Byzantine

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Thinking about the complicated puzzle that is Orthodox Christianity these days

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Thinking about the complicated puzzle that is Orthodox Christianity these days

If you look up the word “Byzantine” in an online dictionary you will find two definitions — one quite literal and the second rather abstract.

The first definition isn’t all that hard to grasp: “relating to Byzantium (now Istanbul), the Byzantine Empire, or the Eastern Orthodox Church.”

The second definition is the one that best applies to this week’s “Crossroads” podcast and post, the one with this headline: “Eastern Orthodox converts, Russian spies, the FBI and the Bible Belt (#horrors).” Here’s that second meaning for Byzantine, as an adjective: “(of a system or situation) excessively complicated, and typically involving a great deal of administrative detail.”

That is certainly true and, to be blunt, there are journalists covering the painfully divided world of Eastern Orthodoxy — think Ukraine, of course — who should read that second definition several times and then meditate on it.

This is a classic case of journalists, as my journalism mentor used to say, needing to learn to “know what they don’t know.” There are subjects so complicated that, even if you think of yourself as an insider (I am a convert to Orthodox Christianity and have studied church history at the undergraduate and graduate levels), you need to approach them with great care.

This brings me to this weekend’s “think piece” from the must-bookmark website called Orthodox History: “How Did Orthodoxy Get Into This Mess?” It was written by the website’s editor, Matthew Namee, who a lawyer who serves as General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer for Orthodox Ministry Services. He is also a friend of mine and a colleague and in work linked to the Saint Constantine College in Houston.

What does “this mess” mean, in the headline? Basically, the “mess” is the early 21st century. To dig into this puzzle requires (#DUH) understanding the tragedies of the 20th century: This essay is very complex — “Byzantine,” even — but I will note a few (rather long) passages.


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Podcast: Painful fighting inside Ukrainian Orthodoxy? Schism began long before the war

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Podcast: Painful fighting inside Ukrainian Orthodoxy? Schism began long before the war

Nearly 15 years ago, I traveled to Kiev to speak during a forum with Ukrainian journalists, and a few activists, focusing on religion coverage in that already tense nation. I was there as a representative of the Oxford Centre for Religion & Public Life.

Obviously, this meant talking about the fractured state of Eastern Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine, with bitter tensions between the historic (in many ways ancient) Ukrainian Orthodox Church and new rival churches — including leaders who had previously been excommunicated from canonical Orthodoxy.

Again, let me stress that this was in 2009, during a time when the Ukrainian government was, basically, content to let global Orthodox leaders work this out — oh so slowly — as an Orthodox canon-law issue.

These conflicts were truly byzantine (small “b”) and Ukrainian journalists said it was obvious that most journalists from Europe and America knew next to nothing about the Orthodox splits and, frankly, didn’t care to learn the details.

The Holy Dormition-Kiev Caves Lavra? That’s just a historic site. End of story.

Things have changed, sort of, but for all the wrong reasons.

With Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, journalists now care about the state of Orthodoxy in this war. The question discussed during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast (click here to tune that in) is whether elite journalists have any interest in the centuries of facts behind the current Orthodox conflict. The church conflict is linked, of course, to the February 24, 2022, invasion — but also to earlier actions by leaders in the United States, the European Union, the current Ukrainian government and, last but not least, a strategic 2019 move by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul.

Note: All of these events took place before the Russian invasion. The Orthodox schism in Ukraine predates the war — by decades.

Where to begin? Let’s start with some of what I learned, and described, 15 years ago, in a column with this title: “Religion ghosts in Ukraine.”


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Big story? American (at this point) archbishop baptises famous gay couple's children in Greece

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Big story? American (at this point) archbishop baptises famous gay couple's children in Greece

I think that I will write this post before I start getting emails (one or two from inside the wider circle of current and former GetReligionistas) asking whether or not I will write this post.

But first, before I get to the journalism question for this post, allow me to pause and discuss the meaning of a key term — “Byzantine.” Here is the word in context: To understand the following news story, journalists will need to enter the Byzantine world of Eastern Orthodox polity in North America.

The word “Byzantine,” when used as an adjective, has two definitions. First there is this:

… relating to Byzantium (now Istanbul), the Byzantine Empire, or the Eastern Orthodox Church

Now, that meaning is — sort of — relevant in this case. But this second definition is the one that we need:

… (of a system or situation) excessively complicated, and typically involving a great deal of administrative detail.

When people ask questions about Eastern Orthodox “news,” I frequently have to remind them that Eastern Orthodoxy is not the Church of Rome. We do not have a pope, even if, from time to time, the ecumenical patriarch in Istanbul has tried to promote (with the help of many elite newsrooms) a papal vision of his “first among equals” role among Orthodox patriarchs, stressing “first” instead of “equals.” See: Ukraine.

With that in mind, let’s look at the GreekReporter.com story that ran with this headline: “First Greek Orthodox Baptism for Child of Gay Couple in Greece.” The question: Is this an important “news” story worthy of complex, balanced, accurate coverage in, let’s say, a mainstream publication such as The New York Times? Jumping ahead, my answer is “yes,” but with a heavy emphasis on “complex, balanced, accurate coverage.” Here is the whole story from Greece:

Evanggelos Bousis and Peter Dundas, both of Greek descent, became the first gay couple to hold a Greek Orthodox Baptism for their children in Greece. …

The couple’s children, Alexios and Eleni, were baptized by his Eminence Archbishop Elpidophoros of America at the Panagia Faneromeni Church in the southern Athenian suburb of Vouliagmeni.


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Clock keeps ticking: Will Turkey dare to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque -- again?

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Clock keeps ticking: Will Turkey dare to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque -- again?

Art historian Andrew Gould had studied many copies of the exquisite mosaic of Jesus found high in Istanbul's 6th Century Hagia Sophia cathedral.

But that didn't prepare the architect and sacred artist for what he felt when he stood under the icon, illumined by the soaring windows in the south gallery that overlooks the main floor, under the central dome that is 184 feet high and 102 feet in diameter.

The Deesis ("supplication") icon -- at least twice the size of life -- shows the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist with their heads bowed, framing an image of Christ Pantocrator ("enthroned"). The glass mosaic cubes were set at angles to create a shimmering effect across the gold background and the many-colored images, whether viewed in daylight or with lamps and candles.

Much of this icon was destroyed a century ago as workers probed to find priceless mosaics under layers of plaster and paint added through the centuries after 1453, when the Ottoman armies of Mehmed II conquered Constantinople.

Now, Turkish leaders want to convert Hagia Sophia -- a museum for decades -- back into a mosque.

"There is no more refined icon of Christ anywhere," said Gould, of the New World Byzantine Studios in Charleston, S.C. "Just in terms of information, we have copies we can study. … But visiting Hagia Sophia and seeing this icon under natural light, seeing it in the context of the sanctuary, was crucial to the development of my whole understanding of Orthodox art."

If the "Deesis" is covered again, along with other icons, "this is not something that can be replaced with photographs in art books," he said. "It would hurt artists and believers around the world in so many ways."

The current controversy is rooted in politics, more than lingering tensions between Muslim leaders and Turkey's tiny Christian minority, which has little power other than through ties to Greece, Europe and the United States.

Hagia Sophia became a museum in 1934, a symbol of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's drive to build a modern, truly secular state. Now, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sent many signals that he wants Turkey to return to Islamic principles.

Debates in Turkish media have swirled around whether modern leaders retain the "right of the sword" to reclaim Hagia Sophia, noted Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish journalist and author of the book "Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty."


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Disturbing news trends in Turkey: What if Hagia Sophia returns to being a mosque?

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In recent years, Orthodox Christians around the world have watched as headlines kept appearing on obscure websites that mainstream journalists rarely visit.

Rumors grew that the famous Hagia Sophia sanctuary in Istanbul — a 6th Century wonder of Byzantine Christianity — would once again be claimed as a mosque, after decades of protection as a neutral-ground museum. Gradually, the rumors turned into symbolic actions by the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggesting that this strategic move might become a reality.

Recently there was this headline at OrthoChristian.com (all caps in the original headline, along with alternative spelling “Agia”):

‘TURKISH LEADER CALLS TO PAINT OVER SERAPHIM IN DOME OF AGIA SOPHIA, CONVERSION TO MOSQUE REPORTEDLY ALREADY UNDERWAY

The question, of course is this: Is this a news story? Other questions flow out of that: Is this a “religious” media story? Is it a “conservative” media story? One more: Is it a story for hard-news media in Europe, but not America?

Meanwhile, it would be hard — from the Orthodox point of view (I have twice visited Hagia Sophia) — to offer a more distressing overture than the top of that latest OrthoChristian.com report::

As Turkish officials await the court hearing on the possibility of converting the world-famous Agia Sophia Museum back into a mosque, preparations for the change are reportedly already underway.

In this vein, the leader of the Saadet Partisi Islamist political party, Abdullah Sevim, called for Turkey to immediately take action and paint over the faces of the seraphim in the dome of the 6th-century Orthodox cathedral-turned-mosque-turned-museum, reports the Orthodoxia News Agency.

“There’s no need to wait for the decision of the State Council. We’ve already purchased the lime,” Sevim wrote on his Twitter page, calling everyone to join in a Muslim prayer to be held at Agia Sophia by President Erdogan.


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When is a Byzantine cross just a tattoo and when is it a reason to ask another question?

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On one level, this is a simple story about Culture Wars American in 2019.

A trans woman, a regular customer, is eating dinner in a local restaurant in a corner of America — the upper Midwest — where liberal and conservative citizens regularly bump into one another.

A pair of elderly locals is seated nearby and they make some unfriendly comments about the transexuals — not to the trans customer, but to their waitress. The waitress is triggered, when her boss insists that she serve these customers The woke NBC News double-decker headline outlines the outcome of this exchange in the marketplace of ideas:

'Morals over money': Waitress fired after refusing to serve transphobic customers

"Turning a blind eye to hate is just as bad as saying the hateful things in my opinion," the waitress, Brittany Spencer, said.

This is the stuff of shallow television news reports, of course. But here is the question that haunted a GetReligion reader: “Did anyone think to ask what's on her neck and what relevance it might have to morals??”

The waitress, you see, is heavily inked and she has a large, prominent tattoo on her neck that raises some interesting religious issues.

This tattoo includes a large Byzantine cross, of the style favored in Eastern churches — Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholic — in Slavic lands and elsewhere.

But the cross is upside down.


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Is the Crown of Thorns rescued from the Notre Dame Cathedral fire authentic?

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Is the Crown of Thorns rescued from the Notre Dame Cathedral fire authentic?

THE QUESTIONS:

About the Crown of Thorns rescued from the Notre Dame Cathedral fire in Paris: Is this the actual crown that Jesus Christ wore at the Crucifixion? Does authenticity matter? What’s the role of such relics?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

Before Jesus Christ was crucified, the New Testament records, Roman soldiers “stripped him, and put a scarlet robe upon him, and plaiting a crown of thorns they put it on his head, and put a reed in his right hand. And kneeling before him they mocked him, saying, ‘Hail, King of the Jews!’” (Matthew 27:28-9, similarly in Mark 15:17 and John 19:2-3).

More than 19 centuries later, a relic believed to be that humiliating crown was rescued from the disastrous fire at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. It is the most revered item in the cathedral’s collection, which also contains what are identified as one of the nails that pinned Jesus to the cross, and a wooden fragment from the cross itself.

In today’s supposedly secularized France, only 41.6 percent of citizens are baptized Catholics and a mere 12 percent tell pollsters they regularly attend Mass, well below numbers elsewhere in Europe. Yet the damage and substantial survival of the venerable cathedral, and the valiant effort that saved its treasured relics, roused fervent sentiment nationwide.

Is the celebrated Crown of Thorns, which goes on public display each Good Friday, authentic? There’s no way to prove it is, nor do the Bible or early Christian annals say the artifact was preserved. Here’s what we do know, courtesy of British historian Emily Guerry, writing for theconversation.com.

The earliest record dates from four centuries after the Crucifixion, when St. Paulinus instructed Christians to venerate a “holy thorns” relic at the Mount Zion basilica in Jerusalem.


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News? Religious communities build new sanctuaries, and repair old ones, for lots of reasons

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News? Religious communities build new sanctuaries, and repair old ones, for lots of reasons

There were a lot of different subjects swirling around during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, so I don’t know exactly where to start. (Click here to tune that in or head over to iTunes.)

On one level, host Todd Wilken and I talked about church buildings and sacred architecture. You know, the whole idea that church architecture is theology expressed in (List A) stone, timber, brick, stucco, copper, iron and glass.

Ah, but is the theology different if the materials being used are (List B) sheetrock, galvanized steel, plastic, concrete, rubber and plywood?

What if you built a Byzantine, Orthodox sanctuary out of the materials in List B and accepted the American construction-industry norms that a building will last about 40-50 years? Contrast that with a church built with List A materials, using many techniques that have been around for centuries and are meant to produce churches that last 1,000 years or more.

These two churches would look very similar. The provocative issue raised by church designer and art historian Andrew Gould — of New World Byzantine Studios, in Charleston, S.C. — is whether one of these two churches displays a “sacred ethos” that will resonate with the teachings of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, while the other may be both modern and more temporary.

Here’s another question along those same lines: Why did farmers, merchants and peasants in places like Greece, Russia, Serbia and Romania for many centuries insist on building churches that would last for generation after generation of believers? Also, why are the faithful in many modern, prosperous American communities tempted to build churches that may start to fall apart after a few decades?

Here’s the end of my “On Religion” column about Gould and his work, based on a lecture he gave at my own Orthodox home parish in Oak Ridge, Tenn. — which is poised to build a much-needed new sanctuary.

“If you build something that looks like a Byzantine church, but it isn’t really built like a Byzantine church, then it isn’t going to look and sound and function like a Byzantine church — generation after generation,” said Gould.

“The goal in most architecture today is to create the appearance of something, not the reality. ... When you build one of these churches, you want the real thing. You want reality. You want a church that’s going to last.”

Now, is this a very newsworthy subject?

Maybe not. But some of these issues can be spotted looming over big headlines some big stories in places like New York City.


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