Monthly Archives: May 2017

Counter-Globalization

Western Europe was saved from its suicidal folly by the United States of America twice, in 1917 and again a generation later in 1942, thus ending both insane European Wars. This is why, until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the word globalization was little used and people called spades spades and spoke of Americanization. This Americanization, only now known by the codeword globalization, has produced a threefold backlash – from Sunni Muslim, Indian and Chinese nationalism.

Chinese nationalism (known as Communism, which is another word for Chinese State Capitalism) is now rich enough to arm itself, long ago took over Tibet and is now taking over the South China Sea, eyeing the mineral resources of Black Africa and Australia. Indian, or Hindu, nationalism, will expand wherever it can, but is above all strong inside Hindustan/India. As for Sunni Muslim nationalism, funded by immensely wealthy and, ironically, Western-backed, Wahhabite Saudi Arabia and Qatar, it is intensely fanatical and violent. Notably, it has financed and equipped the murderous invasion of secular-governed Syria by tens of thousands of foreign ISIS terrorists.

None of these nationalist movements is, however, equipped to oppose globalization, for their interests are only local and do not extend outside their areas of national and nationalist interest. None has any global reach or moral force. In reality, there is one only set of values that is universal and express moral values and so are equipped to oppose globalization. We are now seeing intense opposition to that set of values by those who are attacking President Trump. By attacking Trump I refer to the present power struggle in Washington between the neocon appointees of the atheist Clinton/Bush/Obama faction, called by some ‘The Deep State’, and ‘America First’ nationalists like Trump.

For the neocons anything that Trump does is directly dictated to him by Russia. The absurdity of this and all their associated slanders is apparent to all, except to the neocon faction and its media like The New York Times, The Washington Post and puppet neocon TV channels. However, it is still significant that the neocon faction has picked on Russia as the origin of Trump’s values and policies. Since the Soviet Union and its failed Western materialist values disappeared into history a generation ago, why do they choose Russia as the origin of anti-neocon values? It is for the simple reason that post-Soviet Russia, which has gradually been returning to its roots, is now more and more being guided by Christian values, which are so detested by the neocons.

The neocons do not want Christian spirituality and morality, they do not want normality: they want the anarchic permissiveness of social liberalism and law of the jungle economic globalism. If social and family life decays into amorality and depravity, it matters little to them, because they are making money from the misfortunes of others and, as they live in their ghettoes for the individualistic rich, ‘there is no such thing as society’ anyway. And if American workers lose their jobs to China and turn to depravity, drugs and alcohol, it matters little to them, because they are the ones who are getting massive profits from China and from the trade in depravity, drugs and alcohol.

They hate Christian values because these values contradict their way of life which is based on Mammon, capital, money, monetarism, not on God. The Gospel itself opposes God and mammon. The fact that Trump, even if weakly or hypocritically, appears to be backing a set of incarnational Christian values, Faith, Nation and Family, utterly opposed to theirs, means that they automatically see contemporary Russia as the source of these values. This is not because Trump has been directly inspired by Russia, but because he simply reflects a set of normal values which have their origins in the same source as contemporary Russian Orthodox values: the Gospel of Christ. And that is the connection between Trump and Russia, not a direct one, but an indirect one.

Actions Have Consequences

After the huge success of Tsar Nicholas’ 1916 offensive against the Austro-Hungarians (known to post-1917 history as the Brusilov offensive) which could have taken Vienna (29 years before it happened in a very different way in 1945), Western capitals decided on regime-change in Russia. As the British Prime Minister Lloyd George stated in the London Parliament after the success of the British-orchestrated 1917 coup, ‘we have achieved one of our war aims’, for rival Russia had to be destroyed. However, in usurping the legitimate Russian government of Tsar Nicholas by backing corrupt aristocrats and stupid intellectuals, the West created for itself the Soviet Union, its greatest enemy. Actions have consequences.

Sadly, Western powerbrokers have learned nothing from their mistakes. Thus, in 1960s and 1970s Vietnam, their support of ultra-corrupt Vietnamese led to the victory of Communism there. In the 1990s, their crass mishandling of Yugoslavia produced the terrorist and mafia enclave of Kosovo. More recently, in the Ukraine, where again the West usurped a democratically-elected government and replaced it with a clique of oligarchs who are bleeding the country dry, the impoverished country faces a war against the regime’s own people, a massive refugee problem, endemic corruption and bankruptcy. Actions have consequences.

Western support of corrupt Afghans and Iraqis has killed and maimed and forced to flee millions, given birth to corrupt puppet regimes in both countries that have little control over their countries outside their capitals, destabilized the whole of the Middle East, especially Libya and Syria, and produced ISIS. Now an insane terrorist, prepared precisely in Libya and Syria, has struck Manchester. Former British Prime Ministers Blair (who helped ruin Afghanistan and Iraq and so Syria) and Cameron (who helped bomb Libya back into the Stone Age) must take responsibility. Actions have consequences.

Forgiving, but not Forgetting

Another appalling Muslim terrorist incident, this time in Manchester, has taken the lives of over twenty young people. Some ask, ‘Why is that Muslims always carry out such attacks?’ The question is false. True, certain Muslims do carry out such attacks, but so also do Shintoist Japanese kamikaze (suicide bombers), as well as warped Fascist White supremacists, like Breivik in Norway (77 dead) and McVeigh in Oklahoma (168 dead).

The fact is that all religions and ideologies that do not have forgiveness as their central tenet are capable of producing fanatics who carry out mass murder. This includes unforgiving Western State terrorists, who carry out carpet bombing, atomize Hiroshima and Nagasaki, spread Agent Orange and fire uranium-tipped shells into Serbia and invade Iraq, all exemplified by the US general, Curtis LeMay, to whom is at least attributed the quote, ‘let us bomb them back into the Stone Age’.

What is the unique Christian attitude? It is to forgive, because God is in charge of judging history, not men, and God forgives, otherwise He would not have died for humanity on the Cross. Thus, Roman Catholics pillaged and raped their way through New Rome (Constantinople), invaded Russia with their Teutonic Knights and created Uniatism in the Ukraine, from which thousands of people are still dying today, and seventy-five years ago slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Serbs just for making the sign of the cross correctly. But we forgive them because a Higher Justice will deal with them. We tremble at the mere thought of hellfire.

However, we do not forget. The facts of history are the facts of history. They cannot be altered – to the eternal shame of all those who commit such atrocities, like those above. We do not forget because there is only one mistake that we human-beings can avoid, and that is, the mistake of not learning from our mistakes and so making the same mistake again.

The Orthodox: The Ultimate Recusants

In British history recusants were Roman Catholics who in Elizabethan England and afterwards remained loyal to ‘the Old Faith’, refusing to attend the ‘modernist’ Anglican Church (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recusancy). For them the head of the Church could never be the King or Queen of England, but only the Pope of Rome, whatever illusory external trappings of Catholicism the Church of England may have retained.

From an Orthodox viewpoint we may have some sympathy for recusants in their battle against anti-sacral, boring, reductionist Protestantism, but the fact is that they remained loyal not to Orthodoxy, but to an already corrupted form of Orthodoxy, to medieval Catholicism. Although faithfulness is a virtue, we always have to ask ‘faithfulness to what? This is also true of ‘contemporary Catholic recusants’.

By these I mean those traditionalist Catholics who reject the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s and its protestantizing tenets. We may have some sympathy for them, but to what do they remain faithful? To the anti-Orthodox tenets of pre-Vatican II Roman Catholicism? And all too often, let it be said, to a very right-wing form of politics that can have sinister echoes in 20th century Western European history.

The fact is that Orthodox in the West are the ultimate recusants. We are faithful to the genuine ‘Old Faith’, that which predates eleventh-century invented Roman Catholicism, we are faithful to the Church of God. We are faithful to God and not to man and his essentially filioquist and so secularist desire to replace the Divine, paradisiac and sinless Holy Spirit with the human, fallen and sinful unholy spirit.

On Authority, Infallibility, Personal Opinion, Episcopal Corruption and the Russian Emigration

Answers to Four Recent Questions

As you have no Pope, where is the infallible authority of the Orthodox Church?

N.G., Oxford

The Church’s authority is the Holy Spirit. Infallibility, restricted in Catholicism to the Popes of Rome when they speak ex cathedra, that is, from their position as Pope, can be expressed by anyone if they speak and are inspired by the Holy Spirit. This is much more democratic than in the Roman Catholic religion that you confess – however, this is no Protestant/’Charismatic’ free for all.

First of all, the gift of speaking through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit requires great spiritual sobriety and is a rare occurrence, demanding spiritual purity in the soul, based on the repentance, humility and ascetic life (fasting and prayer), which is at the heart of Church life. There is no authority without humility, repentance and ascetic self-sacrifice. The Holy Spirit cannot inspire where there is spiritual impurity and worldliness, as we recently saw in Crete.

Nevertheless, all the saints have spoken through the Holy Spirit at some point in their lives, even if only at their martyrdom. This authority is often recognized only after the event, which is why people are not canonized immediately and the saints are often rejected during their lifetimes. We can think of the cases of St Leo the Great, whose message, written some time before, was at once recognized at Chalcedon as the voice of the Church, of St Mark of Ephesus, who defended Orthodoxy through his integrity or, more recently, St Justin (Popovich), who gave us the definitive Orthodox teaching on ecumenism. Christ spoke through them all by the Holy Spirit.

Everything else is personal opinion and has no validity or infallibility, like the opinions expressed at the Crete meeting of a number of Orthodox bishops in June 2016. These were at once rejected, including by many present, since they did not correspond to the catholic tradition and theological conscience of the Church, but came from philosophies like those of eccentric outliers who have infiltrated the Church with the support of secular politics and are inspired by the secular, humanist world.

If you are a member of the clergy, what do you do in cases of episcopal corruption, financial, moral or other?

P.V., Paris

If you are really sure that this is the case from personal experience, and it is not merely some slanderous gossip of ill-wishers and Cold War politicians (like the absurd slanders against the late Russian Patriarch Alexei II that he was a KGB agent!!!!, when he was in fact a KGB victim), in such cases you do what clergy have always done throughout the ages, in Greece, Russia, Romania or wherever – you ask to move sideways canonically. In other words, you move physically and spiritually to another canonical diocese of the Church, without of course creating some division or schism.

This you do in order to avoid compromising your morals and so spiritual life. In such cases of episcopal corruption, you should also discreetly supply proof of the corruption, if you have any, so that the bishop in question can be judged by his fellow-bishops, but this is only possible if they are politically free to do so.

Such cases of personal corruption are quite different from cases of heresy, where a bishop is openly, clearly and publicly preaching heresy, (and not just expressing some unusual personal opinion, with which you may happen to disagree), for example, if he is denying the Holy Trinity, that Christ is the Son of God, the Resurrection or the Virgin Birth.

What do you consider to have been the main two enemies of Orthodoxy in the Russian emigration?

B.M., Scotland

Without doubt the enemies of authentic and often saintly Russian Orthodox in the emigration were, firstly, Russian Westernism, such as I experienced infiltrating ROCOR in London and elsewhere and the Rue Daru group in Paris and elsewhere, and secondly Russian Nationalism in the same cities and elsewhere. The two went hand in hand and fed off each other. Both were acutely thisworldly in their ethos.

By Russian Westernism, I mean the sort of ‘anything goes’ liberalism preached by the Westernized Saint Petersburg aristocrats who were so influential in Russian émigré Church life in all jurisdictions, though in some much more than others, and had no idea of the Tradition. They after all had brought about the Revolution through their anti-Church and anti-monarchist spirit and their exile was in fact self-punishment.

By Russian Nationalism I mean the spirit of Russia first, Orthodoxy (at best) second. This was the spirit that I heard in parishes of all jurisdictions, saying, ‘We would rather close the parish than use a single word in the local language’ (which their children and grandchildren alone could understand). Naturally, dozens of parishes simply died out and closed down because the Faith was not passed on, because the confessed only a sort of exclusive racism. They had no idea of the high missionary calling of the Russian Diaspora.

As the two went hand in hand together, one to the left extreme, the other to the right extreme, the antidote to them both is exactly the same. It is to be an Imperial, that is, a Russian Orthodox, who is faithful to multinational and multilingual Holy Rus, which is the title of the Russian Orthodox Patriarchs of all nationalities. (For example, the last Patriarch ‘of All Rus’ was a Balt, whose surname was von Ridiger, and the present Patriarch is Mordovan).

What held you back the most as a Russian Orthodox clergyman in the old Russian emigration?

P. T., London

There were two basic ‘sins’ in the eyes of secular-thinking old Russian emigres whom I encountered in the 1970s and 1980s before they died out. The first was to be young (unlike them), the second was to be educated (unlike most of them).

Of course, the two criticisms could be valid. For example, the young may lack valuable experience and the educated may lack all-important wisdom. However, in the context of the time, that was not what their criticism was about. What was it about? Firstly, they were so used to having 80-year old bishops and priests, sometimes with Alzheimer’s, that they got used to stagnation and paralysis before their bishops and priests died out. And, secondly, they were so used to having ill-educated clergy, that they had no arguments against the modern, Non-Orthodox world, in which their descendants lived.

In a healthy Church we need young and old, energetic bishops and priests in their thirties (30 is the canonical minimum age for priests, 35 for bishops) as well as older, more experienced ones, as well as well-educated and not so educated bishops and priests – as long as they both have the wisdom of the heart, which is inspired by the Holy Spirit.

A Prophetic Anniversary

В Москве прошла конференция к 10-летию воссоединения Русской Церкви

Слово священника Андрея Филлипса о 10-летии объединения РПЦ и РПЦЗ

Fr. Andrew Phillips on the 10th anniversary of the ROC and ROCOR reunion

Christ is Risen!

Dear Fathers, Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Ten years ago, on 17 May 2007, during the Liturgy of the Ascension, at which the Act of Canonical Communion was signed, I stood in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour confessing. Among those confessing were senior military officials, in uniform, who had come to repent for persecuting the Church in Soviet times. They did not realize that they were confessing their sins to God in the presence of a priest from the Church Outside Russia. Never have I felt our unity so profoundly. It is from our mutual repentance, and both sides had to do this, that we took our profound unity and so could ask together for the prayers of the New Martyrs and Confessors. In particular we ask today for the prayers of the Royal Martyrs, whom we remember on this centenary of the tragic betrayal of the Russian Empire.

For decades I have belonged to the Church Outside Russia and have served her in France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal and England, speaking for her in the USA, Australia and the Netherlands. For the Russian Federation is today only part of the Russian Orthodox world, of what we call Rus. Today, Rus is not only the Russian Federation, the Ukraine (despite the US-installed junta in Kiev) and Belarus, not only Moldova and Carpatho-Russia (Zakarpat’e). Rus is everywhere that the Russian Orthodox Faith is confessed, from Kazakhstan to the Baltics, from Japan to Thailand, from Germany to Venezuela, from Switzerland to Central Asia, from Italy to Indonesia, from Argentina to the USA, from Australia to England, from Canada to New Zealand. We too are Rus, together with you all.

In these latter times the Russian Orthodox Church has a worldwide mission to preach our common Faith without compromise, globally and in all languages, despite those who oppose us. Some of the greatest patriots of Rus belong to what Fr Andrei Tkachov rightly calls ‘our Church Outside Russia’. Our motto has always been ‘For the Faith, for the Tsar, for Rus’ and this is what our greatest saints, St Jonah of Hankou, St John of Shanghai and St Seraphim of Sofia, always proclaimed.

We are part of the Tsar’s Church, working in his spirit, for the Tsar-Martyr spoke five languages and built eighteen churches in Western Europe, desiring to see one built in each Western capital. (We still have one to build in central London in fulfilment of his desire). We in the Church Outside Russia are the outposts of Russian Orthodoxy, spiritual oases in an often hostile Western world. We are preparing, even in the West, for the coming Tsar of Rus. This is our unity. And our unity is our common victory!

Archpriest Andrew Phillips,
Parish of St John of Shanghai,
Colchester, England

The Western World in Turmoil

With the Washington administration descending into infighting between the new ‘Drain the Swamp’ President and the neocons of the ‘Dark State’, who, regardless of Party tag, have been in control for a generation and do not want to give it up, US powerbrokers seem to be paralysed.

In the US-vassal organization, the EU, the policy of ‘Destroy the Church, the Nation and the Family’ has developed dramatically over the last generation, building on the millennial attack on the Church and the 20th-century attack on the Nation-State by the Western European elite. However, it too is now being challenged by the anti-EU protest of the European peoples, who want either their spiritual freedom (Church Life), or their identity (National Life), or simply their sanity (Family Life) back.

The Western world seems to be reaching a turning-point. Does it continue on the hysterical path towards Antichrist that it took 100 years ago and which it has accelerated on, especially in the last 50 years, or does it stop and perhaps even turn back to its roots and common sense? We of course do not know, but we do know that now is the time for prayer and repentance – or else….

The Mother of God Visits the Isles

As the peoples of the Western part of Europe labour beneath the EU yoke – an elitist project, if there ever was one – there has come the hundredth anniversary of Fatima. Then the Mother of God, through three innocent and semi-literate peasant children in provincial Portugal, called on Western Europe to repent. If its leaders did not repent, She said, so the spiritual disease of atheism, sent to Russia from the West, would infect the Western world. And so it has happened. When martyred Russia finally freed herself from the burdensome illusion of the Soviet Union, the demons abandoned her and settled to create the European Union of atheism and depravity. The results we see daily before us.

Here in the Russian Orthodox world in England and Wales we have been blessed by the coming of the Mother of God through her Hawaiian Iveron icon (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqJc0Knt7Ao), pouring forth myrrh. A monk accompanying Her stated that he for one had not witnessed such an abundant outpouring of myrrh before. The Mother of God is still waiting for the Western world to repent, for the swamp to be drained.

Holy Sussex: Three Southern Saints

Introduction

Having written of the saints of East Anglia, Essex and Kent, I have been asked to write of the saints of the fourth of the seven early English kingdoms, Sussex, the Kingdom of the South Saxons. Though not so far to the south of London, just beyond Surrey and Kent and stretching to the south coast, hence ‘Sussex by the sea’, Sussex has a reputation for being separate from the rest of England. Perhaps this is because of its downs, or hills, and forest, which in times past cut it off from others. In any case, as a result, just like the people of Essex, local people, in both east and west Sussex, have a reputation for independence and an aversion to being forced into anything. This is expressed in the Sussex motto, ‘We wunt be druv’ (We won’t be driven/pushed around).

The English settlement of Sussex began in the year 477 with a certain leader Aelle, who landed on the coast, consolidated his territory and was eventually recognised as the first overlord of southern Britain. By the second half of the seventh century the western corner of Sussex around Selsey and Chichester had become the political centre of the kingdom. In the 660s-670s King Ethelwalh of Sussex formed an alliance with the Mercian King Wulfhere. As Mercia’s first Christian king, Wulfhere insisted that Ethelwalh convert to Christianity. Wilfrid, the exiled Bishop of York and future saint, came to Sussex in 681 and with King Ethelwalh’s approval set up a mission to convert Sussex to Christ, his centre in Selsey.

At the end of the 8th century, Aldwulf was probably the last independent king of Sussex, after which Sussex like others came increasingly under Mercian rule. But Mercia’s grip was in turn shattered in 825, when Sussex and the other southern kingdoms came under the control of Wessex which later grew into the kingdom of England. Orthodox Sussex is marked by three saints. These are:

St Leofwynn (Lewina/Lewinna), Protomartyr of Sussex (+ c. 670)

Sussex was the last of the seven kingdoms of England to become Christian and east Sussex remained pagan longest of all. However, even before St Wilfrid’s organized missionary labours in 681, there were isolated Christians here. For example, a Sussex man called Damian had become Bishop of Rochester in Kent in the 650s and King Ethelwalh had been baptised before St Wilfrid. And before Wilfrid there was for a time a small monastery of five or six monks at Bosham in west Sussex, founded in c. 670 by a wandering Irish monk called Dicul (Deicola), later St Dicul (feast: 18 April).

St Leofwynn was another such isolated Sussex Christian, being martyred in c. 670, almost certainly by fellow countrymen who were still pagan and she was not a Briton, as can be ascertained by her name. About three centuries after her martyrdom her wonderworking relics were solemnly translated to a St Andrew’s church near Seaford in east Sussex, so the place of her sufferings must have been nearby. This St Andrew’s church where her miraculous relics were venerated in early English times was perhaps in Alfriston, an attractive village four miles from Seaford. However, others have suggested nearby Bishopstone, which also has a church dedicated to St Andrew dating back to the eighth century.

Most of our knowledge of St Leofwynn comes from an account of the theft of her relics in 1058 for a monastery in Berg in Flanders. After the Norman occupation nearly every memory of the saint disappeared in England, though she was a much-loved intercessor in her new home. In 1558 Berg was captured by French Protestants and the relics of Saint Leofwynn disappeared except for one rib. This was venerated at the monastery until the French Revolution when it disappeared. In 1928 a priest in Berg rediscovered the relic, but when his church was almost destroyed during a bombardment in the Second World War the relic was lost. St Leofwynn’s feast day is 24 July.

St Wilfrid, Apostle of Sussex (+ c. 709)

Sussex became a diocese when St Wilfrid began to convert the pagan kingdom between 681 and 685. St Wilfrid (c. 633 – c. 709) was a Northumbrian noble who became a monk and then Bishop of Northumbria. Exiled by the Northumbrian king who had quarrelled with him, Bishop Wilfrid spent these years of exile in Selsey in west Sussex, where he founded his see with a monastery on an estate of 87 hides, granted to him by King Ethelwalh. Here in the Manhood peninsula he began converting the pagan inhabitants to Christianity, before returning to Northumbria under its new king.

St Bede attributed Bishop Wilfrid’s ability to begin to convert Sussex in part to his teaching them how to fish. He also wrote that the Sussex area had been experiencing a drought for three years before Wilfrid, but miraculously when he arrived and started baptising converts, it began to rain. Bishop Wilfrid worked with another future saint, Erconwald, Bishop of London, in helping to set up the church in Sussex.

His mission was jeopardised when King Ethelwalh died during an invasion of his kingdom by Caedwalla of Wessex. However, Bishop Wilfrid had previously had contact with Cædwalla and may have served as his spiritual advisor before he invaded. And after Ethelwalh’s death Bishop Wilfrid became one of the new king’s advisors and he was converted. Cædwalla confirmed Ethelwalh’s grant of land in Selsey and Wilfrid built his cathedral nearby at the entrance to Pagham Harbour, in what is now Church Norton.

Cædwalla also sent Wilfrid west to the still pagan Isle of Wight with the aim of converting the inhabitants. The King gave Bishop Wilfrid a quarter of the land on the island as a gift. In 688 the King gave up his throne and went on a pilgrimage to Rome to be baptised, but died shortly afterwards. St Wilfrid may have been involved in founding monasteries in other parts of Sussex, but the evidence for this is based only on wording used in founding charters which resembles that used by him in other charters.

After this mission, Christians in Sussex were placed in the Diocese of Winchester and it was not until c. 715 that Edbert, Abbot of Selsey, was consecrated the first Bishop of Sussex. There were eventually around fifty monastic (minster) churches across Sussex and these centres supplied clergy for the surrounding areas. Examples are at Steyning, Singleton, Lyminster, Findon and Bishopstone. The jurisdiction of each of these churches seems to have matched the early land divisions, called rapes.

Thus, it was not until 200–300 years after conversion to Christianity began in the 680s that a network of local parish churches came into existence in Sussex, the earliest being recorded at Henfield in central Sussex in 770. Several monasteries were also established here in the early English period in, for example, Selsey, Lyminster, Aldingbourne, Beddingham, Chichester, Bosham, Ferring and South Malling. In 1075 the Normans transferred the cathedral for Sussex to nearby Chichester. The original cathedral at Selsey is now under the sea. St Wilfrid’s feast is on 12 October.

St Cuthman (Cuthmann) of Steyning

St Cuthman was born in about 681, probably at Chidham near Bosham in west Sussex. This would probably mean that St Wilfrid converted and baptised Cuthman and his parents. His life states that he was a shepherd who had to care for his paralysed mother after his father’s death.

According to one story, once while he was shepherding, Cuthman drew a line around the sheep with his staff so that he could leave to collect food. On his return he found that the flock had not left the invisible boundary. This miracle may have taken place in a field near Chidham, which for centuries was known as ‘St Cuthman’s Field’ or ‘St Cuthman’s Dell’. It was said that a large stone in the field on which the shepherd was in the habit of sitting had miraculous properties.

When Cuthman and his mother fell on hard times and were forced to beg from door to door, he built a one-wheeled cart, with a rope from the handles over his shoulders taking part of the weight, in which he moved her around with him. One day Cuthman and his mother set out east from his home, heading towards the rising sun. When the rope broke he improvised a new one from withies, deciding that when that broke he would accept it as a sign from God to stop at that place and build a church there.

The withy rope broke at a place called Steyning, some 25 miles from his birthplace and inland from central Sussex, at which he prayed: “Father Almighty, Thou hast brought my wanderings to an end, now enable me to begin this work. For who am I, Lord, that I should build a house to Thy name? If I rely on myself it will be of no use, but Thou wilt help me. Thou hast given me the desire to be a builder, make up for my lack of skill and bring the work of building this holy house to its completion.”

For, after building a hut for his mother and himself, Cuthman began work on a wooden church which he decided to dedicate to the fisherman-saint, Andrew, with help from the locals. As the church was nearing completion and Cuthman was having difficulty with a roof-beam, a stranger showed him how to mend it. When Cuthman asked his name, he replied: ‘I am he in whose name you are building this church’. We do not know when Cuthman reposed, but we can imagine it would have been in about 730.

Steyning became an important religious centre and St Cuthman’s grave became a place of pilgrimage in the tenth and eleventh centuries. In charters of William the Conqueror Steyning was sometimes called St Cuthman’s Market or St Cuthman’s Parish. At his birthplace at Chidham there developed a Guild of St Cuthman. Though he dedicated the church he founded at Steyning to St Andrew, the parish was recently rededicated to St Andrew and St Cuthman. A picture of him with his handcart is on Steyning’s town sign. His feast day is 8 February.

Conclusion

In September 1066 the Norman invaders landed at Pevensey in east Sussex near Kent and nearby erected a wooden castle at Hastings, from which they plundered the surrounding area. Thus, the Battle of Hastings took place in Sussex, fought against the English King Harold, who had strong connections with Sussex and whose chief seat was probably in Bosham in the west. It is likely that all the fighting men of Sussex were at the battle, as the county’s chief men were decimated and any that survived had their lands confiscated. As the heartland of King Harold, Sussex experienced some of the greatest and most tragic changes of any English county under the Normans.

Its Orthodoxy supplanted, in later history the west of the county had a tendency towards Catholicism, while the east of the county had a tendency towards Protestantism. Today, even these fragments of the Faith have largely been lost, but the memory of the three saints of Sussex, who all lived and reposed within a century of one another, has not been lost: Leofwynn the martyr from the east on whose blood the Church was founded, Wilfrid, the Apostle of Sussex who worked in the west, and Cuthman, the holy layman who settled near the centre of Sussex. What a fine thing it would be if one day an Orthodox church could be founded in Sussex, perhaps in its one city, Brighton, with its large population located very centrally along the coast between east and west, and dedicated to St Andrew the First-Called Apostle and the Three Saints of Sussex.