In revealing encounters with monks, nuns, bishops and archbishops, in monasteries ancient and modern Victoria Clark measures the depth and width of the gulf now separating Europe's Orthodox East from the Catholic and Protestant West. Many of the differences in outlook, priorities and even values can be traced back to the 1054 schism between the churches of Rome and Constantinople which created Europe's most durable fault-line. Travelling from Mount Athos to Istanbul and unravelling the tangled history, Victoria Clark demonstrates a rare sympathy with Eastern Orthodox Europe.
'I finished the book wanting to meet this intelligent, warm-hearted writer, and to follow her to some of the places she visited' "LITERARY REVIEW "
'A masterful synthesis of vivid and often humorous travel writing, a series of probing interviews and a pertinent historical context' "THE TIMES"
'Exhilarating . . . her book will be immensely helpful to anyone occasionally puzzled by events, especially politics, in Eastern Europe' " FINANCIAL TIMES "
Centuries ago, Christianity split between Western Europe (Catholicism) and Eastern Europe (Orthodoxy). This schism led to two very different histories and hierarchies, with a lot of misunderstandings between the two.
I live in the USA, which is mostly populated by people who come from the Western tradition. Some are Catholic, and many are from various forms of Protestantism, which emerged in response to Catholicism. I myself am Jewish, but grew up surrounded by this tradition. On the other hand, my father spend the first 9 years of his life in what's now Serbia, surrounded by the Orthodox traditions.
This seemed to be a book that would help me understand more about Orthodoxy, and maybe help compare and contrast the different religious traditions. Along the way, I was hoping to learn more about different Eastern European countries; their history and people.
I was disappointed.
I have to give the author some credit: Her writing style can be very engaging, she explains history very well, and she really went around these countries, talked with people, and did a lot of exploring.
I had 3 main problems with the book:
1. She writes in the beginning about how women are barred from Mt. Athos, which is one of the holiest sites in Orthodoxy. This really, really, really gets on her nerves. She comes back to it again and again. It seems to be a mortal insult to her that she can't go there. At first I was sympathetic, but after awhile it wore thin, particularly when she decided to write about every scandal she could find about the place. It started to feel really imbalanced.
2. While she says she no longer believes in the Catholic church where she was raised, her disdain for Orthodoxy as a religion was shocking. She sets up Western Christian thought as based on logic, and presents Orthodoxy as based on emotion. What? Seriously? From there she sometimes gets downright insulting about Orthodoxy, suggesting that its religious figures and adherents don't really think. Again, really imbalanced.
3. She travels with local people, talks with local people, and then writes about them in unflattering ways. After awhile, it felt like I was talking with someone who tears down her friends behind their backs. "Oh, yes, good old Octavius. Love him to bits. You know, it's a real shame he spends all his time lusting after that secretary of his. Always had an eye for the ladies, that one. He'd get in all kinds of trouble if he was better looking and knew how to dress."
Eventually I realized I wasn't enjoying the book at all, and had to stop reading.
Seduced by the title, I broke my cardinal rule. Check the background of the author to gauge their credibility to write about the topic. The book began with Victoria Clark's arrival at Mt Athos, often referred to as the Holy Island, with a sarcastic jab at the prohibition of women on the island. It has been this way, for over a thousand years. Everyone knows this. On p 3 the author writes, “The ban on women setting foot on Athos was some elderly monk’s response to a backlash of fornication on the peninsular . . . “ There are well documented reasons for the monks who live there to impose these restrictions besides it is their choice how they wish to live on their land. The book follows a historical chronology, but the essence of the information has completely escaped her understanding of the topic. The rest of the book is liberally peppered with denigrating and unnecessary adjectives like “dissident hermits – the filthy famished men of the desert,” while someone who greeted her, had a “gold capped grin.” She said, “the Virgin Mary took a fancy to the island and claimed it as her own”. Disparaging jibes were made at every opportunity, not just about Mt Athos but many other countries where Orthodoxy is practiced. The only positive remark, if you could call it that, came at the end of the book on p 413, “Those people forgot that I was a western female born a Roman Catholic but no longer a believer. They made me wish I could believe.” I didn’t put the book onto a community book-sharing shelf for fear some poor soul would believe what had been written. So, I relegated it into the garbage as land fill.
There's a lot to digest here. I found myself making connections here to current politics in the US. One of the major difficulties between Eastern and Western Christianity over the last thousands years is competing narratives of Truth. The history compiled here and there interviews from various perspectives are fascinating. There are pieces here to the puzzles of conflicts I have never understood.
I got a copy of this book from the library, and while I learned a little bit, after 60 pages, the way the British Catholic author spoke of Eastern Europe began to be grating, and I decided I would look elsewhere for the information I need.
"Why Angels Fall: A Journey through Orthodox Europe" by Victoria Clark is a delightful, informative adventure which takes the reader on a journey through some of the most complex and interesting contemporary issues of religion and geopolitics. Clark shines a light on this often ignored part of the world and seeks to describe the "soul" and "heart" of Eastern Orthodoxy with images, pictures, and story against the backdrop of the late 1990's.
Clark, a British journalist in Eastern Orthodox countries for nearly a decade, decided to write this book to answer the question of why Eastern orthodox countries seem to have a stark divide between their high ideals (in the form of mystical religious thought) and their almost brutal natures (in the form of violent nationalism). She takes the reader through a number of Orthodox countries, including Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Romania, Russia, and Cyprus, including trips to Mt. Athos and Istanbul. Her book is best when she is distilling complex, interesting histories into well constructed narratives and utilizing locations to tell these stories. She does an excellent job with each country, each chapter of which could have served as the basis for a book in its own right. Luckily, for the most part she does not seem to become lost in the subject matter or circular history and can use her skills cultivated in journalism to keep the book grounded in its mission.
She comes to three conclusions worth detailing: One is that the divide between Eastern and Western Europe is more than just a legacy of the Cold War but goes back many centuries and Orthodox Europe has its own separate culture, politics, and ways of seeing the world that is too often dismissed and ignored by the West. Second is that modern Orthodoxy is divided between what Clark sees as its best and worst aspects: Hesychasm (a form of monastic mediation) and Phyletism (religious nationalism and the creation of rival, independent Orthodox churches), respectively. Finally, that in the Great Schism of 1054 between Latin and Orthodox Christianity, both West and East lost something they could not do without. To paraphrase her observation, the West, with its focus on logic and reason, had lost its heart, and the East, with its focus on emotion and spirit, had lost its mind. The only way that the divide between East and West can be bridged is through a recognition of what has been lost.
Her role as a journalist both helps and hinders the book. I enjoyed her ability to make complex stories easy to digest and enjoyed her personal journey, which at times seemed like a travel narrative. However, there are times that I found myself distracted by her personal feelings, which did not seem organic with the rest of the narrative. It is something that I disliked in her book "Allies for Armageddon" immensely- they seem like awkward breaks from telling the story at hand. However, I would chalk this up more to a difference in personal methodology than to something inherently wrong with the book. In this book in particular, on a topic which is very near and dear to her heart, her personal opinions are much more warranted. The book, though slightly dated today (published in 2000), is well worth reading and will open the Western reader up to new and interesting histories that are still relevant today.
This book bordered on superb journalism on one hand, and pure crap on the other. The author takes us on a tour of Orthodox Eastern Europe, exploring their struggles after the Fall of Soviet Communism.
One cannot help but be moved by the real-life verbal snap shots of the priests and villagers in Eastern Europe. Clark's skills are apparent at this point. However, I will take extreme issue with her political understanding, and try as hard as possible to be as verbally ruthless as I possibly can in rebutting.
To put it simply, her understanding of history is as bass-ackward as possible. To her credit, she does encounter a lot of criticism of the Jews. This bothers her (no doubt because of Hitler). Fair enough, but consider the slavophile's position for the moment: dozens of millions more Slavs were killed by the Nazis than Jews. Jews did kill the Tsar. There were Cabbalistic Jew symbols smeared in blood over the Tsar's body. Jews did finance the Communists, etc.
Her take on Serbia was about as awful as one could possibly get. She really played dirty and hit below the belt. I will respond in kind. Recent history has vindicated the Serbs' position. Muslims were not massacred as Srebenica. Those killed were part of the Bosnian Muslim Army (not to mention the Wahhabist terrorists Clinton imported from Afghanistan). Further, the Kosovo Liberation Army (funded by both John McCain and Joe Biden) has routinely carved up Serb bodies and traded in organs. Courtesy of the NATO bombing, almost all Serbs have been ethnically cleansed from Kosovo. And now, for the final jab:
Clark gets into an argument with a Serb priest over Muslim immigration. The priest warns her that the decadent West will soon be overrun by Asiatic Muslims. Clark laughs at him. Currently, as we speak, Muslim immigrants from North Africa are terrorizing Europe. The Serbs were right.
And worst of all, not only did Clark commit the intellectual unpardonable sin of using endnotes, she used roman numeral endnotes. What's up with dat?
Reread this and still find it a great insight into the politics and stew that makeups orthodoxy. You come away with the conflict between the national churches (Greek, Serbian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Russian) and the concept of a pan-orthodox (Byzantium model). If you read this, you will understand the complexities and the history between them and how both Russia and Greece both see themselves as the rightful leader of all the Orthodox.
A book that explains the context of the civil unrest in the Balkan region and the legacy of the Greek Orthodox church. This book covers recent history like the genocide in Serbia against the Croats region by region with quotes (journalist style) from religious leaders the author interviewed. I read some of the regions, not all.
Many Amazon reviewers say Clark has a strong pro-Western, pro-secularist bias. This is probably the case, but the book still works well as a travelogue, and it made me want to read and learn more about the places Clark visited. As a Westerner, I am ashamed to say how little I knew (and know) about this whole other half of Europe.
Tries to explain Orthodox Europe but gets caught up in the nationalistic side of politics. The problem with books like this is that unless they are written carefully, and with great detail, the book is out of date in two of three years.