On the Church and Eternity

The following is my translation of a short piece by Bishop Atanasije (Jevtic) that appeared in Vstrecha, 1 (22) 2006, the student magazine of the Moscow Theological Academy. The paragraph in italics is the editors' introduction:

“The Church is without beginning, without end, and eternal, just as its founder, the Trinitarian God, is without beginning, without end, and eternal. The Church is uncreated, just as God is uncreated. It existed before the ages, before the angels, before the creation of the world…” Thus began the article, “On the Church,” by Archimandrite Porphirios the Kapsokalivite (Bairaktaris + 1991), one of the most authoritative Greek spiritual fathers, in our last issue. We asked Bishop Atanasije, a well-known theologian of the Serbian Church, to give a theological commentary on this assertion.

That the Church is eternal and that its being will never end requires no demonstration. The Apostle Paul, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, tells us: But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel (Heb 12:22-24). This is our homeland (cf., Heb 11:14) and our city, the founder of which is Christ (cf., I Cor 3:11; Eph 2:20, Heb 11:10).

But we can also speak of the eternity of the Church from the beginning. The Holy Trinity is the prototype of the Church. Saint Photius, in one of his sermons, said the Holy Trinity was “en-churched” (ekklisiasasa) and created the world, that is, gathered in Council and was manifest as the Church. The Church, as a design of Divine oikonomia [dispensation], is without beginning. St Gregory of Nyssa spoke about this: “kosmou ktisis ekklisias kataskeui” “the creation of the world is already the foundation of the Church” (cf., Heb 4:3). At the Pre-eternal Council God decreed to create the world, and decreed the Incarnation would be accomplished for the intimate union between God and His creation. This unity arises in the Son of God; and, loving His Son, God loves us. One may say that the entire history of the world is the history of the Church.

Christ is the Church. The holy Apostle Paul identifies the Mystery of Christ with the Mystery of the Church in his Epistles (cf., I Cor 10: 16-17, 12:12, Col 1:18-27). Our Lord is not only the Head, but also the Beginning (ap’ arkhi), its first and best Part, the first member of His Church, in Whom everyone else is co-corporeal. Therefore St Maximus the Confessor identifies the Church with God in his Mystagogia. We can make such an identification in Christ. The Church is the Body of Christ. One must understand it as the Body in the sense that all creation participates in Christ; rational creation, such as man and angels, participate, and participate freely. Christ will be, as St Gregory Palamas says, a myriad of hypostases (murioupostatos), because our hypostases will be united with Him. Our identification with Christ will by no means deprive us of our individuality; on the contrary, it will only affirm us, make us real. The Apostle Paul, who said yet not I, but Christ liveth in me (Gal 2:20), was a very distinct person. And each of us is to become Christ. As an event (gegonos), as a reality, as the Church – all this is repeated (and perfected) in us. Therefore the Church is conceived from eternity and already “pre-incarnate” in Christ. Moses saw on Mount Sinai the image by which he made the tabernacle (cf., Heb 8:5). This image was the Church, and the tabernacle was made according to the image of the Church. This eschatological perspective demonstrates that the Church is older and prior to the tabernacle (as St Hermas put it in his Shepherd).

The image of union between Adam and God was less than that of the Apostles at Pentecost. It was only a foretaste of the Church. And now our taste is also incomplete: “grant us to partake of Thee more fully,” we say [Paschal Canon, 9th Ode]; that is, more fully, more completely -– there, in the Heavenly Kingdom. St Maximus the Confessor, in his scholia on the Areopagite, says that there was an image (eikona) there, while the Truth will be in eternity, in the future age.

The Church in the Revelation of St John the Theologian is the New Jerusalem, the New Heaven and the New Earth, the Bride of Christ, in Whom it pre-existed. In the Incarnation it came into existence as His Body, in which He dwelt (eskinosen) with us (cf., Jn 1:14, Rev 21:3). The Church became His Body, His fullness; the fullness of Him Who fills all in all (cf., Eph 1:22-23). Such is the Christological, pneumatological, and eschatological understanding of the Church. We can fully speak of the establishment and growth of the Church, because we may speak of our growth in it, of our en-churchment [votserkovlenii] and incorporation into Christ.

(The above icon, "All Creation Rejoices in Thee," is the work of Brian Nicholas Tsai.)

Old Whine in New Bottles

This new book looks like a real doozy. Here's the blurb:

Scholar, theologian, apologist, and pastor, Dr. Robert A. Morey, defines, documents, and refutes the group of religions that go by the name "Eastern Orthodoxy," in his latest book Is Eastern Orthodoxy Christian? With a title that intentionally begs the question, the book serves as a helpful resource for Christian apologists and evangelists that desire to defend the faith and win the lost for Christ. Dr. Morey's many years of intense academic research and personal interviews with Eastern Orthodox theologians and followers have become the basis for the subjects addressed in this 200 page book. With six short chapters, two comprehensive appendixes, and hundreds of footnotes, Is Eastern Orthodoxy Christian? by Dr. Robert Morey will be among the top picks for 2008.

"Eastern Orthodoxy" is a group of religions? Interesting. Hey, but it's got hundreds of footnotes, so it can't be all bad.

Let's look at some of Dr. Morey's other choice assertions:

On Hellenization:

With an extensive section on the Hellenization of Eastern Orthodoxy, Dr. Morey provides documented proof that is beyond refutation that from its beginning, Eastern Orthodox theology was molded and shaped by pagan doctrines and rituals.

On Theosis:

"The historical origins of the doctrine, experience, and techniques of deification have been traced back by Orthodox scholars to the ancient Eastern mysticism found in Hinduism and Buddhism. This is well-documented and beyond refutation."

On Iconography:

"The connection between the pre-Christian pagan doctrine of deification and icon/relic worship in Eastern Orthodoxy is obvious. When the pagans took over the Orthodox Church, they brought their belief in apotheosis and their worship of icons/relics with them. The icon worship practiced today in every Orthodox Church was originally practiced by pagans before Jesus was born."

And then there is this in the insightful review by Stephen Mascasil from biblicalthought.com (Dr Morey's own website):

One advantage in purchasing multiple copies of the book is because, usually, Protestant converts to Eastern Orthodoxy like to read, and read a lot. So, this book acts like a big fat tract that will get read, and as I mentioned earlier, perhaps by God's sovereign grace He'll save some.

Now, who is this "scholar, theologian, apologist, and pastor"? According to Wikipedia, the erudite Dr Morey "claims to have a Doctor of Philosophy in Islamic Studies from the unaccredited Louisiana Baptist University" and "and a Doctor of Divinity, usually an honorary degree bestowed upon someone who has made distinguished contributions to the field of religion, from Faith Theological Seminary in Gujranwala, Pakistan, but there is some controversy over whether this degree was bestowed (and later rescinded) with the proper authority." Having received such stellar unaccredited degrees, he judged himself capable of bestowing unaccredited degrees of his own by becoming the founder, executive officer, and primary faculty member (one wonders whether he has any employees) of the unaccredited California Biblical University and Seminary (University and Seminary, mind you), a distance education school (or, in the vernacular, a diploma mill).

A little bit of Googling brings one to the official web page of the Pakistan Christian Post, where an article entitled "Facts about Robert A. Morey" begins with these words:

Robert A. Morey, treacherous thief, malicious person, third rate scholar, self appointed bishop, who is misleading the Christians and Pakistani Christians living in North America and with his spite, malice he has corrupted the Christianity.

There is no doubt in my mind that Robert Morey is an Insane Monster misleading the Christians of North America.

And that's just the beginning.

I have to admit that I'm rather glad that the estimable Dr Morey (aka Insane Monster) has written this book. For one thing, it shows that many Evangelicals are running scared from Orthodoxy. Such a book would not have been necessary a few years ago. (Not that it's necessary now.) Second, his book looks so atrocious, and so easily refuted, that its not likely to convince any honest Evangelical with its case against Orthodoxy, which seems a few draughts short of air-tight. Finally, it's encouraging that our scholar has recycled only the most patently moronic of anti-Orthodox criticisms, all of which have been answered long ago. He is truly standing on the shoulders of midgets.

Leonid Ouspensky

I see that a short study of the life and work of the great and influential iconographer, Leonid Alexandrovich Ouspensky (1902-1987), will be released this spring. He is perhaps best known in the English-speaking world for such books as The Meaning of Icons (co-authored with his close friend Vladimir Lossky) and the indispensable two-volume work Theology of the Icon. He was also a friend of Photis Kontoglou, who was in many ways his Greek counterpart.

Leonid Alexandrovich's widow, Lydia Alexandrovna, writes the following about his Church activities in Paris:

In the late 1930’s he followed Georgii Ivanovich Krug and joined the association of Orthodox theologians, intellectuals and artists in Paris known as the “Stavropegial Brotherhood of Saint Photios .” There he became close to the theologian, Vladimir Nikolaevich Lossky, and to the brothers, Maxim and Evgraf Kovalevsky.

Each member of the Brotherhood worked in his own field. Vsevolod Palashkovski was a liturgist; Maxim Kovalevsky was a great and talented master of Church singing and a choir director; his brother, the future Archpriest Evgraf Kovalevsky, was a brilliant canonist; Vladimir Lossky was already a famous theologian (by the time the war had begun in 1939); Georgii Ivanovich Krug and Leonid Alexandrovich Ouspensky were icon painters.

The Brotherhood had other members. It met once a week at the homes of the various members. At these meetings each member discussed his work in progress. The overall work of the Brotherhood was enriched by contacts with the Moscow Patriarchate. At that time the Brotherhood of Saint Photios played an important role in the life of the Church in France. It proved decisive in the formation of Patriarchal parishes. These were to become the Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate when the schism of 1931 divided the Russian communities in Western Europe. In 1936 the reception into the Orthodox Church of the first large group of French people took place, largely thanks to the work and witness of members of the Brotherhood. When the Russian community became divided over the question of sophiology, members of the Brotherhood again played a leading role in clarifying the issue and defending the Church’s doctrinal integrity. And that role consisted, essentially, in the recovery of the Patristic spirit of the Church, and the re-assertion of the traditional place of the Eucharist and the Liturgy in the life of the community. This work was tragically interrupted by the Second World War and the German occupation of Paris.

A selection of his panel icons can be viewed here; some of his work done for l'Eglise de Notre Dame Joie des Affliges et Ste Genevieve in France can be seen here.

We Are All Uncanonical Now

The following is the introduction to Fr Alexander Schmemann's prophetic essay, Problems of Orthodoxy in America: The Canonical Problem, originally published in 1964. It should be required reading for all who toss around the words "canonical" and "uncanonical" loosely:

No term is used—and misused—among the Orthodox people in America more often than the term canonical. One hears endless discussions about the "canonicity" or the "uncanonicity" of this or that bishop, jurisdiction, priest, parish. Is it not in itself an indication that something is wrong or, at least, questionable from the canonical point of view in America, that there exists a canonical problem which requires an overall analysis and solution? Unfortunately the existence of such a problem is seldom admitted. Everyone simply claims the fullness of canonicity for his own position and, in the name of it, condemns and denounces as uncanonical the ecclesiastical status of others.

And one is amazed by the low level and cynicism of these "canonical" fights in which any insinuation, any distortion is permitted as long as it harms the "enemy." The concern here is not for truth, but for victories in the form of parishes, bishops, priests "shifting" jurisdictions and joining the "canonical" one. It does not matter that the same bishop or priest was condemning yesterday what today he praises as canonical, that the real motivations behind all these transfers have seldom anything to do with canonical convictions; what matters is victory. We live in the poisoned atmosphere of anathemas and excommunications, court cases and litigations, dubious consecrations of dubious bishops, hatred, calumny, lies! But do we think about the irreparable moral damage all this inflicts to our people? How can they respect the Hierarchy and its decisions? What meaning can the very concept of canonicity have for them? Are we not encouraging them to consider all norms, all regulations, all rules as purely relative?

One wonders sometimes whether our bishops realize the scandal of this situation, whether they ever think about the cynicism all this provokes and feeds in the hearts of Orthodox people. Three Russian jurisdictions, two Serbian, two Romanian, two Albanian, two Bulgarian. A split among the Syrians . . . The animosity between the Russians and the Carpatho-Russians... The Ukrainian problem! And all this at a time when Orthodoxy in America is coming of age, when truly wonderful possibilities exist for its growth, expansion, creative progress. We teach our children to be "proud" of Orthodoxy, we constantly congratulate ourselves about all kinds of historic events and achievements, our church publications distill an almost unbearable triumphalism and optimism, yet, if we were true to the spirit of our faith we ought to repent in "sackcloth and ashes," we ought to cry day and night about the sad, the tragical state of our Church. If "canonicity" is anything but a pharisaic and legalistic self-righteousness, if it has anything to do with the spirit of Christ and the tradition of His Body, the Church, we must openly proclaim that the situation in which we all live is utterly uncanonical regardless of all the justifications and sanctions that every one finds for his "position."

For nothing can justify the bare fact: Our Church is divided. To be sure, there have always been divisions and conflicts among Christians. But for the first time in history division belongs to the very structure of the Church, for the first time canonicity seems strangely disconnected from its fundamental "content" and purpose—to assure, express, defend and fulfill the Church as Divinely given Unity, for the first time, in other terms, one seems to find normal a multiplicity of "jurisdictions". Truly we must wake up and be horrified by this situation. We must find in ourselves the courage to face it and to re-think it in the light of the genuine Orthodox doctrine and tradition, no matter what it will cost to our petty human likes and dislikes. For unless we, first, openly admit the existence of the canonical problem and, second, put all our thoughts and energies into finding its solution, the decadence of Orthodoxy will begin—in spite of the million-dollar churches and other magnificent "facilities" of which we are so justly proud. "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?" (1 PET. 4: 17).

One must sadly admit that matters have only gotten worse in the close to half-century since Fr Alexander penned these words. True, the Serbian Church healed its schism, the Ukrainians have for the most part united under the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad has overcome its division with the Church in Russia. That said, the number of rival jurisdictions seems to grow daily. How many local Orthodox Churches have decided to open up branches in North America, to be populated largely by converts with no genealogical ties to their new "Mother Churches"? Into how many new groups have the various "True Calendar" multiplied like cancer cells? And all the while, each jurisdiction shrouds itself under the mantle of "canonicity." Building on Fr Alexander's reflections, we must admit that we are all fundamentally uncanonical, whether we belong to so-called "World Orthodoxy" to or so-called "True Orthodoxy," or anywhere in between. If nothing else, let us stop using "canonical" as a self-congratulating sobriquet for ourselves, and "uncanoncial" as a negative epithet for everyone else. Let those in the "official" Orthodox jurisdictions have the humility to learn from the uncompromising stance of the zealots, and let the zealots appreciate that they do not have an exclusive claim to the Truth. (Granted there are groups that call themselves Orthodox that really are entirely illegitimate, but they are few and far between.) Let us bear in mind Fr Alexander's concluding words:

In the last analysis the requirements of our Orthodox canonical tradition, the solution of our canonical problem coincides, strange as it may seem, with the most practical solution, with common sense. But it is not strange. For Tradition is not a dead conformity with the past. Tradition is life and truth and the source of life. "Ye shall know the Truth and the Truth shall make you free."— free to follow the glorious Truth and to fulfill in this great country the mission of Orthodoxy.

Amen!

True Christian Love

From an interview with His Grace, Bishop Artemije of Raska and Prizren (Serbian Orthodox Church):

Q: One could conclude that there are various theological views within Orthodoxy about co-operation with Roman Catholic Church since, based on the facts, Orthodox theologians also participated in the works of the International Commissions, while the [Ravenna] document has been harshly criticized by their brothers.

A: There exist only those persistent in their confession of Faith and those ready for various kinds of compromise, abatement, and condescension. Many Orthodox participants at those ecumenical gatherings are not confessors of their faith; accordingly, they can not represent the teaching of the Orthodox Church. If they were in fact worthy representatives of the Orthodox Church and Orthodox Teaching, they would, above all, listen to the Apostle Paul who says, "to stay away from a heretical man after the first and second approaches." How far are we going to go with those dialogs, commissions – until there is no end? Are we there counseling those in heresy, in delusion? No, we are seeking to compromise with them. True love for a Christian is to secure eternal life for one's neighbor, which means you straightforwardly say he is in error, and try to return him to the truth, directing him onto the path of salvation. Encouraging someone to remain in his delusion is not love, but hatred, according to St. Maximus the Confessor.

Photograph, L to R: Fr (now Metropolitan) Amfilohije, Fr (now Bishop) Atanasije, "Lepura," Fr Justin, Fr (now Bishop) Artemije, 1977.

The Old New Atheism

A few days I encouraged all and sundry to drop everything they were doing, run to their neighborhood bookseller, purchase a copy of Marilynne Robinson's stellar novel Gilead, call in sick until they've finished it, and then take a sabbatical to think about it.

Those who have not yet done so (say, if they were giving birth or were orbiting Mars) can redeem themselves slightly be reading Ms. Robinson's trenchant review of Richard Dawkins' abysmal (I've had the misfortune of reading it, so I use that word advisedly) newish book, The God Delusion.

A selection, to whet your appetite:

The nineteenth-century abolitionist, feminist, essayist, and ordained minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson made the always timely point that, in comparing religions, great care must be taken to consider the best elements of one with the best of the other, and the worst with the worst, to avoid the usual practice of comparing, let us say, the fatwa against Salman Rushdie with the Golden Rule. The same principle might be applied in the comparison of religion and science. To set the declared hopes of one against the real-world record of the other is clearly not useful, no matter which of them is flattered by the comparison. What is religion? It is described by Dawkins as a virtually universal feature of human culture. But there is, commingled with it, indisputably and perhaps universally, doubt, hypocrisy, and charlatanism. Dawkins, for his part, considers religion wholly delusional, and he condemns the best of it for enabling all the worst of it. Yet if religion is to be blamed for the fraud done in its name, then what of science? Is it to be blamed for the Piltdown hoax, for the long-credited deceptions having to do with cloning in South Korea? If by "science" is meant authentic science, then "religion" must mean authentic religion, granting the difficulties in arriving at these definitions.

I wish, then, to speak of science in the highest sense of the word, as the astonishingly fruitful human venture into understanding of the world and the universe. The reader may assume a somewhat greater admiration on my part for religion in the highest sense of the word, though I will not go into that here. Science thus defined does not claim to understand gravity, light, or time. This is a very short list of its mystifications, its inquiries, all of which are beautiful to ponder. These three are sufficient to persuade me that conclusions about the ultimate nature of things are, to say the least, premature, and that to suggest otherwise is unscientific. The finer-grained the image of reality physicists achieve, the more alien it appears to every known strategy of comprehension.

I'll post my own reactions to Hitchens and Dawkins at some point in the near future. In the meantime, you can treat yourself to another good review, this time by the critic (and Marxist!) Terry Eagleton. I'll get you started by citing the opening paragraph:

Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be. If they were asked to pass judgment on phenomenology or the geopolitics of South Asia, they would no doubt bone up on the question as assiduously as they could. When it comes to theology, however, any shoddy old travesty will pass muster. These days, theology is the queen of the sciences in a rather less august sense of the word than in its medieval heyday.

For the benefit of the lazy and illiterate, two videos: a good lecture by Roman Williams called "How to Misunderstand Religion" (the text itself seems to have vanished) here, and a debate between an irenic Alister McGrath and a belligerent Christopher Hitchens may be watched here. (Best line of the evening: McGrath to Hitchens: "I take it you do not believe in Hell or anything like that, and therefore I don't see what the difficulty is for you personally.")

My final word for the moment is this: if any of you are even the slightest bit tempted by atheism, then you must read Dawkins or Hitchens, for you'll see that the contemporary case for atheism is intellectually bankrupt.

Illustration: St Nicholas striking Arius at the First Ecumenical Council.

Prayer of St Ephraim the Syrian

From my correspondence: a question and answer about the Lenten Prayer of St Ephraim the Syrian:

Q: I was just now wondering (for a small translation that I'm doing) about the differences in the renderings of the Lenten prayer of St. Ephraim. In Greek, the terms seem to be: sloth, [excessive] curiosity, lust for power, and idle talk on the one hand, and self-control/abstinence, humility, patience, and love on the other. The English I've been using for years, which presumably comes from a Slavonic version, has "faint-heartedness" (sometimes 'despondency') instead of curiosity, and "chastity" instead of self-control. If St. Ephraim's prayer was originally composed in Syriac, do you know where these various translations come from? Or, alternatively, could you suggest to me sources to consult?

A: It first needs to be said that only a portion of the writings that have come down to us in Greek (and subsequently, through translation from the Greek, into other languages) were in fact written by St Ephraim. Scholars tend to differentiate between the authentic works of St Ephraim (composed, of course, in Syriac) and the "Greek Ephraim," meaning works in Greek that have been ascribed to St Ephraim. The "Prayer of St Ephraim" is usually considered to belong to the latter. To my knowledge an original Syriac text of this prayer does not exist.

1. Periegia/unyniia

The Greek word translated as "idle curiosity" is "periergia," where the (modern) Slavonic has "unyniia," which translates as "despondency," and corresponds to the Greek "akedia," one of the principle sins. "Faint-heartedness" is another possible translation. In today's terms we might think of it as "depression." This Slavonic reading (that is, despondency rather than curiosity) goes back to the earliest Pre-Nikonian texts, so seems to have been there from the beginning. Fr Ephrem Lash asks: "Does this go back to a different original, or is it a reflection of differing national temperaments?" I'm afraid I don't have an answer. (Although it must be granted that Greeks are hopelessly lazy and curious, while Russians are famously gloomy.) The Romanian version, incidentally, follows the Greek

2. sophrosune/tselomudria

The Slavonic word translated as "chastity" is "tselomudria," which could be more literally translated as "whole-mindedness." This is in fact a literally translation of the Greek "sophrosune." Perhaps this could be translated (from either Slavonic or Greek) as "integrity." "Self-control," I suppose, is another possible reading. But, in any case, there is no divergence between the Greek and Slavonic here.

It should also be noted that there are at least three different Slavonic readings: the Pre-Nikonian (still used by today's Old Ritualists), the Kievan version of 1639 (used today mainly by Uniate churches), and the Nikonain version of 1656. All three of these readings use "unyniia."

See also: Ephrem Lash, "The Greek Writings Attributed to Saint Ephrem the Syrian," in Abba: The Tradition of Orthodoxy in the West: Festschrift for Bishop Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia, ed by John Behr, Andrew Louth, and Dimitri Conomos.