Learning Our Faith from the Fathers of the Church — 20140921

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holy fathers iconI have been sharing in this article what the Eastern Fathers taught about the idea of the Original Fall, especially as it is connected with the Mystery of Baptism. They maintained that the fall resulted in human mortality and not the inheritance of sin. Thus, the Eastern Church baptizes children, not to remit their yet non-existent sins, but in order to give them a new and immortal life, which their mortal parents are unable to communicate to them. The opposition between the two Adams (i.e., Christ and the first man) is seen in terms not of guilt and forgiveness but death and life. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven; as was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Baptism is the paschal mystery, the passage. All its ancient forms, and especially the Byzantine, include a renunciation of Satan, a triple immersion as type of death and resurrection, and the positive gift of new life through anointing and Eucharistic communion.

Baptism clearly highlights the difference between Eastern and Western Christianity and the theology of each Church. Again, one is not right and the other wrong. They are just different and, according to our faith, God accepts these differences.
In this perspective, death and mortality are viewed, not so much as retribution for sin (although they are also a just retribution for personal sins), as a means through which the fundamentally unjust tyranny of the devil is exercised over mankind after Adam’s sin. From this baptism is a liberation, because it gives access to the new immortal life brought into the world by Christ’s Resurrection. The Resurrection delivers men from the fear of death, and, therefore, also from the necessity of struggling for existence. Only in light of the risen Lord does the Sermon on the Mount acquire its full realism: Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall ear or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

Communion in the risen body of Christ; participation in divine life; sanctification through the energy of God, which penetrates true humanity and restores it to its natural state, rather than justification, or remission of inherited guilt – these are at the center of Byzantine understanding of the Christian Gospel.

As I think about it, the Byzantine approach to the Gospel makes more sense for me. This is what is important. We should not get into thinking that one approach is objectively better than the other. If we wish to spiritually grow, we have to seek that which truly seems to be more in concert with our spirit, knowing and believing that both approaches to God are true but different!

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20140921

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I have, in this article, been sharing thoughts about the Spirituality of the Christian East. The difficulty that we must confront as Eastern Christians is threefold:

  1.  the influence that Western Christianity has on our thinking;
  2.  the influence the Roman Church has on our thoughts about spirituality   since our Church is in union with Her; and
  3.  the fact that we are not in union with the Eastern Orthodox Church which has the same liturgical tradition and theology as we do. (It is important to remember that there are other Eastern Christian Churches beside those typically designated as Orthodox because they use the Byzantine ritual and embrace Byzantine theology).

This raises important questions. Is there only one true theology? Is there only one true spirituality? Can we be in union with the Catholic Church and still have a different theology and spirituality? Does unity mean embracing a spirituality which does not find its genesis within the liturgical tradition of our Church?

One of the main tenets of any true spirituality is that it must find its origin within the liturgical tradition – the prayer life – of a Church. This, of course, tells us that it behooves us to have an intimate understanding of our liturgical tradition, especially our communal worship of God in the Divine Liturgy.

As I shared with you in the last issue of this article, a primary element of Eastern Spirituality is   obedience to the will of God. You might ask, how does this find genesis in our liturgical tradition? It finds its genesis there because our tradition stresses the fact that Jesus voluntarily embraced the Cross that life presented to Him. We say of Jesus, in the prayer to the Father that we offer at the beginning of the Anaphora: Who, having come and having fulfilled the whole divine plan concerning us, on the night when He was betrayed, or rather, when He surrendered Himself for the life of the world. This voluntary obedience to the plan of the Father serves as a model for us on how to live life. It is part of our spirituality. We must embrace the life given and use all its vicissitudes to grow in our union with God.

Getting to Know Something About Our Greek Catholic Faith — 20140921

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As everyone is aware, on September 1st our Church began a new Church Year. In the Roman Catholic Church, the Church Year begins on the first Sunday of Advent.

Our Church Year is so arranged that its central place is occupied by our Divine Savior. Around Him are gathered all the angels and saints. Every weekend our Church remembers and celebrates the Resurrection of Christ. The use of the Eight Tones, those used for Bright Week – the eight-day celebration of Easter – are a reminder of this tradition.

Within a cycle of a year, the Church unfolds the whole mystery of Christ, from the incarnation and birth until the ascension, the day of Pentecost and the expectation of the blessed hope and the coming of the Lord.

The most pure Virgin Mary is accorded a most prominent place after Christ in our Liturgical Year. This is evident in the various feasts in her honor.

Around the persons of Jesus and Mary we see the grand choir of the Church Triumphant that is all the saints of the Old and New Testaments. Our Church, it should be noted, has a special place for the saints of the Old Testament. They are remembered because they prepared the way for the coming of God in the Person of Jesus.

Our Church, like a good mother, also remembers during the year, all of her children who have gone on before us into eternity. There are certain days that are designated as “Souls Days”. All the Saturdays during the Great Fast are such designated days and there are several others.
The Church Militant, that is those of us currently making our journey through life, are also remembered during the year. This is done by the Church asking us to engage in spiritual works, prayer, fasting and penance. These days are meant to help us on our journey of life.
Our Liturgical Year is a mighty hymn of honor and glory to God, in which the threefold church takes part – the Church Triumphant in heaven, the Church in Transition into eternity, and the Church Militant on earth. In the Church Year the entire content of our holy faith finds its most beautiful expression. Like a colorful rainbow our Church Year joins earth to heaven and enlightens, purifies, sanctifies and lifts us up to God.

As I am sure everyone is aware, there are 12 major feasts in our Church Year, feasts of Our Lord and the Mother of God. There are other various feasts that are designated as solemn or simple which references how they are traditionally celebrated. Unfortunately in many communities it is not possible, because of the distances that members must drive, to always observe these feasts in a traditional manner. Often they are integrated with the weekend celebrations.

Saint of the Week — 20140921

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TheclaTHECLA – was born in Konya Turkey in the early part of the first century. She was baptized by Paul. She lived a solitary life. During the reign of Emperor Nero she was accused of being a Christian and thrown to the lions in the local amphitheater. The lions refused to harm her. Later she was thrown into a burning pyre from which she escaped unscathed because the fire burned out as soon as she was put into it. At this obvious miraculous turn of events, she was let go.

She spent the rest of her life in isolation dear Adana Turkey. She died in her nineties, probably shortly after the turn of the first century. She is called a Proto-Martyr because of what she endured.

Synodal letter to the faithful of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church and to all people of good will regardings the social and political situation in Ukraine of the eve of parlamentary elections

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synod_vol_hirka_33d47Be not afraid nor be troubled, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you will go (Joshua 1:9)


Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, 

For almost a year, our entire nation has been on a pilgrimage to authentic freedom. After having gone through a liberating experience with the revolution of dignity, we then endured a tragic armed conflict, the annexation of Crimea, and military incursion into Eastern Ukraine by a neighboring country. We are living through a difficult economic crisis and are constantly facing challenges in the political sphere. How can we be certain that God is with us?

Under Moses’ guidance, for 40 years the People of Israel made their pilgrimage, their passing over from slavery to freedom, from death to life, from a house of slavery to the Promised Land. How much uncertainty and fear did that people suffer in choosing to follow God’s call; how much doubt did Moses himself have to suffer because the Lord entrusted him to lead the people on this journey! The Almighty gave Moses signs of His support and presence: the facility to pray and to hear God; the Ark of the Covenant containing the stone Tablets of the Law, which taught truth and justice; the flowering Rod of Aaron that demonstrated God’s loving protection over his chosen ones. We know that the People of Israel accomplished this journey and took possession of the Promised Land.

This Old Testament story is not just a reminder but a prophecy, a sign, and a promise to us that God is with us. Then, He guided the Israelites through the desert and now He accompanies our Church and the Ukrainian People through all our present-day trials. He helps us to overcome fear and uncertainty. We also have been given signs of God’s support: the prayer during the Maidan, which triumphed over force; the land that God gave us, which nourishes and sustains life; God’s own Commandments, which teach us how to live; the martyrdom of the righteous and of our heroes who gave witness in the distant and recent past, and also witness today to the strength of our nation’s spirit and purify it with their sacrifices. No matter the grief, fear, and calamity, we know that the Lord is with us.

Our pilgrimage is a time of trials, but at the same time an opportunity for consolidation and unification. In our church hymns we pray: “God, grant us unity.” At this moment we see the incredible strength found in united efforts: in the work of volunteers, in mobilizing the population, in generous donations for the army’s needs, in the assistance to those forced to flee from Crimea and the East. These are all works of mercy and it is precisely these deeds that bring down upon us Heaven’s blessing. We must unite not only though grief, danger, fear, but in understanding our common destiny and our common future.

We urge everyone to continue to persevere in walking along the way of truth and freedom, daily building up our future with fervent prayer, solidarity with the suffering and the needy, in supporting all government and community initiatives for defending our Motherland, and strengthening God’s saving Law in our nation. We bow our heads before all the heroes who gave their lives for the freedom and independence of our country, for the dignity of every Ukrainian and every European. We express our sincerest condolences to their families, as well as to the friends and families of all those killed during the war in Eastern Ukraine. We address a special word of recognition to all who today, with remarkable and dignified sacrifice, stand guard at the front of our common freedom, and we thank those who, with their generosity and personal sacrifice, testify to God’s Truth in a time of war and great moral challenges.

We express our closeness to the families of the wounded, to those deprived of shelter and exposed to all kinds of dangers. We promise them prayerful support and encourage all priests to increase pastoral solidarity with all who suffer. We encourage all the faithful of the UGCC and all people of good will in Ukraine and in the international community to increase their common efforts to reduce suffering and provide spiritual and physical healing to the wounds of Ukrainians. We urge all who will hear us, to engage in concrete works of Christian mercy. We are not condemned by circumstances; we can and must act!

Before us lie Ukrainian parliamentary elections. Because of the radicalness of the transition, these elections are the most complex and important ones in the history of independent Ukraine. This is why we need unity today, not unity around political figures but around a common understanding of our future. The past winter showed us all how much we need an honest and independent parliament, and how important the choice of each deputy is and what huge price we pay for their dishonesty and mistakes.

In our present day, the political system depends on us because the Lord God, Who is the source of authority, has entrusted it to the people, and that is why it is our responsibility to bring fair and wise politicians to power. Perhaps each person separately does not have much impact on politicians or the situation. Be assured, however, that even one vote, one fair choice, can be crucial at the local level and facilitate common, correct decisions throughout the country. Let us not leave our responsibilities to others. Let us make our choice wisely and honestly.

In such an uncertain time, it is easy to be tempted by populist slogans that give rise to panic and promote empty criticism. Criticism can be constructive only when its goal is the common good. Constructive criticism promotes unity when it distinguishes itself from empty criticism [or: recrimination] and politicking. Do not believe those who promise instant resolutions to solve all problems. The political and economic crisis, and especially war, demonstrated that our country suffers from numerous weaknesses in many areas. In order to establish life and growth – which the Ukrainian people, who endured the Maidan, justly demand – we need profound and sustained reform that will certainly be painful and long-lasting, and which can only be implemented through the wisdom and courage of those engaged in the political sphere and through the unity of the nation.

As already mentioned, it is vital that causes of our internal problems be identified: we all observe the bleeding ulcers of corruption, avarice, moral double standards, and impunity for those in government who abused power. These are primarily spiritual wounds; thus let us find healing for them in the Spirit.

We call upon our politicians, those in office and those to-be elected. You are coming to power in an incredibly difficult time. Now it is not the time to enjoy the benefits that you have acquired – now is the time for sacrifice. The power entrusted to you involves primarily responsibility before the people who trusted you. May the sacrifice of the Maidan’s Heavenly Hundred be always before you, as well as the thousands of fallen Ukrainian soldiers and civilians in the East. May their sacrifice become the measure of your every decision.

We entrusted ourselves to God and travelled along the pilgrim’s path to dignity and freedom. This will be a long pilgrimage, and not everyone will witness its successful conclusion. Moses was chosen by God and yet he did not reach the end. And neither did Patriarch Josyf, who brought us forth from the house of slavery. Only Metropolitan Andrey saw it, and then only in a vision granted him before death. The Heroes of the Heavenly Hundred did not see it. But all these just mentioned have one thing in common: they led and endured to the end and then passed the torch to us. We must remain loyal to their guidance!

Much uncertainty lies before us: we do not know where our journey will lead us and how many sacrifices it will require, how many soldiers of light will be necessary to deliver us out of darkness. We do not have the answers to many of these questions. No one does. Only the Lord has the answers, and He says: “Fear not! Go forth! I will be with you!” In this we can be certain. And so, let us go forward with God!

The blessing of the Lord be upon you!

In the name of the Synod of Bishops of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church

+ SVIATOSLAV

September 14, 2014

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We bow to Your Cross, O Master,
and we praise Your holy resurrection

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This weekend we celebrate another major feast of our Church, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The servant of God, Andrew Sheptytsky, wrote: The veneration of the Holy Cross of the Lord is one of the most significant aspects of the worship of the God-Man. Signing ourselves with the sign of the Cross is one of the oldest customs of Christians. The Holy Cross is the ultimate symbol of Christ’s victory over Death. Whenever we sign ourselves with the sign of the cross, we profess our faith in our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

Our Epistle reading this weekend is taken from Paul’s first letter to the Church in Corinth. He writes:

The message of the cross is complete absurdity to those who are headed for ruin,
but to us who are experiencing salvation, it is the power of God.

The power of God is manifested in the Cross. Think about the significance of this act of God. He embraced, in the Person of Jesus, the ultimate act of human hatred and violence, crucifixion on a cross, and transformed it into a life-giving act through His willingness to forgive those who thrust it upon Him. He showed humankind that the way to accomplish spiritual growth is to freely embrace the challenges of life and transform them by enduring them. The true power of the Cross is found in Jesus’ voluntary acceptance of it and His willingness to respond to the brutal hatred of others with love. He refused to allow His suffering and the hatred directed toward Him to change the way He chose to live, that is with love for others. He voluntarily endured the suffering that others inflicted upon Him by returning their hatred with love and forgiveness. He demonstrated the transformative power of love and forgiveness.

I truly believe that we, who say that we believe in Jesus Christ, must sincerely consider the lesson He taught us by His voluntary acceptance of the Cross. The Cross demonstrates the power of living like Jesus lived. The Cross is the ultimate summary of all of Jesus’ teaching. It clearly makes real His teaching on how to respond to the challenges of life.

The Cross also makes us keenly aware that human life is never without suffering and challenges. They are interwoven in life in order to help us come to understand the true meaning of life. They are also the only adequate means to bring about personal transformation. Human history shows us that it is only when humans are challenged that they seem to develop the courage and strength to change. When life is without any struggle, people become complacent and embrace self-centered ways of thinking and behaving. Ease of living and luxury don’t have the power to create saints. Jesus exhorts us to take up our crosses and follow Him.

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20140914

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As I shared with you, Mark’s Gospel has only eight verses on the resurrection. As Mark tells the story: “and very early on the first day of the week … when the sun had risen,” three women, names as “Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome,” go to the tomb of Jesus to anoint him with spices. Expecting to find his body, they walk into his tomb. They are met by “a young man, dressed in a white robe,” presumably an angel, who tells the women, “Do not be alarmed” (this is a frequent biblical expression also translated “fear not” and “be not afraid”). The white-robed figure continues: “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.” “Look” is the old “behold”: “Behold, there is the place they laid him.” And he was no longer there.

Gospel-of-Mark-GraphicThen the white-robed figure promises that the women and Jesus’ other followers (the disciples and Peter are mentioned) will see Jesus in Galilee: “There you will see him, just as he told you.” This promise, along with the empty tomb and the white-robed figure’s interpretation of it, are the heart and climax of Mark’s Easter story. It would have been a grand ending to the first gospel. But Mark has one more verse. It is the end not only of his Easter story, but of his gospel as a whole. The women “fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

Mark’s ending has been puzzling for a long time, beginning in Christian antiquity. New endings were added in the early centuries of Christianity, a shorter one from no earlier than the fourth century and a longer one from the late second century. The longer endings are often printed in English translations and often (though not always) identified as such. But our best ancient manuscripts end with “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”

In the modern period, Mark’s ending has attracted scholarly attention. Some scholars have argued that Mark either didn’t have a chance to finish his gospel or that it did originally have a longer ending that got lost very early. Their primary reason is that they find it hard to believe that a gospel could end the way Mark does. But the majority of scholars think the gospel did originally end with 16:8.

Though Mark’s ending may be strange and puzzling to us, it may not have been to his community. Local circumstances may have made the ending exquisitely appropriate. Perhaps it was enough to trigger connections to what they all knew. We have to always remember that the gospels are not historical accounts of what actually happened but, rather, writings meant to stimulate belief in Jesus Christ.

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20140914

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Mystical Supper

Mystical Supper

In understanding the Divine Liturgy we must realize that the Church, influenced by Judaism, saw the importance of calling together the People of God into a visible community in order to manifest and make real the unity that belief in One God creates. It is in the gathering together that the message of God becomes real! While a person can believe in God without gathering together with others who also believe, the symbol of what God revealed is not made manifest without the genuine gathering of believers. The Church as the Body of Christ extended in time does not become real without the gathering of believers. This is why we are repeatedly called to be Church (i.e., the gathering of believers). It is when all meet together at the Church’s call – men, women, children, adults and aged, rich and poor – that true worship and praise of God occurs. Why? Because it bears witness to the fact that God created one, human family. So the creation of community by the gathering of believers bears true witness to our understanding of what God attempted to accomplish when He created humankind. The gathering together for the sake of worshipping God bears witness to our understanding of God’s intention when He created humankind. It is only man’s limited understanding of God’s intent that keeps men and women from recognizing the unity that God intended within the human family. The recognition of this unity is a fundamental part of our worship of God.

Consider this! The two gifts that we use in our worship, bread and wine, are only made by transforming many grains of wheat and many grapes into bread and wine. For both of these food products a certain invisible gas or spirit is needed to make them combine into a whole. Yeast is needed to meld flour into one mass, dough, which is then transformed into bread. Fermentation is needed to blend many grapes into one fluid, wine. So too, the Spirit of God is needed to transform many people into a community – a Church.

So even the gathering together as Church – a community of believers – has a message for us. We need to think about this as we come together. Although we may come individually to worship, it is our recognition of our unity as the People of God that gives sense to our worship. A critical part of our worship of God is our recognition of and thanksgiving for life as a gift from God. We cannot truly recognize this gift, however, if we don’t recognize that the gift of life has been given to all of humankind, forming us into one human family. The recognition of this truth is also key for genuine worship. We recall the prayer in the Liturgy: We offer to You, Yours of Your own, in behalf of all and for all. We thank God for life and for the unity of all humankind.

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20140914

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One of the elements of Eastern Spirituality is obedience to the will of God. To obey, in the context of scripture, means to lend an ear to the expression of another’s will, and to respond to it. Obedience, then, is being subject to the will of another and acting in accord with the other’s will. In the context of spirituality this means being subject to the will of God.

This is quite frequently, I believe, misunderstood. People have the tendency to attribute all events of life that they consider difficult or bad as being the will of God. This is not what is meant by the will of God.      

The diligent search for the will of God is therefore the ground rule of spiritual practice in the Eastern Church. The ascetics took the love of God’s will so far that in the one area where they could have escaped it, that of personal initiative, they wanted to make sure that they would never deceive themselves. The great problem for them was, where is the will of God manifest?

Crucifixion-1Everywhere in the ancient Near East lived men judged to be capable of receiving a message from the divinity through direct inspiration. “As for prophecies, they will pass away,” St. Paul exclaimed. But this will be at the end of time. In the presence Church, Evergetinos believe, the “leaders among the Fathers had as their master not a man, but God and their conscience, and they became enlighteners of the world.” He could have mentioned here echoes of the struggle of Symeon the New Theologian in favor of the privileges of spiritual men: “They are rare, but they are found nevertheless, these men who were led by the Holy Spirit from the beginning, who personally did not need human guidance, and still became leaders of men later. Something to be admired but not imitated, considering our human weakness.

So true spirituality requires that we come to a clear understanding of the will of God. Think about it. What do you see as the will of God for you? Suffering and personal sickness are, in my estimation, not the will of God and not punishment for personal failings and mistakes. So then what is the will of God?

Learning Our Faith from the Fathers of the Church — 20140914

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There is indeed a consensus in Greek patristic and Byzantine traditions in identifying the inheritance of the Fall as an inheritance essentially of mortality rather than of sinfulness, sinfulness being merely a consequence of mortality. The idea appears in Chrysostom, who specifically denies the imputation of sin to the descendants of Adam; We find this also in other subsequent Fathers, such as the eleventh-century commentator Theophylact of Ohrida; and later Byzantine authors, especially Gregory Palamas. But there are not the only Fathers who have presented a different idea about the “fall” of Adam. The always-more-sophisticated Maximus the Confessor, when he speaks of the consequences of the sin of Adam, identifies them mainly with the mind’s submission to the flesh. Sin remains for Maximus a personal act and inherited guilt is impossible. For him, as for the others, “the wrong choice made by Adam brought in passion, corruption and mortality, but not inherited guilt.

The contrast with Western tradition on this point is brought into sharp focus when Eastern authors discuss the meaning of baptism. Augustine’s arguments in favor of infant baptism were taken from the text of the creeds (baptism for “the remission of sins”) and from his understanding of Romans 5:12 (you might want to look this up). Children, according to Augustine, are born sinful, not because they have sinned personally, but because they have sinned “in Adam”; their baptism is therefore also a baptism “for the remission of sins.” At the same time, an Eastern contemporary of Augustine’s, Theodoret of Cyrus, flatly denies that the creedal formula “for the remission of sins” is applicable to infant baptism. For Theodoret, in fact, the “remission of sins” is only a side effect of baptism, fully real in cases of adult baptism, which was the norm, of course, in the early Church and which indeed “remits sins.” But the principal meaning of baptism is wider and more positive: “If the only meaning of baptism were the remission of sins,” writes Theodoret, “why would we baptize the newborn children who have not yet tasted of sin? But the mystery of baptism is not limited to this; it is a promise of greater and more perfect gifts. In it are the promises of future delights; it is a type of the future resurrection, a communion with the master’s passion, a participation in His resurrection, a mantle of salvation, a tunic of gladness, a garment of light, or, rather, it is light itself.”

First and foremost, in my mind, it is the initiation into a way of thinking and behaving – into the Jesus Way of Living. This is why we ask Godparents to be people of faith so that they might help their children grow in the faith. This is also why we ask parents to be church-goers if they want their children baptized.