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WEB 4 - ARCHIVE
Commentary 6 - Page 1 |
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Some historical conclusions from the Praxis retranslation of Saint Gregory Palamas' Triads. Lost Christian doctrines now restored to lifeIt seems as if certain inner teachings of the Christian faith, many of them ignored by the churches for something like a thousand years, are now beginning to re-emerge into the Western world. Perhaps it would be truer to say that the we are experiencing a re-emergence of the original teaching of the one church, before its division into different denominations, each of which had - and has - its own beliefs. The original teachings are now perhaps becoming generally accessible in the West for the first time in anything like their complete form. To understand this, it is necessary to see how events around the time of the fall of Byzantium and its Eastern Roman Empire fit into the historical pattern in a way very different from what people generally believe. In fact, the emergence into the light of the traditional inner teachings of the early fathers of the church is a re-emergence of what was in its time a most important part of the mainstream teaching of the one church. Although this aspect of church teaching became discredited with the decline of Western monasticism in the late Middle Ages, and was finally to all intents eliminated with the Reformation, it becomes increasingly clear that its suppression was not so much spiritually as politically motivated and that, seen with the hindsight of history, its destruction was a serious mistake whose long-term effects may have been disastrous for the Western world. This Commentary studies how knowledge of events that happened around the time of the fall of Byzantium, and the breakup of its Eastern Roman Empire, fit into the historical pattern in a way very different from what people generally believe. In fact, the emergence into the light of the traditional inner teachings of the early fathers of the church is a re-emergence of what was, in its time, a most important part of the mainstream teaching of the one church. Although this aspect of church teaching became discredited with the decline of Western monasticism in the late Middle Ages, and was finally to all intents eliminated with the Reformation, it becomes increasingly clear that in its early stages its suppression was not so much spiritually as politically motivated and that, seen with the hindsight of history, its destruction was a serious mistake whose long-term effects may yet be disastrous for the Western world. |
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