Church has recognized it, but the Ecumenical Patriarchate insists that the Moscow Patriarchate has no right to grant autocephaly without its agreement. Some of these Churches existed entirely within the boundaries of the state, others within a political structure comprising different nationalities. Their rank was determined by a kind of hierarchy of honor, with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople on the top. The order of the ancient patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem was determined at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The Patriarchate of Moscow was established on fifth place in 1589. The heads of these Churches are called Patriarchs.
Here are the 15 autocephalous Churches in the order of historic importance:

1) Patriarchate of Constantinople, also called ‘the second Rome’. In 1454 the Turks invaded the city and made it part of the Ottoman Empire. From then on the city was called Istanbul. Exchange and escape of Christians from the 1st World War, resulted in a radical decrease of Christians in the city.
2) Patriarchate of Alexandria. In 451 the Coptic and the Orthodox Church split because of the Council of Chalcedon. The Greek Orthodox minority later changed the old Alexandrine liturgy with the Byzantine. The Ottomans took over in 1517 and they had to go into exile to Constantinople but in 1846 they could move back to Alexandria.
3) Patriarchate of Antioch. They experienced several divisions through Church councils, in 431 with the Nestorians and in 451 the Jacobites, among others. In 1085 the Turks conquered Antioch. Syriac liturgy was then replaced with Byzantine liturgy. In 1268 the Mamluks took over and the Patriarchate was transferred to Damascus where it has resided until today. Since 1898 the Patriarchate has been fully Arabic.
4) Patriarchate of Jerusalem. In 451 it was raised to an independent Patriarchate. From the 7th century Christians experienced great persecution, and for a time the Patriarch was exiled to Constantinople. They were never large in number, but occupied a special position in the Church as guardians of the Holy Places.
5) Patriarchate of Moscow. Also called the ‘third Rome”. When then the Byzantine power faded, the new Churches in the North increased in importance. When Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, Moscow took over as a protector of the Orthodox world. Under communism part of the Church went into exile: the “white Russian Church”, while the other part: the “Red Russian Church” supported the government.
The Church of Serbia; 7) Romania; 8) Bulgaria; 9) Georgia; 10) Cyprus; 11) Greece; 12) Poland; 13) Albania; 14) Czech Republic and Slovakia[xxii]; 15) America[xxiii].

New Catholic Encyclopedia adds the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church to the list.[xxiv] Among these Churches there is an enormous variation in size and age. Still, most of these Churches have in common that they have spent considerable time under non-Christian rule, as under Islam and Communism. They all had different strategies on how to deal with this suppression and survive with their faith intact. The Turkish occupation had for instance two opposite effects upon the intellectual life of the Church: on one hand an immense conservatism; on the other, a certain westernization.[xxv] Geographically the Orthodox world is now in Eastern Europe, in Russia and along the coasts of the Mediterranean. The primary cultural influence has been that of Greek, though also Syriac and Latin Fathers are placed in the tradition.

The Orthodox Church regard Catholicism and Protestantism as to sides of the same coin, since they so much have reacted to each other, and have been influenced more or less by the same historic events. The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Western Churches are these days being brought closer together, partly through Greeks and Slavs who are driven westward by economical reasons or because of persecution. They are bringing their Church with them and have established a network of dioceses, theological colleges and monasteries.

The claim of the Orthodox Church is that of universality. To themselves their Church is much more than a group of local bodies. They regard their Church as teaching and guarding the true faith and giving worship in the right way, as the Church of Christ on earth.[xxvi]



NOTES
[i] Aziz Atiya, A History of Eastern Christianity, Preface, p. xiv
[ii] Ibid., p. 13
[iii] See ibid., p. 52
[iv] See ibid., p. 58
[v] Ibid., p. 147
[vi] See Acts 8:26-40
[vii] Mentioned in A History of Eastern Christianity, Atiya, p. 152
[viii] Probably Ella Amida, according to Atiya, A History of Eastern Christianity, p. 51
[ix] See http://sellassie.ourfamily.com/culture/church.html
[x] See A History of Eastern Christianity, p. 166
[xi] Rowan Williams in the preface of The Making of Orthodoxy, p. viii
[xii] See R. Williams, The Making of Orthodoxy, p. 2
[xiii] See ibid., p. 1
[xiv] See ibid., p 4
[xv] See ibid., p 5-8
[xvi] See ibid., p. 15-16
[xvii] Ibid., p. 18
[xviii] Timothy Ware discussed other titles of the Church in his book The Orthodox Church, p.16
[xix] Blockwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, p. 924
[xx] The word ‘Ecumenical’ seems originally to have emerged as a title of honor. Became eventually a formal title, reflecting the status as bishop of the imperial capital, and the seniority among the eastern patriarchs. See Blockwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, p. 172
[xxi] Only seven councils have received the universal approval of the entire Orthodox and the Catholic Church. There are other local Church councils that also have received approval of all Orthodox Churches, but these are mostly of a moral or structural character.
[xxii] Was declared autocephalous by Moscow in 1951, but was not recognized by the Ecumenical Patriarchate before 1998.
[xxiii] Was declared autocephalous by Moscow in 1970, but is still not recognized by Constantinople as far as I know.
[xxiv] See New Catholic Encyclopedia, I got the other information about the different Churches from a lecture with Dr. Petra Heldt.
[xxv] See Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 100
[xxvi] See Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church, p. 16


Bibliography

The Making of Orthodoxy, ed. by Rowan Williams, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989

Atiya, A.S., A History of Eastern Christianity, Methuen & Co Ltd., London, 1968

Ware, Timothy, The Orthodox Church, Richard Clay & Company, Bungay Suffolk, 1963

Internet, http://sellassie.ourfamily.com/culture/church.html

The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity, Blackwell Publishers, 1999

The Bible