Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Saturday 16 August 2014

The Dormition of the Virgin - Orthodox liturgies



Kyle Washut has an interesting post on the New Liturgical Movement about Orthodox liturgical traditions and customs in regard to celebrating the Dormition and the Assumption of Our Lady. It can be viewed at Burial Rites of the Theotokos

He begins by giving the text of an address by St John Paul II about whether or not Our Lady actually died - a point raised by a friend yesterday after we attended the Assumption Mass. Apparently the idea that the Virgin did not die like the rest of us only took hold in the seventeenth century, and as the post makes clear is unknown to Orthodoxy - or indeed to the wonderful Mystery play enacted each year at Elche in Spain, about which I posted in 2010 in Assumptiontide in Spain.


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