| Church Positions Regarding the Sanctity of Human Life The Church " s teaching about human life is based on Holy Tradition, including the Scriptures as a primary resource and the ongoing teaching and interpretation of the Orthodox Faith. Life is a gift of God in the formation of the created world. All life is precious, but God uniquely creates human life in the " image and likeness of God. " Human life as such is deserving of deep respect and individual human beings are to be treated in accordance to their inherent human dignity. Rev. Dr. Stanley S. Harakas 21 May 2007 The Sanctity of Human Life A major and overarching concern of the Church arises with its commitment to the God-given sanctity of human life. Some of the developments of the biological manipulation of human life, though promising amazing therapeutic achievements, may also be understood and undermining respect for the integrity of human existence. Others may be seen as providing a new means of healing human illness. Discering the difference is the challenge the Church faces in developing its teaching on these newly appearing issues. Human Life The Church’s teaching about human life is based on Holy Tradition, including the Scriptures as a primary resource and the ongoing teaching and interpretation of the Orthodox Faith. Life is a gift of God in the formation of the created world. All life is precious, but God uniquely creates human life in the “image and likeness of God.” Human life as such is deserving of deep respect and individual human beings are to be treated in accordance to their inherent human dignity. Thus, racism, unjust prejudicial treatment of men and women, genocide, forms of sexual exploitation, domestic violence, child abuse, rape, theft or destruction of legitimately owned property, deceptions and deceit, environmental plunder and other such manipulative behaviors violate the human dignity of others. Human life as a gift of God should be respected. Some specific issues are the following. |
| Let us recall now the most perfect Christians, those who lead Christian life among us: hieromonk in schema Ambrose, father John, bishop Theophanous. They are not the narrow-minded fanatics, they are the noble graduates of seminaries and academies, but can you find any borrowings from or references to our school and scientific theology in their edifications? You will not find any, except for accidental mentioning. If you offer them piles of scientific books to help in their edifications, they will treat that with respect, but believe, will find nothing to borrow from them. A simple Christian, who wished to think over this or that phenomenon of his spiritual life, experiences the same. – It is obvious that our created according to the Western principles theology, though possessing no Western misconceptions, is so far from the real spiritual life of Orthodox Christians, so different from it, that it can neither guide it, nor even be similar to it. It would not have happened, if only the teaching about the Church would have mentioned the difference of Orthodox theology and the Western one; but it happened because the Western religions changed the whole concept of Christian life, concerning its goals and conditions. Being the Rector of the Academy, I gave the task to one smart student: to compare the Christian moral teaching of Theophanous and Martensen. Martensen is a famous Protestant preacher, who is thought to be the best moralist-theologian; with that he is mostly freed from any confessional misconceptions. Bishop Theophanous is an educated Russian theologian, the former rector of the Petersburg academy. And what happened? It turned out that Christian morals were described by these two authors in the absolutely different, even opposite way. The result of that analysis was formulated like that: Bishop Theophanous teaches, how to build life according to the demand of moral perfection, and the western bishop (sin vena verbo) borrows from Christianity those things and to the extent, to which they are compatible with the conditions of contemporary life. It means that the first one looks at Christianity as at the eternal order of true life and does not force a person to change himself and his life, till the time it will come to the norm, and the second one looks at the basis of contemporary cultural life as at the stable fact, and among the range of existing variants of this life choses those, which can be approved of from the Christian point of view. The first demands moral heroism, exploit, and the second thinks, what parts of Christianity could fit us in the contemporary life arrangement. For the first, who is the man, called to beyond-the-grave eternity, where real life will start, the historically developed mechanism of modern life seems to be a miserable ghost, and for the second the teaching about future life is the elevated, ennobling idea, which helps us perceiving real life better. |
| Goppelt suggests that «kingdom» was a Palestinian Jewish concept more or less incomprehensible to Hellenistic readers, so John substituted a rarer term from the Jesus tradition, namely «life» (cf. Mark 9:43,45 [=the kingdom in 9:47]; 7:14; 10[cf. 10:15, 23]; Matt. 25[=the kingdom in 25:34]; Luke 10:25). 2819 He may well be correct concerning the substitution itself, but it is unlikely that John chose «life» simply to accommodate a Hellenistic audience, if, as we think likely, his audience was primarily Jewish. Indeed, Greeks and Romans could imagine a long life without perpetual youth (as in the case of the Sibyl), 2820 which differs appreciably from the Jewish emphasis on the transformed, immortal life of the resurrection. More likely, «kingdom» ( John 3:3,5 ) had political ramifications (cf. comments on 18:36–38) that would be particularly unhelpful for Christians in Roman Asia in the mid-nineties, given the demands of the state, not least of which was imperial religion. 2821 Life is related to divine knowledge in Hellenistic sources, especially in the Hermetica, 2822 but the connection is also an OT 2823 and early Jewish one. 2824 «Eternal life» occasionally appears in Hellenistic sources; for instance, Plutarch employs it to describe Gods character (της αωνου ζως). 2825 But it is rare in pagan circles in this period; 2826 the vast majority of its occurrences are in Jewish sources, beginning with Dan 12:2 , where it refers to the life inherited at the resurrection of the dead; at that time the righteous would be «raised up to eternal life.» 2827 Jewish sources often speak of «the life of the world to come " ( ) or «life of the age» («eternal life»), 2828 often abbreviating it as «life» 2829 as in John. Thus the righteous are preserved for the life of the coming world at death, 2830 or (in more Hellenistic sources) the righteous dead currently «live out the age of blessing.» 2831 Most early Christian literature also employs it as the «life of the coming age,» 2832 though «eternal life» is more frequent in the Gospel (about seventeen times) and Epistles (six times) of John than in other NT documents (less than thirty times in all non-Johannine texts, one-third of them in Pauline literature). |
| Finally there was the understanding of the eucharist as community. 123 The life of the eucharist is the life of God Himself, but this is not life in the sense of an Aristotelian movement which flows out mechanically from the interior of existence. It is the life of communion with God, such as exists within the Trinity and is actualized within the members of the eucharistic community. Knowledge and communion are identical. 124 All this leads naturally to the theological developments of the fourth century. But it must be strongly underlined that without this foundation of the Church’s eucharistic experience, such as exhibited in Ignatius and Irenaeus, the trinitarian theology of the fourth century would remain a problem. We must therefore pause briefly on this point before passing to the fourth century. The identification of existence with life through the idea of immortality and incorruptibility will lead naturally into trinitarian theology. If incorruptibility is possible only in and through communion with the life of God Himself, creation or being can exist and live only insofar as the source of being – God – is Himself life and communion. The eucharistic experience implies that life is imparted and actualized only in an event of communion, 125 and thus creation and existence in general can be founded only upon this living God of communion. Thus the divine act that brings about creation implies simultaneously, the Father, the Son and the Spirit. 126 Irenaeus seems to stop here. He is concerned mainly with created being and sees existence as ultimately dependent upon the Trinity. But what about uncreated being? Could it not be said, perhaps, that in the last resort, i.e. in our reference to God as being, being precedes life and life springs from being? Is it not possible, in other words, to postulate a divine nature (σις – οσα) as the ultimate ontological truth, and to make life and communion depend upon it under the form of the Trinity? The answer to this question is given by the Greek Fathers in their historic attempt to press the identification of being and life with communion to the ultimate point of existence, God Himself. This came about in the fourth century. 3. The Trinitarian Approach |
| It is interesting to note that pro-life endeavors such as these crisis pregnancy centers, receive no funding from any government agency. Only the abortionists and their allies like Planned Parenthood are government funded. In fact, there are government functionaries, like the Attorney General of New York, who seek to close some crisis pregnancy centers under the pretense of deceptive advertising since they refuse to counsel abortion as an alternative. However, these same functionaries do not seek to hold abortuaries to the same high standard of truth when they offer so-called “counseling” which consists solely of “selling” abortion to their clients. The Pro-life movement is made up of the wealthy and is financed by the Roman Catholic Church. Statistics on income distribution reveal that most pro-lifers are in the middle, lower-middle and lower income brackets while most abortion advocates are in the upper-middle and upper income brackets including millionaires. Pro-aborts boast such financial giants as Ted Turner and Donald Trump along with myriad media celebrities. On the other hand, pro-life ranks are filled with blue collar workers, housewives and religious. The Pro-life movement is not financed by the Roman Catholic Church, not do pro-life agencies receive government funding as do so many pro-abortion organizations. The Pro-life movement is financed solely, totally and completely by the sacrificial offerings of its pro-life members. If abortion were illegal. what about victims of rage. incest and women whose lives are endangered by their pregnancy? Abortion is performed today for cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the woman in less than 3% of the 1.5 million annual abortions. In cases where a woman’s life is in actual danger from a pregnancy as in the case of an ectopic or tubal pregnancy or cancerous uterus, there has always been a medical, legal and spiritual recognition of the necessity to save the mother’s life even when that salvation led, tragically, to the death of the child. No laws were necessary to legalize life-saving medical intervention. |
| Michael Prokurat, Alexander Golitzin, Michael D. Peterson Скачать epub pdf MONASTICISM MONASTICISM. The origins of Christian monasticism are much debated, but early one may point with authority to the life of Jesus, as well as that of Joh n the Baptist and the Virgin Mary (q.v.). It is clear that ascesis (q.v.) formed a component of Christian life from the start, and that from its beginnings as a mass movement in 4th c. Egypt (q.v.), monasticism has been an essential and vital expression of Christian life. It is surely not accidental that its great popularity and the rapid spread of monasteries were simultaneous with the new status of the Church following the conversion of the Emperor Constantine (q.v.). With the disappearance of the martyr (q.v.) as a model of Christian witness, a new set of heroes emerged and were seized upon by the faithful: the ascetics of the desert. Antony of Egypt (q.v.) was the first, a hermit whose austere rule of life and extraordinary personal charismata caught the imagination of late antiquity. He was followed by Macarius of Scete (q.v.) and by Pachomius of the Thebaid (southern Egypt), whose communal organization of monks provided the first standing model of common-life (cenobitic) monasticism, indeed of monasteries in the usual sense. The elders (gerontes, startzi) of Scete gave Christianity the term, Desert Fathers (q.v.), and a median way of life between Pachomius’s strict communalism and Antony’s solitary life. All three forms of monastic life continue in force in the Orthodox oikoumene, most notably on Mt. Athos (qq.v.). Also, in the 4th c., Basil the Great (q.v.) organized the ascetics of his metropolitanate in Asia Minor (q.v.). His rule, communicated via letters addressed to specific questions on ascetic life, emphasized communal life, obedience to the abbot, and service. It was to play a significant, though not dominant, role in the later monasticism of Byzantium (q.v.). Asceticism in Syria (q.v.) remained for some time an individual effort, the “sons” or “daughters of the covenant” being attached to the local churches and active in their affairs. This form of ascetic life seems to have had roots in the Syriac Church (q.v.) well before the 4th c. A later period saw a rise in extreme-even eccentric-forms of asceticism, perhaps best known by the early 5th-c. phenomenon of the stylite saints, for example, Symeon Stylites, who subsequently appeared in Byzantium itself. |
| In this sense, the celebration of the sacraments and liturgical services should be aimed at the edification of what Nicolas Cabasilas called “Life in Christ”. Speaking about it, Cabasilas says: “The life in Christ originates in this life and arises from it. It is perfected, however, in the life to come, when we shall have reached that last day. It cannot attain perfection in men’s souls in this life, nor even in that which is to come without already having begun here. […] Baptism confers being and in short, existence according to Christ. It receives us when we are dead and corrupted and first leads us into life. The anointing with chrism perfects him who has received [new] birth by infusing into him the energy that benefits such a life. The Holy Eucharist preserves and continues that life and health, since the Bread of Life enables us to preserve that which has been acquired and to continue in life. […] In this way we live in God. We remove our life from the visible world to the world which is not seen by exchanging, not the place, but the very life itself and mode” . When speaking of the very first sacrament in the Christian life – baptism – which is at the same time closely linked, as we know, with mission and evangelisation, we shall recall that in the Ancient Church this mystery was not only celebrated but also prepared in a liturgical context. Indeed, the period of preparation of the catechumens for baptism coincided with Great Lent, since baptism was most often celebrated on Easter in the Ancient Church, and consisted not of a preparation in a classroom but attending the liturgical services, receiving appropriate exorcisms and hearing the Scriptural readings and the catechetical homilies. The catechetical homilies of Cyril of Jerusalem are a good testimony of this ancient practice, as well as his mystagogical homilies. For the evangelisation of the catechumen did not stop at his baptism, but was continuing after, during eight days, when the neophyte was remaining in the church, in a liturgical setting, and receiving explanations about the sacraments to which he had participated. In fact, the catechetical homilies dealt most often with the mystery of salvation and the basic elements of faith, as the mystagogical homilies were usually commentaries giving explanations of the liturgical and sacramental actions. This point could also be inspiring our mission and evangelisation today. |
| The Orthodox believer despises transgression Inasmuch as the faithful Orthodox Christian loves truth he equally despises transgression. We have reached an evil time in history, which Holy Scripture has prophesied, in which dwells the spirit of Antichrist. This is the greatest heresy of our current age—the spirit of the world, or evil globalization, which spreads the spirit of lukewarmness towards the Orthodox faith and dogmas. The spirit of lukewarmness toward dogma and faith is a sign that will precede the coming of the Antichrist—the latter days prophesied in the Holy Scriptures that will constitute the age of apostasy from true faith and dogmas. According to the Holy Scriptures, this age takes inspiration for its ways and teachings from demons: Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils (1 Tim. 4:1). We read in the life of Saint Pachomius that while conversing with some monastics he noticed a terrible, foul smell filling the place. After they had all left he asked God to inform him of the reason for the smell, and God made it known to Saint Pachomius through an angel that “dogmas of ungodliness were emanating from their souls.” The faithful Orthodox Christian lives in spirit and truth Knowledge of Orthodox truth is not a theoretical exercise but a way of life that we follow in the Church’s liturgical life. Therefore, the life of piety in the Church is closely related to dogma. If our dogmas are true and correct, then all of our faith is correct, and this correct faith preserves the life of piety from perversion and change. We humbly believe that the spiritual life and struggle are the special attributes of Orthodoxy that have preserved it from any perversion or change. Orthodox Tradition is the tradition of the heart’s purification, through tedious struggle against passions, which constitute a barrier between us and the knowledge of the living God. It is the tradition of the monastic life, which wipes out sin from the heart and makes man able to carry Christ’s yoke and to behold His glory. Monasticism, including fasting, prayer, vigils and practicing Christ’s commandments is in the end the only way to reach certain knowledge of the living God with the active participation of both soul and body. St. Gregory Palamas says, “Saying something about God does not equate to an encounter with God” ( Triads 3.42). Inasmuch as we purify ourselves from our corrupt dispositions, so much do we enter more into the depth of the mystery of Orthodoxy that preserved our God alive, for heretics murder this living God, transforming Him into an idol. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Monasticism TENNY THOMAS The term “monasticism” refers to a form of life involving separation from the world for the purpose of ascetical dedication to prayer, with a view to achieve perfect obedience to the gospel life. In the Eastern Christian tradition, monasticism is understood as full discipleship of Jesus Christ and traced back to the New Testament example of St. John the Baptist, to Jesus’ own virginal celibacy, and to the many calls for renunciation (e.g., Mt. 10.37 ; Mk. 10.21 ). Itis often called the “barometer of the spiritual life of the church.” So great has the influence of and appreciation for this way of life been, that its existence and status have been equated with those of the church as a whole: as flourishes the monastic life, so flourishes the church. Monasticism is not just a part ofthe greater scope of Eastern Christian life; it is the very center and heart ofthe church. The monastics (both men and women) choose to follow with singular devotion and obedience the call of Christ. They are thus the models in which the church sees one of her most radiant icons: a communion of souls wholly living the life in Christ. Monasticism refers to that ascetic movement characterized by anachoresis, or withdrawal from the Christian community and the rest of society. Monasticism does not have a monopoly on asceticism, as this is a characteristic of all Christians following the gospel prescripts; thus all monasticism is ascetic, while all asceticism is not necessarily monastic. What distinguishes monasticism from the broader category of Christian asceticism is monasticism’s emphasis on withdrawal, on solitude. The Greek word for “monk,” monachos, meant, in its origins, “a solitary.” Two classic forms of monasticism emerged from early times: the anchoritic, or solitary life or the hermit, and the coenobitic (the Greek koinos bios means “common life”), that is, a life within a structured (and often secluded) community. Monastic life required from the outset stark renunciations: of family, property, marriage, and career. Early monks typically joined together ascetical disciplines (fasting, vigils, poverty, and lifelong celibacy) with a life of manual labor. |
| The difficulty that cosmology runs into if it attempts to justify the sufficient conditions for the emergence of life can be easily illustrated by referring to what is accepted by modern cosmology as fact that life (again understood in physical and biological terms), existing in the universe here and now, is destined to disappear from its surface because of either terrestrial physical or cosmological reasons. J. D. Barrow and F. J. Tipler provide a possible upper bound for the length of the existence of the earthly biosphere nearly equal to forty thousand years, which could support the evolution of the human species. This is a short future in terms of cosmological scales. 434 In the astrophysical context, the upper bound on the existence of life on the earth follows from the finite age of existence of the sun (≈5 billion years from now), whose termination in an explosion will bring any life in the surrounding cosmos, including the earth, to extinction. Even if we disregard this local cosmic catastrophe and assume that humankind could spread beyond the solar system into outer cosmic space, we still have to face some global cosmological constraints on the duration of its existence, following from the theory: either the eventual collapse of the universe in the big crunch (the so-called closed universe) or the eternal frost of the ever-expanding (open) universe. In the former case, the termination of life is inevitable because the universe will heat up and prevent any possibility for life to survive. In the latter case, some cosmologists have tried to argue that there will be a possibility to extend the “existence” of “life” in the universe by abandoning the human body and adjusting the new form of life to an absolutely different environment. These hypotheses are based on the speculative assumption that life can be defined in terms of mechanisms producing information, so that the question of supporting life in the universe is a question of producing information with no ending. It is enough to remind us the long-standing paper of F. Dyson on life in the cold and dark future of the universe, in which he argued that civilizations can survive there by constantly reducing their rate of energy consumption and information processing. 435 Dyson’s argument was that, despite these measures, the total amount of information produced in the universe may still be infinite, which would imply that the posthuman “civilization” could live forever in its subjective time. 436 |
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