Marcus Pasha Simaika (1864-1944) was born to a prominent Coptic family on the eve of the inauguration of the Suez Canal and the British occupation of Egypt. From a young age, he developed a passion for Coptic heritage and devoted his life to shedding light on centuries of Christian Egyptian history that had been neglected by ignorance or otherwise belittled and despised. He was not a professional archaeologist, an excavator, or a specialist scholar of Coptic language and literature. Rather, his achievement lies in his role as a visionary administrator who used his status to pursue relentlessly his dream of founding a Coptic Museum and preserving endangered monuments. During his lengthy career, first as a civil servant, then as a legislator and member of the Coptic community council, he maneuvered endlessly between the patriarch and the church hierarchy, the Coptic community council, the British authorities, and the government to bring them together in his fight to save Coptic heritage. This fascinating biography draws upon Simaika's unpublished memoirs as well as on other documents and photographs from the Simaika family archive to deepen our understanding of several important themes of modern Egyptian history: the development of Coptic archaeology and heritage studies, Egyptian-British interactions during the colonial and semi-colonial eras, shifting balances in the interaction of clergymen and the lay Coptic community, and the ever-sensitive evolution of relations between Copts and their Muslim countrymen.

This book tells the remarkable story of the decline and revival of the Russian Orthodox Church in the first half of the twentieth century and the astonishing U-turn in the attitude of the Soviet Union s leaders towards the church. In the years after 1917 the Bolsheviks anti-religious policies, the loss of the former western territories of the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union s isolation from the rest of the world and the consequent separation of Russian emigres from the church were disastrous for the church, which declined very significantly in the 1920s and 1930s. However, when Poland was partitioned in 1939 between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Stalin allowed the Patriarch of Moscow, Sergei, jurisdiction over orthodox congregations in the conquered territories and went on, later, to encourage the church to promote patriotic activities as part of the resistance to the Nazi invasion. He agreed a Concordat with the church in 1943, and continued to encourage the church, especially its claims to jurisdiction over emigre Russian orthodox churches, in the immediate postwar period. Based on extensive original research, the book puts forward a great deal of new information and overturns established thinking on many key points."

The Orthodox migration in the West matters, despite its unobtrusive presence. And it matters in a way that has not yet been explored in social and religious studies: in terms of size, geographical scope, theological input and social impact. This book explores the adjustment of Orthodox migrants and their churches to Western social and religious contexts in different scenarios. This variety is consistent with Orthodox internal diversity regarding ethnicity, migration circumstances, Church-State relations and in line with the specificities of the receiving country in terms of religious landscape, degree of secularisation, legal treatment of immigrant religious institutions or socio-economic configurations. Exploring how Orthodox identities develop when displaced from traditional ground where they are socially and culturally embedded, this book offers fresh insights into Orthodox identities in secular, religiously pluralistic social contexts.

Faith and Science in Russian Religious Thought provides a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between science and faith in Russian religious thought. Teresa Obolevitch offers a synthetic approach on the development of the problem throughout the whole history of Russian thought, starting from the medieval period and arriving in contemporary times. She considers the relationship between science and religion in the eighteenth century, the so-called academic philosophy of the 19th and 20th century, the thought of Peter Chaadaev, the Slavophiles, and in the most influential literature figures, such as Fedor Dostoevsky and Lev Tolstoy. The volume also analyses two channels of the formation of philosophy in the context of the relationship between theology and science in Russia. The first is connected with the attempt to rationalize the truths of faith and is exemplified by Vladimir Soloviev and Nikolai Lossky; the second wtih the apophatic tradition is presented by Pavel Florensky and Semen Frank. The book then describes the relation to scientific knowledge in the thought of Lev Shestov, Nikolai Berdyaev, Sergius Bulgakov, and Alexei Losev as well as the original project of Russian Cosmism (on the examples of Nikolai Fedorov, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, and Vladimir Vernadsky). Obolevitch presents the current state of the discussion on this topic by paying attention to the Neopatristic synthesis (Fr Georges Florovsky and his followers) and offers the brief comparative analyse of the relationship between science and religion from the Western and Russian perspectives.

Behind a gruesome ISIS beheading video lies the untold story of the men in orange and the faith community that formed these unlikely modern-day saints and heroes. In a carefully choreographed propaganda video released in February 2015, ISIS militants behead twenty-one orange-clad Christian men on a Libyan beach. In the West, daily reports of new atrocities may have displaced the memory of this particularly vile event. But not in the world from which the murdered came. All but one were young Coptic Christian migrant workers from Egypt. Acclaimed literary writer Martin Mosebach traveled to the Egyptian village of El-Aour to meet their families and better understand the faith and culture that shaped such conviction. He finds himself welcomed into simple concrete homes through which swallows dart. Portraits of Jesus and Mary hang on the walls along with roughhewn shrines to now-famous loved ones. Mosebach is amazed time and again as, surrounded by children and goats, the bereaved replay the cruel propaganda video on an iPad. There is never any talk of revenge, but only the pride of having a martyr in the family, a saint in heaven. "The 21" appear on icons crowned like kings, celebrated even as their community grieves. A skeptical Westerner, Mosebach finds himself a stranger in this world in which everything is the reflection or fulfillment of biblical events, and facing persecution with courage is part of daily life. In twenty-one symbolic chapters, each preceded by a picture, Mosebach offers a travelogue of his encounter with a foreign culture and a church that has preserved the faith and liturgy of early Christianity - the "Church of the Martyrs." As a religious minority in Muslim Egypt, the Copts find themselves caught in a clash of civilizations. This book, then, is also an account of the spiritual life of an Arab country stretched between extremism and pluralism, between a rich biblical past and the shopping centers of New Cairo.

"Only when our life is wholly directed towards God do we become capable of seeing God in all and begin to do so by faith not only in all the significant happenings of life but even in the insignificant ones and to submit entirely to His holy will." The 19th century saw a renaissance of Russian spirituality in the writings of St Ignatius (Brianchaninov) and St Theophan the Recluse, many of whose works have become well-known throughout the world. This book brings to an English-speaking audience the spiritual counsels of another Russian monastic of the same period. Born into a patrician family in the Don region, Anna Mikhailovna Sebriakova forsake the world at the age of seventeen and joined the Ust'-Medveditskii convent, where she was tonsured a nun with the name Arsenia. She subsequently served as abbess of this same monastery for 41 years. Heavily influenced by the writings of St ignatius, she took up correspondence with his brother P.A. Brianchaninov and became his spiritual mentor. Her letters to Peter Alexandrovich form the bulk of this book. Also offered are a selection of her personal notes and letters to other individuals. Abbess Arsenia's counsels are steeped in Holy Scripture and in the inspiration that she draws from the services of the Orthodox Church. Throughout, she emphasizes the need to humble oneself, discern the will of God, and fulfill it through every moment of our life.

The Papacy and the Orthodox examines the centuries-long debate over the primacy and authority of the Bishop of Rome, especially in relation to the Christian East, and offers a comprehensive history of the debate and its underlying theological issues. Edward Siecienski begins by looking at the sources of the debate, analyzing the history and texts that have long divided the Catholic and Orthodox world, and ends by examining the Second Vatican Council and recent attempts at dialogue on the issue of the primacy. Starting with the historical Apostle Peter and the role he played in the early church, the book turns to the evidence long used in arguments for and against the Roman primacy. Siecienski details the 2000-year history of the papacy's reception-and rejection-among the Orthodox, beginning with the question that continues to bedevil ecumenists: what was the role of the Bishop of Rome during the time of the undivided church? Although Eastern attitudes towards the papacy often differed depending on time and place, by the time the First Vatican Council (1870) defined the pope's infallibility and universal jurisdiction-doctrines the Orthodox vehemently rejectedit was clear that the papacy, long seen by Catholics as the ministry of unity, had become the chief obstacle to it. Siecienski masterfully brings together all of the biblical, patristic, and historical material necessary to understand this longstanding debate. This book is an invaluable resource as both Catholics and Orthodox continue to reexamine the sources and history of the debate.

An invaluable tool for anyone seeking to learn the traditional liturgical language of the Slavic Orthodox churches. A historical introduction to the development of Church Slavonic is followed by detailed sections covering etymology, parts of speech, and syntax. This comprehensive work concludes with an article on the structure of liturgical chants.

Islam and the Orthodox Church in contemporary Russia are usually studied in isolation from each other, and each in relation to the Kremlin; the latter demands the development of a home-grown and patriotic 'religious traditionalism, as a bulwark against subversive 'non-traditional' imports. This volume breaks new ground by focusing on charismatic missionaries from both religions who bypass the hierarchies of their respective faith organizations and challenge the 'traditionalism' paradigm from within Russia's many religious traditions, and who give new meanings to the well-known catchwords of Russia's identity discourse. The Moscow priest Daniil Sysoev confronted the Russian Orthodox Church with 'Uranopolitism', a spiritual vision that defies patriotism and nationalism; the media-savvy Geidar Dzhemal projected an 'Islamic Eurasianism' and a world revolution for which Russia's Muslims would provide the vanguard; and the Islamic terrorist Said Buriatskii found respect among left- and right-wing Russians through his Islamic adaptation of Lev Gumilev's 'passionarity' paradigm. On the other side, Russian experts and journalists who propagate the official paradigm of Russia's 'traditional Islam' argue from either Orthodox or secularist perspectives, and fail to give content to the concept. This allows even moderate Salafis to argue that their creed is Russia's real 'traditionalist' Islam. This book was originally published as a special issue of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations.

Although much has been written on the making of art objects as a means of engaging in creative productions of the self (most famously Alfred Gell's work), there has been very little written on Orthodox Christianity and its use of material within religious self-formation. Eastern Orthodox Christianity is renowned for its artistry and the aesthetics of its worship being an integral part of devout practice. Yet this is an area with little ethnographic exploration available and even scarcer ethnographic attention given to the material culture of Eastern Christianity outside the traditional 'homelands' of the greater Levant and Eastern Europe. Drawing from and building upon Gell's work, Carroll explores the uses and purposes of material culture in Eastern Orthodox Christian worship. Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork in a small Antiochian Orthodox parish in London, Carroll focusses on a study of ecclesiastical fabric but places this within the wider context of Orthodox material ecology in Britain. This ethnographic exploration leads to discussion of the role of materials in the construction of religious identity, material understandings of religion, and pathways of pilgrimatic engagement and religious movement across Europe. In a religious tradition characterised by repetition and continuity, but also as sensuously tactile, this book argues that material objects are necessary for the continual production of Orthodox Christians as art-like subjects. It is an important contribution to the corpus of literature on the anthropology of material culture and art and the anthropology of religion.

Deification in Russian Religious Thought considers the reception of the Eastern Christian (Orthodox) doctrine of deification by Russian religious thinkers of the immediate pre-revolutionary period. Deification is the metaphor that the Greek patristic tradition came to privilege in its articulation of the Christian concept of salvation: to be saved is to be deified, that is, to share in the divine attribute of immortality. In the Christian narrative of the Orthodox Church 'God became human so that humans might become gods'. Ruth Coates shows that between the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 Russian religious thinkers turned to deification in their search for a commensurate response to the apocalyptic dimension of the universally anticipated destruction of the Russian autocracy and the social and religious order that supported it. Focusing on major works by four prominent thinkers of the Russian Religious Renaissance-Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Nikolai Berdiaev, Sergei Bulgakov, and Pavel Florensky-Coates demonstrates the salience of the deification theme and explores the variety of forms of its expression. She argues that the reception of deification in this period is shaped by the discourse of early Russian cultural modernism, and informed not only by theology, but also by nineteenth-century currents in Russian religious culture and German philosophy, particularly as these are received by the novelist Fedor Dostoevsky and the philosopher Vladimir Soloviev. In the works that are analysed, deification is taken out of its original theological context and applied respectively to politics, creativity, economics, and asceticism. At the same time, all the thinkers represented in the book view deification as a project: a practice that should deliver the total transformation and immortalisation of human beings, society, culture, and the material universe, and this is what connects them to deification's theological source.

The series is devoted to Christian texts from the Greek-speaking parts of the ancient Roman Empire. Published since 1897 (first in Leipzig, then in Berlin) by the Royal Prussian Academy under the project Griechische Christliche Schriftsteller, which was continued by the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy, the series offers large critical editions accompanied by historical introductions and indices of those works that have not been included in other major editions. When complete, the series will provide complete coverage of the first three centuries.

Focusing on the period between the revolutions of 1848-1849 and the First Vatican Council (1869-1870), The Public Image of Eastern Orthodoxy explores the circumstances under which westerners, concerned about the fate of the papacy, the Ottoman Empire, Poland, and Russian imperial power, began to conflate the Russian Orthodox Church with the state and to portray the Church as the political tool of despotic tsars. As Heather L. Bailey demonstrates, in response to this reductionist view, Russian Orthodox publicists launched a public relations campaign in the West, especially in France, in the 1850s and 1860s. The linchpin of their campaign was the building of the impressive Saint Alexander Nevsky Church in Paris, consecrated in 1861. Bailey posits that, as the embodiment of the belief that Russia had a great historical purpose inextricably tied to Orthodoxy, the Paris church both reflected and contributed to the rise of religious nationalism in Russia that followed the Crimean War. At the same time, the confrontation with westerners' negative ideas about the Eastern Church fueled a reformist spirit in Russia while contributing to a better understanding of Eastern Orthodoxy in the West.

"Our Lord Jesus Christ is the Conqueror of death, and, consequently, of the death of our departed ones. Let us say to them in Him, not 'Farewell,' but 'Until we meet again, beloved spouse, good parents, dear brother or sister. Until we meet again!'" While many are now abandoning traditional religious practice, none the less, the reality of death and questions regarding the afterlife remain at the forefront of spiritual consciousness. How Our Departed Ones Live is the answer to those who seek the truth as expressed through the experience of the Orthodox Church. This comprehensive book discusses the source of death and mortality, the inner connection and mutual relationship between the living and the departed, intercession by the living for the departed, and life beyond the grave. It will comfort the grieving and inspire all Christians to strengthen their resolve as they seek first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness.

Georges Florovsky is the mastermind of a 'return to the Church Fathers' in twentieth-century Orthodox theology. His theological vision-the neopatristic synthesis-became the main paradigm of Orthodox theology and the golden standard of Eastern Orthodox identity in the West. Focusing on Florovsky's European period (1920-1948), this study analyses how Florovsky's evolving interpretation of Russian religious thought, particularly Vladimir Solovyov and Sergius Bulgakov, informed his approach to patristic sources. Paul Gavrilyuk offers a new reading of Florovsky's neopatristic theology, by closely considering its ontological, epistemological and ecclesiological foundations. It is common to contrast Florovsky's neopatristic theology with the 'modernist' religious philosophies of Pavel Florensky, Sergius Bulgakov, and other representatives of the Russian Religious Renaissance. Gavrilyuk argues that the standard narrative of twentieth-century Orthodox theology, based on this polarization, must be reconsidered. The author demonstrates Florovsky's critical appropriation of the main themes of the Russian Religious Renaissance, including theological antinomies, the meaning of history, and the nature of personhood. The distinctive features of Florovsky's neopatristic theology Christological focus, 'ecclesial experience', personalism, and 'Christian Hellenism' are best understood against the background of the main problematic of the Renaissance. Specifically, it is shown that Bulgakov's sophiology provided a polemical subtext for Florovsky's theology of creation. It is argued that the use of the patristic norm in application to modern Russian theology represents Florovsky's theological signature. Drawing on unpublished archival material and correspondence, this study sheds new light on such aspects of Florovsky's career as his family background, his participation in the Eurasian movement, his dissertation on Alexander Herzen, his lectures on Vladimir Solovyov, and his involvement in Bulgakov's Brotherhood of St Sophia.

Andrei Bloom (1914-2003) better known as Anthony Bloom, or Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, led an extraordinary life. He was an individual who sought to be in touch with his God yet in solidarity with and responsibility for a tragically disconnected society; a man of God who "knew the world". From the difficulties of Russian emigre life that conditioned him as "a monk without a monastery", through the trials and suffering of war and revolution, to his calling as Priest and Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in Great Britain, he moved between many changing landscapes, striving always to take his bearings in prayer and contemplation. In spite of the collapse of their whole way of life, his parents brought him up to be a generous and courteous friend to those around him. As a surgeon and doctor in German-occupied France, he would provide treatment to those in need irrespective of ethnic or ideological affiliation. In his character, joy in the good and the beautiful was compounded with ardor and tragic depths. This biography explores how Metropolitan Anthony sought the mind of Christ to cultivate and control his own loving heart and occasionally harsh exigence. Avril Pyman draws on a mosaic of available evidence to offer deeper insight into the life and times of a remarkable spiritual teacher, charismatic speaker and priest whose cosmopolitan background, character and experience of science and medicine made a unique and significant contribution to Orthodox Christian thought and practice throughout the world.

An Akathist (Greek for "Standing Up") is a type of extended devotional hymn used both in church and at home. This first volume contains six Akathist hymns to the Lord Jesus Christ (to our Sweetest Lord Jesus Christ, the Divine Passion of Christ, the Precious Cross, the Tomb and the Resurrection of the Lord, the Resurrection of Christ, and for Holy Communion; four Akathist hymns to the Mother of God (to the Most Holy Theotokos, the Dormition of the Theotokos, the Joy of All Who Sorrow, and the Kursk Root Ion of the Sign); and twelve to various saints (St. Alexis the Man of God; the Holy Great Martyr George, St. Herman of Alaska, St. John the Baptist, St. John of Kronstadt, St. John the Theologian, the Holy Archangel Michael, St. Nicholas, the Holy Great Martyr Panteleimon, St. Seraphim of Sarov, St. Simon the Zealot, and for the Repose of the Departed. Also contains music for typical akathist refrains.

In this sweeping history, Alexander Kitroeff shows how the Greek Orthodox Church in America has functioned as much more than a religious institution, becoming the focal point in the lives of the country's million-plus Greek immigrants and their descendants. Assuming the responsibility of running Greek-language schools and encouraging local parishes to engage in cultural and social activities, the church became the most important Greek American institution and shaped the identity of Greeks in the United States. Kitroeff digs into these traditional activities, highlighting the American church's dependency on the "mother church," the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the use of Greek language in the Sunday liturgy. Today, as this rich biography of the church shows us, Greek Orthodoxy remains in between the Old World and the New, both Greek and American.

The Idea of Nicaea in the Early Church Councils examines the role that appeals to Nicaea (both the council and its creed) played in the major councils of the mid-fifth century. It argues that the conflict between rival construals of Nicaea, and the struggle convincingly to arbitrate between them, represented a key dynamic driving-and unsettling-the conciliar activity of these decades. Mark S. Smith identifies a set of inherited assumptions concerning the role that Nicaea was expected to play in orthodox discourse-namely, that it possessed unique authority as a conciliar event, and sole sufficiency as a credal statement. The fundamental dilemma was thus how such shibboleths could be persuasively reaffirmed in the context of a dispute over Christological doctrine that the resources of the Nicene Creed were inadequate to address, and how the convening of new oecumenical councils could avoid fatally undermining Nicaea's special status. Smith examines the articulation of these contested ideas of 'Nicaea' at the councils of Ephesus I (431), Constantinople (448), Ephesus II (449), and Chalcedon (451). Particular attention is paid to the role of conciliar acta in providing carefully-shaped written contexts within which the Nicene Creed could be read and interpreted. This study proposes that the capacity of the idea of 'Nicaea' for flexible re-expression was a source of opportunity as well as a cause of strife, allowing continuity with the past to be asserted precisely through adaptation and modification, and opening up significant new paths for the articulation of credal and conciliar authority. The work thus combines a detailed historical analysis of the reception of Nicaea in the proceedings of the fifth-century councils, with an examination of the complex delineation of theological 'orthodoxy' in this period. It also reflects more widely on questions of doctrinal development and ecclesial reception in the early church.

The Chapters on Theology is one of Maximus' most eclectic writings. In this short piece, Maximus discusses many diverse themes, including God's relation to the cosmos, monastic discipline and life, scriptural difficulties, and his vision of the consummated universe in relation to the incarnate Word of God. The work is arranged into two hundred "chapters," which are often pithy pearls of wisdom that monks could learn from the respected figure of an elder or abbot. Chapters tend to address a range of issues monks would face in the course of their spiritual progress. As such, chapters differ in complexity, although many exhibit intentional ambiguities in order to speak meaningfully with the same sentence to those at different points in their spiritual journey. The wisdom of these ancient words has transcended its time and place, and continues to be an inspirational piece, the insights of which are just as applicable today as they were nearly a millennium and a half ago.

"...for the last time the former rulers of their own home had gathered to fervently pray, tearfully, and on bended knee, imploring that the Lord help and intercede for them in all of their sorrows and misfortunes." Thus the Archpriest Afanasy Belyaev described the faith and piety of the Russian Imperial family, whom he served as priest and confessor, on the occasion of the Tsarevich's thirteenth birthday. These selected excerpts from the chaplain's diary open a window into the souls of the now sainted Royal Family and the struggles endured in their first five months of confinement following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in early 1917. Russian cultural historian Marilyn Pfeifer Swezey sets the diary in its historical context and offers an epilogue to complete the story of the Romanov's journey to martyrdom at the hands of a Bolshevik firing squad in a Siberian basement. Also included is a short life of Fr Afanasy and biographical information regarding the various persons appearing in the work. This anniversary edition has been copiously illustrated throughout with color and black and white photos (some rarely or never published before) as well as charts and maps.