Monthly Archives: December 2018

ON PRIESTESSES AND BISHOPESSES [i]

In the Protestant, Neo-Protestant and Anglican denominations, with all their ramifications and sub-kingdoms, which, from the end of the second millennium, have gone on multiplying like weeds on an unploughed field, there has been a great deal of stir with the ordination of women. The New Order of Things (Novus Ordo Seculorum) operates pre-eminently in the spiritual field.

It seems that political correctness has won and, in the spirit of equality of opportunity, of professional non-discrimination, ‘good news’ is increasing. We not only have Christian priestesses…we also have Christian bishopesses! The arguments which motivate this trend go back to Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, while invoking the practices of Non-Christian religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.

There is a lot of pressure on Roman Catholicism, but Pope Francis has remained firm on the their position: with all due respect and consideration for Roman Catholic women’s activities, as long as he is Pope, women will not be ordained to the priesthood. What is the argument? Jesus and His Apostles were men! True, but what are we supposed to do about the Mother of God, or Mary Magdalene, or the holy empress Helen, those who are called ‘equal to the Apostles’?

At this point, there must be a much stronger, much more logical and more serious argument…

In order for us to find it, we have to go back to the creation of the world. Then, God has formed Adam from the dust, (in Hebrew adama – ground, dust):”Then God formed man out of dust from the ground, and breathed in his face the breath of life; and man became a breathing soul”(Genesis, 2, 7). [ii] As for Eve, she was formed out of one of Adam’s ribs: Then the Lord God brought a trance upon Adam; and after he fell asleep, God took one of his ribs and filled up the flesh in its place. And out of the rib taken from Adam the Lord God has formed the woman and brought her to Adam. Then Adam has said:”This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man”(Genesis: 2, 21-23). ”So Adam called his wife’s name Eve (Life), because she was the mother of all living” (Genesis, 3, 20) (in Hebrew Eve is Hava – the living one). Eve and her followers give life (but do not take life) by giving birth to babies.

Let us go on to Abraham and Sarah.

Then God said again to Abraham:”As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And will bless her and also give you a son by her; and I will bless him, and he shall become nations; and kings of peoples shall be from him.” Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his mind:”Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old, and shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” ”Then God said: No, Sarah, your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him and an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him” (Genesis, 17, 15-17, 19). And where God wants, He changes the order of nature and cancels the barrenness of old age and Sarah gives birth/brings to life Isaac, from the seed of Abraham. ”For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in old age, at the set time, of which God has spoken to him” (Genesis, 21, 2). What a huge joy for both parents! But, when Isaac was a boy, God put Abraham to test: ”Take now your beloved son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a whole burnt offering on one of the mountains I tell you” (Genesis, 22, 2). We are not told by the Holy Scriptures what was going on in Abraham’s soul. Abraham arrived at Mt Moriah and when he was about to sacrifice Isaac, God stopped him: ”Do not lay your hand on the lad, or do anything to him, for now I know you fear God, since for My sake you have not spared your beloved son” (Genesis, 22, 12). All of this episode is a prefiguration of our Saviour’s sacrifice on the Cross. ”He Who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,…” (Romans 8, 32).

Let us now turn to the feminist version. God does not ask Abraham, but Sarah to take everything required and climb to the indicated place to sacrifice Isaac, whom she has borne in her womb, to whom she has given life, body and blood from her own body and blood. How would Sarah have reacted? What would God have said about a mother who, without pondering too much, lifts up a knife to sacrifice her own child?

Some with a prolific imagination see Mary Magdalene among the Apostles at the Mystical Supper. But why did Jesus Christ not invite His own Mother? Was it not truly right for her to be awarded a kind of priority by her Son?

The only thing we have to stress here is that the Supper was not a normal one, it was a sacrificial Supper, the premiere of the Sacrifice on the Cross:

”And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them saying, This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me. Likewise, He also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you” (Lk 22, 19-20).

The Saviour asks the Apostles (at that moment they did not understand what he was talking about) to do this in remembrance of Him, by replacing the Roman soldiers who nail Him to the Cross and pierce His side with a spear. Who shall teach them how to do this? ”…the Helper, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (Jn 14, 26).

And ever since, from Pentecost, from the Descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles in the form of tongues of fire, through uninterrupted apostolic and faith succession, in the Orthodox Church, within the framework of the Divine Liturgy, the priests really do sacrifice Christ, Who offers Himself to the faithful in the form of  bread and wine. At the Proskomedia (preparation table), with a knife (called a lance), whose cutting edge is in the form of a lance, the priest takes out of the offertory bread the Lamb (Agnus), and small particles and places them on the Paten (Diskos). Why? Since”I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world…Then Jesus said to them, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed…He who eats this bread will live forever” (Jn, 6, 51, 53-55, 58). No man, as long as he is sane in his mind, will ever put in his mouth human body and blood. And with good reason, the Jews quarrelled among themselves, saying:”How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?” (Jn 6, 52).

After invoking the Holy Spirit, that is, after the consecration of the Gifts, (the Lamb and the wine), in the Chalice (Cup) there is, in a real way, the very Body and Blood of our Saviour. How the bread and the wine are transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ – this is a mystery, something which cannot be understood either by angels or by men. By going back to the origins, we shall find neither grains of wheat, nor clusters of grapes, but the very bloody Christ on the Cross. For those who have doubted (even monks!), God, most benevolent and most merciful, showed to them that in the little spoon borne to the mouth there is indeed body and blood. The one who was about to partake of Holy Communion fell ill on the spot.

Consequently, while the sacrifice (execution) of Jesus Christ within the framework of the Orthodox Liturgy is real, woman cannot be an executioner, she cannot take life by virtue of the fact that she gives life. Where there no longer exists (and there does not exist, even if it is claimed) uninterrupted apostolic and faith succession, the Eucharist is a simulacrum, a mockery, the bread remains bread and the wine remains wine. In other words, Christ is absent from the Cup. Even if it is only a symbolical fact, the vision of women who gesture, acting as priestesses and bishopesses in order to sacrifice, is a horror.

Nicusor Gliga / Bucharest, Romania, 14 February 2014

(Translated into English by Fr. Dumitru Macaila / Romania)

 

[i] Even if there is no feminine form for this term in English, I have coined it; I could have coined it as she-bishopesses, also, to help people to understand that in the Orthodox Church there is no feminine form for the two terms.

[ii] All of the Biblical quotations are taken from The Orthodox Study Bible by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Nashville, 2008.

 

 

SAYONARA, ‘ AMERICA FIRST ’! WE HARDLY KNEW YOU!

THE VIEW OF THE WORLD OF A GENUINE GREEK ORTHODOX

“None of this is America First. In a sane policymaking world, Trump should be looking to cut a spheres of influence deal with Putin (and with Xi and maybe with India’s Narendra Modi)”

James (Jim) George Jatras

President Donald Trump’s cancellation of his planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Buenos Aires G20 is another sign of the now almost certain demise of his declared “America First” agenda – and perhaps of his presidency. Supposedly decided in response to a Ukraine-Russia naval incident in the Kerch Strait, dumping the meeting is universally and correctly seen as a response to the guilty plea of his former lawyer and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, to lying to Congress (notice thatJames Clapper isn’t forced to plead to his perjury before the Senate) and Cohen’s disclosure of Trump’s fruitless business dealings in Russia.

Keep in mind that this comes at a time when grand inquisitor Robert Mueller is on thin ice – or would be, if Trump and his team had a clue. Consider: in just the past few days Jerome Corsi, Roger Stone, and belatedly perhaps even Paul Manafort have delivered what amounts to a case against Mueller’s underlings, including subornation of testimony they knew to be false – a felony punishable by five years in the slammer (18 US Code § 1622 – Subornation of perjury). Is Trump or any of his lawyers thinking of having the victims swear out a complaint and instructing the Justice Department actually to prosecute these miscreants? No, of course not, even though at least Corsi appears to be willing.

Likewise Trump threatens to declassify “a wide swath of ‘devastating’ documents related to the Mueller probe, which he had initially planned to do in September before changing his mind” on the beseeching of British Prime Minister Theresa May. Britain’s worst prime minister ever is desperate to hide the fact that at its root there’s nothing Russian about “Russiagate” but there’s lots and lots of British MI6, GCHQ, and other Five Eyes skullduggery aimed at subverting the 2016 US election and preventing any possible rapprochement between Washington and Moscow. With respect to both goals this massive PSYOP and political warfare campaign by the US-UK Deep State has been a smashing success.

Trump has the goods on them but just sits on his hands and threatens. (He should heed that great philosopher Tuco from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: “When you have to shoot, shoot – don’t talk.”) For those patiently waiting for Trump’s “4D chess” game to unleash QAon’s “Storm,” here’s a news flash: the cavalry is not coming to the rescue. The following are just a few names that will never be brought to justice: Rod Rosenstein, Peter Strzok, Bruce Ohr, Andrew McCabe, James Comey, Lisa Page, Andrew Weissmann, Stefan Halper, Christopher Steele, Joseph Mifsud, Richard Dearlove, Andrew Wood, Susan Rice, Loretta Lynch, Cheryl Mills, Huma Abedin, Samantha Power, Sally Yates, Jeannie Rhee, Eric Holder, James Clapper, John Brennan, and Barack Hussein Obama. Oh, and Hillary Clinton of course (while the whistleblower on her corrupt activities gets raided by the FBI).

These august personages are not subject to the laws binding on ordinary mortals like thee and me. These scoundrels will skate. All of them. That’s why a smug, world-class criminal like Brennan can mock Trump’s complaints as similar to how “corrupt authoritarian leaders abroad behaved before they were deposed.” He already anticipates dancing on Trump’s (probably figurative) grave.

Back to the Cohen plea, it’s entirely likely it was timed to have precisely the result of scuttling the Trump-Putin meeting. There can be no better illustration of the weakness of Trump’s position than his inability to engage in even a semblance of statesmanship with respect to the leader of the one power on the planet with which the US absolutely must have some minimal working relationship.

With the Democrats set to take over in the House of Representatives in just over a month, we’ll soon seeintensified investigations coordinated with Mueller to find any possible pretext for impeachment in Trump’s business or private life. It’s conventional wisdom that even if the Democrat-controlled House can find something to support articles of impeachment the GOP-held Senate will be Trump’s firewall. Bunk. Democrats rallied around their president Bill Clinton but it was Republicans who threw Richard Nixon to the wolves. Are there a dozen or so Republican Senators who would be ready to dump Trump and install Mike Pence in the Oval Office? You betcha. Start with Mitt Romney.

As the noose around Trump’s neck continues to tighten, his response will be to keep on carping about how unfair it all is, that there was no collusion with Russia, that it’s a “total witch hunt” that should be ended. All true, all meaningless. He has the weapons to fight back but lacks the knowledge or personnel to use them. So he complains. He tweets. Meanwhile, on substance he’s jumping up and down like a monkey on a string.

Which leaves us asking: Why?

One of the burdens carried by those of us Deplorables whoearly in 2016 declared our support for the then-improbable candidacy of Donald Trump has been the taunts of those who “knew better.” Trump was a fraud, they said, “just a BS-ing con man who would say anything to get elected.” He was a stalking horse to help usher in President Hillary (what other Republican could she possibly beat?). He was crude, impulsive, irritable, egotistical, dyslexic, and incapable of and uninterested in learning anything he doesn’t already know. He was a flimflam artist who had cheated everyone he’d ever done business with or been married to and would abuse his lumpen Muricanpolitical supporters in Flyover Country accordingly. He was just another globalist neocon flunky of the Israelis, the Saudis, and the Deep State who was only mouthing populist rhetoric to get elected. He was a shyster on the make whose only goal was to enhance his “brand” to get even richer. He was a huckster with big assets in Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, and other nasty, nasty places, who just wanted to make a killing on his investments. And so on …

Those of us who supported Trump (and who still struggle to support him) point to his repeated use of America First and national interest language even when it was politically counterproductive and only served to subject him to vilification by Democrats and establishment Republicans alike. Ditto his repeated appeals for better relations with Russia, even at the cost of being accused of treason by the same antagonists and their media shills. Ditto the claim from a hostile source like Bob Woodward that behind doors Trump repeatedly tries to do the right thing, like get the US out of Afghanistan and Syria, but then is overruled by “experts” who are his nominal subordinates. Ditto his seeming “art of the deal” transformation of his bluster and threat competition with “Little Rocket Man” into the best chance for peace on the Korean peninsula in seven decades. From his unscripted comments and tweets, there always seems to be a little 2016 Candidate Trump fighting to get out of President Trump but never quite succeeding . . .

But how then to explain histerrible, horrible, no good, very bad national security team? His beeline to Saudi Arabia, Israel, and NATO headquarters in his maiden foreign policy trip to reaffirm mindless hostility to Iran and America’s suicide pact with useless so-called “allies” in Europe? His authorization of lethal weapons to Ukraine? His two cruise missile strikes on Syria on transparently bogus claims of chemical weapons use? His ever-tightening of sanctions on Russia and nonstop expansion of NATO? His continued naval provocations against China?

To characterize as “low” expectations of any Trump-Putin sidebar meeting that might have happened at the G20 is putting it extremely mildly. (Who knows, maybe they’ll still manage to steal a few sweet moments for a quick tête-à-tête, like a secret tryst of illicit lovers. Maybe Strzok and Page can provide some pointers.) Even laying aside the endless navel-gazing about what President Trump really wants, and why his administration’s foreign policy bears almost no resemblance to his 2016 America First platform, it’s pretty clear that in practice the US course will remain essentially a continuation of the failed policies of the past three decades: a futile attempt to maintain US global hegemony indefinitely at any cost. That can have only one hideous outcome.

With regard to Russia, the Kerch Strait incident will serve as another pretext for sanctions that will soon be added with the predictability that night follows day. The ongoing trade war with China (on purely economic grounds not wrong in itself) serves as a backdrop for continued dragon-baiting in the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait, and Xinjiang, all places where the US has no actual interests. Even Trump’s minimal potential as a wrecking ball to disrupt the dysfunctional commitments he inheriteddoesn’t seem to be working out. The Swamp-critters to whom he’s entrusted his administration dance along their merry way as though Mitt Romney or ¡Jeb! Bush were president, with little or no interference from their nominal boss.

On top of hastening the bankruptcy of the US, the danger of war with Russia, or China, or both will continue to increase. Neither Russian President Putin nor Chinese President Xi Jinping can still have any illusions about that and are planning accordingly. No one knows exactly when or where we will reach the point of no return.

Russian and Chinese officials have warned the US about their preparedness for war in so many words. No one in Washington is listening, except to the extent that the new report of a Congressionally mandated commission has concluded that despite spending on our military ten times what Russia does and three times China’s outlays, we still might lose a war to either of those powers.
So what do the Swamp-critters draw from that? We need to spend even more! And Trump will accommodate them.
The one bright spot so far has been on the Korean peninsula – for which Trump deserves great credit, though his minions are working overtime to avert the horrid prospect that peace might break out and we’d no longer have an excuse to keep troops in South Korea. On everything else, even where developments favor disengagement from involvements not conducive to American interests, Trump’s administration insists on digging back in.
For example, France’s “Little Macro” wants a European army. It’s a ridiculous pipe dream, especially since Europe faces no external threat except migration, against which a conventional force is mostly useless. But Trump should be thrilled to take him up on the offer and turn European security over to Europeans. Instead he’s trying to sink the idea.

Likewise, in the Syrian conflict it’s clear that with Russian and Iranian help President Bashar al-Assad’s government has beaten the jihadists sicced on that unfortunate land by the US and our so-called allies, but Washington won’t admit it and still hopes to leverage Assad’s departure. Why, because of ISIS, which Trump said was the sole reason we have thousands of US troops (illegally) in that country? No, but because of the need to oppose Iran and impose regime change in Tehran, as well as denying Moscow a “win.”

Iran (an Israeli obsession having no bearing on US security) is also the reason Trump declined to take the exit ramp the Khashoggi murder offered from our unnecessary commitment to the despicable Wahhabist regime in Riyadh. Instead he has doubled down on US support for Mohammed bin Salman while absurd plans for an “Arab NATO” proceed, as though one NATO weren’t already bad enough.

None of this is America First. In a sane policymaking world,Trump should be looking to cut a spheres of influence dealwith Putin (and with Xi and maybe with India’s Narendra Modi). Maybe that’s what Trump really wants, maybe it isn’t. Or maybe someone just gave him The Talk: “Do what you’re told, Mr. President, or you and maybe your kid will end up like Jack Kennedy.”

In the final analysis, it doesn’t seem to matter much what Trump wants. It would be only a small exaggeration to say that with respect to foreign and security policy Trump is now a mere figurehead of the permanent state. Even if Trump and Putin do happen to meet again, what can the latter expect the former to say that would make any difference?

As a signal of the approaching end of the short-lived hope of America First, cancellation of Trump-Putin is the penultimate act but not yet the final one. The fat lady’s aria will be when Julian Assange is dragged to Washington in chains, like some barbarian chieftain paraded in a Roman triumph.

Ultimately, as Ann Coulter writes (with respect to the Mexican border crisis, where Trump is at least doing slightly better than in foreign affairs but not by much), Trump might “only be remembered as a small cartoon figure who briefly inflamed and amused the rabble.” If so, his failurewill have frittered away theonly peaceful chance to avert the looming death of our nation at the hands of theCultural Marxist duopoly as well as to turn aside from thereal prospect of a world war – one from which America cannot emerge undamaged as we did from the first two.

P.S. I would be genuinely thrilled to be wrong about all of the foregoing.

Revolution in France

The three-week old revolt of the French people against their young Rothschild banker President, the anti-populist favourite of the rich EU elite, is intensifying. Insulted by Macron’s arrogant contempt for them and his blinding narcissism, his decision to delay fuel tax increases for only six months has only poured oil onto the flames. Little reported by the State-controlled media either there or here, the rioting concerns not simply a few streets in the rich quarter of Paris which have been ransacked, it is the revolt in the real France, dans la France profonde, outside the capital, that counts.

Here supermarkets and fuel distribution centres have been blocked. Many have nothing but bread and pasta to eat. The retail sector is heading for bankruptcy. The police refuse to break blockades because they too sympathize with the protests of the ‘yellow vests’. Roads are blocked and high schools are on strike. So now the great democrat Macron is considering calling in his Army to crush the people. France’s situation is like that of other EU countries in that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. However, on top of that France has a rigid class system and social mobility is virtually non-existent.

Whereas in the UK the people were allowed (though only by elitist mistake) to vote for Brexit and in Spain, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Poland and elsewhere anti-EU parties are gaining control, in France they are not allowed. Hence, the frustration of the disinherited masses. In France, which is run by five-year long virtual dictatorships of its presidents who control the media, the only way to get your voice heard is by street protests. Parliamentary representation is totally ineffectual and therefore elections are boycotted, since the gilded political elite and State-paid journalists have no time for the people.

Meanwhile, the Paris Exarchate in Rue Daru has declared that it does not recognize its dissolution by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. Here we see that its controlling elite seems to think and act like secular French people, with little understanding of how the Church works. In yesterday’s declaration, the Rue Daru elite boasted that it has adopted the Western mentality and ‘democratic values’. Unfortunately, if your Patriarch dissolves you, that is it. You cannot go on strike or go into the streets. When your boss sacks you, you are sacked, and although you may say that you do not agree with your sacking, you have no choice. Your words are not heard.

We feel sorry for those in Rue Daru who have been let down by their Patriarch. When we others went through the same trauma decades ago, we simply joined the Russian Orthodox Church, even though we were derided and slandered for it by the Rue Daru elite. Today, no-one will deride you or slander you for taking the only logical and canonical course of action available.

 

Orthodox Christian Eastern England

Foreword: For the Orthodox Christian Faith, the Coming King and the People of God in Eastern England, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk and the Isle of Ely

Today, in this period of the last coming of Orthodoxy in the twenty-first century, Orthodox centres are being established in the large towns and cities of Eastern England. Today’s examples are not being inspired from Ireland (itself inspired from Jerusalem via Egypt), but from Holy Rus (itself inspired from Jerusalem via New Rome), but otherwise all remains the same. On this tenth anniversary of the establishment of our church in Colchester, we understand that we have only just begun. Much remains to be done and, building on the foundations of old, we ask God’s blessing on ourselves. Below we recall the history of our Orthodox Eastern England, our present and our hopes for the future.

Our Background

There were certainly Orthodox Christians in what later became Eastern England (East Anglia and Essex) as early as the third century, if not before. A notable centre for them was the first Roman capital of Britain in Camulodunum (Colchester), which may have had its own bishop at that time. As proof the foundations of an early fourth century Orthodox church and its cemetery were uncovered here only in the 1980s.

However, the four ancient Orthodox centres of what had come to be Eastern England were established in the apostolic period of the first coming of Orthodoxy in the seventh century. The Faith came in the same way as the Eastern English had settled – by sea and waterway, around the coasts and along the many rivers. Whereas the foundations in Essex came about through the Apostle of Essex, St Cedd (pronounced ‘Ched’), the other foundations had been due, directly and indirectly, to St Felix, Apostle of East Anglia. This was centuries before the territorial divisions of East Anglia and the terms Suffolk, Norfolk and the Isle of Ely came into existence.

Although St Cedd was English and St Felix Burgundian and they spoke very similar languages, their missions to Eastern England were both Irish-inspired. Coming as a missionary from Burgundy in France in 630 and probably consecrated by Archbishop Honorius of Canterbury to preach in East Anglia, Bishop Felix has been inspired by the Irish St Columban. It was he who had founded the monastery at Luxeuil in Burgundy, where St Felix had met his sponsor St Sigebert, the future King of East Anglia. In England Bishop Felix also certainly met the Irish missionary Bishop Aidan from the Irish-founded monastery of Lindisfarne. And the Irish-speaking Bishop Cedd, arriving in Essex a generation later in 653, had learned his Orthodoxy from the same St Aidan of Lindisfarne. Here is what they began in each of the four parts of Eastern England.

  1. Suffolk

This was the first region to be evangelized, from the southern diocesan centre founded in c. 630 by St Felix in the Roman coastal fortress known as Burgh. This centre was called Domnoc – probably from the Irish word Domnach, meaning the Lord’s house – and now identified as Felixstowe, so called in memory of the monastery of St Felix. Domnoc was near the estuary of the River Deben which led to the East Anglian royal palace at Rendlesham. This was near the royal burial site at Sutton Hoo and not far from the port of Dunwich (meaning perhaps ‘the port in the dunes’).

All these sites where St Felix was active are in what is now Suffolk, where he probably also founded a church along the River Stour in Sudbury. His diocesan centre was abandoned during the heathen invasion in 869 and transferred to Hoxne in the far north of Suffolk in c. 900, precisely where St Edmund, King of East Anglia, had been martyred in 869. This is represented today by Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk, where St Felix probably founded a monastery and is near the geographical centre of Eastern England. The fact that Suffolk was the first region in the east to be evangelized and where so many churches were built led to it being called ‘Salig Suffolk’ or Holy Suffolk.

Local Saints

Sts Sigebert (+ c. 636), Felix (+ c. 647), Jurmin (+ 654), Botolph (+ 680), Edmund (+ 869).

Holy Places

Iken, Hoxne.

Present (in bold) & Projected Orthodox Parishes in Urban Centres

Bury St Edmunds, Ipswich, Lowestoft, Felixstowe.

  1. Norfolk

This centre was founded in c. 630 by St Felix in South Elmham (called ‘the old minster’), now in north Suffolk and established as a diocesan centre in 673. Nearby there was a church at Rumburgh dedicated to St Felix and two localities called Flixton, which also witness to his presence. St Felix was aided by an Irish monk sent to him perhaps by St Aidan. This was St Fursey (with Sts Dicul, later at Dickleburgh, and Sts Foillan and Ultan), who founded a monastery in c. 631 on an inlet from the coast in the Roman fortress at Burgh (Burgh Castle, now in the far north of Suffolk).

St Felix was very active in what is now Norfolk, founding churches along the river systems in the east at Reedham and Loddon, and in the north-west at Babingley, Shernborne and perhaps Flitcham. In 955 the centre in South Elmham was transferred to what is now Norfolk to a place which was called North Elmham in memory of its origin. The centre then briefly went to Thetford and today is represented by Norwich.

Local Saints

Sts Felix (+ c. 647), Fursey (+ 650), Withburgh (+ c. 743), Edmund (+ 869), Walstan (+ 1016).

Holy Places

East Dereham, Bawburgh.

Present (in bold) & Projected Orthodox Parishes in Urban Centres

Norwich, King’s Lynn.

  1. Essex

Today’s Essex (previously this had included much of what is now London) was evangelized from the diocesan centre founded soon after 653 by St Cedd. This ‘cathedral on the marshes’, most of which still stands today, is on the east coast of Essex in the former Roman fortress of Othona (Ythanceaster) which is now called Bradwell-on-Sea. St Cedd was active elsewhere around the coasts of Essex but today’s Orthodox centre is in Colchester, founded on St Edmund’s Feast exactly ten years ago.

Local Saints

Sts Cedd (+ 664) and Osyth (+ c. 700).

Holy Place

Bradwell on Sea.

Present (in bold) & Projected Orthodox Parishes in Urban Centres

Colchester, Southend, Harlow.

  1. The Isle of Ely (today the Marches of Eastern Cambridgeshire)

This was evangelized from the monastery founded by St Felix in Soham, today in eastern Cambridgeshire, and from nearby Exning on the western edge of Suffolk, the birthplace of St Felix’s spiritual daughter, St Audrey. However, it was only in 673 that she founded the monastery in Ely, possibly on the site of a chapel founded by St Felix earlier. Ely came to be the centre of a diocese in 1109.

Local Saints

Sts Felix (+ c. 647), Owin (+ c. 670), Audrey (+ 679), Huna (+ 690), Wendreda (+ 8 c.).

Holy Place with a relic of St Audrey

Ely.

Present (in bold) & Projected Orthodox Parishes in Urban Centres

Wisbech, Ely.