A History of the Church in Ukraine, Volume I: To the End of the Thirteenth Century by Sophia Senyk (review)

BOOK REVIEWS733 tory of the Eastern Churches. Zibawi proceeds by summarizing or excerpting from more scholarly treatments of the subjects, an approach which results often in superficial or severely abbreviated essays, with names, terms, or events that remain unexplained.This can be quite frustrating for the reader with limited knowledge ofthe topics. For example,the Palestinian ampuUae are referred to as the "famous ampuUae ofJerusalem"with neither explanation, photograph, nor reference to the definitive monograph Ampoules de Terre Sainte by André Grabar in the footnotes. Zibawi's text contains passages that are flawed, as, for example, the discussion of Iconoclasm, or wrong, such as the statement that "Ethiopian writing adapts the Sabaean alphabet and adds consonants to it" (pp. 21 1-212).The opposite is true: the Ethiopian writing system adds vocaUzation to consonant forms. The author's true purpose appears to be an appreciation of the arts of the Eastern Churches.The text is well larded with aphorisms and quotations from reUgious hymns apparently intended to create a lyrical framework for the presentation of the visual materials, but the aphorisms are sometimes nonsensical: "The cAbbasid caliphate ends forever" (p. 93) or, "ParadoxicaUy, art ignores history and its events" (p. 61).The works of art in the Ulustrations contradict the latter observation. The layout of the color plates is not well conceived, nor are reasons clear for aU choices of works of art iUustrated.The choices of Ethiopian art illustrated in the color plates are especially problematic. Ifthis book is to be the reader's only exposure to Ethiopian religious art, she or he will acquire a false sense of its quality.The Nursing Madonna in a private collection in Paris (Pl. 82) is said to date to the eighteenth century, but appears more likely to be a twentiethcentury painting, perhaps produced for the Addis Ababa tourist market, and there is certainly no reason to include a huge detail of the nursing infant (Pl. 83). Color plates of some Syriac (PIs. 6, 8- 1 1) and Coptic miniatures (PIs. 65-67) give little sense of the manuscripts they decorate.The quality of color plates is uneven; some are too garish. Because the color plates themselves have neither plate number nor caption, it is very difficult to find a specific plate while reading the text and equally difficult to identify an object while browsing the plates. Marilyn E. Heldman University ofMissouri, St. Louis A History of the Church in Ukraine, Volume I: To the End of the Thirteenth Century. By Sophia Senyk. [Orientalia Christiana Analecta, Volume 243] (Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale. 1993· Pp. xvi, 471 . Paperback.) The author is a Basilian Sister of the Ukrainian CathoUc Church and a fuU professor of church history at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome.This volume constitutes real progress in the area of ecclesiastical historiography of ScythiaRus '-Ukraine In it we find responsible care in the use of the original sources, 734BOOK REVIEWS combined with objective and scholarly judgments.There is no national ethnic or confessional prejudice or partisanship—so common among historians writing on Eastern Slavic church-related topics. However, there are some deficiencies. On page 8, the author has written: "though the Apostle Andrew did not travel through Rus' . . ." and she upholds the "legend ofthe Apostle Andrew."Today we must revise the historiography on St.Andrew in Scythia, for there is very strong evidence ofhis presence all round the Black Sea.The biblical,archaeological, patristic,concUiar,hagiographical,historical , and monastic evidence for a Christian presence in Scythia-Rus'-Ukraine from apostolic times to St.Vblodymyr has been assembled and reviewed in my book: The Apostolic Origin of the Ukrainian Church (Parma, Ohio, 1988).We only offer a few highlights here. Colossians 3:11 implies that St. Paul met Scythians who were Christians. Both St. Hippolytus in On the Twelve Apostles and Origen, quoted by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, Book III, chap. 1, make it clear that the Holy Apostíe Andrew received Scythia as his missionary territory. TertuUian in Adversus Judaeos , chap. 7, St. Athanasius in Concerning the Inhominization of the Word, chap. 51, St. Jerome in his Epistle to Laeta, and many other witnesses speak of Scythian Christians. St. Clement...