{"id":1503,"date":"2023-04-17T18:28:35","date_gmt":"2023-04-17T14:28:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fatherkmgeorge.info\/km\/?p=1503"},"modified":"2023-04-17T20:07:47","modified_gmt":"2023-04-17T16:07:47","slug":"bishop-kallistos-ware-1934-2022-a-western-exponent-of-eastern-orthodox-faith-fr-dr-k-m-george","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fatherkmgeorge.in\/km\/archives\/1503","title":{"rendered":"Bishop Kallistos Ware (1934 \u2013 2022): An Authentic Western Interpreter of Eastern Orthodox Faith – A personal reminiscence | Fr Dr K M George"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kallistos-ware\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bishop Kallistos Ware (1934 \u2013 2022)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Bishop Kallistos Ware is a celebrated name \u00a0in the \u00a0Eastern Orthodox Churches of the Byzantine liturgical tradition as well as in western church circles. Born Timothy Ware in Bath, England, he was brought up in the Anglican Church tradition. At the age of 17 while he was a student, Timothy was once walking along the Buckingham Palace Road in London he casually got into a Russian church. He was fascinated by the music and liturgical rites of a church tradition totally unknown to him. It happened to be a parish of the Russian Orthodox\u00a0 Church Outside Russia. There he got the first taste of Orthodoxyhe . He explainezd much later his deeply emotional \u00a0experience of the beauty of this worship in his book The Inner Kingdom<\/em> (St Vladimir Seminary Press, 1993). As a scholar monk he taught for more than 3 decades \u00a0at Oxford University. Kallistos (‘most beautiful\u2019) was his monastic name, the name of an ancient Greek saint. Timothy Ware studied at Westminster School, London with a Royal Scholarship and graduated with high grades from Magdalene College. He was received in the \u00a0Orthodox Church in 1958<\/p>\n

He became well conversant in classic languages such as Greek and Latin and because of the strong inner call for monastic life, Timothy paid visits to monasteries in Jerusalem and Mount Athos in Greece. Eventually he became an inmate of the monastery in the Island of Patmos. This is where St John the Evangelist was staying in exile and wrote the Book of Revelation<\/strong>. Timothy was ordained to priesthood in 1966 by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. With this, he took oath as a full-fledged monk and received the monastic name Kallistos. In the same year, he was appointed as Lecturer in Eastern Orthodox Studies at Oxford. He was \u00a0successor to the well known scholar Nicholas Zernov. It may be recalled that Nicholas Sernov was invited by Malankara Orthodox Church to be the Principal (1953 \u2013 54) of the new Catholicate College, Pathanamthitta. (I fondly remember the hearty hospitality extended to me by Sernov and his wife Militsa during my visit as student to Oxford to attend the Patristic Congress in 1975).\u00a0 Bishop Kallistos continued at Oxford as Teacher for 35 long years. In the meantime, he was consecrated as the titular Bishop of \u00a0the Greek Orthodox diocese of Diocleia. In some \u00a0Eastern Orthodox Churches, there is a still the practice of ordaining distinguished lay theologians as well as widower priests who accept a monastic way of life \u00a0as titular bishops. Even after his consecration as a bishop, Kallistos Ware continued to teach at Oxford and take pastoral care of the Greek Orthodox congregation there.<\/p>\n

Bishop Kallistos had lots\u00a0 of \u00a0painful experience during the early days of his switching over to Orthodox faith from Anglican tradition. The tension between the Greek Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow, the problems within the Russian Orthodox Church between the Patriarchate of Moscow and the community of Russian believers outside Russia, and the extreme conservative stand adopted by certain Orthodox monasteries and clergy were all stressful for a western Anglican young man \u00a0who had accepted the Orthodox faith. \u00a0He had to face critical attitudes of \u00a0some among them who had apprehensions as to how an English man could ever understand \u00a0the depth of Orthodoxy. It was also suspected by some Orthodox that his theology was more ecumenical than was warranted by the Orthodox tradition. But over the years his authentic witness to the Orthodox faith became more accepted by all . With \u00a0his solid learning \u00a0and sober faith he most meaningfully presented the message of Orthodoxy in the western without entering into any unnecessary arguments and disputes. Following the Russian revolution in 1917, many well known theologians like Lossky, Meyendorff, Schmemann, Evdokimov and Florovsky started teaching in west European and American \u00a0countries, and they could attract many to the Orthodox tradition. Kallistos\u00a0 himself was influenced by them,\u00a0 and his own writings, speeches and way of life similarly brought many westerners to Orthodox faith and Eastern Spirituality.<\/p>\n

I consider it a blessing to have met him several times, and learned from him. Once in a \u00a0theological conference at Halki near Istanbul, I had to face a tricky situation and I recall with gratitude the way Bishop Kallistos interfered to my great relief. There was a famous Theological seminary of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Halki Island. Turkish authorities had closed this college, but it is continuing as a monastic centre of the \u00a0Orthodox Church. About some twenty five years ago, a conference of theological colleges of Eastern Churches were held here; On invitation, I had an opportunity to present a paper on Theological Education. As I was presenting my paper, I made mention of the Gurukula<\/em> system of education traditionally followed in India until\u00a0 modern times, and I referred\u00a0 to the prevalent practice of presenting Jesus Christ as a Guru in Indian art forms. When \u00a0I finished my presentation, two young theologians who I never knew before stood up and criticized my presentation in very strong language.. They argued that calling Jesus a Guru was heretical.. This was a time when Hare Krishna Movement and Yoga and various meditation techniques and gurus were seen as a threat to Orthodoxy in some countries. I was a little perplexed at their unexpected reaction. Bishop Kallistos understood my embarrassment. He stood up and very calmly explained: \u201cGuru simply means teacher in Sanskrit. In the Gospels, Jesus has been often addressed as Rabbi or teacher. Fr George was not advocating the concept of guru as understood wrongly \u00a0now- a- days by many people \u00a0in Europe. In India, Guru is a highly respected term. We should also understand it in its authentic sense.\u201d With these words, the atmosphere cooled down.<\/p>\n

My good friend Dr Cherian Eapen (Moscow), who took great efforts to get several well known Russian\/Greek Orthodox spiritual classics translated into Malayalam including five volumes of Philokalia, \u00a0printed and distributed them freely, narrated to me how he met Bishop Kallistos at Oxford more than once in connection with the ‘mysterious problem’ of the translation of the 5th volume. Dr Eapen also went \u00a0to Mount Athos and could get permission to see the original Greek version. He and I had occasion to invite Bishop Kallistos to visit Malankara Church, though he said he would not travel such long distances \u00a0due to health issues. All his \u00a0writings are obviously dealing with Eastern Orthodox spiritual, liturgical and theological tradition. Bishop\u00a0 Kallistos was certainly \u00a0in favor of unofficial and official discussions for unity between Eastern Orthodox Churches and Oriental Orthodox Churches.<\/p>\n

He, however, was well aware of the attitude of some extreme conservatives on both sides to the \u00a0synod of Chalcedon in AD 431 despite the very successful outcome of the dialogue between the two Orthodox families.\u00a0 Members of the Malankara Orthodox Church would remember the crucial contributions of Metropolitan Paulos Mar Gregorios (Paul Verghese) and Dr Fr V C Samuel from the Malankara Church to the Dialogue since 1964. \u00a0It was quite understandable Bishop Kallistos \u00a0took \u00a0extra caution in his writings and exhortations to avoid possibilities of controversy with regard to the Chalcedonian division of the Church. However, it would be good for Oriental Orthodox Churches to include his writings like the Orthodox Way<\/em> in the theological curriculum because of\u00a0 the depth of his patristic erudition and his balanced view of the tradition of the undivided Church.<\/p>\n

Encouraged\u00a0 by\u00a0 the late Catholicose Baselios Marthoma Paulos II, the clergy of the Kottayam diocese used to discuss The Orthodox Way<\/em> in their monthly meetings. I gratefully remember how Abraham Chirackal, a front line activist of Indian Christian Orthodox Network (ICON), used to arrange for \u00a0copies of the book for such discussions.<\/p>\n

Combining in his personality deep learning, monastic simplicity, fervent liturgical piety, inner humility and luminous Christian hope Metropolitan Kallistos was an authentic witness to the Risen Christ in our time of\u00a0 much darkness, doubt\u00a0 and disorientation. Memory eternal. ( Translated by George Joseph, Kochi, from Malay<\/em>alam)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bishop Kallistos Ware (1934 \u2013 2022) Bishop Kallistos Ware is a celebrated name \u00a0in the \u00a0Eastern Orthodox Churches of the Byzantine liturgical tradition as well as in western church circles. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1500,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fatherkmgeorge.in\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fatherkmgeorge.in\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fatherkmgeorge.in\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fatherkmgeorge.in\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fatherkmgeorge.in\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1503"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/fatherkmgeorge.in\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1506,"href":"http:\/\/fatherkmgeorge.in\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1503\/revisions\/1506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fatherkmgeorge.in\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fatherkmgeorge.in\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fatherkmgeorge.in\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fatherkmgeorge.in\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}