Contrary to the case presented in this promotional material, there was no such thing as "Orthodoxy", in the modern sense employed, in the islands of Britain and Ireland prior to 1054. This is to read back into history the conditions of separate confessions and denominations of the present day, which is to be partisan and schismatic in spirit. At the time of the Great Schism, Russia itself had scarcely been evangelised and the conversion of the Kievan Ruthenes who evangelised the lands to the east in turn was still young. Thus Russia itself has little experience of "Orthodoxy" in the first millennium. What it does just about experience as part of its historical and social memory is a time, as in England, when the Byzantine-Greek Christians of the East and the Latin Christians of the west were at one. It is anachronistic as well as disingenuous to project back into the early Middle Ages conditions and biases related to the making of points of rivalry today. In those days, there was no distinction between "Catholic" and "Orthodox", to describe respectively Latin and Byzantine separately. Besides, unlike the Latin Christians of other parts of Europe, England was distinguished in using not different forms of local rites but those of the Roman Church. This does not mean they were "Roman Catholic" any more than Metropolitan Hilarion claims they were somehow "Orthodox", which is romantic, imaginary tendentiousness. They simply used the rite of the Church which evangelised them - Rome in England as Constantinople in Eastern Europe - and had no conception of belonging to a separate or different part of the Church. As it says in the Roman Canon, the most ancient of Eucharistic prayers in current and continuous use, the Church is both Catholic and Orthodox. As for the western Churches in Britain today, Protestant as well as Catholic, we are all proud of having a history and roots that we share in time with the modern day Orthodox Church now such a significant part of Church life here. Indeed the work that the Orthodox Church in England has done as it evolves as a more consciously indigenous body in recovering an appreciation and veneration of the local Celtic and Anglo-Saxon saints, and their holy wells and other sanctuaries, is a gift restored to us all and deeply appreciated. MW
18 June 2014
PRAVMIR. The documentary film “Orthodoxy in the British Isles” will be shown on June 18, 2014, at 10:05 PM (Moscow time) on the TV channel “Russia – Kultura.” The author of the film is Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev); the film’s producer is Valery Shehovtsev.
The film, which comes out in the Russian-British cross-culture year [news to many of us in Britain that there was one], relates the history of Orthodoxy in the British Isles: the conversion of the archipelago’s inhabitants to the Christian faith; the development of Christian churches on the Foggy Albion Islands up to the division between the Eastern and Western churches; as well as the current status of the Orthodox Church in Great Britain.
Participating in the film are bishops, parish priests, and simple parishioners, native Britons who are on the challenging path back to their spiritual roots—to Orthodoxy.
A significant part of the film relates the stories of modern theologians and ascetics that Great Britain gave Orthodoxy, such as Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), and Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware).
The film was created by the St. Gregory the Theologian Foundation, with support from the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications.
Source: The Russian TV Channel “Kultura” Will Premiere Metropolitan Hilarion’s Film “Orthodoxy in the British Isles” - Pravmir, A Russian Orthodox Church Website
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