OVERBECK'S COLLABORATORS.

A.V. Richardson.

AMONG the men who collaborated with Overbeck in his scheme for the resuscitation of the Western Orthodox Church was Athanasius V. Richardson. Richardson was an Anglican priest, probably of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, who was united to the Orthodox through Chrismation by Archpriest D. Vasil’ev in Nice, France, in 1861. At the time of his reception into the Church he requested ordination. After "receiving valid orders from an Eastern bishop" he wanted to celebrate Orthodox services in Great Britain in the English language for persons ready "openly to accept and confess the Orthodox faith." Due to a serious illness Richardson was prevented from carrying out his intention. (107)

Somewhat of a controversy arose over Richardson’s reception and request for ordination. Fr. E.I. Popoff of London wrote to the Russian Synod in St. Petersburg saying that the Greek priest in London insisted that Richardson had to be (re-) Baptized. Hatherly also wrote to the Russian Synod in 1862, and said the Synod ought to require Baptism by immersion of all converts who were candidates for the priesthood. Hatherly, at the same time a lay member of the Greek church in Liverpool, and himself having been (re-) Baptized by the Greeks, considered Richardson’s reception by the Sacrament of Chrismation insufficient to ordain him. Metropolitan Philaret Drozdov of Moscow, however, disagreed with this view and stated that it was perfectly canonical to ordain Richardson without (re-) Baptism. The controversy caused Alexis Petrovich Akhmatov (1818-70), then Chief-Procurator of the Synod (1862-64), to write to Philaret that the differences between the Greek and Russian Churches in the matter of the reception of converts was serious and ought to be resolved. Such differences might be a cause for scandal and could shake any prospective convert’s faith in the Church. (108)

Concerning Richardson’s possible ordination, Philaret wrote on 28 February to the Chief-Procurator:

If he had asked to recognize him as a priest, this would have been a difficult question… The solution of it should weigh upon another consideration: Did the Anglican Church preserve the succession of episcopal ordination uninterruptedly? This is subject to doubt. However, he asked a new ordination. Against this I can visualize no difficulties on the part of the Church canons… (109)

In another place Metropolitan Philaret reiterated his opinion that Richardson could be ordained. He never was because it was felt that it would cause offense in the Orthodox world of London. (110)

Richardson apparently soon joined ranks with Overbeck and probably was one of the original petitioners. He made some contributions to The Orthodox Catholic Review, starting in 1868, in the form of several short stories based on themes from early Church history. He also versified several prayers and hymns from the Greek. Richardson most likely was the "clergyman lately seceded from the Anglican Church" who anonymously authored the pamphlet The Present Crisis. (111)

The author of The Present Crisis wrote a series of letters to the Scottish newspaper, the Dundee Advertiser, starting with 22 July 1868. The occasion of the conversion of a Mr. Humphrey to the Roman Church furnished the reason for the first letter but in others the writer discussed the Anglican dilemma in terms similar to Overbeck’s. The writer, who signed himself "Orthodox," stated that he had been an Anglican priest ten years, but had seceded to Orthodoxy and was hoping for the Western Orthodox Church soon to be refounded. He called upon the Scottish Anglicans to become Orthodox and to sign Overbeck’s petition. He said prospective converts ought to apply to him or the priest of the Russian Church in London for admittance into Orthodoxy. "Orthodox" probably was a former member of the Scottish Episcopal diocese of Brechin. In The Present Crisis he gives his address as Craigie, Perth. In the same issue of The Orthodox Catholic Review in which "The Present Crisis" first appeared, the first paraphrase of a Greek hymn by "A.R.," i.e. Athanasius Richardson, also was printed. There seems little doubt but that "A.R." and "Orthodox" were one and the same. (112)

Another book, The Canonical Hours, from Ancient Sources (2nd ed., London, 1868), "By a Catholic Priest," was probably also the work of Richardson. Overbeck stated that when the book was first written the author had been an Anglican but that he had since left and joined the Orthodox Church. Overbeck hoped that a third edition might appear but with the changes necessary to make of it an Orthodox production. Among the changes he suggested were the elimination of post-1054 Saints together with the Apostles and Athanasian Creeds which are not used in the Orthodox Church. The book could very well have been Richardson’s (113) because of his interest in liturgical matters as seen from his translations of liturgical hymns and offices. (114)

J.T. Seccombe.

ANOTHER interesting collaborator of Overbeck was Dr. John Thomas Seccombe (1835-1895) of Terrington Lodge, near King’s Lynn in Norfolk County. He was the eldest son of Sir Thomas Lawrence Seccombe, G.C.I.E., K.C.S.I., who, for many years had been financial secretary and later Assistant Under Secretary of State for India. J.T. Seccombe received the M.D. degree at the University of St. Andrews (Scotland) in 1856 and began his medical practice at Terrington in 1862. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1858 and a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries of London the following year. He also studied at the University College, London. Seccombe had many out-of-the-way interests and an extensive and minute knowledge of many subjects. A Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, he constructed a powerful telescope with an eight inch Newtonian reflector in his garden. He was esteemed as an authority on change-ringing and had some repute as a local antiquary, having written a paper on the beautifully decorated St. Clement’s church of Terrington for the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society. Seccombe was an ardent admirer of Pasteur. After visiting the Institute at Paris in 1863, he lectured on the newest theories on inoculation. He was medical officer of the fourth and fifth districts of the Wisbech Union and surgeon of the Lynn district of the Great Northern Railway. He belonged to a whole range of different societies and acted as a Justice of the Peace for the county of Norfolk from 1866 until his death, 27 January 1895, from heart disease. (115)

In addition to his many other interests, Seccombe was interested in church history, patristic writings, and liturgiology. He had evidently shown inclinations towards the religious life early in his career and had once been a novice in the Cistercian Abbey of Mount St. Bernard. (116) At any rate his interest in religious matters remained with him the remainder of his life. "With keen scientific interests he was also an ardent theologian, and this somewhat unusual juxtaposition of tastes was thoroughly characteristic of a remarkably versatile mind." (117) Seccombe’s religious propensities led him to become associated with the episcopus vagans Julius (or Jules) Ferrete who came to England in the Summer of 1866, claiming to have been consecrated Bishop of Iona by a Jacobite Syrian bishop. (118) Seccombe is said to have joined Ferrete and to have been consecrated a bishop by him soon after his arrival in Britain. Ferrete attempted to found some sort of Eastern Church in England and in September 1866 he published The Eastern Liturgy adapted for Use in the West (London). Ferrete also offered to confer Holy Orders upon Anglicans and others who desired them. In 1874 he left England for Switzerland and Seccombe severed his relations with him. Brandreth states that by 1877 Seccombe was again an Anglican. (119)

Another ecclesiastical venture in which Seccombe was involved was The Order of Corporate Reunion which he is said to have founded together with F.G. Lee and T.W. Mossman. Brandreth gave the founding date as 1877, while others date the founding of the Order in 1874. The Order of Corporate Reunion was established ostensibly in order to provide the Church of England with Orders which Rome would be obliged to recognize as valid. According to Brandreth, Seccombe and his two associates received some sort of episcopal orders by the Summer of 1877, though Seccombe may have received his consecration earlier from Ferrete. Since the activities of the Order were shrouded in the deepest secrecy, the information available is scanty and conjectural. At any rate Seccombe apparently never exercised his episcopal orders and soon left the movement. (120)

F.E. Langhelt, in A Chapter of Secret History, stated that the Order was founded in 1874. (121) According to Brandreth, Seccombe soon dropped his ties with the Order even though he had been the prime mover in its founding. Whatever Seccombe’s connections were with the Order and with Lee and Mossman, whether he was consecrated after the Order was established or sooner at the hands of Ferrete, in the early part of 1875 he had apparently joined the Orthodox Church and became associated with Overbeck. It seems likely, however, that Seccombe left the Orthodox Church in 1877 and established the Order with Lee and Mossman that Summer, for Seccombe’s name does not figure in Overbeck’s Review after the January-September, 1877 issue. This is all the more strange when one considers that Seccombe’s articles and translations appeared rather frequently beginning with 1875.

The first of Seccombe’s articles appeared in the first issue of The Orthodox Catholic Review for 1875, and was signed with the initials "Dr. J.S." (122) He wrote in a manner which presupposed that he was not only a member of the Orthodox Church but that he had devoted some time to the study of her tenets. Among other things, he stated that "the Orthodox Church is the only institution on earth which satisfies the reason on religious matters" and that she "alone affords a solution to those momentous questions which the existing religious systems of the West are unable to grapple with." He invited all his readers to a study of Orthodoxy. The next issue of the Review contained his "Articles of Catholic and Orthodox Belief." (123) The same issue (pp. 90-92) contained his "An urgent appeal to Anglo-Catholics" in which he urged them to leave the Church of England and become Orthodox.

In this appeal, Seccombe enumerated the various defects of the Establishment: (1) it was in complete subjection to the secular power; (2) there was absent within it any authoritative standard of doctrine; (3) its administration of the Sacraments were defective and mutilated; and (4) there was enforced communion in it with heretics. Seccombe was of the opinion that such defects were fundamental and "absolutely inconsistent with Catholicity." As far as Anglican Orders were concerned, he said that the validity of these orders were not recognized by any other Church. "As for the truth of this matter [valid orders], it is needless for me to express my own thoughts, which, after all, can be mere private and individual opinion, of no value or importance." He was of the opinion that the question of Anglican Orders was a small matter and that if everything else were put right it "would amount to a ritual defect which could easily be remedied, provided it were met and considered in a right spirit." If the defects he numbered were remedied all hindrances to union with Orthodoxy would be restored as an independent National Church in communion with the Orthodox Church. Such a body would be welcomed into the "Confederation of independent but United Churches which is the legitimate representative of the Undivided Catholic Church, and which glories in the title of Orthodox."

As for other writings, Seccombe published a booklet in answer to three well-known essays by the philosophical radical John Stuart Mill. (124) Seccombe’s book dealt primarily with an examination and refutation of Mill’s essay on Theism. He also executed the translation from the Greek of "An Accurate Exposition of the Orthodox Faith," by St. John Damascene. There had been a renewed interest in this eighth century Eastern Church Father since the Bonn Conferences where his writings were quoted from, especially in connection with the Filioque discussions. Seccombe’s translation began to appear in The Orthodox Catholic Review starting with the January-June, 1876 issue. He dedicated his translation, by permission, to Patriarch Hierotheus of Antioch (1851-85).

Appearing in the same issue of the Review was Seccombe’s composition of the "Office of the Holy Great Martyr Alban, Protomartyr of Britain." This office was modeled on ancient patterns in the Menaeon and exhibited considerable knowledge of Byzantine hymnological techniques. At some later time Seccombe published his translation or composition of The Great Catechism of the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic, and Orthodox Church. This work received the approval of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece as well as of the Patriarch of Antioch. Most of Seccombe’s articles were signed by initials: Dr. J.S.; J.S.M.D.; or J.T.S., M.D., however, he signed this translation of the Damascene’s work as John T. Seccombe, M.D., F.R.A.S.

G.V. Shann.

A COLLABORATOR of Overbeck who distinguished himself by his numerous translations of Orthodox services into English was George V. Shann. He was not a "schooled theologian, but a simple Orthodox layman, whose professional duties lie in a different direction." (125) Shann, a convert himself, was instrumental in bringing other "truth-seeking souls" into the Church. Some of his fellow Englishmen thought him an "alien" for his profession of Orthodoxy. He called upon his friends to be missionaries and he hoped for large gains in England. For the small group of English Orthodox in Kidderminster (Worcestershire), where the famous seventeenth century Puritan Richard Baxter had preached, Shann opened an Orthodox Oratory in a room at No. 9 Church Street, formerly used as a solicitor’s office. This was opened for Orthodox prayers on Sunday, 6 February 1876, and was still being used at Christmas 1879. (126) The small congregation of ten adults and three children gathered every Saturday evening and Sunday morning, and the eves of Great Feasts, for such devotions as laymen could recite and, no doubt, using translations made by Shann himself. In one of his "Addresses to the Western Orthodox," Overbeck said he was thinking of his "dear friends" from Kidderminster praying in their Oratory. They, too, were apparently hoping for the success of the Western Orthodox scheme. (127)

Although Shann may have been interested in Overbeck’s Western Orthodox scheme, he found it expedient, at the same time, not to neglect Eastern liturgical usages. In his leisure time he learned Greek and Slavonic in order to read the Church offices in the original tongues and to translate them for his English co-religionists. Shann’s metrical as well as prose translations of Greek liturgical offices began to appear in Overbeck’s Review in 1875 and it may be presumed that he became Orthodox around that time. His translations continued to appear regularly from that time until the second from the last issue: Vol. XI (Part II, 1888). Besides his own work, Shann edited and supplemented several translations made from the Slavonic by Fr. Basil Popoff. Shann had some contact with S.G. Hatherly and furnished the latter with some translations for his Office for the Lord’s Day. (128) Later, Hatherly rather sharply criticized Shann’s Euchology. (129)

Besides the mass of translations which appeared in The Orthodox Catholic Review over a period of years, Shann also published a laymen’s prayer book, (130) a volume containing the Sacraments and other offices, (131) and other works. (132)

E. Harrison.

EUGENE Harrison was apparently a late-comer into OverbeckÕs fold. With an M.A. from Oxford University, Harrison knew Russian and translated from it an "Exposition of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom." (133) Nothing more is known of Harrison except that almost a quarter of a century later his name appeared as translator from Russian of a statement which spoke out against the possibility of any kind of union between the Established Church and the Orthodox Church. (134)

J.N.W.B. Robertson.

ONE who was associated with Overbeck toward the end of his career was J.N.W.B. Robertson, who assisted in editing a new edition in English of Peter MoghilaÕs Confession. This took up the entire last issue of The Orthodox Catholic Review (Vol. XII). The Orthodox Confession of the Eastern Church was again re-printed later (London, 1898). It is interesting to note that many of the converts to the Orthodox Church in the nineteenth century were interested in liturgiology. (135) Robertson was no exception. He, too, published several translations from the Greek, particularly of the Liturgies. (136)

Other Associates of Overbeck.

ANOTHER of Overbeck’s followers was one who preferred to hide behind the anonymity of his initials: "R.H.H." He translated several portions of Overbeck’s book Der einzige sichere Ausweg and wrote "The new ‘ism’ in the Established Church," (137) in which he discussed a certain Anglican cleric who preached "Irvingism" to the consternation of his flock. R.H.H. told the Anglican laity that the only recourse they had was to seek refuge in the Catholic Orthodox Church. The writer predicted that conditions as they then were in the Church could not last for long, for the "Ceremonial Protestants," i.e., the Ritualists, would be forced to join Papal Rome or "unite themselves with Christ’s Holy Orthodox Catholic Church."

Another Englishman who was a member of the "Greek Orthodox Church" was Theodore F. Shann. Probably related to G.V. Shann, his address "On Transubstantiation" delivered at a meeting in Wolverhampton in November 1875 was reproduced in The Orthodox Catholic Review. (138) He also translated from the French, "The Russian and Greek Churches: The Manner of their Reception of Converts," which was written by A.N. Mouravieff (Murav’ev). The latter stressed that the difference in the practice of the two Churches was simply a matter of rite rather than dogma. (139)

Another convert mentioned by Overbeck, but one who probably was not associated with him, was a Mr. Matthias Jenkyns, "whose zeal for the Church of his adoption, and for Orthodox studies generally, is well known to us." (140) Jenkyns wrote the introduction to a book of Greek Lays, Idylls, Legends, etc., translated by E.M. Edmonds.

(107) Khristianskoe Chtenie, 1867, I, 287.

(108) Pisma dukhovnykh i svetskikh lits k mitropolitu moskovskomu Filaretu (s 1812 po 1867), Issued with biographical and explanatory notes by A.N. L’vov (St. Petersburg, 1900), pp. 581-82.

(109) Pisma Filareta, mitropolita moskovskago i kolomenskago k vysochajahim osobam i rasnym drugim litsam, Collected and issued by Savva, Archbishop of Tver and Kashin (Tver, 1888), II, pp. 109-110.

(110) Sobranie mnenii i otzyvov Filareta, mitropolita moskovskago i kolomenskago, po uchebnym i tserkovno-gosudarstvennym voprosam, ed. Archbishop Savva (Moscow, 1887), Tome V, Part I, pp. 277-85.

(111) See above, pp. 21-22 and footnote #29.

(112) OCR, II, No. 1-12 (January-February, 1868), 158-71, 262.

(113) Ibid., 271; The Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature (London, 1926), I, p. 276, however, ascribed The Canonical Hours to James F.B. Gordon, D.D.

(114) The Office of the Churching of Women, according to the ritual of the Orthodox Eastern Church, Translated from the Greek Euchologion by the Rev. Athanasius Richardson (London, 1875).

(115) British Medical Journal, I (16 February 1895), 400 (Obituary); The London Medical Directory for 1891.

(116) Brandreth, Dr. Lee of Lambeth, p. 120. In Brandreth’s opinion Seccombe "was of an excitable temper and took an unusual interest in religious controversy." (Ibid.)

(117) British Medical Journal, Ibid.

(118) On the colorful Ferrete, see: Henry R.T. Brandreth, Episcopi Vagantes and the Anglican Church (London, [1947]), Chapter v; Cf. "Julius soi-disant Bishop of Iona," OCR, I, No. 1 (January, 1867). 5-9.

(119) Dr. Lee of Lambeth, Ibid.

(120) Henry R.T. Brandreth, The Oecumenical Ideals of the Oxford Movement (London, 1947), pp. 69-70; Episcopi Vagantes, pp. 64-65. In the latter work Brandreth said, in one place, that Seccombe participated in a consecration with Lee in 1879 (p. 50), but in another place (p.65) he said it was Mossman instead.

(121) Cited in Brandreth, The Oecumenical Ideals, p. 69n.

(122) "Neologism and Orthodoxy," OCR, IV, No. 1 (January-March, 1875), 21-34.

(123) IV, No. 2 (April-June, 1875), 84-90. This was later re-printed in pamphlet form and was still advertised for sale in 1895 in Stephen G. Hatherly (ed.), Office of the Credence and the Divine Liturgy of our Father among the Saints, John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople (London, [1895]), p. ii., along with Seccombe’s The Great Catechism (see below).

(124) Science, Theism and Revelation considered in relation to Mr. Mill’s Essay on Nature, Religion and Atheism (London, 1875), pp. 80. A review of this from The Lynn Advertiser, and Norfolk and Cambridgeshire Herald (23 October 1875) was reprinted in the OCR, V, No. 3 (July-September, 1876), 195-200.

(125) OCR, VII (Part II, 1878), 159; Cf. G.V. Shann, "Why I am an Orthodox," Ibid., IX (Part II, 1881), 260-274.

(126) "Extracts from an Address delivered by Mr. G.V. Shann, at a meeting held in the Orthodox Oratory, Kidderminster, September 11/23, 1876," OCR, VIII (1879), 36, 38-9.

(127) OCR, IX (Part I, 1880), 81.

(128) See p. viii of the preface of Hatherly’s book.

(129) "Translated Greek Office-Books," 139-40.

(130) Euchology: A Manual of Prayers of the Holy Orthodox Church (Kidderminster, 1891), pp. xxi+524.

(131) Book of Needs of the Holy Orthodox Church with an Appendix containing Offices for the Laying on of Hands (London, 1894), pp. xxxix/260/28. This was translated from a Slavonic Trebnik of 1882 and a Chinovnik of 1890.

(132) Synopsis: Part I. The All-Night Vigil, and First, Third, and Sixth Hour Offices (n.p., [1878?]).

(133) OCR, X (1883), 84-122.

(134) Laicus Orthodoxus, "Remarks on a proposed concordat between the Anglo-American and the Orthodox Church," Russian Orthodox American Messenger, November & December supplement, 1907, pp. 287-294. Translated by E. Harrison.

(135) The divine and sacred Liturgies of our fathers among the Saints John Chrysostom and Basil the Great, Edited, with an English translation, by J.N.W.B. Robertson (London, 1886), pp. 223. This contained both Greek and English texts. The book was re-issued in enlarged form a few years later: The Divine Liturgies… with that of the Presanctified preceded by the Hesperinos and the Orthros, Edited with the Greek text by J.N.W.B. Robertson (London, 1894).

(136) "Translated Greek Office-Books," 137.

(137) OCR, IV, No. 2 (April-June, 1875), 137-40.

(138) IV, No. 4 (October-December, 1875), 276-87.

(139) This was translated from Murav’ev’s, Question Religeuse d-Orient et d’Occident (St. Petersburg, 1858), and appeared in the OCR, V (1876), 209-16, 271-75.

(140) OCR, XI (Part I, 1885), 104.