Quotations from a Greek Bishop

Here are some quotations from a Greek Bishop.  Most of us think of heresy in  a way different than he defines it.  In his writings, he makes clear that herasy is diluding or polluting the medicine.  This only becomes clear when Orthodoxy is viewed as a thearputic science, a medicine that cures.  This is what he has to say: 

In the Holy tradition of the Orthodox Church at the centre of Orthodox spirituality is the heart and the nous. It is this centre which needs to be treated so that man’s complete psychosomatic constitution is cured. Moreover as the Lord said: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matt. 5, 8). In order to see what the heart and nous are we must begin by examining the soul…

The adjective “orthodox” comes from the noun “orthodoxy” and shows the difference between the Orthodox Church and every other Christian denomination. The word “Orthodoxy” manifests the true knowledge about God and creation. This is the definition St. Athanasios of Sinai offers.

 

The term Orthodoxy consists of two words: “orthos” (true, right) and “doxa”. “Doxa” means, on the one hand, belief, faith, teaching and on the other, praise or doxology. These two meanings are closely connected. The true teaching about God incorporates the true praise of God; for if God is abstract, then prayer to this God is abstract as well. If God is personal then prayer assumes a personal character. God has revealed the true faith, the true teaching. Thus we say that the teaching about God and all matters associated with a person’s salvation are the Revelation of God and not man’s discovery…

 Now is a quote from a Greek scholar.  His website containts many valuable insights, as well as some historical conspiracy theories which may or may not be true.

In regard to the doctrine of original sin as contained in the Old Testament and illumnated by the unique revelation of Christ in the New Testament, there continues to reign in the denominations of the West–especially since the development of scholastic presuppositions–a great confusion, which in the last few centuries seems to have gained much ground in the theological problematics of the Orthodox East. In some circles this problem has been dressed in a halo of mystifying vagueness to such an extent that even some Orthodox theologians seem to expect one to accept the doctrine of original sin simply as a great and profound mystery of faith (e.g., Androutsos, Dogmatike, pp. 161-162). This has certainly become a paradoxical attitude, especially since these Christians who cannot point their fingers at this enemy of mankind are the same people who illogically claim that in Christ there is remission of this unknown original sin. This is a far cry from the certitude of St. Paul, who, of the devil himself, claimed that “we are not ignorant of his thoughts” (noemata).

If one is to vigorously and consistently maintain that Jesus Christ is the unique Savior Who has brought salvation to a world in need of salvation, one obviously must know what is the nature of the need which provoked this salvation.

 It would, indeed, seem foolish to have medical doctors trained to heal sickness if there were no such thing as sickness in the world. Likewise, a savior who claims to save people in need of no salvation is a savior only unto himself.

Undoubtedly, one of the most important causes of heresy is the failure to understand the exact nature of the human situation described by the Old and New Testaments, to which the historical events of the birth, teachings, death, resurrection and second coming of Christ are the only remedy. The failure to understand this automatically implies a perverted understanding of what it is that Christ did and continues to do for us, and what our subsequent relation is to Christ and neighbor within the realm of salvation. The importance of a correct definition of original sin and its consequences can never be exaggerated. Any attempt to minimize its importance or alter its significance automatically entails either a weakening or even a complete misunderstanding of the nature of the Church, sacraments and human destiny.

The temptation facing every inquiry into the thought of St. Paul and the other Apostolic writers is to approach their writings with definite, although many times unconscious, presuppositions contrary to the Biblical witness. If one approaches the Biblical testimony to the work of Christ and the life of the primitive community with predetermined metaphysical notions concerning the moral structure of what most would call the natural world, and, by consequence, with fixed ideas concerning human destiny and the needs of hte individual and humanity in general, he will undoubtedly take from the faith and life of the ancient Church only such aspects as fit his own frame of reference. Then, if he wishes to be consistent in representing his own interpretation of the Scriptures as authentic, he will necessarily proceed to exaplain away everything extraneous to his concepts as secondary and superficial, or simply as the product of some misunderstanding on the part of certain Apostles or a group of Fathers, or even the whole primitive Church in general.

A proper approach to the New Testament teaching of St. Paul concerning original sin cannot be one-sided. It is incorrect, for example, to emphasize, in Romans 5:12, the phrase, eph’ho pantes hemarton, by trying to make it fit any certain system of thought concerning moral law and guilt without first establishing the importance of St. Paul’s beliefs concerning the powers of Satan and the true situation not only of man, but of all creation. It is also wrong to deal with the problem of the transmission of original sin within the framework of dualistic anthropology while at the same time completely ignoring the Hebraic foundations of St. Paul’s anthropology. Likewise, and attempt to interpret the Biblical doctrine of the fall in terms of a hedonistic philosophy of happiness is already doomed to failure because of its refusal to recognize not only the abnormality but, more important, the consequences of death and corruption.

A correct approach to the Pauline doctrine of original sin must take into consideration St. Paul’s understanding of (1) the fallen state of creation, including the powers of Satan, death and corruption, (2) the justice of God and law, and (3) anthropology and the destiny of man and creation. These divisions are not meant to suggest that each topic is to be dealt with here in detail; rather, they shall be discussed only in the light of the main problem of original sin and its transmission according to St. Paul.

Quote for today

If the grace of God comes, everyone and everything changes; however, in order for it to come, we must humble ourselves first.

— Elder Porphyrios

I am currently facing a “humbling” experience.  I have a European friend who is Pentecostal.  He is very polite and tuned in to his emotional nature, certainly never rude.  But I am increasingly finding myself on the verge of saying things like, “I don’t care what the bible says,” or “I don’t want to hear about Jesus anymore,” just because of the constant chatter from him about spiritual things.  It actually sounds profane to me when I hear people like him constantly using the name of Jesus throughout the day.  The idea that someone without University training, knowing virtually nothing about church history, a peasant and a former soldier, would feel qualified to go around the towns and villages of his country pointing the people to a better way, a more spiritual path, while  dismissing as “demonic” the 2000 years of church tradition present in those towns and villages, seems to me completely ludicrously.  Is this the fruit of spiritual gifts?  Is this where speaking in tongues, so called, leads?  I am not in a position to judge, although I find the intensity of his devoutness quite draining and find myself feeling increasingly like a non-believer when I’m on the verge of saying things like, “I don’t want to hear about Jesus anymore” and “I don’t care what the bible says.”

Some articles about British Christianity

Okay…it’s thirty-seven degrees outside right now.  That’s sad, because it is 12:45.   We joked in Portland this year that we had an “alleged summer”.  A friend of mine travelling to Moscow tommorow told me she had to buy clothes for Moscow but now was just buying clothes for Portland. 

   

The following articles are about British Christianity.  I read a small book a few years ago about St. Mungo which REALLY captured my imagination.  The author tied him into the Authorian legends and seemed to blur the line between miracles and magic during that era.  Unfortunately, all I found on the internet to post was pretty sparce compared with that book.

 

I don’t agree with everything in the following article.  I’m going to keep it up for a few days, though, to introduce the following two British Saints: St. Mungo and St. Colomba.  To suggest that we should strive against having English liturgies in the venacular because the anti-christ will someday speak in English is—to me—totally absurd.  Of course it rests on the assumption that there is to be such an historical figure, no small leap of logic since the fathers of the church saw the book of Revelation as alligorical and first century Christians saw “the beast” as the Roman Empire.  That’s just one disagreement I have with the following article.  His comments about Cypress are totally misinformed.  Having spent many hours recently with a native Cypriat, I can attest to the fact that the binary logic of Greeks against Turks is completely wrong and totally not the most important issue facing the people of that Island today.  The article is up, though, briefly and hopefully will mean something to someone because it does have some valuable insights, if a little short sighted in many places.  It is called Reversing Conquests.

This twenty-ninth issue of Orthodox England is much concerned with dates and questions of England and Europe, Orthodox and Non-Orthodox – not unlike the concerns of the secular world at the time of writing.

On the one hand this issue contains the second and concluding part of our Life of St Boniface, the English Apostle of the Germanies, ‘the Greatest Englishman’, martyred twelve hundred and fifty years ago, on 5 June 754. This was 150 years after the repose of both the Apostles of the English, St Gregory the Great and St Augustine of Canterbury (+ 604). It was St Boniface who brought northern Europe under the sway of the Apostolic Roman Orthodox See, out of the hands of the barbarian Franks.

Unfortunately, he was not to know that three hundred years after his martyrdom, nine hundred and fifty years ago, on 15 July 1054, the selfsame Franks, under their leader Humbert, were to separate the Roman Papacy from the Orthodox Church. That symbolic date was tragically to lead to the separation of the whole of Western Europe, and then the whole Western world, from the Orthodox Church. For their seizure of Roman Apostolic power was to become definitive – unto this day.

One of the very first results of 1054 was the slaughter on another historic date – that of 14 October 1066. This date marks the anniversary of ‘the Greatest Defeat’ ever suffered by England and the English – that at the Battle of Senlac, known as Hastings, a day when English – and Welsh and Scottish and Irish – flags should be flown at half-mast. For that defeat affected not only England, but all the Isles, whose early purity and spiritual unity we hear of in our section ‘From the Depths of the Isles’.

The defeat of 1066 was to affect not only England and all the Isles, but indeed much of the world. This is made clear in the extract we publish by an American historian who asks the question ‘What if?’ (the English had won at Hastings). As another recent historian has put it, ‘Britain made the modern world’. All would agree that the making of the modern world would certainly have been different, had Hastings been an English victory and not a defeat. In certain respects, that Britain made the modern world may be something to be proud of, but in other respects it is also something to be ashamed of: whatever languages Antichrist will speak, modern English will be the main one. All the more reason to cultivate a beautiful and different liturgical English for our services.

And in thinking of the invasion and defeat of England in 1066, from which this country has never recovered, one cannot help but think of another historic date, nearly 400 years after the Papal Schism – 29 May 1453. This was the date of the invasion and defeat of Europe which took place in 1453. This was when Muslim forces, having crossed from Asia, occupied the Christian Capital of Europe at New Rome, Constantinople, which they barbarously renamed Istanbul. The defeat and occupation of Europe at Constantinople was itself just another later result of 1054. A Europe faithful to the Orthodox Church, would never have allowed Muslims to occupy the City.

Indeed, 1453 would never have happened if the Muslims had not been aided and abetted in their occupation of Orthodox Europe by Roman Catholic Europe. That Europe had undermined Constantinople after its barbarous sacking of the City on 13 April 1204. As they tore to pieces the altar and icon-screen in the Cathedral of the Holy Wisdom and sat harlots on the Patriarch’s throne, little wonder that the Eastern Roman Christians came to prefer the mercy and kindness of Muslims to the barbarism of certain Roman Catholics (1). Although on Bright Tuesday, 13 April 2004, the eight hundredth anniversary of the sacking of 1204, the Greek Patriarch Bartholomew accepted the apology of Pope John-Paul II, it was 800 years too late to do anything other than say words.

For whatever the words (and not acts) for something 800 years old, modern ‘politically correct’ Western Europe will do nothing to remove the Muslim invaders from modern Constantinople and indeed did its level best to prevent it happening on two more recent occasions. Firstly, one hundred and fifty years ago, in 1854, through siding with Turkey in the Crimean War, when the Cardinal of Paris Mgr Sibour (later murdered by a priest in a sordid affair) wrote:

‘The war which France is starting with Russia is not a political war, but a holy war; it is not a war of state against state, of a people against a people, but purely a religious war … The true reason for this war is in the need to cast off the heresy of Photius, to crush it, to trample it underfoot; such is the open aim of this crusade, such was the aim of all the crusades, even though those who took part did not recognise it’ (2).

The second occasion was more recent when, through exporting the mass murderer Lenin by sealed train and so fomenting the Russian Revolution of 1917, the West guaranteed that Russia would not free Constantinople, as the Russian monarchy had planned in 1914. Indeed, the West guaranteed a bleak future for itself throughout the rest of the twentieth century. Yes, the last liturgy in the Church of the Holy Wisdom has not yet been completed.

And whatever crocodile tears are shed over 1204, the modern West will certainly do nothing to prevent the illegal occupation of Palestine and see its Orthodox population expelled all over the world. It will do nothing to prevent the thirty years of the illegal invasion and occupation of northern Cyprus by Muslims and their desecration of its churches and monasteries. It will do nothing to stop its own theft of countless Orthodox churches in Croatia, Bosnia, Slovakia and the Ukraine and the continuing propagation of the fraud of Uniatism. And the modern West will certainly stand by while Muslim terrorists and drug-runners occupy and pillage southern Serbia – 150 churches destroyed so far:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! … Ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them. Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres … That the blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation … Woe unto you, lawyers! For ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.

(Luke 11, 44-52).

604. 754. 1054. 1204. 1854. All anniversaries this year. Of course we cannot wind back the clock: we cannot physically reverse history. But on the other hand, we can reverse conquests spiritually, we can win the spiritual Hastings and the spiritual Constantinople, the spiritual England and the spiritual Europe, we can defilioquize, denormanize and dewesternize – but only by starting with ourselves and uncovering the True West that lies beneath.

As the Cardinal of Paris rightly said, none of the problems that we have listed above is racial or political. The Normans, for example, were racially akin to the English. And there are a fair number of Albanians and even some Turks, who are Orthodox. Just as you can find English and Germans, and people of Serbian and Greek blood, who are Muslims, like the Greek Cypriot singer, Cat Stevens, now Youssef Islam (3). No, all these problems are spiritual and religious problems, they are problems of spiritual impurity, of spiritual blindness. 1054 and 1066, 1204 and 1453 are all dates which mark invasions of Europe, not primarily military ones, but spiritual ones.

And the date 2004 is no different. The battle today, our battle, is the battle for spiritual vision, for spiritual purity, the cleansing of the hearts of Englishmen and Europeans, of Asians and Australasians, of Americans and Africans, that the doors of perception may be opened, that the eyes of souls may see, that we may be transfigured. As one nineteenth-century American wrote of a very different battle:

St. Mungo

St Mungo was one of the most important characters in the Church in Britain in the 6th and early 7th centuries. He was active in what is now central and southern Scotland, northern England and Wales, founding both Glasgow (he is its patron) and St Asaph’s. He supposedly knew St David of Wales, possibly St Columba and was even supposed to be related to King Arthur, apparently being his great-nephew.

Unfortunately, the surviving written material relating to him dates only from the 12th century, and it is difficult to determine what is fact and what is fiction. There are two Lives, one by a monk called Jocelin of Furness, and an another, possibly earlier, which is anonymous and incomplete; they were written at a time when Saints were expected to perform at least three miracles before breakfast to be entitled to be thus described. There are, however, numerous references to him in early mediaeval arthurian chronicles, as well as in the Welsh Troiads and the Welsh Annals. Moreover, many of the oldest churches in the north-west of England are dedicated to him, indicating his activity in the area.

We are told in the two Lives that he was the son of Tenew (later venerated as St Tenew), daughter of King Llew or Loth, after which Lothian was named. Mungo’s father is variously put either as Owain, son of Urien, the Prince of Rheged, or as Urien himself, who was Loth’s brother. (There is a problem accepting Owain, who later turns up in mediaeval Arthurian literature as a knight, as the father; Mungo, who died a very old man on 13th January 613, must have been born before 550. From the rough dates we can work out about the life of Owain (he died c.593), he was probably born about much the same time as Mungo. Given a choice of fathers, it seems much more logical to accept Urien of Rheged, whose principality covered present-day Cumbria and Dumfriesshire, as the father of Mungo.

According to Jocelin of Furness, Tenew had an affair (he says with her cousin, Owain). When her father found that she was pregnant, he was obliged to follow the law of the times, which was that sex outside marriage was a capital offence, and kill her. (Jocelin says that Loth was pagan. But all the Arthur stories point to Loth being Christian). He decided to throw her off Traprain Law, a large hill outside Edinburgh and which at the time was still used a fortified settlement. However, she survived the fall. That apparently was not enough for Loth or his subjects, who were in two minds as to whether she might be a witch. So she was then caste adrift in a coracle.

The vessel drifted to the coast of Fife, landing at Culross, where St Serf ran a religious establishment. There, on the beach, she gave birth to Mungo, or Kentigern as his proper name is. (Mungo is the nickname given by St Serf, but there is debate as to what it means. Some say “My Hound”, others “my dear heart”. Kentigern means “Chief Lord”.) Needless to say mother and child were discovered by St Serf and housed in his establishment; there Mungo was brought up and educated.

The story is almost certainly some sort of gloss on the fact that Mungo was illegitimate.

The next point in the story is Mungo’s election as a bishop. Jocelin tells us that he was Bishop of the whole of the Kingdom of the North Britons and that he established his See in Glasgow. In fact this did not happen at this point, and Jocelin (who was writing his story at the command of the then Bishop of Glasgow (also called Jocelin) is merely being partisan. Tradition relates that Mungo’s base at this early period was at Hoddom in Dumfriesshire, which was within the principality of Rheged, and where the foundations of a 6th-century stone church was recently discovered during gravel excavations (scandalously, the foundations were demolished). It would seem therefore that Mungo’s first episcopate was to the inhabitants of his father’s/grandfather’s territory. There is nothing unusual in this. It was normal throughout the western Christian world at this period (and for a long time to come) for senior clerics to be part of the ruling establishment. Few, apart from ruling families and those around them, were able to have their children educated (and education was a Church preserve). Many younger offspring and presumably illegitimate offspring inevitably entered its service. Equally inevitably, these were the people who were then chosen as bishops, abbots and abbesses. Columba, for example, was a royal prince. So too were many of the other Celtic saints – and Anglo-Saxon ones as well. What we are seeing in Mungo’s case is the illegitimate son’s reconciliation with his family.

At some point thereafter, Jocelin tells us that a new King, Morken, came to power and that a dispute subsequently arose between Mungo and Morken and that the bishop had to flee. It is known from other sources, however, that Morken, who was either a ruler in the region of Ayr or in the Newcastle area (probably the latter), murdered Urien and then incorporated Rheged into his own lands. Mungo’s flight was probably all too necessary. As a member of the ousted ruling family, his life would have been in danger.

He went south, first into the southern part of Rheged, into what is now Cumbria, where there are many churches dedicated to him, and then to what is now Wales. There, after meeting with St David, he was asked by a ruler in north Wales to act as bishop to his own people. The result was Mungo’s second episcopate. Like most bishops of the period, he set up a religious settlement away from the power centre, where clergy could be trained and others taught. This was at St Asaph’s, one of the Welsh sees. St Asaph was in fact Mungo’s assistant there (and his successor when he left).

Meanwhile, back in the north of Britain, Morken was overthrown by Redderech, who was either the ruler of Dumbarton or had had a claim to the throne of Dumbarton. In taking over Morken’s realm, he created a new and powerful kingdom, known subsequently as the Kingdom of Strathclyde, which stretched from the top of Loch Lomond to the borders of present-day Cheshire. Redderech asked Mungo to return. This he did, first going back to Hoddom, but then further north to the real seat of power, Dumbarton. This was his third episcopate.

However, although Dumbarton was the official capital, peace meant that royal residences could operate outside the confines of an armed camp. Redderech and his wife Queen Languoreth (who may well have been the model for the Gwenevere of the mediaeval Arthurian writers) had palaces at Govan and at Rutherglen, now both parts of Glasgow. As bishop, Mungo was given his own estate in which to establish a religious and educational community. This was done on the site of what is now Glasgow Cathedral. As such, this makes Mungo founder of Glasgow. When Mungo died, he was buried in his own community, making the site one of pilgrimage and importance. Around it arose a township, and by the 12th century it was a cathedral city. Through the centuries, it continued to grow, in importance, in wealth, in status and in population. But it all started because of a religious settlement, and both the city’s coat of arms and his motto relate directly to the founding father, whose remains are still buried in the crypt of the Cathedral. The motto is now “Let Glasgow flourish” but it used to be “Let Glasgow flourish by the preaching of the Word” an expression that is ascribed to Mungo himself.

The city’s coat of arms, which was the same as that of the old pre-reformation diocese (for the simple reason that the bishop was the civil power in the city until the 17th century), shows the saint at the top and, like the mediaeval seal at the head of this Web page, contains elements linked directly to Mungo. There is his bell. The bird and the salmon with a ring refer to two of his miracles. The bird, a robin, had been a pet of St Serf, but some fellow classmates, jealous of Mungo, killed it, hoping to pin the blame on him. Mungo restored it to life.

The salmon and the ring relat to Queen Longuoreth’s adultery with a young soldier and Mungo’s saving of the Queen. She had presented her lover with a ring which given to her by Redderech. However, a servant informed the king of the affair. Although Redderech did not want to believe the tale, the sight of ring on the young soldier’s hand convinced him. He then laid a plot to denounce his wife publicly. He invited the soldier to go hunting with him and then, when the young man fel asleep (Redderech presumably got him drunk), he slipped up the ring off his finger and threw it into the Clyde. He then went back and demanded that his wife show him the ring. She, of course, could not get it back from her lover because it was now lost. As a result she was then denounced and thrown into prison to await execution, despite the efforts of the courtiers to have her pardoned. (There is much in this story that relates to those of Gwenevere and Lancelot).

In prison, she sends a messenger to Mungo asking for forgiveness and aid. When the messenger arrives, he is immediately told by the bishop to go fishing in the Clyde and to bring back straightway the first fish he catches. This is a salmon, which, on being cut open, is seen to contain the ring. This is then taken to the queen who presents it to the King, who, understandably, cannot understand what has happened but nonetheless forgives her. Jocelin cannot desist in informing his readers that she then berates Redderech for doubting her in the first place, but that nonethelessshe forgives him. Jocelin also tells us that she made sure that there was no repetition of such behaviour on her part and that she never revealed the truth of what happened until after her husband’s death. One could therefore say that Mungo’s participated in a major deception, but it all came right in the end.

Despite what Jocelin says elsewhere, Mungo should not be seen as a missionary saint. He was brought up and lived his entire life in a predominantly Christian milieu. Lothian, Rheged, Wales, Strathclyde had been Christian long before he was born. At Govan, where Redderech and Languoreth lived, there has been a church since the 6th century, dedicated to St Constantine (not the Roman emperor) who had been a ruler in the area in the early 6th century. Dumbarton had had a Christian ruler, one Corotech, at the time of St Patrick, a good century earlier; (Patrick wrote to him, denouncing him for capturing and enslaving Irish Christians whom he had baptised, the inference being that this was not acceptable practice for a Christian.)

Exactly what gave Mungo his reputation will not be known this side of the grave. Suffice it to say that there was clearly something in the man – maybe it was great holiness – that made the memory of him endure through the centuries.

He died on 13th January, 613, and there is a final interesting point in Jocelin’s Life. Jocelin admits that he used earlier written sources but that he edited them because he found some of the stories incomprehensible. He tells us however, that on the Octave of the Feast of the Epiphany (13th January), Mungo entered a vessel filled with warm water and then, encircled by his brethren, “yielded up his spirit”. It has been suggested that Jocelin was unaware that he was distorting a more credible story involving an a mass Epiphany baptism. The suggestion is that at Epiphany Mungo conducted such a baptism, which at the time was still done by complete immersion. In early January it is still rather cold in Glasgow, and even today it is customary in the locality to warm up water for baptism. The thesis is that Mungo went into warmed up water to administer baptism but then caught a cold and died a week later. The date of his death is kept as his feast day.

You say you are Orthodox? And what did you say your baptismal namewas? I am a Northern Irish convert to Orthodoxy who regularly findshimself working and going to church in places which are much closer to thetraditional heartland of eastern Christianity. So I am often asked, by gingerlyGreeks or sceptical Serbs, about my path to Orthodoxy and in particularmy patronal saint. When I give the answer, the scepticism sometimesdeepens. And so – if the conversation is worth pursuing at all – I find myselfattempting to explain the Christian heritage of the place where I grew up,and my own relationship to that place. Sometimes people are interested;sometimes I can watch their eyes glaze over. But since my story is the storyof many western Orthodox Christians, I shall try telling it in print.When I had the joy of being received into the Orthodox Church just overseven years ago, I took the name of Columba, the saint of Ireland andenlightener of Scotland. The process whereby priest and catechumen settleon a name is always a mysterious one; but in my case the decision to acceptthe name and seek the protecting guidance of Columba seemed to accordwell with my own cultural origins; and also with the calling I had felt, howeverdimly, to another Kingdom, in which all national and cultural differencesare set aside.I was brought up in the north of Ireland, in a family of keen seafarers; thenorth and northwestern coasts of Ireland, and the Western Isles of Scotland,were the locus of my childhood. While my father and brother had a fascinationwith the business of boating itself – sails, winds, tides, charts, navigational aids and so on – I was always more interested in the places we sailedto, and the way they spoke there. From my earliest consciousness I wasintrigued with words, written or spoken, in almost any tongue; one of myclearest boyhood memories is of sailing to small Scottish islands and tryingout my few phrases of self-taught Gaelic on bemused shopkeepers and postmen.These islands, the stepping-stones between Scotland and Ireland, werethe country of Columba, who stands out among the saints as a navigator anda scribe: a gifted boat-handler and master of the written and spoken wordwho wrote poetry himself, was an accomplished calligrapher and masteredLatin as well as his native Gaelic. He made many voyages through thisstretch of water, but one journey in particular has always been regarded asthe great turning-point in his life: the one he made in or around 563 AD,when he left his native Ireland and set out with a dozen companions to establisha monastery on the tiny island of Iona. He lived for another 34 years onthe island; by the time he reposed in great holiness in 597 AD, the monasteryhad become one of the leading centres of Christian asceticism and learningin western Europe. Columba’s spiritual children continued to train kings,produce beautiful manuscripts and above all worship God for another twocenturies, before the community was wiped out by the Vikings.As an Orthodox catechumen, I remembered at least these elementaryfacts of Columba’s life because of a landmark event in my own family history:in 1963, when I was just four, my father skippered and led an AnglicanChurch project which recreated the saint’s voyage from Ireland to Scotland,in a small wood-framed sailing and rowing-boat. As far as possible, the vesselwas designed to resemble the craft which Columba would have used; itwas a kind of boat known as a curragh, lined with leather, canvas, and tar,which Irish fishermen were still using in the 20th century. At one level, the1963 voyage had been a boisterous and enjoyable historical pageant; but atanother level, I knew, it had been a deep spiritual experience for all the participants.Whenever I heard my father and other veterans of the voyagereminisce about the experience, I realized it had been a pilgrimage as wellas a sailing-trip. So for all those reasons, it was a great and awesome privilegefor me to receive the sacraments under the name of Columba and toseek Columba’s protection in my daily prayers. Then, as my gushing convert’s enthusiasm waned a little, I ran into a difficultyin my Orthodox life: or rather two, inter-related difficulties. One wasthat as I travelled round the traditionally Orthodox countries – Russia,Georgia, the Balkans – I ran into a wall of popular scepticism about thelegitimacy of western saints, even pre-schism ones, as Orthodox baptismalnames. “No, there must have been some mistake, you can’t have been baptisedproperly,” I was told more than once. In reply, I would rehearse thewell-known (and perfectly correct) arguments: Columba and the other greatsaints of the early Christian West are part of the common heritage of theundivided Church, and so they have a well-deserved place among the treasuresof Orthodoxy. But for good reason, people from the old Orthodoxworld are reluctant to be taught new tricks by upstart converts from strangecountries; so more than once I found myself put down rather sharply. Theother difficulty I encountered was with western Christians: “We know theRoman Catholics have an interest in the early Celtic Church,” they wouldsay, “and so do the Scottish Presbyterians and the Anglicans – but whatpossible connection can there be between Gaelic saints like Columba andthe eastern Orthodox?”So to satisfy both schools of questioners – the eastern and the western – Ifound myself asking, at times rather desperately: where, if anywhere, is theOrthodox Saint Columba? I clutched rather feverishly, and gratefully, at anystraws of reassurance I could find. It was a joy to find that Alpha i Omega,a Russian quarterly journal published in Moscow with the blessing of thePatriarch, had featured a very competent article on Saint Columba in 1997;and better still to discover a good little book on Columba and the Celtic saintswritten in Greek by Thanasis Papathanasiou. It was comforting to hear ofseveral Orthodox priests, and at least one nun, with the name of Columba.Even more important was the discovery of the various connecting threadsbetween Christianity on Europe’s western fringe and the early ChristianEast. For example, I came across the beautiful Gaelic hymn of praise to SaintColumba, written very shortly after his repose, which describes him as agreat follower of Saints Basil the Great and John Cassian. The latter saint, asI remembered, was a great teacher of the Egyptian and Palestinian monastictradition to the Christian West; it made perfect sense that Columba was, at least indirectly, his spiritual child. Then people pointed out to me the uncannyresemblances between the stone carving and illuminations of the Celticworld and the art of Christian Egypt or Armenia. I also heard of the tantalizingreferences to “a vine transplanted from Egypt” or to “seven monks fromEgypt” in the surviving fragments of liturgical language from early ChristianIreland. Then there was the fact that Columba’s saintly biographer Adomnanwas quite an authority on the sacred geography of the Christian East. Withthe help of a wandering priest who washed up on Iona’s shore, Adomnanpenned a remarkable account of Christian Jerusalem during the early yearsafter the Arab conquest. Adomnan was an excellent linguist whose Latin waspeppered with Greek-derived words. So for all these reasons, it seemedentirely legitimate, after all, for an Orthodox Christian to try walking, howeverinadequately, in Columba’s giant foot-steps.But is Orthodoxy simply one among many competitors for a slice of theColumba heritage? Reading the ecclesiastical history of the British Isles inthe 19th century, you can trace the almost comical way in which one Christian denomination after another tried to lay claim to the saintlyenlightener of Scotland. Roman Catholics tried to proclaim Columba as aloyal servant of the Pope, while the non-conformists stressed the differencesof practice between Rome and the early Celtic Church, making the saint intoan early anti-Papist hero. In the 20th century, a charismatic Presbyterianchurchman, George McLeod, founded a community on Columba’s islandwhich modelled itself on the saint’s gritty practicality: it was supposed tocombine religious practice with engagement with the problems of the worldat its most sordid and grimy. Since then, the Iona community has becomeinter-denominational and, from an Orthodox perspective, far more politicalthan spiritual. There is also an Anglican retreat house on the island and asof quite recently, a RomanCatholic one. So are theOrthodox, who have beenorganizing pilgrimages to Ionasince 1997, simply johnniescome-lately who want to planttheir own flag on Columba’sIona, along with all the others?And where do the Orthodoxstand in the contest betweenmany different constituencies(by no means all religious) toclaim a piece of Columba’sheritage? Ecologists call him an early green, Scottish nationalists call him aproto-patriot, feminists see him and the Celtic Church as pioneers of genderequality. So does it make sense, then, for an Orthodox Christian to ask:which is “our bit” of Saint Columba?In the end, it is only the saint himself who can answer that question.Reading the Life of Columba, a vivid and often intensely moving narrativepenned about a hundred years after his repose, many things are strange, andmany are uncannily familiar to an Orthodox Christian. The world in whichhe lived could hardly be more different from our own. The Celtic lands hadnever been part of the Roman empire; there were no roads, no towns, nomoney, no stone buildings or monuments. There was perpetual warfarebetween petty tribal leaders, and life had a high probability of ending violently.Every sea voyage had a good chance of ending in shipwreck. A chance encounter with another human being was an occasion of deadly danger,rather than mild curiosity.So the external circumstances in which Columba lived are so far removedfrom our own – even if we live in one of the planet’s wilder corners – thatwe can hardly imagine them. But reread his life, and there are momentswhich are so close to the ongoing Orthodox tradition of asceticism that theymight have been written yesterday – or any other time in the last 2,000years. Above all, Columba was gifted with a mixture of compassion and discernmentwhich cut across the barriers of time, space, life and death – invery much the same way as the contemporary elders of the Greek church,such as Fathers Porphyrios and Iakovos. From his cell on Iona, Columbawas aware of the fellow monastics who were in peril on the sea hundreds ofmiles away; of a pregnant woman in Ireland who was undergoing the painsof labour; and of the spiritual war being waged over the souls of the newlydeparted. This was no clairvoyant trick, it was a gift which flowed naturallyfrom his own spiritual struggles to free himself from the sins of pride and

self-centredness and hence to share the travails of others, both far and near.

 

Quote for today

What is grace? It is the blessed power of God. . the power that cleanses, sanctifies, enlightens, that helps in doing good and withdraws from evil, that comforts and gives courage in misfortunes, sorrows, and sickness; that is a pledge of receiving the everlasting blessings, prepared by God in heaven for His chosen ones.

— Saint John of Kronstadt

When I first came across this passage as a student more than forty years ago, I said to myself: That is the only view of hell that makes any sense to me.  God is love, St. Isaac tells us, and this divine love is unchanging and in inexhaustible.  God’s love is everywhere and embraces everything: “If I go down to hell, There are there also”.  Thus even those in hell are not cut off from the love of God.  Love acts, however, in a twofold way: it is joy to those who accept it but torture to those who shut it out.  In the words of George MacDonald, “The terror of God is but the other side of His love; it is love outside, that would be inside.”  

 

Thus those in hell feel as agonizing pain that which the saints feel as unending delight.  God does not inflict torment upon those in hell, but it is they who torment themselves through their willful refusal to respond to His love.  As George Bernanos observes, “hell is not to love anymore.”  “The love of God,” writes Vladimir Lossky, “will be an intolerable torment to those who have not acquired it within themselves.”  

Bishop Kallistos Ware of Oxford England

Quote for today

As to those people who are good and kind but are not believers, we cannot and must not judge them. The ways of the Lord are inscrutable; let us leave these good people entirely to His judgment and to the grace of His Providence. He alone knows how and why He has built the argosy of humanity, and the small boat of each one of us, such as it is.

— Saint Macarius of Optina

Guilt verses Humility

The Holy fathers, as well as modern prophets of our church, enjoin us to think of ourselves as nothing.  The Martyrius of Edessa says, “Self-accusation before God is something that is very necessary for us.”  St. Silouan encourages us to, “Keep our mind’s in hell and despair not,” while the desert fathers tell us that the happy man is one who accuses himself first when any dispute arises.  “Forgive a brother who has wronged you before he is sorry,” and “In every trial do not blame other people but blame yourself, saying, ‘This has happened to me because of my sins.’”  We read further in the Desert Fathers that Antony said to Poemen, “Our great work is to lay the blame for our sins upon ourselves before God, and to expect to be tempted to our last breath.”  They tell us that, ”To be subject to all is not to give your attention to the sins of others but always to give your attention to your own sins and to pray without ceasing to God.” There is a whole chapter On Self Accusation in The Saying of Abba Dorotheus where he says, “In everything blame oneself.  There is no other way but this.”  Needless to say, self-accusation is important.  The Holy Fathers repeatedly tell us that the mia culpa is so basic a Christian tenet that without it no advances in the spiritual life can be made.

Earlier this year, August 2007, I visited my favorite monastery (the only monastery I have ever visited, but still my favorite) and on Sunday morning, as usual, there were many guests.  The Abbot read a portion from the life of St. Saraphim of Serov where the Saint discoursed on this very subject.  He then proceeded to wax eloquent. 

“Most Americans are so busy drowning in guilt,” he said, “that they would be totally unable to hear a message like this one.  American culture is based on guilt.”  Somebody asked the Abbot to elaborate.  “There are Shame-based societies and Guilt-based societies,” he continued.  “Asian cultures are shame-based whereas America is predominantly guilt-based.”

This is an hard saying, who can hear it.  For those who have grown up in guilt-based societies, hearing a message of blaming oneself is all but impossible.  We are taught to think well of ourselves, to tell ourselves how good we are, and to positively affirm our true potential.  Sadly, this kind of thinking has even crept into books giving advice to Christians on how to live.  This overreaction can only be present in people with a very deep seated sense of guilt. 

Archimandrite Sophrony has the answer.  He writes that, “ No one on this earth can avoid affliction; and although the afflictions which the Lord sends are not great men imagine them beyond their strength and are crushed by them. This is because they will not humble their souls and commit themselves to the will of God. But the Lord Himself guides with His grace those who are given over to God’s will, and they bear all things with fortitude for the sake of God Whom they have so loved and with Whom they are glorified for ever. It is impossible to escape tribulation in this world but the man who is giver over to the will of God bears tribulation easily, seeing it but putting his trust in the Lord, and so his tribulations pass.”  Another Father, I don’t remember who at the moment, says that God will never reveal more of our sin at one time than He knows we can handle.  Moreover, the whole concept of guilt is a western one and should be dismissed from any devotional context.  

 In Western theology, guilt is also strongly felt.  Inventions like original sin have each successive generation inhereting Adam’s sin.   The Western Church envisions Christ’s death as atoning for our sins.  God had to take a perfect sacrifice because the justice that was offended was Perfect.  It is like a Fiefdom in the middle ages where members of two rival Fiefdoms need to cross a narrow bridge.  There is only room for one group.  They square off.  A servant from one House kills the son of a Lord from the other House.  The Lord who’s son was killed doesn’t demand the blood of the servant.  He demands the son of the other Fiefdom.  Only then is justice served.  This dynamic was operational in the middle ages when the Catholic church worked out the doctrine of substitutional atonement, which was then passed on to Protestantism and lives on today in various incarnations.   Paul Evdokimov quotes Fr. Sergius Bulgakov describing this as ”penitential theology” in an essay which takes on various harsh theologies.  For the Eastern Church, salvation is not at all juridical.  It is not the sentence of a court of law.  The verb yacha in Hebrew means “to have some elbow-room,” to be at ease.  In the most general sense it means to deliver, to save from danger, from an illness, ultimately, to save from death.  It describes that which delivers.  Precisely and most particularly, it means to reestablish a living balance, to heal.  The substantive yecha, salvation, refers to complete deliverance with peace-shalom at the end.  The same ideas are found in the writings of the Greek Bishop, Hierotheos Vlachos. 

He defines Orthodoxy as medicine and says it is a therapeutic science.  In his book Orthodox Psychotherapy, Bishop Vlachos quotes Fr. John Romanides that, “The patristic tradition is neither a social philosophy nor an ethical system, nor is it religious dogmatism: it is a therapeutic treatment. In this respect it closely resembles medicine, especially psychiatry.”  The Bishop continues: From what has been said so far it is clear that Christianity is principally a science which cures, that is to say, a psychotherapeutic method and treatment. The same should be said of theology. It is not a philosophy but mainly a therapeutic treatment. Orthodox theology shows clearly that on the one hand it is a fruit of therapy and on the other hand it points the way to therapy. In other words, only those who have been cured and have attained communion with God are theologians, and they alone can show Christians the true way to reach the `place’ of cure. So theology is both a fruit and a method of therapy.  Only in this context can “heresy” make any sense.  Unfortunately, the word “heresy” is colored by images of Cardinals with prisons in their castles and witch hunts.  The early church didn’t persecute heretics and it certainly never forced anyone to be Christians.  In the East, heresy is defined as something that dilutes, or polutes, the medicine.  This is something that is misunderstood when I am having discussions with the few evangelical friends I have kept up with over the years, such as a missionary I know—, who was sent to the United States from Europe to preach the gospel.  Who would think of calling it heavy-handed  to fire a nurse at a hospital who had the propensity for mixing up medicines?  The Church’s doctrines are doctrines that heal, in conjuncton with the sacraments, and from this context are the anathamas understood. 

We have seen that theologically, as well as culturally, western society is guilt-based.  The antidote, ironically, is a spirituality which blames oneself.  Only then is true peace—and happiness—achieved.  Why?  Because the humble man is the happy one.  Although it is a paradox, the way to overcome guilt is through the humility which blames oneself.

Dare we hope for the salvation of all?

As Christians we are here to affirm the supreme value in direct sharing, of immediate encounter — not machine to machine, but person to person, face to face. 

                    Bishop Kallistos Ware “The Mysery of the Human Person.”

 He is not the fearful Judge but he is Love and the very love which subjectively becomes suffering among the outcasts and joy among the blessed.  Sinners in hell are not deprived of divine love, but estrangement from the source, poverty and emptiness of heart, make them incapable of responding to the love of God, which in turn produces suffering; but this cannot continue, for after the Parousia-revelation of God, one cannot but love Christ.  How can this happen without suffering when the heart’s substance is impoverished to the point of making it mute? 

                                        Paul Evdokimov

       

Bishop Kallistos Ware, arguably the most important Orthodox scholar of this century has written an essay called, “Dare We Hope for the Salvation of All”, in a collection called “The Inner Kingdom”, where he references George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis and other church fathers.  It is a great essay (that’s putting it mildly!) and the only one I have found so far which can clearly state the Orthodox position on this doctrine which everyone wonders about (if they say they don’t wonder about it then they are probably not telling the truth).  I first read it in a collection of his while visiting my favorite monastery, but have recently discovered the work is available online and want to encourage my friends to read it.  It can be assessed through google by typing in keywords such as The Inner Kingdom or Kallistos Ware George MacDonald.  It is too large to reprint here.

When I bring up this subject, many of my aquaintences say “Case closed”.  They are usually not very far away from bringing up Origin and the anathemas, or else I feel them just around the corner.  Often these people seem to be unconsiously operating under a protestant frame of reference (although they would vigorously deny this).  The tendency to apply to church fathers and church councels an authority which the bible had for them previously undercuts the sheer diveristy within church tradition, as solo-scripturaundercuts the diversity within scripture.  For my part, I have no problem seeing the whole tradition as inspired, even if everything can’t be made to line up point by point in agreement.  Even John Meyendorf, former dean of St. Vladimir’s Seminary, while agreeing with the doctrine of eternal punishment, admits that the case against Origin—as commonly applied—is not categorical in this respect.  He refers to the doctrine of the “second resurrection” (a long Greek word), commonly used as a synonym for Universal Salvation and explains that this is more close to reincarnation than Univesralism and while the anathama has authority, not everything Origin taught is thrown out.  Paul Evdokoma, likewise, an Orthodox luminary in the first half of the 20th century and pioneer in the ecumenical movement, goes even further.  He says that the counsel which condemned the “second resurrection” was hastily convened for political reasons and questions its authenticity.  To illustrate its political motivations, he stresses that it was very uncommon for church fathers to posthumously condemn well regarded fathers.  He says that the Emperor, for personal reasons, brought a list of doctrines he wanted the cancel to ratify, including which was the anathamas which were directed against Origin.  It is true that certain of Origins teachings were condemned.  There is no question about that.  But Origin taught many things that were not condemned and which are affirmed by the church.  To attribute Universal Salvation to the condemnations is absurd.   Paul Evdokimov repeats John Meyendorf’s belief that what was condemned at this counsel dealing with Origin was not what we think of today as Universal Salvation but something more esoteric, the pre-existence of the soul and the belief that in the resurrection everyone returns to his original place before the fall.  

The article “Dare We Hope for the Salvation of All” by Kallistos Ware is useful for evaluating the constrasting strands in our tradition.  He ends his essay by a humorous story of a trip to Greece he took.  He had been waiting for some time alone with this Greek Bishop.  When it finally happened and they got into the car together, he popped the question which is the title of this essay: Dare we hope for the salvation of all?  He records the Bishop’s reply, which was a gruff ”Mind your own business.” 

 This humility—characteristic of our tradition—is probably more important than the question itself.  Before I was Orthodox, I called myself “a universalist”.  Looking back, I can see that this was all I believed in.  I demanded grace of God.  Pope Benedict, in his book Introduction to Christianity, written before he was Pope, says that modern man thinks he deserves heaven and it is uphill work to try and convince him of his sinfulness.  The realiziation of the falsity of my Universalist position mostly dawned on me gradually.  Realizing that the concept of fire and brimstore, eternal torment is not part of the Eastern mindset was major.  Universalism seems to spring from cultures with a very deep strain of harsh theology as a reaction to this “penitential theology”.  Indeed, in traditional Christianity the fire of hell is a metaphor.  Everyone goes to be with God after they die, but to those who are unprepared they receive God’s love as something which burns.  Because there is no dualism in Orthodoxy, a separate realm for the devil and sinners (Dante’s vision), co-existing throughout time with heaven, is foreign.  Maybe that is why I’ve never heard of an Eastern Orthodox person unlearning his faith and arriving at a belief in Universalism.  But these realizations were gradual.  There were some moments, however, when giant steps were made.  One of those moments I would like to share. 

 I was taking a catechism class at a church in Milwuakie, OR.  It might have been after I was baptised or shortly before, I don’t remember.  (I miss those classes so much, but it is not practical for me to attend because I don’t have a car and there is a weather factor.)  One of the tricks I used to support my position was the burden of proof.  Assume hell (as popularly conceived) doesn’t exist and then if anyone brings it up argue that they are contradicting God’s love.  The priest mentioned eternal hell during the class and I raised my hand.  I said that what the priest was telling us was incredable because it made God into a monster and I couldn’t even begin to feel that hell existed. 

He said, “Okay,” and then proceeded to tell a story.  “During a sermon last year I asked ‘what is it about all these horror movies and monster movies that have just come out, and computer games depicting demons and witches and goules that attract so much of our youth?  And why aren’t Christians drawn to this sort of thing?’  Afterwards a man came up to me and said, ‘We don’t need all this because we know it is real.  We already have an idea of the reality of the demonic realm.’  In cultures where there isn’t an understanding of hell, the popular myths will create one.”  I was pretty much knocked on my feet.  It certainly wasn’t the answer I was expecting, but it floored me and I never saw things the same after that.  Looking back I can see that I was soft on sin, mostly my own.  We are the product of our ideas.  We live out—to a remarkable extent—the (often unconscious) philosophies and worldviews we choose to align ourselves with.  In my case, those philosophies made me soft on sin.  The title of Kallistos Ware’s essay is Dare We Hope For the Salvation of All.  The opperatonal word here is ‘hope’.  “Minding our own business” is just as central as speculating about where we go after we die.

Looking back, I can see that the process of unlearning my Universalism would have been more smooth, beneficial, and enjoyable, if I had have been allowed to do it myself, rather than having other converts tell me I was wrong and demand that I change my views.  As I found out later, through reading articles like the one’s Kallistos Ware and Paul Evdokimov, there is “elbow room” in our tradition for this.

I have removed the foregoing article after receiving a comment from someone suggesting I do so.  I have, however, left the relevent quotations.

This is what Matthew Gallatin says: The Orthodox Faith is not a philosophy to which one gives mental assent. It is not merely a set of doctrines that one chooses to believe.  No, Orthodoxy is a sacramental life that must be lived out within the communal bonds of the true Body of Christ.  It is a life totally devoted to the self-sacrificing, obedient service of Christ.  Through that wholehearted and complete obedience, one participates in the breath, heartbeat, movement, desire, and Spirit of the living Christ.

Robin Phillips writes…Even in the church, it is sad that unity is often based on factors other than Jesus Christ. That is why many Christians cannot debate issues, for they immediately take any disagreement as a signal that there is division. Because Jesus is not the centre of their unity, enormous premium has to be placed on agreement. On the other hand, those who understand that all are one in Christ Jesus should experience a freedom to debate theological issues because we know our unity is based on something more solid than whether or not we happen to agree.

G.K. Chesterton writes,

…what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt — the Divine Reason. Huxley preached a humility content to learn from Nature. But the new sceptic is so humble that he doubts if he can even learn. Thus we should be wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our time. The truth is that there is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping; not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether. At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic and blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his view may not be the right one. Of course his view must be the right one, or it is not his view. We are on the road to producing a race of men too mentally modest to believe in the multiplication table. We are in danger of seeing philosophers who doubt the law of gravity as being a mere fancy of their own. Scoffers of old time were too proud to be convinced; but these are too humble to be convinced. The meek do inherit the earth; but the modern sceptics are too meek even to claim their inheritance.

Exposing Protestant Myths: from archive (with bits added)

(I’m not sure any person from the middle east would say that the word “brother” and “cousin” are synomous, but certainly a lot would.  And also, some protestants object to the phrase “mother of God”.  They, however, also accept the authority of many of the first church councels.  This phrase “mother of God” comes out of one of the early counsels, i don’t remember which one off hand.  It’s interesting that the Roman Catholics also accept this cancel.  I think it was Calcedon.  This councel also said that no one Bishop could claim authority over other Bishop’s jurisdictions.  That is interesting in light of papism.  It’s also true that Eusibius, in his history of the early church, said Jesus had regular brothers.  He also said a lot of other things that weren’t accurate.  He was an Arian, so consider the source.  Moreover, this is just a fraction of the answers the Holy Church offers us.)

Tomorrow is the feast where the church celebrates the Nativity of the Theotokos.  I wanted to take the opportunity to expose some protestant myths about the Mother of God.  Many Protestants I encounter are sincere and there is much to admire in their evangelical zeal.  However, as regards Mary they are often extremely misinformed.  This is understandable.  Roman Catholic stereotypes do little to foster a curiosity on the part of protestants for the Orthodox position which, at first glance, can appear similar. 

Take her perpetual virginity.  Protestants often point to the scriptures where Jesus’ brothers and sisters are mentioned. 

First of all, it would be extremely uncommon in that era for any family to have as many children as are attributed to Joseph and Mary by the cynics.  The infant mortality rate was too high, combined with the fact that so many women died in childbirth, for Jesus to have had such a large family.  I remember a story a priest told me, when discussing this very topic, about a middle eastern man he had met who like his uncle so much and spent so much time at his Uncle’s house when he was a child that he didn’t even know who his father was until he was age nine.  He used the same word, the English equivalent of father,  to refer to his uncles as well.  I don’t have the scriptures in front of me, but something like four brothers and three sisters are mentioned.  In the middle east—to this day—cousins and extended family are referred to using the same words: brother and sister.  The concept of a nuclearfamily was not even on the picture book of Semitic people, who thought in tribal terms.  The phrase Jesus’ brothers is clear to any middle eastern person.  It does not necessarily mean what we think of today as brothers.  Moreover, at the cross Jesus gives his mother to James the evangelist.   “Behold thy mother, behold thy son.”  In the context of a semetic culture, this would have been an insult to his mother if there were any remaining brothers. 

Moving on…

Mary was thirteen when she was married to Joseph.  This is something else that is hard for modern Americans to understand until they realize that this practice of marrying early was actually quite common throughout the middle east in that time period.  Joseph was much older.  There is evidence that he had children from a previous marriage.  Protestants sometimes say that the doctrine of the perpetual virginity downplays sex.  (This argument is actually a logical fallacy based solely on pragmatic considerations.  Weather the church’s historical memory glorifies sex or not is profoundly irrelevant.)  Think about it for a moment: Joseph is maybe fifty or sixty years old.  His wife is thirteen and has just given birth to God.  He doesn’t know exactly what has happened, but is able to sense that something divine and miraculous has occur. God has just come through her womb.  Under these circumstances, it would be inconceivable for Joseph to even think of approaching her. 

Moving on…

 ”Blessed is the womb that bear you and the paps which gave you suck…” the women cried.  “Yea rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” This reply of Jesus is not understood, but it makes perfect sense in the context of Holy Tradition—where Orthodox teachers know Greek.  This scripture used to puzzle me.  I was a catechuman for only two months before this problem was cleared up.  In the original Greek, Jesus is saying, “Yes.  Indeed blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”  Christ is saying, in essence, that—even greater than nursing him and caring for him—Mary is to be honoured for hearing the word of God and obeying it.  Protestants love to point out that Mary says, “Be it unto me according to thy will.”  Maybe they like the show of submissiveness.  It should be remembered that Mary chose this path freely out of a sincere devotion and love for God.  She had a choice, like all of us.  But she made the right choice. 

“What have I to do with you women?”  This question that Jesus’ asks his mother has troubled many protestant theologians, including George MacDonald—who see it as a kind of insult.  This is also seen by cynics as Jesus putting his mother in her place.  It is a good example, however, of the pitfalls of solo-scriptura.  This sentence in Greek reads quite differently.  It has been mangled in the translation.  “What can I do for you madam,” would be a more accurate rendering.  According to a talk given by a Greek theologian Constantine Zeulous, women—in that setting—was a term of respect and endearment, not the denigration we normally associate with the appellation.  Moreover, the English translation makes no sense in the context where Jesus commenced his ministry by turning water into wine simply to satisfy a request of his mother.

 As we approach the Nativity of the theotokos, we would all do well to “hear the word of God and obey it”.  Rejoice oh Virgin Theotokos Full of Grace.  The Lord is with thee.  Blessed are thou among women and blessed is the fruit of they womb.  More honourable than the Cherabim and beyond more Glorious than the Saraphim, the very Mother of God thee we Laud and Magnify.

prologe of Ochrid

The Prologue from Ohrid

Thanks to the Serbian Orthodox Church Diocese of Western America, we now have easy internet access to Nikolai Velimirovic’s The Prologue from Ohrid: Lives of Saints, Hymns, Reflections and Homilies for Every Day of the Year. To use it, you simply input the calendar day on the main page and it will take you to information about the saints of that particular day. It’s a neat resource that allows us to learn a little bit more about all those many names on the Orthodox Church calendar.

Check it out at: http://www.westsrbdio.org/prolog/prolog.htm

clarification about Islam

300 Islamic scholars from every sect of Islam recently wrote a paper which was submitted to Christian scholars and the Vatican.  They said, “We are not against Christianity,” and highlighted passages in the Bible and the Koran which were similar.  They pleaded with these Christian leaders and scholars to tell their people not to invade Muslim land and drive Muslim’s off their home.  They said, “We are not against you.”  They said that Christianity was a good religion.

 If real Islamic terrorism exists, it was a creation of the CIA and only a fringe part of Islamic history.  Many people, however, feel comfort in a Manichean worldview which pits us against themin a class of civilizations that has only good guys and bad guys with nothing inbetween.  This statement by the 300 Muslim scholars, though, should be seen as the authentic voice of Islam, or the real Islam, on the subject.  Similarly,  the voices of the Late Pope John Paul and Pope Benedict against the Iraq war and imperialism, along with the official statements of all the mainline Christian denominations, which uniformly condemned the war in Iraq, should be seen as the real voice of Christianity on the subject. 

our deepest fear

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

The Scope of Our Art

The scope of our art is to provide the soul with wings, to rescue it from the world and to give it to God, and to watch over that which is in His image, if it abides; to take it by the hand, if it is in danger; or to rescue it, if ruined; to make Christ to dwell in the heart by the Spirit: and, in short, to deify, and bestow heavenly bliss upon, one who belongs to the heavenly host.

St. Gregory Nazianzus

African Creed

I’m thankful to the late Orthodox historian Pelikan for exposing me to this beautiful African creed during an NPR radio interview.

We believe in the one High God, who out of love created the beautiful world and everything good in it. He created man and wanted man to be happy in the world. God loves the world and every nation and tribe on the earth. We have known this High God in darkness, and now we know him in the light. God promised in the book of his word, the bible, that he would save the world and all the nations and tribes.

We believe that God made good his promise by sending his son, Jesus Christ, a man in the flesh, a Jew by tribe, born poor in a little village, who left his home and was always on safari doing good, curing people by the power of God, teaching about God and man, showing the meaning of religion is love. He was rejected by his people, tortured and nailed hands and feet to a cross, and died. He lay buried in the grave, but the hyenas did not touch him, and on the third day, he rose from the grave. He ascended to the skies. He is the Lord.

We believe that all our sins are forgiven through him. All who have faith in him must be sorry for their sins, be baptized in the Holy Spirit of God, live the rules of love and share the bread together in love, to announce the good news to others until Jesus comes again. We are waiting for him. He is alive. He lives. This we believe. Amen.

the true Hospital

What we have said up to this point clearly indicates that Orthodox spirituality differs distinctly from any other “spirituality” of an eastern or western type. There can be no confusion among the various spiritualities, because Orthodox spirituality is God-centred, whereas all others are man-centred.

The difference appears primarily in the doctrinal teaching. For this reason we put “Orthodox” before the word “Church” so as to distinguish it from any other religion. Certainly “Orthodox” must be linked with the term “Ecclesiastic”, since Orthodoxy cannot exist outside of the Church; neither, of course, can the Church exist outside Orthodoxy.

The dogmas are the results of decisions made at the Ecumenical Councils on various matters of faith. Dogmas are referred to as such, because they draw the boundaries between truth and error, between sickness and health. Dogmas express the revealed truth. They formulate the life of the Church. Thus they are, on the one hand, the expression of Revelation and on the other act as “remedies” in order to lead us to communion with God; to our reason for being.

Dogmatic differences reflect corresponding differences in therapy. If a person does not follow the “right way” he cannot ever reach his destination. If he does not take the proper “remedies”, he cannot ever acquire health; in other words, he will experience no therapeutic benefits. Again, if we compare Orthodox spirituality with other Christian traditions, the difference in approach and method of therapy is more evident. A fundamental teaching of the Holy Fathers is that the Church is a “Hospital” which cures the wounded man. In many passages of Holy Scripture such language is used. One such passage is that of the parable of the Good Samaritan. “But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee” (Luk. 10, 33-35).

In this parable, the Samaritan represents Christ who cured the wounded man and led him to the Inn, that is to the “Hospital” which is the Church. It is evident here that Christ is presented as the Healer, the physician who cures man’s maladies; and the Church as the true Hospital.

It is very characteristic that Saint Chrysostom, analysing this parable presents these truths emphasized above.

In the interpretation of this parable by St. Chrysostom it is clearly shown that the Church is a Hospital which cures people wounded by sin; and the bishops-priests are the therapists of the people of God.

And this precisely is the work of Orthodox theology. When referring to Orthodox theology, we do not simply mean a history of theology. The latter is, of course, a part of this but not absolutely or exclusively. In patristic tradition, theologians are the God-seers. St. Gregory Palamas calls Barlaam a theologian, but he clearly emphasizes that intellectual theology differs greatly from the experience of the vision of God. According to St. Gregory Palamas theologians are the God-seers; those who have followed the “method” of the Church and have attained to perfect faith, to the illumination of the nous and to divinization (theosis). Theology is the fruit of man’s therapy and the path which leads to therapy and the acquisition of the knowledge of God.

Western theology however has differentiated itself from Eastern Orthodox theology. Instead of being therapeutic, it is more intellectual and emotional in character. In the West, Scholastic theology evolved, which is antithetical to the Orthodox tradition. Western theology is based on rational thought whereas Orthodoxy is hesychastic. Scholastic theology tried to understand logically the Revelation of God and conform to philosophical methodology. Characteristic of such an approach is the saying of Anselm of Canterbury: “I believe so as to understand”. The Scholastics acknowledged God at the outset and then endeavoured to prove His existence by logical arguments and rational categories. In the Orthodox Church, as expressed by the Holy Fathers, faith is God revealing Himself to man. We accept faith by hearing it not so that we can understand it rationally, but so that we can cleanse our hearts, attain to faith by “theoria” and experience the Revelation of God.

Scholastic theology reached its culminating point in the person of Thomas Aquinas, a saint in the Roman-Catholic Church. He claimed that Christian truths are divided into natural and supernatural. Natural truths can be proven philosophically, like the truth of the Existence of God. Supernatural truths -such as the Triune God, the incarnation of the Logos, the resurrection of the bodies- cannot be proven philosophically, yet then cannot be disproven. Scholasticism linked theology very closely with philosophy, even more so with metaphysics. As a result, faith was altered and scholastic theology itself fell into complete disrepute when the “idol” of the West-metaphysics-collapsed. Scholasticism is held accountable for much of the tragic situation created in the West with respect to faith and faith issues.

The Holy Fathers teach that natural and metaphysical categories do not exist but speak rather of the created and uncreated. Never did the Holy Fathers accept Aristotle’s metaphysics. However, it is not my intent to expound further on this. Theologians of the West during the Middle Ages considered scholastic theology to be a further development of the theology of the Holy Fathers, and from this point on, begins the teaching of the Francs that scholastic theology is superior to that of the Holy Fathers. Consequently, Scholastics, who are occupied with reason, consider themselves superior to the Holy Fathers of the Church. They also believe that human knowledge, an offspring of reason, is loftier than Revelation and experience.

It is within this context that the conflict between St. Gregory Palamas and Barlaam should be viewed. Barlaam was essentially a scholastic theologian who attempted to pass on scholastic theology to the Orthodox East.

His views -that we cannot really know who the Holy Spirit is exactly, (an outgrowth of which is agnosticism), that the ancient Greek philosophers are superior to the Prophets and the Apostles (since reason is above the vision of the Apostles), that the light of the Transfiguration is something which is created and can be undone, that the hesychastic way of life is not essential -i.e. the purification of the heart and the unceasing noetic prayer- are views which express a scholastic and subsequently, a secularized point of view of theology. St. Gregory Palamas foresaw the danger that these views held for Orthodoxy and through the power and energy of the Most Holy Spirit and the experience which he himself had acquired as successor to the Holy Fathers, he confronted this great danger and preserved unadulterated the Orthodox faith and tradition.

Having given a framework to the topic at hand, if Orthodox spirituality is examined in relationship to Protestantism the differences are immediately discovered.

Protestants do not have a “therapeutic treatment”-tradition. They suppose that believing in God, intellectually, constitutes salvation. Yet salvation is not a matter of intellectual acceptance of truth; rather it is a person’s transformation and divinization by grace. This transformation is effected by the analogous “treatment” of one’s personality, as shall be seen in the following chapters. In the Holy Scripture it appears that faith comes by hearing the Word and by experiencing “theoria” (the vision of God). We accept faith at first by hearing in order to be healed, and then we attain to faith by theoria, which saves man. Protestants because they believe that the acceptance of the truths of faith, the theoretical acceptance of God’s Revelation, i.e. faith by hearing, saves man, do not have a “therapeutic tradition”. It could be said that such a conception of salvation is very naive…

From what has been said so far it is clear that Christianity is principally a science which cures, that is to say, a psychotherapeutic method and treatment. The same should be said of theology. It is not a philosophy but mainly a therapeutic treatment. Orthodox theology shows clearly that on the one hand it is a fruit of therapy and on the other hand it points the way to therapy. In other words, only those who have been cured and have attained communion with God are theologians, and they alone can show Christians the true way to reach the `place’ of cure. So theology is both a fruit and a method of therapy.

 

Parable of the Rich man and Lazarus

In studying this famous parable of Christ one can observe many things. One can deal with its social dimensions or even draw numerous ethical and moral conclusions. However, we prefer to keep within the subjects relating to life after death. In other words, we shall concern ourselves with the eschatological analysis of the parable.

First. As we see, the parable is not about life after the Second Coming of Christ, but about the life of the soul between a person’s death, when his soul leaves his body, and the Second Coming of Christ. This interval is called the intermediate state of souls. Other words spoken by Christ refer to His Second Coming, when He will come to judge men. Before that, bodily resurrection will take place, when the souls will enter their bodies again, and a person can enjoy the things that he did in his lifetime.

Second. It points out that death exists in man’s life.

The Rich Man and poor Lazarus died. Death is separation of the soul from the body. This state is also called sleep, because death was overcome by the Resurrection of Christ. Christ overcame death ontologically by His Passion, His Cross and His Resurrection, and He gave man the possibility of transcending it by living in the Church. The fact that death is a sleep, a temporary state, appears from the way in which saints die, for they all have hope in Christ, and it can be seen in their uncorrupted and wonder-working relics.

God did not create death, but death has inserted itself into nature, as a fruit of man’s sin and his withdrawal from God. There is death of the body and death of the soul. Death of the soul is the removal of the grace of God from the soul, and death of the body is the separation of the soul from the body.

All people taste the terrible mystery of death, since we all inherit corruptibility and mortality. In other words, we are born to die. Death is the surest, most certain event in our life. Even contemporary existentialist philosophers say that the truest fact is “existence towards death”.

Although death is the surest event, the day and hour of death are uncertain. No one knows when he will die. The point is to live right, so that the how of death may be eternal life.

In the text of the parable it says: “The time came when the beggar died…”, and “the rich man also died and was buried”.

Thus death is the greatest democrat, for it makes no exceptions.

Third. After Lazarus’ soul left his body, it was received by the angels and carried to Abraham’s bosom. This means that there are angels and, of course, each person’s guardian angel as his personal protector, who receive the souls of the just and take them to God.

By contrast, another parable says that the demons receive the souls of unrepentant sinners. The foolish rich man heard a voice from God: “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you; then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” (Lk. 12, 20). The verb `demand’ suggests the demons, who claim the soul of the sinful person in order to control it forever.

Therefore, at the terrible hour of death, when the soul is forcibly separated from its harmony with the body, dreadful things happen. The angels receive the souls of the saints, and the demons receive the souls of sinners. The teaching of the Fathers of the Church speaks of the `customs houses’, which are the demons, the aerial spirits which desire and attempt to rule the souls of all people forever. Of course the souls of the saints, which have been united with Christ and bear the seal of the Holy Spirit, cannot be controlled by the demons.

When the Fathers of the Church speak of the customs houses, they mean both the hatred and aggressive fury of the demons and the existence of the passions, which seek satisfaction but cannot be satisfied because of the non-existence of the body. It is just this condition that suffocates the soul, which feels a terrible anguish. This torment of the soul is like the complete solitary confinement of a person in prison without any possibility of sleeping, eating, meeting anyone, and so forth. Then his passions and his whole being are really infuriated.

The fact that men’s souls are received by angels or by demons is relative to their condition. As the Fathers say, angels and souls are noetic spirits in comparison with the material body, but in comparison with God they have something material. So the angels are called ethereal beings, they are not entirely immaterial. Furthermore, the soul is a creature, which means that it is created by God. It is immortal by grace, for immortality is God’s gift to it. Every creature has a beginning and an end. Since the soul is created, it has a definite beginning, but it has no end, for God willed it so.

Fourth. While Lazarus’ soul went to Abraham’s bosom and the Rich Man’s soul went to hades, Christ says in the parable that Lazarus went to Abraham’s bosom and this particular Rich Man went to hades. Then it says that the Rich Man “saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom”.

This is very significant, because it means that in spite of the separation of the soul from the body, the hypostasis, or substance or person, is not lost. Indeed the soul did not exist before the body, but it was created at the same time as the body, and yet neither soul nor body alone constitutes the man. Nevertheless, in spite of the temporary separation of the soul from the body, the man is not lost. This is seen from the fact that the soul maintains consciousness and, as the Fathers explain, a man’s soul recognises the elements of his own body which remain in the earth and are probably scattered or broken up into the elements of which they were composed. At the Second Coming, by the grace of God the soul will reunite the elements of his body, the whole man will be formed, and of course then the bodies of both the just and the unjust will be spiritual, that is to say they will not need food, nor will they be limited by distances and other restrictions. Resurrection is a gift granted to all people, just and unjust.

It should be noted that in this parable Christ mentions the name of the poor man but does not know the Rich Man’s name. This signifies that because Lazarus lived with God, he was soteriologically a person, a true hypostasis, whereas the Rich Man, although he was a man, had no hypostasis soteriologically. This means that a real man is one who has a soul and a body but also the grace of God in his soul and body. Although a man who does not have the Holy Spirit is ontologically a person, he is not a person in relation to God, for the very simple reason that he has become enslaved to things. Instead of turning to God, his nous turns to matter and is enslaved by it.

Fifth. The parable says that the Rich Man, finding himself in hades, saw Abraham “and Lazarus in his bosom”. The person of Abraham is understood as meaning God. To be in the bosom of God means to be in communion with God.

In the bosom, behind the chest, is the heart of man. The heart, which is the source of biological life, is a symbol of love. The greater the love, the greater the knowledge, since knowledge is closely linked with love. Indeed this love constitutes communion and union. Thus for a person to be in the bosom means that he is linked with the loved one, that there is unity between them.

So the expression that Lazarus is in Abraham’s bosom points graphically to his communion with God, which is connected with spiritual knowledge and love. When we speak of knowledge of God we mean “communion in being”. It is not cerebral knowledge, but the knowledge that is connected with love, with this very life.

Lazarus does not seem to be troubled about the terrible hardship of the Rich Man. He does not see hades, while the Rich Man does see the glory of Paradise. Actually a person who lives in the uncreated Light, in the great vision of God, as our Fathers say, forgets the world. The Light is so great, so dazzling that it does not even allow one to see anything else. This does not mean that the saints do not pray for the whole world. They pray and entreat God, for they do indeed have greater communion with Him. However, they are in a state which we cannot comprehend. Only if we look into the divine experiences of the saints can we grasp it.

Sixth. While Lazarus was in Abraham’s bosom, the Rich Man was burning in hades. Indeed he would ask Abraham to send Lazarus to cool his tongue, because, as he expressed himself, “I am tormented in this flame”.

Here hades, not Hell, is being referred to. For Hell will begin after the Second Coming of Christ and the future judgement, while the souls of sinners experience hades after their departure from the body. According to the teaching of the holy Fathers, hades is an intelligible place, it is the foretaste of Hell, when a person receives the caustic energy of God.

There was a great discussion about these matters at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, and the views of Mark Eugenicus, which were revealing, have been preserved. The fire in which the Rich Man was burning was not what the Latins called the purifying fire, or `purgatory’ that all people’s souls pass through. It was not a created fire, but uncreated. That is to say, even sinners receive the rays of divine Light, but since they die unrepentant, without being cured, they experience the burning energy of the Light. Thus, according to the degree of their cure or illness, people receive the same grace either as light or as fire.

It should also be observed that the Rich Man saw Abraham with Lazarus in his bosom. He saw the glory of Abraham, but he had no share in this glory. By contrast, Lazarus both saw it and participated in it. This is a very significant point, for it shows that in that other life everyone will see God, but the righteous will have communion, participation, while the sinners will not. A characteristic example is what Christ said about the coming judgement. All will see the Judge, all will converse with Him, but some will enjoy His glory and others will experience the caustic energy of divine grace.

Seventh. The Rich Man was concerned about his brothers living in the world and asked Abraham to send Lazarus to preach repentance to them. Therefore in spite of the separation of a man’s soul from the present world, there is knowledge and social interest.

This fact, along with other elements, shows what we said before, that the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus does not refer to the life after Christ’s Second Coming, but to the life up to the Second Coming. Clearly it is about the so-called intermediate state of souls.

The saints are interested in the salvation of the world. By the grace of God they hear our prayers and lift them up to God. That is why we pray to our saints. By the feasts which we have dedicated to their memory we show that they are saints, that they have been united to God, that they await the resurrection of their bodies, which they are already receiving, with their imperishability, the prelude of the age to come. We too are concerned for those who have fallen asleep. We pray to the saints to pray to God for us, we ask for their intercessions, while we pray to God to have mercy on all the others who have fallen asleep. This, apart from being evidence of communication among us, at the same time expresses something else that is deeper.

According to the teaching of the holy Fathers, when a person enters into repentance, the stage of purification, he progresses continually. Perfecting continues both in the `intermediate’ stage and in the life after the Second Coming. The stages of the spiritual life are purification, illumination and deification. These are not to be conceived as water-tight states, but as degrees of participation in the grace of God. If a person is struggling to be purified, the grace of God which is purifying him is called purifying energy. When the nous is illuminated, it means that it is receiving the energy of God which illuminates it, and this is called illuminating energy. And when he is in the process of deification, this happens by the grace of God which is called deifying. The process is continuous. Thus those who have repented before their soul’s departure from the body, progress and become increasingly receptive to uncreated grace. Therefore we hold memorial services and pray for those who have fallen asleep.

However, since those who did not repent before their soul left the body do not have spiritual vision, they experience only the caustic energy of God and will never participate in the good. But we pray for all, because we do not know their inner spiritual condition.

Eighth. It says in the parable that there was a “great gulf” between hades, where the Rich Man was, and the place where Abraham was, and that it was not possible to pass from one to the other.

Of course this is not a question of particular places, but as we said before, it refers to particular ways of life. There is a clear difference between Paradise and Hell as particular ways of life.

Paradise and Hell do not exist in God’s view, but in man’s view. God sends His grace to all men, since “He makes His sun rise on the just and the unjust and sends His rain on the evil and the good”. If God gives us a command to love all people, even our enemies, He does the same Himself. It is impossible not to love sinners as well. But each person feels God’s love differently, according to his spiritual condition.

Light has two properties, illuminating and caustic. If one person has good vision, he benefits from the illuminating property of the sun, the light, and he enjoys the whole creation. But if another person is deprived of his eye, if he is without sight, then he feels the caustic property of light. This will be so in the future life too, as well as in the life of the soul after it leaves the body. God will also love the sinners, but they will be unable to perceive this love as light. They will perceive it as fire, since they will not have a spiritual eye and spiritual vision.

Something similar applies to Holy Communion. All can take part, but for those who are prepared and fit it is light and life, for those who approach unworthily it is judgement and condemnation.

The Church shows this in the iconography of the Second Coming. There we see the saints in the light that comes from the throne of God; and from the same throne springs the river of fire, where the unrepentant sinners are.

Therefore in the Orthodox Church we attach great importance to man’s healing. The Church is a spiritual Hospital, a sanatorium that cures the spiritual eye, which is the nous. It is ill and must be cured. This is the whole work of the Church.

Ninth. Abraham, who did not comply with the Rich Man’s plea to send Lazarus to earth and exhort his brothers to repent, justified his position by saying that if people do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, “they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead”.

A carnal man cannot repent, however many miracles he may see in his life. He lives in a deathly sleep. This is a fact. If man’s freedom is not activated, there is no repentance. Everything takes place by the energy of God and the cooperation of man.

The greatest fact in history is the incarnation of Christ, His Resurrection, and the establishment of the Church, which is the Body of the risen incarnate God-man Christ. If a man cannot be inspired by this staggering reality, if he cannot be persuaded by the lives of so many saints who are members of the risen Body of Christ, he will not be persuaded by the greatest miracle.

The salvation and rebirth of a man is not a matter of conjuring actions, but a fruit of the free expression of his will, a fruit of suffering, struggle and much hard work. Unfortunately, many people of our time content themselves with magical, external events. To be convinced of the existence of the other life is a matter of inner spiritual sensitivity. For even if someone should rise from the dead it could be misconstrued as fantasy.

Much is being said today about so-called `after-death’ experiences. Some people claim that their soul had left their body or was approaching the way out and then came back to the body. They recount all the terrible things that they saw and faced.

In the Orthodox Church we say that there have been cases in which the soul came back to the body. In other words, they were resurrected by the power of Christ. These, however, are exceptional cases; they do not happen to everyone. There are saints who had terrible experiences, when in their personal lives they knew Hell and Paradise, experienced the flames of hades, saw angels and demons. When they returned to themselves, they lived a life of repentance and preached repentance to others. However, we say that most of these experiences are demonic or are the fruits of repressed experiences, or they are fantasies, or the results of sedative and narcotic drugs given to prevent suffering in the frightful ordeal of their illnesses. There is certainly need for great discernment in order to be able to distinguish these states, whether they come from God, from the devil or from psychological and somatic anomalies.

We in the Church do not wait for resurrections of saints or experiences of such states in order to believe. We have Holy Scripture, the lives of the Prophets, Apostles and saints, we have their words and their teachings, as well as their holy relics, and we believe that there is eternal life. At times each of us is granted by God to experience in his heart what is Hell and what is Paradise.

Beyond these things, we keep Christ’s commandments in order to be cured, so that we can solve many existential, interpersonal, social and ecological problems. To abide by God’s commandments makes us balanced people.

Tenth. The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus suggests the method which we should use in order to be cured and thus, after death and after the Second Coming of Christ, to experience God as light and not as fire. Abraham said to the Rich Man: “they have Moses and the prophets; let them listen to them”. We should observe the law and obey the Prophets of every epoch.

A Prophet is one who by the grace of God sees the mysteries of the coming age, who already tastes the Kingdom of God. There were such Prophets in both the Old and New Testaments. They themselves received the Revelation, they themselves lived the Kingdom of God, became acquainted with its mysteries and then revealed them to the people.

The Prophets, who are identified with the real theologians and spiritual fathers, renew the people and guide them towards life. Spiritual guidance is connected and identified with man’s spiritual rebirth. Actually one cannot be reborn without having been associated with a deified person, a Prophet.

Even in our time there are Prophets who preach repentance, turn our hearts towards God, and recommend another way of thinking and living. Even if we have not been able to meet such a Prophet, there are the words of the Prophets, and by reading them we can learn what the Kingdom of God is and what we should do to attain it.

Bishop Glakos

Since theology is the voice and faith of the Church, it follows that what has been said about the Church so far applies to theology too. We will attempt to discuss this particular subject a little more in order to see the way orthodox theology is secularised in more detail.

Theology is the logos of God (theo-logia in Greek). It is assumed that someone who talks about God must know God. In the Orthodox Church we say that the knowledge of God is not intellectual but spiritual, that is, it is connected to man’s communion with God. In St.Gregory Palamas’ teaching, the vision of the uncreated Light is closely connected to man’s divinization, to man’s communion with God and the knowledge of God. That is why theology is identical to the vision of God and the theologian is identical to the God-seer. Someone who talks about God, even reflectively can be called theologian, and this is why the Fathers attribute the term theologian to the philosophers too. Eventually, though, from an Orthodox standpoint a theologian is someone who witnessed the glory of God or, at least, accepts the experience of those who reached divinization.

In this sense, theologians are the God-seers, those who achieved divinization and received the Revelation of God. St.Paul is one such theologian. He went up to the third heaven and on several occasions he describes and reveals his apocalyptic experiences. This occurs to such an extent that St.John Chrysostom, talking about St.Paul and about the fact that in his Epistles there are greater mysteries than in the Gospels, argues that “Christ declared more important and unspoken things through St.Paul than through Himself”.

St.Paul, as he himself says in third person, was captured “up to the third heaven” (2 Corinth. 12,2). At this point I would like to remind us of St.Maximos the Confessor’s interpretation, according to which the three heavens are in reality the three stages of spiritual life. The first heaven is the end of practical philosophy, which is the purification of the heart, the expulsion of all thoughts from the heart. The second heaven is the natural theoria, that is, the knowledge of the inner essences of beings; when man through God’s Grace becomes worthy of knowing the inner essences of beings; to have ceaseless inner prayer. The third heaven is theoria, theology, through which, and by divine Grace and the capture of the nous, one reaches, as is possible, the knowledge of God’s mysteries and knows all the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. This is “the ignorance superior to knowledge”, according to a characteristic saying by St.Isaac the Syrian. This ignorance, relative to human knowledge, is the true knowledge of God. Therefore, theology is the third heaven which is a fruit, an outcome of the purification of the heart and the illumination of the nous.

All these are related to another teaching by St.Maximos the Confessor. According to it, all that is seen needs to be crucified and all the thoughts to be buried, and then the logos rises within ourselves, man ascends to theoria and becomes a true theologian. This means that orthodox theology is closely tied to orthodox ascesis, it cannot be conceived of outside orthodox ascesis.

On discussing true theology, I think it is worth reminding ourselves of the holy Niketas Stathatos’ discourse on the interpretation of Paradise. An integral member of the Orthodox Tradition, hosios Niketas analyses thoroughly how the Paradise created by God in Eden is “the great field of practical philosophy”. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is natural theoria, while the tree of life is mystical theology. When man’s nous is purified, he can approach the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and from there acquire the gift of theology. This is the path followed by all the holy Fathers, and this is why they proved to be unmistakable theologians in Church and real Shepherds of the people of God. On the contrary, the heretics tried and still try to make theology in other ways, with impure heart and reflection, not through practical philosophy, natural theoria and mystical theology. For this reason they failed and were expelled from the Church of Christ.

When theology is not a part of this framework, as presented by all the holy Fathers, then it is not orthodox but secular. This secular theology is encountered in the West, for there they analyze and interpret the Holy Scripture through their own human and impure intellect, outside the correct prerequisites presented by the holy Fathers. Unfortunately, in some cases this has affected our own place, too.

A typical example of secular theology, functioning outside the traditional patristic framework, is the so-called scholastic theology, which was developed in the West between the 11th and the 15th centuries. It was termed scholastic from the various schools cultivating it. Its main feature was that it relied a lot on philosophy, particularly that of Aristotle, and it attempted to rationally explain everything related to God.

Scholastic theology tried to rationally comprehend God’s Revelation and to harmonize theology and philosophy. It is characteristic that Anselm of Canterbury used to say: “I believe in order to comprehend”. The scholastics started by a priori accepting God and then tried to prove His existence by rational arguments and logical categories. In the Orthodox Church, as expressed by the holy Fathers, we state that faith is God’s Revelation to man. We accept faith from hearsay not to comprehend it later, but to purify the heart, achieve faith through theoria, and experience Revelation. Scholastic theology, on the other hand, accepted something a priori and then struggled to comprehend it by rational arguments.

Scholastic theology attained its peak with Thomas Aquinas, who is considered a saint by the Latin Church. He claimed that Christian truths are divided into natural and supernatural. Natural truths, such as the truth of God’s existence, can be proved philosophically; supernatural truths, such as the trinity of God, the incarnation of the Logos, the resurrection of bodies, cannot be proved philosophically but can be shown to be not irrational. Scholasticism tightly connected theology with philosophy, and in particular metaphysics; as a result, faith was adulterated, and scholastic theology itself was completely discredited when the model of metaphysics prevailing in the West collapsed. Scholasticism should not be acquitted of the tragedy of the West regarding faith in our days. The holy Fathers teach that there is no distinction between natural and metaphysical — only between created and uncreated. The holy Fathers never accepted Aristotle’s metaphysics. But this is beyond our present topic and I am not going to develop it any further.

Scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages considered scholastic theology to be a development and surpassing of Patristic theology. Frankish teaching on the superiority of scholastic over Patristic theology originates from this point. Thus, scholastics, who deal with reason, consider themselves superior to the holy Fathers of the Church, and also consider human knowledge, a product of reason, higher than Revelation and experience.

It is from this angle that we should view the conflict between St.Gregory Palamas and Varlaam. Varlaam was essentially a scholastic theologian who attempted to bring scholastic theology to the Orthodox East. His views were of the scholastic theology which in reality constitutes a secular theology. Varlaam believed that we cannot exactly know what the Holy Spirit is, thus ending in agnosticism; that ancient Greek philosophers were above the Prophets and the Apostles, since reason is higher than the Apostles’ theoria; that the Light of the Transfiguration is something which is done and undone; that the hesychastic way of life, that is, the purification of the heart and the ceaseless noetic prayer are not necessary, etc. St.Gregory Palamas foresaw this danger to Orhodoxy and with the power and energy of the Holy Spirit, in addition to the experience he personally had obtained as bearer and continuator of the holy Fathers, he confronted this grave danger and preserved the unadulterated Orthodox faith and Orthodox Tradition.

Unfortunately, Varlaamism, which is an expression of scholastic theology in the West and definitely constitutes secular theology, has infiltrated the orthodox East in other ways. We observe that scholasticism, varlaamism, permeates manifestations of modern church and theological life. Of course, in recent years there is an effort to cleanse our theology from its babylonian captivity in Western scholasticism; there is a great effort to break the orthodox theology’s encirclement by the prison of scholastic theology. But we must simultaneously move on to experiencing orthodox theology. Orthodox theology is not an intellectual knowledge but rather an experience, life, and is closely connected to the so-called hesychasm.

Secular theology, which is a function of scholasticism, manifests itself in several ways today, too. I would like to point out a few.

One is the way we base the entire mode of theology on reason and thought. We think about the orthodox faith, we rationalize about the truths of faith or we simply form a history of theology. We have almost reached the point of viewing theology as a philosophy about God, ignoring the whole therapeutic method of our Church.

Another way of experiencing varlaamism and scholasticism is the fact that we have limited theology to esthetics. We have made it esthetics. We might write several books and undertake long analyses on orthodox art, study the schools of iconography, accept the great value of Byzantine art, while simultaneously treating with contempt and overlooking ascesis, the hesychastic method which is the foundation of every orthodox art. Purification, illumination, and divinization is the basis of all the Orthodox Church’s arts and acts and mysteries.

st. Photini

The New Testament describes the familiar account of the “woman at the well” (John 4:5-42), who was a Samaritan. Up to that point she had led a sinful life, one which resulted in a rebuke from Jesus Christ. However, she responded to Christ’s stern admonition with genuine repentance, was forgiven her sinful ways, and became a convert to the Christian Faith – taking the name ‘Photini’ at Baptism, which literally means “the enlightened one”.

A significant figure in the Johannine community, the Samaritan Woman, like many other women, contributed to the spread of Christianity. She therefore occupies a place of honour among the apostles. In Greek sermons from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries she is called “apostle” and “evangelist.” In these sermons the Samaritan Woman is often compared to the male disciples and apostles and found to surpass them.

Later, Byzantine hagiographers developed the story of the Samaritan Woman, beginning where Saint John left off. At Pentecost Saint Photini received baptism, along with her five sisters, Anatole, Photo, Photis, Paraskeve, Kyriake, and her two sons, Photeinos and Joseph. She then began a missionary career, traveling far and wide, preaching the good news of the Messiah’s coming, His death and resurrection. When Nero, the emperor of Rome, began to persecute Christians, Photini and her son Joseph were in Carthage, in Africa, where she was preaching the Christian gospel. After Jesus appeared to Photini in a dream, she sailed to Rome. Her son and many Christians from Africa accompanied her. Photini’s arrival and activity aroused curiosity in the capital city. Everyone talked about her, “Who is this woman?” they asked. “She came here with a crowd of followers and she preaches Christ with great boldness.”

Soldiers were ordered to bring her to the emperor, but Photini anticipated them. Before they could arrest her, Photini, with her son Joseph and her Christian friends, went to Nero. When the emperor saw them, he asked why they had come. Photini answered, “We have come to teach you to believe in Christ.” The half-mad ruler of the Roman Empire did not frighten her. She wanted to convert him! Nero asked the saints their names. Again Photini answered. By name she introduced herself, her five sisters and younger son. The emperor then demanded to know whether they had all agreed to die for the Nazarene. Photini spoke for them. “Yes, for the love of Him we rejoice and in His name we’ll gladly die.” Hearing their defiant words, Nero ordered their hands beaten with iron rods for three hours. At the end of each hour another persecutor took up the beating. The saints, however, felt no pain. Nothing happened to their hands. Photini joyfully quoted words of a psalm by David: “God is my help. No matter what anyone does to me, I shall not be afraid.” Perplexed by the Christian’s endurance and confidence, Nero ordered the men thrown into jail. Photini and her five sisters were brought to the golden reception hall in the imperial palace. There, the six women were seated on golden thrones, In front of them stood a large golden table covered with gold coins, jewels and dresses. Nero hoped to tempt the women by this display of wealth and luxury. Nero then ordered his daughter Domnina, with her slave girls, to go speak with the Christian women. Women, he thought, would succeed in persuading their Christian sisters to deny their God.

Domnina greeted Photini graciously, mentioning the name of Christ. On hearing the princess’ greeting, the saint thanked God. She then embraced and kissed Domnina. The women talked. But the outcome of the women’s talk was not what Nero wished.

Photini catechized Domnina and her hundred slave girls and baptized them all. She gave the name Anthousa to Nero’s daughter. After her baptism, Anthousa immediately ordered all the gold and jewels on the golden table distributed to the poor of Rome.

When the emperor heard that his own daughter had been converted to Christianity, he condemned Photini and all her companions to death by fire. For seven days the furnace burned, But when the door of the furnace was opened, it was seen that the fire had not harmed the saints. Next the emperor tried to destroy the saints with poison, Photini offered to be the first to drink it. “O King,” she said, “I will drink the poison first so that you might see the power of my Christ and God.” All the saints then drank the poison after her. None suffered any ill effects from it. In vain Nero subjected Photini, her sisters, sons and friends to every known torture. The saints survived unscathed to taunt and ridicule their persecutor. For three years they were held in a Roman prison. Saint Photini transformed it into a “house of God.” Many Romans came to the prison, were converted and baptized. Finally, the enraged tyrant had all the saints, except for Photini, beheaded. She was thrown first into a deep, dry well and then into prison again. Photini now grieved that she was alone, that she had not received the crown of martyrdom together with her five sisters, Anatole, Photo, Photis, Paraskeve and Kyriake and her two sons, Photeinos and Joseph. Night and day she prayed for release from this life. One night, God appeared to her, made the sign of the cross over her three times. The vision filled her with joy. Many days later, while she hymned and blessed God, Saint Photini gave her soul into God’s hands. The Samaritan Woman conversed with Christ by the well of Jacob, near the city of Sychar. She drank of the “living water” and gained everlasting life and glory. For generation after generation, Orthodox Christians have addressed this prayer to the woman exalted by the Messiah when He sat by the well in Samaria and talked with her:

Illuminated by the Holy Spirit, All-Glorious One,

from Christ the Saviour you drank the water of salvation.

With open hand you give it to those who thirst.

Great-Martyr Photini, Equal-to-the-Apostles,

pray to Christ for the salvation of our souls.

reading Augustine in a hall of mirrors

     Modern applications of just-war theory generally fail to recognize the “hidden” cultural forces which, because they are amplified by mass media, easily distort public perception of political reality.  Applying ‘Augustinian’ (or other) just-war criteria to any modern political situation without taking such distortion into account amounts to reading Augustine in a hall of mirrors, where much of the symmetry between pirates and super-powers is skewed beyond recognition.  Failure to apply a hermeneutic of this order to just-war theory risks allowing it to be subverted by right-wing apologists in order to justify what are essentially crusades.

The quotation is from Robert Dodero’s “Pirates or Superpowers: Reading Augustine in a Hall or Mirrors”

I have some comments posted on my brother’s website in three places.

www.robinphillips.blogspot.com/2007/08/thoughts-on-eastern-orthodoxy.html

www.robinphillips.blogspot.com/2007/08/infant-baptism.html

www.robinphillips.blogspot.com/2007/09/no-theology-without-tradition.html

interrelated dogmas

Before I was Orthodox, I called myself a Universalist.  Since then I have seen that so much of the paradigms from which Universalism springs are really intrinsically western, even if by way of reaction.  The following quotation is from the first book I read at during my first visit to a monastery.  It was given me by the Abbot as a recomendation.  Life After Death by Herotheos Napkakos.  He is bishop of a city in Greece.  The whole book will be posted on a link to the side in my blogroll for the next several days.

“The question of purgatory was the first to be discussed between the Orthodox and the Latins at Ferrara. The festive assembly of this Council began on the 9th of April, 1438, but the discussions took place later, in June of the same year. Among the existing differences betwen the “Churches” it was preferred to begin with the question of purgatory. The representative of the Latins, Cardinal Julian Caesarini, said that they should begin by first examining the Pope’s rule, that is to say, his primacy, but he considered it better to talk “about the purifying fire, so that we too might be purifed by the words about it”. St. Mark Eugenicus agreed with this view but he wanted to find out where the Latins acquired these traditions, how long they had believed them and just what their view was on this subject…The fire of hell is not corporeal, created, but uncreated. The light in the worthy is vision of God, says St. Mark. And of course this light is the uncreated glory of God. St. Mark also associates the uncreated light with the fire of hell. He says that the eternal fire is not corporeal, “as it is light for those worthy of the vision of it”. Analysing this view, he affirms that the saints of the Church take the eternal fire and unending punishment “rather allegorically”. It is a matter of allegory, because the light of the righteous is not corporeal, nor is the fire of the sinners created and corporeal. They are actual facts and true states, but not the states which we know from the world of the senses.Holy Scripture uses many images to indicate the condition of those punished, such as fire, worms, snakes and the gnashing of teeth. All these express other realities. By fire the saints mean ignorance of God: “that fire there should not be thought of as corporeal nor outer darkness as other than ignorance of God”. Of course when one speaks of ignorance of God, one means not participating in Him, since we realise that the sinners will see God, that is to say they will have a sight of God, but, not participating in Him, they will be ignorant of Him. Knowledge of God in the Orthodox Tradition is participation in God. The worm or some poisonous and flesh-eating genus of reptiles indicate the torment of the immoral by their conscience, and that bitter remorse. The gnashing of teeth means exactly the same, that is to say it indicates the grief, rage and bitter lamentation of those in conflict with themselves.It is clear then that where there is reference to fire in the ecclesiastical tradition, the eternal and uncreated fire is meant. This means that it is not a question of some temporary purifying fire, but of the experience of uncreated grace as fire because of one’s impurity. For just this reason it is not possible that there can be a purifying fire in the Latins’ sense…An interesting point in our study is to find the reasons that led the Latins to the teaching about the purifying fire. This is necessary, because, as we believe, the appearance of this teaching is not fortuitous.

We must point out that, as it appears from our study, the teaching about a purifying fire is an organic part of the Latins’ whole theology and is developed entirely within that atmosphere. So it is not a chance event, but a symptom of the theology of the West as it has been developed in the course of its severance from orthodox theology. We have already had occasion to look into this in previous analyses, but now we shall study it more extensively and analytically.

We can point out five factors which brought western theological thought to the teaching about a purifying fire.

First, the lack of a neptic theology. Western theology, by its withdrawal from orthodox theology, especially from the neptic tradition about purity of heart, illumination of the nous and the vision of God, prepared the way for the teaching about the purifying fire. This is said in the light of the fact that in the hesychastic-neptic theology of the Orthodox Church one speaks of the energy of God, which, as a fire, purifies man. In view of its action the grace of God also acquires a special name, it is called a purifying, illuminating and deifying energy. In other words, when the uncreated energy of God purifies a man it is called purifying, when it illuminates him it is called illuminating and when it deifies him it is called deifying. Christ Himself said: “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Luke 12, 49). The Apostle Paul writes: “For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12, 29). St. John of the Ladder, expressing the whole neptic tradition on this subject, says that we experience the grace of God first as fire, a flame, and then as light. The supracelestial fire, when it comes to dwell in the heart, sets some people ablaze because of the insufficiency of their purification and illuminates others “according to the degree of their perfection”. This same fire is called “both a consuming and an illuminating fire”. Therefore some have come from their prayer as if from a flaming furnace, feeling relieved from uncleanness, and others, when they have finished their prayer, feel as if they were coming out illuminated and had put on the garment of lowliness and rejoicing. At another point St. John of the Ladder says that we take great pains until God’s fire enters into our sanctuary, our heart. God, who is a fire, consumes “all lusts, all stirrings of passion, all predispositions, and all hardness of heart, and darkness both within and without, both visible and spiritual.” Generally, the whole ecclesiastical tradition speaks of the fire which enters the heart, that is to say the uncreated grace of God which one feels in one’s heart burning up the passions. This fire is uncreated, that is to say, it is the uncreated grace of God, which burns up the passions, purifies the heart, and therefore is called the purifying grace, and this takes place during a man’s struggle to be cured. It is essentially the first stage in the spiritual life. Likewise this same fire, the purifying grace of God, will work in those who have fallen asleep who have entered the stage of purification but have not had time to be purified…

Since the Latins had lost the neptic theology and did not experience these states empirically, they misunderstood the patristic texts. They were certain that the texts of Holy Scripture and the holy Fathers are speaking of a fire which purifies a man, and that this continues even after death for those who have already entered repentance, the stage of purification; and since they did not have spiritual experience of this teaching, they misinterpreted the patristic passages. Thus they came to speak of a created fire of punishment, through which men will pass. But it is clear that the term has another meaning in orthodox patristic teaching.

A second reason for the appearance of the teaching about the purifying fire is the identification of essence and energy in God, which has brought about many evils in the West. From orthodox theology we know well that God has essence and energy. If the essence is uncreated its energy is also uncreated, if the essence is created, then also its energy is created. The essence of God is uncreated, and so we say that His energy is uncreated. Love, peace, justice, and so forth are energies of God, which are certainly not impersonal, but personal, since it is impossible for energy to exist without a person, by reason of the fact that he who acts is the person. This theological truth protects us from many dangers and from heretical deviations. This distinction is not made in the West. The scholastic theologists, in their effort to maintain the simplicity of God and at the same time to keep intact the distinction between God and the world, identify God’s energy with His essence, calling Him `actus purus’ (pure energy), and at the same time consider the providential and saving energy of God as created. In this way God, according to western theology, has no actual relationship with the world in His uncreated energy, but only through created means and created energies. But this teaching impairs the whole basis and content of man’s salvation. If we examine carefully all the differences between the Orthodox Church and that of the Latins, we shall be convinced that they are due to this crucial theological question. Precisely this also appears in the teaching of the Latins about the purifying fire. At first they speak about the experience of the purifying fire, which is created, since God has no direct communication with created things, and as a result they speak of the vision of the uncreated essence of God by those who have been purified. That is to say, when men have passed through the purifying fire, they reach the vision of the essence of God. But this teaching, apart from the others, inasmuch as it speaks of salvation, necessarily removes the distinction between created and uncreated, between nature and grace.

In the Orthodox Church, however, salvation is identified with man’s participation in the uncreated deifying grace and energy of God. Here salvation is real and God remains God.

Third, the teaching about the purifying fire is a consequence of the whole Franco-Latin tradition as it is expressed by the so-called scholastic theology. Actually, as we have also said before, scholastic theology, which disengaged itself from the empirical, hesychastic and neptic theology of the Orthodox Church, has done a great deal of harm in the West.

According to Western theology, which was based on St. Augustine, the ancestral sin is inherited from Adam by all the descendants, and God’s justice has condemned all mankind to Hell and prescribed the penalty of death. Therefore, according to the Franco-Latin tradition, hell and death are a punishment by God and not an illness, as the Orthodox Church teaches.

As a consequence of this teaching, the Franco-Latins were led into the theory of punishment and a purifying fire. The Franks, since they believed that the punished do not see God, considered the fire of hell as created. It is in this light that we must see Dante’s Hell, where the sinners will be tormented by the created fire of Hell. Thus the Franco-Latins imagine the world as three-storeyed, made up of the unchanging heaven for the fortunate, the changing earth for the testing of men and the changing underworld for those punished and being purified.

Of course the Franco-Latins, as we have said before, also speak of the vision of the essence of God by the righteous and the purified. In other words, by their grace and their reason, those saved will see God and the archetypes of beings, which exist in Him. By this vision of the divine essence the souls will be released from desire, passion, and changing, and so will become unchangingly happy. Needless to say, the Orthodox Church does not accept these views, since the achetypes of beings do not exist in God. God creates, foresees and saves the world by His uncreated energy.  Likewise the Franco-Latins did not understand apophatic theology correctly; they took it more as a theology of conjecture. In Orthodox theology the glory of God is put in terms of opposites: light and dark, fire and darkness. The first antithesis is about the glory of the righteous, the second is about the state of sinners. These antitheses are used not because antitheses exist in God, but in order to express the truth that there is no likeness between the uncreated glory of God and created things. In any case these presuppositions of the Franco-Latins led western theologians into a teaching about a purifying fire, by which the sinners and penitents will be punished so that in that way they may attain the vision of the essence of God. Therefore we maintain that the Latins’ dogma about a purifying fire is not independent of the basic structures of the scholastic theology of the West.

A fourth reason is the Latins’ teaching about satisfying divine justice. According to Anselm of Canterbury the requirement to punish man and the requirement to save him are a necessity of the divine nature. Contrary to the teaching of the Fathers, who speak of sin as an illness and salvation as God’s love, through which a man’s cure is achieved with his own cooperation, Anselm speaks of offending God’s justice and of atoning for it.

Such a view on the part of the Latins about man’s salvation was subsequently to lead them to the teaching about the purifying fire, to the teaching about man’s punishment so that God might be appeased. Naturally this teaching distorts the whole spiritual life, since it makes it a commercial transaction and sets up relations of offended and fallen.

A fifth cause of the appearance of the teaching about the purifying fire is the politico-economic connection of Popery. Since the Franco-Latins lost the empirical theology of the eastern Church and disengaged themselves from the neptic-hesychast tradition of the Orthodox Church, it was natural for them to fall into anthropocentric conditions. The feudalistic conception of the composition of the community, the passion for building and economic rise, the clash with the political authority, and so forth, contributed to the dogma of a purifying fire. In this way too the people are held down, but the “Church”is helped in the reconstruction of buildings. The connecting of the purifying fire with material offerings brought the people’s disenchantment with the Popery. It is said that the purifying fire, the so-called purgatory, was invented for the completion of the temple of the Apostle Peter in Rome and the upkeep of the Papal palace. But it must be observed that the dogma of the purifying fire was not invented simply to exploit the people, because, as we have said before, it is in line with the Franco-Latins’ scholastic theology. Nevertheless it was used for economic reasons as well.

After this analysis we can end with the following conclusion. Just as Orthodox theology constitutes a unity – I would say a circle -and when one approaches a point on the circle one meets the whole circle, the same is true also in Franco-Latin theology. All of its novel dogmas are interrelated and are defined on the same basis. This means that the loss of hesychastic theology and the discarding of therapeutic and empirical theology, have brought many evils to the West. The dogma of the purifying fire is not unrelated to the loss of the teaching about the inseparable distinction of essence and energy in God. The purifying fire is a fruit and result of the scholastic theology of the Franco-Latins and has no relationship to Orthodox theology as Christ taught it, the Apostles lived it and the holy Fathers handed it down to us.”

the miracle of the Holy Fire

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“On Holy Saturday believers gather in great crowds in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. For on this day fire comes down from Heaven and puts fire on lamps in the Church.” Thus one reads in one of the many Easter itineraries to the Holy Land.

“The Miracle of the Holy Fire” by Christians from the Orthodox Churches is known as “The greatest of all Christian miracles”. It takes place every single year, on the same time, in the same manner, and on the same spot. No other miracle is known to occur so regularly and for such an extensive period of time; one can read about it in sources as old as from the eighth Century AD. The miracle happens in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, to millions of believers the holiest place on earth. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre itself is an enigmatic place. Theologians, historians and archaeologists consider the church to contain both Golgatha, the little hill on which Jesus Christ was crucified, as well as the “new tomb” close to Golgatha that received his dead body, as one reads in the Gospels. It is on this same spot that Christians believe he rose from the dead.

One can trace the miracle throughout the centuries in the many itineraries to the Holy Land. The Russian abbot Daniel, in his itinerary, written in the years 1106-07, in very detailed manners presents the “Miracle of the Holy Light” and the ceremonies that frame it. He recalls how the Patriarch goes into the Sepulchre-chapel (the Anastasis) with two closed candles. The Patriarch kneels in front of the stone on which Christ was laid after his death and says certain prayers, upon which the miracle occurs. Light proceeds from the core of the stone a blue, indefinable light which after some time kindles closed oil lamps as well as the two candles of the Patriarch. This light is “The Holy Fire”, and it spreads to all people present in the Church. The ceremony surrounding “The Miracle of the Holy Fire” may be the oldest unbroken Christian ceremony in the world. From the fourth century AD all the way up to our own time, sources recall the awe-awakening potent. From these sources it becomes clear that the miracle has been celebrated on the same spot, on the same feast day, and in the same liturgical frames throughout all these centuries. One can ask, if it would happen also in the year 1998.

In order to find out, I travelled to Jerusalem to be present at the ceremony in which the Miracle of the Holy Fire occurs, and I can testify that it did not only happen in the ancient Church and throughout the Middle Ages but also on the 18th of April, 1998. The Greek-Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Diodorus I, is the man who every year enters the tomb to receive the Holy Fire. He has been the Patriarch of Jerusalem since 1982 and thereby is the key-witness to the miracle. Prior to the ceremony of this year the Patriarch received us in private audience, where I had the opportunity to speak with him about the miracle in order to know exactly what happens in the tomb and what the miracle means for him personally in his spiritual life. Furthermore I was through his intervention admitted to the balconies in the dome of the Holy Sepulchre Church, from where I had a fine view over the masses that had gathered around the tomb in anticipation of the “Great Miracle of the Holy Fire”.

But what exactly happens in the Holy Sepulchre Church on Easter Saturday? Why does it have such an impact on the Orthodox Tradition? Why does it seem as if nobody has heard anything about the miracle in the Protestant and Catholic countries?

One of the Most Famous Ceremonies in the Orthodox Church

The miracle occurs every year on the Orthodox Easter Saturday. There are many types of Orthodox Christians: Syrian, Armenian, Russian and Greek Orthodox as well as Copts. In the Holy Sepulchre Church alone there are 7 different Christian Denominations. The Orthodox Easter-date is fixed according to the Julian Calendar, and not the usual Western European Gregorian calendar, which means that their Easter normally falls on a different date than the Protestant and Catholic Easter.

Since Constantine the Great built The Holy Sepulchre Church in the middle of the fourth century it has been destroyed many times. The Crusaders constructed the Church that we see today. Around Jesus tomb was erected a little chapel with two rooms, one little room in front of the tomb and the tomb itself, which holds no more than five people. This chapel is the centre of the miraculous events, and being present at the celebration fully justifies the term “event” for on no other day of the year is the Holy Sepulchre Church so packed than on Easter Saturday. If one wishes to enter it, one has to reckon with six hours of cueing. Each year hundreds of people are not able to enter due to the crowds. Pilgrims come from all over the world, the majority from Greece but in recent years increasing numbers from Russia and the former Eastern European Countries.

In order to be as close to the tomb as possible, pilgrims camp around the tomb-chapel, waiting from Holy Friday afternoon in anticipation of the wonder on Holy Saturday. The miracle happens at 2:00 PM, but already around 11:00 AM the Church is a boiling pot.

Festival

From around 11:00 AM till 1:00 PM the Christian Arabs sing traditional songs with loud voices. These songs date back to the Turkish occupation of Jerusalem in the 13th Century, a period in which the Christians were not allowed to sing their songs anywhere but in the Churches. “We are the Christians, this we have been for centuries and this we shall be for ever and ever. Amen!” they sing at the top of their voices accompanied by the sound of drums. The drum-players sit on the shoulders of others who ferociously dance around the Sepulchre Chapel. But at 1:00 PM the songs fade out and after there is silence, a tense and loaded silence electrified by the anticipation of the great manifestation of the Power of God that all are about to witness.

At 1:00 PM a delegation of the local authorities elbows through the crowds. Even though these officials are not Christian, they are part of the ceremonies. In the times of the Turkish occupation of Palestine they were Moslem Turks; today they are Israelis. For centuries the presence of these officials has been an integrated part of the ceremony. Their function is to represent the Romans in the time of Jesus. The Gospels speak of Romans that went to seal the tomb of Jesus, so his disciples would not steal his body and claim he had risen. In the same way the Israeli authorities on this Easter Saturday come and seal the tomb with wax. Before they seal the door it is customary that they enter the tomb to check for any hidden source of fire, which could produce the miracle through fraud. Just as the Romans were to guarantee that there was no manipulation after the death of Jesus, likewise the Israeli Local Authorities are to guarantee that there be no trickery in 1998.

The Testimony of the Patriarch

When the tomb has been checked and sealed, the whole Church chants the Kyrie Eleison (Lord have mercy). At 1:45 PM the Patriarch enters the scene. In the wake of a large procession he encircles the Tomb three times, whereupon he is stripped of his royal liturgical vestments, carrying only his white alba, a sign of humility in front of the great potent of God, to which he is about to be the key witness. All the oil lamps have been blown out the preceding night, and now all remains of artificial light are extinguished, so that most of the Church is enveloped in darkness. With two big candles the patriarch enters the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre first into the small room in front of the tomb and from there into the tomb itself.

It is not possible to follow the events inside the tomb, so I asked the patriarch of Jerusalem, Diodorus, about the center of the events.

“Your Beatitude, what happens when you enter the Holy Sepulchre?”

“I enter the tomb and kneel in holy fear in front of the place where Christ lay after his death and where he rose again from the dead. Praying in the Holy Sepulchre in itself is for me always a very holy moment in a very holy place. It is from here that he rose again in glory, and it is from there that he spread his light to the world. John the Evangelist writes in the first chapter of his gospel that Jesus is the light of the World. Kneeling in front of the place where he rose from the dead, we are brought within the immediate closeness of his glorious resurrection. Catholics and Protestants call this Church “The Church of the Holy Sepulchre”. We call it “The Church of the Resurrection”. The Resurrection of Christ for us Orthodox is the center of our faith. In his resurrection Christ has gained the final victory over death, not just his own death but the death of all those who will stay close to him.

“I believe it to be no coincidence that the Holy Fire comes on exactly this spot. In Matthew 28:3, it says that when Christ rose from the dead, an angel came, dressed all in a fearful light. I believe that the striking light that enveloped the angel at the Lord’s resurrection is the same light that appears miraculously every Easter Saturday. Christ wants to remind us that his resurrection is a reality and not just a myth; he really came to the world in order to give the necessary sacrifice through his death and resurrection so that man could be re-united with his creator.

Blue Light

“I find my way through the darkness towards the inner chamber in which I fall on my knees. Here I say certain prayers that have been handed down to us through the centuries and, having said them, I wait. Sometimes I may wait a few minutes, but normally the miracle happens immediately after I have said the prayers. From the core of the very stone on which Jesus lay an indefinable light pours forth. It usually has a blue tint, but the color may change and take many different hues. It cannot be described in human terms. The light rises out of the stone as mist may rise out of a lake it almost looks as if the stone is covered by a moist cloud, but it is light. This light each year behaves differently. Sometimes it covers just the stone, while other times it gives light to the whole sepulchre, so that people who stand outside the tomb and look into it will see it filled with light. The light does not burn I have never had my beard burnt in all the sixteen years I have been Patriarch in Jerusalem and have received the Holy Fire. The light is of a different consistency than normal fire that burns in an oil lamp.

“At a certain point the light rises and forms a column in which the fire is of a different nature, so that I am able to light my candles from it. When I thus have received the flame on my candles, I go out and give the fire first to the Armenian Patriarch and then to the Coptic. Hereafter I give the flame to all people present in the Church.”

The Symbolic Meaning of the Miracle

“How do you yourself experience the miracle and what does it mean to your spiritual life?”

“The miracle touches me just as deeply every single year. Every time it is another step towards conversion for me. For me personally it is of great comfort to consider Christs faithfulness towards us, which he displays by giving us the holy flame every year in spite of our human frailties and failures. We experience many wonders in our Churches, and miracles are nothing strange to us. It happens often that icons cry, when Heaven wants to display its closeness to us; also we have saints, to whom God gives many spiritual gifts. But none of these miracles have such a penetrating and symbolic meaning for us as the miracle of the Holy Fire. The miracle is almost like a sacrament. It makes the resurrection of Christ present to us as if he had died only a few years ago.”

While the patriarch is inside the chapel kneeling in front of the stone, there is darkness but far from silence outside. One hears a rather loud mumbling, and the atmosphere is very tense. When the Patriarch comes out with the two candles lit and shinning brightly in the darkness, a roar of jubilee resounds in the Church, comparable only to a goal at a soccer-match.

The Miracle Leads to Faith

The miracle is not confined to what actually happens inside the little tomb, where the Patriarch prays. What may be even more significant, is that the blue light is reported to appear and be active outside the tomb. Every year many believers claim that this miraculous light ignites candles, which they hold in their hands, of its own initiative. All in the church wait with candles in the hope that they may ignite spontaneously. Often closed oil lamps take fire by themselves before the eyes of the pilgrims. The blue flame is seen to move in different places in the Church. A number of signed testimonies by pilgrims, whose candles lit spontaneously, attest to the validity of these ignitions. The person who experiences the miracle from a close distance by having the fire on the candle or seeing the blue light usually leaves Jerusalem changed, and for everyone having attended the ceremony, there is always a “before and after” the Miracle of the Holy Fire in Jerusalem.

Unknown in the West

One can ask the question why the Miracle of the Holy Fire is hardly known in Western Europe. In the Protestant areas it may to a certain extent be explained by the fact that there is no real tradition for miracles; people dont really know in which box to place the miracles, and they dont take up much space in newspapers. But in the Catholic tradition there is vast interest for miracles. Thus, why is it not more known? For this it only one explanation suffices: Church politics. Only the Orthodox Churches attend the ceremony framing the miracle. It only occurs on the orthodox Easter date and without the presence of any Catholic authorities. By certain Orthodox this evidence proves the notion that the Orthodox Church is the only legitimate Church of Christ in the world, and this assertion obviously may cause certain apprehensions in Catholic circles.

The Question of the Authenticity of the Miracle

As with any other miracle there are people who believe it is fraud and nothing but a masterpiece of Orthodox propaganda. They believe the Patriarch has a lighter inside of the tomb. These critics, however, are confronted with a number of problems. Matches and other means of ignition are recent inventions. Only a few hundred years ago lighting a fire was an undertaking that lasted much longer than the few minutes during which the Patriarch is inside the tomb. One then could perhaps say, he had an oil lamp burning inside, from which he kindled the candles, but the local authorities confirm to have checked the tomb and found no light inside it.

The biggest arguments against a fraud, however, are not the testimonies of the shifting patriarchs. The biggest challenges confronting the critics are the thousands of independent testimonies by pilgrims whose candles were lit spontaneously in front of their eyes without any possible explanation. According to our investigations, it has never been possible to film any of the candles or oillamps igniting by themselves. However, I am in the possession of a video filmed by a young engineer from Bethlehem, Souhel Nabdiel. Mr. Nabdiel has been present at the ceremony of the Holy Fire since his early childhood. In 1996 he was asked to film the ceremony from the balcony of the dome of the Church. Present with him on the balcony were a nun and four other believers. The nun stood at the right hand of Nabdiel. On the video one can see how he films down on the crowds. At a certain point all lights are turned off it is time for the Patriarch to enter the tomb and take the Holy Fire. While he is still inside the tomb one suddenly hears a scream of surprise and wonder originating from the nun standing next to Nabdiel. The camera begins to shake, as one hears the excited voices of the other people present on the balcony. The camera now turns to the right, whereby it is possible to contemplate the cause of the emotion. A big candle, held in the hand of the Russian nun, takes fire in front of all people present before the patriarch comes out of the tomb. With shaking hands she holds the candle while over and over making the sign of the Cross in awe of the potent she has witnessed. This video appears to be the closest one gets to an actual filming of the miracle.

Miracles cannot be proved

The miracle is, as most miracles are, surrounded by unexplainable factors. As Archbishop of Tiberias Alexios said when I met him in Jerusalem:

“The miracle has never been filmed and most probably never will be. Miracles cannot be proved. Faith is required for a miracle to bear fruit in the life of a person and without this act of faith there is no miracle in the strict sense. The true miracle in the Christian tradition has only one purpose: to extend the Grace of God in creation, and God cannot extend his Grace without the faith on behalf of his creatures. Therefore there can be no miracle without faith.”

No theology without tradition

http://robinphillips.blogspot.com/2007/09/no-theology-without-tradition.html

 If anyone knows who the Ikon is of that Robin has posted on his article, I’d enjoy knowing.