Latest news with #Constantinople
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Sacred Mysteries: After 1700 years, Nicaea is still worth celebrating
I was wondering whether to pay a visit to Nicaea (now Iznik, in Turkey) for the 1700th anniversary of a momentous event there, but I was a bit put off by its not having a railway station. Luckily the good fathers who gathered there in 325 were not so easily deterred. I suppose they travelled by horse, mule or foot from Constantinople, though a ship would have helped across the Sea of Marmara, or the Propontis as it was then known. Worth celebrating now is that the bishops at the Council of Nicaea decided that Jesus Christ the Son of God is as much God as is God the Father. He wasn't just of a similar substance or being; he was of the same substance or being – 'God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made'. That looks like the belief of the author of St John's Gospel, though the doctrine may not be easy to apply to a person who was also born and died, and, as Christians believed, rose again. The doctrine was important since, if Jesus was not fully human and fully divine, he would have been incapable of achieving atonement between God and humanity. We should have been left crushed by sin and death, unable to enter the gates of heaven. Since mankind has an unquenchable appetite for the infinite, we'd be in the most tragic of positions. The religious party that wanted the bishops at Nicaea to regard the Son of God only as a creature like us were followers of Arius, an influential priest born in the 250s. An anniversary issue on Nicaea has been printed by Communio (a learned theological journal founded in 1972 by Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac and Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI). In it, David M Gwynn considers how much Arius taught the errors attributed to him and how much his opponent St Athanasius should be regarded as the champion of orthodoxy. Dr Gwynn is reader in Ancient and Late Antique History at Royal Holloway in the University of London. Athanasius, he points out, was only a young priest of about 30 when he attended the council as assistant to Alexander, the patriarch of Alexandria. But he suggests that Athanasius might have drafted Alexander's circular letter denouncing Arius. Dr Gwynn writes that the teaching of Arius could not be called heresy then, as 'there were no established orthodox answers to resolve the questions under discussion'. Perhaps not, but if it contradicted points of doctrine held by Christians, it could have been seen as false. Dr Gwynn quotes a summary by Athanasius of the doctrines of the Arians. 'Not always was the Son, for he was not until he was begotten… He is not proper to the essence of the Father, for he is a creature and a thing made… The Son does not know the Father exactly… He is not unchangeable, like the Father, but is changeable by nature, like the creatures.' Dr Gwynn finds all these assertions in Arius's writings except for the last, for Athanasius's opponents repeatedly insisted that the Son was 'unchangeable and set apart from all other creatures'. I don't know that this got the associates of Arius out of trouble. To be sure, being created is not being changed, since there was nothing to be changed from. But creation adds a new thing to the world of creatures, all susceptible to change. And to class the Son as a creature, even if set apart, distinguishes him from God in a way fatal to human salvation. Anyway Dr Gwynn argues that over-simplifying Athanasius's story 'understates the scale of his contribution in defining and securing the orthodox faith'. I certainly wouldn't want that either. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
24-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Sacred Mysteries: After 1700 years, Nicaea is still worth celebrating
I was wondering whether to pay a visit to Nicaea (now Iznik, in Turkey) for the 1700th anniversary of a momentous event there, but I was a bit put off by its not having a railway station. Luckily the good fathers who gathered there in 325 were not so easily deterred. I suppose they travelled by horse, mule or foot from Constantinople, though a ship would have helped across the Sea of Marmara, or the Propontis as it was then known. Worth celebrating now is that the bishops at the Council of Nicaea decided that Jesus Christ the Son of God is as much God as is God the Father. He wasn't just of a similar substance or being; he was of the same substance or being – 'God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made'. That looks like the belief of the author of St John's Gospel, though the doctrine may not be easy to apply to a person who was also born and died, and, as Christians believed, rose again. The doctrine was important since, if Jesus was not fully human and fully divine, he would have been incapable of achieving atonement between God and humanity. We should have been left crushed by sin and death, unable to enter the gates of heaven. Since mankind has an unquenchable appetite for the infinite, we'd be in the most tragic of positions. The religious party that wanted the bishops at Nicaea to regard the Son of God only as a creature like us were followers of Arius, an influential priest born in the 250s. An anniversary issue on Nicaea has been printed by Communio (a learned theological journal founded in 1972 by Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac and Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI). In it, David M Gwynn considers how much Arius taught the errors attributed to him and how much his opponent St Athanasius should be regarded as the champion of orthodoxy. Dr Gwynn is reader in Ancient and Late Antique History at Royal Holloway in the University of London. Athanasius, he points out, was only a young priest of about 30 when he attended the council as assistant to Alexander, the patriarch of Alexandria. But he suggests that Athanasius might have drafted Alexander's circular letter denouncing Arius. Dr Gwynn writes that the teaching of Arius could not be called heresy then, as 'there were no established orthodox answers to resolve the questions under discussion'. Perhaps not, but if it contradicted points of doctrine held by Christians, it could have been seen as false. Dr Gwynn quotes a summary by Athanasius of the doctrines of the Arians. 'Not always was the Son, for he was not until he was begotten… He is not proper to the essence of the Father, for he is a creature and a thing made… The Son does not know the Father exactly… He is not unchangeable, like the Father, but is changeable by nature, like the creatures.' Dr Gwynn finds all these assertions in Arius's writings except for the last, for Athanasius's opponents repeatedly insisted that the Son was 'unchangeable and set apart from all other creatures'. I don't know that this got the associates of Arius out of trouble. To be sure, being created is not being changed, since there was nothing to be changed from. But creation adds a new thing to the world of creatures, all susceptible to change. And to class the Son as a creature, even if set apart, distinguishes him from God in a way fatal to human salvation. Anyway Dr Gwynn argues that over-simplifying Athanasius's story 'understates the scale of his contribution in defining and securing the orthodox faith'. I certainly wouldn't want that either.
The Guardian
14-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Hagia Sophia restoration to protect 1,500-year-old Unesco ‘masterpiece'
Standing beneath the stone archways, grand murals and filagree lamps of the Hagia Sophia, the architect Hasan Fırat Diker reflects on his vocation: the protection of a fragile structure that is both Turkey's grandest mosque and perhaps its most contentious building. He is overseeing some of the most intense restoration and preservation works in the Hagia Sophia's nearly 1,500-year history, including efforts to strengthen its grand central dome and protect it from earthquakes. 'We are not just responsible for this building but to the entire world public,' Diker said, gesturing at the crowds of visitors kneeled on the plush turquoise carpets or gazing at the murals of feathered seraphim. He pointed up at the gold mosaic and blue mural interior of the main dome, what he describes as one of the many 'unsolved problems' of the Hagia Sophia's design. The imposing structure, first built in AD537 under the Byzantine (or eastern Roman) empire, is visibly uneven in places, in particular the grand dome, which for hundreds of years has sat perched atop four columns of different dimensions. The entire building is a patchwork of repairs after the collapse of the original dome in an earthquake in 558 plus several of the surrounding half-domes in later tremors. The Hagia Sophia still bears features from when it was one of the world's grandest cathedrals before its conversion into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in 1453 of what was then Constantinople. Transformed into a museum under the Turkish republic in 1935, a Turkish court controversially reclassified it as a mosque five years ago. The decision sparked fierce criticism, including from Unesco, which called the Hagia Sophia 'an architectural masterpiece' and said the decision to reclassify it undermined 'the universal nature of its heritage'. Diker's role, alongside other architects, engineers and art historians appointed by the Turkish authorities, will be to conduct the most extensive restoration works in years. The team will remove the lead covering the main dome and look for ways to strengthen the fragile joints between the semi-domes and the main cupola in order to prevent earthquake damage. They will also examine the four supporting pillars and parts of the structure below ground. 'This may be one of the greatest restorations of the current period in Turkey,' Diker said. Their mission only proved more pressing when last month a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Istanbul, causing buildings across the city to tremble. Diker immediately rushed from his office to peer at the mosque's interior and inspect for damage. Turkey sits atop two fault lines, making it extremely susceptible to earthquakes, which can prove deadly when combined with infrastructure issues. Two powerful earthquakes that struck the country's south-east in early 2023 killed more than 53,000 people, and destruction covering the size of Germany was blamed on widespread corruption in the construction industry. Istanbul, a city of 16 million people, densely packed older buildings and architectural wonders, reckons daily with fears of the next large quake. 'In the most terrifying scenario, an earthquake will shake the entire structure,' Diker said. 'The main arch connecting the main dome and semi-domes could tremble and there might be cracks that occur.' An earthquake could also jolt the minaret into the domes, or cause the arches to collapse entirely. Diker gestured to trace the arc between the two squat domes either side of the grand central dome as he pointed to patchworks of three separate periods of restoration and repair since the sixth century. 'For the moment, we will deal with the outer surfaces, the minarets and the main dome. We will better understand after removing the dome's lead covering,' he said. 'These reconstructions over different periods created layers of buildup on the dome's surface … we know at the moment it's not a perfect sphere due to the multiple interventions. The problem is not the dome itself but what is holding it up – for now. But when we uncover it we will better see the cracks.' The team will peel back hundreds of years of the building's history to look at how to strengthen the structure. They are also hoping to uncover hidden murals from Hagia Sophia's time as an Ottoman mosque that may lie beneath some of its gold and yellow surfaces. The restoration works have no set timetable, and the scaffolding soon to cover the interior is intended to allow for business as usual, while a specially designed cover will protect the fragile exposed surface of the dome from rain or intense heat. 'We need to care for the comfort of our visitors,' Diker said. 'Those who come here should be able to see as much of the Hagia Sophia as they can despite the restoration.'
