There has been a tendency, in the west, when focusing on Christianity, to ponder the Roman Catholic Tradition, the break from the Roman Catholic ethos in the 16th century, then the emergence of the multiple strands and schisms within Protestant Christianity. Such as been the western indulgence and reality. We discuss, live and reflect on what we know, the part of the mountain we see and have trekked in, built cornered plots of ground on and call home. Needless to say, our understanding of the faith journey is shaped and formed from what we can see from our vantage point on the mountain (regardless of how high or low we are on the part of the mountain we are on).
There has been a turn, in the last few decades, for various reasons, to the Orthodox and Oriental form of Christianity. There are those, more in a reactionary mode than anything else, who make such a turn, to idealize the Oriental and Orthodox brand of Christianity and either dismiss or subordinate Western or Occidental types of Christianity. Those committed to such an approach merely inhabit simply another part of the mountain of faith, the faith mountain, of course, much larger than either Western or Eastern Christianity can fully embody.
The tensions and clashes both within and between Western and Eastern types of Christianity in the areas of Biblical exegesis, theology,
ecclesiology, sacramentalism, liturgy, icons, cognitive-meditative ways of knowing, leadership styles, philosophy, public responsibility, monastic-lay life, creeds, councils, confessions, soteriology and anthropology collide in many places, hence faith tribes and clans live on their plots of land on different parts and places of the mountain, each thinking or assuming, their portion of the mountain is the wisest and best, truest and more comprehensive.
Is there more to the mountain, though, then the replay of West and East, Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism-Protestantism? Are there parts of the faith mountain that have been inhabited for centuries, been largely ignored but have been, in the last few decades, rediscovered? This is where, I think, the rediscovery of Syriac Christianity comes to the fore. The yeoman’s labour of Professor Sebastion Brock, more than most, has done much to restore and point to communities on the mountain that are part of the larger but often forgotten faith family. The publication of The Syriac Fathers on Prayer and the Spiritual Life (1987) opened up for many a mother lode and gold mine of faith, Brock doing both the introduction and translation. It is significant that The Syriac Fathers by published by Cistercian Publications (Roman Catholic) Some of the publications by Brock on Syriac Christianity have been also published by the Sisters of the Love of God and Fairacres Press (Anglican publishing). The interest by Roman Catholics and Anglicans, at a higher and more irenical level, has done much to chart routes and pathways to the Syriac tradition and its oft-forgotten heritage. The growing interest and turn to the classical tradition of faith (Patristic era) is now rounding the mountain to sections on it, for centuries hidden from western and eastern forms of Christianity. Many are those more than keen to visit and learn from their fuller family.
I have been fortunate to be in contact with Sebastion Brock and, equally grateful, to be teaching four courses on Syriac Christianity in 2020-2021. Indeed, there is more to the mountain to yet see and as we hold the way-finder in our hands and hearts, minds and imaginations, this much more on the mountain cannot but help to enrich, deepen and mature our faith journeys.
amor vincit omnia
Ron Dart
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