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Monday, December 24, 2007
Miracles
Friday, December 21, 2007
We Three Kings
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
And Finally, an Encyclical from our Metropolitan
CHRISTMAS ENCYCLICAL 2007
“And behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them…” Luke 2:9
Dearly Beloved,
Beautifully adorned Christmas trees and lighted windows, glowing with resplendent lights symbolically reflecting the glory of the Lord, and with silent joy emanating from the message proclaimed by the angel of the Lord, are telling us once again about God’s wondrous miracle of His coming to abide with us.
And what a great need there is for our modern world to experience such a miracle – that is, for God to come and abide with us! We already have quite a collection of everything else in our midst; powerful nations that fear one another; plutocrats, atheists and nihilists, terrorists and pacifists. The world has had more than enough of their predictions, their threats, their promises, their protests, their demonstrations and their false heroism and ideologies, which have created millions of refugees and victims of violence.
And what has been the result of all of this? The skies have been deluged with loud, clamoring voices reverberating like thunder and lightning “about impending evils and calamities to take place in our universe” Luke 21:26. Streams, lakes and oceans have been polluted by poisonous substances and filled with tears from a suffering humanity. The skies have been covered with a haze of charged particles erupting from daily clashes of political ideas and ideologies. And we human beings are facing the danger of losing our very sense of direction by estranging ourselves from the will of God, even to the degree of verifying what was written in Holy Scriptures a long time ago: “There is no one to show kindness, no, not one.” Romans 3:12.
Powerful nations are continuing to arm themselves with weapons of destruction; so are the small nations. Nothing surpasses the economic value placed on exports by powerful nations than exporting fear and greed. And nothing surpasses the value placed on imported products by small nations than the weapons and armaments which they purchase from the super-powers. Everyone speaks about the just distribution of wealth, but no one is doing anything about it. Everyone is concerned about the hungry children of the world, the dispossessed people of the world, and yet civil strife and warfare is the answer of the powerful ones.
Human history has not witnessed such fear and insecurity as today; so little respect for the truth; such a low expression of loyalty, love and compassion; for wisdom and prudence; so much impertinence; so many contradictions and inconsistencies, so many instances of insane actions, violence, injustice and total disregard for human life.
How can one be hopeful and optimistic about the future? The great philosopher of ancient times, Socrates, was perhaps right on target and very contemporary when he confronted the lawlessness of his era by telling his fellow citizens that they would remain in a sleepy trance of corruption and depravity unless God sends someone to take care of them and save them from grief and sorrow. Today, more than ever before, we need Christ, the Messiah, the One Who was sent by God.
This encyclical was prefaced by a quotation from the Gospel of Luke: “And behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them.”, because in the reevaluation of our lives and the cleansing and renewing of ourselves, there will appear an angel, a messenger from the God of love, and the glory of the Lord will blaze like lightning in the darkness of our lives. What is needed from us, however, is a complete turnabout from the direction we are heading. We need to be resolute when we say, “Let us lift our hearts.” We need to fulfill what our Lord advised His disciples when He said: “When you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.” Matthew 10:14. We need to extract ourselves from situations or conditions into which we ourselves have fallen because of our sinfulness and our shortcomings, and we need to sever all ties with what is evil and detrimental in this world. Let us also shake the dust from our feet, and let us relegate sinfulness, which hampers our spiritual growth with its strangular grip on our soul, to its proper place – in the past, discarded, abandoned and forgotten.
This turning around is true repentance, if we agree on its importance and need, and is an action to be taken by each and every one of us. Having experienced that beautiful new life, let us then pass it along first to our families, friends, fellow parishioners and all in our community and society at large. We have had more than enough of the pessimistic inward views of life and the super-abundance of negative, critical outlooks on life that are so typical in our day and age. They lead us nowhere, and certainly not to more promising horizons or brighter tomorrows.
In our Orthodox Faith, there is in contrast to all these, a truly positive outlook on life. In our Faith there is a resounding call and invitation to a spiritual renewal, a meaningful, moral reevaluation and regeneration of our entire being, and a total rejection of the false and prejudiced notion that others are always at fault or responsible for our own faults and offences.
If we firmly believe this and proceed with determination in a fully Christian lifestyle and setting, then it will not be long before we encounter both: the angel of the Lord standing next to us and the glory of the Lord shining around about us and throughout the whole world. I hope and pray that we may all be blessed this year with such a joyous and holy celebration of Christmas.
With Love in the Incarnate Logos,
+GERASIMOS
Metropolitan of San Francisco
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Nativity Encyclical from our Archbishop
GREEK ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE OF AMERICA
8-10 East 79th St. New York, NY 10075-0106
Tel: (212) 570-3530 Fax: (212) 774-0215
Web: http://www.goarch.org
Email: communications@goarch.org
Protocol 142/07
December 25, 2007
The Nativity of Christ
What shall we offer You, O Christ,
Who for our sakes has appeared on earth as a man?
(From the Vespers of the Nativity)
To the Most Reverend Hierarchs, the Reverend Priests and Deacons, the Monks and Nuns, the Presidents and Members of the Parish Councils of the Greek Orthodox Communities, the Distinguished Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Day, Afternoon, and Church Schools, the Philoptochos Sisterhoods, the Youth, the Hellenic Organizations, and the entire Greek Orthodox Family in America
Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
On this glorious day of the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ we celebrate the truly historical, universal, and eternal event of His Incarnation. It is historical, for at the divinely appointed time He entered our human history by being conceived and formed in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and was born of her in a cave in Bethlehem. It is universal because the Son of God, the divine Logos of Creation, took upon himself human flesh and blood so that He might redeem us and all of the universe from the burden of sin and death. His Incarnation and birth has eternal significance because through His life, we are offered life, not just a mortal and earthly life, but unending life. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). The gift of the Lord and the gift of life are the greatest offerings presented to humankind. God the Father gave his Son, and the Son gave Himself so that we might be restored to the life and communion for which we were created.
It is in this gift that we see and experience the true nature of giving. First, our Lord gave himself freely. He did this because of His great love for us. Jesus became like us in every way with the exception of sin. He began his life in the womb, then as an infant. He endured temptation, suffering and death, and He affirmed the power of faith through His Resurrection. In this revelation of God’s love, our Lord has given completely, freely, and willingly so that we might be saved.
Second, Christ offered himself in humility. He did not enter this world in all of the trappings of royalty and might. He did not come seeking fame, political power, and wealth. It would appear that He came in weakness and obscurity and that His meager beginnings would be no match for worldly authority. But in His humility was His power. In entering our humanity, our Lord exalted what had been made low by sin and death. As the Son of God Incarnate, He affirmed the divine imprint on our creation and our lives. Through His birth, life, teaching, and miracles He baffled the so-called wise of this world, brought down pride and spiritual arrogance, and illumined the path of truth so that all might enter His kingdom.
Third, the offering of our Lord was one of peace. His compassionate sacrifice of himself was not accomplished through violence. His birth signified that His cause was life, and even through His death He revealed His power to give and uphold life. The peace offered by Christ is an enduring peace that is experienced and sustained not by the sword, but through faith and love.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Let us contemplate what our Lord has offered to us, especially during this time of year when we give to one another. Giving can and should be a blessed and beautiful act toward others when we know the true nature of giving. Our Lord has given to us freely, and in humility and love. In the challenges of our lives and the uncertainty of our world He gives us peace. What can we offer to Him and to one another? In our celebration of this great Feast of the Nativity, we can affirm our faith in Him. We can and should offer all of our being for His glory and service, sharing in the life, love, and peace that will be ours for all eternity.
With paternal love in Christ,
+DEMETRIOS
Archbishop of America
Patriarchal Declaration for the Nativity
GREEK ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE OF AMERICA
8-10 East 79th St. New York, NY 10075-0106
Tel: (212) 570-3530 Fax: (212) 774-0215
Web: http://www.goarch.org
Email: communications@goarch.org
Prot. No. 1330
Patriarchal Declaration
For Christmas, 2007
+ BARTHOLOMEW
By the Mercy of God
Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome
And Ecumenical Patriarch
To the Plenitude of the Church
Grace, mercy and peace
From the savior Christ born in Bethlehem
Christ is born, glorify Him;
Christ comes from heaven, meet Him.
Beloved brothers and children in the Lord,
It is with great joy that our Church calls us to glorify God for His loving and personal presence on earth in the divine-human hypostasis of Christ Jesus, one of the three persons of the Holy Trinity.
We must, therefore, examine very carefully the true and life-giving significance of the incarnation of the Son and Word of God. First, it reveals to humanity that God is personal and is made manifest to us as a person, just as He has also created us as persons. Second, it reveals to us that God embraces us with His love. These two realities, the personhood and love of God, express fundamental truths of our faith, which we have doubtless heard many times. However, their impact on our lives is not as great as it might be, because many of us neither experience our brotherhood with Christ in a personal way, nor His boundless love for us. Neither do we return our love to Christ so that by sharing in His love, we may also share, by grace, in other characteristics of His Person.
If others, who do not know Christ and, as a result of their ignorance, drown in their search for an impersonal being that they perceive as divine, are to some extent justified, then we Orthodox Christians are not justified at all if we follow such fruitless pursuits. Instead of seeking God as a person and approaching Him in the One Who approaches us, namely Jesus Christ, people who are misled desperately strive to become divine through their own powers, like Adam thought, when he listened to spirit of evil. But the true and personal God, Who is known only through Jesus Christ, the One born in a manger out of love for us, promised us adoption and a return to the bosom of the Father, as well as deification by grace through Christ. It is only through Christ that one may fulfill the universal human desire to transcend the corruption and isolation of an existence without love, and to achieve communion with Divine and human persons in love. This is what leads to eternity and to immortality!
Let us, therefore, turn the gaze of our hearts toward the newborn Jesus Christ in the manger, so that, by considering how much He loves us, we might love Him with all our heart, mind and being. It is only through the love of Jesus Christ that we may become partakers by grace in His divine nature, just as through His love He shared in our human nature. Human-centered attempts and concepts, drug-induced states and ecstasies, together with similar non-Christian experiences do not lead to an encounter with the truly personal God of love. Rather, they lead to a deep cold darkness, to gloom of eternal destruction, as well as to a feeling of complete and abysmal emptiness.
For this reason, beloved children in the Lord, love Jesus Christ, Who out of love for us and for our salvation became human. Come to know the communion of His love, with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Indeed, there is nothing sweeter than the love of the personal God.
The supreme herald of divine love, the one who identified God as love, is St. John the Evangelist and Theologian, who first pronounced to us, “God is love.” After him, the greatest herald is St. Paul the Apostle, who loved God to the end and who asked the fervent question: “What can separate us from the love of Christ?” Neither sorrow nor sword, neither death nor any other love can be more powerful than our love for Christ. In remembrance of the words and loving works of St. Paul, and in celebration of two millennia since his birth, we declare the coming year 2008 as the year of the Apostle Paul.
We pray paternally and fervently that Jesus Christ, Who was born in a manger out of love and for our salvation, may render our hearts to become like His manger: through the intercessions of His ever-Virgin Mother, as well as of our predecessor St. John Chrysostom, to whose memory we dedicated this past year, together with the intercessions of another Patriarchal predecessor, St. Niphon, restorer and second founder of the Holy Patriarchal and Stavropegic Monastery of St. Dionysius on Mount Athos, which next year celebrates the 500th anniversary since his repose, as well as of Saints John and Paul the Apostles, par excellence heralds of God’s love, and of all the saints, so that He may reveal to everyone the person of His love.
We invoke upon all of you His grace and rich mercy. Merry Christmas; may the twelve days of Christmas be blessed; and may the New Year be both spiritually and materially fruitful.
Phanar, Christmas 2007
+ BARTHOLOMEW
Fervent supplicant for all to God
To be read in churches during the Divine Liturgy on the Feast of the Nativity, after the Holy Gospel.
The 500 Year Itch?
Monday, December 10, 2007
Anglocatholicism and Essence
Miracles
I've had occasion, of late, to ponder miracles,
and why so many people - who declare themselves to be Christian - have
difficulty believing in them. Certainly much of the problem lies in the
so-called "Enlightenment ," which has led to the exaltation
of the individual, and of reason over emotion. While this period has led to
much material gain, with technological advancement on what seems to be a
perpetual path of acceleration, it has also led to a world devoid of
God.
Although not his most famous work, Thomas Jefferson prepared a translation of the Bible from which was stripped all of the miracles. Most Christians today might say that he was mistaken - that miracles did happen - but as Fr. Freeman has noted in his series on the one storey universe , many Christians would have a hard time accepting that they happen today. They are more comfortable, really, with the God of Jefferson, who is safely removed from the goings on of this world.
I admit that I suffer from the same problem. It is easier to go about my business not aware of the spiritual world in which I live. We pray in our daily prayers that God is "everywhere present, and fills all things." The problem is that we don't much act like it. My Godmother, on discussing how to deal with people who are very negative, expressed a desire to keep a secret stash of feathers that she could drop on the ground and say, "shh... there are angels listening." She has that right, there are.
As we approach the Feast of the Nativity beginning tonight, I am reminded of what is now my favorite Christmas hymn (which will not even be recognizable to non-Orthodox). Here it is being chanted in Arabic. The words are these:
Today...
is born of a Virgin
He who holds the whole of Creation
in His Hand
Today
is born of a Virgin
He who hold the whole of Creation
in His Hand
Today
is born of a Virgin
He who hold the whole of Creation
in His Hand
He
whose essence none can touch
is bound in swaddling clothes
as a Child (better translated, I believe, as a babe)
GOD
Who
in the beginning
established the heavens
lies in a manger
He who rained manna on His people
in the wilderness
is fed
on milk from His mother's breasts
The Bridegroom of the Church summons the wise-men
The Son of the Virgin accepts their gifts
We worship
thy birth
O' Christ
We worship
thy birth
O' Christ
We worship
thy birth
O' Christ
Show us also
Thy Divine Theophany (or Epiphany in the West).
Anyone who considers himself a Christian should believe these words. Given the significance of the miracle being described here, how can we struggle so with much "smaller" miracles, and that they might happen in the world around us?
Although not his most famous work, Thomas Jefferson prepared a translation of the Bible from which was stripped all of the miracles. Most Christians today might say that he was mistaken - that miracles did happen - but as Fr. Freeman has noted in his series on the one storey universe , many Christians would have a hard time accepting that they happen today. They are more comfortable, really, with the God of Jefferson, who is safely removed from the goings on of this world.
I admit that I suffer from the same problem. It is easier to go about my business not aware of the spiritual world in which I live. We pray in our daily prayers that God is "everywhere present, and fills all things." The problem is that we don't much act like it. My Godmother, on discussing how to deal with people who are very negative, expressed a desire to keep a secret stash of feathers that she could drop on the ground and say, "shh... there are angels listening." She has that right, there are.
As we approach the Feast of the Nativity beginning tonight, I am reminded of what is now my favorite Christmas hymn (which will not even be recognizable to non-Orthodox). Here it is being chanted in Arabic. The words are these:
Today...
is born of a Virgin
He who holds the whole of Creation
in His Hand
Today
is born of a Virgin
He who hold the whole of Creation
in His Hand
Today
is born of a Virgin
He who hold the whole of Creation
in His Hand
He
whose essence none can touch
is bound in swaddling clothes
as a Child (better translated, I believe, as a babe)
GOD
Who
in the beginning
established the heavens
lies in a manger
He who rained manna on His people
in the wilderness
is fed
on milk from His mother's breasts
The Bridegroom of the Church summons the wise-men
The Son of the Virgin accepts their gifts
We worship
thy birth
O' Christ
We worship
thy birth
O' Christ
We worship
thy birth
O' Christ
Show us also
Thy Divine Theophany (or Epiphany in the West).
Anyone who considers himself a Christian should believe these words. Given the significance of the miracle being described here, how can we struggle so with much "smaller" miracles, and that they might happen in the world around us?
Friday, December 21, 2007
We Three Kings
Just a brief post to clarify something for the
Archbishop of Canterbury about why the wise men
are understood to be three
kings:
He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him. Psalms 71 (72) vs. 8-11
Its called prophecy.
He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust. The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents: the kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down before him: all nations shall serve him. Psalms 71 (72) vs. 8-11
Its called prophecy.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
And Finally, an Encyclical from our Metropolitan
CHRISTMAS ENCYCLICAL 2007
“And behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them…” Luke 2:9
Dearly Beloved,
Beautifully adorned Christmas trees and lighted windows, glowing with resplendent lights symbolically reflecting the glory of the Lord, and with silent joy emanating from the message proclaimed by the angel of the Lord, are telling us once again about God’s wondrous miracle of His coming to abide with us.
And what a great need there is for our modern world to experience such a miracle – that is, for God to come and abide with us! We already have quite a collection of everything else in our midst; powerful nations that fear one another; plutocrats, atheists and nihilists, terrorists and pacifists. The world has had more than enough of their predictions, their threats, their promises, their protests, their demonstrations and their false heroism and ideologies, which have created millions of refugees and victims of violence.
And what has been the result of all of this? The skies have been deluged with loud, clamoring voices reverberating like thunder and lightning “about impending evils and calamities to take place in our universe” Luke 21:26. Streams, lakes and oceans have been polluted by poisonous substances and filled with tears from a suffering humanity. The skies have been covered with a haze of charged particles erupting from daily clashes of political ideas and ideologies. And we human beings are facing the danger of losing our very sense of direction by estranging ourselves from the will of God, even to the degree of verifying what was written in Holy Scriptures a long time ago: “There is no one to show kindness, no, not one.” Romans 3:12.
Powerful nations are continuing to arm themselves with weapons of destruction; so are the small nations. Nothing surpasses the economic value placed on exports by powerful nations than exporting fear and greed. And nothing surpasses the value placed on imported products by small nations than the weapons and armaments which they purchase from the super-powers. Everyone speaks about the just distribution of wealth, but no one is doing anything about it. Everyone is concerned about the hungry children of the world, the dispossessed people of the world, and yet civil strife and warfare is the answer of the powerful ones.
Human history has not witnessed such fear and insecurity as today; so little respect for the truth; such a low expression of loyalty, love and compassion; for wisdom and prudence; so much impertinence; so many contradictions and inconsistencies, so many instances of insane actions, violence, injustice and total disregard for human life.
How can one be hopeful and optimistic about the future? The great philosopher of ancient times, Socrates, was perhaps right on target and very contemporary when he confronted the lawlessness of his era by telling his fellow citizens that they would remain in a sleepy trance of corruption and depravity unless God sends someone to take care of them and save them from grief and sorrow. Today, more than ever before, we need Christ, the Messiah, the One Who was sent by God.
This encyclical was prefaced by a quotation from the Gospel of Luke: “And behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them.”, because in the reevaluation of our lives and the cleansing and renewing of ourselves, there will appear an angel, a messenger from the God of love, and the glory of the Lord will blaze like lightning in the darkness of our lives. What is needed from us, however, is a complete turnabout from the direction we are heading. We need to be resolute when we say, “Let us lift our hearts.” We need to fulfill what our Lord advised His disciples when He said: “When you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.” Matthew 10:14. We need to extract ourselves from situations or conditions into which we ourselves have fallen because of our sinfulness and our shortcomings, and we need to sever all ties with what is evil and detrimental in this world. Let us also shake the dust from our feet, and let us relegate sinfulness, which hampers our spiritual growth with its strangular grip on our soul, to its proper place – in the past, discarded, abandoned and forgotten.
This turning around is true repentance, if we agree on its importance and need, and is an action to be taken by each and every one of us. Having experienced that beautiful new life, let us then pass it along first to our families, friends, fellow parishioners and all in our community and society at large. We have had more than enough of the pessimistic inward views of life and the super-abundance of negative, critical outlooks on life that are so typical in our day and age. They lead us nowhere, and certainly not to more promising horizons or brighter tomorrows.
In our Orthodox Faith, there is in contrast to all these, a truly positive outlook on life. In our Faith there is a resounding call and invitation to a spiritual renewal, a meaningful, moral reevaluation and regeneration of our entire being, and a total rejection of the false and prejudiced notion that others are always at fault or responsible for our own faults and offences.
If we firmly believe this and proceed with determination in a fully Christian lifestyle and setting, then it will not be long before we encounter both: the angel of the Lord standing next to us and the glory of the Lord shining around about us and throughout the whole world. I hope and pray that we may all be blessed this year with such a joyous and holy celebration of Christmas.
With Love in the Incarnate Logos,
+GERASIMOS
Metropolitan of San Francisco
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Nativity Encyclical from our Archbishop
GREEK ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE OF AMERICA
8-10 East 79th St. New York, NY 10075-0106
Tel: (212) 570-3530 Fax: (212) 774-0215
Web: http://www.goarch.org
Email: communications@goarch.org
Protocol 142/07
December 25, 2007
The Nativity of Christ
What shall we offer You, O Christ,
Who for our sakes has appeared on earth as a man?
(From the Vespers of the Nativity)
To the Most Reverend Hierarchs, the Reverend Priests and Deacons, the Monks and Nuns, the Presidents and Members of the Parish Councils of the Greek Orthodox Communities, the Distinguished Archons of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Day, Afternoon, and Church Schools, the Philoptochos Sisterhoods, the Youth, the Hellenic Organizations, and the entire Greek Orthodox Family in America
Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
On this glorious day of the Feast of the Nativity of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ we celebrate the truly historical, universal, and eternal event of His Incarnation. It is historical, for at the divinely appointed time He entered our human history by being conceived and formed in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and was born of her in a cave in Bethlehem. It is universal because the Son of God, the divine Logos of Creation, took upon himself human flesh and blood so that He might redeem us and all of the universe from the burden of sin and death. His Incarnation and birth has eternal significance because through His life, we are offered life, not just a mortal and earthly life, but unending life. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). The gift of the Lord and the gift of life are the greatest offerings presented to humankind. God the Father gave his Son, and the Son gave Himself so that we might be restored to the life and communion for which we were created.
It is in this gift that we see and experience the true nature of giving. First, our Lord gave himself freely. He did this because of His great love for us. Jesus became like us in every way with the exception of sin. He began his life in the womb, then as an infant. He endured temptation, suffering and death, and He affirmed the power of faith through His Resurrection. In this revelation of God’s love, our Lord has given completely, freely, and willingly so that we might be saved.
Second, Christ offered himself in humility. He did not enter this world in all of the trappings of royalty and might. He did not come seeking fame, political power, and wealth. It would appear that He came in weakness and obscurity and that His meager beginnings would be no match for worldly authority. But in His humility was His power. In entering our humanity, our Lord exalted what had been made low by sin and death. As the Son of God Incarnate, He affirmed the divine imprint on our creation and our lives. Through His birth, life, teaching, and miracles He baffled the so-called wise of this world, brought down pride and spiritual arrogance, and illumined the path of truth so that all might enter His kingdom.
Third, the offering of our Lord was one of peace. His compassionate sacrifice of himself was not accomplished through violence. His birth signified that His cause was life, and even through His death He revealed His power to give and uphold life. The peace offered by Christ is an enduring peace that is experienced and sustained not by the sword, but through faith and love.
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Let us contemplate what our Lord has offered to us, especially during this time of year when we give to one another. Giving can and should be a blessed and beautiful act toward others when we know the true nature of giving. Our Lord has given to us freely, and in humility and love. In the challenges of our lives and the uncertainty of our world He gives us peace. What can we offer to Him and to one another? In our celebration of this great Feast of the Nativity, we can affirm our faith in Him. We can and should offer all of our being for His glory and service, sharing in the life, love, and peace that will be ours for all eternity.
With paternal love in Christ,
+DEMETRIOS
Archbishop of America
Patriarchal Declaration for the Nativity
GREEK ORTHODOX ARCHDIOCESE OF AMERICA
8-10 East 79th St. New York, NY 10075-0106
Tel: (212) 570-3530 Fax: (212) 774-0215
Web: http://www.goarch.org
Email: communications@goarch.org
Prot. No. 1330
Patriarchal Declaration
For Christmas, 2007
+ BARTHOLOMEW
By the Mercy of God
Archbishop of Constantinople, New Rome
And Ecumenical Patriarch
To the Plenitude of the Church
Grace, mercy and peace
From the savior Christ born in Bethlehem
Christ is born, glorify Him;
Christ comes from heaven, meet Him.
Beloved brothers and children in the Lord,
It is with great joy that our Church calls us to glorify God for His loving and personal presence on earth in the divine-human hypostasis of Christ Jesus, one of the three persons of the Holy Trinity.
We must, therefore, examine very carefully the true and life-giving significance of the incarnation of the Son and Word of God. First, it reveals to humanity that God is personal and is made manifest to us as a person, just as He has also created us as persons. Second, it reveals to us that God embraces us with His love. These two realities, the personhood and love of God, express fundamental truths of our faith, which we have doubtless heard many times. However, their impact on our lives is not as great as it might be, because many of us neither experience our brotherhood with Christ in a personal way, nor His boundless love for us. Neither do we return our love to Christ so that by sharing in His love, we may also share, by grace, in other characteristics of His Person.
If others, who do not know Christ and, as a result of their ignorance, drown in their search for an impersonal being that they perceive as divine, are to some extent justified, then we Orthodox Christians are not justified at all if we follow such fruitless pursuits. Instead of seeking God as a person and approaching Him in the One Who approaches us, namely Jesus Christ, people who are misled desperately strive to become divine through their own powers, like Adam thought, when he listened to spirit of evil. But the true and personal God, Who is known only through Jesus Christ, the One born in a manger out of love for us, promised us adoption and a return to the bosom of the Father, as well as deification by grace through Christ. It is only through Christ that one may fulfill the universal human desire to transcend the corruption and isolation of an existence without love, and to achieve communion with Divine and human persons in love. This is what leads to eternity and to immortality!
Let us, therefore, turn the gaze of our hearts toward the newborn Jesus Christ in the manger, so that, by considering how much He loves us, we might love Him with all our heart, mind and being. It is only through the love of Jesus Christ that we may become partakers by grace in His divine nature, just as through His love He shared in our human nature. Human-centered attempts and concepts, drug-induced states and ecstasies, together with similar non-Christian experiences do not lead to an encounter with the truly personal God of love. Rather, they lead to a deep cold darkness, to gloom of eternal destruction, as well as to a feeling of complete and abysmal emptiness.
For this reason, beloved children in the Lord, love Jesus Christ, Who out of love for us and for our salvation became human. Come to know the communion of His love, with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Indeed, there is nothing sweeter than the love of the personal God.
The supreme herald of divine love, the one who identified God as love, is St. John the Evangelist and Theologian, who first pronounced to us, “God is love.” After him, the greatest herald is St. Paul the Apostle, who loved God to the end and who asked the fervent question: “What can separate us from the love of Christ?” Neither sorrow nor sword, neither death nor any other love can be more powerful than our love for Christ. In remembrance of the words and loving works of St. Paul, and in celebration of two millennia since his birth, we declare the coming year 2008 as the year of the Apostle Paul.
We pray paternally and fervently that Jesus Christ, Who was born in a manger out of love and for our salvation, may render our hearts to become like His manger: through the intercessions of His ever-Virgin Mother, as well as of our predecessor St. John Chrysostom, to whose memory we dedicated this past year, together with the intercessions of another Patriarchal predecessor, St. Niphon, restorer and second founder of the Holy Patriarchal and Stavropegic Monastery of St. Dionysius on Mount Athos, which next year celebrates the 500th anniversary since his repose, as well as of Saints John and Paul the Apostles, par excellence heralds of God’s love, and of all the saints, so that He may reveal to everyone the person of His love.
We invoke upon all of you His grace and rich mercy. Merry Christmas; may the twelve days of Christmas be blessed; and may the New Year be both spiritually and materially fruitful.
Phanar, Christmas 2007
+ BARTHOLOMEW
Fervent supplicant for all to God
To be read in churches during the Divine Liturgy on the Feast of the Nativity, after the Holy Gospel.
The 500 Year Itch?
Terry Mattingly has written a column about the current state of
Protestantism, based on the assertion that Christianity goes through some
seismic change once every 500 years. I'm not sure if that is his assertion, or
the author he quotes in the column. I think it is clear that Protestantism is
undergoing a significant change now, but the 500 year "rule" is mostly
contrived, and some of the conclusions
strained.
In order to make the 500 year rule work, TMatt counts back 500 years from the reformation and arrives at the great Schism. Truly a huge event, so he is doing fine to this point. Go back 500 years further and you arrive at the... "fall of the Roman Empire???" Umm, no. True, you arrive at the fall of Rome, and that certainly was historically significant. However, just as significant was the move of the capitol of the Roman Empire to Byzantium/Constantinople about 200 years earlier. You know, the Roman Empire that continued to exist until the 15th century (yes, you can argue that the Western Empire fell, but it wasn't the whole thing). Of course, in the early 9th century, we have the founding of the Holy Roman Empire - which, coupled with increasing theological divergence on the part of Rome, is really the significant upheaval of the millennium. Perhaps, the legalization of Christianity a couple of hundred years before the fall of Rome was even more significant. Frankly, the fall of Rome wasn't, in my mind, that huge of an impact on Christianity.
So, why is the 500 year thing so important? Besides providing a nice hook for his column, it also allows the author he interviews to arrive at some interesting implications regarding the Emerging Church movement. She makes an interesting, and unfounded claim that these changes result in the prevailing form of Christianity having to give "pride of place" to something new. This is as if Rome became some minority Church after the Reformation, and Orthodoxy had apparently vanished entirely by then. From an American perspective, Catholicism and Orthodoxy are minority religions. The majority of all Christians in the U.S. are, in fact, Protestant. However, around the world, Protestantism comes in at a third place position. Rome remains the biggest, with Orthodoxy number two. Nobody has given away pride of place, unless you want to discuss supplanting Orthodoxy with the theological novelties that developed in Rome.
I think the author that TMatt interviews is attempting to suggest that the Emerging Church movement, with its elimination of doctrine, is the new exciting thing that will unit Protestantism. I think that this is a fantasy. The one constant in Protestantism is its incredible ability to fragment. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the foundation is that Protestantism is essentially about the individual and their view of Scripture. As Fr. Freeman notes in a recent blog entry (drawing on Christianity Today), this divorce from the Church and the Fathers leads to erroneous conclusions. It also leads to as many denominations as there are strong egos.
As Annie notes over at Innocent Doves , this willingness to "shed dogma and rethink doctrine," "sounds a lot like what has been going on in ECUSA." Indeed, it does. As the ECUSA has well demonstrated, that path does not lead to unity.
So, I don't think there is any magic 500 year itch. I don't think the Emerging Church movement represents some great new thing - except for the number of such Churches who are realizing that Orthodoxy or Rome is where they should be. Otherwise it will simply represent the continued fragmentation of what Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli began.
h/t to 9.West
In order to make the 500 year rule work, TMatt counts back 500 years from the reformation and arrives at the great Schism. Truly a huge event, so he is doing fine to this point. Go back 500 years further and you arrive at the... "fall of the Roman Empire???" Umm, no. True, you arrive at the fall of Rome, and that certainly was historically significant. However, just as significant was the move of the capitol of the Roman Empire to Byzantium/Constantinople about 200 years earlier. You know, the Roman Empire that continued to exist until the 15th century (yes, you can argue that the Western Empire fell, but it wasn't the whole thing). Of course, in the early 9th century, we have the founding of the Holy Roman Empire - which, coupled with increasing theological divergence on the part of Rome, is really the significant upheaval of the millennium. Perhaps, the legalization of Christianity a couple of hundred years before the fall of Rome was even more significant. Frankly, the fall of Rome wasn't, in my mind, that huge of an impact on Christianity.
So, why is the 500 year thing so important? Besides providing a nice hook for his column, it also allows the author he interviews to arrive at some interesting implications regarding the Emerging Church movement. She makes an interesting, and unfounded claim that these changes result in the prevailing form of Christianity having to give "pride of place" to something new. This is as if Rome became some minority Church after the Reformation, and Orthodoxy had apparently vanished entirely by then. From an American perspective, Catholicism and Orthodoxy are minority religions. The majority of all Christians in the U.S. are, in fact, Protestant. However, around the world, Protestantism comes in at a third place position. Rome remains the biggest, with Orthodoxy number two. Nobody has given away pride of place, unless you want to discuss supplanting Orthodoxy with the theological novelties that developed in Rome.
I think the author that TMatt interviews is attempting to suggest that the Emerging Church movement, with its elimination of doctrine, is the new exciting thing that will unit Protestantism. I think that this is a fantasy. The one constant in Protestantism is its incredible ability to fragment. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the foundation is that Protestantism is essentially about the individual and their view of Scripture. As Fr. Freeman notes in a recent blog entry (drawing on Christianity Today), this divorce from the Church and the Fathers leads to erroneous conclusions. It also leads to as many denominations as there are strong egos.
As Annie notes over at Innocent Doves , this willingness to "shed dogma and rethink doctrine," "sounds a lot like what has been going on in ECUSA." Indeed, it does. As the ECUSA has well demonstrated, that path does not lead to unity.
So, I don't think there is any magic 500 year itch. I don't think the Emerging Church movement represents some great new thing - except for the number of such Churches who are realizing that Orthodoxy or Rome is where they should be. Otherwise it will simply represent the continued fragmentation of what Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli began.
h/t to 9.West
Monday, December 10, 2007
Anglocatholicism and Essence
In the Nicene Creed we speak of Christ as being
one in Essence with the Father. Borrowing a bit from the OAD (Oxford American
Dictionary), essence is the intrinsic nature or
indispensable
quality of something. We use the word essence
with regard to Christ to indicate that he is truly God - that he shares in the
intrinsic nature or indispensable quality that belongs to God alone. People can
share in God's energies - see His glory, receive His grace, and in that sense we
share partake in His nature, but we never acquire the indispensable quality or
intrinsic nature of God. There is a great analogy from back in time of a sword
placed in the fire. It may acquire the heat of the fire, but it never becomes
fire itself. In some ways, it may even look like fire - taking on the same
orange glow, but nevertheless, a sword it
remains.
I think this differentiation may be germane to the discussion of Christian Churches and their relationship. That is, the Church that Christ founded should have an intrinsic nature, and more clearly stated some indispensable qualities, without which it would cease to be the Church. Most people who call themselves Christian would agree with this, and the debate remains over what are these indispensable qualities. Mitt Romney, and many other Mormons, might assert that it is a belief that Christ is the (but not one and only) Son of God. Jehovah's witnesses might assert that it is a willingness to follow Christ's teachings, but not require a belief that Christ is the Son of God. Many protestants might assert that it is merely a belief in the Trinity and that Christ died for our sins. Everything else is extraneous.
I know of some people who have received a fair amount of grief from family members about their conversion. In some cases, they were disowned, because they had left the one true Church (Rome) for Orthodoxy (or so a parent believed), and in others, the problems came about because the family thought that Orthodox was basically the same thing as their particular Church, and so couldn't understand why they could no longer attend services at a non-Orthodox Church. This is a subtle and challenging point. It appears that the Orthodox are simply being rude, when they are merely asserting that there is a difference in essence here. The Canons of the Church, dating back at least as far as the 4th century, do not permit the joining in to prayer services with heretics. Heretic is a charged term, but is merely a reference to someone who holds to an heretical doctrine, or a doctrine at odds with the doctrine of the Church. St. Paul warns us against heresy as being a work of the flesh.
I apologize for having taken so long to get here, but what I'm getting at is that the essence of the Church must have something to do with the doctrine's held. If you hold to different doctrines, then you must not be of the same essence. I would go so far as to propose that the question here is not who is right, but rather acknowledging that the two things are not the same. That is, if we do not hold doctrine in common, then we are not of the same essence - at least not completely. I may share essential elements with a caterpillar (we are both from the same Kingdom - animalia), but a caterpillar is decidedly not a human. Scripture is so insistent on our being of one body, of one mind, that in order to be the same, we must hold to the same doctrines - not just a few, but most, if not all.
A couple of things came together this weekend on the Anglican front that made me think about this a bit. The first is a post over at Anglican Music about the institution of a former priest of mine as rector of a continuing Anglican parish in Hollywood. 9.West has five (and a tongue in cheek sixth) different meanings for AngloCatholic. I think his breakdown is roughly correct. What is interesting is that several of those groups would not only not hold all of the same doctrines, but are quite likely to hold contradictory doctrines. For instance, many "High Church" Anglicans are quite reformed in doctrine (as in Calvinist), while the ACA is rather Roman Catholic. These essential differences amongst those who might consider themselves AngloCatholic was underscored as I was cleaning out my library. I picked up a mid 19th century volume of the "Library of AngloCatholic Theology" consisting of Hammond's Practical Catechism. Unfortunately, Hammond was quite a Calvinist. To pick on one point, he asserts that it is wrong to take Christ's words literally about "this is my body, this is my blood." Fast forward 40 years or so to a copy of "The Church Club Lectures", a series of lectures sponsored by an AngloCatholic body. In one volume, on Catholic Dogma, the assertion is that you have no choice but to take Christ's words literally. These words of Christ are considered so important, that they are probably the one unchanging, consistent element in the Liturgies of the East and West, and in the West between Anglicans and Catholics. I don't think that these words and their meaning can be considered unimportant. To the degree that people are not of one mind on this thing, I would assert that they are not of one essence, either. As it is, I am focusing on a particular point, but between these groups there are numerous other points of contradiction on what would be considered important doctrines.
There is even broader lack of essential unity if you survey all of those who consider themselves Anglican. Given that Anglicanism doesn't seem to be of one essence, unless the only indispensable quality is the presence of Bishops, its hard to see how they even comprise one Church. It is even safer to say that Anglicanism and Orthodoxy are not simply two essentially identical faiths. Even if one were to find an Anglican parish somewhere that was entirely Orthodox in its beliefs and practices (and I've never heard of one that was), you would still have the problem that they insist on remaining united with those that believe differently, rather than leaving all that and uniting with the Orthodox. That is one doctrinal distinction that would remain. 9.West finishes his post with a quote from Terry Mattingly about Michael Ramsey's assertion that the goal of Anglicanism is reunification with the East. I agree that this should be the goal. In order to accomplish that, then, Anglicanism must become of one mind, both with themselves, then with Orthodoxy. However, Ramsey also understood how difficult this would be, as the Orthodox mind perceives of things quite differently:
"The Orthodox said in effect: "...The 'tradition is a concrete fact. There it is, in its totality. Do you Anglicans accept it, or do you reject it?' The Tradition is for the Orthodox one indivisible whole: the entire life of the Church in its fullness of belief and custom down the ages, including Mariology and the veneration of icons. Faced with this challenge, the typically Anglican reply is: 'We would not regard veneration of icons or Mariology as inadmissible, provided that in determining what is necessary to salvation, we confine ourselves to Holy Scripture.' But this reply only throws into relief the contrast between the Anglican appeal to what is deemed necessary to salvation and the Orthodox appeal to the one indivisible organism of Tradition, to tamper with any part of which is to spoil the whole, in the sort of way that a single splodge on a picture can mar its beauty." ['The Moscow Conference in Retrospect', in Sobornost, series 3, no. 23, 1958, pp. 562-3.]"
h/t to Orthodoxinfo for this quote. To be essentially Orthodox is to view Tradition as the seamless garment. To be Anglican is to attempt to identify what is "necessary to Salvation," and require no more. They are essentially different beasts.
I think this differentiation may be germane to the discussion of Christian Churches and their relationship. That is, the Church that Christ founded should have an intrinsic nature, and more clearly stated some indispensable qualities, without which it would cease to be the Church. Most people who call themselves Christian would agree with this, and the debate remains over what are these indispensable qualities. Mitt Romney, and many other Mormons, might assert that it is a belief that Christ is the (but not one and only) Son of God. Jehovah's witnesses might assert that it is a willingness to follow Christ's teachings, but not require a belief that Christ is the Son of God. Many protestants might assert that it is merely a belief in the Trinity and that Christ died for our sins. Everything else is extraneous.
I know of some people who have received a fair amount of grief from family members about their conversion. In some cases, they were disowned, because they had left the one true Church (Rome) for Orthodoxy (or so a parent believed), and in others, the problems came about because the family thought that Orthodox was basically the same thing as their particular Church, and so couldn't understand why they could no longer attend services at a non-Orthodox Church. This is a subtle and challenging point. It appears that the Orthodox are simply being rude, when they are merely asserting that there is a difference in essence here. The Canons of the Church, dating back at least as far as the 4th century, do not permit the joining in to prayer services with heretics. Heretic is a charged term, but is merely a reference to someone who holds to an heretical doctrine, or a doctrine at odds with the doctrine of the Church. St. Paul warns us against heresy as being a work of the flesh.
I apologize for having taken so long to get here, but what I'm getting at is that the essence of the Church must have something to do with the doctrine's held. If you hold to different doctrines, then you must not be of the same essence. I would go so far as to propose that the question here is not who is right, but rather acknowledging that the two things are not the same. That is, if we do not hold doctrine in common, then we are not of the same essence - at least not completely. I may share essential elements with a caterpillar (we are both from the same Kingdom - animalia), but a caterpillar is decidedly not a human. Scripture is so insistent on our being of one body, of one mind, that in order to be the same, we must hold to the same doctrines - not just a few, but most, if not all.
A couple of things came together this weekend on the Anglican front that made me think about this a bit. The first is a post over at Anglican Music about the institution of a former priest of mine as rector of a continuing Anglican parish in Hollywood. 9.West has five (and a tongue in cheek sixth) different meanings for AngloCatholic. I think his breakdown is roughly correct. What is interesting is that several of those groups would not only not hold all of the same doctrines, but are quite likely to hold contradictory doctrines. For instance, many "High Church" Anglicans are quite reformed in doctrine (as in Calvinist), while the ACA is rather Roman Catholic. These essential differences amongst those who might consider themselves AngloCatholic was underscored as I was cleaning out my library. I picked up a mid 19th century volume of the "Library of AngloCatholic Theology" consisting of Hammond's Practical Catechism. Unfortunately, Hammond was quite a Calvinist. To pick on one point, he asserts that it is wrong to take Christ's words literally about "this is my body, this is my blood." Fast forward 40 years or so to a copy of "The Church Club Lectures", a series of lectures sponsored by an AngloCatholic body. In one volume, on Catholic Dogma, the assertion is that you have no choice but to take Christ's words literally. These words of Christ are considered so important, that they are probably the one unchanging, consistent element in the Liturgies of the East and West, and in the West between Anglicans and Catholics. I don't think that these words and their meaning can be considered unimportant. To the degree that people are not of one mind on this thing, I would assert that they are not of one essence, either. As it is, I am focusing on a particular point, but between these groups there are numerous other points of contradiction on what would be considered important doctrines.
There is even broader lack of essential unity if you survey all of those who consider themselves Anglican. Given that Anglicanism doesn't seem to be of one essence, unless the only indispensable quality is the presence of Bishops, its hard to see how they even comprise one Church. It is even safer to say that Anglicanism and Orthodoxy are not simply two essentially identical faiths. Even if one were to find an Anglican parish somewhere that was entirely Orthodox in its beliefs and practices (and I've never heard of one that was), you would still have the problem that they insist on remaining united with those that believe differently, rather than leaving all that and uniting with the Orthodox. That is one doctrinal distinction that would remain. 9.West finishes his post with a quote from Terry Mattingly about Michael Ramsey's assertion that the goal of Anglicanism is reunification with the East. I agree that this should be the goal. In order to accomplish that, then, Anglicanism must become of one mind, both with themselves, then with Orthodoxy. However, Ramsey also understood how difficult this would be, as the Orthodox mind perceives of things quite differently:
"The Orthodox said in effect: "...The 'tradition is a concrete fact. There it is, in its totality. Do you Anglicans accept it, or do you reject it?' The Tradition is for the Orthodox one indivisible whole: the entire life of the Church in its fullness of belief and custom down the ages, including Mariology and the veneration of icons. Faced with this challenge, the typically Anglican reply is: 'We would not regard veneration of icons or Mariology as inadmissible, provided that in determining what is necessary to salvation, we confine ourselves to Holy Scripture.' But this reply only throws into relief the contrast between the Anglican appeal to what is deemed necessary to salvation and the Orthodox appeal to the one indivisible organism of Tradition, to tamper with any part of which is to spoil the whole, in the sort of way that a single splodge on a picture can mar its beauty." ['The Moscow Conference in Retrospect', in Sobornost, series 3, no. 23, 1958, pp. 562-3.]"
h/t to Orthodoxinfo for this quote. To be essentially Orthodox is to view Tradition as the seamless garment. To be Anglican is to attempt to identify what is "necessary to Salvation," and require no more. They are essentially different beasts.