| The Patriarchal Cathedral in Bucharest keeps a very important gift of Romanians: the holy relics of Saint Demetrios the New, Protector of Bucharest. Received from General Pyotr Saltykov, the holy relics have been blessing Romanians for over 240 years. In 1786, the relics of St. Demetrios were placed in a wooden reliquary, clad in silver in some places. The coffin was made by Metropolitan Gregory II of Wallachia. Since 1879 the relics are kept in the current reliquary, made of solid silver at the expense of Bishop Ghenadie Petrescu of Arge. Photo: Basilica.ro/Raluca Ene. The reliquary depicts scenes from the life of Saint Demetrios on its sides. Monastic tonsure. Photo: Basilica.ro/Mircea Florescu. Saint Demetrios guarding the flocks of sheep. Photo: Basilica.ro/Mircea Florescu. The blessed repose of St Demetrios the New. Photo: Basilica.ro/Mircea Florescu. Finding of the holy relics in the Lom River. Foto credit: Basilica.ro/Mircea Florescu. The lid has the depiction of the full-size image of the Saint wearing monastic vestments. Photo: Basilica.ro/Mircea Florescu. The following inscription is engraved at the feet of St. Demetrios: For the piety and love of the Holy and Venerable Father Demetrios Basarabov, this silver coffin was made, adorned as can be seen, through the effort and at the expense of the bishop Ghenadie II of Arge and of some good Christians, to be for the memory of the descendants, who, seeing this, to urge themselves to do other great deeds and useful to the Romanian people. This coffin was made in the days of His Majesty Carol I, the brave lord of the Romanians, the year of salvation 1879, December, with Mr. Vasile Boerescu being the minister of religious affairs, when this coffin was handed over. Above the inscription is engraved the image of the Holy Emperors Constantine and Helen. Photo: Basilica.ro/Mircea Florescu. The reliquary was made by the silver master Theodor Filipov Russ. Photo: Basilica.ro/Raluca Ene. In 1933, the coffin was placed in a specially arranged niche in the eastern wall of the narthex, on the left. Photo: Basilica.ro/Raluca Ene. Patriarch Justinian generalized the devotion to St. Demetrios in the entire Romanian Orthodox Church in 1955. Photo: Basilica.ro/Raluca Ene. Believers venerating the relics of St Demetrios the New. Photo: Basilica.ro/Mircea Florescu/Files The last reconditioning of the reliquary took place in 2007. Photo: Basilica.ro/Raluca Ene. |
| Metropolitan Hilarion and Metropolitan Anthony of Chersonesus Concelebrate the Divine Liturgy in Paris Source: DECR Photo: mospat.ru On February 12, 2022, the Day of the Synaxis of the Three Hierarchs: St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. John Chrysostom, Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Department for External Church Relations (DECR) of the Moscow Patriarchate, and Metropolitan Anthony of Chersonesus, Patriarchal Exarch for Western Europe, celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the historical Metochion of the Holy Three Hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Diocese of Chersonesus in Paris. Among the concelebrants were Archpriest Nikolay Rebinder, rector of the cathedral, Archimandrite Philaret (Bulekov), DECR vice-chairman, Hieromonk Stephen (Igumnov), DECR secretary for inter-Christian relations, and the clergy of the Diocese of Chersonesus. Present at the liturgy was a delegation of the Roman Catholic Church led by Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, who came to Paris to take part in the events devoted to the 6th anniversary of the Havana meeting between Pope Francis and His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. After the liturgy, Metropolitan Anthony of Chersonesus and Western Europe warmly greeted Metropolitan Hilarion speaking about the special importance of the Metochion of the Holly Three Hierarchs in the history of the Russian Diaspora. In his response, Metropolitan Hilarion congratulated the congregation on the patronal feast of the Metochion – the commemoration day of the holy hierarchs – St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory the Theologian, and St. John Chrysostom. “Each of them made a tremendous and decisive contribution to the course of defending the Orthodox doctrine. We glorify them today as saints who give us an example of how we, too, should respond to the challenges of our time, oppose schisms and false teachings and defend the Orthodox teaching”, the hierarch stressed. |
| Gregory the Theologian placed the synthetic —body and soul—quality of human existence in the larger context of the whole created order, within which he distinguished three stages. The first stage, he said, was the creation of the angels, described as a created projection of the “first light,” which is God Himself (Orationes 40.5). These creatures are the most like God, Gregory declared, noetic spirits described in Holy Scripture as an immaterial form of fire. Indeed, so great was Gregory’s awe of the angelic nature, he confessed, that he would have thought angels incapable of falling, except that they did, in fact, fall! Rebelling against the eternal light, they became powers of darkness and evil—in truth, “our tempters” (38.9). Creation’s second stage, according to Gregory, was that of the material universe, a compound of such physical elements as earth, water, and sky. Although lower than the order of angels, this physical universe was blessed with beauty, harmony, and order. Until God created human beings, however, there was nothing in the material world capable of thinking; purely material creatures are the least like—and the furthest removed from—God (38.10). The third stage of the created order began on the sixth day of Creation, when God formed the human being in His own image and likeness. Man, the being created in this third stage, combines in his own existence the diverse qualities of the other two stages, the spiritual and the material. Man is the only sub-angelic creature endowed with the faculties requisite for free, conscious, and sequential thought. Unlike other physical creatures, which are governed entirely by environment and instinct, human beings are able to make choices. Their deliberate decisions transcend the influences brought to bear upon them. This is what distinguishes man from the other creatures with whom he shares the earth. Thus, unique among God’s creatures, man is distinguished by a capacity for historical experience. Indeed, the very notion of “history”—as something distinct from “nature”—is meaningless without man’s ability to choose a direction for his existence. When God created man, He created him, the Fathers declared, avtexsousios, “possessing self-determination.” This distinctly human quality, freedom of will, pertained to man’s very being from the beginning. It is presupposed in the very fact that God gave Adam and Eve a command—and, therefore, a choice whether or not to obey it—in the original Garden of his existence. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Penthos see Repentance Perichoresis THEODOR DAMIAN The term Perichoresis indicates the mode of existence of the persons of the Holy Trinity characterized by interpenetration, co-inhabitation, mutual fellowship, surrounding, or indwelling. In Greek, peri- choreo means to “make room,” to “go or revolve around.” The basis of the doctrine of Perichoresis lies in Christ’s declaration about the coinhabitation between him and the Father (“I and the Father are one,” Jn. 10.30 ; “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me,” Jn. 14.11 ) which indicates a relation of consubstantiality (homoousion) of the trinitarian persons. Even so, the first application of the notion in patristic times was not in the context of trinitarian theology, but in Christology, and it was used in order to emphasize the unity of the one divine person and the distinctiveness of the two natures in Christ. The idea appeared often in early patristic theological works (Justin the Martyr, Origen, Athanasius, Basil the Great) and though the term itself was also explicitly used in Sts. Gregory the Theologian and Maximos the Confessor, it was St. John of Damascus, in his work Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, who was really the church father to develop the term and concept most fully, especially where Perichoresis is used to describe the type ofintra-trinitarian relationships. It was from the trinitarian context that St. John extrapolated the concept back to Christology; the perichoretical relations in the Trinity being used by him as a paradigm for the coexistence of the two natures in Christ. The term Perichoresis essentially indicates that at the heart of God’s life is supreme personal relationship; and that relation is one of total intimacy. According to St. John of Damascus, the persons of the Trinity live together in union in a relationship without coalescence or commingling; they cleave to each other and have their being in each other. When applied to the two natures of Christ, Perichoresis indicates their co-inhabitation and interpenetration, or mutual permeation, yet without any loss on the part of any of the two natures of its specific properties, and without any confusion or mixture. The ekthesis (credal definition) of the Council of Chalcedon expresses the idea succinctly. Trinitarian perichoresis also grew in the Orthodox tradition to become a paradigm for the spiritual union and interrelation of members of the Christian Church based on Christ’s intentions as expressed in John 17.21 : “That they all may be one; as You, Father are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us.” |
| Address by His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to His Holiness Pope Francis during the Doxology in the Patriarchal Church (November 29, 2014) Source: The Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople Natalya Mihailova 30 November 2014 Pope Francis with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in Istanbul (AP) Your Holiness, In offering glory to the all-good God in Trinity, we welcome You and Your honorable entourage to this sacred place, the hierarchal See of the historical and martyric Church charged by divine providence with a profoundly responsible ministry as being the First-Throne among the local most holy Orthodox Churches. We welcome You with joy, honor and gratitude because You have deemed it proper to direct Your steps from the Old Rome to the New Rome, symbolically bridging West and East through this movement, while translating the love of the Chief Apostle to his brother, the First-Called Apostle. Your advent here, being the first since the recent election of Your Holiness to the throne that “presides in love,” constitutes a continuation of similar visits by Your eminent predecessors Paul VI, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, but also bears witness to Your own will and that of the most holy Church of Rome to maintain the fraternal and stable advance with the Orthodox Church for the restoration of full communion between our Churches. Therefore, it is with great satisfaction and appreciation that we greet the arrival here of Your Holiness as an historical event filled with favorable signs for the future. This sacred space, where in the midst of diverse historical challenges Ecumenical Patriarchs have for centuries celebrated and celebrate the holy Mystery of the Divine Eucharist, constitutes a successor to other illustrious places of worship in this City, which have been brightened by renowned ecclesiastical personalities already adorning the choir of great Fathers of the universal Church. Such luminaries include our predecessors Saints Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom, whose sacred relics now lie in this holy church, thanks to their gracious return to the Ecumenical Patriarchate by the Church of Rome; their relics are alongside those of Basil the Great and Euphemia the Great Martyr, who validated the Tome of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, as well as other saints of the Church. |
| Archive Head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Administration for Institutions Abroad visits the USA 2 May 2018 year 18:04 On 23-30 April 2018, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, Archbishop Antony of Vienna and Budapest, head of the Moscow Patriarchate’s Administration for Institutions Abroad, was on a working visit in the United States. On April 24, accompanied by Bishop John of Naro-Fominsk, administrator of the Patriarchal parishes in the USA, Archbishop Antony of Vienna and Budapest visited the Patriarchal complex in Pine Bush, New York. Archpriest Nokolai Babijtchouk, rector of the parish, told Vladyka Antony how the Church of All Saints Who Shone Forth in the Russian Land and an Orthodox cemetery nearby had been established, and acquainted him with today’s life of the parish. Later that day Archbishop Antony arrived in the Monastery of the Great Martyr Demetrios of Thessaloniki in Framingham, Massachusetts, where he venerated the local shrines and met with the brethren. On April 27, accompanied by Bishop John of Naro-Fominsk and Archpriest Andrey Kovalev, rector of the Church of St. Gregory the Theologian in Tampa, Florida, Archbishop Antony visited the Orthodox Assisted Living Home in Clearwater, established under the auspices of the Patriarchal parishes in the USA in 2017. Mr. Peter Schweitzer, director of the facility, acquainted Vladyka Antony with the work of the institution. Vladyka Antony conveyed to its staff and residents the blessings and well wishes from His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia. In the afternoon of the same day, Archbishop Antony visited the Church of St. Gregory the Theologian in Tampa, where the restoration work is underway to repair a damage inflicted by a hurricane in 2004. On April 29, the Fourth Sunday after Pascha, Archbishop Antony of Vienna and Budapest celebrated the Divine Liturgy in St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York. Concelebrating with His Eminence were Bishop John of Naro-Fominsk, administrator of the Patriarchal parishes in the USA, Archpriest Igor Tarasov, chancellor of the Patriarchal parishes, and the local clergy. |
| Writing about the Biblical texts, Elder Sophrony Sakharov, one of our leading modern theologians, says that even if they were to be lost in some way, we would be able to re-write them, not in precisely the same words, but certainly in the same spirit. It is quite clear from this that there is no question of making the actual letter and text of the Scriptures into objects of worship in themselves. It is obvious and well enough known, in any case, that the Church preceded the Scriptures, since it already existed, living in its own Tradition, when it established the canonical books, with all that involves. What, then, are the Scriptures? To put it simply, a written part of the total God-inspired Tradition of the Church. Unfortunately, however, the Protestant outlook of sola scriptura which was encouraged, wittingly or unwittingly, by brotherhoods in Greece which acted as organizations parallel to the Church, has seeped into our own way of thinking. I have read, in the writings of a modern theologian that he doubts the authenticity of the Entry of the Mother of God into the Holy of Holies, because it clashes with our rationalism and, even worse, is not transmitted by the canonical books of the Church. But this theologian is overlooking the fact that this feast, taken from the (apocryphal) Proto-Evangelium of Saint James, has not only become part of the official celebrations of the Church, but has been established through the relevant hymns, which make it very much part of Church Tradition. Can the Fathers really have been so deceived over so many centuries? This would seem highly unlikely. I’ve been told that another university teacher, who passed away recently, doubted the translation/resurrection of the Mother of God, again precisely because it’s not transmitted in the written Biblical tradition of the Church. The strange thing is that at the university where the man held his post, the canon of Scripture, as represented and expressed in the Spirit by the saints and the bishops in synod, is most emphatically taught. It’s astonishing that our Tradition should be held in doubt by people who ought to have understood its value far better. In this particular instance, this professor placed himself above the great Gregory Palamas, who spoke very clearly on the subject of the Dormition of the Mother of God. Is it accidental that this particular person was the leader of one of the para-ecclesiastical organizations? |
| John Anthony McGuckin Apophaticism JUSTIN M. LASSER The Greek term apophasis denotes a manner of doing theology by “not speaking.” As the alpha-privative prefix suggests, the term is concerned with a negating function. In some forms apophaticism exists as a check on kataphatic or assertive theology or philosophy. The style of apophatic theology was first developed by the Platonic school philosophers, and creatively used by Plotinus, as well as appearing in some of the Gnostic literature (Apocryphon of John, Trimorphic Protennoia). Apophaticism, stressing that God exceeds the boundaries of all terms that can be applied to the divinity by human mind or language, is above all else a means of preserving mystery amid a world of theological assertions. Apophaticism preserves the religious apprehension of the mystical in a more sophisticated way than the simple asseveration of dogmatic utterances. The Nag Hammadi writings (recovered in 1945) exhibit the earliest forms of Christian apophaticism. Clement and Origen of Alexandria both developed early Orthodox forms of apophaticism which were inherited and developed especially by St. Gregory of Nazianzus (Orations 27–8) and St. Gregory of Nyssa (Contra Eunomium) in their controversy with the Arian logicians Eunomius and Aetius. The theology of these radical Arians (Heterousiasts) against which the Cappadocians asserted apophaticism as a way of refuting their deductions about God’s nature (which Aetius had affirmed was simple and directly knowable through logical method and literal exegesis) was itself a form of apophaticism, since they posited the negation “un-originate” (agenetos) as the first principle of their doctrine of God. Evagrius of Ponticus, disciple of the Cappadocians, transformed Christian apophaticism into a theology of prayer, encouraging his disciples to pray without using any mental images. The first Orthodox Christian writer to employ apophaticism systematically was the great 5th-century Syrian theologian Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. His treatises on the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology stand at the very pinnacle of Orthodox apophatic theology. Dionysius believed that the descriptive (affirmative or positive-utterance) elements in revelation were intended to provide a ladder by which the initiate would climb by negating each descriptive assertion about God. Dionysius’ writings, considering the theological controversies that preceded them, were astoundingly thought provoking. Concerning the divinity, Dionysius wrote: “It is not a substance [ousia], nor is it eternity or time. ... It is not Sonship or Fatherhood ... it falls neither within the predicate of non-being nor of being” (Mystical Theology, in Rorem 1987: 141). Even so, Dionysius could still begin his treatise praying to the divine Trinity and would develop all his thought in the matrix of the divine liturgy. Such are the paradoxes of the apophatic approach. |
| Born in Ibora on the Black Sea, Evagrios enjoyed a close connection with the Cappadocian fathers: a pupil of Gregory of Nazianzus, he was ordained reader by Basil. Later (380–1), he accompanied Gregory of Nazianzus to Constantinople as Gregory’s theological assistant in the time he composed the Five Theological Orations. There he enjoyed acclaim for his success in disputes against Eunomians. Around 383, when Nektarios was patriarch, he fled Constantinople on account of its spiritual perils and in search of a life of stillness (hesychia). At the monastery on the Mount of Olives (near Jerusalem) he was tonsured a monk by Rufinus and Melania, then traveled via Alexandria to settle in the Nitrian desert as a solitary. Having spent several years under the spiritual direction of St. Macarius of Egypt and standing within the tradition of the desert fathers, Evagrios himself became a spiritual guide of great renown. His Praktikos, Gnostikos, Chapters On Prayer, Antirrhetikos, On Evil Thoughts, and Commentary on the Psalms were celebrated throughout late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Styled as collections of mellifluous pithy maxims (apophthegmata), these expound the mind’s journey of purification from obstreperous thoughts, the acquisition of virtues, and ascent to divine knowledge: the praxis-contemplation-theology trilogy. Via Cassian, Evagrios’s ideas spread in the West at an early stage, while remaining ascetical classics in the Greekspeaking East. The late 5th century saw his writings translated into Syriac. He likewise authored other, more esoteric treatises (Gnostic Chapters, Letter to Melania) containing speculations about creation, Christ, and salvation, some of which were developed directly from Origen’s works. There he argued that bodies and matter were fashioned subsequently to the creation of souls, as remedy for the souls’ disobedience; Christ is not the divine Logos but is created; in the End of Things, all shall be saved (the Devil included, while bodies and material beings shall be destroyed). For these latter views, which first aroused the suspicions of Theophilus of Alexandria and Jerome (early 5th century), Evagrios was condemned as heterodox at the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Ecumenical Councils. Many of his Greek originals were destroyed, to remain only in Syriac translations. Other works survive under the names of persons of untainted reputation: notably, St. Nilus (Chapters on Prayer, in the Philokalia). Evagrios also appears in the Philokalia as Abba Evagrios the Monk (On Eight Thoughts). In later times Sts. John Climacus, Maximus the Confessor, and Symeon the New Theologian were deeply influenced by Evagrios’s spiritual teachings; and in the later part of the 20th century he once again emerged as a spiritual master as his works found English translations. |
| John Anthony McGuckin St. Macarius (4th c.) MARCUS PLESTED This anonymous author (also known as Macarius-Symeon or pseudo-Macarius) stands as a principal source of Orthodox mystical and ascetic theology. He flourished in Syro-Mesopotamia between ca. 370 and ca. 390. His writings were variously ascribed to a Macarius (of both Egypt and Alexandria) or, later, Symeon – hence the many names of this elusive theologian. The direct experience of God forms the cornerstone of the Macarian vision. He speaks with astonishing precision and poetry of the operation of the Spirit. Bestriding Greek and Syriac thought-worlds, Macarius was able to combine the philosophical reflection of the Greek fathers with the vivid symbolism of the Syriac tradition. His writings call every Christian to directly experience the triune God, an experience described as the vision of uncreated light, a formulation of great import for later Orthodox teaching. The tone of Macarius’ call to perfection is compelling and encouraging. The writings use an exuberant abundance ofimagery and metaphor to convey the progressive deification of the Christian, setting out a dizzying vision of the mutual indwelling of man and God. Macarius is a key witness to the patristic doctrine of deification, insisting on the perfect union of man and God without ever compromising their ontological discontinuity and hypostatic distinctness. His is a heart-centered anthropology. The heart is the point at which soul and body meet and the dwelling-place of the intellect. It is the deep self, the battleground between good and evil. In and through the struggle of the heart Christ restores man to the primal state of Adam and grants him in addition the grace of the Holy Spirit. Through cooperation (synergeia) with divine grace the perfect grace of baptism is manifested and revealed. His legacy began to take shape with Gregory ofNyssa’s reworking of the Macarian Great Letter (Epistola Magna) as his own De Instituto Christiano. Works of Macarius rapidly appeared under an array of illustrious names and in numerous translations. Many of the authors of the Philokalia stand in the Macarian tradition, most obviously |
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