Heavenfield

I am so glad that Martin, Bishop of Argyll and the Isles (Scottish Episcopal Church) as returned to his blog today. I have become quite attached to his journeys and reflections in a very short time. I invite you to drop by and visit with Bishop Martin on his pilgrimage through the Gospel of Matthew following Columba.

Today I came across two very good and very different sermons preached this past St. Oswald’s Day (5 Aug 2007) at Durham Cathedral.

The first is from the Rev. Canon Dr. Stephen Cherry’s “Growing the Kingdom with Oswald”. Canon Cherry discusses Oswald as a role model for evangelism and ties his example into Durham’s six diocesan goals. I particularly liked the comparison of Oswald to John Wesley and Billy Graham … no really I did. I not only agree with Canon Cherry’s overall approach to Oswald, I think that it is an important reminder of Oswald’s role as a pious Christian, evangelist and patron of the church. Too often we focus solely on Oswald as a warrior and debate whether he was a martyr or not.

That being said, Oswald is also a role model for today’s warriors, just as he was himself compared to biblical warriors. This is the focus of the sermon from the Rev. Canon Dr. David Brown called “Two Warriors”. Canon Brown’s sermon is particularly good at humanizing Oswald, discussing the complexity of Oswald’s life.

I have to note that both sermons managed to work in that Durham still has the best claim to the real surviving relics of Oswald. Some things never change.

[This post builds on previous posts: Not since Whitby and Part 1 of The Belated Saints of Whitby]

As I mentioned in part 1, the real saints to come out of the Synod of Whitby were not among its participants. They are the ones who picked up the pieces later and brought reconciliation. One of Bede’s heroes was St. Theodore of Tarsus, first Archbishop of Canterbury to control all of England.

Theodore of Tarsus

Theodore of Tarsus seems like an odd choice to be the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the wake of the Synod of Whitby. He was Greek by birth and training. Considering the difficulty of travel, he was also very old, 66 years old. Indeed, he didn’t make it to Britain without a major illness in France. He was accompanied by the even older African monk Hadrian. Some have thought that the Pope was clearly out of touch with England in his contemporary dealings with Bishop Wilfrid and, perhaps, in his choice of Theodore.

Anyone who thought of Theodore as a placeholder because of his age was soon proven very wrong. Theodore would remain an active and able administrator until 690 when he died at the age of 88. He had been archbishop for 22 years.

There was more wisdom and consideration behind the choice than appears at first glance, and not just because he was a very able administrator. Theodore was so immersed in the customs of the East that the pope was reluctant to choose him and demanded that the African Hadrian go along to be sure that Theodore didn’t introduce too many Eastern customs in contradiction to Rome into England. Theodore could empathize with the Irish trained clergy’s irritation with Rome rite and customs. He had to wait four months in Rome for his hair to grow so that he could wear a Roman tonsure.

When we think back to the arguments at Whitby, Theodore was really a smart choice and perhaps a concession to the Irish-trained clergy. Recall that the Irish claimed their practices were that of St. John and the Eastern Fathers; they were also interested in the Egyptian Christian tradition (Anatolius and Anthony of Egypt). So here the Pope sends them a real Greek archbishop and an African assistant, Hadrian. Theodore and Hadrian were able churchmen who accepted Roman customs, but they also placed a high value on the same church fathers as the Irish. Bede was delighted that Theodore established a school to teach the Greek language to the English.

Once the English saw that the Greeks, like their new archbishop, accepted Rome’s Easter calculations, they embraced Rome the a relish and made converting their former Irish teachers a priority. Indeed,the Englishman Egbert’s conversion of Iona to the Roman rite was the climax of Bede’s History, the sign that the English church was truly mature and accomplished in its own right.

Who will be the saints of today’s great unpleasantness? No doubt each faction will continue to hold their leaders as heroes, but history has other lessons to teach us — blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. Who will be our peacemakers?

The Anglican Centrist has posted a wide-ranging sermon by Archbishop Alan Harper, Primate of Ireland, preached on the Feast of Mary Magdalene that I found very inspiring and I hope you visit it as well.

Primate of the Church of Ireland Sermon, posted 16 Aug 2007.

Such is the passion that has surrounded the Synod of Whitby (see earlier post) that most of its named participants are considered to be saints by one faction or another — St. Wilfrid of York, St. Hild of Whitby, St. Colman of Lindisfarne, and St. Cedd of Lastingham/Essex. Yet, they all really became saints in spite of their participation at Whitby, the great unpleasantness of their day . The real saints to come out of Whitby — St. Cuthbert and St. Theodore — are not listed among its participants and one was certainly not present.

Cuthbert of Lindisfarne

Cuthbert of Lindisfarne is a stealthy saint of Whitby. I say stealthy because most people don’t realize the importance of Cuthbert in enforcing the changes ordered at Whitby. When Eata became the first English Abbot of Lindisfarne, his protégé Cuthbert became prior of Lindisfarne. The job of the prior is to administer the monastery and enforce discipline. The prior was the chief operating office to the abbots chief executive officer who spent much of his time dealing with the world outside the monastery, the king and other monasteries/bishops. So from 664 until about 685, Cuthbert was the prior of Lindisfarne. How he handled bringing the customs and rites of Rome to the heart of the Celtic church is what really made him a saint. It was a difficult task that at times drove him to preach in the countryside or retire to a hermitage to seek peace and rest. It is what drafted him into the position of bishop, even though his poor health had driven him to a hermitage on Farne Island where he could get some peace.

Scholars often refer to Cuthbert as the ‘politically correct version of Aidan (of Lindisfarne)’. That is true and exactly what made him revered by his contemporaries. He managed to enforce the changed demanded by Rome while retaining the Irish lifestyle. We should expect nothing less from the former prior of Melrose, where he had the position of enforcing the Irish lifestyle.

I’ve called Cuthbert Eata’s protégé, but recall that Bede considered the Irish prior of Melrose, Boisil, to be Cuthbert’s teacher. A few years ago Colin Ireland [1], I believe convincingly, showed that Boisil is an Irish version of the name Basil, probably a name taken in religion. It makes sense that when Bishop Aidan chose Eata to be the first English abbot (at Melrose) gave him an Irish prior to ensure that the rule at this new monastery was correctly kept according to Iona’s standards.

By the time of the Reformation, St. Cuthbert was the most popular native saint in England. His relics survived (a story for another day) and still draw pilgrims to Durham Cathedral today. Through the role model of St. Cuthbert, the Irish values survived into the modern Anglican church, even if many no longer recognize them as “Celtic” or Irish.

As this post has grown long, I’ll look at Theodore and why he is a belated saint of the Synod of Whitby in the next post.

[1] Ireland, C.A., 1986. Boisil: an Irishman hidden in the works of Bede, Peritia, p. 400-03.

Episcopal Life is running a story on a (for the time being) unique use for medieval to modern bones from an English church made “redundant” 30 years ago. Here is the link to the article: “New role for old bones at Anglo-Saxon church”. The bones of 3760 people previously buried at the church were turned over for medical research when the church became redundant 30 years ago. Now they are being put back in an ossuary inside a new center for medical research (and visitor’s center) at the former church.

I’m really not so sure how I feel about this. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for rescue archaeology when someone wants to build an apartment building on top of an ancient cemetery discovered during building excavations, but this church was in use just a generation ago. One of the skeletons on display is 19th century!

I’m more than a little concerned about the precedent this sets for all the medieval churches that will be declared redundant by the Church of England over the next few decades. I realize that a millennia worth of old cemeteries are a burden on the Church of England but that is the price you pay for being an ancient church! These people rested peacefully in consecrated ground for over a thousand years, and that should mean something. England really doesn’t have a shortage of medieval skeletons found by real rescue archaeology.

Occasionally you will hear that the Church of England has not been in such a crisis since Whitby, and that may indeed be true. The Synod of Whitby occurred 1343 years ago and interpretations of what happened and its legacy are still controversial. For Canterbury, Whitby is the vital synod that united the church in England under the Archbishop of Canterbury. So the current crisis threatens to break a unity that has held (in theory) since Whitby in 664. I say in theory because this unity selectively avoids the many schisms in the Church of England that began with the Reformation. The monarchy’s recognition of the Church of England has allowed them to retain continuity of their property and the claim to be ‘the’ Church of England no matter how many splinter groups, like the Baptists and Methodists, have left them, and the Roman Catholics in England who endure.

I wonder how many people outside of England really know very much about the Synod of Whitby? Not many in my part of the US… so I’ll give a little summary of the synod and its back story here.

England was primarily converted by two missions coming from opposite directions. Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine to England in 596 and his mission field was limited to Kent, Essex, and East Anglia. They temporarily extended their mission to York but this fell apart when King Edwin of Deira (Yorkshire) was slain by a British Christian, King Cadwallon of Gwynedd (North Wales). From then on, Canterbury’s missionary field remained south of the River Thames and its estuary. After Edwin’s death, Oswald left his exile in Scotland (Dalriada) and took the northern kingdom, Northumbria, back from Cadwallon at the battle of Denisesburna (the morning after events at Heavenfield). Oswald then invited Iona, where he had been baptized, to send a missionary to his kingdom. Iona, like many of the Irish (and Scots and Welsh) did not recognize the authority of Rome. Aidan arrived by about 635 and Oswald gave him Lindisfarne (Holy Isle) for a monastery and missionary base. From Lindisfarne, Irish missionaries fanned out over England. When the synod of Whitby was called in 664, the church of Iona via Lindisfarne controlled all of England north of the Thames and had expanded to at least three bishops — Lindisfarne (for Northumbria), Litchfield (for Mercia), and one for Essex.

The cause of the Synod of Whitby was three fold:

1. Iona and Rome used different Easter calculations, so they occasionally celebrated Easter on different days.
2. Tonsure and baptismal rites differed.
3. Iona refused to recognize the authority of Rome.

Ironically, it is known as the Easter controversy because all parties claimed that the calculation of Easter was the most important point. How the Irish came by their calendar is unclear but they at least believed that it was based on the teachings of John the Evangelist and the Eastern Fathers.

The great controversy came to a head at the Synod of Whitby where King Oswiu would decide for his kingdom and his hegemony who would lead his church, Iona or Rome. It is not accurate to say that it was only a Northumbrian affair because the Bishop of Lindisfarne functioned as a Archbishop for Mercia, Lindsey, Middle Anglia and Essex as well. Abbess Hild was the hostess (ie. administrator) of the synod and Irish trained Bishop Cedd of Essex acted as interpreter.

The accounts we have of the synod, from Bede’s History and Life of Bishop Wilfrid, both present a slanted version of the outcome that basically came down to who was a greater saint, St. Columba of Iona or St. Peter of Rome. Supposedly, King Oswiu was too afraid to side against St. Peter because he held the keys of heaven. Ultimately, the simplicity and poverty of the Irish lifestyle did not compare well with all that Rome could offer. Like so many Germanic nobles before them, Oswiu (and Wilfrid) saw Rome as the road to civilization, glory and wealth. By deciding for Rome, King Oswiu united all of the English church under the Archbishop of Canterbury.

What followed the synod ripped society apart probably in ways that no one anticipated, including King Oswiu. Bishop Colman refused to accept Oswiu’s decision. Colman, all of the Irish clergy, and 30 English men they trained left England for Iona and ultimately Ireland. (For this early in the conversion period, this was a large percentage of the total clergy in northern England.) This tore the heart and soul out of the northern church. At Colman’s suggestion, the Irishman Tuda was chosen as the next Archbishop of Lindisfarne and Eata was chosen as the next Abbot of Lindisfarne. King Alhfrith pushed his father to allow Abbot Wilfrid, the Roman spokesman at the synod, to be ordained Bishop of York. Wilfrid was sent to Gaul, because they claimed there were no worthy bishops in England to ordain him. The bishops of England had been ordained by the Irish and were therefore contaminated. The Romanists went so far as to insist that all Irish ordained clergy be intensely re-examined and re-ordained, at their discretion. Imagine being a bishop and being told that you have to be re-ordained as a deacon, then a priest and maybe a bishop — that happened to St. Chad, Bishop of Litchfield (brother of Bishop Cedd). Former Episcopal priests still go through this process today when they join the Roman Catholic Church. However, the actions of the Synod of Whitby didn’t give individual priests and monks a choice. If they were to remain in their homeland, they had to convert.

As the effects of the synod rolled across England, so did another equally grim crisis. The plague had reached Kent early in the year. It killed the Archbishop of Canterbury and the King of Kent first (probably before the synod) and then rolled north where it killed Bishop Cedd as he visited his monastery of Lastingham in Yorkshire and then claimed Tuda, the new Irish Bishop of Lindisfarne. The loss of Tuda and Cedd meant that there were no sympathetic bishops left in England to protect the lifestyle of the Irish trained clergy. At some point within the next two years, King Alhfrith rebelled against his father and is not heard from again. Wilfrid conveniently came home after the plague and his patron Alhfrith were both gone. The conflict continued for the rest of this generation and Wilfrid was a problematic prelate for the next 40 years.

I hope this has given you a taste of what the Synod of Whitby was like, but I don’t think I’ve really captured the passion. Keep in mind that most churchmen of the time lived in monasteries, and this profoundly changed the Rule of every monastery. Men and women who lived very ordered lives where forced to change and remembered this period as a very brutal time. It also submitted abbots to the authority of bishops, where under the Irish the abbots and monasteries had been independent of bishops.

Changing to a new calendar and accepting the authority of bishops may not seem very earth-shaking. There were other changes in various rites and changes in monastic rules that were stiffly resisted as well. Consider some of the tension now about adopting the Revised Common Lectionary when you think of the calendar adjustments (my diocese still doesn’t use it), or arguments over a new prayer book. Part of our controversy today is over increasing authority of the primates (and accepting the decisions of synods and current primates!). The change this brought in 7th century England would be like forcing today’s Presbyterians to accept bishops again (or turning the Archbishop of Canterbury into a Pope).

It is instructive for today that most of the harm after Whitby occurred because the Irish clergy and so many Irish trained Englishmen abandoned their churches and returned to Iona when they lost their case. To be fair, Colman left Tuda and Cedd as sympathetic bishops, but the plague carried them away. The protection they left behind was too thin to protect the lifestyle of those who would not abandon their homeland. The rest of Ireland (outside of Iona’s network) accepted Rome with much less hassle and pain because their basic lifestyle remained intact. Meanwhile, Iona had to be stripped of all its missions and the loss of most of its prestige within Ireland before they were eventually converted to Rome in c. 716 by Egbert, a missionary English bishop. By then its network was in tatters, they had been reduced to a network barely larger than when St. Columba died in 597.

So much changes and yet so much remains the same. Today again, bishops who refuse to accept the will of their national synod/convention are tearing the heart out of the church. They could draw some lessons from Iona’s fate.