CALLED TO HOLINESS — 20160612

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Use whatever word you wish: doctrine, teaching or tradition, they are all important to a healthy spirituality. Traditional Eastern teachings about the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation and the Church make it possible for us to really know God, or at least know Him in accord with our limited human intellects. They are so important because what you believe about God is going to affect how you think about Him, and thinking wrongly can really mess up an attempt to develop any kind of relationship. Eastern Christians are concerned about right believing, or correct doctrine, because we learned long ago that ignoring the directional signals leads us not to some king of freedom, but to a colossal train wreck.

For example, many people today like to think of Jesus in very human terms, placing Him in all kinds of modern settings – what would Jesus drive, or would He work at Wal-Mart – supposedly in order to get a better handle on how to understand His teachings today. Do the Nativity scene in modern dress and pretend He is just living next door to us; take Him some cookies when He moves in. This results in a dandy heresy known as Arianism; seeing Jesus as someone who is human enough, with some divine attributes, but not quite God. This heresy has been     popular since the third century, and we slip into it all the time. The problem here is that a Jesus who isn’t God can’t really do much for us, other than invite us to barbeques and help u hang up the outdoor lights at Christmas. He certainly cannot save us; since he is not equal to the Father as God, he has no power to do so. If this kind of vision shapes your spirituality it makes having a relationship with Christ somewhat silly and sentimental rather than saving.

So a real part of our developing our spirituality is determining exactly what we believe about God, Christ and ourselves. It takes some reflection. Of course we know that it is difficult to understand Who God and Christ are since they are beyond our comprehension. We can, however, determine what we think THEY ARE NOT! They are not limited like us human beings!

Learning Our Faith From the Greek Fathers of the Church — 20160612

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Although Cyril’s Christology needed to be more clearly defined, the Council of Chalcedon did not, in any way, disavow Cyril. It only attempted to answer the legitimate fears of the Antiochians that Cyril had fallen into Apollinarianism. Not only does the Chalcedonian definition itself specifically ascribe the title of Theotokos to the Virgin Mary, but – after some hesitation in the second half of the fifth century – the Eastern church at the Fifth Council (553) reaffirmed that the criteria of Christological truth resides in Cyril and Chalcedon.

St. Cyril of Alexandria

St. Cyril of Alexandria

I think that it is important to note that there were several major schools of theology in the early Church. They were connected with two of the major Churches, the Church of Antioch and that of Alexandria. They were two of the five primary Patriarchates (the other three primary Patriarchates were Jerusalem, Rome and Constantinople).

We must remember that Cyrillian Christology implied that divinity and humanity were compatible, but also that Christ’s own particular humanity, although it was assumed with all the consequences of its incompleteness, was deified through the cross and resurrection and thus revealed the true purpose of creation in conformity with its divine model. Christ was the New Adam because, in him, humanity and divinity were united.

The Christological definitions of the councils of Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451), and Constantinople II (553) – as well as the dogma of Constantinople III (680) on the two wills of Christ – entered the common tradition of Eastern and Western Christendom. However, the West remained somewhat reluctant in the face of the doctrine of “deification.” Resistance against the council of 553 – and the Roman popes who accepted it – lasted until the seventh century. Even later a more analytic and more rational concern for    preserving   the    humanity of   Jesus – in   a way similar to the tradition of the Antiochian Father Theodore of Mopsuestia — remained prevalent in Western Christological thought. Redemption and salvation tended to be understood as a real “reconciliation” with God rather than as a restored “communion” with God. Of this trend the Anselmian theory of redemption as “satisfaction” was the ultimate result. This trend is still very, very prevalent in Western Christianity. The Eastern Church has always had a different approach to its understanding of both redemption and salvation!

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20160612

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Ladder of Divine AccentSt. John’s 21st Step, FEAR, is very confusing to many Christians since on one hand we are called to trust in God and then on the other hand we are called to “Fear God.”

I have often been questioned about the “fear of God” that we even hear about in our Liturgy. Many times people try to soften the call to fear God by saying that the better word is “awe” instead of fear. We are called, they say, to stand in “awe” of God. I must confess that I too have been guilty of trying to soften the word “fear” since true love of God cannot be governed by fear in the sense that we usually use it. In the Old Testament it seems that there was actual “fear” of God. He truly punished His people when they disobeyed His laws.

But the fear of God is not a paralyzing or timid fear. On the contrary, fear of God pushes us to do good, to repent and become more like Christ. This kind of positive fear is aptly expounded in the second-century Christian work, The Shepherd of Hermas. He wrote:

Fear the Lord and keep His commandments. For if you keep the commandments of God, you will be powerful in every action, and every one of your actions will be incomparable. For, fearing the lord, you will do all things well.

Unfortunately, in contrast to the teaching of Hermas, there are many Christians who live in fear of the devil, demons, magic and curses. This displays a terrible lack of faith. Such fear is truly contrary to God’s providence. The teaching of Hermas is echoed by many other Fathers: the demons have no power. They can only tempt and frighten, and have no power other than what God permits. When we fear them, we make them real and we give them power over us. When we keep ourselves focused on God and give God all power over us, demons cease to exist in a real way. They have no power over us.

GAINING A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF OUR FAITH — 20160612

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image379In the last issue of this article I suggested that our Eastern spirituality interprets Paul’s letter to the Romans as saying: “because of death all sin” instead of “because of sin all die.” Because of linguistic limitations of Latin, St. Jerome had to choose one or the other meaning of this phrase. He wrote it in Latin as “because of sin all die.” This has become the standard position of the Latin tradition. As a result, the Latin tradition, following Saint Augustine and Saint Anselm, tends to view the relationship between sin and death in a more juridical sense. That is, death is punishment. This led St. Anselm to say that the purpose of the Incarnation was to produce a suitable victim for a sacrifice which would appease the justice of God. Through his death Jesus pays the ransom for our offenses.

Byzantine spirituality tends toward a more existential or psychological understanding of the relationship      between sin and death. If death is “punishment” in the Latin tradition, it is “consequence” in the Byzantine, and this distinction is important. Gregory of Nyssa can say that “death is the final remedy.” He comments in a most    nonwestern way on the “garments of skin” with which God vested Adam and Eve. Gregory teaches, therefore, that with the “garments of skin” God implanted in Adam and his descendants our physical nature (as opposed to human    nature), our physical needs, our appetites and instincts, as medicine so that we can make our way to Him. Therefore, our   incompleteness is the means presented to us to allow us to develop a deeper union with God and transform ourselves so that we are more like Him, as seen in the Person of Jesus.

The East and West interpret salvation in a much different way. Instead of seeing our incompleteness as only being corrected through true obedience as the Western Church does, the Eastern Church sees the attainment of our completeness through knowledge of the meaning and purpose of life. The Eastern position is based on the biblical admonition and exhortation: “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Again, I am not trying to suggest that one approach is right and the other wrong. I am, however, saying that they are different and either can lead to salvation if we understand them and attempt to live by them.

Gaining a Deeper Understanding of the New Testament — 20160605

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Emmaus

Emmaus

I have been presenting some ideas about the Divine-Human origin of the “inspired books.” Since the people of Israel became known as the people of the Book because of their respect for the written law, it was natural that the doctrine of inspiration should first form around their concept of the origin of the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament [OT]). According to the doctrine, which gradually took a more developed form, the Torah was caused by God before the existence of the world and was revealed to Moses by mental-oral instruction, or by delivery of the written text of the Pentateuch, or by literal dictation. This divine causation extended, even in the most material sense, to every part of the Pentateuch (though a few exceptions, e.g., the curses in Dt 28, were sometimes made), so that a plenary divine origin was ascribed to the entire Pentateuch. Under this influence, the doctrine of the divine origin of the Prophets and the Writings also sprang up. Yet here the divine causation was not conceived in such a plenary fashion. The Prophets and the Writings were written under the influence of the spirit of Yahweh, but this influence was not thought to be the cause of every jot and title, as in the case of the Torah. Nevertheless, the divine origin of the Prophets and the Writings was fully accepted; these books “soiled the hands” just as truly as did the books of the Torah.

[An aside. Given this very Semitic approach, we can see how Islam considers the Koran to be the exact dictation of Allah. We will see that Christians have various ideas about this same subject].

The doctrine of the divine origin of the sacred books was retained even by the Jews who absorbed Hellenistic ideas – thus, for instance, Philo who explained the pre-existence of the Torah in terms of Platonic ideas. It was Philo, too, who first adapted the Greek verb “to inspire” (katapnein) to express the divine origin of Scripture. Josephus (a Jewish historian) introduced the use of the Greek noun for inspiration (epipnoia) in this reference. His brief statement about the sacred books may serve to summarize the developed Jewish view about their origin: although long ages have now passed, no one has dared to add, remove, or change a syllable; and it is an instinct with every Jew, from the day of his birth, to regard them as the decrees of God, to abide by them, and, if necessary, to die for them gladly.

I shall attempt to present our ideas next!

CALLED TO HOLINESS — 20160605

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transfigurationGood spirituality keeps us balanced in our relationship with God, others, and the material world. Contrary to what some would have you believe, Christianity is a practical religion concerned with helping us overcome sin, draw closer to God, and   become more like Him (as manifested in the Person of Jesus), so that we can bring others to God. It has nothing to do with “pie in the sky by and by.” Christianity is a materialistic religion in the sense that it is concerned about the entire material cosmos and its transformation. Our Eastern Catholic faith is not about saving us from the world, but saving us in the world, using material things as a means for God to give us divine life and grace. The creation should be diaphanous (transparent); we should see the presence of the Kingdom through it, but it is always a solid reality.

Spirituality, therefore, is purposefully centered where we are. Even genuine mystics need to be concerned with seeking to know God’s will in order to do it; otherwise they are just wrapped up in an emotional experience that ends in a kind of quietism. This might fulfill their personal needs, but is of little real use to anyone else. Our Eastern Christian spirituality deals with the practice living out of the gospel of Jesus Christ through practices such as prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and so forth, which Jesus taught His followers to do.

Spirituality creates a firm context within which to work out our salvation: the context of living in Christ’s Body, His Church, and also building our lives on the foundations of worship, prayer and sound doctrine. Genuine spiritual prevents us from wasting our time trying to reinvent the wheel of doctrine, so that we don’t wander around trying to figure out what we are supposed to believe. Instead we can concentrate on the task at hand: growing in Christ so that we can “find out what is acceptable to the Lord.”

Spirituality is directly connected to becoming a “saint,” that is a person who is engaged during this lifetime in growing in the likeness of Christ, our God.

Learning Our Faith From the Greek Fathers of the Church — 20160605

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I would continue sharing Cyril’s ideas about Christ as Savior in the East. There is no doubt that Cyril used ambiguous terminology (like his formula one nature incarned of God the Word, which he unknowingly      borrowed from Apollinaris), but his rejection of Nestorianism was motivated not by any “anthropological minimalism” but, on the contrary, by the conviction that human destiny is linked with communion with God – an ultimately maximalist view of humanity.

St. Cyril of Alexandria

St. Cyril of Alexandria

Nestorianism consisted, on the contrary, in a rationalizing sense of incompatibility between the divine and the human: the person of Christ, in which divinity and humanity met, appeared as a juxtaposition of two mutually impermeable entities. According to Nestorius, the human nature of Christ kept not only its identity but also its autonomy. Christ’s birth and death were human only. Mary was mother “of Jesus,” not “of God.” Jesus the “Son of man” died, not “the Son of God.” It was this duality, which implied a different anthropology, that Cyril rejected. On the other hand, he simply could not remain logical with himself if he adopted a doctrine similar to that of Apollinaris or Julian. It is precisely because Christ accepted, complete humanity – in an incomplete, unfulfilled state, from which it need to be saved – that the divine Logos had to assume suffering and death. He did this in order to lead humanity to incorruptibility through the resurrection. He first came down where incomplete humanity truly was – “in the depth of the pit” – and then cried before dying, “My God, why have you forsaken me.” This moment was indeed “the death of God”: the assumption by God himself, in an ultimate act of love, of humanity in its state of separation from its truly “natural” communion with God. Christ’s humanity was, therefore, neither diminished nor limited: it was humanity in its very concrete incompleteness.

Hopefully  you, my  readers, are beginning  to see how Cyril and, of course, other Greek Fathers of the Church struggled to find the right way to truly express the great mystery of God’s unique incarnation as a man in the Person of Jesus. How we express this great mystery makes all the difference.

It is obvious that some aspects of Cyril’s Christology needed to be more clearly defined. In 451 the Council of Chalcedon affirmed the doctrine of Christ’s two natures in their real distinctiveness and the doctrine of a hypostatic (not a “natural”) union of the two natures.

Think about this!

GAINING A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF OUR FAITH — 20160605

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Saint Maximos the Confessor Преподобный Максим Исповедник Μαξίμου του Ομολογητού

Saint Maximos the Confessor
Преподобный Максим Исповедник
Μαξίμου του Ομολογητού

We Eastern Christians follow St. Maximos the Confessor, one of the greatest of systematic theologians. He died in 662 CE from mutilation that was inflicted by the government after his arrest along with Pope St. Martin I. He named eight deadly sins rather than the seven of the Latin tradition (it wasn’t hard to get charged with wrong-doing in those early years). Eastern Christians include in their list of the deadly sins sadness or despondency. Rather than viewing the seven capital sins as equal spigots of evil as the Latin tradition does, Byzantines envision the deadly sins in a hierarchy, or perhaps more accurately, as a sick rainbow. This rainbow of sin begins in the carnal passions, gluttony and fornication, proceeds through the psychological passions, greed anger, sloth and sadness in that order (sometimes you find these last two reversed); and finally reaches its zenith in the spiritual passions, vanity and pride. This sense of sins as “nesting one inside the other” leads in Byzantine spirituality to an emphasis on the need for fasting and to a cleansing of the soul to allow it to move toward God by cutting the roots of sin.

As you can probably imagine, the Eastern approach is much, much different from that of the Western Church. Thus, because there was always some sort of competition between the East and the West for a truly correct expression of the faith, there was conflict.

Gregory of Nyssa taught that unless it is impeded by passions and other obsessions, the soul has a natural innate tendency to gravitate toward God (he calls this in Greek epectasis). Like peeling off layers, the discipline of removing passions and distractions allows the soul to rise to God and to enjoy union with the Creator. Realizing that a complete purification might not be possible in this world, St. Gregory also taught that death is “the final medicine.”

To understand the concept of the role of the passions in Byzantine spirituality, we must point out that the concept rests on another, even more fundamental idea: the inheritance of death. In Byzantine thought, fear of death energizes the passions. The Greek text of Paul’s letter to the Romans can be read either as “because of sin all die” or as “all sin because of death.” The Greek text reads both ways simultaneously.

More to follow!

The Spirituality of the Christian East — 20160605

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Ladder of Divine AccentThe 21st Step on John’s Ladder, is simply called FEAR. John defines fear as danger tasted in advance, a quiver as the heart takes fright before unnamed calamity. Fear is loss of assurance.

Fear is, of course, natural, but it must be controlled. To be dominated by fear is a sign of lack of faith and trust in God.

It dawned on me that this step is truly very important in today’s world. It is my opinion that what the terrorists of this world hope to achieve is that we will live in fear. We become so concerned about life in this present world that we allow the terrorists to cheat us of living with hope and faith. To be dominated by fear is a sign of lack of faith and trust in God. Of course, there are irrational fears (phobias) of specific things. I do not suggest that phobias are related to a lack of faith, or whether they can be overcome by faith alone. But fear in general can be a very destructive and oppressive force in one’s life. It can dictate our actions and our decisions, and thus may govern our very lives. There are people who think Christianity is all about living in fear, but on the contrary, Christians are called to live a fearless life.

Fear should never be a part of a Christian’s life. Why? Because we Christians are called to hope and trust in a living God who has revealed to us through His Son – His manifestation – that LIFE IS IMMORTAL. God has told us through His Son that we need not fear death since death is only a means built into life to make a transition to the next way of living.

I know that many might assert that we don’t know this to be true. My response is that FAITH tells us that this is true. We don’t need proof. It is a way of living – living with faith. Funny, life is happier when we live with belief in human immortality!

The Divine Liturgy and Our Worship of God — 20160605

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Mystical Supper

Mystical Supper

What is universally verifiable is that the core of the primitive liturgy has, throughout its development, always remained the same.

I would now like to take a closer look at the general characteristics of the byzantine Eucharistic Liturgy that we presently use. The focus is on the last two periods of liturgical history, which, for the Byzantine tradition, extends from the end of the 4th century until the beginning of the 16th century. Because of his writings, our first witness to the form of the Byzantine Liturgy and its uses is St. John Chrysostom, (397-404). He attests to the form of the Liturgy. It was not until the beginning of the 16th century, that is 1526, that the first printed copy of the Liturgy was produced. It was the invention of the printing press and not the intervention of a bishop or synod, that was responsible for the final unification of liturgical usage in the Byzantine East.

Of course one must not picture this unification in rigid, Tridentine categories, for in the East there is not such thing as a “typical” liturgical book, i.e., an official liturgical text obligatory on all. Nor did the advent of printing mark the end of growth and local adaptation. But since then the developments are so easy to trace that liturgical history ceases to be a scholarly problem and so becomes relatively uninteresting except as a mirror of local customs, minor variations on an already well-known theme. The Byzantine Divine Liturgy can be characterized as the Eucharistic service of the Great Church – of Hagia Sophia, the cathedral church of Constantinople – as formed into an initial synthesis in the capital by the 10th century, and then later modified by monastic influence. This is not a truism, to say that the Byzantine Eucharist is the rite of Constantinople. There is nothing “Roman” about the Roman rite and nothing “Byzantine” about the present Byzantine Divine Office, which comes from the monasteries of Palestine, and replaced the Office of the Great Church after Constantinople fell to the Latins in the Fourth Crusade (1204).

Perhaps the most striking quality of the Byzantine Liturgy that has evolved from the eucharist service of the Hagia Sophia is its truly opulent ritualization, a ceremonial splendor heightened by its marked contrast to the sterile verbalism of so much contemporary Western liturgy.

I think most will agree with this!