30 - Book Review: "The Eastern Schism: A Study of the Papacy and the Eastern Churches During the XIth and XIIth Centuries" by Steven Runciman

 

 

The Eastern Schism:
A Study of the Papacy and the Eastern Churches During the XIth and XIIth Centuries

Published by Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1955, 190 pages.

By Steven Runciman

Reviewed by Georges Florovsky
Church History, Volume 26, Issue 2, June 1957, pp. 181-182.

The break between Byzantium and Rome was probably the major tragedy in the history of Christendom. It is inaccurate and misleading to speak of the Eastern Schism. The term suggests that there was "One Church," from which the East broke away, at a certain date, or rather was breaking away gradually and persistently. It is precisely what the West finally came to believe. It is natural that the East finally took the opposite view and came to believe that there was actually a "Western Schism." Strangely enough, both views are accurate and correct, from the historical point of view. What actually happened was the disruption of Unity, and both "separated" parts of Christendom are, in a certain sense, "schisms." In any case, it is so from the purely historical point of view. In spite of all tensions and divergences, conspicuous and provocative as they might have been, the Christian world in the XIth century was still "one world," and people both in the West and in the East, did firmly believe in this "unity." There was still "one universe of discourse," much as its scope and character might have been already obscured on both sides. Paradoxically, it was precisely this presupposition of "unity" that precipitated the "schism." The Western "Drang nach Osten," of which the Crusades were the most spectacular expression, was inspired precisely by this basic conviction that the "Christian World" was one, and consequently had to be "united" and "unified."

29 - Book Review: "Supernatural Horror in Literature" by H.P. Lovecraft

 

 

The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature

Published by Hippocampus Press, New York, 2000, 172 pages.

By H.P. Lovecraft
Edited with Introduction and Commentary by S.T. Joshi

 

H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), the most important American supernaturalist since Poe, has had an incalculable influence on all the horror-story writing of recent decades. Although his supernatural fiction has of late been enjoying an unprecedented fame, it is still not widely known that he wrote a critical history of supernatural horror in literature that has yet to be superseded as the finest historical discussion of the genre, titled Supernatural Horror in Literature. This extraordinary work is presented in this volume in its final, revised text, annotated with a helpful Introduction and Commentary and Bibliography.

28 - Book Review: "Christian Apology" by St. Athanasios Parios

 

Ἀπολογία Χριστιανική (Christian Apology)

Published by Γρηγόρη, Athens, 2015, 312 pages.

By Saint Athanasios Parios

Reviewed by John Sanidopoulos

 

First published in 1798, the Christian Apology of St. Athanasios Parios (+ 1813) is published with this translation for the first time in Modern Greek (which will hopefully be soon translated into English), with a helpful Introduction by the late Protopresbyter Fr. George Metallinos.

St. Athanasios was one of the leaders of the Kollyvades Movement, which originated on Mount Athos in the 18th century as an effort to restore traditional Orthodox practices and opposed unwarranted innovations. His books are mostly a patristic approach written to answer specific needs and challenges of his time, for the benefit and education of the Orthodox flock.

27 - Book Review: "Columbus & Cortez, Conquerors for Christ"

Columbus & Cortez, Conquerors for Christ

New Leaf Press, 1992, 304 pages.

By John Eidsmoe

Reviewed by John Sanidopoulos

Did Christopher Columbus exploit the people of America – or did he evangelize them? Did Hernando Cortez subjugate the people of Mexico – or did he liberate them?

These are two of the questions posed by John Eidsmoe, a U.S. Reserve Air Force Lt. Colonel, who serves as a law professor at Faulkner University. Columbus & Cortez, Conquerors for Christ counters what Eidsmoe terms “the assault on Western culture” by media elites and liberal scholars on American university campuses. Eidsmoe surmises that this attack on culture is in actuality an attack on values – the biblical values upon which our nation was founded.

26 - Book Review: "History of the Byzantine State"

History of the Byzantine State

New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press, 1957. 543 pp.

By George Ostrogorsky

Reviewed by Georges Florovsky,
Harvard Divinity School

Church History: 
Studies in Christianity and Culture

(Volume 28, Issue 1 March 1959, pp. 96-97)

This book by Professor Ostrogorsky, of Belgrade University, needs no lengthy introduction. Since its first appearance in 1940, in German, it has been commonly acknowledged as a standard manual in the field. The text has been revised several times by the author, for edition in German, French, and English, and brought up to date. In the present American edition a fine selection of illustrations is added, arranged by Professor Charanis, in cooperation with Dumbarton Oaks Research Library, and also a new set of historical maps. The book is elegantly produced.

25 - Book Review: "The Life of General Makriyannis: Memoir and History"

Ο Bίος του στρατηγού Μακρυγιάννη: Αποµνηµόνευµα και Ιστορία
("The Life of General Makriyannis: Memoir and History")

Athens: Vivliorama, 2012. 549 pp.

By Νikos Theotokas

Reviewed by Eleni Andriakaina

Historein

(2014, Vol. 14)

The publication of Nikos Theotokas’ study comes at a critical juncture in contemporary Greece. Neither the book’s modest title, nor the pastness of its object, seem to have much relevance for the fierce urgencies of the present or even for the challenges – methodological, theoretical or institutional problems – now facing Greek scholars within the humanities and the social sciences. How then can we explain the appeal of the book to a wide readership within and beyond academia? And why the numerous and enthusiastic reviews it has received? One explanation lies in the long-lasting and enduring significance of Makriyannis’ writings for modern constructions of Greek identity. Makriyannis’ name evokes a past still present and still contested: the foundational event for modern Greece – the 1821 revolution. But the specific contribution of Theotokas’ book is also significant, since it powerfully challenges a range of current orthodoxies.

24 - Book Review: "From Monastery to Hospital: Christian Monasticism and the Transformation of Health Care in Late Antiquity"

From Monastery to Hospital:
Christian Monasticism and the Transformation of Health Care in Late Antiquity

University of Michigan Press, 2005, pp. 235.

By Andrew T Crislip

Reviewed by P E Pormann

Cambridge Journals of Medical History

(2007 Jan 1; 51(1): 130–131)

The quest for the first hospital in history has occupied the minds of many scholars, especially since Timothy S Miller published his controversial book The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine Empire in 1985 (reprinted 1997). Crislip's present monograph, based on his doctoral dissertation, contributes to this debate. His main argument runs approximately as follows.

23 - Book Review: "The Life of Saint Basil the Younger: Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of the Moscow Version"

The Life of Saint Basil the Younger:

Critical Edition and Annotated Translation of the Moscow Version

By Denis F. Sullivan, Alice-Mary Talbot and Stamatina McGrath

Dumbarton Oaks Studies, 45

Reviewed by Andrew Louth

(Durham University)

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

(Volume 67, Issue 3, July 2016 , pp. 629-630)

The Life of Saint Basil the Younger (or the New) is a probably tenth-century vita that became enormously popular in Eastern Orthodox circles in the Middle Ages: twenty-two Greek manuscripts are known to survive, plus a further thirteen in demotic Greek; there are also medieval translations into Slavonic languages. Its popularity is not connected with any cult of the saint (indeed it is not clear if he was a historical figure at all), but rather the result of two visions, disclosed to and related by the author of the vita (who himself may be fictional), which take up nearly two-thirds of the text. It is the first vision that is particularly important, especially for popular Orthodox beliefs about the afterlife: it contains the most detailed account of the so-called aerial "tollhouses" (telonia), twenty-one in number, through which the departed soul has to pass after death. At each tollhouse, the soul is examined in respect of a series of sins, beginning with slander and ending with heartlessness and cruelty, demons accusing, angels defending. The vision concerns Theodora, a slave woman who looked after the saint, which she relates in the vision to reassure Gregory, the author, as to her fate. In her case, it is evident from the beginning that she will make it through the tollhouses, assisted not only by her acts of kindness, but by "spiritual gold" provided by the saint from his abundant virtue. Once the soul has passed the tollhouses, it is introduced to the other world, passing through the gates of heaven and visiting the abodes of the saints and the patriarchs, as well as making a visit to Hades. The soul then settles in the "place of repose": it is remarked that this takes place forty days after the soul has been separated from the body in death. This period of time, therefore, corresponds to the period during which services of prayer (Trisagion, Pannykhida) for the deceased take place - on the third, ninth and fortieth day - though in the vita it is only the fortieth day that is remarked. The notions set forth in colourful detail in the vision can be traced back to the fourth or fifth century, the treatise corresponding most closely to the account of the Life of St Basil immediately after the Mother of God, seems to me to reflect the anaphora of the Byzantine rite. These are, however, scarcely even blemishes in a painstakingly careful edition.