Road to Emmaus Journal
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
A JOURNAL OF ORTHODOX FAITH AND CULTURE ROAD TO EMMAUS Help support Road to Emmaus Journal. The Road to Emmaus staff hopes that you find our journal inspiring and useful. While we offer our past articles on-line free of charge, we would warmly appreciate your help in covering the costs of producing this non-profit journal, so that we may continue to bring you quality articles on Orthodox Christianity, past and present, around the world. Thank you for your support. Please consider a donation to Road to Emmaus by visiting the Donate page on our website. WHERE THE CROSS DIVIDES THE ROAD: THOUGHTS ON ORTHODOXY AND ISLAM In Part II of a wide-ranging interview, Dr. George Bebawi speaks of his experience of Orthodoxy in England with Russian Orthodox émigrés, clergy, and theologians; his concern about the vul- nerability of Christian youth in the West; and his observations on Judaism and Islam in relation to Orthodoxy. Born in Egypt in 1938, Dr. George graduated from the Coptic Orthodox Theological College in Cairo after a rich spiritual youth spent in the company of contemporary 20th-century Coptic Egyptian desert fathers of Cairo and Scetis. (See Road to Emmaus, Summer, 2009, Issue 38). He went on to attend Cambridge University on scholarship, where he studied Theology, Patristics, and Biblical Criticism, receiving an M.Lit and Ph.D at Cambridge University in 1970. Dr. George taught Theology, Patristics, Church History, and Islamic studies at Orthodox, Catholic and Prot- estant seminaries in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States. His hopes for Christian unity also motivated him to serve on various committees of the World Council of Churches and in the Secretariat for Christian Unity at the Vatican. During this period he was also an advisor on Christian affairs for Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat before Sadat’s assassination in 1981, and in 1982 served as director of the Red Cross in Beirut during the First Lebanese-Israeli war. Dr. George returned to England in 1984 where he taught at St. John’s College, Nottingham Uni- versity, until 2000. From 2000-2002 he was the Director of Studies at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge, England, and lectured on Islam and Judaism for the Cambridge Federation of Theological Colleges. He also served on a project for the Centre for Advanced Reli- gious and Theological Studies, “The Jewish Roots of Christian Worship” at Cambridge University’s 37 Road to Emmaus Vol. X, No. 4 (#39) WHERE THE CROSS DIVIDES THE ROAD Faculty of Divinity. Recently retired from Cambridge, Road to Emmaus staff was privileged to spend nion tomorrow, you can.” So, I received Holy Communion, and a week later several warm and illuminating mornings speaking with Dr. George about his life and work. I went to see Archbishop Anthony. He gave me such a welcome! He gave me a Russian bear hug, and said to me, “You are an amazing man. What made A Guest of the Russian Orthodox Church you think that the Russian Church is Orthodox?” I said, “Because many of us who have begun to study Patristics feel that the writings of the Russian RTE: Dr. George, in our first interview you mentioned that you’ve been a theologians are in the tradition of the Fathers and the liturgy.” guest of the Moscow Patriarchate since your arrival in London over forty In England, Archbishop Anthony became my spiritual father. I confessed years ago. How did that come about? to him for twenty-five years. I had thought of going to the monastery, but finally decided to marry. Archbishop Anthony said, “The monasteries are full DR. GEORGE: When I came to England in 1965 to study in Cambridge, I of people. They are good people and we need their prayers, but we also need immediately went to the Russian Church in Oxford to meet the Orthodox people to stay in the world. You stay and witness to Christ.” This was not an theologian Nicholas Zernov. Dr. Zernov introduced me to Archbishop [later order, but the outcome of a series of long talks, usually several hours a week. Metropolitan] Anthony Bloom1, and that was an incident that has to be re- At the end of my confessions, he would say, “George, you stay where you are. corded. I was very ill with the flu from landing in the cold of England after The world is flooded with darkness. We need people who have seen the light. the warm weather of Egypt, and as I was staying at the Orthodox St. Gregory If they do not have the light in themselves, at least they have seen it and can and St. Macrina House in Oxford, I went to Vespers on Saturday evening point to it.” I also remember him saying, “Where did Adam fall? In paradise! in the house chapel. I asked the priest, an English convert to Orthodoxy, to So the environment does not bring holiness to anyone. The environment is anoint me, and he replied, “Are you Orthodox?” I said, “Yes,” because I re- a protection, but it doesn’t bring holiness. Holiness comes directly from God garded myself as Orthodox. to the human soul.” So,” he said, “stay at Cambridge.” So when he anointed me, he did it in the Byzantine way with a brush and I remember a story he told me about some British and American pilgrims I said, “Oh, that’s different from our way.” He said, “Yours? What is your who visited Russia and drove for six hours to a monastery. They arrived after way?” “Coptic,” I said, and he exclaimed, “Oh, you’re a Copt, I can’t even fin- midnight and were very tired. A monk came out to greet them and they said, ish the anointing, and he began wiping the oil off. Dr. Zernov was standing “Father, give us a word.” He said, “Weep for your sins, the world is evil, and there with me. I was shocked. I said, “But Father, you aren’t wiping the oil here are some chocolates for you to eat.” Archbishop Anthony said that to off, you are rubbing it in and anointing me even more.” He replied, “I can’t come out at midnight and say something that is both deeply truthful and as even finish the prayers.” A short Russian conversation followed between him equally kind to people who have been driving for six hours is very important. and Dr. Zernov, who was standing with me, and finally the priest said, “You How else can you touch a soul? You become more convinced of this with have to speak to Archbishop Anthony.” So, Zernov called the archbishop, time and inner work. who asked me, “Do you believe in the incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ?” I said, “Yes.” “Do you believe in the two natures of Christ?” “Yes.” “Do you Archbishop Anthony Bloom on Lay Spirituality believe that the Council of Chalcedon in 451 is a legitimate council of the Church?” I said, “Yes.” Archbishop Anthony often discouraged people from reading The Philoka- After speaking to the archbishop, the priest came and finished the anoint- lia apart from Volume I, the writings on the prayer of the heart. He would ing and said, “Archbishop Anthony said that if you want to receive Commu- say, “We need someone to take the Philokalia and dilute it to make it drink- 1 Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh (1914 - 2003): Founder of the Diocese of Sourozh, the Russian able. This is the great challenge for Orthodoxy today: spirituality for the la- Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate’s diocese for Great Britain and Ireland. Of Russian descent, His Eminence was born in Switzerland and educated as a medical doctor in Paris. Later he became a hieromonk, was conse- ity.... When you look at the books that have been published since the revival crated as Bishop in 1957 and Archbishop in 1962, in charge of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain and Ireland. In 1963 he was appointed Exarch of the Moscow Patriarchate in Western Europe, and in 1966 of Patristic and liturgical studies, most of our French and English transla- was raised to the rank of Metropolitan. 38 39 Road to Emmaus Vol. X, No. 4 (#39) WHERE THE CROSS DIVIDES THE ROAD tions are the works of ascetics. They are great teachings, but they talk about technical way to our own people, to drive them out of the Church? We need to a spiritual life that belongs to those who have the time for solitude.” He al- work out a simple presentation, in simple English to our own believers, or we ways encouraged the laity to say the Jesus Prayer. “Try to break away from will lose them. If we don’t lose them, we will certainly lose their children.” whatever you are doing for a minute or two. If you succeed in that, come and Another time, a professor of liturgical studies came to one of these semi- see me, and I will tell you something more.” I look back and say now, “How nars. He could tell you off the top of his head how the liturgy was celebrated right!” Spirituality for the laity is what we absolutely need. in tenth-century Constantinople, and exactly what happened when the em- Once, at a diocesan conference, a monk came to give us a talk on the Prayer peror entered Hagia Sophia. He had produced a perfect overhead projector of the Heart. Sitting opposite Archbishop Anthony, I could feel from the show, and when he finished, Archbishop Anthony said, “This is one of the movement of his feet under the table that he was irritated.