I have also included a pdf copy of my paper below for those who prefer that format. to the death of Cleopatra and the incorporation of Egypt in the Roman Empire in 30 B.C.E. Justin Martyr was a key figure during this period who helped reconcile Hellenism with Christian teachings. Rather, according to Orthodox belief, the icons in the sanctuary remind the congregants, through the divine liturgy, that they are with Christ and the saints worshiping together in God’s presence. The phrase "Hellenic polytheism" is actually, much like the word "Pagan," an umbrella term. Philosophical realism was the dominant philosophical school of Anselm's day, and stemmed from Platonism. While it has at times emphasized too heavily the Greek over the Orthodox aspect of its identity, it still has not neglected the latter. [41], The Orthodox Church, with its resistance to both doctrinal and liturgical change, has subjected itself to the charge of being “an ossified relic of the Christian past.”[42] Far from being a dead institution, however, the Church has preserved a very early form of Christianity and stands as an ever-present witness to continuously modernizing Western churches. That at least two of the Christians mentioned in Acts 13 are from North Africa is perhaps a hint some Hellenists moved to Antioch rather than Egypt. [10] Ibid., 197; James R. Payton, Light from the Christian East: An Introduction to the Orthodox Tradition (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 199. Christianity and Hellenistic philosophies experienced complex interactions during the first to the fourth centuries. We set out to find out what the ancient Church was really like, and in doing so we discovered Orthodoxy.”[49]. Despite its heritage, however, Hellenistic Christianity is not limited to the territories of the former Greek Byzantine Empire. What is more intelligent is more perfect as regards intelligence, what is more beautiful is more perfect as regards beauty, and so forth. Anselm of Canterbury, a priest, monk, and philosopher defined God as the "Being than which no greater can be conceived." Acts 6:1 And in these ... /h/hellenistic.htm - 7k Therefore, the ecumenical nature of a council can only be determined after the fact. Orthodox worship centers around communal expressions of faith. [30] Ibid., 4; Bartholomew, 8; Payton, 33. (Hellenism, of course, refers to the influence of ancient Greek philosophy and culture, which spread throughout the Mediterranean world after the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC.) The Septuagint was created three hundred years before Christ. Daniel W. Graham and James L. Siebach, "Philosophy and Early Christianity," 210-220. Alt. The Incarnation was “part of the eternal purpose of God, and not simply…an answer to the fall.”[14], It is unsurprising, therefore, that the Orthodox Church presents the crucifixion in a unique light as well. Consequently, Hellenistic Christianity places great emphasis on the authority of councils of bishops, which the Church believes to be “the chief organ whereby God has chosen to guide his people…”[7] While all councils possess some level of authority, only ecumenical councils are considered infallible. [23] Fairbairn, 43; Ware, Orthodox Church, 300; Fortescue, Orthodox Church, 426; see Bartholomew, 81-84. In this post in my series “God and Man at Yale Divinity,” I share my paper on Hellenistic Christianity, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodoxy. [37], One Catholic scholar criticized the Orthodox Church’s missionary apathy toward the Arabs, arguing that Orthodox leaders “allowed [the Arabs] to remain pagan, while they quarreled over abstruse points of theology, and intrigued for the Emperor’s favor at the court.”[38] A successful mission among the Arab peoples would have required an “adaptive response to the message,” which the elites of the Imperial Church could not abide. James Beilby and Paul R. Eddy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2006); Gregory A. Boyd, Satan and the Problem of Evil: Constructing a Trinitarian Warfare Theodicy (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011), 36. Bartholomew, 6, 20-21, 25; Payton, 175, 78-79; Ware. Christianity - Christianity - The early liturgy, the calendar, and the arts: St. Paul’s letters mention worship on the first day of the week. Churches that have not achieved autocephalous or autonomous status, however, generally fall under the Ecumenical Patriarch’s jurisdiction. "Hellenistic" is a modern word and a 19th-century concept; the idea of a Hellenistic period did not exist in ancient Greece.Although words related in form or meaning, e.g. [41] Ware, Orthodox Church, 174-75; Garvey, 34. Philosophers took all the things that they considered good, Power, Love, Knowledge and Size, and posited that God was "infinite" in all these respects. Ware, Orthodox Church, 2, 13, 51, 291; John Garvey, “Eastern Orthodoxy,” The Atlantic, May 1989, 34; Bartholomew, 3, 57. [1] Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church: New Edition (London: Penguin Books, 1997), 4. It was not until the fusion of Platonic and Aristotelian theology with Christianity that the concepts of strict omnipotence, omniscience, or benevolence became commonplace. For all its faults, it has persevered in the faith of its ancestors, both as an established church—as in Greece today—and as a persecuted church—as in the Soviet Union. There's a substantial gap in most religions between religious practices and source mythology. [12] Athanasius, A Discourse of Saint Athanasius on the Incarnation of the Word of God, trans. Hellenistic Paganism Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! Tim Dowley (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), 366-68; see also Lamin Sanneh, Disciples of All Nations: Pillars of World Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 65. This is in reference to the origins and beliefs of early Christianity, so before 500 AD. The "Christian" churches of this world are predominantly antinomian to some extent. When the Church later moved into new lands, it often maintained this lack of cultural diversity in a translated form. The Hellenization of Christianity was a complex interaction between Hellenistic philosophy and early Christianity during the first four centuries of the Common Era. It held, in contrast to Nominalism, that things such as "green" and "big" were known as universals, which had a real existence in an abstract realm, as described by Plato. Cook, "How Deep the Platonism," 269-286 in Farms Review of Books, vol. Philo's blend of Judaism, Platonism, and Stoicism strongly influenced Christian Alexandrian writers such as Origen and Clement of Alexandria, as well as, in the Latin world, Ambrose of Milan. [17], It seems strange that a Church that places so much emphasis on the authority of councils has not called an ecumenical council since 787, particularly considering that the Roman Church has called many in the intervening years—one as recent as the 1960s. The dominant philosophical traditions of the Greco-Roman world then were Stoicism, Platonism, Epicureanism, and, to a lesser extent, the skeptic traditions of Pyrrhonism and Academic Skepticism. Is Christianity a predominantly Near Eastern or Hellenistic religion? Independence and autonomy are key features of the Orthodox churches. Of these, Stoicism and particularly Platonism were readily incorporated into Christian ethics and theology. Size, intelligence, beauty, power, benevolence, and so forth: all the qualities are called perfections. Ethnic divisions have made the establishment of a uniquely American Orthodox Church difficult. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2009), 75. Orthodoxy reflects an early Christianity with all its beauty and with all its faults. As a previous Roman Catholic critic has pointed out, “Their sumptuous ritual, gorgeous vestments, and exact rubrics all represent, not the first age, but the palmy days of the Byzantine Roman Empire.” Fortescue, Orthodox Church, 392-93. This makes them very fit to take the gospel crossculturally. While Lent is the West’s great time of fasting and prayer, there are four significant fasting periods in Orthodoxy (in addition to most Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year): (1) Lent; (2) the Fast of the Apostles from eight days after Pentecost until 28 June; (3) the Dormition Fast from 1 to 14 August; and (4) the Christmas Fast from 15 November to 24 December. I have always been fascinated by Hellenistic Christianity, and I hope that this paper is of value to you. As in Roman Catholicism, a celibate episcopate leads the Eastern Orthodox Church. [1] While maintaining its Hellenistic foundations, Eastern Orthodoxy is an ethnically diverse group of independently governed churches. Accordingly, if a concept could be formed in the human mind, then it had a real existence in the abstract realm of the universals, apart from his imagination.