Uncreated Star of Bethlehem

December 19, 2010 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: Allentown, ancient history, Andrew Greeley, Armenia, Armenians, Assyria, Assyrians, Bethlehem, Bethlehem Pennsylvania, Byzantine Christianity, Christian feasts, Christian holidays, Christianity, Christmas, Christmas star, Christology, church, church hymns, church services, Dark Ages, Divine Energies, Divine Logos, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, eastern religion, Energies of God, Epiphany, family history, Fathers of the Church, genealogy, Gentiles, glory of God, goiim, Greek Christianity, Greek Church, Greek Fathers, Greek Orthodox, Greek Orthodox Christianity, greek orthodox church, holydays, hymnology, hymns, Incarnation, Iran, Iranians, Ireland, Irish, Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jesus of Galilee, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus son of Joseph, John Romanides, John S. Romanides, Lehigh Valley, liturgy, Logos of God, Magi, magoi, Medea, Medeans, medieval history, Middle Ages, Nativity, Nativity of Christ, Nativity of Jesus, Nativity of Our Lord, Nativity of the Lord, nobility, Norman Irish, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Church, orthodoxy, Parthia, Parthians, Patristics, patrology, Persia, Persians, Power of God, pre-existence, related to magi, religious feasts, Revelation of the Magi, royalty, Russian Orthodox Christianity, Russian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodoxy, saints in the family, salvation, Shekinah, Son of God, Star of Bethlehem, theology, Theophany, Three Kings, Twelve Kings, Uncreated Energies, Uncreated Energy, Uncreated Light

Five years ago I alluded to this, but I’ve just seen concise discussion of it from no less than the Father of the Church St. John Chrysostom, and from certain Old Testament prophecies ‘in its Light.’

It also makes me think of how some non-Orthodox “got saved” by God….  The Apolytikion (a hymn) given on this page brings home the point.  The Magi are commemorated as Saints on Dec. 25.  (Recall that Orthodoxy commemorates the Magi’s Adoration of the Incarnate YHWH not on Jan. 6 but at Christmas; our Great Feast of Theophany [Epiphany] focuses on His Baptism in the Jordan by St. John the Forerunner [Baptist].)  OrthodoxWiki mentions the memory of their eventual baptism by St. Thomas the Apostle to the Indo-Iranians, and service to The Church as Bishops.

What about the mentions of an angel?  Readers of this blog may recall our discussions of the uncreated Logos-Angel from many Old Testament theophanies … highlighted in the writings of Greek-American theologian Fr. John S. Romanides (†2001) … so this need not be a problem, especially because Orthodoxy reminds us that the Divine Hypostatic Logos is not circumscribed by His Incarnation, ie, not ‘completely contained’ in or limited by His Human Body.  Could He appear as Infant and “Angel” at the same time?  Unusual perhaps, but I don’t see why not, although I must confess I haven’t seen this explicitly discussed anywhere yet.

One Web source I read said Western European pagans, even before Christianization, appreciated this, as it were their ‘cameo’ appearance at the very beginning of Christianity’s New Testament.  Similarly, I can say that even as a blond Western Catholic child here in the States, I was fascinated by and appreciated my family’s small wood-and-hay(?) Nativity set featuring non-Mediterranean-looking “kings”: a blond, an African, and an East Asian!*  I also read that extracanonical accounts ‘internationalizing’ them are quite old indeed.  Well, they do “represent the Gentiles,” and foreshadow many more of our ancestors’ conversions to the Faith….  For some reason I thought of the “White” one as some aged King of England — I didn’t know then that that title and State didn’t exist during Christ’s life on Earth!

I couldn’t leave this off without a plug for Bethlehem, Pennsylvania’s “Christmas Star” (or another picture of it).  One night during college, around 1985-86, I was driving around town lost (though sober)** and someone told me I almost knocked it down or something!  It sits atop Wyandotte Hill/South Mountain, one of Penna.’s many long, skinny, relatively-low,*** ridge-like mountains, that divides the Lehigh Valley from the main Philadelphia area, as well as from my undergraduate school campus just south of Bethlehem.

And, twelve “kings”?  Catholic priest / sociologist / novelist Andrew Greeley’s Russian (Orthodox) lay student / artist / mystic / beauty / love interest in his 1997 Christmas / spiritual classic Star Bright! (available here) alludes to a 12-magi tradition, without many details except to say something I haven’t encountered personally in Orthodoxy yet, that “We Russians know there were 12 kings” (or words to that effect).  But an English translation of the apocryphal Syriac Revelation of the Magi has recently come out, and it names twelve.  Furthermore, if one Amazon reviewer reports correctly, if you have any Western European ancestry, you may have one or more Magi in your family tree.  How’s that for Gentile foreshadowing?!  Other reviews lead me to doctrinal caution about the Revelation [Apocalypse??] of the Magi, but also hint (seemingly unknowingly) at o/Orthodox Uncreated Energies Theology perhaps.  But some of the kings named by the Armenian reviewer have names or associations I might have encountered a long time ago while tracing my Norman Irish ancestors (Hibernicized McCoogs) into traditional medieval West European royal and noble genealogies … the kind today’s experts say are dubious, but were part of our cultures for most of the last thousand years if not longer … and geneticists now say we might all share in some way.  (Something like some Assyrian kings back there too, being Semites, traditionally then Kin of God!)  (This is another review I saw of it, from a Catholic perspective.)

PS: Many Years to Fr. Greeley!  Glad to see he’s doing better some!  Thank God!

(*–The one with the wind-up music box playing “Silent Night.”)

(**–If you can read and comprehend this without getting a headache, you’re a better driver than I was!)

(***–Compared to, say, the Adirondacks, or the Rockies.)

Old Calendar Christmas video

January 19, 2009 in Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Tags: birth of Christ, birth of Jesus, chant, chanting, Christianity, Christmas, church music, Church Slavonic, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, Julian Calendar, Nativity, Nativity of Christ, Nativity of Jesus, Nativity of Our Lord, Nativity of the Lord, Old Calendar, Old Church Slavonic, Orthodox Christianity, Orthodox Christmas, Orthodox Church, orthodoxy, religion, religious music, Russian chant, Russian Christmas, Russian church music, Russian music, Russian Orthodox Church, Russian Orthodoxy, Slavonic

On the site of the University of Michigan’s newspaper.  It’s just a few minutes, but includes BEAUTIFUL Russian choral music (in Church Slavonic, I presume), as well as service excerpts, and a few words from a priest about ‘Christmas in January.’  (Crank the volume, because it’s really low on the video.)