Fr Alexander Treiger: Canonical Responses of the Patriarch Mark III of Alexandria

This article appears in Chronos 41 (2020), 1-35. Mark III is otherwise known for his having visited Constantinople, where he submitted 40 canonical questions that were answered by the titular Patriarch of Antioch, Theodore Balsamon. Those questions and answers have been translated by Fr Patrick Viscuso and published under the title Guide for a Church under Islam (reviewed here).

Unpublished Texts from the Arab Orthodox Tradition (4): Canonical Responses of the Patriarch Mark III of Alexandria to the Abbot George of Damietta

Abstract:

The fourth installment in the "Unpublished Texts from the Arab Orthodox Tradition" series makes accessible a neglected document from the Orthodox Christian tradition in Arabic: canonical responses of the Chalcedonian Orthodox patriarch Mark III of Alexandria (r. ca. 1180-ca. 1209) to his spiritual son George, the abbot of the monastery of St. Jeremiah near Damietta. The article includes an edition and an English translation of this text.

Read and download the entire article here.

Constantin Panchenko: Orthodoxy and Islam in the Middle East, The Seventh to the Sixteenth Century

Holy Trinity Seminary Press has just released Orthodoxy and Islam in the Middle East, The Seventh to the Sixteenth Century, by Constantin Panchenko, which is a revision and expansion of the first section of his essential book Arab Orthodox Christians under the Ottomans 1516-1831, covering Orthodoxy in the Levant in the pre-Ottoman period.

The publisher says:

Conflict or concord? The history of Islam, from its emergence in early seventh century Arabia and its explosive growth into the wider Middle East, is often portrayed as a story of the struggle with and conquest of the Christian people of Greater Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Alternatively, the appearance of Islam is characterized as being welcomed by the conquered, whose existing monotheistic faiths of Christianity and Judaism were tolerated and even allowed to flourish under Muslim rule.

In this concise but in depth survey of the almost nine centuries that passed from the beginning of the spread of Islam up to the Ottoman Turkish conquest of Syria and Egypt beginning in 1516, Constantin Panchenko offers a more complex portrayal of this period that opens up fresh vistas of understanding, focusing on the impact that the appearance of Islam had on the many forms of Christianity they encountered, principally the Orthodox Christian communities of the Middle East. In particular he illuminates the interplay of their Greek cultural heritage with increasing Arabization over time.

This is essential reading for those who want to gain an understanding of the history of the Middle East in these centuries and of how the faith of Orthodox Christians in these lands is lived today.

 Order it here.