Hieromonk Makarios of Simonos Petra, The Synaxarion, Vol. 1

FRIENDS OF MOUNT ATHOS REVIEWS

The Synaxarion: The Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church. By Hieromonk Makarios of Simonos Petra; translated by Christopher Hookway. Volume 1: Introduction, September, October. Ormylia, 1998. 550 pages. Price £25.00 or US $40.00. ISBN 960-85603-7-3.[i]

The story of the Gerontas Aimilianos, and of the monastic revival to which he has so mightily contributed, has yet to be written. But both the outlines of this history, and the nature of the spiritual culture that lies at its heart, are becoming clearer thanks to a sequence of publications emanating from both Simonopetra and Ormylia. Notable among these books are the two beautifully illustrated volumes on the monasteries themselves and the life that is lived within them, reviewed in this Annual Report in 1992 and 1993 respectively. Then in 1995 was published the first, and this year (1998) the second volume of Fr. Aimilianos's collected spiritual teachings and addresses, most of them originally delivered orally. Besides various items which throw light on the beginnings of their author's activity, while he and his community were still at Meteora, and its subsequent development at Simonopetra and Ormylia, these volumes contain spiritual texts of great directness and fertility, whose

availability in collected form gives the gerontas's action in the world a fresh impetus and, indeed, a new dimension. At the same time, the proper conduct of the Church's worship, which has always been close to Fr. Aimilianos's heart, is being facilitated by a series of beautifully printed new editions of liturgical books. And now, Fr. Makarios of Simonopetra has completed at last the Synaxarion on which he has long been working, and which will bring an appreciation of the Orthodox tradition even to some who have no direct acquaintance with the particular Athonite milieu in which it has been prepared.

The Orthodox Church values the lives of its saints, and seeks to disseminate knowledge and appreciation of them, because it is a historic community. Being a community has to do with sharing, and so all our members — our saints, in the language of the New Testament — are of concern to us. Our saints — this time in the narrower usage favoured by the Synaxarion are, in addition, a cause for rejoicing and thanksgiving, as well as a source of inspiration. And once we have acquired a sense, not just of the extent but also of the antiquity and durability of our community, we feel greater confidence in the present and the future. Also, we expect those who have gone before to pray for us and to help us. At the same time, we try to avoid the exclusivity that historic communitites sometimes succumb to. Fr. Makarios's Synaxarion

cannot avoid noticing those occasions when Orthodox martyrs have been created by Muslim or indeed Latin persecution — for an example of the latter, see the Transylvanian confessors (21 October). But the book's prime purpose is, as Fr. Aimilianos explains in a characteristically luminous Preface, 'to respond to the needs of the Orthodox Mission'.

Fr. Makarios's Synaxarion differs from its famous predecessor, the Synaxaristis of St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain (1749-1809), in that it was composed and published (1987-96) in its compiler's native French, and is now being translated into English (with corrections and additions). There will be a Greek translation too, but it will be the French and English versions that will contribute most directly to the work of mission, or rather to the formation of a truly ecumenical Orthodox identity--and no less effectively, one hopes, than St Nikodimos's Synaxaristis, published in 1819, contributed to the strengthening of a Christian Greek identity in the wake of the missions of such as St. Kosmas the Aitolian (24 August) and St Anthimos the Blind (4 September) and on the eve of the War of Independence.

The enlightening entry for St. Anthimos brings us to another of Fr Makarios's innovations. He has incorporated in his Synaxarion the Ottoman-period saints and martyrs who were confined by Nikodimos to a separate work, the Neon Martyrologion

(1799). Still more significantly, he has also included a generous selection of saints from the Slavic Orthodox world, and from Latin Europe up to the time of Charlemagne. Accordingly, as one turns the pages of this first volume, containing the first two months of the ecclesiastical year, one encounters not only the classic saints of the Greek Church, such as Thekla the first woman martyr (24 September), or Dimitrios of Thessaloniki (26 October), but also the Venerable Startsi of the Monastery of Optina (11 October — in response to a commemoration instituted by the Moscow Patriarchate as recently as 1996) and, from the West, the seventh-century St Lambert of Maastricht (17 September), who serves to remind us that tomorrow's united Europe has always been implicit in Orthodoxy.

Of the spiritual nourishment to be derived from the Synaxarion, Fr. Makarios writes eloquently in the Introduction to this volume. He calls the work an 'encyclopedia of Orthodoxy', and draws attention to the paradigms it contains for everyday behaviour. Even its apparent repetitiveness enshrines a great truth, for the life of each Christian must imitate the example of Christ; while constant reference to the Synaxarion tones our spiritual will and perceptiveness. As Fr. Aimilianos subtly remarks in his Preface, 'Through keeping company with the Saints day by day, the faithful are strengthened and invigorated in joy, and advance in experiences and graces; their spirit is then able to Contemplate and traverse accessible and inaccessible regions in a supernatural dimension.'

But reading the Synaxarion in this fashion, day by day, we encounter, in a haphazard and implicitly somewhat levelling sequence determined only by the date of their commemoration, figures as utterly disparate as the neomartyr Angelis (1 September) on the one hand, who got drunk one day with some Turkish friends and tried on a turban, and the next day was beheaded because (in their literalism or low cunning) those same Turks considered that he had converted to Islam; and on the other hand the Athonite monk Silouan (24 September), who through the greater part of a lifetime 'kept his mind in hell, and despaired not'. Both these men, assuredly, have their place in the choir around God's throne. Yet their voices are heard with differing intensity depending where we stand in time and place. The modern Orthodox Christian in the West, whose enemy is indifference or the demands of 'lifestyle' rather than the Ottoman Turk or polytheist Roman, will more probably be inspired to follow up St Silouan than Angelis the goldsmith. This is at once the genius of the Synaxarion, which so often provokes us to explore further, and its limitation. Fr. Makarios implicitly recognizes this by providing not only discrete notes on further reading, but also a more extended treatment of those figures who, in his opinion, are likely to stimulate the devotion of contemporary Orthodox. Accordingly St Dimitrios is allotted three pages (accompanied, it is true, by a full colour icon), and the Apostle Luke (18 October) four, while St Sergius of Radonezh (25 September) receives almost nine, and the Elders of Optina twenty-one.

Of all the publications I mentioned at the beginning of this review, the illustrated Simonopetra and Ormylia volumes are those most likely to catch the attention of non-Orthodox readers. Next in order of accessibility comes the Synaxarion. In 1807 St. Nikodimos penned the following plea to the Patriarch of Constantinople, whom he hoped to interest in publishing his Synaxaristis:

I beg of your Apostolic Eminence a great favour, and alongside me pleads the whole multitude of the Fathers of the Mountain, indeed the entire congregation of Christ beseeches you through me — for what? That your loving heart may condescend to make the print of the Synaxaristis large, like that of the Minaia, while the footnotes should be printed with larger characters... because they will be read by old people, and at night-time... (Quoted by Theoklitos Dionysiatis, Aghios Nikodimos o Aghioreitis 3rd ed., Athens, 1990, p.303.)

—

Fr. Makarios has been no less careful of the appearance of this new Synaxarion. It is clearly printed, stoutly bound, and adorned with numerous portraits of the saints in colour or black and white, reproduced from wall paintings, manuscripts, and portable icons, some of these latter painted by the nuns of Ormylia, who are also the Synaxarion's publishers.

All concerned in this project — including the translator, Christopher Hookway — deserve congratulations and our prayers, because with this publication of the Synaxarion

in the English-speaking world, one sees in one's own language, for the first time, not just the flesh and bones of a familiar tradition, but also the inspiring and disturbing effect of a living force in a world full of doubt and anxiety. In this book there are mediaeval saints long forgotten and now rediscovered, such as St Sabas of Vatopedi (5 October), alongside others who attained sanctity in confrontation with characteristically twentieth-century manifestations of evil, such as St Gorazd, Bishop of Slovakia and the Czech Lands (4 September), who was shot by the Nazis in 1942. They, and this book, are the best possible companions for the private devotions of Orthodox Christians, and indeed of all those faithful who wish to live in the Church's tradition, while remaining open to the 'experiences and graces' bestowed by the Holy Spirit.

GARTH FOWDEN

Athens