Digital Natives Embrace Ancient Church

Twenty-somethings captivated by Orthodoxy

Tim Flinders will graduate from Grand Valley State University next month. Raised Lutheran, he also explored fundamentalist Baptism, Roman Catholicism and even Messianic Judaism before converting to Orthodox Christianity this year.

“Orthodoxy has completely transformed me already,” he said. “I feel like the first time in my life I’m growing spiritually.”

Flinders, 22, like many other young people converting to Eastern Orthodoxy, was looking for authenticity and historical accuracy in his Christian faith.

“I had so many different questions that needed to be answered,”

said Flinders, who added he wrestled with the many divisions of the Christian church over the years.

He was chrismated Holy Saturday at St. George Orthodox Church in Grand Rapids. Chrismation is akin to confirmation.

Recently he attended the second annual Encountering Orthodoxy Conference at Hope College.

The Rev. Deacon Nicholas Belcher, dean of students at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology in Boston, gave the opening keynote address, using the themes of holy week to introduce Orthodoxy to the more than 50 who attended.

Eastern Orthodox Easter, Pascha in Greek, fell on the same day as Western Easter this year.

Belcher described the nailing of Jesus to the cross as

“one of the most cruel things human beings have ever thought of to do to other human beings.”

Eastern Orthodox Christians, he explained, experience the crucifixion and resurrection in the now during liturgy.

“There is no sense that we are just talking about something that happened a long time ago. It is today,” he said.

Dustin Miller, a Hope senior, attended the conference for extra credit in his history of Christianity class, but said,

“I’ve always been curious about Orthodoxy.”

He, too, said he was looking for the apostolic, historical roots of the Christian church. Miller considers himself non-denominational and said he didn’t know the Hope campus had Orthodox students.

“I’ve been trying to figure it out, trying to find what best fits me,” Miller said.

The Orthodox Christian Fellowship campus club, which sponsored this month’s conference, meets Thursday nights for Small Compline (a short Psalm and evening prayer service). Then the handful of Orthodox students, one seminary student and Fr. Steven VanBronkhorst discuss topics such as biblical foundations for Orthodox worship.

He would like to see more inquirers at the OCF meetings and more students at the second annual Encountering Orthodoxy Conference.

VanBronkhorst was a Reformed Church of America minister for almost two decades before coming to the Orthodox church 14 years ago. Still, VanBronkhorst said, he sees many more today looking for the historical church than when he was doing his own searching.

“I always felt that ideally there should be just one church,” he said. “The Orthodox church is by far the most historically faithful body. … Who is going to deny that the greater part of the evangelical world has the faith? They have faith. What they don’t have is the worship.”

Tyler Dykstra of Holland was chrismated this month.

He grew up Christian Reformed, but says he “wanted more.”

“Over time I started to realize there was so much history I had not known about even though I had gone to Christian schools all my life,” Dykstra, 24, said.

Source

Sunday of Orthodoxy Sermon

February 21, 2010

On this day we celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the commemoration of the defeat of the heresy of iconoclasm. The word “heresy,” as we know, means “false teaching” and the false teaching that was finally vanquished was iconoclasm.

“Iconclast” comes from the Greek work that means “icon-breaker.” The iconoclasts were those who smashed the icons because they believed that the Orthodox faithful, in venerating icons, were breaking the first commandment that says, “Thou shalt not make unto yourself any graven image.”

Of course the objection ran deeper than that. Look at it closely and you see that the false teaching – the heresy – of iconclasm taught something else too. It taught that Jesus Christ never really existed. The second person of the Trinity, the Word — capital W — of the Father never really became flesh and dwelt among us.

And that is why the Orthodox leaders fought the heresy. If the Word did not become flesh and dwell among us, then we believe a lie. Salvation does not really exist. We are deceivers who are deceived.

The iconoclasts were wrong in this way: When the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, you could make an image of Him because He existed just like you and I do – in space and time. Jesus had flesh and blood – just like you and me. He was not a phantom or just a figure in our imagination.

And that is why creating an icon of Jesus Christ is allowed. In fact, St. Paul tells us in scripture that Jesus the Son is the – and I am looking at the English here – “express image” of the Father. Look this up in the Greek and the word is eikon — or “icon.” We are allowed to make an icon of the Eikon, an image of the Image.

So, if you were around two thousand years ago and had your digital camera with you, you could have taken a picture of Jesus and His image could be printed out on paper. He wasn’t an imaginary figure. He wasn’t a concept. He was nothing less than a flesh and blood human being. And, like the faithful of old, you would venerate that image because He was also the Son of God.

This service, the one we celebrated today was first held in 842 in Constantinople. Patriarch Methodios presided and the faithful Empress Theodora was in attendance. It has been held every year on the first Sunday of Lent in every Orthodox Church every year ever since.

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But there is a deeper lesson for us too. And the lesson is this: Every generation faces its own heresies – its own false teachings – that require a defense drawn from the faith.

In America we face them too although in different ways. America is a great country. It has grasped some principles about human freedom and liberty that, at their core, are Christian in their origin. But we are not an empire or a monarchy. We are not mono-cultural. We are a nation of immigrants who govern ourselves not as a tribe, but under the rule of law.

So things work differently here. We have no emperor. We have no patriarch — at least not yet. We have the public square to debate and settle our differences, and that public square is often a noisy, raucous, and sometimes unfair place.

Do you wonder why moral questions become political issues sometimes? That’s why. Do you ask yourself why people get so emotionally invested in what otherwise would be private affairs? That’s why too. Do you wish that sometimes the emotional temperature could be lowered a few degrees? I do too but usually it doesn’t happen.

And there are huge questions being debated today. Gay marriage, what constitutes a family, greed in the marketplace, our relationship to the environment, who should live and who should die – all sorts of question that portend a very different society down the road depending on how they are answered.

But here too we have to take a closer look. And if you look closely, past the immediate political posturing on the many sides of these issues, you see that they pose this common question: What does it means to be a human being? From the Christian point of view we would sharpen that question even further: Who did God create us to be?

In theological language — and I am going to throw out a thirty-five dollar theological term here — we call this an “anthropological” question. “Anthropological” comes from the Greek work anthropos which means, “man.” The question behind many of the questions in our culture today is really a question about what it means to be a human being – Who did God create us to be?

From that question flow a thousand others that crystallize around a handful of secondary ones — How do I understand myself? How do I understand others? How do I relate to others? How to I relate to the physical world around me? What is my responsibility to my neighbor?

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Let me shift gears. I said earlier that this celebration — the Sunday of Orthodoxy — commemorated the restoration of icons that was really the restoration of the Orthodox faith. I also said that every generation faces the heresies — the false teachings — in its own time and way. I said too that in America, we have these great conflicts but they express themselves in a different way.

With that in mind, in America, the Sunday of Orthodox is also the time we discuss Orthodox unity – the goal of having one unified Orthodox Church in America.

I believe the time has come that if we do not have unity, Orthodoxy in America will never reach its God-given commission to bring the kind of light to this great nation that can heal it – that can answer in intelligent and compelling ways the core questions that frame so many great debates in the public square.

I also believe that the objections we hear to Orthodox unity have become largely irrelevant for this reason: your children and grandchildren are American. If Orthodox Christianity cannot reach them as Americans — which is to say that if it cannot speak to them in the cultural context that the Orthodox of old reached their children in their particular cultures — the Church will not die (it never dies), but Orthodoxy in America will retrench and fade into a cultural and religious oddity much in the same way that we think about the Amish or the Shakers.

Our children and grandchildren are American. Nothing will change that. If the Church will not incorporate the Orthodox faith into American culture, it won’t have anything to say to them and they will look elsewhere for the living water. And God, being a good God who loves mankind – phil-anthropos-translated as “the lover or mankind” or sometimes “the friend of man” — just might find another way to give it to them.

Orthodoxy has always been closely tied to culture. In fact, you can’t have religion with a corresponding cultural expression of it. Put another way, religious faith enervates, vivifies, makes alive, the culture in which we live. Religion is the ground of culture. The tradition is the structure that shapes culture so that culture itself points to and references the deepest truth of all – the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So I join my voice with those who — on this day in years past and in many churches all over America today — call for the Orthodox in America to embrace the Gospel commission to go forth unto all nations to preach and baptize. Orthodoxy, which its rich comprehension of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is coming of age in a new, young, and very vibrant country that is being prepared to hear this gospel and thereby have new life breathed into it.

We see Orthodoxy in America coming of age at the same time that America is in a deep cultural crisis. I do not believe this is a historical accident. I believe that God brought the Orthodox faith to America to speak to a nation that needs new life breathed into it at the proper time. That time is now.

And if we respond, then we are faithful to the legacy bequeathed to us that we celebrate today. Then we can stand with the assurance and resolve that we too are meeting the challenge of our generation in the same way that the Orthodox did over 1200 years ago.

On The Day of Christ’s Baptism — Part 2

by St. John Chrysostom

Our father among the saints John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, was a notable Christian bishop and preacher from the fourth and fifth centuries in Syria and Constantinople. He is famous for eloquence in public speaking and his denunciation of abuse of authority in the Church and in the Roman Empire of the time. His banishments demonstrated that secular powers had strong influence in the eastern Church at this period in history.

Call to mind that day, on which for the Apostles

“there appeared disparate tongues like fire, and sat over each one of them” (Acts 2:3).

And that the baptism of John did not impart the Spirit and remission of sins is evident from the following: Paul

“found certain disciples, and said to them: received ye the Holy Spirit since ye have believed? They said to him: but furthermore whether it be of the Holy Spirit, we shall hear. He said to them: into what were ye baptized? They answered: into the baptism of John. Paul then said: John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentance,” — repentance, but not remission of sins; for whom did he baptize? “Having proclaimed to the people, that they should believe in the One coming after him, namely, Christ Jesus. Having heard this, they were baptized in the Name of the Lord Jesus: and Paul laying his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them” (Acts 19:1-6).

Do you see, how incomplete was the baptism of John? If the one were not incomplete, would then Paul have baptized them again, and placed his hands on them; having performed also the second, he shew the superiority of the apostolic Baptism and that the baptism of John was far less than his. Thus, from this we recognize the difference of the baptisms. Read more

On the Day of Christ’s Baptism — Part 1

by St. John Chrysostom

Our father among the saints John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, was a notable Christian bishop and preacher from the fourth and fifth centuries in Syria and Constantinople. He is famous for eloquence in public speaking and his denunciation of abuse of authority in the Church and in the Roman Empire of the time. His banishments demonstrated that secular powers had strong influence in the eastern Church at this period in history.

We shall now say something about the present feast. Many celebrate the feast days and know their designations, but the cause for which they were established they know not. Thus concerning this, that the present feast is called Theophany — everyone knows; but what this is — Theophany, and whether it be one thing or another, they know not. And this is shameful — every year to celebrate the feast day and not know its reason. Read more

The Twelve Days of Christmas

In the Christian tradition of both east and west, the twelve days of Christmas refer to the period from Christmas Day to Theophany. The days leading up to Christmas were for preparation; a practice affirmed in the Orthodox tradition by the Christmas fast that runs from November 15 to Christmas day. The celebration of Christmas did not begin until the first of the twelve days.

As our culture became more commercialized, the period of celebration shifted from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day. Christmas celebration increasingly conforms to the shopping cycle while the older tradition falls by the wayside. It’s an worrisome shift because as the tradition dims, the knowledge that the period of preparation imparted diminishes with it.

Our Orthodox traditions — from fasting cycles to worship –exist to teach us how to live in Christ. The traditions impart discipline. These disciplines are never an end in themselves but neither can life in Christ be sustained apart from them.

The traditions only make sense only when they have the Gospel as their reference. If we forget that these traditions are given to us to help us lay hold of Christ, then they appear to be superfluous and the disciplines they encourage us to do seem to serve no real purpose. We start to evaluate the discipline by the values of the dominant culture — by a cost-benefit calculus, rather than seeing them as ways to morally reorient ourselves towards Christ.

Instead of preparing for the birth of Christ through inward reorientation, we follow the direction of the dominant culture and skip any preparation altogether. We party instead of fast. We get caught up in the commercial energy of the season rather than wait on the Spirit of God.

It’s a dangerous path. Our culture is becoming increasingly secularized; the sacred dimension of creation is slipping from view. This loss of this sacred sensibility has grave ramifications for society that are expressed in many different ways such as the vulgarization of popular culture or the reduction of an unborn child to a commodity. If this view prevails our culture will inevitably view man as nothing more than an animal or a machine.

But man is more than an animal or a machine. The scriptures reveal man is created in the image and likeness of God, a phrase that means that man is not complete unless he partakes of God — God must be part of man’s life. This longing — this innate knowledge that man is created for God — never leaves man although a person can bury it if he so chooses.

A secularized mind is blind to the inherent holiness of life. Maintaining our traditions is one way to avoid this debilitating malady. Christmas is not just “Jesus’ birthday” (an impoverished notion heard more and more even among Orthodox faithful), but much more.

The birth of Christ and His baptism ought never to be divorced. Both events define the Christmas season. It imparts to the Christian the knowledge that Christ’s coming into the world and Christ’s sanctification of the waters makes our new life possible — a sonship by adoption accomplished through baptism.

When the link between Christmas and Theophany is broken (and by neglecting the proper preparation we break it), the cultural memory of the promise of new birth expresses itself in weakened and ultimately insufficient cultural forms. These forms function as a new tradition.

Religion is not the product of culture; religion is the source, writes philosopher Russell Kirk. “It’s from an association in a cult, abody of worshipers, that human community grows…when belief in the cult has been wretchedly enfeebled, the culture will decay swiftly. The material order restson the spiritual order.”*

Orthodox Christianity can contribute to the recovery of the moral foundation of American culture by imparting knowledge that can strengthen and deepen that foundation. It won’t happen however, if the Orthodox faithful adopt the practices of the dominant culture in place of their own tradition.

*Russell Kirk “Civilization with Religion” The Heritage Foundation Report (July 24, 1992).

Ten Steps to a Better Prayer Life

1. Designate A Prayer Space: Whether it is in the corner of your desk or a little stand in your room, it is important to have a place where you can put your Bible, Icons, etc. Dedicate the use of that space for God alone.
2. Acquire A Time: Incorporate prayer in your routine and set time aside to center your thoughts to God.
3. Acquire A Library: Start with a Bible, then get a small Orthodox Prayer Book, after that start collecting books. Here are some suggestions: ‘Living the Liturgy’ (Fr. Stanley Harakas), ‘The Way of a Pilgrim’ (Monk of the Eastern Church), ‘For the Life of the World’ (Fr. Alexander Schmemann), ‘Beginning to Pray’ (Metropolitan Anthony Bloom), ‘Bread for Life’ (Fr. Theodore Stylianopoulos), ‘The Orthodox Way’ (Bishop Kallistos Ware), ‘Way of the Aesetic (Tito Collander).
4. Assemble An Altar: In your prayer center gather icons (Christ, Theotokos, Guardian Angel and patron saint), service books, incense, votive light, a cross, a prayer rope, etc. Incorporate your five senses in prayer.
5. Pray: Speak from your heart. Learn prayers of the Church. Try the Jesus Prayer or the Lord’s Prayer. Also incorporate your own prayers and thoughts.
6. Acquire A Spiritual Guide: This is a very important step. One should build a relationship with either a member of the clergy, monk or nun, who will become your spiritual guide. He/she will help guide and pace you to a balanced prayer life. The Sacrament of Confession can be arranged through your priest.
7. Fasting and Almsgiving: Fasting adds a dimension to your prayer life. Your fasting practice should be regulated to avoid physical and spiritual harm. As for alms, give where you see a need and trust that the Lord will provide.
8. Build On What You Already Have: If you already have a routine, build on it. If, for example, you pray before you go to sleep, it will be easier to read a chapter from the Bible before your bedtime prayers, than to set up some time during the day to read.
9. Sanctify All That You Do. You may have set aside a time and space for a prayer routine, but that doesn’t mean you should separate your life into sacred and secular. Privately thank God for what you have at all times, and make Him aware of your every concern. Dedicate everything you do to Him.
10. Remember the power of the Life-giving Cross, The sign of the Cross is a reminder of Christ in our lives. Blessing oneself with the cross by holding the first two fingers of the right hand and thumb together represents the Holy Trinity. The last two fingers held to the palm represent the two natures of Christ – God and man. Orthodox Christians cross themselves from the head to the breast and from shoulder to shoulder, right to left. This unique and all embracing symbol shows that the cross is the inspiration, power and indeed the very content of our lives.

The Proskomide — Service of Preparation of the Holy Gifts

Long before most people arrive at Church, the priest prepares the Holy Gifts (the bread and wine that will be consecrated into the body and blood of Christ) in a small service called the Proskomedi. He cuts pieces of a loaf of bread called the prosphora (“before the gifts”) and places them on dish called a paten, and then pours water and wine into the chalice. This is what is carried through the congregation during the Great Procession in the Divine Liturgy. This is also the time when the names you submit to the priest are first read.

Fr. John Peck, pastor of St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Prescott Arizona prepared a video on the Proskomedi Service. You can view it here.

Christianity Without Pentecost

What happens when Orthodox Christian experience Ascension, but not Pentecost?

by: Fr. Josiah Trenham

The last ten days in the Church have been unusual. In some sense we have been living between two realities. On the leave-taking of Pascha we ceased the sustained celebration of the Holy Resurrection of the Lord as well as our saying, “Christ is risen. Truly He is risen.” The next day we celebrated the Glorious Ascension of our Savior into the heavens to sit at the right hand of the Father. For these days between Ascension and Pentecost we have been in a waiting mode. We, like the Apostles of old, have been heeding our Lord’s ascension instructions to “wait in Jerusalem to be clothed with power from on high” (St. Lk. 24:49). We have been waiting for the Holy Spirit to come.

Why were the Apostles waiting?

The obvious answer to this question is that they were waiting because the Lord Jesus commanded them to tarry until Pentecost. There is, however, much more to this waiting than that. We must understand very clearly the difference between the apostles before Pentecost and after Pentecost. Something dramatic happened to them that changed them personally. They were transformed. Fear turned into martyric boldness; fishermen became the world’s teachers; doubt was replaced by mountain-moving faith. All because of Pentecost.

The Necessity of Pentecost

Some of us do not understand the necessity of Pentecost. Pentecost is many things, and we have spoken about these realities before. Pentecost is revelation of the Holy Trinity to the world. This is why this Feast is also called “Trinity Day” in the Church. The Apostles knew the Father. They had become the disciples of the Son. And now they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Pentecost is also the birthday of the New Testament Church. It is the democratization of the Spirit of God to all believers. It is the unification of all mankind, and the definitive beginning to the reversal of the chaos of the Tower of Babel. All of these things we have previously discussed, but today I wish to point out that Holy Pentecost is the evidence that Christianity is not a man-made or earthly religion. It is not a set of ethical standards. It is not for moral guidance. Christianity is a miraculous and divine communion between God and man. Christianity is the spiritualization or divination of man.

If Christianity were simply a man-made religion, even if it were the best and most beautiful man-made religion, there would be no need for the disciples to tarry in Jerusalem these days awaiting Pentecost. Why would they need to? They had for years lived in close contact with Christ, and had been His most intimate students. They could have simply begun to write and teach and pass on what they had learned. They had been fully trained, and so it is time to start training. This is how it is with every other of the world’s religions. Not so with Christianity. Christianity is not about ideas, moral guidance, ethical norms, social structures, etc.. Christianity, of course, is not free from these things, but this is not what Holy Orthodoxy is about. Holy Orthodoxy is about the coming of the Holy Spirit into man. It is about human transformation and deification, not ideas. There is no Christianity without Pentecost. Orthodoxy without the Holy Spirit is not Orthodoxy.

Many Christians tragically live between Ascension and Pentecost

With that said is it not tragic how often we live with our Orthodoxy as a set of ideas. We think we are Orthodox because we believe certain things in our heads and were born or converted to a certain family or at a certain time. If the Apostles had remained in the state they were in between Ascension and Pentecost they would never have brought the Gospel to the world. They would never have become the great saints they did. They would never have crushed the demons like they did. They did all of these things because they were living in union with the Holy Spirit of God.

Sometimes we Orthodox evidence little proof that we are living post-Pentecost. Our faith is weak. We are bound by sins. We have little Christian joy. We read or listen to the Acts of the Apostles and think that the Apostles were living a different way of life. We pick up and read a book on the life of a particular saint and the saint’s mode of being appears to us to be foreign and almost unintelligible. Why? Because we are not living in the Holy Spirit. We are more like the fearful and doubting disciples prior to Pentecost. Others around us seem to be radiant. They endure trials with joy. They don’t worry. Why? Because they are in a dynamic relationship with the Holy Spirit. They are sincerely praying the Prayer to the Holy Spirit, “O Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who art in all places and filleth all things, the Treasury of Good Things and Giver of Life, come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every stain, and save our souls O Good One.” The Holy Spirit is in these ones abiding in them, cleanses them, and saving them!

Christianity without Pentecost is Empty Form!

If our Orthodox life is not permeated with the presence of the Holy Spirit it is all in vain! Consider first that the Holy Sacraments or Mysteries of the Church are all dependent completely upon the Holy Spirit. Baptism saves us because we are not born of the water alone, but of water and the Spirit (St. Jn. 3:3-5). Chrismation itself is an individual’s personal Pentecost. The seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Ordination is the special bequeathal of the Holy Spirit to men, and the substance of the priesthood is that priests bear the Holy Spirit in the community. This is why our Lord gathered the twelve together and breathed upon them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whoever’s sins you remit are remitted. Whoever’s sins you retain are retained” (St. John 20:23). Marriage is simply temporal and earthly if it is not consecrated by the Holy Spirit and bound together in His love. Holy Unction without the Holy Spirit is simply a complex skin treatment! It is the Holy Spirit in the sacred oil healing our souls and bodies! Confession is insincere and pointless unless it is a Spirit-inspired compunction and a Spirit-empowered absolution. And think of the Mystery of Mysteries and the Sacrament of Sacraments: the Holy Eucharist. The existence of the Holy Eucharist is completely dependent upon the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit Whom the priest calls down upon the Holy Table in the epiklesis: “changing them by Thy Holy Spirit.”

This liturgical reality is beautifully evidenced in many different saints’ lives, especially those saints who were bishops or priests responsible for the celebration of the eucharist. The story is told of St. Basil the Great that he had hanging over his altar a beautiful oil lamp made in the form of a golden dove. Always at the time of the transformation of the gifts the dove would begin to swing. A similar story is told about our Holy Father John of San Francisco and Shanghai. St. John would see the Holy Spirit descend as fire into the holy chalice at the epiklesis as he served liturgy. On one occasion the liturgy was delayed because St. John would not go on since he saw no fire. Wondering why he turned to his deacon and saw his face was covered over in a black cloud. Asking the deacon what was wrong the deacon confessed that he had not prepared for the liturgy properly. Once the deacon divested and left the altar the fire came and liturgy could continue.

All of the Holy Mysteries are empty forms without the Holy Spirit, and this may be said about all matters of our faith and practice. Fasting is simply dieting if it is not an attempt to acquire the Holy Spirit. It is not a coincidence that our Lord went into the desert to fast for forty days “led by the Holy Spirit” (St. Lk. 4:1). Sin is not overcome except by the Holy Spirit. He is One Who enables us to “mortify the deeds of the body” (Rom. 8:13). We could go on and on. There is no prayer without the Holy Spirit praying in us. There is no church without the Holy Spirit. There is no Church Temple without the Holy Spirit. This is why when we erect a true church temple the bishop chrismates the altar and the temple itself. The Temple has its own Pentecost for it truly becomes not simply a functional gathering place, but the House of God and Temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives there. If He does not then the Temple become a Temple of Satan (Rev. 2:9).

Our Goal is to Acquire the Holy Spirit

In the light of truth we see then that St. Seraphim was correct when he was asked by someone, “What is the purpose of this life?”, and he answered, “The acquisition of the Holy Spirit.” “If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” (St.Lk. 11:11-13). All of our Christian effort and spiritual struggle is guided toward this one thing: obtaining an increase of the Holy Spirit. This is what it means to become spiritual. This is the goal of Christianity: the union of man with God by the Holy Spirit. Let us not betray the true nature of our religion by living as though Orthodoxy was about ideas, morals, etc.. Nonsense. Christianity is about becoming one with the True God: by grace becoming what He is. Now some of you may be thinking, “But how do we experience Pentecost? What do I do if I feel stuck between Ascension and Pentecost?” An answer to these questions will be given in next Sunday’s homily.

Now to God the Father, and to the Ascended Lord Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Spirit poured forth today be all glory. Amen.

Fr. Josiah Trenham is the pastor of St. Andrew Orthodox Church in Riverside, CA.

The Christians of Dachau

By Fr. Hans Jacobse

Pascha, 2009

Every Pascha, I repost two stories on OrthodoxyToday.org. that tell how Orthodox prisoners in Dachau held the Paschal Liturgy during their liberation. The first, “The Souls of All are Aflame” provides historical background and detail. The second, “Pascha in Dachau” recounts the story of a prisoner who was there.

Dachua was liberated during Holy Week. The Orthodox believers experienced Christ’s triumph over the forces of darkness by holding a Paschal Liturgy crying out “Christ is Risen!” It is hard to fathom the depravity the evil ideologies fostered in their persecutors short of any direct experience, but anyone who has confronted lesser evils knows that such great evil can exist.

The resurrection of Christ is the final confrontation to the horrors unleashed when the embrace of Nazism and Communism opened the jaws of a deep hell. We see the seeds of horror in our own day too, especially the embrace of the nihilistic fantasies that fuel the arguments that devalue human life. It began with that faceless figure, the one who lies, who is the father of lies and appeals to the base passions of men, who whispered into the ear of man that he can be like God. Some choose to believe him. They whisper anew that first whisper. The whisper gets louder and louder so that in some corners of our world it is proclaimed from the housetops. Evil always masquerades as good, and not until the evil that those ideas hide is laid bare do most men dare face the consequences of their own beliefs. Others of course, never do.

Only the Gospel of Christ, the proclamation that Christ is risen from the dead, reveals that death is an enemy destroyed and exposes the nihilistic embrace of death as a lie. The grand schemes of the social engineers who are intoxicated by their own pride and contemptuous of what is good and true, will one day come to nothing. Babel will fall. But until it does, destruction and suffering still prevail by their hands.

How does evil flourish? Edmund Burke answered the question this way: When good men do nothing. God enters the world through a word. The Gospel of Christ, when preached with authority and by the Spirit of God, tears down strong places. “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavenly places,” writes the Apostle Paul (Eph. 6:12). Truth, spoken into the world of space and time, draws from and reveals Him who is True, and tears down the towers that men build to reach God.

But preaching the Gospel comes with a cross. The cross is the locus of transformation, the place where death is changed into life. The men in Dachau understood this. Lest the darkness overwhelm them, they instead bore the suffering of Christ in their own bodies just as the Apostle Paul teaches that we must do. They would not let go of Him who had captured them.

Christ’s victory over sin and death begins on the inside. That is where the struggle first takes place. The Apostle Paul taught us about this too. Every disciple has his Garden of Gethsemane, sometimes many in a lifetime. Yet, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” the Apostle Paul wrote while enduring a suffering of his own (Phil. 4:13). He was jailed in Philippi at the time, no small thing in the Roman empire. His suffering however, was for the sake of the Gospel and through it light entered the world.

Carrying our cross is the way that “Christ is born in us.” We should not despise our suffering, but bring our cross to Christ who enables us to carry it and through it, come to know Christ. There are no shortcuts here. “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it,” Jesus said (Matt. 7:13). Death would not have been transformed to life — the gates of Hades would not have been overthrown — had Jesus not ascended the cross. That He did so voluntarily (his death was a capital murder), and that He was innocent of sin according to the Mosaic Law, is why He was able to destroy — through His death — the death to which He was condemned.

We must put to death the “…sin that reigns in our body,” the Apostle Paul teaches us (Rom. 8:13). Harsh circumstances can impose this discipline, but most of us don’t experience the level of hardship that the men in Dachau did. We also don’t see the stark contrast between life and death that the presence of real evil reveals. Sometimes we even accommodate ourselves to evil as long as it does not directly affect us. We don’t want to accept that the the first line between good and evil rests in the heart, as Solzhenitsyn said.

But, if we know that the Gospel is true, even imperfectly, then silence cannot be our lot. We have to speak what is true and do what is right, even when we know it will impose a cost. That cost can become a new cross, just like St. Paul’s imprisonment for preaching the Gospel. But, like St. Paul or the men of Dachau, carrying that cross sheds light in places where it would otherwise not be found.

Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!

Orthodox Christians use the word “Pascha” for Easter. Pascha is derived from Greek usage and is itself a transliteration of the Hebrew word for Passover: “Pesach.”

The Word ‘God,’   The Divine Names,   ‘Father’ As Divine Name

The following is from the online catechism, of Abp. Hilarion of Russia.

The Word ‘God’

The words used to refer to ‘God’ in different languages are related to various concepts. The peoples of antiquity attempted to find in their languages a word to express their notion of God or, rather, their experience of encounter with the Divinity.

In the languages of Germanic origin the word Gott comes from a verb meaning ‘to fall to the ground’, to fall in worship. This reflects an experience similar to that of St Paul, who, when illumined by God on the road to Damascus, was struck by divine light and immediately ‘fell to the ground… in fear and trembling’ (Acts 9:4-6).

In the Slavic languages the word Bog (‘God’) is related to the Sanskrit bhaga, which means ‘dispensing gifts’, and which in its turn comes from bhagas, meaning ‘inheritance’, ‘happiness’, ‘wealth’. The Slavonic word bogatstvo means ‘riches’, ‘wealth’. Here we find God expressed in terms of the fulness of being, perfection and bliss. These properties, however, do not remain within God, but are poured out onto the world, onto people and onto all living things. God dispenses the gift of His plenitude and endows us with His riches, when we turn to Him.

According to Plato, the Greek word for God, Theos, originates from the verb theein, meaning ‘to run’. St Gregory the Theologian identifies a second etymology beside the one of Plato: he claims that the name Theos comes from the verb aithein, meaning ‘to be set alight’, ‘to burn’, ‘to be aflame’. St Basil the Great offers two more etymologies: ‘God is called Theos either because He placed (tetheikenai) all things, or because He beholds (theasthai) all things’.

The Name by which God revealed Himself to the ancient Israelites was Yahweh, meaning ‘The One Who Is’, that is, the One Who has existence and being. It derives from the verb hayah, meaning ‘to be’, ‘to exist’, or rather from the first person of this verb, ehieh — ‘I am’. This verb has a dynamic meaning: it does not simply denote the fact of existence, but signifies a living and actual presence. When God tells Moses ‘I am who I am’ (Ex.3:14), this means ‘I live, I am here, I am together with you’. At the same time this name emphasizes the superiority of God’s being over all other beings. He is the independent, primary, eternal being, the plenitude of being which is above being.

Ancient tradition tells us that after the Babylonian captivity, the Jews refrained out of reverential awe from uttering the name Yahweh, the One Who Is. Only the high priest could do so, and this once a year on the day of Yom Kippur, when he went into the Holy of Holies to offer incense. If an ordinary person or even a priest wanted to say something about God, he substituted other names for Yahweh, usually the name Adonai (the Lord). In script the Jews indicated the word ‘God’ by the sacred tetragrammaton YHWH. The ancient Jews knew well that there was no name or word in human language that could convey the essence of God. In refraining from pronouncing the name of God, the Jews showed that it is possible to be at one with God not so much through words and descriptions, but through a reverential and trembling silence.

The Divine Names

‘How can we speak of the Divine names? How can we do this if the Transcendent surpasses all discourse and all knowledge..? How can we enter upon this undertaking if the Godhead is superior to being and is unspeakable and unnameable?’, says Dionysius the Areopagite. At the same time, God, being totally transcendent, is present in the created world and revealed through it. All creation longs for God, and more especially, we humans crave for knowledge of Him. Therefore God is to be praised both ‘by every name’ and ‘as the Nameless One’. Nameless in His essence, God is variously named by humanity when He reveals Himself to us.

Some of the names attributed to God emphasize His superiority over the visible world; His power, dominion and kingly dignity. The name Lord (Greek, Kyrios) signifies the supreme dominion of God not only over His chosen people, but also over the whole world. The name of Almighty (Greek, Pantokrator) signifies that God holds all things in His hand; He upholds the world and its order.

The names Holy, ‘Holy Place’, Holiness, Sanctification, Good and Goodness indicate that God not only contains within Himself the whole plenitude of goodness and holiness, but He also pours out this goodness onto all of His creatures, sanctifying them.

In Holy Scripture there are other attributions to God: Wisdom, Truth, Light, Life, Salvation, Atonement, Deliverance, Resurrection, Righteousness, Love. There are in Scripture a number of names for God taken from nature. These do not attempt to define either His characteristics or His attributes, but are rather symbols and analogies. God is compared with the sun, the stars, fire, wind, water, dew, cloud, stone, cliff and fragrance. Christ Himself is spoken of as Shepherd, Lamb, Way, Door. All of these epithets, simple and concrete, are borrowed from everyday reality and life. But, as in Christ’s parables of the pearl, tree, leaven and seeds, we discern a hidden meaning that is infinitely greater and more significant.

Holy Scripture speaks of God as a being with human form having a face, eyes, ears, hands, shoulders, wings, legs and breath. It is said that God turns around and turns away, recollects and forgets, becomes angry and calms down, is surprised, sorrows, hates, walks and hears. Fundamental to this anthropomorphism is the experience of a personal encounter with God as a living being. In order to express this experience we have come to use earthly words and images.

‘Father’ as a Divine Name

‘Father’ is the traditional, biblical name for God. His children are the people of Israel: ‘For Thou art our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; Thou, O Lord art our Father, our Redeemer from of old is Thy name’ (Is.63:16). The fatherhood of God is, of course, not a matter of maleness for there is no gender in the Divinity. It is important to remember, however, that the name ‘Father’ was not simply applied by humans to the Divinity: it is the very name with which God opened Himself to the people of Israel. Male imagery was not therefore imposed on God, rather God Himself chose it in His revelation to humans (cf. 2 Sam.7:14; 1 Chron.17:13; Jer.3:19; 31:9). The three Persons of the Holy Trinity bear the names Father, Son and Holy Spirit, where the name Son belongs to the eternal Logos of God, Who was incarnate and became man. In Semitic languages where the word for Spirit (Hebrew ruah, Syriac ruha) is feminine, female imagery is applied to the Holy Spirit. Both the Hebrew and the Greek terms for the Wisdom of God (Hebrew hokhma, Greek sophia) are feminine: this opens the possibility of applying female imagery to the Son of God, Who is traditionally identified with the Wisdom. With this exception, for both Father and Son exclusively male imagery is used in the Eastern tradition.

The Orthodox normally oppose modern attempts to change traditional biblical imagery by making God-language more ‘inclusive’ and referring to God as ‘mother’, and to His Son as ‘daughter’, or using the generic terms ‘parent’ and ‘child’. For the Orthodox, the full understanding of motherhood is embodied in the person of the Mother of God, whose veneration is not merely a custom or cultural phenomenon, but a church dogma and an essential part of spirituality. It is therefore not a matter of cultural difference between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholics on the one hand, and the Protestants on the other, that the former venerate the Mother of God, while the latter pray to ‘God the Mother’. It is a serious dogmatic difference. Moreover, it is not simply stubbornness on the part of the Orthodox when they reject changing biblical God-language, but rather a clear understanding of the fact that the entire spiritual, theological and mystical tradition of the Church undergoes irrecoverable alterations when the traditional set of the divine names and images is changed.

Indeed, any name can be applied to the Divinity, while none can describe it. All names used for God in biblical and Orthodox traditions are aimed at grasping the mystery which is beyond names. Nevertheless, it is crucially important to remain with biblical God-language and not replace it with innovative forms. All names for God are anthropomorphic. Yet there is a difference between biblical anthropomorphism, which is based on the experience of the personal God in His revelation to humans, and the pseudo-anthropomorphism of modern theologians who, by introducing the notion of gender into the Divinity, speak of God as ‘He-She’, or ‘Our Mother and Father’.

Read the entire article on the Archbishop Hilarion website.

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