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THE ENGLISH ORTHODOX TRUST
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
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