This rises no higher than a bland and unfocused scolding. Churches that have adopted the gay agenda are dying. Churches that have a clear teaching on sexuality are growing. This does not translate into any condemnation of the person struggling with the same-sex passion because everyone struggles with some kind of passion. However, neither does it allow for the amorphous, undefined, sentimentalized emotion you call love and empathy that sees those who struggle with the passion as victims; a condescension that denies personal volition and thus robs a man of hope.

“serve demonic forces”…”waver into heresy”; how can you speak with such aggressive language? Fanatics and fundamentalists from all faiths have no place reading the work of great men like Metropolitan Kallistos.

If you prioritise love and empathy in your theology, you may find yourself closer to having a fraction of Kallistos’ wisdom.

One can posit many scenarios and each one requires a different response because people are different. There is no argument here because this is simple common sense.

Proper judgments have to be made however and the ground for making them has to be more than the overwrought sympathy of the diagnostician. Otherwise you end up in the place Sister Vassa did. Confusing sympathy with compassion also requires that the person struggling with passion (any passion, not just same-sex attraction) be seen as a victim which diminishes his personal volition and responsibility. The diagnostician feels morally vindicated but the struggler is weakened.

In the Orthodox Church, in Eastern and Latin Catholic churches, and in the teaching of the Church Fathers which undergirds the theology of those communions, economy or oeconomy (Greek: οἰκονομία, oikonomia) has several meanings. The basic meaning of the word is “handling” or “disposition” or “management” or more literally “housekeeping” of a thing, usually assuming or implying good or prudent handling (as opposed to poor handling) of the matter at hand. In short, economia is discretionary deviation from the letter of the law in order to adhere to the spirit of the law and charity. This is in contrast to legalism, or akribia (Greek: ακριβεια)—strict adherence to the letter of the law of the church.

I totally agree with you and with Reader Dr. Alfred Kentigern Siewers that the Church must not change its teachings on what a passion is to accomodate the time. I just don’t think that Metropolitan Kallistos Ware is saying that we must. I think he is raising the question of the proper treatment of the gay people who have come to church and are confessing their sins.

From what I understood, a gay person who has chance encounters and then comes and confesses them and receives communion and then falls again and comes and confesses and receives communion seems to be in a better situation that a gay person that lives with another gay person and maybe even wants to end the relationship but doesn’t want to hurt this other person or needs time or needs to gain courage and ends up with the harsher decision than the person who has no commitment.

Maybe the answer will stay the same and maybe it should stay the same. I personally believe it should but I know a thing or two about passions and the gay person might not know anything about them and how they don’t allow us to become our true selves. (It took me years to stop associating myself with them and start seeing them as the shakles I want to break to begin living and those were the years spent in church.) So maybe the gay person who entered church and started a conversation with a priest needs to be treated with patience. With patience, tact, and love so that he doesn’t end up broken by the harsh decision of the priest.

It’s not a hypothetical question for me either ’cause I live in the world and have relatives and friends lured by the “will o’ the wisps” of the world. I love them. I want them saved.

Sincerely,
Katarina

This is the same line of reasoning that got Sister Vassa into so much trouble.

“Oeconomy” (economy) and theology don’t conflict. Economy refers to a loosening of normative disciplines for pastoral considerations. Economy never violates the teachings of the moral tradition.

Yes, healing requires a doctor but first the malady must defined as just that — a malady. The definition is not, as you assert, a separation that prevents entry into the Church but rather a diagnosis, a description of the malady that must be seen as a malady in order for the proper therapies to be a applied. If one does not see the sin as a malady, then healing cannot happen. Moreover, if a person does not desire the healing, then he separates himself from the Church by his own decision. The Church, like Christ, always respects the freedom of the person.

To understand this better, read the life of St. Mary of Egypt. Her life shows how this works.

However, if the diagnostician concludes that the Church’s teachings are wrong and embarks on a course the violates the moral tradition like Sister Vassa did, then the problem lies not with the person struggling with same-sex desire but with the diagnostician. A kind of overwrought empathy replaces authentic compassion where the malady is seen as fixed, as native and natural to the human being, where passion of same-sex desire becomes essentialized.

Authentic compassion requires a correct assessment of the malady, while overwrought empathy causes the diagnostician to internalize the pain of the struggler and make it his/her own. The diagnosis becomes subjectified and the blame shifts to the Church in order to alleviate the discomfort of the diagnostician in the presumptive conclusion that this relief will assuage the pain of the struggler as well.

Sister Vassa could not see this and it appears you don’t either. It is better not to enter the arena until the reverse transference is recognized and the distinctions between economy and theology are better grasped.

Oh my. I just read the history of your “autocephalous archdiocese and metropolia”. No Apostolic Succession, no autocephaly, syncretistic theology, internal divisions, vagantes. My word!

Mr. Stankovich,

I appreciate your loyalty to the priest Robert Arida, I really do. Loyalty in this utilitarian age is far too rare and little understood. Still, when you say that you disagree with my assessment of the belief of this man I don’t see how. Everything you say points to the veracity of this assessment. A man who refuses to hear can not believe.

We all know “good” men who are unbelievers. During my time in the Episcopal church I knew a great many of these unbelieving good men. As you point out a man is reflected in those who he surrounds himself.

In any case I would never try to argue you out of your loyalty. I will pray for the priest Robert Arida and for the great mass of unbelieving good men that surround us in these latter days – the ruins of Christendom that is our heritage!

Dr. S, your comment here about Fr. Robert Arida is, at once, empathetic, insightful, compassionately honest, and prophetic–like the ancient prophet Nathan himself–without compromising on any moral points. I was moved when I read it.

Met. Phillip said it best, “We do not discuss abominations.”

The real concern is that the shock value of homosexual relations, and the consequent ostracism, has been reduced to the “ick factor” or even less. That bodes ill for Western society.

Christopher,

I apologize for the tardiness of this response. I have only met Met. Kallistos once, so I am unqualified to comment, but I must disagree with your assessment of Priest Robert Arida, “we already know that each in their own way do not believe in the normative moral tradition or the anthropology Scripture/Fathers/Tradition.” This is absolutely incorrect. I have known Robert Arida for 45-years and have loved him as my own brother. He was my first roommate at St. Vladimir’s Seminary and laid a groundwork for me, all of 18-years old, for a love of the Classics, the Ancient Greek philosophers, the Patristic Fathers, and the idea of critical thinking. Of all things, he introduced me to the Strand Bookstore at E 12 and Broadway in lower Manhattan, a veritable Hogwarts of my day, each floor coughing up used “treasures,” books beyond your imagination, and at a cost a poor student could afford. What kind of man does this? He is frequently depicted as “malevolent,” calculating, and manipulative. In person, he is genuine, warm, gentle, introspective, thoughtful, and a man of piety. Now, if you are saying to yourself, “And so were Arius and Nestorius; and weren’t you the one above describing “delusion?” Point taken.

Again, I can only limit my comments to Priest Robert Arida by saying that we began a dialogue at the time of infamous “Wonderblog” posting, and like everyone, the dialogue ended in silence; actually, he referred me to one his parishioners to continue the “discussion,” which was as good as silence, and a hurtful insult. Fr. Hans once asked me, on this site, as to what I thought was going on with him. At the time, I said that he – like many of us – struggle with the great moral issues of our generation “blindly,” not in the sense that the Church lacks a moral teaching for our ethical and anthropological theology, but rather an “articulation” that speaks to our generation (as has been done in all generations), and the moral voice to defend it. A number of years ago, for example, when I was sarcastically challenged as to my “plan” for educating the “public square” the Orthodox Church’s position on the sanctity of Christian Marriage: at each wedding conducted, distribute a short statement – emphatic, but not offensive – and perhaps the priest could read it after the Sacrament itself. Madonna Mia! You’d have thought I suggested making sacrifice to Mollock. “Whoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mk. 8:38) Returning to my point from the previous post, but we are not in need of a self-appointed team of “experts” to instruct the Church as to the meaning of “Living Tradition.” In my opinion, we are in need of Hierarchs competent and capable of re-articulating the Truth we hold, and faithfully defending it.

I believe Priest Robert Arida began the dangerous path that always leads to division: secretiveness, isolation, and silence. We depend on the essential contribution of others to see what we cannot, or much more importantly, will not see or admit about ourselves. And the problem is always potentiated and exacerbated when we surround ourselves with people who agree with us. Professor SS Verhovskoy, of blessed memory, Professor of Dogmatic Theology and Ethics at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, once responded to the question, “Can Satan repent?” by saying: “My dears, the parents of our Father Basil the Great, were saints of the Church. His brother and sister were also saints of the Church. It is reasonable to conclude he had the inclination to be a saint of the Church. But never forget that the corollary: the devil surrounds himself with so many other devils to the point where he is so disinclined to repent, that the Fathers conclude he is incapable of repentance.” You are as blind as those around you share, or sadly allow.

I conclude this rant by illustrating my point with the finest example of blindness I can offer, from 2 Samuel 12, which recounts the aftermath of King David having placed Uriah the Hittite in a position where he would be killed in battle, so that David could have his wife. The Lord sends the Prophet Nathan to the King, who tells him the story of a great injustice perpetrated against an innocent man. David becomes enraged and demands exactly how the injustice should be rectified (blah, blah, blah), until Nathan speaks four words that everyone us, at varying points in our lives, essentially needs to hear: “You are that man.” And Nathan concludes this shocking confrontation by noting the direct message of the Lord, “For you did it secretly: but I will do this thing [the application of justice] before all Israel, and before the sun.” It is not a matter of my dear brother believing in the “normative moral tradition or the anthropology Scripture/Fathers/Tradition.” He simply closed the door on Nathan. And rather than scorn him, I ask you to pray for truly one of the best men I have ever met.

There is an odd fatalism about modern secular ethics. Man is not a free agent who is capable of making reasoned decisions: rather, he is the culmination of passions and drives which must be fulfilled at all costs, and woe to those who interfere!

The true Christian community is called instead to a life that is a harmony of the life of contemplation and the life of politics. But that is very far from us today. Instead of this life, which is a life of true knowledge, where the rational soul experiences light and freedom of action, we are returning to a pagan state of slavery, where ignorance causes darkness in the rational soul. Unrestrained desire leads to unrestrained hatred, as we see daily in the headlines. The spiritual principles of life were well-known to our Christian Fathers, for Christ Himself expressed them, and people experienced true enlightenment, healing, freedom and joy by liberation from the destructive passions of the soul and body. And today such insignificant people such as I enjoy this freedom. But now the majority follow the path of Demas, loving the fleeting pleasures of this world, and we have become skeptical that such a healing can exist.

Only when we and our Bishops return to expressing ourselves in the spiritual language of the Church, immersing ourselves and delighting in it, not in an academic language, and laboring for the excellencies expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, will we be able to heal ourselves and our fellow man.