anglomedved

Let me come into the Bunge debate. I'll be honest: I have not read Bunge, and I have no immediate intention to (see below)  Two priest friends of mine here say he’s OK as a general introduction. My wife, an expert on the subject, says he is best avoided on iconology. I’ll take their word for it.

 Why the fuss? Why is his change of church headlined on the Mospat site? Dare I suggest that it is because the Orthodox Church is desperately, desperately short of faces in Western Europe. The sort of people you can build a story around, whom you can make an interesting half-hour documentary about, who feel ‘spiritual’, who speak well, and who to westerners like me are 'one of us', acceptable in our own culture. There is a huge, gaping void here in Western Europe, in particular since the death of Metropolitan Antony of Sourozh, who to my generation in England in the 1970s and 1980s was ‘Mr Orthodox' in person. I note that Bunge was accompanied at his first Orthodox Eucharist by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, almost the only other 'face' which exists.

 Why not read Bunge? Because I am hesitant of authors who write about other authors, in particular lots of other authors. It is too easy to walk in other men’s shoes, wear other men’s clothes. Orthodoxy is spread direct one-to-one, not via intermediaries. Simeon the New Theologian was set seriously on the road by Simon the Pious, as a person, not by what Simon told him about St Basil, St Maximus the Confessor or whoever. The only interest in Bunge for me is Bunge himself – either in person or a good (auto)-biography.

One more Bunge-related comment: elsewhere in Friendland there was a whole conversation two days back about 'serious' and 'exalted' Roman Catholic mystics (it started when someone quoted Bunge). 'Exalted' has become a dirty word here, particularly in its French version ‘exalté’, referring to someone who is not religiously (better: religiously-sexually) stable. Where does it come from? Popular accounts of Teresa of Avila? The ‘Devils of Loudun’ film? In reading Teresa of Avila I have the feeling of a very ‘feet on the ground’ woman, very cautious indeed about what was happening to her. Yes, I have met along the way one of two pious men and women whom I would place in the 'exalté' category, but I would certainly not class them as real mystics.