Sunday, August 30, 2009
Palamas' Homilies: Back in Print Soon
After dwelling in "St. Tikhon's Limbo" for years, Christopher Veniamin's Mount Thabor Publishing will be reprinting the entire Homilies of St. Gregory Palamas in one massive 800-page edition. Amazon has the release date set for November. There is a pre-order discount of 26%. Normally I wouldn't advocate purchasing through a "middleman," but the Mt. Thabor website currently has nothing up about it.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
History and Orthodox Life
An excellent online essay has been produced: “American Orthodox Historiography: The Methodological Problem.” I suspect it is the first and only of its kind. It’s a surprising piece in some respects. Maybe its most surprising feature is its length. For a “range” of history so relatively small, there is quite a bit of space given to outlining how daunting the task is. That is, a considerable selection of “data” (though, to be clear, none of these things were likely produced to be “data” for a historiographer) is suggested as useful. It goes far beyond what one might traditionally have thought to be “primary sources,” e.g., “charters, wills, mortgage agreements, or some other kind of legal instrument intended to either document a contemporary legal reality or to generate a new one” or “the products of record-keeping by bureaucracies such as state ministries, charitable organizations, foundations, churches, and schools.” These pools of “data” could have some limited use for all sorts of studies. For example, an article-length discussion of the placement of, say, Eastern European Slavic Orthodox immigrants’ illegitimate children in state care or the bequeathing trends of moderately successful sub-middle class industrial workers to their local religious institutions between the years 1880-1900. All of these ideas and more could probably be worked into papers and, for better or worse, published in some journal. People have received tenure for lesser things which expand our understanding of certain trends and phenomena. I think the author of this essay is trying to do more.
In the introductory pages to his outstanding study of terrorism, Blood & Rage, Michael Burleigh writes that his “book focuses on [the] life histories and actions [of terrorists] rather than the theories which validate them, roughly in accord with St. Matthew’s precept ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’” It’s a very “unscientific” approach from the standpoint of modern historiography, not the least because Burleigh is willing to engage in what social scientists call “value judgments.” This is more than just the fact that Burleigh morally condemns the subjects of his study and their actions. It’s that he has selected certain ones on the basis of a prudent evaluation of their lives and actions without recourse to “method.” He has not confined his analysis to “methodologically appropriate” evidence or even selection criteria. The reader, of course, is free to disregard his efforts wholesale. I imagine some already have. Reading it attentively, however, will likely leave most thinking Burleigh has not only done his job as a historian well, but has done it with such care and penetration that they are better off in their understanding of human beings generally and modernity specifically than they were before. It’s not that they know the particularities of this-or-that terrorist in excruciating detail; it’s that they now know something about terrorism. Making evaluative judgments about what comes in, what goes on, and what the actual intent of a given work being produced is should be paramount. Is it? Recall Leo Strauss’s assault in Natural Right and History on the “value free” social science of Max Weber and his admonition that regardless of what one is studying, a scientist must distinguish between “genuine” and “mere” manifestations. As Strauss says, “Would one not laugh out of court a man who claimed to have written a sociology of art but who had actually written a sociology of trash?”
It seems, then, as a first matter that whoever wants to study the history of Orthodoxy in America and, from there, compose some analysis of some, if not all, of it, the “genuine” and the “mere” or the “spurious” must be made. Equally important, some evaluation will have to be made concerning what is valuable to such a study. And then, and only then, will further thought have to be given to “the point.” For what purpose is this being produced? What will we know from reading it? Minute details excruciatingly drawn out which have little-to-no bearing on any relevant trends or phenomena today or something integral about Orthodoxy and, indeed, the Church herself? Knowing something about the latter is not, it seems, unimportant to many people today. At the same time, one might wonder whether or not the Church, in her fullness and life at any time or in any place, can really be captured through a recitation of “facts”—facts drawn out of “data” which, as noted, were never intended to be such. But maybe these are “meta” issues which don’t need to be taken into consideration at the moment. Admittedly, they fall outside of what modern historiography wants to accomplish; a history of Orthodoxy that is actually a history of some ethnic grouping would not be laughed out of court so quickly in an environment which largely fails to distinguish between the two anyway.
There is something missing from the history of Orthodoxy in America and, indeed, much history about the Orthodox Church in general: analysis of the experiences as containing in the writings and “symbols” (architecture, iconography, hymnography, non-ecclesial artifacts, etc.) which are still extant. It seems that one might learn a great deal of the experience of Orthodoxy in America by reading and interpreting the writings of (St.) Sebastian Dabovich. It seems that one might learn something about the experiences of congregants of Orthodox immigrants by studying the layout of their earliest churches, in particular the recourse of some communities to organs, pews, and architectural choices reflecting the dominant Protestant paradigms in the communities they chose to join. And what of the hagiographic tradition of Orthodoxy in America? It’s not “history” in the scientific sense, but it is a portrait of Saintliness which, arguably, is much more important to the direction and development of at least some, if not many, communities of Orthodox as they attempted to live out their faith in an environment where they were and, indeed, still are an undeniable minority.
There’s something else as well. What is, in the end, the “value” of a history of Orthodoxy in America? Or, to put it another way, what is the “value” of a scientific history of Orthodoxy in America? What will it tell us? Heaven forbid it should make us into what Nietzsche called “historical men” in The Use and Abuse of History for Life: “Looking into the past urges them toward the future, incites them to take courage and continue to engage in life, and kindles the hope that things will yet turn out well and that happiness is to be found behind the mountain toward which they are striding.”
In the introductory pages to his outstanding study of terrorism, Blood & Rage, Michael Burleigh writes that his “book focuses on [the] life histories and actions [of terrorists] rather than the theories which validate them, roughly in accord with St. Matthew’s precept ‘By their fruits ye shall know them.’” It’s a very “unscientific” approach from the standpoint of modern historiography, not the least because Burleigh is willing to engage in what social scientists call “value judgments.” This is more than just the fact that Burleigh morally condemns the subjects of his study and their actions. It’s that he has selected certain ones on the basis of a prudent evaluation of their lives and actions without recourse to “method.” He has not confined his analysis to “methodologically appropriate” evidence or even selection criteria. The reader, of course, is free to disregard his efforts wholesale. I imagine some already have. Reading it attentively, however, will likely leave most thinking Burleigh has not only done his job as a historian well, but has done it with such care and penetration that they are better off in their understanding of human beings generally and modernity specifically than they were before. It’s not that they know the particularities of this-or-that terrorist in excruciating detail; it’s that they now know something about terrorism. Making evaluative judgments about what comes in, what goes on, and what the actual intent of a given work being produced is should be paramount. Is it? Recall Leo Strauss’s assault in Natural Right and History on the “value free” social science of Max Weber and his admonition that regardless of what one is studying, a scientist must distinguish between “genuine” and “mere” manifestations. As Strauss says, “Would one not laugh out of court a man who claimed to have written a sociology of art but who had actually written a sociology of trash?”
It seems, then, as a first matter that whoever wants to study the history of Orthodoxy in America and, from there, compose some analysis of some, if not all, of it, the “genuine” and the “mere” or the “spurious” must be made. Equally important, some evaluation will have to be made concerning what is valuable to such a study. And then, and only then, will further thought have to be given to “the point.” For what purpose is this being produced? What will we know from reading it? Minute details excruciatingly drawn out which have little-to-no bearing on any relevant trends or phenomena today or something integral about Orthodoxy and, indeed, the Church herself? Knowing something about the latter is not, it seems, unimportant to many people today. At the same time, one might wonder whether or not the Church, in her fullness and life at any time or in any place, can really be captured through a recitation of “facts”—facts drawn out of “data” which, as noted, were never intended to be such. But maybe these are “meta” issues which don’t need to be taken into consideration at the moment. Admittedly, they fall outside of what modern historiography wants to accomplish; a history of Orthodoxy that is actually a history of some ethnic grouping would not be laughed out of court so quickly in an environment which largely fails to distinguish between the two anyway.
There is something missing from the history of Orthodoxy in America and, indeed, much history about the Orthodox Church in general: analysis of the experiences as containing in the writings and “symbols” (architecture, iconography, hymnography, non-ecclesial artifacts, etc.) which are still extant. It seems that one might learn a great deal of the experience of Orthodoxy in America by reading and interpreting the writings of (St.) Sebastian Dabovich. It seems that one might learn something about the experiences of congregants of Orthodox immigrants by studying the layout of their earliest churches, in particular the recourse of some communities to organs, pews, and architectural choices reflecting the dominant Protestant paradigms in the communities they chose to join. And what of the hagiographic tradition of Orthodoxy in America? It’s not “history” in the scientific sense, but it is a portrait of Saintliness which, arguably, is much more important to the direction and development of at least some, if not many, communities of Orthodox as they attempted to live out their faith in an environment where they were and, indeed, still are an undeniable minority.
There’s something else as well. What is, in the end, the “value” of a history of Orthodoxy in America? Or, to put it another way, what is the “value” of a scientific history of Orthodoxy in America? What will it tell us? Heaven forbid it should make us into what Nietzsche called “historical men” in The Use and Abuse of History for Life: “Looking into the past urges them toward the future, incites them to take courage and continue to engage in life, and kindles the hope that things will yet turn out well and that happiness is to be found behind the mountain toward which they are striding.”
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Psalter Update
I don't know if/when there will be an official website for it, but for those interested in ordering a comb-bound edition of the Russian Orthodox Psalter may do so by sending a check for $40 payable to Paradise Press, PO Box 530, Rye, NH 03870. The Psalter's compiler, David James, can be reached via e-mail at jamesdm4 at aol dot com. The Psalter is printed on heavy, durable paper in two colors with illustrations throughout. As mentioned, there is a wealth of additional material attached which typically accompanies Slavonic liturgical Psalters, e.g., all of the Kathisma prayers and hymns, various orders for reading the Psalter, excerpts from Patristic homilies, the Biblical Odes, and the select Psalm verses and Megalynaria for the major Feast Days and Commemorations. It is also worth mentioning that this is a very large volume and not something you can just haul around on trips easily. The comb binding does allow it to lay flat on a desk or stand for easy recitation, however.
Monday, August 24, 2009
Another Orthodox Psalter?
Even though I've been steadfast in the past that the Holy Transfiguration Monastery's Psalter According to the Seventy is the best available Orthodox Psalter in English, I may be dissuaded from that view by David James's The Russian Orthodox Psalter (Paradise Press, 2009). Using the Coverdale Psalter as its base text, The Russian Orthodox Psalter is the only Psalter in English which conforms to the standard liturgical (or "augmented") Psalter of the Russian Orthodox Church. All of the Kathisma Prayers, rites for chanting the Psalter throughout the liturgical year and for special ocassions, Biblical Odes, prayer rules, and instructional material which--if available in English at all--are spread out amongst many books (some very difficult to find) are now brought together.
David James was kind enough to furnish me with an advance bound copy of the work. I was delighted to see that it is nicely illustrated in comformity with the Slavonic liturgical Psalters and printed on thick paper in two colors. It's not possible for me to comment on the translation yet and, to be honest, it may take some time for me to get used to it after spending so many years with the HTM edition. It's important to note that the HTM edition is based on an LXX text printed in Russia which itself is primarily drawn from the Codex Alexandrinus whereas this Psalter confirms the Coverdale to the Church Slavonic text. The divergences are few, but not unimportant for those who swear fidelity to the Russian practice.
I have not heard word yet as to when the text will be available for public purchase. When I do, I will certainly post the information on this web-log. Rest assured this book has my wholehearted endorsement.
David James was kind enough to furnish me with an advance bound copy of the work. I was delighted to see that it is nicely illustrated in comformity with the Slavonic liturgical Psalters and printed on thick paper in two colors. It's not possible for me to comment on the translation yet and, to be honest, it may take some time for me to get used to it after spending so many years with the HTM edition. It's important to note that the HTM edition is based on an LXX text printed in Russia which itself is primarily drawn from the Codex Alexandrinus whereas this Psalter confirms the Coverdale to the Church Slavonic text. The divergences are few, but not unimportant for those who swear fidelity to the Russian practice.
I have not heard word yet as to when the text will be available for public purchase. When I do, I will certainly post the information on this web-log. Rest assured this book has my wholehearted endorsement.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Disjointed Post Before my Wife Returns
Nietzsche famously described the Übermensch as Caesar with the soul of Christ. Pity. After this weekend, I think that may be an apt description for my youngest son.
In just a couple of months my wife and I will have the experience of three children ages three and under before either of us hits 30. It’s a fact whose mention elicits such varied (and sometimes alarming) reactions from people that I too often succumb to the temptation to drop it…just to see. Similar scenarios have played out over the course of my relatively brief married life. When Laura and I were still in graduate school and expecting Jonah’s birth to come just shy of our first anniversary, we both had to put up with our share of subtle (and sometimes unsubtle) admonishment. This replaced the much less tolerable admonishments we had received from certain people prior to our marriage because we were suspected of being materialistic, child-hating, birth control loving pseudo-Orthodox due, in no small part, to my publicly stated views on the ends of Christian marriage. To be clear, neither “back then” (four or so years ago) nor “today” do I believe my views are all that controversial. At least, they’re not controversial if you accept, say, St. John Chrysostom’s views as being uncontroversial. What was controversial then and still is now seems to be my absolute revulsion at the righteous indignation which accompanies most (though not all) public discussions of “birth control,” “conception control,” “contraception,” etc. (call it what you will) and Orthodoxy. I have never understood why it became and remains a sort of “litmus test” for the “authenticity” of a particular marriage or the moral fiber of its members. There are certainly moral questions involved—very important, fundamental moral questions. But the public rhetoric, even when it’s not mean-spirited, so often comes across as an expression of sour grapes from individuals who apparently had to miss the boat of free and frequent trips to the mattress before jet setting to Europe to drink overpriced wine in the finest mid-range tourist hotels in London, Paris, and Madrid because their darn priest wouldn’t let them use rubbers.
I know there are well meaning individuals out there who have proffered very thoughtful discussions of the Orthodoxy/contraception “issue.” But for every analysis which contains both moral and intellectual rigor, there are two-dozen crackpot screeds animated by an inner “logic” of some phony baloney “naturalism” which should entail all of us making prostrations before the icon corner every time we try and subvert God’s will by alleviating our headaches with ibuprofen.
Really, though, I don’t want this post to open up the contraception question for debate. As I always tell people, “Go ask your priest” or, if they seem particularly distraught, “Let me tell you about how much I love my children…” What vexes me is that the current and future composition of my household is about the only thing which gets me a “pass” to even be mildly reproachful of those within the Church (and even some outside of it) who simply cannot get past contraception as the alleged “root of all evil.” It’s not at all dissimilar to the “free pass” I received during law school to criticize the Supreme Court’s affirmative action jurisprudence because I happen to have the “right” last name. I realize that there is a temptation to look down upon and/or criticize married Orthodox couples in one’s age bracket who are perfectly capable of procreating and yet “choose” not to. Children are wonderful, but man, they’re a lot of work. The next childless married Orthodox Christian I meet who tells me how “nutty” or “strange” it is that I have three children better hope my Guardian Angel is on duty; otherwise, they’re getting a punch to the sun. No trips to Madrid for my clan, not now or in the near future. But life goes on and besides, as I have discovered twice in the last tear, Huntington County, Pennsylvania is really pretty. We’re fine going there for vacation every so often.
I love my family. I really do. I love my two sons despite the fact they have tested their poor father’s weak heart time and again the past three days. To every fool who tells me they’re waiting for the “right time” to have children, I’m inclined to say that the “right time” was probably back when they were 22 and still had the hope of keeping pace with young boys who, even in their happy moments, are strangely akin to poo-flinging chimps. I feel almost out of date to be doing this stuff, but it’s still some of the best way imaginable to spend my time. I just hope that when one of them takes the desperate Major League ballclub which happens to draft them during the first round for a ride and inks a $15+ million contract, they remember that dear old dad is still paying off his student loans.
In just a couple of months my wife and I will have the experience of three children ages three and under before either of us hits 30. It’s a fact whose mention elicits such varied (and sometimes alarming) reactions from people that I too often succumb to the temptation to drop it…just to see. Similar scenarios have played out over the course of my relatively brief married life. When Laura and I were still in graduate school and expecting Jonah’s birth to come just shy of our first anniversary, we both had to put up with our share of subtle (and sometimes unsubtle) admonishment. This replaced the much less tolerable admonishments we had received from certain people prior to our marriage because we were suspected of being materialistic, child-hating, birth control loving pseudo-Orthodox due, in no small part, to my publicly stated views on the ends of Christian marriage. To be clear, neither “back then” (four or so years ago) nor “today” do I believe my views are all that controversial. At least, they’re not controversial if you accept, say, St. John Chrysostom’s views as being uncontroversial. What was controversial then and still is now seems to be my absolute revulsion at the righteous indignation which accompanies most (though not all) public discussions of “birth control,” “conception control,” “contraception,” etc. (call it what you will) and Orthodoxy. I have never understood why it became and remains a sort of “litmus test” for the “authenticity” of a particular marriage or the moral fiber of its members. There are certainly moral questions involved—very important, fundamental moral questions. But the public rhetoric, even when it’s not mean-spirited, so often comes across as an expression of sour grapes from individuals who apparently had to miss the boat of free and frequent trips to the mattress before jet setting to Europe to drink overpriced wine in the finest mid-range tourist hotels in London, Paris, and Madrid because their darn priest wouldn’t let them use rubbers.
I know there are well meaning individuals out there who have proffered very thoughtful discussions of the Orthodoxy/contraception “issue.” But for every analysis which contains both moral and intellectual rigor, there are two-dozen crackpot screeds animated by an inner “logic” of some phony baloney “naturalism” which should entail all of us making prostrations before the icon corner every time we try and subvert God’s will by alleviating our headaches with ibuprofen.
Really, though, I don’t want this post to open up the contraception question for debate. As I always tell people, “Go ask your priest” or, if they seem particularly distraught, “Let me tell you about how much I love my children…” What vexes me is that the current and future composition of my household is about the only thing which gets me a “pass” to even be mildly reproachful of those within the Church (and even some outside of it) who simply cannot get past contraception as the alleged “root of all evil.” It’s not at all dissimilar to the “free pass” I received during law school to criticize the Supreme Court’s affirmative action jurisprudence because I happen to have the “right” last name. I realize that there is a temptation to look down upon and/or criticize married Orthodox couples in one’s age bracket who are perfectly capable of procreating and yet “choose” not to. Children are wonderful, but man, they’re a lot of work. The next childless married Orthodox Christian I meet who tells me how “nutty” or “strange” it is that I have three children better hope my Guardian Angel is on duty; otherwise, they’re getting a punch to the sun. No trips to Madrid for my clan, not now or in the near future. But life goes on and besides, as I have discovered twice in the last tear, Huntington County, Pennsylvania is really pretty. We’re fine going there for vacation every so often.
I love my family. I really do. I love my two sons despite the fact they have tested their poor father’s weak heart time and again the past three days. To every fool who tells me they’re waiting for the “right time” to have children, I’m inclined to say that the “right time” was probably back when they were 22 and still had the hope of keeping pace with young boys who, even in their happy moments, are strangely akin to poo-flinging chimps. I feel almost out of date to be doing this stuff, but it’s still some of the best way imaginable to spend my time. I just hope that when one of them takes the desperate Major League ballclub which happens to draft them during the first round for a ride and inks a $15+ million contract, they remember that dear old dad is still paying off his student loans.
Sunday Thought
If it is true that since the Renaissance and the birth of modern science we are not simply accustomed, but indeed conditioned, to understand the world through secondary concepts, is it any wonder that we so seldom experience it as the creation of God? That is to say, we understand—or purport to understand—the mechanics of the natural world through the science whose basis is the abstracted mathematics handed on to us by Descartes et al., but in privileging, nay, deifying that understanding, we uncritically accept a divorce from creation itself while simultaneously divorcing it from the One who called it into being ex nihilo. To be clear, even if we could get behind the modern secondary concepts alone, we would not somehow “see God” or “understand God,” despite what the Romantics down the street might tell you. We would not necessarily be ignorant that there is a creator, but that minutia of theological knowledge should not be overplayed. It’s not a gateway to the Beatitudes.
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