by Metropolitan of Nafpatkos Hierotheos Vlachos

I suspect that the custom of decorating a tree at Christmas time is not simply a custom which came to us from the West and which we should replace with other more Orthodox customs. To be sure, I have not gone into the history of the Christmas tree and where it originated, but I think that it is connected with the Christmas feast and its true meaning.

First, it is not unrelated to the prophecy of the Prophet Isaiah:
 ‘There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots’ (Is. 11:1). St. Cosmas the poet had this prophecy in mind when he wrote of Christ as the blossom which rose up out of the Virgin stem from the stump of Jesse. The root is Jesse, David’s father, the rod is King David, the flower which came from the root and the rod is Theotokos. And the fruit which came forth from the flower of the Panagia is Christ. Holy Scripture presents this wonderfully. Thus the Christmas tree can remind us of the genealogical tree of Christ as Man, the love of God, but also the successive purifications of the Forefathers of Christ. At the top is the star which is the God-Man (Theanthropos) Christ.

Then, the Christmas tree reminds us of the tree of knowledge as well as the tree of life, but especially the latter. It underlines clearly the truth that Christ is the tree of life and that we cannot live or fulfill the purpose of our existence unless we taste of this tree, ‘the producer of life’. Christmas cannot be conceived without Holy Communion. And of course as for Holy Communion it is not possible to partake of deification in Christ without having conquered the devil when we found ourselves faced with temptation relative to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, where our freedom is tried. 

We rejoice and celebrate, because ‘the tree of life blossomed from the Virgin in the cave’.

Excerpt from:

“The Feasts of the Lord: An Introduction to the 12 Feasts and Orthodox Christology” 

by Fr. Stephen Freeman

Forgive me if this offers any offense.

There is a conception of what it means to be human, rooted in Medieval thought and refined in the furnace of modernity. This conception views each person as a “free moral agent.” Each of us is a unique individual. Our choices are our own and set our path for good or ill. Moral decisions may be submitted to varying forms of ethical tests. The choices each individual makes may effect others around him, but does not impinge on the free moral agency of others. Salvation, in this conception, is an individual matter – between each of us and God. The Church, in this conception, is a free association of free moral agents, who gather together for worship and praise and other matters of mutual benefit.

This conception of humanity runs counter to the Tradition of the Church, substituting much later definitions and understandings for the thought of those who wrote Scripture, and those who, following them faithfully, propounded the Christian faith over the subsequent centuries. (A suggestion for reading – Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity.)

When this matrix of a human as an individual moral agent is used as a lens through which Scripture is read – the result is often a distortion of Scripture (which was never meant to be a book for individuals). Such a lens all too easily ignores verses that clearly teach a different conception of what it means to be human and thus distorts the role of choice and free will as well as the account of salvation.

Were this distortion confined to an abstract debate then it would simply remain a matter of debate. But since it is actually based on flawed assumptions about the very nature of our existence – it goes far beyond mistaken thought and becomes positively harmful as a basis for human living, especially human life as a Christian.

We are created in God’s image – the image of the Triune God. This is not the same thing as saying each individual is created in the image of the Triune God (pace St. Augustine). All that God creates is pronounced “good.” The first thing described as “not good” is man alone. “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Gen. 2:18). We are created in the image of God – persons of  one essence – our existence is inherently a common existence. It is this reality that ultimately provides the ground for understanding our life in Christ and the path of salvation.

St. Paul offers these admonitions:

None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s (Romans 14:7-8).

So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another (Romans 12:5)

If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together (1 Cor. 12:26).

Within St. Paul’s statements is an understanding of what it means to be human – and particularly what it means to be persons who are members of the one body of Christ – in which individuality (as it stands alone) is the antithesis of the Christian understanding. Why should it be true that if one member of the body of Christ suffers, I should suffer as well? Does this not impinge on my freedom and reality as an individual moral agent? Of course it does – because I am not merely an individual moral agent. What each of us does effects all of us. Were it not so, Christ could not have taken upon Himself the sins of the world.

The forensic (legal) account of salvation, popular within many modern Christian circles, is easily misused, making our salvation extrinsic, a transaction offered on our behalf, but a transaction that only touches us as individual moral agents. We are forgiven as a man could be forgiven for a crime he has committed. He remains a criminal. This account of salvation is extremely well-suited to a world view in which man is seen primarily as an individual moral agent. He has been offered a forensic forgiveness. All that remains is for him to make a choice, accepting this boon with gratitude.

But such an account ignores the bulk of Christian Tradition (including large amounts of Scripture itself). Christ took the sins of the world upon Himself when He took upon Himself our human nature (at the Incarnation). He carried that burden to the Cross, into Hades, and raised it forgiven and healed in His Pascha. He remains united to us, having carried our humanity with Him in His glorious Ascension. Such an understanding of the Incarnation is consonant with the commonality of our existence.

“If one member suffers, all suffer together,” including the Head of the Body, Christ Jesus.

The truth of our existence is revealed in our life within the Church. The Church is the restoration of humanity to the truth of its existence. In the garden of Eden, human beings chose to act as individuals. Eve makes a choice – apart from Adam as Adam does apart from Eve. That rupture is perhaps more significant than the eating of the forbidden fruit itself.

The eating and drinking which are given in the life of the Church are a participation in a common life – the common life of God, given to us in Christ. “Whosoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him” (John 6:56). We are also told, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). All of the sacraments of the Church (indeed the whole of everything of the Church) have this same character.

The disruption of our common humanity is the result of sin. Such a disruption can be seen in the first murder (Cain kills Abel) and is writ large in the story of the tower of Babel. Our common life has been shattered by sin – and it is not healed by becoming more fully what sin made of it. We do not find our salvation as individuals, but as members of the Body of Christ. “Christ is our life” (Col. 3:4). The Church reveals the truth of human existence, indeed, the Church is what salvation looks like (as troubling as that thought may be). The life of the Church is a true union, a common life in Christ.

Prayer (as well as the whole of our Christian praxis) is properly understood in the context of our common life – and not within the confines of existence imagined as single and individual. Thus Christ teaches us to pray, “Our Father….” That prayer which is understood to be the most perfect – is a common prayer – the cry of our common heart in Christ.

Nor do we pray apart from Christ. “…God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Gal. 4:6). Our prayer is the cry of Christ through the Spirit to the Father. In is in this way that we can pray, “Our Father.”

Prayer is the offering of our common life before God. Whether or not we ourselves enter into this common prayer, the prayer remains. In the Tradition we begin our prayers: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” What follows is thus not our own individual existence but the voice of our common life given in Christ Jesus through the Spirit to the glory of God the Father.

In the matrix of humanity conceived as individual – prayer – at best – is conversation. It obviously does not inform God of what He does not know – nor does it convince Him to do what He does not will to do. As such, prayer is reduced to the sound of our own ego.

There are times when such a sound is all that we can manage – indeed there are times when we cannot manage even a sound. Such times are all the more reason to become increasingly familiar with the ceaseless prayer of the Son to the Father through the Spirit. It is also reason to become familiar with the voice of the whole Church (in heaven and on earth) as it prays in union with Christ.

The anxieties of those who refuse to understand the communion of saints, and the prayer which ascends ceaselessly from the Church, is, I think, largely born of an individualism – the hallmark of most forms of modern Christianity. Christ alone saves us (apart from Him we can do nothing), and yet it pleases Him to share His life with us (it is our true existence). There is not a life of Christ that is not also a saving life. Salvation is part of our common life, even though it be solely the work of Christ.

Many are scandalized when they first visit and Orthodox Church and hear the prayer, “Most Holy Theotokos, save us!” What they think they are hearing is Mary put in the place of Christ. In the Tradition there is no such thought. The prayer is a recognition of the one salvation in Christ of which the Mother of God is intimately a part.

The shift from individualistic thought to the understanding of life as communion is perhaps among the most difficult undertakings in the modern world. It runs counter to modern culture and asks us to enter a world that can seem quite foreign. But this strange world is nothing other than the Kingdom of God – life in Christ – communion in the life of Christ and the life of one another. May God hurry the day of our transformation!

Source

by Fr.  Joseph Bittle

Per a special request from one of our inquirers, two Orthodox Christmas music recommendations:

Christ is born! Give Glory!  Hymns, Chants, and Carols from my favorite Orthodox choral group, Archangel Voices.    Both the choral quality and the musical sellection are always excellent from this group.

Orthodox Hymns of Christmas  by the Choir of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary (SVS), my alma mater.  The recordings from the variuos SVS groups (mixed choir, male choir, male octet) are always of excellent quality and well directed.

These two are a good place to start.  Their are others available, but an Orthodox music collectionis built over time. 

Each of these should be available from places like Conciliar Press, SVS Bookstore, iTunes, eMusic, and/or Amazon.

On a non-liturgical, not specifically Orthodox note, I will share that my favorite Christmas CD picked up last year was A Christmas Celebration by Celtic Woman.

Enjoy!

By Father Daniel Daly

Several years ago during the Christmas season, a religious program on television caught my attention. The program featured a discussion on the dangers of cults, especially to young people. I found myself agreeing with the panelists as they warned young people about the hazards of involvement in occult or “new age” spirituality.

During the interview, however, one participant made a statement that shocked me: “…and the Christmas tree is pagan too…,” he asserted. The Christmas Tree? Pagan? Could it be that something most of us enjoy so much might be actually pagan in origin? Despite its growing commercialization, the Christmas tree is still associated with the fondest memories of our early childhood. Who does not remember approaching the tree on Christmas morning?

Today people are so captivated by it that some even put it up in November! It finds a place in the homes of believers and unbelievers alike.

Most people are aware that the Christmas tree came to America with immigrants from Germany, but just where did the Christmas tree originate? Are its origins to be found in paganism, as the speaker suggested?

The Christmas tree does not date from early Germanic times. Its origins are to be found in a tradition that has virtually disappeared from Christianity, the Liturgical Drama. In the Middle Ages liturgical plays or dramas were presented during or sometimes immediately after the services in the churches of Western Europe. The earliest of these plays were associated with the Mysteries of Holy Week and Easter. Initially they were dramatizations of the liturgical texts. The earliest recorded is the Quem quaeritis (“Whom do you seek?”) play of the Easter season. These plays later developed into the Miracle and Morality plays. Some were associated with events in the lives of well-known saints. The plays were presented on the porches of large churches. Although these liturgical dramas have now virtually disappeared, the Passion Play of Oberammergau, Germany is a recent revival of this dramatic form.

One mystery play was presented on Christmas Eve, the day which also commemorated the feast of Adam and Eve in the Western Church. The “Paradise Play” told the well-known story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Paradise. The central “prop” in the play was the Paradise Tree, or Tree of Knowledge. During the play this tree was brought in laden with apples.

The Paradise Tree became very popular with the German people. They soon began the practice of setting up a fir tree in their homes. Originally, the trees were decorated with bread wafers commemorating the Eucharist. Later, these were replaced with various kinds of sweets. Our Christmas tree is derived, not from the pagan yule tree, but from the paradise tree adorned with apples on December 24 in honor of Adam and Eve. The Christmas tree is completely biblical in origin.

The first Christmas tree dates from 1605 in Strasbourg. By the 1700s the custom of the Christmas tree was widespread among the German people. It was brought to America by early German immigrants, and it became popular in England through the influence of Prince Albert, the German husband of Queen Victoria.

The use of evergreens at Christmas may date from St. Boniface of the eighth century, who dedicated the fir tree to the Holy Child in order to replace the sacred oak tree of Odin; but the Christmas tree as we know it today does not appear to be so ancient a custom. It appears first in the Christian Mystery play commemorating the biblical story of Adam and Eve.

How legitimate is it to use a fir tree in the celebration of Christmas? From the very earliest days of the Church, Christians brought many things of God’s material creation into their life of faith and worship, e.g., water, bread, wine, oil, candles and incense. All these things are part of God’s creation. They are part of the world that Christ came to save. Man cannot reject the material creation without rejecting his own humanity. In Genesis man was given dominion over the material world.

Christmas celebrates the great mystery of the Incarnation. In that mystery God the Word became man. In order to redeem us, God became one of us. He became part of His own creation. The Incarnation affirms the importance of both man and the whole of creation. “For God so loved the world…”

A faith which would seek to divorce itself from all elements of the material world in search for an absolutely spiritual religion overlooks this most central mystery of Christmas, the mystery of God becoming man, the Incarnation.

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

Enjoy your Christmas tree.

Originally published in “The Word” magazine, December 2002. The Very Rev. Daniel Daly is pastor of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church, Grand Rapids, MI.

Hat tip with a hat tip.

St. Nicholas saves three innocents from death. Artist: Ilya Repin

Saint Nicholas, the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, was born in the city of Patara in the region of Lycia (on the south coast of the Asia Minor peninsula), 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 parents, the infant Nicholas from the very day of his birth revealed to people his future as a wonderworker. His mother, Nonna, after giving birth was immediately healed from illness.

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, arousing the wonder and deep respect of believers. Constantly at work and vivacious, and given to 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. Going round the holy places connected with the earthly service of the Son of God, St Nicholas decided to withdraw into the desert to live an ascetic life, 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.”

Life of St. Nicholas from St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Brooklyn, NY

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 Council Fathers had the same vision, seeing the Lord Himself and the Mother of God returning to him the Gospel and his 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.

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.  One story of St Nicholas’ miraculous aid involves the rescue of a drowning infant. 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 before his wonderworking icon. In the morning the infant was found safe by his thrilled parents, praising St Nicholas the Wonderworker.  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 especially ask his intercession for deliverance from floods, poverty, or any misfortunes.

Primary source text adapted by Fr. Joseph Bittle.

Copies of icon of Life of St. Nicholas can be purchased from St. Nicholas Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in Brooklyn, NY.

The St. Nicholas Center also provides a variety of information on the customs and traditions of many cultures related to the saint, and a special section of kid’s activities. 

Composite image used by permission of the St. Nicholas Center .

To read about the “Real Face of St. Nicholas” go here.

 ¹³And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. ¹⁴But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. ¹⁵ Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” ¹⁶And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.

Photo Source

Awaiting arrival of St. Vladimir's relics.

Relics of Patron Saint Bring Peace and Unity

12–14 November 2010 • SVOTS campus

“Peace,” “unity,” “togetherness.” This past weekend these recurrent themes permeated the extraordinary visit of the relics of our seminary’s patron saint, the Holy Great Prince Vladimir, Equal-to-the-Apostles, to our campus chapel. Orthodox Christians from near and far, and from various ecclesial and ethnic backgrounds, came to bow before the ornate enameled reliquary that held a portion of the skull of the 10^th-century saint and to honor the memory of the man credited for bringing Christianity to the nation of Kievan Rus’.

Archpriests Chad Hatfield and John Behr receive the relics and carry them to the seminary chapel.

With great reverence, scores of people gathered to view the relics and to sing praises in honor of the former pagan prince who, upon his marriage to a Byzantine princess and conversion to faith in Jesus Christ, dedicated himself to the precepts of the gospel and the furtherance of Christianity. Many were the progeny of the people that St. Vladimir himself had had under his reign.

Though hagiographers have noted St. Vladimir’s blameworthy actions—both as a pagan warrior and also as a Christian prince—they have as well emphasized his love and compassion for his subjects and acknowledged his attempts to provide unity and peace within his kingdom. Certainly, these marks of his personality imbue his relics, and he continues, in his saintly death, to influence believers and parish communities in awe-inspiring ways.

Ever since the relics were transported from Ukraine to Canada on September 6, 2010, their display in churches from Halifax to Vancouver, and, finally, at St. Vladimir’s Seminary in the United States, has evoked remarkably similar sentiments. Protodeacon Nazari Polataiko, who hand carried the relics from Ukraine to North America and who is the episcopal secretary of the Archdiocese of Canada, Orthodox Church in America (OCA), noted the “amazing” effect the relics have had, saying, “People have been brought together by St. Vladimir, in a way that, on a human level, I did not expect. Inner peace and strength have been given to many; and the visits have been peaceful, prayerful.”

Reverencing the holiness of the Lord shown forth in His saints.

Igumen Alexander Pihach, chancellor of the Archdiocese of Canada and guest homilist Sunday in the seminary’s Three Hierarchs Chapel, similarly observe d, “It’s been a miracle. St. Vladimir brought peace and unity to our communities, building bridges and bringing the faithful together, as his relics traveled from temple to temple.”

Notably, during the weekend hierarchs, clergy, and laity from the OCA were joined in our chapel by bishops, priests, and lay people from the jurisdictions of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR) and the Moscow Patriarchate (MP).  In particular, His Eminence Justinian, archbishop of Naro-Fominsk and administrator of the Patriarchal parishes in the USA (MP), presided at the Divine Liturgy on Saturday morning; His Eminence Hilarion, metropolitan of Eastern America and New York (ROCOR), presided at the mid-day Akathist on Saturday; and His Grace Tikhon, bishop of Philadelphia and Eastern Pennsylvania (OCA), presided at Vigil on Saturday evening. The choirs of St. Vladimir’s and St. Tikhon’s seminaries sang the responses to the services in antiphonal form, demonstrating in an exceptional manner, unity. 

A wonderful opportunity for young and old alike.

Archpriest Chad Hatfield, chancellor of St. Vladimir’s, offered a heartfelt observation, saying, “For me, two things were notable. First, it was such a blessing to see three churches with Slavic ancestry—the Moscow Patriarchate, the OCA, and ROCOR—all come together around this relic. And second, it was a joy to see our choir joined by the choir from St. Tikhon’s.”

Seminary Dean Archpriest John Behr concurred, stating, “It was wonderful to see happen what we sang in the Akathist to St. Vladimir, that ‘as a father  with his children he led all to sing alleluia!’.”

The relics will be returned shortly to Ukraine. Protodeacon Nazari, a native of Chernivtsi, Ukraine, will again hand carry them to their home, the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Kiev. 

Watch video of the entire Vigil Service here.

Text Source
Photos Source with full gallery of photography by Tanya Hoff.

This prayerful text takes up the words of St. John Chrysostom uttered while dying in exile, “Glory to God for all things!”, and applies them to the grandeur of God’s good creation, the various wonders of human life, as well as the sorrows that accompany us in our present condition.

Although our offering of the Akathist of Thanksgiving will be simple and humble, a number of beautiful recordings have been made of it:

The version by the choir of St. Ignatius Antiochian Orthodox Church in Madison, WI, which was recorded in support of their building fund, can be found in a number of Orthodox retail catalogs or can be purchased directly here.   It uses Slavic chant tones for the singing of the text.

Another version is that of the British classical composer John Tavener.  Based upon a moving, if somewhat free, translation by Mother Thekla of the Monastery of the Assumption in Whitby, Yorkshire, England, married to his minimalistic melodies, Tavener’s composition is unique and rewards the attentive listener.

 

 

 

 

 

Lampada in Home Icon Corner

The term ‘lampada’ simply means lamp, and is used in the Orthodox Church to designate the lamps (usually oil burning) that hang before icons.  They have a practical function, illumination, that has taken on spiritual significance.

This beautiful passage from St. Nikolai Velimirovich describes the spiritual significance of lighting both lampadas and offering votive candles:

 “First-because our faith is light.  Christ said: “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12).  The light of the vigil lamp reminds us of that light by which Christ illumines our souls.  Second-in order to remind us of the radiant character of the saint before whose icon we light the vigil lamp, for saints are called sons of light (John 12:36, Luke 16:8).  Third-in order to serve as a reproach to us for our dark deeds, for our evil thoughts and desires, and in order to call us to the path of evangelical light; and so that we would more zealously try to fulfill the commandments of the Savior: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works” (Matt. 5:16).  Fourth-so that the vigil lamp would be our small sacrifice to God Who gave Himself completely as a sacrifice for us, and as a small sign of our great gratitude and radiant love for Him from Whom we ask in prayer for life, and health, and salvation and everything that only boundless heavenly love can bestow.  Fifth-so that terror would strike the evil powers that  sometimes assail us even at the time of prayer and lead away our thoughts from the Creator. The evil powers love the darkness and tremble at every light, especially at that which belongs to God and to those who please Him.  Sixth-so that this light would rouse us to selflessness. Just as the oil and wick burn in the vigil lamp, submissive to our will, so let our souls also burn with the flame of love in all our sufferings, always being submissive to God’s will.  Seventh-in order to teach us that just as the vigil lamp cannot be lit without our hand, so too, our heart, our inward vigil lamp, cannot be lit without the holy fire of God’s grace, even if it were to be filled with all the virtues.  All these virtues of ours are, after all, like combustible material, but the fire which ignites them proceeds from God.  Eighth-in order to remind us that before anything else the Creator of the world created light, and after that everything else in order: And God said, “Let there be light: and there was light” (Genesis 1:3).  And it must be so also at the beginning of our spiritual life, so that before anything else the light of Christ’s truth would shine within us.  From this light of Christ’s truth subsequently every good is created, springs up and grows in us. May the Light of Christ illumine you as well!”

St. Raphael, Bishop of Brooklyn

“He shall be filled with the spirit of understanding; he shall pour forth his words of wisdom and give thanks to the Lord in his prayer” (Sir 39:6).

Our holy Father Raphael was born in Syria in 1860 to pious Orthodox parents, Michael Hawaweeny and his second wife Mariam, the daughter of a priest of Damascus. The exact date of Raphael’s birth is not known, but he estimated it to be on or near his Name Day, the Synaxis of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel and all the Bodiless Powers of Heaven (November 8). Due to the violent persecution of Christians, at which time their parish priest, St Joseph of Damascus (July 10) and his companions were martyred, the Hawaweeny family was forced to flee to Beirut for their safety. It was here that the future saint first saw the light of day, and not in the city of his parents. Indeed, as the child’s life unfolded, it was evident that he would have no continuing city in this world, but would seek the city which is to come (Heb 13:14).

On the Feast of Theophany in 1861, he was baptized with the name Rafla, and later that spring the family was able to return to Damascus. The child attended elementary school, where he did very well, but in 1874 it appeared that Michael Hawaweeny would no longer be able to afford his son’s tuition. Fortunately, help came from Deacon Athanasios Atallah (later Metropolitan of Homs), who recommended to Patriarch Hierotheos of Antioch that Rafla be accepted as a student of the Patriarchate in preparation for the priesthood.

He was such a good student that he was selected to be a substitute teaching assistant in 1877. The following year he was appointed as a teacher of Arabic and Turkish. On March 28, 1879 he was tonsured as a monk by Patriarch Hierotheos, and served as His Beatitude’s personal attendant.

Since the Balamand Seminary had been closed in 1840, Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople invited the Patriarch of Antioch to send at least one deserving student to study on scholarship at the School of Theology at Halki, and Saint Raphael was the one who was selected to go.

On December 8, 1885 he was ordained to the diaconate at the school chapel. In July of 1886 the young deacon received his Certificate of T heology, and returned to his homeland in the hope of serving the Church there. Patriarch Gerasimos of Antioch was impressed with Deacon Raphael, and often took him along on his pastoral visitations of his parishes. When His Beatitude could not be present, Deacon Raphael was asked to preach the Word of God to the people.

Deacon Raphael was not satisfied with the extent of his knowledge, and thirsted to learn even more. This did not stem from personal pride or ambition, but came from his fervent desire to benefit others. Truly, the words of King Solomon could be applied to Saint Raphael: “Give an opportunity to a wise man, and he will be wiser; instruct a just man, and he will receive more instruction” (Proverbs 9:9). Therefore, he asked Patriarch Gerasimos to permit him to do graduate studies at a school in Russia, promising to return and serve as the Patriarch’s Russian-language secretary. The Patriarch gave his blessing, and Deacon Raphael was accepted as a student at the Theological Academy of Kiev. In 1889 Patriarch Gerasimos ordered the young deacon to take over as head of the Antiochian representation church in Moscow. He was ordained to the holy priesthood by Bishop Sylvester, the rector of the Academy, at the request of Patriarch Gerasimos. A month later, he was raised to the rank of archimandrite by Metropolitan Ioannikiy of Moscow, and was confirmed as head of the Antiochian representation church. After two years, Archimandrite Raphael was able to reduce the representation’s 65,000 ruble debt by 15,000 rubles. He also arranged for twenty-four Syrian students to come to Russia to further their education, hoping that they would return to Syria and teach others.

When Patriarch Gerasimos resigned in order to accept the See of Jerusalem, Archimandrite RAPHAEL regarded this as an opportunity to free the Church of Antioch from its domination by foreign hierarchs. Burning with love for the Church of Antioch, and wishing to restore the administration of the church to its own native clergy and people, Archimandrite Raphael began a campaign of writing letters to some Antiochian bishops and influential laymen. He also wrote articles in the Russian press, drawing attention to the plight of Antioch. His courageous efforts did not meet with success, however, and there was a price to pay for his outspoken criticism. In November of 1891 Metropolitan Spyridon, a Greek Cypriot, was elected as Patriarch of Antioch. Many Arabs believed that he had purchased the election by distributing 10,000 lira to several notable people in Damascus. Archimandrite Raphael refused to commemorate the new Patriarch during services at the representation church. As a result, he was suspended from his priestly functions by Patriarch Spyridon. Saint Raphael accepted his suspension, but continued to write articles in Russian newspapers in defense of the Antiochian cause. The Patriarchs of Antioch, Constantinople, Alexandria, and Jerusalem successfully petitioned the Tsar to forbid Russian newspapers from publishing his articles. With this door closed to him, Saint Raphael began to publish his writings in book form. Eventually, Patriarch Spyridon wrote to the Assistant Overprocurator of Russia, a friend of Saint Raphael’s, asking him to persuade Father Raphael to ask for the Patriarch’s forgiveness. He did so, and the suspension was lifted. Saint Raphael was allowed to transfer from the jurisdiction of Antioch to the Church of Russia, and to remain there. He went to Kazan, taking a position as instructor in Arabic studies at the theological academy. He remained there until 1895 when he was invited by the Syrian Orthodox Benevolent Society of New York to come to that city to be the pastor of the Arab Orthodox community.

When the holy Apostle Paul had a vision of a man entreating him to come to Macedonia to help them (Acts 16:10), he set off on a great missionary journey. When Saint Raphael heard of the needs of his countrymen who were scattered in a strange land, he crossed the ocean to labor in yet another foreign country.

Archimandrite Raphael arrived in New York on November 2, 1895, and was welcomed by a delegation of Arab Christians who were awaiting their leader from Russia. On November 5, his first Sunday in America, he assisted Bishop Nicholas in serving the Divine Liturgy at the Russian church in New York city. Less than two weeks after his arrival, Archimandrite Raphael found a suitable place in lower Manhattan to set up a chapel, and furnished it with ecclesiastical items that he had brought with him from Russia. Bishop Nicholas blessed the new chapel, which was dedicated to St Nicholas of Myra.

This zealous pastor remained in New York teaching, preaching, and celebrating the divine services for his parishioners. It was not long, however, before he heard of smaller communities of Arab Christians scattered throughout the length and breadth of North America. Since these Arab immigrants had no pastor to care for them, it was not surprising that some should turn to other denominations, or completely neglect their religious duties. This was an ongoing concern for Saint Raphael throughout the course of his ministry. Although he was not opposed to dialogue with non-Orthodox Christians, nor to friendly relations based on shared beliefs, Saint Raphael never lost sight of the clear line of distinction that exists between the Orthodox and the heterodox. He always insisted that any church unity must be based on the teachings of the seven Ecumenical Councils.

The Orthodoxy of Saint Raphael’s life and teaching was demonstrated over and over again by his words and his actions. He always upheld and defended the spotless Faith which was “delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Although at first he did not understand the teachings of the heterodox, he later discovered how far removed they were from Orthodox doctrine. When he realized this, he took steps to protect his flock from harmful influences. He directed his people not to attend heterodox services lest they become confused by “divers and strange doctrines” (Heb 13:9). He believed it would be preferable for the head of the household to read the Hours at home from the Service Book when it was not possible to attend an Orthodox church.

In the summer of 1896, Saint Raphael undertook the first of several pastoral journeys across the continent. He visited thirty cities between New York and San Francisco, seeking out the Master’s lost sheep in cities, towns, and on isolated farms. He fed the spiritually hungry people with the Word of God in each place where he stopped. He performed marriages, baptisms, heard confessions, and celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the homes of the faithful where there was no church building. In other words, he zealously fulfilled his ministry as a preacher of the Gospel, enduring many hardships and afflictions, and he was watchful in all things concerning the care of his flock (2 Tim 4:5).

In 1898, with the blessing of Bishop Nicholas, Saint Raphael produced his first book in the New World — an Arabic language Service Book called The Book of True Consolation in the Divine Prayers. This book of liturgical services and prayers was very useful to priests in celebrating the divine services, and also to the people in their personal prayer life. The English version published by Archimandrite Seraphim Nassar is still being used today.

Between May-November 1898, Saint Raphael set off on his second pastoral tour. During this trip he became convinced of the need for Arabic-speaking priests to serve in the new churches he had established. When he returned to New York, he made a report to Bishop Nicholas expressing these concerns. With Bishop Nicholas’s blessing Saint Raphael was able to bring qualified priests from Syria. He also sought out educated laymen whom he could recommend for ordination. Both as an archimandrite and later as bishop, Saint Raphael would appoint pastors only after obtaining the blessing of the Russian hierarch who headed the American Mission. This was the normal state of affairs in America at the time.

Archimandrite Raphael welcomed Bishop Tikhon when the latter replaced Bishop Nicholas as the ruling bishop in America. On December 15, Saint Tikhon came to serve the Liturgy at the Syrian church of St. Nicholas. Raphael told his people that their new Archpastor was one who “has been sent here to tend the flock of Christ — Russians, Slavs, Syro-Arabs, and Greeks — which is scattered across the entire North American continent.” At that time, of course, there were no parallel jurisdictions based on nationality. The Church united those of diverse backgrounds under the omophorion of the Russian Archbishop. This was the norm until the Russian Revolution disrupted church life in Russia, and also in America.

In March of 1899, Saint Raphael received permission from Bishop Tikhon to start collecting funds for a cemetery, and for building a new church to replace the chapel which was located in an old building on a dirty street. In the spring he left on another pastoral tour of forty-three cities and towns. Traveling by land and sea, and undeterred by the obstacles and difficulties before him, he spent seven months in the northeastern, southern, and midwestern regions of the United States. Saint Raphael ministered to Greeks and Russians as well as Arabs, performing weddings and baptisms, and regularizing the weddings of Orthodox people who had been married by non-Orthodox clergy. He also chrismated some children who had been baptized by Catholic priests. In Johnstown, PA he reconciled those whose personal enmity threatened to divide the Arabic community. Although civil courts had been unable to make peace, Saint Raphael restored calm and put an end to the bitter feud. While in Johnstown, he received a telegram informing him that Metropolitan Meletios (Doumani), had been elected Patriarch of Antioch. With great joy St. Raphael told his people that for the first time in 168 years, a native Arab had been chosen as primate of the Antiochian Church.

After the new Patriarch had been installed, Archimandrite Raphael was proposed to succeed Meletios as Metropolitan of Latakia. The Patriarch, however, stated that the Holy Synod could not elect Father Raphael because of his important work in America. In 1901, Metropolitan Gabriel of Beirut wrote to Archimandrite Raphael asking him to be his auxiliary bishop, but he declined, saying that he could not leave his American flock. First, he wanted to build a permanent church, and to acquire a parish cemetery. The latter goal was achieved in August of 1901 when Father Raphael purchased a section of Mt Olivet cemetery on Long Island.

In December of 1901 Archimandrite Raphael was elected as Bishop of Zahleh. Patriarch Meletios sent a telegram congratulating him and asking him to return. Father Raphael thanked the Patriarch, but again declined higher office. He said that he wished to complete the project of building a temple for the Syrian community in New York. The following year, he bought an existing church building on Pacific St in Brooklyn, and had it remodeled for Orthodox worship. Bishop Tikhon consecrated the church to the great joy of the faithful in attendance. Thus, Saint Raphael’s second major project was finished.

Since the number of parishes within the Diocese of North America was growing, Bishop Tikhon found it impossible to visit all of them. The diocese had to be reorganized in order to administer it more efficiently. Therefore, Bishop Tikhon submitted a plan to the Russian Holy Synod which would transfer the See from San Francisco to New York because most parishes and individuals were concentrated in the east. Since various ethnic groups required special attention and pastoral leadership, Bishop Tikhon proposed that Archimandrite Raphael be made his second vicar bishop (the Bishop of Alaska would be his first).

In 1903, the Holy Synod of Russia unanimously elected Archimandrite Raphael to be the Bishop of Brooklyn while retaining him as head of the Syro-Arab Orthodox Mission in North America. The Holy Synod announced the election to Patriarch Meletios, who was pleased by their decision. Bishop Tikhon wrote to Saint Raphael to inform him of his election, and Father Raphael sent him a letter of acceptance. Meanwhile, Fr Innocent Pustynsky was consecrated as Tikhon’s first auxiliary bishop at St Petersburg’s cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan.

On the third Sunday of Lent in 1904, Saint Raphael became the first Orthodox bishop to be consecrated on American soil. Bishop Tikhon and Bishop Innocent performed the service at St Nicholas Cathedral in Brooklyn. The new bishop’s vestments were a gift from Tsar Nicholas II. Following his consecration, Bishop Raphael continued his pastoral labors, ordaining priests and assigning them to parishes, and helping Bishop Tikhon in the administration of the diocese.

At the end of 1904, Bishop Raphael announced his intention to publish a magazine called Al-Kalimat (The Word) as the official publication of the Syro-Arab mission. This would help to link the people and parishes of his diocese more closely together. Bishop Raphael knew that he could not visit all Orthodox Christians across North America in person, but through the ministry of the printed word, he could preach the word of salvation even to people he would never meet. The content was to be spiritual, moral, and churchly so that the magazine could reinforce people in their Faith. The Word would focus on five primary topics: dogmatic truths, ethical teaching, historical and contemporary ecclesiastical subjects, a chronicle of baptisms, weddings, etc., and official pronouncements. The first issue was printed in January 1905, and Saint Raphael considered this milestone as one equal in importance to the acquisition of St Nicholas Cathedral and the parish cemetery.

In July of 1905 Bishop Raphael consecrated the grounds for St Tikhon’s Monastery and blessed the orphanage at South Canaan, PA. Three days later, he presided at a conference of diocesan clergy at Old Forge, PA, because Archbishop Tikhon was in San Francisco. Among the clergy in attendance were three who would also be numbered among the saints: Fr Alexis Toth, Fr Alexander Hotovitzky, and Fr John Kochurov (the last two would die as martyrs in Russia).

For the next ten years Bishop Raphael tended his growing flock. With the growth of his New York community came an increase in the number of children, and he was concerned about their future. He wanted to establish an evening school to educate them in a Christian atmosphere, because the future of the Church in this country depended upon the instruction of the youth. Children who did not speak Arabic were already going to non-Orthodox churches where Sunday school classes were conducted in English. Bishop Raphael saw the absolute necessity for using English in worship and in education for the future progress of the Syro-Arab Mission.

Taking heed of St Paul’s words to pray in a language that people understood (1 Cor 14:15-19), St Raphael recommended the use of the Service Book of the Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church (translated by Isabel Hapgood) in all of his parishes.

In March of 1907 Saint Tikhon returned to Russia and was replaced by Archbishop PLATON. Once again St Raphael was considered for episcopal office in Syria, being nominated to succeed Patriarch Gregory as Metropolitan of Tripoli in 1908. The Holy Synod of Antioch removed Bishop Raphael’s name from the list of candidates, citing various canons which forbid a bishop being transferred from one city to another.

On the Sunday of Orthodoxy in 1911, Bishop Raphael was honored for his fifteen years of pastoral ministry in America. Archbishop Platon presented him with a silver-covered icon of Christ and praised him for his work. In his humility, Bishop Raphael could not understand why he should be honored merely for doing his duty (Lk 17:10). He considered himself an “unworthy servant,” yet he did perfectly the work that fell to him (St Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians).

Toward the end of 1912, Bishop Raphael became ill while working in his office. Doctors diagnosed him with a heart ailment that eventually caused his death. After two weeks he felt strong enough to celebrate the Liturgy in his cathedral.

In 1913-1914 this missionary bishop continued to make pastoral visitations to various cities. In 1915 he fell ill again and spent two months at home, bearing his illness with patience. At 12:40 AM on February 14/27 he rested from his labors. They called him, but he did not answer. They shook him, but he was gone.

From his youth, Saint Raphael’s greatest joy was to serve the Church. When he came to America, he found his people scattered abroad, and he called them to unity. He never neglected his flock, but traveled throughout America, Canada, and Mexico in search of them so that he might care for them. He kept them from straying into strange pastures, and he protected them from spiritual harm. During twenty years of faithful ministry he nurtured them and helped them to grow. At the time of his death, the Syro-Arab Mission had thirty parishes with 25,000 faithful.

He was also a scholar, and the author of several books. He wrote many, if not most, of the articles that appeared in The Word. He served his own Arabic community, and also reached out to Greeks and Russians, speaking to them in their own language. He became fluent in English, and encouraged its use in church services and educational programs.

St. Raphael came into contact with all sorts of people, and was a gentle father to them. He gained their love and respect by first loving them, and also through his charming personality and excellent character. He was always kind, merciful, and condescending with others, but was strict with himself. He accomplished many good things during his earthly life, and now he joins the holy angels in offering ceaseless prayer and praise to God.

Through the prayers of the holy Bishop Raphael, may we also be made worthy of the heavenly Kingdom. Amen.

 Source

St. John the Forerunner

Text from website of Orthodox Church in America for the Feast of the Synaxis of the Forerunner, January 7:

In the Orthodox Church it is customary, on the day following the Great Feasts of the Lord and the Mother of God, to remember those saints who participated directly in the sacred event. So, on the day following the Theophany of the Lord, the Church honors the one who participated directly in the Baptism of Christ, placing his own hand upon the head of the Savior.St John, the holy Forerunner and Baptist of the Lord, whom the Lord called the greatest of the prophets, concludes the history of the Old Testament and opens the era of the New Testament. The holy Prophet John bore witness to the Only-Begotten Son of God, incarnate in the flesh. St John was accounted worthy to baptize Him in the waters of the Jordan, and he was a witness of the Theophany of the Most Holy Trinity on the day of the Savior’s Baptism.The holy Prophet John was related to the Lord on His mother’s side, the son of the Priest Zachariah and Righteous Elizabeth. The holy Forerunner, John, was born six months before Christ. The Archangel Gabriel announced his birth in the Temple at Jerusalem, revealing to Zachariah that a son was to be born to him.

Through the prayers offered beforehand, the child was filled with the Holy Spirit. St John prepared himself in the wilds of the desert for his great service by a strict life, by fasting, prayer and sympathy for the fate of God’s people.

At the age of thirty, he came forth preaching repentance. He appeared on the banks of the Jordan, to prepare the people by his preaching to accept the Savior of the world. In church hymnology, St John is called a “bright morning star,” whose gleaming outshone the brilliance of all the other stars, announcing the coming dawn of the day of grace, illumined with the light of the spiritual Sun, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Having baptized the sinless Lamb of God, St John soon died a martyr’s death, beheaded by the sword on orders of King Herod at the request of his daughter Salome. (On St John the Baptist, see Mt.3:1-16, 11:1-19, 14:1-12; Mark 1:2-8, 6:14-29; Luke 1:5-25, 39-80, 3:1-20, 7:18-35, 9:7-9; John 1:19-34, 3:22-26). The Transfer of the Right Hand of the holy Forerunner from Antioch to Constantinople (956) and the Miracle of Saint John the Forerunner against the Hagarenes (Moslems) at Chios:

The body of Saint John the Baptist was buried in the Samaritan city of Sebaste. The holy Evangelist Luke,who went preaching Christ in various cities and towns, came to Sebaste, where they gave him the right hand of the holy Prophet John, the very hand with which he had baptized the Savior. The Evangelist Luke took it with him to his native city of Antioch.

When the Moslems seized Antioch centuries later, a deacon named Job brought the holy hand of the Forerunner from Antioch to Chalcedon. From there, on the eve of the Theophany of the Lord, it was transferred to Constantinople (956) and kept thereafter.

In the year 1200, the Russian pilgrim Dobrynya, who later became St Anthony, Archbishop of Novgorod (February 10), saw the right hand of the Forerunner in the imperial palace. From the Lives of the Saints we learn that in the year 1263, during the capture of Constantinople by the Crusaders, the emperor Baldwin gave one bone from the wrist of St John the Baptist to Ottonus de Cichon, who then gave it to a Cistercian abbey in France.

The right hand continued to be kept in Constantinople. And at the end of the fourteenth to the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, the holy relic was seen at Constantinople in the Peribleptos monastery by the Russian pilgrims Stephen of Novgorod, the deacon Ignatius, the cantor Alexander and the deacon Zosimus. When Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, sacred objects were gathered up at the the conqueror’s orders and kept under lock in the imperial treasury.

In the Lives of the Saints is clear testimony that in the year 1484 the right hand of the holy Forerunner was given away by the son of the Moslem sultan Bayazet to the knights of Rhodes to gain their good will, since a dangerous rival for Bayazet, his own brother, had allied himself with them. A contemporary participant, the vice-chancellor of Rhodes, Wilhelm Gaorsan Gallo, also speaks of this event. The knights of Rhodes, having established their base on the island of Malta (in the Mediterranean Sea), then transferred the sacred relic they had received to Malta.

When the Russian Tsar Paul I (1796-1801) became Grand Master of the Maltese Order in honor of the holy Prophet John, the right hand of the Baptist, part of the Life-Creating Cross and the Philermos Icon (October 12) of the Mother of God (from Mt Philermos on the island of Rhodes) were transferred in 1799 from the island of Malta to Russia [because of the Napoleonic threat], to the chapel at Gatchina (October 12). In the same year these sacred items were transferred into the church dedicated to the Icon of the Savior Not Made by Hands at the Winter Palace. A special service was composed for this Feast.

Besides the Synaxis of the honorable, glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates his memory on the following days: September 23, his Conception; June 24, his Nativity; August 29, his Beheading; February 24, the First and Second Finding of his Head; May 25, the Third Finding of his Head; October 12, the Transfer of his Right Hand from Malta to Gatchina (1799).    Source ]]> http://www.orthodoxarkansas.com/2010/11/16/st-john-the-forerunner-baptist/feed/ 0 http://www.orthodoxarkansas.com/2010/11/16/st-gabriel-the-archangel/ http://www.orthodoxarkansas.com/2010/11/16/st-gabriel-the-archangel/#comments Wed, 17 Nov 2010 04:10:09 +0000 Holy Trinity Orthodox Church http://www.orthodoxarkansas.com/?p=266

Archangel Gabriel

Text from website of Orthodox Church in America for the Feast of the Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel:

The Archangel Gabriel was chosen by the Lord to announce to the Virgin Mary about the Incarnation of the Son of God from her, to the great rejoicing of all mankind. Therefore, on the day after the Feast of the Annunciation, the day on which the All-Pure Virgin is glorified, we give thanks to the Lord and we venerate His messenger Gabriel, who contributed to the mystery of our salvation.

Gabriel, the holy Archistrategos (Leader of the Heavenly Hosts), is a faithful servant of the Almighty God. He announced the future Incarnation of the Son of God to those of the Old Testament; he inspired the Prophet Moses to write the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old Testament), he announced the coming tribulations of the Chosen People to the Prophet Daniel (Dan. 8:16, 9:21-24); he appeared to St Anna (July 25) with the news that she would give birth to the Virgin Mary.

The holy Archangel Gabriel remained with the Holy Virgin Mary when She was a child in the Temple of Jerusalem, and watched over Her throughout Her earthly life. He appeared to the Priest Zachariah, foretelling the birth of the Forerunner of the Lord, St John the Baptist.

The Lord sent him to St Joseph the Betrothed in a dream, to reveal to him the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God from the All-Pure Virgin Mary, and warned him of the wicked intentions of Herod, ordering him to flee into Egypt with the divine Infant and His Mother.

When the Lord prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before His Passion, the Archangel Gabriel, whose very name signifies “Man of God” (Luke. 22:43), was sent from Heaven to strengthen Him.

The Myrrh-Bearing Women heard from the Archangel the joyous news of Christ’s Resurrection (Mt.28:1-7, Mark 16:1-8).

Mindful of the manifold appearances of the holy Archangel Gabriel and of his zealous fulfilling of God’s will, and confessing his intercession for Christians before the Lord, the Orthodox Church calls upon its children to pray to the great Archangel with faith and love.

Source

Archangel Michael

The Archangel Michael is one of the most celebrated of the bodiless powers created by God, who are usually collectively known as angels, and is called their “chief commander.” According to the testimony of Holy Scripture and the Tradition of the Church, he has interceded for humanity multiple times and continues to serve as the Defender of the Faith. St Michael is most often invoked for protection from invasion by enemies and from civil war, and for the defeat of adversaries on the field of battle. He is commemorated on November 8, the Synaxis of Michael and all the Bodiless Powers of Heaven, and on September 6, which marks the miracle of the Archangel Michael at Colossae.

The name Michael means “who is like God,” which in Talmudic Jewish tradition is a rhetorical question:  “Who is like God?”  No one is like God, of course, and the question is understood as both an indicator of Michael’s humility and of his challenge to the pride of the fallen angel, Satan.

Michael first appears in the Old Testament in the book of Joshua’s account of the fall of Jericho. Though Michael is not mentioned by name in the text, it is said that Joshua “looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand.” When the still unaware Joshua asks which side of the fight the Archangel is on, Michael responds, “neither…but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come” (Joshua 5:13-14).

In the book of Daniel, Michael appears first to help the Archangel Gabriel defeat the Persians (10:13). In a later vision it is reveals to Daniel that Michael will be involved in the battles and distress of the “end times.” (Ch. 12). Michael thus plays an important role as the protector of Israel and later of the New Israel, the Church.

Now in the time of the Church, the holy Archangel Michael has shown his power a number of times.  For instance, he miraculously saved a young man who had been cast into the sea by robbers with a stone about his neck on the shores of Mt Athos. This story is found in the Athonite Paterikon.  Perhaps his most famous miracle, though, is the salvation of the church at Colossae. Here a number of pagans tried to destroy this church by diverting the flow of two rivers directly into its path. However, the Archangel appeared amongst the waters, and, carrying a cross, channeled the rivers underground so that the ground the church stood on would not be destroyed. The spring which came forth after this event is has been the source of miraculous healings.

Michael is believed to have intervened in assorted battles, and appeared, sword in hand, over the mausoleum of Hadrian, in apparent answer to the prayers of Pope St. Gregory I the Great (r. 590-604) that a plague afflicting the city of Rome should cease.

Russians in particular have a special veneration to Michael, along with the Theotokos. According to the website of the Orthodox Church in America, “Intercession for Russian cities by the Most Holy Queen of Heaven always involved her appearances with the Heavenly Hosts, under the leadership of the Archangel Michael. Grateful Rus acclaimed the Most Pure Mother of God and the Archangel Michael in church hymns. Many monasteries, cathedrals, court and merchant churches are dedicated to the Chief Commander Michael. In Rus there was not a city where there was not a church or chapel dedicated to the Archangel Michael.”

In iconography, St. Michael is most often represented as the Chief Commander of the Heavenly Hosts, holding sword in one hand while in the other he often carries either a shield, a date-tree branch, a spear, or a white banner (possibly with a scarlet cross). Some icons of the Archangel Michael (or the Archangel Gabriel) show the angel holding an orb in one hand and a staff in the other.

Michael is also represented in icons as standing on a prone body and with his left arm held high, holding a small image of a “baby”. The body represents a human being at the time of his death and the image of the “baby” represents the soul of the deceased. This particular imagery comes from the traditional understanding in both Judaism and Christian of St. Michael’s role of protection, together with the individual’s Guardian Angel, of the soul of the departed at the time of death.

In Russian iconography he is most likely to be wearing red. Often he tramples Satan under his feet, the latter usually depicted as a dragon. This comes from the tradition that Michael was the main opponent of Satan in the battle for Heaven.

Adapted from several sources by Fr. Joseph, but primarily from Orthodwiki.

St. Andrei Rublev holding Trinity Icon

St. Andrei Rublev wrote and proclaimed the Gospel with paints rather than with words — he was an iconographer (a person who writes/paints icons). His icons have been regarded for almost 600 years as so perfectly shining forth the divine splendor and radiance, joy and love—witnesses to the truth of Orthodoxy—that other iconographers have been directed to use his icons as models. He worked with the best iconographers of his day, painting some of the most important churches in northern Russia. Through his most famous icon, the Holy Trinity, he has eloquently preached a beautiful sermon about the nature of the Holy Trinity. St. Andrei is frequently depicted holding this Holy Trinity icon (as he is in both of the icons of him shown here). The Orthodox Church teaches that the divine Word and Light can be proclaimed just as powerfully in written-in-paint icons, as in written-in-ink words. “We proclaim our salvation in words and images [icons],” we sing in the Kontakion for Orthodoxy Sunday.

How do iconographers fulfill such a high calling—to let God speak to people through their icons? It is by working together with divine grace, and by living a holy, pure and simple life. And how does one live a holy life? Most of the saints, including St. Andrei, lived to serve God above all else, and worked hard to overcome their self-centeredness (that gets in the way of God speaking through them) by strict fasting, abstinence, prayer, frequent reception of the Holy Mysteries, helping the needy, and by cultivating the spiritual attitudes of humility, patience, joy, peace and love. Sometimes, as with St. Andrei, the Holy Spirit leads persons to express great love for God and His creation by becoming monks. St. Andrei further expressed his love of Divine Beauty in his painting/writing of icons, through which God still speaks loudly and clearly to people today.

St. Andrei was born near Moscow, and as a youth, knew St. Sergius of Radonezh, who had founded the Monastery of the Holy Trinity about 45 miles from Moscow. It was at this monastery, now known as the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra, in the city of Sergiev Posad, where St. Andrei became a monk, and where he has long been venerated as a saint. He painted his Holy Trinity icon for the Holy Trinity Church there, where St. Sergius’ tomb still is today. St. Andrei also lived, worked and is buried at the Savior-Andronikov Monastery in Moscow. Those who knew St. Andrei testify to his strict ascetic and holy life and his great love for all. God granted him to have visions and contemplate the immaterial Divine Light. After his repose, he appeared in a vision, clothed in radiant garments, to his friend and fellow monk-iconographer, Daniel Chornii. Although many have testified to his sanctity, the greatest testimonies are his icons themselves. None but a true saint could have produced such marvels of beauty and truth.

St. Andrei’s relics are buried beneath the floor of the Savior Cathedral of the Andronikov Monatery in Moscow, where the blessed one was living and working at the time of his repose, and have yet to be unearthed.  Although he had painted the entire interior of the Savior Cathedral, nothing whatsoever remains of these fresco icons.   Probably what saved the Andronikov Monastery from total destruction during the Soviet era was its establishment as the site of the Andrei Rublev Museum of icons.   Although many of its icons have been moved to the Tretyakov Gallery, many beautiful icons still remain here.  The Savior Cathedral was returned to the Church and reopened in May, 1991, and the monastery itself has finally been returned to the Church and re-opened as well.

Source with slight adaptations by Fr. Joseph.

St. Herman of Alaska

HERMAN’S LIFE BEFORE VALAAM

A spiritual mission was organized in 1793 from the monks of the Valaam Monastery. It was sent to preach the Word of God to the native inhabitants of northwestern America, who but ten years before had begun to come under the sovereignty of Russia. The Monk Herman was among the members of this Mission.

The Monk Herman came from a family of merchants of Serpukhov, a city of the Moscow Diocese. His name before he was tonsured, and his family name are not known. (The monastic name is given when a monk takes his vows). He had a great zeal for piety from youth, and at sixteen he entered monastic life. (This was in 1772, if we assume that Herman was born in 1756, although sometimes 1760 is given as the date of his birth.) First he entered the Trinity-Sergius Hermitage which was located near the Gulf of Finland on the Peterhof Road, about 15 versts (about 10 miles) from St. Petersburg.

MIRACULOUS HEALING OF HERMAN

At the St Sergius Hermitage there occurred the following incident to Father Herman. On the right side of his throat under his chin there appeared an abcess. The swelling grew rapidly, disfiguring his face. It became difficult for him to swallow, and the odor was unbearable. In this critical condition Father Herman awaited death. He did not appeal to a physician of this world, but locking his cell he fell before an lcon of the Queen of Heaven. With fervent tears he prayed, asking of Her that he might be healed. He prayed the whole night. Then he took a wet towel and with it wiped the face of the Most Holy Mother, and with this towel he covered the swelling. He continued to pray with tears until he fell asleep from sheer exhaustion on the floor. In a dream he saw the Virgin Mary healing him.

When Herman awoke in the morning, he found to his great surprise that he was fully healed. The swelling had disappeared, even though the abscess had not broken through, leaving behind but a small mark as though a reminder of the miracle. Physicians to whom this healing was described did not believe it, arguing that it was necessary for the abscess to have either broken through of its own accord or to have been cut open. But the words of the physicians were the words of human experience, for where the grace of God operates there the order of nature is overcome. Such occurrences humble human reason under the strong hand of God’s Mercy.

HERMAN’S LIFE AT VALAAM

For five or six years Father Herman continued to live in the St Sergius Hermitage, and then he transferred to the Valaam Monastery, which was widely scattered on the large islands in the waters of the great Lake Ladoga. He came to love the Valaam haven with all his soul, as he came to love its unforgettable Superior, the pious Elder Nazary, and all the brethren. He wrote to Father Nazary later from America, “Your fatherly goodness to me, humble one, will be erased out of my heart neither by the terrible, unpassable Siberian lands, nor by the dark forests. Nor will it be wiped out by the swift flow of the great rivers; nor will the awful ocean quench these feelings. In my mind I imagine my beloved Valaam, looking to it beyond the great ocean.” He praised the Elder Nazary in his letters as,”the most reverend, and my beloved father.” (Batushka) and the brethren of Valaam he called, “my beloved and dearest.” The place where he lived in America, deserted Spruce Island, he called “Now Valaam.” And as we can see, he always remained in spiritual contact with his spiritual homeland’, for as late as 1823, that is after thirty years of his life within the borders of America, he wrote letters to the successor of Father Nazary, the lgumen Innocent.

Father Varlaam, later lgumen of Valaam, and a contemporary of Father Herman, who accepted his tonsure from Father Nazary, wrote thus of the life of Father Herman.

“Father Herman went through the various obediences here, and being ‘well disposed toward every thing’ was in the course of events sent to Serdobol to oversee there the work of quarrying marble. The Brothers loved Father Herman, and awaited impatiently his return to the cloisters from Serdobol. Recognizing the zeal of the young hermit the wise elder, Father Nazary, released him to take abode in the wilderness. This wilderness was in the deep forest about a mile from the cloister: to this day this place has retained the name ‘Herman’s.’ On holy days, Father Herman returned to the monastery from the wilderness. Then it was that at Little Vespers he would stand in the choir and sing in his pleasant tenor the responses with the brethren from the Canon, ‘O Sweetest Jesus, save us sinners. Most Holy Theotokos, Save us,’ and tears would fall like hail from his eyes.”

THE FIRST MISSION TO AMERICA

In the second half of the 18th century the borders of Holy Russia expanded to the north. In those years Russian merchants discovered the Aleutian Islands which formed in the Pacific Ocean a chain from the eastern shares of Kamchatka to the western shares of North America. With the opening of these islands there was revealed the sacred necessity to illumine with the light of the Gospel the native inhabitants. With the blessing of the Holy Synod, Metropolitan Gabriel gave to the eider Nazary the task of selecting capable persons from the brethern of Valaam for this holy endeavor. Ten men were selected, and among them was Father Herman. The chosen men left Valaam for the place of their great appointment in 1793. (The members of this historical mission were: Archimandrite Joseph (Bolotoff), the Hieromonks, Juvenaly, Makary, Athanasy, Stephan and Nektary, Hierodeacons, Nektary and Stephan, and the Monks Josaph, and Herman.)

As a result of the holy zeal of the preachers the light of the evangelic sermon quickly poured out among the sons of Russia, and several thousand pagans accepted Christianity. A school for the education of newly-baptized children was organized, and a church was built at the place where the missionaries lived. But by the inscrutable providence of God the general progress of the mission was unsatisfactory. After five years of very productive labor, Archimandrite Josaph, who had just been elevated to the rank of bishop, was drowned with his party. (This occurred on the Pacific Ocean been Kamchatka and the Aleutian Islands. The ship, Phoenix, one of the first sea-going ships built in Alaska, sailed from Okhotsk carrying the first Bishop for the American Mission and his party. The Phoenix was caught in one of the many storms which periodically sweep the northern Pacific, and the ship and all hands perished together with Bishop Josaph and his party.) Before this the zealous Hieromonk Juvenaly was granted the martyr’s crown. The others died one after another until in the end only Father Herman remained. The Lord permitted him to labor longer than any of his brethren in the apostolic task of enlightening the Aleutians.

THE NEW VALAAM – SPRUCE ISLAND

In America Father Herman chose as his place of habitation Spruce Island, which he called New Valaam. This island is separted by a strait about a mile and a quarter wide from Kodiak Island on which had been built a wooden monastery for the residence of the members of the mission, and a wooden church dedicated to the Resurrection of the Savior. (New Valaam was named for Valaam on Lake Ladoga, the monastery from which Father Herman came to America. It is interesting to note that Valaam is also located on an island, although, this island is in a fresh water lake, whereas, Spruce Island is on the Pacific Ocean, although near other islands and the Alaskan mainland.)

Spruce Island is not large, and is almost completely covered by a forest. Almost through its middle a small brook flows to the sea. Herman selected this picturesque island for the location of his hermitage. He dug a cave out of the ground with his own hands, and in it he lived his first full summer. For winter there was built for him a cell near the cave, in which he lived until his death. The cave was converted by him into a place for his burial. A wooden chapel, and a wooden house to be used as a schoolhouse and a guest house were built not too distant from his cell. A garden was laid out in front of his cell. For more than forty years Father Herman lived here.

FATHER HERMAN’S WAY OF LIFE

Father Herman himself spaded the garden, planted potatoes and cabbage and various vegetables in it. For winter, he preserved mushrooms, salting or drying them. The salt was obtained by him from ocean water. It is said that a wicker basket in which the Elder carried seaweed from the shore, was so large that it was difficult for one person to carry. The seaweed was used for fertilizing the soil. But to the astonishment of all, Father Herman carried a basket filled with seaweed for a long distance without any help at all. By chance his disciple, Gerasim, saw him one winter night carrying a large log which normally would be carried by four men; and he was bare footed. Thus worked the Elder, and everything that he acquired as a result of his immeasurable labors was used for the feeding and clothing of orphans and also for books for his students.

His clothes were the same for winter as for summer. He did not wear a shirt; instead he wore a smock of deer skin, which he did not take off for several years at a time, nor did he change it, so that the fur in it was completely worn away, and the leather became glossy. Then there were his boots or shoes, cassock (podrasnik), an ancient and faded out cassock (riasa) full of patchwork, and his headdress (klobuk). He went everywhere in these clothes, and at all times; in the rain, in snowstorms, and during the coldest freezing weather. In this, Father Herman followed the example of many Eastern Ascetic Fathers and Monks who showed the greatest concern for the welfare and needs of others. Yet, they themselves wore the oldest possible clothes to show their great humility before God, and their contempt for worldly things.

A small bench covered with a time-worn deerskin served as Father Herman’s bed. He used two bricks for a pillow; these were hidden from visitors by a skin or a shirt. There was no blanket. Instead, he covered himself with a wooden board which lay on the stove. This board Father Herman, himself called his blanket, and he willed that it be used to cover his remains; it was as long as he was tall. “During my stay in the cell of Father Herman,” writes the creole Constantine Larionov, “I, a sinner, sat on his ‘blanket’-and I consider this the acme of my fortune!” (‘creole’ is the name by which the Russians referred to the children of mixed marriages of native Indians of Alaska, Eskimo and Aleuts with Russians.)

On the occasions when Father Herman was the guest of administrators of the American Company and in the course of their soul-saving talks he sat up with them until midnight. He never spent the night with them, but regardless of the weather he always returned to his hermitage. If for some extraordinary reason it was necessary for him to spend the night away from his cell, then in the morning the bed which had been prepared for him would be found untouched; the Elder not having slept at all. The same was true in his hermitage where having spent the night in talks, he never rested.

The Elder ate very little. As a guest, he scarcely tasted the food, and remained without dinner. In his call his dinner consisted of a very small portion of a small fish or some vegetables.

His body, emaciated as a result of his labors, his vigils, and fasting, was crushed by chains which weighed about sixteen pounds. These chains are kept to this day in the chapel.

Telling of these deeds of Father Herman, his disciple, the Aleut Ignaty Aligyaga, added, “Yes, Apa led a very hard life, and no one can imitate his life!” (Apa, Aleutian word means eider or grandfather, and it is a name indicative of the great affection in which he was held).

Our writing of the incidents in the life of the Elder deal, so to speak, with the external aspects of his labor. “His most important works,” says the Bishop Peter, “were his exercises in spiritual endeavor in his isolated cell where no one saw him, but outside the cell they heard him singing and celebrating services to God according to the monastic rule.” This witness of the Bishop is supported by the following answers of Father Herman, himself, “How do you manage to live alone in the forest, Father Herman? Don’t you ever become lonesome?” He answered, “No I am not there alone! God is here, as God is everywhere. The Holy Angels are there. With whom is it better to talk, with people, or with Angels? Most certainly with Angels.”

FATHER HERMAN AND THE NATIVES

The way in which Father Herman looked upon the natives of America, how he understood his own relations with them, and how he was concerned for their needs he expressed himself in one of his letters to the former administrator of the colony, Simeon Yanovsky.

He wrote,

“Our Creator granted to our beloved homeland this land which like a newly-born babe does not yet have the strength for knowledge or understanding. It requires not only protection, because of its infantile weakness and impotence, but also his sustenance. Even for this it does not yet have the ability to make an appeal on its own behalf. And since the welfare of this nation by the Providence of God, it is not known for how long, is dependent on and has been entrusted into the hands of the Russian government which has now been given into your own power, therefore I, the most humble servant of these people, and their nurse (nyanka) stand before you in their behalf, write this petition with tears of blood. Be our Father and our Protector. Certainly we do not know how to be eloquent, so with an inarticulate infant’s tonque we say: Wipe away the tears of the defenseless orphans, cool the hearts melt- ing away in the fire of sorrow. Help us to know what consolation means.”

The Elder acted the way he felt. He always interceded before the governors in behalf of those who had transgressed. He defended those who had been offended. He helped those who were in need with whatever means he had available. The Aleuts, men, women and children, often visited him. Some asked for advice, others complained of oppression, others sought out defense, and still others desired help. Each one received the greatest possible satisfaction from the Elder. He discussed their mutual difficulties, and he tried to settle these peacefully. He was especially concerned about reestablishing understanding in families. If he did not succeed in reconciling a husband and wife, the Elder prevailed upon them to separate temporarily. The need for such a procedure he explained thus, “it is better to let them live apart, or believe me, it can be terrible if they are not separated. There have been incidents when a husband killed his wife, or when a wife destroyed her husband.”

Father Herman especially loved children. He made large quantities of biscuits for them, and he baked cookies (krendelki) for them; and the children were fond of the Elder. Father Herman’s love for the Aleuts reached the point of self-denial.

AN EPIDEMIC STRIKES

A ship from the United States brought to Sitka Island, and from there to Kodiak Island, a contagious disease, a fatal illness. It began with a fever, a heavy cold, and difficult respiration, and it ended with chills; in three days the victim died. On the island there was neither a doctor nor medicine. The illness spread rapidly through the village, and then throughout the nearby areas. The disease affected all, even infants. The fatalities were so great that for three days there was no one to dig graves, and the bodies remained unburied. An eyewitness said, “I cannot imagine anything more tragic and horrible than the sight which struck me when I visited an Aleutian ‘Kazhim’. This was a large building, or barracks, with dividing sections, in which the Aleuts lived with their families; it contained about 100 people. Here some had died, their cold bodies lay near the living; others were dying; there were groans and weeping which tore at one’s soul.”

“I saw mothers over whose bodies cold in death crawled a hungry child, crying and searching in vain for its food…My heart was bursting with compassion! It seemed that if anyone could paint with a worthy brush the full horror of this tragic scene, that he would have successfully aroused fear of death in the most embittered heart.” Father Herman, during this terrible sickness which lasted a whole month, gradually dying out towards the end, visited the sick, never tiring. He admonished them in their fear, prayed, brought them to penance, or prepared them for death. He never spared himself.

FATHER HERMAN AS A SPIRITUAL TEACHER

The Elder was concerned in particular for the moral growth of the Aleuts. With this end in mind a school was built for children-the orphans of the Aleuts. He himself taught them the Law of God and church music. For this same purpose he gathered the Aleuts on Sunday and Holy Days for prayer in the chapel near his cell. Here his disciple read the Hours and the various prayers while the Elder himself read the Epistle and Gospel. He also preached to them. His students sang, and they sang very well. The Aleuts loved to hear his sermons, gathering around him in large numbers. The Elder’s talks were captivating, and his listeners were moved by their wonderous power. He himself writes of one example of the beneficial results of his words.

“Glory to the holy destinies of the Merciful God! He has shown me now through his unfathomable Providence a new occurence which I, who have lived here for twenty years had never seen before on Kodiak. Recently after Easter, a young girl about twenty years of age who knows Russian well, came to me. Having heard of the Incarnation of the Son of God and of Eternal Life, she became so inflamed with love for Jesus Christ that she does not wish to leave me. She pleaded eloquently with me. Contrary to my personal inclination and love for solitude, and despite all the hindrances and difficulties which I put forward before accepting her, she has now been living near the school for a month and is not lonesome.”

“I, looking on this with great wonder, remembered the ‘words of the Savior: that which is hidden from the wise and learned is revealed to babes.” (Matt. 11:25)

This woman lived at the school until the death of the Elder. She watched for the good conduct of the children who studied in his school. Father Herman willed that after his death she was to continue to live on Spruce Island. Her name was Sophia Vlasova.

Yanovsky writes about the character and the eloquence of the talks of the Elder thus:

“When I met Father Herman I was thirty years old. I must say that I was educated in the naval corps school; that I knew many sciences having read extensively. But to my regret, the Science of sciences, that is the Law of God, I barely remembered the externals – and these only theoretically, not applying them to life. I was a Christian in name only, but in my soul and in reality, I was a freethinker. Furthermore, I did not admit the divinity and holiness of our religion, for I had read through many atheistic works. Father Herman recognized this immediately and he desired to reconvert me. To my great surprise he spoke so convincingly, wisely – and he argued with such conviction- that it seemed to me that no learning or worldly wisdom could stand one’s ground before his words. We conversed with him daily until midnight, and even later, of God’s love, of eternity, of the salvation of souls, and of Christian living. From his lips flowed a ceaseless stream of sweet words! By these continual talks and by the prayers of the holy Elder the Lord returned me completely to the way of Truth, and I became a real Christian. I am indebted for all this to Father Herman. He is my true benefactor.”

“Several years ago,” continues Yanovsky, “Father Herman converted a certain naval captain G. to Orthodoxy from the Lutheran Faith. This captain was well educated. Besides many sciences, he was well versed in languages. He knew Russian, English, German, French, Italian and also some Spanish. But for all this he could not resist the convictions and proofs of Father Herman. He changed his faith and was united to the Orthodox Church through Chrismation. When he was leaving America, the Elder said to him while they were parting, “Be on guard, if the Lord should take your wife from you then do not marry a German woman under any circumstance. If you do marry a German woman, undoubtedly she will damage your Orthodoxy.” The Captain gave his word, but he failed to keep it. The warning of the Elder was prophetic. Indeed, after several years the Captain’s wife did die, and he married a German woman. There is no doubt that his faith weakened or that he left it; for he died suddenly without penance.”

Further on Yanovsky writes, “Once the Elder was invited aboard a frigate which came from St. Petersburg. The Captain of the frigate was a highly educated man, who had been sent to America by order of the Emperor to make an inspection of all the colonies. There were more than twenty-five officers with the Captain, and they also were educated men. In the company of this group sat a monk of a hermitage, small in stature and wearing very old clothes. All these educated conversationalists were placed in such a position by his wise talks that they did not know how to answer him. The Captain himself used to say, ‘We were lost for an answer before him.’

“Father Herman gave them all one general question: ‘Gentlemen, What do you love above all, and what will each of you wish for your happiness?’ Various answers were offered … Some desired wealth, others glory, some a beautiful wife, and still others a beautiful ship he would captain; and so forth in the same vein. ‘It is not true,’ Father Herman said to them concerning this, ‘that all your various wishes can bring us to one conclusion – that each of you desires that which in his own understanding he considers the best, and which is most worthy of his love?’ They all answered, ‘Yes, that is so!’ He then continued, ‘Would you not say, Is not that which is best, above all, and surpassing all, and that which by preference is most worthy of love, the Very Lord, our Jesus Christ, who created us, adorned us with such ideals, gave life to all, sustains everything, nurtures and loves all, who is Himself Love and most beautiful of all men? Should we not then love God above every thing, desire Him more than anything, and search Him out?’”

All said, “Why, yes! That’s self-evident!” Then the Elder asked, “But do you love God?” They all answered, “Certainly, we love God. How can we not love God?” “And I a sinner have been trying for more than forty years to love God, I cannot say that I love Him completely,” Father Herman protested to them. He then began to demonstrate to them the way in which we should love God. “if we love someone,” he said, “we always remember them; we try to please them. Day and night our heart is concerned with the subject. Is that the way you gentlemen love God? Do you turn to Him often? Do you always remember Him? Do you always pray to Him and fulfill His holy commandments?” They had to admit that they had not! “For our own good, and for our own fortune,” concluded the Elder, “let us at least promise ourselves that from this very minute we will try to love God more than anything and to fulfill His Holy Will!” Without any doubt this conversation was imprinted in the hearts of the listeners for the rest of their lives.

“in general, Father Herman liked to talk of eternity, of salvation of the future life, of our destinies under God. He often talked on the lives of the Saints, on the Prologue, but he never spoke about anything frivolous. It was so pleasant to hear him that those who conversed with him, the Aleuts and their wives, were so captivated by his talks that often they did not leave him until dawn, and then they left him with reluctance;” thus witnesses the creole, Constantine Larionov.

A DESCRIPTION OF FATHER HERMAN

Yanovsky writes a detailed description of Father Herman. “I have a vivid memory,” he said, “Of all the features of the Elder’s face reflecting goodness; his pleasant smile, his meek and attractive mien, his humble and quiet behavior, and his gracious word. He was short of stature. His face was pale and covered with wrinkles. His eyes were greyish-blue, full of sparkle, and on his head there were a few gray hairs. His voice was not powerful, but it was very pleasant.” Yanovsky relates two incidents from his conversations with the Elder. “Once,” he writes, “I read to Father Herman the ode, ‘God,’ by Derzhavin. The Elder was surprised, and entranced. He asked me to read it again. I read it once more, “Is it possible that a simple, educated man wrote this?” he asked. “Yes, a learned poet,” I answered. “This has been written under God’s inspiration,” said the Elder.

THE MARTYRDOM OF PETER

“On another occasion I was relating to him how the Spanish in California had imprisoned fourteen Aleuts, and how the Jesuits were forcing all of them to accept the Catholic Faith. But this Aleut would not agree under any circumstances, saying, ‘We are Christians.’ The Jesuits protested, ‘That’s not true; you are heretics and schismatics. If you do not agree to accept our faith then we will torture all of you.’ Then the Aleuts were placed in cells until evening; two to a cell. At night the Jesuits came to the prison with lanterns and lighted candles. They began to persuade the Aleuts in the cell once again to accept the Catholic Faith. ‘We are Christians,’ was the answer of the Aleuts, ‘and we will not change our Faith.’ Then the Jesuits began to torture them, at first the one while his companion was the witness. They cut the toes off his feet, first one joint and then the other joint. And then they cut the first joint on the fingers of the hands, and then the other joint. Afterwards they cut off his feet, and his hands; the blood flowed. The martyr endured all and steadfastly insisted on one thing: “I am a Christian.’ In such suffering, he bled to death. The Jesuit promised to torture to death his comrades also on the next day. But that night an order was received from Monterey stating that the imprisoned Aleuts were to be released immediately, and sent there under escort. Therefore, in the morning all were dispatched to Monterey with the exception of the martyred Aleut. This was related to me by a witness, the same Aleut who was the comrade of the tortured Aleut. Afterwards he escaped from imprisonment, and I reported this incident to the supreme authorities in St. Petersburg. When I finished my story, Father Herman asked, ‘And how did they call the martyred Aleut?’ I answered, ‘Peter; I do not remember his family name.’ The Elder stood up before an icon reverently, made the sign of the Cross and pronounced, “Holy newly-martyred Peter, pray to God for us!”

THE SPIRIT OF FATHER HERMAN’S TEACHING

In order to express the spirit of Father Herman’s teaching, we present here a quotation from a letter that was written by his own hand.

“The empty years of these desires separate us from our heavenly homeland, and our Love for these desires and our habits clothe us, as it were, in an odious dress; it is called by the Apostle ‘the external (earthy) man.’ (I Cor. 15:47). We who are wanderers in the journey of this life call to God for aid. We must divest ourselves of this repulsiveness, and put on new desires, and a new love for the coming age. Thus, through this we will know either an attraction or a repulsion for the heavenly homeland. It is possible to do this quickly, but we must follow the example of the sick, who wishing for desired health, do not stop searching for means of curing themselves. But I am not speaking clearly.”

Not desiring anything for himself in life; long ago when he first came to America having refused, because of his humility, the dignity of hiero-monk and archimandrite; and deciding to remain forever a common monk, Father Herman, without the least fear before the, powerful, strove with all sincerity for God. With gentle love, and disregarding the person, he criticized many for intemperate living, for unworthy behalvor, and for oppressing the Aleuts. Evil armed itself against him and gave him all sorts of trouble and sorrow. But God protected the Elder. The Administrator of the Colony, Yanovsky, not having yet seen Father Herman, after receiving one of those complaints, had already written to St. Petersburg of the necessity of his removal. He explained that it seemed that he was arousing the Aleuts against the administration. But this accusation turned out to be unjust, and in the end Yanovsky was numbered among the admirers of Father Herman.

Once an inspector came to Spruce Island with the Administrator of the Colony N. and with company employees to search through Father Herman’s call.

This party expected to find property of great value in Father Herman’s call. But when they found nothing of value, an employee (of the American Company), Ponomarkhov, began to tear up the floor with an axe, undoubtedly with the consent of his seniors. Then Father Herman said to him, “My friend, you have lifted the axe in vain; this weapon shall deprive you of your life.” Some time later people were needed at Fort Nicholas, and for that reason several Russian employees were sent there from Kodiak; among them was Ponomarkhov; there the natives of Kenai cut off his head while he slept.

THE TEMPTATIONS OF FATHER HERMAN

Many great sorrows were borne by Father Herman from evil spirits. He himself revealed this to his disciple, Gerasim. Once when he entered Father Herman’s cell without the usual prayer he received no answer from Father Herman to any of his questions. The next day Gerasim asked him the reason for his silence. On that occasion Father Herman said to him, “When I came to this island and settled in this hermitage the evil spirits approached me ostensibly to be helpful. They came in the form of a man, and in the form of animals. I suffered much from them; from various afflictions and temptations. And that is why I do not speak now to anyone who enters into my presence without prayer.” (It is customary among devout laymen, as well as clergy, to say out loud a prayer, and upon hearing a response ending with Amen, to enter and go to the icon in the room to reverence it, and to say a prayer before greeting the host).

SUPERNATURAL GIFTS FROM GOD

Herman dedicated himself fully for the Lord’s service; he strove with zeal solely for the glorification of His Most Holy Name. Far from his homeland in the midst of a variety of afflictions and privations Father Herman spent several decades performing the noblest deeds of self-sacrifice. He was privileged to receive many supernatural gifts from God.

In the midst of Spruce Island down the hill flows a little stream into the sea. The mouth of this stream was always swept by surf. In the spring when the brook fish appeared the Elder raked away some of the sand at its mouth so that the fish could enter, and at their first appearance they rushed up the stream’. His disciple, Ignaty, said, “it was so that if ‘Apa’ would tell me, I would go and get fish in the streaml” Father Herman fed the birds with dried fish, and they would gather in great numbers around his call. Underneath his cell there lived an ermine. This little animal can not be approached when it has had its young, but the Elder fed it from his own hand. “Was not this a miracle that we had seen?” said his disciple, Ignaty. They also saw Father Herman feeding bears. But when Father Herman died the birds and animals left; even the garden would not give any sort of crops even though someone had willingly taken care of it, Ignaty insisted.

On Spruce Island there once occurred a flood. The inhabitants came to the Elder in great fear. Father Herman then took an icon of the Mother of God from the home where his students lived, and placed it on a “laida” (a sandy bank) and began to pray. After his prayer he turned to those present and said, “Have no fear, the water will not go any higher than the place where this holy icon stands.” The words of the Elder were fullfilled. After this he promised the same aid from this holy icon in the future through the intercessions of the Most Immaculate Queen. He entrusted the icon to his disciple, Sophia; in case of future floods the icon was to be placed on the “laida.”

At the request of the Elder, Baron F. P. Wrangel wrote a letter to a Metropolitan – his name is not known – which was dictated by Father Herman. When the letter was completed and read, the Elder congratulated the Baron upon his attaining the rank of admiral. The Baron was taken aback. This was news to him. It was confirmed, but only after an elapse of some time and just before he departed for St. Petersburg.

Father Herman said to the administrator Kashevarov from whom he accepted his son from the font (during the Sacrament of Baptism), “I am sorry for you my dear ‘kum.’ It’s a shame, the change will be unpleasant for you!” In two years during a change of administration Kashevarov was sent to Sitka in chains.

Once the forest on Spruce Island caught fire. The Elder with his disciple, Ignaty, in a thicket of the forest made a belt about a yard wide in which they turned over the moss. They extended it to the foot of the hill. The Elder said, “Rest assured, the fire will not pass this line.” On the next day according to the testimony of Ignaty there was no hope for salvation (from the fire) and the fire, pushed by a strong wind, reached the place where the moss had been turned over by the Elder. The fire ran over the moss and halted, leaving untouched the thick forest which was beyond the line.

The Elder often said that there would be a bishop for America; this at a time when no one even thought of it, and there was no hope that there would be a bishop for America;this was related by the Bishop Peter and his prophecy was fulfilled in time.

“After my death,” said Father Herman, “there will be an epidemic and many people shall die during it and the Russians shall unite the Aleuts.” And so it happened; it seems that about a half a year after his passing there was a smallpox epidemic; the death rate in America during the epidemic was tremendous. In some villages only a few inhabitants remained alive. This led the administration of the colony to unite the Aleuts; the twelve settlements were consolidated into seven.

“Although a long time shall elapse after my death, I will not be forgotten,” said Father Herman to his disciples. “My place of habitation will not remain empty. A monk like myself who will be escaping from the glory of men, will come and he will live on Spruce Island, and Spruce Island will not be without people.”

(This prophecy has now been fulfilled in its entirety. Just such a monk as Father Herman described lived on Spruce Island for many years; his name was Archimandrite Gerasim, who died on October 13, 1969. This monk took on himself the responsibility of taking care of the Chapel under which at first was buried the Elder Herman. Metropolitan Leonty soon after his elevation to the primacy of the Russian Orthodox Church in America made a pilgrimage to Spruce Island, and the grave of Herman.)

HERMAN’S PROPHECIES FOR THE FUTURE

The creole Constantine, when he was not more than twelve years old, was asked by Father Herman, “My beloved one, what do you think; this chapel which they are now building, will it ever stand empty?” The youngster answered, “I do not know, ‘Apa.” “And indeed,” said Constantine, “I did not understand his question at that time, even though that whole conversation with the Elder remains vivid in my memory.” The Elder remained silent for a short time, and then said, “My child remember, in time in this place there will be a monastery.”

Father Herman said to his disciple the Aleut Ignaty Aiigyaga, “Thirty years shall pass after my death, and all those living on Spruce Island will have died, but you alone will remain alive. You will be old and poor when I will be remembered.” And indeed after the death of Father Herman thirty years passed when they were reminded of him, and they began to gather information and facts about him; on the basis of which was written his life. “It is amazing,” exclaims Ignaty, “how a man like us could know all this so long before it happened! However, no, he was no ordinary man! He knew our thoughts, and involuntarily he led us to the point where we revealed them to him, and we received counsel from him!”

“When I die,” said the Elder to his disciples, “you will bury me alongside Father Joasaph. You will bury me by yourself, for you will not wait for the priest! Do not wash my body. Lay it on a board, clasp my hands over my chest, wrap me in my ‘mantia’ (the monk’s outer cloak), and with its wings cover my face and place the ‘klobuk’ on my head. (The ‘klobuk’ is the monastic head-dress.) If anyone wishes to bid farewell to me, let them kiss the Cross. Do not show my face to anyone . . .”

THE DEATH OF FATHER HERMAN

The time of the Elder’s passing had come. One day he ordered his disciple, Gerasim, to light a candle before the icons, and to read the Acts of the Holy Apostles. After some time his face glowed brightly and he said in a loud voice, “Glory to Thee, 0 Lord!” He then ordered the reading to be halted, and he announced that the Lord had willed that his life would now be spared for another week. A week later again by his orders the candies were lit, and the Acts of the Holy Apostles were read. Quietly the Elder bowed his head on the chest of Gerasim; the cell was filled with a pleasant smelling odor; and his face glowed, and Father Herman was no more! Thus in blessedness he died, he passed away in the sleep of a righteous man in the 81st year of his life of great labor, the 25th day of December, 1837. (According to the Julian Calendar, the 13th of December 1837, although there are some records which state he died on the 28th of November, and was buried on the 26th of December).

Those sent with the sad news to the harbor returned to announce that the administrator of the colony Kashevarov had forbidden the burial of the Elder until his own arrival. He also ordered that a finer coffin be made for Father Herman, and that he would come as soon as possible and would bring a priest with him. But then a great wind came up, a rain fell, and a terrible storm broke. The distance from the Harbor to Spruce Island is not great – about a two hour journey – but no one would agree to go to sea in such weather. Thus it continued for a full month and although the body lay in state for a full month in the warm house of his students, his face did not undergo any change at all, and not the slightest odor emanated from his body. Finally through the efforts of Kuzma Uchilischev, a coffin was obtained. No one arrived from the Harbor, and the inhabitants of Spruce Island alone buried in the ground the remains of the Elder. Thus the words which Herman uttered before his death were fulfilled. After this the wind quieted down, and the surface of the sea became as smooth as a mirror.

One evening from the village Katani (on Afognak) was seen above Spruce Island an unusual pillar of light which reached up to heaven. Astonished by the miraculous appearance, experienced elders and the creole Gerasim Vologdin and his wife, Anna, said, “it seems that Father Herman has left us,” and they began to pray. After a time, they were informed that the Elder had indeed passed away that very night. This same pillar was seen in various places by others. The night of his death in another of the settlements on Afognak was seen a vision; it seemed as though a man was rising from Spruce Island into the clouds.

The disciples buried their father, and placed above his grave a wooden memorial marker. The priest on Kodiak, Peter Kashevarov, says, “I saw it myself, and I can say that today it seems as though it had never been touched by time; as though it had been cut this day.”

Having witnessed the life of Father Herman glorified by his zealous labors, having seen his miracles, and the ful- fillment of his predictions, finally having observed his blessed falling-asleep, “in general all the local inhabitants” witnesses Bishop Peter, “have the highest esteem for him, as though he was a holy ascetic, anti are fully convinced thdt he has found favor in the presence of God.”

In 1842, five years after the passing away of the Elder, Innocent, Archbishop of Kamchatka and the Aleutians, was near Kodiak on a sailing vessel which was in great distress. He looked to Spruce Island, and said to himself, “if you, Father Herman, have found favor in God’s presence then may the wind change!” It seems as though not more than fifteen minutes had passed, said the Bishop, when the wind became favorable, and he successfully reached the shore. In thanksgiving for his salvation, Archbishop Innocent himself conducted a Memorial Service (Panikhida) over the grave of the Blessed Elder Herman.

Source

Monastery at Duoma, Lebanon

An introductory note from Fr. Joseph:   On occasion the Church of Christ is wracked by trouble within.  We all sin, and those called upon to render the service of authority are not immune - sometimes acting unlawfully (canonically or civily),  sometimes engaging in what the article below refers to as wickedness, and sometimes just making poor judgments or showing their own simple human imperfection.   Yes, Christ’s shepherd’s, whether bishops or priests,  sometimes disgrace the name of the Good Shepherd.  Just a few year the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) saw a major financial scandal, and now many in the Antiochian Archdiocese are confused and/or  scandalized by the change of the status of our bishops to that of auxiliary bishops.    In this latter case, we must do our best to avoid rash judgments, assuming that we often know less than we think we do, and doing our best to look for positive motivations in our leaders. Still, whatever the true reality of the present situation, and looking to the inevitable bumps in the road that will surely shake the Church until the Lord’s Second Coming, the following article offers excellent guidance.

This fast is more lenient than the Great Lenten Fast before Pascha:

• Throughout the fast we abstain from meat and dairy products.
• Fish is allowed on Saturdays & Sundays prior to Dec. 20.
• Wine is allowed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays prior to Dec. 20.
• Olive Oil allowed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays prior to Dec. 20.

During this period there are special days when fish, wine, and oil are permitted, including:

• November 21, the feast of the Entrance into the Temple of the Mother of God.
• November 25, the leavetaking of the Entrance into the Temple of the Mother of God.
• December 5, the feast day of St. Sabbas the Sanctified.
• December 6, the feast day of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker
• December 9, the feast of the Conception of the Mother of God by St. Anne.
• December 13, the feast day of Venerable Herman of Alaska. 

The Antiochian Archdiocese gives a dispensation from the fast for Thanksgiving Day.

To worthily meet our Lord and Savior at Christmas we sanctify this pre-Nativity season with both fasting and prayer.  This sanctifying does not end with our fasting and praying, but should be accompanied by increased acts of loving service toward family, friends, church, and, of course, our neighbor in need.

A recipe to get you started:

Vegetarian Bean Soup (as pictured above)

Ingredients:

1 Spanish Onions – Chopped
Pinch of Black Pepper
2 Cups (500 ml) Dried Beans
1 1/2 Tablespoons (45 ml) BBQ Sauce
2 Tablespoons (30 ml) Chillis – Chopped
1 Clove Garlic – Chopped
1/2 Teaspoon (2.5 ml) Chilli Powder
3 Tablespoons (45 ml) Ketchup
1/2 Teaspoon (2.5 ml) Lemon Juice
1 28 Oz (750 g) Can Stewed Tomatoes (Italian Roma if you can get them)

Method: Place beans in a bowl, cover completely with cold water, and soak overnight. In the morning, redrain the beans, rinse them well, and then drain again. Bring 12 cups (3 litres) of water (or vegetable stock) to the boil, add the beans and bring back to the boil. Add the remaining ingredients. Simmer on low heat for 2 hours. Add more water if needed. Stir occasionally. Serve Hot! Â

]]> http://www.orthodoxarkansas.com/2010/11/12/pre-nativity-fast-begins-nov-15/feed/ 0 http://www.orthodoxarkansas.com/2010/11/11/reaching-for-the-light-in-hamburg/ http://www.orthodoxarkansas.com/2010/11/11/reaching-for-the-light-in-hamburg/#comments Thu, 11 Nov 2010 23:36:39 +0000 Holy Trinity Orthodox Church http://www.orthodoxarkansas.com/?p=225

The Orthodox parish of St John of Kronshtadt in Hamburg is one of the newest and fastest-growing Russian Orthodox communities in Germany. In decorating its church-building, which combines several styles of Christian architecture, the parish is trying to find a happy medium between the Eastern and Western traditions of painting and décor, using both the most ancient techniques and the most up-to-date technologies to do so.

The church-building of the St John of Kronshtadt parish was built at the beginning of the 20^th century in the neo-Romanesque style, an architectural motif going back to the period before the separation of the Churches, as can be seen in the patterns of Georgian and Armenian church architecture.

This is a building that is flooded with light as the nave is illuminated by enormous windows. Therefore, a classical Russian iconostas would not be suitable, as the icons would appear as dark silhouettes on a gold background. Therefore, Aleksandr Nikolaevich Soldatov, the master-iconographer in charge of creating the iconostas, decided to base his work on fresco technique instead.

The art of fresco painting, that is, to paint on a damp plaster background, is very ancient; it predates the appearance of Christianity. Indeed, it was used some 2,000 to 3,000 years before the birth of Christ. It is both simple in conception and complex in execution. Therefore, the artists working at the parish are doing their best to replicate the techniques and approach of the old masters.

The architect in charge of the reconstruction did his best to locate the iconostas naturally in the space of the church-building. Romanesque motifs are clearly used in its conception; it is somewhat triangular, surmounted by a large cross. Besides attempting to harmonise the iconostas with the general pattern of the building, the master-iconographer, remembering the historical connections of Old Russia with the West in the times of Grand Prince St Vladimir, plans to use artistic themes and techniques of the Russian north, quite similar to those found in architecture of medieval Novgorod Veliki.

To paint the frescoes, the artists mostly used the same kind of pigments as the medieval iconographers used, prepared in the same manner as in the past.

Natural materials were bought in Russia, and they were processed using traditional processes to obtain the necessary pigments.

The longevity of a fresco is connected with the fact that the paint, after coming into contact with the wet plaster, is absorbed by the wet plaster; after a number of hours, the plaster dries and reacts with the air. It is this chemical reaction which fixes the pigment particles in the plaster. Because of this protective film, frescoes are long-lasting; the painted areas can even be washed.

Unfortunately, where it is necessary to paint directly on the concrete, it is impossible to use traditional pigments, therefore, the cross and ornaments are painted using contemporary chemical pigments.

The intention of the designer is for the cross surmounting the iconostas to appear as if it were floating in the air.

It goes without saying that this beauty created by contemporary architects, designers, and painters can lead people into the church-building. However, there is no question that the main thing is that faith and love for Christ shall continue to burn in the heart of man, in the same way that it did in the life of the great Russian pastor, St John of Kronshtadt.

An interior shot of the church showing the new iconostas.

A shot of the nave of St John of Kronshtadt parish in Hamburg in northern Germany.

20 June 2008

Pomoshchnik i Pokrovitel (Helper and Protector)

Original Source in Russian.

Source in English.

by Chas Rielly for “The Times of Northwest Indiana.”

From his childhood in Gary to his death in Yugoslavia, St. Varnava always protected his faith and was dedicated to a Christian life.

St. Varnava is the first American-born Serbian to be proclaimed an Orthodox saint, said the Rev. Thomas Kazich, who also is a Gary native.

St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church will honor St. Varnava during a service at 6 p.m. Thursday at the church, 9191 Mississippi St., Merrillville. Kazich, with the Serbian Diocese of North America, and the Rev. Marko Matic, a priest at St. Sava, will be involved in the service.

“Not that many people know we have a saint in our neighborhood,” Matic said.

Varnava was born in Gary in 1914 and lived at a home near 12th Avenue and Madison Street, Kazich said.

Varnava, whose secular name was Vojislav Nastic, was the first person baptized at St. Sava when it was located in Gary.

“He grew up in a very spiritual family,” Matic said.

He also served as an alter boy at the church.

“He was at the services every Sunday,” Kazich said.

Varnava went to Froebel Elementary School while he and his family lived in Gary for about nine years. They moved Yugoslavia in 1923, Kazich said.

When he finished the equivalent of high school, Varnava’s father took him to see Bishop Nicholai Velimirovich to receive the bishop’s blessing to study theology.

“As (Varnava) wrote, ‘Theology is the science of sciences,’ ” Kazich said.

The bishop gave him his blessing, and he started his studies.

Kazich said Varnava’s family was influential in his upbringing in the church. He said everyone in the church has a spiritual guide, and “his spiritual father was his own father.”

Varnava was ordained a priest in the early 1940s, and the Serbian Church elected him to become a bishop in 1947, Kazich said.

Varnava began to preach against the Communist way of life after becoming a bishop, and Yugoslavia’s Communist government arrested him on treason charges.

During his trial, Varnava wasn’t allowed to deliver a final defense plea because “it was feared that he would expose and reveal the government’s criminal, terroristic and tyrannical policies,” according to a report written by Kazich.

In 1948, Varnava was sentenced to 11 years at one of the worst prisons at the time in Yugoslavia, Kazich said.

He spent about three years there, and the government intended to kill him when he was being transferred to another prison, Kazich said. He was placed on a train car with other prisoners, and the government ran another train into the car, he said.

Varnava survived the crash, but his legs were broken.

“And he suffered from that for the rest of his life,” Kazich said.

Due to health problems, Varnava was released from prison in 1951, but he always was under guard by the Communist government until he died in 1964.

Kazich said Varnava died under suspicious circumstances, and many believe he was poisoned. He said an autopsy couldn’t be conducted at the time.

Kazich said Varnava’s family knew he didn’t have a history of illness. He also wrote letters to them about his good health prior to his death.

No matter the circumstances, Varnava always remained “a follower of Christ,” Matic said.

“He became one of the strongest protectors of his faith,” he said.

Matic said Varnava remains an inspiration to many at the church.

“People still talk about him,” Matic said.

St. Varnava was canonized about five years ago.

Kazich said canonization in the Orthodox Church differs from the process used in the Catholic Church.

The process “begins locally, at the grass-roots level, perhaps where the holy person was born, lived and worked,” Kazich said.

“The love and veneration of the faithful spread to other areas,” he said. “The hierarchy of the local church then undertake to examine all records left by the person and if this proves satisfactory, then the last part of the act is performed and canonization is announced and a service of glorification takes place.”

* More biographical information on St. Varnava can be found here.

Photo and text used by permission of “The Times of Northwest Indiana.” Copyright 2010 nwi.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

St. Theodore the Studite

St Theodore the Studite, the Confessor for the true faith (commemorated Nov. 11), lived during the middle of what historians call the medieval Byzantine period – a turbulent time both spiritually and politically.  St Theodore was born in 759 into a noble family.  Both his mother Theoctista and one of his uncles, Platon, Abbot of the Monastery of Saccudium in Bithynia, are canonized saints as well.

When Theodore was 22 he embraced the monastic life under the influence of his uncle.   Ordained a priest by Patriarch Tarasius, Theodore soon became estranged from him because of Tarasius’ toleration of the adulterous marriage of the Emperor Constantine VI.   It was because of his opposition to this marriage that Theodore was sent to Thessalonica as an exhile in 796. Thankfully, he was reconciled the next year under the Empress Irene.  It would be under her influence that Theodore and Platon, together with most of their fellow monks, would be induced to move to the monastery of Studios, an urban monastery, finding safety from the Muslim incursions.

Their activity at their new monastery, and the influence they had on others would come to be known as the “Studite Reform.”

After the death of the Empress Irene, Leo V, known as the Armenian, came to power.  Emperor Leo was an iconoclast.  Theodore led his monks straight into battle against the emperor’s iconoclasm, organizing a procession of icons that evoked a strong imperial reaction.  From 815 to 821, Theodore suffered for the Orthodox veneration of icons – being scourged, imprisoned, and exiled to various places. Finally, he was allowed to return to Constantinople but not to his own monastery of Studios, taking up the monastic life with his monks on the other side of the Bosporus.  He died in Prinkipo on November 11, 826.

Theodore distinguished himself within Church history a great reformer of monastic life and as a defender of the veneration of icons during the second phase of the iconoclasm.  Theodore understood clearly that the issue of the veneration of icons was linked to the truth of the Incarnation. In his writings, Theodore deftlycompares the eternal Trinitarian relations, in which the distinct personhood of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit does not negate their oneness of nature, nor destroy their unity, and the relations between Christ’s two natures, which negate in him the oneness of the Logos. He also sees a connection between the veneration of icons and the saving work of Christ:  to abolishing veneration of the icon of Christ would effectively repudiate the comprehensivenss of his redeeming work, because, in assuming human nature, the invisible eternal Logos took to himself visible human flesh and in so doing sanctified the entire cosmos.

At a time when most monasteries had on 30 or so monks, under Theodore, the monastery of Studios grew to well over 1000.   Even as Theodore strove to influence the wider society, especially on the battle between iconodules and iconoclasts, he understood his first reponsibility as being the role of spiritual father to his monks.  Every day after the last of the divine services, he would could be found in from of the iconostasis listening to the confidences and confessions of those under his care.  His writings betray an open and affectionate character both in his spiritual fatherhood and in the manner in which his friendships were grounded in the life of the spirit.  

Great Lavra of Athos, founded by St. Athanasios the Athonite

Theodore died in 826. The Studie way of monastic living, codified shortly after Theodore’s death in the Hypotyposis, was adopted, with slight modification, on Mount Athos when St Athanasius the Athonite founded the Great Laura there in 962. 

Skyline of the Kievan Caves Monastery

The “Studite Reform” came Kievan Rus’ at the beginning of the second millennium when St Theodosius introduced it into the Lavra of the Kievan Caves during his time as abbot there between 1062-1074.

The emphasis of  Theodore spiritual teachings can be summarized:
* Love for the Lord incarnate and for his visibility in the Liturgy and in the holy icons;
* Fidelity to gift of Baptism together with a commitment to live in communion with the Body of Christ;
* Cultivation of a spirit of moderation and renunciation of not only wealth but the spirit of possessiveness;
* Chastity, self-control, humility and obedience against the demonic primacy of allegiance to one’s own will;
* Genuine love for both physical work and spiritual striving.

Text compiled and rewritten from various sources by Fr. Joseph Bittle.

Icon Source

Photo by MPDA.ru

In a time when churches of every description are faced with Vanishing Male Syndrome, men are showing up at Eastern Orthodox churches in numbers that, if not numerically impressive, are proportionately intriguing. This may be the only church which attracts and holds men in numbers equal to women. As Leon Podles wrote in his 1999 book, “The Church Impotent: The Feminization of Christianity,” “The Orthodox are the only Christians who write basso profundo church music, or need to.” 

Rather than guess why this is, I emailed a hundred Orthodox men, most of whom joined the Church as adults. What do they think makes this church particularly attractive to men? Their responses, below, may spark some ideas for leaders in other churches, who are looking for ways to keep guys in the church.

Challenges. The term most commonly cited by these men was “challenging.” Orthodoxy is “active and not passive.” “It’s the only church where you are required to adapt to it, rather than it adapting to you.” “The longer you are in it, the more you realize it demands of you.”

The “sheer physicality of Orthodox worship” is part of the appeal. Regular days of fasting from meat and dairy, “standing for hours on end, performing prostrations, going without food and water [before communion]…When you get to the end you feel that you’ve faced down a challenge.” “Orthodoxy appeals to a man’s desire for self-mastery through discipline.”

“In Orthodoxy, the theme of spiritual warfare is ubiquitous; saints, including female saints, are warriors. Warfare requires courage, fortitude, and heroism. We are called to be ‘strugglers’ against sin, to be ‘athletes’ as St. Paul says. And the prize is given to the victor. The fact that you must ‘struggle’ during worship by standing up throughout long services is itself a challenge men are willing to take up.”       

A recent convert summed up, “Orthodoxy is serious. It is difficult. It is demanding. It is about mercy, but it’s also about overcoming oneself. I am challenged in a deep way, not to ‘feel good about myself’ but to become holy. It is rigorous, and in that rigor I find liberation. And you know, so does my wife.”

Clear Disciplines. Several mentioned that they really appreciated having clarity about the content of these challenges and what they were supposed to do. “Most guys feel a lot more comfortable when they know what’s expected of them.” “Orthodoxy presents a reasonable set of boundaries.”  “It’s easier for guys to express themselves in worship if there are guidelines about how it’s supposed to work—especially when those guidelines are so simple and down-to-earth that you can just set out and start doing something.”

Male choir, seminarians.

“The prayers the Church provides for us — morning prayers, evening prayers, prayers before and after meals, and so on — give men a way to engage in spirituality without feeling put on the spot, or worrying about looking stupid because they don’t know what to say.”

They appreciate learning clear-cut physical actions that are expected to form character and understanding. “People begin learning immediately through ritual and symbolism, for example, by making the sign of the cross. This regimen of discipline makes one mindful of one’s relation to the Trinity, to the Church, and to everyone he meets.”

A Goal. Men also appreciate that this challenge has a goal: union with God. One said that in a previous church “I didn’t feel I was getting anywhere in my spiritual life (or that there was anywhere to get to — I was already there, right?) But something, who knew what, was missing. Isn’t there SOMETHING I should be doing, Lord?”

Orthodoxy preserves and transmits ancient Christian wisdom about how to progress toward this union, which is called “theosis.” Every sacrament or spiritual exercise is designed to bring the person, body and soul, further into continual awareness of the presence of Christ within, and also within every other human being. As a cloth becomes saturated with dye by osmosis, we are saturated with God by theosis.

A catechumen wrote that he was finding icons helpful in resisting unwanted thoughts. “If you just close your eyes to some visual temptation, there are plenty of stored images to cause problems. But if you surround yourself with icons, you have a choice of whether to look at something tempting or something holy.”

A priest writes, “Men need a challenge, a goal, perhaps an adventure — in primitive terms, a hunt. Western Christianity has lost the ascetic, that is, the athletic aspect of Christian life. This was the purpose of monasticism, which arose in the East largely as a men’s movement. Women entered monastic life as well, and our ancient hymns still speak of women martyrs as showing ‘manly courage.’”

“Orthodoxy emphasizes DOING. …. Guys are ACTIVITY oriented.”

No Sentimentality. In “The Church Impotent,” cited above (and recommended by several of these men), Leon Podles offers a theory about how Western Christian piety became feminized. In the 12th-13th centuries a particularly tender, even erotic, strain of devotion arose, one which invited the individual believer to picture himself or herself (rather than the Church as a whole) as the Bride of Christ. “Bridal Mysticism” was enthusiastically adopted by devout women, and left an enduring stamp on Western Christianity. It understandably had less appeal for guys. For centuries in the West, men who chose the ministry have been stereotyped as effeminate. A life-long Orthodox layman says that, from the outside, Western Christianity strikes him as “a love story written for women by women.” 

The Eastern Church escaped Bridal Mysticism because the great split between East and West had already taken place. The men who wrote me expressed hearty dislike for what they perceive as a soft Western Jesus. “American Christianity in the last two hundred years has been feminized. It presents Jesus as a friend, a lover, someone who ‘walks with me and talks with me.’ This is fine rapturous imagery for women who need a social life. Or it depicts Jesus whipped, dead on the cross. Neither is the type of Christ the typical male wants much to do with.”

During worship, “men don’t want to pray in the Western fashion with hands clasped, lips pressed together, and a facial expression of forced serenity.” “It’s guys holding hands with other guys and singing campfire songs.” “Lines about ‘reaching out for His embrace,’ ‘wanting to touch His face,’ while being ‘overwhelmed by the power of His love’—those are difficult songs for one man to sing to another Man.”

“A friend of mine told me that the first thing he does when he walks into a church is to look at the curtains. That tells him who is making the decisions in that church, and the type of Christian they want to attract.”

“Guys either want to be challenged to fight for a glorious and honorable cause, and get filthy dirty in the process, or to loaf in our recliners with plenty of beer, pizza, and football. But most churches want us to behave like orderly gentlemen, keeping our hands and mouths nice and clean.”

One man said that worship at his Pentecostal church had been “largely an emotional experience. Feelings. Tears. Repeated rededication of one’s life to Christ, in large emotional group settings. Singing emotional songs, swaying hands aloft. Even Scripture reading was supposed to produce an emotional experience. I am basically a do-er, I want to do things, and not talk about or emote my way through them! As a business person I knew that nothing in business comes without effort, energy, and investment. Why would the spiritual life be any different?”

Another, who visited Catholic churches, says, “They were conventional, easy, and modern, when my wife and I were looking for something traditional, hard, and counter-cultural, something ancient and martial.” A catechumen says that at his non-denominational church “worship was shallow, haphazard, cobbled together from whatever was most current; sometimes we’d stand, sometimes we’d sit, without much rhyme or reason to it. I got to thinking about how a stronger grounding in tradition would help.”

“It infuriated me on my last Ash Wednesday that the priest delivered a homily about how the real meaning of Lent is to learn to love ourselves more. It forced me to realize how completely sick I was of bourgeois, feel-good American Christianity.”

A convert priest says that men are drawn to the dangerous element of Orthodoxy, which involves “the self-denial of a warrior, the terrifying risk of loving one’s enemies, the unknown frontiers to which a commitment to humility might call us. Lose any of those dangerous qualities and we become the ‘JoAnn Fabric Store’ of churches: nice colors and a very subdued clientele.”

“Men get pretty cynical when they sense someone’s attempting to manipulate their emotions, especially when it’s in the name of religion. They appreciate the objectivity of Orthodox worship. It’s not aimed at prompting religious feelings but at performing an objective duty.”

Photo by Alexander Osokin.

Yet there is something in Orthodoxy that offers “a deep masculine romance. Do you understand what I mean by that? Most romance in our age is pink, but this is a romance of swords and gallantry.”

From a deacon: “Evangelical churches call men to be passive and nice (think ‘Mr. Rogers’). Orthodox churches call men to be courageous and act (think ‘Braveheart’).

Jesus Christ. What draws men to Orthodoxy is not simply that it’s challenging or mysterious. What draws them is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the center of everything the Church does or says.

In contrast to some other churches, “Orthodoxy offers a robust Jesus” (and even a robust Virgin Mary, for that matter, hailed in one hymn as “our Captain, Queen of War”). Several used the term “martial” or referred to Orthodoxy as the “Marine Corps” of Christianity. (The warfare is against self-destructive sin and the unseen spiritual powers, not other people, of course.)

One contrasted this “robust” quality with “the feminized pictures of Jesus I grew up with. I’ve never had a male friend who would not have expended serious effort to avoid meeting someone who looked like that.” Though drawn to Jesus Christ as a teen, “I felt ashamed of this attraction, as if it were something a red-blooded American boy shouldn’t take that seriously, almost akin to playing with dolls.”

A priest writes: “Christ in Orthodoxy is a militant, Jesus takes Hell captive. Orthodox Jesus came to cast fire on the earth. (Males can relate to this.) In Holy Baptism we pray for the newly-enlisted warriors of Christ, male and female, that they may ‘be kept ever warriors invincible.’”

After several years in Orthodoxy, one man found a service of Christmas carols in a Protestant church “shocking, even appalling.” Compared to the Orthodox hymns of Christ’s Nativity, “‘the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay’ has almost nothing to do with the Eternal Logos entering inexorably, silently yet heroically, into the fabric of created reality.”

Continuity. Many intellectually-inclined Orthodox converts began by reading Church history and the early Christian writers, and found it increasingly compelling. Eventually they faced the question of which of the two most ancient churches, the Roman Catholic or the Orthodox, makes the most convincing claim of being the original Church of the Apostles.

A lifelong Orthodox says that what men like is “stability: Men find they can trust the Orthodox Church because of the consistent and continuous tradition of faith it has maintained over the centuries.” A convert says, “The Orthodox Church offers what others do not: continuity with the first followers of Christ.” This is continuity, not archeology; the early church still exists, and you can join it.

“What drew me was Christ’s promises to the Church about the gates of hell not prevailing, and the Holy Spirit leading into all truth—and then seeing in Orthodoxy a unity of faith, worship, and doctrine with continuity throughout history.”

Another word for continuity is “tradition.” A catechumen writes that he had tried to learn everything necessary to interpret Scripture correctly, including ancient languages. “I expected to dig my way down to the foundation and confirm everything I’d been taught. Instead, the further down I went, the weaker everything seemed. I realized I had only acquired the ability to manipulate the Bible to say pretty much anything I wanted it to. The only alternative to cynicism was tradition. If the Bible was meant to say anything, it was meant to say it within a community, with a tradition to guide the reading. In Orthodoxy I found what I was looking for.”

 Men in Balance. A priest writes: “There are only two models for men: be ‘manly’ and strong, rude, crude, macho, and probably abusive; or be sensitive, kind, repressed and wimpy. But in Orthodoxy, masculine is held together with feminine; it’s real and down to earth, ‘neither male nor female,’ but Christ who ‘unites things in heaven and things on earth.’”

Another priest comments that, if one spouse is originally more insistent about the family converting to Orthodoxy than the other, “when both spouses are making confessions, over time they both become deepened and neither one is as dominant in the spiritual relationship.”

Men in Leadership. Like it or not, men simply prefer to be led by men. In Orthodoxy, lay women do everything lay men do, including preach, teach, and chair the parish council. But behind the iconostasis, around the altar, it’s all men. One respondent summarized what men like in Orthodoxy this way: “Beards!”

“It’s the last place in the world men aren’t told they’re evil simply for being men.” Instead of negativity, they are constantly surrounded by positive role models in the saints, in icons and in the daily round of hymns and stories about saints’ lives. This is another concrete element that men appreciate — there are other real human beings to look to, rather than a blur of ethereal terms. “The glory of God is a man fully alive,” said St. Irenaeus. One writer adds that “The best way to attract a man to the Orthodox Church is to show him an Orthodox man.”

But no secondary thing, no matter how good, can supplant first place. “A dangerous life is not the goal. Christ is the goal. A free spirit is not the goal. Christ is the goal. He is the towering figure of history around whom all men and women will eventually gather, to whom every knee will bow, and whom every tongue will confess.”       

     December 2007 issue of The Word magazine.

Hat tip Pravoslavie.ru

This 8th of November is the Feast of St. Michael and All the Bodiless Powers of Heaven. The feast marks its own special occasion, but it seems entirely appropriate that the feast should be so close to the beginning of the Nativity Fast. There are very few Biblical stories where angels do not play a part, and their presence only grows greater with the incarnation of Christ. In the life of the Church they surround our every action. And thus it is good to celebrate these humble messengers of God.

I offer here a few thoughts on their many occasions of help to mankind.

• Cherubim were posted at the entrance of the Garden of Eden protecting us from the damage we would do to ourselves by entering where we should not yet go.
• An angel ministered to Hagar, saving her and her child from death.
• An angel intervened and spared the life of Isaac staying the hand of Abraham at Mount Moriah.
• An angel accompanied Abraham’s servant as he returned to Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac.
• An angel spoke to Jacob in a dream directing him how to find his freedom from his father-in-law Laban.
• An angel appeared to Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of the burning bush.
• In all of the travels of Israel during the Exodus, the Angel of the Lord went with them and protected them.
• All of the Judges of Israel seem to have guided and protected by angels.
• Angels are found in the visions of the prophets.
• An angel speaks to Joachim and Anna and brings good news to that barren household.
• An angel speaks to Zechariah as he ministered in the Temple.
• An angel speaks to the Theotokos and brings the glad tidings of salvation for all mankind.
• An angel speaks with Joseph and told him that the child she had conceived was of the Holy Spirit.
• Angels spoke to the shepherds of the salvation that had been born in Bethlehem.
• Again an angel told Joseph to take the Theotokos and the Christ Child into Egypt.
• Angels ministered to Christ after His temptation in the wilderness.
• An angel appeared to Christ strengthening Him in the Garden of Gethsemane.
• An angel greeted the women at the tomb and announced the resurrection.
• Angels stood by and explained the meaning of the ascension to the disciples.

I could, of course, amplify this small list – but these few mentions serve to show how constantly the angels have looked after us and been a part of God’s saving work among us. Thus it is always fitting that we should give thanks to God for their work and not forget the good they have done.

Source

Icon Source

St. Raphael of Brooklyn

We will celebrate the feast day of St. Raphael of Brooklyn on first Saturday of November (6th) with Divine Liturgy at 9:00am.  The life of St. Raphael can be read here.

Last Photo of Bishop Raphael (1914)

Our holy Father Raphael was born in Syria in 1860 with the name Rafia. The exact date of Raphael’s birth is not known, but he estimated it to be on or near his Name Day, the Synaxis of the Holy Archangels Michael and Gabriel and all the Bodiless Powers of Heaven, November 8.

St. Raphael attended elementary school, where he did very well, but in 1874 it appeared that his father would no longer be able to afford his son’s tuition. Fortunately, help came from Deacon Athanasios Atallah (later Metropolitan of Homs), who recommended to Patriarch Hierotheos of Antioch that Rafia be accepted as a student of the Patriarchate in preparation for the priesthood.

Since the Balamand Seminary had been closed in 1840, Patriarch Joachim III of Constantinople invited the Patiarch of Antioch to send at least one deserving student to study on scholarship at the School of Theology at Halki, and Saint Raphael was the one who was selected to go.

On December 8, 1885 he was ordained to the diaconate at the school chapel. Patriarch Gerasimos of Antioch was impressed with Deacon Raphael and often took him along on his pastoral visitations of his parishes. When His Beatitude could not be present, Deacon Raphael was asked to preach the Word of God to the people.

The Patriarch gave his blessing, and Deacon Raphael was accepted as a student at the Theological Academy in Kiev.

When Patriarch Gerasimos resigned in order to accept the See of Jerusalem, Archmandrite Raphael regarded this as an opportunity to free the Church of Antioch from its domination by foreign hierarchs. In November 1891 Metropolitan Spyridon, a Greek Cypriot, was elected as Patriarch of Antioch. Many Arabs believed that he had purchased the election by distributing 10,000 liras to several notable people in Damascus. Archmandrite Raphael refused to commemorate the new Patriarch during services at the Representation Church. As a result, he was suspended from his priestly functions by Patriarch Spyridon. Saint Raphael accepted his suspension, but continued to write articles in Russian newspapers in defense of the Antiochian cause. The Patriarchs of Antioch, Constantinople, Alexandria and Jerusalem successfully petitioned the Tsar to forbid Russian newspapers from publishing his articles. With this door closed to him, Saint Raphael began to publish his writings in book form. Eventually, Patriarch Spyridon wrote to the Assistant Oberprocurator of Russia, a friend of Saint Raphael’s, asking him to persuade Father Raphael to ask for the Patriarch’s forgiveness. He did so, and the suspension was lifted. Saint Raphael was allowed to transfer from the jurisdiction of Antioch to the Church of Russia, and to remain there. He went to Kazan, taking a position as instructor in Arabic studies at the theological academy. He remained there until 1895 when he was invited by the Syrian Orthodox Benevolent Society of New York to come to that city to be the pastor of the Arab Orthodox community.

Archmandrite Raphael arrived in New York on November 2, 1895 and was welcomed by a delegation of Arab Christians who were awaiting their leader from Russia. On November 5, his first Sunday in America, he assisted Bishop Nicholas in serving the Divine Liturgy at the Russian Church in New York City. Less than two weeks after his arrival, Archmandrite Raphael found a suitable place in lower Manhattan to set up a chapel, and furnished it with ecclesiastical items that he had brought with him from Russia. Bishop Nicholas blessed the new chapel, which was dedicated to St. Nicholas of Myra.

In the summer of 1896, Saint Raphael undertook the first of several pastoral journeys across the continent. He visited thirty cities between New York and San Francisco, seeking out the Master’s lost sheep in cities, towns, and on isolated farms. He fed the spiritually hungry people with the word of God in each place where he stopped. He performed marriages and baptisms, heard confessions, and celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the homes of the faithful where there was no church building. In other words, he zealously fulfilled his ministry as a preacher of the Gospel, enduring many hardships and afflictions, and he was watchful in all things concerning the care of his flock (2 Timothy 4:5).

In 1898, with the blessing of Bishop Nicholas, Saint Raphael produced his first book in the New World – an Arabic language service book titled The Book of True Consolation in the Divine Prayers. This book of liturgical services and prayers was very useful to priests in celebrating the divine services, and also to the people in their personal prayer life. The English version published by Archimandrite Seraphim Nassar is still being used today.

In March 1899, Saint Raphael received permission from Bishop Tikhon to start collecting funds for a cemetery, and for building a new church to replace the chapel, which was located in an old building on a dirty street. In the spring he left on another pastoral tour of 43 cities and towns. In Johnstown, PA, he reconciled those whose personal enmity threatened to divide the Arabic community. Although civil courts had been unable to make peace, Saint Raphael restored calm and put an end to the bitter feud. While in Johnstown, he received a telegram informing him that Metropolitan Melotios (Doumani) had been elected Patriarch of Antioch. With great joy, Saint Raphael told his people that for the first time in 168 years, a native Arab had been chosen as Primate of the Antiochian Church.

After the new Patriarch had been installed, Archimandrite Raphael was proposed to succeed Meletios as Metropolitan of Latakia. The Patriarch, however, stated that the Holy Synod could not elect Father Raphael because of his important work in America. In 1901, Metropolitan Gabriel of Beirut wrote to Archimandrite Raphael asking him to be his auxiliary bishop, but he declined saying he could not leave his American flock. First, he wanted to build a permanent church and to acquire a parish cemetery. The latter goal was achieved in August 1901, when Fr. Raphael purchased a section of Mt. Olivet cemetery on Long Island.

In December 1901, Archimandrite Raphael was elected as Bishop of Zahleh. Patriarch Meletios sent a telegram congratulating him and asking him to return. Father Raphael thanked the Patriarch, but again declined the higher office. He said that he wished to complete the project of building a temple for the Syrian community of New York. The following year, he bought an existing church building on Pacific Street in Brooklyn, and had it remodeled for Orthodox worship. Bishop Tikhon consecrated the church to the great joy of the faithful in attendance. Thus, Saint Raphael’s second major project was finished.

Since the number of parishes with the Diocese of North America was growing, Bishop Tikhon found it impossible to visit all of them. The Diocese had to be reorganized in order to administer it more efficiently. Therefore, Bishop Tikhon submitted a plan to the Russian Holy Synod which would transfer the See from San Francisco to New York because most parishes and individuals were concentrated in the East. Since various ethnic groups required special attention and pastoral leadership, Bishop Tikhon proposed that Archimandrite Raphael be made his second vicar bishop, with the Bishop of Alaska his first.

In 1903, the Holy Synod of Russia unanimously elected Archimandrite Raphael to be the Bishop of Brooklyn, while retaining him as head of the Syro-Arab Orthodox Mission in North America. The Holy Synod announced the election to Patriarch Meletios, who was pleased by their decision. Bishop Tikhon wrote to Saint Raphael to inform him of his election, and Father Raphael sent him a letter of acceptance. Meanwhile, Father Innocent Pustynsky was consecrated at Saint Tikhon’s first auxiliary bishop at St. Petersburg’s Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan.

On the third Sunday of Great Lent 1904, Saint Raphael became the first Orthodox to be consecrated on American soil. Bishops Tikhon and Innocent performed the consecration at Saint Nicholas Cathedral in Brooklyn. The new bishop’s vestments were a gift from Tsar Nicholas II. After his consecration, Bishop Raphael continued his pastoral labors, ordained priests, and assigned them to parishes, and helped Bishop Tikhon in the administration of the diocese.

At the end of 1904, Bishop Raphael announced his intention to publish a magazine called Al-Kalimat (The Word) as the official publication of the Syro-Arab Mission. Bishop Raphael knew that he could not visit all Orthodox Christians across North America in person, but through the ministry of the printed word he could preach the word of salvation even to people he would never meet.

In July 1905, Bishop Raphael consecrated the grounds for Saint Tikhon’s Monastery and blessed the orphanage at South Canaan, PA. Three days later, he presided at a conference of diocesan clergy at Old Forge, PA, because Archbishop Tikhon was in San Francisco. Among the clergy in attendance were three who would be numbered among the saints: Fathers Alexis Toth, Alexander Hotovitzky, and John Kochurov. (The last two would die as martyrs in Russia.)

For the next ten years, Bishop Raphael tended his growing flock. With the growth of his New York community came an increase in the number of children, and he was concerned about their future. He wanted to establish an evening school to educate them in a Christian atmosphere because the future of the Church in this country depended on the instruction of the youth. Children who did not speak Arabic were already going to non-Orthodox churches, where Sunday School classes were conducted in English. Bishop Raphael saw the absolute necessity for using English in worship and in education for the future progress of the Syro-Arab Mission.

Taking heed of Saint Paul’s words to pray in language that people understood (1 Corinthians 14:15-19), Saint Raphael recommended the use of the Service Book of the Holy Orthodox Catholic Apostolic Church, translated by Isabel Hapgood, in all of his parishes.

In March 1907, Saint Tikhon returned to Russia and was replaced by Archbishop Platon. Once again, Saint Raphael was considered for Episcopal office in Syria, having been nominated to succeed Patriarch Gregory as Metropolitan of Tripoli in 1908. The Holy Synod of Antioch removed Bishop Raphael’s name from the list of candidates, citing various canons forbidding a bishop being transferred from one city to another.

On the Sunday of Orthodoxy in 1911, Bishop Raphael was honored for his fifteen years of pastoral ministry in America. Archbishop Platon presented him with a silver covered icon of Christ and praised him for his work. In his humility, Bishop Raphael could not understand why he should be honored merely for doing his duty (Luke 17:10). He considered himself an “unworthy servant,” yet he did perfectly the work that fell to him (Saint Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians).

Toward the end of 1912, Bishop Raphael became ill while working in his office. Doctors diagnosed him with a heart ailment that eventually caused his death. After two weeks he felt strong enough to celebrate the Liturgy in his cathedral. In 1913-1914, this missionary bishop continued to make pastoral visitations to various cities. In 1915, he fell ill again and spent two months at home, bearing his illness with patience. At 12:40 am on February 27, he rested from his labors.

From his youth, Saint Raphael’s greatest joy was to serve the Church. When he came to America, he found his people scattered abroad, and he called them to unity. He never neglected his flock, but traveled throughout America, Canada, and Mexico in search of them so that he might care for them. He kept them from straying into strange pastures, and he protected them from spiritual harm. During twenty years of faithful ministry, he nurtured them and helped them to grow. At the time of his death, the Syro-Arab Mission had thirty parishes with 25,000 faithful.

Saint Raphael came into contact with all sorts of people, and was a gentle father to them. He gained their love and respect by first loving them, and also through his charming personality and excellent character. He was always kind and merciful with others, but was strict with himself. He accomplished many good things during his earthly life, and now he joins the holy angels in offering ceaseless prayer and praise to God.

Above excerpts taken from The Orthodox Church April/May 2000

St Raphael Shrine at Antiochain Village (at the rear of his grave stone)

St. Raphael was originally buried in Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. On August 15, 1989, his relics were translated from Mt. Olivet Cemetery to Holy Resurrection Cemetery at the Antiochian Village just outside Ligonier, PA.  Relics of St. Raphael of Brooklyn are located at St. Ignatius Church at the Antiochian Village for veneration by the faithful. A shrine with an icon written by the hand of Fr. Paul Albert is located at the gravesite on the northeast side of St. Ignatius Church. If you would like to visit the relics of St. Raphael of Brooklyn, please contact Antiochian Village to arrange an opportunity.

Urges Knowledge of Church Fathers

 BARCELONA, Spain, OCT. 5, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk is expressing the conviction that the 21st century will see a flowering of Christianity, without divisions between the followers of Jesus.

About the Kursk Root Icon

In the 13th century, during the Tartar invasion of Russia, the devastated province of Kursk was emptied of people and its principal city, Kursk, became a wilderness. The residents of the city of Rylsk, which had been preserved from invasion, often journeyed to the site of Kursk to hunt wild beasts. One of the hunters, going along the bank of the river to Skal, near Kursk, noticed an icon lying face down on the ground next to the root of a tree. He picked it up and found that it was an icon of the Sign, such as was enshrined and venerated in the city of Novgorod. At this time, the icon’s first miracle was worked, for no sooner had the hunter picked up the sacred image than there immediately gushed forth with great force an abundant spring of pure water. This took place on September 8th in the year 1295.

The hunter constructed a small wooden chapel and placed the image of the Mother of God therein. The residents of Rylsk began to visit the place and miracles abounded. Prince Vasily Shemyaka of Rylsk ordered that the icon be brought to the city of Rylsk itself and this was done in a solemn manner, for the people of the city went forth to meet the icon of the Mother of God; but Shemyaka himself declined to attend the festivities and for this reason was punished with blindness. The prince, however, repented and straightway received healing. Moved by this miracle, Shemyaka constructed a church in the city of Rylsk in honor of the Nativity of the All-holy Theotokos, and there the miraculous icon was enshrined on September 8^th.

The city of Kursk was revived in the year 1597 at the command of Theodore Ivanovich of Moscow. This pious Tsar, who had heard of the miracles of the icon, expressed his desire to behold it, and in Moscow, the icon was greeted with great solemnity. At the command of the Tsar, the icon was set in a silver-gilt frame upon which were depicted the Lord of Hosts and prophets holding scrolls in their hands. The icon was subsequently returned and, with the close cooperation of the Tsar, a monastery was founded on the site of the chapel. A church, dedicated to the Life-bearing Spring, was built above the same spring that had appeared when the icon was first revealed and the monastery attached to it was called the Kursk Root Hermitage in honor of the manifestation of the icon at the root of the tree.

During an invasion of Crimean Tartars, the icon was transferred to the cathedral church of Kursk, and an exact copy was left at the Hermitage. 

In March of 1898 a group of anarchists, desiring to undermine the faith of the people in the wonder-working power of the icon, decided to destroy it. They placed a time bomb in the Cathedral of the Sign, and at two o’clock in the morning a horrendous explosion rent the air and all the walls of the monastery were shaken. The frightened monastic brethren rushed immediately to the cathedral, where they beheld a scene of horrible devastation. The force of the blast had shattered the gilded canopy above the icon. The heavy marble base, constructed of several massive steps, had been jolted out of position and split into several pieces. A huge metal candlestick that stood before the icon had been blown to the opposite side of the cathedral. A door of cast iron located near the icon knead been torn from its hinges and cast outside, where it smashed against a wall and caused a deep crack. All the windows in the cathedral and even those in the dome above were shattered. Amid the general devastation, the holy icon remained intact and even the glass within the frame remained whole. Thinking to destroy the icon, the anarchists had, on the contrary, become the cause of its greater glorification.

During the Bolshevik revolution, the icon was removed from the Cathedral of the Sign on April 12, 1918. Search was made for the icon hut without result. The holy object was discovered under the following circumstances: Not far from the monastery there lived a poor girl and her mother who for three days had not had anything to eat. At that time Kursk was controlled by the Bolshevik regime. On May 3, the girl, a seamstress, went off to the marketplace in search of bread. Returning home at about one o’clock in the morning, she passed by a well that, according to tradition, had been dug by St. Theodosius of the Caves. There, on the edge of the well, she beheld a package wrapped in a sack, and when she opened it, in the package she found the sacred icon, which apparently had been left there by those who had stolen it.

At the end of October 1919, when the White Russian Army was evacuating the city of Kursk, monks of the monastery transferred the icon to Belgorod, from which it was again transferred, first to Taganrog and Ekaterinodar, and then to Novorossiisk. During the evacuation, with the permission of Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky who was then President of the Higher Ecclesiastical Administration in Southern Russia, the icon was taken aboard the steamship St. Nicholas by Bishop Theophan of Kursk on March 1, 1920, and was transported to the city of Thessalonica. On April 3, Bishop Theophan took the icon to the city of Pec, the ancient capital of Serbia. For four months the icon remained in Pec, and in September, at the request of Baron Wrangel, it was returned again to the Crimea. A year after departing from the city of Kursk, on October 29, 1920, the holy image again left its native land during the evacuation of the White Army and those Russian people who refused to submit to the Soviet regime. The holy icon remained with Bishop Theophan in the Serbian monastery of Yazak on Frushkaya Mountain. From the end of 1927, the icon was to be found in the Russian church of the Holy Trinity in the city of Belgrade. During World War II, when Belgrade was subjected to bombardment and other tribulations associated with the war, the miraculous icon became a rampart of hope for all that approached it with sincere prayer.

The holy icon was removed from Yugoslavia in the autumn of 1944 together with those who again fled the godless regime. Eventually it was borne to the tranquil city of Carlsbad to which the Synod of Bishops had been evacuated. With the approach of the Bolsheviks it was again transferred to Munich in the spring of 1945. The holy icon proved to be an unending consolation to many thousands of people who were experiencing all the trials and tribulations of the latter years of World War II. From Munich the icon was borne to Switzerland, France, Belgium, England, Austria, and many cities and camps in Germany itself. Subsequently, the icon was transferred to the New World where it had its permanent residence first in the New Kursk Hermitage in Mahopac, NY, and then in the Synod’s Cathedral.

Interview with Hieromonk Jonah

Q: What is forgiveness?

Fr. Jonah: To forgive means to restore a bond of love and communion when there has been a rupture. Sin ruptures our relationship with God and others, as also do offenses taken and given among people.

When the bond is broken with other people, we tend to objectify them and judge them, not seeing them as persons, but only as objects of our anger and hurt. This is our sinful reaction. We categorize people in terms of their transgression against us. The longer we nurture the anger and alienation, the more deeply the resentment takes hold in our heart, and the more it feeds on our soul. Resentment is a cancer that will destroy us if we don’t forgive! It also leaks out and damages our relations with others when we slander and gossip about those who have offended us and try to draw others to our own side. Of course, no one should want to hear such things—but we do!

Forgiveness means overlooking the sin or transgression, and restoring a bond of love. It does not mean justifying the offensive action or accepting it as right, nor does it mean justifying one’s own anger or sinful reaction. Forgiveness means laying aside our judgments of the other person and our own sinful reactions, and accepting others for who they are.

God’s forgiveness of us and our sins against Him is unconditional and absolute. God does not reject us, objectify us, or bear anger or resentment against us. These are, I think, our projections onto God of our own issues and judgments against ourselves when we sin. God does not punish us. Rather, by alienating ourselves from God, we punish ourselves and ascribe this punishment to Him. We turn in on ourselves in anger and self-hatred, and thus shatter our personhood, cutting ourselves off from His love.

By asking God for forgiveness, we open ourselves to His love and acceptance, His grace and compassion. These were there already, but we neglected them. By confessing our sins, we surrender these areas of our lives where we have justified our self-alienation from God. Repentance means not only turning away from sin, but also turning to God. Judas was remorseful for his sin—but hanged himself. We need not only to be remorseful, but also to open ourselves to God.

Q: How are reconciliation and forgiveness related?

Fr. Jonah: Reconciliation presupposes forgiveness. If we forgive someone, we need to be open to reconciliation, if possible. Reconciliation is forgiveness in action—the actual restoration of the interpersonal bond between two people, in mutual acceptance of each other for who each one is.

Forgiveness and reconciliation can lead to a stronger bond than previously existed. Each time an offense occurs, we can learn more about both the other and ourselves. This can lead to a deeper knowledge and understanding of each by the other, and thus can also lead to a more authentic bond of intimacy. Reconciliation should always be the goal.

Sometimes we feel unable to reconcile—to put forgiveness into our actions and restore a relationship. If the person has severely abused us or our trust, it may not be wise to do so. Or perhaps the person is gone or dead. We can still forgive them, pray for them, and accept them—if only at a distance. We need to look at what is in ourselves that prevents us from reconciling—some fear or expectation of the other. But it is crucial to remember that forgiveness is only fulfilled in reconciliation.

An example of God’s forgiveness— and a model for our own—is the parable of the Prodigal Son. Think of the hurt of the father as the young son withdrew into the most selfish kind of rejection and rebellion. The father never ceased to love the son, and was watching and waiting for his return. When the son came to himself, and became aware of his own sin—but not of how much he had hurt his father—he returned. Still thinking only of himself and his own needs, he rehearses how he will ask his father to receive him and make him an employee. But his father doesn’t even let him finish his little rehearsed speech. He embraces the son and holds him to himself. He has a robe and ring brought, restoring him as son and heir. He kills the fatted calf as a sacrifice of thanksgiving to God. He neither demands nor wants an apology, nor does he permit any justification or even self-denigration on the part of his son. Rather, he forgives his son from the abundance of his love, casting away any resentment or bitterness, and accepts him for who he is—his beloved son.

This is how God forgives us! So we must forgive each other and be reconciled.

Q: Why is it so hard to forgive those closest to us?

Fr. Jonah: The deeper the bonds of love and intimacy, the sharper the pain of alienation through offenses. The more we truly know someone, the more cutting off the bond of love cuts to the core of who we are. We cannot define ourselves solely in an individualistic, autonomous manner. This is a falsehood, our own egocentrism. Who we are, as Christians, as persons, is a mystery hidden in Christ of our union with one another. A husband and wife are one flesh in Christ. “My brother is my life,” said St. Silouan. There is a sacred bond of love in friendship, whether in the world or in a monastery. We must be very watchful so as to preserve that bond. But the greater the intimacy is, the greater is the likelihood of deep offenses occurring—because intimacy presupposes vulnerability. This, however, is an aspect of how we grow in knowledge of one another—constant forgiveness and reconciliation. We come to know and accept the other person for who they are. We hopefully begin to recognize our projections and expectations and drop them. Then, we come to know ourselves better through others.

Forgiveness is hard—but it is infinitely sweeter when we reconcile with someone we deeply love. It is hard because it makes us look at our selfishness, our judgment, our expectations, and ourselves. It also shatters the illusions and false objectifications that we have had of the other person, not to mention of the offense itself.

When we have old wounds, even from childhood, we are all the more likely to project onto others our ideas and expectations, which are even more distorted by the old resentments. This is delusion. Our old wounds and resentments may be completely unconscious. They may have been caused by an entirely different person. For example, we project our issues with our parents onto those with whom we develop a close bond. This is the normal dynamic not only of newly married couples, but also of employees with bosses, of students with teachers—and especially, of novices and monks or nuns with their abbot or abbess. When we transfer old unresolved issues onto someone, our idea of that person has very little to do with the person him- or herself. We dredge up old issues with them, and put all the energy of the old resentment into it. This, of course, can destroy relationships.

How do you get out of this? I’m not sure—other than by patience, perseverance, and unconditional love. You have to somehow break through the delusion and see who the person really is.

If we are repeatedly irritated by a person we are close to, it is not their problem, but rather our own. The irritation is our reaction. They are being who they are—and if we have not realized that yet, then we must simply accept them with their character flaws and all. The other person is responsible for his own sins. But I alone am responsible for my reactions.

We have to let go of our resentments of other people, and especially of those closest to us. First, we need to ask ourselves if we want to be angry, bitter, resentful, and unhappy. Then we must look at and take responsibility for our own reactions. We can only change ourselves. Then, we need to try to see the other for who he/she really is, with strengths and weaknesses, sins and foibles, and simply love him/her. This is the basis of forgiveness. Then, we must resolve not to let these things get in the way of that love. We also have to know ourselves. If we admit our own sins and shortcomings, how can we judge anyone else for their sins and failings? It is utter hypocrisy.

Letting go seems hard, but once we do it, we have the most freeing sense of having been liberated from slavery to these demons. First, we need to pray, and ask God to show us ourselves, and to help us to love and forgive. Next, we need to be quiet, and let God show us. He will! Then, we need to be watchful, so that we do not allow ourselves to nurse resentment and bitterness.

Q: What about when I’ve forgiven, then see the person or hear of him or her, and the old hurt/anger returns afresh? Does this mean I haven’t forgiven?

Fr. Jonah: When we still have an angry reaction to someone, it means that we still have some resentment against them. Forgiveness comes in stages. We may be able to forgive partially, but the roots of the resentment are deep in our passions. So, we still have work to do. This is especially true when it is someone close to us, who really matters to our life. An offense can threaten a relationship that is part of our very identity, so the roots of our reactions can be very deep. Our forgiveness is relative to the degree to which we are free from our continued angry or hurt reaction. When we can love and accept someone without remembrance of the wrong, and without a reaction of anger and hurt, then we have truly forgiven.

Another aspect of this is when we are projecting our expectations onto a person, and they continue to disappoint us. This should show us that our expectations are simply our own selfishness, and that we are failing to love the other unconditionally. We must take responsibility for our own anger and hurt, and simply let the person be him/herself.

Q: If the other party refuses to acknowledge an offense or show any remorse for his or her part in the breach, what should I do?

Fr. Jonah: The way of humility is to ask forgiveness, and in turn, at least internally, forgive the offender. It does no good to hold onto offenses and to remember wrongs. Let them know how important the relationship is to you. But then the ball is in their court. You cannot force anyone to forgiveness.

Q: We often work through things verbally—yet we feel guilty when we discuss struggles or anger with another person. Is there a proper place for talking about a problem we’re having, with a friend or confidant?

Fr. Jonah: One role of a spiritual father or mother is to be able to help you work through your anger with someone. It is much easier to talk to your friends and acquaintances, but what that leads to is often a disaster: gossip and slander, selfjustification and blaming, seeking sympathy, judgment and condemnation. And soon the person whom you resent is excluded from the community. One should never use a group of friends to talk through resentments and bitterness; while they may support your position, they will seldom make you see or take responsibility for your own sin in the breach. Guilt in such a case is very healthy, because you have sinned. How seldom it is that we will admit our responsibility for our own reactions among our friends! If we have a close confidant, then perhaps we can talk it through with them. But they need to be impartial, and you must never try to justify yourself or force the other to judge the one who offended you.

Q: How do we cultivate a spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation, so that offenses don’t stick?

Fr. Jonah: We can cultivate a spirit of forgiveness by “never allowing the sun to go down on our anger.” This is a fundamental monastic and Christian precept. If we allow a resentment to take root, it is our sin, no matter what the other person has done to us. Now, we are only human, and this is part of our fallenness. But, when we see it happening, we need to stop ourselves, recognize that we are no different and sin no less than the other, and forgive. Even to seventy times seven, day in and day out.

When someone says or does something to offend us, intentionally or unintentionally, we do not need to react in any way. We can simply take it in, and respond appropriately. This is the principle of nonreaction. It is based on the realization that our reactions are purely our own responsibility, and not caused by a provocation. The provocations will come, but we can choose to react or not, respond or not. There is a story in the desert fathers about a young novice who was told by his elder, “Go and yell at the rock.” So, for half a day, he went and yelled at a rock, insulted, berated, and cursed it. He went back to his elder, who told him, “Now, praise and flatter the rock.” So he went back and praised, flattered, and said nice things to the rock. He went back and his elder asked him, “How did the rock react when you praised it?” “It didn’t,” he said. “How did it react when you screamed at it and cursed it?” “It didn’t react,” he said. “So,” said the elder, “should you also be impervious to praise or calumny, and react to both in the same way, as did the rock.”

Much of the spiritual life is dedicated to one goal: complete self-mastery, especially in relation to control over one’s reactions. The more mature we are, spiritually, the greater control we have over our reactions. In other words, we have to be watchful over our thoughts, and maintain a spirit of love and compassion. When our thoughts accuse others, and we begin to be upset, then we need to cut off the thoughts and recognize that they are temptations. They are more about me than about the other person. The more we let our thoughts against the other fester, the harder it will be to rid ourselves of them, and resentments will develop. The basic principle of non-reaction, not only in deed, but in thought and feeling, and maintaining a spirit of peace, is the key. With this underlying attitude, it becomes difficult to get us to take offense, and thus, there is seldom a need for forgiveness or reconciliation. This, however, is a mark of very great maturity, and few there are that possess it.

Q: When I’ve had a serious disagreement with someone, and we have difficulty speaking comfortably to one another, what should I do?

Fr. Jonah: If we have had a serious disagreement, and cannot speak comfortably with one another, then we need to humble ourselves and ask forgiveness for having offended the other. We have to take responsibility for our part. Then it is up to the other to forgive in return. Always return forgiveness when it is asked.

Q: What are the roots of unforgiveness? What does it do to me if I harbor bitterness? What does it do to the other person? What are the corresponding healing virtues for this passion?

Fr. Jonah: The roots of unforgiveness are pride, vainglory, arrogance, and conceit. If I refuse to forgive someone, it is my sin. I can no longer pray the Lord’s Prayer without damning myself, nor approach the Chalice. We refuse to forgive because we feel justified in our resentment and bitterness. We cast all the blame and criticism on the other, and blind ourselves to the reality of our own faults. Thus we live in delusion. To harbor bitterness is unadulterated pride and conceit, and we alienate ourselves from Christ. Resentment and bitterness are cancer in the soul, which will destroy us if we do not forgive and become reconciled. Such bitterness is often the root of addictions, which are simply attempts to anesthetize the pain of our own self-condemnation. We torment ourselves with the remembrance of wrongs and wallow in our self-pity, thinking ourselves the innocent victims. Seldom is this the reality, except in some cases of abuse.

When we have rage built up within ourselves, which has been stored up perhaps for years, maybe as the result of abuse or victimization, the process becomes far more complex. It takes a long time to work through such rage, so that our reactions do not come out sideways.

Christ is the ultimate example of complete forgiveness, of non-reaction, and of authentic humility. He did not revile and curse His captors and tormentors, those who slandered Him, bore false witness against Him, even tortured and crucified Him. “As a sheep led to the slaughter, and as a blameless lamb is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.” We have countless examples of Christian martyrs bearing all kinds of torments and sufferings for Christ’s sake, in a spirit of forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation.

When we truly are innocent victims of someone else’s sins, the only thing to do is to forgive them. If we harbor resentment, we repeatedly victimize ourselves with the sin of the other every time we remember their wrong and indulge in our resentment. Forgiveness is the only way to healing.

Sometimes people refuse to receive our forgiveness. To refuse forgiveness is pride and conceit, self-justification. If someone does not want to be forgiven— often because he cannot or will not forgive himself—our forgiveness and compassion is like “burning coals heaped on his head.” So also is God’s forgiveness of us: not to judge or condemn us, but to lead us to repentance.

The burning coal of love is torment when we refuse to accept forgiveness or forgive ourselves. We cannot accept love when we hate ourselves. But it is precisely this divine love which will heal us because it exposes our self-hatred. In self-hatred we are too ashamed to accept forgiveness, are closed in on ourselves, fearing that exposure of ourselves to ourselves. And so we act out. But if we can turn, repent, and begin to let in the love of God and of others, then that love can begin to transform our souls.

We can only fight against the spirit of pride, unforgiveness, and selfcondemnation with humility, love, and compassion. Humility does not mean bowing and scraping. Rather, it is being nakedly honest with oneself and others. We have to speak the truth in love; but we can only do this in the brutal honesty of humility, seeing our own sins and realizing the other is no different from ourselves. We can address offenses, but if there is no love in our speech and attitude, there is no truth, only facts. And facts do not heal, only love and compassion.

Q: What does real reconciliation look like? How come we see so few examples of this in action, in the Church, and so many instances of broken fellowship and relationships?

Fr. Jonah: Real reconciliation means complete and authentic acceptance of one another, despite sins, offenses, and transgressions: an authentic bond between persons in a spirit of love and humility. There will always be sins and offenses. We must never allow ourselves to criticize and judge one another, because it is always hypocrisy. We only judge others because we see in them our own faults and insecurities mirrored back to us. But if we can live in mature forgiveness and communion with others, in humility accepting one another as God accepts us, then our communities and churches will be transparent—revealing the Kingdom of Heaven, filled with divine grace.

The sad reality of our churches and lives, marriages and friendships, is that we are fallen, broken, and passionate. We justify ourselves in arrogant conceit, and refuse to forgive or to see our own faults. So our communities shatter, marriages break up, and friendships end. Ultimately, this is because we put the gratification of our egos as the main criterion of relationships, rather than the humble and unconditional love of the other that is demanded by the Gospel.

Q: How often is the lack of forgiveness at the heart of our parish battles, of our marriage problems, and of our problems with our kids?

Fr. Jonah: Lack of forgiveness is the core of almost all our parish battles. Marriage problems and relationships with our kids also have lack of forgiveness at the core. Resentments build up and fester, we heap selfish expectations on one another and can’t see one another for who we really are. So it’s no wonder that relationships break down. To have a spirit of forgiveness means to be authentically open to one another, despite wrongs and sins. If we can do this, there is nothing that cannot be healed.

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This article is available as a booklest from Conciliar Media, a department of the Antiochian Archdiocese. This essay is copyrighted by Conciliar Press.

by Fr. Peter Gillquist

Most people, at one time or another, won­der if there is real meaning to life-an underlying pattern or purpose to it all. For me, that quest for meaning and pur­pose took place in college.

By the end of my junior year, I was ready to do a turn-around. I knew that Jesus Christ had a rightful claim on my life. And I had come to see that life apart from Him–even the enjoyable and constructive parts of life-held little meaning and satisfaction. I was into myself, out for myself, but at a point of wanting to start over.

That spring, I consciously committed my life to Christ. I acknowledged that I had shut Him out of my life, that I was honestly sorry for not following Him, and that I wanted Him to take full control of my life.

Without much realization of what it would mean, I told Him, “From here on out, I’m Yours.”

The inner results of my initial repentance and belief in Christ are difficult for me to describe. While some people have very dramatic turn-arounds, others experience few or no spiritual feelings. For me, there were no lightning bolts, no shock waves. But what I did sense was a distinct new awareness of the Lord’s presence, and an accompanying peace in my heart and life. A love for God and a desire to please Him­experiences left behind in childhood-were rekindled. From that point on, I had an inner desire to know God, to live in abandonment to Him, and to attain to His heavenly Kingdom.

Of course, turning to Christ is nothing new, either to people in our age or to those in ages past. The fact is, Jesus Christ has changed the lives of countless men and women over the last two thousand years. People meet Him and are never the same again. Their lives are transformed. Christ has so deeply affected His follow­ers that millions have willingly died for Him-and counted it an honor to have done so. But why?

Who is this Man who came into the world so unobtrusively, yet can change us so drastically, take away our loneliness, forgive our sins, restore and stabilize our minds and hearts, and even take us into the very Kingdom of God?

An Incomparable Life

Often when we think about the life of Christ, we start two thousand years ago at a manger in the Middle East, with the Baby, the Wise Men, the star. While these things concern His earthly birth, His story really begins in eternity past. Because before time began, before the world was ever made, before the beginning, Christ was there. For there never was a time when He did not exist!

The first words in the Bible are, “In the beginning God . . .” (Genesis 1:1). For God was there from the start, always existing in Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. From God the Father there was be­gotten or born from before all time God the Son. And eternally proceeding from the Father is God the Holy Spirit.

At the creation of the human race, we find God saying, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). Note the plurality of Persons in the Godhead. Thus, from before all ages, God the Son-also called in Scripture the Word of God-reigned with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. This explains why the Gospels teach that God the Son, Jesus Christ, came to reveal the Father to us, and to send to us the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.

Throughout the history of ancient Israel, the Prophets foretold the coming of One who would be the Messiah of Israel, the Anointed One. They predicted He would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), that a sign of His coming would be that a virgin would conceive Him (Isaiah 7:14), and that He would suffer and die for the sins of the people (Isaiah 53:5, 6). There are some 300 references to His coming in the Old Testament Scriptures, all penned hundreds of years before He came.

Then, just as promised, in the fullness of time the angel appeared to a godly young Jewish virgin named Mary, and announced to her that she would bear a Son. “You shall call His name Jesus,” the angel said, “for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Thus, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the humanity of Jesus Christ was formed. The Son of God became everything we are-except for sin-in order that we might become the recipients of every­thing He is. As Saint John writes, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). God became man to reveal Himself to us.

Most of us ask ourselves at one time or another, “Does anyone else in all the world understand me?” The Incarnation-the “infleshment”-of the Son of God answers that question once and for all-with a resounding Yes! Because Jesus Christ is fully God, He knows all things-even the number of the hairs on our heads (Luke 12:7). He created us. And because He is fully man, He is acquainted firsthand with our weaknesses, our disappointments, our sufferings. He knows about rejection, loneliness, hunger, and death because He went through them. Isaiah the Prophet wrote of Him, “Surely He has borne our grief and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4).

Taking His flesh from His Holy Mother Mary, Jesus experienced birth and growth like all of us. In His early years He knew both servitude and appren­ticeship to His earthly father, Joseph, in his trade of carpentry. And He knew the higher priority of obedi­ence and submission to His heavenly Father, on one occasion staying behind in the temple to be about His Father’s business instead of accompanying Mary and Joseph back home from a trip to Jerusalem.

He went through the adolescent years-he expe­rienced what it was like to be thirteen, fifteen-and faced head-on the opportunities for loss of temper, moral compromise, dishonesty, and rebellion present in His day. He knows about human frailty because He was tempted in every way we are, yet He never suc­cumbed to sin.

At the age of thirty, He was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. In doing so, He not only began His own public ministry, but also forever set apart water as the means of beginning our new life in Christ through the Holy Spirit. This is why the Church, His followers here on earth, has baptized her converts in “water and the Spirit” (John 3:5). Baptism is that God-given rite of passage into the Kingdom of God whose mystic power to change us surpasses all human reason.

Throughout His three-year public ministry, Jesus Christ worked countless miracles. He healed the sick, He brought sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and help to the helpless. He stilled a storm, cast out de­mons, and raised the dead. All these miracles estab­lished the presence of God’s Kingdom and further affirmed that He was God. Those who knew Him but a short time said, “He has done all things well” (Mark 7:37). And when pressed on specifics, even His en­emies could find no fault in Him (John 19:4, 6). The daily routines of entire towns and villages were can­celled or changed when He visited. Everything, it became apparent, was subject to Him.

After three years of His ministry the Jewish religious establishment could stand no more of Him. Because He was God and said so, calls for Jesus’ death began to mount. Some of His followers saw the impli­cations and fell away. Even the disciples whom He had hand-picked faltered, one of them denying Him three times. Finally, the religious and civil authorities teamed up against Him, put Him through a sham of a trial, and crucified Him as a common criminal be­tween two thieves. In a few hours, He was dead. No one yet understood that He had died for the entire world, carrying our sins and transgressions with Him into the grave.

Then came the culmination, the most powerful and supernatural event of all history. Three days after dying, Jesus Christ was alive again. He rose from the grave, a champion over death. Death would never touch Him again, for He cancelled out its power. And to those who are joined to Him, His promise is, “Be­cause I live, you will live also” (John 14:19). He had forever trampled down our greatest enemy, death, by His own death. And in His Resurrection He bestows life on the living as well as upon those long dead.

For forty days after His Resurrection, Jesus opened the Scriptures to the eyes of His disciples, teaching them about His everlasting Kingdom, and commis­sioning them to take the gospel to the whole world. He instructed them to build His Church, the expression of His Kingdom on the earth, and fulfilled for them His promise of the Holy Spirit to accomplish the task.

To be sure, the one thing Jesus Christ left behind in this world is His Church. The Scriptures describe that Church as an assembly of His people, a new nation, a royal priesthood, a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Because those who make up His Church share in His Resurrection, they are called the Body of Christ, and He Himself is Head.

At the end of His forty days of teaching, while His disciples stood by as witnesses, Jesus Christ ascended in His glorified body into heaven. He reigns at the right hand of His Father. As our heavenly bishop, He is Lord of His Church. In Him, Saint Paul writes, all things “consist” or are held together (Colossians 1:17).

One day Jesus Christ will return to earth again, to confront the living and the dead. All humanity will appear before His awesome and dread judgment seat. The righteous will inherit eternal life; the wicked, everlasting darkness. The Kingdom of God will be established in its fullness, and Christ will reign, to­gether with the Father and the Holy Spirit, forever.

Knowing God

Some years ago, I was speaking at Religious Emphasis Week at Washington State University. A student stepped forward with an important question. “What does it take for a person to truly become a Christian-what is the price tag for me?”

I told him that night there are two answers to his question. On the one hand, our salvation is a gift. It is freely given. There is nothing we can do to merit a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. That is what the Cross is all about. For when Jesus Christ died for us, He triumphed over the result of our sin, which is death. He died that we might live. Because of the mercy of God, we therefore read in the Scriptures that salvation is a free gift bestowed upon those who are joined to Christ.

That beloved passage, John 3:16, sums it up: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” Saint Paul reminds us, “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Through Christ we are born from above through Holy Baptism into new­ness of life. We are given a fresh start in life-forgiven of all our sins, freed from the hold of evil in our lives, and filled with the Spirit of God to pursue a process of maturity in Christ. His grace to us is a gift.

But I also told my student friend there is a second answer to his question. “Let me say it as plainly as I can,” I told him. “Coming to Christ will cost you everything you have. Your whole life must be changed-and keep changing-to become what He wants it to be. If you’re into sexual immorality, it will cost you that. Cheating-you’ll need to stop it. Drugs and drunkenness-you will need to turn from those. And if you are the sort of person who wants to with­draw from life and is not much interested in people, that will have to change as well.”

You see, Jesus Christ preached one central mes­sage. It is called the gospel, the good news, and it is this: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” (Matthew 3:2). To repent means to turn around, to commit one’s life fully to Christ, to say “Yes” to the Lord and absolutely mean it. And why are we called to this life of repentance? Because to enter God’s Kingdom there is one requirement. We must be righ­teous. We repent because we are unrighteous-we come far short of living lives that bring glory to God.

Isn’t it true, when we look at our motives and actions, we see we must be an embarrassment to God? We have basically gone our own way; we have ig­nored His will and commands for us; we have acted in ways that have damaged other people-some even permanently. Sometimes we turn to God in a pinch, but when things smooth out we return to doing our own thing … and we know it.

When we first repent, we turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and tell Him we are sorry at heart for how we have lived. As undeserving sinners, we ask for His mercy and His forgiveness, and commit ourselves into His care for the rest of our lives.

Let’s face it. If the Kingdom of God is worth anything, it’s worth everything. We are called upon by Christ Himself to lay down everything that would keep us from entering it. That is why Jesus compared the Kingdom of God to a treasure hidden in a field. Once we realize the incredible value of that precious piece, we will sell everything we have to obtain it. This divesting of our private holdings is exactly what re­pentance means. We give up what we must not keep for the incomparable riches of Jesus Christ. This cost to us is the greatest bargain we can ever know.

When we turn to the Lord in this way, we begin the thrilling and adventuresome process of knowing God. Consider one Saul of Tarsus who lived in the first century. We know him better, of course, as Saint Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ. Well educated under lead­ing Jewish rabbis, the young Saul took it upon himself to persecute the early Christians at every turn. One day on the road leading to the city of Damascus, he was blinded by an overpowering light. Jesus Christ ap­peared to him from heaven asking, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”

Having been struck to the ground, Saul uttered his prayer of repentance. “Lord, what do You want me to do?” he asked, no doubt trembling. He was instructed by Christ to go into Damascus, where he would be told what to do. Ananias the prophet met him there and confirmed his faith and repentance. Saul was filled with the Holy Spirit, healed of his blind­ness, and baptized (Acts 9:1-19). He went on to bring the Word of God to countless men and women.

Or consider the venerable Polycarp, who was probably baptized into Christ as an infant or young child in about A.D. 70, still in the heart of the New Testament era. He was brought up to love and serve Christ, and became the bishop of Smyrna in Asia Minor just after the turn of the century. As persecu­tions of Christians intensified midway through the second century, Polycarp, now an old man, was given the choice of denying Christ or being burned alive. “I have served Him eighty-six years,” replied Saint Polycarp, “and in no way has He dealt unjustly with me. So how can I blaspheme my King who has saved me?” (Martyrdom of Polycarp, chapter 9). Burned for his faith, Saint Polycarp is an example not of a dra­matic adult conversion, but rather of a Christian privi­leged to live his whole life in peace and repentance.

I live in Santa Barbara, California, a city named for Saint Barbara, who lived in Nicomedia in the third century. Her father was an avowed pagan, a fanatical worshiper of idols, and he kept his daughter insulated from the outside world to keep her from contact with Christians. But in spite of it all Barbara heard the gospel of Christ, and turned to Him in Holy Baptism. When her father was told of her conversion, he marched her to the executioner’s block and she was beheaded­, possibly at her father’s hand. Her pure and godly life, and her willingness to die for Jesus Christ, have brought great glory to Christ throughout history.

A century later in northern Africa, another Christian woman, Monica, gave birth to a son named Augustine. Though raised in a Christian home, Augus­tine, like many of us, determined to ignore God and live for himself. This gifted young man pursued a life of both academic achievement and immorality, and by his mid-twenties was miserable and empty. He tells in his classic autobiography, Confessions, of his surrender to Jesus Christ. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord,” he writes, “and our hearts are rest­less until they find their rest in You.” It was as though he came to Christ by the process of elimination. Nothing else worked. Under the guidance of his spiri­tual father, Ambrose, the young convert grew steadily in the grace of God. Saint Augustine went on to be­come a bishop in the Church and one of the most influential Christian writers and thinkers of all time.

Space does not permit us to tell of Saint Katherine of Alexandria, Saint John of Damascus, Saint Maxi­mus the Confessor, Saints Cyril and Methodius, Saint Gregory Palamas, Saint Seraphim of Sarov, and the hosts of others who lived their lives under the lordship of Christ as fellow heirs of His Kingdom.

Besides their love for Christ, there is at least one other vital characteristic these people held in common. They all grew to know God and serve Him in the Church. This stands in stark contrast to much of what is taught today under the guise of Christianity. Tragi­cally, some who still use His name have so willfully departed from the path Christ set forth and those heroes and heroines of the Faith followed, that they have made knowing God nearly impossible.

This, coupled with the churchless Christ of televangelism, has prompted people who sincerely desire to serve the Lord to try to make it on their own. But this option works no better.

Let me illustrate. Suppose you take a trip to Cairo, Egypt. You’re sitting one afternoon at a table in a crowded sidewalk cafe having tea. A young man walks up and, with a heavy accent, asks to join you. A bit surprised, you invite him to sit down. You discover his name is Wong Lee, and he is an outspoken commu­nist from China who is in Cairo for a brief summer tour.

Wong Lee asks you to tell him something about life in America, including what it’s like to live in a democracy. You begin by talking about various oppor­tunities in the business world, the possibility of own­ing property. Then you move on to the political arena, voting and the electoral process. You tell him about the checks and balances of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the federal government and something of how state and local governments work as well. You’re honest about the shortcomings of the system, too, and start to wrap up your remarks about the essential freedoms under a democracy.

But before you can finish, Lee interrupts.

“That’s it!” he exclaims with the first real excitement of the afternoon in his voice. “This is what I want!”

“What do you mean?” you ask, bewildered.

“I mean, I want to embrace democracy! It’s better than what we have as communists. Far better. Right now at this moment, I am telling you I am committing myself to democracy!”

You’re stunned. You’ve never seen anything like this in your life. Half an hour ago, you barely knew this man. Now you have a new convert to democracy on your hands. You collect your thoughts for a minute, and then begin to offer some direction.

“Well, let’s see, Lee. This is going to mean that we’ll have to make arrangements to bring you into the country and make you an American citizen.”

“What do you mean?” Lee asks. “Why should I move?”

“So you can live out your life under a democracy, so you can experience this freedom and opportunity,” you explain.

“But my home is in Beijing,” Lee retorts. “I have no intention of moving away from there. I’ll study about democracy and learn on my own. I will memo­rize the Constitution and learn the Bill of Rights. And I can subscribe to the Congressional Record.”

Your heart sinks. What he’s saying will not work, and you know it won’t work. How can anyone be committed to democracy and be perfectly satisfied to remain living under communism? It’s impossible. But you can’t get Lee to understand. He’s into democracy merely on a mental level, and it will do him little or no good.

Such and worse is the plight of those who try to follow Christ-even zealously-but apart from the Church. They may be sincere, but they will never really get to know Him out there. For one must live within the Body of Christ, be fed by her sacraments, be instructed in her true Faith, and worship at her altar to attain the godliness and righteousness that lead to the Kingdom’s open doors.

Coming to Christ and to His Church

For two thousand years, the Orthodox Christian Church has held intact the fullness of Christ that we have discussed here. She has maintained this Faith in the face of almost indescribable persecution and suf­fering. Within the gates of Orthodox Christianity is the totality of the New Testament Faith, the Apostolic Church.

By the mercy of God, this Faith has never been reduced or diminished. Nor has it been added to or altered. The Orthodox Church is that one place, that zone of safety, if you will, where the God of the Scriptures-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—can be fully known, loved, and worshiped.

One of the great Fathers of Orthodoxy is Saint John Chrysostom, a Bible teacher and preacher of the fourth century who has brought and still brings thou­sands of people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ through his writings. Whenever this man encountered a person who wanted to commit himself to Christ and learn to know Him, Saint John would agree to instruct him in the Orthodox Faith, after which would come Holy Baptism and the anointing with oil to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

But before the actual instruction was begun, the godly pastor would offer a prayer of enrollment by which the person was entrusted to Jesus Christ as his Lord and King.

This prayer is still used today at the opening of the Orthodox service of baptism. Look carefully at how it begins:

“In Your Name, O Lord, God of truth, And in the Name

of Your Only-begotten Son, And of your Holy Spirit,

I lay my hands upon your servant, Who has been found worthy

to flee to your Holy Name And to take refuge

under the shelter of Your wings.”

Let me ask you a sincere question. Are you will­ing to flee to Jesus Christ for protection in His Holy Church, to learn to know Him, to be cleansed and changed? If so, a new life in Christ lies ahead for you. Your next step is to get to know an Orthodox priest in your area who can guide you through a time of prepa­ration and instruction in the Christian Faith, and then union with Christ in Holy Baptism.

Ask the person who offered you this booklet to put you in touch with a priest. Or check the Yellow Pages of the phone book under “Orthodox” or “East­ern Orthodox,” and call for an appointment to visit. Or you may write to us at Conciliar Press, P.O. Box 76, Ben Lomond, CA 95005, and we will try to refer you to an Orthodox Church near your home.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Determine to follow Jesus Christ and learn to walk with Him on that path which leads to the knowl­edge of God. For Jesus Christ has promised, “The one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out” (John 6:37). The door has been opened to you, and He will receive you as His disciple.

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This article is available as a printed booklet from Conciliar Media, a department of the Antiochian Archdiocese. This essay is copyrighted by Conciliar Press.

by Fr. David Tillman

One of the most difficult things for people to accept about Christianity is the exclusive claim made by Jesus to be God and the only Savior of the world. This claim causes scandal to many, both those (ostensibly) within and those outside the Orthodox Church—a scandal that is simply unavoidable. Outside Christianity, many actively resent any claim that Jesus is God and the only Savior of the world. Yet this is indeed Christ’s claim, from which there is no honorable escape. C. S. Lewis and others have rightly noted that there are only three logical options to explain Christ’s making this claim: (1) that He was insane; (2) that He was dishonest; or (3) that Jesus is who He says He is. To be sure, one does not have to accept Jesus’ claims, but it is simply silly to contend that He did not make them. To be a Christian, however, one must embrace the Lord’s exclusive claims about Himself, scandal and all.

Because of the exclusive claims of the Lord, the Orthodox Church confesses, believes, and proclaims that the only Savior of the world, Jesus Christ, has one Body, His Church. We Orthodox believe in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and we believe that the Orthodox Church is it. In pluralistic societies such as those of North America and Western Europe today, the claim of the Orthodox Church to be the one and only Church that Jesus founded certainly is not popular, but ultimately it is a necessary outgrowth of the exclusive claims of Jesus; it is simply a testimony to the fact that God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is One and that salvation is bestowed only by and through Him.

Before we allow ourselves to be embarrassed by the claims of the Church, we must be sure that God Himself is not the cause of our embarrassment. There is no salvation from futility, sin, death, corruption, and estrangement from each other and from God except through Jesus Christ. Salvation is to be united to Him in His Church. Postmodern pluralism cannot be honestly reconciled with Jesus’ claims regarding Himself or Orthodoxy’s claims regarding herself. There is but one Truth, and He is Jesus.

It must be admitted that the exclusive claims regarding Christ and the Church are insufferable when proclaimed by haughty souls who would not recognize the virtue of humility if they fell over it. No Orthodox Christian is justified in boasting or presuming that his or her visible membership in the Church is a guarantee of a place at the marriage supper of the Lamb. As much damage to sensitive souls is probably done by presumptuous arrogance on the part of Orthodox believers as is done by all the anti-Christian postmodernist academicians combined.

It must be remembered that it is Jesus Christ alone that judges who is or is not saved. The Bible teaches that not all those in the Church will be saved, but some who are never visibly in the Church are nevertheless near and dear to the Lord. (How many times did Samaritan heretics exhibit saving faith in the Gospels?) Jesus is the exclusive Judge of all. On the last and great day, all human beings who have ever lived will be brought before the Lord for the final Judgment. The Creed of Nicea-Constantinople adequately summarizes the entire Tradition when it says of Jesus, He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.

 

Identifying the Sheep and the Goats

We can say much about those who will be ushered into the marriage supper of the Lamb, but we cannot say everything. Only the Lord has all the facts regarding the saved and the lost. God is Love; He is just and merciful. No one will be unjustly excluded from the Presence of God and the bliss of the day without evening. But there will be many surprises on that day, one of which will be the many excluded from the joy of the Kingdom who considered themselves members in good standing of the Orthodox Church!

From our human vantage point, the one Orthodox Church has both an invisible and a visible character. We can never see or conceive of the Church in its completed fullness. The Church remains the Great Mystery, and she retains a character hidden in the mystery of our Lord’s Incarnation. We can say a great deal about the visible character of the Church, but we cannot plumb its depths. We must remember this when we speak of or to people who are not visibly or discernibly members of the Orthodox Church.

All human beings are, by their creation, made in the image and likeness of God. The Cross shows us again that all are loved by the Lord. Many may even bear a hidden, unknown, or imperfect relationship to the Lord and thus to His Church. The job of Orthodox Christians is to find, welcome, and unite such individuals and communities to the Church whenever and wherever possible. The faith is not a talent that should be buried! We know that the Lord wants everyone to be united to Himself.

We know some things about where the Church is and who is part of her. Even now we know the names of many people who will be present at the marriage supper of the Lamb. The Most Holy Theotokos will surely be there. Saint John the Baptist will be there, with the Prophets. The Twelve and the Seventy Apostles will be there, along with the Evangelists, Saint Paul, and his many helpers and companions. The holy martyrs will be there in their millions, led by Saint Stephen, the first of them. Saints Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, Athanasius, Cyril, Leo, Ambrose, Augustine, Gregory the Great, Maximos the Confessor, Gregory Palamas, and all the other Fathers will be there. The venerable monastic fathers and mothers of the deserts, deep forests, islands, cities and countrysides of the globe will be there, led by Saints Anthony and Pachomius. Some God-crowned emperors and other rulers will be there, and with them ordinary people with extraordinary faith from all walks of life. We know the names of hundreds of the glorified saints. But we do not know all of them, and it is presumptuous in the extreme to think that we do.

When it comes to who will not be at the marriage supper of the Lamb, we have a much shorter list of specific names. The horror of any creature’s ultimate rejection of the mercy of God is almost too much to contemplate. This fact led some of the saints to speculate that every creature, including Satan, would ultimately be reconciled to God. The idea that finally all creatures with free choice (i.e., angels, devils, and men) will share in the grace of salvation is called apocatastasis (or universalism). Origen, Saint Clement of Alexandria, and Saint Gregory of Nyssa held this opinion. Theirs were understandable errors of charity. In 543 the Council of Constantinople condemned universalism. Prior to this, in North Africa, Saint Augustine of Hippo fought mightily against it because he saw the possibility of damnation as the guarantor of our free will. Our choices are real, and the Lord takes them seriously.

In this light, we know that Lucifer will not be at the marriage supper of the Lamb. Neither will Arius or the unrepentant heresiarchs. In addition, Saint John Chrysostom tells us that the roads of hell are paved with the skulls of erring priests, and those of erring bishops are the lampposts! Jesus warns us that there will be miracle-workers and prophets among those excluded (see Matthew 7:21–23). Saint Paul gives us lists of those who will not inherit eternal life (see 1 Corinthians 6:9–11).

Judas Iscariot was one of the Twelve. Was the Lord’s call a charade? Arius was a duly ordained senior priest of the Church of Alexandria. Was his ordination flawed? Absolutely not! Judas’ call was genuine and pure; Judas himself was not. Arius’ ordination was faithful and authentic; Arius was not. From the time of Judas to today, mere visible membership in the Church is no guarantee of salvation. It can, however, guarantee a stricter standard of judgment by the Lord, especially for the ordained. The Lord judges the reality, not merely the appearance, of our faith and obedience. He will separate the saved from the lost on the Last Day.

 

Speaking in Humility and Love

When speaking of a person’s or a community’s relationship to the Lord, and thus their ultimate fate, we in the visible communion of the Orthodox Church must be very careful. It is simply not for us to speculate about how any individual or group we encounter today will fare on Judgment Day. Orthodox Christians who have forgotten this have caused terrible damage to many. We must surely provoke God’s wrath and place our souls in peril when we thus usurp the prerogatives of the Righteous Judge of the Universe.

We can say that this or that person is not in visible communion with the Orthodox Church. But what we say and how we say it must proceed out of utmost humility. Our own sins, and our gratitude that (most undeservedly) Jesus loves us despite everything, must forever remain in the forefront of our thinking when we are discussing such issues with those outside the Orthodox Church. Depravity among those outside the Church is understandable; our own sinfulness despite being in the Church is not. This conviction must permeate our being before we discuss the Church with those outside. Quite often we must simply remain silent. But our reticence in such cases is not due to a lack of belief in one God or in One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.

We are simply not given all the facts regarding the mystery of even our own salvation, much less anyone else’s. On one level, we are only given those facts that we need to know in order to be saved. And, yes, we are only saved in the Church. Saint Paul teaches, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Ephesians 4:4–6). This can never be an excuse for arrogance or presumption on the part of Orthodox Christians. It is better to hymn the mystery of the Church in awed silence rather than to say too much, or to behave as though one’s membership in the Church is due to some excellence on one’s own part.

Ignorance is an aspect of being human, both within and outside the Church. Our ignorance must call us to humility. Here and now we see through a glass darkly. But even in the consummated fullness of the Kingdom of heaven, we will never know God in His essence. We will never know what it is to be uncreated. We will always be creatures, even as we go from glory to glory in eternal life. We must remain humble in the face of the fact of our ignorance. Even our Lord Jesus Christ partakes of ignorance when He tells His disciples that He does not know when the world will end: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36, RSV).

We confess our ignorance when we say, “We know where the Church is; we do not know where it is not.” This hyperbolic saying is a way of embracing humility and eschewing vainglory regarding the uniqueness of the Orthodox Church and the unspeakable mercy of God for allowing us in despite our sins.

Saint Paul exhorts us, “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things” (Philippians 4:8). Saint Paul also tells us that “no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). If this is the Tradition, i.e. what we have learned and received and seen and heard from the Holy Apostle Paul—and it is—then this outlook must inform our dealings with the non-Orthodox, especially our neighbors.

We Orthodox have nothing to fear and much to rejoice about when a person or group tells and believes the truth. We Orthodox worship the Truth—His name is Jesus. We have the unique vocation to tell the truth. We are called and sent to be prophets by our baptismal faith, but if we prophesy without love we will go to hell. (See Matthew 7:21–23 and 1 Corinthians 13:1–7 again.) Magisterial pronouncements and anathemas of the town clergy association by the new Orthodox mission priest or the self-appointed “Committee for a Truer Orthodoxy” are harmful and deplorable. (Of course, this does not mean Orthodox Christians should compromise every aspect of the Tradition to be “in” with the “in crowd” of a city, neighborhood, or political party!)

We Orthodox are called to quietly, courageously, consistently, and constantly live the True Faith. People should be able to intuit a great deal about the Lord and His Church by watching us. Our seeking what may be true in others does not diminish or compromise the Lord or the Church. Likewise, our seeking what is good and true in others will not soften or dull our duty to stand up against evil and even die for what is true at the hands of a society that wants to live a lie.

We must walk the narrow way of loving obedience to Jesus and maintain vigilance against the pitfalls of arrogance and presumption on the one hand, and sentimental universalism on the other. There are laudatory things and people both within and outside Christendom. Does that mean that the Gospel is irrelevant and that these people and things are not in need of the Savior? Certainly not! We must never oversimplify a complex problem. The Apostles themselves were vexed by the problem of how to view those outside their fellowship who followed Jesus one way or another. What we should not do is to create schisms or toss about anathemas while these things are discussed and worked out.

The Church has never faced such a large number and such a loud cacophony of non-Orthodox groups identifying themselves as Christians. The denominational situation, especially as it exists in the English-speaking world today, is relatively new. The Holy Scriptures and the Holy Canons give us clues as to the right shape for Orthodox strategy in this new milieu, but a universal response by the entire Church in this era has not been made. An individual’s best response is to leave the issue to his own bishop and avoid attempting to speak for the entire Church. Eventually the Orthodox Church will speak with one voice.

This article is available as a printed booklet from Conciliar Media, a department of the Antiochian Archdiocese. This essay is copyrighted by Conciliar Press.

by Bishop Kallistos Ware

Saint Tikhon of Zadonsk, writing in eight­eenth-century Russia, has this to say about our Orthodox attitude towards the Holy Scriptures: “If an earthly king, our emperor, wrote you a letter, would you not read it with joy? Certainly, with great rejoicing and careful atten­tion. You have been sent a letter, not by any earthly emperor, but by the King of Heaven. And yet you almost despise such a gift, so priceless a treasure.” He goes on to say: “Whenever you read the Gospel, Christ Himself is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking to Him.”

We are to see Scripture as a personal letter ad­dressed specifically to each one of us by God. We are each of us to see Scripture reading as a direct, individual dialogue between Christ and ourselves.

Two centuries after Saint Tikhon, the 1976 Moscow Conference between the Orthodox and the Anglicans expressed in different but equally valid terms the true attitude towards Scripture. Signed also by the Anglican delegates, the Moscow statement provides an admirable summary of the Orthodox view of the Bible: “The Scriptures constitute a coherent whole. They are at once divinely inspired and humanly expressed. They bear authoritative witness to God’s revelation of Him­self—in creation, in the Incarnation of the Word, and the whole history of salvation. And as such they express the word of God in human language. . . . We know, receive, and interpret Scripture through the Church and in the Church. Our approach to the Bible is one of obe­dience.”

Combining Saint Tikhon and the Moscow state­ment, we may distinguish four key qualities which mark an Orthodox reading of Scripture. First, our reading should be obedient. Second, it should be ecclesial, within the Church. Third, it should be Christ-centered. Fourth, it should be personal.

Reading the Bible with Obedience

First of all, then, when reading Scripture, we are to listen in a spirit of obedience. Saint Tikhon and the 1976 Moscow Conference both alike emphasize the divine inspiration of the Bible. Scripture is a letter from God. Christ Himself is speaking. The Scriptures are God’s authoritative witness of Himself. They express the Word of God in our human language. They are divinely inspired. Since God Himself is speaking to us in the Bible, our response is rightly one of obedience, of receptivity and listening. As we read, we wait on the Spirit.

But, while divinely inspired, the Bible is also humanly expressed. It is a whole library of different books written at varying times by distinct persons. Each book of the Bible reflects the outlook of the age in which it was written and the particular viewpoint of the author. For God does nothing in isolation; divine grace coop­erates with human freedom. God does not abolish our personhood but enhances it. And so it is in the writing of inspired Scripture. The authors were not just a passive instrument, a dictation machine recording a message. Each writer of Scripture contributes his or her particular human gifts. Alongside the divine aspect, there is also a human element in Scripture. We are to value both.

Each of the four Gospels, for example, has its own particular approach. Matthew presents more particu­larly a Jewish understanding of Christ, with an empha­sis on the Kingdom of heaven. Mark contains specific, picturesque details of Christ’s ministry not given else­where. Luke expresses the universality of Christ’s love, His all-embracing compassion that extends equally to Jew and to Gentile. In John there is a more inward and more mystical approach to Christ, with an emphasis on divine light and divine indwelling. We are to enjoy and explore to the full this life-giving variety within the Bible.

Because Scripture is in this way the word of God expressed in human language, there is room for honest and exacting critical enquiry when studying the Bible. Exploring the human aspect of the Bible, we are to use to the full our God-given human reason. The Orthodox Church does not exclude scholarly research into the origin, dates, and authorship of books of the Bible.

Alongside this human element, however, we see always the divine element. These are not simply books written by individual human writers. We hear in Scrip­ture not just human words, marked by a greater or lesser skill and perceptiveness, but the eternal, un-created Word of God Himself, the divine Word of salvation. When we come to the Bible, then, we come not simply out of curiosity, to gain information. We come to the Bible with a specific question, a personal question about ourselves: “How can I be saved?”

As God’s divine word of salvation in human lan­guage, Scripture should evoke in us a sense of wonder. Do you ever feel, as you read or listen, that it has all become too familiar? Has the Bible grown rather boring? Continually we need to cleanse the doors of our perception and to look in amazement with new eyes at what the Lord sets before us.

Some time ago I had a dream which I remember vividly. I was back in the house where, for three years as a child, I lived in boarding school. At first in my dream I went through rooms that were already familiar to me. But then the companion who was showing me round took me into other rooms that I had never seen be­fore—spacious, beautiful, full of light. Finally we entered a small chapel, with candles gleaming and dark golden mosaics.

In my dream I said to my companion,“How strange that I have lived here for three years, and yet I never knew about the existence of all these rooms.” And he replied to me, “But it is always so.”

I awoke; and behold, it was a dream.

We are to feel towards the Bible exactly the awe, the sense of wonder, of expectation and surprise, that I experienced in my dream. There are so many rooms in Scripture that we have never yet entered. There is so much depth and majesty for us to discover. This sense of wonder is an essential element in our responsive obedience.

If obedience means wonder, it also means listen­ing. Such is the original meaning of the word in both Greek and Latin.

As a student I used to follow the Goon Show on the radio. In one particular incident that I recall, the telephone rings and a character reaches out his arm to pick up the receiver. “Hello,” he says, “hello, hello.” His volume rises. “Who is speaking—I can’t hear you. Hello, who is speaking?” The voice at the other end says, “You are speaking.” “Ah,” he replies. “I thought the voice sounded familiar.” And he puts the receiver down.

That unfortunately is a parable of what happens to us all too often. We are better at talking than listening. We hear the sound of our own voice, but we don’t pause to hear the voice of the other who is speaking to us. So the first requirement, as we read Scripture, is to stop talking and to listen—to listen with obedience.

When we enter an Orthodox Church, decorated in the traditional manner, and look up towards the sanctu­ary at the east end, we see there in the apse the Mother of God with her hands raised to heaven—the ancient scriptural manner of praying that many still use today. Such symbolically is to be our attitude also as we read Scripture—the attitude of receptivity, of hands invisi­bly raised to heaven. Reading the Bible, we are to model ourselves on the Blessed Virgin Mary, for she is su­premely the one who listens. At the Annunciation she listens with obedience and responds to the angel, “Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). She could not have borne the Word of God in her body if she had not first listened to the Word of God in her heart. After the shepherds have adored the newborn Christ, it is said of her: “Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19). Again, when Mary finds Jesus in the temple, we are told: “His mother kept all these things in her heart” (Luke 2:51). The same need for listening is emphasized in the last words attributed to the Mother of God in Scripture, at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee: “Whatever He says to you, do it” (John 2:5), she says to the servants—and to all of us.

In all this the Blessed Virgin Mary serves as a mirror, as a living icon of the biblical Christian. We are to be like her as we hear the Word of God: pondering, keeping all these things in our hearts, doing whatever He tells us. We are to listen in obedience as God speaks.

Understanding the Bible through the Church

In the second place, as the Moscow Conference says, “We know, receive, and interpret Scripture through the Church and in the Church.” Our approach to the Bible is not only obedient but ecclesial.

It is the Church that tells us what is Scripture. A book is not part of Scripture because of any particular theory about its dating and authorship. Even if it could be proved, for example, that the Fourth Gospel was not actually written by John, the beloved disciple of Christ, this would not alter the fact that we Orthodox accept the Fourth Gospel as Holy Scripture. Why? Because the Gospel of John, whoever the author may be—and for myself I continue to accept the Johannine authorship—is accepted by the Church and in the Church.

It is the Church that tells us what is Scripture, and it is equally the Church that tells us how Scripture is to be understood. Coming upon the Ethiopian as he read the Old Testament in his chariot, Philip the Apostle asked him, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And the Ethiopian answered, “How can I, unless some­one guides me?” (Acts 8:30, 31). We are all in the position of the Ethiopian. The words of Scripture are not always self-explanatory. God speaks directly to the heart of each one of us as we read our Bible—Scripture reading is, as Saint Tikhon says, a personal dialogue between each one and Christ—but we also need guid­ance. And our guide is the Church. We make full use of our own personal understanding, assisted by the Spirit, we make full use of the findings of modern biblical research, but always we submit private opin­ion—whether our own or that of the scholars—to the total experience of the Church throughout the ages.

The Orthodox standpoint here is summed up in the question asked of a convert at the reception service used by the Russian Church: “Do you acknowledge that the Holy Scripture must be accepted and interpreted in ac­cordance with the belief which has been handed down by the Holy Fathers, and which the Holy Orthodox Church, our Mother, has always held and still does hold?”

We read the Bible personally, but not as isolated in­dividuals. We read as the members of a family, the family of the Orthodox Catholic Church. When reading Scripture, we say not “I” but “We.” We read in communion with all the other members of the Body of Christ, in all parts of the world and in all generations of time. The decisive test and criterion for our under-stand­ing of what the Scripture means is the mind of the Church. The Bible is the book of the Church.

To discover this “mind of the Church,” where do we begin? Our first step is to see how Scripture is used in worship. How, in particular, are biblical lessons chosen for reading at the different feasts? We should also consult the writings of the Church Fathers, and con­sider how they interpret the Bible. Our Orthodox manner of reading Scripture is in this way both liturgi­cal and patristic. And this, as we all realize, is far from easy to do in practice, because we have at our disposal so few Orthodox commentaries on Scripture available in English, and most of the Western commentaries do not employ this liturgical and patristic approach.

As an example of what it means to interpret Scrip­ture in a liturgical way, guided by the use made of it at Church feasts, let us look at the Old Testament lessons appointed for Vespers on the Feast of the Annunciation, on March 25. They are three in number: (1) Genesis 28:10-17: Jacob’s dream of a ladder set up from earth to heaven; (2) Ezekiel 43:27-44:4: the prophet’s vision of the Jerusalem sanctuary, with the closed gate through which none but the Prince may pass; (3) Proverbs 9:1-11: one of the great sophianic passages in the Old Testament, beginning “Wisdom has built her house.”

These texts in the Old Testament, then, as their selection for the 25th of March and other feasts of the Theotokos indicates, are all to be understood as prophe­cies concerning the Incarnation from the Virgin. Mary is Jacob’s ladder, supplying the flesh that God incarnate takes upon entering our human world. Mary is the closed gate who alone among women bore a child while still remaining inviolate. Mary provides the house which Christ the Wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24) takes as his dwelling (in another interpretation, the title Wisdom or Sophia refers to the Mother of God herself). Exploring in this manner the choice of lessons for the various feasts, we discover layers of biblical interpre­tation that are by no means obvious on a first reading.

Take as another example Vespers on Holy Satur­day, the first part of the ancient Paschal Vigil. Here we have no less than fifteen Old Testament lessons. Re­grettably, in all too many churches most of these are omitted, and so God’s people are starved of their proper biblical nourishment. This sequence of fifteen lessons sets before us the whole scheme of sacred history, while at the same time underlining the deeper meaning of Christ’s Resurrection. First among the lessons is Gene­sis 1:1-13, the account of Creation: Christ’s Resurrec­tion is a new Creation. The fourth lesson is the Book of Jonah in its entirety, with the prophet’s three days in the belly of the whale foreshadowing Christ’s Resurrection after three days in the tomb (cf. Matthew 12:40). The sixth lesson recounts the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites (Exodus 13:20-15:19), which anticipates the new Passover of Pascha whereby Christ passes over from death to life (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:7; 10:1-4). The final lesson is the story of the three Holy Children in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3), once more a “type” or proph­ecy of Christ’s rising from the tomb.

Such is the effect of reading Scripture ecclesially in the Church and with the Church. Studying the Old Testament in this liturgical way and using the Fathers to help us, everywhere we uncover signposts pointing for­ward to the mystery of Christ and of His Mother. Reading the Old Testament in the light of the New, and the New in the light of the Old—as the Church’s calen­dar encourages us to do—we discover the unity of Holy Scripture. One of the best ways of identifying corre­spondences between the Old and New Testaments is to use a good biblical concordance. This can often tell us more about the meaning of Scripture than any commen­tary.

In Bible study circles within our parishes, it is helpful to give one person the special task of noting whenever a particular passage in the Old or New Testa­ment is used for a festival or a saint’s day. We can then discuss together the reasons why each specific passage has been so chosen. Others in the group can be assigned to do homework among the Fathers, using above all the biblical homilies of Saint John Chrysostom, which have all been translated into English. But remember, you’ll have to dig to find what you are looking for. The Fathers were speaking to a different age from ours, and need to be read with imagination. We must not be as literal-minded as the nineteenth-century Russian village priest who was told by his bishop, “Take your sermons from the Fathers.” So on the next great feast he decided to read at the Liturgy a sermon of Saint John Chrysostom without changing a single word. The church was packed, and his parishioners were disconcerted when he commenced in ringing tones, “What is this? What do I see? The church is empty. There is nobody here. Where have they all gone? Everyone is in the hippo­drome.”

Father Georges Florovsky used to say that Ortho­dox today need to acquire a patristic mind. But to gain that, we must penetrate beyond the bare words of the Fathers to the kernel of their inner meaning.

Christ, the Heart of the Bible

The third element in our reading of Scripture is that it should be Christ-centered. When the 1976 Moscow Conference tells us, “The Scriptures constitute a coher­ent whole,” where are we to locate this unity and coher­ence? In the person of Christ. He is the unifying thread that runs through the entirety of Holy Scripture, from the first sentence to the last. We have already mentioned the way in which Christ may be seen foreshadowed on the pages of the Old Testament. As my history teacher at school used to say, “It all ties up. ” That is an excellent principle to employ when reading Scripture. Only connect.

Much modern critical study of Scripture in the West has adopted an analytical approach, breaking up each book into different sources. The connecting links are unraveled, and the Bible is reduced to a series of bare primary units. There is certainly value in this. But we need to see the unity as well as the diversity of Scrip­ture, the all-embracing end as well as the scattered be­ginnings. Orthodoxy prefers on the whole a synthetic rather than an analytical approach, seeing Scripture as an integrated whole, with Christ everywhere as the bond of union.

Always we seek for the point of convergence between the Old Testament and the New, and this we find in Jesus Christ. Orthodoxy assigns particular significance to the “typological” method of interpreta­tion, whereby “types” of Christ, signs and symbols of His work, are discerned throughout the Old Testament. A notable example of this is Melchizedek, the priest-king of Salem, who offered bread and wine to Abraham (Genesis 14:18), and who is seen as a type of Christ not only by the Fathers but even in the New Testament itself (Hebrews 5:6; 7:1). Another instance is the way in which, as we have seen, the Old Passover foreshadows the New; Israel’s deliverance from Pharaoh at the Red Sea anticipates our deliverance from sin through the death and Resurrection of the Savior. Such is the method of interpretation that we are to apply throughout the Bible. Why, for instance, in the second half of Lent are the Old Testament readings from Genesis domi­nated by the figure of Joseph? Why in Holy Week do we read from the Book of Job? Because Joseph and Job are innocent sufferers, and as such they are types or foreshadowings of Jesus Christ, whose innocent suffer­ing upon the Cross the Church is at the point of celebrat­ing. It all ties up.

“A Christian,” remarks Father Alexander Schme­mann, “is the one who wherever he looks finds every­where Christ, and rejoices in Him.” We can say this in particular of the biblical Christian. He is the one who, wherever he looks, finds everywhere Christ, on every page of Scripture.

The Bible As Personal

In the words of an early ascetic writer in the Christian East, Saint Mark the Monk: “He who is humble in his thoughts and engaged in spiritual work, when he reads the Holy Scriptures, will apply every­thing to himself and not to his neighbor.” As Orthodox Christians we are to look everywhere in Scripture for a personal application. We are to ask not just, “What does it mean?” but, “What does it mean to me?” Scripture is a personal dialogue between the Savior and myself—Christ speaking to me, and me answering. That is the fourth criterion in our Bible reading.

I am to see all the stories in Scripture as part of my own personal story. Who is Adam? The name Adam means “man,” “human,” and so the Genesis account of Adam’s Fall is also a story about me. I am Adam. It is to me that God says, “Adam, where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). “Where is God?” we often ask. But the real question is what God asks the Adam in each of us: “Where are you?”

When, in the story of Cain and Abel, we read God’s words to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” (Genesis 4:9), that also is addressed to each one of us. Who is Cain? It is myself. And God asks the Cain in each of us, “Where is your brother?” The way to God lies through love of other people, and there is no other way. Disown­ing my brother, I replace the image of God with the mark of Cain, and deny my own essential humanity.

In reading Scripture, we may take three steps. First, what we have in Scripture is sacred history: the history of the world from the Creation, the history of the chosen people, the history of God Incarnate in Palestine, the “mighty works” after Pentecost. The Christianity that we find in the Bible is not an ideol-ogy, not a philosophical theory, but a historical faith.

Then we are to take a second step. The history presented in the Bible is a personal history. We see God intervening at specific times and in specific places, as He enters into dialogue with individual persons. He ad­dresses each one by name. We see set before us the specific calls issued by God to Abraham, Moses and David, to Rebekah and Ruth, to Isaiah and the prophets, and then to Mary and the Apostles. We see the particu­larity of the divine action in history, not as a scandal but as a blessing. God’s love is universal in scope, but He chooses to become incarnate in a particular corner of the earth, at a particular time and from a particular Mother.

We are in this manner to savor all the specificity of God’s action as recorded in Scripture. The person who loves the Bible loves details of dating and geography. Orthodoxy has an intense devotion to the Holy Land, to the exact places where Christ lived and taught, died and rose again. An excellent way to enter more deeply into our Scripture reading is to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and Galilee. Walk where Christ walked. Go down to the Dead Sea, sit alone on the rocks, feel how Christ felt during the forty days of His temptation in the wilderness. Drink from the well where He spoke with the Samaritan woman. Go at night to the Garden of Gethsemane, sit in the dark under the ancient olives and look across the valley to the lights of the city. Experi­ence to the full the distinctive “isness” of the historical setting, and take that experience back with you to your daily Scripture reading.

Then we are to take a third step. Reliving biblical history in all its particularity, we are to apply it directly to ourselves. We are to say to ourselves, “All these places and events are not just far away and long ago, but are also part of my own personal encounter with Christ. The stories include me.”

Betrayal, for example, is part of the personal story of everyone. Have we not all at some time in our life betrayed others, and have we not all known what it is to be betrayed, and does not the memory of these moments leave continuing scars on our psyche? Reading, then, the account of Saint Peter’s betrayal of Christ and of his restoration after the Resurrection, we can see ourselves as each an actor in the story. Imagining what both Peter and Jesus must have experienced at the moment imme­diately after the betrayal, we enter into their feelings and make them our own. I am Peter; in this situation can I also be Christ? Reflecting likewise on the process of reconciliation—seeing how the risen Christ with a love utterly devoid of sentimentality restored the fallen Peter to fellowship, seeing how Peter on his side had the courage to accept this restoration—we ask ourselves: How Christlike am I to those who have betrayed me? And, after my own acts of betrayal, am I able to accept the forgiveness of others—am I able to forgive myself?

Or take, as another example, Saint Mary Magdalene. Can I see myself mirrored in her? Do I share in the generosity, the spontaneity and loving impulsiveness, that she showed when she poured out the alabaster box of ointment on the feet of Christ? “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much.” (Here I follow the normal Western opinion, which identifies the sinful woman in Luke 7:36-50 with Mary Magdalene; in the Christian East this identification is not usually made.) Or am I timid, mean, holding myself back, never ready to give myself fully to anything either good or bad? As the Desert Fathers say, “Better someone who has sinned, if he knows he has sinned and repents, than a person who has not sinned and thinks of himself as righteous.”

Have I gained the boldness of Saint Mary Magdalene, her constancy and loyalty, when she went out to anoint the body of Christ in the tomb (John 20:1)? Do I hear the risen Savior call me by name, as He called her, and do I respond “Rabboni” with her simplic­ity and completeness (John 20:16)?

Reading Scripture in this way—in obedience, as a member of the Church, finding Christ everywhere, seeing everything as a part of my own personal story—we shall sense something of the variety and depth to be found in the Bible. Yet always we shall feel that in our biblical exploration we are only at the very beginning. We are like someone launching out in a tiny boat across a limitless ocean.

“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 118[119]:105).

This article is available as a printed booklet from Conciliar Media, a department of the Antiochian Archdiocese. This essay is copyrighted by Conciliar Press.  

by Fr. John Hainsworth

Every night my family gathers around the dinner table. We pray, dish out the food, laugh, argue, and ask and answer questions. The scene is sometimes chaotic, sometimes serious, sometimes silly, but this scene defines our family. This table becomes the heart of our family. My girls, when they come to the table, come as full members of the family. They are not invited to the table but excluded from the food. They belong by right to the household, and therefore belong at the dinner table. This right is never questioned, their status never challenged. Do they understand the significance of belonging to the family? Do they appreciate the blessings inherent in membership? Of course not, at least not yet. Will they ever reject this family? Will they break the holy fellowship of that dinner table? Probably not, but even if I worry that they will, I cannot keep from them the family status which they have as a birthright. On the contrary, honoring that status, rejoicing and raising them in it, will do more to preserve them as valuable family members than waiting to offer this membership until I am sure they truly appreciate it.

Why start at the dinner table to talk about the practice of baptizing children in the Orthodox Church? Because the family table, and the family itself, are biblically ideal images for the church altar and the church family. We are born into an earthly family, and born again (John 3:3) into the heavenly family. We eat together at the dinner table, and we feast together at the altar. With God our Father, and the Church our Mother (Revelation 12:1), we gather as children of a holy family, each of us enjoying the full privileges of membership by a baptismal birthright. Do we fathom the many blessings we receive just by virtue of belonging to this family? No, for to do so would be to fathom the depths of the riches of God. Does God still honor us, treat us as His children, still welcome us to His table, still call us His own? Always and forever. We may reject Him, rebel against Him, flee to a far off country. But if we return, we do not return as stewards of His Household, we return as His children, we return as prodigal members of His family. If we do not return, we know that God will never stop His vigil at the gates of our hearts, waiting for the return of His own.

Nevertheless, the ancient, apostolic and biblical practice of baptizing infants and children has been challenged by some in recent times. Let us look at the background and arguments of this debate before we turn to what it means for the Orthodox Church to baptize children.

Background

Infant baptism was not controversial in the Church during the first two centuries after Christ. St. Polycarp described himself as having been in devoted service to Christ for 86 years in a manner that would clearly indicate a childhood baptism. Pliny describes with amazement that children belong to the Christian cult in just the same way as do the adults. St. Justin Martyr tells of the “many men and women who have been disciples of Christ from childhood.” St. Irenaeus of Lyon wrote about “all who are born again in God, the infants, and the small children . . . and the mature.” St. Hippolytus insisted that “first you should baptize the little ones . . . but for those who cannot speak, their parents should speak or another who belongs to their family.”

The first recorded opposition to the practice comes from Tertullian in the third century. He objected to the practice of baptizing infants because of the heretical idea that sin after baptism was nearly unforgivable. His dissention should be understood within the larger debates of his day, centered around perceived laxity in church morals and government. Many of the greatest Fathers of the third and fourth centuries were not baptized until they were adults, despite having been born to Christian parents. Among them were St. Basil the Great, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome. The later baptism of these men reflects a larger crisis in the newly legalized Church under St. Constantine. One reason postponing baptism became popular was the desire of some Christians to counteract the new wave of baptisms of pagans wishing only to belong to the faith of their emperor. While not yet a requirement of Roman loyalty or citizenship, baptism ensured that one was on the right side of Rome. Postponing baptism emphasized the significance of the rite, and was an attempt to preserve the genuineness of the life for which baptism served as the initiation. Postponement had nothing to do with the validity of a child’s baptism. Many of those Fathers whose baptism was postponed insisted later on that families baptize their new born children, notably St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, and St. Cyril of Alexandria.

Controversy over infant baptism did not arise in its present form until after the Protestant Reformation. Even Martin Luther and John Calvin insisted on the practice. It was with Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531), of the Swiss Reformed Church, that the first serious objections arose. Several of Zwingli’s students re-baptized themselves, proclaiming that they did so because their infant baptisms were invalid since they were not accompanied by professions of faith. This ignited a debate in the early Reformed churches, which was heavily influenced by social and political dimensions as well as theology. Soon after, former Anglican minister John Smyth (1570–1612) and his followers re-baptized themselves and the Baptist Church was born. The 1644 London Confession of the Calvinist Particular Baptists stated, “Baptism is an ordinance of the New Testament, given by Christ, to be dispersed only upon persons professing faith.” There are many million Baptists today, and this position on baptism is still among their foremost doctrines.

Protestant objections to baptizing children did not emerge from a vacuum-sealed objective reading of the Scriptures. Such objections arose from assumptions which were of recent origin and should not be retroactively applied to the Scriptures nor to the Church which arose within and around them.

Is infant baptism biblical?

Yes, it is. While there is no description of an individual infant being baptized, the Bible describes five separate household baptisms:

• The Household of Cornelius, Acts 11:13–14: “Send men to Joppa, and call for Simon whose surname is Peter, who will tell you words by which you and all your household will be saved.”

• The Household of Lydia, Acts 16:15: “And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.’ So she persuaded us.”

• The Philippian Jailor’s Household, Acts 16:33: “And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized.”

• The Household of Crispus, Acts 18:8: “Then Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord with all his household. And many of the Corinthians, hearing, believed and were baptized.”

• The Household of Stephanas, 1 Corinthians 1:16: “Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas.”

Some have argued that while the Bible may say ‘household’ or ‘family’ this does not have to include children. Maybe those households did not include children. While this may be the case, it is hard to imagine that at least one of these households did not include children. And given the fact that we have five explicit references to a whole household being baptized, we have to assume that many, many more such households were baptized. Surely some of them included children.

The word ‘household’ for any Israelite of the day included everybody in the household, children included. We must remember that a household always included children throughout the Scriptures. Every time God established or spoke about His covenant with the House of Israel, it included the whole of Israel: men, women, and children. Noah’s whole ‘household’ was taken into the ark with him (Genesis 7:1); Abraham had his whole household circumcised (Genesis 17:23), and specifically his son Isaac when he was eight days old (Genesis 21:4); the whole household of every family was taken out of Egypt, and God’s institution of the Passover specifically included the children (Exodus 12:24–28). If the Apostles had taught that children were to be excluded from full inclusion in the covenant, such an innovation would not have fit the prophetic covenants which preceded the fulfilled covenant enacted through Christ.

The pattern of the Old Testament covenants formed the framework for the apostolic understanding of the true covenant of Christ, and those covenants included children. They were covenants which were made with a nation, in which every household participated. This is what is expressed in the household baptisms of the New Testament. Even when an individual was baptized, this baptism placed him in a larger body. Individual adult baptisms occurred, but there were no individual covenants.

The Bible teaches us that under the Old Covenant, every male child was circumcised on the eighth day after birth. With his circumcision, the child became a full and complete member of the covenant and could eat of the Passover sacrifice. Baptism in Christ absorbed and fulfilled this rite, as it absorbed all initiation and cleansing rites of the day. Circumcision, we know from the first council in Jerusalem (Acts 15:5; Acts 21:21), was no longer necessary for the Gentile convert or his children. Nowhere in the Bible is it hinted that while absorbing the rite of circumcision, baptism would suddenly and without precedent exclude children. Jesus did not have a problem with children gaining full inclusion to the covenant: He Himself was circumcised as an infant (Luke 2:21), like John the Forerunner (Luke 1:59).

Here we need to introduce a statement by Jesus Himself on the subject of children and faith. In Luke 18, some children are brought to Him to receive a blessing. His disciples try to interfere. But Jesus immediately rebukes them, saying, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:16). A sentimental reading of this passage tells us that Jesus loves children, and that we should not stop them from trying to ask questions about Him or wanting to pray to Him, or tell them that they are too young to get to know Him. While this is true, no one the Lord is talking to thought differently. These were people, we have to remember, who circumcised their children, included them in the Passover rituals and taught them from a young age about God, Israel and the Prophetic writings. The Jews were fanatical, by our modern standards, in their desire to raise their children in the faith. This is not a Hallmark moment in the Gospels.

Jesus is in fact including children in His Kingdom. And His inclusion of children in the Kingdom includes them in the covenant He establishes in His Name. There is no partial involvement in the Kingdom of Heaven, just as there is no partial inclusion in the covenant. We are either members or not. Jesus is saying that children are in, and there is to be no argument about it. There is absolutely no room here to make an argument that children must wait until some magical age before they too can be included with full rights into the Church and at the altar table.

Jesus was once an infant Himself. And Jesus was never separate from God, even in His mother’s womb. The heretical Nestorians claimed that Jesus’ divinity only descended upon Him at baptism. But the Orthodox Church has always declared that He united God and man from the moment of His conception, and the Orthodox believe that His Kingdom belongs to children. Not only because the covenant is with the whole household; not only because a distinction of age was never introduced into the practice of baptism; not only because such a distinction would not have matched the Old Testament covenants which served as the prophetic model for the New Covenant; but because Christ Himself became incarnate as an infant child. In Him all ages, like all humanity, are sewn into the perfect union expressed in the eucharistic supper of the New Israel, which we join only through baptism. Christ makes both childhood and adulthood fully capable of expressing and participating in the Kingdom of Heaven.

But children don’t understand the faith!

The assumption behind this objection to infant baptism, one which did not exist in the early Church or in the centuries which followed, is that faith is a product of reason. That to truly believe, our minds must be capable of understanding why we believe, or at least able to provide intellectual consent. For the adult convert to the Orthodox Church, intellectual consent is crucial. Baptism is not magic. It is a voluntary act of submission to God, a consent to live in relationship with God within the covenant He has established through His Son with a larger body of baptized believers, the Church. But at the same time, faith falls flat if it does not go beyond individual reason. It falls flat because it is so individualized, exclusive, and self-centered. Tertullian said famously that “one Christian is no Christian.” It is true that our faith must be personal, that we must have a personal relationship with God. But our faith must not be limited to that personal relationship alone. Our relationship with God is valid only if it is realized in communion with the whole Church.

I’ve spoken of the Church as family, and I want to return to that image. Children can break fellowship with the family if they consider themselves outside the family’s fate. They are family members only in so much as they live as part of the family, accepting all the responsibilities and self-sacrifice that such family status demands. I don’t have to explain this to my children. They understand from birth that they belong to a larger group, and belong in the most intimate way. They know who their father and mother are and where to go for help and for security. The concept of ‘family’ is beyond them, but the reality of family life is not. In other words, children have a sense of belonging a dozen years or more before they understand what this belonging means.

The earthly family is an image of the heavenly family, the family of the Kingdom of God. Children born to a Christian family are born again into the heavenly family through baptism. A child baptized in the Orthodox Church belongs to a spiritual family. This family bridges both heaven and earth, stretches backward and forward in time and includes both saints and angels. Children belong to this family exactly as each of my daughters belongs to my family. They know in a profound way that they belong long before they have some kind of cerebral understanding of that belonging.

Our modern world so exults reason and cerebralism that young children are sometimes treated as not fully human, or are at least treated less seriously than adults because they can’t think like we do. The truth is that a child is a full human being. A child of any age is capable of expressing and participating in the glory of God. Christ Himself sanctified every age as God-bearing, since He was as much the perfect Word of God as an infant as when He was a grown man. We must remember that children are not second-class persons. Their baptisms are as significant to them and to God as adult baptisms. Even if they do not cognitively understand what that baptism means, they are certainly capable of intuitively understanding it.

What if a child leaves or rejects Christ later in life?

This is a real concern, but not a reason to keep children from full membership in the New Covenant by denying them baptism and communion. We should rather accept them as the Lord commanded us to do, because raising them up in the life in Christ will give them a much better chance of carrying this life beyond our parental guardianship. If someone has no intention of raising a child in Christ—if they have no intention of attending church, praying as a family in the home, teaching the Bible, encouraging questions about the faith, and giving their children every opportunity to experience the life of the Church—then they should in no way bring their child to be baptized.

When we decide to baptize a child we make the most solemn of promises to God. We are promising to do everything in our power to bring that child to Christ, and this is a promise that we can only make if we are doing everything we can to draw near to Him ourselves. Children take seriously what we take seriously. If they grow up in a home in which conversations about Christ, prayer, and reading from the Bible and the lives of the saints are part of normal daily life, they will feed off this as much as the food we put on their plates at the dinner table. Children are deeply impressed by candlelight and incense, by flowers at Pascha, by late-night processions during Holy Week, by palm leaves on Palm Sunday, by icons, by lake blessings at Theophany, and by vestments and altar service. All of this fascinates them and draws them into Christ. As a priest, I see just how real the life of faith is to children when they approach the chalice to receive communion. It is in their eyes, and I am humbled. When they see that we are excited and involved, they will become excited and involved. Raising a child in Christ is simple. Just be a child yourself in Christ. Take it seriously. Children take faith very seriously, and we should either honor that faith ourselves or we shouldn’t baptize them.

But what if they do leave Christ? What if we do all that we can do and they still walk away? Wouldn’t it then have been better not to baptize them? Of course not! Would a responsible parent ever dream of keeping their child outside full family membership until they were sure that the child wants to be in the family? Peter Leithart, a Presbyterian and father of ten children himself, makes an excellent point in his book Against Christianity: “Romans normally excluded children from the dinner table until the age of fifteen or sixteen, at which age boys received the toga virilis that marked their entrance to manhood. Family dinner as we know it was a Christian invention, not some ‘natural’ form of family life. The family dinner is a reflection of the eucharistic meal, the meal that welcomed all members of Christ to the table. Opposition to communion of children is pagan and seeks to reverse the revolutionary table fellowship established by the Church. It is an attempt to return to Egypt.”

The family that eats together should receive communion together, the one an image of the other. A child raised in the fullness of the faith has the greatest of foundations. Every human being is free to do God’s will or not. He wants us to choose to do His will. But even when He knows that we won’t, He still does not deny us food, clothing, or shelter. He does not deny us love, joy, long life, and children of our own. Will we be so afraid of what our children might do that we deny them the one thing everyone needs—communion in the Church and full membership in the life-giving covenant of Christ? Where is our faith? Where is our resolve? Where is our love for God and for our children? To whom is Christ speaking now, when He says, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them”?

Will unbaptized children go to hell if they die?

No. The Orthodox Church does not believe that children are born guilty of Adam’s sin and that unless freed of that guilt through baptism and communion they will die without God’s mercy. Such a notion is pernicious both for its barbarism and for its distortion of God. Do we really think that God is so small that He is bound by our rites, the rites He has given us? God is sovereign, and He will have mercy on whom He has mercy and judgment on whom He has judgment (Romans 9:15).

We can talk about sin and guilt in three ways. First there is primordial sin, the sin of Adam. We understand this not in terms of inherited guilt, but in terms of a fallen world. Primordial sin introduced sickness, suffering, evil, and death into God’s perfect creation (1 John 5:19; Romans 5:12). We are born into Adam’s sin in that we are born into a fallen world. But without our participation, there is no guilt. Second, there is generational sin, which we see in terms of specific propensities to sin. A child of alcoholics, for example, will inherit not the guilt of his parents but the tendency to sin as they did, or other sins associated with this generational heritage. Again, we do not have to submit to this sinful heritage, we do not have to carry it on ourselves. Finally, there is personal sin, the stuff we do ourselves, whether as perpetuation of the general fallenness of this world, the generational fallenness of our parents or surroundings, or as the invention of sins of our own. A person becomes guilty when they personally sin. A child is not guilty until they make sin a personal decision, either consciously or unconsciously.

It is true that baptism is the washing away of sin, and one could say that it seems senseless to baptize a child if they have no inherited guilt to wash away. However, Christ’s sacrifice, in to which we are baptized, was a sacrifice of His whole life as a submission to God— “not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42)—and His death on the Cross not only washed away our sins, but also destroyed death itself. When we are baptized we are baptized into His life and death (Romans 6:4), and we become co-beneficiaries of a life which finally brought God and man into a union of love and a harmony of will. The infant is initiated into that union. This initiation will include the forgiveness of their sins, but is not limited to that forgiveness. The life and death of Christ, which reverses the primordial, generational, and personal falleness of this world, is what the child enters through baptism.

Is baptism just a sign?

Everything I have said assumes that baptism is more than just an outward expression of an inward acceptance of Christ. Of course, baptism is an outward expression in that physical hands are laid on a physical person and that the rites of baptism are tangible, visible, and physical. But the Orthodox embrace completely the Incarnation of Christ. For us, Christ’s body was not just an outward expression. Christ’s physical body was not an incidental part of His saving Incarnation. His body was indivisibly part of His whole person. So important is the body to God that the Christian promise is that we will be raised with our bodies.

Baptism effects a change in one’s status with God. It is more than a mere sign. The views held by most Christians about marriage provide a useful comparison. Few Christians would say that a marriage ceremony is merely a “sign.” A change clearly occurs. The man and the woman are separate before the ceremony, but they are “one flesh” after. This is a profound change, one which is effected by God through the ceremony itself. Baptism is no different. The rite of baptism has always been understood as a baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ, an entrance into the saving covenant, an enrollment in the Lamb’s book of life, a union with the whole people of God, and the giving of a new citizenship in the Kingdom not of this world. Clearly, this is more than just a formality.

What happens to a child when he or she is baptized?

First of all, children are baptized into a story. Christians are the people of a story. The Lord did not appear from nowhere with a message and language of His own inven-tion. He came as the fulfillment of a promise made in the beginning to Abraham, in conformity to the prophecies concerning Him. The subsequent promises and prophecies, the peoples and the sins, the punishments and the mercies, these are our story. It is the story of Christ, and it is the duty and joy of every Christian to know and teach this story. When children are baptized into this narrative, they become part of it. The stories of the patriarchs, the judges, the kings, the prophets, the apostles, the saints who followed them, and of Christ Himself, become their stories. This is clear in Exodus, when Moses and the Israelites are commanded to tell through a ritual re-enactment, the Passover Supper, the story of God’s glorious and nation-making act in Egypt. Children are commanded to be part of the ritual, because this story is their birthright. The same is true of the fulfilled Passover of Christ, when the Lord again commanded us to “remember” what He accomplished for us on the Cross through the ritual remembrance of the Liturgy. We tell the story of God and His people because we are His people. And when we preach—as Peter did, as Stephen did, as Paul did—we preach our story. Our children are raised in this story, and by virtue of baptism this story becomes their own.

Second, children are baptized into a people. From the beginning God’s covenant was made with a people, not with a person. The promise to Abraham was made to all nations, the covenant with Moses was made with the whole of Israel, and the New Covenant of Christ was made with the New Israel, the Church of God. We are a people called out of the nations, called out of the world, and through baptism we come to belong to a people who belong to God. We are made citizens of Heaven. We join a heavenly ethnicity. My daughters, through baptism, belong to this people more than they belong to Canada, their country of birth. We have our Kingdom culture of daily prayer, regular fasting, festal cycles, and biblical storytelling. We have oaths of allegiance in the form of the Creed. We have our national anthems in the hymns we sing. We have our national heroes in the saints and church fathers and mothers. Our king is God. This sounds cute to the modern ear, but it is true. And it is deeply Orthodox and fundamentally biblical, so much so that this alternative nationalism was the basis for the early Roman persecution of Christians.

Third, a child is baptized into life in Christ. “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus,” says St. Paul, “were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:3–4) This newness of life is what we all participate in through baptism, adult and child alike. Certainly children participate differently than adults, but no less authentically. Learning to pray, to read the Bible, to understand their inheritance, to walk in the way of the Lord, eating and drinking of the Eucharist, being trained in righteousness—this is as much walking in newness of life as anything in the spiritual life, and sometimes children are more engaged in these activities than adults in their church. And because they have been baptized into life in Christ they also receive the benefits of that life—the Grace, the forgiveness, the Fatherhood of God, the nourishment of the Body and Blood of Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit. The difference of twenty years and the ability to pay bills and stay up late does not make an adult more needful of these things than children, or more worthy of them. Children become full participants in Christ, as He ordained them to be and indeed as He became incarnate for them to be. This means as well that they are baptized into a promise. If they are buried with Christ in baptism, they will be raised with Him as well. They are raised with the promise of eternal life, with the expectation of the Resurrection. We do not hang this promise in front of them like a carrot (or a lollipop) to lead them to some future acceptance of Christ. By virtue of baptism, they participate in this promise now. They do so because they already experience life in Christ. Indeed, they grow up at His very knee.

Fr. John Hainsworth is pastor of All Saints of Alaska Orthodox Mission of Victoria, British Columbia.

This article is available as a printed booklet from Conciliar Media, a department of the Antiochian Archdiocese. Copyrighted by Conciliar Press.

by Jim Forest

A young monk said to the great ascetic Abba Sisoes: “Abba, what should I do? I fell.” The elder answered: “Get up!” The monk said: “I got up and I fell again!” The elder replied: “Get up again!” But the young monk asked: “For how long should I get up when I fall?” “Until your death,” answered Abba Sisoes. —Sayings of the Desert Fathers

“When I went to my first confession,” a friend told me, “tears took the place of the sins I meant to utter. The priest simply told me that it wasn’t necessary to enumerate everything and that it was just vanity to suppose that our personal sins are worse than everyone else’s. Which, by the way, was something of a relief, since it wasn’t possible for me to remember all the sins of my first thirty-odd years of life. It made me think of the way the father received his prodigal son—he didn’t even let his son finish his carefully rehearsed speech. It’s truly amazing.”

Another friend told me that he was so worried about all he had to confess that he decided to write it down. “So I made a list of my sins and brought it with me. The priest saw the paper in my hand, took it, looked through the list, tore it up, and gave it back to me. Then he said ‘Kneel down,’ and he absolved me. That was my confession, even though I never said a word! But I felt truly my sins had been torn up and that I was free of them.”

The very word confession makes us nervous, touching as it does all that is hidden in ourselves: lies told, injuries caused, things stolen, friends deceived, people betrayed, promises broken, faith denied—these plus all the smaller actions that reveal the beginnings of sins.

Confession is painful, yet a Christian life without confession is impossible.

Confession is a major theme of the Gospels. Even before Christ began His public ministry, we read in Matthew’s Gospel that John required confession of those who came to him for baptism in the River Jordan for a symbolic act of washing away their sins: “And [they] were baptized by [John] in the Jordan, confessing their sins” (Matthew 3:6).

Then there are those amazing words of Christ to Peter: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19). The keys of binding and loosing sins were given not only to one apostle but to all Christ’s disciples, and—in a sacramental sense—to any priest who has his bishop’s blessing to hear confessions.

The Gospel author John warns us not to deceive ourselves: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins” (1 John 1:8, 9).

The sacrament of baptism, the rite of entrance into the Church, has always been linked with repentance. “Repent, and . . . be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,” Saint Peter preached in Jerusalem, “and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). In the same book we read that “many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds” (Acts 19:18).

The Prodigal Son

One Gospel story in which we encounter confession is the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11–32). Here Christ describes a young man so impatient to come into his inheritance and be independent that, in effect, he says to his father, “As far as I’m concerned, you have already died. Give me now what would have come to me after your funeral. I want nothing more to do with you or with this house.”

With Godlike generosity, the father gives what his son asks, though he knows his son well enough to realize that all the boy receives might as well be burned in a stove. The boy takes his inheritance and leaves, at last free of parents, free of morals and good behavior, free to do as he pleases.

After wasting his money, he finds himself reduced to feeding the pigs as a farmhand. People he had thought of as friends now sneer. He knows he has renounced the claim to be anyone’s son, yet in his desperation he dares hope his father might at least allow him to return home as a servant. Full of dismay for what he said to his father and what he did with his inheritance, he walks home in his rags, ready to confess his sins, to beg for work and a corner to sleep in. The son cannot imagine the love his father has for him or the fact that, despite all the trouble he caused, he has been desperately missed. Far from being glad to be rid of the boy, the father has gazed day after day in prayer toward the horizon in hope of his son’s return.

“But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him” (v. 20). Had he not been watching, he would not have noticed his child in the distance and realized who it was. Instead of simply standing and waiting for his son to reach the door, he ran to meet him, embracing him, pouring out words of joy and welcome rather than reproof or condemnation.

“And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son’” (v. 21). Here we have the son’s confession compacted into a single sentence. It is the essence of any confession: our return to our Father, who made us and constantly awaits our homecoming.

What Is Sin?

There are countless essays and books that deal with human failings under various labels without once using the three-letter word sin. Actions traditionally regarded as sinful have instead been seen as natural stages in the process of growing up, a result of bad parenting, a consequence of mental illness, an inevitable response to unjust social conditions, or pathological behavior brought on by addiction.

But what if I am more than a robot programmed by my past or my society or my economic status and actually can take a certain amount of credit—or blame—for my actions and inactions? Have I not done things I am deeply ashamed of, would not do again if I could go back in time, and would prefer no one to know about? What makes me so reluctant to call those actions “sins”? Is the word really out of date? Or is the problem that it has too sharp an edge?

The Hebrew verb chata’, “to sin,” like the Greek word hamartia, simply means straying off the path, getting lost, missing the mark. Sin—going off course—can be intentional or unintentional.

The author of the Book of Proverbs lists seven things God hates: “A proud look, / A lying tongue, / Hands that shed innocent blood, / A heart that devises wicked plans, / Feet that are swift in running to evil, / A false witness who speaks lies, / And one who sows discord among brethren” (6:17–19).

Pride is given first place. “Pride goes before destruction, / And a haughty spirit before a fall” is another insight in the Book of Proverbs (16:18). In the Garden of Eden, Satan seeks to animate pride in his dialogue with Eve. Eat the forbidden fruit, he tells her, and “you will be like God” (Genesis 3:5).

The craving to be ahead of others, to be more valued than others, to be more highly rewarded than others, to be able to keep others in a state of fear, the inability to admit mistakes or apologize—these are among the symptoms of pride. Pride opens the way for countless other sins: deceit, lies, theft, violence, and all those other actions that destroy community with God and with those around us.

Yet we spend a great deal of our lives trying to convince ourselves and others that what we did really wasn’t that bad or could even be seen as almost good, given the circumstances. Even in confession, many people explain what they did rather than simply admit they did things that require forgiveness. “When I recently happened to confess about fifty people in a typical Orthodox parish in Pennsylvania,” Fr. Alexander Schmemann wrote, “not one admitted to having committed any sin whatsoever!”

“We’re capable of doing some rotten things,” the Minnesota storyteller Garrison Keillor notes, “and not all of these things are the result of poor communication. Some are the result of rottenness. People do bad, horrible things. They lie and they cheat and they corrupt the government. They poison the world around us. And when they’re caught they don’t feel remorse—they just go into treatment. They had a nutritional problem or something. They explain what they did—they don’t feel bad about it. There’s no guilt. There’s just psychology.”

For the person who has committed a serious sin, there are two vivid signs—the hope that what one did may never become known, and a gnawing sense of guilt. At least this is the case before the conscience becomes completely numb—which is what happens when patterns of sin become the structure of one’s life to the extent that hell, far from being a possible next-life experience, is where one finds oneself in this life.

It is a striking fact about basic human architecture that we want certain actions to remain secret, not because of modesty, but because there is an unarguable sense of having violated a law more basic than that in any law book—the “law written in [our] hearts” to which St. Paul refers (Romans 2:15). It isn’t simply that we fear punishment. It is that we don’t want to be thought of by others as a person who commits such deeds. One of the main obstacles to going to confession is dismay that someone else will know what I want no one to know.

One of the oddest things about the age we live in is that we are made to feel guilty about feeling guilty. There is a cartoon tacked up in our house in which one prisoner says to another, “Just remember—it’s okay to be guilty, but not okay to feel guilty.”

A sense of guilt—the painful awareness of having committed sins—can be life-renewing. Guilt provides a foothold for contrition, which in turn can motivate confession and repentance. Without guilt, there is no remorse; without remorse, there is no possibility of becoming free of habitual sins.

Yet there are forms of guilt that are dead-end streets. If I feel guilty that I have not managed to become the ideal person I occasionally want to be, or that I imagine others want me to be, that is guilt without a divine reference point. It is simply an irritated me contemplating an irritating me. Christianity is not centered on performance, laws, principles, or the achievement of flawless behavior, but on Christ Himself and on participation in God’s transforming love.

When Christ says, “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), He’s not speaking of getting a perfect score on a test, but of being whole, being in a state of communion, participating fully in God’s love.

This condition of being is suggested by St. Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trinity: those three angelic figures silently inclined toward each other around a chalice on a small altar. They symbolize the Holy Trinity: the communion that exists within God—not a closed communion restricted to themselves alone, but an open communion of love, in which we are not only invited but intended to participate.

A blessed guilt is the pain we feel when we realize we have cut ourselves off from that divine communion that irradiates all creation. It is impossible to live in a Godless universe, but easy to be unaware of God’s presence or even to resent it.

It’s a common delusion that one’s sins are private or affect only a few other people. To think our sins, however hidden, don’t affect others is like imagining that a stone thrown into the water won’t generate ripples. As Bishop Kallistos Ware has observed: “There are no entirely private sins. All sins are sins against my neighbor, as well as against God and against myself. Even my most secret thoughts are, in fact, making it more difficult for those around me to follow Christ.”

Far from being hidden, each sin is another crack in the world.

One of the most widely used Orthodox prayers, the Jesus Prayer, is only one sentence long: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” Short as it is, many people drawn to it are put off by the last two words. Those who teach the prayer are often asked, “But must I call myself a sinner?” In fact, the ending isn’t essential—the only essential word is “Jesus”—but my difficulty in identifying myself as a sinner reveals a lot. What makes me so reluctant to speak of myself in such plain words? Don’t I do a pretty good job of hiding rather than revealing Christ in my life? Am I not a sinner? To admit that I am provides a starting point.

There are only two possible responses to sin: to justify it, or to repent. Between these two, there is no middle ground.

Justification may be verbal, but mainly it takes the form of repetition: I do again and again the same thing as a way of demonstrating to myself and others that it’s not really a sin, but rather something normal or human or necessary or even good. “Commit a sin twice and it will not seem a crime,” notes a Jewish proverb.

Repentance, on the other hand, is the recognition that I cannot live any more as I have been living, because in living that way I wall myself apart from others and from God. Repentance is a change in direction. Repentance is the door of communion. It is also a sine qua non of forgiveness. Absolution is impossible where there is no repentance.

As St. John Chrysostom said sixteen centuries ago in Antioch:

Repentance opens the heavens, takes us to Paradise, overcomes the devil. Have you sinned? Do not despair! If you sin every day, then offer repentance every day! When there are rotten parts in old houses, we replace the parts with new ones, and we do not stop caring for the houses. In the same way, you should reason for yourself: If today you have defiled yourself with sin, immediately cleanse yourself with repentance.

Confession as a Social Action

It is impossible to imagine a healthy marriage or deep friendship without confession and forgiveness. If we have done something that damages a relationship, confession is essential to its restoration. For the sake of that bond, we confess what we’ve done, we apologize, and we promise not to do it again; then we do everything in our power to keep that promise.

In the context of religious life, confession is what we do to safeguard and renew our relationship with God whenever it is damaged. Confession restores our communion with God and with each other.

It is never easy to admit to doing something we regret and are ashamed of, an act we attempted to keep secret or denied doing or tried to blame on someone else, perhaps arguing—to ourselves as much as to others—that it wasn’t actually a sin at all, or wasn’t nearly as bad as some people might claim. In the hard labor of growing up, one of the most agonizing tasks is becoming capable of saying, “I’m sorry.”

Yet we are designed for confession. Secrets in general are hard to keep, but unconfessed sins not only never go away, but have a way of becoming heavier as time passes—the greater the sin, the heavier the burden. Confession is the only solution.

To understand confession in its sacramental sense, one first has to grapple with a few basic questions: Why is the Church involved in forgiving sins? Is priest-witnessed confession really needed? Why confess at all to any human being? In fact, why bother confessing to God, even without a human witness? If God is really all-knowing, then He knows everything about me already. My sins are known before it even crosses my mind to confess them. Why bother telling God what God already knows?

Yes, truly God knows. My confession can never be as complete or revealing as God’s knowledge of me and of all that needs repairing in my life.

A related question we need to consider has to do with our basic design as social beings. Why am I so willing to connect with others in every other area of life, yet not in this? Why is it that I look so hard for excuses, even for theological rationales, not to confess? Why do I try so hard to explain away my sins, until I’ve decided either that they’re not so bad, or even that they might be seen as acts of virtue? Why is it that I find it so easy to commit sins, yet am so reluctant, in the presence of another, to admit to having done so?

We are social beings. The individual as autonomous unit is a delusion. The Marlboro Man—the person without community, parents, spouse, or children—exists only on billboards. The individual is someone who has lost a sense of connection to others or attempts to exist in opposition to others—while the person exists in communion with other persons. At a conference of Orthodox Christians in France a few years ago, in a discussion of the problem of individualism, a theologian confessed, “When I am in my car, I am an individual, but when I get out, I am a person again.”

We are social beings. The language we speak connects us to those around us. The food I eat was grown by others. The skills passed on to me have slowly been developed in the course of hundreds of generations. The air I breathe and the water I drink is not for my exclusive use, but has been in many bodies before mine. The place I live, the tools I use, and the paper I write on were made by many hands. I am not my own doctor or dentist or banker. To the extent that I disconnect myself from others, I am in danger. Alone, I die, and soon. To be in communion with others is life.

Because we are social beings, confession in church does not take the place of confession to those we have sinned against. An essential element of confession is doing all I can to set right what I did wrong. If I stole something, it must be returned or paid for. If I lied to anyone, I must tell that person the truth. If I was angry without good reason, I must apologize. I must seek forgiveness not only from God, but from those whom I have wronged or harmed.

We are also verbal beings. Words provide a way of communicating, not only with others, but even with ourselves. The fact that confession is witnessed forces me to put into words all those ways, minor and major, in which I live as if there were no God and no commandment to love. A thought that is concealed has great power over us.

Confessing sins, or even temptations, makes us better able to resist. The underlying principle is described in one of the collections of sayings of the Desert Fathers:

If impure thoughts trouble you, do not hide them, but tell them at once to your spiritual father and condemn them. The more a person conceals his thoughts, the more they multiply and gain strength. But an evil thought, when revealed, is immediately destroyed. If you hide things, they have great power over you, but if you could only speak of them before God, in the presence of another, then they will often wither away, and lose their power.

Confessing to anyone, even a stranger, renews rather than contracts my humanity, even if all I get in return for my confession is the well-worn remark, “Oh, that’s not so bad. After all, you’re only human.” But if I can confess to anyone anywhere, why confess in church in the presence of a priest? It’s not a small question in societies in which the phrase “institutionalized religion” is so often used, the implicit message being that religious institutions necessarily undermine spiritual life.

Confession is a Christian ritual with a communal character. Confession in the church differs from confession in your living room in the same way that getting married in church differs from simply living together. The communal aspect of the event tends to safeguard it, solidify it, and call everyone to account—those doing the ritual, and those witnessing it.

In the social structure of the Church, a huge network of local communities is held together in unity, each community helping the others and all sharing a common task, while each provides a specific place to recognize and bless the main events in life, from birth to burial. Confession is an essential part of that continuum. My confession is an act of reconnection with God and with all the people and creatures who depend on me and have been harmed by my failings, and from whom I have distanced myself through acts of non-communion. The community is represented by the person hearing my confession, an ordained priest delegated to serve as Christ’s witness, who provides guidance and wisdom that helps each penitent overcome attitudes and habits that take us off course, who declares forgiveness and restores us to communion. In this way our repentance is brought into the community that has been damaged by our sins—a private event in a public context.

“It’s a fact,” writes Fr. Thomas Hopko, rector of St. Vladimir’s Seminary, “that we cannot see the true ugliness and hideousness of our sins until we see them in the mind and heart of the other to whom we have confessed.”

A Communion-Centered Life

Attending the liturgy and receiving Communion on Sundays and principal feast days has always been at the heart of Christian life, the event that gives life a eucharistic dimension and center point. But Communion—receiving Christ into ourselves—can never be routine, never something we deserve, no matter what the condition of our life may be. For example, Christ solemnly warns us against approaching the altar if we are in a state of enmity with anyone. He tells us, “Leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift” (Matthew 5:24). In one of the parables, He describes a person who is ejected from the wedding feast because he isn’t wearing a wedding garment. Tattered clothing is a metaphor for living a life that reduces conscience to rags (Matthew 22:1–14).

Receiving Christ in Communion during the liturgy is the keystone of living in communion—with God, with people, and with creation. Christ teaches us that love of God and love of neighbor sum up the Law. One way of describing a serious sin is to say it is any act which breaks our communion with God and with our neighbor.

It is for this reason that examination of conscience—if necessary, going to confession—is part of preparation for Communion. This is an ongoing proc-ess of trying to see my life and actions with clarity and honesty—to look at myself, my choices, and my direction as known by God. The examination of conscience is an occasion to recall not only any serious sins committed since my last confession, but even the beginnings of sins.

The word conscience derives from a Greek verb meaning “to have common knowledge” or “to know with” someone, a concept that led to the idea of bearing witness concerning someone, especially oneself. Conscience is an inner faculty that guides us in making choices that align us with God’s will, and that accuses us when we break communion with God and with our neighbor. Conscience is a reflection of the divine image at the core of each person. In The Sacred Gift of Life, Fr. John Breck points out that “the education of conscience is acquired in large measure through immersing ourselves in the ascetic tradition of the Church: its life of prayer, sacramental and liturgical celebration, and scripture study. The education of our conscience also depends upon our acquiring wisdom from those who are more advanced than we are in faith, love, and knowledge of God.”

Conscience is God’s whispering voice within us calling us to a way of life that reveals God’s presence and urges us to refuse actions that destroy community and communion.

Key Elements in Confession

Fr. Alexander Schmemann provided this summary of the three key areas of confession:

Relationship to God: Questions on faith itself, possible doubts or deviations, inattention to prayer, neglect of liturgical life, fasting, etc.

Relationship to one’s neighbor: Basic attitudes of selfishness and self-centeredness, indifference to others, lack of attention, interest, love. All acts of actual offense—envy, gossip, cruelty, etc.—must be mentioned and, if needed, their sinfulness shown to the penitent.

Relationship to one’s self: Sins of the flesh with, as their counterpart, the Christian vision of purity and wholesomeness, respect for the body as an icon of Christ, etc. Abuse of one’s life and resources; absence of any real effort to deepen life; abuse of alcohol or other drugs; cheap idea of “fun,” a life centered on amusement, irresponsibility, neglect of family relations, etc.

Tools of Self-Examination

In the struggle to examine conscience, we have tools that can assist us, resources that help both in the formation and the examination of conscience. Among these are the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, and various prayers, as well as lists of questions written by experienced confessors. In this small booklet, we will look at only one of these, the Beatitudes, which provide a brief summary of the Gospel. Each Beatitude reveals an aspect of being in union with God.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Poverty of spirit is my awareness that I need God’s help and mercy more than anything else. It is knowing that I cannot save myself, that neither money nor power will spare me from suffering and death, and that no matter what I achieve and acquire in this life, it will be far less than I want if I let my acquisitive capacity get the upper hand. This is the blessing of knowing that even what I have is not mine. It is living free of the domination of fear. While the exterior forms of poverty vary from person to person and even from year to year in a particular life, depending on one’s vocation and special circumstances, all who live this Beatitude are seeking with heart and soul to live God’s will rather than their own. Christ’s mother is the paradigm of poverty of spirit in her unconditional assent to the will of God: “Let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Similarly, at the marriage feast at Cana, she says to those waiting on the tables: “Whatever He says to you, do it” (John 2:5). Whoever lives by these words is poor in spirit.

Questions to consider: We are bombarded by advertisements, constantly reminded of the possibility of having things and of indulging all sorts of curiosities and temptations. The simple goal of poverty of spirit seems more remote than the moons of Neptune. Am I regularly praying that God will give me poverty of spirit? When tempted to buy things I don’t need, do I pray for strength to resist? Do I keep the Church fasts that would help strengthen my capacity to live this Beatitude? Do I really seek to know and embrace God’s will in my life? Am I willing to be seen as odd or stupid by those whose lives are dominated by values that oppose the Beatitudes?

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Mourning is cut from the same cloth as poverty of spirit. Without poverty of spirit, I am forever on guard to keep what I have for myself, and to keep me for myself, or for that small circle of people whom I regard as mine. A consequence of poverty of spirit is becoming vulnerable to the pain and losses of others, not only those whom I happen to know and care for, but also those who are strangers to me. “When we die,” said Saint John Climacus, the seventh-century abbot of Saint Catherine’s Monastery near Mount Sinai, “we will not be criticized for having failed to work miracles. We will not be accused of having failed to be theologians or contemplatives. But we will certainly have to explain to God why we did not mourn unceasingly.”

Questions to consider: Do I weep with those who weep? Have I mourned those in my own family who have died? Do I open my thoughts and feelings to the suffering and losses of others? Do I try to make space in my mind and heart for the calamities in the lives of others who may be far away and neither speak my language nor share my faith?

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Meekness is often confused with weakness, yet a meek person is neither spineless nor cowardly. Understood biblically, meekness is making choices and exercising power with a divine rather than social reference point. Meekness is the essential quality of the human being in relationship to God. Without meekness, we cannot align ourselves with God’s will. In place of humility, we prefer pride—pride in who we are, pride in doing as we please, pride in what we’ve achieved, pride in the national or ethnic group to which we happen to belong. Meekness has nothing to do with blind obedience or social conformity. Meek Christians do not allow themselves to be dragged along by the tides of political power. Such rudderless persons have cut themselves off from their own conscience, God’s voice in their hearts, and thrown away their God-given freedom. Meekness is an attribute of following Christ, no matter what risks are involved.

Questions to consider: When I read the Bible or writings of the saints, do I consider the implications for my own life? When I find what I read at odds with the way I live, do I allow the text to challenge me? Do I pray for God’s guidance? Do I seek help with urgent questions in confession? Do I tend to make choices and adopt ideas that will help me fit into the group I want to be part of? Do I fear the criticism or ridicule of others for my efforts to live a Gospel-centered life? Do I listen to others? Do I tell the truth even in difficult circumstances?

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. In his teaching about the Last Judgment, Christ speaks of hunger and thirst: “I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink” (Matthew 25:35). Our salvation hinges on our caring for the least person as we would for Christ Himself. To hunger and thirst for something is not a mild desire, but a desperate craving. To hunger and thirst for righteousness means urgently to desire that which is honorable, right, and true. A righteous person is a right-living person, living a moral, blameless life, right with both God and neighbor. A righteous social order would be one in which no one is abandoned or thrown away, in which people live in peace with God, with each other, and with the world God has given us.

Questions to consider: Does it disturb me that I live in a world that in many ways is the opposite of the Kingdom of heaven? When I pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” am I praying that my own life might better reflect God’s priorities? Who is “the least” in my day-to-day world? Do I try to see Christ’s face in him or her?

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. One of the perils of pursuing righteousness is that one can become self-righteous. Thus, the next rung of the ladder of the Beatitudes is the commandment of mercy. This is the quality of self-giving love, of gracious deeds done for those in need. Twice in the Gospels Christ makes His own the words of the Prophet Hosea: “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6; Matthew 9:13; 12:7). We witness mercy in event after event in the New Testament account of Christ’s life—forgiving, healing, freeing, correcting, even repairing the wound of a man injured by Peter in his effort to protect Christ, and promising Paradise to the criminal being crucified next to Him.

Again and again Christ declares that those who seek God’s mercy must pardon others. The principle is included in the only prayer Christ taught His disciples: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). He calls on His followers to love their enemies and to pray for them. The moral of the parable of the Good Samaritan is that a neighbor is a person who comes to the aid of a stranger in need (Luke 10:29–37). While He denounces hypocrisy and warns the merciless that they are condemning themselves to hell, in no passage in the Gospel do we hear Christ advocating anyone’s death. At the Last Judgment, Christ receives into the Kingdom of heaven those who were merciful. He is Mercy itself.

Questions to consider: When I see a stranger in need, how do I respond? Is Christ’s mercy evident in my life? Am I willing to extend forgiveness to those who seek it? Am I generous in sharing my time and material possessions with those in need? Do I pray for my enemies? Do I try to assist them if they are in need? Have I been an enemy to anyone?

Mercy is more and more absent even in societies with Christian roots. In the United States, the death penalty has been reinstated in the majority of states and has the fervent support of many Christians. Even in the many countries that have abolished executions, the death penalty is often imposed on unborn children—abortion is hardly regarded as a moral issue. Concerning the sick, aged, and severely handicapped, “mercy killing” and “assisted suicide” are now phrases much in use. To what extent have I been influenced by slogans and ideologies that promote death as a solution and disguise killing as mercy? What am I doing to make my society more welcoming, more caring, more life-protecting?

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. The brain has come up in the world, while the heart has been demoted. The heart used to be widely recognized as the locus of God’s activity within us, the hub of human identity and conscience, linked with our capacity to love, the core not only of physical but also of spiritual life—the ground zero of the human soul. In our brain-centered society, we ought to be surprised that Christ didn’t say, “Blessed are the brilliant in mind.” Instead, He blessed purity of heart.

The Greek word for purity, katharos, means spotless, stainless; intact, unbroken, perfect; free from adulteration or anything that defiles or corrupts. What, then, is a pure heart? A heart free of possessiveness, a heart capable of mourning, a heart that thirsts for what is right, a merciful heart, a loving heart, a heart not ruled by passions, an undivided heart, a heart aware of the image of God in others, a heart drawn to beauty, a heart conscious of God’s presence in creation. A pure heart is a heart without contempt for others. “A person is truly pure of heart when he considers all human beings as good and no created thing appears impure or defiled to him,” wrote Saint Isaac of Syria.

Opposing purity of heart is lust of any kind—for wealth, for recognition, for power, for vengeance, for sexual exploits—whether indulged through action or imagination. Spiritual virtues that defend the heart are memory, awareness, watchfulness, wakefulness, attention, hope, faith, and love. A rule of prayer in daily life helps heal, guard, and unify the heart. “Always keep your mind collected in your heart,” instructed the great teacher of prayer, Saint Theophan the Recluse. The Jesus Prayer—the prayer of the heart—is part of a tradition of spiritual life that helps move the center of consciousness from the mind to the heart. Purification of the heart is the striving to place under the rule of the heart the mind, which represents the analytic and organizational aspect of consciousness. It is the moment-to-moment prayerful discipline of seeking to be so aware of God’s presence that no space is left in the heart for hatred, greed, lust, or vengeance. Purification of the heart is the lifelong struggle of seeking a more God-centered life, a heart illuminated with the presence of the Holy Trinity.

Questions to consider: Do I take care not to read or look at things that stir up lust? Do I avoid using words that soil my mouth? Am I attentive to beauty in people, nature, and the arts? Am I sarcastic about others? Is a rhythm of prayer part of my daily life? Do I prepare carefully for Communion, never taking it for granted? Do I observe fasting days and seasons? Am I aware of and grateful for God’s gifts?

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Christ is often called the Prince of Peace. His peace is not a passive condition—He blesses the makers of peace. The peacemaker is a person who helps heal damaged relationships. Throughout the Gospel, we see Christ bestowing peace. In His final discourse before His arrest, He says to the Apostles: “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you. . . . Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27). After the Resurrection, He greets His followers with the words, “Peace be with you” (John 20:19). He instructs His followers that, on entering a house, their first action should be the blessing, “Peace to this house” (Luke 10:5).

Christ is at His most paradoxical when He says, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword” (Matthew 10:34; note that a similar passage, Luke 12:51, uses the word “division” rather than “sword”). Those who try to live Christ’s peace may find themselves in trouble, as all those who have died a martyr’s death bear witness. Sadly, for most of us the peace we long for is not the Kingdom of God, but a slightly improved version of the world we already have. We would like to get rid of conflict without eliminating the spiritual and material factors that draw us into conflict. The peacemaker is a person aware that ends never stand apart from means: figs do not grow from thistles; neither is community brought into being by hatred and violence. A peacemaker is aware that all persons, even those who seem to be ruled by evil spirits, are made in the image of God and are capable of change and conversion.

Questions to consider: In my family, in my parish, and among my coworkers, am I guilty of sins which cause or deepen division and conflict? Do I ask forgiveness when I realize I am in the wrong? Or am I always justifying what I do, no matter what pain or harm it causes others? Do I regard it as a waste of time to communicate with opponents? Do I listen with care and respect to those who irritate me? Do I pray for the well-being and salvation of adversaries and enemies? Do I allow what others say or what the press reports to define my attitude toward those whom I have never met? Do I take positive steps to overcome division? Are there people I regard as not bearing God’s image and therefore innately evil?

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. The last rung is where the Beatitudes reach and pass beyond the Cross. “We must carry Christ’s Cross as a crown of glory,” wrote Saint John Chrysostom in the fourth century, “for it is by it that everything that is achieved among us is gained. . . . Whenever you make the sign of the cross on your body, think of what the Cross means and put aside anger and every other passion. Take courage and be free in the soul.”

In the ancient world, Christians were persecuted chiefly because they were regarded as undermining the social order, even though in most respects they were models of civil obedience and good conduct. But Christians abstained from the cult of the deified emperor, would not sacrifice to gods their neighbors venerated, and were notable for their objection to war or bloodshed in any form. It is easy to imagine that a community that lived by such values, however well-behaved, would be regarded as a threat by the government. “Both the Emperor’s commands and those of others in authority must be obeyed if they are not contrary to the God of heaven,” said Saint Euphemia in the year 303, during the reign of Diocletian. “If they are, they must not only be disobeyed; they must be resisted.” Following torture, Saint Euphemia was killed by a bear—the kind of death endured by thousands of Christians well into the fourth century, though the greatest number of Christian martyrs belongs to the twentieth century. In many countries religious persecution continues.

Questions to consider: Does fear play a bigger role in my life than love? Do I hide my faith or live it in a timid, half-hearted way? When I am ordered to do something that conflicts with Christ’s teaching, whom do I obey? Am I aware of those who are suffering for righteousness’ sake in my own country and elsewhere in the world? Am I praying for them? Am I doing anything to help them?

Finding a Confessor

Just as not every doctor is a good physician, not every priest is a good confessor. Sometimes it happens that a priest, however good his qualities in other respects, is a person not well suited for witnessing confessions. While abusive priests are the exception, their existence must be noted. God has given us freedom and provided each person with a conscience. It is not the role of a priest to take the place of conscience or to become anyone’s drill sergeant. A good confessor will help us become better at hearing the voice of conscience and become more free in an increasingly God-centered life.

Fortunately, good confessors are not hard to find. Usually your confessor is the priest who is closest, sees you most often, knows you and the circumstances of your life best: a priest of your parish. Do not be put off by your awareness of what you perceive as his relative youth, his personal shortcomings, or the probability that he possesses no rare spiritual gifts. Keep in mind that each priest goes to confession himself and may have more to confess than you do. You confess, not to him, but to Christ in his presence. He is the witness of your confession. You do not require and will never find a sinless person to be that witness. (The Orthodox Church tries to make this clear by having the penitent face, not the priest, but an icon of Christ.)

What your confessor says by way of advice can be remarkably insightful, or brusque, or seem to you a cliché and not very relevant, yet almost always there will be something helpful if only you are willing to hear it. Sometimes there is a suggestion or insight that becomes a turning point in your life. If he imposes a penance—normally increased prayer, fasting, and acts of mercy—it should be accepted meekly, unless there is something in the penance which seems to you a violation of your conscience or of the teaching of the Church as you understand it.

Don’t imagine that a priest will respect you less for what you reveal to Christ in his presence, or imagine that he is carefully remembering all your sins. “Even a recently ordained priest will quickly find that he cannot remember 99 percent of what people tell him in confession,” one priest told me. He said it is embarrassing to him that people expect him to remember what they told him in an earlier confession. “When they remind me, then sometimes I remember, but without a reminder, usually my mind is a blank. I let the words I listen to pass through me. Also, so much that I hear in one confession is similar to what I hear in other confessions—the confessions blur together. The only sins I easily remember are my own.”

One priest told me of his difficulties meeting the expectations that sometimes become evident in confession. “I am not a psychologist. I have no special gifts. I am just a fellow sinner trying to stay on the path.”

A Russian priest who is spiritual father to many people once told me about the joy he often feels hearing confessions. “It is not that I am glad anyone has sins to confess, but when you come to confession it means these sins are in your past, not your future. Confession marks a turning point, and I am the lucky one who gets to watch people making that turn!”

Jim Forest is the author of Praying with Icons, Ladder of the Beatitudes, Confession: Doorway to Forgiveness and a forthcoming book—Resurrection—about the Orthodox Church in Albania. He is secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship (www.incommunion.org) and editor of its quarterly journal, In Communion. His home is in Alkmaar, the Netherlands. He and his wife Nancy are members of St. Nicholas of Myra Orthodox Church in Amsterdam.

This article is available as a printed booklet from Conciliar Media, a department of the Antiochian Archdiocese. This essay is copyrighted by Conciliar Press.

by Mark Shuttleworth

I said, “You are gods,

And all of you are children of the Most High.” (Psalm 82:6)

This is a verse that most Protestants do not underline in their Bibles. What on earth does it mean—“you are gods”? Doesn’t our faith teach that there is only one God, in three Persons? How can human beings be gods?

In the Orthodox Church, this concept is neither new nor startling. It even has a name: theosis. Theosis is the understanding that human beings can have real union with God, and so become like God to such a degree that we participate in the divine nature. Also referred to as deification, divinization, or illumination, it is a concept derived from the New Testament regarding the goal of our relationship with the Triune God. (Theosis and deification may be used interchangeably. We will avoid the term divinization, since it could be misread for divination, which is another thing altogether!)

Many Protestants, and even some Roman Catholics, might find the Orthodox concept of theosis unnerving. Especially when they read a quote such as this one from St. Athanasius: “God became man so that men might become gods,” they immediately fear an influence of Eastern mysticism from Hinduism or pantheism.

But such an influence could not be further from the Orthodox understanding. The human person does not merge with some sort of impersonal divine force, losing individual identity or consciousness. Intrinsic divinity is never ascribed to humankind or any part of the creation, and no created thing is confused with the being of God. Most certainly, humans are not accorded ontological equality with God, nor are they considered to merge or co-mingle with the being of God as He is in His essence.

In fact, to safeguard against any sort of misunderstanding of this kind, Orthodox theologians have been careful to distinguish between God’s essence and His energies. God is incomprehensible in His essence. But God, who is love, allows us to know Him through His divine energies, those actions whereby He reveals Himself to us in creation, providence, and redemption. It is through the divine energies, therefore, that we achieve union with God.

We become united with God by grace in the Person of Christ, who is God come in the flesh. The means of becoming “like God” is through perfection in holiness, the continuous process of acquiring the Holy Spirit by grace through ascetic devotion. Some Protestants might refer to this process as sanctification. Another term for it, perhaps more familiar to Western Christians, would be mortification—putting sin to death within ourselves.

In fact, deification is very akin to the Wesleyan understanding of holiness or perfection, with the added element of our mystical union with God in Christ as both the means and the motive for attaining perfection. Fr. David Hester, in his booklet, The Jesus Prayer, identifies theosis as “the gradual process by which a person is renewed and unified so completely with God that he becomes by grace what God is by nature.” Another way of stating it is “sharing in the divine nature through grace.”

St. Maximos the Confessor, as Fr. Hester notes, defined theosis as “total participation in Jesus Christ.” Careful to maintain the ontological safeguard noted above, St. Maximos further stated, “All that God is, except for an identity in being, one becomes when one is deified by grace.”

C. S. Lewis understood this concept and expressed it compellingly in Mere Christianity:

The command “Be ye perfect” is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were “gods” and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him—for we can prevent Him, if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creatures, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to Him perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what he said. (Macmillan, 1952, p. 174)

With the Incarnation, God has assumed and glorified our flesh and has consecrated and sanctified our humanity. He has also given us the Holy Spirit. As we acquire more of the Holy Spirit in our daily lives, we become more like Christ, and we have the opportunity of being granted, in this life, illumination or glorification. When we speak of acquiring more of the Holy Spirit, it is in the sense of appropriating to a greater degree what has actually been given to us already by God. We acquire more of what we are more able to receive. God the Holy Spirit remains ever constant.

Theosis in the New Testament

Many passages in the New Testament speak to the Orthodox understanding of deification/theosis. First is 2 Peter 1:3–4, which states that God’s “divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness” through the knowledge of God, who called us by His own glory and goodness. Through these things, He has given us His great promises so that we “may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

This verse clearly and unequivocally states that we can become partakers of the divine nature. How so? Through God’s divine power at work in us, we gain life and godliness and are given His promises so that we can escape from corruption. There is God’s action in and upon us, and there is response and corresponding effort on our part.

This brings to mind Philippians 2:12–13, where St. Paul tells us to “work out [our] salvation with fear and trembling,” for it is God who is at work in us “both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” Thus we get a clear picture here of the process by which we are renewed and unified so completely with God that we become by grace what God is by nature. God works in us, and we cooperate with His grace.

Another passage of note is John 10:34–36. In a dispute with the Pharisees, Jesus refers to the verse quoted above, Psalm 82:6, where human beings are referred to as “gods.” The Jewish leaders accuse Jesus of blasphemy and are ready to stone Him for equating Himself with the Father (vv. 22–33). Jesus replies, “ Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods” ’? If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken),” then why do they label as blasphemy Jesus calling Himself God’s Son? Jesus is truly God’s Son, and we are gods because we share in His sonship.

Consider Acts 17:28–29, where St. Paul approvingly quotes the Greek poets, who state that we are God’s “offspring.” Paul concludes that since we are “the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature” is like some lifeless object.

Throughout Paul’s epistles, we find many descriptive passages referring to the same concepts that we have been considering: union with God, sharing in the divine nature through grace, and total participation in Jesus Christ—the biblical concept of theosis/deification. In Ephesians 1, Paul states that we have been given “every spiritual blessing” (v. 3) so that we should be “holy and without blame” (v. 4); we are His “sons” (v. 5). He made “the riches of His grace . . . to abound toward us” (vv. 6–7). We are given wisdom and insight into the “mystery of His will” (v. 9), which is to “gather together in one all things in Christ” (v. 10).

Furthermore, we are “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (v. 13), the “guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (v. 14). We are recipients of “wisdom and revelation” (v. 17), having “the eyes of [our] understanding . . . enlightened” (v. 18); knowing the “exceeding greatness of His power toward us” (v. 19). We are the “body” of Him who is the head and “the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (v. 23).

These are descriptions of sonship, of human beings as children of God with full pedigree and inheritance rights. We are brought into God’s intimate inner circle to know the mystery of His will, being given wisdom and enlightenment. We have grace lavished upon us and are His body, His fullness. The whole purpose of God’s mystery is that all things will be united in Christ and that He will be all in all. Does this not describe partaking of the divine nature, becoming by grace what God is by nature?

Certainly there is much more being described here than “growing in faith and good works,” progressing in sanctification or mortifying sin. Those are indeed excellent enterprises, but not ends in themselves. They are means employed toward a greater end. St. Paul is outlining this compelling, inspiring description of our identity in Christ, indeed showing us what total participation in Christ actually is. Ephesians 1 is a description of theosis.

In other verses in Ephesians, St. Paul continues: we are to “be filled with all the fullness of God” (3:19) and to attain to “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (4:13). We are to “grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ” (4:15). Again, this describes the process of being deified by grace, acquiring the fullness of Christ.

In Romans 6, Paul gives us a wonderful picture of deification. Through baptism we “walk in newness of life” (v. 4). We are not to let sin “reign in [our] mortal bod[ies]” (v. 12), but are to “present [ourselves] to God” (v. 13) so that sin will “not have dominion over” us (v. 14). Our members are to be yielded to “righteousness for holiness” (v. 19). Therefore we have “been set free from sin, and hav[e] become slaves of God” (v. 22). Our hope is to share in “the glory of God” (5:2). Even the very creation “eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God” (8:19).

Continuing in chapter 8, we are indeed called “sons of God” (v. 14) who have received a “Spirit of adoption,” crying (as Jesus did) “Abba, Father” (v. 15). The Spirit bears witness “with our spirit”—union—that we are “children of God” (v. 16). We are children, “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ . . . that we may also be glorified together” (v. 17). Verse 17 also stipulates, “if indeed we suffer with Him.” We will come back to that in relation to the experience of the saints who have attained deification.

In verse 29, St. Paul writes that we are destined to be “conformed to the image of His Son.” Furthermore, those He “justified, these He also glorified” (v. 30). Note that he did not say God will glorify them only after they die, at the final resurrection. This glorifying can be a present reality. Verse 32 says that God will “with Him also freely give us all things.”

Does this not get you just a little bit excited? Does it not describe something more than “being saved” or “going to heaven when I die”? Is your heart racing just a little? If so, you are starting to grasp theosis. It is an understanding of our purpose as believers that is not just Orthodox, it is thoroughly biblical.

Before we briefly note some other New Testament passages, let’s consider an additional way to understand deification from the Book of Genesis. There we learn that we are created in God’s image. Through sin, that image has been greatly broken and damaged, but through redemption in Christ it is renewed “according to the image of Him who created” it, as Paul notes in Colossians 3:10. Add all these other motifs—sonship, being fellow heirs, union, being made like Christ, partaking of the divine nature—and we see that these describe the divine image, broken and marred (but not altogether lost) through Adam’s fall, being remade in us through Christ’s redeeming work, so that we become like God. Thus in Genesis we are created in God’s image; through Christ we are given the opportunity to acquire God’s likeness. In Ephesians 4:23–24 this very idea is reinforced: “be renewed in the spirit of your mind” and “put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” And in 5:1 we are enjoined to be “imitators of God.”

A number of other New Testament passages describe theosis:

Romans 12:1–2: We are to present our bodies as a “living sacrifice,” doing so as part of our spiritual worship. And we are to “be transformed” by the renewing of our minds into the likeness of God.

1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:17: We are reminded that we are God’s “temple” and that “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him”—union with God.

Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

Philippians 1:21: “For me, to live is Christ.”

Colossians 3:3: We have “died” and our lives are “hidden with Christ in God”—total participation in Christ.

1 Thessalonians 5:23: May God “sanctify you completely”—complete conformity to the image and likeness of God.

2 Thessalonians 2:14: We were called by God “for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

1 John 4:17: “Because as He is, so are we in this world”—the possibility of deification, total participation in Christ this side of eternity.

John 17:22: In His high priestly prayer, Jesus says that He has given us the glory that the Father gave Him.

Revelation 21:7: At the beginning of the eschaton, Christ says of each of us, “I will be his God and he shall be My son.”

1 John 3:2: “We know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”

Philippians 3:21: Christ will “transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body.”

These passages promise to all Christians an ending “like Christ” at the consummation of history. Since that is our end—actually a new beginning, for which we were created and redeemed—we are urged throughout the New Testament to obtain more and more of that reality in this life, as a “dress rehearsal” for the life to come. In short, this is what theosis/deification is: the possibility that we can acquire in this life that state that we will have as resurrected, glorified persons in the presence of God in eternity.

Finally, we must consider our Lord’s transfiguration on Mt. Tabor (Matt. 17:1ff; Mark 9:2ff). One of the twelve major feasts of the Orthodox Church, it provides great insight for our understanding of theosis. Jesus went up the mountain with Peter, James, and John and was transformed before their eyes. He appeared to them in His glorified humanity and was illumined with the light of divinity. Moses and Elijah, representing the Law and the Prophets, appeared with Christ as He was enveloped by the glory cloud, the presence of the Holy Spirit. As at His baptism, the Father spoke, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” (Matthew 17:5).

Here we have the whole Bible summed up in this one event. The Old Testament, the Law and the Prophets, point to Christ, the eternal Son come in the flesh. He appears with the Holy Spirit and the Father—the Trinity. Through His Incarnation He is joined to our humanity and glorifies it in Himself, uniting us to God, fulfilling the purpose of our creation in Genesis. We are to listen to Him because He is God’s ultimate revelation of Himself to us (cf. Hebrews 1:1; John 1:14). Furthermore, this event occurred to prepare the disciples for Christ’s crucifixion, which would deliver our fallen humanity from sin and death and raise us up with Him in His resurrection.

Thus we may be glorified together with Him. We are joined to Christ in His glorified, deified humanity and so are united to God. Through this union we are made partakers of the divine nature. Through grace we can become what He is.

Theosis in the Writings of the Fathers

We began with a somewhat startling quote by St. Athanasius: “God became man so that men might become gods.” Keep in mind that this is the same Athanasius who championed the orthodox (in its common sense of correct) understanding of the full divinity of Christ in opposition to the Arian heresy. Numerous other early Church Fathers made similar statements.

Gregory of Nazianzus, another great champion of correct views about the Trinity and Christ’s divinity, stated: “Man has been ordered to become God.” His close friend, Basil the Great, said, “From the Holy Spirit is the likeness of God, and the highest thing to be desired, to become God.”

Origen noted that the spirit “is deified by that which it contemplates.” And Cyril of Alexandria commented that we are all called to take part in divinity, becoming the likeness of Christ and the image of the Father by “participation.” Irenaeus noted, “If the Word is made man, it is that man might become gods.” Finally, John of Damascus taught that Christ’s redemptive work enables the image of God to be restored in us so that we become “partakers of divinity.”

These are not just Eastern Church Fathers being quoted. Most, if not all, are recognized by East and West. Theosis is a truly catholic understanding of the goal of our relationship with God in Christ.

Theosis in the Lives of the Saints

Finally, countless saints throughout history have demonstrated the possibility of deification as a reality in their lives. They attained deification only after intense suffering. Their sufferings came through persecution and martyrdom, intense ascetic discipline and countless nightly prayer vigils wrestling with evil spirits to obtain victory in the spiritual life. Through suffering such blessed victory was won.

Two stories of two saints show the effects of theosis on the body. Some may wish to discount these accounts as “hero worship” or “mythology” or “hagiographic exaggeration.” I prefer to offer them as inspiration to strive toward theosis in each of our lives.

St. Seraphim of Sarov, a Russian monk of the nineteenth century, went into the forest with his disciple, Motovilov, during a snowstorm. While praying, St. Seraphim became iridescent in appearance, to the point of emitting what was for Motovilov an almost blinding light. Accompanying this glow was a warmth in the midst of the Russian winter snow, along with a beautiful fragrance and unspeakable joy and peace. St. Seraphim attributed this blessed state to his having acquired the Holy Spirit, or deification.

Abba Joseph, a desert father, was approached by Abba Lot, who informed him that he had kept his rule of prayer, fasted, purified his thoughts, and lived peaceably—what more could he do? Abba Joseph held out his hands toward heaven, fingers extended, and said, “You can become fire.” Each fingertip blazed like a candle. Abba Joseph’s point was that the younger monk could be set ablaze by the Holy Spirit.

May we all be set ablaze by the Spirit, the “Heavenly King, the Comforter . . . Treasury of blessings and Giver of life”—as the Orthodox prayer addresses Him. And through that same Holy Spirit, may we come into union with God and experience “total participation in Jesus Christ.” May our lives be “unified so completely with God” that we become “by grace what God is by nature,” so that we share in “the divine nature through grace.” So much so that we become not just Christ-like, but the likeness of Christ.

 

Suggested Reading

At the Corner of East and Now, by Frederica Mathewes-Green. She writes clearly, with wit and charm. But she also communicates the majesty and beauty and profound glory of Orthodox worship and life.

The Jesus Prayer, by Fr. John Hester. This booklet is an excellent overview of the Jesus Prayer, its history, and its influence in the process of deification.

Living Icons, by Fr. Michael Plekon. The book begins with a wonderful chapter on St. Seraphim of Sarov and stresses his impact on the lives and thought of so many Russian émigrés after the Bolshevik Revolution.

Eastern Orthodox Christianity, by Daniel B. Clendenin. This is an insightful and mostly sympathetic examination of Orthodoxy by a Protestant scholar.

 Mark Shuttleworth lives in Pittsburgh, PA. He and his wife, Sara, are members of the Holy Virgin Orthodox Church (OCA) in Carnegie, PA. Mark was raised in an evangelical Protestant family, earned a Master of Divinity at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, was ordained and served for over ten years as a Presbyterian youth minister. Mark’s journey to Orthodoxy began in late 2002. He and his wife were chrismated in spring 2004.

This article is available as a printed booklet from Conciliar Media, a department of the Antiochian Archdiocese. This essay is copyrighted by Conciliar Press.

by Fr. Jack N. Sparks, Ph.D.

The first time I invited a particular Protestant friend to step inside an Orthodox Church, he looked around very slowly, carefully, cau­tiously. “It’s pretty,” he said, “but doesn’t the Bible warn against graven images?”

His reference, of course, was to the icons, painted images of Jesus Christ and His follow­ers who, through the centuries of our history as the Church, have been portrayed for all to see. Was he right in his concern?

That particular Church, like most Ortho­dox Churches, was very beautiful. And the Bible, specifically the Old Testament law, does say, “Thou shalt have no graven images” (Exodus 20:4, KJV). So, the question is, do those icons, those paintings portraying Christ, His Mother, the saints, and special biblical events, come under the category of graven images?

The history of icons and of their use in the Orthodox Church is not only fascinating but instructive. They are no new thing. Nor were they invented by an apostate medieval Church. The use of representations for instruction and as aids to piety goes back to the earliest centu­ries of the Church, and likely they were there in some form from the very beginning. Cer­tainly we know that even in legal-minded Israel, paintings and other artistic representa­tions used to help the people remember spiri­tual truth were not at all unknown.

In both the tabernacle and the later temples there were images used, especially of the cherubim. And a recently unearthed syna­gogue of the last few centuries before Christ has paintings of biblical scenes on its walls.

The Biblical Parameters

But was this done contrary to the com­mand of God? Look at Exodus 26:1. In God’s commands to Moses concerning the taber­nacle, given just a few chapters after the giving of the Ten Commandments, is this instruction: “Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains woven of fine linen thread, and blue and purple and scarlet yarn; with artistic designs of cherubim you shall weave them.”

A similar command with respect to the Ark of the Covenant instructed Moses to have two cherubim of hammered gold at the ends of the mercy seat. God said, “And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, of all things which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel” (Exodus 25:22). Here are images directly connected with the presence of God, and commanded by Him.

From the very earliest years of the Church, Christians used such symbols as the cross, the fish, the peacock, the shepherd, and the dove. And early Christian tombs and catacombs bear paintings which are representations of biblical scenes.

For example, the fourth century Church historian Eusebius tells us that outside the house of the woman in the Gospels with a hemorrhage cured by Christ was “a bronze statue of a woman, resting on one knee and resembling a suppliant with arms out­stretched. Facing this was another of the same material, an upright figure of a man with a double cloak draped neatly over his shoulders and his hand stretched out to the woman.”

Eusebius goes on to say, “This statue, which was said to resemble the features of Jesus, was still there in my own time, so that I saw it with my own eyes” (Church History, Book 7, Chapter 18). He tells us further that portraits of the Savior and of Peter and Paul had been preserved, and that he had examined these with his own eyes as well.

In that very same century the famous bishop and theologian, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, tells of being deeply moved by an icon of the sacrifice of Isaac: “I have seen a painted representation of this passion, and have never passed by without shedding tears, for art brings the story vividly to the eyes.” His friend and contemporary, Saint Gregory Nazianzen, writes of the persecution of Christians by the cruel Emperor Julian the Apostate: “The images venerated in public places still bear scars of that plague.” The witness of many other great early Church writers bears out the same truth. Icons were known and venerated in the earliest centuries of the Church.

All right. So the early Church made and possessed images—or icons, as we call them in a transliteration of the Greek word for images. And the Christian faithful honored or venerated them. But does this fit with the biblical warning concerning images?

The command in question is from the Ten Commandments: “You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth be­neath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God” (Exodus 20:3-5).

Note that the context shows that the term “graven image” is used to refer to an idol—an image created to be worshiped as a god. Could this mean there are in the Bible two classifications of image—true images and false images? Appropriate images and in­appropriate images? If so, how do we distin­guish between them?

Icons and Our Faith in God

To answer these questions, let us review for a moment what we believe about God Himself. The venerable eighth-century theolo­gian, Saint John of Damascus—a champion for the cause of icons and for Orthodox Chris­tianity—summarizes very well what true Christians in his day believed about God. See if you don’t agree.

“I believe in one God, the source of all things, without beginning, uncreated, immor­tal and unassailable, eternal, everlasting, in­comprehensible, bodiless, invisible, uncircumscribed, without form. I believe in one superessential Being, one Godhead greater than our conception of divinity, in three per­sons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and I adore Him alone. I worship one God, one Godhead, but I adore three persons: God the Father, God the Son made flesh, and God the Holy Spirit, one God” (On the Divine Images, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980, page 15).

Nothing could be more sound, more bibli­cal, more Christian, more Orthodox. But given our understanding of the Godhead, if God is invisible, as Saint John writes, how can we possibly depict God?

Listen once again to Saint John of Damas­cus: “It is obvious that when you contemplate God becoming man, then you may depict Him clothed in human form. When the invisible One becomes visible to flesh, you may then draw His likeness. When He who is bodiless and without form, immeasurable in the bound­lessness of His own nature, existing in the form of God, empties Himself and takes the form of a servant in substance and in stature and is found in a body of flesh, then you may draw His image and show it to anyone willing to gaze upon it” (On the Divine Images, page 18).

The old Chinese adage, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” comes to mind. If we use word-pictures to illustrate our sermons, what about graphic pictures to illustrate the gospel of Christ itself? This is Saint John’s plea: “Depict His wonderful condescension, His birth from the Virgin, His baptism in the Jor­dan, His transfiguration on Tabor, His sufferings which have freed us from passion, His death, His miracles which are signs of His divine nature, since through divine power He worked them in the flesh. Show His saving cross, the tomb, the resurrection, the ascension into the heavens. Use every kind of drawing, word, or color” (On the Divine Images, page 18).

Absolutely! Right on target! It is incredi­bly important that we Christians be allowed the latitude to depict Christ’s humanity and work, because by His incarnation He revealed Himself in and through material creation. And material creation thus sanctified must be allowed to reveal Him.

To Whom Honor Is Due

But suppose you saw me kneeling before an array of icons of the scenes Saint John de­scribed, praying to Christ—perhaps even kissing those icons. What then? Am I engaged in the worship of idols?

For here, you see, is where we come across the crucial reason for having icons in the first place. In the image we see the Prototype. An icon of Christ reveals to us the Original. And through Him, He taught us, we also glimpse the Father. Icons become for us windows to heaven, revealing the glory of God. The fact is, icons help to protect us from idolatry! Thus, we bow before the icon of Christ, seeing through it Him and His Father.

These icons, these windows, may be seen as offering movement in two directions. In an Orthodox Church the icons are for us who worship a passage into the Kingdom of God, but they also bring a revelation, a manifestation of the unseen heavenly host of angels, saints, and martyrs—yes, even the eternal saving events—into our presence. The Church becomes a true outpost of heaven on earth.

This veneration, by the way, is accompa­nied by rich scriptural precedent. Saint John of Damascus reminds us that: “Abraham bowed down to the sons of Hamor, men who had neither faith nor knowledge of God, when he bought the double cave intended to become a tomb. Jacob bowed to the ground before Esau, his brother, and also before the tip of his son Joseph’s staff. He bowed down, but he did not adore. Joshua, the son of Nun, and Daniel bowed in veneration before an angel of God, but they did not adore him” (On the Divine Images, page 19).

Wisdom. In that perceptive statement lies a choice of words that makes all the difference in the world to Orthodox Christians when it comes to their use of icons. A major distinc­tion is made between adoration or worship and honor or veneration. Worship is reserved only for God. Honor and veneration are given more broadly, a different matter entirely.

We all honor and venerate various objects, positions, and people—and that to differing degrees! Husbands and wives are told in the New Testament to honor each other. And likewise children honor (we hope!) their par­ents. At school we honor teachers and princi­pals. We honor professors and scientists; governors and members of congress; senators and judges; presidents and prime ministers. “Take a letter to the Honorable Mr. Jones,” a man may say to his secretary.

The word “venerate” is less familiar today, perhaps because we do less venerating than earlier generations. The verb “to venerate” means to regard with reverential respect or with admiration. I asked my friend how he felt about the Bible. Did he feel any more respect for it than for any other book, say a dictionary or a novel? “Yes,” he said emphatically, “the Bible is the word of God, so I respect it above any other book.”

“Well, then,” I asked, “would you say you venerate the Bible?” He thought it was a very strong word, but when it came right down to it, yes, he did venerate the Bible.

“What, then, about your pastor,” I asked, “or some other very pious or spiritual person you know? Is there someone like that whom you venerate?” There he wasn’t sure. He did respect his pastor and some other Christians he knew, respected them very highly, but it seemed that “venerate” was a word too strong.

Even though we Americans are uneasy about veneration, many of us are still willing to venerate the Bible, and, yes, some even know what it is to venerate a wise and godly pastor or an aged grandparent. So indeed do Ortho­dox Christians venerate icons, honoring and respecting them for what they depict, for the story they tell, for what they reveal of heaven and of the glory of God.

“But wait,” said my friend, “If you are going to worship God, why don’t you just worship God?” Our discussion led to a consid­eration of what he would consider the ideal environment for worship: four blank, undeco­rated walls in a neutral but pleasant color, and a pulpit. Would such severe bareness serve to speak of the presence of a living God? Even bare walls are an image, speaking of absence and emptiness.

How one worships, you see, is a crucial concern for a Christian. And icons are central to Orthodox Christian worship. Not only do they help us to see the glory of God, but some icons, such as those of the saints, give us holy models to follow as patterns for our lives.

Our primary example, of course, is Christ Himself, who said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another” (John 13:34). And Saint Paul wrote, “There­fore be followers of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacri­fice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” (Ephesians 5:1, 2).

But the Apostle Paul even exhorted his readers to follow or imitate him (1 Corinthians 4:16; 11:1; Philippians 3:17; 4:9). And throughout the ages of the Church, sensible believers have seen that following godly men and women who have gone before is a help in personal growth toward the image and like­ness of God. When Orthodox Christians honor an icon of one of the saints by bowing before it, kissing it, and saying a prayer before it, they are intent upon the godly example of that saint and upon following that example.

The Word Becomes Flesh

Orthodox worship is made up almost en­tirely of Scripture readings, prayers, and hymns. And the movements we make in connection with some of these readings, prayers, and hymns, are movements which turn our eyes and our attention to certain icons. This direction of our attention to the icons is central to the purpose of Orthodox Christian worship: to direct us to Christ, who directs us to the Father. This, after all, is why the Son and Word of God became incarnate. As He Him­self said: “He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me. And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me” (John 12:44, 45).

Jesus, the Son and Word of God, was made Man that we might be drawn to the Father, might see Him, might know Him. Becoming incarnate, He joined created matter, humanity, to Himself, uniting God and humanity in His Person that we might know the Father. In that very act He sanctified matter and used it, His very humanity, to unite us to God. In Christ, therefore, the uncreated was united to the created, creation to Creator, in order to bring us to God.

Thus, icons (along with the Scripture read­ings, prayers, and hymns) help us worship God, help us grow in the image and likeness of God. Though visible and material, their con­tent, theology in color, helps us to see and know the invisible and spiritual.

We all know that the birth of Christ is a celebration of joy, for God the Son was pleased to be born a baby. Let us build in our minds the image of Him, wrapped in swad­dling clothes, lying in a manger cave, with the divine light brightening the dark of that cave. Thus, the black mouth of the cave is the fallen world, under the shadow of death, but enlightened by the “Sun of Righteousness” which has now dawned.

We also see the Virgin Mother beside her Son, resting upon that hammock-style bed used by the Jews of that day in their travels. But our image, being that of the traditional icon, will show much more. As the Gospels tell us, all mankind is called to witness the event. Shepherds on the hills on the upper right of our scene represent the ordinary and humble people of this world. From the mid-left approach the Wise Men who represent the wise and learned. Above, a multitude of an­gels announces the blessed event to humanity. In the center the star shines down, centering its rays upon the stable cave.

Several other events are simultaneously presented in the lower front of our scene: At the left, Joseph sits painfully reflecting, while the devil, disguised as an old and bent shep­herd, whispers new doubts and suspicions in his ear. In the far-right corner, two women may be seen bathing the newborn Christ, signify­ing the reality of His humanity. Thus our icon pictures Jesus twice.

Also in the front, across from Joseph, is a tree, included in its own right as an offering to Christ, but in addition, to fulfill the words of the Prophet Isaiah, “There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isaiah 11:1).

Within the cave the baby lies guarded by an ox and a donkey, again fulfilling the words of Isaiah, “The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master’s crib” (Isaiah 1:3).

The written description of this scene has taken many words. But one icon brings to the visual sense the complete scene, flooding our minds and hearts with the glory of the moment of the Incarnation, along with its manifold implications. In Orthodox worship, this visual theology is received along with all that is heard and said and sung, to fill our whole being with wonder and the glory of God.

In concert with the hymns, the Scriptures, and the prayers, the theology in color con­veyed by the icons to the receptive heart helps bring the worshiper into the very presence of God to adore and to know Him. For it is the whole being—the whole “me” or “you”—who worships, not just some ethereal aspect called the soul. We Christians are not, after all, Gnostic dualists who consider the spiritual part of us worthy of God and the body a lesser or unworthy part. Thus, Orthodox worship involves the body with all its senses in wor­ship.

Icons false images? Oh, no! For we do not picture the invisible, and we do not worship the icon. They are true images indeed, safely within the boundaries of the biblical tradition surrounding true worship. They engage the human eye in the worship and adoration of God. Saint John of Damascus summarizes the balance:

“I do not adore the creation rather than the Creator, but I adore the one who became a creature, who was formed as I was, who clothed Himself in creation without weaken­ing or departing from His divinity, that He might raise our nature in glory and make us partakers of His divine nature. . . .

“Therefore I boldly draw an image of the invisible God, not as invisible, but as having become visible for our sakes by partaking of flesh and blood. I do not draw an image of the immortal Godhead, but I paint the image of God who became visible in the flesh, for if it is impossible to make a representation of a spirit, how much more impossible is it to depict the God who gives life to the spirit?” (On the Divine Images, pages 15, 16).

The Whole Church Says “YES!” 

In A.D. 787, the leadership of the entire Christian Church convened what is called the Seventh Ecumenical Council. After a thor­ough and lengthy examination of the Holy Scriptures and a consideration of the tradition bearing on the making and use of icons, this body decreed:

“We, therefore, following the royal path­way and the divinely inspired authority of our Holy Fathers and the traditions of the Church (for, as we all know, the Holy Spirit indwells her), define with all certainty and accuracy that just as the figure of the precious and life­giving Cross, so also the venerable and holy images, as well in painting and mosaic as of other fit materials, should be set forth in the holy Churches of God, and on the sacred ves­sels and on the vestments and on hangings and in pictures both in houses and by the wayside, to wit, the figure of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, of our spotless Lady, of the hon­orable Angels, of all Saints, and of all pious people.

“For by so much more frequently as they are seen in artistic representation, by so much more readily are people lifted up to the mem­ory of their prototypes, and to a longing after them; and to these should be given due saluta­tion and honorable reverence, not indeed that true worship of faith which pertains alone to the divine nature; but to these, as to the figure of the precious and life-giving Cross and to the Book of the Gospels and to the other holy objects, incense and lights may be offered according to ancient pious customs.”

For the honor which is paid to the image passes on to that which the image represents, and he who reveres the image reveres in it the subject represented. Thus, the icon is a true image, a window to heaven and a light which guides us there. In that sense it takes the same role as the pillar of fire which guided Israel through the wilderness to the Promised Land and the star which led the Wise Men to Christ. The icon is not intended to serve as a photo­graph of an earthly scene. Nor does it merely awaken in us the sense of ages past. Rather, the icon is there to lead our hearts to the King of Kings, to the brilliant glory of the Age to Come.

The icon is a holy image, a door to heaven. It tells us that our Lord Jesus Christ and His great cloud of witnesses are present, on hand, on high, with us. Therefore, it is indispensable for those who sincerely pursue and desire the fullness of Christian worship.

This article is available as a printed booklet from Conciliar Media, a department of the Antiochian Archdiocese.  This essay is copyrighted by Conciliar Press.

by Frederica Mathewes-Green

The word “orthodox” means “right belief” or “right praise.”

The “Orthodox Church” is also known as the “Eastern Orthodox Church.”

Orthodox Doctrine

In the years after Jesus’ Resurrection, apostles and missionaries traveled throughout the known world spreading the Gospel. Soon five major locations were established as centers for the faith: Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople. In the year 1054 the Roman church broke from this united Church, and five hundred years later Protestant churches began breaking away from Rome. But the original Church has remained united in the Apostolic Faith since the first century. This is Orthodoxy.

One of the tasks of the early Church was defin­ing, and defending, orthodox theology against the battering waves of heresies. These heresies often appeared in disputes over the nature of the Trinity, or how Jesus could be both God and Man. Church Councils were called to search the Scriptures and put into words the common faith, forming a bedrock of certainty that could stand for all ages. From this time, the Church has been called “Orthodox,” which means “right belief” or “right praise.” The Nicene Creed (see reverse) originated at the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325, and is the central Orthodox statement of faith, a preeminent example of the work of the Councils. Built on the foundation of Christ and His Apostles, nothing has been added to our faith, and nothing can be added. It is complete.

Orthodox Worship

Orthodox churches still use forms of worship that were practiced in the first centuries. Our worship is based to a great extent on passages from Scripture. We sing most of the service, joining our voices in simple harmony to ancient melodies.

Our worship is focused on God, not on our own en­joyment, fulfillment, or fellowship. We come into the presence of God with awe, aware of our fallenness and His great mercy. We seek forgiveness and rejoice in the great gift of salvation so freely given. Orthodox worship is filled with repentance, gratitude, and unend­ing praise.

We try, as best we can, to make our worship beautiful. The example of Scripture shows us that God’s design for tabernacle worship (Exodus 25, 26) in­cluded gold, silver, precious stones, blue and purple cloth, embroidery, incense, bells, and anointing oil. Likewise, in Saint John’s vision of heavenly worship (Revelation 4) there are precious stones, gold, thrones, crowns, white robes, crystal, and incense. From the beginning to the end of Scripture, worship is offered with as much beauty as possible. While a new mission’s finances may call for simple appointments, our hearts come to worship seeking to pour out at the feet of Christ all the precious ointment we possess.

A common misconception is that awe-filled, beauti­ful worship must be rigid, formal, and cold. Orthodox worship shatters that stereotype. The liturgy is not a performance, but an opportunity to come together as a family of faith before our beloved Father. True Orthodox worship is comfortable, warm, and joyful. It could be nothing less in His heavenly presence.

Orthodox Values

Values that are usually termed “Judeo-Christian” have never left Orthodoxy. We believe that sexual expression is a treasured gift, one to be exercised only within marriage. Persons with homosexual or other extramarital sexual impulses are welcomed as fellow servants of God, receiving loving support as they make an offering to God of their chastity. Marriage is a commitment for life. Divorce is a very grave action, and remarriage after divorce a concession to human weakness, undertaken with repentance.

Orthodoxy has stood against abortion since the earliest days of the church. The Didache (circa A.D. 110) states, “Do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant.” In the midst of a culture which freely practiced abortion, infanticide, and the exposure of infants, early Christians were a consistent voice against violence, as the Orthodox Church continues to be today.

Caring for the poor and disadvantaged has always been a concern for the Orthodox. The strong ser­mons of Saint John Chrysostom, written in the fourth century, bear witness to the importance of this Chris­tian responsibility. The Church continues to see its mission in light of the whole person, body and soul.

Orthodox believers are right, left, and center on many issues. But where Scripture and the witness of the early Church guide us, there is no controver­sy. We uphold and obey God’s will.

This article is available as a printed brochure called Are You Looking? from Conciliar Media, a department of the Antiochian Archdiocese. This essay is copyrighted by Conciliar Press.

by Fr. John M. Reeves

In January 1990, an old man in pajamas sitting on the edge of his bed was interviewed for a television broadcast in Romania. He was the noted philosopher, Petre Sutea. What did he think of the recent revolution, he was asked.

“What revolution?” was his rhetorical reply. Thinking perhaps that his age or his hearing had prevented his understanding the question, the interviewer gently rehearsed the events of the previous month, in which the Ceaucescu regime had been toppled. Sutea replied, “That was no revolution! There has been only one revolution in the history of mankind, the Incarnation of our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ!”

What is it about the Incarnation that would enable a Christian to make such a boast? What does it mean, that God would take flesh and dwell among us? What does it say about both God and man? What does it say, to you and to me, right now?

The earliest confession of faith of the Church has been the simple declaration that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord! This conviction literally turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). It still provokes the strongest contention. To proclaim that Jesus is Lord demarcates the Christian from the rest of the world. It sums up the Christian faith in three words, and it is far different from merely noting that Jesus was born or that Jesus lived or died.

By the beginning of the third millennium of the Christian era, the belief that Jesus is Lord has affected the entire globe in one way or another. Even the atheists and agnostics of our day cannot pen a letter or date a check without making reference to the Incarnation, whether they know it or not. Yet, unless our own lives are being turned upside down by the Incarnation of the Son of God, unless the revolution which is God coming in the flesh takes hold of our very being personally, we face the next year, and the year after that, ad infinitum, with no hope, no purpose, no meaning to our lives, and nothing to celebrate at all.

“Jesus is Lord.” What does it mean to believe it? What does it mean to live it? What does it mean to celebrate this revolution on a personal level, that is, on the level of our souls and bodies?

What’s in a Name?

“You shall call His name Jesus,” said the angel of the Lord to Joseph in a dream, “for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

Now this was done, St. Matthew tells us, to fulfill Isaiah’s prophecy that a virgin would be with child and that she would bring forth a Son, and that His name would be called “Immanuel: God with us.” Indeed, the very name “Jesus,” the Greek form of the Hebrew “Joshua,” means “Yahweh saves,” or “Yahweh is my salvation.” The name given to the one who led Israel out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land is the same name given to God in the flesh, for He would save His people from their sins.

Yet this second Joshua is no mere prophet or emissary from God. He is God Himself, come to save mankind. For while God used the first Joshua to save His people, God Himself as the second Joshua has come to save, for the angel said, “He will save His people.” He is not the instrument of salvation, as was the first Joshua; He is Salvation. He is the Word made flesh, dwelling among us, full of grace and truth. “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:3, 4). “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name” (John 1:12).

To believe that Jesus is Lord, then, is to confess that He is God. To believe anything else is to believe something less; and if Jesus is something less than God, no salvation is possible. Prophets and seers may predict; rabbis may teach. Only God can save. Our belief that Jesus saves means precisely that He is God.

All Have Fallen Short

To call upon the name—to believe in the name—of Jesus as Lord is to accept the fact that He has come to save mankind from sin, so that we might become the sons of God, having a relationship with God and becoming “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Jesus did not come merely to grant sinful human beings a new status, a “saved” status. Rather, as St. Athanasius wrote, “God became man, that man might become god.” Thus, the forgiveness of sins opens a relationship with God in which we change: we become more like God.

St. John wrote, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8). God sees us already as sinners. Indeed, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Yet the lordship of Jesus Christ cannot become real in our lives until we begin to see ourselves as God sees us. We are frail, impotent, blind, lost, unable to save ourselves. Confession of sin before God is a statement of simple truth, but it takes the humility of the Publican to confess it. Without such humility, no soul can be saved.

If adoption as the sons of God, that is, salvation, is to have any meaning, we have to take seriously the sinfulness which precludes our sonship. That is, no matter how good we try to be, our “goodness” is insufficient. Or as the Apostle Paul put it, “For the good that I will to do, I do not do” (Romans 7:19). We are creatures. We are limited. We have fallen short. Our mortality is real and we will die.

To call Jesus Lord, we must confess our sins and begin to see ourselves as God sees us already.

What Then Shall We Do?

When the Apostle Peter was preaching on the Day of Pentecost, the men of Israel were pricked in their hearts. St. Peter had been preaching about Jesus, that He was the Christ of God and that they had crucified Him. Under conviction for their sin, they cried out to the Apostle, “What shall we do?”

Having come under God’s judgment, having accepted responsibility for their transgression, the Jews were not content with mere lip service or even a public declaration and confession of guilt. Neither was Peter, nor the Church. Something had to be done to remove their transgressions from them. Confession of sin is just the beginning. “Repent,” said the Apostle, “and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. . . . Be saved from this perverse generation” (Acts 2:38–40).

The response to Peter’s sermon was overwhelming. Three thousand souls were added to the Church by baptism that same day. “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). This was no simple “altar call.” This was no mass rally culminating in a decision for Christ at the end of the service. This was and is how God has ordained for our sins to be forgiven personally, by our being added corporately to the Church. This baptism for the remission of sins is no mere “symbol.” It conveys the forgiveness of sins, to the Jews first, but also to all whom God shall call. The gift of the Holy Spirit is no mere sentiment, but a sealing of the life which is to come.

Baptism is the door to Christ’s lordship over us. We are baptized into His death, “that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. . . . Our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin” (Romans 6:4–6). Indeed, in baptism we confess Jesus as Lord and “put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). To confess Jesus as Lord, we must be baptized.

And baptism is only part of the command, for the Apostle said, “Repent and be baptized.” Without repentance, without turning from sin and embracing new life in Christ, our baptism does not affect our lives as it should. Life without repentance is like living on the porch of a mansion, refusing to enter the front door, which was opened through baptism. But when we repent, when we turn from the sin we have confessed and seek to live a new life, then we truly enter the mansion (the Church), for it is only in the community of the faithful that we can live the new life.

Being Added to the Church

Those who were baptized on the Day of Pentecost were added to the Church, continuing steadfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine, not their own opinions. They continued as well in the Apostles’ communion (koinonia), under the authority of those whom God had sent to proclaim the gospel to all men. They continued in the breaking of bread, the Eucharist. Their lives were marked by sharing the Lord’s Supper, not as a memorial to a fallen leader, but as a victory celebration of the lordship of Christ, His triumph over death, known to them in the breaking of bread (Luke 24:35). They continued in “prayers,” not merely some prayers, or their prayers, but the prayers, the corporate worship of the community. In short, they continued in the Church.

It was in the Church that believers heard from the Apostles what they themselves had heard and seen and looked upon, things which their own hands had handled concerning the Incarnate Word of life (1 John 1:1). This the Apostles declared, that the believers might have communion with them—the Apostles, for truly the Apostles’ communion was with the Father and His Son Jesus Christ (1 John 1:3). This living relationship with and knowledge of God, in communion with the Apostles, is something which is made real in the Church, the great mystery whereby we become bone of His bone and flesh of His flesh (Ephesians 5:30–32).

Were it not for the Incarnation, there would have been no need for the Church at all. Because of it, however—because there has been this one, profound revolution in the history of man, as Sutea would say—the Church has become the essential sign, messenger, and declaration that what Christians proclaim to be true is in fact the Truth about Jesus Christ. Only because God took a body in the Incarnation to save the world can there be any meaning of the Church as the Body of Christ through which God still saves the world. Apart from that Body, there can be no assurance of the truth and knowledge which are necessary for salvation.

Hence, there is no New Testament evidence of salvation occurring outside of the Church, from the Day of Pentecost until the present. Contact with and incorporation into the Body of Christ, the Church, by water and the Spirit, is the Apostles’ doctrine, not our own. “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25–27).

Thus it is in the Church that Christ’s lordship reigns, engrafting us into His divine life, even now on this earth. Here is where we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Here is where we truly say, “Jesus is Lord,” as He sanctifies and cleanses us, as He makes us the glorious Church, His Bride. Here is where we feast on His Body and Blood, without which we cannot have eternal life in us (John 6:51–58). Here is where we give Him glory forever and ever (Ephesians 3:21). To confess Jesus as Lord is to continue in the Church.

Which Church?

When the Apostles first preached, it was easier to point to the Church and say, “Here it is.” Over the centuries, and especially since the Renaissance, when man became the measure, not God, Western Christians have had great difficulty determining where the Church is and, consequently, who Jesus is. Many, in fact, have come to the conclusion that in spite of the Scriptures, the Church is unnecessary. It is especially ironic to hear people speak today of “only the Bible,” when the Bible itself was the product of the life of that Church which had continued steadfastly in the Apostles’ doctrine and communion, the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Yet the divergence of religious opinion today stands in sharp contrast to the life of the early Church, which proclaimed “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Many calling themselves Christians today do not continue steadfastly in apostolic doctrine or communion, the breaking of bread, or the prayers. The moral life of which the Scriptures and the Fathers speak extensively as the sign of the lordship of Christ has all but evaporated from many of the contemporary denominations.

The lordship of Jesus Christ requires that the Church be the Church: the historic Church, neither more the Church nor less the Church than in any other age. To proclaim Jesus as Lord is to uncover the wealth of apostolic teaching about the lordship of Christ and to continue faithfully therein. Our private opinions about the faith, the Scriptures, the Church, and her moral life mean nothing. To confess that Jesus is Lord means to repent and be baptized for the remission of our sins and to be added to the Church.

To confess that Jesus is Lord means to persevere under the godly authority of the successors to the Apostles, both our bishops and priests, for they watch for our souls and must give account (Hebrews 13:17). To claim to be under Jesus’ reign but to reject the authorities which He has placed in the Church to rule over us is a contradiction.

To confess that Jesus is Lord means that the Eucharist must form the basis for our life in the world, else we shall not have Life within us (John 6:53). Sincere repentance, with regular confession to a spiritual father, must precede reception of the Holy Mysteries, lest we eat and drink condemnation, not discerning the Lord’s Body (1 Corinthians 11:27–29).

To confess that Jesus is Lord means to continue in the prayers. We must become more and more a people of prayer, formally and corporately, and also personally and in secret. We must make time both to talk to God in prayer, and to listen to God speak His will for us.

To confess that Jesus is Lord means to yield up our souls and bodies as living sacrifices to Him (Romans 12:1). It means confessing that we are no longer our own, but His. For we have been bought with a price, the price of His own blood.

To confess that Jesus is Lord means to witness to His Lordship in the church to all mankind, going into all the world, making disciples, teaching all things whatsoever He has taught, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:18–20).

To confess that Jesus is Lord, in short, means to proclaim in our lives and our lifestyles, with every breath that we breathe, this radical, revolutionary faith that God has taken flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth. Then, that is a revolution worth celebrating, always now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

 

Fr. John M. Reeves is rector of Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in State College, Pennsylvania.

This article is available as a printed booklet from Conciliar Media, a department of the Antiochian Archdiocese. This essay is copyrighted by Conciliar Press.

Coming off a couple of decades of heightened awareness of our need for a personal knowledge of Christ—notably evidenced through such phenomena as the Jesus Movement and the charismatic re­new­al—most thinking Christians are realizing something else is needed: the rediscovery of the historic Church.

Often, in heated reaction to dated and dead Protestant liberalism, we would hear evangelical preachers in the late sixties and early seventies say, “All you need is Jesus!” Such statements often got rave reviews, but just a little thoughtful reflection quickly showed such a simplistic religion to be shallow and unfulfilling. More and more, that kind of existential reductionism is being tempered with a renewed emphasis on the whole impact of the Incarnation, the coming in the flesh of the Son of God. There must be more to Christianity than a private, internalized in­di­vi­dual­ism. If all we needed was Jesus, why would Jesus have promised, “I will build My church” (Matthew 16:18)?

But our need for the Church begs a question, a crucial question. Which Church? The easy answer, of course, and a correct answer, is, “the New Testament Church.” But this isn’t A.D. 65, and we aren’t in old Jerusalem or Colosse. We are in the twentieth century and our challenge is to find the New Testament Church in our day, being sure it is historically identical to the Church of the Apostles—the one Christ Himself established.

Starting in the twentieth century with the plethora of choices available to us is difficult. For we have hundreds of denominations and sects claiming to one degree or another to be the New Testament Church. The Roman Catholic Church makes that claim based on its apostolic succession. Baptist churches are unwaveringly confident they hold to the New Testament Faith. Often a Church of Christ will have a sign outside reading, “Founded in Jerusalem, 33 A.D.,” thereby staking the claim to be the original Church. And the list goes on. Granted, many groups have maintained, or even rediscovered, important aspects of the New Testament Faith. But who is right? Or is the pluralism crowd correct—that essentially everybody is in and ties for first place?

Back to Church One

There is a predictably reliable way to tackle the problem of who is right. Rather than trying to decide which of the over 2,500 Christian groups in North America keeps the original Faith best by studying what they are like right now, we can start from the beginning of the Church itself and work our way through history to the present.

The birthday of the Church was Pentecost, the day the Holy Spirit descended on the Twelve Apostles in the Upper Room. That day some 3,000 souls believed in Christ and were baptized. When the first Christian community began, “they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42).

From Jerusalem, the Faith in Christ spread throughout Judea, to Samaria (Acts 8), to Antioch and the Gentiles (Acts 13), where we find new converts and new churches throughout Asia Minor and the Roman Empire.

From the pages of the Gospels and Epistles, we learn that the Church was not simply another organization in Roman society. The Lord Jesus Christ had given the promise of the Holy Spirit to “guide you into all truth” (John 16:13). With the fulfillment of that promise beginning at Pentecost, the Church was founded with a status far above that of a mere institution. Saint Paul was right on target in Ephesians 2:22, where he called the Church the “dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” The Church was a living, dynamic organism, the living Body of Jesus Christ. She made an indelible impact in the world, and those who participated in her life in faith were personally transformed.

But we also discover in the New Testament itself that the Church had her share of problems. All was not perfection. Individuals in the Church sought to lead her off the path the Apostles had established, and they had to be dealt with along with the errors they invented. Even whole local communities lapsed on occasion and had to be called to repentance. The Church in Laodicea is a vivid example (Revelation 3). Discipline was administered for the sake of purity in the Church. But there was growth and a maturing even as the Church was attacked from within and without. The same Spirit who gave her birth gave her power for purity and correction, and she stood strong and grew until she eventually invaded the whole of the Roman Empire.

The Second Century and On

As the procession of the early Church moves from the pages of the New Testament and on into the succeeding centuries of her history, it is helpful to trace her growth and development in terms of specific categories. Therefore let us look first at a category important for all Christian people: doctrine. Did the Church maintain the truth of God as given by Christ and His Apostles? Second, what about worship? Is there a discernible way in which the people of God have offered a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving to Him? Third, we will consider Church government. What sort of polity did the Church practice?

1. Doctrine: Not only did the Church begin under the teaching of the Apostles, but she was also instructed to “stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle” (2 Thessalonians 2:15). The Apostle Paul insisted that those matters delivered by him and his fellow Apostles, both in person and in the writings that would come to be called the New Testament, be adhered to carefully. Thus followed such appropriate warnings as “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ . . . withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us” (2 Thessalonians 3:6). The doctrines taught by Christ and His disciples are to be safeguarded by “the church . . . the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:15) and are not open for re­ne­go­tia­tion.

Midway through the first century, a dispute over adherence to Old Testament laws arose in Antioch. The matter could not be settled there, and outside help was needed. The leaders of the Antiochian church, the community which had earlier dispatched Paul and Barnabas as missionaries, brought the matter to Jeru­sa­lem for consideration by the Apostles and elders there. The matter was discussed, debated, and a written decision was forthcoming.

It was James, the “brother” of the Lord and the first bishop of Jerusalem, who gave the solution to the problem. This settlement, agreed to by all concerned at what is known as the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15), set the pattern for the use of Church councils in the centuries ahead to settle doctrinal and moral issues that arose. Thus, in the history of the Church we find scores of such councils, and on various levels, to settle matters of dispute, and to deal with those who do not adhere to the Apostolic Faith.

In addition to this well-known controversy, the first three hundred years of Christian history were also marked by the appearance of certain heresies or false teachings, such as super-secret philosophic schemes for “insiders” only (Gnosticism), wild prophetic programs (Montanism), and grave errors regarding the three Per­sons of the Trinity (Sabellianism).

Then, in the early fourth century, a heresy with potential for Church-wide disruption appeared and was propagated by one Arius, a presbyter in Alexandria, Egypt. He denied the eternality of the Son of God, claiming, contrary to the Apostles’ doctrine, that the Son was a created being who came into existence at a point in time and thus was not truly God. This serious error crept through the Church like a cancer. Turmoil spread almost everywhere. To solve the problem the first Church-wide, or ecumenical, council met in Nicea in A.D. 325 to consider this doctrine. Some 318 bishops, along with many priests and deacons, rejected the new teaching of Arius and his associates and upheld the Apostles’ doctrine of Christ, confirming “there never was a time when the Son of God was not,” and issued a definition of the apostolic teaching concerning Christ in what we today call the Nicene Creed.

Between the years 325 and 787, seven such Church-wide conclaves were held, all dealing first and foremost with some specific challenge to the apostolic teaching about Jesus Christ. These are known as the Seven Ecumenical Councils, meeting in the cities of Nicea, Ephesus, Chalcedon, and Constantinople.

For the first thousand years of Christian history, the entire Church, save for the heretics, embraced and defended the New Testament Apostolic Faith. There was no division. And this one Faith, preserved through all these trials, attacks, and tests, this one Apostolic Faith, was called the Orthodox Faith.

2. Worship: Doctrinal purity was tenaciously maintained. But true Christianity is far more than adherence to a set of correct beliefs alone. The life of the Church is centrally expressed in her worship or adoration of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was Jesus Himself who told the woman at the well, “the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him” (John 4:23).

At the Last Supper, Jesus instituted the Eucharist, the Communion service, when He took bread and wine, blessed them, and said to His disciples, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me,” and, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:19, 20). From New Testament books such as Acts and Hebrews we know that the Church participated in Communion at least each Lord’s Day (Acts 20:7, 11). And also from such first- and second-century sources as the Didache and Saint Justin Martyr, we learn the Eucharist was kept at the very center of Christian worship after the death of the Apostles.

And just as the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets were read in the temple worship and the synagogue in Israel, so the Church also immediately gave high priority to the public reading of Scripture and to preach­ing in her worship, along with the eucharistic meal.

Even before the middle of the first century, Christian worship was known by the term “liturgy,” which means literally “the common work” or “the work of the people.” The early liturgy of the Church’s worship was composed of two essential parts: (1) the Liturgy of the Word, including hymns, Scripture reading, and preaching; and (2) the Liturgy of the Faithful, composed of intercessory prayers, the kiss of peace, and the Eucharist. Virtually from the beginning, it had a definable shape or form which continues to this day.

Modern Christians advocating freedom from lit­ur­gy in worship are usually shocked to learn that such spontaneity was never the practice in the ancient Church! A basic pattern or shape of Christian worship was observed from the start. And as the Church grew and matured, that structure matured as well. Hymns, Scripture readings, and prayers were intertwined in the basic foundation. A clear, purposeful procession through the year, honoring in word, song, and praise the Birth, ministry, death, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, and marking crucial issues in Chris­tian life and experience, was forthcoming. The Chris­tian life was lived in reality in the worship of the Church. Far from being routine, the worship of the historic Church participated in the unfolding drama of the richness and mystery of the Gospel itself!

Further, specific landmarks in our salvation and walk with Christ were observed. Baptism and the anointing with oil, or chrismation, were there from Day One of the Church. Marriage, healing, confession of sin, and ordination to the ministry of the gospel were early recognized and practiced. On each of these occasions, Christians understood, in a great mystery, grace and power from God were being given to people according to the individual need of each person. The Church saw these events as holy moments in her life and called them her mysteries or sacraments.

3. Government: No one seriously questions whether the Apostles of Christ led the Church at her beginning. They had been given the commission to preach the gospel (Matthew 28:19, 20) and the authority to forgive or retain sins (John 20:23). Theirs was by no means a preaching-only mission! They built the Church itself under Christ’s headship. To govern it, three definite and permanent offices, as taught in the New Testament, were in evidence.

a. The office of bishop. The Apostles themselves were the first bishops in the Church. Even before Pentecost, after Judas had turned traitor, Peter declared in applying Psalm 109:8, “his bishopric let another take” (Acts 1:20, KJV).

The word “bishopric” refers to the office of a bishop and its use obviously indicates the “job description” of the Apostles as being bishops. Some have mistakenly argued that the office of bishop was a later “human” invention. Quite to the contrary, the Apostles were the New Testament bishops, and they appointed bishops to succeed them to oversee the Church in each locality.

Occasionally, the objection is still heard that the offices of bishop and presbyter were originally identical. It is true the terms are sometimes used interchangeably in the New Testament while the Apostles were present, but it was the understanding of the entire early Church that, with the death of the Apostles, the offices of bishop and presbyter were distinct. Ignatius of Antioch, consecrated bishop by A.D. 70 in the church from which Paul and Barnabas had been sent out, writes just after the turn of the century that bishops appointed by the Apostles, surrounded by their presbyters, were everywhere in the Church.

b. The office of presbyter. Elders or presbyters are mentioned very early in the life of the Church in the Book of Acts and the Epistles. It is evident that in each place a Christian community developed, elders were appointed by the Apostles to pastor the people.

As time passed, presbyters were referred to in the short form of the word as “prests,” then as “priests,” in full view of the fact that the Old Covenant priesthood had been fulfilled in Christ and that the Church is corporately a priesthood of believers. The priest was not understood as an intermediary between God and the people, nor as a dispenser of grace. It was the role of the priest to be the presence of Christ in the Christian community. And in the very capacity of being the presence of the Chief Shepherd, Jesus Christ, the priest was to shepherd the flock of God.

c. The office of deacon. The third order or office in the government of the New Testament Church was that of deacon. At first the Apostles fulfilled this office themselves. But with the rapid growth of the Church, seven initial deacons were selected, as reported in Acts 6, to help carry the responsibility of service to those in need. It was one of these deacons, Saint Stephen, who became the first martyr of the Church.

Through the centuries, the deacons have not only served the material needs of the Church, but have held a key role in the liturgical life of the Church as well. Often called “the eyes and ears of the bishop,” many deacons have become priests and ultimately entered the episcopal office.

The authority of the bishop, presbyter, and deacon was not anciently understood as being apart from the people, but always from among the people. But the people of God were called to submit to those who ruled over them (Hebrews 13:17), and they were also called to give their agreement to the direction of the leaders for the Church. On a number of occasions in history, that “Amen” was not forthcoming, and the bishops of the Church took note and changed course. Later in history, many Church leaders departed from the ancient model and usurped authority for themselves. In the minds of some this brought the ancient model into question. But the problem was not in the model but in the deviation from it.

It should also be mentioned that it was out of the ministry and life of the Apostles that the people of God, the laity, were established in the Church. Far from being a herd of observers, the laity are vital in the effectiveness of the Church. They are the recipients and active users of the gifts and grace of the Spirit. Each one of the laity has a role in the life and function of the Church. Each one is to supply something to the whole (1 Corinthians 12:7). And it is the responsibility of the bishops, the priests, and the deacons to be sure that this is a reality for the laity.

The worship of the Church at the close of its first thousand years had substantially the same shape from place to place. The doctrine was the same. The whole Church confessed one creed, the same in every place, and had weathered many attacks. The government of the Church was recognizably one everywhere. And this One Church was the Orthodox Church.

After A Thousand Years—A Parting of Ways

Tensions began to mount as the first millennium was drawing to a close. They were reaching the breaking point as the second thousand years began. While numerous doctrinal, political, economic, and cultural factors began to work to separate the Church in a division that would be the East and the West, two giant issues ultimately emerged above others: (1) should one man, the pope of Rome, be considered the universal bishop of the Church? and (2) should a novel clause be added to one of the Church’s ecumenical creeds?

1. The Papacy: Among the Twelve, Saint Peter was early acknowledged as the leader. He was spokesman for the Twelve before and after Pentecost. He was the first bishop of Antioch and later bishop of Rome. No one challenged his role.

After the death of the Apostles, as leadership in the Church developed, the bishop of Rome came to be recognized as first in honor, even though all bishops were equals. But after nearly 300 years, the bishop of Rome slowly began to assume to himself a role of superiority over the others, ultimately claiming to be the only true successor to Saint Peter. The vast majority of the other bishops of the Church never questioned Rome’s primacy of honor, but they patently rejected its claim to be the universal head of the Church on earth. This claim became one of the major factors leading to the tragic split between the Western and Eastern Church which we will soon be considering.

2. The Addition to the Creed: A disagreement about the Holy Spirit also began to develop in the Church. Does the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father? Or does He proceed from the Father and the Son?

In John 15:26, our Lord Jesus Christ asserts, “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me” (italics mine). This is the basic statement in all of the New Testament about the Holy Spirit “proceeding,” and it is clear: He “proceeds from the Father.”

Thus when the ancient council at Constantinople in A.D. 381, during the course of its conclave, reaffirmed the Creed of Nicea (A.D. 325), it expanded that Creed to proclaim these familiar words: “And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-Giver, who proceeds from the Father, who is worshiped and glorified together with the Father and the Son . . . ”

But two hundred years later, at a local council in Toledo, Spain (A.D. 589), King Reccared declared that “the Holy Spirit also should be confessed by us and taught to proceed from the Father and the Son.” The King may have meant well, but he was contradicting the apostolic teaching about the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately the local Spanish council agreed with his error.

Because of the teaching of the Holy Scriptures as confessed by the entire Church at Nicea and at Con­stan­tin­ople and for centuries beyond, there is no reason to believe anything other than that the Holy Spirit pro­ceeds from the Father. Period!

But centuries later, in what was looked upon by many as a largely political move, the pope of Rome unilaterally changed the wording of the universal creed of the Church. Such an independent action was bound to evoke a strong response from the Eastern bishops. They saw it as a flagrant violation of the long-established practice that no universal creed could be altered or changed apart from the corporate action of an ecumenical council. Though this change was initially re­jec­ted in both East and West, even by some of Rome’s closest neighboring bishops, the pope eventually convinced the Western bishops to capitulate to it. Although this change may appear small, the con-sequences have proven disastrous—both from a theological and an historical perspective. This issue represented a major departure from the Orthodox doctrine of the Church. It became another instrumental cause leading to the separation of the Roman Catholic Church from the Eastern Orthodox Church.

The Schism

Conflict between the Roman pope and the East mounted—especially in the West’s dealings with the Eastern bishop, or patriarch, of Constantinople. It was even asserted that the pope had the authority to decide who should be the bishop of Constantinople—something which violated historical precedent, and which no Orthodox bishop could endure. The net result of this assertion was that the Eastern Church, and in fact the entire Christian Church, was seen by the West to be under the domination of the pope.

A series of intrigues followed one upon the other as the Roman papacy began asserting an increasing degree of unilateral and often authoritarian control over the rest of the Church. Perhaps the most invidious of these political, religious, and even military intrigues, as far as the East was concerned, occurred in the year 1054. A cardinal, sent by the pope, slapped a document on the altar of the Church of Holy Wisdom in Constantinople during the Sunday worship, excommunicating the patriarch of Constantinople from the Church!

Rome, of course, was flagrantly overstepping its bounds by this action. Some very sordid chapters of Church history were written during the next decades. Ultimately, the final consequence of these tragic events was a massive split which occurred between the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. While some disagree that the West departed from the New Testament Church at this point, the reality remains that the schism was never healed.

As the centuries passed, conflict continued. Attempts at union failed and the split widened. Orthodox Christians agree that in departing from the tradition of the Church the West had deviated from historic Christianity, and in so doing, set the stage for countless other divisions which were soon to follow.

The West: Reformation and Counter-Reformation

During the succeeding centuries after A.D. 1054, the growing distinction between East and West was indelibly marked in history. The East maintained the full stream of New Testament Faith, worship, and practice. The Western or Roman Catholic Church, after its schism from the Orthodox Church, bogged down in many complex problems. Then, centuries after Rome committed itself to its unilateral spirit of doctrine and practice, another upheaval was festering—this time not next door to the East, but inside the Western gates themselves.

Though many in the West had spoken out against Roman domination and practice in earlier years, now a little-known German monk named Martin Luther launched an attack against certain Roman Catholic practices that ended up affecting world his­to­ry. His famous Ninety-Five Theses were nailed to the church door at Wittenburg in 1517. In a short time those theses were signalling the start of what came to be called in the West the Protestant Reformation. Luther sought an audience with the pope but was denied, and in 1521 he was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church. He had intended no break with Rome. Un-responsive to Luther’s many legitimate objections concerning the novel practices of the now-separated Western Church, Rome refused to budge or bend. The door to future unity in the West slammed shut with a resounding crash.

The protests of Luther were not unnoticed. The reforms he sought in Germany were soon accompanied by the demands of Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich, John Calvin in Geneva, and hundreds of others all over Western Europe. Fueled by complex political, social, and economic factors, in addition to religious problems, the Reformation spread like a raging fire into virtually every nook and cranny of the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Church’s Western ecclesiastical monopoly was greatly diminished and massive division replaced its artificial unity. The ripple effect of that division continues even to our day.

If trouble on the continent were not enough, the Church of England was in the process of going its own way as well. Henry VIII, amidst his marital problems, placed himself as head of the Church of England instead of the pope of Rome. For only a few short years would the pope ever again have ascendancy in England. And the English Church itself would be shattered by great division.

As decade followed decade in the West, the many branches of Protestantism took various forms. There were even divisions that insisted they were neither Protestant nor Roman Catholic. All seemed to share a mutual dislike for the bishop of Rome and the practice of his church, and most wanted far less centralized forms of leadership. While some, such as the Lutherans and Anglicans, held on to a basic form of liturgy and sacrament, others, such as the Reformed Churches and the even more radical Anabaptists and their descendants, questioned and rejected many biblical ideas of hierarchy, sacrament, historic tradition, and other elements of historic Christian practice, no matter when and where they appeared in history, thinking they were freeing themselves of Roman Catholicism.

To this day, many sincere, modern, professing Christians will reject even the biblical data which speak of historic Christian practice, simply because they think such his­toric practices are “Roman Catholic.” To use the old adage, they “threw the baby out with the bathwater,” without even being aware of it.

Thus, while retaining in varying degrees portions of foundational Christianity, neither Protestantism nor Roman Catholicism can lay historic claim to being the true New Testament Church. In dividing from the Orthodox Church, Rome forfeited its place in the Church of the New Testament. In the divisions of the Reformation, the Protestants—as well-meaning as they might have been—failed to return to the New Testament Church.

The Orthodox Church Today

But that first Church, the Church of Peter and Paul and the Apostles, the Orthodox Church—despite persecution, political oppression, and desertion on certain of its flanks—miraculously carries on today the same Faith and life of the Church of the New Testament. Admittedly the style of Orthodoxy looks complicated to the modern Protestant eye, and understandably so. But given the historical understanding of how the Church has progressed, the simple Christ-centered Faith of the Apostles is clearly preserved in its practices, services, and even its architecture.

In Orthodoxy today, as in years gone by, the basics of Christian doctrine, worship, and government are never up for renegotiation. One cannot be an Orthodox priest, for example, and reject the divinity of Christ, His Virgin Birth, Resurrection, Ascension into heaven, and Second Coming. The Church simply has not left its course in nearly 2,000 years. It is One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. It is the New Testament Church. The gates of hell have not prevailed against it.

But Orthodoxy is also, in the words of one of her bishops, “the best-kept secret in America.” Though there are more than 225 million Orthodox Christians in the world today, many Americans are not familiar with the Church. In North America, the Orthodox Church until recently has been largely limited to ethnic boun­da­ries, not spreading much beyond the parishes of the committed immigrants that brought the Church to the shores of this continent.

But the Holy Spirit has continued His work, causing new people to discover this Church of the New Testament. People have begun to find Orthodox Christianity both through the writings of the early Church Fathers, and through the humble witness of Orthodox Christians. On a personal note, I am a part of a group of nearly 2,000 ex-Protestant evangelicals who were received into the Antiochian Archdiocese of the Orthodox Church in the spring of 1987 as the Evan­geli­cal Orthodox Mission. Orthodox student groups are springing up on a number of American campuses. The word is getting out.

What does this identity of the Orthodox Church with the New Testament Church mean as far as the other churches in Christendom are concerned? Many have retained much of the truth of Orthodox Christianity. Some pretend to be the New Testament Church but are seriously off-base, leading people far astray from Christ and the Church. Other modern churches have preserved truth in greater or lesser degree.

But groups which possess some or much of the truth are one thing; the New Testament Church is another.

What is it that’s missing in the non-Orthodox churches—even the best of them? Fullness. The fullness of the New Testament Faith is to be found only in the New Testament Church. Being in the New Testament Church doesn’t guarantee all those in it will necessarily take advantage of the fullness of the Faith. But it does guarantee the fullness is there for those who do.

For those who seriously desire the fullness of the New Testament Faith, action must be taken. There must be for these a return to the New Testament Church. Being aware of this ancient Church is not enough. In America, people have had ample opportunity to investigate and decide about the Roman Catholic faith, the Baptist, the Lutheran, and so on. Not so regarding the Orthodox Church. Let me make three specific suggestions that will provide you with a tangible means to look into Orthodox Christianity and to decide for yourself if it is not the Church for which you have searched.

1. Visit: Look up “Orthodox” or “Eastern Orthodox” in the “Church” section of your Yellow Pages. Ask for the whereabouts of the nearest Orthodox parish. Pay a visit—several visits. Meet the priest, and ask him to help you study and learn. And be prepared to be patient. Some­times a portion of the Liturgy is not in English! But the service books will help out here.

2. Read: There are a number of books and periodicals immensely helpful to people seeking to learn about the Orthodox Church. Let me mention a few: The Orthodox Church, by Timothy (Bishop Kallistos) Ware (Penguin); The Orthodox Faith, by Father Thomas Hopko (4-volume set, Orthodox Christian Publications Center); the writings of the Apostolic Fathers (several editions available); Feed My Sheep, by Metropolitan PHILIP Saliba (Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press); AGAIN Magazine (Conciliar Press).

3. Write: Conciliar Press (P.O. Box 76, Ben Lomond, CA 95005) can help put you in touch with an Orthodox church and supply you with a book list including other recommended reading. Send your name and address and a request for information.

In a day when Christians are realizing anew the centrality and importance of the Church as the Body of Christ, the doors of Orthodoxy are open wide and the invitation is extended to come and see. Examine her Faith, her worship, her history, her commitment to Christ, her love for God the Father, her communion with the Holy Spirit.

The Orthodox Church has kept the Faith delivered once for all to the saints for nearly two thousand years. In her walls is the fullness of the salvation which was realized when “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

This article is available as a printed booklet from Conciliar Media, a department of the Antiochian Archdiocese. This essay is copyrighted by Conciliar Press.