Reality & Worship

Edith M. Humphrey, in Grand Entrance: Worship on Earth As in Heaven, writes:

To remember that God is God is to look reality squarely in the face. To consider God’s qualities is to be moved to worship. To remember what God has done is to be filled with thanksgiving. The temple, as the footstool of God, was Israel’s way of understanding that great truth embedded by C. S. Lewis within his children’s novels — like Aslan, the LORD is not safe or tome; but he is good. (30)

These are the primary activities of worship as praise, remembering God, proclaiming his character, recalling his actions, entering into his presence in our midst.

May you spend all your days worshipping the LORD in the beauty of holiness!

Issues bigger than the ‘presenting issue’ in Anglicanism

I did not go to church this morning. Since I’ll be going this evening with my wife once she’s done work, it’s not that big a deal. And since we were up late with friends, it’s no surprise that I slept in. However, I still had enough time to make it to the 11:00 High Mass at a nearby Scottish Episcopal Church of the Anglo-Catholic persuasion.

Although I like their liturgy (as though my personal tastes have anything to do with worship!) and appreciated the sermons I heard from the rector, I opted to stay home this morning. I thought about going. And then I got an uncomfortable feeling — what if Fr. Malcolm is preaching?

Last time I was at this church, it was Fr. Malcolm who preached the sermon. We were celebrating Advent, joyously looking forward to Christ’s Incarnation as an infant (‘God was eight days old and held in the arms of his mother’ -St. Cyril of Alexandria), and the Gospel for that week was the Annunciation to Mary. Fr. Malcolm proclaimed, straight from the beginning, that this story and everything from all of the birth narratives in the Gospels is pious fiction.

Nothing else he had to say mattered.

Also, I laughed out loud.

I feel a bit awkward about that.

Anglicans have chosen to explode themselves over questions of human sexuality, and fault lines are forming all over North America and amongst the member provinces of the Anglican Communion. This is startling because we have bigger problems afoot. Like Fr. Malcolm denying the Annunciation and the Virginal Conception.

At another Anglo-Catholic church here in Edinburgh, former Archbishop of Edinburgh Richard Holloway sometimes preaches. His stance on human sexuality as espoused in that pulpit is so extreme that he says that intercourse should be between consenting adults. Full stop. He denies not only the Virginal Conception, as does Fr. Malcolm and a former Bp of Durham whose name escapes me, but also the miracles of Jesus’ ministry, the Resurrection, and the Second Coming.

Whether Holloway also denies the divinity of Christ and God’s operation in the creation of the universe, I do not know. If he did, he would be in pretty much full agreement with another retired Anglican bishop, John Shelby Spong.

I used to be bothered by Anglo-Catholics who would ‘put the baby to bed’ (process the consecrated Host to the Tabernacle), or bow to the Host, or pray to saints, or believe in transubstantiation, or various other Roman beliefs/practices condemned by the 39 Articles. But I’m willing to let those go. Especially in the face of the enormity of the differences between traditional Christianity and some of Anglicanism’s liberal faces that have been popping up in recent years.

I sincerely do not know what to do regarding my dear, old Anglican church. I am going to take the opportunity of my wife working Sundays to visit some other Scottish Episcopal Churches I’ve not visited yet, but from preliminary observations at the ones I’ve visited, the outlook is bleak. Will I encounter historic orthodoxy at these churches or will a mere ‘God loves you, be nice to each other,’ suffice to fill their pulpits?

Or should I risk a sermon by Fr. Malcolm? Is perhaps the way to help orthodoxy be reborn to persist through the bad sermons and have polite but firm conversations with those with whom you disagree? (I’m not so good at this last one — I tend to get very heated. Hence laughing at Fr. Malcolm.) I don’t know.

I sincerely wonder if any of you have thoughts on this subject…

What is a mystic, exactly?

Yesterday I was part of a very interesting conversation in the comments of my friend James’ Facebook status, a discussion ranging from grammatical gender to the human soul and the Godhead. His status was making an observation about (to quote James), ‘Brother Lawrence, classic Christian mystic’.

One of his friends, well after a bunch of us had gone through notes about gender, mysticism, and the gender of the word for spirit in Hebrew, Syriac, Latin, Greek, and English, asked the (seemingly) basic question about Br. Lawrence:

Christian ‘mystic’ – how does that work?

James answered:

I think the term is pretty loose, [Anastasia]* – he’s called a mystic because he strongly emphasises the ‘at hand’ presence of God in his writing. But in reality, he’s likely no more or less a ‘mystic’ than Jesus, Paul or many of the OT figures! He’s actually pretty cool reading – and because his writings are four centuries old, they’re all online free!

Thus, at a certain level, Brother Lawrence. He stresses the reality that God is present with you at all times. You just need to be aware of the immanence of the transcendent God. This is an important strand of ‘mysticism’, represented not only by the Carmelite brother in Practising the Presence of God but also by Presbyterian missionary Frank Laubach’s writings — of which I first came aware in Richard Foster’s book Prayer — such as Letters by a Modern Mystic.

However, is a mystic, therefore, simply someone who seeks (and succeeds?) to be aware of the presence of God everywhere, in everything, in every place, at all times? Someone who seeks to find God in his or her daily life — washing pots and pans, writing letters to family and friends, even blogging of all things?

Such a definition comes close to Andrew Louth’s in the introduction to his book The Origins of the Christian Mystical Tradition, where he says that mysticism ‘can be characterised as a search for and experience of immediacy with God.’ (p. xv) Such a definition goes beyond the seek for the transcendent God in the everyday, though. In Louth’s definition, we are searching for and hoping to experience immediacy with God — we are hoping that the Kingdom of the Heavens, which is in the midst of us, will come and touch us. We want to join our Groom at his Banqueting Table under the banner of His Love.

Such a broad definition, however, covers the entire breadth of the Christian life. I sing Psalms on Sunday to encounter the Living God. For similar reasons do I read the Scriptures, receive the Eucharist, read spiritual books, listen to sermons, pray. But when we think of the term mysticism, it is not the daily, ordinary that comes to mind — although, perhaps it should. Perhaps the ‘mystical’ and the ‘ordinary’ should overlap, just as God breaks into human history in various points, just as Heaven and Earth seem to overlap.

Still — what do we usually mean by mysticism?

Mysticism is generally the internal life of the Christian, whether individually or in community (I reject the notion that one must be a solitary or ihidaya or monachos — monk — to have ‘mystical experiences’), as the Christian meets with and encounters the living God. In this vein, Lacoste’s Dictionnaire de Théologie says that mysticism is perceiving God through activity, a true feast of the soul through the interior to christ; it consists in ‘an experience of the presence of God in the spirit, by the interior enjoyment that an entirely intimate sentiment gives us.’ (‘Mystique’, p. 779)

We experience Him and He transforms us. In order to encounter God in the everyday, those who follow the mystic’s path set apart times and places for special remembrance of Him and His works. The normal round of Christian prayer and Bible-reading is part of this (as my uncle says, if you don’t read the Bible and pray, what kind of Christian are you?), yet there is a certain cultivation of the inner human being implicit in how the ‘mystic’ would go about this, hoping to receive from God The Inner Experience (to cite the title of a book by Thomas Merton).

Most commonly there are two particular types of prayer engaged in mystics as part of the ‘inner ecumenism’**  that mysticism provides Christianity. There is meditation. In the Christian sense, as used throughout the Middle Ages and conveniently organised by St. Francis de Sales, this is an activity of the mind. In meditation we pray to God and think over deeply a passage of Scripture, seeking to gain understanding and insight from God (see his Introduction to the Devout Life).

Sometimes, as described in Richard Foster’s little booklet Meditative Prayer, we imagine things. Perhaps we imagine ourselves placing all of our troubles in a box and giving them to Jesus. Perhaps we imagine the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon us like a fire and filling us up. Perhaps we imagine Christ on the Cross dying and loving us to the end. Meditation is the prayerful repeated calling to mind of the things of God through word and image.

The second type of prayer is contemplation. Contemplation is prayer beyond words. Some people give lessons on how to seek this state of prayer, this level of dispassion, such as Anthony de Mello’s book Sadhana: A Way to God. De Mello encourages you to spend a few minutes simply clearing your mind of all thought and seeking to wordlessly apprehend the presence of the Triune God in your midst. These psychological techniques are not necessarily to be scorned as some do, but we are to realise that they are psychological and mental.

For our spirit to commune with the Spirit, we must be willing for the Holy, Strong, Immortal God to take us beyond the pale of our experience. We must be willing to realise that all of our efforts in prayer, meditation, contemplation — these alone cannot bring us to God. In part, as St. Teresa’s Interior Castle reminds us, this is because God is already inside us. In part, this is because everything hinges upon God’s grace.

And so we come to my favourite part of thinking about mysticism. Mysticism is rooted in mystery, rooted etymologically in those ancient Greek-Egyptian-Roman-Near Eastern cults that promised special knowledge and salvation to the initiated — to those who have entered in (to give the etymology for initiated). Mysticism is an entrance into the mystery of the grandeur of the Presence of God. We come by His grace alone into his presence and experience whatever created beings can experience of union with the uncreated Creator.

The experiences of those who have been ushered into the throne room of God, into the Mystery, have at times been visions, such as Isaiah’s Throne Room vision in chapter 6. Some have encountered/experienced the ‘uncreated light’ of God’s grace. Others have felt a stillness, calmness, and peace such as no human action could bring. Still others have heard the Voice of God. Some have felt the warmth and tenderness of a mother’s love. Others have had, through their visions, converse with Jesus (think of Lady Julian’s Revelations of Divine Love). Many have entered the Cloud of Unknowing and realised how little they truly know. Others have simply known the joy of the presence of the Lord.

So, what is a mystic?

I think a mystic is a person who seeks to have an awareness of God in all times and all places and who cultivates an inner spiritual life through prayer and meditation that helps that awareness increase, being ushered into the Throne Room of the God of all.

If you think you want to brave mystical literature, any of the above books to which I have linked is a pretty good starting place. Although not one of the online, public domain ones, I highly recommend Richard Foster, Prayer, which deals with all sorts of prayer and has been a great help to me.

*Not her real name. But James is, in fact, James.

**Cf. Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘The Triumph of Monastic Silence’, The Gifford Lectures 2012, Tuesday, April 24. Available online: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmozaTn196M

Painted Churches

When I lived in Cyprus, I had the opportunity to take a trip to the Troodos Mountains with a group of Orthodox Christians on a guided tour of some of Cyprus’s beautiful churches, led by my friends Frs. Ioannis and Andreas; we were blessed in Fr. Ioannis’ specialised knowledge as an iconographer and artist in his own right.

The group at Panayia Podithou

We saw many wonderful things there, including Panayia Podithou with its peaked roof that hearkened one’s thoughts to more western, northerly climes — but there for the same reason (snow!). This church, the first on our trip, includes a fresco of holy Moses removing his shoes at the Burning Bush (thus comes its name). It also has images of Christ giving the twelve apostles the Lord’s Supper.

After Panayia Podithou, we went into the village of Galata. There we saw the Church of St. Sozomen. St. Sozomen’s is a magnificent church (it also has better lighting than Panayia Podithou, and therefore stands out in my memory more!). The interior is entirely covered in frescoes of varying levels of ‘skill’ — although, the only one that would not necessarily count as ‘Byzantine’ was one of those ‘western’ Resurrection scenes with Jesus jumping out of the tomb with a banner. Similar to this (this isn’t the one, though):

Assembled on the frescoed walls of St. Sozomen’s are a variety of saints, biblical figures, and angels. The place is a riot of colour and a far cry from the simple dark wood of St. Columba’s Free Church of Scotland! The exterior of St. Sozomen’s is notable because it, too, is covered in frescoes. The roof has been constructed so that there is basically a portico surrounding the entire church.

Fittingly, amongst the frescoes painted on the exterior of St. Sozomen’s are icons of the Ecumenical Councils, from Nicaea to Nicaea II. This is fitting because — unless there’s a Sozomen of whom I am unaware (entirely likely!) — Sozomen was one of the early ecclesiastical historians, living in the first half of the fifth century. You can read his Ecclesiastical History here. Here’s the photo I took of the Council of Nicaea:

I also managed to get photos of the fresco of the Transfiguration:

And of the Last Judgement:

Our final stop was the Church Ayios Nikolaos tis Stigis (St. Nicholas of the Roof). It has two roofs, as seen below:

Apparently the original ‘Byzantine’-style roof couldn’t handle the snow, so they had to add a peaked roof like the one at Panayia Podithou. Ayios Nikolaos is full of frescoes, on walls, on pillars, everywhere. They are wondrously colourful and more than worth a visit, if you are ever in Cyprus. At this church, I first learned of St. Mary of Egypt, the anchoress who lived in the desert so long that her clothing disintegrated; to keep her safe from the sun and maintain modesty, she grew hair all over the body. There was also an image of St. Paphnutius, another Egyptian saint, also naked, with a beard that was strategically long.

In these painted churches of Cyprus, I first came to an understanding of one reason why Byzantine and mediaeval churches are covered in frescoes and mosaics of the saints and angels. It is a reason I was just reading about today in the latest book by Edith M. Humphrey (one of many Anglicans turned Eastern Orthodox), Grand Entrance. In the first chapter of this book, she has been endeavouring to demonstrate to the reader that worship and prayer (the subject of the volume) are never truly done alone. Part of our lack of isolation and individualism as we worship and pray comes from the presence both of the saints and angels themselves, those saints who are offering up our prayers in bowls before the Throne as in Revelation, those angels who are there to protect us and learn the mysteries of God with us.

The frescoes and mosaics — or, in the case of St. Andrew’s Orthodox Community here in Edinburgh, the individual icons plastering every piece of available wall, each showing us a saint or angel — are visual reminders of what’s really going on as we gather to worship the Triune God. Even if at, say, Morning Prayer when only Fr. Raphael turns up to pray, he is never alone. Not only is God, the One-in-Three, there with him (thus making the community at least two if not four but really just two because, as St. Gregory of Nyssa noted, there are not three gods but one God, although there will still be at least four hypostaseis, as beautifully illustrated by Fr. John Zizioulas in Being As Communion), the saints and angels assembled around God’s Throne are with him.

Thus, at Sant’Ambrogio in Milan, we are reminded that St. Ambrose (saint of the week here) is always with us worshipping YHWH as well (not least because of his bones below the altar):

At St. George’s Anglican Church, Prince Albert, Saskatchewan (where my dad is priest), we are reminded that St. George (saint of the week here) joins us in worship:

We are never alone. And so, the next time you pray, ‘Our Father …’ remember that you join the invisible saints of God in our midst. When you pray, ‘Holy God, Holy Strong, Holy Immortal, have mercy upon us,’ alone, remember that you are not alone. You just cannot see your fellow worshippers.

Whose theology was triumphant at Chalcedon?

I was recently going through some notes about the period 451-565, and I found this quotation from PTR Gray, ‘The Legacy of Chalcedon: Christological Problems and Their Significance’, The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian:

The West was happy enough [with the Council of Chalcedon], but then Chalcedon seemed to be enshrining what they traditionally believed. The Antiochene bishops could, if they put it artfully, claim that they were vindicated. For the rest in the East, three little words — ‘in two natures’ — made Chalcedon a monumental disaster. (222)

With its approval of Leo the Great’s Tome (Ep. 28) and its christological definition (read my translation!) engineered by imperial delegates and papal envoys, Chalcedon is a triumph of western Christology above all else — despite RV Sellers’ demonstration of how it steers a course between the perceived ‘extremes’ of the Alexandrian and Antiochene positions (themselves not as clear-cut at the modern historian would like to have it), or the idea of Grillmeier that Chalcedonian theology is the natural growth and trajectory of Christian theology. To the followers of the trajectory of Athanasius-Cyril (such as Severus of Antioch or TF Torrance), this is not immediately apparent.

But to the student of Chalcedon who sits down to read the great Fathers of the western Church, it becomes clear almost immediately that Chalcedon’s theology — whatever political purposes it may have served Marcian, whatever fallout it may have had, however it may have been interpreted immediately or in the Age of Justinian or in the 20th century — however we view it in those ways, was western.

I just finished the Fathers of the Church translation by Roy J. Deferrari of On the Sacrament of the Lord’s Incarnation by St. Ambrose of Milan.* In many of his works, St. Ambrose is very clearly following eastern examples — his On the Holy Spirit and Hexaemeron owe much to St. Basil, his anti-Arian polemic is very much Athanasian — but when he discusses the idea of Christ’s natura, it becomes evident that we have a fully western writer before our eyes, someone who would have been chuffed over the Council of Chalcedon.

Fresco of St. Ambrose in Sant'Ambrogio, Milan (photo by me!)

In the first place, he uses Matthew 16 as a defence of Christ’s divinity; this passage is one of Leo’s pivotal passages in the Tome. But that alone could have been used by any eastern exegete. Shortly after his use of Mt. 16, however, he sounds highly Chalcedonian and dangerously Nestorian:

Thus, He died according to the assumption of our nature, and did not die according to the substance of eternal life; and He suffered according tot he assumption of the body, that the truth of the assumption of the body might be believed, and He did not suffer according to the impassible divinity of the Word which is entirely without pain. (Ch. 5(36), p. 232)

He uses a Leo-worthy antithesis (or perhaps Leo uses Ambrose-worthy antitheses) in 5(39):

Therefore, He was immortal in death, impassible in His Passion. For just as the sting of death did not seize Him as God, hell saw Him as man. (p. 233)

One of the most ‘dyophysite’ passages is:

Why do you attribute the calamities of the body to divinity, and connect the weakness of human pain even with divine nature? (5(41), p. 234)

Or:

For in the form of a servant there was the fullness of true light; and when the form emptied itself, there was the light. (5(41), p. 234)

He closes his discussion on this topic saying, ‘So the nature of the flesh and of divinity could not have been the same.’ (6(61), p. 243) This, the preceding, and a number of other passages point to a strong tradition of two-nature Christology within western Christianity that pre-dates Chalcedon. However, there are also passages later in Ambrose’s treatise that struck me as peculiarly Cyrillian.

I would argue that western two-nature Christology usually sounds ‘Antiochene’ but can at times sound ‘Alexandrian’ on the grounds that western theology is composed in Latin. While Syriac theology has words that serve as perfect parallels for their Greek counterparts in technical jargon, Latin theology does not. Thus, natura and physis do not have an exactly overlapping semantic range. This means that in duobus naturis does not (necessarily) mean en duo physesin.

To prove this thesis, I have a lot more work to do, scouring Latin philosophical writings and uses of natura and the TLL, but I believe that it is true, and it is part of the key of setting Leo and Chalcedon free from the misconceptions that surround what occurred, as Latin theology was translated into Greek and, thus, lost in translation.

*I think it would be better titled ‘On the Mystery …’ since that is what sacramentum means.

Happy St. George’s Day!

Today is the Feast of St. George the Hieromartyr, or Dragonslayer. Although our details of his life are known from only a century after his probable martyrdom (for which, see my post on him as saint of the week), I think they are at least highly likely (apart from a close friendship with the Emperor). He’s an interesting figure who comes with some compelling iconography.

And if you’re not really interested because you’re not English or have an irrational distaste for things English, have no fear! St. George is also patron saint of: agricultural workers; Amersfoort, Netherlands; Aragon; archers; armourers; Bavaria, Germany; Beirut, Lebanon; Bulgaria; butchers; Cappadocia; Catalonia; cavalry; chivalry; Constantinople; Corinthians (Brazilian football team); Crusaders; equestrians; Ethiopia; farmers; Ferrara; field workers; Genoa; Georgia; Gozo; Greece; Haldern, Germany; Heide; herpes; horsemen; horses; husbandmen; knights; lepers and leprosy; Lod; Malta; Modica, Sicily; Moscow; Order of the Garter; Palestine; Palestinian Christians; Piran; plague; Portugal; Portuguese Army; Portuguese Navy; Ptuj; Slovenia; Reggio Calabria; riders; Romani people; saddle makers; Scouts; sheep; shepherds; skin diseases; soldiers; syphilis; Teutonic Knights.

He has churches dedicated to him all over the world and is venerated in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran Churches. Apparently, even Muslims have a fondness for St. George which is why church foundations to this saint tend not have been desecrated. At least, that’s what I was told in Cyprus.

So, whether you want to avoid herpes and syphilis or you sympathise with Palestinian Christians and the Romani (Gypsies), St. George is the saint for you!

Saint of the Week: St. Alphege of Canterbury (Ælfheah)

Not only is today my birthday, it is the feast of St. Alphege (Ælfheah) of Canterbury (954-19 April, 1012) — 1000 years after the man died in a morbidly humorous manner. Because Alphege is easier to write, and because that’s how I’ve known him until recently due to that spelling in my Prayer Book, that’s the spelling I’ll use here. Although Ælfheah, which means ‘elf-high’, is a very cool way of spelling; I’m fond of Old English names (but promise never to name a child Leofdæg).

Anyway, Alphege was Archbishop of Canterbury during some of the stormier bits of Anglo-Saxon history.* He started his ecclesiastical career as a simple monk at Deerhurst, and later moved to Bath. At Bath he became an anchorite, and people noted his austerity and his piety. As seems to have happened frequently in the earlier years of monasticism, the rest of the monks decided that he was too good a monk to be left alone as an anchorite (see saints of the week Antony the Great and John Climacus) and made him abbot.

In 984, Alphege became Bishop of Winchester (St. Dunstan [d. 988] may have helped in this). Winchester (whose current cathedral, besides having the longest nave in Europe, figures in this song) was one of the most powerful episcopates in Anglo-Saxon England, at times rivalling Canterbury due to the fact that Winchester was for a time the English capital, having been made official capital of Wessex by King Egbert in 827 (you can’t make up names this good!) — it had beende facto capital since 686 in the reign of Caedwalla.

Let’s avoid an entire history of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Wessex and the unification of what is now England and just say, ‘Winchester was a very important bishopric.’ Indeed, the Bishop of Winchester had a palace in London when the seat of government moved there, he was that important. I wonder if there were ever clerical boat-races between it and Lambeth Palace.

Anyway, Alphege decided that nothing could be better for his bishopric in Winchester than an enormous organ. Rumour has it, 24 men were required to operate the organ, and it could be heard over a mile away! I’ve experienced some loud organ postludes in my day; this must have been something! Alphege was also a big promoter of the local saints Swithun and Æthelwold.

The era of Alphege was the era of King Æthelred II (the Unready or Ill-Advised — Unræd) and Viking raids on England by the Danes. This wasn’t going too well for poor Æthelred (hence his nickname); even the conversion of and peace treaty with (possibly influenced by Alphege) Olaf Tryggvason (Viking names are also fantastic) in the 990s didn’t really stop the escalation of devastation.

In 1006, Archbishop Ælfric having died in November 1005, Alphege was elected Archbishop of Canterbury and translated to his new see. Alphege brought St. Swithun’s head with him (as you do …) and promoted the cult of his former protege, Dunstan, in Canterbury.

The History Today article in the April 2012 article about him refers to ‘an army of piratical Vikings’ who set siege to Canterbury in 1011 (p. 9). Given that a Viking is basically a Danish pirate with horns,** this is an amusing statement to make. Basically, the Danes raided again, and a Viking is an early-mediaeval Scandinavian sea-raider, and a pirate is a person who commits raids and theft on the sea/by ship. Anyway, these ‘piratical Vikings’ besieged Canterbury.

After two weeks, another person with an elfish name — Ælfmaer (abbot of St. Augustine’s Abbey [don't forget, St. Augustine of Canterbury was saint of the week once!]) — let the Danes in. Canterbury fell. And was sacked (these are Vikings, after all). Amidst the booty taken by the Danes were Alphege and a well-named trio: Godwine (Bishop of Rochester), Leofrun (abbess of St. Mildrith’s), and Ælfweard (the King’s reeve).

Alphege refused to allow himself to be ransomed. I think this is pretty noble; save the money for stuff that matters. Like gigantic organs. Right? Or the poor. Yeah, the poor. Anyway, the Danes took Alphege to Greenwich where they kept him hostage, waiting for the ransom.

And then, one night, drunkenness struck:

.. the raiding-army became much stirred up against the bishop, because he did not want to offer them any money, and forbade that anything might be granted in return for him. Also they were very drunk, because there was wine brought from the south. Then they seized the bishop, led him to their “hustings” on the Saturday in the octave of Easter, and then pelted him there with bones and the heads of cattle; and one of them struck him on the head with the butt of an axe, so that with the blow he sank down and his holy blood fell on the earth, and sent forth his holy soul to God’s kingdom. (Swanton Anglo-Saxon Chronicle p. 142)

Not exactly a glorious martyrdom. Indeed, I’m not really sure St. Alphege is a martyr. They didn’t intend to kill him, and they didn’t kill him for religious reasons. They didn’t even capture him for religious reasons; this was political/economic for the Danes (who, I reckon, had come down on a jaunt from the Danelaw in Northern England; but that’s just a guess — Denmark isn’t that far from England to begin with).

There aren’t any lessons to be taken from the death of St. Alphege/Ælfheah. It’s just an interesting story. And his feast is my birthday, and today is 1000th anniversary of his death by cow bones and axe-butt. And the names are magnificent. So I had to share it with you.

*This statement gives you no clue of when he was Archbishop; it was all stormy.

**Fact: Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets. Also, I stole this from Dan Carlson who got it from a T-Shirt that said, ‘Vikings are just Swedish pirates with horns’.