Orthodoxy in the Isles

Orthodoxy Isles_cover_instructor

This course will take place every Tuesday from March 11-April 1, 2025 at 7PM Eastern. Each session consists of a live lecture by Fr. Jacob Siemens followed by a Q&A. The course is hosted on the OSI Mighty Networks platform. During registration you will be prompted to create a Mighty Networks account (free with purchase of course) if you do not have one already.

Each session will be recorded and posted on the platform following the live class. 

For questions, technical help, or more information, please contact Maggie Wissink at mwissink@saintconstantine.org

It is often said that Orthodoxy is a newcomer to Western Europe, and especially the British Isles, where Anglicanism and other Protestant traditions have dominated people's minds for the last five hundred years. Yet Orthodoxy's status as a 'young' tradition in Britain is not at all accurate. Scholars may debate the details of early British Christian history, for example, but what is known as a fact is that it appeared earlier in time than most would assume, and that much of its inspiration seems to have come from the Eastern Mediterranean world without passing through Rome. Indeed, an Eastern influence on British Christianity is discernible through at least the ninth century. This is despite the Synod of Whitby of 663 and the remarkable work of the Venerable Bede a generation later. This course will introduce the British Orthodox Tradition by exploring the early legends and empirical evidence, including how they manifest in Celtic, Roman, and Saxon contexts. In the end, we will suggest that any conception of British Christianity is incomplete without an account of Orthodoxy, and that mission today should be conceived more as a matter of revival of memory than of novel introduction.

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Session 1 (March 11, 2025)

THE DAWN OF CHRISTIANITY IN BRITAIN: In this session, we will look at the ‘mythological’ history of Christianity in Britain beginning with the story of St Joseph of Arimathea, and considering the feasibility of the Grail legend. At the same time, we will be introduced such figures as St Aristobulus, one of the seventy, who has been called the first bishop in the Isles. We will learn that, whatever the precise history, the seeds of Christianity were planted in Britain very early on in the Christian story.

Session 2 (March 18, 2025)

THE CELTIC INHERITANCE: Much is said about the ‘Celtic Church’ both from a fantastical, romantic point of view, and from a skeptical, academic point of view. An Orthodox reading of the subject, however, reveals a vigorous Christian reality that holds much in common with Syrian and Egyptian Christianity, both in terms of the spiritual and material cultures. Our exploration of this topic will include stories of the great saints, King Arthur, and dragons, and take us from South Wales, through Cornwall and Brittany, and on to Ireland.

Session 3 (March 25, 2025)

THE VENERABLE BEDE: The Venerable Bede is the historian par excellence of the British Church across its first centuries of its existence. For all that, he also applied to his history a very particular viewpoint and ultimate purpose: to see the Church he knew and loved brought into full conformity with that of Rome. But Bede was also more than an historian. He was an exegete as well as a keen observer of the natural world, to the point where, even today, we calculate what year it is according to his system. St Bede deserves a place of high honour among Orthodox Christians, and in this session we will find out why.

Session 4 (April 1, 2025)

SAXON CHRISTIANITY AND BEYOND: The Anglo-Saxons brought a different rigour to their practice of the Faith, much of which was due to learning they acquired in Canterbury. Indeed, as St Bede declared of the Canterbury teachers, ‘...some of their students still alive today are as proficient in Latin and Greek as their native tongue’. Both Alcuin and Eriugena may be seen as exemplars of this legacy. What we will learn is that there was overlap between Celtic and Saxon Christianity in the Isles, that the Insular Church - Celtic and Saxon alike - continued to enjoy influence from the Christian East in a way that distinguished it from the rest of the Western Church, and that the witness of its saints was, and remains, inspirational.