They only really live, only truly show themselves, in religion, or in some high cause that can be died for like religion. This, as a rule, they are without. If the Empire could be that to them, or if it could restore a faith and hope to them, they would have charity enough in them to move the world.
From a Letter sent to the Emperor Justinian and the Empress Theodora by their Servant, John of Cos, concerning the inhabitants of Britain.
From ‘Badon Parchments’ by John Masefield.
The English Orthodox Trust expresses the hope for the rebirth and spreading of the Pre-Schism, Pre-Conquest, Old English Orthodox Christian Faith.
In the absence of an English Orthodox Church, English Orthodox Christians are now scattered in the dioceses of surviving local Orthodox Churches based mainly in Eastern Europe. For this reason the Trust is inter-diocesan.
Its aims may be set out as follows:
1. The spreading of Orthodox Tradition in the English tongue. At present local Orthodox Churches are frequently hamstrung by their obedience to States and organizations often denying the traditional teachings and forms of Orthodox Christianity. The Trust confesses the values and way of life of the traditional Orthodox Faith. Thus it distances itself from both those groupings which wish to ‘modernize’ Orthodox Christianity and also from those who identify Orthodoxy with racial prejudices and nationalist cults. The Trust steadfastly believes that the Orthodox Faith, the Christian Tradition inspired by the Holy Spirit, is potentially the Faith of all. It hopes that in its own modest way it may help to bring together those who recognize the Orthodox Faith through the medium of English, now become a World Language.
2. More particularly the Trust is dedicated to the rebirth of the native Faith of the Old English land and people before it was transformed into Roman Catholicism at the time of the Norman Conquest. Its patrons are therefore St Gregory and St Augustine, Apostles and Teachers of the English, but it venerates all the Saints of Old England, especially our former national Patron St Edmund.
3. At the same time the Trust also looks to those who in post-Conquest England have strived, wittingly or unwittingly, to keep faith with the spirit of Old England and Her Orthodox Christian Tradition, in whatever vestigial way possible. We look, for example, to writers such as Langland, Traherne, Herbert, Vaughan, Blake, Clare, Barnes and Masefield, to name but a few. The Trust strives towards the denormanizing of English life in all ways, religious, political, economic, social, artistic and professional, looking to the eventual reintegration of English Orthodox into a reborn and so restored English Orthodox Church and Tradition.
Books Available
Below we are pleased to enclose details of books published by the Trust which are at present available. By buying a copy, readers are financing the Trust.
All books are available from:
Seekings House
Garfield Road
Felixstowe
SUFFOLK IP11 7PU
E-mail: frandrew_anglorus@yahoo.co.uk
Website: www.orthodoxengland.org.uk
Telephone: 01394 273820
Please make cheques payable to Fr Andrew Phillips
Orthodox Christianity and the English Tradition
Today many search for an Undivided Christendom and the traditional teachings of the Early Church, which go beyond the latter-day divisions and disputes of Roman-Catholic, Anglican and Protestant. And amid the chaos of recent years many have discovered the Orthodox Church and Her Faith, drawn from the first millennium of Christianity. In this book the author, and English Orthodox priest, looks at the authentic Orthodox Faith, beyond the historical and cultural vicissitudes surrounding it, and pinpoints its relevance to us. He writes: Orthodox Christianity is the Faith revealed to the repentant in their quest for the Holy Spirit … Should we accept it, we would thus accept the struggle for the Holy Spirit; and in so doing we would accept the struggle to build Jerusalem here, ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’.
£13.50 + £1.50 p & p. ISBN 0-9531774-0-8 A5 475pp 2nd edition.
Orthodox Christianity and the Old English Church
In 1997 we remembered the 1400th anniversary of the Coming of Christianity to the English people, with the arrival of St Augustine on these shores. But who exactly was St Augustine, this first Archbishop of Canterbury? And what happened to the Church civilization and traditions that he brought to England, after the Norman Conquest of 1066? In this book an English Orthodox priest looks at the little known story and extraordinary destiny of the Old English Church, which began in Rome, lived in Canterbury, was exiled to Constantinople and Southern Russia and lives on in Her Saints.
Both editions sold out. Available as a downloadable e-book on our website.
The Hallowing of England: a guide to the saints of Old England and their places of pilgrimage
In the Old English period we can count over 300 saints, yet today their names and exploits are largely unknown. They are part of a forgotten England that, though it lies deep in the past, is an important part of our national and spiritual history.
Although the holy relics of the saints and the churches they built are long gone, the sites where they laboured are still here and their presence can still be sensed in those places.
Wherever we are in England, we are never far from places hallowed by these saints. Each journey through our land can, if we so choose, become a pilgrimage.
This guide includes a list of 260 saints cross referenced to an alphabetical list of over 300 places with which they are associated, brief biographical details of 22 patriarchs of the English Church, and a calendar of saints’ feast days.
£5.95 + 50p p & p ISBN 1-898281-08-4 A5 96pp 3rd edition.
The Rebirth of England and the English: The Vision of William Barnes
English history is patterned with spirits so bright that they broke through convention and saw another England. Such was the case of the Dorset poet, William Barnes (1801-86), priest, poet, teacher, self-taught polymath, linguist extraordinary and that rare thing – a man of vision. In this work the author looks at that vision, a vision at once of Religion, Nature, Art, Marriage, Society, Economics, Politics and Language. He writes: ‘In search of authentic English roots and values, our post-industrial society may well have much to learn from Barnes’.
For the first time Saxon-English words created and used by Barnes have been gathered together and listed next to their foreign equivalents.
£9.95 + £1 p & p ISBN 1-898281-17-3 A5 160pp
The Lighted Way: Orthodox Christian Perspectives for the Third Millennium
This is a volume of essays, some of which previously appeared in Orthodox England. It is described as follows:
‘The Orthodox Church – the Church of the Holy Spirit and the Church of Sacred Tradition – alone guarded intact the Faith of the First Millennium amid the temptations of the Second. But what is Her message now, to the Third Millennium?
‘In a vision both local and global, an English Orthodox priest looks at what that message might be, as he considers the ongoing struggle for the soul of England and indeed for the soul of the world. Providing both hope and caution, to the now finished Twentieth Century he warns: ‘The Just Judge is coming to judge you and all the innocent suffering of the Earth shall be heard’. But above all he strives in the gathering darkness to shine forth to those who seek the path of the Saints, the Lighted Way.’
351 pages, £13.95 + £1.05 postage.
The Story of St. Felix, Apostle of East Anglia
At 32 pages in length, this booklet is described as follows:
‘Do we who are entering the Third Millennium know anything of the Apostle of East Anglia of the First Millennium?
‘Who was St. Felix? Where did he come from? Why did he come to East Anglia? What were his links with Sutton Hoo and the lost city of Dunwich? What were his links with Ireland? How did he know St. Audrey and who was she? What is the mysterious Red Book of Eye? And is St. Felix still here?
‘Find the answers to these, and many other questions, inside.’
£2.95 post free
Akathist of Thanksgiving
An elegant translation into liturgical English of the famous Akathist/Poem written in the depths of the Soviet winter by the saintly Metropolitan Tryphon (Turkestanov), together with a short life of the author.
Anglo-Russian Books. £2 post free.
Sincere Faith is More Important Than Riches
A play for our Times
This play is an adaptation of Virtue Is More Important Than Riches, written by the awakener of Carpatho-Russia, Fr Alexander Dukhnovich. It was first published in 1850 in the then Austro-Hungarian Empire (now in Preshov Rus, in north-east Slovakia).
Six generations and several geopolitical catastrophes on, the setting for the play has been transferred. Firstly, it has gone from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Stratford, an eastern suburb of London, where many immigrants from former Communist Eastern Europe live, and secondly to the Carpatho-Russian Capital, Uzhgorod, at present in the ‘Transcarpathian Ukraine’. Peasant culture has become that of post-industrial society and other places, events and details have been transformed to correspond to those of the modern world. As for the ‘prophecy’ at the beginning of Act 3, it is at present no more than a hope, but with God all things are possible.
48 pp. £4 post free
Orthodox Russia and a World Council of Orthodoxy
Published in a bilingual edition of 3,000 copies in Russia, this full-colour booklet on glossy paper contains Fr Andrew’s talk given at the Institute of Philosophy (opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour) in Moscow in 2007 and an interview he gave on the website of Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov, the confessor of former President Vladimir Putin.
It calls for the establishment of a World Council of Orthodoxy and for Orthodox to come together to face the problems of the contemporary world.
48 pp. £4 post free
The Glory of the Isles
Written from an Orthodox standpoint and intended primarily for older children and teenagers, this booklet can also be read by adults. In simple language, it explains the history of the first thousand years of Christianity in Great Britain and Ireland. Giving the lives of the main saints of Britain and Ireland, it is abundantly illustrated with a map, eleven line drawings and thirteen icons, all printed on glossy paper.
Its chapters explain the Glastonbury legend of St Joseph of Arimathea, the stories of St Alban and the Celtic saints, Patrick, David, Columba, Aidan, the Italian Archbishop of Canterbury St Augustine, the Greek Archbishop of Canterbury St Theodore, then St Bede and other English heroes like St Edmund, King Alfred and St Alphege. It considers the Norman Invasion with sadness and looks forward to a potential rebirth of native Orthodoxy under the spiritual guidance of St John the Wonderworker and St Elizabeth the New Martyr. It concludes:
‘For we have a spiritual secret weapon buried in our Isles, which can deliver us from the fury of the Northmen, from whom we have suffered for a thousand years. This secret weapon, which the world cannot see, understand or take from us, is the prayers of the saints of the Isles – our True Glory. The Glory of the Isles is not in the pride of the past and its crimes. It is in the humility of the Saints. And this is what makes sincere Orthodox Christians different from others’.
Printed on high quality paper, with Fr Mark’s icon of All the Saints of Britain and Ireland on the cover, this is an ideal resource for Orthodox church schools.
Bury St Edmunds, 2009. 38 pages. £4 (5 euros/$6) post free