Christmas and New Year Newsletter 2012/13
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Professor David Frost, Director of THE WAY PALAMAS HOUSE Professor David Frost, Principal but for the Orthodox Church in this country as Unless the Lord builds the house, their labour is a whole? And do we want a major educational but lost who build it: unit, under the bishops’ guidance, teaching in unless the Lord guards the city, the watchmen English, allied with an ancient British university watch in vain. (Psalm127:1) of international reputation, and serving all the Orthodox of this country, whatever their background? The way the purchase of our new building has been financed will crystallize the challenge. The faith of a single Orthodox believer, Helen Mary Dixon, who bequeathed us a substantial legacy in her will, made it possible for us to begin contemplating a purchase. She was joined by two supporters from our earliest days, who made unconditional loans, without interest, at some sacrifice to themselves. But the bulk of the purchase-price, exactly five- eighths, has come from two large loans, both interest-free, one from an Orthodox charity (but not in this country), the other from a British foundation that supports education and, particularly, The building on 25-27 Chesterton High Street, the future home of the Christian education. Both loans Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies have one condition: if they are not paid off within five years, our building must be sold and the The year 2012 has seen two major landmarks in proceeds directed to returning what is owed. So the history of IOCS and in the establishment of the the gauntlet is down: how much do the Orthodox Orthodox faith in Great Britain. First, in May of this in Great Britain and Ireland want the Institute to year the newly created Orthodox Episcopal Assembly survive? for Great Britain and Ireland recognized, approved and blessed the Institute for Orthodox Christian Our Lord Jesus Christ is good on practical advice. Studies, Cambridge as an educational centre for If you are thinking about making war, first sit all the Orthodox of these down and calculate if you can afford it (Luke islands, and appointed one 14:31-32). In our war against ignorance and of its Bishops, Metropolitan unbelief, we have sat down and calculated that Kallistos Ware, who has possession of a building is the best use of what been foremost in teaching funds we have, whereas to continue in rented the Orthodox faith in accommodation with present funding would English, to be our first mean that we had to close by mid-2014. But President. Second, at the there is also that other test proposed by Jesus turning of the year, IOCS, for assessing anything and anyone: ‘By their hitherto a guest in rented fruits shall you know them’ (Matthew 7:16). What accommodation, will are the fruits of the Institute? Do we deserve to have its own home and survive? headquarters established You will find in this Newsletter some of the on English soil. Metropolitan Kallistos, President of the Institute answers to that question. By our constitution Nevertheless, such advances we are required to propagate knowledge of present Orthodoxy in this country with its major Orthodoxy at all levels from pre-university, right challenge to date. Do we want a united episcopal through to doctoral studies. That work goes oversight, pastors who speak not for ethnic groups quietly on, year by year, and we see a regular 2 Christmas and New Year Newsletter 2012/2013 2014 we shall be able to offer a BA course in Christian Ministry, taught and examined where appropriate by our own Orthodox staff and validated by the University of Durham. Done in collaboration with other Christian colleges, it will be significantly cheaper than other university degrees and something no other Orthodox body in this country can offer. We hope it will be used by those preparing for the priesthood or for lay- service, as being the best theological training available. Father Aurel Radulet, the priest of the Romanian parish But you mustn’t think it is only the academic ‘high- in Cambridge and an alumnus of the Institute, and the flyers’ – those who come to us from Great Britain newly ordained deacon Dragos Herescu, a member of the and from overseas to do MAs and doctorates Institute’s staff, with Bishop Marc of the Romanian Church. -- who are our special care. Our course for those aged 18 to 80 at parish level, THE WAY, designed flow of our students into the ranks of the clergy and to introduce people to the basics of Orthodox layworkers, here and in the wider world. This year Christian faith, is now in use throughout the has seen our graduate, Dragos Herescu (now, with English-speaking world. It has been adopted in Razvan Porumb, one of our two Assistant Lecturers and also our Secretary) ordained Deacon to serve the Romanian Church in Cambridge, whilst his parish priest, Father Aurel, is also a former student. The much-valued Krastu Banev, who came to us from Bulgaria more than a decade ago, went through our system and on to a doctorate from Cambridge University, then returned to us as Acting Director of Studies, and is now established as a lecturer in Patriarch Daniel of Romania with the Principal of the Institute and with the participants of the Congress ‘Christ to the Children’ translation for adult catechesis in every part of Romania, and Patriarch Daniel has declared as his objective to have THE WAY in every one of his dioceses, which comprise 13,527 parishes. An early reviewer for Amazon claimed THE WAY was worth not five but ten stars, and judged it the best introduction to Christian faith he had seen from Patriarch John X of Antioch and All the East (then any Christian denomination. Metropolitan John of Western Europe) with staff and friends of the Institute Last year we branched out into Community Days for people interested in Orthodoxy but not theology in the University of Durham. And yesterday concerned for qualifications or wanting to take one of our Directors, Metropolitan John Yazigi – exams. Among the star-speakers, we brought though we can’t claim him as a student but more as Alexander Ogorodnikov, a Russian Orthodox a loved colleague and friend -- was elected as John X, believer who had been imprisoned for his faith Patriarch of Antioch and all the East! nine years in the gulag. Next year, in addition to our ever-popular Summer School (this time on If we are talking of educational opportunities, from The Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge 3 PALAMAS HOUSE (continued) ‘Angels Heavenly and Fallen’) we shall continue the it, is the ideal building both for our present needs same practice of bringing in the experts to explain and for our future hopes. An eighteenth century to us those things that are of central importance structure, well-maintained, it looks already like a to ordinary believers, in a sequence of Community mini-college, with a garden behind it overshadowed Days entitled ‘Meeting the Fathers’. by ancient trees and with ample space for parking. But how can we get to know the Fathers of the What is now the board-room of a publishing Church without personal guidance? It is typical of company, lined with books, will be home for our how we work that the organizer of the new series, library, which is now expanding to be one of the our Academic Director, Marcus Plested, who will most important collections of Orthodox material himself be talking on St Gregory Palamas, is a in the country. The library will also serve as a specialist in patristics (i.e. the study of the Fathers) gathering-place for talks and lectures and (for the with one book for Oxford University Press on The moment) for services. The immediately adjoining Macarian Legacy and a second out this year for rooms are sufficient to give all staff an office. What the same publisher, Orthodox Readings of Aquinas, remains is occupied by tenants, who in the short which is a ground-breaking study on the reception of term will provide some income but whose space is Thomas Aquinas by Orthodox Fathers and available for our expansion as funds come in. other writers of the Byzantine period and up to modern times. Our claim to teach is that all our staff are scholars and all have a concern to put across what they know. 2012 has been a bumper year for the Institute, with a second publication edited by two of our staff, Dr Constantinos Athanasopolous and Dr Christoph Schneider. Due out shortly, it is entitled The Presence of God in Eastern Orthodoxy: Divine Essence and Divine Energies. Again, it is an example of how we operate: it sprang out of a scholarly conference organized by the Institute in Cambridge, and from the ideas developed there. Our constitution requires us to mount conferences and colloquia, but we don’t just leave it at that: the maxi-conference we organized last spring in Thessaloniki in collaboration with the Ecclesiastical The board room of the new home of the Institute Academy was on their local Saint, Gregory Palamas, and explored many aspects of his thinking that The floor plans show current use and what we will later be made available in a publication. hope to make of the available space. We are happy to name any area with the name of your patron We are always looking for new ways to get out the saint or as a memorial to a loved one. We need, in message. Our most popular courses at present are order of priority, a chapel, then a studio for audio- those taught by distance learning and studied by visual productions, further space for books and students in every corner of the world.