Synoro, Orthodoxy and Nationalism, issue 38 (1966), pp. 89.
A big hommage in the relation of orthodoxy and nationalism is included in the pages of the 38th issue of Synoro magazine. Am. Alivizatos opens the hommage with his text “The pain of Orthodoxy” in which he attempts a short retrospection in the relationship of nationalism and the church starting from the age of Constantine the Great until today. The second published essay written by E. Chryssos refers also to the same historical dimension of the problem and brings the title “Orthodoxy and nationalism - a short contribution to the history of the problem”.
G. Theotokas in his text “Church and Nation” is recording the relation of church and nationalism during the Ottoman occupation and also the period of transition from the 19th century to the 20th century.
Chr. Yannaras in his text “De Oecumenismo decision and the nationalism of orthodoxy” deals with the theological and historical dimensions of the decision of Vatican Council II, which despite the fact that it presupposes the distinction of the Roman-Catholic Church from the “schismatic” ones, focused on the issue of the Church’s catholicity, recognizing it outside the canonical boundaries of the Roman Church to the Eastern churches on the base of the Eucharist, celebrated by bishops whose apostolic succession is undisputed. In this interesting text Yannaras records the weakness of churches to deal with the issue of the consolidation of their catholicity; with regard to the western church, there is the perseverance in and the temptation of papal primacy, while as far as the orthodox church is concerned, there is the reality of the transformation of the church in crutch of ethnism.
Following is Jean Daniélou’s text “The christian people according to Péguy”, translated by Keti Chiotellis, in which the detachment of culture and church in the modern world is examined. The christian people of Péguy, the immense human crowd, does not exist, because the church lost its relation to it and changed into a church of a race eg of the intellectuals or the bourgeoes. Péguy denounces as a prophet this rupture of culture and Christianity stressing the necessity of one for the other.
T. K. Papatsonis attempts to infiltrate in the thought of the famous Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno in his text entitled “Peoples whose soul is deep buried” on the occasion of the abstract from Unamuno’s essay “Practical Problem” published in the next pages of Synoro. The 100 years from the birth of the Spanish thinker (1964) who sought the purification of Christianity from are honoured with this text by Synoro magazine.
The poetic hommage of the volume concerns Matthew Mounte whose six poems are published. The volume closes with the short story by T. Romanos with the title “A usual history” and a traveler’s reflection by K. Iasonidis.
Following are the small notes on various issues of the permanent column Comments and book-reviews.