| Why Not “Open Communion”? The real issue, however, is not one of obedience or disobedience to rules and regulations. If the Orthodox preserve the sanctity of the Eucharist as a supreme obligation, it is because of the often stated truth that communion in the Body and Blood of Christ is the very end or fulfillment of Christian existence. Especially at the feast of Pascha (Easter) non-Orthodox Christians ask why they may not receive Holy Communion in Orthodox parishes. As painful as this refusal is, it is based on our understanding of the true meaning of the sacrament as revealed in Scripture and ecclesial experience. A few months ago someone sent me a posting from an Internet site that spoke to the issue of communion among various Christian confessions. In answer to the question why a Protestant believer was refused the sacrament at Easter in her boyfriend’s Catholic parish, the writer declared that non-Catholics do not believe in “the presence of God’s body in the transubstantiated host.” Therefore, “they cannot take communion.” Then the writer added: “There is just one exception to this rule. Orthodox Christians (such as Greek Orthodox Christians) may take communion in all Roman Catholic Churches. The reason for this is that Orthodox Christianity also teaches the actual presence of God in the host.” This widespread understanding of the matter is not accurate and needs to be corrected on several counts, theological as well as pastoral. An entire tome could be written by way of explanation, but here are a few of the most important elements. In the next two columns we’ll explore some others. In the first place, we need to acknowledge that many Protestant Christians (including many Anglicans) do believe that Holy Communion offers them a true participation in Christ’s Body and Blood. They may not articulate that belief as Catholics or Orthodox would like; but their faith in Christ’s “real presence in the Eucharist” is genuine and should not be disparaged or denied. Then again, Orthodox Eucharistic theology does not explain the change of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ as a result of “transubstantiation,” the teaching that the “accidents” (visible properties) of the elements remain unaltered, while their “substance” or inner essence becomes the actual Body and Blood. |
| Скачать epub pdf History Almost two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth and founded the Church, through His Apostles and disciples, for the salvation of man. In the years which followed, the Apostles spread the Church and its teachings far; they founded many churches, all united in faith, worship, and the partaking of the Mysteries (or as they are called in the West, the Sacraments) of the Holy Church. The churches founded by the Apostles themselves include the Patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Rome. The Church of Constantinople was founded by St. Andrew, the Church of Alexandria by St. Mark, the Church of Antioch by St. Paul, the Church of Jerusalem by Sts. Peter and James, and the Church of Rome by Sts. Peter and Paul. Those founded in later years through the missionary activity of the first churches were the Churches of Sinai, Russia, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, and many others. Each of these churches is independent in administration, but, with the exception of the Church of Rome, which finally separated from the others in the year 1054, all are united in faith, doctrine, Apostolic tradition, sacraments, liturgies, and services. Together they constitute and call themselves the Orthodox Church. The teachings of the Church are derived from two sources: Holy Scripture, and Sacred Tradition, within which the Scriptures came to be, and within which they are interpreted. As written in the Gospel of St. John, «And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world could not contain the books that should be written» ( John 21:20 ). Much teaching transmitted orally by the Apostles has come down to us in Sacred Tradition. The word Orthodox literally means right teaching or right worship, being derived from two Greek words: orthos (right) and doxa (teaching or worship). As the false teachings and divisions multiplied in early Christian times, threatening to obscure the identity and purity of the Church, the term Orthodox quite logically came to be applied to it. The Orthodox Church carefully guards the truth against all error and schism, both to protect its flock and to glorify Christ whose body the Church is. |
| A relatively modern term deriving from the Latin Patres, or “Fathers.” It was also known as patrology up to the mid-20th century, though this latter designation has now been restricted mainly to signify reference manuals dealing with the works of the fathers of the church. The fathers were the bishops, outstanding theologians, and leading monastic elders ofthe early church, who left behind them authoritative bodies of spiritual, biblical, liturgical, and dogmatic writings. The age of the fathers is generally seen as extending from after the apostolic era (beginning of the 2nd century) to the 8th and 9th centuries, whose great luminaries then included St. John of Damascus and St. Photios the Great. John is, in many ways, a certain sign of the closing of the patristic age, with his works gathering together as a kind of encyclopedia of the earlier authoritative materials to form a synthesis of patristic theology for the later church’s reference. In terms of Latin patristics, the traditional cut-off point has been significantly extended beyond this time, even up to the medieval western theologian Bernard of Clairvaux, who is sometimes called, in the Catholic Church, the “last of the fathers» Even so, there is not a hard and fast historical line, as Orthodoxy understands it, for some of the late Byzantine writers such as St. Symeon the New Theologian of the 11th century, or St. Gregory Palamas (1296–1359), for example, certainly enjoy a high “patristic status” in contemporary Orthodoxy. The word generally means, in Orthodox circles, those definitive and highly authoritative theologians of the church in its classical ages who represent purity of doctrine allied with great holiness of life; a life that manifests the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in their acts and their consciousness, such that they are not merely good speculative thinkers, or interesting religious writers, as such, but rather substantial guides to the will of God, and Spirit-bearers (pneumatophoroi) whose doctrine and advice can be trusted as conveying the authentic Orthodox tradition of faith and piety. This does not mean that every single thing any one of the fathers ever wrote is given “canonical” status. Orthodoxy admits that the general rule of human authorship applies even among the saints, for as the adage tells, “even Homer nods,” but it does mean that collectively, and by the consensus of the fathers among themselves, and by the manner in which they stand in a stream of defense of the ecumenical faith of the church, they together comprise a library of immense prestige and authority. They are thus collectively strong and concrete evidence for the central tradition of the Orthodox Church. This is why the church affords them a very high theological authority, not as great as the Scriptures or the ecumenical councils, but certainly alongside the latter; for it was from their writings that the doctrine of the great councils generally emerged. |
| Chapter VI. The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox Church Christianity is essentially a social religion. There is an old Latin saying: unus Christianas nullus Christianus. Nobody can be truly Christian as a solitary and isolated being. Christianity is not primarily a doctrine or a discipline that individuals might adopt for their personal use and guidance. Christianity is exactly a community, i.e., the church. In this respect there is an obvious continuity between the Old and the New dispensations. Christians are «the New Israel.» The whole phraseology of Scripture is highly instructive: the Covenant, the Kingdom, the Church, «a holy Nation, a peculiar People.» The abstract term «Christianity» is obviously of a late date. From the very beginning Christianity was socially minded. The whole fabric of Christian existence is social and corporate. All Christian sacraments are intrinsically «social sacraments,» i.e. sacraments of incorporation. Christian worship is also a corporate worship, «publica et communis oratio,» in the phrase of St. Cyprian. To build up the Church of Christ means, therefore, to build up a new society and, by implication, to re-build human society on a new basis. There was always a strong emphasis on unanimity and life in common. One of the earliest names for Christians was simply «Brethren.» The church was and was to be a creaturely image of the divine pattern. Three Persons, yet One God. Accordingly, in the church, many are to be integrated into one Body. All this is, of course, the common heritage of the whole church. Yet, probably, this corporate emphasis has been particularly strong in the Eastern tradition and does still constitute the distinctive ethos of the Eastern Orthodox church. It is not _________________ «The Social Problem in the Eastern Orthodox Church» appeared in The Journal of Religious Thought, Vol. VIII, No. 1 (Autumn/Winter, 1950 – 1951), pp. 41 – 51. Reprinted by permission. to suggest that all social aspirations of Christianity had been really actualized in the empirical life of the Christian East. Ideals are never fully realized; the church is still |
| Dnu Mnstireanu Introduction The importance of studying the implications of an appeal to tradition on the interpretation of Scripture is underlined by at least two facts: 1. The renewed interest for the study of tradition in modern scholarship For centuries the sola scriptura principle of the Reformation has been an unchallenged basis for Western scholarship. This brought about a concentration on the text of Scripture alone and a neglect of the Sitz im Leben in which the books of the New Testament have originated. However, as comments Von Herder, one of the first to do so, in 1796–97, did not begin with books, but with oral preaching». 2 The progress made in folklore research and the birth of Formgeschichte with scholars such as Dibelius 3 and Bultmann 4 in the twenties has in turn brought about a new appreciation of the different literary forms in the Gospels and the role they played in the oral stage of the Gospel tradition. Later on, in the fifties, the redaction criticism schools of Conzelmann, 5 Marxsen 6 and Bornkamm 7 corrected the fragmented approach of the form-critics, concentrating on the Gospels as literary units and on the Gospel writers as theologians representing the concerns of the early Christian communities. This for a tradition within and behind the received text», says Jaroslav Pelikan, responsible for an entire new era in the long history of biblical interpretation». 8 Commenting on the oral background of the Biblical text, Gerhardsson describes in the following words the implications of this fact in the area of hermeneutics: Awareness of the fact that the gospel is by nature a spoken word is essential for a sound interpretation of the holy scriptures of the church. It is a guard against the tendency – not uncommon within Protestantism – to think that the church believes in the Bible, not in the triune God, and it counteracts dead ecclesiastic routine, legalism and rationalistic literalism in interpretation. 9 The renewed worldwide interest in the study of tradition proved to be a the right occasion for Orthodoxy to make an impact on the modern ecumenical movement. 2. The new insights on tradition provided by the involvement of the Eastern Orthodox Church in ecumenical dialogue |
| D. Oliver Herbel BIBLIOGRAPHY Introduction Agadjanian, Alexander and Victor Roudometof, «Introduction: Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age – Preliminary Considerations.» In Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age: Tradition Faces the Twenty-First Century, edited by Victor Roudometof, Alexander Agadjanian, and Jerry Pankhurst, 1–26. Walnut Creek, California: AltaMira Press, 2005. Behr, John. The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death. Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir " s Seminary Press, 2006. Berger, Peter L. «Orthodoxy and the Pluralistic Challenge.» In The Orthodox Parish in America: Faithfulness to the Past and Responsibility for the Future, edited by Anton C. Vrame, 33–42. Brookline, Massachusetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 2003. Bicha, Karel D. «Hunkies: Stereotyping the Slavic Immigrants, 1890–1920.» Journal of American Ethnic History 2:1 (1982), 16–38. Bjerring, Nicholas. «Which the True Church: A Roman Catholic Savant Renounces Rome.» The Sun, January 12, 1870. Bozeman, Theodore Dwight. To Live Ancient Lives: The Primitivist Dimension in Puritanism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988. Breck, John. Scripture in Tradition: the Bible and its Interpretation in the Orthodox Church. Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir " s Seminary Press, 2000. Brookline, Massachusetts. «Some Further Thoughts on Religion and Modernity.» Sociology 49(2012), 313–316. Calhoun, Craig, Mark Jurgensmeyer, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen. Rethinking Secularization. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. Cherry, Conrad ed. God " s New Israel: Religious Interpretation of American Destiny. Revised edition, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Ferencz, Nicholas. American Orthodoxy and Parish Congregationalism. Piscataway, New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2006. Fisch, Thomas, ed. Liturgy and Tradition: Theological Reflections of Alexander Schmemann. Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir " s Seminary Press, 1990. Gallaher, Brandon. « " Waiting for the Barbarians»: Identity and Polemicism in the Neo-Patristic Synthesis of Georges Florovsky.» Modern Theology 27:4 (2011), 659–691. |
| In a world of change it is (almost) comforting to see how some things can always be counted on to stay the same—such as Sanfilippo’s Orthodoxy in Dialogue blog, which consistently treats its faithful readers with repeated attempts to legitimize the sin that the Church has always condemned. Answering every one of his blog posts point by point would require something like a full-time job, and most of us are already fully employed. The points that Sanfilippo makes in his recent post “From the Fathers: the Kingdom of Heaven is Like…Two Men in Bed Together?” can be boiled down to two: 1. scientific advances have now shown that past approaches to homosexual behaviour are out-dated and should be scrapped; and 2. the images and parables of the Scripture and the Fathers use nuptial imagery, and this legitimizes homosexual behaviour. I will not deal with Sanfilippo’s first point at length, other than to note that the same dubious argumentation is now being advanced in some places to justify pedophilia (now being sanitized under the term “minor attraction”). I deny that science has much to say about the moral legitimacy of either form of sexuality or indeed of morality in general at all. Scientific research can document what people desire to do; it is beyond its competence to pronounce on the morality of these desires. Of more interest is Sanfilippo’s argument about male-to-male sexuality (with his provocative image and title “two men in bed together”). Some of this article simply repeats material in his previous piece “Conjugal Friendship” at the Public Orthodoxy site, and the reader is referred to my response to that in a previous blog piece. Sanfilippo’s basic point in this article is that “the presence of male-male conjugal intimacy in our patristic tradition as a symbol of the mystical and eucharistic union of Christ with the individual male believer nullifies the irrational idée fixe of those Orthodox churchmen who insist that the Holy Fathers abhorred the mere thought of same-sex eroticism.” |
| John Anthony McGuckin Bible THEODORE G. STYLIANOPOULOS The Bible, composed of the Old and New Testaments, is a rich and diverse library of sacred writings or scriptures derived from the Jewish and Christian traditions. “Bible” (from the Greek biblos meaning “document” or “book”) points to the authority of the Bible as the book of divine revelation. “Scripture” (Greek graphe, meaning “what is written”) signifies the actual content of the books proclaiming the authoritative message of salvation – the word of God. In a process lasting nearly four centuries, the ancient church preserved, selected, and gradually formed these sacred texts into two official lists or canons of the Old and New Testaments, respectively, a significant achievement that along with the shaping of the episcopacy and creed contributed to the growth and unity of the church. In Orthodox perspective, the Bible or Holy Scripture is the supreme record of God’s revelation and therefore the standard of the church for worship, theology, spirituality, ethics, and practice. The Bible is above all a book of God and about God – God himself being the primary author and the subject matter of the scriptures. The Bible bears testimony to who God is, what great acts of salvation God has accomplished, and what God’s revealed will for humanity is, communicated through inspired men and women “in many and various ways” (Heb. 1.1). These “ways” include words, deeds, rites, laws, visions, symbols, parables, wisdom, ethical teachings, and commandments. The overall message of the Bible is the narrative of salvation about creation, fall, covenant, prophecy, exile, redemption, and hope of final world renewal. The supreme revelation of the mystery of God is through the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, “the Lord of glory” ( 1Cor. 2.8 ), who constitutes the center of biblical revelation and marks the unity of the Old and New Testaments. However, insofar as divine revelation occurred not in a vacuum but in relationship to free, willing, thinking, and acting human beings, the Bible also reflects a human and historical side which accounts for the variety of books, authors, language, style, customs, ideas, theological perspectives, numerous discrepancies in historical details, and sometimes substantial differences in teaching, especially between the Old and New Testaments. |
| St. Alexander Nevsky, Russia’s Knight in Shining Armor Commemorated November 23/December 6 and August 30/September 12 St. Alexander Nevsky was Russia’s “ knight in shining armor.” His reputation as a man of exceptional valor and surpassing virtue inspired a visit by a German commander who told his people when he returned: “I went through many countries and saw many people, but I have never met such a king among kings, nor such a prince among princes.” The Russians called him their “prince without sin.” He was born just four years before the fierce Tatars, under the leadership of Ghengis Khan, came galloping across the steppes of Kievan Rus. The once flourishing city state—whose social, cultural and spiritual achievements boasted few rivals in Western Europe—had been weakened by quarrelling princes and attacks of warring tribes, and it was an easy prey for the massacring and pillaging Asiatic aggressors. Fortunately, the Mongol Horde’s primary interest in conquest was financial gain, and although it imposed a heavy tax on its subjects, they were left to govern themselves and retained their traditions and religion intact, Nevertheless, the yoke of foreign sovereignty was burdensome; individual princes were reduced to acting as feudal landlords for their Mongol lords, and inclinations toward s national unity—the dream of Grand Prince Vladimir —were stifled. A strong leader was needed if the land of Rus’ was to have any hope of healing internal strife, of throwing off the Tatar yoke, and establishing its identity as a nation state. The baneful effect of internal dissension was a lesson which came early to Prince Alexander, as he witnessed his father, Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich, struggle with the proudly independent spirited boyars of Novgorod, It was there that the boy grew up. Like most noble youth s of his time, he had barely learned to walk before he was lifted into the saddle. Training in the martial arts was combined with an education based upon the Scriptures. Under the influence of his mother, who was popularly called “the holy queen” on account of her piety and charitable deeds, the young prince developed a profound spiritual life. He engrossed himself for hours in reading the Old and New Testaments. |
| The Footnotes Readers who wish to pursue a deeper investigation of the patristic works cited in this commentary will find the footnotes especially valuable. A footnote number directs the reader to the notes at the bottom of the right-hand column, where in addition to other notations (clarifications or biblical cross references) one will find information on English translations (where available) and standard original-language editions of the work cited. An abbreviated citation (normally citing the book, volume and page number) of the work is provided except in cases where a line-by-line commentary is being quoted, in which case the biblical references will lead directly to the selection. A key to the abbreviations is provided on pages xv-xvi. Where there is any serious ambiguity or textual problem in the selection, we have tried to reflect the best available textual tradition. For the convenience of computer database users the digital database references are provided to either the Thesaurus Lingua Graecae (Greek texts) or to the Getedoc (Latin texts) in the appendix found on pages 177–82. Abbreviation ACW Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1946. J.B. Lightfoot and J.R. Harmer, trans. The Apostolic Fathers. Edited by M. W. Holmes. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1989. Dana Miller, ed. The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian. Boston, Mass.: Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 1984. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, eds. Ante-Nicene fathers. 10 vols. Buffalo, N.Y.: Christian Literature. 1883–1896. Reprint. Grand Rapids. Mich.: Ecrdmans. 1951–1956. Reprint, Peabody. Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994. St. Athanasius. The Resurrection Letters. Paraphrased and introduced by Jack N. Sparks. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1979. Corpus Christianorum. Series Latina. Turnhout. Belgium: Brepols, 1953. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. Louvain, Belgium. 1903. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latuinorum. Vienna. 1866. J. A. Aassemani, ed. Sancti Patris Nostri Ephraem Syri Opera Omnia. Rome, 1737. |
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