Constantelos_Greek-Orthodoxy-From-Apostolic-Times-to-the-Present-Day.pdf

Greek Orthodoxy - From the Apostolic Times to the Present Day , by D. Constantelos

link to this page : http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-orthodox-history.asp

Demetrios Constantelos

Greek Orthodoxy - From the Apostolic Times to the

Present Day

Excerpts from Constantelos' The Historical Development of Greek Orthodoxy ; full

text at the Church of Greece . Here published with notes, study links and

illustration by Elpenor

http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-orthodox-history.asp (1 of 30) [3/11/2007 2:41:27 PM]

Greek Orthodoxy - From the Apostolic Times to the Present Day , by D. Constantelos

Sophia Laskaridou, Monastery of Phaneromeni, Greece

(from Christianity in 33 Modern Greek Paintings )

REEK and Greek-speaking Christians constituted the greater part

of the early Church. With the diffusion of Hellenism , as early as the

fourth century before the Christian era, the Greeks had come to

constitute a very important if not a dominant element in the Near East

and North Africa, especially in the large and metropolitan cities. It was

because of this Greek world expansion that the rise of Christianity as a

world religion was made possible. …

The first contact of the Greeks with Christ is

related by the author of the Fourth Gospel.

He writes that some Greeks among those

who used to visit Jerusalem at the Passover

approached Philip and Andrew and asked

http://ww w.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-orthodox-history.asp ( 2 of 30) [3/11/2007 2:41:27 PM]

Greek Orthodoxy - From the Apostolic Times to the Present Day , by D. Constantelos

to see Jesus ( Jn. 12.20-24 ) . The Greeks, as

seekers after truth, were eager to listen to

something novel, to meet the new master.

…

Jesus was aware that the Greeks who came

to Him were men with a searching mind

and a troubled spirit. Upon His

confrontation with them, He exclaimed,

" The hour has come for the son of man to be

glorified "(Jn. 12.23). Indeed, these Greeks

were few in number, but Christ saw in them

not only Greeks but Romans and Scythians and other peoples of all times

and places who would also seek to find Him. Jesus said the hour had

come for the Christian Gospel to be proclaimed outside the limited

boundaries of ancient Israel. The Greeks have played a major role in the

kerygma and the didache of Christ. The Greeks found in the person of

Christ the eternal Logos and the "unknown God" of their forefathers,

while Christ discovered in them sincere followers and dedicated apostles

of the New Kingdom.

It was through this historical meeting between the "unknown God" and

the Greeks themselves that Christianity became an ecumenical religion.

As T.R. Glover has put it: " The chief contribution of the Greek was his

demand for this very thing – that Christianity must be universal… the

Greek really secured the triumph of Jesus…. Even the faults of the Greek

have indirectly served the church ." Thus Christianity and Hellenism

embraced each other in a harmonious faith and culture enriching each

other. The Greek Orthodox Church of today is the people born out of the

union between the incarnate Logos and Hellenism.

THE ANCIENT CHURCH

N THE HISTORY of the Greek Orthodox Church four stages of

development can be distinguished. The first three centuries, through

http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-orthodox-history.asp (3 of 30) [3/11/2007 2:41:27 PM]

Greek Orthodoxy - From the Apostolic Times to the Present Day , by D. Constantelos

the age of Constantine the Great constitute the apostolic and ancient

period. The medieval period includes almost ten centuries, to the fall of

Constantinople . The age of captivity starts, roughly, in the fifteenth

century and ends about the year 1830. It is followed by the modern

period.

Soon after its inception,

Christianity was promulgated in

the Greek-speaking world of the

Roman Empire. It was propagated

through the medium of the Greek

language ; it was interpreted and

clarified by the Fathers of

Christianity , who were either

Greek in origin or Hellenized and

who spoke and wrote in Greek.

Christian creeds and canons were

written and codified in the Greek

language by local and ecumenical

synods as well. The New Testament books themselves and much of the

important literature of the Christian religion of the first ten centuries

were written in Greek. Greek philosophical thought and learning were

utilized in defining Christian doctrines. Even Western Church Fathers

such as Jerome, Ambrose, and Augustine, who wrote in the Latin

language, reveal the influence of Greek thought in their writings.

Following three centuries of underground existence and persecution in

the Roman Empire, it was again the Greek Church, the Greek language,

and Greek missionaries that carried the Christian message in both the

East and the West. The Latin element emerged as a major factor in the

history of Christianity only in the West and as late as the fifth century. It

is significant that Saint Paul, writing to the Church of Rome, did not use

Latin but Greek. The early Church in Rome was Greek-speaking, and the

Church in the West was an extension of the Church in the East. The

leading Roman Catholic theologian Tomas Spidlik, a member of the

Society of Jesus, is quite right when he writes: " We must stress one

principle and stress it hard, that the Latin Church originated from the

http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-orthodox-history.asp (4 of 30) [3/11/2007 2:41:27 PM]

Greek Orthodoxy - From the Apostolic Times to the Present Day , by D. Constantelos

Greek Church as a branch grows from a tree trunk. The Church was

implanted by the Greeks and expressed itself in the Greek language until

the end of the fourth century ."

Christianity is Greek not only in form but to great degree in content as

well. As we have seen, Greek religious and philosophical thought had

penetrated into the mind and thought of later Judaism and Greek

thought had thoroughly imbued the whole of the Roman Empire. The

fusion of Greek classical and religious material was present not only in

theological and philosophical writing but also in mystical and spiritual.

Christian thinkers were in constant dialogue with ancient Greek thought

and religious experience. Hellenization affected every aspect of early

Christianity including worship.

For several centuries the worship of the Christian Church in the Roman

Empire including the Latin speaking West was in Greek. Writing about

the Roman Liturgy, C.E. Hammond, a renown liturgiologist of the last

century adds: " it is, we believe, acknowledged on all sides [history,

archeology, literature and criticism] that the language of the early Roman

Church, i.e. of the first three centuries, was Greek ." In full agreement he

cites his contemporary ecclesiastical historian Henry Hart Milman who

writes: " For some considerable (it cannot but be an undefinable) part of

three first centuries, the Church of Rome, and most, if not all the

Churches of the West, were, if we may so speak, Greek religious

colonies. Their language was Greek, their organization Greek, their

writers Greek, their scriptures Greek; and many vestiges and traditions

show that their ritual, their Liturgy, was Greek ."

The tremendous progress in various theological disciplines in the

twentieth century, confirms the views of their colleagues of the previous

century. Concerning the Hellenization of Christianity, scholars of

different fields (history, philosophy, patristics and biblical studies) seem

to agree that far from being a corruption of Christianity, Hellenization

secured its survival and universality. In a recent scholarly review of

Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Jesus – God and Man and Revelation as History,

David W. Tracy has summarized the scholarly opinion of recent years as

follows: " In fact, Pannenberg’s position not only allows, but also insists,

that the Hellenistic tradition provided the necessary conditions of

http://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-orthodox-history.asp (5 of 30) [3/11/2007 2:41:27 PM]

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: