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Church History: An Introduction?

Macarius

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I don't know if anyone here has noticed, but I like Church History a lot. Really a lot. We've received several inquiries from people lately asking how to become more informed about the subject matter; would there be any interest in me posting a series of posts in St. Basil's (our subforum for inquiry / education) rotating chronologically through the major events, persons, texts, and themes of Church History, followed by a chance for further inquiry, dissenting opinion, and discussion?

This would mostly be aimed at those seeking an introduction from an Eastern perspective (though I promise to be as objective as I can be); but those who are as or more informed than myself would be free to dissent and offer their contributions (e.g. I'd just be giving my opinion, so anything I write is open to correction). As this would be in St. Basil's, though, outright debate from non-Orthodox who are not engaged in inquiry would be unwelcome (e.g. someone wanting to promote the RCC perspective overtly, as opposed to someone coming from an RCC perspective - who would be welcome to post dissenting questions as prompts for further inquiry).

If so, cool - I'd enjoy doing that, and can "source" what I write (e.g. tell you where I got it, if I can remember ). If not, no big. I just wanted to offer.
 
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Anything missing from this list!? Good Lord! This pretty much covers everything dating back to the beginning of time until about an hour ago, Macarius!

 
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Protoevangel

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Hey Mac, would you be interested in doing this using moodle, or another Virtual Learning Environment? I have some webspace, and would take care of the technical aspects, all you would have to do is post the content.
 
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Macarius

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Hey Mac, would you be interested in doing this using moodle, or another Virtual Learning Environment? I have some webspace, and would take care of the technical aspects, all you would have to do is post the content.

Is that video or text based? I would assume I can readily post images and / or link other materials.

Honestly, I'd probably do it both here in addition to there (as opposed to an either / or). I've been wanting to have more materials available here for posters to reference.
 
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Jesus4Madrid

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Macarius,

I for one would read it thoroughly and with delight, although I am a bit of a Church Fathers nerd.

I loved your informative post a few months back about the different loci that Christian denominations have as reference point. That was new for me and seems exactly right. Maybe you should repost that as a framework for viewing Church history.

Have you thought of writing a book? I think there is a desperate need for a comprehensive Orthodox view of Christian history, including heterodox developments, as your outline suggests.
 
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Macarius

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I've considered going into the field (e.g. earning a PhD), at which point I'd feel comfortable writing something more extensive / publishable. In the meantime, for the particular interest you just suggested (an Eastern Church perspective on the total narrative of Christian history), the "Church In History" series by St. Vladimir's Seminary Press is superb, though incomplete (it covers only up through the fall of Constantinople).

They're trying really hard to find someone who can write the final two volumes, but unfortunately the history gets SO complex (and so lopsidedly western focused) that all there are are regional specialists or topical specialists. There are few (if any) Eastern-focused scholars who could legitimately do a 'birds eye' view of Christian history in the last 500 years. Such a person would need to know something like a dozen languages (if not more), since they'd be working off of primary source documents and untranslated specialists' works. Finding a contemporary church historian who is Eastern Orthodox and writes in English who speaks Greek, Russian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Latin, French, German, Spanish, Serbian, Arabic, etc... well that's challenging.
 
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rusmeister

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I'm always willing to learn and know there is an absolute ton of stuff there that my knowledge is either sketchy or blank on.

(I wish there was this kind of interest in my fields)

I'm in the middle of moving, but hope I don't miss out on anything good here...
 
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Protoevangel

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These VLE's are generally pretty flexible. I am sure that multimedia (video, audio, images, etc) would be fully supported as well as text, of course.

I'd be honored to be able to help you with this project. I'll look at a couple of VLE's tomorrow, to compare features.
 
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Macarius

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I've used Edline before, and found it rather slow and clunky. The seminary makes some use of Moodle; it seems functional, but I don't know how many screens one has to navigate to add or move documents / features (something which edline is horribly inefficient in terms of number of "clicks" or screens one has to navigate to do basic things; in a web browser, every click takes time and creates a bottleneck).

But yeah - I'll do it both here and in a VLE if that's what people are interested in. I've got lots of maps and images, as well as good discussion questions, from when I taught the subject.
 
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