Gaining a Deeper Understanding of Our Faith — 20161002

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image379I have been attempting to share with my readers the struggle that the Fathers had around finding the right Greek word to express how it is possible for us to believe that God is Three-In-One and that Jesus is both God and Man. It all rested with the proper use of two Greek words, ousia and, of course, hypostasis.

The distinction between “ousia” and “hypostasis” is the same as that between the general and the particular; as, for instance, between the animal and the particular man. Wherefore, in the case of the Godhead, we confess one essence or substance so as not to give a variant definition of existence, but we confess a particular hypostasis, in order that our conception of Father, Son and Holy Spirit may be without confusion and clear. If we have no distinct perception of the separate characteristics, namely, fatherhood, sonship, and sanctification, but form our conception of God from the general idea of existence, we cannot possibly give a sound account of our faith. We must, therefore, confess the faith by adding the particular to the common. The Godhead is common; the fatherhood particular. We must therefore combine the two and say, “I believe in God the Father.” The like course must be pursued in the confession of the Son; we must combine the particular with the common and say “I believe in God the Son,” so in the case of the Holy Ghost we must make our utterance conform to the appellation and say “in God the Holy Ghost.” Hence it results that there is a satisfactory preservation of the unity by the confession of the one Godhead, while in the distinction of the individual properties regarded in each there is the confession of the peculiar properties of the Persons. On the other hand those who identify essence or substance and hypostasis are compelled to confess only three Persons, and, in their hesitation to speak of three hypostases, are convicted of failure to avoid the error of Sabellius, for even Sabellius himself, who in many places confuses the conception, yet, by asserting that the same hypostasis changed its form to meet the needs of the moment, does endeavor to distinguish persons.

I realize that this may not be easy to read and, therefore to comprehend since we are talking about a MYSTERY. But I do believe that the Fathers came up with a way to preserve the ONENESS of God while, at the same time, professing belief in God as Trinity.

Understanding Our Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church — 20161002

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setp14The twelve major feasts of our Church can be divided into various groups. The first is the “Core Group.” This group consists of the Crucifixion of Christ, His Resurrection and Pentecost.

In terms of major feasts, the ante-Nicene Church was characterized by simplicity and a contentment with limiting general festal observance to three feasts, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and Pentecost, which apparently had arisen while Christianity was still a sect of Judaism.

The Jewish Pascha or Passover, which begins on the fourteenth day of Nisan, commemorates the salvation of the Chosen People from bondage in Egypt. It is followed by a fifty day penitential period which culminates in the Feast of Weeks, a harvest festival and celebration of the giving of the law to Moses on Sinai. As Jewish sectarians, the very earliest Christians ob served these same feasts both according to Jewish tradition and in commemoration of Christ’s death, the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit. Eventually the Christians broke with Judaism and devised their own method for determining the date of the Pascha so that the Feast of the Resurrection might fall on a Sunday. The Feasts of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection were essentially observed as one feast and correspond to the Jewish Pascha, while Pentecost corresponded to the Feasts of Weeks.

These feasts make up the Core Group not only chronologically (except for the Epiphany none of the others was celebrated as an independent feast for three or more centuries), and calendrically (except for the Dormition and the Transfiguration all of the others are calendrically determined by the Core Group, but also – more importantly – doctrinally. According to Eastern Christian belief, salvation is possible only through the death, resurrection and ascension of Christ who was both God and man, and through the descent of the Holy Spirit. During the first three centuries of Christianity, the Ascension was celebrated either on the Feast of the Resurrection or on Pentecost. Since the Ascension only took on an important character under Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 315-386), it will be considered as part of the Cyrillian Group, the second group of feasts.

The Core Group commemorates Christ’s death and resurrection and, at the same time, reinforces the basic elements of fundamental Christian doctrine of salvation. This Core Group truly celebrates the main action of God to bring us to greater communion with Him. Chronologically and theologically this is our Core Group of feasts.

Acquiring the Mind of Christ — 20161002

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christ_iconI ended the last issue of this article by sharing the fact that St. Augustine, the originator of the idea of Original Sin, greatly influenced Anselm. By the way I would hasten to remind my readers that the idea of Original Sin is not found in the Bible and was the conclusion of St. Augustine as he thought about the story of Adam and Eve and their rejection from the Garden of Eden. In truth, the Eastern Church never really embraced that idea.

After Anselm’s and subsequently Peter Abelard’s “revolution” in Atonement theology, most of the West became further estranged from the Eastern Church’s experience. Thus arose a host of new supposed “developments” in theology from Catholic and Protestant scholars: Vicarious Atonement, which placates God’s anger (talk about making God in man’s image); Don Scotus’ “merits” for the predestined; and indulgences, which apparently can “pay” the Church the fee for the offenders’ sins (this one caused Luther to mount his great PROTEST).

Four hundred years after Anselm, the Roman Catholic Council of Trent, which was largely called in reaction to the Protestant Reformation, was compelled to define the exact nature of Atonement in agreement with Anselm’s new understanding. This Council established that at the core of Anselmian Atonement was St. Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin.

The Augustinian doctrine of Original Sin, which entails all of Adam’s posterity inheriting guilt, sets certain parameters for the Anselmian doctrine that do not exist in the Eastern Church’s biblical-patristic mindset. Due to a faulty translation of Romans 5:12 in St. Jerome’s Vulgate (the Latin translation of the Bible), St. Augustine formulates the doctrine that not only do all men inherit mortality and the inclination to sin, but they are guilty and legally liable before God for Adam’s sin. This doctrine profoundly affects the perspective of how one is saved and from what he is saved.

I wonder whether any of my readers ever asked themselves about what they needed to be saved from. I suspect that since our Church has been so influenced by the Roman Catholic Church, which looks to Anselm and Augustine, many have never even dared to ask the question: How and from What has Christ saved me?

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20161002

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Ladder of Divine AccentI this article I have been sharing the STEPS on the Ladder of Divine Ascent of our Father among the Saints, John Climacus. I have already shared the first 25 steps of his spiritual path for growing in our greater likeness to Jesus Christ. I would not share STEP 26, which is DISCERNMENT. I am sure that many probably have not heard of this attitude of the mind. Here is what St. John says in introducing this step:

Among beginners, discernment is real self-knowledge; among those midway along the road, it is a spiritual capacity to distinguish unfailingly between what is truly good and what in nature is opposed to the good; among those who have worked hard, it is a knowledge resulting from divine illumination, which with its lamp can light up what is dark in others….

If you have been following along with this article, you have probably already noticed that the steps on John’s Ladder are not independent of one another. The passions and virtues are not to be understood in isolation as distinct steps. We may have made a beginning of various virtues, but we have yet to make any advanced progress in them, and so many passions continue to dominate us in spite of our little spiritual development. To reach the heights of spirituality, we must keep battling on in every aspect of Christian life. One virtue alone may be able to save us, but only all of them combined can lead us to holiness and the likeness of God. In a similar way, true discernment requires mastery over all the passions, but that is not to say we may not all be able to make a little progress in it.

There are three stages in discernment:

  • Self-knowledge;
  • Ability to distinguish between good and bad;
  • Divine illumination.

In order to understand discernment, I’ll attempt to examine this virtue in each of these three stages. As you might guess, this is an important STEP.

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20161002

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Holy-NapkinWhile there is no one particular way of interpreting the Scriptures in the Eastern Church, a certain attitude and perspective is necessary to maintain while studying the Bible. It is summed up in the Eastern Christian concept of Theoria. Although this approach in no way discounts the value of academics and scholars, theoria is primarily a spiritual way of perceiving the Truth. The one who has theoria sees history and Biblical truth through the eyes of faith and spiritual experience. Without this spiritual vision, no matter how much he or she knows, he will never understand the Bible.

The East is grateful for the benefits gained through modern Biblical research, but it is not supremely focused on data. Theoria sees value in research only if it can be used to (1) increase the Church’s ability to better discern what God is trying to say to her, and (2) if it can deepen each Church member’s love for God and his brethren. These two goals are a work of the Spirit, above all else.

Theoria sees a message for this time and this generation of believers, a word that is heard and acted on. No one who reads the Scriptures in accord with the principle of theoria can say he knows the Scriptures but does not live them. According to theoria, the one who does not live the Word, does not know the Word. Theoria is a vision where God’s Word is personal, living, immediate and applicable. Theoria’s spiritual character has been presented in this manner:

….Byzantine theologians within the Ro-man Empire from around the fourth to the fifteenth century, presupposed a concept of Revelation which was substantially different from that held in the West. Because the concept of theology in Byzantium was truly inseparable from theoria, theology could not be, as it was in the West, a rational deduction from ‘revealed’ premises (i.e., from the statements of the hierarchy of the Church or from Scripture). Not that a rational deductive process was completely eliminated from theological thought; but it represented for the Byzantines the lowest and lest reliable level of theology. The true theologian was the one who saw and experienced the content of theology; and this experience was considered to belong not to the intellect alone, but to the ‘eyes of the Spirit.’ which place the whole man – intellect, emotions, and even sense – in contact with divine existence.

Theoria is a “spiritual perception of the one sent by God, possible only to the believer. It is an insight into God’s Word that cannot be received by one who is not deeply and spiritually involved in the Word of God as a means of finding focus true and real focus to his life.

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20161002

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Holy Eucharist IconIn the last few issues of this article, I have been dealing with the concept of ANAMNESIS, that underlying idea which is the foundation of our worship of God. It is this actualizing memory of what Jesus did before He died.

One liturgical scholar, Dennis Smolarski, cites three Biblical verses, two from the Old Testament, wherein this covenant-anamnesis link is clear. In Exodus 13:8, the LORD instructs Moses: “On this day you shall explain to your son, ‘This is because of what the LORD did for me when I came out of Egypt.’” This covenant by which God had granted Israel “the land of Canaan” (Exodus 6:4) is remembered and applied to the relationship between God and Israel. Then, in the present tense in Deuteronomy 6:28, we read “God brought us from there to lead us into the land… promised on oath to our [ancestors], and to give it to us.”

Like Smolarski, the National (now United States) Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) has argued that “the Christian concept of anamnesis” has Jewish roots and is tied to the covenant theology and worship practice of ancient Israel. According to them, anamnesis in Christianity “coincides with Jewish understanding of zikkaron,” a Hebrew word that is rendered memorial reenactment. Smolarski, however, explains it as remembrance “that makes the effects of [a] historical event present and effective for the believer.”

According, however, to Christian understanding, the covenant by which God bestowed Canaan upon the Israelites, having “struck down the Egyptians” but having passed “over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt”, has not been abrogated. On the contrary, much as Israel has been instructed to commemorate “the Passover sacrifice of the LORD”, Christians make present for all time the salvific and kenotic Passover offering of Jesus Christ. The Pasch of Christ, by which a new covenant is established between God and humankind is not a supercession but the actualization and fulfillment of the ancient covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob . As the NCCB’s Committee on the Liturgy notes, “the synoptic gospels present Jesus as instituting the Eucharist during a Passover meal celebrated with his followers, giving to the Passover a new and distinctly Christian memory.

In the Liturgy, we make real, in the present moment, our covenant with God as actualized by Christ, our brother.

Learning Our Faith From the Greek Fathers of the Church — 20161002

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capadociosI suspect that at times this article probably becomes rather obtuse, especially when attempting to deal with all the debates that went on about the nature of Christ. This article is about Christ as Savior in the thinking of the Eastern Fathers. I am sure that, if you have been following this article, you have come to the awareness of the struggle that the Church went through in order to come to the understanding about Christ that we presently have as a Christian Church. The struggles of the Fathers led to this awareness: Christ is God incarnate and, as such, He is truly and fully God and truly and fully man and that His human behaviors and thinking were that as a human, and not as God. Because He was a man who believed in God, it was His human faith that connected Him to God. The Greek Fathers realized that He had to be fully human so that we could imitate Him. They also realized that He had to be God so that He could be the archetype of what humans were created to be.

In the last issue I introduced the idea that during the Liturgy we are joined with Christ in offering praise to the Father. It is clear, therefore, that the prayer is being answered precisely because it is Christ Himself in the assembly and through the assembly, who offers it to His Father, whereas the members of the community are, through the power of the Spirit, his adopted children “in Christ” and, corporately, the “royal priesthood.” In them and through them Christ offers the sacrifice. He is “the one who offers, and is offered, who receives and is received, but they are inseparable from him: “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ,” and “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hears crying, ‘Abba! Father”. Third, in the Eastern Eucharistic canons, the invocation of the Spirit (epiklesis) is not an invocation on the bread and wine only – as if they were “elements” to be transformed somewhat independently of the gathered community – but on the assembly and the elements. Remember that we are asking God to transform US as we do again what Christ did at the Last Supper. In Christological terms the Eucharistic action implies that the Son of God, who assumed human nature brings that nature to his Father in a sacrifice, offered once for all, and that those who have received the same glorified nature by adoption or by grace, are joining that one High Priest, through the power of the Spirit who anointed him as Christ.

Think about this!

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20160924

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Transfiguration

Transfiguration

The Eastern Church’s perspective on biblical inspiration is that the bible is, first and foremost ecclesial, that is closely connected to the fact that it is the sacred scriptures of the Church, the People of God. The “eucharistic and trinitarian” approach to all aspects of theology is the approach most widely used by the Eastern Church. Eucharistic theology, as we might guess, gives preeminence to the local communities and the contextual character of Christian life. Trinitarian theology, on the other hand, points to the fact that God is, in God’s own self, a life of communion and that God’s involvement in history aims at drawing humanity and creation in general into this communion with His very life. The implications of these affirmations for the proper way of dealing with the Bible are extremely important: the Bible is not primarily read and studied in order to appropriate theological truths or doctrinal convictions, or to follow moral commands and social or ethical norms, but in order to experience a life of communion that exists in God. And historically this was the way the Bible was approached by certain groups of religious persons, namely as an inspiring means for personal spiritual edification; as a companion to achieve holistic personal growth, to reach theosis in other words; to share the communion that exists in God. This tradition of Divine Reading or lectio divina, is, of course, by no means a characteristic of the Eastern Church alone. It belongs to the entire Christian tradition. All this means is that the traditional attitude to the reading of Scripture is personal. The faithful consider the Bible as God’s personal and inspiring letter sent specifically to each person as a means of helping the person reading it grow in their experience and relationship with God. The words of Scripture, while addressed to us personally, are at the same time addressed to us as members of a community. Bible and Church are not to be separated. In the East, the task of interpreting the Bible was entrusted not just to biblical scholars or clergy but to people who the community recognized as being spiritual people (i.e. starets) – people who others respected as leading truly spiritual lives. Why? Because they realize that personal change only really takes place when a person internalizes the Way of Jesus and adopts, especially, His way of thinking – when they acquire the mind of Christ or PUT ON CHRIST. (Important to note, our Divine Liturgy is heavily Scriptural).

Holy Scripture is but one vehicle that God uses to draw us into communion with Him.

Reflections on the Scripture Readings for this Weekend — 20160924

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callAs we complete the 19th week after Pentecost, our readings are taken from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians and Luke’s Gospel. They seem to contain two rather different messages.

In Paul’s letter he shares the fact that he was given a “thorn in the flesh” in order that he might not become conceited. He also reveals that he prayed to God that this thorn might leave him but the response from God was simply this: My grace is enough for you, for in weakness power reaches perfection. Paul then shares his response to this message from God saying: And so I willingly boast of my weaknesses instead, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

Paul is truly sharing with us how he came to understand that the challenge – the cross – given to him by life was his way to salvation.

In our reading from Luke’s Gospel we hear the story of Christ calling His first disciples. He, a carpenter, asked fishermen to put out into the deep for a catch of fish even though they had toiled all night and caught nothing. Peter, after he informed Jesus of this fact, says: but if you say so, I will lower the nets.

Of course, as one might expect, they caught so many fish that another boat had to come and help them. Upon seeing this great catch Peter again addresses Jesus and says: Leave me, Lord. I am a sinful man. It was obvious that he didn’t believe they would catch any fish even though he did what Jesus asked.

Although we have heard over and over again that life’s challenges are opportunities for us to spiritually grow and that God has and will give us sufficient strength to meet these challenges, I suspect that more frequently than not, we probably don’t put much trust in these words and don’t believe that good will come out of the challenges we have to face. The all too human response seems to be: its too hard or its not easy! Somehow we humans seem to believe that to come by good things has to be easy and we fear having to put effort into our spiritual growth.

Perhaps that is the real challenge of life, overcoming the thought that only good things in life have to easily come to us and that there is no real value in those things that are difficult to achieve. I bet if you asked any of our Olympian athletes, they will tell you how wrong this thinking is. They know that good only comes from hard work.

Ask yourself: Am I really willing to do the work needed to come to the fullness of life?