Easternings

21 Dec 21 - Easternings

Fr dear Fr: In the history of the churches of Britain is there some truth in the fresh new rumour from the stables of Lucy W and crew that the western rules and western regimes of decretals and pontifical letters did not really obtain here for sometime and that the eastern regimes of the great emperor Justinian the Saint were better accepted and received?

We have had 2 Quaesita on this subject so we will endeavour to persevere and to respond to both issues in the same Responsory. This one comes from Sicily. The other comes from Rutland.

Certain decrees of the Council of Trent and those like Tametsi were rumoured by the experts in the various codes of canonical decretals not to have been officially and formally promulgated here in the British mainland for some time - and this according to one dominant theory chiefly because of the delicate ecumenical situation long obtaining for the Daytona 500 catholic christians in those years, somewhat similar to the silences of Pius XII after the initial letter to German christians called Mit Brennender Sorge from his predecessor and friend in the 1930s - it was assumed to be a delicate situation ecumenically - and that is how it remained, an unpromulgated council in the distant and far distant islands. This was one theory, the ecumenical one. But only in recent years have some scholars and historians from the secular side of discussions about historical subjects alighted on another much more exciting private theory - soon to be advanced as a doctoral dissertation. We can briefly adumbrate the salient points of this second theory:

1. Eastern legions of the Roman Army had often been stationed in these islands, the Caesarion legions from Egypt and the Sarmatian cavalry legions from Ukraine in times past during the first occupation;

2. When western legions departed in 410 AD, contacts were made with the still extant Eastern empire based at Constantinople;

3. Eastern ambassadors visited these islands from 410 to 1453 and made common cause with the British kings in those timeframes;

4. So naturally a feeling built up that a softer kinder legal regime from the East was expected to apply in this territory under the new friendship with the Eastern empire;

5. An eastern codex of novellae and other Justinian laws was understood to be applicable here for synods and the like;

6. So although not done officially, a softer easier regime, softer on visitations like the modern easter code at 102-113, softer on visitations like the same code at 289, softer even on celibacy and marriage for clerics at 373, so a softer easier regime was slowly imbibed and expected in the islands;

7. An eastern perspective was slowly assumed;

8. Hence the different date for Easter among celtic christians for many centuries up to Whitby;

9. Hence the different customs for monks among celtic christians for centuries too;

10. Even the esteem historically placed on monasteries and monastery clergy was itself an eastern practice from the Johannine churches of Egypt and Patmos;

11. So hence, more and more scholars have arrived at the second theory, that there was definitely an eastern flavour to GB Christianity right up to 1536 and beyond;

12. Even at the 1850 Restoration of the old church catholique under the western bishops, and then the commissioning of a byzantine style chief cathedral for the new hierarchy, with white cassocks for missionary clergy if they so chose it to be so, all of this showed that an eastern flavour was expected from the new church by the long suffering British people - they had come to love a more liberal legal regime from the eastern empire - even the code-writers of Hollywood were aware of this as per the movie Robin Hood Prince of Thieves;

13. Eastern Rites and eastern weddings too found a ready home here in these islands;

14. So it seems likely that historians more and more find in favour of that second theory of an eastern legal regime obtaining here all along after the departure of the western Roman legions in 410 AD, so that it is quite possible that only eastern codes and decretals were promulgated here in the Far distant isles a la John's dispensation in Egypt - certainly Trent was not promulgated here for most canonical scholars;

15. A Johannine Church ruled here in the islands for centuries with a strong Jewish flavour to it, but also guided by soft legal praxis among the people and a tradition of epikeia in marriage issues through the anam cara spiritual directors of the monks;

Consequently in this second theory, a western codex was quietly shelved here and in any case never really got off the ground, since it ran contrary to the growing expectations of the people in general both in and outside the Church. Britain is therefore an eastern codex regime. That increasingly seems to be the majority witness of historians of those canonical institutes involved. So more eastern rites and eastern dispensations are expected, and a softer attitude also to the straight clergy, even from the bishops who emanated from the monks and the monasteries - one of the enduring critiques that was levelled at George Basil Hume, and one which the mystics were aware of when it came to his individual judgement, was that he was too hard and too schoolmasterish upon his clergy at Westminster - the clergy throughout the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s suffered hugely in his regime and in his westernising timeframe - and needlessly too with hindsight, as a dwindling pack of western legal theoreticians tried in vain to introduce an alien legal regime, unaccepted and unreceived by the people and their younger clergy vocations. But whichever theory becomes predominant, we must remember that a doctrine of reception does exist in canon law - a law can only be imposed upon a community when it is capable of receiving that law - capax legis recipiendae - western law was clearly pressing all the wrong buttons for some time ever since 1983. Now the newer rites are here. The rest is now unfolding in history.