Uncut Mountain Press, founded in 2000, was established for the purpose of translating (from Greek, mainly) and publishing, and distributing, texts which have hitherto not seen the light of publication in the English language, texts which are especially appropriate and helpful to the scattered flocks of Orthodox Christians throughout the English-speaking world, texts which were written under the guidance of the grace of the Holy Spirit and which express the fullness and fervency of the Faith.
Uncut Mountain Press takes its name from, and is dedicated to, the All-Holy Theotokos (Birth-giver of God) and Virgin Mary, the Uncut Mountain of Daniel and Habakkuk, from which the Stone was cut without hands (Dan. 2:34-35), as well as to her spiritual garden, the Holy Mountain of Athos. As the Holy Fathers interpret, the Prophet Daniel was speaking mystically of the Incarnation of the Word of God by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the All-pure Virgin, as well as His victory through the Apostles over every man-made contending power inspired by the evil one, and the evangelization of the nations, when he said:
“...a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer threshingfloors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them: and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth” (Dan. 2: 34-5).
The “stone that was cut without hands” is Christ who was born without the intervention of man, without a human father, but by the hand of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the All-pure Virgin, the Uncut Mountain of virtue and purity—uncut, undefiled, untouched by man. She is, thus, both a type of the all pure Body of Christ, the Church, the God-man having received His human nature from the Theotokos, and, as the Mother of the Incarnate Christ and first Christian, the Mother of all Christians.
Christ Jesus is the stone, rock (Mat. 16:18), or cornerstone (Mat. 21:42, Eph. 2:20). He is the One on Whom and in Whom the Church is built—in and through Whom the image(s) or idol(s) of man’s making, the powers of this world down through the ages, have been vanquished.
The Holy Church, the Body of Christ, starting out as but a pebble on the edge of a dead sea, having passed through the waters of the Jordan and gone out of Jerusalem, has become a great mountain, towering above and filling the whole earth. Uncut and undefiled, the Body of Christ, Mother Church, virgin and pure, has, in the power of the Holy Spirit of the Virgin’s Son, broken to pieces and turned to chaff the vain powers of this world, the idols of men’s making.
The Holy Mountain
The name Uncut Mountain Press was, likewise, chosen in honor of Mount Athos, that spiritual birthplace of so many holy ones of the Church and cradle of Orthodox Christianity, which is at once called the Garden of the Panagia (All-holy one) and the Holy Mountain. Like the Virgin whose garden it is, Mount Athos remains an uncut mountain both in terms of the purity of its confession, preserving unaltered the faith once delivered to the saints, and in terms of purity of life and nature, unspoiled by the modern way of life and the polluting hand of a distorted use of technology. In spite of a thousand foes turned against it, like so many Herodian soldiers set on slaughtering innocence and purity, the Holy Mountain remains to this day a type of the Uncut and Great Mountain, reaching to the ends of the earth with the grace and power of God.
The work and mission of Uncut Mountain Press, then, is best described as an attempt to translate and publish the traditional life and martyric witness of the Church (generally) and the Holy and Uncut Mountain of Athos (particularly) as it has been incarnated in the life of the Saints, from ages past and our own day.
Posted on 02/16/05. Filed under: About The Press • Better Read • Email This Entry
