Today’s Sunday New York Times notes that “The Very Rev. Henry Chadwick, an Anglican priest, professor, editor, translator and author whose historical voyages into early Christianity won praise for depth, insight and evenhandedness and helped shed light on modern religious problems, died Tuesday in Oxford, England. He was 87.”
I have not read his writings, nor am I familiar with his themes or anything about him… other than that as an ex-anglican I felt some sympathy with what is referred to as his most quoted line and given at the end of the obituary:
“Nothing is sadder than someone who has lost his memory, and the church which has lots its memory is in the same state of senility.”
Orthodoxy is blessed by its memory. What we seem to struggle with lies in not holding so fast to the details of the memory that we fail to allow them to breathe… and thereby warm our hearts.
jamesthethickheaded