The Joy of Meeting the Saints of the West

THE LIVING TRADITION The Joy of Meeting the Saints of the West

Sergei Chapnin Translated by Inga Leonova

Olga Shalamova, In December 2017, the icon exhibition Blessed Augustine. Saints of the Undivided Church opened at the National Art Museum of Belarus in Minsk. It presented icons of the ancient saints of the West up to the Great Schism of 1054.

The exhibition was conceived in early 2016. Paradoxical as it may sound, presenting icons of ancient Western saints is a new and even modern project. The primary mission of Saints of the Undivided Church is to educate and to restore an image of the Church that carefully preserves the memory of East-West unity during the first mil- lennium. The other part of its mission, and a particularly challenging one, is to present iconography as an organic aspect of modern art. The exhibition suggests that the work of an iconographer need not consist solely of copying ancient examples. An in- tensive search for new imagery is tak- ing place, in which various traditions, approaches, and styles not only are preserved, but also collide—at times a new page in the dialogue of Eastern quite dramatically. and Western churches, and gave the project an unexpected but very im- Given the project’s theological, histor- portant impetus. The organizers were ical, iconographic, and political com- greeted not only with understanding plexities, the organizers did not expect but also with explicit support from at first that it could be rapidly realized. the clergy and the episcopate, as well But the situation changed drastically as from the iconographers and artists. on February 12, 2016, with the historic The project became a direct continua- © 2018 The Wheel. May be distributed for meeting in Havana of Pope Francis of tion of the meeting in Havana, its pro- noncommercial use. Rome and Patriarch Kirill of Moscow jection into the world of contemporary www.wheeljournal.com and All Russia. This meeting opened Christian art.

6 Dialogue between East and West had never ceased, but at times, including recently, it had experienced setbacks. In the past few decades, however, hopes for improving relations have strengthened not only in the West but in the East as well. According to the joint declaration of Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill: “We share the same spiritual Tradition of the first millen- nium of Christianity. The witnesses of this Tradition are the Most Holy Moth- Program for the er of God, the Virgin Mary, and the exhibition Saints saints we venerate. Among them are of the Undivided innumerable martyrs who have given Church, National Art witness to their faithfulness to Christ Museum of Belarus, and have become the ‘seed of Chris- Minsk. tians.’”1 This is very important testi- mony. It is difficult to imagine further development of relations between the Eastern and Western churches without reference to the tradition of the undivided Church, to what unites us in the history of the Christian world. An important part of this tradition consists of images of saints who have shone forth in different countries and are venerated in both West and East, both in the Catholic Church and in the local Orthodox churches.

In welcoming Saints of the Undivided Church, Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture for more than thirty years, noted the project’s mission “to draw attention to the diversity of the charisms of holiness by which the light of the Gospel message shone in the first millenni- um, and to the rich joint heritage that 1 Joint Declaration of exists in the Christian communities of Pope Francis and Pa- the East and the West.” triarch Kirill of Mos- cow and All Russia, The veneration of saints extends February 12, 2016, http://w2.vatican.va/ deep into the history of the Church, content/francesco/ but many ancient icons of Western en/speeches/2016/ saints are lost, and even the tradition february/documents/ of Western iconography is practical- papa-frances- ly forgotten. Yet interest in the saints co_20160212_di- chiarazione-co- of the undivided Church is growing. mune-kirill.html.

The Wheel 15 | Fall 2018 7 © 2018 The Wheel. The names of local saints have been For centuries, a special place in this May be distributed for carefully collected in the rubrics of dialogue was occupied by art: church noncommercial use. www.wheeljournal.com the Western dioceses of the Russian architecture, sculpture, applied art, Orthodox Church and of other local and of course iconography. The twen- churches. There are churches dedi- tieth century “rediscovered” the East- cated to them. Services to the ancient ern icon, and the wider problem of the Western saints are composed in West- theology of the image, for both Ortho- ern languages, and some troparia, dox and Catholic Churches. stichera, canons, and akathists exist in Church Slavonic. Orthodox pilgrim- After decades of scant movement, age routes through Western Europe new iconography is slowly develop- include churches and monasteries ing. Saints of the Undivided Church is with the relics of ancient saints. The the largest exhibition of modern icons Catholic Church openly promotes the to date, featuring more than a hun- development of the Orthodox wor- dred icons of almost 150 first-millen- ship of ancient saints, and provides nium Western saints. Iconographic access to holy relics. Where possible, precedents had already been created in Catholic churches and on Catholic for some of them by iconographers Todor Mitrovic, altars, the Orthodox celebrate litur- Saint Brendan the gies. The examples are numerous. Navigator. Sometimes the expression “undivided Church” raises doubts or misun- derstanding. Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, the great preacher of the twentieth century, offers a key to understanding it:

In a strict sense, even the Church of the apostles and martyrs went through crises. They were resolved, but there was no shortage of ten- sion and division; yet the Church remained united, and God tri- umphed. When we talk about the undivided Church, we mean this era, we dream about it—about the time when problems and uncer- tainties about how to formulate the truth so as to withstand intellectual challenge were resolved collective- ly, without violent clashes; when there was a great and meek pasto- ral humility that was able to take as 2 Metropolitan much time as necessary, that was Anthony of Sourozh, careful not to stifle living shoots, Беседы о вере и церкви, (Moscow: and whose concern was the salva- Омофор, 2017), tion of the sinner, the return of the 363–64. prodigal.2

8 from France, Britain, Italy, and else- where, but there remained many saints whose images had not yet re- ceived iconographic embodiment. Participants in Saints of the Undivided Church addressed the important tasks of understanding and symbolically interpreting these images in the picto- rial tradition of the Orthodox Church.

Not surprisingly, the project attract- ed not only approval and support but also sharply critical reviews. It turned into a kind of a litmus test for funda- mentalist sentiments within the Or- thodox Church, not only in marginal- ized Orthodox groups but also within the church bureaucracy and the episcopate. Among Russian Orthodox Church fundamentalists, fear of the West is so strong that it is not limit- ed to things of the present—which, in their opinion, constitute a direct threat to Orthodox identity—but extends also to the past. They refuse to recog- Russian Orthodox Veneration of nize that there can be saints from the Ancient Western Saints West who are venerated equally by Catholics and Orthodox, maintaining Close examination of church history Aurel Marinutsa/ that all saints of the West are neces- suggests that following the baptism of Pallada Workshop, sarily Catholic and that any icon of a Rus’, the veneration of Western saints Saint Winibald. Western saint—even a pre-schismat- by Orthodox Christians in the Slavic ic saint—is pro-Catholic propagan- lands was an important part of church da. Metropolitan Paul of Minsk and life. Eleventh- and early twelfth-cen- Zaslavsk called the exhibition a “Unia tury Russian menaia, or books of dai- in colors.” Maria Netsvetaeva, a re- ly liturgical texts, contain thirty-eight ligious arts expert in the Belarusian so-called “Latin” commemorations, as Exarchate and an employee of the Be- well as others that can conceivably be larusian Ministry of Culture, said that attributed as Latin. These commemo- portraying a saint in a Western miter rations referred to feasts of the West- should be strictly forbidden, because ern church that were not celebrated in after seeing such an icon, “Orthodox Byzantium.3 Their presence bespeaks people will not go to an Orthodox, a noticeable Western influence on the but to a Catholic church.” The list of Russian literary tradition of the elev- bizarre accusations goes on. enth century as well as a significant openness of the Russian church to The criticism of the project raises the Western sources. In the twelfth, thir- 3 O. V. Loseva, questions: Is new iconography of teenth, and fourteenth centuries, these “Периодизация древнерусских Western saints needed in the Ortho- features were preserved in the South месяцесловов XI– dox Church? Is this interest in West- Russian, Novgorod-Pskov, and Gali- XIV вв.,”Древняя ern holiness just a fad, something cian-Volhynian manuscripts. Русь 4 (2001): 31. transitory and momentary? The Wheel 15 | Fall 2018 9 The outstanding hagiographer Saint Dimitry, Metropolitan of Rostov, added new Latin saints to the menaion. At the end of the seventeenth century, he printed his Chetii-Minei (Menaion Reader), which contains thirty-one ad- ditional Latin commemorations. Saint Dimitry relied in his work not only on Slavic and Greek manuscripts, but also on the Acta Sanctorum (volumes from January to May), then published by the Bollandists.

The reappearance—or more precisely the rediscovery—of Western saint- hood in the Orthodox world began less than a hundred years ago, following the exodus of Russian refugees Above: Antonina to Western Europe after the October Tokareva-Khrunova, Revolution of 1917. Those who had New Orthodox tradition formed in Saint Vitus. retained their faith but had lost con- the years between the First and the tact with the sacred places of Russia Second World Wars, primarily in Below: Sergei began to get acquainted with the lives “Russian Paris,” where many talent- Shikhachevsky, Theotokos with and places of veneration of the ancient ed, educated, and active members of Saints Erasmus and martyrs and saints of Western Europe, the Church gathered. In 1927, instruc- Nicholas. and to turn to them in their prayers. tors at Saint Sergius Theological Insti-

10 tute in Paris initiated the creation of a fellowship that eventually united Or- thodox, Anglicans, and Lutherans. As its heavenly patrons, the fellowship chose Saint Alban, the first martyr of Britain, and Saint Sergius of Radonezh.

The same year, historian and publicist Georgy Fedotov published an article in the magazine Put’ (The Path) that went into detail about Saint Genevieve of Paris, and drew an unexpected historical parallel with Saint Simeon the Stylite:

Rereading the life of Saint Gene- vieve, I came across the following passage: “A certain man in the East who despised the world, Simeon, stood for almost forty years on a pillar in Syria-Cilicia, far from An- tioch. They say that he often questioned the merchants traveling back and forth about Genevieve, sent her greetings full of respect, and asked her to remember him in her world, whose heart beat in the East.4 prayers.” Olga Spiridonova, We cannot verify the veracity of Fedotov’s article was one of the first Saint Cadocus. this information. One of the critics to investigate the life of Saint Gen- (Krusch) considered it improbable, evieve, but it was by no means an based on a misconception about the exception. On the contrary, it was a isolation of the Eastern and Western testament to the beginning of a spe- Churches. (Krusch’s other argument cial veneration of her among the 4 G. Fedotov, “Св. was Simeon’s fear of a woman!). On Russian Orthodox Parisians. In 1936, Геневефа и Симеон the contrary, we are ready to assert Parisian priest Michael Belsky, in the Столпник,” Путь that there is nothing improbable in jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarch- 8 (August 1927): this evidence. Saint Genevieve (cir- ate, dedicated his new parish to the 58–72.. ca 420–500) and Saint Simeon (circa icon of Joy of All Who Sorrow and to 5 Il’ya Semenen- 390–459) were contemporaries. The Saint Genevieve. His parish included ko-Basin, “Древние Christian East and West in the fifth prominent figures of the Russian ex- западные святые century, as well as several centuries patriate community, such as Evgraf в русском later, lived in the closest unity. We православном Kovalevsky, Vladimir Lossky, An- месяцеслове,” know of Eastern ascetics who ended drew Bloom (later Metropolitan An- Страницы: their days in Gallic sketes, we hear thony of Sourozh), and Leonid Us- Богословие. of the multitude of pilgrims from pensky.5 In the early 1940s, according Культура. the West striving to reach the holy to Elena Maydanovich, Russian fami- Образование 6.4 (2011): 585–90. East: Egypt, Syria, Palestine. In the lies in Paris were baptizing their chil- fifth and sixth centuries, Western dren with the names of ancient West- 6 Letters in the churches felt themselves to be on ern saints, especially author’s personal the outskirts of the great Christian Genevieve.6 archive. The Wheel 15 | Fall 2018 11 George Kordis, Saint John Cassian.

Left: Denis Ivan- nikov, Saint Colo- man.

Right: Viktor Dovnar, Saint Mau- rice.

The first known tonsure amongst the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russian post-Revolution Diaspora Russia (ROCOR), from 1951 to 1962. A with the name of a Western saint was meeting of bishops in Geneva in 1952 performed in 1937, when Metropoli- chaired by Saint John approved the tan Evlogiy (Georgievsky) tonsured veneration of Saint Ansgarius, bishop Princess Alexandra Vladimirovna of Hamburg, and nineteen other West- Obolenskaya a nun with the name of ern saints from the second through the Blandina, in honor of martyr Blandi- seventh centuries. Among them were na of Lyon. On June 16, 1936, Metro- the Martyrs of Lyon along with Hila- politan Sergius (Stragorodsky) issued ry of Poitiers, Patrick of Ireland, Abbot Decree 1249, establishing Orthodox Columba, Genevieve of Paris, Queen communities of the Latin rite in the Clotilde, Germain and Claude of Paris, jurisdiction of the Western European and Vincent of Lérins. Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate. The decree specified that Western Rite The same year, Archbishop John parishes entering the jurisdiction of presented the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church would the ROCOR with the report “On 7 be said to follow “Western Ortho- Honoring the Saints Who Shone in Andrei Kostryu- kov, “О некоторых doxy” and could continue to venerate the West,” which mentioned more причинах неудачи Western saints canonized before 1054.7 than thirty saints of France, Britain, Православия Germany, Italy, Ireland, and Swit- западного The next important stage in the ca- zerland. Writing about Saint Ans- обряда,” Вестник nonical establishment of the venera- garius, Archbishop of Hamburg and ПСТГУ: История. История Русской tion of ancient Western saints was the Bremen, he made a statement that is Православной activity of Saint John (Maximovich) in important for the veneration of all Церкви 2.69 (2016): the Western European Diocese of the Western saints: 85.

The Wheel 15 | Fall 2018 13 their memory is venerated locally, and services are performed. Saint Ansgarius did not serve the political authorities but Christ, and the seal of his apostleship is the countries that he brought to Christ. Their subsequent falling away does not detract from his ministry, no more than the centuries-long falling away of Moravia and Pannonia does from the ministry of Saint Methodius. In different parts of the universe, the righteous people of Christ have worked for the one God, have been led by the one Spirit, and are jointly glorified by him. A wave of -revo lutions and reformation destroyed their relics in the West, just as it reached our fatherland and blas- phemously touched the Russian relics. It tried to destroy their memory, just as Julian the Apostate burned the holy relics of the saints. But they rejoice in the church of heaven, and we must even more glorify their labors, glorifying God who works miracles through them.8

Alexander Kornouk- The holiness of Saint Ansgarius Saint John did not limit his efforts to hov, Saint Odilia. cannot be questioned just because the writing of this report. On April his name is not in the Greek mena- 23, 1953, he issued a decree, “On the ia and liturgical books; this absence Veneration of the Ancient Saints of the does not mean his sanctity should West,” calling on the priests of his di- be denied by the Eastern Church. ocese “to venerate in Litia and other In the Greek menaia and liturgical prayers the saints who are the patrons 8 John (Maximovich), books there is likewise no mention of the place or country where the ser- “О почитании святых, of the contemporaries of Saint Ans- vice is held, as well as those especially просиявших на garius, Saints Cyril and Methodius, revered, also on leavetaking.”9 In par- Западе,” (1952), http:// saints.artos.org/ru/article/ although they were well known in ticular, the decree named the patrons pochitanie-svyatyh-59 Constantinople. Yet the Catholic of Paris, Lyon, Marseilles, Toulouse, 037762a2a5517dd54085f3/. Church celebrates their memory and Tours. Archbishop John’s initia- more than that of Saint Ansgarius. tive was by no means supported by 9 Andrei Lednyov and Yevgeny Luk’yanov The Greek books also do not men- the entire congregation. Orthodox (ed.), Святитель tion the teacher of Bulgaria, Saint fundamentalists criticized it, claiming русскогозарубежья Boris-Michael, who was baptized that the ancient Western missionaries вселенский чудотворец by the Greeks, nor Saint Ludmila were “an instrument in the hands of Иоанн (Moscow: the Czech, baptized by Saint Metho- the Roman See for the establishment Паломник, 1998), 592–93. dius, nor Saint Vyacheslav. . . .There of its rule, and the conductors of the are also many Greek saints whose ideas that led to the separation of 10 Ibid., 513 names do not exist in menaia, yet Rome.”10 14 © 2018 The Wheel. An important step in honoring the May be distributed for saints of the undivided Church was noncommercial use. the creation of diocesan menaia with www.wheeljournal.com commemorations of local saints, including the establishment of common diocesan days of commemoration. In the United Kingdom, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh continued this tradition of venerating local saints. In 1978 he established the feast of All Saints of Britain and Ireland in his diocese. An icon was painted for the Sergei Nekrasov, Cathedral of the Dormition and All Saint Sixtus II. Saints in London depicting sixty-two British and Irish saints from the fifth through the eleventh centuries. A re- markable appeal was published in the London cathedral bulletin in 1987: “It is our duty to know and venerate the saints of the country in which we live!” In 2007, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church made the decision to add this celebration to the overall church menaion on the third Sunday of Pentecost. The decision on “the addition to the menaion of the names of the ancient saints of the undivided Church resplendent in the land of Britain and Ireland” was post- poned, however, until “the receipt of complete hagiographic and historical Peter Cantacuzene, later Archbishop 11 Register of the materials relating to their Christian Ambrose of Geneva and Western Eu- meeting of the feats, time, and circumstances of glo- rope, wrote an Orthodox service for Holy Synod of the 11 12 Russian Orthodox rification and veneration.” this commemoration in French. In Church, August 21, 2006, a celebration of the Synaxis of 2007, http://www. In 1982, four years after Metropolitan German Saints was established on the patriarchia.ru/db/ Anthony (Bloom) instituted his dioc- same day as in the United Kingdom, text/283491.html. esan celebration, the feast of the Sy- on the second Sunday after Pentecost, 12 “Office à tous les naxis of All Helvetian (Swiss) Saints and its troparion and kontakion were Saints qui ont fleuri was established as a local celebration approved in Church Slavonic. The as- en terre d’Helvétie,” of the Geneva and Western Europe- sembly of the Berlin diocese approved http://orthodoxen- an Diocese of the ROCOR, with the a list of German saints, including gland.org.uk/ser- blessing of Archbishop Antony (Bar- 143 ancient saints of the undivided vassw.htm. 13 toshevich). It was a moveable feast, to Church. 13 List of saints ven- be celebrated the week of September 2 erated in Germany, (Old Calendar) or near this date, as it Finally, in September 2014, a Com- Parish of Saint Mi- was coordinated with the Jeûne fédéral mission for the Preparation of the chael the Archangel civil holiday (Switzerland’s Federal Menaion of the Russian Orthodox in Göttingen, http:// www.orthodoxia.de/ Day of Thanksgiving, Repentance, Church was created. It compiled a German_Saints.htm. and Prayer). In the same year, priest list of ancient saints who labored in The Wheel 15 | Fall 2018 15 the West based on their veneration in Every Christian throughout his or the Western dioceses of the Russian her life is looking for an answer to a Orthodox Church as well as in the difficult question: what does it mean other local Orthodox churches. The for me to be a Christian in today’s commission was guided by several world—how can I, in the circum- criteria: impeccable confession of the stances of my life, follow Christ? The Orthodox faith, the circumstances un- search for an answer is not dependent der which glorification took place, ab- on confession or jurisdiction. In their sence of the mention of a saint’s name search, many generations of Chris- in polemical works against the Eastern tians—and our time is not an excep- Church and the Eastern Rite, and con- tion—have turned and continue to temporary veneration in the dioceses turn to the rich and diverse experience of the Russian Orthodox Church and of the saints of different countries and of the local Orthodox churches. Based eras. The project Saints of the Undivid- 14 Register of the on the work of the commission, the ed Church project is an invitation to a meeting of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox new conversation about holiness and Holy Synod of the Church added to the overall church theosis. Iconographers’ reflections on Russian Orthodox menaion fifteen names of saints from Church, May 14, the images of the ancient saints are ad- 2018, http://www. the second through the ninth centu- dressed to a broad audience, and offer patriarchia.ru/db/ ries on March 9, 2017, and three more viewers not just a theoretical conver- text/5195102.html. names on May 14, 2018.14 sation or a sermon, but a direct testi- mony of holiness.

Sergei Chapnin is Managing Editor of Journal of the Moscow Patriarch- ate. From 2010–2014 he served as a secretary for the Inter-Conciliar Board of the Moscow Patriarchate on Church, State, and Society. He © 2018 The Wheel. is one of the founders of the Church Builders Guild and leads several May be distributed for projects on ecclesial arts as a board member, publisher, and editor. noncommercial use. www.wheeljournal.com