Monday, November 14, 2011

Traditional Toasts

London can offer few pleasures greater than a church crawl. Following a fortifying glass of Port in a nearby pub, both the art and architecture of untold centuries are gifted to native and tourist alike. Indeed, most of the historically significant churches are found to be within easy walking distance of the centre; while the City’s lesser-known ecclesiastical treasures are often secreted in the dingy alleys surrounding it. Equally, wisdom awaits a seasoned church crawler in the nascent form of local folklore. To this day, rumours decanted around the weather-vane roofed on the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall, claim it was actually erected by James the Second in 1688, so that he could tell at a glance whether the wind was blowing “Protestant or Popish”. As a practising Roman Catholic, James knew that many of his own people were praying for a favourable breeze to bring the Protestant Prince (William of Orange), into a Devonshire Harbour and end his reign as Monarch. Of course, there are but few contemporary church crawlers’ who can honestly savour the activities of our Folk Soul through the medium of such talismanic devices.

It goes without saying that legend, the clash of dynasties and a natural struggle for indigenous faith also fermented in other lands. Put analogously, even at the London Book Fair 2011, in Olympia this April, such recognisable battles seemed to be silently raging. Certainly, the presence of Russian Orthodox clergy gathered to announce the launch of Patriarch Kirill’s thought provoking book - Freedom and Responsibility: A Search for Harmony, Personal Rights and Human Dignity - appeared more like the salutation of a Church militantly recapturing its traditional grounds, than an enfeebled call to a largely pointless ecumenism. As such, it was cheering to observe this refreshing revival of inherited custom in these clearly incongruous surroundings.

Upon taking my seat, therefore, as a guest of the organisers, I felt comfortable in the knowledge that Radical Traditionalism stood firm against the so-called “liberal” elite. Directly contrasting, as this philosophy does, life affirming spiritual values against a heavily mechanised and openly inhuman urban conformity. The latter disguising toxic social views in the guise of communal progress. Obviously then, as a useful epithet for a variety of allied cultural groups, Radical Traditionalism demands a healthy veneration of our ancestors and the earth, along with a respect for small-scale, native, political organisations. As activists, its supporters personify a positive parochial diversity, whereby the full Company of life is honoured. Perhaps it is only this revolutionary sense of Tradition, which can deliver us, nowadays, from the insidious poisons of global monoculture.

With these thoughts in mind, I listened to the stirring, and suitably brief, words of the Anglican Bishop (Richard Chartres) of London, as well as Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk as they joined forces to extol the virtues in this first-ever English language volume of documents by His Holiness. However, following the welcome receipt of my complimentary edition, and quickly skim reading the dust jacket, confusion began to set in. It was not the inspiring notion of an ethical “multi-polarity” - alluded to in the Publishers blurb - that unsettled my sense of occasion. Neither was it the delightful fact that this official soiree was held amid disconcertingly narrow tables endlessly replenished by very pleasant wines. Rather, it was the complete lack of engagement by non-Orthdox participants, which aroused my literary suspicions.

Returning home, I rushed to read the book so as to decipher these bewildering reactions. A first scan simply reminded me that other places had suffered the consequent burdens of Empire. An additional, and more careful perusal, brought me back to ethnic base, whereby the remembrance that we are related (albeit distantly) as kith to the Russians was brought manifestly home - with strikingly familial features, some have contended, in both the best of possible terms and the worst. Yet, on the level of theological discourse, each chapter of Patriarch Kirill’s text revealed a cluster of religious concerns only partially experienced by the West. Truly, Patriarch Kirill reflects upon issues recently debated by Pope Benedict himself, including notions of homosexuality and the dangers of totalitarianism. Nevertheless, it is difficult to resist interpreting the Patriarchs’ grip on ethnic dispute and social disintegration as anything other than stronger; coupled as it is with piercing analysis and a refreshing political realism. Perhaps the tacit problem with this event was that the text in question appeared too far ahead of its theological time for slumbering European congregations.

This is not to say that there are no flaws in his book. The concept of Liberalism, for example, tends to be genuinely confused with a pragmatic American sense of “anything goes;” instead of a healthy British “hands on” approach to economic structure and social organisation. Also despite Orthodox disputation to the contrary, Liberal authors have a variety of views on the relationship between Church and State; particularly in Nordic Countries. On top of this, the Patriarch seems unaware that discordant pastoral Courts have already deviated in their decisions, slowing, thereby, any commonality of Christian opinion. Arguments surrounding the Ordination of women priests act as a case in point; even though it is actually the installation of female Bishops which will disassemble two thousand years of Catholicity on a symbolic as well as a morphological level.

Be that as it may, the launch of this book heartened an otherwise materialistic and largely fruitless meeting of the business classes, in their shamelessly profiteering from the ingenious labours of other people. In which case, we need to raise a glass of champagne in celebration of a revived and increasingly empowered Christian Orthodoxy as it takes its rightful place on the world stage.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home