I’m sure things have changed over time on Athos. You’re problem does not seem to be with change but with Athonite attitudes toward ecumenism. I assure you that the majority of Orthodox probably agree with them to some considerable extent (given that the majority of Orthodox are Slavs).

I assume the observation about the “quaternity” was in reference to the internal movement within Roman Catholicism to make the Virgin Mary a “co-Redemptrix”. That this movement failed does not mean that the sentiment has died out.

As far as Pat. Bartholomew, the Athonite monks rightly criticized him for receiving a pope with the honors of an Orthodox bishop. Historically, the Orthodox have considered Roman Catholicism to be a her*sy. St. Mark of Ephesus did, St. Gregory Palamas did as well as the Patriarchs and synods of Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria in their response to the 1848 Letter to the Easterners. That opinion is the mainstream of Orthodoxy. The more reserved tendency to consider the RCC as merely schismatic is the product of political correctness. You hear it often from the Greeks and I suspect that it has something to do with the time Pat. Bartholomew spent at the Pontifical Institute in Rome. Even his ecclesiology is colored by Roman ideas.

In condemning ecumenism, the Athonites are an inspiration to us all – – a reminder that Orthodoxy has always considered itself the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Rome used to be quite unequivocal in living out the implications of their view that they are the Church. Lately, in allowing Orthodox and non-Chalcedonians to commune if they ask, in saying that the Church subsists chiefly in the RCC and in saying that the Orthodox Churches are indeed truly “Churches” but with a defect, Roman Catholicism has departed from principle in favor of . . . well, who can say?

True, but I think what Orthodox mean by change and what the uninitiated mean by change are two different things. The incredulity may have something to do with no apparent “paradigm shift” for centuries (to use their terminology). Even if some things do change, they never violate a broad understanding of essentials. There’s no reductionism also there certainly is refinement, or, if something new is established, it retains harmony with has always been.

Those elements I think are rare in the modern age and why it appears that Athos praxis is timeless.

Rob, if a monk’s path leads him outside of the monastery, he seeks a blessing from his elder and goes. That happens now and then. The Orthodox Mission in Calcutta for example was started by a monk who lived on Mt. Athos at the time. The vow is made to God, but He is the ultimate arbiter of it. That’s how it can change.

Look, you admit above that it may very well be the same thing. We don’t know for sure. What I do know is that it is wrong to speculate that the monk is acting out of malice – – which you clearly did above – – without knowing all the facts.

“It stroke me as cruel, vain and unchristian, God forgive me if I’m wrong. His laugh appeared to me more like the nervous laugh of a person who was getting too near to a truth he did not want to see (in this case, the sin of hurting his dying father for the sin of spiritual vanity) and needs to cover the pain, than for the reasons he gave. Again, God forgive me if this is judgemental, but it’s the impression it left on me.”

You condemn him based on nothing more than your emotional reaction to incomplete facts and some “mind reading”.

Michael,

yes maybe. In that case, it would make sense.

And by the way, I’m not condemning anyone. To condemn a person is to say he is going to Hell or to have an attitude of putting the person apart from me. I’m doing neither. I’m criticizing, always with relativization because of the partial knowledge, what seems to be denial to offer comfort to a dying person just because of bad analogy with a Gospel passage, which, *if* true, would be spiritual vanity.

Obedience and respect is *not* accepting as good everything just because it comes out of a monk, bishop, priest, deacon or even a saint. They are references and better references than us most of the time. But in the end, I will be judged by who I am, not by who they are. And who I am is pretty much informed by how I discern the world around me. Both the discernement or the lack of it, will affect what I am, and how much I love God and my neighbours, and in the end, *this* will be the final criteria wherein those who are inside the Church will remain in it or not in its post-eschatological manifestation.

I never said that Christians in general should ignore their parents. What I did say was that the situation of this monk is analogous to that of the contemporary of Christ who was told not to go “bury his father”. To follow the Savior in the flesh would be the type of commitment that a monk makes. Thus he forsakes everything, even his previous identity

.

I know. My point is that 1) he is not in the situation of the “bury his father” guy in the Gospel, and 2) his father is a real person, not a trait of identity. It’s like the abortion thing: it’s a child, not a choice. Putting that behind in life means, yes going to the monastery, yes spending your life there, even though your parents may have wanted you to be a lawyer or a doctor and marry a beautiful wife and give them many grandchildren. To ignore a dying parent’s beg for a last visit, that I cannot see how it is *not* a break with every call for compassion.

As far as the rest of what you wrote, you wrote above: “The *only* criteria Jesus said in no equivocal words about admittance to heaven is to visit the sick, feed the hungry, in sum, show love toward our neighbours in action.”

That has never been the Church’s teaching. It’s not that it is inaccurate as far as it goes, it’s just that it leaves too much out. He also said, “No man cometh to the Father but by me.” And Peter said that it was through the name of Jesus alone that we know salvation. One cannot simply mouth ones faith and neglect the works you listed – – true enough. Christ was explicit on that as well. But it does matter what you believe.

It’s really a matter of levels of detailing. Alright, He said “not if not by me”, “only by Jesus’ name” etc etc. But, what does that mean in practice? Scott, these are way too generical affirmations. *Anything* could fit in “going to the Father through Jesus Christ”. So, if there is *one* place where He stated in a very clear and detailed way which the criteria of the Last Judgment will be, it is in that passage, that is part of one of His escathological discourses.

The criteria for the Last Judgement is not the same thing as defining what the Church is before the Parusia and what constitutes participation in it. But simply states how both Church members and non-Church members will be judged.

I’m also not sure that there is a distinction between the two situations in terms of living vs. dead. I recall reading that the term the man who approached Christ used could mean to stay with his father at his death bed and then handle the funeral arrangements.

I remember reading from a missionary blog that while in Turkey he heard the expression from a local, that he had to “bury his dad”. The other day he was talking about meeting his dad on the weekend. They explained that the expression meant “saving money for future dare needs” and that he thought it might have been the meaning it had around 30 A.C. as well.

Christ made it a point to force a distinction between two types of relations – – blood and faith. “Who are my mother and brothers?”

And yet He did not deny comfort to His desparate mother at the Church. He *did* say that when the blood relations were used to deviate Him from teaching the people, but what He did while she was crying at His feet is very different.

By the way, coming out of the Bible and into Church oral and pictorial tradition, we see the Resurrected Christ tell St. Mary Magdalen to not touch Him, what could be a symbol of monastic detachment from the past, even from dear friends. But when His mother died, He did not shun leaving Heaven itself to come receive her soul. This is what our icons teach us: http://is.gd/p3DKTG

Condemning the monk for doing the same type of thing that Christ told someone else to do is rather misguided.

My point is precisely that it is not the same thing.

“It is a “mere” family obligation, a psycho-social ritual, the kind of thing every Christian should detach from.”

That’s amazing. On the one hand you begrudge a monk for a decision which was obviously given considerable thought and prayer by him and his superior. On the other hand you suggest that Christians in general, if they have a parent die and the other relatives ask them to come to share their grief, should avoid it.

Who’s being harsh?

I think you missed the point entirely. I said precisely what you said before: that funerals and similar stuff are *social* things, in your words not attending them is a “social taboo”. So, for a monk, who breaks away from a number of social conventions, not attending a funeral would be harsh, yes, but understandable. To have as his own the Christian commitment of soothing the pain of every sick person, of every sufferer *except* his father, that is what I cannot understand.

Actually, Theodore, “outside of this world” means outside of the normal world of humanity. They are called to be angels and devoted to prayer. Early on in the Church, most all Christians lived a life in the world but not of the world. That became more difficult as the Church emerged from the shadows and became first tolerated then established. It was around that period that monasticism in the sense we know it became established. Not all are called to live “outside the world”, but Christ Himself said that if you want to be perfect, go sell everything you have, give it to the poor and follow Him uncompromisingly.

Some definitely are caled to live “outside the world”.

The disconnect comes from being unaware or ignoring spiritual warfare and the efficacy of prayer. A monk pursues theosis. Part of that endeavor is to quell the passions within him. This is not easy. Worldly attachments complicate matters infinitely. The normal emotional ups and downs of dealing with worldly situations and difficult people are distractions for a monk from “getting his own house in order” to receive the Holy Spirit. This entails discipline in habits, but also emotional discipline – – getting and keeping his heart clean and clear as much as possible and allowing it to be filled with God’s grace.

Monks also pray for the Church and all humanity and we believe that their prayer is efficacious and a form of warfare against the evil one and his minions. So, no, it’s not a waste of time. However, if a monk is immersed in the world, perhaps it is a waste of time unless he is an exceptionally holy monk who is unwavering in his equanimity.

I spent some time in a Trappist abbey in New York. I can see how, for some who may have at one time misused the things of this world, a life of austerity, discipline, renunciation and reflection can be a powerful means of drawing closer to God. We all, at times, need to fast and deny ourselves. I spent a good, solid year avoiding almost all television and radio and attending daily services. It was difficult but, for me at the time, necessary.

At the same time, I consider vows to be serious things: one should never make a vow without an intent to keep it. To promise to keep to the monastic life seems problematic however, considering that one’s spiritual growth may lead one out of that path and life and into something else. That is, unless I misunderstand monastic vows.

Wow … What a useless endeavor the life of a monk is?!
http://sceptik.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/interview-with-father-andrew-philips-2009/

Father, everything is happening so fast around us, as if we don’t have enough time. Stress is the main word for each of us. It even affects the Church. It might be a foolish question, but how can we get rid of stress? More and more people are depressive. Especially in the West, with this financial crisis… We see in the media, TV, newspapers, many youngsters that are upset with life and choose to kill others in their path. They take a gun and just shoot everyone they meet, and then kill themselves. How come? Could it be that most of them, almost all of them, are treated for depression? Who’s to blame? Education? Friends? Television?

FrA – Lack of prayer is to blame. Without communion with God, the human being goes mad, because where there is no prayer, the demons invade. These young people who go berserk and shoot ten or twenty people, are possessed by demons. The demons are killing. Demons have no bodies, they need bodies to operate through them. This is why they possess people. It is very easy to do this now, because so many people, especially among the younger generation, are not baptised. The modern world is calling up all the demons from hell. Soon, if this continues, God forbid, hell will be empty, for all the demons will be on earth.

They don’t go “out of the world” in the sense you might think Theodore. What they do is order their life by a different calculus, like people who prefer living way out in the country, or in small towns, for example. It’s a different life but it has its community, its service, its work, its responsibility, but also a different way of approaching, even seeing, how life functions. If you have ever visited a monastery you will see that although they life their life differently than you and I do, they give back a whole lot, especially to the pilgrims who visit.

When I ran Spiritual Odyssey at Ionian Village, I always had a few people who had the hardest time encountering God. There was a lot in their background that hindered them such as abuse, or years of promiscuous living, and so forth. I knew that they joined the trip to find God (people don’t go on religiously themed events otherwise), but they needed something deeper than what people with less trauma needed. I knew that they would find it at a monastery called Osios Lukas (the Venerable Luke).

And they would. Some kind of divine miracle would occur meant for them, and for them alone. It got to be predictable in a sense. They would finally meet God, although of course it could be upsetting for them. The way they were seeing the world had to shift, and that kind of shift, while welcome, still took some adjustment.

The monastery was a holy place. There are all kinds of monasteries, some are better than others, and this was a good one. These events happened for the people because of the monastic life there. You could say that God could have accomplished that anywhere, but I don’t put much credence in theoretical speculations. My experience was that it always happened there, a concrete space-time event in a specific place. It was the prayers of the men who lived there that made it happen.

I never saw them as “out of the world.” I saw them as present more deeply in the world, in a way that I and others could not reach. Their manner of life enabled them to provide the help in the way they did, primarily through their prayers.

That is an assumption on your part that is without any evidence to support it. Maybe his father wanted another chance to heap abuse on his son for becoming a monk in the first place and to offer him curses and official disinheritance. You don’t know, you have no way of knowing and it is none of your business. You are still offering a condemnation of a fellow Christian simply because you don’t like the choice he made. That’s ridiculous. Leave the monk alone, leave him to his prayers and attend to your own life.

Fabio,

Two points:

“What the line of thought being presented by Raphael and Scott implies is that a Christian should be compassionate about everybody; except your own parents.”

You’re knocking down a straw dummy. I never said that Christians in general should ignore their parents. What I did say was that the situation of this monk is analogous to that of the contemporary of Christ who was told not to go “bury his father”. To follow the Savior in the flesh would be the type of commitment that a monk makes. Thus he forsakes everything, even his previous identity.

As far as the rest of what you wrote, you wrote above: “The *only* criteria Jesus said in no equivocal words about admittance to heaven is to visit the sick, feed the hungry, in sum, show love toward our neighbours in action.”

That has never been the Church’s teaching. It’s not that it is inaccurate as far as it goes, it’s just that it leaves too much out. He also said, “No man cometh to the Father but by me.” And Peter said that it was through the name of Jesus alone that we know salvation. One cannot simply mouth ones faith and neglect the works you listed – – true enough. Christ was explicit on that as well. But it does matter what you believe.

I’m also not sure that there is a distinction between the two situations in terms of living vs. dead. I recall reading that the term the man who approached Christ used could mean to stay with his father at his death bed and then handle the funeral arrangements. Regardless, ignoring funeral arrangements for a relative at that time was a very serious social taboo.

Christ made it a point to force a distinction between two types of relations – – blood and faith. “Who are my mother and brothers?”

Condemning the monk for doing the same type of thing that Christ told someone else to do is rather misguided.

“It is a “mere” family obligation, a psycho-social ritual, the kind of thing every Christian should detach from.”

That’s amazing. On the one hand you begrudge a monk for a decision which was obviously given considerable thought and prayer by him and his superior. On the other hand you suggest that Christians in general, if they have a parent die and the other relatives ask them to come to share their grief, should avoid it.

Who’s being harsh?

Replying to Raphael and Scott about burying the dead and similar arguments:

His father was not dead yet. I *could* understand that if someone had phoned a monk and said “Listen, your father has unfortunately passed away. The rest of the family would appreciate you coming to the funeral” and he declined. It is a “mere” family obligation, a psycho-social ritual, the kind of thing every Christian should detach from.

That was not the case. His father was alive and in need of consolation. It was a suffering person begging for a demonstration of mercy and love. And a his own father on top of that.

What the line of though being presented by Raphael and Scott implies is that a Christian should be compassionate about everybody; except your own parents. Whatever meaning those hard words of Christ may have, I am sure it is not about being uncompassionate with the sufferings and pains of our own parents. Christ was harsh with the Virgin Mary and His step-brothers when they wanted privileges from Him. But while His mother was in agony at the feet of the Cross *because* of His kenotic self-sacrifice, He immediately offered Her consolation by putting her at the care of St. John.

I think the words of Christ regarding this is about parents actions that aim at preventing you from living a Christian life. In that case compassion is not advisable because it would be to share in their lack of love for Christ. But to deny consolation to them, even if they were Christ-haters? I doubt so. God loved us when we hated Him and calls us to imitate Him.

Replying to Scott about what is necessary for salvation:
That is a vastly complex question. Will there be non-Church people saved? Will there be Church be condemned? Why? What’s the criteria?

It is spelled very clearly in St. Matthew 25:34-46:

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed {thee}? or thirsty, and gave {thee} drink?
When saw we thee a stranger, and took {thee} in? or naked, and clothed {thee}?
Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done {it} unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done {it} unto me.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did {it} not to one of the least of these, ye did {it} not to me.
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

The King will not ask what do you believe, what do you think, nothing of this. He will ask only: Have you loved Me *through* the love for your neighbour?

Maybe you have learned to do this through monastic asceticism. Maybe through marriage. Maybe through social work. The means are less important. But whichever means, if they do not produce, in the end, love for God through love for your neighbours, them it was sterile like the fig tree and shall be cast away. One does not enter monastic life to have extasis, visions of God or angels, to have daily liturgies but *only* to be able to love more. This is the end and target of ascesis, and *true* visions of Eternity a mere consequence since it through Love that we enter it.

The importance of the correct doctrine and of the correct glory is that it guides us (potentially) to a more perfect love. A Roman or Protestant will never have perfect love for the Spirit of Truth while they think that a specific element of the Church (the head of bishops or the Scriptures) actually has a specific attribute of the Third Person of the Trinity, namely, infallibility and the prerrogative of guiding the Church in times of doubt and turmoil. That’s how they may end up deviating from the love of God, since it prevents them from understanding the full nature of the name “Spirit of Truth”.

But if salvation depended on our rational understanding of doctrine, or on the quality of our faith I fear no one would be saved. Love shines through all our imperfections though. And that’s probably why God has told us that this will be the ultimate criteria for our Eternal Participation in His Body.