antiochian orthodox christian archdiocese

Antiochian Orthodox Church Affirms Traditional Marriage

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– A resolution affirming heterosexual marriage was passed unanimously at the Antiochian Convention in July of this year.

I was present when the resolution came to the floor and would have tweaked it a bit by using the term “sex” instead of “gender” (the collapse of sex — biological particularity — into gender is one of the great confusions of our age); establishing the moral ground of natural marriage more firmly (the natural is never separated from the sacramental thus the moral validity of heterosexual marriage precedes the sacramental expression of it); avoiding the term “orientation” (it clouds theological notions of ontology) and a few other items.

However, we were voting on a resolution, not a theological apologetic so I passed on the comments and voted yes.

Resolution to Oppose the Recent United States Supreme Court Decision That Held the “Defense of Marriage Act” Unconstitutional

Source: Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese

WHEREAS, on June 26, 2013 the United States Supreme Court, in the case entitled “United States v. Windsor”, following much controversy, ruled that the law known as the “Defense of Marriage Act”, (“DOMA”) was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court case of Windsor invalidated Section 3 of the “Defense of Marriage Act”, which defines marriage in all federal statutes as the union of one man and one woman. By invalidating Section 3, of “DOMA” the Court in Windsor now permits all federal agencies to redefine marriage to include unions of two people of the same sex.

WHEREAS, the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, under the direct leadership of his Eminence, Metropolitan PHILIP (Saliba), and the Archdiocesan Synod, continues to shepherd its faithful members throughout all of North America, and as such, are deeply concerned about the recent developments regarding “same sex marriage”.

WHEREAS, the Holy Orthodox Church recognizing marriage to be a Sacramental Union teaches that marriage and sexuality, which are firmly grounded in Holy Scripture; Two thousand years of church tradition; and canon law, holds that marriage consists in the conjugal union of a man and a woman and that authentic marriage is blessed by Almighty God as a Holy Sacrament of the Church.

WHEREAS, The Holy Scripture attests that God created man and woman in His own image and likeness (Genesis 1:27-31), that those called to do so might enjoy a conjugal union that ideally leads to procreation. While not every marriage is blessed with the birth of children, every such union exists to create of a man and a woman a new reality of “one flesh” This can only be achieved in a relationship between individuals of opposite gender. “God made them male and female…So they are no longer two but one flesh” ( Mark 10:6-8).

WHEREAS, the Holy Orthodox Church also teaches that the union between a man and a woman in the Sacrament of Marriage reflects the union between Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5:21-33). As such, marriage is necessarily monogamous and heterosexual. Within this union, sexual relations between a husband and wife are to be cherished and protected as a sacred expression of their love that has been blessed by God. Such was God’s plan for His human creatures from the very beginning.

WHEREAS, the Holy Orthodox Church is cognizant that God’s divine purpose is increasingly questioned, challenged or denied by society, i.e. as secularism, relativism, social and political pressures work to normalize and legalize “same sex” unions.

NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, this 51st Archdiocesan Convention, duly assembled at Houston, Texas, from July 21-28, 2013, resolves through the hierarchy, clergy and laity of the Antiochian Christian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America: that the Holy Orthodox Church cannot and will not bless “same sex” unions of any degree. It is further resolved that marriage between a man and a woman is a Sacramental Union ordained by God, homosexual unions are not. Like adultery and fornication, homosexual acts are condemned by Scripture (Rom 1:24-27; 1 Cor 6:10; 1 Tim 1:10). However, this being said, we must stress that a person with a homosexual orientation is to be cared for with the same mercy and love that is bestowed by our Lord Jesus Christ upon all sinners. All persons are called by God to strive toward holiness.

Metropolitan PHILIP Saliba – On the Record

Note October 14, 2010: A few days ago I posted this interview (a very good one, BTW), then took it down, but I am putting it back up but disabling comments. Why did I take it down? I took it down because Met. Philip, a flash-point in the blogosphere right now, is also my hierarch. On a personal level, the man has been very good to me, taking me in and going to bat for me when I was mistreated by another bishop. On a corporate level, I am aware of the complaints and while I think some of them need to get ironed out, some of them are too personal and distract from what I see as the larger problem at hand: a clash of Eastern and Western sensibility and culture that, 1) the OCA was forced to confront when the ties to the Mother Church was cut by the Bolsheviks in 1918, 2) the GOA refuses to confront by building a false mythology of primacy, 3) the AOA has moderated by essentially building two churches side by side but which are now rubbing up against each other.

St. Paul ordaining Titus in Crete

I am not, like some Orthodox, reflexively critical of all things Western. It’s a remarkable thing that the marauding tribes of Europe — the Goths, the Gauls, the Vandals, the Vikings, etc. — heard the Gospel that came from the East, embraced the Christ revealed through it, and then built a civilization that produced the most stunning achievements the world has ever seen. It is, in its own way, as remarkable as the transformation of Classical civilization that began when St. Paul first set foot on Crete.

The West carried forward much of the best of Christian/Hellenic ideals after the Muslim domination of the East. The Magna Carta, the US Constitution, the ideals of freedom, liberty, human rights, a high value of human life, Christian humanism — ideals that must be properly defined of course and, frankly, not always practiced — had their genesis in the East but reached a development in the West that needs to be recognized, embraced, and strengthened. Our churches reflect that tension between East and West — that groaning of how to reconcile and build a Church in a culture that was shaped by sensibility at once familiar but also different, especially for those raised with more of an Eastern orientation.

Ossios Lukas (Venerable Luke) Monastery

I’ve lived in Greece. I’ve been to the (good) monasteries, many times in fact. I led the the college segment of Ionian Village for five years and came to rely on one monastery in particular as the place where the person seeking God but having great difficulty finding Him would finally meet Him. I saw this happen time and time again. So I know the depth of faith that can exist in the East, that transformative, regenerative power of God’s Holy Spirit that works in the places of antiquity where faithful men and women followed Christ for centuries and still follow Him today.
Continue reading →

Bishop Thomas on the Manhattan Declaration

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Thomas, Bishop of Charleston/Oakland and Assistant to Metropolitan Philip of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese, posted an informational item on the Manhattan Declaration and included links to educational resources on the sanctity of life and marriage. Bishop Thomas encouraged his flock to share his message with parishioners in the diocese. Key paragraphs:

Bishop Thomas of Charleston (AOA)

1. With regard to abortion, the Orthodox Church forbids it. We do everything we can to align ourselves with the mind and teachings of the Church.

2. With regard to marriage, we obviously only bless marriages between one man and one woman. “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife; and the two shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). Having said this, it is also important for us to understand that the union between a man and a woman should exist within the Mystery of Holy Matrimony.

3. The Scripture clearly forbids homosexuality. It is not necessary for me to direct you to Scriptural passages that deal with this issue. The Tradition of the Church speaks with one voice concerning the expression of sexuality as proper only between a man and a woman who have been united as husband and wife. Homosexuality is clearly outside of the proper, blessed, and life-nurturing context of Holy Matrimony.

4. With regard to the freedom of religion, we, of course, support the freedom of each person to make a choice concerning religion. Orthodox Christians likewise possess the freedom to reject the teachings and practices of all non-Orthodox religions and secular ideologies. Love and tolerance for others do not imply agreement or consent. We reject such “political correctness.” As Orthodox Christians, we must reject and respond to attempts by non-Orthodox groups to inhibit us from speaking, teaching, and living the inalterable Tradition. Since the days that immediately followed Pentecost, Christians have lived up to their responsibility to say “yes” to Christ and “no” to false gods and ideologies that contradict the true Faith.

We recognize the authority of the state, endeavor to obey the civil laws established to preserve order in society, pray for our leaders, and prefer to work in cooperation with the state (symphonia) for the good of men. Christ taught us to “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s” (Mark 12:17, NKJV). When edicts of the government conflict with the divinely revealed Orthodox Faith, we are obliged to disregard such edicts, insofar as they contradict the Faith, and continue to live according to the Tradition as our sainted Fathers and Mothers have done throughout the generations before us. When the temporal state attempts to usurp the divinely-rooted authority of the Church, our obedience to God and loyalty to His Kingdom must prevail. As the Holy Apostles said, “We ought to obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29, NKJV).

Read Bishop THOMAS on the Manhattan Declaration on the Antiochian Web site.

Sign the Declaration here.

Orthodoxy and Obama’s conscience clause

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A friend sent me an email earlier today. Search Google, he said, with the terms conscience rule obama catholic bishops and conscience rule obama orthodox bishops and then compare the two.

Not very impressive. (Actually, the AOI blog article on Abp. Demetrios’ awkward praise of Pres. Obama ranks first in Google, but that’s beside the point.) It got me to thinking.

If there is ever a need for Orthodox unity, the time is now. The authority of the Orthodox moral tradition far exceeds our numbers, but that authority has to be exercised. As long as we remain disunited our voice is muted and the culture does not receive the direction it needs. The Catholic Bishops understand this, just as they understand that the life issues are a matter of not only personal life and death, but cultural life and death. That is why they are ready to use their authority to clarify these issues and, if necessary, offer moral resistance. It is time for us to step up too.

Apart from the GOA, the Orthodox jurisdictions are consistent in their defense of life. We certainly could — and need — to do more, but there is really no confusion about what the tradition teaches. Met. Jonah, like all the OCA primates before him is a leader at the March for Life. The AOA published a stellar essay in The Word (Orthodoxy and the Unborn Child .pdf), a few months back with clear teaching on abortion. The cover featured an icon of the Virgin Mary and Elizabeth with Jesus and John the Forerunner in-utero. Powerful stuff. I have to assume all the other jurisdictions teach the same thing although they don’t have the public prominence of the “Big 3.” The GOA, as we know, stays silent on these issues for fear of offending the liberal politicians they need to cultivate; an odorous off-shoot of the Hellenism-Orthodoxy confusion that afflicts the leadership.

Imagine if we had a functioning synod of Bishops who understood the workings of American culture and who could speak to these issues with the clarity that the Orthodox moral tradition provides. We might actually make a difference. We certainly would be lighting a candle for those looking for light.

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Antiochian monasticism speaks to the current crisis…

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From the Ochlophobist (one who has an aversion to crowds) website:

The following is very important. It was written by Archim. Touma, who is said to be the most influential monastic under Antioch. He is Athonite in spirituality, he leads the most traditional monastery under the Holy Synod of Antioch, and he does not normally comment on ecclesio-political matters.

Highlight:

And what is to be said about the canonical disorders that we’re up to our ears in over there?

The situation of all the Orthodox eparchies dependent on mother churches in North America is uncanonical. There is one Orthodox church in those lands whose situation is sound and canonical: the American Orthodox Church (OCA). This alone is independent and autocephalous and this is de-facto recognized by the other Orthodox eparchies. Its recognition, formal or implicit, by the eparchies depending on mother churches is clear and frank confirmation that the status of these eparchies is uncanonical and unsound. If these eparchies and mother churches on which they depend were to be logical with themselves and consistent with Orthodox ecclesiological and canonical thought, in the true sense of the word, then they would belong to the OCA or would at least enter into an understanding with it and the thorny crisis of the Orthodox presence there, theologically and canonically, would end. The simplest position and the most sound is for us to leave the Orthodox in North America to themselves and to encourage them to arrange their affairs themselves! We and the other mother churches are the ones who are complicating their affairs!

Ed: The analysis applies to all Orthodox jurisdictions.

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Pastoral Care and the Crisis of Power

In the See of Antioch, at the current time, there is a confrontation, a crisis of opinion, and painful consequences may follow. Are the bishops, within an eparchy that is headed by a patriarch or a metropolitan as an ecclesial administrative unit, bishops over a territory and a faithful people, or are they auxiliary bishops (asaqifa musa’idun)?

The traditional position, within the Orthodox ecclesiological framework, makes the bishops within a single eparchy brothers and the primate (mallak) of the eparchy first of all the first among equals and secondarily the head of a local council, governed by principles and canons and made up of the bishops of that eparchy. This assumes that each of them oversees a territory and a people. In principle, bishops are not titular or auxiliaries, dependent upon the metropolitan or the patriarch.

But, historical events came about in past eras that divided some bishops from their territories and their flocks, as happened in the Byzantine Empire after the fall of some of its regions to the Ottomans. It was hoped at the time that exiled or refugee bishops would return to their regions. However, matters became more complicated and situations worsened and such bishops found themselves permanently exiled from their flocks. Or, the dioceses which they had overseen in principle were emptied of their Orthodox people. Continue reading →

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