Faith and Resurrection

Faith and Resurrection

Fr. Dmitri Dudko

(Father Dmitri Dudko was a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church in the late twentieth century.  During the 1970's he initiated a unique style of question and answer sermons, concerning Christianity.  These popular "talks" influenced thousands, and attracted the attention and anger of the Soviet government as well.  Indeed the sufferings mentioned herein by Fr. Dmitri may be understood as those experienced by Christians at the hands of atheist authorities.  They may refer as well to suffering in general for the love of Christ and neighbor, in light of the Resurrection.  Fr. Dmitri fell asleep in the Lord on June 28, 2004 in Moscow. The following are excerpts from one of his remarkable sermons as found in the book, "Our Hope," published by St. Vladimir Seminary Press.)

The first week of Pascha has passed:  Bright Week.  Tradition tells us of how St. Mary Magdalene brought the emperor a decorated egg, saying, "Christ is Risen!"  With this she began her preaching of the risen Christ.  During the first years of the Soviet regime they still allowed debates on religious themes.  One resourceful Metropolitan, instead of answering the claim that "today nobody believes in the resurrection of Christ," turned to those in the hall and proclaimed, "Christ is Risen!"  The hall, which was overflowing with no one but "atheists," answered with a roar:  "Indeed He is Risen!"  We in the Russian Orthodox Church have a remarkable Saint, Seraphim of Sarov, who was canonized just before the Revolution.  He lived in the nineteenth century.  No matter what time of year it was, he greeted all who came to him with the words:  "Christ is Risen, my joy!"  And the warmth of Christ's resurrection filled the soul of each individual.......

Today is Thomas Sunday, the so-called "Sunday of AntiPascha."  ("Anti" in this case does not have its usual meaning of "against."  It means "instead of" or "in place of" Pascha.)  "Doubting Thomas."  This has become the usual term for someone who does not believe.  But in the Gospel, Thomas is the Apostle of the Resurrection.  This is what the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solov'ev wrote on this subject in his Resurrectional Letters:

"In times  of predominant unbelief it is important that we clarify with which type of unbelief we are dealing.  If it is a flagrant lack of faith -- material, beastly, incapable of rising to a real understanding of the truth -- discussion is pointless.  If it is an evil unbelief -- a conscious misuse of various half-truths through hostile fear of the full truth -- one must pursue such a serpent without anger or fear, disclosing its devices and its wiliness.  Finally, if we are dealing with an honest, purely human unbelief, which but hungers for a full and complete certification of the full truth -- the type of unbelief which the Apostle Thomas had -- it enjoys a full right to our moral recognition.   And if, unlike Christ, we are unable to give such people the certification of truth which they demand, then under no circumstances ought we to  judge or reject them.  Without a doubt these seemingly unbelieving people will precede the vast majority of all believers unto the Kingdom of God.  If Thomas' unbelief had resulted from a profound materialism which reduces all truth to sensory evidence, then having been tangibly convinced of the fact of the resurrection, he might have invented some materialistic explanation for it.  He would hardly have exclaimed, "My Lord and my God!"  From the point of view of sensory evidence, the wounds from the nails and the pierced side could in no wise demonstrate Christ's divinity.  It is even clearer that Thomas' unbelief was not due to some moral bankruptcy or hostility to the truth.  The love of truth drew him to Christ and engendered in him a boundless devotion to the Teacher...Christ did not judge Thomas, but utilized the means which he demanded in order to convince him:  that is, He allowed him to put his fingers into the wounds from the nails..."

The Apostle Thomas is a symbol not of doubt but of confirmation.  His words, "unless I see in His hand the wounds from the nails, and put my hand in His side, I will not believe," do not suggest unbelief, much less materialism.  Christ's wounds are the proof of His resurrection.  In other words, you cannot understand the essence of Christ's resurrection through abstract reasoning alone, but only by communing  with Christ's wounds, with His sufferings...

The atheists use our fear of suffering to stifle our spirit, our free thoughts and feelings.  And they in turn frighten us.  We must overcome our fear of suffering.  Only then will we become really free, active and invincible.  Only then will we overcome the arguments against Christ's resurrection which the atheists use to coerce our minds:  the coercion of "proofs" which at first seem to free our minds but which in fact only fetter them.  Faith is the overcoming of all coercion of the mind.  It is the smashing of all obstacles and impediments set up as "proofs."  It is each person's free acceptance of Christ in his heart.  To believe in Christ's resurrection means to free your mind of doubts, to cleanse your heart from slavery to sins, to fortify your will against all coercion and weakness.  Faith is a breakthrough into eternity .  Unbelief is non-freedom in everything:  in mind, feelings and will...

But faith is not just given to man in an instant;  just like that. The gift of freedom is sent through the Cross, through sufferings.  Only then does freedom become real and understandable for man.  Thus, sufferings become the only reliable proof.  Thus, when Thomas wanted to place his fingers in Christ's wounds, he wanted to accept Christ's resurrection freely.  Christ's wounds and sufferings became for the Apostle, the proof of the Savior's resurrection.

But Christ's sufferings were not those of just any person of any era.  Christ our God became incarnate, He became a man, He was in man.  Christ stands for each man.  "I was sick and you did not visit Me, I was in prison and you did not come to Me," said Christ.  "Lord, when were you sick or in prison?" they ask Him.  "If you did so to this person, you did so to me," He answers.  "Depart from Me, workers of iniquity!"

Anyone who has not in some way tasted of sufferings has no right to talk about the resurrection.  It is blasphemous towards the resurrection for anyone who is afraid of sufferings or who runs away from them, to talk about Christ's resurrection.  Therefore, I repeat, I now simply ignore intellectual proofs. To endure, to experience sufferings -- or at least to do so through compassion for your neighbor -- this is the path of free faith in Christ's resurrection.  Let us make use of the Apostle Thomas' proof.  Let us thrust our fingers into Christ's wounds.  This will be the most reliable proof of the resurrection.

Remember that unfortunate Russian czar, that monster of the human race, Ivan the Terrible.  How much human blood he spilled!  How many executions!  What senseless crimes he committed!  He was even guilty of the death of the greatest Russian bishop,  Philip the Great Martyr.  But this monster, who was also a man of the greatest intelligence, would descend into the dungeon during the days of Pascha to visit the prisoners who were languishing in captivity.  Are we not worse than him, when we fail to extend a hand to those who suffer and are persecuted, when we do not cheer them up?

Let us descend.  Let us exchange the Paschal kiss and proclaim, "Christ is Risen!" to those whose graves are snow bound in the northern blizzards, whose bones are spread abroad all across our vast land, whose names people were afraid to mention out loud not long ago (i.e. the names of Russian martyrs and confessors for the Faith)...

We must say, "Christ is Risen!" to the students who have been expelled from the institutes because of their religious convictions, to those who have been fired from their jobs, oppressed or persecuted in any way.  So what if their faith is not yet real, or even if they still consider themselves unbelievers?  Faith will come to them, because Christ is with all those who suffer.  Christ's resurrection extends to all people, but those who suffer receive it first of all.  If in our love we kiss the clotted wounds of the crucified thief, even while he is still reviling Christ's Name, perhaps we will be helping him to believe in the risen Christ and be showing him the meaning of existence, in the resurrection from the dead.

We must not make Christ's resurrection into anyone's special privilege.  Christ suffered for all -- the righteous and the unrighteous -- in order to resurrect all.   Anyone who knows the truth of Christ's resurrection but hides it, who does not take it to people, is a criminal, whatever his faith.  The light of Christ's resurrection must illuminate all.  Just imagine that we possess the key to eternal happiness and all around us there are unhappy people who are perishing.  We could make these unhappy people happy if only we would use our key...

Everyone who knows the truth of Christ's resurrection, who returns from His empty tomb...should run like the myrrhbearing women and cry, "Christ is Risen!"  People, listen!  Christ's resurrection exists!  It is eternal joy for all of us...Can there be any joy greater than the Paschal joy?!  Let us now sing the Paschal stichera:

"Let God arise;  let His enemies be scattered."

"Today, a sacred Pascha is revealed to us, a new and holy Pascha, a mystical Pascha, a Pascha  worthy of veneration, a Pascha which is Christ, the Redeemer.  A blameless Pascha, a great Pascha, a Pascha of the faithful, a Pascha which opens to us the gates of Paradise, a Pascha which sanctifies all the faithful."

Holy Week 2014

Holy Week 2014

April 12 – April 20

Fr. Basil Zebrun

On Saturday, April 12, Orthodox Christians will begin observing the most solemn of Days leading up to the celebration of Pascha on April 20:  Lazarus Saturday, Palm Sunday and Holy Week.  These nine days are specifically set aside –  consecrated – by the Church to commemorate the final and decisive events in the Lord’s earthly life.  Traditionally, during this time, Christians make an effort to “lay aside all earthly cares,” in order to devote themselves to contemplating the central Mysteries of the Faith:  the Cross, the Tomb and the Resurrection of Christ.  So significant is this period that some have stressed that during Holy Week “time seems to stand still or earthly life ceases for the faithful, as they go up with the Lord to Jerusalem” (Fr. Thomas Hopko).  May we all look upon the days ahead as sacred, dedicated to our Lord.

Lazarus  Saturday  &  Palm  Sunday  (April  12 & 13): 

These two days form a double feast, anticipating the joy of Pascha.  At the grave of His friend Lazarus, Christ encounters “the last enemy,” death (1 Cor. 15:26).  By raising Lazarus, Christ foreshadows His own decisive victory over death, and the universal resurrection granted to all mankind. Palm Sunday commemorates Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, “riding on the colt of an ass,” in fulfillment of a prophecy from Zechariah (9:9).   On this occasion our Lord allows the people to greet Him as a Ruler, the only time during His earthly ministry when this occurs.  Christ is indeed the King of Israel, but He comes to reveal and open to mankind His Heavenly Kingdom.  We hold branches of palms and pussy willows of our own on Palm Sunday, greeting Christ as the Lord and Master of our lives.

     Liturgical services for these two days will be celebrated on Saturday morning at 10:00 am, Saturday evening at 6:30 pm, and Sunday morning at 10:00 am.  Palms will be blessed on Saturday night, the eve of Palm Sunday.

Great  &  Holy  Monday,  Tuesday  &  Wednesday  (April  14 – April 16):

     Having just experienced a foretaste of Pascha we now enter the darkness of Holy Week.  The first three days stress the End Times, the Judgment, and the continual need for vigilance.  They point to the fact that when the world condemned its Maker, it condemned itself, “Now is the judgment of this world” (John 12:31).  They remind us that the world’s rejection of Christ reflects our own rejection of Him, inasmuch as we sin and accept the worldview of those who shouted, “Away with Him, crucify Him!”  Central to the services for these days are the Gospel readings, and the hymns which comment on these lessons.  Among the chief hymns are the Exapostilarion, “Thy Bridal Chamber, I see adorned….,” and the following troparion sung during Matins as the Church is being censed:  “Behold!  The Bridegroom comes at midnight, and blessed is the servant whom He shall find watching:  and again, unworthy is the servant whom He shall find heedless. Beware, therefore, O my soul, do not be weighed down with sleep, lest you be given up to death, and lest you be shut out of the Kingdom.  But rouse yourself, crying: “Holy! Holy! Holy! art Thou, O our God.  Through the Theotokos, have mercy on us!”  (Troparion)

     Liturgical services for these three days will be celebrated at 7:00 pm.

Great  &  Holy  Thursday  (April 17):   During the Matins Service or the Service of the 12 Passion Gospels on Holy Thursday night we “accompany Christ, step by step, from the time of His last discourse with His disciples to His being laid in a new tomb by Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus.  Each of the 12 Gospel sections read during the evening service involves us in a new scene:  the arrest of Jesus; His trial; the threefold denial of St. Peter; the scourging and the mockings by the soldiers; the carrying of the Cross; the Crucifixion; the opposing fates of the two thieves; the loving tenderness of the moment when Jesus commits His Mother to the care of His faithful disciple, John;  and the Lord’s final yielding up of the spirit and burial” (Fr. Paul Lazor). The liturgical hymnography for that night comments on the Gospel readings and gives the response of the Church to these events in the life of Christ.  During this service the faithful hold lit candles during the Gospel lessons while kneeling, and in large parishes Church bells are rung before each reading: once for the first reading, twice for the second, and so on.

     The Matins Service at St. Barbara’s on Holy Thursday will be at 7:00 pm.

Great  &  Holy  Friday  (April 18):  On the one hand, this is the most solemn of days, the day of Christ’s Passion, His Death and Burial.  On this day the Church invites us, as we kneel before the tomb of Christ, to realize the awful reality and power of sin and evil in “this world,” and in our own lives as well.   It is this power that led ultimately to “the sin of all sins, the crime of all crimes” the total rejection and murder of God Himself (Fr. Alexander Schmemann).

     On the other hand, the Church affirms that this day of evil is also the day of redemption.  “The death of Christ is revealed to us as a saving death, an offering of love” (Fr. Alexander Schmemann).  Holy Friday is the beginning of the Lord’s Pascha, for the One Who is raised, is the One Who is crucified for us and for our salvation.  “By death Christ tramples down death…”  Thus the tomb of Christ, placed in the center of the Church, is lavishly adorned with flowers, for from the tomb comes life.

     Liturgical services for Holy Friday will take place at 2:00 pm and at 7:00 pm .

     The afternoon service is often referred to as “Burial Vespers.”  During its celebration the final events in the life of Christ are brought to mind through the scripture readings and the hymnography.  At the conclusion of Vespers the faithful kneel and the choir sings, in a very slow manner, the troparia for the day which speak of Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus burying the Body of Jesus;  and the angel’s announcement to the Myrrhbearing Women that, “Myrrh is fitting for the dead, but Christ has shown Himself a stranger to corruption.”   As these words are heard the clergy and servers make a procession around the tomb with the “winding sheet” on which is an icon of the crucified Lord. This winding sheet is placed on top of the tomb and venerated by the faithful.

     On Friday night a Matins service is celebrated during which the people sing hymns and lamentations in front of Christ’s tomb.  We hear about how, “hell trembles while Life lies in the tomb, giving life to those who lie dead in the tombs.”  We also begin to hear announcements and foreshadowings of the Resurrection in both the scripture readings and hymns.  In fact, the Alleluia verses chanted after the Epistle reading are the same Resurrectional verses from Psalm 68 chanted by the clergy on Pascha night:  “Let God arise, let His enemies be scattered, let those who hate Him flee from before His face..” (etc.)

Great  &  Holy  Saturday  (April 19):  

On the morning of this day, at 9:00 am, we will celebrate the Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil.  This service “inaugurates the Paschal celebration…  On ‘Lord I Call Upon Thee’ certain Sunday Resurrection hymns are sung, followed by special verses for Holy Saturday which stress the Death of Christ as the descent into Hades, the region of death, for its destruction.

     A pivotal point of the service occurs after the Entrance, when fifteen Old Testament lessons are read, all centered on the promise of the Resurrection, all glorifying the ultimate Victory of God…The epistle lesson is that which is read at Baptisms (Romans 6:3-11), referring to Christ’s Death and Resurrection as the source of the death in us of the “old man,” and the resurrection of the new man, whose life is in the Risen Lord  (Here we must remember that Pascha has always been the most traditional time for Baptisms of catechumens).  During the verses immediately after the epistle reading the dark Lenten vestments and altar coverings are put aside and the clergy vest in their brightest robes.  An announcement of the Resurrection is then read from the last chapter of St. Matthew”s Gospel.   The Liturgy of St. Basil continues in this white and joyful light, revealing the Tomb of Christ as the Life-giving Tomb, introducing us into the ultimate reality of Christ’s Resurrection, communicating His life to us…”  (Fr. Schmemann).

     It should be noted that on Great and Holy Saturday every major act of the Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil takes place in front of the Tomb, or processes around it:  the Small Entrance; the 15 Old Testament readings;  the Epistle and Gospel readings;  the Great Entrance;  the distribution of Holy Communion;  and the final dismissal prayer.

Pascha  (April 20): 

     The Main Resurrection service will begin at 11:30 pm on Saturday night (We ask that everyone try to arrive at least 15 minutes early, those with food even earlier, so that we can begin the service promptly with all lights out in the Church).  This particular service is actually comprised of three services, celebrated together, one after another:  Nocturnes, Matins and the Divine Liturgy.  The entire service ends around 2:30 am on Sunday morning and is followed by the blessing of Pascha baskets and the Agape Meal, at which we enjoy fellowship and partake of many non-lenten foods.

     Special features of the Midnight Service include:  Nocturnes (11:30 pm to 12:00 midnight) celebrated in total darkness with only one light for the choir, followed by a triple procession around the outside of the Church, a Resurrection Gospel reading and the first announcement of, “Christ is Risen!”  The Paschal Matins then begins during which the Church is brightly lit and the faithful sing of Christ’s Resurrection in a very joyous manner. Near the end of Matins the Paschal Catechetical Sermon of St. John Chrysostom is read.  During the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom the Gospel from the Prologue of St. John’s Gospel is chanted in several languages, symbolic of the universal character of the Christian Faith.  Immediately after the service food for the Agape Meal is blessed, as well as Pascha (Easter) baskets full of non-fasting foods.

     On Sunday afternoon, April 20, at 12:00 noon, we return to the Church to celebrate Resurrection Vespers during which we hear a Gospel reading and more hymns of Christ’s Resurrection.  A continuation of the Agape Meal will be enjoyed after Vespers.

Bright  Week  (April 21 – April 27):

The week immediately after Pascha is an extended celebration of the Lord’s Resurrection.  Although we enjoy a 40 day Paschal season, the services of Bright Week are uniquely joyous, reflecting the specific tone and spirit of Pascha night.  Divine Liturgies and Vespers celebrated during this time are very similar to those of April 20.  There is, as well, no fasting during Bright Week.  We look forward to celebrating Pascha with all of our Church members and friends.  Once again, we encourage everyone to set aside the days ahead as sacred, dedicated to our Lord.

Christ is Risen!   Indeed He is Risen!

Paschal (Resurrection) Season: 2014

Paschal (Resurrection) Season: 2014

Fr. Basil Zebrun

Introduction and Bright Week:

The week following Pascha (Easter), is called Bright Week, by the Church.  Pascha is celebrated this year by the Orthodox Church on April 20, with Christians of the Western Tradition.  As Holy Week was a final time of anticipation and preparation for “the Feast of Feasts,” so Bright Week is a period of unique Resurrection joy, manifested outwardly in diverse ways.  For instance, during Bright Week there is no fasting at all from various types of food;  all liturgical hymns, ideally, are to be sung rather than read;  and the Church remains highly decorated, with the royal doors and deacon’s doors of the iconostasis left open as they were during the Midnight Service.  This latter practice emphasizes visually that the gates of God’s Kingdom have been open to man through the Cross, Tomb and Resurrection of Christ.  Services during Bright Week are celebrated in a particularly glorious manner, identical to that experienced during the Midnight Service and Resurrection Vespers on Pascha Sunday.  The traditional announcement, “Christ is Risen,” is sung repeatedly by the Church choir, and people greet one another with this same message of hope.

While Bright Week is a time of profound, perhaps uncommon celebration, the Resurrection season is not limited to one week.  For forty days, until Ascension (this year May 29), the faithful recall in songs and greetings the joyous news that ‘Christ has trampled down death by death, bestowing life upon those in the tombs.’  Clergy and altar servers continue to wear their brightest vestments, and everyone stands (rather than kneels) in prayer, both at home and in Church.  The practice of standing in prayer during the Paschal Season serves to stress our belief that in Christ we are already resurrected beings, residents on earth yet citizens of Heaven. The faithful continue this practice until Pentecost (this year June 8), when after Liturgy for the first time since Holy Week we kneel in prayer during three special prayers that are read from the ambo by the clergy.

The five Sundays following Pascha emphasize, through the appointed Scripture readings and hymns, (1.) post-resurrection appearances of Christ;  (2.) the Church’s early life and missionary endeavors (epistle readings are taken from the Book of Acts); and (3.) aspects of baptism, through which we ourselves have died and risen with Christ to a new life in God (Gospel readings are taken from the most “sacramental” of Gospel accounts, that of John the Theologian or Evangelist).  Fr. Thomas Hopko in his Orthodox Faith Handbook Series, Volume II, provides a summary of the meaning of the five Sundays of Pascha.  The following contains quotes and paraphrases from that summary.

Thomas  Sunday  (April 27):

On the Sunday following Pascha, called in our liturgical books “the Second Sunday,” the stress is on the Apostle Thomas’ vision of Christ.  The significance of the day comes to us in the words of the Gospel:  “Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see My hands;  and put out your hand, and place it in My side;  do not be faithless, but believing.” Thomas answered Him,

“My Lord and My God!”  Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen

Me?  Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.”  (John 20:27-29). In this last statement Christ refers to all those who will come after the Apostles and become disciples through their words. This includes Christians of every century, including our own.  We have not seen Christ with our physical eyes, nor touched His risen body with our physical hands, yet in the Holy Spirit we have seen and touched and tasted the Word of Life (1 John 1:1-4), and so we believe.  In the early Church it was only on this day that those baptized at Pascha removed their (baptismal) robes and entered once again into the life of this world.

The  Myrrhbearing  Women  (May 4):

The Third Sunday after Pascha is dedicated to the Myrrhbearing Women who cared for the body of the Savior at His death and who were the first witnesses of His Resurrection.  The three troparia of Holy Friday, (having to do with the Noble Joseph of Arimethea anointing and burying the Body of Jesus;  Christ’s descent into hell and its defeat;  and the angel’s proclamation to the myrrhbearing women of Christ’s resurrection)are sung once again and form the theme of the day:

     "The noble Joseph, when he had taken down Thy most pure body from the Tree, wrapped it in fine linen and anointed it with spices, and placed it in a new tomb."

      "When Thou didst descend to death, O Life Immortal, Thou didst slay hell with the splendor of Thy Godhead."

      "The angel came to the myrrhbearing women at the tomb and said: Myrrh is fitting for the dead, but Christ has shown Himself a stranger to corruption! So proclaim: The Lord is risen, granting the world great mercy."

The  Paralytic  (May 11):

The Fourth Sunday is dedicated to Christ’s healing of the Paralytic (John 5).  The man is healed by Christ while waiting to be put down into the pool of water.  Through baptism in the church we too are healed and saved by Christ for eternal life.  Thus, in the church, we are told, together with the paralytic, to “sin no more that nothing worse befall you” (John 5:14).  Our Lord’s question to the man, “Do you want to be healed?” is directed to us as well, reminding us that the gift of life and illumination through the Resurrection brings with it responsibilities.  It must be nurtured and shared with others.

The  Feast  of  Mid-Pentecost:

In the middle of the Fourth Week, there is a day which is called by the Church, the Feast of Mid-Pentecost (this year May 14).  On this day we recall that Christ, “in the middle of the feast” teaches men of His saving mission and offers to all “the waters of immortality” (John 7:14).  Again we are reminded of the Master’s presence and His saving promise:  “If anyone is thirsty let him come to Me and drink” (John 7:37).

The  Samaritan  Woman  (May 18):

The Fifth Sunday after Pascha deals with the Woman of Samaria with whom Christ spoke at Jacob’s Well (John 4).  Again the theme is the “living water” and the recognition of Jesus as God’s Messiah (John 4: 10-11; 25-26).  We are reminded of our new life in Him, of our own drinking of the “living water,” of our own true worship of God in the Christian Messianic Age “in Spirit and in Truth” (John 4: 23-24).  We see as well that salvation is offered to all:  Jews and Gentiles, men and women, saints and sinners.

The  Blind  Man  (May 25):

Finally, the Sixth Sunday commemorates the healing of the man blind from birth (John 9).  We are identified with that man who came to see and to believe in Jesus as the Son of God.  The Lord has anointed our eyes with His own divine hands and washed them with the waters of baptism (John 9: 6-11).  In Christ we are given the power to see and confess Him as God’s only-begotten Son, and we are given the ability to comprehend clearly and with love, our own lives, the lives of others and the world around us.

Ascension, Pentecost and All Saints Sunday:

The Paschal Season ends with the great feast of Ascension (again, this year May 29) on which believers celebrate the Lord’s ascent in order to be glorified with God the Father and to glorify us with Himself.  He goes in order to “prepare a place” for us, and to take us into the blessedness of God’s presence.  He goes to open the way for all flesh into the “heavenly sanctuary...the Holy Place not made by hands” (See Hebrews 8-10).  Furthermore, Christ ascends in order to send the Holy Spirit (an event celebrated on Pentecost) who proceeds from the Father, to bear witness to Him (Christ) and His Gospel in the world, by making Him (Christ) powerfully present in the lives of His disciples

On Pentecost (June 8) the Church celebrates the final act of God’s self-revelation and self-donation to the world.  God’s plan of salvation – starting with and including the formation of His chosen people, Israel;  the sending of the prophets;  the birth of Christ; His teachings, miracles, sufferings, death, burial and resurrection – all of this culminates with the giving of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and the birth of the New Israel, the Church of God, the life of which is the continued presence of the Spirit in our midst.

The Sunday after Pentecost, that of All Saints  (June 15), reveals the power of the Holy Spirit in this world, the reason that He was given.  The Saints are those who, without a doubt, have been saved and transformed by the Spirit’s presence, a fate open to all who believe.  And then finally, on June 22, we commemorate All Saints of America, as a logical follow up to the previous Sunday.  This celebration affirms God’s presence and activity amongst His disciples in North America, placing before us local and contemporary examples of sanctity.

Thus a journey which began for us way back on February 2 with the Sunday of Zacchaeus will end on June 22.  But the journey was taken for a reason.  The seasons of fasting and celebration that we have experienced are to lead us to a deeper faith in Christ as Savior.  They are to instill within us a stronger commitment to our own mission, to be Christ’s witnesses “to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:8)

(Some of the above information taken from Fr. Thomas Hopko’s, The Orthodox Faith, Volume 2, Worship, published by the O.C.A.’s Department of Christian Education.)

Reflection on Annunciation

The Annunciation

March 25

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann

     (The following is one of a multitude of sermons delivered by Fr. Schmemann, in Russian, over Radio Liberty.  It is addressed to a largely unchurched audience, living under Communism, at a time when one's faith in Christ was challenged each day by the surrounding society. While referencing contemporary atheistic thinking, Fr. Alexander's words convey the beauty and joy of the Annunciation, celebrated by Christians on March 25.)

The Annunciation!  At one time this was one of the brightest and most joyful days of the year, the feast which consciously, and even unconsciously, was connected with a jubilant intuition, a radiant vision of the world and of life.  The Gospel of St. Luke records the story of the Annunciation.  (Please see Luke 1: 26-38).

Of course, viewed from the perspective of so-called "scientific" atheism this Gospel story supplies plenty of reasons for speaking of "myths and legends."  The rationalist will say, "When do angels ever appear to young women and hold conversations with them?  Do believers really think that people of the twentieth century, living in a technological civilization, could believe this?  Can't believers see just how silly, unscientific and impossible this is?"  The believer always has only one answer to this kind of contentious debate, disparagement and ridicule: yes, alas, it is impossible to fit this into your shallow worldview.  As long as your arguments about God and religion remain on the superficial level of chemical experiments and mathematical formulas you will always easily win.  But chemistry and mathematics are of no help whatsoever in proving or disproving anything at all in the realm of God and religion.  In the language of your science, the words angel, glad tidings, joy and humility are of course completely meaningless.  But why limit the discussion to religion?  More than half of all words are incomprehensible to your rationalist language, and therefore in addition to religion you will have to suppress all poetry, literature, philosophy and virtually the whole of human imagination.  You desire the entire world to think as you do, in terms of production and economic forces, of collectives and programs.  Yet the world does not naturally think in this way and must be handcuffed and forced to do so, or rather, appear to do so.  You say that all imagination is false because the "imaginary" does not exist, and yet the imagination is what people have always lived by, live by now, and will in the future as well.  For everything most profound and most essential in life has always been expressed in the language of imagination.  I don't pretend to understand what an angel is, nor, using the limited language of rationalism, can I explain the event that occurred almost two thousand years ago in a tiny Galilean town.  But it strikes me that mankind has never forgotten this story, that these few verses have repeatedly been incorporated into countless paintings, poems and prayers, and that they have inspired and continued to inspire.  This means, of course, that people heard something infinitely important to them in these words, some truth which apparently could be expressed in no other way than in the childish, joyful language of Luke's Gospel.  What is this truth?  What happened when the young woman, barely past childhood, suddenly heard -- from what profound depth, from what transcendent height! -- that wonderful greeting:  "Rejoice!"  For that is indeed the angel's message to Mary:  Rejoice!

The world is filled with countless books on struggle and competition, each attempting to show that the road to happiness is hatred, and in none of them will you find the word "joy."  People don't even know what the word means.  But the very same joy announced by the angel remains a pulsating force, that still has power to startle and shake the human hearts.  Go into a church on the eve of Annunciation.  Stay, wait through the long service as it slowly unfolds.  Then the moment comes when after the long wait, softly, with such divinely exquisite beauty the choir begins to sing the familiar festal hymn, "With the voice of the Archangel, we cry to You, O Pure One:  Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with You!"  Hundreds and hundreds of years have gone by, and still, as we hear this invitation to rejoice, joy fills our heart in a wave of warmth.  But what is this joy about?  Above all we rejoice in the very presence of this woman herself, whose face, whose image, is known throughout the world, who gazes upon us from icons, and who became one of the most sublime and purest figures of art and human imagination.  We rejoice in her response to the angel, to her faithfulness, purity, wholeness, to her total self-giving and boundless humility, all of which forever ring out in her words:  "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord;  let it be to me according to your word."  Tell me, is anything in this world, in any of its rich and complex history, more sublime and more beautiful than this one human being?  Mary, the Most Pure One, the One who is full of grace, is truly the One in whom, as the Church sings, "all Creation rejoices."  The Church answers the lie about man, the lie that reduces him to earth and appetite, to baseness and brutality, the lie that says he is permanently enslaved to the immutable and impersonal laws of nature, by pointing to the image of Mary, the most-pure Mother of God, the One to whom, in the words of a Russian poet, "the outpouring of sweetest human tears from overflowing hearts"  is offered in unending stream.  The lie continues to pervade the world, but we rejoice because here, in the image of Mary, the lie is shown for what it is.  We rejoice with delight and wonder, for this image is always with us as comfort and encouragement, as inspiration and help.  We rejoice because in gazing at this image, it is so easy to believe in the heavenly beauty of this world and in man's heavenly, transcendent calling.  The joy of Annunciation is about the angel's glad tidings, that the people had found grace with God and that soon, very soon, through her, through this totally unknown Galilean woman, God would begin to fulfill the mystery of the world's redemption.  There would be no thunder and no fear in His presence, but He would come to her in the joy and fullness of childhood.   Through her a Child will now be King:  a Child, weak, defenseless, yet though Him all the powers of evil are to be forever stripped of power.

This is what we celebrate on the Annunciation and why the feast has always been, and remains, so joyful and radiant.  But I repeat, none of this can be understood or expressed in the limited categories and language familiar to "scientific" atheism, which leads us to conclude that this approach willfully and arbitrarily has declared an entire dimension of human experience to be non-existent, unnecessary and dangerous, along with all the words and concepts used to express that experience.  To debate this approach strictly on its own terms would be like first climbing down into a black underground pit where, because the sky can't be seen, its existence is denied.  The sun can't be seen, and so there is no sun.  All is dirty, repulsive, and dark, and so beauty is unknown and its existence denied.  It is a place where joy is impossible, and so everyone is hostile and sad.  But if you leave the pit and climb out, you suddenly find yourself in the midst of a resoundingly joyful church where once again you hear, "With the voice of the Archangel, we cry to You, O Pure One:  Rejoice!"

(From, "Celebration of Faith:  Volume 3, The Virgin Mary," published by Saint Vladimir Seminary Press.)

Arise, Your Sins Are Forgiven You

Arise, Your Sins Are Forgiven You

+ Fr. Alexander Men

(The following is a sermon delivered on the Sunday of St. Gregory of Palamas, the second Sunday of the Fast.  The homilist, Fr. Alexander Men (1935 -1990), was an architect of religious renewal in Russia at the end of the Soviet period.  A remarkable leader and prolific author he was assassinated in 1990.  Through his writings, through his memory and his spiritual heritage, however, he still speaks, and it may be he is an increasing presence in the world as his work becomes better known." Edited excerpts from an introduction by Bishop Seraphim Sigrist).

On the Second Sunday of Lent (this year March 16), the Church opens to us a page of the Gospel that we all know well, about the healing of the man sick of the palsy (Mark 2: 1-2).  The man sick of the palsy was paralyzed, lying like one dead, and others carried him to the Lord. From the Holy Scriptures we remember that four men were carrying the sick man on a stretcher, but when they arrived at the house where the Savior was, they could not get inside because the crowd was so dense.  They tried to get in through the door but could not.  Nevertheless they did not give up.  They climbed up on the roof, taking the stretcher with them;  they took the roof apart and let down the stretcher into the room.  Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralyzed man, "Rise, your sins are forgiven you."

Have you ever thought what kind of people they were; those who carried the stretcher?  After all, it doesn't say that they were relatives, or the sick man's children, mother, father or brothers.  Apparently they were simply friends, possibly neighbors.  They made the effort for the sick man's sake, not their own.  Not everyone would have climbed onto someone else's roof, taken it apart and let the stretcher down on ropes.  It was probably awkward and difficult, but they wanted at all costs to get through to where the Lord was.  And He saw their faith in their efforts and exertions.  The main thing He saw in them, of course, was their love for this man.  They had taken a lot of trouble on his behalf, expecting and believing that he would be healed;  that the Lord Jesus could save this man who was lying there like a living corpse.

Reading these pages, I thought about the way things happen in our lives.  I remember someone who was also paralyzed;  you all know who I mean.  He had a son and other relatives, but no one gave him any help.  He used to lie there like a piece of rubbish, like a corpse or worse.  Such things happen often in our life here.  Not always in so dreadful, mean and humiliating a manner, such as when a son cares nothing for his own mother;  often it is less obvious.  Hearts can be cold, uncaring and insensitive.  But these men we read about in the Bible were quite different.  They wanted this man to be healed so much, that was as if they themselves were ill and longed to rise from their sickbeds.

So, my dear friends, we have before us a great example for Lent.  What kind of example?  That we can be saved and find the Lord in our lives only together, by helping each other, loving and forgiving, stretching out a helping hand.  If that is how we try and live, God's hand, Christ's hand will be stretched out to us in response.  That is because, at the same time that He is saving us from the abyss, He wants us to help each other.  When we cannot help outwardly, through action, we can help through prayer.  So our daily prayers for each other should not be just a list of names.  But when you yourselves pray for your relations and friends, for people close to you and for those in need, pray properly, with the same kind of persistence as the relations or friends of that paralyzed man used to try and get into the house, to reach the Lord.

There will be obstacles;  you know what they are:  our laziness, weariness and weakness.  How difficult it all is!  We feel as if we were carrying heavy boulders, rather than praying.  But at the moment when you find it difficult to pray for those close to you, remember that it was probably not very easy to haul the stretcher with the paralyzed man in it, onto the roof.  Those men were rewarded however: Jesus saw their faith.  And if you and I overcome our inertia, He will see our faith, so that in the end we shall overcome all obstacles.  The Lord tells us, "Knock and it shall be opened unto you," so be persistent in prayer.

Do we not all know how confused and weak people are, how everyday matters endlessly distract us and fill our thoughts and emotions?  It's funny to think that we allow these same matters, silly trifles that we won't even remember the day after tomorrow, to fill our short lives which, you would think, we would treasure above all else.  All this cuts us off from our Lord, shutting us off from heaven and choking off prayer, like smoke from a funnel rising and obscuring the light from the sun.  And what is smoke?  It is made up of tiny black particles.  In just the same way, our sins and restlessness rise and obscure everything like smoke, so that our life ceases to be Christian and becomes vain and pointless.

Only a search for the Lord, a longing to touch Christ the healer, can give us victory.  It is Lent now and we are trying to pray more and practice abstention more often.  A small abstention from food is a tiny, microscopic offering to God.  Let us try to pull ourselves together spiritually and this time let us offer the Lord a prayer for each other, not for ourselves, not for our own health, salvation or well being, but for our sisters and brothers, for those who are dear to our hearts:  offer the Lord a prayer for them today, as the Gospel teaches us.  Pray for them, that their way may be blessed, that the Lord may keep them and come to meet them;  then all of us will ascend towards the Lord, as if holding on to that prayer.  This is the main thing;  the rest will follow, but this is essential to our lives.  Then Jesus, seeing our faith, will say to all those for whom we have been praying, and to us, for whom they have been praying:  "My child, awake from your sleep and your sickness, from your palsy, your spiritual paralysis;  arise, your sins are forgiven you."

Do Politics Become the Christian?

Do Politics Become the Christian?

Fr. Stanley (Spyridon) Harakas

(With February's Bulletin we continue our offering of monthly articles on Contemporary Moral  Issues.  Some will derive from a book of the same title -- "Contemporary Moral Issues -- authored by Fr. Stanley Harakas, printed in 1982 by Light and Life Publishing.  Fr.  Harakas is a priest of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America,  a distinguished teacher of Orthodox theology, and a significant resource in Orthodox ethics. He served as Dean of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and Hellenic College from 1966 until retirement in 1995. The following is edited for space.)

"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's" is a teaching of Christ.  From one perspective it means at least that Christ saw the Church as something very different from the State and its methods.

Yet, "Render unto Caesar, that which is Caesar's" is also a command.  It seems to imply that there is a responsibility to be exercised toward the State, by the Church, too.  How is this to be explained?

While we can think of the Church as official, we also know that the Church is the body of the believers who have been baptized in the Name of the Holy Trinity and who live the sacramental life.  When we think of it that way, every Christian helps make up the Church and few of us would agree that it is right for the whole body of the faithful to stay out of politics... The reason for this is that we do have a duty to "render unto Caesar, that which is Caesar's."

Christian Citizenship: Politics is not only voting for candidates for public office.  The ancient Greeks understood politics as the art of governing.  In a democracy that means that the people share in the governing process.  And that means that Christians are of necessity involved in politics.  This is the point.  Should the Christians who make up the Church help govern the city and country and state and nation in which they live?  Or to put it in other words, is there such a thing as Christian citizenship?

Well, the early Christians certainly acted as if there was.  The first thing they did was to make sure that they obeyed the laws.  The New Testament  makes a point of that.  They also took advantage of the protection provided by "due process."  Saint Paul appealed to the Emperor as a Roman citizen when he felt he had an unfair trial.  The early Christian writers, known as the Apologists, wrote letters to the Emperor to express their views on what they felt was an unjust law (the persecution of Christians).

Later on in the Church's history, countless patriarchs, bishops, clergy and laypersons worked in the political system of Byzantium for laws which embodied Christian values.  For example, laws regarding the status of women, the protection of infants and children, the improvement of the condition of slaves, and the treatment of the poor, became concerns of the Church.

Involvement Necessary for Christians: In a democracy such as ours, Orthodox Christians are called upon to continue that tradition.  Individual Orthodox Christians will study the issues, examine the records of candidates and vote regularly.  Some will be convinced that they should support the campaigns of some candidates.  Others will run for public office themselves.

The important thing is that we participate in the political enterprise as Christians, as members of the Church.  And lest I be misunderstood, let me add that Christians "should not" become involved in politics for self-serving purposes, but in order to serve justice, to enhance citizenship, to do good works before all people and on behalf of all people.  If, as some say, "politics is a dirty business," then Christians will seek to clean it up and to help it fulfill its real purpose.  (Here it is noteworthy that Orthodox clergy do not typically run for any public office due in part to the ambiguous nature of politics.)

The Church is properly involved in politics when her members participate in the electoral process, write letters of Christian opinion to their elected representatives, join a political party, express their Christian opinion in the public forum and work in groups seeking to improve the condition of public life.  Further, they are involved in politics when they pray daily and on Sundays, as we do in the Divine Liturgy, for the civil rulers of our nation, for peace, for the cities in which we live, etc.

In answer to the title question, "Do Politics Become the Christian?" the response is plain.  In a society such as ours, in order to render unto Caesar that which is his, Orthodox Christians necessarily will be involved in politics.  Being involved in politics is part of what it means to be a Christian.

Lord, When Did We See You Needy or Suffering?

Lord, When Did We See You Needy or Suffering?

+ Fr. Alexander Men

("Father Alexander Men (1935-1990) was a great leader, and one may say architect, of religious renewal in Russia at the end of the Soviet period.  He was a pastor, who found the time to write a great number of books including a seven volume study of world religions, ranging in style from the academic to the popular;  he lectured widely, at the end gaining access to radio and television and becoming a nationally known figure.  He founded the first Sunday school after the communist persecution, established a university, made a film strip, started volunteer work at a children's hospital.  He baptized thousands into the faith, was at home with simple people but was also called “the apostle to the intellectuals.”

His life and person and writings speak powerfully to a wide range of people, not only in Russia and not only Eastern Orthodox.  It seems that he is one of the very few who can touch and speak to and for all Christians and indeed, through his broadness of learning and heart, not only to Christians. (In this sense, Bishop Seraphim likens Fr. Men to a Russian C.S. Lewis.)

He was assassinated in 1990 but through his writings, through his memory and his spiritual heritage, he still speaks, and it may be he is an increasing presence in the world as his work becomes better known." (From an introduction by Bishop Seraphim Joseph Sigrist)).

The following is a sermon by Fr. Men on the Last Judgment.  The Parable will be read in Church on Sunday, February 23 of this year, in preparation for the start of Great Lent.

"Nowadays people often say that our world is fragile and could easily perish;  perhaps that is what will happen and you and I will witness the end of the world.  The forces of nature, which the Lord created, are surely blind forces, indifferent to good or evil.  If they are allowed to get out of control, they could sweep away all living things.  Before life or mankind appeared, these elemental forces had already come into being.  They have no pity.  When lava flows down a hill, it can crush a village or a town, together with their people and the buildings those people have constructed so diligently and over such a long period.  A hurricane, as it comes in from the sea, can destroy hundreds and thousands of lives.

Living creatures are not like that.  Hunters have often seen how a mother wolf will sacrifice her own life to save her cubs, how animals will fight an unequal battle with birds of prey in defense of their young.  Wild animals can experience fear, joy, love and gratitude;  they are not without feeling.  Of course, their feelings are not comparable to those of human beings, but all the same we know that living creatures are capable of helping each other. When a fire rages in the taiga, all creatures try to save themselves and at such a time the wolf will run beside the deer without touching it.

There are many examples of animals and plants helping each other.  However, you and I are human beings and the greatest sin against human self-respect is indifference;  when we become like the elements -- like cold rock, a devouring fire or dangerous water.  This is degrading for man, who is created not only with the power of reason, but also with emotions and feelings, enabling him to share the sufferings of other men.

The Lord tells us a Parable about how each one of us will be judged.  By what criterion, by what sign, does the King of Heaven divide all men into sheep and goats, as a shepherd divides a flock?  What is His accusation against those whom He places on the left hand?  It is that they were indifferent:  "You saw me sick and did not visit Me, hungry and did not feed Me, you saw me suffering and did not help Me."  But to those standing on His right hand, He says, "Come, ye blessed of My Father, for you comforted and helped Me."  And both the first and the second say, "Lord, when did we see You needy or suffering?"  He replies to them, "Whatever you did or did not do for the least of My brethren, that is, your own brothers and sisters, you did or did not do for Me."  That is the basic law of Gospel life.

Note that the Lord says that the Judge assembles before Himself all nations and languages, which must include pagans and unbelievers, but each of us knows this law in his conscience.  Each believer should understand that, if he remains indifferent in the face of evil and suffering, he thereby betrays his Lord.  Those who do not know God would feel that they were betraying themselves, their consciences, or some higher truth -- which shows that this is a universal law.

The Lord tells us, "It's not enough just to utter the words:  "love,"  "goodness," and "kindness."  Love must be active, it must be made manifest in life itself."  The Apostle Paul also says that the most important thing in our life is faith, which works through love -- note that it works actively.  It is not indifferent.  In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the priest and the Levite who were walking along the road and saw a wounded man lying on the ground were certainly believers in God, but they were uncaring men.  They looked at the man who was calling for help and walked past without helping him.  It is this kind of indifference that the Lord condemns, while He blesses the heart that responds to other people -- that is the whole law of the Gospel.

So let us ask the Lord to give us strength;  to put His divine seal on our hearts, so that we may not become indifferent, like water or rocks;  so that we may be living people, responding to the sufferings and needs of those around us.

And there is something else.  In the Parable, people are divided into sheep and goats.  But in all of us can be found the two contrasting aspects -- generous and indifferent.  So division and conflict are going on in the same human heart.  May the principle that is victorious in us be the bright, good and loving one, so that we may hear the voice of our Lord:  "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundations of the world.""

The Gate of the Year

The Gate of the Year

 + Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

     (Although Metropolitan Bloom makes comments that apparently refer to specific and contemporary events, his thoughts are most appropriate for us to dwell on, at the start of the New Year).

     Before we pray, I should like to introduce our prayers so that when we pray, we do it more effectively, with one mind and with one heart.  Year after year I have spoken of the New Year that was coming, in terms of a plain covered with snow, unspoiled, pure, and I called our attention to the fact that we must tread responsibly on this expanse of whiteness still unspoiled, because according to the way in which we tread, there will be (either) a road cutting through the plain following the will of God, or wandering steps that will only soil the whiteness of the snow. But a thing that we cannot and must not forget -- this year perhaps more than on many previous occasions -- is that, surrounding, covering this whiteness as with a dome, there is darkness, a darkness with few or many stars, but a darkness (that is) dense, opaque, dangerous and frightening.  We come out of a year when darkness has been perceived by all of us, when violence and cruelty are still rife.

How shall we meet it?  It would be naive, and it would be very unchristian, to ask God to shield us against it, to make of the Church a haven of peace while around us there is no peace. There is strife, there is tension, there is discouragement, there are fears, there is violence, there is murder.  We cannot ask for peace for ourselves if this peace does not extend beyond the Church, does not come as rays of light to dispel the darkness. One Western spiritual writer has said that the Christian is one to whom God has committed responsibility for all other men, and this responsibility we must be prepared to discharge.  In a few moments we will entreat for both the unknown and the darkness, the greatest blessing which is pronounced in our liturgical services,'Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit' - blessed in the kingship of God.

These words are spoken rarely:  at the beginning of services, at the outset of the Liturgy, as a blessing upon the New Year, and at moments when eternity and time unite, when with the eyes of faith we can see eternity intertwined with time, and conquering.  The Christian is one who must be capable of seeing history as God sees it, as a mystery of salvation but also as a tragedy of human fallenness and sin.  And with regard to both we must take our stand. Christ says in the Gospel, ‘When you will hear of wars and rumors of wars, be ye not troubled.’ Lift up your heads, there is no space in the heart and in the life of the Christian for cowardice, faintheartedness and fear, which are all born of selfishness, concern for self, even if it extends to those whom we love. God is the Lord of history, but we must be co-workers with God, and we are sent by Him into this world in order to make the discordant city of men, into the harmony which will be called the city of God.

And we must remember the words of the Apostle who says, whoever will wish to work for the Lord will be led into trial;  and the words of another Apostle who tells us not to be afraid of trial by fire.  In the present world we must be prepared, ready for trials and ready to stand, perhaps with fear in our heart for lack of faith, but unshaken in the service of God and the service of men.

And when we look back at the past year the words of the litany hit us and accuse us. We ask God to forgive us all that we have done, or left undone, in the past year.  We claim to be Orthodox.  To be Orthodox does not mean only to confess the Gospel in its integrity and proclaim it in its purity, but it consists, even more than this, in living according to the Gospel; and we know that Christ comes to no compromise with anything but the greatness of man and the message of love and worship.  We can indeed repent because who, looking at us, would say as people said about the early Christians, 'See how they love one another!' Who would say, looking at us, that we are in possession of an understanding of life, of a love, which makes us beyond compare, which causes everyone to wonder: Where does it come from?  Who gave it to them?  How can they stand the test of trial?  And if we want this year to be worthy of God, of our Christian calling, of the holy name of Orthodoxy, we must singly and as a body become to all, to each person who may need us, a vision of what man can be and what a community of men can be under God.

Let us pray for forgiveness, we who are so far below our calling.  Let us pray for fortitude, for courage, for determination to discount ourselves, to take up our cross, to follow in the footsteps of Christ whithersoever He will call us.

At the beginning of the war King George VI spoke words which can be repeated from year to year. In his message to the Nation he read a quotation: “‘I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown,’ and he replied:  ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand in the hand of God; that shall be better to you than light, and safer than a known way.’”

This is what we are called to do, and perhaps we should make today a resolution, determined to be faithful to our calling and begin the New Year with courage.  Amen.

Fr. Schmemann, 30th Anniversary

Contextual and Pastoral

an Essay on the 30th Anniversary of the Repose of

Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann

13 December 2013

 

Archpriest Michael Oleksa

As I consider not the details but the broad framework within which our beloved teacher, Father Alexander Schmemann lived, taught, wrote and lectured, I realize that he shared, with all the ancient Holy Fathers of the ancient Church, an approach, a vision, an experience of God, of Christ, of the Christian Faith and the life of the Church that was essentially contextual and pastoral.  I hope to explore briefly these two themes in this essay which I write today in his memory.

Father Alexander is often misunderstood and even maligned today as an "innovator" or "modernist" as if he were trying to change and violate the spirit of the Orthodox Tradition according to his personal tastes or prejudices. But anyone who knew him also recognized how fundamentally "conservative" he was.  While his academic and theological interests were essentially historical, he saw history as providing a wider context in which to understand and address contemporary issues.  History, for Father Alexander, is the continuing story, the next chapter for which we are now responsible, while remaining faithful to all that has gone before.  Precisely because of the depth of his historical understanding of the Church and her many struggles, he was able to draw on two thousand years of experience to highlight whatever was pastorally appropriate to the problems of 20th century America. He did not see the liturgical practices of any one era as determinative for all times and places but sought to understand the evolution of the liturgy over the centuries so as to apply what was best and most useful from this heritage to the pastoral concerns of today. His vision and criteria were absolutely pastoral, and one might add in North America, missiological as well.

With his broad knowledge of Church history and the history of liturgy, Father Alexander sought to examine and highlight those practices, authentically Orthodox, from whatever time or place, from any epoch or ethnic tradition that might help better to convey the Orthodox Tradition, the spiritual treasures of the ancient Church, to modern North Americans, both "cradle" Orthodox and potential as well as actual converts.  Applying this approach to the celebration of divine services, he recommended the extensive use of English, at a time when the vast majority of immigrant communities were still worshipping in their ancestral languages--rendering Orthodox worship unintelligible to any visitors or seekers who might attend a service.  If the Church is in North America for all the people of this continent, Father Alexander would argue, then it must be accessible to them. This may not be true for many jurisdictions who define their mission as preserving an ancestral Faith in tact, in the same condition as they remember it in their homeland, somewhere else. But if the Orthodox Church in America remains true to its own history,  as a mission to America for Americans (who were originally the indigenous tribes of Alaska) then it must translate and teach in the local language, continue an outreach to the local community, and focus on its situation, its needs, its heritage, its culture.  This was the genius of the Alaskan missionary saints who learned the various languages, developed writing systems for them, produced translations and opened schools, training an indigenous clergy to lead the Church in the first half-century of its existence.  The Church, as a mission, must adapt to the context into which it is sent.

But this is exactly what the Church has done through the centuries. What else was the adaptation of the Greek language necessary in the first centuries of Christianity? Why else did the Church spend seven centuries, struggling to find language adequate to God, adequate to her message, re-defining and virtually re-inventing Greek terms, bending them to the meaning the Church required to articulate and explain the Gospel to a Greek-speaking intelligentsia?  Every controversy that the Church entered, every heresy she confronted, arose from within the Greco-Roman classical worldview, a culture that radically separated the physical and spiritual worlds, making the incarnation of the Word of God "folly" to the Greeks. Christianity contradicted this basic axiomatic belief that the earthly, physical, material world was perishable and unimportant, while the heavenly, spiritual, intellectual world was eternal and of supreme value. Every heresy that arose during these centuries sought to "explain" Christ by minimizing either His humanity or His divinity and preserve the basic division between the the Spiritual and Material realms.  All Patristic theology, all the debates and intellectual struggles in which Christian thinkers engaged during the Age of the Councils, erupted in this cultural context, and the Fathers composed their theological response not as philosophical speculation, but precisely as a pastoral necessity within this context. The Fathers were pastoral and contextual.

Liturgy adapted to the pastoral needs of each culture as well.  One could write the history of the Orthodox Church precisely in these terms. "The Church," Father Alexander used to say, "always changes to remain the Same." Problems arose when later generations began approaching, understanding and explaining the writings and canons of the ancient church in an essentially fundamentalist way.  In other words, the text dictates the solution to the problem: whatever is written must be true, and preserved in tact, forever.  The difficulty with this approach is that it is fundamentally flawed. The Fathers never cited proof texts alone but were free to redefine and even invent new terms to meet the pastoral needs, which were always central to their thinking.  Why worry about the difference between homoousios and homoiousios, one iota different? Because the very essence of "salvation" was at stake. But whose salvation?  The salvation of Christians, the salvation of the world!  The ancient church debated these issues for decades until, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Fathers could announce, as the Holy Apostles had done in the beginning, "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…" having arrived at a unanimous consensus on a particular issue.  These arguments often lasted for years, with conflicting and contradictory conclusions, the discussions becoming rather heated and even violent at times. But when the Truth is finally articulated, it becomes self-evident. It requires no further discussion or "proof." The Truth is what it is.

There is no external, or rather no empirical criterion, no guarantor of truth, either in the person of an infallible Pope, nor in the letter of Scripture.  We know the Truth when we encounter it. After this, we struggle to articulate  it as best we can in human language. The Church never has sought to define it, but has only sought to draw some boundaries, some perameters around the Truth so as to exclude certain distortions or misconceptions about it.  God cannot be defined or reduced to a philosophy or system.  A God who could be so comprehended by human thought would not be God but an idol. Anyone who claims to have figured God out has fallen into grave and dangerous delusion. "Never assume a rational universe!" was one of Father Alexander's memorable warnings.

If our focus in North America is to be pastoral and contextual, we need to know what our context--21st century Western Civilization--is. Then we need to know thoroughly our Faith Tradition. And finally our "mission" is to apply the Orthodox Vision, to articulate it and celebrate it in a way that communicates the Eternal Truths of our Faith, to these people at this time and this place.  Once we accept the pastoral imperative of our mission in this context, certain adjustments become reasonable and even necessary.

For example, if we accept the pastoral and contextual criteria, how should we best celebrate the Divine Liturgy? Should the Royal Doors (as in modern Russian practice) remain shut? Should the mystical prayers that render the Anaphora intelligible be read silently? Should we insist on worshipping in unintelligible languages? Should we refrain from any lengthy or meaningful preaching? Should we discourage the Faithful from participating in the Holy Mysteries except perhaps a few times a year?

Or should we rather allow the Royal Doors to remain open through all or most of the celebration? Should we read or chant the prayers aloud so that all may prayerfully participate? Should we use the language of the community in which we live? Should we explain our faith in thoughtful, well-articulated and challenging sermons? Should we encourage the Faithful to join in the celebration, singing, praying and participating in the Eucharistic banquet?

Father Alexander encouraged the latter, not because he was trying to stir up trouble, not because he enjoyed being an "innovator" or because he was a "modernist," but because he was essentially a pastor concerned for the salvation of the people of this continent, this society. He was a contextualist, which means he was essentially Traditional, in the best Orthodox sense of the word, and not a fundamentalist,  focused on a fixed text (as the ultimate criterion) and an attitude alien to the authentic Orthodox Tradition, alien to the mind of the Fathers.

His concerns extended to the language of translation.  The original poetic masterpieces of Byzantine hymnography often do not translate well into modern English. The particular "genius" of the English language is its concision, its focus on expressing, in a minimum number of words, a concept with clarity and precision, while the medieval and ancient Greek texts may come across as clumsy, wordy and even unintelligible. Once again applying the missiological and pastoral criteria, "accurate" "word-for-word" translations often fall short of the goal.

Returning to Elizabethan English in no way guarantees pastoral or missiological "success." In fact, literal translations usually fail in this regard. To be open and accepting of all who attend, isn't it time to make the language of our services more inclusive, rather than give the impression that men have any priority over women? Our latest translations return to an archaic use of the word man that is at least controversial if not insultng to women--and inaccurate. The original Greek pronouns were inclusive of both sexes and perhaps in centuries past, the world "man" could be interpreted to mean both men and women, But this is no longer true in modern English usage. Should not the Church take this into account. Context demands another approach to liturgical translations.

Idealizing a particular usage or translation does not solve the problem. The most recent translations, published by the OCA and others, in fact represent a fundamentalist return to a word-for-word approach that abandons the grammatical and syntactical norms of 20th century English. Why omit the "let us ask of the Lord" endings to petitions in the Liturgy because the phrase is absent in a Greek or Russian original, when doing so makes no sense in English? Why shift the texts of the mystical prayers in the published texts, where they were placed for pastoral and missiological reasons in the earlier 1967 publication, to the middle of litanies, where they cannot logically be read? Why drop the words "and love" as the chalice is brought forth because the modern Russian text does not have it, (but the modern Greek text does)? Is there a foreign criterion to the "correct" usage, or are we free, within the context of our own culture, to determine what is appropriate and necessary for our pastoral and missiological needs, here, in this country.  Can there be a foreign--from another time and place--"right" way of doing things, or are we not required, in the pastoral spirit of the ancient Fathers, to determine how best to address our needs in this country?

Certainly a fundamentalist approach is simpler. We are relieved of any responsibility to think about or reflect upon what we are doing and why we are doing it. But in that case, the Church does not need human pastors and teachers. A computer can do the job!  Or are we afraid to adjust to our context, afraid we might "get it wrong"? It seems to me, in the spirit of Father Schmemann that the only way to "get it wrong" is to forget where we are and why we are here. We have been, since the arrival of the Valaam mission in 1794, to bring the Truth to Americans in America, not to replicate or transplant an alien faith and nurture it in a foreign land.

Father Alexander loved America. He was dismayed at the way some students rejected and condemned "the West," knowing that you cannot teach, you cannot authentically bless, you cannot "save" what you do not love. Far from criticizing everything "Western" as in itself deficient, Father Alexander encouraged his students to appreciate and rejoice in whatever was good, wholesome, inspiring or beautiful in any culture, in any place, including the wonders of nearby Manhatten.  If we are truly patristic and Traditonal, we must be pastoral and contextual. That was Father Alexander's vision, faithful to the Holy Fathers while rejecting any fundamentalist approach to the creative and challenging task before us: to bring Orthodoxy to North America, not by copying or idealizing any former expression of the Faith, but by drawing on all that is beautiful, true and indeed eternal in it, and applying that, courageously to the pastoral needs of North America today.

Perhaps some of his students became archeologists rather than pastors, thinking that if some practice had been abandoned centuries before, it was now their duty to restore it. But the antiquity of a given practice was never Father Alexander's concern or agenda.  If he encouraged a return to certain usages,  his perspective was always pastoral and missiological.  In this he was fundamentally contextual and therefore traditional, following the pattern established by the ancient patristic tradition.  He did not write theology as an exercise in philosophical speculation, but as a pastor seeking to make the Truth known and comprehensible to people living in a new century on a new continent.

Let us now, on the thirtieth anniversary of his repose, renew our commitment to his vision, the Traditional vision of the Orthodox Church, according to the example of the Holy Fathers of the ancient Church, and in the context of this culture, this society, strive to articulate, proclaim and celebrate our Faith so that the Truth of Christ, the Truth of the Gospel, the Truth, the Reality, the Beauty and Glory of His Kingdom might be known, accepted and embraced by the people of this land, for their salvation and the salvation of the world.  Let us not fear to revive some ancient practices if they meet the needs of our mission in this challenging situation, but let us not experiment needless and foolishly either, trying to introduce change where pastorally and/or missiologically, none can be justified. Father Alexander would have cautioned us all against such inappropriate and potentially divisive tactics!

And let all of us who were blessed to know Father Alexander, on this anniversary of his falling-asleep, commend his soul, and ourselves and each other and all our life to Christ, our God.

Christ is Born!

Christ is Born!

(Implications of God's Incarnation)

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware

The Incarnation (God made Man)...is God's supreme act of deliverance, restoring us to communion with Himself.  But what would have happened if there had never been a fall (of man)?  Would God have chosen to become man, even if man had never sinned?  Should the Incarnation be regarded simply as God's response to the predicament of fallen man, or is it in some way part of the eternal purpose of God?  Should we look behind the fall, and see God's act of becoming man as the fulfillment of man's true destiny?

To this hypothetical question it is not possible for us, in our present situation, to give any final answer.  Living as we do under the conditions of the fall, we cannot clearly imagine what God's relation to mankind would have been, had the fall never occurred.  Christian writers have therefore in most cases limited their discussion of the Incarnation to the context of man's fallen state.

But there are a few who have ventured to take a wider view, most notably St. Isaac the Syrian and St. Maximus the Confessor in the East, and Duns Scotus in the West.  The Incarnation, says St. Isaac, is the most blessed and joyful thing that could possibly have happened to the human race.  Can it be right then, to assign as cause for this joyful happening something which might never have occurred, and indeed ought never to have done so?  Surely St. Isaac urges, God's taking of our humanity is to be understood not only as an act of restoration, not only as a response to man's sin, but also and more fundamentally as an act of love, an expression of God's own nature.  Even had there been no fall, God in His own limitless, outgoing love, would still have chosen to identify Himself with His creation by becoming man.

The Incarnation of Christ, looked at in this way, effects more than a reversal of the fall, more than a restoration of man to his original state in Paradise.  When God becomes man, this marks the beginning of an essentially new stage in the history of man, and not just a return to the past.  The Incarnation raises man to a new level;  the last state is higher than the first.  Only in Jesus Christ do we see revealed the full possibilities of our human nature;  until He is born, the true implications of our personhood are still hidden from us.  Christ's birth, as St. Basil put it, is "the birthday of the whole human race,"  Christ is the first perfect man:  perfect, that is to say, not just in a potential sense -- as Adam was in his innocence before the fall -- but in the sense of the completely realized "likeness."

The Incarnation, then, is not simply a way of undoing the effects of original sin, but it is an essential stage upon man's journey from the divine image to the divine likeness.  The true image and likeness of God is Christ Himself;  and so, from the very first moment of man's creation in the image, the Incarnation of Christ was in some way already implied.  The true reason for the Incarnation, then, lies not in man's sinfulness, but in his unfallen nature as a being, made in the divine image and capable of union with God (The Orthodox Way, pp. 70-71).