| A Homily offered by Deacon Michael Schlaack on the Strength of the Faith of the Centurion This morning’s Gospel reading teaches a very important lesson about salvation: It is not who you are, but how you believe that will ultimately determine your place in God’s Kingdom. The account tells us that Jesus encounters a Centurion in the city of Capernaum. The soldier, a Gentile, approaches the Lord concerning his slave who is paralyzed and, in St. Luke’s telling of this account, the slave is near death. Now if the story had stopped at this point it would have still been very remarkable due to the fact that the Centurion, an officer in the Roman army, was the muscle that enforced the oppressive rule of the Roman Empire against the people of Palestine. One would conclude that the Centurion’s plea to Christ was nothing more than a last-ditch effort to cure his beloved servant. But as with all of the Gospels, the true meaning behind the story goes beyond the act of the physical healing. So often our contemplation about the miracles of Christ recorded in the Gospels are limited to physical realm. We read about the miraculous, “long-distance” physical healing of the Centurion’s servant, and become satisfied that we fully understand the meaning behind the today’s account. Yes, the physical healing was important; to the Centurion as well as to the servant. I am sure that those who had the privilege of observing this event certainly benefitted as well from the miraculous physical healing. But it is because of the greater miracle for which Jesus commends the Centurion: The strength of his faith. In his commentary on this passage, St. John Chrysostom commented that the faith displayed by the Centurion was even greater than that shown by the four friends who lowered the sick man’s cot through the opening in the roof to place the friend in the presence of Jesus, as recorded in Saints Mark’s and Luke’s Gospels. The Centurion’s faith was so great that he did not need to have his sick servant brought into the physical presence of Christ. The Centurion’s prayer was heard and granted…and the servant was completely healed at that very moment. |
| Craig S. Keener The passion. 18:1–19:42 THE «HOUR» JESUS ANNOUNCED as early as 2has arrived; Jesus is the paschal lamb that John announced in 1:29. Peter Ellis suggests that John " s Passion Narrative fits a chiastic structure, as follows: 9506 A Arrested in a garden, bound and led to trial (18:1–12) Β True high priest tried; beloved disciple present (18:13–27) C Jesus, king of Israel, judged by Pilate, rejected by his people (18:28–19:16) B» True high priest carries wood of his own sacrifice (like Isaac); beloved disciple present (19:17–30) Á Bound with burial clothes, buried in a garden (19:31–42) Because many of the features on which he focuses to achieve this structure are so secondary and because the units may be adapted to suit the proposed structure, the suggested chiasmus ultimately proves less than persuasive. It does, however, evidence some patterns that point to the narrative artistry of their designer. More persuasive is the observation by Ellis and others that irony pervades the narrative. Thus Judas who went forth into «the night» in 13now returns in darkness to arrest the light of the world; Pilate the governor questions if Jesus is a king when the readers know that he is; Pilate demands, «What is truth?» when the readers know that Jesus is (14:6); the soldiers hail Jesus as «king of the Jews» in mockery, unaware that Jesus truly is the king of Israel (1:49), whose lifting up on the cross must introduce his reign. 9507 Historical Tradition in the Passion Narrative We must address some preliminary issues concerning John " s narratives and the history behind them (especially as preserved in the Synoptics) before examining the specific texts in John 18–19 . 9508 Where John diverges from the traditions reported in the Synoptics, we do think likely that John adapts rather than contradicts the passion sequence on which they are based, probably at least sometimes on the basis of other traditions and probably at least sometimes for a measure of theological symbolism. Although, on the whole, we think John essentially independent from the Synoptics, the Passion Narrative is different; John " s audience probably already knows the basic passion story from other sources (cf. 1Cor 11:23–25 ). Their prior knowledge would not render John " s version of the story any less intriguing to his audience, however: stories were told repeatedly in the ancient Mediterranean, and a good story could build suspense even if one knew the final outcome. 9509 John " s very adaptations, at least wherever they might diverge from the traditions commonly known among his ideal audience, invite his audiencés special attention. Where theological symbolism guides his adaptations, it is generally in the service of Christology: Jesus is the Passover lamb (cf. 1:29), who lays down his life freely (10:17–18). 1. The Genre of the Passion Narratives |
| The story of Lazarus, which occurs before Christ’s suffering and death, specifically addresses the heart of the Church after Christ’s suffering and death. For though we rejoice in Christ’s death and resurrection, it is our dead brother (mother, father, sister, friend) who lies heavy on our hearts. St. John’s Gospel records the story of Christ’s raising Lazarus from the dead as the last action of Christ before His entry into Jerusalem. That setting has given rise to the feast of Lazarus Saturday in the Orthodox Church – a small Pascha before Holy Week. The three synoptic gospels make no mention of these events, to which I draw no historical conclusions. The gospels include and exclude events for many reasons, historical considerations seeming to be of the least importance. Which stories, and in what order, primarily serve deeper theological concerns. For St. John, the story of Lazarus serves as the occasion for commentary and teaching on the resurrection of believers, much like the Feeding of the Five Thousand serves for commentary and teaching on the Eucharist. “If you had been here, my brother would not have died,” (Martha’s words) echoes the universal voice of the Church in the face of Christ’s delayed Second Coming. It is the plaintive heart of believers who wonder why God allows suffering. And some of them said, “Could not this Man, who opened the eyes of the blind, also have kept this man from dying?” (Joh 11:37) It is an obvious question, repeated in various forms by believers as well as scoffers through the centuries. The story of Lazarus, which occurs before Christ’s suffering and death, specifically addresses the heart of the Church after Christ’s suffering and death. For though we rejoice in Christ’s death and resurrection, it is our dead brother (mother, father, sister, friend) who lies heavy on our hearts. “Your brother will rise again.” These words of Christ, like a statement of Church doctrine, bring little comfort to someone stuck in their grief. It is Christ’s affirmation, “I am the resurrection and the life,” that sums up the encounter. The people do not understand, not even when Lazarus is raised from the dead. That Christ Himself is the resurrection and the life does not become clear until His own resurrection. |
| D. Oliver Herbel FR. RAPHAEL MORGAN AND EARLY AFRICAN AMERICAN ORTHODOXY ON AUGUST 15/28, 1907, THE Feast of Dormition, a black Jamaican immigrant to the United States was ordained to the Orthodox priesthood in Constantinople. 166 This marked the culmination of a journey in search of the «true church.» On that day, Robert Josias Morgan was ordained as Fr. Raphael and became the first man of African American descent born in the New World to be ordained in the Orthodox Church. One scholar found Morgan’s story so incredible that he wrote, «the Morgan story is so utterly improbable that one tends to dismiss it as a hoax.» 167 On the other hand, the journal Epiphany included a brief summary of Morgan’s story in a special volume dedicated to «African-American Orthodoxy.» 168 In the introduction, the editor noted that while sources for Morgan’s story were not extensive, they were substantial enough to prove his story was no hoax. The editor went on to speculate about possible motives for Morgan’s conversion and how Morgan may have understood his own conversion from the Protestant Episcopal Church to the Greek Orthodox Church. 169 Morgan’s ordination and subsequent ministry within the Orthodox Church was a considered response to the difficult situation black Americans faced, often being viewed as second class even within somewhat integrated churches, as was the case for his own Protestant Episcopal Church. One might expect that Morgan would have turned to one of the historically black churches in America, of which he had knowledge. One might alternatively think that if none of those were appropriate for him, he would seek to establish his own church. As this chapter shows, however, Morgan sought a different solution, one not grounded in the anti-traditional tradition but in the tradition of Orthodox Church, which he entered by the gate of restorationism. Although he initially considered an independent church, in keeping with American restorationism, and hoped for a furthering of ecumenical relations between Anglicanism and Orthodoxy, Morgan soon decided against such a move. Rather than continue the tradition of breaking from one " s previous tradition to join or start another sect in an attempt to restore the early Church, Morgan looked an outside tradition that could serve as a grounding, even critique, of that very anti-traditional tradition. The Orthodox tradition offered Morgan precisely that, for he saw it as a tradition that could stand on its own apart from the racial problems that beset Western Christianity. Indeed, he saw the Orthodox tradition as standing authoritatively prior to Western Christianity. |
| Even in Antiquity Jerusalem was never a large church with a significant sphere of political influence, but it always had a different kind of symbolic influence, and importance, for the universal Christian imagination, chiefly as the site of the holy places where the Lord taught, suffered, and rose again. In its most important patristic phase it was the center of an internationally influential liturgical revival, which followed after Constantine’s building of the Church of the Resurrection (Anastasis) which in the West is more commonly called by its medieval name: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The story of St. Helena’s discovery of the true cross in Jerusalem was added to by several other major discoveries (by aristocrats, founders, and archbishops) of the relics of New Testament saints such as John the Forerunner or Stephen the Protomartyr; these were stories of visions and findings that electrified not only Jerusalem itself but Christian cities from Constantinople to Rome and Syria, and which led to a massive movement of the building of pilgrimage churches in the Holy Land (many of which are still being excavated – the finding of an octagonal site being the give-away evidence of it as a Byzantine place of pilgrimage). From the late 4th to the 6th centuries, Roman Palestine, with Jerusalem at its center, was renowned throughout the Christian world as a thriving church based around such pilgrim traffic. Its liturgical traditions thus spread because of this to influence many of the rites celebrated in Orthodoxy today. The influence can especially be seen in festivals such as the blessing of the waters on The- ophany (formerly a pilgrimage rite peculiar to Jerusalem, when the clergy and people would make the journey from the holy city to the Jordan river) and the ritual of the Exaltation of the Cross (September 14), which was based around the acts of veneration celebrated in the courtyard of the Anastasis church buildings where a great cross was raised containing relics of the Lord’s own cross. The current festival commemorates the loss ofthese relics from Jerusalem to Persian raiders and their eventual reclamation by the Byzantine emperor. Jerusalem also seems to have adopted the common Orthodox liturgical practice of having the multinational congregation respond to complex prayer-petitions with a simple responsorial “Lord have mercy,” easily learned, in Greek, as Kyrie Eleison. The beautiful Liturgy of St. James is still in use in the Orthodox Church today, though rarely witnessed in the course of a year. It remains as the standard liturgical rite of Jerusalem. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Africa, Orthodoxy in JUSTIN M. LASSER Christianity on the African continent begins its story, primarily, in four separate locales: Alexandrine and Coptic Egypt, the North African region surrounding the city of Carthage, Nubia, and the steppes of Ethiopia. The present synopsis will primarily address the trajectories of the North African Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and the Nubian Orthodox Church. The affairs of Christian Alexandria and the Coptic regions have their own treatments elsewhere in the encyclopedia. ROMAN-COLONIAL NORTH AFRICA After the Romans sacked the city of Carthage in 146 during the Third Punic War, they began a sustained colonizing campaign that slowly transformed the region (modern Tunisia and Libya) into a partially “Romanized” society. In most instances, however, the cultural transformations were superficial, affecting predominantly the trade languages and local power structures. It was Julius Caesar who laid the plans for Carthage’s reemergence as Colonia Junonia in 44 bce. This strong colonial apparatus made North African Christians especially susceptible to persecution by the Roman authorities on the Italian Peninsula. Because the economic power of Carthage was an essential ingredient in the support of the citizens in the city of Rome, the Romans paid careful attention to the region. The earliest extant North African Christian text, the Passion of the Scillitan Martyrs (180 ce), reflects a particularly negative estimation of the Roman authorities. Saturninus, the Roman proconsul, made this appeal to the African Christians: “You can win the indulgence of our ruler the Emperor, if you return to a sensible mind.” The Holy Martyr Speratus responded by declaring: “The empire of this world I know not; but rather I serve that God, whom no one has seen, nor with these eyes can see. I have committed no theft; but if I have bought anything I pay the tax; because I know my Lord, the King of kings and Emperor of all nations.” This declaration was a manifestation of what the Roman authorities feared most about the Christians – their proclamation of a “rival” emperor, Jesus Christ, King of kings. The Holy Martyr Donata expressed that sentiment most clearly: “Honor to Caesar as Caesar: but fear to God.” Within the Roman imperial fold such declarations were not merely interpreted as “religious” expressions, but political challenges. As a result the Roman authorities executed the Scillitan Christians, the proto-martyrs of Africa. Other such persecutions formed the character and psyche of North African Christianity. It became and remained a “persecuted” church in mentality, even after the empire was converted to Christianity. |
| Graham Speake, Kallistos Ware MARCUS PLESTED. Latin Monasticism on Mount Athos Evocations of the universality of the monastic witness of Mount Athos tend, naturally, to focus on its pan-Orthodox character within the world of the Christian East, as the other contributions to this volume amply and ably illustrate. But it comes as a surprise to many to discover the existence for some centuries of a flourishing Latin and Benedictine monastery on the Holy Mountain. St Benedict himself remains deeply reverenced on the Mountain: his icon adorns many a katholikon and monks bearing his name are not unusual. It has even been suggested that the well-known Athonite greeting and response – ‘Eulogeite! ho Kurios’ (Bless! The Lord [bless]) – is closely related to an almost identical Benedictine usage. 238 But while Benedict’s name remains blessed on the Mountain, and few houses lack a monk of western provenance, the idea of a house celebrating the Latin rite and following the Benedictine rule can be contemplated today only with a very great imaginative leap. Indeed, the very existence of a Latin Athonite house is something some monks would prefer to forget. I have some personal experience of this: on a visit in 1993 I recall being hurried past the site of this monastery by an Athonite companion unwilling to linger at or dwell upon what is certainly one of most intriguing spots on the Mountain. It is one of the tragedies of the schism between Greek East and Latin West that genuine and profound theological and ecclesiastical differences have, on both sides, led too often to a blanket rejection of the whole tradition of the opposing party. Such a blanket rejection is, I fear, explicit in the recent declaration of the Holy Community in response to the papal visit to the Ecumenical Patriarch in November 2006 and the visit of the Archbishop of Athens to the Vatican in December of the same year. In this important statement, the Holy Community speaks of Athonite monasticism as the ‘non-negotiable guardian of Sacred Tradition’. From that standpoint, the declaration criticizes various aspects of these visits that would seem to imply some sort of recognition of the legitimacy of the papacy and acceptance of common ground between Orthodoxy and the West. The declaration indeed asserts a fundamental incompatibility between the West and Orthodoxy. 239 Relations between Athos and the West have rarely, if ever, conformed to this black-and-white, dichotomous framework. There have been severe strains and great difficulties but, from the historical point of view, the situation that emerges is more complex and nuanced than the Holy Community appears to allow. The story of Latin Athonite monasticism is a shining and salutary reminder that East and West have met on the Mountain, and that both have been enriched in that encounter. |
| Graham Speake, Kallistos Ware TAMARA GRDZELIDZE. The Georgians on Mount Athos The Myth of Iviron The period when the presence of Georgians had an influence on the Holy Mountain is a comparatively limited one. From as early as the second half of the twelfth century there were two communities in Iviron: Georgian and Greek. The Greeks worshipped in the church of St John the Baptist in Greek, the Georgians celebrated the Liturgy in the main church or katholikon. Both communities participated in the election of an hegoumenos (abbot), and by the mid-thirteenth century we already find the first Greek hegoumenos signing acts on behalf of the whole monastery. 42 It was in 1357 that the Georgians officially lost their monastery after Patriarch Kallistos I of Constantinople signed a document saying that Iviron was no longer in their possession. Nevertheless Georgian monks continued to be present in the Greek-run monastery until the nineteenth century when a group of Georgian monks was expelled from the monastery. The last Georgian monk in Iviron died in the early 1950s. In the mid-1970s a small Georgian delegation visited the Holy Mountain and, although they were unsuccessful in their attempts to film Iviron, they were able to make microfilms of the Georgian manuscripts in the library. Today there are a few Georgians scattered across the Holy Mountain, for example at the monastery of Xeropotamou, where there are possibly three monks, and Hilandar, where a novice was registered a few years ago, as well as in Vatopedi and Zographou. Several Georgians have also been hired as workers, for example at the monastery of Dionysiou not far from the cell of Hilarion the Georgian. 43 This we know through visitors’ accounts. Today Iviron is in every sense a Greek monastery. Its Georgian origin is not always mentioned when a guided tour is given. On the other hand, the present inhabitants have expressed disquiet at the regular stream of visitors from Georgia who may show up unexpectedly and create an unwelcome disturbance over their special connection with Iviron. It is difficult to blame the modern Georgians for adopting such an attitude, even though it is of no relevance in practical terms. After all, Iviron became one of the most precious symbols of Georgia’s Church and culture as well as playing a critical role in the political life of the Georgian people during a significant period of their history. The story of Iviron, as it is known and told by the Georgians today, may seem shrouded in myth. However, when it is demythologized by means of facts and documents, full credit must be given to the monastery as a remarkably powerful symbol for a nation as small as the Georgians. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Ukraine, Orthodoxy in the TODD E. FRENCH The Ukraine is host to the rich history of the conversion of the Rus to Orthodoxy, which led to the further spreading of Christianity in Asia. Its capital city, Kiev, has served as the focal point of political maneuvering in the Slavic territories from the conversion of the Rus down through to modern times. It is worth noting that the history of this conversion, commonly associated with Vladimir in 988, overrides numerous alternative conversion stories. Ancient Christian legend tells that St. Andrew the “First-Called” embarked on a mission to convert the Scythians in the year 55. Evidence only becomes clearer in the later medieval period, when one starts to find several clues to Christianity’s influence on the Rus. Although the term “Rus” is used to describe the people of a diocese in Tmutorokan as early as the 860s, the Rus are historically associated with the Kievan centered kingdom. The distance between these two cities being roughly a thousand miles has raised questions about whether the two Rus settlements are both Slavic kingdoms or if the Black Sea Rus were the same as the Goths mentioned by St. John Chrysostom in the 4th century, as being an important community for missionary enterprise. Few were more influential in the growth of Christianity in the Ukraine than St. Constantine (tonsured Cyril before hisdeath) and his brother St. Methodios. They were chosen to lead a mission to the Slavic kingdom of Moravia in 864. Prior to their departure they devised an alphabet (Glagolitic) into which many texts were translated. Their successors, Clement and Naum of Ohrid, were instrumental in the development of the Cyrillic alphabet, named for their teacher. Kiev, however, was a good distance from Tmutorokan and the story of the Kievan Rus conversion proper begins with two princes, Askold and Dir. A popular version of the story tells how after attempting to seize Constantinople, the princes saw their fleet destroyed through a miracle which they believed to have been called down by the Patriarch St. |
| 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. |
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