Orthodoxy in the British Isles

Η Ορθοδοξία στις Βρετανικές νήσους! Και ο Ρομπέν των δασών…

Θα ακολουθήσει μετάφραση και στα Ελληνικά.

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And some of their Orthodox Saints and Heroes….

ORTHODOXY EXISTED IN WALES, ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, CORNWALL, BRITTANY AND IRELAND FROM A.D. 37 TO THE GREAT SCHISM OF A.D. 1054

In the tradition of the Church, Christianity was brought by people from Ephesus and established in the British Isles by A.D. 45. Saint Aristoboulos, …one of the Seventy Apostles who is mentioned in Luke’s Gospel (10:1) and passed away at about A.D 90, was the Bishop of Britany and one of the

very first organizers of Christianity, of the Celts, Britony and Britain, according to Dorotheus, Tyros. For his contribution, the British Orthodox Church considers Saint Aristoboulos as “Britain’s Apostle”. To him (as well as to others, with him) we owe the beginning of the Christian Church in the British Isles in A.D. 37-45.

It is true, that the Church in the British Isles kept its original Liturgy, was that of Saint John, who is known to have lived in Ephesus in his later years. Saint Gildas the Wise (a Welsh monk, student of St. Illtyd, († A.D. 512) described in his History, that Christianity came to Britain in the last year of Tiberius Caesar i.e: A.D. 37.

Saint Athanasius states that the British Church accepted the decisions of the First Ecumenical Synod held at Nicaea in A.D. 325.

Again, in A.D 359, British Bishops attended the Synod of Rimini.

In short, the Church was not only well established over much of the British Isles by this time, but we have Saint John Chrysostom, saying, that it was fully Orthodox at his time. (Chrysostomi Orat. ’O Qeos Cristos)

Very soon after, monasticism appeared in the British Church and quickly became extremely popular. In fact, the British Church in the fifth century and after, was organized on monastic lines. Hundreds of monasteries and hermitages, great and small, spread out across the British Isles. (….).

Photos sources: http://www.oodegr.com/oode/ierapostoli/xwres/aglia/ixni_kelt_orthod_1.htm

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Robinhood”

An Orthodox Martyr ?

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Photo source: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/05/fr-john-romanides-on-robin-hood-and.html

The Hellenic American Orthodox Father John Romanidis (†2001), a Yale University graduate and later a professor at Harvard University as well as at the Universities of Athens and Thessaloniki, reveals, that Robin of Locksley or “Robinhood” was an Orthodox Irish revolutionary leader who fought – together with his brotherfriend “Little John” – against the Franco Norman invaders at the battle of Hastings in A.D. 1066!

During that time, some Irish Saxons were caught slaves, some went to mother Constantinople to join the Hellene emperor’s Varangian Army and some like Robin stayed home to fight the enemies.

The English soldiers who travelled to Constantinople were many more than the emperor’s Scandinavian Varangian soldiers of General Harald III Hadrada of Norway (1015-1066). This means that Norway was still Orthodox!

After the rebels’ celebration of a victory in A.D. 1089, Robin was wounded in a battle, went to a monastery nearby, asked a nun to help him but she let him die from bleeding because she was a Norman who had just left Orthodoxy!

The english story saying that Robin fought against bad King John and in favor of good King Richard (“Lionheart”) is a clever myth!

From that time on and after the rebels fell, the population was put in small villages and kept away from each other. Then, the Orthodox Irish Saxons were forced to live with 40.000 castles with soldiers to watch them from day to night!

Τhat is how and why the Irish/British slaves were forced to lose their Orthodox Faith while their Bishops were killed by the invaders.

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The monastery of Kirklees Priory, in which Robin was left to die in A.D.1089, was a Cistercian nunnery whose site is in today’s Kirklees Park, Clifton near Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England

Photo source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirklees_Priory