"Like the Bethlehem Star Given to Every Human Being to Some Degree"

Second in the Reading Notes Series for Bishop Basil Rodzianko's 1996 book The Theory of the Big Bang and the Faith of the Holy Fathers

Details from "The Nativity" in a Psalter (Würzburg, Germany c. 1240-1250) and from "The Adoration of the Magi" by Lazaros Pechlivanidis.

[Update from the second day of Christmas, 2024: this full book is now being made available in English here for my subscribers.]

In the first four sections of Part One of Bishop Basil Rodzianko's 1996 book The Theory of the Big Bang and the Faith of the Holy Fathers, he writes that, when “the Creator of all times and spaces descends into the rapidly flowing history of this earth” in a “unique union at a certain place on earth,” it is a union that takes effect “not only on earth, but in the entire universe.” This is a cosmic vision of Christ’s incarnation, and yet these first four sections of his book also underscore the uniqueness of every human and of their particular calling within the Providence of God. He writes that “although a person is unique, he is not alone, not separated from the universe, not alienated from it” and yet each of us called into this fallen world at a particular place and time has a “uniqueness that is like the Bethlehem star given to every human being to some degree.”

This is the second in a continuing series of reflections that will cumulatively include the full text of Bishop Basil Rodzianko’s bold yet pastoral 1996 book. Please subscribe for my best attempt to render the first four sections of this book into English as well as some of my own reflections on the text and its relation to C. S. Lewis among several others.