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Why Angels Fall: A Journey Through Orthodox Europe from Byzantium to Kosovo

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Victoria Clarke, a British journalist with a wide range of experience in Eastern Europe, has written a book which is noble in its effort but regrettably mistaken and unenlightening.

The topic is a good one -- Orthodoxy. In the decade since the end of the cold war, the Orthodox Church has reemerged in Eastern Europe as a strong cultural and political force. It is becoming increasingly clear that in order for Westerners to understand the region well, a thorough understanding of Orthodoxy is also needed -- and there are remarkably few works that address the contemporary situation of Orthodoxy in these countries. So far so good.

Where Clarke's book misfires, however, is in its approach to Orthodoxy. Rather than trying to understand Orthodoxy as a spiritual system, as a religion, and attempt to understand its force in that way, Clarke instead focuses on the worldly aspects of the Orthodox Church, leaving the reader with a good understanding of how worldly some Orthodox prelates can be, but with almost *no* understanding of what really drives the rank and file of Orthodoxy in their beliefs. In other words, Clarke fails to delve deeply enough into Orthodoxy to really explain it well to anyone, and this is a very serious shortcoming in a work that is an attempt to explain Orthodox Europe to Westerners. Because Clarke never really excapes her Western/Secular viewpoint (which must be thoroughly entrenched to have survived her tremendous exposure to Orthodoxy), neither does the reader -- and the result is that the reader is given a Western/Secular understanding of Orthodoxy. This is the equivalent of "Orientalism" done this time not for the Near East, but for Eastern Europe.

Clarke poses the question "Why do Angels fall" as the issue of her book, and answers it, for Orthodoxy, in one word: phyletism (religious nationalism). That is a fine perspective to have, but it really does not explain Orthodoxy at all other than as an expression of nationalism. Clarke spends almost no time explaining Orthodoxy as a spiritual system, exploring the meaning of Orthodox liturgy and worship, the forms and meaning of Orthodox piety, the differences between East and West. In other words, Clarke fails to address some of the central issues that must be understood well, in order for a Westerner to understand the tenaciousness of Orthodoxy in Eastern Europe, why it is experiencing a revival there currently, and why it remains so apparently stubbornly recalcitrant in its relations with the West. Religious nationalism is a part of the picture -- but focusing on that aspect to the exclusion of a broader, spiritual perspective provides a woefully incomplete, and therefore unsatisfactory, picture.

In the end, the most complete picture the reader gains from "Why Angels Fall" is that of the typical Western/Secular view of the Orthodox Church. Clarke provides this in flying colors, and to her credit she does not hide her own views. Clarke is clearly upset at the political incorrectness of Orthodoxy (her choice to begin the work with a lament of her inability to visit Mount Athos due to her gender sets the tone for the book), upset at its doctrinal exactitude (exemplified in a heated chat Clarke has with an Orthodox Bishop, where she is clearly disturbed by his stubborn insistence on Trinitarianism), discomfited at the level of its faith, time and time again. Perhaps it is this discomfort with the "religious" aspects of Orthodoxy that led Clarke to focus on the more "worldly" aspects of the Church -- but, in any case, it was not lost on those with whom she spoke (one perceptive Serb Bishop noted that Clarke seemed awfully interested in politics for someone writing a book about Orthodoxy).

Ultimately, because there are so few works on Orthodox Europe, Clarke's book deserves a read. But, to be honest, the most enlightening thing the reader will take away is an accurate portrait of how the Secular West views Orthodoxy -- not "what makes Orthodoxy tick".

Victoria Clark has written an interesting and perceptive travelogue of her journies to Mount Athos, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Romania, Russia, Cyprus and Istanbul and her interviews and encounters with Orthodox ecclesiastical officials, monastics, and believers.

These journies were motivated by her desire to understand and make known the costs and ongoing liabilities in present-day Europe to both the Christian east and west of the Catholic-Orthodox schism of 1054 and its corresponding mutual mistrust. Her primary thesis is that this schism cost the west its heart and the Orthodox east its mind and that the two are unbalanced without one another. Sort of a journalistic "two lung" theory

Clark makes these journies under the influence of her years as a journalist in the Balkans and Samuel Huntington's provocative thesis that present day history is a function of the clash of distinct civilizations including, western europe and Orthodoxy. Clark is not a Christian, but claims to be a theist. Most evident though, is her secular humanism.

Clark frames these journies in terms of two forces in Orthodoxy, phyletism and hesychasm. Clark posits these as the basest and highest expressions of Orthodoxy and she journies about in order to see how these interact in contemporary Orthodox Europe.

The great strength of this book is Clark's writing of her encounters with Orthodox who are expressive of either or sometimes both of these traits. She brilliantly evokes some of these personalities and makes their presence palpable to the reader.

The great liability of this book is that Clark's theses don't take the Orthodox on their own terms but through the lens of Clark's secular humanism. As a result, one senses the frustration of Clark that the Orthodox "don't get it", and the frustration in some of the people she encounters that Clark "doesn't get it". To Clark's credit, she doesn't hide this. The most illuminating instance of this dynamic is Clark's interview with and subsequent reading of some answers that the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeos provided for her at the end of her book. In it he posits the goal of Orthodoxy as being "theanthropic", i.e. the communion of the human person with God. Clark seems a bit befuddled by this. Clark's secular humanism seems to want to reduce Orthodoxy to "religion" which is in service to European or "World" harmony or peace. But this entirely misses the point for the Orthodox.

The missing presence in this book is Jesus, communion with whom is the reason for Orthodoxy, but who is not mentioned at all in the book. This fundamental disconnection makes for interesting, well-written but ultimately frustrating encounters as Clark insists on her secular humanist viewpoint which necessarily distorts the people she is trying to understand and explain. Fr. Ugolnik is correct in his observation that the book is very interesting for how Orthodox are viewed by secular humanists.

Victoria Clark is a reporter, not a specialist, let loose in an area she is not always competent to analyze. Yet that's precisely what most westerners are when they plunge into the countries nurtured by the Christian East. People in the west (including the US State Department) often assume that religion is of marginal importance in these places. Clark proves them wrong, in lively and readable prose. Her reactions are predictable, even naive at times to those with experience in East Europe. The justification for western attitudes seems self evident to her. Yet even for an Orthodox Slav like myself, she is an excellent indicator of the hidden gaps in communication between east and west. This book is a must for anyone interested in the Balkans or Russia. I hope those who make policy read it, and then decide to go further in understanding the phenomena and places she discusses. (It's also a great book for Orthodox Christians who want to know how they're seen by others--and who want some insight into where their own darkest weaknesses lie.)

I'm sure Victoria Clark's heart is the right place, and I certainly think Western Europe could do more to understand the Orthodox tradition (and vice versa), but there's so much in her book that seems to me to be point blank wrong, or selectively interpreted... Just a couple of examples...

Her Byzantine history is essentially re-cast to selectively support her intepretation of the modern influence of Hesychasm on Orthodoxy today. She essentially states that Constantinople would probably not have fallen to the Turks without the 'defeatist' attitude of Hesychasm. Yet the final decline of the late Byzantine Empire has far more to do with A) the incompetence of Andronicus II; B) the civil war between Andronicus II and Andronicus III; C) the civil war between the Cantacuzenes (John VI) and Paleologi (John V); D) the arrival of the plague in the immediate wake of John VI's victory in the wake of that civil war; E) the hostility of virtually every neighbouring state (Orthodox, Catholic or Muslim) to the late Byzantine state. The controversy over Hesychasm hardly helped the stability of the late Byzantine state, but putting the blame for the events of 1453 on Hesychasm strikes me as nothing more than a distortion of existing historiography in order to suit a modern argument.

Another worrying example of Clark's distorting way with words... In her matter of fact statement that 'In the eyes of Russian Churchmen today Boris Yeltsin had committed a far more heinous sin the Soviets ever had...' (pg. 273-4), she's stating that _all_ Russian churchmen believe that the decentralisation of the state and the advent of western consumerism are far worse sins that the advent of the Bolshevik state's official atheism. There are no doubt Russian clerics who believe that, just as there are undoubtedly Russian clerics who are fairly nasty anti-Semites (another favourite Clark theme), but to casually tar all Russian clergy with that sweeping generalisation? That strikes me as factually unsupportable - a recent interview with Metropolitan Kyrill of Kaliningrad and Smolensk (available in English on the Moscow Patriarchate's web page, though I concede the latter is hardly an impartial source) amply demonstrates that there are senior clerics who are deeply disturbed by the use of religion to justify extremist nationalist positions.

Finally, Clark's implication that Orthodox history makes Eastern Europe uniquely prone to extreme nationalism simply doesn't work for me. There are many nasty nationalist movements in the Catholic/Protestant west, many of them deeply associated with their religious roots - Catholic nationalists in Croatia and the whole Northern Ireland dispute immediately spring to mind. And if we go back 30-40 years, we also have Franco in Spain... I think there's an argument to be made for how nationalist ideology has replaced communist ideology in much of Eastern Europe and central Asia, but I would strongly dispute Clarke's argument that the modern strength of this nationalism is somehow tied into a uniquely Orthodox mindset.

All of which makes it all the more frustrating that 'Why Angels Fall' is otherwise a well-written, entertaining book, which does have some genuine insights into what makes Orthodox Europe different from Catholic/Protestant Europe. And her plea for a deeper understanding of those differences is certainly timely. It's just that, for all her years living in Eastern Europe, there's too much wrong with her supporting arguments and interpretations for her themes to be convincing.

[mea culpa: I'm not Orthodox myself, but my wife is - and is the granddaughter of a Russian Orthodox priest at that. This may well influence my perspective on Clarke's book]

There is a saying in Greece that translates roughly into "a priest should be a priest and a mule-owner a mule-owner". What it means in plain English is that a priest should be and act like one and a laic (non-priest) likewise. Ms Clark is a journalist who has ventured into an eminently difficult academic field without the background, discipline and method of an academic. If she had stuck to the "travelogue" part, her book would have been [with another title] an interesting read. She writes well and most people would be interested in how another person felt when travelling through such culturaly rich and aestheticaly pleasing lands.

The "academic" part is another matter. The Patriach was kind enough to answer her questions, but when meeting him Ms. Clark felt as a pupil whose topic was interesting but "not altogether academically sound". Ironically one could not describe this book in better terms.

Ms. Clark tries to understate the hellenic (greek) character of Byzantium. The word "Romaioi" on which she mostly bases this is the ancient Greek, scripture Greek and modern Greek word for "Romans". What she may not know is that Greeks have been calling themselves "Romioi" for centuries. She also overstates the "religious nationalism" or Phyletism (this translates into "tribalism" in Greek) aspect. Nationalism that goes beyond healthy national pride does exist but it is quite limited to few uneducated individuals in Greece. Outside Greece this was nothing but a reflex reaction to violent change.

Overall such amateurish attempts to introduce Orthodoxy to the layman are quite damaging as the average non-Orthodox (or non academically knowledgable)reader would get a very misguided idea of our faith. Ms. Clark reminded me of an incompetent professor I know who is very good at lecturing but who does not realy understand what he is saying.

As a Christian who is not Orthodox, but studies and is sympathetic to Orthodox beliefs and practices, I struggled with this book. It's frustrating when non-believers critique Christian topics because their very non-belief renders them unable to understand Christian life and culture. But since believers often can't or won't provide useful critiques of faults in Christian organizations and practices, who else but non-believers like Victoria Clark will do the job?

Yes, Clark drags up embarrassing or even repulsive incidents in Orthodox history and paints an unflattering portrait of many of the priests, monks and nuns she encounters on her 18-month "pilgrimage" through several Orthodox countries. But by the end of the book Clark seems more sympathetic to the plight of a 2,000 year old body of believers who have suffered centuries of Islamic and, to a lesser extent, Western European dominance and persecution. Clark positively describes the growing vitality and energy associated with monastic communities in countries she visits. And she describes, although a little grudgingly, warm encounters with Orthodox clergy and lay people.

A theme Clark explores which also troubles me is the tendency of contemporary Orthodox churches to emphasize nationalistic and even militaristic, as opposed to Christian, agendas. The seeming lack of Orthodox interest in missionary endeavors and converts is also disappointing, but seems consistent with the xenophobia Clark exposes among some Orthodox. It seems many Orthodox are more interested in maintaining their separateness, keeping their wounds unhealed and playing the martyr than building on and attracting converts to their community. If Orthodoxy offers the prospect of a superior lifestyle and superior way to worship and know God, which I believe it may, then why don't Orthodox more enthusiastically display this side of their faith to "outsiders" - or in some cases even their own nominal adherents? Then perhaps Orthodox, particularly in Russia, could stop whining about Catholics and Protestants "stealing" from their flock. The Apostles certainly were not afraid to competitively demonstrate the superiority of their faith in the religious hodgepodge of the Roman Empire.

Clark's non-belief is humorous is some ways. Several times she marvels how some "coincidence" allows her to meet just the right person or make just the right connection to propel her research to a new insight. A Christian wouldn't be so surprised by such "coincidences". Near the end, reflecting on some of the admirable Orthodox she encountered, Clark writes, "They made me wish I could believe as they did." Poor Victoria Clark... another soul unable to move beyond her dead end belief in postmodern, secular humanism.

I do not recommend this book as your only source for information about Orthodox history and current affairs, much less theology and beliefs. But Orthodox and would-be-Orthodox should read it and ponder Clark's points as should anyone wanting to better understand the political situation in Orthodox nations.

There's always something amusing about the outrage (usually masked as concerned sadness) experienced by non-Orthodox journalists who seek to make sense of a church that forbids, in its canons, the offering of the Eucharist to mimes. When a non-Christian, Western journalist gives it a try, the result is a book filled with wonderful inadvertent humor, but faint illumination.

No faith tradition on earth is as politically incorrect as Orthodoxy, and few writers on earth are as politically correct as this one. Put those two things together and you have a pretty predictable book, one that could have been written without leaving home, about a church filled with funny hats and mystifying theology in a war-torn corner of Europe.

I fear I have to disagree with Fr Anthony; we already know how secularists view the Orthodox Church. What would be helpful is to have someone with a more competent (not necessarily sympathetic) view of both the region and its religious traditions make the effort Ms. Clark has made.

For those who wish to have a more serious, more interesting and more helpful view of what has been happening in the Balkans for the last few hundred years, consult Timothy Ware's The Orthodox Church and Sir Steven Runciman's histories and travel memoirs.

I brought this book during my geneology project. I wanted to know more about the countries that some of my ancestors called home and their traditions (especially religious) Unfortunately, although this book was easy to read, the author seemed to bash Eastern Europe. For me, it was saddening. I wanted to know more about my history and didnt find anything too pretty in this book. Maybe the truth just hurts, but I am moving on to some other books about Eastern Europe and Orthodoxy to get another opinion. This was disappointing as the first book I read on Eastern Europe. The author did work hard though, and I did learn at least one side of the story, so I have to give some credit.

This book begins with the author feeling oppressed that she cannot get on to Mt. Athos. Athos like most monastic environments is segregated by gender. (I can't enter the clositer-enclosure of a convent of Carmelite nuns either). This diatribe aginst the Holy Mountain and its 1000 year old traditions signals the author's extreme bias against Orthodoxy Orthodoxy is seen as the source of all the evils and problems in Post-Soviet Eastern Europe. If you are looking to understand Orthodoxy avoid this book and read something by Seraphim Rose or Timothy Ware.

The danger in this book that pretends to be "objective", is that some will believe the author in spite of obvious clues as to her imagination at work: she is not just biased, but elitist, arrogant and out of her depth entirely without realizing it. Her latest book "Holy Fire" is at least listed as FICTION. This no doubt is also fictionalized.

Ignorance combined with arrogance is often found in those who judge Orthodoxy by its outward poverty, simplicity of expressions of the Faith and general lack of pretension in rural churches especially. That she would vent her hatred against those who were so kind to her - our Orthodox fathers and mothers - in their dire conditions in the Balkans, takes great hardness of heart on her part. I truly thought that the Vatican sent her on one of their "hit pieces" against Eastern Orthodox.

As a convert to Orthodoxy, having been a Roman Catholic novice well-schooled in the philosophical Augustinian paganisms, and a graduate of Protestant seminary, I can say with some authority that the Ancient Orthodox Faith is the One founded by Christ - with the history and traditions to prove it. Our Orthodox Christianity will terrify those who fear its spiritual power, and out of Fear - as in this author's case - comes the vitriolic vileness of many of her descriptions of our clergy and faithful. God keep anyone from believing or even wasting their time reading this nonsense.

Her latest attempt "The Holy Fire" is listed as FICTION by the publisher - again filled with diatribes against "stinking herds of greek and russian peasants" just to repeat one forgettable phrase. I believe that this "Angels Fall" book is also Fiction based on some experiences but falsified in order to prove her hatred to have some basis...