Month: March 2008

He was a Lutheran pastor and was severely persecuted for his faith by communists in Romania. He is Rev. Richard Wurmbrand and Frederica has a rare recording of his voice singing a hymn to the Theotokos that he wrote himself. Frederica makes reference to an article in Again Magazine about Pastor Wurmbrand (download only).

Metropolitan Nektarios, newly enthroned at the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Hong Kong and South East Asia, says his priorities include dealing with the Chinese government to bring about the recognition of Orthodox Christians in mainland China. “There are many Orthodox in the port cities in South China. Greeks are working on the ships and they want a place of worship,” Metropolitan Nektarios told Ecumenical News International on 29 February. “The pastoral activities are first for the [Orthodox] Greeks, then for the Chinese. There are only a few Orthodox Chinese there.”

In January, Met. Nektarios told Asia News: “Orthodoxy, as Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has said, is not anxious about expanding its numerical and geographical extension, but it wants to make man, with his passions and limitations, understand his true worth. Its power is spiritual, and its purpose is the diakonia [service] of man, in order to realise the divine within man. There is great need for this in our little world, which looks only at material realities.”

Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one (John 17:11).

In just a few short weeks most of the Eastern Churches (and Western Churches as well) will be reading this passage from St. John’s Gospel during Holy Week. Are we one, are we in unity, are we responding to the Fathers embrace prayed for by His Divine Son? The answer is blatantly: No! Not to respond to God’s Will is being in a state of sin: thus disunity is sinful.

Jesus prayed that we be ‘kept in the Fathers name and be one’ but we are free to reject the Father. Why? Because we are created with ‘free will’. Thus we are free to sin. But we are also free to work toward conforming our will to His Will. Brokenness in the world, the evils around us, the disunity among the communities of Christians are due to choices made by us individually and collectively by our Churches, ecclesial communities and religious establishments.

There is no doubt that Ecumenism in some Orthodox circles is anathema. But if we take serious Our Lord’s prayer to that we be one then Ecumenism is not an option it is a requirement. However ecumenism, must be based on the Orthodox teachings of Christ and not any heterodox models. It behooves us then to be Orthodox ecumenists.

As Christ gave us a path to healing by his death on the Cross and triumph over sin and death at His Resurrection, so too we are going to have to carry our ecumenical cross to enter the path of healing disunity.

In weakness and brokenness love can emerge. The brokenness in the world, often a source of despair, can be transformed into an opportunity to empty ourselves (kenosis) from our own passions of pride, greed, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth and put on Christ – an emptying that reaches fulfillment in love towards God and neighbor and in communion with one another. As Orthodox what can we do? We can: come to know one another, not only others who call themselves Christian, but all of mankind, as children of God; we can know and respect (neither condoning nor disparaging) our various ecclesial traditions, help one another and those around in need out of the common love of God, and arduously pray, proclaim and communicate our desire for unity in faith and communion in Christ. Mot of all we must fully humbly witness our commitment to Christ and the teachings (Orthodox) He gave us. As Orthodox Christians we know and follow the words of Jesus: “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father” (Jn. 14:9) and “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved…no one comes to the Father, but through Me” (John 10:9a, 14:6b ). The way to the Father is Jesus, His mystical body, enlivened by the Holy Spirit: the Orthodox Church.

An excellent example of what can be done is the inter-cooperation of religious communities, politicians and scientists to protect, conserve and care for our God created earth and it’s environment. A recent conference in February 2008 sponsored by the Huffington Ecumenical Institute at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles highlighted the work of the Religion, Science and Environment Symposia (RSES), to bring about active change in the environment. Leadership was originally provided by His Holiness of Blessed Memory Pope John Paul II (and now Pope Benedict XVI) and His All Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew. As noted by Fr. Deacon John Chryssavgis, (Ecumenical Patriarchate) in his Conference address, lack of caring for the environment “is a sin”, he went on: “The crisis that we are facing is not primarily ecological, it has more to do with spirituality and icons. The way we imagine the world is an inhumane way to see it … we are not seeing the world as it really is — a gift from God.” Because of these ecumenical efforts significant changes have already taken place environmentally challenged countries. As an example: an oppositional and hostile Albanian government did a 180° turn around in cleaning a extremely toxic community following world pressure after the RSES investigative report. We as Orthodox Christians can cooperate on similar and other need projects on our local community level. To make real in our lives of the Spiritual and Corporal Works of mercy is something all can do now until full unity of understanding of Christ’s teachings are reached so eventually all can partake of His Eucharist. We can pray to the Holy Spirit to break down the walls that separates us.

The warning of St. Makarios of Egypt rings clear: “Grace does not make a man incapable of sin by forcibly and compulsorily laying hold of his will but, through its presence allows him freedom of choice, so as to make it clear whether the man’s own will inclines to virtue or to evil … for the law looks not to man’s nature but to his free power of choice, which is capable of turning towards either good or evil” (Philokalia III). Let us proclaim among ourselves, our fellow Christians, and most importantly our hierarchs the sin of evil disunion and the good ‘as one’ of returning the Fathers embrace in full unity with His Son, Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ.

REFERENCE

Palmer, G.E.H., Sherrard, P., & Ware, K. (eds). (1986). The Philokalia: The Complete Text compiled by St. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and St. Makarios of Corinth (Vol. 3). Winchester, MA: Faber and Faber.

Dr. Vigen Guroian delivered a talk on “Youth, Unity and Orthodoxy in America” at the 20th Anniversary Annual Meeting of Orthodox Christian Laity in Glenview, Illinois, in November. The theme of the OCL conference: “The Need for a Great and Holy Council.”

Here’s Dr. Guroian (an advisor to AOI) on Orthodox youth:

The college or university is a synecdoche — a metaphor – representing in microcosm the diverseness and pluralism of America. Likewise, the Orthodox students who arrive at our colleges and universities represent a microcosm of the entire Orthodox presence in America in all of its variety. They come to college for many reasons, with little thought, however, about joining in the great experiment of Pan-Orthodoxy and church unity.

Unlike their immigrants forebears who came to America, these young people do not bring to college all of the institutional paraphernalia of their churches. They do carry, however, an Orthodox identity that they feel a need to share and explain to others. Ethnic or jurisdictional belonging does not inhibit them. They act out of a sense of pluralism and voluntarism that is also distinctively American. They voluntarily join together as Americans to form not a Greek Christian fellowship or a Ukrainian Christian fellowship but an Orthodox Christian Student Fellowship.

How did they get that idea? I don’t think we taught it to them in our parishes. Rather, they learned it from the culture, from the presence of all of us in this American culture. They read it out of the culture as Americans. I cannot stress this enough because this is also a clue to the future of Orthodoxy in North America.

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In late January, Russian television showed “The Fall of an Empire: The Lessons of Byzantium,” a film by Archimandrite Tikhon Shevkunov. The film has sparked a controversy in Russia about the role that the West played in the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, whether modern Russia faces similar dangers, and whether the Russian Orthodox Church could help prevent a similar collapse.

The Moscow Times published two opposing views on the documentary today. Mark Urnov, dean of the political science department at the Higher School of Economics, had this to say:

This is not a historical film but a mythological one. It appeals to a myth deeply rooted in the consciousness of many Russians — one that combines the bold ideas of Moscow as a “Third Rome,” the greatness of the 18th- and 19th-century Russian Empire and the Communist fairy tale of a flourishing Soviet superpower that was destroyed by insidious and subversive liberals.

The film uses the Byzantine model to advance another myth — that all of Russia’s problems today are rooted in confrontations dating back to ancient times. These include Russia’s eternal battle with the West, which many conservatives believe harbored an irrational hatred for Russia “on a genetic level.” Other clashes included the Russian Orthodox Church vs. Catholicism and individualism vs. the state.

Fr. Vselevod Chaplin, vice chairman of the department of external church relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, countered with this:

A fresh look at Byzantium — an empire despised by both Western and Soviet ideologues — presents us with an excellent opportunity to talk about today’s Russia. For the first time, the average television viewer heard that the Eastern Roman Empire was neither an “evil empire” nor a center of dark obscurantism and superfluous luxury, but the largest civilization of its time and one that has something to offer modern Russia.

It is little wonder, then, that the film upset those who have been trying to convince us that the sun rises not in the East but in the West. It is surprising that some critics have not bothered to discuss the film’s production quality or the facts and ideas it portrays, but have simply lashed out at the very idea of “rehabilitating” Byzantium and the “Byzantine spirit” in Russia. Their arguments are weak. “The filmmakers are trying to take us back to the Middle Ages,” they say.

Read the full exchange here.

The Pravoslie Web site published the script from the documentary here.