Saturday 27 April 2013


RADIO INTERVIEW

On Thursday, Bobby Maddex of Ancient Faith Radio in the USA interviewed me for his podcast Ex Libris. The interview was carried out by telephone and there was a little trouble with transmission, resulting in some short breaks and some 'mushy' sound. However most of the important parts come across well. If you want to listen to the podcast, you can find it on http://ancientfaith.com/announcements/traveling_companions

By the way, Ancient Faith Radio website has a lot of interesting items and is well worth exploring.  

TWO FINAL SAINTS

Well, no requests received so I've picked the final extracts myself. It did occur to me that all my choices so far have been men so I thought I'd restore the balance with the stories of two feisty ladies, very different and separated in time by over a thousand years, but each in her own way a wonderful representative of all that is best in the Christian community. And that's your lot. If you want to read the other 234 stories, buy the book!

Cassiane, Hymnographer (September 7)

A beautiful and feisty woman, and one of the great poets and composers of Byzantium, Cassiane* is certainly one of the more intriguing saints of the Orthodox Church. Add to that a romantic ending and we have a story worthy of Hollywood.

She was born into a wealthy family in Constantinople in about 810. She grew up to be a beautiful young woman and was eventually chosen to participate in the “bride show,” where Emperor Theophilos was to choose his wife from a group of eligible girls. Theophilos was left with a final choice between Cassiane and an equally beautiful girl called Theodora. By tradition, he was to give a golden apple to the girl of his choice. Looking at the apple, he said to Cassiane, “From woman came the worst in the world” (referring to Eve). Cassiane looked at him calmly and replied, “From woman also came the best” (referring to the  Virgin Mary). Not liking to be upstaged by a woman, Theophilos gave the apple to  Theodora. In fact, this was no great hardship for Cassiane as she had for a long time decided to devote her life to the Lord. In 843, she founded a convent on the outskirts of
Constantinople and became its first abbess. She was a fierce and outspoken opponent of iconoclasm, a heresy Theophilos supported, and she was severely punished, including being flogged. After the restoration of the icons, she was left in peace until her death in 865.

Cassiane further demonstrated her determination and single-mindedness in the field for which she is mainly remembered today: hymnography. This was regarded very much as a male preserve at that time, and she was subject to much scorn for her efforts in writing hymns. Nevertheless, she persevered, and her critics were confounded when she began to produce some of the most sublime works of the period. With the encouragement of Theodore of Studion and most of the leading churchmen of Constantinople, she wrote a great number of hymns, of which about fifty survive and twenty-three are still used in Orthodox services. She also wrote many aphorisms and epigrams which give further insight into her character, for example, “I hate the rich man moaning as if he were poor.”
Her hymns are of great spiritual beauty, both in the words and the music.**

George Poulos makes the point that “from Mozart to the present day, it is difficult to recall a single classical composer on the distaff side, but hidden among the great hymnographers of all time is the exceptional female creator of church music whose creations have been heard for centuries in Orthodox churches, where the members are unaware that a woman wrote the inspirational melody.” Cassiane’s greatest creation is The Hymn of Cassiane, which is sung every Holy Tuesday:
Sensing Thy divinity, O Lord, a woman of many sins
takes it upon herself to become a myrrh-bearer,
And in deep mourning brings before Thee fragrant oil
in anticipation of Thy burial, crying:
“Woe to me! For night surrounds me, dark and moonless,
and stings my lustful passion with the love of sin.
Receive the wellsprings of my tears,
O Thou who gatherest the waters of the oceans into clouds.”

And the romantic story? It is said that Theophilus, towards the end of his life, still felt love for Cassiane and wanted to see her once more before he died. He rode to the monastery where Cassiane was writing her hymn, but because she still felt some love for him and feared this would distract her from her vows, she hid, leaving the hymn on the table. Theophilus found her cell empty, but noticed the unfinished hymn. He read through it to the end, where Cassiane had written: “I will kiss Thine immaculate feet / and dry them with the locks of my hair.” Remembering her beauty and intelligence and his youthful arrogance, he cried and added the line, “Those very feet whose sound Eve heard at dusk in Paradise / and hid herself in fear.” He left, and Cassiane returned to finish the hymn.

* There are many variations on her name, including Kassia, Kassiane, Ikasia, and
Cassia.
** Several CDs of Cassiane’s hymns are available.
THANKS TO A READER, I HAVE JUST FOUND AN OUTSTANDINGLY BEAUTIFUL RENDERING OF CASSIANE'S HYMN ON YOUTUBE
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=K24uYcbLA_U


Maria Skobtsova (Mother Maria of Paris), Righteous Martyr  (July 20)

The story of Maria Skobtsova reminds us that the Second World War saw the martyrdom of many Christians, including Orthodox, who in one way or another fought against Nazi oppression. However, as a twice-married, formerly socialist politician, intellectual, and poet, she is certainly not a typical Orthodox saint! Born Elizaveta Pilenko into an aristocratic Latvian family in 1891, she became involved in the turmoil of radical politics in the lead-up to the 1917 revolution. Her exploits from her marriage to a Bolshevik in 1910 to her flight from Russia with her second husband and family in about 1919 read like an adventure story. However, we will take up the story in 1923, when the family arrived in Paris and were at last able to settle down.

By 1926, Elizaveta’s marriage had broken down, and after the death from influenza of her youngest daughter, she went through a period of deep spiritual anguish. As she emerged from the double trauma, she found “a new road before me and a new meaning in life, to be a mother for all, for all who need maternal care, assistance, or protection.” She set about helping the many destitute Russian refugees in Paris. Granted an ecclesiastical divorce, she took monastic vows in 1932 with the name Maria. She rented a house which she turned into a shelter for the refugees, complete with a chapel and soup kitchen. Her “cell” was a bed behind the boiler in the basement. Maria’s aim was to build a new kind of “monasticism in the world.” Together with Fr. Dimitry Klepinin and Ilya Fondaminsky (both also martyred by the Nazis), she formed the Orthodox Action movement, committed to putting into action the social implications of the Gospel message. Maria’s work among the poor and her writings, full of practical and compassionate theology, might alone have put her among the revered and blessed. But then the Germans invaded France and  occupied Paris.

Although she continued her work with the poor, Maria now found a new cause, helping the Jews. Along with Fr. Dimitry and her son Yuri, she organized forged documents and escape routes to the unoccupied south of France, helped hide Jews from the Nazis, and smuggled food into the camps for those already rounded up. Well aware that she was under Gestapo surveillance, Maria continued her activities until, on February 8, 1943, she was arrested, together with Yuri and Fr. Dimitry.
Maria was taken to the women’s concentration camp at Ravensbrück, where she did her best to continue her work of looking after the “less fortunate,” maintaining her spiritual life by reciting passages from the New Testament and some of the services from memory. Her earlier ascetic lifestyle and her spiritual strength helped her cope with the terrible  privations of the camp, and she survived almost to the end of the war. Eventually, however, she became so ill that she could no longer pass the roll call for work. As the Russian troops were approaching Berlin and gunfire could be heard in the distance, she was sent to the gas chamber on Holy Saturday 1945. “At the Last Judgment,” she wrote, “I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead I shall be asked, ‘Did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners?’ That is all I shall be asked.” On February 11, 2004, Maria was formally added to the Synaxarion of saints, along with her son Yuri, Fr. Dimitry Klepinin, and Ilia Fondaminsky. She is also honored by the state of Israel as one of the “Righteous among the nations.” Metropolitan Anthony Bloom called her “a saint of our day and for our day, a
woman of flesh and blood, possessed by the love of God who stands face to face with the problems of this century.”

© Conciliar Press 2013


The book is available direct from Conciliar Press at a price of $18.95 + postage:  http://www.conciliarpress.com/products/Traveling-Companions%3A-Walking-with-the-Saints-of-the-Church.html 

It can also be bought from Amazon.com for the same price: 

Saturday 20 April 2013


TRAVELING COMPANIONS, EXTRACT 3

I found it extremely hard to make my third selection from such an array of wonderful people, all of whose stories are interesting. So, my wife chose a random number from the range of page numbers in the book. The result was the Bulgarian saint, John of Rila. This pleased me because he is one of the lesser known saints but his story is as inspirational as those of the better-known Desert Fathers.

Since I am also at a loss for a choice for next week's fourth and final extract, I would welcome requests or suggestions to help me select.   


Ivan (John) of Rila, Venerable (August 18)

Reminiscent of the early desert fathers, the patron saint of Bulgaria was a great spiritual  guide, ascetic, and hermit, widely recognized as a saint even in his lifetime. Born in 876 in  a village near Sofia, he was a solitary child and, when orphaned at an early age, took a job as a cowherd to keep away from people. At the age of twenty-five he entered a monastery, but then left to find a life of solitude and prayer. He tried several locations, including a cave in the Rila Mountains and the hollow of a tree in the wilderness.

His life was hard and, in his own words, “when I came into this wilderness of Rila, I found no man over here, but only wild animals and impenetrable thickets. I settled alone in it among the wild animals, without food nor shelter, but the sky was my shelter and the earth my bed and the herbs my food.” He quickly became known as a healer of both physical and spiritual ailments, and unfortunately (for him), his reputation as a holy man and miracle-worker brought him great fame. Many disciples settled in the area, causing him to flee to
an almost inaccessible crag high up in the mountain, where he lived in the open for the rest of his life. Eventually, he did allow his disciples to build a monastery in the cave which had been his home and continued to guide his “flock” from the cliff top. (The Rila Monastery is still one of the main cultural, historical, and architectural monuments in Bulgaria and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.)

On one occasion, Tsar Peter I of Bulgaria braved the seventy-five-mile trip into the  mountains to meet Ivan and seek spiritual advice. On his arrival, however, he was daunted by the inaccessibility of the cave, while Ivan refused to go down to meet him for fear that being greeted by such an important visitor would tempt him to pride and vanity. In the end, they just bowed to each other from a distance. The tsar sent gifts up to the hermit, but Ivan only kept the food, returning the gold and other precious gifts on the grounds that the tsar needed them more than he did, for protecting the country and helping the poor.

Five years before he died in 946, Ivan wrote one of the great treasures of Old Bulgarian literature, A Testament to Disciples, full of spiritual and practical advice for the running of the monastery: “Do not amass wealth, keep yourselves away from the avaricious snake. For gold and silver are great enemies of the monk and bite those who have them like a snake.”

Shortly after his death, his remains were transferred to Sofia. After several other moves, the holy relics were finally returned to Rila Monastery in 1469, where they still remain. He is deeply revered in Bulgaria, where his icons appear on coins and banknotes. His  veneration has been carried to the USA, where the Bulgarian Orthodox Church of St. Ivan of Rila in Chicago is dedicated to him. Even more remote from his homeland, the St. Ivan Rilski Chapel built in 2003 at the Bulgarian Antarctic base on Livingston Island is the first Eastern Orthodox church in Antarctica, and the southernmost Eastern Orthodox building of worship in the world. For a man who loved solitude, this must be a fitting tribute.

Additional Feast Day: October 19 (Transfer of Relics)

© Conciliar Press 2013

The book is available direct from Conciliar Press at a price of $18.95 + postage:  http://www.conciliarpress.com/products/Traveling-Companions%3A-Walking-with-the-Saints-of-the-Church.html 

It can also be bought from Amazon.com for the same price: 
http://www.amazon.com/Traveling-Companions-Walking-Saints-Church/dp/1936270471/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1366471937&sr=1-1&keywords=christopher+moorey

Sunday 14 April 2013

SPAM COMMENTS

Due to an ever-increasing amount of spam and junk coming onto my blog as "Comments," I've decided to initiate word verification. I hope this may discourage the spammers who seem to want me to link to everything from on-line poker to cures for erectile dysfunction!! I must admit, the spam for a vegetarian diet website was a bit more logical as it was posted on the blog about Lent. In case the junk still gets through, I'll be moderating all comments before allowing them to be published so they won't be seen immediately. I hope this doesn't inconvenience people with genuine comments and I would still welcome any feedback.


Saturday 13 April 2013


'TRAVELING COMPANIONS' EXTRACT 2

For this week's extract from 'Traveling Companions,' I have chosen one of the saints of the British Isles from before the Great Schism. He is something of a favourite of mine since not only was he a gentle and kind man but his Ecclesiastical History of England was of tremendous help to me in writing this book. What is more, Bede comes from the northeast of England, my wife's birthplace.

Other British saints of the undivided Church included in the book are: Aidan of Lindisfarne; Alban, Protomartyr of England; Augustine of Canterbury; Brendan the Voyager; Brigid of Kildare; Caedmon, Hymn Writer; Columba of Iona; Cuthman of Steyning; David of Wales; Hilda of Whitby; Patrick, Enlightener of Ireland.  


Bede, Venerable (May 27)

Renowned as a historian, Bede, the “Father of English History,” is also venerated as a saint for his piety, scholarship, and influence on the early English Church. Born in about 672,  near Jarrow in the northeast of England, he probably came from a noble family. He was placed in the monastery at Wearmouth at the age of seven, ordained a deacon at nineteen and a priest at thirty. Apart from occasional trips to York and Lindisfarne, he spent his whole life in the monastery, and, in his own words, “I wholly applied myself to the study of Scripture; and amidst the observance of monastic rule, and the daily charge of singing in the church, I always took delight in learning, or teaching, or writing.”

A sort of renaissance man about nine hundred years before the renaissance, Bede had interests ranging from theology and scriptural commentary to music, history, grammar, and science. Among the many achievements attributed to him were a recalculation of the age of the earth, the popularization of the division of history into BC and AD, and the invention of the footnote. Though he was not a particularly original thinker, his commentaries on the Scriptures were of great value in synthesizing the writings of the early Church Fathers and, through his skill as a linguist and translator, making them accessible to Anglo-Saxon readers. It is mainly for this work and his considerable influence on early English church history that he is venerated as a Doctor of the Church and as a  saint. He is the only Englishman to be mentioned in Dante’s Paradiso, appearing among the doctors of the Church.

Although we know little of Bede’s life, we can piece together from his writing a picture of a devout and kindly man with a deep love of the truth, coupled with great common sense. Despite his erudition and probable noble birth, he seems to have had an essentially humble view of his talents when compared with spirituality: “Better a stupid and unlettered  brother who, working the good things he knows, merits life in Heaven than one who  though being distinguished for his learning in the Scriptures, or even holding the place of a doctor, lacks the bread of love.” He saw all his work, including the study of science and  history, as devoted to the glory of God, and always put his church duties before other things. He once made the point that, since the angels were present with the monks during worship, he must not skip the services: “What if they [the angels] do not find me among  the brethren when they assemble? Will they not say, ‘Where is Bede?’”

The final days of his life, described in a letter from his disciple Cuthbert, create a moving picture of a man ready to meet his Maker. About two weeks before Pascha 735, he fell ill with frequent attacks of breathlessness, but continued to teach, sing psalms, and dictate his last work, a translation of St. John’s Gospel into Anglo-Saxon. Shortly before Ascension Day, his breathing deteriorated and his feet swelled, and he warned his pupils, “Learn  quickly, for I do not know how long I can continue. The Lord may call me in a short while.”
After a sleepless night, he continued dictating, but at three o’clock paused to distribute “a few treasures” among the priests of the monastery, “some pepper, and napkins, and some incense.” He asked for their prayers and said, “The time of my departure is at hand, and  my soul longs to see Christ my King in His beauty.” That evening, his scribe Wilbert,  writing down the last sentence of his work, said, “It is finished now.” “You have spoken truly,” said Bede, “it is well finished.” He asked Wilbert to lift his head so that he could see the church he loved, sang the Doxology, and passed away.

The poem called Bede’s Death Song, although not definitely written by Bede, certainly  relates to a theme often dealt with in his other writing:

Before the unavoidable journey there, no one becomes
wiser in thought than him who, by need,
ponders, before his going hence,
what good and evil within his soul,
after his day of death, will be judged.17

Bede was buried at Jarrow but, in 1020, his remains were transferred to
Durham Cathedral, where they still lie alongside those of St. Cuthbert of
Lindisfarne.

© Conciliar Press 2013

The link to buy the book is:
http://www.conciliarpress.com/products/Traveling-Companions%3A-Walking-with-the-Saints-of-the-Church.html 


Saturday 6 April 2013


TRAVELING COMPANIONS

Great news today. My book of saints has been published in the USA by Conciliar Press under the title “Traveling Companions; Walking with the Saints of the Orthodox Church.”

According to the publisher's blurb: “Do you long to establish a relationship with the saints, but find them—or the volumes written about them—a little intimidating? The saints started out as ordinary Christians, just like us, and they are  waiting to accompany us on our journey to heaven if we will only reach out our hands. Traveling Companions is a manageable volume that briefly introduces saints from a variety of times, places, and walks of life, all in language that brings them close to contemporary readers’ lives. You’re sure to find companions here that you will be happy to walk with all the way to the Kingdom.”

For the time being, the book is only available direct from Conciliar Press at a price of $18.95 + postage: http://www.conciliarpress.com/products/Traveling-Companions%3A-Walking-with-the-Saints-of-the-Church.html  I can vouch for the fact that their postage charges are not outrageous and they accept PayPal. It will be available in Orthodox bookshops in the USA in a few weeks but distribution to bookshops in UK and Europe may take a little longer. I'll keep you informed. It will be on Amazon shortly but I'm not sure if that's only Amazon.com (USA) or whether it will be accessible via UK Amazon (Amazon.co.uk). Updated news is available on my Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/chrismooreybooks

For the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting some extracts from the book to give you some idea of the content and style. I'll begin this week with the most recently canonized Orthodox saint, Alexander Schmorell of Munich. His story is fascinating not only in its own right but for the light it sheds on the largely unknown resistance to Hitler within Germany.


Alexander of Munich, Holy New Martyr (July 13)

On a freezing day in February, 2012, a moving ceremony was held in Munich in the Cathedral of the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia. It was the beginning of two days of services held to recognize the glorification as a saint of a young German student who was beheaded by the Nazis in 1943. Venerated locally for many years as a Passion Bearer, Alexander Schmorell stands out as a shining example of someone who put his Christian beliefs into practice even amid the horrors and complexities of modern totalitarianism.
Alexander was a mild-mannered and peaceable character, handsome and popular with the girls, and it is  highly likely that, in a different age or country, he would have lived out an unexceptional life as a doctor in Munich. However, a man called Hitler changed all that.

Alexander was born in 1917 in Orenburg, Russia, of Russian and German parents, and was brought up Orthodox. In 1921, the family fled the Bolsheviks and settled in Munich. While studying medicine in Munich in 1940, Alex joined two other students, Hans Scholl and Willi Graf, to form the White Rose resistance group. The main activity of the group was the production and distribution of anti-Nazi leaflets. Although these were joint efforts, it is  almost certainly Alexander who was responsible for the moving outburst against the  Holocaust in the second leaflet: “Here we see the most frightful crime against human  dignity, a crime that is unparalleled in the whole of history. For Jews, too, are human  beings.” The leaflets generally reject Prussian militarism and quote widely from the Bible, classical philosophy, and the giants of German literature. They are deeply imbued with Christian belief, and some of the language is clearly stamped with Orthodox theology.

In the summer of 1942, the three medical students were drafted as combat medics to the Eastern Front, where Alexander was appalled at the treatment of enemy soldiers and civilians. Remembering his mixed  background, he declared that there was no way he could ever kill either a Russian or a German. While in the east, he was able to meet Orthodox priests and attend the Holy Liturgy with his friends. It must have been a bizarre sight to see Alexander, Hans, and Willi joining the Orthodox church services dressed in their Nazi uniforms!

Distribution of the White Rose leaflets was extended throughout Germany and Austria, and the group also began painting slogans around Munich. While the slogan “Freedom” was treasonous in itself, there can’t have been many places in Germany where the graffiti “Down with Hitler” could be seen in 1942! At the beginning of 1943, however, several members of the group were arrested, and their trial and execution marked the beginning of the end of the White Rose.

Alex was arrested in February 1943. After interrogation by the Gestapo, he was tried on a charge of high treason, sentenced to death, and guillotined on July 13, at the age of twenty-five. His letters from prison to his family, especially the final one, are very moving,  accepting his fate and restating firmly his religious faith: “By the will of God, today I shall have my earthly life come to a close in order to go into another, which will never end and in which all of us will again meet.” He was buried in the cemetery behind  Stadelheim Prison. Along with the other members of the White Rose, he is, of course, respected and honored
throughout contemporary Germany for his heroic stand against Nazism.

© Conciliar Press 2013

NOTES and LINKS: 

A full and very evocative description of the service of glorification of Alexander can be found on http://www.jimandnancyforest.com/2012/02/10/schmorell-canonization/

A German film about another member of the group, called Sophie Scholl—The Final Days, is still available on DVD with English subtitles.

A longer version of this story will be included in my next book which is about 20th century Orthodox martyrs. You can also find an enormous amount of material about the White Rose group, including all the leaflets and all Alexander’s letters from prison, on www.katjasdacha.com.
For German speakers, the website of the White Rose Fellowship is also well worth visiting http://www.weisse-rose-stiftung.de/