| On Salvation and Christian Perfection Many people talk about salvation, many wish to be saved; but if you ask them what constitutes salvation, then they will find it very difficult to reply. There would be no harm done if replying was the only difficulty! No: the harmful consequence, that this gives rise to, is of great significance. Not knowing what constitutes salvation imparts indefiniteness and incorrectness to our actions in the practice of virtue. For it seems that we do many good works; but essentially we do very few works for salvation. Why is this? The answer is very simple: because we don’t know what constitutes our salvation. To know what our salvation is, we firstly need to know what our perdition is, because only the dead need salvation. The one who seeks salvation thereby plainly admits that he is dead: otherwise why would he need to seek salvation? Our perdition was brought about through the destruction of our communion with God and through our entering into communion with fallen, shunned spirits. Our salvation is rupturing communion with satan and restoring communion with God. The whole human race is in perdition, in the fall. We have been deprived of communion with God in our very root and source: in our forefathers, by means of their wanton transgression. They were created spotless, not liable to sin and corruption: from the very creation they were made partakers of the Holy Spirit; having received natural existence through their humanity, they also received supernatural existence from their union with God’s Nature. Having wantonly rejected their submission to God and having wantonly entered into submission to the devil, they lost their communion with God, their freedom and worth, they betrayed themselves into submission and enslavement to the fallen spirit. They wantonly rejected life and invoked death in themselves, they wantonly violated the wholeness given to them when good was created; they poisoned themselves with sin. As the beginning of the human race, they passed on and continue to pass on their infection, their perdition and their death to all humanity. Adam, who was created in the all-Holy Image and Likeness of God and who was supposed to bring about such descendants, defiled the Image and destroyed the Likeness and brought about descendants in accordance with the defiled image and the destroyed likeness. The Holy Scripture, which testified that man was created in the Image of God, indeed deprives the children of Adam of this testimony. The Scripture recounts that they were born in the image of Adam, that is to say, as Adam became through the fall. Due to the loss of the likeness, the image became defiled. The Scripture makes this sorrowful confession of every person who enters into fallen existence: |
| The ideas that constitute “modernity” center around life as management . Modernity assumes that life can be managed, and that human beings are well-suited for the job. Its greatest successes have come in the careful application of technology towards various problems with a resulting rise in wealth. The well-being that comes with that wealth is limited to the things that money can buy. Non-tangibles remain as elusive as ever. Modernity prefers problems that can be solved . As such, the short history of the modern world is the story of a civilization that staggers from one crisis to another. It derives its sense of self-worth and meaning from the problems it solves . It is existentially desperate for such problems. Not one historical event or idea created the modern world. It is an “accidental” philosophy, made up of disparate elements assembled in the wake of the collapse of the Medieval world (generally called the “Reformation”). The times that gave rise to modernity were revolutionary and radical (or were perceived to be). It’s heady stuff to be reforming the world. It’s also exhausting. I have often thought that people generally have narrow interests. We want to work, to play, to love our family, to live in peace with some modest level of comfort. Of course, a consumer economy cannot operate in a world of satisfaction. Modern consumption with an ever-expanding economy requires that our dissatisfaction remain somewhat steady. The same is true of the political world. For people to vote, they must be motivated (like shopping). Problems need to be advertised so that people will vote for their solutions. As such, our society has moved from crisis to crisis, slogan to slogan, with a faithfulness that can only be described as religious in nature. Though America invented the notion of the “separation of Church and State,” nothing is more political than American religion, nor is anything more religious than American politics. Modernity is a religious project. 1 Religion, per se , needs no gods or temples. It requires purpose and direction and a narrative for the direction of life. Human beings are not constructed in a manner in which we live devoid of religion. The term itself is instructive. “Religio” is a Latin word that refers to “binding” (“ligaments” has the same root). “Religion” is “that which binds us,” or “holds us together.” Modernity, as a set of ideas, has been the dominant religion of Western culture for well over 200 years. What Christianity that continues to exist within it generally exists as a Christianized version of modernity. Modernity is the set of ideas, therefore, that answers the question, “What would Jesus do if He was going to fix the world?” Ecumenism tends to flourish in such a setting because the “religious” differences between denominations are insignificant. What matters is the State and the culture as State. 2 |
| The Emperor and the Empress thought that they were dying for their homeland. But in fact they died for all mankind. Pierre Gilliard, Swiss tutor to the Tsar’s children. Foreword Ten years ago, in 2005, debate raged in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) about our relations with the Church inside Russia. Was it at last free and so could we enter into canonical communion and work together, building the future? Such was the debate that a Pan-Diaspora Church Council was called in San Francisco in 2006 in order to answer the questions posed. At that time we had to counter some very false arguments which were advanced in favour of sectarian self-isolation, arguments that were shaped by the impurity of politics and psychology, and not by the purity of theology. Below are examples. Yesterday The human weakness of Metropolitan (later Patriarch) Sergius (+ 1945) and his followers, as revealed in compromises with the atheist persecutor Stalin, known as ‘sergianism’, was erected by some into a ‘theological’ heresy. In fact, it was just another form of erastianism, of placing the State above the Church, of which there had already been so many examples in other forms in the Old Testament and in 1900 years of Church history. There was nothing theological in this, for it was only human weakness on the part of one who had found himself under huge pressure from a militant atheist State. No-one is to judge him for his weakness, there is no place for phariseeism here, for God is the Judge of all. Though there was nothing of a dogmatic or theological nature in such compromises, certain individuals, partly under the influence of North American political puritanism, even concluded that the present-day sacraments of the Church inside Russia had somehow mysteriously ‘lost grace’ on account of this compromise of three generations before. As a ROCOR priest, I first came across this astonishing piece of politics masquerading as theology in 1992 from someone who was under the influence of this North American error. In fact, of course, sergianism is not a heresy, whereas puritanism, with its inherent impurity of Novatianism, Donatism and Eustathianism, as seen in the light of the canons of the Council of Gangra of 340, most certainly is. |
| Accept The site uses cookies to help show you the most up-to-date information. By continuing to use the site, you consent to the use of your Metadata and cookies. Cookie policy On the blessing of “same-sex” marriages in the Church of England by Danil Arakelyan The Church of England’s General Synod that completed its session on February 9, 2023, welcomed proposals which would enable “same-sex couples to come to church after a civil marriage or civil partnership to give thanks, dedicate their relationship to God and receive God’s This event has had a significant impact on the Anglican Community. According to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, “there are deep disagreements within the Church of Offering insights into this is the Statement of the Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GFSA), which said: “the Church of England has departed from the historic faith and disqualified herself from leading the Communion as the historic ‘Mother’ An idea of blessing “same-sex’ unions has already caused division in many Protestant Attempts have been made to advance this idea in the Catholic and Orthodox milieu, for instance, in the Orthodox Church of Finland under the Patriarchate of The Moscow Patriarchate has taken its stand in “The Bases of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church,” saying the following: “The Orthodox Church proceeds from the invariable conviction that the divinely established marital union of man and woman cannot be compared to the perverted manifestation of sexuality. She believes homosexuality to be a sinful distortion of human nature, which is overcome by spiritual effort leading to the healing and personal growth of the “The Canonical Aspects of Church Marriage” document adopted by the Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 2017 says that the Church does not and will not recognize same-sex union as marriage irrespective of its recognition in civil legislation. His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ noted: “The Orthodox Church does not agree and will never agree with the newfangled idea of marriage. We consider the cohabitation now practiced by people of the same sex a particular |
| Accept The site uses cookies to help show you the most up-to-date information. By continuing to use the site, you consent to the use of your Metadata and cookies. Cookie policy Position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the problem of primacy in the Universal Church The problem of primacy in the Universal Church has been repeatedly raised during the work of the Joint International Commission on Theological Dialogue Between the Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church. On March 27, 2007, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church instructed the Synodal Theological Commission to study this problem and draft an official position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the problem (Minutes, No. 26). Meanwhile, the Joint Commission at its meeting on October 13, 2007, in Ravenna, working in the absence of a delegation of the Russian Church and without consideration for her opinion, adopted a document on the Ecclesiological and Canonical Consequences of the Sacramental Nature of the Church. Having studied the Ravenna document, the Russian Orthodox Church disagreed with it in the part that refers to synodality and primacy on the level of the Universal Church. Since the Ravenna document makes a distinction between three levels of church administration, namely, local, regional and universal, the following position taken by the Moscow Patriarchate on the problem of primacy in the Universal Church deals with this problem on the three levels as well. According to the apostolic teaching, the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come.And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church ,which is his body (Eph. 1:17-23). The Church, which is on the earth, represents not only a community of those who believe in Christ but also a divine-human organism: Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular (1 Cor. 12:27). |
| A.V. Nesteruk 6. Irreversibility of Time and the logos of Creation Irreversibility of Time and Eternity – Irreversibility of Time and Boundary Conditions in the Universe – Penrose’s Model and Its Theological Interpretation – Irreversibility of Time through Irreversibility of Processes – Irreversibility and Two Views of Nature – Prigogine’s Treatment of the Time Paradox – From Irreversibility in Physics to Theological Contingency Irreversibility of Time and Eternity This section contains some theological reflections on the problem of irreversibility of time in modern physics. We will discuss only this particular aspect of the phenomenon called “time,” understanding its property to be in a flux leading toward novelty and to the endless unfolding of the reality of the world. This means that we will intentionally avoid discussing the notion of time in the context of the theory of relativity and its geometrical representation by Minkowski space. Special relativity does not solve the problem of flowing time. In its extreme, geometrized form, it treats time on equal footing with space and treats the whole space-time as eternally existing. The universe that corresponds to this picture is called the deterministic “block-universe,” a “frozen being” in which one has only the rearrangement of events, no true becoming. 385 The problem here is similar to that touched on briefly in the previous chapter: how to explain the emergence of macroscopic irreversibility from microscopic reversible dynamics. This is a matter of continuing scientific debate, and only a few scientists have tried to address this issue by revising the foundations of classical physics. One of these scientists is I. Prigogine, and his collaborators in Brussels and Austin, whose approach to the riddle of time’s arrow we will discuss later in this chapter. It is typical for the block-universe view to assert that the division of time into past, present, and future is an illusory one and that all events in the universe are given at once, but in a Platonic sense. In this case, it is understandable why there is no flow of time and novelty in this universe: its time, according to the terminology referred to in chapter 5, is transcendent time, which somehow incorporates all events that are experienced by human beings as dismincm in time. This makes it possible to suspect that the block-universe is not a model of the real visible and empirical universe but, rather, is an attempt to represent the totality of all possible empirical experience of time through a pattern existing in the intelligible realm. The problem, then, is how to link the intelligible frozen time with the empirical flow of time. It has analogies with what we have discussed in the context of Hawking’s model of the universe with imaginary time in the previous chapter, so the whole issue of the source of time’s irreversibility can have some theological implications. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Council of Constantinople II (553) JULIA KONSTANTINOVSKY The Second Council of Constantinople, also known as the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553), was the culmination of Justinian’s (527–65) ecclesiastical policy in his struggle to heal imperial Christian divisions. The council’s concern was twofold: the condemnation, firstly, of the so-called “Three Chapters” and, secondly, of Origenism. The appellation “Three Chapters” refers to three 4th- and early 5th-century theologians: Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa, widely believed to be adherents of Nestorius’ “two-sons” and “two-natures” Christology, sharing with Nestorius an aversion to the title Theotokos applied to the Virgin Mary. In condemning these figures, Justinian sought to reconcile dissident parties with the Chalcedonian definition (451), whereby Christ was “one person in two natures.” Chalcedon’s monophysite opponents claimed to follow only St. Cyril of Alexandria’s theological formula of “one incarnate nature of God the Logos.” To achieve the unification of the imperial Chalcedonian church with the anti-Chalcedonian ecclesiastical bodies of Syria and Egypt, Justinian procured the anathemas of the person and writings of Theodore, the writings of Theodoret, and one letter by Ibas. Justinian’s intention was to demonstrate to the non-Chalcedonians that Chalcedon’s “in-two-natures” Chris- tology was no avowal of Nestorius, but that it was to be apprehended in the light of Cyril’s “one-incarnate-nature” formula and as proclaiming the single hypostatic synonymity of Christ and the divine Logos. Yet, because these condemnations were of persons long dead and since Chalcedon had deemed Theodoret orthodox and the letter of Ibas beyond reproof, they were perceived as controversial and caused hostilities in the West. Moreover, in the East, they failed in their purpose of reconciling Chalcedon’s opponents with its supporters. The condemnations of Origenism combated the following ideas allegedly traceable to Origen of Alexandria and further developed by Evagrios Pontike: that bodiless minds were fashioned first, while bodies for them were made second and as a consequence of their delinquency (the double creation); that numerically and ontologically the human Christ was not the divine Logos, but was created and united with the Logos in a moral union (a type of adoptionism); that the end of things will be just like the primordial beginning and that all will inevitably be saved, including the Devil (the apokatastasis belief). Far from being a counterbalance to the condemnation of the Three Chapters, the condemnation of |
| John Anthony McGuckin Sophiology JUSTIN M. LASSER In Orthodox theology Sophia represents an evocation of the mystical apprehension of the divine mysteries in the life of the Godhead and the symphonic apparatus of the cosmos. The term derives from the Greek word for “wisdom” (Sophia). It is the Greek translation of the biblical Hebrew concept Hokhma (wisdom) in the Old Testament scriptures, which contain a rich and diverse tradition about “divine wisdom” ( Deut. 34.9 ; 2Sam. 14.20; 1 Kings 4.29; Job 12.13 ; Ps. 104.24 ; Prov. 3.19 ; Prov. 8.22–31 ; Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 1.4, 7; 8.34). This tradition was taken up extensively, out of the biblical Wisdom literature, and also with reference to Greek philosophico- religious cosmology, and used by the Logos theologians of the early church to sketch out cosmological Christology. The concept of God’s creative wisdom is deeply rooted in many ancient religious cosmologies (not least pre-biblical Egyptian). In their use of Wisdom Christology the fathers followed Greek and Hebrew sages before them in personifying the divine wisdom, hypostatically, under the feminine figure of Sophia. This tradition continued despite the overall preference of the patristic era for the (masculine) equivalent “Logos” (Word or Reason of God) which was used heavily in the conciliar christological tradition. The poetic play between creator and created, as evidenced in the Sophianic Wisdom literature (see Prov. 8.22 ), precipitated a fierce debate in the 4th-century Arian crisis. It is the ambiguity of Sophia’s nature that lends her so easily to theological speculation. Sophiology, although subordinated after the 4th century to the terms of Logos theology, remained a significant part of the Orthodox mystical tradition, and was used to connote the eternal, creative, and preexistent Son of God, who entered into human history at the incarnation, and as “Wisdom of the divine” permeates the substructure of the entire cosmos which that Divine Wisdom personally shaped, and made, into a vehicle of revelation and grace. |
| On Marriage and Family Life In the fullest sense of the word the wife gives up everything for her husband. This is an important moment for any man – to take on responsibility for a young, fragile, and tender life that has entrusted itself to him, and to care for it and protect it until death tears his treasure away from him or, conversely, strikes him. Foreword There are many religious treatises to be found on monasticism, but there are too few books dedicated to acquainting the contemporary reader with the Christian concept of matrimony. And yet the majority of Christians choose the path of the wedded state, called by the Holy Fathers “the harbor of chastity.” However, our life is usually spent in worry over obtaining one’s daily bread, and the mutual limitations and sinfulness of the spouses often leave a noticeable trace on the relations between husband and wife. Gradually the feelings which had made the young lovers the happiest people on earth begin to fade, grow scanty; the light of sacrifice and chivalry begins to dim; daily routine makes communion between the spouses lackluster. The experience of the crowned royals Nicholas and Alexandra was obviously quite different. Innate nobility, purity of feelings and intentions were united with a well thought out effort to maintain and guard the union which truly became a model for their loyal subjects. While reading books, Empress Alexandra wrote out excerpts which accorded most fully with her own experience of marriage. The inner power of these notes lies in the virtuous way of life of the pious Empress, who was totally dedicated to the ideal of the family. It is for this reason that these excerpts reflect calmness, total sincerity, and celestial beauty. In our times, when the very basic human concepts of duty, honor, conscience, responsibility, and faithfulness are questioned and even mocked, the reading of these notes becomes a real spiritual event. Counsels, warnings to the spouses, thoughts on true and false love, reflections on the relations between close relatives, testimony concerning the definitive significance of the home atmosphere in determining a child’s nature – such is the circle of ethical problems with which the Empress is concerned. |
| Opinion on Same-sex Marriage But while keeping this in mind, it should be noted that it is hard to remain indifferent to living in Sodom or Gomorrah. Every normal Christian cannot but have a negative reaction when all that is holy is trampled and mocked, when the very bases of Christian life, built by Christians for centuries, traveling along the path of the cross to our day, are razed. For to destroy—not to build—does not take centuries. Source: Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia Priest Sergei Sveshnikov is the Rector of the New Martyrs of Russia Orthodox Church, Mulino, OR, near Portland. He shares his thoughts on the recent decision of the Council of Elected Commissioners of Multnomah County on the issuing of marriage certificates for homosexual marriages. We have recently witnessed the heightening of passions in America over so-called “same-sex marriages.” In those jurisdictions where such “marriages” have been approved (San Francisco, Portland), there were demonstrations, protests for and against, even to the point of arrests. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of Americans, having been reared on tolerance, look upon all of this with bewilderment. Television screens and newspapers are filled with images of men in passionate kisses and the stories of two older women who had spent their entire lives together, who only now have been given those same human rights which more traditional couples have had. On the other hand, having already achieved the division of church from the state (unfortunately, not of the state from the church), Protestant movements suddenly, as one (well, almost, for each family has an ugly duckling), are calling upon judges and politicians to heed what is written in the Bible, or at least not to break centuries-old Christian traditions. What are we to make of this turmoil? I do not wish to render an opinion on the position taken by the “gays” that they were ostensibly born this way and cannot do anything about it—I am not sufficiently educated in the natural sciences, but the dilettante in me feels that if we turn to the animal kingdom, we find that homosexuality may exist there, but it is a clear departure from “the natural order of things” (what would happen if Butch loved Fido and not Lassie?). Such a “gay” pedigree would quickly end in nature. |
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