| . Thus, the second section of the Holy Scripture appears, following the Law, which is called the Historic Books, or in the narrow meaning of the word – the Holy History. The Historic Books are sprinkled with individual poetical works: chants, prayers, psalms, as well as teachings (for example Gen. chap.11, Ex. chap.15, many extracts of Deuteronomy, Judg. Chap. 5, 2 Kings 1and on, Tob. chap.13, and so on and so forth). Later on, chants and teachings grew into whole books, which comprise the third section of the Bible – the Instructive Books, in Hebrew – Ketubim. This section contains the books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiasts, Songs of Solomon, the Wisdom of Jesus, Son of Sirach. Finally, the works of the holy prophets, who acted among the Hebrew people according to the Divine will after the division of the kingdom and the Babylonian captivity, comprise the fourth section of the Holy Books – the Prophetic Books, in Hebrew called «Nebiim.» This section includes the books of the Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, the Epistle of Jeremiah, Baruch, Prophet Ezekiel, Prophet Daniel, and the 12 Minor Prophets, i.e. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonas, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. This same division of the Bible into Legislative, Historical, Instructive, and Prophetic Books, was used in the New Testament, where the Legislative books are the Gospels, the Historical Book – the Acts of the Apostles, the Instructive Books – the Epistles of the Holy Apostles, and the Prophetic Book is the Revelations of St. John the Theologian. Besides this division, there are also divisions in the Old Testament of the Holy Scripture into Canonic and Non-Canonic books. The Question about Canon To clarify this question, we need to recall that, originally, only the Torah-Law, i.e. the five books of Moses, were in the full sense of the word the Holy Scripture, the Law for the Old Testament Church. The rest of the books now included in the Bible were, for the ancient pious Hebrew, the same continuation of the Law, its development, but not a part of it, like the works of the Apostles, holy fathers, the lives of saints and Patericks are to us, including the works of such contemporary writers as Theophan the Recluse, Father John of Krondstadt, Metropolitan Anthony. |
| In September 1487 he sent to Metropolitan Gerontius at Moscow all the material from the inquiry, together with a list of the apostates he had discovered, as well as their writings. The struggle with the Judaizers became the main focus of Saint Gennadius’ archpastoral activity. In the words of Saint Joseph of Volokolamsk (September 9), “this archbishop, angered by the malevolent heretics, pounced upon them like a lion from out of the thicket of the Holy Scriptures and the splendid heights of the prophets and the apostolic teachings.” For twelve years Saint Gennadius and Saint Joseph struggled against the most powerful attempts of the opponents of Orthodoxy to alter the course of history of the Russian Church and the Russian state. By their efforts the Orthodox were victorious. The works of Gennadius in the study of the Bible contributed to this victory. The heretics in their impious cleverness used texts from the Old Testament, but which were different from the texts accepted by the Orthodox. Archbishop Gennadius undertook an enormous task: bringing the correct listings of Holy Scripture together in a single codex. Up until this time Biblical books had been copied in Russia, following the example of Byzantium, not in their entirety, but in separate parts—the Pentateuch (first five books) or Octateuch (first eight books), Kings, Proverbs, the Psalter, the Prophets, the Gospels, the Epistles, and other instructive books. The holy books of the Old Testament in particular often were subjected to both accidental and intentional errors. Saint Gennadius wrote about this with sorrow in a letter to Archbishop Joasaph: “The Judaizing heretical tradition adheres to the Psalms of David, or prophecies which they have altered.” Gathering around himself learned and industrious Biblical scholars, the saint collected all the books of the Holy Scripture into a single codex, and he gave his blessing for the Holy Books which were not found in manuscripts of the traditional Slavonic Bible to be retranslated from the Latin language. In 1499 the first complete codex of Holy Scripture in Slavonic (“the Gennadius Bible,” as they called it after its compiler) was published in Russia. This work became an integral link in the succession of Slavonic translations of the Word of God. From the God-inspired translation of the Holy Scripture by Saints Cyril and Methodius, through the Bible of Saint Gennadius (1499), reproduced in the first printed Bible (Ostrozh, 1581), the Church has maintained a Slavonic Biblical tradition right through the so-called Elizabethan Bible (1751) and all successive printed editions. |
| We must become one, the way our Lord prayed to his heavenly Father, as the Holy Trinity is one, in total humility and love, each of us fulfilling the will of the Father as the son and the Holy Spirit perfectly and eternally do. This is the end toward which the church labours and strives. The church plants the seed in order to reap this harvest. No one can be the image of the Holy Trinity alone, as isolated individual. While only human beings, by an acct of faith and commitment, can be saved, no one is saved alone. There is no such thing as an individual salvation, for salvation is to enter into the community of interpersonal love, love of God, fulfilling his will in all things, and the love of one’s neighbour, the fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. This is the goal, the harvest the church expects, awaits, and in which it invites all humanity to participate. The church’s vision, her soteriology and eschatology, while focused on Christ, is not exclusively Christocentric but Trinitarian. And the essence of his interpersonal unity-in-love, the possibly for many persons to be one, is revealed in divine love, tri-personal Agape, which, which makes the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, the three equally divine persons, one. We must always keep the thirteenth chapter of St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians in mind in all the evangelists think, say and do. There is no place for coercion, persecution, intolerance or violence in planting the seed, in announcing the good news to the nations, for these tactics would render the ultimate goal, total Agape, unattainable. Syncretism and inculturation Perhaps no question is more heatedly discussed in various ecumenical mission conferences today than the attempt to distinguish theologically between syncretism and inculturation. Within the World Council of Churches, the problem, it seems to me, is that there are different kinds of seed. In this context, the temptation to syncretism is inescapable. What is syncretism? It has bee difficult if not impossible for many Protestant theologians to arrive at consensus, a definition of exactly what constitutes syncretism, but the historic, patristic Orthodox tradition offers us clear guidelines. The church, during the period of ecumenical councils, sought to express its faith in terms intelligible to Hellenic culture without being distorted, without being “contaminated” by it in the process. This was no easy task, and it required five centuries and seven councils to accomplish it. Syncretism was successfully voided. The church, guided by the Holy Spirit, did not add to its doctrines, practices, beliefs, anything extraneous or incompatible with the faith of the Apostles, the witness of sacred scripture, the Truth revealed in Christ. Syncretism is precisely the introduction into Christian doctrine or worship elements that are incompatible with the fullness of the Apostolic tradition. |
| The premise that the Bible is the only record of revelation of God’s truth is false. Why? After the Church was established at Pentecost, immediately the Church began to develop a life of worship. Remember, the first Christians were Jews. These new Christians brought with them their already established Jewish practices of worship. They took what was familiar to them and Christianized their practices. For example, the first part of the Divine Liturgy is the Jewish Synagogue service Christianized. The second part of the service, which specifically focuses on the Eucharist, is uniquely Christian in character and began its development immediately upon the establishment of the Church. Hence, worship and scripture developed in parallel with one another and not independently of each other. This is why there are so many references to liturgical worship in the Bible. Other Traditions were developing in parallel with scripture as well. For example, the first council in Jerusalem met to discuss whether the Jewish converts to Christianity had to follow the Jewish law before becoming Christian (See Acts 15). Guided by the Holy Spirit, many other councils followed. Icons can likewise be dated as early as the first century, for example, the Holy Napkin or the Image “Not Made by Human Hands” which Christ made for King Agbar V of Edessa and the icon of the Theotokos painted by St. Luke the Apostle and Evangelist. Including Holy Scripture, worship, the councils of the Church and iconography along with the writings of the Church Fathers are also vehicles through which God’s truth is revealed. According to Fr. Ted Stylianopoulos, “…hence there emerged in the Orthodox tradition the position that the Bible is the record of truth, not the truth itself; the record of revelation, not revelation itself. .. This distinction between record and truth carries several important implications … it presupposes that the Orthodox Church highly esteems also other records of the experience of God, such as the writings of the Church Fathers, the [worship of the Church], and the decisions of the Ecumenical Councils. It rescues the [Christian] from an exclusive focus on the Bible … and thus guards [the] Orthodox [Christian] from the error of idolatrous veneration of the text of Scripture (bibliolatry).” |
| And yet the Orthodox Church insists on the Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated elements of the Holy Eucharist, in the actuality of Christ’s substantial presence there, of the tangibility of the saving and healing nourishment it provides. What is this Real Presence? What is really present in the Holy Eucharist such that we really eat of Christ’s Body and Blood—yet not in a literal and cannibalistic fashion? How can we so eat in such an undeniably symbolical, immaterial and yet at the same time real fashion? What is symbolical and what is real in the consecrated elements of the Eucharist and the act of Communion? The Church has traditionally protected the mysterious and transcendent character of the Real Presence by refusing to fix it in specific theological terminology. Theories such as transubstantiation, consubstantiation, and impanation have variously been presented in such attempts at definition, and one approach here would be to canvass their adequacies and inadequacies in order to explore the range of implications of the mystery of Christ’s Real Presence in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. I will reserve such a theological inventory for another article and will pursue here instead a primarily scriptural exegesis. A key factor in grasping the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist is to understand that Christ gives and makes himself available there in the fullness of his glorified substance and person, that is to say, in his fully transformed, resurrected Body. The immediate objection to such a view of the Eucharist is an historical and temporal one: namely, that Christ was not yet glorified when at the Last Supper he first gave to his disciples to eat, under the species of bread and wine, of his veritable Body and Blood. I would reply, however, that such an objection is inconsistent with the fuller implications of Christ’s eternal, indivisible unity with the Father. The Last Supper bears to the post-resurrectional and post-pentecostal Liturgy the same relation that the glory of the Transfiguration bears to the Resurrection and Ascension. The Transfiguration reveals to Peter, James, and John the perpetual glory of Christ’s identity with the Father as well as his fulfillment, as represented by Moses and Elijah, of the Law and the Prophets. The Resurrection is the fuller realization and manifestation within his temporal ministry of the eternal reality of Christ as the Logos: “All things were made through him. . . . In him was life and the life was the light of men” |
| In addition, despite the diversity of contemporary thought on the Church, the majority of righteous Christians agree with the view that in the apostles’ time there existed one Church of Christ as a single community of the saved. The book of the Acts of the Apostles testifies to the existence of the Church in Jerusalem when, on the fiftieth day after the Resurrection of our Savior, the Holy Spirit, in the form of flaming tongues, descended on the apostles. From that day on, the Christian faith spread quickly to various parts of the Roman Empire. As a result of the dispersion of the faithful, there developed Christian communities, called churches, in cities and towns. In their daily life, because of the great distances between them, these congregations were more or less isolated. However, they considered themselves part of the organization of the one, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church. They were united in one faith, in a single source of enlightenment, and steeped in the blessed sacraments: Baptism, Holy Communion, and the laying on of hands. Originally, these blessed sacraments were performed by the apostles. However, soon after, helpers were needed, and among the members of the Christian congregations, the apostles selected worthy candidates chosen to be bishops, priests, and deacons. The apostles instructed the bishops in their responsibility to follow pure Christian teaching, to teach the faithful to live piously, and to ordain new bishops, priests, and deacons. Thus, the Church, during the first century, like a tree, constantly grew and spread its branches over various countries, enriched by spiritual experiences, religious literature, church services, and, later, by church choirs, the architecture of the churches, and ecclesiastical arts, but always preserving the essence of the true Church of Christ. The Gospels and Epistles did not appear right away or even simultaneously. For many decades after the establishment of the Church, the source of teaching was not the Holy Scriptures as we have them today, but the oral preaching that the apostles themselves called “the Tradition,” that is, the true religious teaching. |
| Jesus appears in the gospel narrative first as rabbi, master and teacher (didaskolos, magister). He instructs his students in the right understanding of the old testament writings. Risen from the dead he opens the minds of his disciples to understand the scriptures and explains to them how «the law, the psalms and the prophets» speak about him (cf. Lk 24 ). Critical study of scriptures is a reading and hearing of the biblical words without prejudging or predetermining their meaning. Through such study the student (who may in some circumstances be unable to read) wants to know what the writings actually say and mean, first for those who originally wrote and heard them, and then for people today, beginning with oneself. Such study uses all available means to illumine and explain (but not to constitute or determine) the biblical texts as written and received in the Church. It employs, for example, the knowledge of languages, literature, history, religion, geography and archeology. It welcomes the guidance of those skilled in such fields. But though this study is done within the Church community with the help of others, it must be done for oneself. Each individual believer must personally engage God " s Word in the Bible. Without such engagement, especially today in North America, and especially by the Church " s leaders, there is no genuine Orthodox mission. Bible and Liturgy The hearing and reading of the Bible essential to Orthodox missionary work occurs in the context of the Church " s self-actualization in corporate worship, i.e. the liturgy. The Church assembled in Christ " s name before the Face of God in the Holy Spirit for instruction, petition, praise, remembrance and thanksgiving is the hermeneutical condition and context for interpreting God " s Word recorded in the scriptures. As such, it is the point from which the Church " s apostolic mission originates and the point toward which its activity is directed. Not only is the Bible read, heard, contemplated and explained at Church services, but the services themselves are thoroughly biblical in content, form and spirit. Biblically informed believers have an immediate awareness and experience of the Biblés message in Orthodox liturgical worship. Or rather, more accurately, the God and Christ witnessed in the Bible become immediately accessible to believers in liturgical contemplation and communion in the Church. |
| In this way, around a solitary ascetic, a gradual gathering of people (brotherhood) ensued, eventually forming a hermitage or monastery. Parallel to this, by placing themselves under the spiritual guidance of an experienced starets-teacher, the novices of the monastery, as well as pilgrim-visitors, assisted in the consolidation of “starchestvo” — the practice where people sought and received spiritual direction from an old, competent and pious monk. Our native history tells us what the salutary influence was on the Russian people from the numerous monasteries, abbeys and retreats that were strewn across the vast expanses of Holy Russia. The Kievo-Pechersk Monastery, Trinity-Sergius Monastery, Valaam Monastery, Solovets Abbey, Optina Retreat and others were centers of moral rehabilitation. The startsi-ascetics rarely wrote expressive sermons, usually keeping them concise. Although as a rule, their preceptorials were responses to specific questions from visitors, to this day they exude a great spiritual power. Being invariably based on the starets’ own experience, the teachings shed light on the various difficulties that a person will confront on his journey toward God. Teachings of the more authoritative “startsi” were often recorded, so that over the passing of some one and a half thousand years, beginning with Blessed Anthony the Great (mid-fourth century), there is an accumulated abundance of indigenous, ascetic holy literature, which enlightens the many facets of Christian living. With all the diverse epochs, cultures and circumstances through which the lives of the ascetics passed, their teachings are outstanding in their total similitude. This has occurred for two reasons. Firstly, because all humans have the same nature and their common aim is the Kingdom of Heaven, the temptations that they are obliged to battle remain in essence as unchanged as the moral laws established by our Creator. Secondly, the same Holy Spirit spoke through the holy Fathers as the one Who spoke through the mouths of Prophets and Apostles, and Who through our Savior’s promise, will abide in His Church until the end of time. The holy Fathers proclaim the one and the same good news as the Holy Scripture. The distinctiveness of their teachings is made up in their detailed illumination of the various facets of spiritual life, in specific examples and advice. The Holy Scripture lays the foundation for faith and pious living, while the holy Fathers explain the various aspects of such life, give advice on how to discern and surmount the devil’s wiles and how to successfully attain righteousness. |
| Despite the division between the Royalists and the Venizelists, which continued to deepen, and the opposition of the new Holy Synod of the Church of Greece, Metropolitan Meletios and Bishop Alexander acted decisively to organize in a formal and legal manner the Greek Orthodox parishes in America. Through an encyclical dated 11 August 1921, Metropolitan Meletios called for the first Congress of Clergy and Laity of the parishes in America. This historic congress, held in New York on 13–15 September 1921, was the first time that clergy and lay representatives of the Greek Orthodox parishes from throughout the United States met together. The most important action of the congress was the establishment of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America. 118 In order to give the new archdiocese a legal as well as an ecclesiastical authority, it was formally incorporated in the state of New York on 19 September 1921. According to the document of incorporation, the purposes of the archdiocese were: To edify the religious and moral life of the Greek Orthodox Christians in North and South America on the basis of Holy Scripture, the rules and canons of the Holy Apostles and of the Seven Ecumenical Councils of the ancient undivided Church as they are or shall be actually interpreted by the Great Church of Christ in Constantinople and to exercise governing authority over and to maintain advisory relations with Greek Orthodox Churches throughout North and South America and to maintain spiritual and advisory relations with synods and other governing authorities of the said Church located elsewhere. 119 New developments soon occurred in both America and Constantinople that further altered the direction of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese. Less than two months after the organization of the new archdiocese, Metropolitan Meletios was elected Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople on 25 November 1921. 120 This dramatic turn of events was to have a monumental effect upon Orthodox Christianity in America. Although Metropolitan Meletios was chosen to become patriarch at a time when the Church of Constantinople was beset with many problems, he continued to have a profound concern for the Orthodox faithful in America. This is very clearly evident in his enthronement speech, which was delivered in the patriarchal Church of St. George on 8 February 1922. After reflecting upon the state of the Orthodox churches, the new patriarch spoke with much affection and with much vision for the church in America: |
| This process continues even today, though at a less rapid pace, intensifying our evangelical witness to the world. Our Church has always—in the past and especially today—held before its spiritual gaze the fulfillment of two tasks and obligations: First, to care diligently for the spiritual well-being and salvation of our existing flocks, in all our diocese and parishes, safeguarding them from temptations and the many alien, inimical influences that surround us, nurturing them in faith and piety; and, above all, to raise our children and the youth to be worthy members of the Church, to be sincere Christians and godly people. This task of care for the youth is of utmost importance and magnitude and it requires the active participation of all the members of the Church, under the guidance and leadership of our pastors and instructors in the faith. Second, we have the obligation to be missionaries to those around us, in accordance with our Savior’s commandment, “Go ye therefore into all the world...” Our parishes and monasteries need to be warm and welcoming places where those who seek God and the true Faith can experience the warmth of genuine Christian love and un-hypocritical faith. We need to find more effective ways and means for the Orthodox Christian message to be passed on to our children, our young people, those who are now only Orthodox in name and are un-churched, and the community at large. We must also be unfailingly familiar with the tenets of our Orthodox faith and be able to give a reliable and trustworthy answer to those who ask us about the doctrines and holy traditions of Orthodoxy. It is imperative that our divine services, which are a well-spring of theology and spiritual instruction, be readily understood by the faithful and be a pleasing, compunctionate and inspirational experience for them. Likewise we need to love the divine Scriptures, continuously studying them under the safe guidance of the writings of the holy and divinely-inspired Fathers of the Church. This is what we, as archpastors and pastors of the Church must wholeheartedly aspire to achieve with God’s help and guidance, building up the Church and strengthening the faith and spiritual life of those under our care. |
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