www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Christianity in ancient Ireland - Catholic or Orthodox?

I'd be interested in the "take" of Roman Catholics, Byzantine Catholics, and Orthodox on this.

Christianity existed in Ireland from a very early date. And yet while their people did make pilgrimages to the holy sites in Rome, the christians in Ireland seemed to know nothing of the Pope being the universal head of the church. If this was a key element of the gospel and is by divine right and was setup by our Lord then how could this be?

The witness of the Irish church seems to agree more with Orthodoxy than Catholicism.
I believe it was not until the Council of Whitby (600's?) that the Irish church decided to follow Rome.

If the Catholic claims are true then how could these things be? I find many of the Catholic explanations and logical arguments persuasive yet there seem to be many elements from history that show people at the time didn't believe that.

I'm not at all an "expert" on these things and welcome correction if someone knows for sure things were different in the Irish church before the Council of Whitby.

Feedback, thoughts, and (kind) disagreements are solicited!

Eric

Eric,

I believe that St Patrick knew of Rome. He was in Ireland during the 5th century.

As it says in one short biography I have found, "Sent by Pope Saint Celestine to evangelize England, then Ireland".

What do you make of this?

David

Dear Eric,

Well, if you read Orthodox theologian John Meyendorff's "Imperial Unity" work, there is plenty of evidence there to back the claim that the Celtic Church was not only different from Rome, but also from Orthodoxy too.

East and West were united then as well.

The Celtic Church didn't "follow Rome" after the Council of Whitby.

That Council was "Orthodox" as it was a local council of the One, Holy, Undivided Church of Christ.

That Council condemned the Celtic calculation of Easter and a few other aspects of the Celtic tradition such as the Celtic tonsure (across the top of the front of the head, rather than the crown), and some others.

The Celtic fathers at the synod who could not accept the ruling, withdrew to the Hebrides in northern Scotland and lived out there days following their Celtic traditions there.

But the Eastern Christians at the time and today would agree with the Synod of Whitby and what it did with respect to bringing the Celtic calendar in line with that of the then united, universal Orthodox-Catholic Church.

Another group with 'calendar problems' was the Quartodecimans, as you know, but this didn't prevent the saints of this group from being acclaimed by the universal Church (please don't tell Francisco however, this might really upset him ).

The Celtic Church did believe in the Petrine Primacy of Rome, as we see in their commemorations and writings.

And this Church was a Western Rite, albeit with much more Eastern influence than any other.

They received this through contact with the Coptic Church, especially through the writings of St John Cassian in the south of France.

The old Irish Litany of Saints commemorates "7 monks from Egypt" buried in Ireland!

The Celtic Rite was the only Western one that prescribed prostrations.

Their ascesis was second to none - they recited the entire Psalter daily, often while standing in cold water.

The Celi De monks celebrated the Divine Liturgy, their Daily Office and the 150 Psalms - a tremendous ascetical feat!

The Rule of St Maelruain was very strict.

They performed Cross Vigils which involved praying Psalm 118/119 with a prostration every two verses - and continuing for two or three more psalms afterwards until 100 prostrations were performed!

They also did the Shrine of Piety, praying three Our Fathers with the Sign of the Cross to each of the four directions, cross-wise, with arms extended, beginning eastwards.

They said the Beatitudes and the Magnificat at the end of each of their day and night hours.

They prayed the Psalter in 12 and 13 Psalm units, according to the Rule of St Maelruain.

Celticchristianity.org has an English translation of their liturgical prayers.

As they were not around at the time of the East-West schism, we can't really speculate on the Orthodox-CAtholic matter.

But they were very close to the Eastern Church in liturgy and ascesis.

Alex

Alex wrote:

Interesting. Can you refer me to sources on this?

Dear Eric,

Yes, Meyendorff's "Imperial Unity" and St Bede the Venerable's "history of the English Church and People."

Actually, at this time, the entire Church was united in believing in the "First among Equals" status of the bishop of Rome.

The battle between the Celts and the Romans in Britain was a battle against two Particular Churches.

And I'm not suggesting that the Celts were, in any way, jurisdictionally "under" Rome.

They were "odd" insofar as their Abbots were the administrators of the Church, not their Bishops - even though the Bishops had first place in liturgical worship, of course.

But Ireland and Scotland at this time had no large cities and so Christian monasteries came to dominate the early Church there - it was natural for Abbots to take control.

Also, the Celtic monks were allowed to marry. The Scots' surname "MacNab" actually means "Son of the Abbot."

Alex

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us. Amen.

One of the most interesting aspects of Irish Christianity was its monastic ethos. This fitted the tribal nature of early Irish society very well, with abbots and abbesses - very often of 'aristocratic' origin - taking the place of the chieftain.

This monasticism was most certainly not of the classic Roman monastic system, but like that of the East.

To a great extent Irish monasticism, like that of the other Celtic areas, replicates that of the Thebaid and of Palestine, albeit adapted to fit into a Westen environment. This is demonstated by the lives of the Holy Fathers and Mothers of the Celtic west. We know that the Isles of Britain had contact with Egypt and Egyptian monasticism. Fragments of Coptic cloth have been found by archaeologists and monks of Egypt occur in one of the old Irish litanies. We also know that the Irish Christians used icons of a sort, using he word iconoca rather than imago to describe the images used in worship. Manuscripts show the use of liturgical fans and some of their interlace is remarkably like the art of Armenia and Coptic Egypt. The Irish use of the Psalter was very much in keeping with the worship of the Egyptian deserts where monks - mostly unordained - did not celebrate the regular services, but relied on the Psalter as a mainstay of their less formal and more fluid worship. Also, the beehive construction of Irish monastic building is like that of the Christian monastics of the middle-east.

What intersts me very much is the creation-spirituality of Celtic Christianity. As an Orthodox monk I find this totally Orthodox, particularly the interaction of holy men and women of Celtic Britain with the animal world. This belongs to a common Tradition which unites East and West: a sacred thread which runs through the life of the Church in an age of tension, but also of unity. Within this spiritual unity the variation in liturgical rites, ceremonies and tonsures was of little consequence. Catholic-Apostolic Christianity was not outwardly monolithic, yet dogmatically united - a tree of beautifully different, yet equally unique blossoms, each bearing the authentic fruits of the Holy Spirit.

This is an extremely interesting question, and one in which we must be very careful! As has been pointed out, Whitby represents Roman Orthodoxy, so we must not fall into the popular modern romanticism which mistakenly equates the Celts who opposed Whitby as Orthodox and the likes of St Wilfrid as early 'papists'. Sadly, this historically absurd argument has many proponents today, as can be seen by the spread of so called 'Celtic Orthodoxy'. We must be critical and careful, not using the Celts as a vehicle for our own 21st century ideas.

With love in Christ -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Bless me a sinner, Venerable Father in Christ!

You were more critical of the "romantic" Orthodox perspective on this that I ever would be . . .

Thank you for your wonderful contribution to this debate!

Kissing your right hand, I again implore your blessing,

Alex

May the All-Merciful Lord bless you Alex. This is a very interesting subject and I look forward to more contributions.

With love in Christ,
Mark, monk and sinner.

Bless me a sinner, Father Mark!

Thank you for your blessing from the bottom of my heart!

I wanted to ask about the Western Rites of Orthodoxy in the dissemination of the Faith in Britain.

Are these, in your view, more helpful/less helpful than the majority Eastern Rite Orthodox liturgical tradition?

Do the British seem more open to one or the other within Orthodoxy?

Kissing your right hand, I again implore your blessing,

Alex the Anglophile

God Save Our Queen!

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon us. Amen.

Dear Alex,

When looking at liturgies I think that we need to remember that they are part of the living Tradition of the Church of Christ. That Tradition is the indwelling of te Holy Spirit in the life of the Church and unfolds through the centuries.

As such we need to be careful of the resurrection of liturgies which died as part of a living Tradition. This may be applied to the Sarum rite, Ambrosian rite, and the Irish rite preserved in the Lorna-Stowe missal. Let no-one doubt the Orthodoxy of these rites! However, their use as part of an Orthodox spiritual Tradition died. We have to be very careful of trying to recreate a spiritual Tradtition. I think that we can end up with some sort of British museum religion with a gap of several centuries and an unbridgeable break in the life of the Church. Can this sort of spirituality be part of LIVING Tradition? I'm not sure!

Having said all of these I think that there is great beauty in the ancient western rites of the Undivided Church.

As for the receptiveness of the British to Orthodoxy I don't think I really know enough to comment. As a monastic I'm not really involved in parishes.

What we have seen is an interest in the externals of Orthodoxy, in which John Taverner's music, ikons, clouds of incense and the general aura of mysticism has given people a warm feeling of spiritual elation. The problem is that the reality of the Christian struggle is absent from this.

'Official' Orthodoxy in Britain needs to start challenging the faithful to put the Ortho-praxis into their lives. I often wonder what the figures for people really struggling in the faith would be if they were published - probably something negligible. Perhaps this thought is sinful; the fathers and mothers of past centuries would probably find it difficult to recognise the Christianity of any of us!!!

What we need is a return to ascetical and patristic Orthodoxy which is true to the Tradition of the Fathers. We must stop thinking that we can continually say, 'Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers... ' whilst the leaders of 'official' Orthodoxy trample this Tradition underfoot. This is needed not just in Britain, but throughout the world.

With love in Christ -
Mark, monk and sinner.

It's all right, because until rather late in the day, nobody else, whether in the East or the West, thought of the Pope as "universal" head of the Church. The concept is anachronistic in a patristic context. The Celtic Church, to be sure, traced its roots to the ancient Gallic Churches, which received their liturgy and spirituality mainly from the Christian East by way of Lyons, Marseilles and the Rhone Valley. Gallic monasticism was, initially, an Eastern monasticism, and Celtic monasticism in Ireland especially, had a very Eastern tinge. But the notion that the Irish were Byzantines is just silly, an Orthodox conceit, similar to the idea that prior to 1066 England was a "Orthodox" country, as opposed to France and Normandy, which were "Romish". Post-schism categories and attitudes are being superimposed on the past in an inappropriate manner.

Dear Father Mark,

Amin!

Alex

Dear Stuart,

In Eric's defence, however, I would say that his query has basically more to do with which contemporary Church would the Celts be "closer" to.

And the answer to that surely has to be - the Orthodox Church.

The Celts were close not to the Byzantines, but to the Alexandrian Church, as you yourself said, via St John Cassian.

Although the cult of Cassian was limited to Marseilles because of his opposition to Augustine, the Celts, like the Eastern Church, venerated him as a "full" saint (as did Southern Gaul at one point).

They were the closest possible approximation to what we today would call "Western Orthodoxy" and their emphasis on the Abbot, rather than the bishop, as the source of unity and authority of the local church would have ensured a very decentralized view of the Church Universal.

Alex

The monastic face of Celtic Christianity reminds me of Russian Orthodoxy in the far flung corners of Muscovy. In these places, monasticism was often the face of the Church and an abbot the personification of authority.

I'm not trying to change the direction of the thread, but see similarities between the Celtic Church and eastern Orthodoxy.

S Bogom -
Mark, monk and sinner.

Bless me a sinner, Venearable Father!

I was once told that the two-fingered Sign of the Cross had a link to the Roman Senate, that when they wanted to "say something important" they raised two fingers in this way.

Your comments?

Kissing your right hand, I again implore your blessing,

Alex