| We Orthodox Christian hear this question quite often. In fact, it strikes a much deeper issue, namely, the issue with the Holy Tradition, which incorporates the works by the Holy Fathers. Here is a 101 on the Holy Tradition and why, according to the Church, you can’t understand the Bible without it. Is the Bible Enough? The correlation between the Holy Scripture and the Holy Tradition has been hotly contested between the Orthodox and the Protestants for centuries. It was as early as the 16 th century that Protestants proclaimed their famous doctrine of Sola Scriptura (Latin for “only the Scripture”), claiming that the text of the Bible is enough for proper Christian living. They declared that the Bible contains just enough information for our salvation and that the Tradition was a later and useless invention, which Christians had to get rid of as quickly as possible. Orthodox theologians radically oppose this approach. The Church teaches that the Holy Tradition is the earliest way of transmission of the Divine Revelation. The Holy Tradition existed before the Holy Scripture and served as its basis. It isn’t hard to grasp it: even during our everyday lives we experience something first and then express our experiences in written form, if necessary. Aside from that, even the Bible admits that the Holy Tradition comes first. Thus, we learn from the book of Genesis that God talked with Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses directly. We see that Abel already knows how to make a sacrifice of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof to God (Gen. 4:4). Noah knows which animals are “clean” and which are “unclean” (Gen. 7:8). Abraham knows the tradition of tithing when he gives tithes to Melchizedek, king of Salem (Gen. 14:20). It is worth pointing out that none of them read the Scripture because there weren’t any written Scriptures at those times. Old Testament characters lived without the sacred texts of the Scripture for many centuries. Likewise, early Christians did without the written New Testament because they tuned their spiritual and everyday lives in accordance with the oral Tradition of the Church. |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH. We focus our attention on the Russian Church in the 19th and 20th c. since the medieval and early imperial history can be found under Kievan Rus’, Novgorodian Tradition, Muscovite Tradition, Unia, and the Spiritual Regulation (qq.v.). The difficulties caused by the Spiritual Regulation of Peter the Great in the 18th c. continued into the 19th c. and developed further: The government interfered increasingly in the intellectual and administrative life of the Church; not only was there no patriarch, but the Holy Synod was controlled by the government; and the social status and economic situation of the clergy continued to deteriorate. The ober-procurator’s power, influencing the Holy Synod and leading it, grew until the office became an official Ministry of State. Under Tsar Alexander I the Ministry of Ecclesiastical Affairs and Education was formed, but had a brief existence (1817–1824). This so alarmed the hierarchy that it complained of persecution of the Church. Nevertheless, Count Nikolai Protasov (1799–1855) became ober-procurator of the Holy Synod from 1836 to 1855 and continued the trend of strengthening the office. During his tenure he successfully transformed the Russian Church into an organ of the state, “The Department of the Orthodox Confession.” His political methodology may be described as attempting to reduce the Russian Church and clergy to civil religion in the worst sense-bureaucratic functionaries of the state’s “confession.” With this goal, true higher education and ecclesiastical freedom became irrelevant. All that was needed was supplied by the tsar, who was “the supreme defender and guardian of the dogmas of the ruling faith, and observer of orthodoxy and all good order in the Holy Church. In this sense the Emperor, in the law of succession to the throne (5 April 1797), is called the Head of the Church” (Fundamental Laws, articles 42, 43, 1832 edition). Under Protasov, church finances and clergy employment became the sole domain of the ober-procurator. Of those who opposed him, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, renowned for his work on the Russian Bible (q.v.) translation project, distinguished himself by attempting to keep Protasov in check. |
| It’s easy to find testimonies about “deconversion”, aka loss of faith, in the English-language part of the World Wide Web. People who grew up in a Christian (most often Fundamentalist) environment and then became atheists encourage each other, sharing their stories about how “reason and science” opened their eyes and demonstrated that the Bible (or in fact, the interpretation thereof, preached by the congregations which they attended as children) is evidently false. Lately, similar stories have started to surface out in the Russian-speaking part of the Internet, too. An anonymous story of a priest who ostensibly lost his faith appeared on an anti-Christian website not long ago. I don’t know if that story is authentic; in any case, it resembles other stories so it’s worth looking into. The author lists three main reasons for loss of faith. First, science has proven that the Earth is more than six thousand years old. Second, there are demonstrably false stories in the saints’ lives. Third, he never witnessed any miracles while praying. Well, let’s deal with these reasons, starting with science. Science What’s always striking in all those stories of deconversion is that the new knowledge and discoveries that the author puts forward as the reason for abandoning Christ are well known for many educated Christians but never lead them to renounce Jesus. Take, for instance, Francis Collins, an American geneticist and the former head of the institute that decoded the human genome. Currently, he is in charge of the National Institute of Health and belongs to the upper layer of the world scientific elite. You are hardly more informed in the field of biology than he is. And yet, he’s a Christian, and he even wrote a book called The Language of God , which was translated into Russian. If biology makes you renounce Christ, what do you know which Dr. Collins doesn’t know? Here is another Christian, Sir John Eccles, who won the Nobel Prize for his research in neurophysiology. His knowledge of how brain works did not interfere with his belief in the immortality of the soul and God’s Providence. |
| Biblical accounts, often shaped by ancient myths, are based on facts: actual past events in the history of God’s people. They are important for us, however, only insofar as their meaning, their ultimate significance, extends from the past into our own present life and experience. For over a century biblical scholars have debated whether the Old and New Testaments contain “mythical” elements. The answer depends on how we define “myth,” and here there is very little agreement. The Brothers Grimm held that myths are stories that speak of “gods” (in the plural). If this is the essential criterion, many scholars have held, then there can be no myths in the strictly monotheistic Hebrew Scriptures. In any case, they argue, whatever ancient mythical elements might have influenced Old Testament traditions have been thoroughly “demythologized” and rendered “historical.” Recent research into the mythology of Ancient Near Eastern religions (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Canaanite) has shown that myths develop around a people’s religious rituals and demonstrate a fairly consistent pattern. Beginning with a particular conflict (the hero, for example, does battle with a monster who represents chaos), the mythical story recounts the defeat or destruction of the protagonist, then passes to a description of the people’s lamentation (mourning the hero). In the final stage, the hero is “reborn,” rising from death and defeat to new and exalted life. This pattern of conflict, death, mourning, and vindication seems to have originated in agricultural societies, where ritual performances reenacted, and hence promoted, the rebirth of vegetation in the spring of the new year. This pattern unquestionably influenced the development of certain Old and New Testament traditions, just as it did various Hellenistic mystery cults. One can find such movement, for example, in several of the stories included in the first eleven chapters of Genesis (especially the Noah cycle; compare the fate of Job), and even in the life of Jesus (conflict with religious and political authorities, judgment and crucifixion, lamentation on the part of the disciples and faithful women, followed by resurrection). The Old Testament, and to a limited extent the New Testament (particularly the Book of Revelation), do reflect certain universal mythical themes. It is important to stress, however, that the Bible is essentially free of myth per se, since these underlying influences have been transformed by the essentially historical interest of its various authors. |
| Despite its wide popularity, the story of the wise men bringing their gifts to the newborn Christ has virtually no support in the Gospel. Everything that we know about these people originated in early Christian literature and developed into its current form in the Middle Ages. The Bible does not even mention their number. The widespread assumption of there being three wise men (attributed to Origen) is based on the number of their gifts to the Saviour. There are however many traditions indicating much larger numbers. For example, Armenians and Syrians believe that there were 12 wise men, arriving in Jerusalem with a large retinue. In the Gospel, the wise men are denoted with the Greek word “μγοι”, usually translated in the Latin tradition as “magi” (magicians). In ancient literature, there are two meanings of this term, Zoroastrian priests of Persian origin and Babylonian astrologers forming a separate occupational group. The tradition of the Persian origin of the Magi is mainly contained in Byzantine iconography. European art either makes no mention of their ethnicity, or completely correlates it with the Arab or Byzantine East. Saint Gregory the Theologian considered the Magi to be Chaldean astrologers. According to St Matthew, the wise men lived somewhere in the east. The fact that they were following the Star of Bethlehem for about five months, makes the Bible scholars believe that they may have lived in Babylon, Mesopotamia, or India. The possibility of the emergence of an unusually bright star, leading the Magi to Jesus, is not only not entertained but also explained by researchers. For example, astronomer Johannes Kepler writes about the periodically appearing conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation Pisces, synchronously approaching Mars and ultimately giving a bright celestial phenomenon. Since the time of early Christianity, there have been various versions of the time when the Magi visited the infant Christ. According to the ancient Eastern legend, the adoration of the Magi took place after the meeting of Jesus Christ with Simeon the God-receiver and before the flight of the holy family to Egypt. |
| Recently I read an article on 1 Peter 3:1-7, which passage contained advice to Christian women married to non-Christians. In this passage the apostolic author counselled the women to “be submissive to your own husbands so that even if any of them are disobedient to the Word they may be won without a word by the behaviour of their wives as they observe your chaste and respectful behaviour…For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands. Thus Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him ‘lord’, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear” (NASB translation). The author of the article observed that “many interpreters stumble over these passages and reject the teaching on submission. One especially striking reaction was written by Kathleen Corley: ‘Of all the Christian testament texts, the message of 1 Peter is the most harmful in the context of women’s lives. Its particular message of the suffering Christ as a model for Christian living leads to precisely the kind of abuses that feminists fear…The basic message of 1 Peter does not reflect God’s liberating word’”. I note that Ms. Corley’s problem is not confined to the offending verses which open chapter 3 of the epistle, but includes the notion that the suffering Christ should be a model for Christian living itself, and that therefore for her 1 Peter “does not reflect God’s liberating word”. Presumably both men and women should reject the notion that the suffering Christ offers us a model for Christian living, especially in the midst of a hostile, non-Christian world. It is, of course, not simply 1 Peter 3 that offends the likes of Ms. Corley. The New Testament is replete with such exhortations to wives. St. Paul, for example, taught that the husband is the head of the wife (1 Corinthians 11:2-16), that wives should submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22-33; Colossians 3:18), and that older women should encourage younger women to be subject to their husbands (Titus 2:3-5). Presumably these passages also lead to precisely the kind of abuses feminists fear. The feminists’ Bible begins to remind me of Marcion’s Bible: after the offending passages have been removed, the volume is somewhat slimmer. One supposes Marcion also felt that the Old Testament passages did not reflect God’s liberating word. |
| U.S. Vice President Mike Pence excoriated North Korea’s record of human rights violations Thursday, asserting that the nation’s persecution of Christians is the worst on the planet. Alex Wong/Getty Images “North Korea’s persecution of Christians has no rival on the Earth,” Pence told leaders gathered in Washington, DC, for the State Department’s Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom. “It is unforgiving, systematic, unyielding and often fatal.” “The mere possession of a Christian Bible is a capital offense,” Pence noted, and “Christians are regularly executed or condemned with their families to North Korea’s gulags.” Mr. Pence’s words echoed the findings of watchdog groups monitoring Christian persecution , which consistently place North Korea at the top of the list of nations where it is most dangerous to be a Christian. This year, one such organization, Open Doors, which publishes an annual World Watch List (WWL) about Christian persecution, noted that North Korea has been considered “the worst place for Christians” for 16 consecutive years, since 2002. In his address Thursday, the vice president said that while Americans all hope relations between the United States and North Korea will continue to improve, “there is no escaping the plain fact that North Korea’s leadership has exacted unparalleled privation and cruelty upon its people for decades,” a cruelty that has included “torture, mass starvation, public executions, murders, and even forced abortions, and industrial-scale slave labor.” Appearing with Mr. Pence at the Ministerial was a North Korean Christian woman named Ji Hyeona, whom he met when in the region this year. “Ji Hyeona was imprisoned and tortured simply for having a Bible that her mother had given her,” Pence said. “And after a failed escape attempt, the North Korean authorities forced her to abort her unborn child.” “Hyeona was lucky enough to escape with her life, and we are honored to have you with us today. Your faith and your courage inspire us all,” he said. |
| Ecclesiastes Asks the Question, the Gospel Gives the Answer Who among us has not heard or repeated such phrases as: “vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” “the wind returneth again according to his circuits,” or “there is no new thing under the sun”? Many people know that these are from the Book of Ecclesiastes (or, The Preacher) in the Bible. In most cases, those who have read this book enjoy its melancholy poetry with its vivid, surprising imagery. Others wonder what is Christian about this book and why the Church has accepted it as one of its sacred texts. Quite brief compared to other Old Testament texts, Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth in Hebrew) was studied and commented on by the Holy Fathers of the Church; many volumes of modern studies have likewise been dedicated to it. We will discuss it here with Archpriest Gennady Fast, rector of the Church of Sts. Constantine and Helen in Abakan (capital of the Republic of Khakassia, Russia), biblical scholar, and author of many books about the Old Testament, including the recently published Commentary on the Book of Ecclesiastes [in Russian, 2009]. Archpriest Gennady Fast was born in 1954 in the Novosibirsk Oblast (in Siberia) into a deeply religious Lutheran family of exiled Russian Germans and was named Heinrich. After being expelled from Karaganda State University for his religious convictions, he studied physics at Tomsk University and later worked on the faculty of theoretical physics. Before graduating from university he converted to Orthodoxy and was baptized with the name Gennady. After being expelled from Tomsk University, he became a priest. He served in Tuva, in the Kemerovo Oblast, and in the Krasnoyarsk Krai. For many years he was rector of the ancient Dormition Church in Yeniseisk. He has trained scores of Siberian priests. He was, and remains, one of today’s most outstanding and well-known Orthodox missionaries. He is a biblical scholar and author of a number of books that have received wide distribution. At present he is rector of the Church of Sts. Constantine and Helen in Abakan. |
| 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. |
| Spiritual Guidance in Mount Athos and Russia and the Theological Notion of Person Скачать epub pdf Содержание The Theological Perspective The Purposes of Spiritual Guidance Eldership as an Ideal of Spiritual Leadership The Historical Overview: Kievο-Pechersky Monastery The Hesychasm Movement, St. Serge of Radonezh and His Disciples St. Paisios of Moldova and a Wave of Spiritual Revival in Russia The revival of Russian monasticism on Mount Athos Distinctive Characteristics of the patterns of Orthodox Spiritual Guidance Personal Relationship and its Dynamics in Spiritual Guidance Catholicity and the Person’s Embracing of other Persons Freedom in Spiritual Guidance Creativity and Uniqueness in Spiritual Guidance Humility and Morality in Spiritual Counselling Love, Integrity and Discernment in Spiritual Fatherhood We will consider the great importance in spiritual guidance of the theological notion of the divine and human person. Our main thesis is that it is only through the person and personal communion that the guidance patterns found in the Bible and in the Holy Tradition of asceticism can be understood. Various examples of the influence of the ascetic tradition of Mount Athos on Russian and European religious revivals are highlighted in the framework of personal guidance. St. Paisios Velichkovskiy, the Optina elders, St. Silouan and Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), all of whom derived a rich experience from the Athonite treasuries, are vivid exemplars of personal spiritual guidance in the Orthodox Tradition. Due to its personal character this guidance possesses unique characteristics which distinguish it from other guidance experiences and techniques used in various human activities. ‘Send me a man, who would know Thee’ Symeon the New Theologian. In this paper we aim to show that Mount Athos, as a living, natural part of the Orthodox Tradition, has given us an abundant experience of the importance of the personal character of the relationship between the one who aspires to certain spiritual achievements and the one who guides him on this way. |
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