Month: July 2011

Syria’s Christians Live in Fear

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Some of the interior of the church chappel at the famous Saydnaya Monastery, one of the central holy places of the Orthodox Christians of Syria.

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Some of the interior of the church chappel at the famous Saydnaya Monastery, one of the central holy places of the Orthodox Christians of Syria.

American neo-con and liberal foreign policy are synonymous. The support of the insurrection in Egypt and our involvement in Libya will probably help establish an Islamic republic that will persecute the Christian minorities in those countries. Now calls are being heard to overthrow the government of Syria that, if successful, also will create very dangerous conditions for the Christians in the region.

Met. Jonah: Encyclical on Marriage and the Moral Limits of Human Sexuality

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July 28, 201

Beloved Fathers, brothers and sisters in Christ,

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:6-10)

In our own lifetimes we were blessed by an act of prophetic witness in July 1992, when the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America issued the magnificent “Affirmations on Marriage, Family, Sexuality, and the Sanctity of Life.” Two decades later we Orthodox who live in the diocese that includes our nation’s capital city need to be reminded of some of the moral verities contained in the Affirmations. It should be obvious to any attentive observer that those verities are under increasing assault by the intellectual, social, and cultural elites in this country—and even by many of our public officials, particularly in the federal government headquartered here in Washington, DC. More alarming is the erosion of those moral verities within some of our Orthodox congregations.

The dire need to preserve and protect the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception has been the focus of the annual encyclical of the OCA primate for Sanctity of Life Sunday each January for many years. I wish to remind you, in the prophetic spirit of the apostles, that the Holy Mystery of Matrimony and the moral limits of human sexuality are ancient traditions of the Church not subject to whatever winds of change may be blowing through our society at the moment.

The 1992 Affirmations enunciated clearly and forcefully the following principles and guidelines among others:

God wills that men and women marry, becoming husbands and wives. He commands them to increase and multiply in the procreation of children, being joined into “one flesh” by His divine grace and love. He wills that human beings live within families (Genesis 1:27; 2:21-24; Orthodox Marriage Service).
The Lord went even further to declare that people who look at others in order to lust after them in their hearts have “committed adultery” (cf. Matthew 5:27-30).
Christ’s apostles repeat the teachings of their Master, likening the unique marriage between one man and one woman to the union between Christ and His Church which they experience as the Lord’s very body and His bride (Ephesians 5:21-33; 2 Corinthians 11:2).
Marriage and family life are to be defended and protected against every open and subtle attack and ridicule.
Sexual intercourse is to be protected as a sacred expression of love within the community of heterosexual monogamous marriage in which alone it can be that for which God has given it to human beings for their sanctification.
Homosexuality is to be approached as the result of humanity’s rebellion against God, and so against its own nature and well-being. It is not to be taken as a way of living and acting for men and women made in God’s image and likeness.
Men and women with homosexual feelings and emotions are to be treated with the understanding, acceptance, love, justice and mercy due to all human beings.
People with homosexual tendencies are to be helped to admit these feelings to themselves and to others who will not reject or harm them. They are to seek assistance in discovering the specific causes of their homosexual orientation, and to work toward overcoming its harmful effects in their lives.
Persons struggling with homosexuality who accept the Orthodox faith and strive to fulfill the Orthodox way of life may be communicants of the Church with everyone else who believes and struggles. Those instructed and counseled in Orthodox Christian doctrine and ascetical life who still want to justify their behavior may not participate in the Church’s sacramental mysteries, since to do so would not help, but harm them.

Our life in Christ is constituted by repentance. If we are to be faithful Christians, we must be constantly turning toward God, away from our sins and passions, realizing the seriousness of our sin in a spirit of repentance, and striving to change our lives. We cannot approach the Holy Mysteries without living a life of repentance, and examining our consciences and confessing our sins. When we have fallen, we repent, and try to stop our sinful behavior. Otherwise, we risk communing unto judgment and condemnation. This discipline of the Christian life leads to salvation, enlightenment and the healing of our souls. We must be faithful to that discipline of life, if we are to call ourselves Orthodox Christians.

In light of the above, what Orthodox Christian in good conscience would dare to approach the chalice containing the life-giving Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, while refusing to acknowledge, confess, and eradicate from his or her life sins against authentic Christian marriage, including fornication, homosexual activity, or adultery? Which sexually active couples co-habiting without the Orthodox sacrament of marriage can expect the Church to bless their unholy union and welcome them to the life- giving Holy Mysteries of the Body and Blood of Our Lord, unless they find separate accommodations and cease their fornication and get married in the Church?

We are all called as Christians to live a life of chastity, pleasing to the Lord, married or single. If we are Christians we are all called, whatever our attractions or past habits, to the same saving discipline that will heal our souls. Otherwise we are living in hypocrisy, a living death; just as when we judge others struggling with their sins. This has been delivered to us from the Apostles and Holy Fathers, and remains unchanged to this day. The Orthodox teaching on chastity and Christian marriage is a fundamental element in Christian life and discipline. We are called to conform our lives to the Church and its disciplines, not alter the teachings of the Church to fit either a cultural fad or our own passions. Where we stand against the prevailing cultural trends, we must stand fast, because we know that obedience to the Church’s teaching leads us to communion with God and eternal life; and disobedience leads to alienation from God, spiritual death.

As the Lord proclaims in the Gospel of St. Luke, “Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required. . .” (Luke 12:48, RSV). We Orthodox Christians have been granted eternal life as a free, unmerited divine gift. Virtuous struggle against sexual temptations is hardly too much for the Lord to ask of us. The Lord honors the genuine intent of those who, with humility and repentance, so struggle, even as He judges those who, moved by a spirit of pride and defiance, persist in the spiritual delusion that unnatural or unholy sexual activity can be blessed. I have already instructed the clergy of our Archdiocese to honor their ordinations by acting in full accordance with our uncompromising Orthodox moral tradition. I expect all of us faithful to honor our baptism and unique calling as Christians.

These teachings are not onerous, but rather, part of the light yoke and easy burden of being a faithful follower of Jesus Christ.

With love in Christ,

+Jonah
Archbishop of Washington
Metropolitan of All America and Canada

Father of Israeli President Owes Life To Greek Monks

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At state dinner, Peres says that his late father, Yitzhak, as a soldier in the British Army, had been stationed in Greece.

Source: Jerusalem Post | Greer Faye Cashman | HT: Mystagogy

The Second World War and the Holocaust figured in the official addresses by both President Shimon Peres and his Greek counterpart President Karolos Papoulias at the state dinner that Peres hosted on Monday night in honor of the president of the Hellenic republic.

Peres said that his late father, Yitzhak, as a soldier in the British Army, had been stationed in Greece and had been captured by the Germans.

He had managed to escape, but finding shelter was difficult because he knew no one in Greece, and not a word of Greek. But he had found his way to a Greek monastery, where for two years, he and six other British soldiers had been hidden by the priests who, at great risk to their own lives, fed them and ensured their safety.

After two years in hiding, Yitzhak Perski and the other soldiers decided to make another bid for freedom, and attempted to sail out of Greece on a small dinghy that was quickly intercepted by the Luftwaffe. They were again taken captive by the Germans, who brought them to a POW camp not far from Auschwitz.

During the period in which he had been in hiding, Perski had learned to speak Greek and sing Greek songs.

When he returned home after a four-year absence, he would frequently gather his children and grandchildren around him to tell them Greek folk tales and sing Greek songs to them.

Whenever he hears Yehuda Poliker, the son of Greek Holocaust survivors sing Greek melodies, said Peres, it fills him with emotion, and he is reminded of his late father.

Poliker, in fact, was chosen to sing for Papoulias at the dinner, and the Greek head of state later embraced him.

Papoulias, who during his visit to Israel met with Greek Holocaust survivors and visited Yad Vashem, said that during the Nazi occupation of Greece, Jews and Christians joined forces in the struggle against the barbarous destruction wrought by the Germans and their cohorts.

In the village of Ionnina where he was born, the Nazis murdered ten Jewish families with whom he had grown up. Among the victims was his first girlfriend from elementary school. His voice broke as he recalled how the Nazis had locked the Jews in the synagogue and set fire to it while they were still alive.

Greece had paid a heavy toll in blood during the Holocaust, he said.

More than 65,000 Greek Jews had been murdered, and the number would have been even higher, had not so many simple Greek Christians put their own lives at risk in order to save the lives of their Jewish friends.

He had been very moved, he said, when meeting Greek Holocaust survivors in Jerusalem.

The Holocaust is more than the number six million, he said. Behind each victim is a name, a life, a tragedy. This is the reason, he said, that the Greek people, state and community do not turn a blind eye to any incident of anti- Semitism, racism or religious incitement.

Rev. Robert J. Sirico: The Church as the Bride of Caesar

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Rev. Robert J. Sirico

Rev. Robert J. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute criticizes Rev. Jim Wallis, the founder of Sojourner’s Magazine. Wallis, the “self-appointed chaplain to the Democratic National Committee” as Sirico calls him, was recently revealed to be taking money from George Soros, a charge he denied at first but was finally forced to confirm as more proof was offered. Sirico correctly critiques Wallis for his conflation of religion into politics, particularly using the poor to justify financial bloat and the imposition of debt on future generations.

Jim Wallis

Source: National Review Online | Rev. Robert J. Sirico

It is telling that the Washington Post report on the religious Left’s Circle of Protection campaign for big government describes the effort as one that would “send chills through any politician who looks to churches and religious groups as a source of large voting blocs,” because, in fact, this is not an honest faith-inspired campaign to protect the “least of these” from Draconian government cuts, as claimed. It is a hyper-political movement that offers up the moral authority of churches and aid organizations to advance the ends of the Obama administration and its allies in Congress.

The Circle of Protection, led by Jim Wallis and his George Soros-funded Sojourners group, is advancing a false narrative based on vague threats to the “most vulnerable” if we finally take the first tentative steps to fix our grave budget and debt problems. For example, Wallis frequently cites cuts to federal food programs as portending dire consequences to “hungry and poor people.”

Which programs? He must have missed the General Accountability Office study on government waste released this spring, which looked at, among others, 18 federal food programs. These programs accounted for $62.5 billion in spending in 2008 for food and nutrition assistance. But only seven of the programs have actually been evaluated for effectiveness. Apparently it is enough to simply launch a government program, and the bureaucracy to sustain it, to get the Circle of Protection activists to sanctify it without end. Never mind that it might not be a good use of taxpayer dollars.

It is also telling that the group’s advertised “Evangelical, Roman Catholic, mainline Protestant, African-American, and Latino Christian leaders” who are so concerned about the poor and vulnerable in the current budget negotiations have so little to say about private charity, which approached $300 billion last year. To listen to them talk, it is as if a prudent interest in reining in deficits and limiting government waste, fraud, and bloat would leave America’s poor on the brink of starvation. It is as if bureaucratic solutions, despite the overwhelming evidence of the welfare state’s pernicious effects on the family, are the only ones available to faith communities. This is even stranger for a group of people who are called to “love the neighbor” first and last with a personal commitment.

Although the Circle of Protection has been endorsed by a few Catholic bishops, the predictably left-leaning social justice groups, and Catholic Relief Services, the Catholic Church in America has long moved beyond the heady (and increasingly-distant) days of the 1980s when knee-jerk opposition to any reduction in government spending was the norm. That still holds, even if some of the staff and a few of the bishops at the Bishops’ Conference still imbibe such nostalgia.

The actions of Wallis and the co-signers of the Circle of Protection are only understandable in light of political, not primarily religious, aims. Wallis, after all, has been serving as self-appointed chaplain to the Democratic National Committee and recently met with administration officials to help them craft faith-friendly talking points for the 2012 election. And when Wallis emerged from that White House meeting, he crowed that “almost every pulpit in America is linked to the Circle of Protection … so it would be a powerful thing if our pulpits could be linked to the bully pulpit here.”

Think about that for a moment. Imagine if a pastor had emerged from a meeting with President George W. Bush and made the same statement. I can just imagine the howls of “Theocracy!” and “Christian dominionism!” that would echo from the mobs of Birkenstock-shod, tie-dyed, and graying church activists who would immediately assemble at the White House fence to protest such a blurring of Church and State.

But in the moral calculus of Jim Wallis and his Circle of Protection supporters, there’s no problem with prostrating yourself, your Church, and your aid organization before Caesar. As long as he’s on your side of the partisan divide.

Rev. Robert A. Sirico is president and co-founder of the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Mich.