Paredwka: Catching the Ball

Heresy

2011-09-06T16:50:00.002-04:00

Heresy is not just wrong thinking; it is delusion.

Media Preys on People's Ignorance

2011-08-13T02:30:00.000-04:00

LINK: Scholars seek to correct 'mistakes' in Bible - World News

A dull-looking chart projected on the wall of a university office in Jerusalem displayed a revelation that would startle many readers of the Old Testament: The sacred text that people revered in the past was not the same one we study today.

The "problems" that Matti Friedman highlights pertain to those who have followed Jewish scholarship after it reformed itself in direct opposition to Christianity around AD 100. (Generally, that would be the Protestant and Humanist societies.) Protestant translations of the Old Testament (OT) draw upon the Hebrew text preserved by the Jews that did not become Christian. The text they use is only 1000 years old; the books of the OT are at least three times that age. This text is called the Masoretic Text (MT).

The MT adopted the longer version of Jeremiah. Some minor words are different (that is, the meaning isn't changed by their variation) - that isn't a strike against them. They also added vowels (Hebrew didn't originally have vowels), which in some cases has changed the meaning of words.

How do we know the meaning of words were changed? The Greek-speaking Jews scattered around the Mediterranean at the time of Christ used a well-established Greek translation of the OT Hebrew, which is called the Septuagint (LXX). The Hebrew used in this translation is over 1000 years older than the MT, but this Hebrew text is not available anymore. Only the LXX is. The LXX not only shows what the Bible says, but it also shows how the old Hebrew text read and was understood.

The LXX had the shorter (and it seems original) text of Jerermiah. The Greek is a more specific language than Hebrew in some important cases. The LXX is what was used by the Apostles, on whom the Church is founded (Eph. 2:20), and quoted from throughout the New Testament (NT). The LXX is the basis of the Latin Vulgate used in the West by the Roman Catholics, and it remains the basis for translation of the OT in the Orthodox Church.

Thus the "missing part" from Malachi (3:5) alluded to in the article was never missing from the LXX.

Thus the differences in Jeremiah was never an issue, because the original was the one chosen for the LXX. (Scholars who favor the MT may suggest that the LXX chose a shortened, not original, text. Some have suggested that Jeremiah published two versions. It is known that some writings were published in succeeding editions by a prophet after he received new prophecies to be published. Rather than publish them separately they were put on a single scroll under the prophet's name.

The claim that a prophecy was added after the fact is ambiguously asserted. Either the author is referring to a prophecy missing from the longer version of Jeremiah in one of its manuscripts - which then is not a problem if you've only used the shorter version of Jeremiah like in the LXX - or he's claiming that it happened in a different book. In that case one would need to show an earlier manuscript without the prophecy and a later one with the prophecy; this doesn't exist.

Usually this conclusion - that something is added in after the fact - is arrived at by a "scholar" who looks at a text and decides that more than one person wrote it, even though there exists NO TEXTS that demonstrate this theory as fact. This is known as Higher Criticism, and is the generally accepted set of pre-judgments utilized in institutions of higher learning against Scripture. So when a journalist claims an unspecified prophecy in the Bible is written after the fact, it is by default an untrustworthy statement, having no textual evidence to back it up. When a "scholar" makes a claim like this, he has always been found to be assuming something he cannot prove.

Either way, the article writer is asserting that a prophecy was added after the fact, but he is not saying if that's his take or the Jews' who are presenting evidence, thus leaving the reader to assume that's just what he was told by "authorities," though that might not be the case. Which prophecy?

Phase One: Complete

2011-08-11T06:21:00.000-04:00

I was assigned a paper on Apostolic Succession by my priest. It is ready for his inspection. Pending approval I will condense it into something readable by the laity.

A thought about a friend

2011-08-08T00:07:00.001-04:00

My friend, Lutheran Pastor Bradley Ketchum in Audubon, Iowa, announced recently that he has finally moved his congregation to having weekly Communion on Sundays. For the past six years (egads, I can remember when he started) he has had it available every Wednesday. His plan has been to take his time, in order to help his congregation get used to something that was very foreign to them.

Of course, in the Orthodox Church, the thought of coming together on Sunday for Liturgy without communion is the exception - usually necessitated by the absence of a priest. Lutherans in western Iowa, though, are of a 20th century Protestant persuasion. I remember as a pastor in SW Iowa that there were members present who remembered when communion was celebrated four times a year, the Lutheran minimum (if there is such a thing). Of course, four times a year was supposed to be the minimum for reception, not celebration. Anyway, Communion in that part of the country was seen by these farming families as a very precious and serious thing. It was something special, and so as not to treat it improperly it was taken not so often. When it was received the whole community would anticipate it together, and come with the most devout temperament.

Now, I said above that it was unthinkable in the Orthodox Church for the people to assemble at a Liturgy where there is not the Eucharist. However, that does not mean that everyone receives the Eucharist. A similar feeling has been at work among Orthodox people for a long time (if you think you know how long, leave a comment). However, preparation is more structured than in the Lutheran congregations. Not only must one be baptized and chrismated (i.e. confirmed), but one must be recently confessed of his sins. That means one must have made use of the Sacrament of Repentance. Also, it is the custom to have fasted from midnight the previous night (cases of necessity aside). It is only recently in Orthodox history that more frequent reception of the Eucharist by the majority of the people has begun to return.

I say return, because in the early Church - and I mean early - it was expected that all members of the community would be present for the Eucharist. It was exceptional not to receive the Eucharist with the rest of the members of Christ's Body on Sunday. Those who could not be in attendance due to sickness were found by the Deacons, who brought them the Eucharist.

There is a common movement at work among Christians to return to the best practices possible, to more serious devotion. I think that the condition of the world around us, as acrimonious as it is toward conservative Christians - and especially Orthodox and Roman Catholics - is helping Christians to push back and to reach for Christ more earnestly. The divide is happening: liberalism is taking over where it can in the congregations. Some are making their stand where they are, and the refugees of the whole ordeal are fleeing to the historic churches of the East and Rome, not out of resignation but conviction and determination.

I think the best thing any church like my friend Pastor Ketchum's can do is run to the Eucharist. We will set aside here any question of sacramental validity and leave it to Christ for now, because each community can only reach so far at once, can only handle so much at one time. The Eucharist is the source of our unity, because it is Christ in our midst, and it is the wellspring of our unity with God. Baptism, Chrismation, and Eucharist all belong together, with the Eucharist repeated but never depleted, for it is the Sacrifice of Golgotha present apart from time, in which we are all gathered, presented, redeemed, and united in the Trinity. (Not that the Father was sacrificed, but only the Son who unites us with the Father through the Holy Spirit.) The Eucharist is present apart from time, but also is the summation of time, and binds us in the Eschaton that we all wait to see. (Eschaton: the Last Day when Christ returns and His reign.)

I think the best thing is to gather around the Eucharist. We must be present in Christ's Sacrifice as participants, and we must therefore become living sacrifices, little christs, and the salt of the earth. If we just begin with the Eucharist in our preaching, then we can set the stage of human hearts. How is the stage dressed? With the expectation of the kingdom that is coming, and is now already in our hearts, and is simultaneously lived in heaven with the worship described in the Scriptures and practiced in the Church's Eucharistic Liturgy publicly on earth. This is important, that the coming kingdom is what we live now within, though outwardly we are in the world (not of the world).

This is why we are sojourners, like Abraham was, waiting for a better home. This is why we fast from food and pleasures at set times, to remind us that our life is not in these things, but in the age to come - the age that comes to us in the Eucharist and will come upon all when Christ returns. This is why we love and endeavor to love as Christ teaches (not as the world teaches), because we are free to love. Christ frees us to love. Even if (according to the world) we loose everything trying to love, we have lost nothing, for we have the everlasting Christ and the everlasting kingdom for our everlasting possession. I think this is the hardest thing every day, to believe this and find ways to do it.

I'm so glad my friend's congregation will be gathering around the Eucharist every week. That's the best thing for them. The object of their faith will be set before them every Sunday. Of course I wish they were Orthodox, but I still am so glad that in six years they made it this far into the good things their own confession has to offer. I hope that this Eucharist will open their eyes even more to the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ in their midst, the eschatological kingdom that has no end.

To be Prosphora

2011-08-06T01:37:00.003-04:00

Romans 15:15-16,

Nevertheless, brethren, I have written more boldly to you on some points, as reminding you, because of the grace given to me by God, that I might be a minister [λειτουργόv] of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering [ἱερουργounta] the gospel of God, that the offering [προσφορά] of the Gentiles might be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

From Strong's Dictionary and Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon:

λειτουργός -

a public minister, a servant of the state
a minister, servant
- so of military labourers
- of the temple
+ of one busied with holy things
+ of a priest
of the servants of a king

ἱερουργέω -

to minister in the manner of a priest, minister in priestly service
- of those who defend the sanctity of the law by undergoing a violent death
- of the preaching of the gospel

προσφορά -

the act of offering, a bringing to
that which is offered, a gift, a present. In the NT a sacrifice, whether bloody or not: offering for sin, expiatory offering

These are key words which lose their force in translation. I have posted some years in the past about this text, but now it is showing its usefulness in a project I am working on, so I repeat it here.

λειτουργός is best contextualized by the sacrificial language St. Paul is using here, thus rendering the meaning a servant of the temple busied with holy things. Further added to the context is St. Paul's use of the word ἱερουργέω, which has at it's core ἱερόν meaning temple, and is naturally connected to ἱερός meaning sacred in relation to God and ἱερωσύνη meaning priest, which is different from διακονός (a servant minister). The word προσφορά used by St. Paul here is also used of Christ's self-offering in Hebrews 10:10.

Though Protestant commentaries often see no logical connection between St. Paul's words and regular ecclesiastical life, and thus deem this passage figurative, the connection is not figurative for those living within a traditional ecclesiology conditioned by the patristic witness. St. Paul is setting his apostolic work in the context of the eschatological kingdom, which now is centered explicitly in the throne room of heaven, from which the Church on earth lives from in communion with the Trinity. He is a servant of the temple, the one made without hands in the heavens. His priestly work is carried out on earth, for Christ has given to him to gather the Gentiles into the Church, that they may be united in the Passover of Jesus Christ.

But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation. [Galatians 6:14-15]

This incorporation into the new creation finds its locus in the Eucharistic offering and partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ. From this center the entire life of the Christian is to be transformed into a living sacrifice, as St. Paul says in Romans 12:1 with similar liturgical overtones. This transformation comes not by magic, or by God overrunning passive animals with His power, but by free (i.e. uncoerced) participation in the Life that the Gospel provides and directs. So Christ institutes salvation, the Spirit constitutes salvation in us, and we are called to realize what God has done in us on the existential level.

So this passage is not an allegory but a direct representation of the Apostolic ministry in the reality of the Church. This priestly work continues in the Church through the Apostles' successors, the bishops assisted by those who serve with them in the three-fold ministry. It also depends on us to receive this priestly work in such a way that we are not hearers only but doers of the work, that is, members of the Royal Priesthood who offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God, doing the work given to us in the Gospels.

In the Byzantine Eucharistic Liturgy the bread that is offered is called prosphora, the same term used by St. Paul here and in Hebrews. It is the bread that is offered together with the wine as the Eucharistic sacrifice instituted by Christ and carried out by the Apostles. It is prepared with many prayers beforehand, offered to God, and received as gifts Eucharistized and changed by the Holy Spirit - the Body and Blood of Christ. The remaining prosphora that was not included in the Eucharistic offering at all is divided up, blessed (similar to the nature of holy water), and distributed after the Communion.

We are to become like this bread, and this bread is a symbol of the Body of Christ (in both senses, which is one and the same anyways). It is made with holy water, just as we are baptized into Christ's death. It is imprinted with a seal, just as we are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Chrismation. It gives of itself, through the priest's instrumentation, with prayers for the salvation of many people and the whole Church entire. We are to give of ourselves to our neighbor, both in prayer and of our substance, drawing upon our trust in God to overcome our fears. It is presented to God in holiness. We are to present ourselves to God, both in the Liturgy at the Eucharist, and also in life through the love we have for others. It becomes Christ. We do not become Christ Himself, but we become participants in Him. We are to be like prosphora.

Christ help us to labor in love as wise and faithful servants, and may He cleanse us of all wickedness and laziness in His mercy.

Do Not Count Out the Invisible

2011-08-05T06:00:00.001-04:00

St. Matthew 17:14-18: And when they had come to the multitude, a man came to Him, kneeling down to Him and saying, “Lord, have mercy on my son, for he is an epileptic and suffers severely; for he often falls into the fire and often into the water. So I brought him to Your disciples, but they could not cure him.”
Then Jesus answered and said, “O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I bear with you? Bring him here to Me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him; and the child was cured from that very hour.

It is common for people to believe that because we can cure physical problems with physical science that therefore it is superstition to believe maladies are caused by demons. This logic does not hold. Man was made a unity of body and soul. The soul was not created first, but the body. God formed the body from the dust, and then He breathed into him the breath of life. Likewise Christ did not raise from the dead as only a soul, but with His body. He will return again in glory and raise all the dead in their bodies, some departing to condemnation and some to eternal life.

So it is not that physical cures prove an absence of spiritual causes, but that physical cures simply have an effect. Doctors provide a great service, and their talent is God-given.

Sirach 38:1-4: Honour a physician with the honour due unto him for the uses which ye may have of him: for the Lord hath created him. For of the most High cometh healing, and he shall receive honour of the king. The skill of the physician shall lift up his head: and in the sight of great men he shall be in admiration. The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them.

But when Christ comes He heals spiritually. Many times demons are cast out, for they are the culprit at work. Perhaps the boy in this pericope would have been helped by anti-epileptic medication, perhaps not. Likewise, not every epileptic is necessarily demon-possessed or demon-afflicted. But either way the affliction points us toward Christ, who heals with a spiritual power, which is His creative power that has effect over the body because it is from this power that the body comes.

Often we pray for healing. Sometimes it doesn't happen as quick as we like, or at all. We might say to ourselves what Christ said, "O faithless and perverse generation!" It's okay to accuse ourselves so that we may recognize our faults, weaknesses, and limitations - and see ourselves as we are and as God knows us to be. But it is also better to see in the praying and waiting and struggling (we ought to struggle forward if we are going to bother praying, but with attention paid to the direction God is leading) the goodness of God. If He does not answer, then it may just be that our Good God has left us with something we don't like but that is good for us.

We must remember to believe that Christ is good. He is vigilant and faithful. He knows when to test us, when to push us, and when it's the right time to answer our pleas. We see in the Gospels that He is good, and we see that sometimes He seems to put us off (like the woman He called a little dog or Lazarus when he was sick) only to lead us into a state of being better for us than where we were.

The disciples had been given authority over the demons, but it seems they did not believe, and thus the demon was not cast out. Later when they were clothed with power on Pentecost even St. Peter's shadow was effectual for help. We are granted to have communion with Christ and to call on Him and all of heaven to come to our aid. With all the variety of ways that Christ can come to our aid, and the variety of ways we might respond to any delay or unexpectedness, one thing is for certain: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and always. He is faithful, even if we are not. He has power over all things, and all things are under His feet - physical and spiritual. As St. Paul says in Ephesians 1:15-23,

Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.

And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.

2011-08-04T00:37:00.004-04:00

I am working on a project, a basic paper on Apostolic Succession. Here's a portion from the introductory section:

Yet when we speak of Apostolic Succession we speak of more than just valid episcopal consecration or historical continuity. We are saying something about our ecclesiology, and we are speaking from our ecclesiology. We can envision the Church at the time of the Apostles through Scripture and recorded history. We can likewise envision the Church today just by looking around us. Apostolic Succession speaks to the reality that the Church of the Apostles and the Church of today is the one, same, and only Church of Jesus Christ. There is not that Church and this Church, but only The Church as it says in the Creed, “and in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.” The term Apostolic Succession indicates those particulars that identify how or in what way the Church of the Apostles is the same Church that exists today, the one holy Orthodox Catholic Church of Jesus Christ, the Church of which our Lord declared, “the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Mt. 16:18).

The term Apostolic Succession does not denote only a chronological following after the Apostles, but it also indicates the continuous action of becoming co-inheritors with them in Jesus Christ. We follow after them in sequence, but only to become concurrent participants with them in the Paschal mystery of the kingdom of heaven. This means the term Apostolic Succession hints at the Church’s ongoing relationship with (not just to) the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, and thus with our Lord Jesus Himself. St. John the Theologian writes in his first epistle,

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life—the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us—that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. [1:1-3]

This is only a snippet. I hope to have it done by the end of the week, but I'm not sure I write that fast.

Ever-Virginity

2011-08-03T02:14:00.000-04:00

I read an interesting article on the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the article Fr. John Hainsworth is quoted as saying,

To argue against Mary's perpetual virginity is to suggest something else that is greatly implausible, not to say unthinkable: that neither Mary nor her protector, Joseph, would have deemed it inappropriate to have sexual relations after the birth of God in the flesh. Leaving aside for a moment the complete uniqueness of the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, recall that it was the practice for devout Jews in the ancient world to refrain from sexual activity following any great manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

An early first-century popular rabbinical tradition (first recorded by Philo, 20 BC-AD 50) notes that Moses "separated himself" from his wife Zipporah when he returned from his encounter with God in the burning bush. Another rabbinical tradition, concerning the choosing of the elders of Israel in Numbers 7, relates that after God had worked among them, one man exclaimed, "Woe to the wives of these men!" (Hainsworth 2004).

I can remember that in my Lutheran days the mere off-handed mention of the perpetual virginity of Mary (i.e. semper virgo) would spark the longest and most tireless debate between interested Lutheran parties. Thus the topic will always hold a certain glimmering interest for me.

The Future is Now

2011-08-01T02:33:00.000-04:00

Imagine if Christ had already returned in glory, the scenes of judgment have come and gone, and the reign of Christ was seen all around us. Imagine if this is where you were right now. This future is the Christian's invisible present, for the kingdom of heaven is within you (Lk 17:21). In this we gather in the Lord's Supper, and from this we live under the cross in the world, which is perishing and passing away.

Our New Bishop

2011-08-01T00:41:00.001-04:00

The Diocese of Toledo and the Midwest has been without an (Auxiliary) Bishop for nearly a year now. This summer in convention a new bishop was elected to fill the vacancy, our own priest Rt. Rev. Archimandrite Anthony Michaels. It's not a big surprise, and we of all people (i.e. his parishioners) can see the wisdom in choosing him. We're only sorry he has to leave us! I am glad, though, that our new Bishop will be someone as caring as Fr. Anthony. God grant him many years!

Words Describe, Invite, and Challenge

2011-04-07T08:00:00.009-04:00

Theological talk in Orthodoxy is usually a description of something that is real or something that has happened, not so much words that capture an idea as if the idea were the thing itself.

It's like relating the scene of a terrible accident. Words can convey only so much; they don't compare to actually coming to see the tremendous gravity of the situation yourself. It's also like watching a beautiful sunrise over the hills of a splendid landscape. You can hear someone say, "I saw a beautiful sunrise," but it's not the same as being a part of the experience yourself.

Often this is how it is with words in Orthodoxy. Sinfulness is like the terrible accident, and Christ is like the beautiful sunrise.

In Whose Name Do I Live?

2011-03-28T01:36:00.000-04:00

I have recently been turned onto the sermons of Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh. Here is one entitled, "From a Retreat."

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh
From a retreat
7 March 1981

The moment we offer our allegiance to the Lord, we immediately expect that He will allow us to stay by Him, to follow Him, to accompany Him. We expect as the reward and as the response for our choosing Him, that He will choose us as companions from whom He will not be parted. Well, we must be prepared for something else, because we do not join Christ in order to stand about around Him or around His place, but to serve Him where and in the way in which it is more expedient for Him and for His purpose.

More than once we can read in the Gospel that someone healed by Christ, whose life was transformed by his meeting with Him, wanted to follow Him, to accompany Him, to cling to Him. And Christ said to him, 'No, go back to your own people. Go away into the world from which you have come, because it is there that your presence is needed.' It is enough for us to know God, to know Christ, to know within ourselves the crushing and transfiguring work of the Holy Spirit. We do not need more. If we receive more we can be grateful for it and marvel at the privilege, but our function and our essential privilege is to be sent by Christ wherever He needs us, into darkness to bring some light, where there is hatred to bring some love, when there is strife, to bring some reconciliation, where there is pain, to bring some consolation, and so forth. Our place is where things are wrong. And we must go there, we must be there so that there is someone in each situation who will say 'Come, Lord, stand in our midst. Give us Thy peace.'

I want you to give thought to this, because all of us all the time fall into a natural but ugly temptation to treat God as the One who gives and who must give. We forget that He is a consuming fire and we want to sit round a fire and warm our hands. It is not right. If we have chosen Him, if He has been wonderful, so wonderful as to reveal himself to us, we can leave it to Him to give us whatever He will choose, but to live for His sake and for the sake of those for whose sake He has become man, lived and died. Ask yourself questions about the way in which you approach Him in prayer. Is it in His Name or in yours? Is it for His sake, that He may win His victory over you and within you, or is it that sweetness and peace and joy may come? Ask yourself whether to be Christ's has anything to do within you, in your life, but in your deeper self, in turning away from self-centeredness, saying to yourself whenever thought of self comes, 'Oh, out of my way, because you are in my way to God and in God's way to me.' Ask yourselves whether you relate to people in God's Name and in their name or in your own, whether you can imagine one person in your surroundings about whom you can says 'This person, his existence I contemplate and serve without a thought of the way in which it may affect me; or whether all the people who are dear to you, who are your friends, who are your acquaintances, who are your chance meetings in life, are seen and judged only from your point of view: 'What shall he do to me? What is this person to me?'

His sermons may be found at http://www.mitras.ru/eng/eng_serm.htm

Curses

2011-03-16T07:33:00.006-04:00

That God is owed suffering and death on account of sin just because the law renders such a curse is like saying you owe it to the other driver to crash into him when you run a stop sign. No, the law renders the curse because it is the curse accomplished by sin. The law reveals the curse, just as it reveals the sin. God, though, claims to not desire the death of a sinner, but that he should turn from his wickedness and live (Ez 18:32).

However, if man chooses sin, God honors his choice, just as the prodigal son demanded his inheritance in order to run off and squander it in sin and his father gave it to him and let him go (St. Luke 15:11ff). And if he comes back, God welcomes him as that same father did, restoring to him everything that was lost through sin and even rejoicing with a great feast. To this end Christ died and rose again, that we could gain back more than just a robe, ring, or sandals, but rather righteousness, holiness, and participation in the Life of God in His kingdom. If God so honors our choices, then we ought to take care not to choose what God curses, but what the world and the devil curses, that we may be rewarded with what Christ has gained.

Sacrifice without Punishment

2011-02-26T01:21:00.000-05:00

Below is an explanation I wrote for a friend. I thought I'd post it here, too (not that I ever seem to remember having a blog ... sorry to my friends and commentators for not being around to continue conversations!). The topic is how the Orthodox look at the Old Testament sacrifices, and this within the bigger topic of how Lutherans believe (and the Orthodox don't) that Christ paid God a debt of punishment due to Him in retribution for man's sins.

----

Let's use Leviticus 1 as an example:

The burnt offering was an unblemished male. The offerer (lit. one bringing the offering) placed his hand on the bull's head so that it would be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. The bull was killed before the Lord. The priests offered the blood to God. The rest of the animal was prepared and burned completely on the altar.

This all points to Christ, of course, and reveals the prophetic character of the Mosaic Covenant. The unblemished male animal points to the sinlessness of Christ. The placing of the hand is to identify the animal as representing the one who offers, which we may compare with Christ's baptism in that Christ designates Himself one with sinners.

The bull is killed, pointing to Christ's death. Scripture teaches that Christ's death canceled the curse issued by the Law [Gal.3:13] by doing away with the body of sin [Rom. 6], even bringing an end to the Law by His death [Col. 2:14] (since the Law is there to reveal sin, is only for sinners, and can only apply until one dies). The animal's death signified the need for the offerer to put an end to his big problem: the guilt and corruption of sin that holds him in bondage and prevents him from living as Adam did before the Fall - in communion with God.

That the blood is offered by the priests points to Christ, who entered the Most Holy Place in the Tabernacle not made with hands to cleanse our conscience from sins to serve the Living God [Heb. 9:11ff]. Notice especially verse 22, "And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission." The OT blood purified and [v.13] sanctified; how much more does Christ's Blood purify and sanctify from sin, which indicates expiation [def: to make (the believer) pious by removing sin] and not propitiation [def: to make (God) favorable]. Of course, one whose sins are expiated then finds God propitious. Returning to the theme of blood, there is no remission of sins without blood. Leviticus 17:11, "For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul." Here the blood, offered to God (but only by God's commandment), is really God providing blood for us that we may return to Him and remain in communion with Him. Hence God says, "I have given it..."

Taking into account all that has been said thus far, the blood makes atonement in that it sanctifies and purifies; it provides what is lacking on man's part - which is fulfilled in Christ by His offering of perfect obedience and perfect communion with God. This Divine-Human Christ alone is able to supply to us what we lack in order to return to God: both an end to our bondage to sin, death, and the devil, AND re-entry into the Kingdom of God in perfect communion, obedience, righteousness, holiness, etc.

That the rest of the animal was offered to God by consumption through fire indicates the total and complete nature of the offering. As the animal represented the offerer, it signifies that the offerer was not to be double-minded about his turning towards and ascent to God, but was to be completely sincere, holding nothing back.

In this there is no sense that God was punishing anyone or demanding to be satisfied by someone's punishment. He was demonstrating man's need to be freed from the demonic kingdom of sin and death, and He was demonstrating man's need for an unblemished life (morally and ontologically) in communion with Him.

Wake Up! - A Good Read

2010-12-30T00:01:00.002-05:00

My wife has been waiting with bated breath for me to post something new to my blog. It seems the stare of Dieter Philippi from the previous post has been boring holes into her blog's sidebar for nearly two months, and the time has come to see something different ... please.

I've had little time to pay attention to my blog (just when it was getting interesting, too). However, I read this and thought it was a good thing - even if you're not Orthodox.

It is entitled "On Becoming and Remaining Orthodox." Here is an excerpt:

Some people can be so full of themselves! Some people can be very self-important and very puffed-up. They will first tell you - if you let them - their detailed life-stories and then all the latest gossip about Priest X, Bishop Y, and then Jurisdiction Z. Even though they do not know the ABC of the children's Faith. The thing is though, that Christianity, and that is what we are about, is about none of these things. If you don't have contact with reality, then you will never learn about real things. Church life is not about any of that nonsense. There is nothing so boring as discussing the personalities and activities of various clergymen or laymen, except of course sin, because sin is always boring, always the same thing. Ask anyone who hears confessions.

Church life is about: Who will make the coffee? Who will do the washing-up? Who will do the flowers? Who will cut the grass? Who will bake the prosphora? Who will clean the toilets? St Nectarios performed the latter task when teaching in Athens, even though he bore the mighty title of 'Metropolitan of Pentapolis'. So why should we object? It is after all one of the first obediences given to novices in monasteries.

Of course, these are not the main tasks in Church life. Let us go on: ...

He knows too much...

2010-11-07T21:43:00.004-05:00

I would kindly like to direct your attention to the Web page of Dieter Philippi. Herr Philippi is, in his own words, "an internationally recognized and renowned expert on religious, clerical and ecclesiastical headgear." Some of the information is in German, but not all. His attention centers on Roman Catholic haberdashery accessories, but he also covers some Orthodox paraphernalia, not to mention headgear of the Muslim and Buddhist persuasion.

Heavens to Murgatroyd, the section on the Pope's shoes alone is enough to make your head spin.

All in all, a very informative site. In connection with some of the topics I've mentioned here, I recommend the following pages:

He also covers some topics I can only hope one day to cover here (and maybe now there's no need to do so):

Of course, since he is a religious headgear specialist, please spend some time browsing his headgear pages under the PHILIPPI collection. These are in German, unlike the previous pages, but the pictures alone will say plenty. A good online translator can be helpful here, too.

One of My Favorite Scripture Passages...

2010-11-04T15:04:00.009-04:00

One of my favorite Scripture passages is Isaiah 6.

¹ In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. ² Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. ³ And one cried to another and said:

“ Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;
The whole earth is full of His glory!”

⁴ And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
⁵ So I said:

“ Woe is me, for I am undone!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King,
The LORD of hosts.”

⁶ Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. ⁷ And he touched my mouth with it, and said:

“ Behold, this has touched your lips;
Your iniquity is taken away,
And your sin purged.”

⁸ Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:

“ Whom shall I send,
And who will go for Us?”

Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
⁹ And He said, “Go, and tell this people:

‘ Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
¹⁰ “ Make the heart of this people dull,
And their ears heavy,
And shut their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart,
And return and be healed.”

¹¹ Then I said, “Lord, how long?”

And He answered:

“ Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant,
The houses are without a man,
The land is utterly desolate,
¹² The LORD has removed men far away,
And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.
¹³ But yet a tenth will be in it,
And will return and be for consuming,
As a terebinth tree or as an oak,
Whose stump remains when it is cut down.
So the holy seed shall be its stump.”

I like it for two reasons. First, because the vision is so congruous with the liturgical worship of the Trinity in the Church. Second, because of the how the Lord chastises His people.

The people had strayed from His statutes and commandments. In faithlessness they had become of the same mind and spirit as the nations who do not know God. They even had pursued the worship of the idols (demons) the nations worshiped. God follows the conditions of the covenant. He had sent deprivations upon the land. He had sent devastations upon the land from other nations. Finally He will visit the last chastisement upon them through their deportation from the land. But what is at work here is not vindictiveness. It is not a power-play or the satiation of a personal need for justice (a.k.a. holding a grudge).

What is God doing? I believe He is revealing to His people the fullness of their choice to be like the other nations instead of God's Holy Nation. He is letting them see what it means to serve other gods (demons), and the difference between that abominable service and the blessedness of the Royal Priesthood of the Living God.

^19:6 And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel.”

Thus the people are to hear without understanding, that their children may understand what folly their parents gave them for an inheritance. They have chosen their own path, but God never changes His tune.

I like this passage because God insists on being their father.

I also like this passage because it reveals the way of righteousness. Isaiah suddenly finds his eyes upon a vision of the Lord God Himself. He sees God and this illumines his fallen condition - to Isaiah's horror! He feels guilt, but God begrudges Isaiah nothing. However, God does not ignore Isaiah's sinful corruption. He forgives any guilt Isaiah has and atones for the sin. Here is God's love for Israel that they will not have, but blessed Isaiah has found. He is pardoned and released and sanctified and made a partaker in God's efforts to love Israel. Here is a foreshadowing of the fullness of salvation that comes through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Was Isaiah actually cleansed from sin? Yes. Did this take the place of Christ's work? No. Why? Because the root problem behind Isaiah's "unclean lips" is addressed truly in our Lord Jesus Christ. He became man, He accepted our mortality without committing sin, He entered the strong man's house (Death) and bound him. The Lord Jesus has made Himself the fullness of our salvation, both by bearing our sins and partaking of our death only to rise in victory.

As Isaiah was cleansed from sin through a flaming coal, we partake of a better flaming coal - the Eucharist. There the Divinity and Humanity of Christ impart to us the Holy Spirit.

YouTube Channel: All Saints Monastery

2010-11-03T19:35:00.004-04:00

Here's an interesting video. More available from their YouTube channel, All Saints Monastery.

Some Thoughts on Guilt

2010-11-01T20:07:00.003-04:00

This particular post was solicited by my old friend from seminary, Pastor Eric Brown. He commented in a previous post, saying, "How does the East use the term guilt. How is it similar and disimilar? I think that might have an impact upon the differing approaches. So while I am thinking in terms of application to vicarious attonement, feel free to take whatever tact and provide whatever observations you have seen."

Okay. I think this subject will be something I continue to learn about, but at this point I think guilt tends to be defined in two ways:

1) as a cognitive and/or an emotional experience, and

2) as an objective state, usually associated with an adjudication process.

Guilt as a Cognitive or Emotional State (i.e. Subjective Guilt)

Guilt in Orthodoxy works most poignantly in the heart of the Christian. It works through his conscience. Guilt, when left unchecked, drives one away from God out of fear. For instance, one entangled in the sin of fornication may avoid closeness with God, because of the conflict he or she feels between the love of the sin and the guilt in the heart. In this way, though, guilt also is a bit like a security system, because its presence alerts a person to a dangerous turn of events in one's relationship with God. Yet such guilt does more than cry out for attention; it is itself a disharmony between man and his Creator, a disharmony echoing from within the heart and soul of a person that disrupts one's life of communion with the Blessed Trinity.

Remorse is related to guilt, but differs in that one can feel guilty without feeling remorse (sorry for the cause of the guilt). Sometimes guilt and remorse are used synonymously, so care must be taken to distinguish which is indicated according to context.

In the context of repentance, this personal experience of guilt does not make for repentance, but only identifies one's need for repentance. In and of itself repentance is to change. Guilt does not orient one to God but calls attention to the fact that one has oriented himself away from God, pushing God away. Remorse, tears, and/or mourning are proper to repentance. But such mourning must be carefully distinguished. It is easy to shed tears over one's sins out of pride. "Oh, how could "I" do such a thing!" The tears and mourning that accompany repentance arise not out of pride but out of the loss of God. But did man really lose God? No, man causes himself to be lost from God, to experience God in wrath versus approval, and in this way the repentant person finds his repentance mixed with mourning over this realization - whether that happens in a fully cognitive manner or just at the pre-verbalized emotional level.

Guilt as an Objective State

To be objectively guilty, according to Orthodox teaching, one must do something to be at fault. One must freely sin in order to incur guilt and its subsequent wrath. Guilt is not primarily inherited from Adam, but the objective state that leads to guilt is. Man is born in an objective state of corruption, most clearly identified as mortality. This corruption lends one towards actual sins. Sometimes the state of mortal corruption is identified as being in sin or in its power. But, just as the wages of (actual) sin is death, the sting of death is sin that is empowered by the law of God. All of this is to say that guilt as an objective state does not derive directly from the first sin, but as a consequence of weakened people who no longer know perfectly God's will and choose sinful thoughts and acts over righteous acts. (This situation is compounded by the fact that fallen man is dominated by the kingdom of the Enemy, until released by Christ in Baptism.)

So this is a preface to understanding Orthodox guilt as an objective state. Objective guilt is not inherited, but entered into by one's desires and wills. The Orthodox Christian stands in prayer admitting to his or her objective guilt in every manner of sin and life situation, known and unknown, voluntary and involuntary. As much as is humanly possible the Orthodox Christian strives to unite his or her heart (in the subjective experience of guilt) with the outward realization of being objectively guilty. Yet it should be stressed that the unity of heart and mind in prayer must be given by God through His Grace, the working of the Holy Spirit; the Christian is called to seek this unity of person in God fervently through the One who united Human Nature perfectly to His Divine Nature.

In regard to Vicarious Satisfaction, the state of being guilty seems to be one of the main components. Man is guilty, thus man needs his guilt removed so as to be right with God. In Orthodoxy, as far as the saving crucifixion of Christ goes, objective guilt is a component of the issue without being the main thing. In Lutheran theology it is heavily emphasized that Christ satisfies legal requirements, both in the positive sense (supplying an objective and forensic righteousness) and in the negative sense (purging away objective guilt by the Cross). In Orthodoxy there are many ways to emphasize the Cross. This does not mean that the Cross is open to interpretation, but rather that many very important things are coming together and happening at once with the Crucifixion of Christ.

Regarding the issue of sin and Christ's Crucifixion, the main point is that Christ purges sin, that is, He actually purifies it, expiates it, expunges it, cleanses it, etc. The working concept of sin is something that causes corruption and arises from corruption. If mortality/corruption is a contagion in a wholistic sense, then sin the disease exerting its power to break down and destroy. This is primarily the view of sin, the working of a contagion that infects a person with a spiritual rot (and of course, the physical depends on the spiritual for its subsistence, so the spiritual contagion has physical consequences, some of which we live with every day and call "normal" or "natural"). This is what Christ purifies on the Cross. Somehow, in a way that only God knows, Christ bore the sins of the world in His Body on the Cross, and by His holy Suffering and Death purified human nature of this contagion, this corruption, this sin. He made Himself the Cure, injecting Himself into the heart of the illness - as a True Man who entered into Death. (A True Man is one in full communion with Life, which is the All-holy Trinity.) This is, I think, the primary view of sin and the Cross in Orthodoxy. Objective guilt is dealt with in that where the sin is cleansed the guilt is taken away, too. Thus the forgiveness of sins in Orthodoxy involves a total forgiveness - a release both the bondage/disease of sin and the guilt of alienating oneself from God.

So guilt isn't something that keeps God away, but something that keeps man away from God. I've been reading through the Prophet Jeremiah lately, and it is striking that no matter how vehement God's wrath seems to be against Judah in sending Nebuchadnezzar against them, His ultimate goal clearly is to correct His people so that they will come to their senses and return to Him. They want to worship all the pagan gods (demons) and be like the pagan nations? Then God hands them over to a pagan king to teach them the difference between their choice and serving the Living God, who is a caring Father and Husband to them. Guilt is a problem with God only when one chooses guilt and rejects Him. However, repentance always negates guilt, because God has an unimaginable love for all people. What is guilt compared to one sinner repenting? The angels rejoice over this, and God accepts such a person. Objective guilt becomes an issue when one rejects God. THEN guilt that has piled up speaks against a person, especially on the Last Day.

East and West

I think the East and West both appreciate the need to see one's guilt, both objectively and subjectively. To what end that one sees it, though, may be where some of the tension lies. Do we identify guilt in order to feel a moment of sorrow with the expectation that such a feeling makes everything okay? (I've met plenty who live this way.) Or do we see guilt as a condition that makes God hate me unless someone can smooth over the whole thing? (I've heard many insist on this.) Or do we see guilt as something that highlights our inescapable relationship with God, and something that marks out the difference between the Way of Life and the way of death? The light in which we place the issue of guilt is going to beam from how we claim to know the All-holy Trinity.

These are just some thoughts. Sorry I took so long to gather them.

Things on my mind...

2010-10-15T00:13:00.006-04:00

Jeremiah 20:9

Then I said, "I will not make mention of Him,
Nor speak anymore in His name."
But His word was in my heart like a burning fire
Shut up in my bones;
I was weary of holding it back,
And I could not.

Job 32:17-22

I also will answer my part,
I too will declare my opinion.
For I am full of words;
The spirit within me compels me.
Indeed my belly is like wine that has no vent;
It is ready to burst like new wineskins.
I will speak, that I may find relief;
I must open my lips and answer.
Let me not, I pray, show partiality to anyone;
Nor let me flatter any man.
For I do not know how to flatter,
Else my Maker would soon take me away.

Proverbs 4:25-27

Let your eyes look straight ahead,
And your eyelids look right before you.
Ponder the path of your feet,
And let all your ways be established.
Do not turn to the right or the left;
Remove your foot from evil.

1 Timothy 1:15

This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.

Ecclesiastes 7:15-24

I have seen everything in my days of vanity:
There is a just man who perishes in his righteousness,
And there is a wicked man who prolongs life in his wickedness.
Do not be overly righteous,
Nor be overly wise:
Why should you destroy yourself?
Do not be overly wicked,
Nor be foolish:
Why should you die before your time?
It is good that you grasp this,
And also not remove your hand from the other;
For he who fears God will escape them all.
Wisdom strengthens the wise
More than ten rulers of the city.
For there is not a just man on earth who does good
And does not sin.
Also do not take to heart everything people say,
Lest you hear your servant cursing you.
For many times, also, your own heart has known
That even you have cursed others.
All this I have proved by wisdom.
I said, “I will be wise”;
But it was far from me.
As for that which is far off and exceedingly deep,
Who can find it out?

Psalm 28

A Psalm of David.
To You I will cry, O LORD my Rock:
  Do not be silent to me,
  Lest, if You are silent to me,
  I become like those who go down to the pit.
Hear the voice of my supplications
  When I cry to You,
  When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary.
Do not take me away with the wicked
  And with the workers of iniquity,
  Who speak peace to their neighbors,
  But evil is in their hearts.
Give them according to their deeds,
  And according to the wickedness of their endeavors;
  Give them according to the work of their hands;
  Render to them what they deserve.
Because they do not regard the works of the LORD,
  Nor the operation of His hands,
  He shall destroy them
  And not build them up.
Blessed be the LORD,
  Because He has heard the voice of my supplications!
The LORD is my strength and my shield;
  My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;
  Therefore my heart greatly rejoices,
  And with my song I will praise Him.
The LORD is their strength,
  And He is the saving refuge of His anointed.
Save Your people,
  And bless Your inheritance;
  Shepherd them also,
  And bear them up forever.

Holiness

2010-10-11T00:08:00.004-04:00

When I was a Lutheran, we did not pursue holiness; we received it passively. On the dogmatic level we believed we grew in holiness, but on the practical level - especially in seminary - pursuing it with activity was seriously frowned upon. Sermons about love were complained about, unless they were about how Christ loves us. If a professor spoke about growing in holiness, most of us squirmed in our chairs fearing the breath of Progressive Sanctification (which separates the holiness Christ accomplishes in a person from the good works a person does), or Pietism.

A wonderful Orthodox analysis of Pietism: http://silouanthompson.net/2008/08/pietism-as-heresy/

When I look back on my time as a Lutheran minister, I think this was the one element that was truly missing from my preaching and teaching - holiness - and I am sorry for its absence. I think I subconsciously was trying to get to it, since it is so plain in the Scriptures (and Dr. Martin Luther - the "model" for Lutheran preaching - had no fear of it). Yet I did not reach it in my preaching. This is mostly because I did not know it personally.

Now that I am Orthodox, do I know it personally. Yes for sure, and no not yet. No not yet, because I am a sinner. Yes for sure, because coming to grips with my conversion has allowed me to see where holiness lies: "One is holy, One is Lord, Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father. Amen." The Liturgy teaches me, not just at this point, but in its multitude of prayers, songs, rites, and gifts. The liturgical life of the Church - which is not made up by committees, but something each Bishop, Priest, ... down to layman must submit to as to his or her spiritual father and guide - this liturgical life constantly lifts up mankind in his sinfulness to be brought near to God that he may become something more. That something more is the whole measure of the fullness of Christ through the unity of the faith (Eph 4:13).

For some time I did not know what was different. Then I realized it, something I did not realize before my conversion. No one was trying to get me to take refuge in the fact that God accepts me. In Orthodoxy of course God accepts you. But isn't that why Christ died, to save me from God's wrath - which means to get God to accept me again, if I just believe? In Orthodoxy Christ doesn't have to get God to accept me, but rather me to accept God. What does God want that I should accept?

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me [St. John 17:20-23].

God wants me to want everything He is and is about, because we are made to be His image and likeness, to live in Him and He in us. So faith's first job is to bring you into union with God, and this removes all cause for wrath. In Orthodoxy we are made partaker's of Christ's holiness, if we are willing to change (repentance) and live in Him (faith) in the unity of the Holy Spirit (the Church).

At first I didn't know how to exist in the Church. I didn't know how to exist without that Doctrine that told me to measure my relationship with God based on a faith-makes-me-okay-with-God-so-it's-all-okay-now-phew crutch. I had been taught that once God's anger toward me is resolved in Christ, the "work" was done, and salvation was in the bag (more specifically in the ear or in the mouth) - just don't stop believing the message (and to make sure we'll tell it to you again and again). Communion was a tangible proof of God's lack of wrath (forgiveness in this sense) and from that the reward of union with Christ.

What is different in Orthodoxy is that no one is trying to give you an indulgence against God's wrath (Protestant forensic justification), because the Incarnation and Pascha were for you and I - not God. They were to change you and I, not God. Nothing has changed with God: He loves all, judges fairly, rewards the righteous, punishes the wicked (for correction and/or limitation of sin), shows mercy to the merciful, and desires that all be saved and come to knowledge of the truth.

Everything in Orthodoxy gets to the heart of the matter. Sin caused an ontological and existential corruption in man without changing him into something other than man - a reduced man. Salvation is an ontological and existential renewal of man that makes man fully man again in the fullness that God intended for him. If sin is an ontological and existential problem, then the cross addresses that problem by purifying sins by the blood of Christ, and this purification (i.e. expiation) causes the propitiation that Lutheran theology is so hung up about.

After not knowing how to live in the Orthodox Church, I moved on to being absolutely frightened. For the first time in my life I began to grasp personally, existentially the Prophet Isaiah's fear at seeing the Lord (Isaiah 6) and the fearful mercy of the burning coal touching his lips, or Hebrews 12:29 where God is described as a consuming fire. I was drawing near to God without that indulgence that made my relationship with God a passive and neutralized one. I was drawing near to God with the knowledge that He wants to change me, if I am willing. I know by now it's self-condemnation to run from God, so there is left but the trial by fire: to become the burning bush or one of Ahaziah's 50 soldiers.

God calls us to be partakers of His holiness (Hebrews 12:10), and through His promises partakers of the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). He calls us to approach and prepare like a man (Job 40:7), though not from a whirlwind but from the mercy of His Church, through the Incarnation of His Son. Deep down, in Holy Orthodoxy, a person comes to a small measure of what each of the prophets faced when they were called by God. We come to know why Isaiah cried out and received a burning coal, why righteous Job called himself vile but was restored, why Ezekiel fell on his face but was set on his feet by the Spirit, why St. Peter fell to his knees and begged Christ to go away from him but Christ made him a fisher of men. God comes to each person, and there is no indulgence to neutralize or diffuse His coming. Rather, each of us must come to appear unshielded before God, and from there to learn to cry out for His mercy like the thief on the cross and the Canaanite woman.

The call to partake of God's holiness requires a fundamentally deeper belief in God's mercy and faithfulness than anything I ever found outside of Orthodoxy. Perhaps this is because in Orthodoxy you do not rest on the indulgence of a forensic justification, but in nakedness of soul you can only rest on God as He is before you from His Church - in His Gospel, His Prophetic and Apostolic preaching, His Liturgy, His Sacraments (all 7), His entire way of life that you get to live in and that takes up residence in you (for the Kingdom of God is within you - St. Luke 17:21). God does the saving by Christ on the cross and by Christ in you now. It is salvation in actuality, not simply legality.

I have moved on from being frightened to being thankful. God has treated me better than I have deserved. I am a train-wreck that He is carefully and beautifully healing. And He does this for all who will draw near in faith.

Perhaps all this is why I love reading the writings of ascetics so much. If you haven't read any yourself, ask me for a recommendation.

I could never preach this as a Lutheran minister. I had never known it. I had never seen it. I had never conceived of it. But, by God's Grace, today is different. May it be so now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Surprise

2010-09-27T08:22:00.005-04:00

I was surprised by his Grace, the Rt Rev Bishop MARK of Toledo and the Midwest to be tonsured a Reader and elevated as a Subdeacon this past Sunday. I am not worthy, and I am thankful that God makes His servants worthy to stand before Him and serve Him.

I say "surprised" because there was not advanced notification. (This has been hard for some people to understand.) It seemed good to his Grace at the time he spoke with me to do this, which happened to be the evening before the tonsuring and elevation. Glory to God for His mercy toward sinners!

Below is the prayer of chirothesis (ordination to minor orders) used to make a Reader (first) and then a Subdeacon (second) in the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America:

The Reader:

Bishop: O Lord who enlightenest all created beings with the light of thy wonders, and knowest the intent of every man before it is formed, and strengthenest those who are desirous of serving thee: Do thou, the same Lord, array in thy fair and spotless vesture this thy servant (NAME), who desireth to become a Reader before thy holy mysteries, that he may be illuminated, and that attaining unto the age to come he may receive the incorruptible crown of life, and rejoice with Thine elect in bliss everlasting. For blessed is thy name and glorified is thy Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages, Amen.

The Subdeacon:

Bishop: O Lord our God, who, through one and the same Holy Spirit distributing gifts of grace to each one of those whom thou hast chosen, hast given to thy Church diverse Orders; who, through Thine inscrutable providence hast appointed degrees of ministry therein, for the service of thy holy and immaculate mysteries; and who, through Thine ineffable foreknowledge, hast ordained this thy servant (NAME) to be worthy to serve in thy Holy Church: Do thou, the same Lord, preserve him uncondemned in all things. And grant that he may love the beauty of thy house, stand before the doors of thy Holy Temple and kindle the lamps in the Tabernacle of thy glory. And make him thy perfect servant in the time of thy Second Coming, that he may receive the recompense of those who are well-pleasing in thy sight. For Thine is the Kingdom and the power and the glory, of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages, Amen.

The full rite for each can be found at the Antiochian Archdiocese Web site. Each is linked above.

Not Idolatry, but Ark-eology

2010-09-22T10:35:00.003-04:00

Not too long ago I ran across a comment on a random blog complaining about the Orthodox and idolatry. They featured a picture of an iconostasis with a platytera behind it. The platytera is the icon of Our Lady of the Sign. In the particular picture featured the portion of the icon featuring Christ on the Virgin's lap was obscured, which led the commentators to think the Orthodox were worshiping the Virgin Mary.

I note this hear, because when I was a Lutheran I thought just the same thing: idolatry. I saw an Orthodox Church that had only the Virgin featured - lacking the Christ Child in her lap. This is non-canonical. However, the Theotokos' placement behind the altar, whether in the canonical fashion or the non-canonical, makes a particular confession of faith. Lutheran onlookers (like myself those years ago) shudder and wonder how a huge icon of the Theotokos directly behind the altar, center-stage, could be anything but a confusion of who we are there to worship.

Yet the Orthodox Church places the platytera there to emphasize a particular theological truth - one that I learned from one of my seminary professors as a Lutheran. The Virgin Mary is the fulfillment of the Ark of the Covenant. In seminary it was even pointed out that her movements following the Annunciation follow the likeness of the Ark of the Covenant's movements in the Old Testament.

The Ark of the Covenant was covered with the mercy seat, the Throne of God flanked by cherubs. It was kept in the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle. Upon this mercy seat the blood of atonement was sprinkled once a year by the High Priest for the forgiveness of sins for the people of Israel. The Ark of the Covenant contained within it Aaron's staff which had budded, the jar of manna that came down from heaven, and the tablets of the Ten Commandments.

The Virgin Mary fulfills this Ark. She is the one in whom the Word of God dwelt, in whom the True Manna came down from heaven and remained. She is the one who, though a Virgin, was made to bud with Life Himself, fulfilling Aaron's staff. She is the one upon whose lap the Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob sat enthroned for our salvation.

Thus the Orthodox Church rightly confesses her to be Theotokos, and rightly places her holy icon at the center behind the iconostasis. She is the True Ark of the Covenant with its mercy seat, upon whose lap and from whose womb we find the Lord Jesus seated as True Man for our salvation. So the placement of her icon - canonically or uncanonically - confesses the same truth: that God has appeared in the Flesh, and has fulfilled the Old Testament's shadow with the Light of His coming. We enjoy the reality of that coming now, gathered around the Eucharist, around our Lord Jesus who unites all in Himself, with His Father and the Holy Spirit ever reigning. Amen.

A Fair and Honest Reform

2010-08-31T13:30:00.001-04:00

I have noticed in discussions with Lutherans who once were my colleagues and fellow-conspirators in the LCMS :-) that our conversation seems to get "stuck" a lot. We end up posturing ourselves against each other. For instance, "A single visible Church of Christ on earth is a theology of glory," or "the Fathers normally read that Scripture as thus and thus." Boiled down, this sort of conversation amounts to "As Lutherans we believe such and such," and "The Orthodox have always believed such and such." You see, it's just posturing. Perhaps a better way to describe it is identifying lines of demarcation, something essential if two sides are going to learn to deal with one another in any constructive way.

It seems to cause no small bother to some of these Lutherans that the Orthodox Church has (relatively speaking) theological unity and peace, a common way of life, and has maintained a belief that there is one Church of Christ (one communion fellowship) that has always been Christ's Church since Pentecost, and always will be until Christ returns. These are the most prevalent reasons cited by such Lutherans to explain why some of their own would be tempted to convert to Orthodoxy, or even finally make that conversion.

But this is wrong. Now I must speak for myself. Other converts are welcome to use the combox to speak on their own behalf. What tempted me to look towards the Orthodox Church? The following encouragement came from outside sources, either directly or indirectly:

In seminary I was assigned to write a paper on a Christian church group I knew nothing about. I chose the Orthodox Church. After graduation I began to feel that I had not given Orthodoxy a fair shake, and it was unsettling to me. I wanted to go back and look at it again.

My own church body was a spiritual disaster, and my participation in it was becoming unconscionable. No other Lutheran body within reach offered anything better. Therefore I was willing to examine Orthodoxy, especially when invited to do so with other Lutherans by other Lutherans. I hoped to a) discern if Orthodoxy was basically Lutheranism (it isn't), and b) at least give Orthodoxy a fair chance on its own terms.

Some Lutherans I know (who did not nor do I expect to convert) expressed a kinship with Orthodox theologians, clergy, and books. This piqued my interest.

The following are things that I initially discovered that encouraged me to look deeper:

The Orthodox value the sacraments similarly to Lutherans.

Orthodox theology is highly eschatological - meaning the future reign of Christ is constantly happening now and being applied now.

Orthodoxy maintains historical continuity, in doctrine and practice. In layman's terms this means they can demonstrate that they are believing and doing the same things the first Christians were doing.

The Orthodox Church is very liturgical. Not only is there no contemporary revival-worship, but their rich liturgical practices are accompanied by a sensible theology. Liturgy in the Orthodox Church involves all the previous points made above in this list.

Upon some deeper investigation I found that the Orthodox:

Do not believe we earn our salvation by works. See the video in my previous post for an excellent explanation of salvation in Orthodoxy by the Martyr Fr. Daniel Sysoyev.

Believe the Pope of Rome is the reason for and source of error, schism, and protestantism in the West. The Orthodox reject Papal Supremacy.

See everything in Christological and Pneumatological terms, more so than the Lutherans. Everything is about Christ, and everything is influenced by the Holy Spirit in the Church.

I also noticed right away that the Orthodox have their own way of thinking about some things that the Lutherans normally considered "settled" or "refuted from Scripture" when dealing with others like Roman Catholics or other Protestants. The Orthodox have their own unique explanations regarding (to name a few):

Scripture and Tradition

The Fall of Man

Free Will

Intercession of the Saints

Here I would like to point out that Lutheran theology arose by seeking to reform Western, medieval, scholastic theology. It examined theology in that context. It searched the Scriptures with that theology and its frameworks in mind. Even in referring itself to the teachings of the Fathers, Lutherans read them from within this Western, medieval, scholastic context. Lutheran reformation theology developed by listening to the theology of the Roman West, living in its practices, and finding something askew. Dialogue and debate ensued. In the end the popular, liturgical, and sacramental practices of the Roman West were judged according to the arguments and theologies of those in the West. This is how Lutheran theology begins.

While it is often assumed by Lutherans that they have done nothing but resurrect the lost theology of the Bible, in fact the very act of trying to recover assumes an investigation. The reform did not involve Luther, a Bible, and a blank piece of paper. Rather, it was to be a reform of existing Christendom, with special attention given to teaching nothing new - hence the multitude of references to patristic sources. Thus Lutheran theology is a reform of the medieval West, and a response to Western papal theology and practice. This reform is often increased to include not only the medieval West, but even all of Christianity after St. John the Apostle wrote the last book in the Bible.

It must be pointed out that Lutheran theology is something developed from investigation and argument. This investigation and argument did not include the Orthodox East. What of the Tübingen theologians who corresponded with Patriarch Jeremias II? I'm afraid that was not the same as the original reformation efforts. The Tübingen theologians wrote not to determine what the true Christian teaching really is (as was done when the first reformers investigated matters for themselves against the errors around them), but to gain the support of the Patriarch against the Pope and to convince him that the Lutherans had discovered the real truth. Patriarch Jeremias II had no interest in being converted to a reformational theology away from the unreformed and unchanged theology and practice of Orthodoxy.

So again I point out, Lutheran theology is something developed from investigation and argument. Some of Lutheran argumentation against the Pope came from the practice of the Orthodox East (e.g. see Melanchthon's defense of Eucharistic sacrifice in the Apology). Yet today's Lutherans say to the Orthodox, "We alone have the truth - you are wrong and need a reformation." Never have Lutheran theologians said, "Whoa, our conclusions about the Truth have been reached in exclusion of the Orthodox Church. Yet we're telling them they are wrong and need to submit to our beliefs in order to have the real Christian faith. We need to backup."

A Lutheran who truly believes in the principles behind the Book of Concord ought to give Orthodoxy a fair chance. That does not mean he should automatically submit to Orthodox practice and belief. It means he should choose to be open to the way of life, to the spiritual teaching, to the theology, to the heart and soul of Orthodoxy - to let Orthodoxy fully present itself to the Lutheran (which takes time) so that the Lutheran can discern, can test the spirits, and see for himself as Luther believed he had regarding the Pope and Western theology and practice of the day.

For the whole point of the reformation was to return the Church back to its Apostolic roots - not to make a new Church, but to heal the Church. In examining Orthodoxy one has to discern patiently many things over some time in order to determine if Orthodoxy itself is the real return to our Apostolic roots.

This is what I did. This is why I did it. I did not learn to hate Lutheranism. Rather I learned to love Orthodoxy as the fulfillment of my Lutheran goal: to return and abide in the Apostolic, Scriptural, Historic, Eschatological, and Liturgical root of Christianity. Some do not come to this conclusion. My conversion or another's non-conversion should not detract from the simple need a Confessional Lutheran ought to have - the need and aim behind the Augustana itself: to return to our Apostolic origin for healing and re-forming.

In coming to Orthodoxy I found that Christ Himself, through His Spirit, is doing the re-forming: He is re-forming me through His cross, healing me through His sacraments. I also found that the things that annoy my Lutheran friends (a single communion fellowship that has always been Christ's Church, theological peace, etc) are things that were not selling points at all for me (the visible Church point was very hard to swallow), but ended up being things that I came to believe because all of the internal stuff about repentance, the cross, the sacraments, spirituality, etc., convinced me themselves that this is the Truth, and in turn that Truth showed all the rest to be true (including the Visible Church part).

Salvation in Christianity: the Martyr Fr. Daniel Sysoyev

2010-08-30T14:07:00.003-04:00

The following video records Fr. Daniel Sysoyev describing salvation. Fr. Daniel was martyred recently.

Accused again: Theology of Glory

2010-08-26T23:07:00.004-04:00

As a friendly reminder - first to myself, and then to others who are either bothered by the accusation, or who are levying the accusation:

When a Lutheran levies the charge against the Orthodox that we are just a Theology of Glory, this says nothing of any value or substance. This is a Lutheran term that has meaning only if one accepts the whole of Lutheran theology. This is frequently used to avoid discussion and helpful dialogue, especially by those flustered with Orthodoxy. And lately it is a term, when applied to Orthodoxy, that expresses unbelief in Orthodoxy on the basis that Orthodoxy has visible unity among her churches, relative theological peace, a common way of life in Christ, and has for 2000 years held to a belief in one holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church that exists simultaneously in the invisible heavens and visibly as a communion fellowship on earth - and has for 2000 years.

So let's remember: levying the charge of Theology of Glory against the Orthodox only really means, "They aren't Lutheran, no matter how great they seem to so many Lutherans (especially the hordes that are converting all over the place)."

For more info, here's an article I wrote a while ago. If anyone can recommend something else on the topic, please leave a link in the comments.

If we can get past the frustration (which is to be expected, surely) and the attempts to shut down dialogue, perhaps we can move on to things of faith and piety. God willing we will be able!

Responding to Fr. Burnell Eckardt's "Temptations"

2010-08-25T20:58:00.008-04:00

It continues to interest me how my former colleagues in Lutheranism try and try to deal with the Orthodox faith, but without really getting anywhere. I mean here those who recognize in Orthodoxy something different enough to lead well-informed, pious, and serious-minded Lutherans to walk away from the Lutheran Confessions, their congregation(s), and Lutheranism in general. No doubt this is a scary thing to behold, or at least very unsettling. And it has not happened but once or twice, but is happening continuously. The Lutherans who either have stayed or are unwilling to consider Orthodoxy at all are put in an uncomfortable position. They are left to defend their Lutheran beliefs against a tide of former pastors and/or colleagues that have proclaimed, "We have seen the True Light, and It is in the Orthodox Church!" Actually, it is not so much that they must defend against the converted as they must defend against the appeal and magnetism of Orthodoxy itself.

Recently I read a reprinted post by Fr. Burnell Eckardt, a man I truly like and was thrilled to spend time with at the 2007 LCMS Convention in Houston (before my conversion to Holy Orthodoxy). Fr. Eckardt struggles with the same difficulties most Lutheran pastors I have met struggle with: to find what about Orthodoxy that is so wrong or out of place - enough so as to set before the world a clear reason for Lutherans no longer to need to feel so attracted to the Orthodox Church.

I'd like to outline Fr. Eckardt's post from Gottesdients Online:

I. Looking for Unity

A. Hopes for a reunification between Eastern and Western Christendom.
B. Lutherans in America have struggled in a similar way among themselves.

II. Confessional Lutherans and Orthodox Christians agree with "how" unity is achieved.

III. Largely the source of temptation for Confessional Lutheran pastors to become Orthodox is the desire for theological unity.

IV. The East itself demonstrates that the West is the wrong place to be:

A. by pointing to how the West is so divided in itself
B. which comes from having rejected the consensus of the Ecumenical Councils
C. and in their place adopting Papal supremecy.
D. Thus the Western divisions prove that everyone needs to run back to the East.

V. This Eastern criticism is just the old post hoc falacy, which wrongly assumes:

A. temporal succession implies a causal relations,
B. i.e. because you broke with us, therefore you have no unity among yourselves.
C. It boils down to flawed Western thought by the East's estimation (says Fr. Eckardt)
D. Yet easily as admissable is the idea that the West is so assailed because the devil is most threatened by the West.

VI. Controversy has forced the West to become sharper and more prepared than the East.

A. The Reformation gave the Augsburg Confession,
B. precision and clarity unsurpassed regarding faith and justification,
C. and overall great confessional clarification.

VII. The process of the Reformation was the same as the Ecumenical Councils

A. Tribulation led to the formation of the Nicene Creed.
B. Tribulation led to the formation of the Augsburg Confession.
C. Thus the West's struggles have made it better prepared to struggle in the second millenium.

VIII. Filioque controversy

A. The East doesn't like it because it's an innovation
B. The West found it useful against the Arians
C. The East won't consider it to have any theological truth because it's an innovation
D. There are reasons to go beyond the Ecumenical Councils.
E. The East points out that the Third Council forbids changes to the Creed.
F. The East won't admit into the discussion theological reasons for changing the Creed.

IX. Lutherans part ways with both Rome and the East on the Councils

A. Only what agrees with the Scriptures is accepted
B. Nothing is accepted in addition to the Scriptures
C. Councils, Confessions, Creeds, etc. are accepted only in theology, never more.

X. Most damaging about Orthodoxy is that they believe they are the Visible Church of Christ on Earth.

A. The Orthodox have always stuck to their guns on this one.
B. In Reformation times, Orthodox told the Lutherans to either conform to Orthodoxy or leave them in peace.

XI. People capitulate to the East because they:

A. have a tradition that is harder to gainsay than Rome's
B. they did not pass through a "Middle Ages" as did the West

XII. For Lutherans the Unity of the Church lies in her marks.

A. Christ's divinity was marked in His cross, believed without seeing it.
B. The Unity of the Church likewise is marked by the cross, believed without always seeing it.
C. The stuggles of the Church have produced confessional stamina and refinement.

XIII. Temptations to go East are understandable, but should be rejected.

A. The East has a lot going for it

1. Peace
2. More pristine Creed
3. Visible unity

B. But we need to stay where we are and keep fighting as we have been.
C. The lack of peace, the religious infighting, the schisms, the heresies, and the rest are just part of bearing the cross of Jesus. So just keep fighting.

Fr. Eckardt has tried to color Orthodoxy as lacking theological sensitivity, while in turn he colors the West as theologically strong and virile from all of its infighting. He suggests that the Orthodox are hung up on formalities, but the West is willing to dig into the theological "meat" that will be needed in this second-millennium (actually, it's the third millennium now: 0-999 is the first, 1000-1999 is the second, etc). He suggests that Orthodoxy has an external beauty and tranquility that is tempting, but that the West - especially Lutheranism - knows the cross and lives by that cross.

Fr. Eckardt says of himself that he once looked into Holy Orthodoxy for himself, but rejected it. Given his description of matters here, I can only wonder if it was actually Orthodoxy that he looked into or some uninterested party's casual review of Orthodoxy's interactions with the West. There is the vague outline of Orthodoxy's silhouette here, but nothing that actually describes Orthodoxy in and of itself. If Fr. Eckardt's article serves as your first in-depth analysis on Orthodoxy and its appeal to Lutherans, then let me say loud and clear that you've been had. Fr. Eckardt is smart and means well, but Orthodoxy is not about smarts and good intentions, but about things of the Spirit and the power of God to save. His entire approach is off. He has approached first with his intellect things that are first grasped with the heart and the spirit.

All of this is to say that the allure of Orthodoxy lies in something else than what Fr. Eckardt describes. This article is naught more than a smoke-screen to keep wandering those who are thirsty for God in a dry and parched land, all the while calling it the cross and salvation.

Do the Orthodox know the cross? Yes; the cross is our daily life of repentance given in Baptism. It is our incessant struggle in the Spirit against our own passions - i.e. the damage we cause in ourselves by sin. But the cross is infinitely linked with the resurrection, in that God pours out His Grace (the Holy Spirit) to supply us with the strength to struggle profitably and the healing that comes from our struggle in faith, hope, and love.

1 Peter 1:22-23, "Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, ..."

Orthodoxy is characterized by her spirituality, and her spirituality is characterized by ascetic struggle, a.k.a. the cross. Our entire existence in Christ is one great Passover from death to life, from sin to righteousness, from bondage to freedom. Fr. Eckardt has touched upon none of these things in Orthodoxy, but has pointed his Lutheran hearers to those aspects of Lutheranism that encourage one to struggle and persevere in Lutheranism.

I submit that Fr. Eckardt is encouraging his hearers to struggle in a non-helpful manner, to beat the air aimlessly. He concludes by telling his hearers to accept the warfare that tears their souls apart, to accept the lack of peace, to not look for unity, to think of a different sort of church than the One attested to by the authors of the Creed (go research their writings if you don't believe me), and to ignore the lack of a common way of life in Christ among them as being just the difficulties of bearing the cross.

There is no resurrection with this cross. Fr. Eckardt does not point to a Paschal cross, at least not as Orthodoxy knows the cross always to be a Paschal cross. The cross he speaks of in this context does not offer healing or purification or strength against the passions for the believer, but rather locks the believer in stasis, neither growing nor shrinking. Christ's suffering purified our sins and gave us Life in His resurrection, a dynamism of growth in the Holy Spirit. In the Orthodox Church we struggle in ascetic suffering in Christ, thus engaging and growing in the purification of Christ's cross through active faith. In Orthodoxy we suffer in Christ, and thus grow through God's Grace into the fullness of Life - the likeness of the One who calls us to participate in His own glory. Our cross is a Paschal cross, i.e. a purifying cross - the cross of salvation.

Lutherans do believe in a cross of salvation, one that saves from sin and unites to Christ. I think this is why so many Lutherans are giving Orthodoxy a real chance, on its own terms. There is in Orthodoxy - even from the superficial level of outward appearances - that sacramental, liturgical, biblical, historical, non-papal, and eschatological Christianity that all good Confessional Lutherans are hungering for and strive for. Remaining in stasis, frozen complacently in heterdoxy (I refer here to the mix of beliefs that is the LCMS), is a big flashing warning sign to many that they are now beyond the wood of the cross and instead lost in the crowds of the unillumined. While this alone is no reason to join the Orthodox Church, God be praised that for some it is a reason to begin looking at her with more sensitivity.

2 Thessalonians 2:13-17, "But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.

Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good word and work."

The Wrath of God (continued)

2010-07-20T00:08:00.003-04:00

This post is in response to a comment made at the end of my last post: Wrath and Justification. My response is too long to fit into comments, so I'm (yet again) moving my long-windedness to a full post.

Okay, let me take a stab at this. In reading part 1 of Fr. Hopko's podcast (I realize you cite part 2) on God's Wrath we find that he says the following:

As it says in the Letter of Peter in the New Testament: “He trusted Him who judges justly.” And even in the Letter to the Romans, you have this genitive of faith where it could be translated that we are made righteous by faith of Christ or faith in Christ. But even the faith of Christ, Jesus’ own trusting to God, trusting that God would vindicate him, but the big point—He doesn’t sin at all. He does no evil. Therefore, the wrath of God cannot be upon Him. There’s no way that the wrath of God can be upon Him. The wrath that is upon all the sinners and all the unrighteous, He takes upon Himself, and when he takes upon Himself the wrath that is due to all the rest of us—all the Jews, all the Gentiles, everyone who has lived, “there is no one righteous, no not one,” as it says in the Letter to the Romans, quoting of course the Old Testament Scripture. Then, the wrath of God is assuaged. There is no wrath against Him. God puts Him in the position of the wrath. He puts Him in the position of the sinner, but God’s wrath is not against Him. And because of that, that’s the paradox.

Here Fr. Hopko is not saying that Christ's satisfies God's wrath, as evidenced by the previous portion of the podcast. He is saying Christ stands in the position of God's wrath against sinners. We sinners are under wrath, and Christ carries our sins - the sins of all people of all times - and thus with the sins also the wrath of God. However, Christ saves from sin not by satisfying wrath but by being perfectly righteous. This is Fr. Hopko's point. Ever see one of those Dawn dish soap commercials? The drop of soap hits the scummy water and the scum disappears. Christ the Righteous, Innocent One has the same effect on our sins and God's wrath. He purifies the sins, which purifies the need for wrath. St. Luke is very clear that Christ is innocent, yet is condemned as if a sinner. The point is not that Christ is satisfying wrath, but that Christ is purifying from wrath.

So when Fr. Hopko says in part 2 of his podcast,

And God is well pleased in His Son, Jesus, because the Son takes upon Himself the sin of the world, and assuages divine wrath and redeems humanity and saves creation...

he is (in typical Fr. Hopko fashion) giving us an interconnected list of things Jesus does: takes on our sins, assuages God's wrath (through purification, not satisfaction), redeems us from our bondage, and thus saves creation.

Fr. Stephen is not in a discussion with Fr. Thomas Hopko, so comparing his statement with Fr. Hopko's isn't going to yield anything precise. Fr. Stephen is writing against the idea that God bullies us into faith: come along and no one gets hurt. Fr. Thomas Hopko, if you follow the length of his argument, shows that God's wrath is corrective, namely: you're going the wrong way - life and goodness is here! If you want wrath, I'll give it to you, but if you want mercy I'll give it to you - and I'm trying to get you to choose mercy by showing you what a choice for wrath gets you! That's not bullying (I'll come along because I'm afraid) but enlightening. Remember, there are people out there that know what wrath is and still choose it, because they love sin and darkness and not God.

Here the difference is between being concerned about portraying God as an abusive husband (Fr. Stephen) versus portraying God as a real, dynamic being who gives man a choice in the whole affair of being united to Him in blessedness or abiding in wrath, which thus makes wrath a chastisement appropriate to our calling in communion with God (Fr. Hopko).

Now, this doesn't mean that Fr. Hopko and Fr. Stephen might not have a lengthy discussion or debate over what is to be emphasized regarding the wrath of God. Fr. Stephen might not like it that Fr. Hopko speaks of assuaging the wrath of God, though not necessarily with how Christ accomplishes that. Fr. Hopko might be wary of Fr. Stephen's statements about God's unchanging-ness, fearing it to be overly Hellenized or Philosophized, but he's not going to disagree with the apophatic theology behind it.

What this demonstrates is that in Holy Orthodoxy we do not always have a clear-cut, systematic definition of things as in the West. You are witnessing Orthodox theologians in the act of trying to be faithful in the face of theological threats from Western Catholicism and Protestantism. It seems Orthodoxy is still hashing out the best way to approach the issue.

I will still attempt to say something helpful in all this. Take Fr. Stephen's comments in light of apophatic theology: we cannot accurately apply categories of wrath, repentance, rejoicing, etc. to God, because God is supra-beyond-what-we-can-know. He doesn't change, and we can't know Him in His being. In that sense, how can we say He has wrath (like we have wrath), when by that we mean something perceivable only on the human level? Thus it is an anthropomorphism. However, take Fr. Thomas Hopko's two podcasts on God's wrath - he covers so much in there! Especially realize that he wants us to take what is written in the Bible seriously and to avoid making God so unknowable in our minds that we nullify His wrath as something very real and something that is a part of who God is. He wants us to avoid nullifying God's real Personhood, that He does act with different energies, in differing way, and does so consciously and purposefully. Maybe Fr. Stephen doesn't appreciate Fr. Hopko's method - you should ask him. They don't have to agree as much as they have to fairly represent Orthodox teaching. Both do. How to balance this out may take some time - it may be the next controversy that needs hammering out!

Between the two, though, what does not need hammering out is whether or not Christ satisfies the Father's wrath. He does not. He purifies our sins, yes. He stands in the place of sinners, who are under God's wrath, yes. But He does not satisfy God's wrath. He may assuage it, which really just means He removes the reason for it, but He does not satiate some desire for justice through wrath that is in the Father. God is not like that.

I have noticed two aspects to God's wrath in reading Fr. Hopko and people like Fr. Stephen. There is the ontological situation of man, where outside of Christ man is under the wrath of God. This comes from lacking blessed communion and having only broken communion. My original comments in the previous post make this conclusion. There is also the wrath, though, that God intentionally afflicts on man for the purpose of calling him to repentance. In this case man, in failing to faithfully adhere to the high calling he has in his relationship with God (and this supposes having a communion relationship with God) is chastised by God for the purpose of repentance. God's wrath is thus a result of both our ontological orientation (broken communion) and our personal, self-determined activity (blessed communion). God is not a robot, dispensing according to whatever button we push, but a unity of real Persons with a dynamism that goes far, far beyond our ability to adequately describe, but yet that is really and truly personal.

The Scriptures teach that God is love. I know that doesn't sound very apophatic, but I've found this colors the way God is perceived in Orthodoxy. Since He is love, people feel His wrath because He is love. Sometimes we can describe this through the lens of our ontological and existential incompatibility with God (broken communion) and sometimes we can describe this through the lens of having God as our Father and being His children (blessed communion).

If one is looking for a concise description of God's wrath in Orthodoxy, then I'm afraid one might be disappointed. In the question there is worry about Western distortions, lack of experience among Orthodox theologians in responding to those distortions, and a general lack of interest in the question in the first place. There isn't much reason to hammer this out in Orthodoxy, unless you're being confronted by an influx of Western Christians (which we are, so perhaps we'll get better at answering the question as time goes on).

Wrath and Justification

2010-07-15T15:18:00.004-04:00

In a previous post a conversation developed about how the Orthodox Church understands God's wrath. Below I am going to include some of my comments about God's wrath as understood in Orthodox theology, and then I'm going to ask you to consider Justification.

As far as I can articulate, God's wrath is very real, just as is His mercy. God does not change. Man changes, usually through the use of his free will. When man orients himself against God (in sin), he experiences God in wrath. When man orients himself properly regarding God (in faithful love) he experiences God in mercy and blessedness. God is constant, man is not and thus has different experiences of God.

To put it in the context of communion with God, when man is out of communion with God he experiences God as wrathful. When man is in communion with God he experiences God as blessedness and mercy. God, for His part, does not change Himself but rather does all to change man's situation. Hence He sends His Son to reunite humanity in communion with Himself through the Incarnation and to free men from their sins and from bondage to mortality and the Devil through the cross and resurrection. God is constant, man is not.

Having said this about God's wrath, now consider Justification (our context is Orthodoxy compared to Lutheranism).

In Lutheran theology justification is that God declares the sinner to be righteous. This means that man is truly sinful, but God changes His mind about the sinner and regards him as righteous instead. The result of this justification is that man is then able to enter into communion with God and be sanctified and becomes a temple of God and so forth. While justification and sanctification happen in the same moment in time in Lutheran theology, sanctification, communion with God, and the attending blessings are understood to be a direct result of God choosing to see man as righteous (for Christ's sake). In this paradigm God changes in order to save man from wrath.

In Orthodox theology God does not change in order save man from His wrath, but He changes man. What about man does He change? He changes man's orientation to God at the ontological and existential level, that is, He returns man to blessed communion with Him. This in itself is man's justification. If it is man's bondage to mortality, corruption, and passions that orients man to experience God in wrath (for in such bondage man is in broken communion with God), and on top of that it is also man's actual sins that further plummets man into the depths of experiencing God in wrath, then God's solution is to

first restore communion between Him and humanity through the Incarnation of His Son by the Holy Spirit and Virgin Mary, and then
second burst apart man's bondage through crucifixion and resurrection, and then
third to make this salvation available to all who will believe through union with Christ in the Holy Spirit through Baptism, Chrismation, and the Eucharist.

In this way God changes man's situation. Each person's justification happens through communion with Christ, who Himself is our Justification. In this way man's sins are really destroyed by Christ's cross, and man really is made righteous through abiding in communion with God through Christ in the Holy Spirit. In this way Justification is more than just a declaration of favor, but is communion with the One who favors us. This is why Justification in Orthodoxy is much like Sanctification. Both mean a change in man through God's operation (in Orthodoxy, God's Energies). In Lutheranism Justification is different from Sanctification, in that the former is only a status change (declared righteous) and the latter is an actual spiritual change in man (made holy).

For this reason, in Holy Orthodoxy, man is saved from wrath. God does not change, so if we are not in communion with Him but instead in bondage and serve to sin, death, and the Devil then the wrath of God abides on us - for under those conditions that is the only way we can experience God's unchanging-ness. If we are in communion with Him, then our sins are cleansed and God dwells in us in Grace, mercy, and peace. One of the nice things about God not changing is that He loves us - which applies even when we were enemies in sin and had His wrath abiding on us. He pulled out all the stops to change our situation, our orientation to Him, but without forcing anyone to return to that communion that was lost in Paradise by Adam and Eve's first sin. In Christ we can return and abide with God and He with us (and in us and through us!), or we can reject this Grace for the love of sin and remain in wrath. God is with each person, but if we are not with Him through Christ then we experience God as wrath, for we lack blessed communion and experience only broken communion. Praise be to God that He is constant in faithful-love toward us, even when we were children of wrath!

There are some further applications that can be drawn from this paradigm, but I will stop with this for now.

Vicarious - yes; Satisfaction - huh?

2010-07-14T09:00:00.001-04:00

I was looking through some old files and came across the following excerpt a friend sent me, which he believed to be proof of a Patristic belief in "Vicarious Satisfaction":

St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, XIII

“If Phinees, when he waxed zealous and slew the evil-doer, staved the wrath of God, shall not Jesus, who slew not another, but gave up Himself for a ransom, put away the wrath which is against mankind?…Further; if the lamb under Moses drove the destroyer far away, did not much rather the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, deliver us from our sins? The blood of a silly sheep gave salvation; and shall not the Blood of the Only-begotten much rather save?…Jesus then really suffered for all men; for the Cross was no illusion, otherwise our redemption is an illusion also…These things the Saviour endured, and made peace through the Blood of His Cross, for things in heaven, and things in earth. For we were enemies of God through sin, and God had appointed the sinner to die. There must needs therefore have happened one of two things; either that God, in His truth, should destroy all men, or that in His loving-kindness He should cancel the sentence. But behold the wisdom of God; He preserved both the truth of His sentence, and the exercise of His loving-kindness. Christ took our sins in His body on the tree, that we by His death might die to sin, and live unto righteousness.”

“Note carefully in the above the words, “I gave to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for the blood shall make atonement for the soul.” He [Moses] says clearly that the blood of the victims slain is a propitiation in the place of human life. And the law about sacrifices suggests that it should be so regarded, if it is carefully considered. For it requires him who is sacrificing always to lay his hands on the head of the victim, and to bear the animal to the priest held by its head, as one offering a sacrifice on behalf of himself. Thus he says in each case: “He shall bring it before the Lord. And he shall lay his hands on the head of the gift.” Such is the ritual in every case, no sacrifice is ever brought up otherwise. And so the argument holds that the victims are brought in place of the lives of them who bring them…While then the better, the great and worthy and divine sacrifice was not yet available for men, it was necessary for them by the offering of animals to pay a ransom for their own life, and this was fitly a life that represented their own nature. Thus did the holy men of old, anticipating by the Holy Spirit that a holy victim, dear to God and great, would one day come for men, as the offering for the sins of the world, believing that as prophets they must perform in symbol his sacrifice, and shew forth in type what was yet to be. But when that which was perfect was come, in accordance with the predictions of the prophets, the former sacrifices ceased at once because of the better and true Sacrifice.

“This Sacrifice was the Christ of God, from far distant times foretold as coming to men, to be sacrificed like a sheep for the whole human race. As Isaiah the prophet says of him: “As a sheep he was led to slaughter, and as a lamb dumb before her shearers.” And he adds: “He bears our sins and is pained for us; yet we accounted him to be in trouble, and in suffering and in affliction. But he was wounded on account of our sins, and he was made sick on account of our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripe we are healed. …And the Lord hath given him up for our iniquities …for he did no sin himself, nor was guile found in his mouth.'’ Jeremiah, another Hebrew prophet, speaks similarly in the person of Christ: “I was led as a lamb to the slaughter.” John Baptist sets the seal on their predictions at the appearance of our Saviour. For beholding Him, and pointing Him out to those present as the one foretold by the prophets, he cried: “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.'’

“Since then according to the witness of the prophets the great and precious ransom has been found for Jews and Greeks alike, the propitiation for the whole world, the life given for the life of all men, the pure offering for every stain and sin, the Lamb of God, the holy sheep dear to God, the Lamb that was foretold, by Whose inspired and mystic teaching all we Gentiles have procured the forgiveness of our former sins, and such Jews as hope in Him are freed from the curse of Moses, daily celebrating His memorial, the remembrance of His Body and Blood, and are admitted to a greater sacrifice than that of the ancient law, we do not reckon it right to fall back upon the first beggarly elements, which are symbols and likenesses but do not contain the truth itself. And any Jews, of course, who have taken refuge in Christ, even if they attend no longer to the ordinances of Moses, but live according to the new covenant, are free from the curse ordained by Moses, for the Lamb of God has surely not only taken on Himself the sin of the world, but also the curse involved in the breach of the commandments of Moses as well. The Lamb of God is made thus both sin and curse—sin for the sinners in the world, and curse for those remaining in all the things written in Moses’ law. And so the Apostle says: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us”; and “Him that knew no sin, for our sakes he made sin.”For what is there that the Offering for the whole world could not effect, the Life given for the life of sinners, Who was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a lamb to the sacrifice, and all this for us and on our behalf? And this was why those ancient men of God, as they had not yet the reality, held fast to their symbols.

Do you think this teaches a vicarious "satisfaction" as understood by Western Christians? I don't. I see here standard Orthodox teaching.

shall not Jesus, who slew not another, but gave up Himself for a ransom, put away the wrath which is against mankind?

Does Christ, by virtue of His holy self-sacrifice, stave off the wrath of God? Yes. How? By removing the reason for God's wrath - i.e. our sins and the code that condemns sin. When would that wrath have poured out on men? On the Last Day. "Wrath" poured out beforehand is either 1) chastisement that leads to repentance, or 2) in the case of someone dying apart from repentance it is that person being reserved in Hades for future judgment. These words do not mean that Christ suffered God's wrath for our sins, but rather condemned our sins to death in His own Body and thus removed what actually gave reason for wrath. See the difference: suffering wrath so that there is none left for us, versus suffering death so that the cause of wrath comes to an end.

But behold the wisdom of God; He preserved both the truth of His sentence, and the exercise of His loving-kindness. Christ took our sins in His body on the tree, that we by His death might die to sin, and live unto righteousness.

The sentence from God was that sinners should die. Why? Because sin and death are one, just as righteousness and life are one. Also because our sinning is warfare against God and against His image within us. Does Christ by dying take on God's wrath? Yes. Does He satisfy God's wrath? Wrong question. The death of man is not something that needs to be satisfied on God's end, as if it were an appeal to one of God's divine attributes. God's wrath is not about God but about man, and thus does not need to be satisfied or propitiated (a word often wrongly used to translate hilasterion, when "expiated" is proper).

God's wrath (sentencing sinners to die) is prophetic, in that it reveals the true existential reality of man's own sins and sinfulness, including the end of such a situation. God's wrath, in conjunction with His barring man from the Tree of Life and the eternal life that came from eating it, is preservative for man, allowing him to be reformed and redeemed spiritually in his nature and person (unlike the Devil and the other rebellious angels). And God's wrath is corrective, in that man carrying the weight of that sentence's slow effect upon him while living in a world that proclaims the glory of God is given opportunity to freely return to God (esp. in light of the Word of the Gospel), just as man freely has taken opportunity to sin and die.

So God's wrath is not satisfied, but rather achieves its purpose in Christ - the proclamation of man's true condition, and the fulfillment of his return to God in blessed communion, which itself is the opposite of death, namely righteous-life.

“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.'’

St. John the Baptist does not say that Christ takes away the wrath of the world, but the sins. Wrath will come, but those in Christ have passed over from death to life, and thus from their sins to a life that is ontologically righteous, for it is communion with the blessed Trinity.

For what is there that the Offering for the whole world could not effect, the Life given for the life of sinners,

Vicarious Death and Communion of Life is what sinners need, not vicarious satisfaction. For sinners need to be sinners no more, that is, they need their sins destroyed and new life imparted. This removes wrath. This is the pass-over from death to life, from sin to righteousness, from the wrath that will come from the Face of God to the blessedness that will come from the appearance of God.

Now it may seem like splitting hairs, Christ dying to satisfy God's decree that man die vs. Christ dying to save man from the need for wrath in the first place. But it is not splitting hairs, for the first depicts God as One who needs our death in order to be placated and pacified toward man. The second knows God not to delight in the death of the sinner, but does all in His power to give man every opportunity for return, even making the way of his return and effecting the necessary escape route and supplying the requisite power and Grace to accomplish all through faith without prior earnings or deservings.

So we see that Christ stands in our place, offering His Life in place of ours, so that we might be spared from the eternal condemnation of death (which itself is the power of estrangement and enslavement, with our sins as its shackles, and the Devil the usurping Prince and harsh Taskmaster), and through His death gains the blessed purgation of our sins and in His immaculate Body and precious Blood the bridge of His Hypostatic Union to Life in God.

Just some thoughts, fwiw.

Sign of the Times: Airbending Spiritual Peril

2010-07-05T23:07:00.010-04:00

This afternoon our family went to see The Last Airbender. Critical reviews raged against the movie for its acting, story sequencing, avoidance of Asian actors (the story's cultural background is Asian), and the general disappointment it caused among fans of the cartoon. What all these "critical" reviews failed to take into account is that The Last Airbender is aimed at kids ages 10 and under. In this context the movie was a huge success. As soon as the film ended a little kid sitting behind us said, "That was so cool!" Both of our kids loved the film. We were able to enjoy the film, too, because we knew this was aimed at a younger audience (and the acting was commensurate with that aim). It didn't try to appeal to all age groups, but instead focused on what was developmentally appropriate for kids (not tweens, teens, or Airbender-cartoon purists). We enjoyed the film and had a lot of fun. If they make the two sequels that are planned we will probably see those, too.

Now, having said all that, there is something that Christian parents should be aware of when exposing their children to The Last Airbender: Eastern spirituality. The movie drove home a worldview where a spiritual realm was in constant contact with the physical realm. Okay so far. But this spiritual realm is said to be populated by numerous "spirits" that watch over mankind, help out, and direct nature. These spirits are depicted as friends of mankind who share their spiritual powers. In the movie they are depicted as a large dragon, as two fish representing Yin and Yang (and these govern the moon and water). The power of these spirits is depicted as natural and not to be feared. Rather, in this spirituality, we are encouraged to trust and be open to these spirits and their particular wisdom. Herein lies the danger.

What Eastern spirituality has observed is the true existence of the spiritual aspect of the Earth. What is more, they have observed the actual existence of numerous spirits. Up to this point this is consistent with Orthodox conceptions of creation. Yet the many spirits that inhabit the "spiritual plane" of the Earth are in fact not friends of mankind but demons, i.e. fallen angels. It is a well established fact that the angels that rebelled and were defeated were cast out of heaven and now abide on earth. These are the demons that have lured men into worshiping them as gods. These are the demons that possess men and women, who tempt and attack all mankind, especially those struggling on the path of virtue and Grace.

It is interesting that one spirit in the film is depicted as a fierce dragon, a serpent with a terrifying face, given the biblical references to the Devil as that ancient serpent, that dragon, who leads the whole world astray. Also of interest is when one character in the film disguises himself in a demon mask, and is feared to be a "blue spirit." These sorts of demon visages are accepted as a normal part of Eastern spiritual culture. Compare a typical demon mask with the visage of the Hindu idols, and with the accounts of demons given by holy Christian men and women in spiritual combat, and you will find a striking similarity. For a long, long time demons have been openly at work in Eastern societies, pretending to be mankind's friends and lords, but in fact have only managed to lead men and women further into spiritual bondage and slavery that leads to complete and everlasting condemnation.

One critical of the traditional Christian belief about the so-called friendly spirits of Eastern spirituality might forcefully point out that such spirituality preaches a philosophy of peace and harmony. This is but a ruse, to lead modern man into relaxing his guard. Once relaxed, and in ignorance of the mercy, love, and power of God for our salvation, modern man then finds enough "truth" in the philosophy of the East to seek more. Then the demons lead modern man into the appearance of a personal relationship with the benevolent forces of the spiritual realm. Then modern man finds himself imprisoned, taken over, and harmed beyond physical comprehension.

In the context of a movie for children parents ought to be aware of the subtle message of Eastern spirituality: the world is full of spiritual mystery and friendly spirit-beings that can help you find inner peace, help your life's struggles, and give you true power. In reply to this message I recommend a book that sheds much light on the terrible danger of that message: "The Gurus, the Young Man, and Elder Paisios." This book, dealing with Eastern Indian spirituality rather than Chinese spirituality (Shyamalan is Indian, btw), is the chronicle of a man who chose to give Eastern spirituality and Orthodox Christian spirituality equal opportunity, and nearly lost his soul. Another book that should be read in conjunction with the first (and in consultation with a dependable Orthodox friend or priest) is Fr. Seraphim Rose's "The Soul After Death," which gives careful and detailed explanation about the spiritual dimension of creation.

Do I think The Last Airbender ought to be avoided? No. It was a fun movie. I simply think that parents should be aware of the danger that is creeping more and more into our culture, especially when it appears in forms that are appealing to children. We live in a world that is marching forcefully away from Christ and toward whatever else it can put in His place. Atheism is one threat, Oprah Winfrey's celebration of all faiths is another, but making friends with mysterious Eastern spirits and spiritualities is a yet another threat just as real and maybe far more destructive.

Guess Who

2010-07-02T23:50:00.003-04:00

We were on the streets of Defiance earlier this evening and came across this picture in the window of a Latino grocery. I recognized who this was immediately. Do you know who it is?

Regarding Slavery and the Master's Love

2010-07-02T09:00:00.001-04:00

The following is the moral from St. John Chrysostom's second homily on St. Paul's epistle to Philemon. This continues the subject matter of the previous post, regarding slaves in Roman society and the biblical- and patristic-era manner of dealing with the practice that no one really ever questioned then.

Moral. These things are not written without an object, but that we masters may not despair of our servants, nor press too hard on them, but may learn to pardon the offenses of such servants, that we may not be always severe, that we may not from their servitude be ashamed to make them partakers with us in all things when they are good. For if Paul was not ashamed to call one "his son, his own bowels, his brother, his beloved," surely we ought not to be ashamed. And why do I say Paul? The Master of Paul is not ashamed to call our servants His own brethren; and are we ashamed? See how He honors us; He calls our servants His own brethren, friends, and fellow-heirs. See to what He has descended! What therefore having done, shall we have accomplished our whole duty? We shall never in any wise do it; but to whatever degree of humility we have come, the greater part of it is still left behind. For consider, whatever you doest, you do to a fellow-servant, but your Master has done it to your servants. Hear and shudder! Never be elated at your humility!

Perhaps you laugh at the expression, as if humility could puff up. But be not surprised at it, it puffs up, when it is not genuine. How, and in what manner? When it is practiced to gain the favor of men, and not of God, that we may be praised, and be high-minded. For this also is diabolical. For as many are vainglorious on account of their not being vainglorious, so are they elated on account of their humbling themselves, by reason of their being high-minded. For instance, a brother has come, or even a servant you have received him, you have washed his feet; immediately you think highly of yourself. I have done, you say, what no other has done. I have achieved humility. How then may any one continue in humility? If he remembers the command of Christ, which says, "When you shall have done all things, say, We are unprofitable servants." Luke 17:10 And again the Teacher of the world, saying, "I count not myself to have apprehended." Philippians 3:13 He who has persuaded himself that he has done no great thing, however many things he may have done, he alone can be humble-minded, he who thinks that he has not reached perfection.

Many are elated on account of their humility; but let not us be so affected. Have you done any act of humility? Be not proud of it, otherwise all the merit of it is lost. Such was the Pharisee, he was puffed up because he gave his tythes to the poor, and he lost all the merit of it. Luke 18:12 But not so the publican. Hear Paul again saying, "I know nothing by myself, yet am I not hereby justified." 1 Corinthians 4:4 Do you see that he does not exalt himself, but by every means abases and humbles himself, and that too when he had arrived at the very summit. And the Three Children were in the fire, and in the midst of the furnace, and what said they? "We have sinned and committed iniquity with our fathers." Song of Songs 5:6, in the Septuagint; Daniel 3:29-30; 5:16 This it is to have a contrite heart; on this account they could say, "Nevertheless in a contrite heart and a humble spirit let us be accepted." Thus even after they had fallen into the furnace they were exceedingly humbled, even more so than they were before. For when they saw the miracle that was wrought, thinking themselves unworthy of that deliverance, they were brought lower in humility. For when we are persuaded that we have received great benefits beyond our desert, then we are particularly grieved. And yet what benefit had they received beyond their desert? They had given themselves up to the furnace; they had been taken captive for the sins of others; for they were still young; and they murmured not, nor were indignant, nor did they say, What good is it to us that we serve God, or what advantage have we in worshiping Him? This man is impious, and has become our lord. We are punished with the idolatrous by an idolatrous king. We have been led into captivity. We are deprived of our country, our freedom, all our paternal goods, we have become prisoners and slaves, we are enslaved to a barbarous king. None of these things did they say. But what? "We have sinned and committed iniquity." And not for themselves but for others they offer prayers. Because, say they, "You have delivered us to a hateful and a wicked king." Again, Daniel, being a second time cast into the pit, said, "For God has remembered me." Wherefore should He not remember you, O Daniel, when you glorified Him before the king, saying, "Not for any wisdom that I have"? Daniel 2:30 But when you were cast into the den of lions, because thou did not obey that most wicked decree, wherefore should He not remember you? For this very reason surely should He. Were you not cast into it on His account? "Yea truly," he says, "but I am a debtor for many things." And if he said such things after having displayed so great virtue, what should we say after this? But hear what David says, "If He thus say, I have no delight in you, behold here am I, let Him do to me as seems good unto Him." 2 Samuel 15:26 And yet he had an infinite number of good things to speak of. And Eli also says, "It is the Lord: let Him do what seems Him good." 1 Samuel 3:18

This is the part of well-disposed servants, not only in His mercies, but in His corrections, and in punishments wholly to submit to Him. For how is it not absurd, if we bear with masters beating their servants, knowing that they will spare them, because they are their own; and yet suppose that God in punishing will not spare? This also Paul has intimated, saying, "Whether we live or die, we are the Lord's." Romans 14:8 A man, we say, wishes not his property to be diminished, he knows how he punishes, he is punishing his own servants. But surely no one of us spares more than He Who brought us into being out of nothing, Who makes the sun to rise, Who causes rain; Who breathed our life into us, Who gave His own Son for us.

But as I said before, and on which account I have said all that I have said, let us be humble-minded as we ought, let us be moderate as we ought. Let it not be to us an occasion of being puffed up. Are you humble, and humbler than all men? Be not high-minded on that account, neither reproach others, lest you lose your boast. For this very cause you are humble, that you may be delivered from the madness of pride; if therefore through your humility you fall into that madness, it were better for you not to be humble. For hear Paul saying, "Sin works death in me by that which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful." Romans 7:13 When it enters into your thought to admire yourself because you are humble, consider your Master, to what He descended, and you will no longer admire yourself, nor praise yourself, but wilt deride yourself as having done nothing. Consider yourself altogether to be a debtor. Whatever you have done, remember that parable, "Which of you having a servant...will say unto him, when he has come in, Sit down to meat?...I say unto you, Nay...but stay and serve me." From Luke 17:7-8 Do we return thanks to our servants, for waiting upon us? By no means. Yet God is thankful to us, who serve not Him, but do that which is expedient for ourselves.

But let not us be so affected, as if He owed us thanks, that He may owe us the more, but as if we were discharging a debt. For the matter truly is a debt, and all that we do is of debt. For if when we purchase slaves with our money, we wish them to live altogether for us, and whatever they have to have it for ourselves, how much more must it be so with Him, who brought us out of nothing into being, who after this bought us with His precious Blood, who paid down such a price for us as no one would endure to pay for his own son, who shed His own Blood for us? If therefore we had ten thousand souls, and should lay them all down for Him, should we make Him an equal return? By no means. And why? Because He did this, owing us nothing, but the whole was a matter of grace. But we henceforth are debtors: and being God Himself, He became a servant, and not being subject to death, subjected Himself to death in the flesh. We, if we do not lay down our lives for Him, by the law of nature must certainly lay them down, and a little later shall be separated from it, however unwillingly. So also in the case of riches, if we do not bestow them for His sake, we shall render them up from necessity at our end. So it is also with humility. Although we are not humble for His sake, we shall be made humble by tribulations, by calamities, by over-ruling powers. Do you see therefore how great is the grace! He has not said, "What great things do the Martyrs do? Although they die not for Me, they certainly will die." But He owns Himself much indebted to them, because they voluntarily resign that which in the course of nature they were about to resign shortly against their will. He has not said, "What great thing do they, who give away their riches? Even against their will they will have to surrender them." But He owns Himself much indebted to them too, and is not ashamed to confess before all that He, the Master, is nourished by His slaves.

For this also is the glory of a Master, to have grateful slaves. And this is the glory of a Master, that He should thus love His slaves. And this is the glory of a Master, to claim for His own what is theirs. And this is the glory of a Master, not to be ashamed to confess them before all. Let us therefore be stricken with awe at this so great love of Christ. Let us be inflamed with this love-potion. Though a man be low and mean, yet if we hear that he loves us, we are above all things warmed with love towards him, and honor him exceedingly. And do we then love? And when our Master loves us so much, we are not excited? Let us not, I beseech you, let us not be so indifferent with regard to the salvation of our souls, but let us love Him according to our power, and let us spend all upon His love, our life, our riches, our glory, everything, with delight, with joy, with alacrity, not as rendering anything to Him, but to ourselves. For such is the law of those who love. They think that they are receiving favors, when they are suffering wrong for the sake of their beloved. Therefore let us be so affected towards our Lord, that we also may partake of the good things to come in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Regarding Roman Slaves

2010-06-30T22:32:00.002-04:00

In pagan Rome slavery was not only a reality, but it was such a reality that no one considered that there was any alternative to a slave-owning society. It was just the way of things. We in our society have a very different view of the matter, and in no way do I wish to speak to America's moral issues with its history of slavery. Rather, for the purpose of further grasping the world in which the New Testament Church was introduced I think it is important to outline a couple of realities (taken from "A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium," p.51ff):

A slave was unquestionably considered an inferior being, and this according to fate's ordering (for free men could be sold into slavery, thus making them subhuman).

A slave was a member of his master's family, whose relationship was defined by obedience. In the context of a slave's obedience the master would paternally love or punish.

A slave was not a thing but a human being, for they were expected to be loyal and devoted.

A slave was simultaneously a possession.

Slaves fulfilled many different roles in Roman society, from the lowliest of manual labor to the heights of social and political position. Some were richer than free men.

Slaves could not marry until later in Roman social development (it was new around AD 200). Their children were property of their master directly.

Most artisans and traders were slaves or former-slaves, working either for their master's benefit or having gained through freedom through a business arrangement with their (former) master.

Slaves slept near their master's bed or bedroom.

A slave could be set free at any time by his master. If this was done while the master still lived the freedman was expected to pay daily homage to his former master (who had become his patron). If this was done at death through the master's will this would then reflect positively on the deceased-master's social reputation.

A slave was usually called "little one" or "boy" no matter how old.

A slave could practice his own religion. "Away from home a slave might well serve as the priest of some sect or even of the Christian Church..." (p.62).

Romans looked down on slaves and their personal lives as if Romans were adults and slaves childish.

A slave found identity through his master.

There is a lot more in the chapter beyond the above outline.

Reading about slavery in pagan Rome leads me to reflect on St. Paul's letter to Philemon. St. Paul begins by placing Philemon with him in the context of slavery (servitude) to God, a context which is made new from within by the very person and work of Jesus Christ whom Philemon and St. Paul are united to in the Holy Spirit. St. Paul also very wisely focuses on Philemon's goodness towards the saints, which will become the very thing that is tested once St. Paul presents Onesimus as a newly illumined saint.

St. Paul also makes another deft move: he speaks of Onesimus as his son. Adoption in Roman society was a common thing, but it was illegal to adopt a slave. However, this is not the sort of adoption to which St. Paul is referring, yet the force of the words is similar: Onesimus may be your slave deserving of harsh discipline (or maybe even death at the hands of the city executioner), but he is now my son - as you are. While Philemon is the paterfamilias of his own household (which includes Onesimus), holding supreme rule over everyone in the household, St. Paul here shrewdly reminds him that he is Philemon's paterfamilias in the household of God - the Church.

But St. Paul does not resort to threats, but instead appeals to love and respect. What is transpiring in this epistle is a classically Roman situation: Philemon is socially expected to uphold both the kindness AND the severity of the Master class vis a vis his slaves. Normally, though, in order to be lenient a master should not come up with the idea on his own, otherwise the severity mask is damaged. A slave like Onesimus was in serious trouble unless someone in the household should suggest leniency. Onesimus, the thief, turns not to anyone in the house, but to a faraway friend. Here Paul Veyne's treatment on the subject is appropriate (p.65),

Roman law did not regard as a fugitive a slave who fled in order to ask a friend of his master to beg indulgence of the latter. A master could be severe in individual cases without damaging the reputation for kindness of the master class as a whole. For clemency could be requested and decided only between peers. A slave who asked for clemency would have been regarded as impudent for having taken it upon himself to prejudge which of the two paternal masks the master would choose to wear.

St. Paul, in one sense, is treating Philemon as a peer ("fellow servant"), but in another sense reminds Philemon of his authority over him in the Church. Philemon's vocation as paterfamilias of his own household is recognized by St. Paul, and the Apostle approaches the issue in such a classically Roman way that Philemon's standing in society is not jeopardized. Philemon is both cooled by the Apostle and given an open door to leniency and kindness toward Onesimus.

In the end St. Paul continues the duality between being a fellow worker with Philemon (a peer) and expecting due obedience from Philemon (a master to a servant). He also throws in some weighty names, including two Gospel writers, to let Philemon know that, just as Philemon's slave problems are most likely known in the city where Philemon resides, so also Philemon's spiritual situation is known among the leaders of the Church. Given the opening and ending of the epistle, it is my private opinion that Philemon was a bishop.

Today we would expect St. Paul to lobby for the abolition of slavery. It was different then. As said above, slavery was so matter-of-fact that it was hard to conceive of not having slaves. Freeing slaves was not what the Gospel was about. St. John Chrysostom writes regarding the service of slaves, perhaps meaning Christian slaves:

Thirdly, that we ought not to withdraw slaves from the service of their masters. For if Paul, who had such confidence in Philemon, was unwilling to detain Onesimus, so useful and serviceable to minister to himself, without the consent of his master, much less ought we so to act. For if the servant is so excellent, he ought by all means to continue in that service, and to acknowledge the authority of his master, that he may be the occasion of benefit to all in that house. Why do you take the candle from the candlestick to place it in the bushel? [Homily on Philemon - Argument]

He goes on to emphasize that what is important is not removing slaves from servitude, but that through the circumstances of slavery each slave gives witness to the Gospel of Christ - specifically by showing obedience with love and affection, benefiting the household in the fear of God. At the end of this sermon St. John Chrysostom adds one more thing: that masters should not look down on their slaves (as was the absolute norm), but regard them after the fashion of St. Paul toward Onesimus. In this way, from this single example, we see that much of the harshness and dehumanizing aspects of slavery were nullified by Christianity's devotion to faith and love in Jesus Christ.

Our opposition to slavery today is more about the morality of all men being created equal and the expression of that in the creation of society. For the first Christians it was not in dispute that all men are created equal - but that equality was one of being in the image of God and being held in slavery to sin, death, and the devil. The witness of the Gospel did not demand the release of all slaves, but rather that the light of spiritual release from mortality, sin, and the demonic forces should be carried into all aspects of life - including slavery. Thus slavery's dehumanization should have been supplanted among the Christians on the societal level, and the personal dehumanization that each slave identified himself with was supplanted by communion with dignified, royal, Divine Humanity of Jesus Christ.

Daily Life in Pagan Rome

2010-06-29T23:23:00.003-04:00

Currently I am reading "A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium," edited by Paul Veyne. I found it on the shelf at the public library.

So far I have been reading through pre-Christian issues of birth, family, marriage, and right now slavery. All is very interesting.

For instance, abortion was a term that not only meant what it means today but also referred to contraception. Romans frequently turned out wanted children, fresh from the womb, exposing them to the streets and fate, where they usually died or otherwise were picked up by someone with compassion or a slaver.

Above all, without going into too many details here, the Romans seemed overly pragmatic in their daily life, to the exclusion of those emotional bonds we nowadays take for granted. The affairs of one's household, and even the makeup of one's house (wife, slaves, freedmen, clients) were all treated like a business venture, with the highest stakes being wealth (=social status) and manly pride.

It is interesting to note that near the same time that Christianity was making a splash the Stoics were either leading the way to a more moral Roman society or just riding the wave that effected the same thing. BC Roman society was utterly pragmatic and focused on outward duty; AD Roman society remained pragmatic, but introduced an element of inner moral consciousness that sought to give meaning to outward pragmatic duty.

For instance, marriage was made by two parties deciding they were married and living that way (though with a maiden her father is usually involved, as is a young man's father, for usually neither were free to act in their own right). There was no public ceremony, no legal document (except for the dowry), perhaps not even any witnesses. The couple might have a private ritual with a feast. It was a Roman man's duty (once he was at least age 14-16 and acknowledged by his father to be an adult) to marry and to people the society. Wives were basically servants and adult-children. However, when the Stoic morality began to take hold there appeared a moral impetus for husband and wife to live together as "friends" (which in the Roman sense meant being part of the inner circle, so to speak).

This is all to say that I am finding the whole topic interesting. This book is setting an interesting stage onto which Orthodox Christianity appeared. Hopefully, once I am farther in to the book, a fair comparison will be made between the Pagan Rome and the Christianized Rome. I am interested to get to the sections that describe religious life and Roman pastimes (like the Spectacles).

[It's interesting to note that the author of the particular section I'm reading seems rather hostile to Christianity. In one place he calls the Church Fathers "enemies of marriage."]

Plug: Beyond Justification

2010-06-28T17:03:00.002-04:00

Here is a snippet from an excellent article by Valerie A. Karras entitled, Beyond Justification.

To the Orthodox, the Western Church’s convulsions over the nature of justification, and particularly the relationship between faith and works, are largely incomprehensible because the presuppositions underlying the debates are often alien to the Eastern Christian mind. The Christian East espouses a different theological anthropology from most of Western Christianity – both Catholic and Protestant – especially with respect to two elements of fallen human nature: original guilt and free will. The differences in these two anthropological concepts, in turn, contribute to differing soteriological understandings of, respectively, how Jesus Christ saves us (that is, what salvation means) and how we appropriate the salvation offered in Christ.

Therefore, we must examine these key concepts in Orthodox anthropology and soteriology, and their nexus in Christology, vis-à-vis their counterparts in traditional Western Christian theology. This will necessarily involve comparing different traditions’ definitions and understandings of some key theological terms: sin, faith, salvation. Two contrasts recur: 1) the juridical approach of much of the West regarding sin and redemption, or restoration, versus the more existential and ontological approach of the East; and 2) the Western tendency to define, differentiate, and compartmentalize, as opposed to the Eastern tendency to theologize apophatically and, when cataphatically, primarily in a holistic and organic fashion. At the same time, some current trends are bringing the Catholic and especially the Lutheran communions closer to an Eastern Christian approach in these important areas.

Read the full article.

Liturgical Vestments VI: the Subdeacon

2010-06-27T12:00:00.000-04:00

Continuing a series I began last September but fell away from, I would like to take up again the vestments of sacred ministers in the Orthodox Catholic Church. Having explored various vestments used throughout, and having then further narrowed the discussion to the Priest and Deacon, I will continue by examining the Subdeacon. OrthodoxWiki.org has a basic article explaining the role of the Subdeacon in the Orthodox Catholic Church; Wikipedia has a fuller explanation.

To review the previous posts on this topic, click the Vestments category at the end of the post.

Eastern Rite

The Subdeacon is one of the minor orders of the Church, which are blessed with a different classification of ordination than that of the major clerical orders of Deacon, Priest, or Bishop. The distinction between the two classes of ordination may best be seen in the location of their ordination: the major orders receive ordination in the context of the Divine Liturgy of the Eucharist, while the minor orders receive their ordination outside of the Eucharistic context. Thus the Subdeacon does not vest during the Prothesis, i.e. the Liturgy of Preparation for the Eucharist, but apart from this with the other altar servers.

The rubrics do not instruct the Subdeacon to say the prayers associated with each vestment, but that does not mean that it doesn't happen. The Subdeacon vests with the following:

Sticharion - the Subdeacon says nothing while donning the Sticharion.

Orarion - the Subdeacon says nothing while donning the Orarion. He wears the Orarion tied around his waist, up over his shoulders (forming an X-shaped cross in back), and with the ends hanging down in front, tucked under the section around his waist. In those jurisdictions where acolytes are blessed to wear the Orarion, the Subdeacon will wear his Orarion crossed in the front and the back.

Western Rite

The Subdeacon in the Western Rite is more or less an assistant to the Deacon. At High Mass he reads the Epistle, holds the Gospel Book during its reading, and assists the Deacon with the preparation of the Oblations.

The Subdeacon vests with the following, saying the appropriate prayers:

Amice - "Place upon me, O Lord, the helmet of salvation, that I may withstand the assaults of the devil."

Alb - "Purify me, O Lord, and cleanse my heart, that being made white in the Blood of the Lamb I may come to eternal joy."

Cincture - "Gird me, O Lord, with the girdle of purity, and quench in my loins the fire of lust, that with the virtues of continence and chastity I may abide in Thee."

Maniple - "May I deserve, O Lord, to bear the maniple of weeping and sorrow, in order that I may joyfully reap the reward of my labors."

Tunicle - Clothe me, O Lord, with the tunic of favors and the garment of joys.

Also, a vestment-like item worn by the Subdeacon during the Eucharist is the Humeral Veil. The Subdeacon uses a humeral veil when carrying the chalice, paten, or other sacred vessels, which should be touched only by the Deacon or another person in major orders. Catholic Encyclopedia has an informative article about the origin and use of this "vestment."

A Subdeacon wearing the Humeral Veil. From the Traditonal Catholicism Blog.

Huh?

2010-06-26T15:36:00.002-04:00

While visiting my grandparents in Michigan this past week we drove by a (non-Orthodox) church that posted this on their sign:

Before you get angry remember half the people you know are below average.

Huh? Reduce anger by burning away humility - interesting method ... er something.

Nativity of St. John the Baptist (yesterday)

2010-06-25T09:00:00.001-04:00

O Prophet and Forerunner of the coming of Christ, we honour thee lovingly but cannot extol thee worthily; for by thy birth thy mother's barrenness and thy father 's dumbness were unloosed; and the Incarnation of the Son of God is proclaimed to the world.

--Troparion, Tone 4

O God, let Your Church rejoice over the birth of blessed John the Baptist, for through him she came to know the author of her own birth, Jesus Christ, Your Son our Lord; who lives and rules with You .

--Postcommunion (Western Rite)

My family enjoyed Mass at Holy Incarnation Antiochian Orthodox Church yesterday in celebration of the nativity of St. John the Baptist. We lost track of what day it was, so it was by chance we were available to attend. What a blessing!

Visit the Antiochian Archdiocese Web site for resources related to this Great Feast of the Church.

The Fathers and Romans 7:14-25

2010-06-24T09:00:00.000-04:00

I am reading some of the Ancient Christian Commentary on Romans right now. The volume editor is Gerald Bray, a professor of Anglican studies in Birmingham, AL. His personal theological views are more Western and Anglican, it seems, though he does a fine job presenting the various Fathers and writers of the early Church. This one section on Romans 7:14-25 is very interesting to me. Here is his own editorial commentary on the section:

Overview: In Romans 7:15 and the following verses Paul describes the plight of persons who know that they are sinners but who cannot escape from the sins they commit. Most of the Fathers believed that here Paul was adopting the persona of an unregenerate man, not describing his own struggles as a Christian. As far as they were concerned, becoming a Christian would deliver a person from the kind of dilemma the apostle is outlining here. Romans 7:22 would appear to create a difficulty for those who believe that Paul was describing an unregenerate person, but some of the Fathers resolved it by saying that the inmost self was the rational intellect. As far as they were concerned, any rational person would automatically take delight in the law of God because it is supremely rational. The difficulty comes in trying to move from theory to practice. The dilemma of unregenerate persons is insoluble apart from the grace of God given to us in Christ. This sets us free from the law of sin and death and allows us to serve the law of God as right reason dictates [pgs. 189-190].

The editor cannot help but plug his own theological views, as I suppose is normal. For me, as a former-Lutheran, I recognize the presupposition that the editor is running with. The Lutheran belief in the bondage of the will relies heavily on the point of view the editor espouses in contradiction to most of the Fathers. In fact, the Lutheran Confessions even misquote the Scripture in Formula of Concord, SD:17, adding to St. Paul's words "For I delight in the Law of God after the inward man," the words which is regenerate by the Holy Ghost. This is not in Romans 7 (which the Triglot mis-references as Romans 18:23 ??), but it reveals the viewpoint of Reformation-era theology and interpretation of Scripture. (It might be interesting to see if FC III could still be held together without this passage.)

Given that, it is of no small importance that the Orthodox Church has always maintained a different interpretation of Romans 7:14ff. This difference of interpretation causes huge stumbling blocks in the area of Lutheran-Orthodox dialogue and theological discussions. The Orthodox Church maintains the teaching of the majority of the Fathers, identifying it as the consensus of the Church. The Lutherans, in their confessions, hold to a view identified with St. Augustine, and in FC SD III:86 specifically reject Ss. John Chrysostom and Basil the Great when they teach the Orthodox view.

This was a huge discovery for me in coming to the Orthodox Church. I read it in Scripture, then checked my findings with various Orthodox people of a theological mind and found my suspicions confirmed: St. Paul is describing one under the law, not under grace.

But what about those Fathers who cite Romans 7:14ff to describe the Christian's struggle with actual sins? While grace frees us from the law, when we choose to serve sin - whose domination has been bound by the Strong Man - we are loosing sin's cords and making ourselves its slave again. That is, when we flee from Grace by our willful actions we are throwing ourselves back into the arms of death and sin. Only repentance can return us to God. This application of the passage is a secondary use of Romans 7:14ff, not the primary description St. Paul is giving in Romans. His primary purpose is to describe how it is for the man who has not yet been illumined, which then allows him to show how things are different for a man after his illumination (Romans 8).

Laser Reveals Ancient Icons

2010-06-23T09:00:00.003-04:00

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Twenty-first century laser technology has opened a window into the early days of the Catholic Church, guiding researchers through the dank, musty catacombs beneath Rome to a startling find: the first known icons of the apostles Peter and Paul.

Vatican officials unveiled the paintings Tuesday, discovered along with the earliest known images of the apostles John and Andrew in an underground burial chamber beneath an office building on a busy street in a working-class Rome neighborhood.

The images, which date from the second half of the 4th century, were uncovered using a new laser technique that allows restorers to burn off centuries of thick white calcium carbonate deposits without damaging the brilliant dark colors of the paintings underneath.

The technique could revolutionize the way restoration work is carried out in the miles (kilometers) of catacombs that burrow under the Eternal City where early Christians buried their dead.

The icons were discovered on the ceiling of a tomb of an aristocratic Roman woman at the Santa Tecla catacomb, near where the remains of the apostle Paul are said to be buried.

Rome has dozens of such burial chambers and they are a major tourist attraction, giving visitors a peek into the traditions of the early church when Christians were often persecuted for their beliefs. Early Christians dug the catacombs outside Rome's walls as underground cemeteries, since burial was forbidden inside the city walls and pagan Romans were usually cremated.

The art that decorated Rome's catacombs was often simplistic and symbolic in nature. The Santa Tecla catacombs, however, represent some of the earliest evidence of devotion to the apostles in early Christianity, Vatican officials said.

"The Christian catacombs, while giving us value with a religious and cultural patrimony, represent an eloquent and significant testimony of Christianity at its origin," said Monsignor Giovanni Carru, the No. 2 in the Vatican's Pontifical Commission of Sacred Archaeology, which maintains the catacombs.

Last June, the Vatican announced the discovery of the icon of Paul at Santa Tecla, timing the news to coincide with the end of the Vatican's year of St. Paul. Pope Benedict XVI also said tests on bone fragments long attributed to Paul "seemed to confirm" that they did indeed belong to the Roman Catholic saint.

On Tuesday, Vatican archaeologists announced the image of Paul was not found in isolation, but was part of a square ceiling painting that also included icons of three other apostles — Peter, John and Andrew — surrounding an image of Christ as the Good Shepherd.

"They are the first icons. These are absolutely the first representations of the apostles," said Fabrizio Bisconti, the superintendent of archaeology for the catacombs.

Read the entire article.

Original Sin: an Excert from "Byzantine Theology"

2010-06-22T09:00:00.000-04:00

The following is an excerpt from John Meyendorff's Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes. It is from the chapter on original sin and treats the translational issue at play in Romans 5:12.

The scriptural text, which played a decisive role in the polemics between Augustine and the Pelagians, is found in Romans 5:12 where Paul speaking of Adam writes, "As sin came into the world through one man and through sin and death, so death spreads to all men because all men have sinned [eph ho pantes hemarton]" In this passage there is a major issue of translation. The last four Greek words were translated in Latin as in quo omnes peccaverunt ("in whom [i.e., in Adam] all men have sinned"), and this translation was used in the West to justify the doctrine of guilt inherited from Adam and spread to his descendants. But such a meaning cannot be drawn from the original Greek — the text read, of course, by the Byzantines. The form eph ho — a contraction of epi with the relative pronoun ho — can be translated as "because," a meaning accepted by most modern scholars of all confessional backgrounds.22 Such a translation renders Paul’s thought to mean that death, which is "the wages of sin" (Rm 6:23) for Adam, is also the punishment applied to those who like him sin. It presupposed a cosmic significance of the sin of Adam, but did not say that his descendants are "guilty" as he was unless they also sinned as he did.

A number of Byzantine authors, including Photius, understood the eph ho to mean "because" and saw nothing in the Pauline text beyond a moral similarity between Adam and other sinners in death being the normal retribution for sin. But there is also the consensus of the majority of Eastern Fathers, who interpret Romans 5:12 in close connection with 1 Corinthians 15:22 — between Adam and his descendants there is a solidarity in death just as there is a solidarity in life between the risen Lord and the baptized. This interpretation comes obviously from the literal, grammatical meaning of Romans 5:12. Eph ho, if it means "because," is a neuter pronoun; but it can also be masculine referring to the immediately preceding substantive thanatos ("death"). The sentence then may have a meaning, which seems improbable to a reader trained in Augustine, but which is indeed the meaning which most Greek Fathers accepted: "As sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men; and because of death, all men have sinned..."

Mortality, or "corruption," or simply death (understood in a personalized sense), has indeed been viewed since Christian antiquity as a cosmic disease, which holds humanity under its sway, both spiritually and physically, and is controlled by the one who is "the murderer from the beginning" (Jn 8:44). It is this death, which makes sin inevitable and in this sense "corrupts" nature.

For Cyril of Alexandria, humanity after the sin of Adam "fell sick of corruption."23 Cyril’s opponents, the theologians of the School of Antioch, agreed with him on the consequence of Adam’s sin. For Theodore of Mopsuestia, "by becoming mortal, we acquired greater urge to sin." The necessity of satisfying the needs of the body — food, drink, and other bodily needs — are absent in immortal beings; but among mortals, they lead to "passions," for they present unavoidable means of temporary survival.24 Theodoret of Cyrus repeats almost literally the arguments of Theodore in his own commentary on Romans; elsewhere, he argues against the sinfulness of marriage by affirming that transmission of mortal life is not sinful in itself, in spite of Psalm 51:7 ("my mother conceived me in sin"). This verse, according to Theodoret, refers not to the sexual act but to the general sinful condition of mortal humanity: "Having become mortal, [Adam and Eve] conceived mortal children, and mortal beings are a necessary subject to passions and fears, to pleasures and sorrows, to anger and hatred."25

Reality Under the Cross

2010-06-21T09:00:00.006-04:00

From St. Mark the Ascetic, On Those who Think that They are Made Righteous by Works: Two Hundred and Twenty-Six Texts, Text 193:

He who does not understand God's judgments walks on a ridge like a knife-edge and is easily unbalanced by every puff of wind. When praised, he exults; when criticized, he feels bitter. When he feasts, he makes a pig of himself; and when he suffers hardship, he moans and groans. When he understands, he shows off; and when he does not understand, he pretends that he does. When rich, he is boastful; and when in poverty, he plays the hypocrite. Gorged, he grows brazen; and when he fasts, he becomes arrogant. He quarrels with those who reprove him; and those who forgive him he regards as fools.

The same work, Text 198:

When tested by some trial you should try to find out not why or through whom it came, but only how to endure it gratefully, without distress or rancor.

The same work, Text 201:

If Peter had not failed to catch anything during the night's fishing (cf. Luke 5:5), he would not have caught anything during the day. And if Paul had not suffered physical blindness (cf. Acts 9:8), he would not have been given spiritual sight. And if Stephen had not been slandered as a blasphemer, he would not have seen the heavens opened and have looked on God (cf. Acts 6:15; 7:56).

East Meets West

2010-06-20T12:00:00.000-04:00

The following is taken from the Web site for the Orthodox Constructions of the West, which site is hosted by Fordham University's Center for Medieval Studies. I thought the statements made about Eastern self-conceptions were an important alert, especially for converts from the West trying to determine what is certainly not Orthodox.

Orthodox Constructions of the West

Conference Aims

In preparation for the publication of Orthodox Readings of Augustine (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008), the co-founding directors of the Orthodox Christian Studies Program were struck by ways in which Orthodox authors, especially in the twentieth century, had created artificial categories of “East” and “West” and then used that distinction as a basis for self-definition. The history of Orthodox Christianity is typically narrated by Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike as developing in the ‘East’, which is geographically ambiguous, but usually refers to the region in Europe east of present-day Croatia, Hungary and Poland. In contemporary Orthodoxy, ‘West’ refers not simply to a geographical location, but to a form of civilization that was shaped and influenced by Latin Christendom, which includes both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. The “West,” thus, represents a cluster of theological, cultural and political ideas against which Orthodox self-identify. In other words, Orthodox self-identification often engages in a distorted apophaticism: Orthodoxy is what the “West” is not.

Given that much of the Orthodox world has until recently suffered oppression from the Ottomans and the Communists, one can read the creation of the “East-West” binary as a post-colonial search for an authentic Orthodox identity in the wake of such domination. After centuries of repression, it is not surprising that the Orthodox recovery of identity would take the form of opposition to that which is seemingly the religious, cultural and political “Other.” The question that the conference will attempt to answer is whether such a construction has as much to do with Orthodox identify formation vis-à-vis the West as it does with genuine differences. By creating this opposition to the “West,” do Orthodox communities not only misunderstand what Western Christians believe but, even more egregiously, have they come to believe certain things about their own tradition and teachings that are historically untrue? The importance of addressing these questions is not simply limited to the theological realm. There is evidence of anti-democracy and anti-human rights rhetoric coming from traditional Orthodox countries that have recently been liberated from communism, and this rhetoric often associates liberal forms of democracy and the notion of human rights in general as “Western” and, therefore, not Orthodox. In other words, the self-identification vis-à-vis the “West” is affecting the cultural and political debates in the traditional Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe. Insofar as this conference addresses the broader theme of identity formation, its impact is potentially far-reaching, as it hopes to influence the production of theological, cultural and political ideas within contemporary Orthodoxy.

The purpose of this conference is to explore how these artificial binaries were first created and, by exposing them, make possible a more authentic recovery of the rich Orthodox tradition that is unfettered by self-definition vis-à-vis the proximate other. It is also expected that the deconstruction of false caricatures of the West will impact the discussion on culture and politics throughout the Orthodox world, as well as assist in moving the ecumenical conversation forward.

Speakers and further information are listed at http://www.fordham.edu/mvst/conference10/orthodox/index.html.

Church Music from the Future

2010-06-19T09:00:00.001-04:00

I was reading an article on the Antiochian Web site entitled, "Authentic Church Music." One thing that struck me was the following:

Our Patriarch Ignatius IV commenting in his book The Resurrection and Modern Man on the Apocalyptic verse "Behold, I make all things new" emphasizes that God comes into the world from the future.[1] So, too, should our music, and iconography be made new from generation to generation, not in the sense of radical innovation or novelty, but new according to the renewal of the Holy Spirit in the Church. We must trust that the Holy Spirit will reveal the mind of the Church in every generation and in every nation as the faithful apply the great commission not only to the spread of the Orthodox faith in thought, word and deed, but also in Christian art.

Here Fr. John Finley refers to the eschatological nature of the Church and that which makes the Church truly Catholic. If the Church and everything about her as sacrament of the kingdom is determined by the in-breaking of the future reign, the eschatological kingdom, establishing it's rule in all the here-and-nows of history (through the cross, through the Eucharist), then her music must also be included.

Having come once from a Contemporary Worship / baby-boomer surfer party themed background, it is refreshing to find this belief, this expectation, this self-awareness. It is the eschatological outlook and self-understanding of the Church that drew me to her in the first place (there may be other things, but they all coalesce into this matrix). That liturgical music should so naturally find its home in this eschatological self-understanding brings me a comfort I've never known. Why? Because it is one of many things I've searched for without being able ever to describe it with words.

Some accused converts like me of becoming Orthodox just for smells and bells. No, I became Orthodox because I wanted to be a part of that eschatological in-breaking of Christ's kingdom that I saw so clearly in Holy Orthodoxy. I went and I saw and I believed (and I read Scripture and believed with certainty!) Did the music charm me? No. The theology behind the music and everything else did, because it is true, it is the shining brilliance of knowing the One who is True and Truth Himself through His cross and resurrection.

I know that there are many others out there like I used to be, people who are still Lutheran that are looking for this culture of the eschatological kingdom that breaks in to here-and-now as they battle it out against the threat of the spiritual erosion of the world's anti-sanctification into what should be holy ground. I can only pray they will one day see what my foolish heart was undeservedly blessed to see.

Here is some more from Fr. John Finley:

Just as an authentic icon makes visible for us, the invisible Kingdom of God, so too, authentic Church music makes audible for us the inaudible song of the angels around the throne of God.

And just as an icon of Christ or the Theotokos differs in style from nation to nation, and from one century to the next, so too, a musical setting of a hymn to Christ or to His mother differs in style from nation to nation and from one century to the next.

Because we respect the tradition of the Church, and because we know that no culture or no era stands in isolation from another in Church History, we seek to develop Church art in a living continuity with the past, realizing however, that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church to which we are united, is not simply the Church of the past, but also of the present and of the future.

Read the entire article...

Seeking the Peace from Above: Peacemaking and Conflict-Resolution in the Church

2010-06-18T08:00:00.000-04:00

By Fr. John Mefrige

Reprinted from The Word, June 2010

Full article found on the Web site of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America

The very words of Christ Himself proclaim, “Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called the Children of God,” but all too often we see the very children of the Church embroiled in destructive conﬂict and controversy. Who has not been to a Parish Council meeting or an Annual Parish Assembly where there has been conﬂict or controversy? Who has not experienced strong differences of opinions within families or with siblings? Who cannot say that they know people who have gone through messy divorces in their Church communities? As a matter of fact, a cottage industry has emerged on the Internet now populated with numerous websites and blogs specifically dedicated to exploring the question of just how we are dealing with conﬂict in the Church. Perhaps one might conclude generally that conﬂict is “normal” to the human condition, and, by extension, to the Church, and we just have to do our best to survive it. But the reality is that, all too often, conﬂict leaves in its wake a myriad of severed relationships and broken ties that ultimately do harm to the very members of the Church that produce it.

The truth is that, as a result of most conﬂict, the members of that body are left reeling, wounded and scarred on the ﬂoor of the arena of differing opinions. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people could simply decide to respond to conflict in a gracious and constructive way? Wouldn’t it be magnificent if, every time there was a difference of opinion in the Church or in any of our relationships, it could be worked out in a way that builds the relationship, rather than tearing it down? What I would like to suggest in this article is that conﬂict is not something to be avoided or suppressed, but that it is an opportunity for ministry. Yes! Let me say that again – conﬂict can be an opportunity to minister to each other and, through that ministry, glorify God in the process. We have the opportunity to harness the transformative power of conﬂict for growth and healthy change. This is no easy task, however, as evidenced by the many missed opportunities within our church families. To break free from a pattern of destructive behavior, we need to understand the way we react to conﬂict and the dynamics it produces, and get to the bottom of the issue that fuels the ﬁre of destructive conﬂict.

The rest of the article is well worth the read...

Theologians of the Cross, Glory, and Orthodoxy

2010-06-17T09:00:00.007-04:00

As I said in a previous post, I have on more than one occasion heard the charge leveled against Orthodoxy that it is a theology of glory, especially in connection with its ecclesiology. So I would like to take a quick look at that claim. Since my books are still packed away, I am going to rely on the outline of Luther's Theology of the Cross found on Wikipedia.com

I. Luther's Theology of the Cross (TotC) begins with a different language than Orthodox theology.

It is easy to talk past one another when our words mean different things and our assumptions are rooted differently. One of the basic differences between the Two Theologies in Luther's TotC is the claim that they work with different epistemologies. The question is whether the epistemology of Glory that Luther describes is the specific 'different epistemology' of the Orthodox Church.

Some observations:

Luther assumes righteousness is that which can merit eternal life.

However, in Orthodoxy righteousness and life are opposite sides of the same coin, received together.

Luther assumes the issue is between the merit of works of the law and the merit of Christ.

Orthodoxy assumes the issue is between man's bondage to sin, death, and the devil and the freedom of life/righteousness in Christ.

The TotC grapples constantly with questions of merit.

In Orthodoxy that Western concept of merit does not exist.

Thus Luther's TotC is insufficient in itself to critique Orthodox Catholic theology, because Luther's theology touches only upon Reformation-era theological problems and does not actually address the epistemological realities of Orthodox theology.

II. Having said that, it may seem still that there is enough in common between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy to level a critique against Orthodoxy using Luther's TotC.

Much of what Martin Luther wishes to discuss with his theses on this subject abides in the theological issues of the Roman Church. Orthodoxy and Rome appear to have much in common according to their theological conclusions, despite some important differences. Is this enough to still accurately and effectively criticize Orthodoxy as a Theology of Glory, that is, something deluded and puffed up with notions of its own righteousness? Let's see:

The Theologian of Glory: humans have the ability to do the good that lies within them.

Orthodox theology teaches that humans can do the good within them, and that this comes from being made in God's image; it is not lost by the fall. It is pleasing to God when humans do the good within them, for God put it there for that purpose. Orthodox theology does not teach that doing that good within them "saves" a person according to a system of merits. Doing what is good within a person is measured by God on the basis of His mercy in Christ, faith, and acting in accord with God's design for humanity. Lutheranism revolves around passivity; Orthodoxy around activity, for faith is something active through love in works.

The Theologian of Glory: there remains, after the fall, some ability to choose the good.

Orthodox theology teaches this very thing. Orthodox theology has never come to the conclusions about the Human Will that the Lutherans and Calvinists have; their conclusions are considered a false representation of Scripture derived from over-reliance on St. Augustine's overstatements. However, in the context of Luther's theses, the question is whether or not one has the ability to choose the good in order to supply merit towards his salvation. This concept is not at work in Orthodox theology. Merit in Western theology is a quantitative term denoting what man earns or deserves; in those parts of Orthodoxy where merit shows up it describes the strength of one's relationship with God in terms of repentance, faith, and love.

The Theologian of Glory: humans cannot be saved without participating in or cooperating with the righteousness given by God.

Orthodoxy says this, but not the way a Lutheran would naturally understand it. Since in Orthodoxy the righteousness given by God is a) not a created grace or habit or characteristic, b) but is itself the living righteousness of Christ shared with the believer through communion with Him, then c) the righteousness of Christ received is meant to be exercised, because it is the Divine Energies of God from outside of us imparted into us, not just a legal status both starting and ending outside of us.

In Orthodoxy "to be saved" refers to receiving God's righteousness, and also to growing in God's righteousness through the active participation in that righteousness (i.e. faith), and also to being found on Christ's right hand when He comes again in glory, and it means other things, too. Lutheranism uses the term "saved" to refer to being declared not guilty by God, which will then result in the guarantee of eternal life.

III. However, to be fair, let us compare the other side of Luther's theology, namely that of the Theologian of the Cross:

The Theologian of the Cross: humans can in no way earn righteousness.

Orthodoxy teaches this. The righteousness of God is never earned, but bestowed by God's mercy, forgiveness, and loving-kindness despite our unworthiness and because of God's great love for mankind through Christ in the Holy Spirit. This righteousness is bestowed not like receiving a notice in the mail with presents to follow that help you to believe the notice, but rather like the father embracing his prodigal son in the Gospel and bringing him into to feast.

The Theologian of the Cross: humans cannot add to or increase the righteousness of the cross.

What is referred to here in the Lutheran context is the work of Christ by which He supplies to man His own righteousness in exchange for the punishment due to sinners. Orthodoxy is uncomfortable with this view of the cross, for Christ did not suffer eternal damnation on the cross, but rather made an end of the sins of the world by death, healed the wound of mortality, and delivered the world from bondage to its Pharaoh (the Devil).

Having said that, Orthodoxy theology teaches that man is taken up into the self-offering of Christ on the cross through communion, as beneficiaries; we do not apply quantitative merit to Christ's over-abundantly quantitative merit (again, merit is an alien concept here).

The Theologian of the Cross: any righteousness given to humanity comes from outside of us.

To clarify, by righteousness is meant here that which avails before God for salvation. In Orthodox theology the righteousness within us due to our original creation is never something that can "save" you; only God can do that by healing our nature and freeing us and gathering us back into communion with Him. However that does not mean God is not pleased with a man who lives righteously according to what's in him. It just means, in Orthodoxy, that such works do not equate with going to heaven because a man somehow earned the right. That would be ridiculous. Works done according to the good belonging to our ontological basis in God's image speak to a man's faith and right relationship with God. As the Scripture says, "without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe He exists and rewards those who earnestly seek Him" (Heb. 11:6).

In Orthodoxy "righteousness" that pertains to salvation always comes from outside of man, but it also enters into man as a facet of life in Christ. And the good that belongs to the image and likeness of God did not come from man, but has its source in God, specifically in creation. The issue at hand here is not so much whether man can supply his own good or righteousness - which neither Lutherans nor Orthodox would say - but what the exact nature of the fall is.

To conclude, let us observe the following:

Luther works with a different belief about the effect of the fall upon the human capacities than what is Orthodox.

Luther works with a different set of assumptions about what is needed for man's salvation than what is Orthodox.

Luther works with a different concern than what Orthodoxy typically does, namely that man is seeking to justify himself before God by his own personal deservings.

Throughout Martin Luther's theses there runs a current that is very familiar to Orthodox spirituality, namely the expectation that in whatever good we attempt to do as servants of God we bring with it our sin. This corresponds with the Orthodox concern over the influence of the sinful passions in everything we do. The very aim of Orthodox spiritual warfare is to grow in dislike for oneself - i.e. to recognize more and more in ourselves that which is passionate and opposed to God and to despise that - and to grow in love and reliance on God in all things.

However, beyond this similarity, I must conclude by making an observation. Lutherans who like to levy the charge against Orthodoxy that it is a Theology of Glory are in no way saying anything of substance. Rather, it a way to stop conversation and avoid dealing with very real and important differences between Reformation theology and Orthodox Catholic theology. Orthodox Christians should take great care with Lutherans who try to shut down conversation with this accusation to get into the issues which offend the Lutheran, such as the true nature of the fall (corruption of mortality, not total depravity or its like), free will, God's focus in man's salvation (not His bruised justice, or the requirement of quantitative merits, but man's captivity and hurt and loss from God), the true nature of righteousness, and the role of the cross throughout all aspects of Orthodoxy as a constant dying and rising. This Lutheran critique, using Luther's Theology of the Cross, does not adequately address the epistemological differences between Lutheranism and Orthodoxy to be effective or adequate. However, it can be a good spring-board to further, more charitable and informed conversation.

Lutherans and Orthodox do not need to be enemies, though the Enemy would love to continue to foster hostilities between the two. It will take great care and patience in dealing with Lutherans, many of whom feel threatened by the exodus of their comrades into Holy Orthodoxy. In the end we should not expect to convert all Lutherans - though wouldn't that be a blessing! (a Lutheran would hope for the same toward us) - but we should hope to learn to appreciate each other and work together against our common Enemy with greater charity and understanding.

Theology of What?!

2010-06-16T12:00:00.000-04:00

An interesting e-mail came across the Lutheran Looking East list the other day. One of the members was speaking with some Lutherans about Orthodoxy and ecclesiology. One of the Lutherans apparently made a comment I've heard before, a criticism of Orthodoxy: a unified Church is a theology of glory; it's a delusion. Pretty strong words, but also a fairly common point of view from Lutherans I've met. I offered the following comments:

I have heard the same answer from Lutherans about Orthodox theology: it's a theology of glory. First, this statement comes from unbelief, specifically in the area of what God gives and what God can do. Such people simply do not believe that such a Church that is entirely a sacrament of the kingdom can exist. They have determined among themselves that the decomposed ecclesiology they see around them is the best that anyone can do, and this is because they think an ecclesiology with any visible aspects outside one's own particular congregation is man's work. They don't believe, and they wrongly attribute to their own efforts what God Himself has promised to build. And in attributing it to their own efforts they have accounted it only possible of being flawed, imperfect, disturbed, and not to be dwelled upon if one can help it. Because if you dwell on it from the Lutheran point of view you get depressed. If you dwell on it from the Orthodox point of view you are likely to grow in faith in God. If anything in Orthodox theology is glorious, that is.

Christopher Orr had a much better comment than mine, but since this isn't Christopher's blog I'll let interested parties look up the thread on LLE.

There seems to be a misunderstanding about Orthodox ecclesiology that leads one to suggest that we hold to a theology of glory. The accusation suggests that rather than find God revealed under the weight of suffering and the cross, the Orthodox foolishly claim to have found God in what they can do and provide. In terms of ecclesiology this might mean that the Orthodox theology of a single united Church - a single communion fellowship people on earth can find that is The Church - is a notion that comes from worldly expectations, and is accomplished by what man finds in himself, rather than from the revelation of Jesus Christ and the self-revelation of God through the cross.

Poppycock. Ridiculous. A theologian of glory should expect our aim for unity around doctrinal purity and Holy Tradition to fall flat on its face, unless we compromise ourselves into utter meaninglessness, because that's how the world works. A theologian of the cross should expect that God will do what seems repugnant to the world, like maintain unity around beliefs that seem archaic and un-evolved and insulting to modern thought, like provide growth without huge mission efforts and despite tons of persecution with more martyrs in the past 100+ years than the Early Church. However, more should be said.

Orthodox theology of the Church is very deep and often mystical, but a few pertinent items can be highlighted. The Church is itself the Body of Christ, the same Body that was crucified on Golgotha for our sins, the same Body that was raised to Life, the same Body that is offered in the Eucharist. The Church is the fullness of Him who fills all in all (Eph. 1). The Church is the continuation of the Incarnation of Christ on earth, for those gathered into the Church through the Holy Spirit become united in the human nature of Christ, which He took from the womb of Mary Ever-Virgin without sin and freed from corruption and mortality through death on the cross. From top to bottom the Church lives by the cross: in the Liturgy, in theology, in spirituality, in monastic life, in our vocations, in everything. Calling Orthodox ecclesiology a "theology of glory" is like saying the Real Presence in the Eucharist is a theology of glory.

I would like to say a lot more about this topic, but I am out of time. However, if anyone wishes to comment, please do. As a help there is a lowdown of Luther's Theology of the Cross at Wikipedia. Perhaps I'll get to come back to this.

I will say that there are some aspects about Luther's Theology of the Cross that will make Orthodoxy seem like a theology of glory to the untrained eye. Some of it has to do with differing beliefs about free will, and some has to do with completely different understanding of terms. The presupposition of "merit" in Luther's theology also is a hidden stumbling block for discussion. Luther's theology is not beyond the need for serious critique.

With that I must say adieu, but maybe more can be said by others or later.

Unprofitable Servant? Here I Am!

2010-06-16T08:00:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I've posted to my blog in a regular fashion. Why is that? Most likely because sitting at the computer hurts my back! I have hereditary low back trouble, and sitting at the computer utterly destroys me. However, I have acquired a new chair. I have recently turned 32, and through the generous donations of family birthday gifts I was able to go out and purchase a chair that is suitable for my old-man-condition (i.e. my back trouble). It isn't as perfect as the one in the store seemed, but it's a whole lot better than the others I've had (so far).

My other chairs have been two: a wooden kitchen chair that is wonderful for anything but computer work (apparently), and a light olive colored desk chair on wheels that I picked up for free at a garage sale in Malvern, IA. I expected to pay $0.50 for it, but the guy in the old-storefront-housing-cars-and-various-junk told me to take it for free. Free is free.

Anyway, I've felt as if I should be writing or doing something constructive, so I dug out an old laptop that gets way too hot and have been doing some writing on that. I managed to finish a paper for my parish priest after a number of months - which he is still reading - and I've been working on some lengthy blog stuff (which is still not ready).

In the meantime, so as not to remain an unprofitable servant, I include the following picture as documentation of my continued existence despite my chronometric advancement and senescence.

In other words, I'm still here.

Christos ist Auferstanden!

2010-04-05T12:40:00.006-04:00

Christ is risen from the dead trampling down death by death and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.

Christ is risen!
Indeed He is risen!

Christos ist auferstanden!
Sicherlich is auferstanden!

Harisutosu fukkatsu!
Jitsu-ni fukkatsu!

This last one is a version from Japanese, while the one previous is German, and I think we all recognize the English. I have some doubts about the common translation flying around for the Japanese, which is often rendered "Harisutosu," a rendering I cannot find in any Japanese dictionary. (It might be a way of transliterating "Christos" from some other language.) Rather, Christ is normally rendered as "Kirisuto" with "fukkatsu" referring to reviving or restoring.

I got our priest to give the Japanese a try as a Paschal greeting this year. He loved the idea. He also wanted to include the German. He said that about 1/4 Americans have some German ancestry. Also, it seems fitting given the number of formerly Lutheran families in the parish. This Saturday our parish received a family of four (now former) Lutherans by Chrismation. (I only learned that they were from a Lutheran background just the other day.)

We spent the entire week in Fort Wayne so we could attend the liturgical services of Holy Week. We purchased the Archdiocese's liturgical book for The Services of Great and Holy Week and Pascha, edited and arranged by V. Rev. Fr. Joseph Rahal. It seems that much of the work for this book was done by Fr. Joseph when he was priest at our parish some years ago - or so I'm told.

Holy Week was wonderful and we didn't want it to come to an end.

One thing was striking last night, after coming back to Defiance tired and happy from such a wonderful week: When the day was drawing to a close I suddenly looked to my Holy Week liturgical book and felt a hollow feeling in my stomach. I had gotten quite used to being able to open that book and review what tomorrow had in store for me. Now the book has to be written as I go.

Christos Anesti!
Alithos Anesti!

The Nativity of Our Lord

2009-12-25T00:01:00.001-05:00

We just returned from the Nativity Liturgy at St. John Chrysostom in Fort Wayne. Thankfully the weather forecasters were a bit off in their predictions. We were supposed to have freezing rain about the time of the Liturgy, but instead God granted us clear and safe roads going and returning.

The Liturgy was beautiful. This is our first Christmas at St. John Chrysostom. Last year we were rather displaced with me being a catastrophic mess and bad weather. We had not found St. John Chrysostom yet. It was sad to be unable to celebrate Christmas at church last year. This year all things are new, though. We are newly Sealed and were able to celebrate Christ's nativity as one should: by worshiping the Son of God who lowered Himself beneath all other people in order to raise all people up to His level (as Fr. Anthony preached today), which takes place ever so wonderfully in the communion of Christ's Holy Body and Precious Blood in the unity of the Holy Spirit. For us it has truly been a celebration of Christ's Mass this year.

However, this Christmas is a little stranger than past Christmases, too. We are the only ones in our family - maybe in all of Defiance - who are Orthodox. Our families are great toward us, but there is sometimes an air of uncomfortableness. It's because we don't fit in the same way we used to fit. I imagine that it seems as if we've chosen something that seems strange and a bit extreme to our Protestant relatives. There are certain passages in the Gospel that stick out for me anew now that I am Orthodox, and if you're Orthodox you might guess which ones they are.

However, I offer myself (and anyone else in my shoes) this encouragement: Orthodoxy alone in the world knows both the joy of God's gift of redemption in Christ AND the warfare of the Christian life AND the ecclesial reality of Christ's kingdom on earth (I'm sure I could throw in a few more ANDs in there, too). My introduction into a more serious Christianity was maybe twelve years ago, and it was like basic training conducted in a battle zone. Now that I'm in Orthodoxy it is apparent that the true nature of the warfare is not only known, but it has been engaged with a consistent vision, a single multifaceted gaze piercing eschatologically through the sands of history, arming the saints in the Holy Spirit, healing the wounded with the Blood of Christ, and carrying on the victory of the Cross by the grace of our God who is glorious in His saints and calls us to share in His own glory.

I am a lazy man and tempted kick back in the face of God's goodness and condescension. May He forgive me and teach me to engage the activity of the life He has given me in Christ.

Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace, good will among men.
We praise Thee, we bless Thee,
we worship Thee, we glorify Thee,
we give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory.

O Lord, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty;
O Lord, the Only-Begotten Son, Jesus Christ; and O Holy Spirit.
O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father,
that takest away the sin of the world, have mercy on us;
Thou that takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer;
Thou that sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy on us.
For Thou only art holy,
Thou only art the Lord, O Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Every day will I bless Thee and I will praise Thy name forever, yea forever and ever.

Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.

Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the God of our fathers,
and praised and glorified is Thy name unto the ages. Amen.

Let Thy mercy, O Lord, be upon us according as we have hoped in Thee.

Blessed art Thou, O Lord, teach me Thy statutes.
Blessed art Thou, O Lord, teach me Thy statutes.
Blessed art Thou, O Lord, teach me Thy statutes.

Lord, Thou hast been our refuge in generation and generation.

I said: O Lord, have mercy on me, heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee.

O Lord, unto Thee have I fled for refuge, teach me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God;

For in Thee is the fountain of life, in Thy light shall we see light.

O continue Thy mercy unto them that know Thee.

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.
Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.
Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.
Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.

Q 3:16 - the Devil's in the Details

2009-12-22T22:04:00.005-05:00

I just got done watching a PBS pledge drive show entitled, "From Jesus to Christ." Oh brother. One of the highlights of this massacre of human intelligence was the illusive Q document. No sooner does one of the guests on the series finish explaining how the document Quelle (a.k.a. "Q" - translated: Source - not the guy from Star Trek either) is a theory and no one has ever found it or seen it, then they go on to quote Scripture but cite it as coming from Q. We were also told that St. Luke embellished Acts into a classically-styled romance, that the Gospels were written non-literally but taken by Christians wrongly as literal, and that none of the Gospel writers knew really what happened with Christ's passion.

Every once in a while I have to waste half an hour of my time watching this ridiculous sort of intellectual excrement just to remind myself that the war on souls by the Enemy is a constant world-wide blitzkrieg. Whenever PBS opens the cell door on this sort of rabid monstrosity, more and more people risk infection.

Of course I remember this sort of scholarship from my time at seminary. The chaps in Ft. Wayne didn't foist this kind of nonsense on us. No, rather they admirably taught us how it works so that we could see the mass unbelief that turns its gears and the shockingly wretched scholastic method employed and yet somehow passed off as worthy of human consumption.

I am aware that there are some very wise and learned people who have bought into higher critical methods, yet somehow have made it work out so that it doesn't interfere with the faith once delivered to the saints. While I may disagree with higher criticism and those Orthodox that choose to accept it even in part, I am glad that in Orthodoxy the faith comes first, and human opinions are left in that realm. For in Orthodoxy the Truth isn't drummed up from the speculative research of men; Truth exists both in historical continuity and mystically in the eschatological wholeness of the Eucharist - and the Way of Life that is with it, in it, and through it. The idea that unbelief makes one unbiased is untenable. There is no neutral ground between belief and unbelief, for there is no neutral ground between bondage to sin, death, and the devil and redemption in Christ.

This kind of faithless speculation dressed up in cap and gown and paraded about by PBS doesn't make me want to give them any money for their pledge drive. I wish they'd stick to educational kids programming and cooking shows. Kyrie eleison!

Chrismated!

2009-12-21T00:20:00.015-05:00

"On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.' But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." - St. John 7:37-39

“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you." - St. John 14:15-17

My family and I were received into the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church by Chrismation on Saturday, 19 December 2009 at St. John Chrysostom Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We received the Holy Eucharist for the first time at the Divine Liturgy celebrated the same day.

Glory to Thee, O God.
Glory to Thee, O God.
Glory to Thee, O God.

God has been very gracious to us. A year ago our world was falling apart all around us. Yet, as blessed King Hezekiah prayed famously in the canticle Ego dixi, "it was for my own peace that I had great bitterness; but You have lovingly delivered my soul from the pit of corruption, for You have cast all my sins behind Your back" [Isaiah 38:17]. No one chooses his own cross, but God lays it upon a man that He may redeem him from futility and beating the air [1 Cor. 9:26] and bring him into the blessedness of His Kingdom, where dust and ashes are healed and raised to become partakers of the Divine Nature [2 Pet. 2:4], through Him who humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross [Phil. 2:8]. We are exceedingly thankful for being grafted into the Fullness of Him who fills all in all [Eph. 2:23].

In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory. — Ephesians 2:13-14

Friends and Sponsors

We were also blessed to have many friends in attendance. Rev. Fr. Anthony Michaels is the priest of St. John Chrysostom. We are thankful for his priestly care and friendship toward us. He arranged and directed the Chrismation and Divine Liturgy. Rev. Fr. John Fenton of Holy Incarnation Antiochian Orthodox Church of Lincoln Park, Michigan anointed us with Holy Chrism, and Rev. Fr. Gregory Hogg of Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Church of Dorr, Michigan assisted with the sponge of warm water.

Fr. Gregory has honored our family by serving as my daughter's sponsor,

and Fr. Fenton likewise as our son's sponsor.

He was an unwilling participant in the pictures. We were lucky to pull him out from under the chairs. My son, not Fr. Fenton. :-)

I cannot say how grateful and thankful I am for Anastasia Theodoridis. She has been a pure gift from God throughout my entire journey to Holy Orthodoxy. I am humbled to have such a sweet lady as my Godmother.

I think the same should be said for Rosemarie Lieffering, whose benevolence toward my wife and our family has been amazing. Emily is unbelievably blessed to have Rosemarie as her Godmother.

James Childs and I have known each other since college and seminary. He and Sarah made us really happy by standing with us as we were sealed.

Lutherans No More — In the Church Restored

Nearly everyone who traveled to celebrate this day with us is a former-Lutheran. Fr. Gregory, Fr. Fenton, James, and I are all formerly Lutheran pastors. Having now come into Holy Orthodoxy, this seems like a lifetime ago or like having woken long ago from a strange dream. Be that as it may, I think we all still carry this past with us in one way or another. Like any dream its presence is evermore fleeting; the incorporation it has in your fibers is washed out more and more in the fullness of the Today we wish not to waste nor its rest fail to obtain (Heb. 4). Yet it is still there and always shall be.

This is not so bad. We've taken some lumps. We tried and failed in various ways. We've played out our idealism for Christianity (which seems silly now compared to the real thing). And we have been taught to desire our Lord Jesus Christ above all things. For this I am grateful to have once been a Lutheran. But the road of Lutheranism ends at the Church - or perhaps just before it. Lutheranism does not retain the faith once delivered to the Apostles, but merely some of it. The same is true of its practice and its dogma. The Church God instituted through Christ in the Spirit - the Church of Peter and Paul, of Ignatius, of Irenaeus, of Athanasius, of John Chrysostom, of Augustine, of John Cassian, of John of Damascus, and of saints innumerable down to this very day - is found in its fullness in what the world calls the Eastern Orthodox Church. Our longing was kindled among the Lutherans, and it is fulfilled in Holy Orthodoxy. And by God's grace it will be consummated at the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The separation of the two in my mind and heart - i.e. Lutheranism from the desire for the fullness of our Lord Jesus Christ - was hard to go through. I think I'm safe in saying it was for all four of us in our own ways. Speaking for myself, there were lots of temptations along the way to devalue Christ's call into participation in His fullness. Putting off Christ in His fullness always seemed necessary and excusable because I had some other work that I was doing for Him. Sometimes I was plain willful and refused to allow Christ's pleading to have an effect on me. Sometimes I was lazy and fearful and gave in to paralyzation.

But then at some point I realized something dreadful: that I could undo all of this – by searing my conscience with a hot iron I could close off my soul to Christ in just this one way. Then I wouldn't have to deal with all this stuff anymore. It was a temptation to fool myself into thinking that I could or should control and contain Christ by force of will, limiting Him to those chambers of my being that I had decorated for Lutheranism. This is the reverse of the blessed Virgin. While God had made her to contain in her womb the uncontainable God through her acquiescence, I was tempted for a moment to try to contain Christ as a prisoner through my desperation for dominance and subservience to fear. These are not of God, of course, but of the Evil One. And as such, of course, giving into this would mean a kind of spiritual death, a willing movement backward from redemption into the company of fire-bound spirits.

This kind of temptation is like trying to blow out only part of a match. Usually you blow, only to snuff the fire out completely, leaving you without light. But sometimes you can blow out part of the fire on a match-stick. Then the part that remains quickly burns towards your fingers and you are quickly burned before the fire departs. And lost in this futile struggle is the point of it all: the fire struck on the match-stick was supposed to be kindled, so as to provide illumination and warmth.

God forbid that we should try to extinguish the work of Christ in our hearts! Some people have suggested that there is something brave or courageous about what we have done in leaving ministry, synod, and all the rest. Nothing could be further from the truth. Speaking for myself, I simply refused to sear myself with that hot iron. I was faced, then, with the experience of the Living God who holds me in His hands, rather than me holding Him compact in my mind and security. The Living God seems unpredictable to the man who prefers a religion mediated by his own will, and it is this feeling of unpredictability that was so different and maybe scary. I believe, though, it is not that the Lord is unpredictable, but that He loves like a flaming fire, jealous to save man and bring him into union and fullness, into goodness and Life, into conversion and wholeness. I know I was not courageous. I was simply blessed to be destroyed by God's mercy, that I might be saved and healed and redeemed and hallowed by His love for mankind. And today God has granted my family and I to become participants in the fullness of Jesus Christ our Lord, that Body with such a diversity of members, that one pure Bride of Christ that shall remain with her Lord unto the ages of ages.

We are not the last to take up the spiritual exodus from the Lutherans. There will be more and more, and this story will play out again and again and again. Each story will be as unique as the persons involved, but the exodus is the same exodus for us all. And as each of us who have entered through those blessed and hallowed and joyous gates will tell you, though the exodus comes to an end, the journeying continues every day until our Master appears and says to His faithful, "Come you blessed of My Father; receive the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." May the Lord grant us to be found on His right side through His great mercy, and not on the left.

Psalm 23/24
Of David. A psalm.

1 The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;

2 for he founded it upon the seas
and established it upon the waters.

3 Who may ascend the hill of the LORD ?
Who may stand in his holy place?

4 He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not lift up his soul to an idol
or swear by what is false.

5 He will receive blessing from the LORD
and vindication from God his Savior.

6 Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek your face, O God of Jacob.
Selah

7 Lift up your heads, O you gates;
be lifted up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.

8 Who is this King of glory?
The LORD strong and mighty,
the LORD mighty in battle.

9 Lift up your heads, O you gates;
lift them up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.

10 Who is he, this King of glory?
The LORD Almighty—
he is the King of glory.
Selah

The Feast of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia

2009-12-06T23:28:00.005-05:00

Troparion, Tone 4

The truth of things revealed thee to thy flock as a rule of faith, a model of meekness, and a teacher of temperance. Therefore thou hast won the heights by humility, riches by poverty. Holy Father Nicholas, intercede with Christ our God that our souls may be saved.

Kontakion, Tone 3

Thou wast a faithful minister of God in Myra, O Saint Nicholas. For having fulfilled the Gospel of Christ, thou didst die for the people and save the innocent. Therefore thou wast sanctified as a great initiator of the grace of God.

As a convert from a Protestant religious system to Holy Orthodoxy, the issue of sanctification has stuck out to me as one of the primary differences between where I was and where I am in the Orthodox Church (even as a catechumen). Some may dismiss the life of St. Nicholas (below) as just a bunch of myth. I, for one, cannot know either way. I cannot go back in time to find epistemological certainty or uncertainty. I can only hear what the Church has seen and touched and known from her hundreds of years of experience. And I can see that what is told in the life of St. Nicholas is consistent with the saving work of Christ in the Holy Spirit.

There's the rub: that a man - St. Nicholas or anyone else - could be said to appear in dreams, to calm storms, to fail to decay and to stream miraculously-healing myrrh from his relics is to claim something about the nature of salvation. Those Lutherans that will still speak to me in peace like to suggest that the Orthodox fail to distinguish between justification and sanctification - i.e. that there is a difference between what God does in order to accept you (punishes Christ instead of you in order to sate His wrath against sin - what Lutherans call justice) and what God does in you (abides in you, cleanses you, raises up the new man in you, and all sorts of good things that the Orthodox are familiar with). If God is primarily concerned with getting you to believe a message of forgiveness, then personal responsibility and active participation in a personal relationship with God which itself sanctifies you through obedient faith is an after-effect and not salvation itself.

But in the Church justification and sanctification are not so separated, as they are so artificially and mistakenly by our well-meaning Protestant friends. Both being made righteous (justification) and being made holy (sanctification) are a spiritual healing that Christ has effected upon our nature by Incarnation and Passion. And the Holy Spirit unites us to this work of Christ and applies it on the level of our unique persons: healing and release from death and it's sting (sin) and vivification and glorification. Their application is not merely a status issue, but comes through the personal energies of God communicated in Baptism/Christmation and the Eucharist and all the sacraments of the Church - and from this context faithful/obedient living out of the Church's life personally in ascetic struggle.

Wonderworking in the saints is nothing out of the ordinary, because they live by the life of Christ directly, communicated to them personally. Both the sorrow of the cross and the glory of the resurrection are found in the saints in Orthodoxy. In Christ they are not of this world but of the next, and in them we see - in sometimes startling ways - the Eschatological Age breaking forth already through them, as if they had themselves become sacraments and icons of the kingdom. But what else should we expect from those who so purposely died every day to the world and so hungrily fed on Christ as their only life, with the Father and Holy Spirit ever reigning.

The following is from the Orthodox Church in America Web site:

Saint Nicholas, the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia is famed as a great saint pleasing unto God. He was born in the city of Patara in the region of Lycia (on the south coast of the Asia Minor peninsula), and was the only son of pious parents Theophanes and Nonna, who had vowed to dedicate him to God.

As the fruit of the prayer of his childless parents, the infant Nicholas from the very day of his birth revealed to people the light of his future glory as a wonderworker. His mother, Nonna, after giving birth was immediately healed from illness. The newborn infant, while still in the baptismal font, stood on his feet three hours, without support from anyone, thereby honoring the Most Holy Trinity. St Nicholas from his infancy began a life of fasting, and on Wednesdays and Fridays he would not accept milk from his mother until after his parents had finished their evening prayers.

From his childhood Nicholas thrived on the study of Divine Scripture; by day he would not leave church, and by night he prayed and read books, making himself a worthy dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. Bishop Nicholas of Patara rejoiced at the spiritual success and deep piety of his nephew. He ordained him a reader, and then elevated Nicholas to the priesthood, making him his assistant and entrusting him to instruct the flock.

In serving the Lord the youth was fervent of spirit, and in his proficiency with questions of faith he was like an Elder, who aroused the wonder and deep respect of believers. Constantly at work and vivacious, in unceasing prayer, the priest Nicholas displayed great kind-heartedness towards the flock, and towards the afflicted who came to him for help, and he distributed all his inheritance to the poor.

There was a certain formerly rich inhabitant of Patara, whom St Nicholas saved from great sin. The man had three grown daughters, and in desparation he planned to sell their bodies so they would have money for food. The saint, learning of the man's poverty and of his wicked intention, secretly visited him one night and threw a sack of gold through the window. With the money the man arranged an honorable marriage for his daughter. St Nicholas also provided gold for the other daughters, thereby saving the family from falling into spiritual destruction. In bestowing charity, St Nicholas always strove to do this secretly and to conceal his good deeds.

The Bishop of Patara decided to go on pilgrimage to the holy places at Jerusalem, and entrusted the guidance of his flock to St Nicholas, who fulfilled this obedience carefully and with love. When the bishop returned, Nicholas asked his blessing for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Along the way the saint predicted a storm would arise and threaten the ship. St Nicholas saw the devil get on the ship, intending to sink it and kill all the passengers. At the entreaty of the despairing pilgrims, he calmed the waves of the sea by his prayers. Through his prayer a certain sailor of the ship, who had fallen from the mast and was mortally injured was also restored to health.

When he reached the ancient city of Jerusalem and came to Golgotha, St Nicholas gave thanks to the Savior. He went to all the holy places, worshiping at each one. One night on Mount Sion, the closed doors of the church opened by themselves for the great pilgrim. Going round the holy places connected with the earthly service of the Son of God, St Nicholas decided to withdraw into the desert, but he was stopped by a divine voice urging him to return to his native country. He returned to Lycia, and yearning for a life of quietude, the saint entered into the brotherhood of a monastery named Holy Sion, which had been founded by his uncle. But the Lord again indicated another path for him, "Nicholas, this is not the vineyard where you shall bear fruit for Me. Return to the world, and glorify My Name there." So he left Patara and went to Myra in Lycia.

Upon the death of Archbishop John, Nicholas was chosen as Bishop of Myra after one of the bishops of the Council said that a new archbishop should be revealed by God, not chosen by men. One of the elder bishops had a vision of a radiant Man, Who told him that the one who came to the church that night and was first to enter should be made archbishop. He would be named Nicholas. The bishop went to the church at night to await Nicholas. The saint, always the first to arrive at church, was stopped by the bishop. "What is your name, child?" he asked. God's chosen one replied, "My name is Nicholas, Master, and I am your servant."

After his consecration as archbishop, St Nicholas remained a great ascetic, appearing to his flock as an image of gentleness, kindness and love for people. This was particularly precious for the Lycian Church during the persecution of Christians under the emperor Diocletian (284-305). Bishop Nicholas, locked up in prison together with other Christians for refusing to worship idols, sustained them and exhorted them to endure the fetters, punishment and torture. The Lord preserved him unharmed. Upon the accession of St Constantine (May 21) as emperor, St Nicholas was restored to his flock, which joyfully received their guide and intercessor.

Despite his great gentleness of spirit and purity of heart, St Nicholas was a zealous and ardent warrior of the Church of Christ. Fighting evil spirits, the saint made the rounds of the pagan temples and shrines in the city of Myra and its surroundings, shattering the idols and turning the temples to dust.

In the year 325 St Nicholas was a participant in the First Ecumenical Council. This Council proclaimed the Nicean Symbol of Faith, and he stood up against the heretic Arius with the likes of Sts Sylvester the Bishop of Rome (January 2), Alexander of Alexandria (May 29), Spyridon of Trimythontos (December 12) and other Fathers of the Council.

St Nicholas, fired with zeal for the Lord, assailed the heretic Arius with his words, and also struck him upon the face. For this reason, he was deprived of the emblems of his episcopal rank and placed under guard. But several of the holy Fathers had the same vision, seeing the Lord Himself and the Mother of God returning to him the Gospel and omophorion. The Fathers of the Council agreed that the audacity of the saint was pleasing to God, and restored the saint to the office of bishop.

Having returned to his own diocese, the saint brought it peace and blessings, sowing the word of Truth, uprooting heresy, nourishing his flock with sound doctrine, and also providing food for their bodies.

Even during his life the saint worked many miracles. One of the greatest was the deliverance from death of three men unjustly condemned by the Governor, who had been bribed. The saint boldly went up to the executioner and took his sword, already suspended over the heads of the condemned. The Governor, denounced by St Nicholas for his wrong doing, repented and begged for forgiveness.

Witnessing this remarkable event were three military officers, who were sent to Phrygia by the emperor Constantine to put down a rebellion. They did not suspect that soon they would also be compelled to seek the intercession of St Nicholas. Evil men slandered them before the emperor, and the officers were sentenced to death. Appearing to St Constantine in a dream, St Nicholas called on him to overturn the unjust sentence of the military officers.

He worked many other miracles, and struggled many long years at his labor. Through the prayers of the saint, the city of Myra was rescued from a terrible famine. He appeared to a certain Italian merchant and left him three gold pieces as a pledge of payment. He requested him to sail to Myra and deliver grain there. More than once, the saint saved those drowning in the sea, and provided release from captivity and imprisonment.

Having reached old age, St Nicholas peacefully fell asleep in the Lord. His venerable relics were preserved incorrupt in the local cathedral church and flowed with curative myrrh, from which many received healing. In the year 1087, his relics were transferred to the Italian city of Bari, where they rest even now (See May 9).

The name of the great saint of God, the hierarch and wonderworker Nicholas, a speedy helper and suppliant for all hastening to him, is famed in every corner of the earth, in many lands and among many peoples. In Russia there are a multitude of cathedrals, monasteries and churches consecrated in his name. There is, perhaps, not a single city without a church dedicated to him.

The first Russian Christian prince Askold (+ 882) was baptized in 866 by Patriarch Photius (February 6) with the name Nicholas. Over the grave of Askold, St Olga (July 11) built the first temple of St Nicholas in the Russian Church at Kiev. Primary cathedrals were dedicated to St Nicholas at Izborsk, Ostrov, Mozhaisk, and Zaraisk. At Novgorod the Great, one of the main churches of the city, the Nikolo-Dvorischensk church, later became a cathedral.

Famed and venerable churches and monasteries dedicated to St Nicholas are found at Kiev, Smolensk, Pskov, Toropetsa, Galich, Archangelsk, Great Ustiug, Tobolsk. Moscow had dozens of churches named for the saint, and also three monasteries in the Moscow diocese: the Nikolo-Greek (Staryi) in the Chinese-quarter, the Nikolo-Perervinsk and the Nikolo-Ugreshsk. One of the chief towers of the Kremlin was named the Nikolsk.

Many of the churches devoted to the saint were those established at market squares by Russian merchants, sea-farers and those who traveled by land, venerating the wonderworker Nicholas as a protector of all those journeying on dry land and sea. They sometimes received the name among the people of "Nicholas soaked."

Many village churches in Russia were dedicated to the wonderworker Nicholas, venerated by peasants as a merciful intercessor before the Lord for all the people in their work. And in the Russian land St Nicholas did not cease his intercession. Ancient Kiev preserves the memory about the miraculous rescue of a drowning infant by the saint. The great wonderworker, hearing the grief-filled prayers of the parents for the loss of their only child, took the infant from the waters, revived him and placed him in the choir-loft of the church of Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) before his wonderworking icon. In the morning the infant was found safe by his thrilled parents, praising St Nicholas the Wonderworker.

Many wonderworking icons of St Nicholas appeared in Russia and came also from other lands. There is the ancient Byzantine embordered image of the saint, brought to Moscow from Novgorod, and the large icon painted in the thirteenth century by a Novgorod master.

Two depictions of the wonderworker are especially numerous in the Russian Church: St Nicholas of Zaraisk, portrayed in full-length, with his right hand raised in blessing and with a Gospel (this image was brought to Ryazan in 1225 by the Byzantine Princess Eupraxia, the future wife of Prince Theodore. She perished in 1237 with her husband and infant son during the incursion of Batu); and St Nicholas of Mozhaisk, also in full stature, with a sword in his right hand and a city in his left. This recalls the miraculous rescue of the city of Mozhaisk from an invasion of enemies, through the prayers of the saint. It is impossible to list all the grace-filled icons of St Nicholas, or to enumerate all his miracles.

St Nicholas is the patron of travelers, and we pray to him for deliverance from floods, poverty, or any misfortunes. He has promised to help those who remember his parents, Theophanes and Nonna.

St Nicholas is also commemorated on May 9 (The transfer of his relics) and on July 29 (his nativity).

Commentary: 26th Sunday after Pentecost

2009-12-06T22:22:00.003-05:00

Twenty-sixth Sunday after Pentecost
The Healing of the Woman with a Spirit of Infirmity
Luke 13:10-17

From The Explanation of the Gospel of St. Luke
by Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria

10-17. And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And, behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over, and could in no wise straighten herself. And when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And He laid His hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God. And the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the sabbath day, and said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the sabbath day. The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead it away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day? And when He had said these things, all His adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by Him. The woman suffered from this affliction as a result of demonic assault, as the Lord Himself says, This woman … whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years. Perhaps God had departed from her on account of certain sins, and as a result Satan was punishing her. For Satan is in part the cause of all the hardships which afflict our bodies, when God on high permits him. From the very beginning it was Satan who brought about our fall by which we lost the incorruptibility in which we had been created; it was Satan who caused us to be bound to diseased bodies prone to suffering, symbolized by the garments of dead skins in which Adam and Eve were wrapped [Gen. 3:22]. But now the Lord, with the majestic voice of the Godhead, full of power, drives out the infirmity of this woman. He places His hands on her, so that we might learn that His holy flesh imparted both the power and the energy of the Logos. For His flesh was His own, and not that of some other human person alongside Him, separate from Him in hypostasis, as the impious Nestorius thinks.⁽¹⁾ So great is the goodness of the Lord, Who in this manner took mercy on His own creation. But Satan, who had bound the woman in the first place, was vexed at her deliverance because he desired her continued affliction, and so he bound the ruler of the synagogue with spite, and through the mouth of this man, Satan reviled the miracle. This is how he always attacks the good. Therefore the Lord uses the apt example of irrational animals to rebuke the man who was indignant that a healing had taken place on the Sabbath. And thus not only this man, but all the other adversaries of Jesus as well, were put to shame by Christ’s words. For it was insane to hinder the healing of a man on the Sabbath using as a pretext the commandment that the Sabbath be a day of rest. So it was, that even while the people were rejoicing at the Lord’s deeds, His adversaries were put to shame by His words. For these adversaries, instead of joining in the jubilation which followed His work of healing, burned with rage that He had healed at all. But the multitude, because they derived benefit from His signs, rejoiced and took pleasure in this healing. You must also understand these miracles to refer to the inner man. The soul is bent over in infirmity whenever it inclines to earthly thoughts alone and imagines nothing that is heavenly and divine. It can truly be said that such a soul has been infirm for eighteen years. For when a man is feeble in keeping the commandments of the divine law, which are ten in number, and is weak in his hope of the eighth age, the age to come, it can be said that he has been bent over for ten and eight years.⁽²⁾ Is not that man indeed bent over who is attached to the earth, and who always sins in disregard of the commandments, and who does not look for the age to come? But the Lord heals such a soul on the Sabbath in the assembly of the synagogue. For when a man assembles together within himself thoughts of confession (Judah means "confession") and keeps the Sabbath, that is, he rests from doing evil, then Jesus heals him, not only by word when He says to him, Thou art loosed from thine infirmity, but also by deed. For when He has placed His hands on us, He requires that we accept the energy from His divine hands to do in collaboration with Him the works of virtue. We must not be satisfied to receive only that healing which comes by word and by instruction.

1. The heretic Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 428 to 431 A,D., taught that the co-unoriginate Logos was not conceived and did not take flesh in the Virgins womb, but instead was united to Christ the man at some later time. This implied that the two natures of Christ, the divine and the human, were not united in one hypostasis, that is, in one person, but in two, and therefore were not truly united. If this were so, Christ would not have accomplished the salvation of the human race. As a result Nestorius called the Virgin Mary Christokos, that is, the Birthgiver of Christ, but refused to call her the Theotokos, the Birthgiver of God. This false teaching was condemned as heresy at the Third Ecumenical Council held in Ephesus in the year 431, and from that time Nestorius and all who follow his teaching have been outside the Church.

2. The Greek text of the Gospel expresses the number of years in this fashion: ete deka kai okto, "ten and eight years."

Commentary: 25th Sunday after Pentecost

2009-11-29T21:29:00.000-05:00

Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Sell All That Thou Hast
Luke 18:18-27

From The Explanation of the Gospel of St. Luke
by Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria

18-23. And a certain ruler asked Him saying, Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou Me good? None is good, save One, that is, God. Thou knowest the commandments: Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother. And he said, All these have I kept from my youth up. Now when Jesus heard these things, He said unto him, Yet lackest thou one thing: sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow Me. And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful: for he was very rich. Some think that this man was cunning and sought to trap the Lord with words. But this is not how he appears; rather, he was a lover of money, and Christ Himself rebuked him as such. Mark says that the man came running, and knelt before Jesus, and asked Him his question, and that Jesus, beholding him, loved him. [Mk. 10:17-22] The man is a lover of money, and he approaches Jesus eager to learn how he, along with his wealth, might inherit eternal life. For there is no one who loves prolonged life as much as a man who loves money. Therefore this man thought that Jesus could show him some way in which he could live forever enjoying his possession of wealth. But when the Lord told him that non-possession is what bestows eternal life, he went away as if he regretted both his question and Jesus answer. In his mind he needed eternal life for the very reason that he had great wealth. If he were to give up his possessions, why would he want eternal life, he thought, since that life was to be the life of a pauper? He approached the Lord as if the Lord were merely a man and a teacher. Therefore the Lord shows him that he ought not to approach Him in this manner, saying, None is good, save One, that is, God. By this He means, "You call Me good; why then do you also call Me a teacher? It appears that you think that I am one among many men. But if this were so, I would not be good, for no man is good in and of himself. Only God is. If you want to call Me good, you must call Me good because I am God; do not approach Me then as if I were merely a man. But if you think I am only a man, do not call Me good. For in truth God is good, and the source of goodness, and the first cause of goodness itself. If any man is good, he is not good in and of himself, but only because he receives a share of God’s goodness. Moreover, what goodness a man has is changeable."

Thou knowest the commandments: Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, and so forth. The law remedies first those sins into which we fall easily, and then those less frequent sins to which fewer men fall. And so adultery and murder are mentioned first, because lust and anger are difficult to control: lust is a raging fire, inflaming both the outer and inner man, and anger is a great wild beast. ⁽¹⁾ But stealing comes from a less fierce passion and bearing false witness occurs rarely. Therefore, the law remedies first those sins into which we fall most easily, and which are the most grave. But the other sins, such as stealing and bearing false witness, He places second because they lead astray less often and are less grave than murder and adultery. To sin against ones parents He mentions last of all; for although it is a grave sin, it does not occur often. Rarely is there found a man so cruel that he abuses his parents. Because the young man said that he had kept all these commandments from his youth, the Lord enjoins him to keep that commandment which stands at the head of all: non-possession. Behold the laws of the true Christian life. Sell all that thou hast, the Lord says. If anything remains, you are its slave. And distribute, not to your rich relatives, but unto the poor. I think that the word distribute implies that the meting out of wealth is to be done with discernment and not haphazardly. And because a man must have all the other virtues as well as non-possession, the Lord then said, And come, follow Me, meaning, "Be My disciple in all things, and always keep following Me. ⁽²⁾ Do not follow Me today only, and leave Me tomorrow." Because the ruler was a lover of money, the Lord promised him treasure in heaven, but the ruler did not give heed, because he was a slave of his money. Therefore when he heard what the Lord had asked of him, he was sorrowful. For the Lord had counselled him to deprive himself of his wealth; yet that was the very reason he wanted eternal life in the first place, so that he could live forever enjoying his many possessions. That he was sorrowful shows that he was sincere and not devious. Not one of the Pharisees was ever sorrowful; instead, they raged even more against the Lord when they heard His answers to their questions. I am not unaware that the great light of the world, John Chrysostom, believed that this young man truly desired eternal life, but that he was held fast by the love of money, a passion that was stronger than his love for eternal life. What we have said here is not inconsistent, namely, that the young man desired to have eternal life along with his wealth.

24-30. And when Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, He said, How hard it shall be for them that have riches to enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through a needles eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved? And He said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. Then Peter said, Lo, we have left all, and followed Thee. And He said unto them, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of Gods sake, who shall not receive many times more in this present time, and in the age to come life everlasting. Because the rich man was sorrowful when he heard that he should give up his riches, the Lord said, as though He were marvelling, How hard it shall be for them that have riches to enter into the kingdom of God! He did not say that it would be impossible for those with wealth to enter, but that it would be difficult. It is not impossible for such as these to be saved. Those who give away their riches are able to obtain the heavenly things above. However, this is difficult, for money is stickier than glue and it is hard for a man to free himself when he is held fast by money. In His very next words the Lord indicates that this is so difficult that it is all but impossible, when He says, It is easier for a camel to go through a needles eye, than for a rich man to be saved. It is indeed impossible for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, whether you understand camel to mean the animal or the thick rope used on a ship. Therefore, if it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle—which is impossible—than it is for a rich man to be saved, then it is even more impossible for a rich man to be saved. What does the Lord mean? First, that this statement is true: it is impossible for a rich man, while he is a rich man, to be saved. Do not say to me that such and such a rich man gave away his riches and was saved. He was not saved as a rich man; he was saved either as a man who had attained non-possession, or who had become a steward, but not as a rich man. A steward and a rich man are not the same. The rich man keeps riches for himself, while the steward, as a trustee, holds wealth for the benefit of others. Therefore, if such a man is saved, he is not saved as a rich man, but, as we have said, because he has given away all that he has, or because he has spent his wealth as a good steward. Consider this as well: while it is impossible for a rich man to be saved, it is not impossible, but only difficult, for them that have riches to be saved. It is as if the Lord had said, "The rich man who is possessed by riches and is a slave to them and is held fast by them, shall not be saved. But he who only has riches, that is, who is master of riches, owning them without being owned by them, shall be saved with difficulty." That difficulty is because of human weakness. For it is impossible for us not to misuse what we have. As long as we have riches, the devil strives in every way to deceive us into using that wealth in ways that violate the canons and laws of stewardship, and only with great difficulty do we escape the devils traps. This is why non-possession is better, and almost unassailable by the evil one.

And they that heard it said, Who then can be saved? And He said, The things which are impossible with men are possible with God. With men who have merely a human outlook, that is, those who desire earthly things and are pulled downwards, it is impossible for them to be saved, as we have said. But with God it is possible. That is to say, with Gods help, when a man has God as his Counsellor, and takes as his teachers the judgments of God and His commandments concerning non-possession, and calls upon God for help, then it is possible to be saved. We, for our part, must desire what is good; God will then accomplish and perfect it in us. If we can only rise above our timid littleness of soul as concerns our wealth, and make for ourselves friends from the mammon of unrighteousness, we will be saved by those friends when they escort us to the eternal mansions. It is better if we give away all our wealth; and if not all, then at least let us share it with the poor. Thus the impossible becomes possible. For though it is impossible for the man who does not distribute all to be saved, yet through Gods love for man, even a partial distribution brings a partial benefit. In response to this, Peter asks, "Lo, we have left all. [What do we have to give to the poor?]" He does not ask this for his own sake alone, but in order to find some consolation for all the poor. Peter asks his question for fear that only the rich have the good hope to obtain much because they despised much, and that the poor have little hope because they had little to give away and thus can expect only a little reward. Peter asks, and hears the answer, that everyone who despises, for Gods sake, whatever goods he may have, even if they are few, shall receive his reward both in this age and in the age to come. Do not consider those goods to be few; rather, for that poor man, his few things are his whole life. Just as you, the rich man, expect to pass your life with your many and great possessions, the pauper, likewise, expects to pass his life with his belongings, no matter how few and small they may be. Though his belongings are few, I will say that a mans attachment to his possessions is even greater when he owns little. This is clearly shown to be true with parents. The attachment of a parent to his only child is much greater than that of a parent to his many children. Likewise, the poor man has a keener love for his single house and single field than you have for your many houses and fields. And even if it is the case that a poor man is attached to his possessions to the same degree as a rich man, then, at a minimum, the loss is the same for each. Even in this present age, those who give of the little they have receive their reward many times over, as did these very Apostles. For each Apostle left his own hut, and now each one has magnificent temples in his name, with lands and triumphant processions, and, instead of a single wife, many women bound to him in fervent faith; in short, for everything they gave up, they have received many times over. And in the age to come they receive, not a multiplication of fields such as these and other tangible rewards, but eternal life.

1. Bl. Theophylact here includes lust with adultery, and anger with murder, in accordance with Christs commandments and teaching. See Mt. 5:21-22, 27-28.

2. In the Greek text, the word for "follow," akolouthei, is in the present imperative, implying a continuous action. By contrast, the two previous imperatives, poleson, "sell," and diados, "distribute," are in the aorist imperative, implying a single, finite action.

Commentary: 24th Sunday after Pentecost

2009-11-22T21:13:00.001-05:00

Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry
Luke 12:16-21

From The Explanation of the Gospel of St. Luke
by Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria

16-21. And He spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully, and he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to gather my crops? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I gather all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night they shall require thy soul of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast prepared? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. The Lord had said that the life of a man is not lengthened by an abundance of possessions, and now He offers this parable in confirmation of this truth. See how He describes for us the insatiable thoughts of the foolish rich man. God did His part and showed His mercy; for all the ground of the rich man brought forth plentifully, not just one of his fields. But the rich man himself bore so little fruit from the mercy shown him that even before he had gathered the crops, he imagined them already locked up for himself. See also the pleasures of the rich man: What shall I do? Does not the pauper say the same thing as well, "What shall I do? I have nothing to eat or to put on." Think, if you will, about the words of the rich man. What shall I do, because I have no room where to gather my crops? At the very least, he could take a good rest. If both the pauper says, "What shall I do because I have not?" and the rich man says, "What shall I do because I have not?" then what do we gain by gathering more and more? We do not gain any rest, and it is clear from all the cares that come from our further efforts that we are piling up for ourselves only a great multitude of sins. Yet the foolish man says, I will pull down my barns, and build greater. And if your land yields even more bountifully in the future, will you pull these down and build again? But what need is there to pull down and build? You have available to you as storehouses the stomachs of the poor which can hold much, and are indestructible and imperishable. They are in fact heavenly and divine storehouses, for he who feeds the pauper, feeds God. See something else that is foolish: my fruits and my goods. The rich man did not consider that he had received these things from God. If he had, he would have treated these things as would a steward of God. But he imagined that these things were the fruits of his own labors, which is why he usurped them for himself, calling them my fruits and my goods. "I am the sole owner," he thinks, "and there is no one else entitled to a share. These things are not God’s, but mine, and therefore I alone will enjoy them. I will not now take God in as a partner to enjoy my profit." Because he spoke foolishly, let us see what happened. Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. He determines that he will have a long life, as if length of years was something else he could obtain by working his land. But a long life is not a crop you can grow, and it is not another of your belongings. "Eat, drink, and be merry. Three cheers for the good things of my soul!" But to eat and drink are the good things only of an irrational soul. Because this man has an irrational soul, it is fitting that he plans to reward himself with these things. But the good things of a rational soul are to understand, to reason, and to be glad in the law of God and in good thoughts. Do eating and drinking not suffice for you, 0 fool, but you must also order up for your soul that which accompanies these things, namely, shameful and base pleasure? Euphemistically did the Lord employ the words be merry, indicating by them the most wanton passions which are the consequence of too much food and drink. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night they shall require thy soul of thee. The words God said unto him do not mean that God conversed with the rich man, although the parable puts it in this form. Instead, the thoughts that came into the mans mind are what God spoke. Thou fool. He calls him a fool because everything he wanted was foolish, as we have shown. And every man like him is foolish and acts in vain, for, as David says, In vain doth every man disquiet himself [Ps. 38:14]. Why? Because he stores up things without knowing for whom he gathers them. How can he not be called a fool who does not know that the length of a man’s life rests with God alone and that no man can set the limits of his own life?

Notice also the words, they will require. Like some stern imperial officers demanding tribute, the fearsome angels will ask for your soul, and you will not want to give it because you love this life and claim the things of this life as your own. But they do not demand the soul of a righteous man, because he himself commits his soul into the hands of the God and Father of spirits, and he does so with joy and gladness, not in the least bit grieved that he is handing over his soul to God. For him the body is a light burden, easily shed. But the sinner has made his soul fleshy, something in substance like the body and like the earth, rendering it difficult to separate from the body. This is why the soul must be demanded of him, the same way that harsh tax collectors treat debtors who refuse to pay what is due. See that the Lord did not say, "I shall require thy soul of thee," but, they shall require. For the souls of the righteous are already in the hands of God. Truly it is at night when the soul of such a sinner is demanded of him. It is night for this sinner who is darkened by the love of wealth, and into whom the light of divine knowledge cannot penetrate, and death overtakes him. Thus he who lays up treasure for himself is called foolish: he never stops drawing up plans and dies in the midst of them. But if he had been laying up treasure for the poor and for God, it would not have been so. Let us strive, therefore, to be rich toward God, that is, to trust in God, to have Him as our wealth and the treasury of wealth, and not to speak of my goods but of "the good things of God." If they are God’s, then let us not deprive God of His own goods. This is what it means to be rich toward God: to trust that even if I empty myself and give everything away, I will not lack the necessities. God is my treasury of good things, and I open and take from that treasury what I need.

Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described (1920)

2009-11-19T06:00:00.000-05:00

I have acquired a copy of Adrian Fortescue's Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described. It is a reproduction of the 1920 version, so it is still at a good distance from the pre-Vatican II changes which sprung up in the 1940s. The book is made available through Kirtas Books, a company that makes out-of-print books available to download or to reprint in hard or soft bound format.

My copy of Fortescue's Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described is in excellent printed condition. It is a wonderful resource, especially for those interested in the Orthodox Western Rite.

Commentary: 23rd Sunday after Pentecost

2009-11-18T22:56:00.003-05:00

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
The Parable of the Good Samaritan
Luke 10:25-37

From The Explanation of the Gospel of St. Luke
by Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria

25-28. And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted Him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? How readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And He said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live. This lawyer was not only arrogant and proud but also deceitful, as is shown by what follows. He comes to put the Lord to the test, and he imagined that he would trip the Lord by the answer which He gave. But the Lord leads him to the very law of which the lawyer boasted such great knowledge. See how precisely the law commands us to love God. Man is more perfect than all other created things, being in some respect like all created things, but in addition having something exceptional. For example, there is a part of man that is like stone, for he has hair and nails which are unfeeling, like a stone. And he is also in part like a plant, in that he grows and is nourished and engenders his own kind, just as plants do. He is in part like the irrational animals, in that he has emotions, and becomes angry, and desires. But unlike all other animals, he is also in part like God, in that he has a mind. Therefore the law teaches that man must give each and every part of himself entirely to God, and must expend all the forces of his life in loving God. When the law says, with all thy heart, it speaks of that force of human life that is purely physical and organic, a force likewise present in plant life. When the law says, with all thy soul, it speaks of that force of human life which feels, a force likewise present in animals. When the law says, with all thy mind, it speaks of that power which is unique to man, the intellect. With all thy strength means that we must use all these powers to pull [our stubborn selves to God]. We must harness even the organic, plant-like force of our soul to the love of Christ. How? With strength, and not faintheartedly. We must also subject, with strength, the power of all our senses to the love of Christ. As for the power of our rational soul, this too we must subject with all our strength to the love of Christ. So then, we must give all of ourselves to God, and we must subject our biological powers, our sensory powers, and our intellectual powers to the love of God. And thy neighbour as thyself. The law was not yet able to teach perfection on account of the spiritual immaturity of its listeners. Therefore the law urged a man only to love his neighbor as himself. But Christ taught man to love ones neighbor more than oneself. For He says, Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. [Jn. 15:13] Therefore He says to the lawyer, Thou hast answered right. Since you are still subject to the law, you have answered correctly, for your thoughts are in accordance with the old law.

29-37. But he, wanting to show himself to be righteous, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour? And Jesus answering said, A certain man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And as it happened there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan journeyed and came to him: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, and went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring on 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 innkeeper, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise. After the Saviour praised him, the lawyers pride and arrogance knew no bounds. That is why he said, And who is my neighbour? that is, "Who is close to me?" ⁽¹⁾ He imagined himself to be righteous and thought that there was no one like him and that no one could come close to him in virtue. He imagined that a righteous man could have as "neighbor" only another righteous man. Therefore wanting to show himself to be righteous and superior to all men, he says haughtily, And who is my neighbour? But the Saviour as Maker of all, knowing that all men are one creation, defines neighbour not according to deeds or merits, but according to human nature. "Do not think," He says, "that just because you are righteous, no one is like you. All mankind shares the same nature and thus all men are your neighbors. Therefore, you too must be a neighbor to them and be near to all, not by location, but by the disposition of your heart and by your care for others. Therefore I present to you a Samaritan as an example, to show you that no matter how different or foreign he may have seemed, he was the neighbor of the one in need of mercy. You also must show yourself to be a neighbor by your compassion, and even unasked you must go to the help of others." Thus we learn from this parable to be always ready to show mercy and to make haste to be near those in need of our help. But this parable also teaches us the goodness of God towards man. It was our human nature that was going down from Jerusalem, that is, was descending from tranquillity and peace, for Jerusalem means vision of peace. Where was man descending? To Jericho, a place sunk down low and suffocating with heat, that is, to a life of passions. See that He did not say, "went down," but, was going down. For fallen human nature is always inclined downwards, not just once of old, but continuously going down towards passionate life. And man fell among thieves, that is, among demons. For if a man did not come down from that high place where the spiritual mind rules, he would not fall among demons who strip the man, depriving him of his raiment of virtue, and then inflict the wounds of sin. They strip us of every good thought and of Gods protection, and when we are thus naked, they lay on the stripes of sin. They leave human nature half dead, that is, with a mortal body and an immortal soul. And human nature was left only half dead in the further sense that man did not lie completely in despair, but hoped to find salvation in Christ. Human nature had not yet been slain outright; though death had entered the world through Adams transgression, death was soon to be abolished by the righteousness of Christ. The priest and the Levite signify the law and the prophets, who desired to make human nature righteous, but were unable to do so. For it is not possible, says Paul, that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sin. [Heb. 10:4] The law and the prophets took pity on man and sought to heal him. But they were defeated by the severity of the wounds of sin, and they passed into the past. This is what it means that they passed by. The law came and stood over the fallen man, but since it could not heal him, it turned away in revulsion and went on the other side. See that the words as it happened also have a certain spiritual meaning. For indeed the law was not given for the express purpose [of healing the wounds of sin, for Christ, not the law, was to be the healing of Adams wound]. Instead, the law was given [as a stopgap measure] on account of human weakness which could not immediately receive the mystery of Christ. This is why He says that it was as it happened, or, as we say, "by chance," and not intentionally, that the priest, signifying the law, came to heal the man. But our Lord and God, Who for our sake was made a curse [Gal. 3:13], and was called a Samaritan [Jn. 8:48], journeyed to us, that is, His journey had as its very purpose and goal our healing. He did not just catch a glimpse of us as He happened to pass by: He actually came to us and lived together with us and spoke to us. Therefore He at once bound up our wounds. He no longer permitted wickedness to operate in us freely and at will, but He bound and restrained our sinfulness and poured on oil and wine. Oil is the word of teaching which exhorts us to virtue by the promise of good things; wine is the word of teaching leading us towards virtue by the fear of punishment. For example, when you hear the Lord say, Come unto Me and I will give you rest [Mt. 11:28], this is the oil of gladness and rest. And it is the same when He says, Come ye and inherit the kingdom prepared for you [Mt. 25:34]. But when He says, "Depart into darkness [Mt. 25:30], this is the wine of sharp teaching which stings as it cleanses our wounds. You may also understand it this way: oil represents Christs human actions and wine represents His divine actions, for I may say that the Lord acted at times as a man and at times as God. When He ate and drank and relaxed, not displaying the austerity and asceticism of John the Forerunner, this is the oil. But His extraordinary fasting, His walking on the water, and all His mighty deeds of divine power, these are the wine. We can compare Christs divinity to wine, which no one could tolerate if it were poured onto a wound, unless it were tempered with oil, that is, accompanied by His humanity. Therefore, since Christ has saved us both by His divinity and by His humanity, this is why it is said that oil and wine were poured out. And at every baptism those who are baptized are delivered from wounds of the soul when they are chrismated with the oil of myrrh and then immediately commune of the divine Blood. The Lord lifted up our wounded nature upon His own beast of burden, namely, upon His own Body. For He made us members of Himself and communicants of His own Body; and when we were lying down, wounded, He raised us up to His own dignity, making us one Body with Himself. The inn is the Church, which receives all. ⁽²⁾ But the law did not receive all. For the law says, the Ammanite and the Moabite shall not enter into the Church of God [Dt. 23:3] But now, from every tribe and people, God accepts those who fear Him and who desire to believe and to become a member of Christs Body, the Church. God receives all, even sinners and publicans. See the preciseness of His expression, how He says that the Samaritan brought him to an inn, and took care of him. Before he brought him to the inn, he had only bound his wounds. What then am I saying? That when the Church had been established, becoming the inn which receives all, and was increased by the faith of nearly all peoples, then there were the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the grace of God was spread far and wide. You may learn this from the Acts of the Apostles. The innkeeper is a type and symbol of every apostle, teacher, and archpastor, to whom the Lord gave two pence, representing the two Testaments, Old and New. Just as both coins bear the image of the one king, so do both Testaments bear the words of the same God. When the Lord ascended into the heavens He left these two coins in the hands of the Apostles, and in the hands of the bishops and teachers of every generation. And He said to them, And whatsoever thou spendest more of thine own, I will repay thee. Indeed the Apostles spent much more of their own—with great labors they sowed the word of teaching everywhere. And those teachers in each generation who have explained the Old and the New Testaments have also spent much of their own, for which they will be rewarded when the Lord returns at the second coming. Then may each of them say to him, "Lord, Thou gayest me two pence; behold, another two pence have I spent of mine own." And to him the Lord will answer, "Well done, thou good servant."

1. The Greek word for "neighbour" is plesios, and has the literal meaning "one who is close." The question, Who is my neighbour? in Greek sounds very much like, "Who is close to me?" The English word "neighbor" and its German cognate Nachbar, likewise refer to "one who is nigh," or near.

2. Pandocheion, "inn," has the literal meaning "that which receives all."

Our Priest on Ancient Faith

2009-11-14T11:35:00.002-05:00

Our priest, Fr. Anthony Michaels, our parish priest, has a presentation available on Ancient Faith Radio. It is entitled, "Iconography, Iconoclasm, and the Theology of Personhood." This is a good taste of the sort of catechesis my wife and I are enjoying at St. John Chrysostom. It is just under an hour long and well worth the listen for those interested in theology. Thanks to Ancient Faith Radio for making it available.

We had trouble with the stream (it was fast - Fr. Anthony sounded like Alvin the Chipmunk). If you do too, a transcript is available. We solved our problem by downloading the podcast.

Commentary: 22nd Sunday after Pentecost

2009-11-10T21:58:00.004-05:00

Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost
Jairus’ Daughter and the Woman With an Issue of Blood
Luke 8:41-56

From The Explanation of the Gospel of St. Luke
by Blessed Theophylact, Archbishop of Ochrid and Bulgaria

40-44. And it came to pass, that, when Jesus was returned, the multitude gladly received Him: for they were all waiting for Him. And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus feet, and besought Him that He would come into his house: for he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went, the multitude thronged Him. And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, who had spent all her living upon physicians, and could not be healed by any, came behind Him, and touched the border of His garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched. Jesus returned from the country of the Gadarenes, and the multitude was waiting for Him, eager for both His teaching and His miracles. Then He was approached by a certain ruler of the synagogue, a man who was neither poor nor insignificant, but the foremost of society. The Evangelist even gives the man’s name, so that the miracle might become the more renowned through this confirmable evidence of its truth. In his great need this man falls down before Jesus, although even without the urgency of this need, he ought to have fallen down and acknowledged Jesus as God. Nevertheless, affliction can compel a man to turn to what is better, as David says when he speaks of the horse or mule which has no understanding, whose jaws thou must afflict with bit and bridle when they come not nigh unto thee [Ps. 31:9]. ⁽¹⁾ But as Jesus went along the way to the house of Jairus, a woman drew near to Him who showed exceedingly great faith. She approached and touched the border of His garment with the firm faith that if she could only touch His clothing, she would be made whole. Immediately the flow of blood stopped. Like a man who brings his eye close to a bright light, or brings a dry stick close to fire, and they immediately react, so also the woman brought her faith close to Him Who has power to heal, and immediately she obtained healing. She gave no thought to anything else, neither the many years of her illness, nor the failure of her doctors. She only believed and was made whole. Understand that first she touched Jesus noetically, and only then did she touch Him bodily.

45-48. And Jesus said, Who touched Me? When all denied, Peter and they that were with Him said, Master, the multitude throng Thee and press Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me? And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched Me: for I perceive that power is gone out of Me. And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before Him, she declared unto Him before all the people for what cause she had touched Him, and how she was healed immediately. And He said unto her, Daughter, take courage: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace. The Lord desires to show the woman's faith to all the people so that they might become imitators of her, and also so that Jairus might have good hope for his daughter. Therefore He makes manifest what had happened in secret and asks who it was that touched Him. Peter, being bold, scolds the Lord for His question, saying, "So many people throng Thee, and yet sayest Thou, Who touched Me?" But he did not understand what the Lord was asking. The Lord was inquiring, "Who touched Me with faith?" and not simply, "Whose hand touched Me?" Just as one man has ears with which he hears, while another has ears but does not hear, so also one man touches with faith, while another may draw near but his heart is far away. The Lord knows that it was the woman, but He asks the question, as I have said, in order to reveal her faith and to give hope to the ruler of the synagogue. He asks, and thus draws attention to the woman. For I perceive that power is gone out of Me, He says, and rightly so. The prophets did not have power that went out from them; instead, they worked miracles by the grace of God. But Jesus is the source of every good thing and the source of all power, and He indeed has power that goes out from Him. The Lord grants the woman a double healing: He first heals her sickness and then dispels the fear from her trembling soul by saying, Daughter, take courage.

49-56. While He yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogues house, saying to Him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master. But when Jesus heard it, He answered him, saying, Fear not: only believe, and she shall be made whole. And when He came into the house, He permitted no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden. And all wept, and bewailed her: but He said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed Him to scorn, knowing that she was dead. And He put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise. And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and He commanded to give her food. And her parents were astonished: but He charged them that they tell no man what was done. When Jesus heard a man say to the ruler of the synagogue, trouble not the Master, He did not wait for the ruler of the synagogue to speak to Him, but speaks first Himself, so that the ruler of the synagogue could not say, "I have no need for You; the evil deed has already happened; behold she has died, the one whom we expected You to heal," or any such words as these. For he did not believe, and was a Jew. Christ, therefore, speaks first and says, "Fear not; only believe. Consider the woman who had the issue of blood. Imitate her and you will not miss the mark." He permits only Peter, John, and James to enter because they were the Lords favorites and chief of the Apostles, and because they were able to keep silent concerning the miracle. The Lord did not want to reveal Himself to many before it was time, perhaps because of the spite of the Jews. Thus He hid most of His deeds so that the Jews would not become inflamed with envy and thus liable to judgment. We ought also to do the same; when someone becomes envious of us, let us not reveal our accomplishments to him, so as not to wound him and cause him to be even more envious and cast him into sin. Instead, we should strive to go unnoticed by him. The Lord said, she is not dead, but sleepeth, calling death sleep because He was about to raise her from the dead as if from sleep. Those who heard Him laughed Him to scorn, so that the miracle would be all the more miraculous. In order that later they would not be able to claim that she was not dead, but had been asleep, the Lord arranged by divine economy that He should first be mocked when He said that she was not dead but asleep. Thus He shut the mouths of those who wanted to slander Him, for it was so clear that she was dead that they even mocked Him when He said that she was not dead. He put them all outside, perhaps to teach us not to crave glory and not to do anything for show, and also to teach that when someone is about to work a miracle, he ought not to be in the midst of many people, but alone and undistracted. Then the Lord brought back the spirit of the young girl. He did not put another soul into her but made the same soul which had slipped away return to her body again. He commanded that she be given something to eat, to provide even greater assurance and confirmation that she had risen from the dead. These things may also be understood in this manner: the woman with the issue of blood represents every soul which pours forth bloody and murderous sin. For each and every sin is the murderer and slayer of the soul. When this soul, therefore, touches the clothing of Jesus, when it touches, that is, His Incarnation, believing that the Son of God took on human flesh, then the soul is healed. And this is possible even if someone should be a ruler of the synagogue, that is, if someone has a mind which rules over the many things it has collected in its greed.⁽²⁾ Then the daughter of that mind, its thought, is sick. But let that mind only call upon Jesus and believe, and his thought will be made whole.

1. The translation here of this particular verse differs somewhat from that of the Psalter published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery, which we usually cite. See the Introduction, p. 1, of the present volume.

2. The word synagogue [synagoge] is derived from the verb synago which means to bring together, whether it be people in an assembly or things in a collection. Bl. Theophylact here plays on both senses of the word.

Liturgical Vestments V: the Deacon

2009-10-31T00:01:00.000-04:00

The next clerical Order I'd like to dwell on is that of the Deacon, whose ministry is a symbol of the ministering angels. The OrthoWiki Web site has a basic article explaining the role of the deacon.

Eastern Rite

The deacon will vest during the Liturgy of Preparation with the priest after the Entrance Prayers. However, the deacon may not don his vestments without first receiving the blessing of the bishop or priest under whom he serves. The priest and deacon together face toward the east, with their sticharia in hand, and make three metanias while praying each time, "O God, cleanse me a sinner." Then the deacon approaches the priest for his blessing to vest, standing with the vestments in his right hand and says, "Master, bless the Sticharion and Orarion." The priest says, "Blessed is our God now and always and unto ages of ages." The deacons says, "Amen," kisses the priest's right hand, and withdraws to the diaconicon to vest (i.e. to the place where vestments, books, and other related items for use in the Divine Liturgy are kept).

The deacon's vestments are:

Sticharion - Kissing the cross on the sticharion he says: My soul shall rejoice in the Lord, for He has clothed me with a robe of salvation and covered me with a tunic of happiness; He has crowned me as a bridegroom and adorned me with jewels as a bride (Isaiah 61:10).

Orarion - The deacon says nothing while donning the Orarion.

Epimanikia - This vestment points to the fact that the hands serve in the Liturgy are actually Christ's hands, who alone is the Servant of God who suffered for our salvation. The deacon wears the epimanikia under his sticharion, while the priest wears his over the sticharion. When donning the cuffs, on the right hand, the deacon prays, Your right hand, + Lord, is made glorious in might; your right hand, Lord, has crushed the enemies; and in the fullness of your glory, You have routed the adversary (Ex. 15:6-7). The left hand, Your hands + have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding and I shall learn your commandments (Ps. 118/119:73).

When the deacon finishes vesting he goes to the Prothesis and prepares the sacred vessels by placing the diskos (paten) on the left, the chalice on the right, and the other implements also.

When both have finished vesting they wash their hands saying, "I will wash my hands in innocency; so will I compass Thine altar, O Lord, That I may make the voice of thanksgiving to be heard, and tell of all Thy wondrous works. Lord, I love the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thy glory dwelleth. Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with men of blood; In whose hands is craftiness, and their right hand is full of bribes. But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity; redeem me, and be gracious unto me. My foot standeth in an even place; in the congregations will I bless the Lord (Ps. 26:6-12)."

Western Rite

The deacon will vest with the priest and any assistants as outlined for the Western Rite priest. The prayers that he says are nearly identical to that of the priests:

Amice - "Place upon me, O Lord, the helmet of salvation, that I may withstand the assaults of the devil."

Alb - "Purify me, O Lord, and cleanse my heart, that being made white in the Blood of the Lamb I may come to eternal joy."

Cincture - "Gird me, O Lord, with the girdle of purity, and quench in my loins the fire of lust, that with the virtues of continence and chastity I may abide in Thee."

Stole - "Restore unto me, O Lord, the state of immortality, which was lost through the sin of my first parents; and although I am unworthy to approach Thy sacred mysteries, nevertheless grant unto me eternal joy."

Maniple - This is a band of cloth, of the same style and width as the stole. It is worn over the left arm. The link provided is to a Wikipedia article, which mainly treats it under Roman Catholic use, but a picture or two is found there. The deacon prays as he vests with it, "May I deserve, O Lord, to bear the maniple of weeping and sorrow, in order that I may joyfully reap the reward of my labors."

Dalmatic - "Lord, endow me with the garment of salvation, the vestment of joy, and with the dalmatic of justice ever encompass me. Amen."

The deacon's stole, as with that of the priest, is not worn outside of service in the Mass or receiving the Eucharist.

For me the role of the deacon in the Church is somewhat a minor fascination. Coming from an American Lutheran background there was no place for actual deacons. Historically among Lutherans they were seen as pastors who took a secondary role in a church. Among the Lutherans of the LCMS a deacon was either a layman-elder in the congregation, or he was someone licensed to carry out pastoral duties (preaching or consecrating the Lord's Supper) apart from ordination.

Now that I'm converting to Holy Orthodoxy it is interesting to consider and observe the natural place of deacons in the Catholic Church. Suffice to say that it is very well-pleasing to me. God is glorious in His Church.

Liturgical Vestments IV: the Priest

2009-10-06T20:45:00.002-04:00

Having briefly discussed and displayed the main liturgical vestments between Eastern and Western Rite, it seemed good to revisit the issue according to Order. Of all the clerical orders, a person is most likely to encounter a Priest. The priest's liturgical vestments are as follows:

Eastern Rite

In the Eastern Rite vesting is part of the Prothesis, that is, the Liturgy of Preparation. This is the preparatory rite in which the bread and wine are set apart for use in the Eucharist. In this rite the priest and deacon stand before the holy doors of the iconostasis to say the entrance prayers, then enter and vest, perform the proskomedia, and conclude with the Prayer of Oblation and much incense.

In this article are included two vestments not previously mentioned: the zone (a wide liturgical belt of the same material as the phelonion) and epimanikia (long cuffs of the same material as the phelonion). Links for these two vestments are provided to Orthowiki articles with good pictures.

The priest will bless each vestment with his right hand, kiss the cross on the vestment, and put the vestment on while reciting the appropriate prayer.

Sticharion - Taking in his right hand the Sticharion and making three reverences toward the East to the Holy Doors, the Priest blesses it: Blessed is our God + at all times, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen. He then puts it on, saying: My soul shall rejoice in the Lord, for He has clothed me with a robe of salvation and covered me with a tunic of happiness; He has crowned me as a bridegroom and adorned me with jewels as a bride (Isaiah 61:10).

Epitrachelion - Blessed is God + who pours out grace upon his priests: as the chrism upon the head, which ran down unto the beard, the beard of Aaron, ran down even to the hem of his garment, at all times, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen (Ps. 132/133:2).

Zone - Blessed is God + who girds me with strength and makes my way blameless and strengthens my feet like the hart's, at all times, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen (Ps. 17/18:32).

Epimanikia - This vestment points to the fact that the hands that celebrate the Eucharist are actually Christ's hands, who alone is the High Priest of our salvation. When donning the cuffs, on the right hand, the priest prays, Your right hand, + Lord, is made glorious in might; your right hand, Lord, has crushed the enemies; and in the fullness of your glory, You have routed the adversary (Ex. 15:6-7). The left hand, Your hands + have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding and I shall learn your commandments (Ps. 118/119:73).

Epigonation and Nabedrennik (if awarded their use) - Gird your sword + at your side, Mighty One, in your splendor and beauty. String your bow; go forth, reign for the sake of truth, meekness and righteousness. Your right hand shall lead You wonderfully, at all times, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen (Ps. 44/45:3-4).

Phelonion - Your priests +, Lord, shall clothe themselves with righteousness, and your saints shall rejoice in joy, at all times, now and always and for ever and ever. Amen (Ps. 131/132:9).

Next the priest and deacon wash their hands, saying, I will wash my hands in innocency; so will I compass Thine altar, O Lord, That I may make the voice of thanksgiving to be heard, and tell of all Thy wondrous works. Lord, I love the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thy glory dwelleth. Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with men of blood; In whose hands is craftiness, and their right hand is full of bribes. But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity; redeem me, and be gracious unto me. My foot standeth in an even place; in the congregations will I bless the Lord (Ps. 26:6-12).

Western Rite

Preparation for Mass, if we can call it that, begins when the priest washes his hands and prays, "Give strength to my hands, O Lord, to wash away all uncleanness; that I may be enabled to serve thee without defilement of mind and body."

At this point the priest then will recite a series of psalms and collects before vesting. Sometimes a reader will recite the psalms, meanwhile the priest vesting and reciting the appropriate prayer for each vestment. Then after the psalms and vesting the priest will conclude with the collects, which commemorate the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, the Angels and Saints, and any specific saints commemorated at that Mass.

It may be that these prayers correspond to the commemorations made by the priest in the Eastern Rite when the bread is divided during the Prothesis. Also, it is suspected that the prayers said at the foot of the altar correspond to the Entrance Prayers in the Prothesis of the Eastern Rite.

The following are the prayers said by the priest as he dons each vestment:

Amice - "Place upon me, O Lord, the helmet of salvation, that I may withstand the assaults of the devil."

Alb - "Purify me, O Lord, and cleanse my heart, that being made white in the Blood of the Lamb I may come to eternal joy."

Cincture - "Gird me, O Lord, with the girdle of purity, and quench in my loins the fire of lust, that with the virtues of continence and chastity I may abide in Thee."

Stole - "Restore unto me, O Lord, the state of immortality, which was lost through the sin of my first parents; and although I am unworthy to approach Thy sacred mysteries, nevertheless grant unto me eternal joy."

Maniple - This is a band of cloth, of the same style and width as the stole. It is worn over the left arm. The link provided is to a Wikipedia article, which mainly treats it under Roman Catholic use, but a picture or two is found there. The priest prays as he vests with it, "May I deserve, O Lord, to bear the maniple of weeping and sorrow, in order that I may joyfully reap the reward of my labors."

Chasuble - "O Lord who hast said, 'My yoke is easy and My burden light,' grant that I may bear after Thee with thanksgiving. Amen."

These are the vestments that the celebrant priest will wear. If another priest is in attendance in the chancel he will be vested in a suprlice over his cassock. For instance, last time we attended the Western Rite parish Holy Incarnation in Michigan (our home away from home, back home where I'm from), the Vicar General of the Western Rite was in attendance. During Mass he wore a surplice, but when it was time to receive the Eucharist he donned a stole, which he removed after receiving the Sacrament. He would have continued to wear the stole if he had assisted in the distribution of the Sacrament, though. (I am told that this rubric is the same in the Eastern Rite.) Obviously his stole was not worn cross-wise, as the celebrant wore his under the chasuble. Vestments depend upon one's rank and one's role in the Mass.

Vesting for Mass is part of the Liturgy's organic whole. The vesting of the clergy is not just a stepping into a coat-closet to dress up; it belongs to the Mass as much as the Kyrie, the Sanctus, and the other parts, but it is a part that involves the clergy. (In the Mass/Liturgy everyone has their own roles, including the laity; though all are involved in the same whole, not everyone's job is identical.) The rubrics dictate what they do in order to preserve and convey a mystery. It is to be received as such, not reduced to the simplistic capacities of our modern hubris.

The more time I spend comparing Eastern and Western Rite - and living with them both as I've been blessed to do - the more obvious it is to me that they are the same. They are about the same things, they do the same things, they are the same Orthodox Faith, belonging to the same Catholic Church. Some in Protestantism like to bandy about the idea that you can have different styles but the same substance. I've yet to see the Protestants accomplish that among themselves. Yet in the one pure Bride of Christ that ridiculous dictum almost seems to have happened - not by men reinventing the Western Rite, but by overcoming the Western Rite's interruption through the return of Western Christians to the unity of the Church.

Pillar and Ground

2009-10-04T21:33:00.007-04:00

There are many wonderful parts of our journey into Holy Orthodoxy. One of the blessed extras has been that we get to be part of a congregation that is building their own church for the first time. Our priest, Fr. Anthony Michaels, often tells our congregation that when he commemorates the ever-memorable founders of this holy temple, that will mean all of us! Very, very interesting. It makes me think of the parable about the laborers in the vineyard. Some worked all day in the heat of the sun and received their denarius. Others showed up at the very end of it all and received the same denarius. Likewise, many of the parishioners labored their whole lives to make this building a reality, while some are just now becoming members of the Church here at St. John Chrysostom. Orthodoxy is full of grace. (Yeah, I know the parable isn't about our church building project, but this is just what comes to mind.)

Here are some pictures. They have erected the pillars, and they have planted grass seed throughout the grounds. I will spare you pictures of straw-covered ground, though eventually either I or my wife should show off the newly finished parking lot with the landscaping. All in due time.

(What, did you think I was going to post about something else?)

Catecheis has been going well, though it seems like we can never meet as often as we'd like. When we do, though, it is a lot of fun. Fr. Anthony never fails to tell us what he thinks is "the best," and we try to show him some of the books we have or the stuff we're reading.

One good book is The Earliest Christian Heretics by Arland Hultgren. The other I'm enjoying right now which we showed to our priest is The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis. This thing is fantastic. It's two volumes (really three, but published in two), the first covering the Jewish and Gnostic heresies, the second covering all the rest. It's just astounding. St. Epiphanius has really helped my personal and catechetical journey into Holy Orthodoxy. Especially in volume two nearly every page is filled with edifying goodies mixed with his well-styled brand of delivery. His love for the Scriptures and his teachings about the Church were especially great. Sadly the Panarion will have to be returned to the library very soon. Perhaps I will check it out again sometime. It was worth the five dollars I had to pay my library to get it through inter-library loan (I had to pay because of state-wide budget cuts in Ohio).

Ye Olde Goode Time

2009-09-24T14:37:00.007-04:00

Last weekend my family went to the Michigan Renaissance Festival. This was something I liked to do when I was younger, and it is something Emily and I did together once we started dating. Since going to seminary and moving to Iowa - and especially after having kids - we have not been able to go. This is the first time we've been able to go in about seven years or more. The best part is that we got to take our kids. It was a lot of fun. Here's a video clip of Evelyn and Dominic dueling with rapiers.

Evelyn didn't understand why the gamesman called her A Big Loser-Face, but we explained it to her. Right after where the video ends the gamesman shouts out, "Give it up for the girl who beat up her little brother!"

The Holy Cross

2009-09-21T13:30:00.000-04:00

Today marks the leavetaking of the feast The Elevation of the Holy Cross. We are fortunate to elevate and venerate the Holy Cross every week at our parish. An icon-styled crucifix stands behind the altar, reminding us constantly of the center of our salvation - as our priest put it. At the end of the Liturgy, as we all leave, we each get to go forward and kiss the cross that our priest holds and has used to bless the congregation. But chiefly we venerate the cross each Liturgy in the Eucharist: both in being offered in Christ (Thine own of Thine own we offer unto Thee for Thine own) and in receiving Christ's Body and Blood.

The Elevation of the Holy Cross, though, is a special feast day. Here we venerate not merely the notion that our Lord was crucified, but that our Lord, the Holy One of Israel, has sanctified all that He assumes. And on the cross He assumes death - sanctifying it unto life, and suffering - sanctifying it unto glory, and in so doing sanctifies all creation in Him through His Blood shed and His Body broken.

So the Holy Cross - this instrument of suffering and death, upon which the Savior's Blood flowed and into which His Body was ground - is sanctified with the sanctity of Christ Himself.

Here is a quote from our Church Bulletin, retelling the account behind the feast day:

Underneath the Basil, the Cross of Christ was found, but with it were the other two crosses, those used to crucify the two thieves on either side of Christ. The sign with the inscription, "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews", also lay among the three crosses. In order to determine which one was the true cross, a sick woman was told to kiss each of the three crosses. The woman kissed the first cross with no result. She kissed the second cross and again nothing happened. However, when the ailing woman kissed the True Cross, she was immediately made well. It so happened that a funeral procession was passing that way, and so the body of the dead man came to life – thus the name the "Life-Giving" Cross, which gives life not only to that man, but to each person who believes in the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and His all-glorious three day Resurrection.

Here is highlighted the true glory of the feast day: be it wood, a thief, Death, or man, all are overwhelmed by the sanctification by which our Lord saves us. Dead wood, used to inflict harm and death, becomes Life-bearing and life-giving. The thief finds his condemnation sanctified by mercy and enters into Paradise. Death is sanctified by the Savior's death and is trampled underfoot. Man is sanctified by the Incarnate One and rises in Victory over the Enemy and sits in glory at the right hand of God.

The Feast of the Holy Cross is very special and very important. The historical circumstances remind us again - not through accident (for there is no accident, only Providence) - what that special work of salvation is which the Lord Christ would work in us every day until He returns in glory. Kyrie eleison.

Afterfeast Hymn:
Kontakion - Tone 4
As You were voluntarily raised upon the cross for our sake,
Grant mercy to those who are called by Your Name, O Christ God;
Make all Orthodox Christians glad by Your power,
Granting them victories over their adversaries,
By bestowing on them the Invincible trophy, Your weapon of Peace.

Liturgical Vestments III

2009-09-16T21:11:00.020-04:00

This continues a series on vestments in the Church of Jesus Christ. Vestments help us remember the divine dignity which is God's, and which is given to those who serve him. They help us remember the angelic service the sacred ministers engage in, and just as important, they remind those who serve just Who they serve.

Eastern Rite: Phelonion

My first impression of the phelonion is that it is like a cape - one that goes near the floor in the back and hangs unusually low in the front. The front originally hung lower in time past, but has since been shortened to allow more freedom of movement. Like its Western version, the phelonion historically started as poncho-styled garment.

The phelonion is worn by the priest over all other liturgical garments. Its use is not restricted to the Divine Liturgy. For instance, at Great Vespers each Saturday a priest is normally clothed in his anteri and exorasson (inner and outer cassocks), and vested in his epitrachelion (stole), but for a portion of the service he dons the phelonion.

The phelonion comes in two styles. The Byzantine or Greek style is rounded about the neck and shoulders. The Russian or Athos style has a more boxed, trapezoid-style appearance.

Above is the Greek-style Phelonion; below is the Russian-styled. Both are shown with the epitrachelion beneath. The Russian version is also shown with Nabedrennik (a clergy award) and Epigonation (denoting a priest blessed to hear confessions).

Here is a photo of Fr. Daniel Hackney at his ordination. He is wearing a gold phelonion over his epitrachelion. Many years, Fr. Daniel! It was fun shouting out "Axios!" with the congregation.

The Sakkos

Normally a bishop does not wear the phelonion, but rather dons the sakkos, which fits about his frame more than the free-flowing phelonion.

Above we see a bishop being vested with the sakkos on the solea. This is from a detail of rubrics found at St. Elias Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, a non-canonical Eastern Rite church under the rule of the Roman Pope.

Sometimes the bishop may not wish to celebrate the Divine Liturgy with all the special rites and prayers that usually attend a Hierarchical Divine Liturgy (i.e. a Liturgy where the Bishop is present). In that case he may wear the phelonion instead of the sakkos. He will, though, still wear the most definitive of all episcopal vestments: the omophorion.

The Omophorion

This band of cloth - not to be confused with an orarion, epitrachelion, or stole - signifies the bishop as being pastor and icon of Christ. (Compare the omophorion to the icon of Christ the Good Shepherd, carrying the lost sheep on His shoulders.)

The omophorion comes in two sizes: the great omophorion and the small omophorion.

Here is an icon of St. Athanasius, who is wearing a dark omophorion over his cross-patterned sakkos.

Above is a Ukrainian Roman Catholic bishop being vested with the great omophorion. Below is an example of the small omophorion sold by Istok.

The small omophorion.

Western Rite: Chasuble ... and more

While the poncho-like vestment became the phelonion in the East, in the West it became the chasuble. Modern vestment makers tend to market the chasuble in three styles: Gothic, Monastic, and Roman. Suffice to say, aside from these catalog names, the chasuble tends to be roughly poncho-shaped, though not necessarily perfectly-so. What is called the "Roman" style is a late invention, in which the cut is reduced and the shape is stiffened. It is also referred to as the Roman Fiddle-back. The chasuble is worn by priest and bishop alike.

Above is a typical chasuble. Below is a Roman Fiddleback.

Dalmatic and Tunicle

In the Eastern Rite the Dalmatic and Tunicle would fall under the category of sticherion, or alb. In the Western Rite these are Eucharistic vestments in their own sense, worn over the alb (or East: sticharion). What the chasuble is to the priest, the dalmatic is to the deacon, and the tunicle is to the subdeacon (though it can also be worn by the thurifer or crucifer).

The dalmatic is worn by the deacon over his alb and stole. It is normally decorated by two horizontal bands and two vertical bands.

The tunicle is worn by the subdeacon over his alb (he has no stole to wear in the Western Rite).

Above is the dalmatic, available from Slabbinck. Below is the tunicle. Apart from their banding they seem very similar in appearance (the neck style is immaterial to the garment's purpose here).

The Pallium

I don't want to go into all the intricacies of episcopal vestments here, but I do wish to make this one link between Eastern and Western vestments. In the East the bishops wear the omophorion. In the West it is the pallium. While the omophorion is worn by all bishops in the Eastern Rite, the pallium in the Western Rite is worn only by those of Metropolitan ranking or higher. It is basically a white wool band adorned with six crosses. I will be so bold as to include a picture of the current Roman Pope, Benedict XVI, wearing the modern pallium.

Encountering Orthodoxy in Fort Wayne

2009-09-10T23:43:00.004-04:00

This evening we were privileged to attend the Basic Class in Orthodoxy held at our church at 7:00 p.m. Our priest, Fr. Anthony, is a very learned and capable teacher. He seems to be very at home in Orthodoxy, having been Orthodox all his life. Plus he's just easy to talk with.

We don't usually get to attend this class. We live an hour away from Fort Wayne, and we can't be driving around on school nights. This night, though, Emily's parents were able to watch the kids. Besides having time together, we were able to enjoy Fr. Anthony's class. Afterward there was some wonderful conversation about things Orthodox (mostly his end), Lutheran (mostly my end), and many other wonderful things.

Normally we only get to attend our catechetical class on Saturdays at 3:00 p.m. at the church. Others have begun to sit in on the class; Fr. Anthony has been very welcoming to us and all inquirers. It's been a very good time.

If you live or are visiting the Ft. Wayne area, the saints at St. John Chrysostom would love to welcome you. Here's some of the typical weekly schedule:

Sunday
+ Matins at 9:00 a.m.
+ Liturgy at 10:15 a.m.

Thursday
+ Basic Class in Orthodoxy at 7:00 p.m.

Saturday
+ Catechesis** at 3:00 p.m.
+ Great Vespers at 5:00 p.m.

**Call ahead to confirm Saturday's catechesis. My family is gone at least one weekend per month. We are the only ones in catechesis, so when we're gone, then the class doesn't usually meet. However, that doesn't mean Fr. Anthony wouldn't hold the class if there were inquirers or others interested in it.

Of special note is the upcoming feast of the Elevation of the Holy Cross. It will be celebrated the evening of Sept. 13 (Sunday) at 6:30 p.m. If this seems odd, to celebrate a feast the evening before, it is because the liturgical day begins with Vespers, not with midnight.

The Church is located at 402 Badiac Dr., NOT ON PUTNAM STREET ANYMORE (the Web site for the congregation hasn't been updated in all places yet by the webmaster). Badiac is off Coldwater, just north of Dupont Rd.

Glory to God: Fr. Stephen Hits it on the Head

2009-09-10T23:31:00.003-04:00

Before I get back to examining Eastern and Western vestments, I would like to call attention to Fr. Stephen Freeman's latest post, "Doctrine and Opinion." It's not a stuffy or boring post, as sometimes the topic seems to be to some. Here's a sample:

It has been noted on this blog (and in many other places) that argumentation rarely brings someone into the faith. Argument may have an important role to play in the lives of some – but generally the Orthodox faith (even for those who came to believe it through argumentation) must be embraced not as the result of right argument – but as a gift from God given to us to correct our heart and rightly dispose us to the work of God within us.

Fr. Stephen has a podcast on Ancient Faith Radio: Glory to God.

Liturgical Vestments II

2009-09-10T06:00:00.002-04:00

Eastern Rite: Orarion, Epitrachelion

Whether you are talking about the orarion or the epitrachelion, both are a band of decorated or brocaded cloth.

Subdeacons and Deacons wear the orarion over their sticherion or dalmatic. The Subdeacon wears his around his waist, then over each shoulder forming an X across his back, and then bringing the orarion back over the shoulders to the front to tuck under the part already around his waist. (According to an Orthowiki article, some traditions may bless an ordained acolyte to wear the orarion, in which case it is worn in the manner of a subdeacon.)

(Above is an example of the subdeacon's orarion worn over the sticharion. Newly-ordained Subdeacon John Hogg stands with his father, Fr. Gregory, overlooking.)

The Deacon wears his orarion over the left shoulder alone, draping it straight downward. Among the Greeks the Deacon's orarion is longer and worn over the left shoulder and once around the chest to come back up to the left shoulder. This is called the double orarion. Among the Russians this looping method is bestowed as an award.

(Above is the single orarion worn over a simple yet lovely sticharion. Below is a deacon's dalmatic worn with the double orarion.)

Priests and Bishops wear the epitrachelion around the neck. It tends to be a wide cloth when viewed from the front. Often the epitrachelion is held together with buttons down the front, which gives the appearance of a single piece of cloth with a hole for the neck at the top.

(Above is an example of a typical epitrachelion.)

Western Rite: Stole

The stole is the same basic idea as the orarion and epitrachelion. It is a band of decorated or brocaded cloth. Some are wider, some are thinner, but all follow the same basic premise.

Subdeacons do not wear a stole in the Western Rite. Deacons wear the stole over the left shoulder, not vertically so but diagonally across the chest and back to cross at or near the opposite hip.

(Above is an example of a typical modern deacon's stole.)

Priests wear the stole around the neck, but it is not joined down the center as with the epitrachelion. Instead each side is brought together to form an X shape across the front.

(Above is an example of a typical priest's stole.)

Bishops wear the stole around the neck, too, but it does not join together in an X at all. Rather, each side hangs vertically.