Timeline of Orthodoxy in the British Isles

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The early Christian writers Tertullian and Origen mention the existence of a British church in the third century AD and in the fourth century British bishops attended a number of councils, such as the Council of Arles in 314 and the Council of Rimini in 359.

The first member of the British church whom we know by name is St Alban, who, tradition tells us, was martyred for his faith on the spot where St Albans Abbey now stands.

The British church was a missionary church with figures such as St Illtud, St Ninian and St Patrick evangelising in Wales, Scotland and Ireland, but the invasions by the pagan Angles, Saxons and Jutes in the fifth century seem to have destroyed the organisation of the church in much of what is now England. In 597 a mission sent by Pope Gregory the Great and led by St Augustine of Canterbury landed in Kent to begin the work of converting these pagan peoples.

What eventually became known as the "Church of England" [1] was the result of a combination of three traditions, that of Augustine and his successors, the remnants of the old Romano-British traditions and the Celtic tradition coming down from Scotland and associated with people like St Aidan and St Cuthbert.

These three traditions came together as a result of increasing mutual contact and a number of local synods, of which the Synod of Whitby in 664 has traditionally been seen as the most important. The result was an English Church, led by the two Archbishops of Canterbury and York, that was fully assimilated into the mainstream Church. This meant that it was influenced by the wider development of the Christian tradition in matters such as theology, liturgy, church architecture, and the development of monasticism. It also meant that after the Great Schism between the Eastern Orthodox church and the Roman Catholic church, the English church continued under the authority of the Pope and with Orthodoxy.

The greatest contributor towards documenting the ecclesiastical and political history of England is attested to St. Bede, who completed in 731 five volumes of his best known work The Ecclesiastical History of England.

Period before the mission of Augustine

History of England post Bede

post Great Schism

Great Schism. Church of England no longer with the Eastern Orthodox church. Orthodoxy re-establishes in Great Britain around the 16-17th century. citation needed

  • 1670 Daniel Voulgaris creates and establishes first Greek Orthodox Community in London.
  • 1677 "Temple" erected for the nation of the Greeks [8]
  • 1738 Print 'Noon' [9] by William Hogarth [10] shows evidence of a crowd exiting a Greek Orthodox church.
  • 1837 Imperial Russian Embasy offers hospitality in London to the Greek Community for their religious activities.
  • 1850 Greek Orthodox church built in London Street in the City.
  • 1877 Greek Orthodox Church of the Divine Wisdom (St Sophia) in Bayswater built.
  • 1899 Bede is made a "Doctor of the Church" [11] by Leo XIII.
  • 1906 Greek Orthodox Church of Saint Nicholas built in Cardiff.
  • 1908 Oecumenical Patriarchate transfers its rights for four Greek Orthodox community churches to Church of Greece.
  • 1922 the Holy Synod of the Oecumenical Patriarchate creates the Greek Orthodox ArchDiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, with London as its seat; Germanos Strinopoulos choses as first Bishop and Metropolitan of Thyateira.
  • {{Germanos was succeeded after his death in 1951 by Archbishop Athenagoras Kavadas (1951-1962); after his death by Archbishop Athenagoras Kokkinakis (1963-1979) and after his death by Archbishop Methodios Fouyias (1979-1988), who was replaced in April 1988 by the present incumbent of the Archdiocese, Archbishop Gregorios Theocharous (who for the previous 18 years had been Bishop of Tropaeou, serving in North London)}}
  • 1966 St. John the Wonderworker, Archbishop of London.
  • 1975 The Greek Orthodox community of Saint Panteleimon of Harrow established[12]
  • 1996 St. Aidan's Antiochian Orthodox Church in Manchester consecrated by Metropolitan Gabriel (Saliby).
  • 2005 [September] Mission in Macclesfield dedicated to St. Theodore of Canterbury opens.
  • 2007 Repose of Metropolitan Gabriel Saliby (Antiochian); Bishop John Yazigi elected to Metropolitanate of Western and Central Europe.
  • 2008 Enthronement of Metropolitan John (Yazigi) of Western and Central Europe, September 20.

Notes

  • Some of these dates are necessarily a bit vague, as records for some periods are particularly difficult to piece together accurately.
  • The division of Church History into separate eras as done here will always be to some extent arbitrary, though it was attempted to group periods according to major watershed events.
  • This timeline is necessarily biased toward the history of the Orthodox Church, though a number of non-Orthodox or purely political events are mentioned for their importance in history related to Orthodoxy or for reference.

See also

External links

Further Reading

References

  1. ↑ The "Church of England" (the Ecclesia Anglicana - or the English Church)
  2. ↑ The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles list the year of St. Alban's execution as 283
  3. ↑ St. Alban is first mentioned in "Acta Martyrum", and also by Constantius of Lyon in his Life of St. Germanus of Auxerre, written about 480
  4. ↑ Saint Augustine of Canterbury is also called the "Apostle to the English".
  5. ↑ The "St Augustine Gospels" manuscript is the oldest surviving Latin illustrated Gospel book in existence.
  6. ↑ Cædmon is said to have taken holy orders at an advanced age and it is implied that he lived at Streonæshalch at least in part during Hilda’s abbacy (657–680). Book IV Chapter 25 of the Historia ecclesiastica appears to suggest that Cædmon’s death occurred at about the same time as the fire at Coldingham Abbey, an event dated in the E text of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to 679, but after 681 by Bede.
  7. ↑ Considered a local Saint by the Orthodox church of England but not formally canonised.
  8. ↑ "In the year of salvation 1677 this Temple was erected for the nation of the Greeks, the Most Serene Charles II being King, and the Roual Prince Lord James being commander of the foreces, the Right Reverend Lord Henry Compton being Bishop, at the expense of the above and other Bishops and Nobles and with the concurrence of our Humility of Samos Joseph Georgeirenes, from the island of Melos." - Inscription from tablet carved in Greek preserved on the west wall of the church Charing Cross Road. This site is now occupied by St Mary's of Kenton a non-Orthodox denomination.
  9. ↑ From the series entitled "The Four Times of the Day"
  10. ↑ In Hogarth’s time the portion of the street where the church stood was called Hog Lane. It was later renamed Crown Street and was demolished when Charing Cross Road was widened.
  11. ↑ The position of "Doctor of the Church" is a position of theological significance; St. Bede is the only man from Great Britain to achieve this designation (Anselm of Canterbury, also a Doctor of the Church, was originally from Italy
  12. ↑ http://www.st-panteleimon.org/
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