Author: jleecbd

A Critique of “Seeds of the Word” by John Garvey

Fr. John Garvey has written a book on Orthodoxy and other world religions that has apparently become quite popular in various parishes in the United States.  A friend had suggested that we should carry the book in our bookstore, which led me to obtain a copy to review before placing in the store.  We generally don’t carry books we haven’t read in the store, with a few exceptions (mostly among some of the children’s books where we know the work of the publishing company well).  While we don’t have a specific set of criteria for any book to be included, I can summarize the basics of what we are looking for.  The book should be about some aspect of Orthodoxy, reflect the teaching of the Orthodox Church, and should be something we are comfortable with placing in the hands of our parishioners.  This last category is a bit fuzzy, but we avoid selling books that would make us feel as if we need to provide a warning with the book.  Unfortunately (I say that somewhat tongue in cheek, because I think actually that it is quite fortunate), there is nothing akin to an Imprimatur or Nihil Obstat within the Orthodox world.

With that in mind, I’d like to offer my thoughts, both after an initial read, and after a deeper reading of specific sections of the book.

Background
The fundamental purpose of this book is to provide both a guide, if you will, to the manner in which Orthodox Christians should approach other religions, and a primer on many of the major world religions.  The author plans on addressing how we should approach other religions by providing a survey of historical contacts between Orthodoxy and these other religions, as well as looking at some modern interactions.  Fr. Garvey is careful to never suggest that he will establish “the” Orthodox approach, as there are not many situations where there is a singular Orthodox approach – as his historical analysis reveals.  It is, perhaps, somewhat interesting, however, that the friend that recommended the book feels that this is precisely what he did, and thus it is disappointing that we wouldn’t carry a book that establishes the Orthodox view on any topic.  This speaks, to some degree, on precisely why we try to be a bit cautious about the books we carry.  After I discuss the areas where I feel the author to be mistaken, I hope you can understand why I wouldn’t want people to buy this book from me with the mistaken view that Fr. Garvey’s perspective is historically Orthodox or worse is “the” Orthodox perspective.  I should note that Fr. Garvey, while not directly purporting to establish “the” Orthodox approach, does intend to demonstrate what he feels is a consistent Orthodox approach.  I agree that he does that, but the approach he demonstrates is not entirely the one he intends.
The book is clearly not intended for an academic audience.  It is fairly short, covering a mere 126 pages, and although has a decent sized bibliography, no attempt is made to footnote the many quotes and assertions in the book.  Further evidence of the intended audience can be found in the numerous caveats and qualifications placed in the book anytime the topic of interfaith dialogue comes up.  Fr. Garvey knows that the readers of his books would not be academically trained theologians, so he is clear to reiterate, again and again, that we are not to adopt a relativistic approach.  However, it is the very need for so many warnings that indicts this text as one that perhaps should have been left unwritten.  If a product needs too many warnings in order to be used safely, the benefit better be significant.  In my opinion, one of the reasons for the warnings is that Fr. Garvey is proposing, at least in part, an approach to interfaith relations that is beyond what we have seen historically.
My Issues with the Book
In the introduction, Fr. Garvey reveals what he believes is one purpose for interfaith dialogue, which is to help us learn more about our faith, and to possibly even learn new truths which can be absorbed into Orthodoxy.  At one point we are promised that, “as we will see, the history of Judaism and Christianity has shown that the Christian tradition can absorb truths from other religions and grow from that contact.” (p. 18) , and then we are told that  “a dialogue is necessary and can help us to sharpen our appreciation of our own Orthodox heritage.”  Of course, this is followed with another warning that we can’t be relativists.  That is, we can learn new things from other religions, but we need to do so while reminding ourselves that our religion has the fullness of truth, and theirs doesn’t.
I have three major problems with this perspective(beyond the incoherency of the position).  The first is that such an approach to other religions is not at all reflected in the history of Orthodox relations with other religions that is surveyed.  Although there is a promise to demonstrate how Christianity has absorbed truths from other religions, it remains unfulfilled throughout the text.  There are three different events he brings up that he might think fulfilled this promise, but none of them actually do.  One of these is a story, taken from one of the several collections of sayings of the Desert Fathers:
Abba Olympus said this, “One of the pagan priests came down from Scetis one day and came to my cell and slept there.  Having reflected not he monks’ way of life, he said to me, ‘Since you live like this, do you not receive any visits from your God?’ I said to him, ‘No.’  Then the priest said to me, ‘Yet when we make a sacrifice to our God, he hides nothing form us, but discloses his mysteries; and you, giving yourself so much hardship, vigils, prayer and asceticism, say that you see nothing?  Truly, if you see nothing, then it is because you have impure thoughts in your hearts, which separate you from your God, and for this reason his mysteries are not revealed to you.’  So I went to report the priest’s words to the old men.  They wee filled with admiration and said that this was true.  For impure thoughts separated God from man.” (p. 87)
Fr. Garvey interprets this to mean that the elders needed to learn something from the pagan priest, or that the monk in the story needed to.  I did not read that story as meaning that at all.  Instead, it seemed to me that they elders were filled with admiration that a pagan had such insights.  That impure thoughts were preventing the monk from seeing God was hardly a new concept to the men and women of the desert.  It is found throughout their writings.
Another event might be the legend of Sts. Barlaam and Josaphat, which, it is purported, is simply a re-telling of the story of Sidartha. Although now accepted by academics, I find the foundation for this view to be a bit tenuous. Be that as it may,let’s assume that it is the case.  It still doesn’t point to some deep truth that Buddhism holds that we needed to learn.  Rather, it is a useful sort of morality tale where, in spite of a fathers desire to keep his child away from Christianity, the child becomes a Christian and converts the father.  I suspect there are many such stories within Christian history,
I think, however, that the event that is being proposed as an instance of Christianity learning from another faith, is the possibility that the concepts of life after death and resurrection entered Jewish thought as a result of contact with Zoroastrianism (p. 55 ff).  He is clear to point out that this is still only a theory, but let’s assume that it is, in fact, true.  Can we then proclaim that Christianity learned of the resurrection indirectly from Zoroastrianism?  I have two issues with this.  The first is that there was not one monolithic view within Judaism regarding life after death.  Thus, there was no necessity that Christianity should follow one school or the other.  More importantly, though, is the fact that Christianity learned about life after death and resurrection from Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  We cannot suggest that Christ needed to learn something from Zoroastrianism.  If he did, then he clearly wasn’t the Son of God.  No, Christianity is a revealed faith, not one that grew from something else.  Remember that the apostles, all of them (including Paul, just later) spent several years learning from Christ himself.
What we see in the history of interaction between Orthodoxy and other faiths is not an interest in learning, but either a defense, or an attempt at evangelization.  St. Paul does not engage the philosophers at the Areopagus because he thinks they have something to teach him.  No, he engages because he has a gospel for them to hear.  If we move forward in time, skipping perhaps over the more polemical writings, we never find a case where the Orthodox were seeking to learn about another religion to enhance their own understanding.  Perhaps one of the longest interfaith exchanges we have in history is between the Tubingen Scholars and Patriarch Jeremiah II of Constantinople.  As we read through the exchange, we are never left with the feeling that the Patriarch is seeking to learn something from the Lutherans at all.  Rather, he is politely engaging them and attempting to correct their mistaken notions so that perhaps there can be a restoration of them to Orthodoxy.  The first instance that I’m aware of, and that Fr. Garvey refers to, of Orthodox dialoguing for the sake of dialoguing, or for the sake of learning something new, is in the 20th century ecumenical movement, which is precisely why it is viewed so suspiciously by a large number of Orthodox.  It is interesting to note that among all of the quotes we find from Archbishop Anastasios, a representative of modern Orthodox views on interfaith relations, we never see any sign of such a belief.  He only seeks a more irenic approach when we are interacting with, and hopefully evangelizing, others.
The next problem I have is that such an approach presumes that the person engage in the dialogue is well schooled in their own faith, so that they can discern the truth in the other religion from the falsehood.  If we grant that, regardless of the historic approach of our faith, that Orthodox should talk with non-orthodox for no other reason than to learn something new, then shouldn’t such dialog be restricted to those who know their faith well?  We occasionally receive works by non-orthodox from some of our friends on various topics.  Sometimes, much of what is said can be consistent with Orthodox teaching, sometimes, much of it isn’t.  It is important, then, for me to sift through these items and separate wheat from chaff.  What if I don’t know my Orthodoxy that well (and to be honest, I have a lot to learn)?  What if I read something, think that it sounds good, and yet it is somehow in contradiction with Orthodoxy?  Is it healthy for me to have read that?  Or should I, rather, focus my spiritual reading on Scripture, the hymns of the Church, the Fathers, etc.?  Once I’ve exhausted all of those resources (which I suspect would take me the rest of my life, and then some), then I can read through writings from other religions.
The third problem I have is perhaps just an extension of the previous issue.  That is, the thought that we, as Orthodox generally, have anything to learn from other religions.  Certainly, they may have elements of the truth, but the only way we know that is by vetting a belief or insight against the vast deposit of faith that is Orthodoxy.  But then, this wouldn’t be a new truth.  Of course the argument will end up being more nuanced.  The truth from the other religion merely helps us see what we already know more clearly.  Perhaps this could happen, but again, I would be hard pressed to imagine the case where the same insight and more cannot be found within the vast resources available to the Orthodox.  At the same time, one would need to be cautious that the new insight isn’t, in fact, a movement away from the truth.
I was also a bit bothered by the handling of Islam, and in particular the term jihad.  When he introduces the term, he immediately implies that only extremists hold the view that jihad means holy war.  By doing so, he therefore implies that it has never legitimately held that meaning, but that the term was hijacked by Islamic extremism that arose in the 20th century.  Yet, two sentences later we learn that, in fact, “jihad can refer to a war waged for a religious cause”(p. 47).  I fear that the casual reader will be left with an incorrect notion that only some small group of extremists have held the view that jihad is related to a notion of holy war.
However, jihad clearly meant holy war, or at least armed struggle, and perhaps only meant that, for at least the first three centuries of Islam’s existence,  as we can see in this intelligence analysis,* and is frankly obvious to anybody with only the barest knowledge of world history.  After that time, we see the rise of those proposing an alternate sense for the word.  That this represents a feeling that the word was misunderstood before, I doubt somehow.  I suspect, rather, that it represented the reality that as the borders of the empire grew, greater and greater numbers of Muslims would never have the opportunity to engage in armed conflict, so an alternative meaning was needed.
Although there is a limited amount of depth that anyone can go into with any sort of survey text, this is a case where the topic could have largely been left alone.  Instead, a mistaken impression is created about what is a key piece of Islamic history.  Are similar mistakes present elsewhere in the text regarding other religions?  Again, such an issue gives me pause regarding a book we will sell within out store.
Is There Nothing of Value?
 
So, does this mean that the book is of no value?  Not at all.  All in all, I think it does an adequate job giving at least a broad brush overview of other world religions.  Of note is that he addresses Sikhism and B’Hai, both of which are probably fairly mysterious and relatively unknown religions to most people.  While everyone by now is probably familiar with the Sikh turban, which has led them to be viewed by the uninformed as possible terrorists, few probably know much about their faith.  Additionally, to the degree that I have much understanding of either Buddhism or Hinduism, I found his treatment accurate, and sufficient for what is clearly a book aimed at providing an overview.
One area which he addresses in some detail, and think quite correctly, is when he juxtaposes to different potential approaches to other religions on the part of the Orthodox.  One, as I have noted is basically a relativism which sees other faiths as merely other equally valid paths to God, which he is quick to point, is not a valid Orthodox position.  The other approach is the one that states that all other faiths are entirely wrong and potentially evil.  While you would like to think that such a view is more of a caricature than a view legitimately held by anyone, it is, in fact, not entirely uncommon, especially within more conservative branches of American Evangelicalism.  Holding to such a view, besides simply being incorrect, has two fairly negative outcomes.  The first is that you effectively remove a key avenue of evangelization, as I noted earlier.  A more Orthodox approach, exemplified in this book by Archbishop Anastasios, and exemplified elsewhere by this great book on Taoism (written by a monk from a very traditionalist monastery here in the US), is to see where an understanding of God, because it exists at a basic level in all humans, is present in other religions.  St. Paul tells us that Christ came when he did, in the fullness of time.  The time when humanity was perhaps more ready to hear His message, than at any time prior, or any time since.  The time, of course, was one devoid of any universal religion.  Instead, there was an abundance of religions that all intersected within the Roman Empire.  It was the presence of some element of truth in each of these, that allowed the seed of Christ’s teaching to take root and grow.
The other outcome is that such a view can easily lead to a dehumanization of adherents of other religions.  In the worst case, it could lead to persecution, either directly or via some tacit approval of the actions of others.  It doesn’t take long in a history book of the 20th Century to find examples of this.  Even if persecution isn’t the outcome, the dehumanization is an incorrect Orthodox perspective.  If we fail to accept the fundamental humanity of all persons, what would be the point of the Divine Commission?
So, the book is worth reading for these elements, it is just important to be aware of those areas of concern I addressed earlier.  As I said at the outset, we do not sell books with warnings, so we avoid those texts.  This has even led us to not carry books I really like, such as this one, even when it is the only text in English on a core Orthodox teaching, simply because the way the text is written could easily lead to erroneous conclusions.
*It’s important to note that the analysis begins by saying that jihad does not mean holy war, by which, the author is pointing out that the word does not directly translate to “holy war”, but rather translates to the word “struggle” with the implication that it is struggling in the way of Allah.  However, that the term had the sense of holy war, is made clear shortly thereafter:
 
Muslims themselves have disagreed throughout their history about the meaning of the term jihad. In the Qur’an (or Koran), it is normally found in the sense of fighting in the path of God; this was used to describe warfare against the enemies of the early Muslim community (ummah). In the hadith, the second most authoritative source of the shari’a (Islamic law), jihad is used to mean armed action, and most Islamic theologians and jurists in the classical period (the first three centuries) of Muslim history understood this obligation to be in a military sense.
 

Halloween – a Counterpoint

Just like the annual Christmas discussion, we are at the time for the annual Orthodox Halloween discussion. I wrote this in response to a friend who sent me this link. I wasn’t going to turn this into a blog entry, until I saw this video from the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese youth ministry.

I find John Sanidopolous’ arguments on Halloween a bit lacking. He admits here, and elsewhere, that he is a big fan of horror movies and Halloween, and it feels to me like he has focused particular effort on defending this holiday to justify this love of a genre that is arguably not very edifying.  Whether or not it is appropriate for him to love this genre is a matter for him and his spiritual father as such is well above my pay grade. If you’re interested, he has some links on his page discussing the horror genre, and suggesting that it is a good one for Christians. I’ll leave that for a future discussion.

It may be true that the pagan history of Halloween is merely fiction developed by 19th century Celtic scholars, as he has proposed recently, but that is largely irrelevant.  I find that looking at the fruit of this particular celebration to be a much more useful measure of the degree that Christians should participate.  Especially Orthodox Christians, as this is not our feast day.  When I was an Anglican, we endeavored to keep  All Saints and All Hallows’ Eve as the religious observation they are supposed to be.

So what, in my opinion, is the fruit of Halloween in this country?  Well, we need only look at what movies show on TV, and are promoted at the iTunes Store, and on Netflix.  All rather gruesome horror movies, about demonic possession of children, murder, virgin sacrifices, and the like.  A look at the costumes that are popular among adults as well as some that have been created for just this year are telling.  They range from hyper sexual to downright horrific.  The worst examples of the latter that I’ve seen this year are a group of people dressed as the dead crew of the downed Asiana flight, and one of a woman eating the baby that had been ripped from her womb, for the former, just google Miley Cyrus and Nikki Minaj and Halloween.  Adult Halloween parties have become somewhat notorious for over indulgence.

What I find, however, very interesting is a couple of anecdotes.  One is from last night, when a friend noted that the neighbors houses were scaring the little ones too much, and that is was sad to see.  The other one is from several years ago when our eldest was still in elementary school.  It was the day after the annual haunted house at his school.  A mom was chatting with her friend about her preschooler who had become separated from the family in the haunted house and was found terrified, sitting on the floor in the middle of the haunted house crying.  That was sad enough.  What was equally sad was that the mom was laughing about it.

I will admit that I used to buy into the Samhain myth as well, but I seem to recall that we had developed an opposition to the holiday due to the sorts of things that seem to go with the holiday, and only later did the myth provide some sort of support for our view. However, regardless of the origin of us not participating, we haven’t done Halloween really for almost 20 years, I have found that over the years of not celebrating the day, I seem to be more shocked by what goes on around it, and much less interested in participating.  Maybe it’s just me.

All this is strictly my opinion, of course.  What people do or don’t do with regard to this day is entirely up to them.  Certainly, one can participate in the activities around the day without participating in the more dubious aspects.  We have even come to at least permit the kids to dress up for school.  We also hand out candy to the kids that come by, as that feels like we are at least showing some hospitality.  Some would argue that we shouldn’t even do that, some would argue that I’m being ridiculous for being concerned at all.

I write this simply to provide a counterpoint to John S.  Although I find a lot of his material very good, I disagree with his logic on this one.  He seems to argue that the only reason that Halloween is considered bad is because it is supposedly rooted in Samhain, a pagan holiday.  Samhain doesn’t exist, or at least Halloween has nothing to do with it, so therefore it is okay to participate.  I think there are stronger arguments against participation than the one he consistently brings up year after year.  In fact, it has become a bit of a straw man.  While I have read things by Orthodox bishops using the roots of Halloween as a reason to avoid it, I suspect they were looking for a more concrete reason to avoid participating in a day they already sensed was not very edifying, and latched onto the puritanical hatred of holidays that has apparently fed the Samhain myth (similar to the anti-Christmas sentiment).

Conveniently, we’re Orthodox, and there is not a lot of hard and fast. So, for John and others that participate (presumably with their spiritual father’s blessing), more power to you. However, I will disagree with their saying that it is absolutely okay to participate in Halloween, just as they would disagree with my saying you absolutely should not participate. I think that their is enough going on around the holiday to warrant a conversation with one’s spiritual father.

Anthropology

Every so often it seems that a bunch of “events” – in this case news events, blog articles, and podcasts – all occur at about the same time and all have to do with the exact same thing. The piece that actually pulled it altogether was this one, in which the writer states, “Orthodox Christianity has much to give secularized America especially to the young who, as I said at the outset, are searching for authenticity and communion. What are they waiting for? In a word – anthropology.”

A couple of weeks ago, I had listened to a wonderful radio show on the Orthodox view of Scripture, featuring Prevytera Jeannie Constantinou, which then led me to start listening to her podcast called Searching the Scriptures. As she was progressing through Genesis, she spent a couple of episodes on what she feels (and I think rightfully so) may be the most important verse in scripture, regarding man being made in the image and likeness of God. Her sources were St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Basil. Although it was not practical to discuss all of the ways in which man is made in the image of God, she hit on some key aspects. In the interest of blogging only highlights, I’ll address even fewer. There were two aspects that are key to my discussion. The first is the concept that man is made in the image of God because he has been made ruler over creation – that is, he has dominion over it. St. Gregory of Nyssa declared that man is therefore royal (or royalty to use my term, and I’ll get back to this in a bit). This dominion, however, does not give man the right to do whatever he wishes with creation, in the interest of satisfying his passions. In fact, being in dominion over nature leads to other conclusions, one of which is that man must therefore be above nature. The Fathers added to the list the fact that man, unlike animals, does not need to operate on instinct. He does not have to do what his passions tell him. He has the free will to act in a morally correct manner. He is a moral agent. These are two key elements of Orthodox anthropology. Man is royalty, and he does not need to be a slave to his base instincts. He has the ability to act in a morally correct way. When he does so, he is then growing in the likeness of God (I’d recommend listening to the whole podcast to really explore this).

I was then listening to the next Ancient Faith Today episode, which was addressing the subject of human exceptionalism. I won’t go into this in much detail, but one of the key elements to this show was pointing out that they too addressed the idea that man is a moral agent, and does not need to behave according to his passions. Again, the core principle in play is an anthropological one. This key, then unlocks the door to a lot of questions about how we should act in certain situations and how we should treat our fellow man (a host of other issues are addressed with this key as well).

Shortly after reading Fr. Jacobse’s piece, someone had posted a piece regarding the rape case in Steubenville. I’m rather embarrassed to admit that, although I was peripherally aware of some issue regarding a football player raping a girl, I was largely unaware of the specifics. As it turns out, at least two, perhaps more, football players got a girl roaring drunk, raped her, and posted pictures of her on Facebook, then went on to brag about it in videos (or some such, I have to admit I’m still not up to speed completely on this, nor do I want to be). Now, we can ask all of the usual questions about where the parents were, why did the girl allow herself to get drunk, and the like, but we’d be avoiding the more fundamental question about what has gone wrong in our society, and what can we, as Orthodox Christians, do about it? Fr. Jacobse holds the key. We can provide the anthropology that this society so clearly needs. If the football players understood this girl to be royalty, would they have thought it appropriate to treat her as a mere object for their gratification? If they understood that they are moral agents, capable of not responding to their baser instincts, and that they even have a responsibility to act morally, would this event not have happened at all? If the girl in question understood herself to be royalty, to hold a special place in the created order, that she, too, could operate above her passions (the one that drove her to over-imbibe), would she simply not have even been in that place?

The remaining question is, how can we present this anthropology to this society? We can certainly write about it, speak about it, do things of that sort. However, I think the most important thing we can do, which is what the early Christians did, is to live it. You can tell from the writings of non-Christians from the days of the early Church, that they understood Christians to have a very different world view. The knew that from observing their behavior. As I related in an earlier post, the best way for us to present the Gospel is to actually live it. I’ll leave it to the reader to ponder what sorts of changes in their behavior would be necessary to better present Orthodox anthropology. I know I have my list.

Special Treatment

In the few years I have been Orthodox, I have seen, mostly through stories told, how God seems to provide special treatment for certain individuals at the time of their repose. I don’t pretend to understand why, but the people involved are always special in some way.

Today I was privileged to witness one of these events. A beloved member of our parish, whose children (in particular her son-in-law) have been dedicated tireless workers in our parish, reposed. She was expected to pass away several months ago and miraculously recovered after receiving the mysteries from one of our priests. She had always been one of the few people to show up for Sunday morning Orthros, and after her recovery, she returned. The Orthros service is a very important service, containing a significant amount of teaching, but it is sorely under-attended. As one of the chanters who too frequently finds himself chanting to a church empty of anyone among the living (of course I know that the angels and saints are present), I really appreciate those few who do show up.

The Orthros service begins with the recitation of the “six psalms”, that is Psalms 3, 37, 62, 87, 102, and 142 in the Orthodox numbering. This morning, our priest, who had been planning on visiting this parishioner (who lives across the parking lot in the apartments owned by the parish) after Liturgy, had to leave suddenly to be with her as her time of passing had apparently arrived. He left to anoint her before her departure. What was particularly appropriate is that these psalms are read every Sunday because they are the psalms that are to be read over us at the last judgement. This parishioner reposed at some point during the divine services, with the whole community in prayer. There is no more appropriate time for one to depart this life, and I thank God that I was able to participate in some small way in the departure of this beloved member of our community to be with our Lord.

The Pentecost Hymn

Of course there isn’t just one hymn for Pentecost, but there is one hymn that has come to be known as the Pentecost hymn. In Orthodox hymnody, sometimes there are several hymns addressing the same event from a slightly different angle, with the intent that all of the hymns together will help the listener grow into a deeper, more mystical understanding of the event. One example of this is the Resurrectional Evlogitaria (which we’ll present later), which address the myrrh bearing women’s arrival at the empty tomb. At other times, there is a single hymn that seems packed with a lot of different points, all of which merit some unpacking. The Pentecost hymn is one of those. I’d like to address just a couple of points from the hymn, but there is more there to be meditated upon.

The Pentecost hymn has an interesting place in the prayer life of the Church. It is chanted several times from Vespers through Orthros the next morning, and then again at the kneeling Vespers before the Monday of the Holy Spirit. Outside of Pentecost, though, the hymn takes its place as the opening prayer of morning services both for the home and Church, as well as at other times. The hymn is as follows:

Heavenly King, Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, everywhere present and filling all things, the treasure of blessings and giver of life, come and abide in us and cleanse us from all impurity, and save our should, O good one.

The first point I’d like to make I didn’t initially intend to address, but a quote from Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos landed in my in box, and I thought it worth sharing: “Here one sees the order of the knowledge of God. The heart of man is cleansed by the Holy Spirit, then it knows Christ and then it is brought to the Father.” I won’t spend much time on this, because Metropolitan Hierotheos addresses the topic of of coming to know God at great length in several books, and of course does a much better job than I could. One such book well worth reading is “Orthodox Spirituality”, and another is the “Illness and Cure of the Soul in the Orthodox Tradition”. In these books, as well as others, the Metropolitan addresses the Orthodox understanding of our life in the Church. Our salvation is not a matter of mere rational assent to the proposition that Christ died for our sins, but rather the entering into a life of communion with God. This process may begin with our assent to a set of propositions, but it must necessarily involve an indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which, along with our participation in the ascetic life of the Church, leads us to a place where it grows in its knowledge of Christ, and ultimate of the Father. This knowledge is not a rational knowledge, but rather a mystical knowledge. That is, a knowledge of persons through the direct experience of them. I recommend reading the Metropolitan’s books for a much greater exploration of this topic.

The second point is also covered in great depth in a wonderful book that just came out in the last year or so. That is, that quiet little phrase at the beginning of the prayer, “everywhere present.” This is, in fact, the title of the book by Fr. Stephen Freeman. In it, Fr. Freeman explores the Orthodox understanding both of God and the heavenly realm. In the modern West we have adopted a view that God and the angels, etc., live on the second story of our universe. They are up there (or in the case of the demons, down there in the basement), and we are down here. Every once in a while God bangs around upstairs so we can here Him, and once, a long time ago, he sent Jesus down here for a bit. Otherwise, in our day to day lives we live somehow apart from what goes on up there. However, that is not really how things are. Yes, the metaphor of God being “up there” is useful for us, as it helps us think of upward progression. However, the reality is that heavenly realms are all around us. We are just generally too blinded by our passions to be able to see. It is interesting to note that there are numerous stories of both very young children (who have not become sufficiently blinded yet) or very holy individuals (who have managed to progress in their knowledge of God as Metropolitan Hierotheos discusses) who have seen amazing and wonderful things during the Divine Liturgy – angels, God’s light, etc. One priest I know was serving a liturgy and a young child was present with his mother at the liturgy. After the liturgy, the mother told the child that they were going to meet with the priest, and the child responded with, “is that the fire man?” When asked why the child referred to him as the fire man, the explanation was forthcoming that during the consecration of the gifts, the priest was surrounded by fire. Saints have been quoted as describing fire descending onto the altar during the epiclesis, or the calling down of the Holy Spirit. Others have reported angels and saints being present in the altar during the liturgy.

If one thinks a bit further about God being everywhere present, then the question arises about where exactly, then, is God not present? If He is everywhere, what does that mean for people’s plans to “go” to heaven? What is heaven and hell, if God is everywhere? For a good exploration of this, I would recommend both Fr. Stephen’s book, as well as this piece. In addition, this talk, given to a youth group many years ago, is worth a read.

Hymnography

One significant challenge that the average Christian faces when attempting to study theology is figuring out who and what to read. Even for those who take a Sola Scriptura view this can be challenging. What do you do with conflicting passages or with unclear passages(what did Paul mean when he refers to his teachings not recorded in his epistles)? There can be similar problems when studying the Church Fathers, who frequently are attempting to explain scripture. Yet, we know that there are contradictions at times between Fathers, or cases where we know they are in error on occasion( like Augustine). What are we to do if we are seeking to deepen our understanding of our faith?

One way, as I’ve mentioned before, is to look to the hymns of the church. For the Orthodox, hymns are a significant means of passing down theology. We have never been in the practice of arbitrarily adding in hymns written by someone just because they have musical talent. Hymns (and the prayers and other components of the services) are somewhat slow in being adopted. The one exception are the troparia for a new saint, in part because these largely recapitulate the life of the saint and frequently are adaptations of troparia for other saints. Even at that, the adoption of these hymns would likely seem slow by Western standards. This unwillingness to add new hymns means that many of the hymns are very ancient.

Unfortunately, it can be a bit challenging to locate a hymn that addresses a specific topic of interest – like here, where I address the question of why Moses needed to part the red sea. Of course, the best solution would be for all of us to spend time learning many of the hymns, but it would also be nice to have a reference collection with a topical index.
Someday I hope to be able to work on something like that. In the mean time, I hope to publish the occasional hymn with a brief discussion of its background and subject matter.

I’ll start things off with one of my favorite hymns, the 15th Antiphon from both Matins of Holy Friday (read on Holy Thursday), and from the Hours read on Holy Friday morning:

Today He who hung the earth upon the waters is hung upon the tree,
The King of the angels is decked with a crown of thorns.
He who wraps the heavens in clouds is wrapped in a purple robe of mockery.
He who freed Adam in the Jordan is struck on the face.
The Bridegroom of the Church is affixed to the Cross with nails.
The Son of the virgin is pierced by a spear.
We worship Thy passion, O Christ.
We worship Thy passion, O Christ.
We worship Thy passion, O Christ.
Show us also Thy glorious resurrection.

This hymn is typically chanted in a somewhat embellished variation of what is known as “reader’s mode”. Here is Bishop Job, of Blessed Memory chanting the hymn:

A nearly identical hymn to this chanted before the feast of the Nativity. The text clearly serves to make us ponder the very nature of Christ. It is obvious, from the opening verse, that we are discussing the very God who created the world. However, the juxtaposition of the events, especially coupled with the style of chanting primarily serves as a means of forcing us to meditate, and meditate deeply, upon what was done to the very God who created the world, in order to free us from the bondage of sin. Adding to this the weight of the self examination that takes place throughout Lent and Holy Week, we develop a greater sense of the enormity of the impact of our sin. As the hymn concludes, however, we are taken from the deep sorrow for our actions and receive one of the first glimpses of the coming resurrection to be celebrated in a couple of days. I can tell you, the power of this hymn is incredible. Having had the great privilege of chanting this from the center of the solea in front of the Iconostasis and altar, I find myself struggling to control my emotions long enough to get through the hymn.

Another perspective to be applied to this hymn is to look at the juxtaposition of events as a way to understand what God subjected Himself to for us. This is similar to the Nativity version of this antiphon, where we meditate on the great condescension of God towards us.

On the Ecumenical Councils

For years after I became actively involved in Christianity again, I had developed a misunderstanding of the nature of the Ecumenical Councils. Part of this can likely be attributed to the influence that conservative Catholics had on my formation at this time. My error was in believing that the role of the Ecumenical Council was to develop new doctrines. To be sure, these doctrines had to flow naturally (whatever that means) from previously held doctrines, but these were new developments. Other Western groups had a more severe understanding, and felt that by and large the councils had the job of creating entirely novel doctrines in many cases. Some groups might accept the doctrine of the divinity of Christ as having been correctly developed, but much else was just erroneous (most notably the proclamations about icons).

It wasn’t until I was becoming Orthodox, and maybe not until after, that I understood that the role of the Ecumenical Council was not to develop anything. Instead, their job was to proclaim with one voice that which had been passed down from the Apostles. Generally, these councils were called to address new “developments” and bring an end to them, not to create them.

This morning, I received the following quote from the Church Fathers Yahoo group, which makes the point nicely:

”…the following remark of Father Florovsky has much to commend it: ‘It will be no exaggeration
to suggest that [Oecumenical] Councils were never regarded as a canonical institution, but rather
as occasional ‘charismatic events.’  That is to say, ‘under the guidance of the Holy Spirit they
have witnessed to the Truth, in conformity with the Scripture as handed down in Apostolic
Tradition.’  What makes them authoritative is that they both ‘bear witness to’ and ‘defend the
truth;’ they do not so much define as express the truth.  This they could not have done without
the antecedent labors of the Fathers, who themselves testified to the same truth that was revealed
to the Prophets and the Apostles.  

Father James Thornton, The Oecumenical Synods of the Orthodox Church, Center for
Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, Etna, CA, 2007, p. 18.”

My Letter Regarding the IOCC

My letter to the IOCC in response to their selection of Paul Sarbanes as honorary chairman:

Dear Mr. Triantafilou,
I was quite distressed to learn of IOCC’s decision to name Paul Sarbanes as the honorary chairman of its 20th anniversary gala. When an organization, such as IOCC, selects an individual as an honorary chairman, they are holding that individual up as someone who exemplifies the principles for which the organization stands.
In the case of Paul Sarbanes, we can look at his voting record in the Senate to understand the principles he believes in. In deed, for a public official, there is no better way to make that determination. Unfortunately, Mr. Sarbanes has taken extreme positions regarding abortion, such that it is hard to imagine that his views are anything other than unreserved support. He has even gone so far as to oppose laws that would levy additional criminal penalties on those who harm an unborn child during the commission of a crime.
IOCC officially claims that its vision is to respond without discrimination to those in need. Who is in greater need than a baby facing death at its own mother’s hand? How does honoring Paul Sarbanes, and making him the gala chairman, do anything but call into question the stated vision of IOCC? What am I supposed to think about the decision making process of an organization who apparently agrees with Paul Sarbanes that babies are something less than persons, able to be killed off at the whim of their mothers?
My family has supported IOCC extensively over the years, but at this point, our support must end. We have a finite budget, and our money is better spent with other Orthodox charities in whom I can have faith that they will support the dignity and life of all human beings.
I hope, as well, that the Episcopal Assembly will take a closer look at IOCC when it comes time to formally approve various organizations. I am not clear that IOCC is that interested in adhering to the Orthodox faith.

Sincerely yours,

Jeffrey Lee
Member, Sts. Constantine and Helen Orthodox Church, GOArch
Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California

CC:

His Eminence, Demetrios, Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
His Eminence, Gerasimos, Metropolitan of San Francisco, GOArch
His Grace, Andonios, Coordinator for Agencies and Endorsed Organizations, Episcopal Assembly

IOCC, Paul Sarbanes, Faith and Politics

I recently became aware, when a friend sent me this letter, of the IOCC’s plans for its 20th anniversary gala. Part of this gala is the naming of former senator Paul Sarbanes as the honorary chairman. I am not sure why they opted for this selection, but I suspect it is because he is a Greek of some national prominence, as well as, I imagine, a member of the Orthodox Church.

However, his selection creates some significant challenges. The chairman of such an event needs to represent the ideals of that organization- in this case the Orthodox Church taking care of the poor, weak, and vulnerable. How is it then, that a man who has so publicly supported the killing of unborn children, perhaps the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society, can be said to represent the ideals of IOCC? I would hope that every member of the Orthodox Church must hang their head in shame whenever he identifies himself with the Church.

Yes, I know the arguments, and they are hardly worth responding to. The first, that we shouldn’t let his stance get in the way of our support of the IOCC, presumes that they are the only organization helping people in the world. The fact is that they are not. My finite budget for supporting charitable causes can quite easily be spent with other Orthodox charities that don’t honor individuals who so publicly work in opposition to the constant teaching of the Church.

The second argument, that he is merely supporting choice, is insincere. His voting record is so extreme that he can’t even support criminal penalties for those who harm the unborn while committing a crime. No, it’s clear that he views the unborn as somehow not persons. That stands in absolute contradiction to what he claims to hold as an Orthodox Christian. Frankly, even a moderate pro choice position requires that you don’t hold to the sanctity of life and the status of the unborn as persons. One has to assume that IOCC must somehow hold to similar views, and that makes me worry about decisions that the organization might make in a crisis situation. If they don’t value life… Yes, that may come off as a bit harsh, but it is a legitimate concern.

The third argument is the one most often used by politicians who don’t hold to the teachings of the faith they claim to have. I don’t understand why one would belong to a religion with which they disagree on such a fundamental level, but one must imagine it is in the interest of getting votes. With Greeks this is clearly the case. Greek American periodicals come out in support of every Greek candidate regardless of their views. At any rate, the argument, apparently dating from the Kennedy presidency is that they are keeping their personal faith separate from their execution of their public office. The absurdity of this position is handled better in this letter than I could hope to. What I would like to address is my views as a voter. One concern as a voter is how decisions will be made by an office holder. If a politician sincerely holds a specific faith, then I would count on that faith informing their decisions on a wide range of moral issues. If they are Orthodox, then I would hope that they will always act in the best interest of the poor, the weak, and vulnerable.

This has an interesting connection to the current presidential race. Mitt Romney apologists also make the argument that he will keep his Mormonism out of his decisions as a president. The problem is that the one positive for me regarding Romney would be if Mormon morality informed his decisions. If it doesn’t, then he becomes much less interesting. Yes, I agree that Mormonism is in serious error, but that error does not extend to their views on most moral issues.

I think that anyone who can truly keep their personal beliefs separate from their public actions is either extraordinarily double minded or a liar. Either case would make me very concerned.

The Great and Fearful Judgement Seat

This Sunday past provides for an interesting challenge for priests. It has two different names, seemingly focused on two different and unrelated things. The first is meat fare, or the last day we can eat meat until Pascha. The second is the Sunday of the last Judgement. Clever homilists see the connection between the two, as our new pastor did this last weekend. I’m not going to reiterate that sermon, especially as he utilized visuals that I can’t reproduce so well within this blog. As I sit here, near the beginning of Great Lent, thoughts of the last judgement come to mind. I suspect that is why the Church established the Sunday of the Last Judgement – as we enter into our preparations for the annual commemoration of the Resurrection, we should be considering what will happen when it is our turn.

It is common in our culture to spend the end of the calendar year reflecting on the preceding year. However, in the midst of feasting, and with feasting in front of us for a while, I find it difficult to focus on proper reflection. I think that the beginning of the Lenten Triodion is a much superior time. The tenor of the services for the next six weeks will be very penitential, followed by the bridegroom services of Holy Week, which will force us to consider whether we are ready for the Bridegroom, the Great Judge, to come.

As I look over the past year, I am amazed at the opportunities that presented themselves, and how I managed to pass up on most of them. These opportunities, of course, were both positive and negative. On the positive side, we had a truly phenomenal interim pastor, who offered a great number of services and classes. Although I tried to avail myself of as many of the services as possible, I certainly did not expend enough effort to just be in his presence and hear what he had to say. Even with the services, I do not believe I really made the effort to be prayerful. If anything, over the last year, I have spent less time in prayer than I should have. While it is always the case that one should spend more time in prayer, when challenging times arrive it is even more important to do so.

With the fast upon us, of course, I must also look at my progress in overcoming the passions. After a broken leg at the end of 2010, and with plenty of time off after the layoffs at work, I had a perfect opportunity to focus time and energy on managing my diet, losing weight, and exercising. Unfortunately, I did none of these. As a result, I am on a protracted recovery from stress fractures that are keeping me off of my trike for probably 3 months. What foolishness!

So now the annual great opportunity is upon us (I think that should be my new name for Lent.). I pray that I utilize this time to get focused on the right priorities.