Copts and robbers

In a startling piece of serendipity, The Art of Eternity began last week on that most wonderful of channels, BBC4 - this meant that I have seen on full colour many of the treasures of Eastern Christianity mentioned in Dalrymple’s book (you must all read this immediately if you have not yet done so). This is not one of the pieces of art that has been shown, but it is part of the Egyptian-Netherlands Cooperation for Coptic Art Preservation (ENCCAP)- dedicated to saving the masses of old Christian artefacts in some of the oldest monasteries in the world - under threat from declining numbers of monks, the environment, Islamic fundamentalism and simple theft - as with all works of art, these change hands for a great deal of money, and most of the older monasteries in Dalrymple’s journey have suffered repeated thefts, both in the distant past, and in the last couple of decades - the monks he visits on Mount Athos, for example, have had to deal with armed raiders attacking them by boat to seize manuscripts, icons and relics.

Wow, all of that work just to use a dreadful pun as a title.

The goose is getting fat…

…despite the fact this is the least Christmassy start to a festive period ever. It is sunny here in London - the leaves have fallen, but there has been a noticeable lack of both cold and rain (I have been thinking back, and the last snow of any note I can remember in these here parts was in January 1996 - I have vague recollections of wandering back from a pub in Hampstead to my halls of residence. God, I wonder what my drinking partners that night are doing now?).

The only discernable change has been in the erection of Xmas lights (the Regent Street one shave been sponsored by some dreadful Aardman film, and so have images of animated rats/mice plastered all over them) and a sudden quadrupling of the number of people using (in the loosest sense of the word - is it really so shocking to think that you would need your ticket when you reach the barriers!) Oxford Circus Tube between 10 and 11 in the morning. Although this may also be due to the fact that the Tube, especially in West London, has been generally appalling for the last two weeks. I have 3 Tubelines and 1 rail service to get home. On at least 3 occasions in the last 2 weeks, only the rail service has been running.

Even the singalong carol concert at the Albert Hall is being conducted by a certain Mr Cohen. Amazon are offering cheap everything for Xmas, so you can’t even enjoy the threat of impending bankruptcy come Boxing Day. I mean, what is happening to our traditions? Christmas tree (German?), Father Xmas (Dutch/American?) - do we even actually have traditions, or would the British Xmas without foreign influence be as miserable as the Cratchitt’s?

Orthodoxy

Now, as some of you may know, I have (more than) a passing interest in the history of the Orthodox Church - I think it sprang originally from my interest in Dostoevskii, Solov’ev, Rozanov, Leont’ev and any other non-rational Russian thinker of the 19th/early 20th century you care to name.

As those of you who have studied Russian thought know, the writing about it, especially by Russian scholars is overly tendentious, taking either a strongly Soviet line, or a strong emigre anti-Soviet line.

Unfortunately, the histories of the Russian church I have delved into have had this same tendency (one shared by a great many of the conservative thinkers in Russia at the moment, step forward Mr Solzhenitsyn) - that is an overt romanticization of the pre-Soviet past, of Russian history, of the Romanov family, of the Orthodox church and of Russia’s role within the world. Nothing new, you may say - romanticization of the past seems to been a genetic defect amongst not only the Russians, but amongst most nations that have experienced trauma (of whatever form), and there are clear intellectual antecedents in Russian history, and in modern Russian culture for this romantic messianism.

Timothy Ware’s The Orthodox Church is a magnificent introduction to the Orthodox church in general, and I wish there were an equivalent for the Russian Orthodox Church - in English, ideally - I have just picked up the 4 volume History of Russian Christianity by Shubin, but the fact that he has written, travelled and translated widely within this sphere slightly fills me with dread.