Mount Athos

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Celebrities, monarchs, politicos, clergy and sacramental ghosts in coronation of Charles III

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Celebrities, monarchs, politicos, clergy and sacramental ghosts in coronation of Charles III

If you read the main Associated Press report about the coronation of King Charles III then you know, in summary material near the top, that the rites were attended by “celebrities including Judi Dench, Emma Thompson and Lionel Richie.”

You would not, however, know that — for the first time in history — the monarch processed into Westminster Abbey behind a new Cross of Wales which, because of a recent gift from Pope Francis — contained two fragments from the “true cross” of Jesus discovered in 312 A.D. by the Empress Helen, mother of Constantine. We are talking about a relic reverenced by the early church and, ever since, by the ancient churches of East and West.

I know. It’s all about priorities. Was the coronation of Charles III a religious rite, a political ceremony or a mega-watt event in mass pop culture?

The obvious answer to this question is "Yes.” The issue, as usual, is which angle received the most accurate and informed attention in the AP report. Want to guess?

Before we go on, let me make a confession. I am, at the moment, high in the mountains of North Carolina and access to solid WiFi is, to be blunt, near zero. I drive into a small town about once day. Thus, I am going to focus on the religion details (and lack thereof) in the AP report alone — since that is what will be read by most news consumers in Middle America and elsewhere.

I will end with some questions about the rite that I have not been able to answer, questions linked to the ecumenical and interfaith content of the ceremony — details that appear to be close to the heart of the new king (background here from TheConversation website). But first, here is the overture:

LONDON (AP) — King Charles III was crowned … at Westminster Abbey, in a coronation ceremony steeped in ancient ritual and brimming with bling at a time when the monarchy is striving to remain relevant in a fractured modern Britain.

In displays of royal power straight out of the Middle Ages, Charles was presented with an orb, a sword and scepter and had the solid gold, bejeweled St. Edward’s Crown placed atop his head as he sat upon the 700-year-old oak Coronation Chair.

In front of world leaders, foreign royals, British aristocrats and stars, Charles declared: “I come not to be served but to serve.”


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Podcast: What will Queen Elizabeth II tell the world about her faith with her funeral liturgy?

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Podcast: What will Queen Elizabeth II tell the world about her faith with her funeral liturgy?

This week something unexpected happened after I filed my national “On Religion” column, something that I have never seen before in my decades of religion-news work.

What? A retired literature professor responded to my column with a poem.

The topic was easy to predict. Like millions of other people around the world, but especially in Great Britain and the Commonwealth, I have spent many hours watching (primarily on British television) the rites and public drama surrounding the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

I will post the column at GetReligion at the usual time this weekend, after it has run in most newspapers linked to the Universal syndicate. But the podcast team decided to go ahead and use it as the hook for this week’s “Crossroads” (CLICK HERE to tune that in), since so many people are talking about the death of the queen. Here is a short clip from that column:

Throughout her life, Queen Elizabeth II understood the symbolic importance of kneeling, according to former Durham Bishop N.T. Wright. After one Church of England synod, she privately expressed surprise — disappointment, even — that worshippers in Westminster Abbey simply lined up to receive Holy Communion, instead of kneeling.

“Kneeling was important to her,” said the popular author, in a “Premier Christianity” tribute. In his encounters with her, Wright found the queen “very friendly and clearly a very devout, what we would consider ‘old fashioned’ Church of England Christian. I remember thinking during more than one Christmas broadcast, she has just preached the Gospel to the nation in a way that perhaps nobody else could have done.”

In response to the column, a reader raised in Canada — but best known for his work at Baylor University in Texas and at Peking University — wrote a poem and sent it to me.

David Lyle Jeffrey, now a distinguished senior fellow at Baylor’s Institute for Studies in Religion, noted that he has never considered himself a “royalist,” but the queen’s death is certainly a time to explore the “essence of her admirable Christian character and gracious reign.” The former Baylor provost and literature professor entitled the poem “Regina Exemplaris (An exemplary queen).” Here is how it ends:


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Visiting the monks at Christ in the Desert monastery, during a pandemic that closed its gates

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Visiting the monks at Christ in the Desert monastery, during a pandemic that closed its gates

Religion-beat work is complicated, in part because of the many different ways that believers use the same words when describing their lives. The word “charismatic” has a rather different meaning in a Pentecostal flock than when Baptists — or maybe most Baptists — use it to describe preachers.

Here at GetReligion, we frequently note the challenges faced when journalists from other beats cover complex stories that are baptized in religious language and imagery.

That brings me to a feature that ran the other day at The Washington Post with this headline: “Monks in New Mexico desert dedicated to hospitality reflect on two years without guests.”

There is much to praise in this piece, along with a few word choices that would be challenged by insiders in specific religious traditions. Also, I should note that the author of this piece is Chris Moody, a CNN veteran who is a former student of mine at both Palm Beach Atlantic University and the Washington Journalism Center.

It’s rather hard to critique and praise the work of a talented former student! However, I know that many GetReligion readers will want to see this feature. Plus, I love New Mexico and, early in my religion-beat work, I wrote similar pieces about monasteries in North Carolina and later Colorado.

Let’s start with the overture, which is long, but shows the larger context of this COVID-tide story:

CHAMA RIVER CANYON, N.M. — Hidden in this canyon of crimson sandstone cliffs encompassed by miles of federally protected wilderness, the Monastery of Christ in the Desert seems like an ideal place to ride out a pandemic.

For more than 50 years, a small community of Benedictine monks has quietly lived, worked and worshiped here in a cluster of off-grid adobe buildings along the banks of northern New Mexico’s Chama River. Considered the most remote Catholic monastery in the hemisphere, it can be reached only by a 13-mile single-lane earthen road that winds through the canyon. Abiquiú, the closest village — population 151 — is 25 miles away. Groves of cottonwood and willows line the river where bald eagles hunt for rainbow trout. Black bears, coyotes and cougars prowl the pinyon- and sage-scented Santa Fe National Forest, which surrounds the monastery.

Despite the difficult journey, outsiders have flocked to this serene abbey for decades in search of spiritual renewal.


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The complicated, often painful, Orthodox roots of Prince Philip's faith journey

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The complicated, often painful, Orthodox roots of Prince Philip's faith journey

The first nun the Bolsheviks threw into the abandoned mineshaft was best known as the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, the sister of the Russian Empress Alexandra.

After the 1905 assassination of her Grand Duke husband, Elizabeth became an Orthodox nun, giving away her wealth to build hospitals and orphanages. She was executed, in 1918, along with others linked to her doomed brother-in-law, Tsar Nicholas II.

When the nuns didn't drown, a soldier used a grenade. He later testified that "we heard talking and a barely audible groan. I threw another grenade. And what do you think -- from beneath the ground we heard singing! … They were singing the prayer: 'Lord, save your people!' "

Finally, there was silence. The body of St. Elizabeth the New Martyr was buried in 1920 at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. Her life inspired many, including her grieving niece, the Greek Princess Alice of Battenberg. Alice was the great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria of England and the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and for 73 years the husband of Queen Elizabeth II.

The complicated history of the royals, past and present, loomed over the short, dignified funeral for Prince Philip in St. George's Chapel, Windsor -- with only 30 mourners due to COVID restrictions. The prince's liturgical choices shaped an Anglican rite that stressed images of service, eternal hope and the beauties of God's creation.

The man many Brits called the "grandfather of the nation," was born on the Greek island of Corfu in 1921, the fifth child and only son of Prince Andrew of Greece and Princess Alice. He was baptized Greek Orthodox, before his life was rocked by wars and revolutions that shattered his family.


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New podcast: The long, complex and mysterious life (and faith) of Prince Philip of Greece

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New podcast: The long, complex and mysterious life (and faith) of Prince Philip of Greece

It’s a short scene from second season of “The Crown,” but certainly one the illustrates what the creators of the Netflix series thought of Prince Philip Mountbatten-Windsor — at least at one stage of his dramatic life.

In 1955, while the Rev. Billy Graham was in Scotland leading a crusade in Glasgow, the evangelist received a note from Buckingham Palace inviting him to preach on Easter morning in the private chapel at the Royal Lodge. It’s a poignant scene, especially when paired with another in which Graham visits the queen to discuss an important subject — the need to forgive others.

In the chapel, Graham discusses Christian faith in highly evangelical language, describing the need to have a personal encounter with Jesus Christ. Queen Elizabeth listens attentively. Prince Philip is clearly bored, upset, disturbed, offended, embarrassed or all of the above.

Was Prince Philip struggling with guilt linked to his rumored infidelities? What is happening in his head and heart? That was the starting point for this week’s “Crossroads” podcast, which focused on the mainstream press coverage of the prince after his recent death (click here to tune that in).

For millions of people, “The Crown” offered the dominant image of Prince Philip — the tall, handsome consort of the queen best known for his faults and weaknesses. He was an old-guard British man who went to war, who was known for blunt remarks many considered racist or sexist. Eventually, some would respect his progressive views on the environment.

But it was also obvious that something important happened during this royal couple’s 73 years of marriage. Somehow, they grew together, doing the best they could to handle the pressures of royal life and the searing spotlight on their four children and, eventually, their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

News consumers who dug into the fine details learned that Prince Philip was, in many ways, an outsider from the Greek wing of Europe’s complicated world of interlinked royal families. He was an Orthodox Christian, at least until he married Elizabeth and, on bended knee, honored her as the leader of the Church of England. He befriended Anglican clergy and was known to confront priests for intense discussions after their sermons.

Something else was going on as the prince aged and matured. There were signs that, spiritually, he was seeking the roots of his faith and his family.


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Weekend think piece: Guess what? Church and state in Russia have their differences

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The priest at our parish in East Tennessee returned the other day from a pilgrimage to Mount Athos, the Greek peninsula that for centuries has been the beating heart of Eastern Orthodox spirituality. 

As far as I know, Father J. Stephen Freeman did not have any secret meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin while he was trekking from monastery to monastery on the holy mountain. However, you never know. After all, Father Stephen has many online readers in Russia and, well, he is the priest of Oak Ridge (and you know what that means).

Journalists in the West have said some rather wild things, as of late, about Orthodox Christianity and its role in Russia. This then connects with the whole "The Russians Did It, the Russians Did It" atmosphere in American politics.

But are we ready to politicize the holy mountain? Check out this passage from The Spectator, drawn from a feature with this headline: "What is behind Vladimir Putin’s curious interest in Mount Athos?" Orthodox readers may want to sit down to read this.

A secretive body of Elders governs here and all citizens are bound to total obedience. They wear identical floor-length black gowns and are not permitted to shave -- the style of dress favoured by zealots everywhere. And guess what? This state is in western Europe.
Few people have heard of Mount Athos and fewer still have visited it, and that is the way they like it. A notable exception is Vladimir Putin. He has been at least twice, once in 2006 and again in May of this year. ...
Putin has formed an unholy alliance with the Orthodox church in order to ensure he receives its blessing. This fits with his self-image as a modern Tsar embodying church and state. For believers, the Holy Mountain is the centre of their faith, their Rome, the place where the flame of their faith connects to heaven.

I wasn't expecting the Z-word.


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