| Photo: cyprusbutterfly.com.cy I begin with a quote from an article that is almost 60 years old, but which has lost none of its timeliness: “Since the Byzantine era, Orthodoxy was always brought to and accepted by whole nations. The only familiar pattern of the past, therefore, is not the creation of mere local churches, but a total integration and incarnation of Orthodoxy in national cultures; so that these cultures themselves cannot be separated from Orthodoxy but in their depth, are genuine expressions of Orthodoxy. This organic unity of the national and religious is not a historical accident, much less a defect of Orthodoxy. In its positive expression it is the fruit of the Orthodox concept and experience of the Church as embracing the whole life” (from Fr. Schmemann’s essay Problems of Orthodoxy in America , 1964). It is not just Orthodox Christianity which incarnates itself in the total life of a culture. All religions do that. The life of Israel in the Old Testament was similarly saturated by commitment to Yahweh as revealed in the Law and covenant given at Sinai. How Israelites were to dress, look, what they were to eat, who they were to marry, how they were to order their week and their year—all was regulated by their faith in Yahweh. Theirs was a total integration and incarnation of religion in their national culture. (Of course there were also some foreign elements in it which violated the Sinai covenant, as the prophets forcibly pointed out—and as Yahweh pointed out when He allowed Assyria and Babylon to invade and destroy in 721 and 586 B.C. respectively.) Gentile Roman culture also united the national and the religious. Life at home centered around the domestic deities, temples filled the land, patriotism involved devotion to those deities, and public education centered around stories of them. That was, I think, the root cause of the antipathy that the Jew felt for the Gentile: both were a part of all-encompassing and radically incompatible worlds. That was also what made life so interesting for Christians living in that Gentile world. They did not share Judaism’s cultural exemption from participation in it, and so were dramatically out of step with everything in the world around them. That was why they were hated as atheists and misanthropes. |
| Скачать epub pdf The City of God (Book III) As in the foregoing book Augustine has proved regarding moral and spiritual calamities, so in this book he proves regarding external and bodily disasters, that since the foundation of the city the Romans have been continually subject to them; and that even when the false gods were worshipped without a rival, before the advent of Christ, they afforded no relief from such calamities. Chapter 1.– Of the Ills Which Alone the Wicked Fear, and Which the World Continually Suffered, Even When the Gods Were Worshipped. Of moral and spiritual evils, which are above all others to be deprecated, I think enough has already been said to show that the false gods took no steps to prevent the people who worshipped them from being overwhelmed by such calamities, but rather aggravated the ruin. I see I must now speak of those evils which alone are dreaded by the heathen– famine, pestilence, war, pillage, captivity, massacre, and the like calamities, already enumerated in the first book. For evil men account those things alone evil which do not make men evil; neither do they blush to praise good things, and yet to remain evil among the good things they praise. It grieves them more to own a bad house than a bad life, as if it were man " s greatest good to have everything good but himself. But not even such evils as were alone dreaded by the heathen were warded off by their gods, even when they were most unrestrictedly worshipped. For in various times and places before the advent of our Redeemer, the human race was crushed with numberless and sometimes incredible calamities; and at that time what gods but those did the world worship, if you except the one nation of the Hebrews, and, beyond them, such individuals as the most secret and most just judgment of God counted worthy of divine grace? But that I may not be prolix, I will be silent regarding the heavy calamities that have been suffered by any other nations, and will speak only of what happened to Rome and the Roman empire, by which I mean Rome properly so called, and those lands which already, before the coming of Christ, had by alliance or conquest become, as it were, members of the body of the state. Chapter 2.– Whether the Gods, Whom the Greeks and Romans Worshipped in Common, Were Justified in Permitting the Destruction of Ilium. |
| Photo: freepik.com One sometimes hears the assertion that the Orthodox Church has what has been called “a woman problem”. Usually the assertion comes from people (most often women) from other churches who cannot understand Orthodoxy’s refusal to ordain women as pastors and bishops, and attributes this refusal solely to an ingrained and irrational misogyny. Or, as one woman with whom I worked once said, “Your church is very retro!” She said it without venom, as a simple observation, but it was not intended as a compliment. It was based entirely on her outside observation that we were not like the Anglicans, the United Church, or the Presbyterians in that we had no women clergy and did not fly a rainbow flag or march in the Gay Pride parades. If she had looked a little more closely, though, she might have found even more ammo. In many parts of the Orthodox world, women may not receive Holy Communion while menstruating. Furthermore, the prayers welcoming them back to the Eucharistic assembly after they have given birth make reference to their “uncleanness” contracted through the act of childbirth and persisting through forty days. Also, the prayers said for them after a miscarriage seem unable to differentiate between a miscarriage and a deliberate abortion (part of one prayer reads, “forgive this Your servant who is in sin, having been involved in the loss of a life”). Furthermore, women are told they may never enter the altar area for any reason. Accordingly, male infants, brought to church for the first time, are brought into the altar, but female infants are brought only to the altar doors. For many people these things constitute prima facie evidence of Orthodoxy’s misogynistic attitude and indeed constitutes “a woman problem”. In response I would like to keep on digging a little deeper, and suggest that this is a misdiagnosis, and that our situation is even worse. One is tempted to counter-suggest that the Church as a humanity problem, in that it is populated solely by human beings and that human beings get stuff wrong. |
| 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: |
| Chapter III. Antinomies of Christian History: Empire and Desert Christianity entered history as a new social order, or rather a new social dimension. From the very beginning Christianity was not primarily a «doctrine,» but exactly a «community.» There was not only a «Message» to be proclaimed and delivered, and «Good News» to be declared. There was precisely a New Community, distinct and peculiar, in the process of growth and formation, to which members were called and recruited. Indeed, «fellowship» (koinonia) was the basic category of Christian existence. Primitive Christians felt themselves to be closely knit and bound together in a unity which radically transcended all human boundaries – of race, of culture, of social rank, and indeed the whole dimension of «this world.» They were brethren to each other, members of «One Body,» even of the «Body of Christ.» This glorious phrase of St. Paul admirably summarizes the common experience of the faithful. In spite of the radical novelty of Christian experience, basic categories of interpretation were taken over from the Old Testament, of which the New Covenant was conceived to be the fulfilment and consummation. Christians were indeed «a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people set apart» (I Peter, 2:9). They were the New Israel, the «Little Flock,» that is, the faithful «Remnant» to which it was God’s good pleasure to give the Kingdom (Luke 12:32). Scattered sheep had to be brought together into «one fold,» and assembled. The Church was exactly this «Assembly,» ekklesia tou Theou, – a permanent Assembly of the new «Chosen People» of God, never to be adjourned. In «this world» Christians could be but pilgrims and strangers. Their true «citizenship,» politeuma, was «in heaven» ( Phil. 3:20 ). The Church herself was peregrinating through this world (paroikousa). «The Christian fellowship was a bit of extra-territorial jurisdiction on earth of the world above» (Frank Gavin). The Church was an «outpost of heaven» on the earth, or a «colony of heaven.» It may be true that this attitude of radical detachment had originally an «apocalyptic» connotation, and was inspired by the expectation of an imminent parousia. |
| His Holiness Patriarch Kirill Calls Local Orthodox Churches to Not Recognize the New “Orthodox Church of Ukraine” Source: DECR A deep wound has been inflicted on the canonical Orthodoxy in Ukraine and worldwide, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia wrote in the letters addressed to the Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches. The messages were sent to His Beatitude Pope and Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria, His Beatitude Patriarch John X of Antioch, His Beatitude Patriarch Theophilos III of Jerusalem, His Holiness and Beatitude Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II of All Georgia, His Holiness Patriarch Irinej of Serbia, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel of Romania, His Holiness Patriarch Neophytos of Bulgaria, His Beatitude Archbishop Chrysostomos II of Cyprus, His Beatitude Archbishop Ieronymos II of Athens and All Greece, His Beatitude Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana and All Albania, His Beatitude Metropolitan Sawa of Warsaw and All Poland, His Beatitude Metropolitan Rastislav of the Czech Lands and Slovakia, and His Beatitude Metropolitan Tikhon of All America and Canada. As His Holiness Patriarch Kirill informed them, on December 15, a gathering of “hierarchs,” “clergy” and laity of two Ukrainian schismatic groups took place in Kiev with the direct involvement and under the direct patronage of the government authorities of Ukraine. The participants in that unlawful assembly at the historical Sophia Cathedral in Kiev proclaimed themselves “unification council.” That so-called unification was, in fact, a merger between two schismatic organizations which formed one. Taking part in the “council” were false bishops of the schismatic “Kievan patriarchate” and of another uncanonical structure – “Ukrainian autocephalous orthodox church.” “Meanwhile, the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church led by His Beatitude Metropolitan Onufry of Kiev and All Ukraine, recognized in the entire Orthodox world, refused, in accordance with the decision of its Holy Synod of December 7, to participate in this event, considering it an “unlawful gathering.” Despite the fact that the archpastors of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church were brought under enormous pressure, out of its 90 hierarchs only 2 (one diocesan and one vicar) took part in the pseudo-council. For falling into the schism and flagrantly violating the episcopal oath they both were relieved of their posts and suspended from serving by the decision of the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of December 17,” the letters said. |
| John Anthony McGuckin Finland, Autonomous Orthodox Church of SERGEY TROSTYANSKIY Finland has a long and dramatic church history. Orthodoxy’s presence in Finland can be traced back to the late 11th century, as contemporary archeological explorations suggest. The 12th century, in turn, was marked by very significant activities of merchants and monks from Novgorod in Karelia (a region which is now divided between Russia and Finland). The missionary activities of Russian and Byzantine monks played a key role in the introduction of the Orthodox faith to the Finnish people. The greatest and most glorious signs of Orthodox presence in Finland are traditionally associated with its monastic communities. The Valamo (in Russian, Valaam) monastery, which was founded in the 12th century, stands out as among the most important of all. Among the other monastic communities, the Konevitsa (Russian, Konevets) monastery, established in the 14th century, and the monastery at Petsamo (Russian, Pechenga), set up in the 16th century beside the Arctic Ocean, are also distinguished as the great centers of Orthodox spirituality. The Orthodox presence in Finland up until the 20th century was primarily localized in the region of Karelia, a territory that was subjected to a number of regional wars (between Novgorod and Sweden, and later between Russia and Sweden). Thus, Karelia, as the spiritual heartland of Orthodoxy in the North, tended always to be caught up in political turmoil and suffered enormously during its history. Even in the 12th century the Valamo monastery experienced several Swedish invasions. In the 16th and 17th centuries the struggle over Finland between Russia and Sweden brought more instability, and the destruction of the monasteries followed, causing the majority of the Orthodox population to flee to Russia as the western parts of Karelia were occupied by Sweden. Those who remained on these territories were generally forced to convert to Lutheranism. In the 18th century, Tsar Peter the Great took control once more of some parts of Karelia, including the most significant sites around Lake Ladoga. Since then, Orthodoxy was restored and the Valamo and Konevitsa monasteries were rebuilt. This period was characterized by many spiritual and material restorations of the Orthodox faith in Finland. At the beginning of the 19th century, when Finland had become a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire, the Orthodox population there once again increased significantly as many merchants, soldiers, and others moved to Finland from Russia to settle the new territories. Many churches and chapels were built at that time to accommodate settlers. In 1892 an independent diocese of Finland was established in order to serve the multi-ethnic Orthodox population, which included Finns, Karelians, Skolt Saame, and Russians. |
| Pilgrimages to sacred and holy places were not invented by Christians. In fact, we most likely inherited this practice from the traditional Greco-Roman culture, in which sacred trips to oracles and special places were not something strange or unknown. At the same time, the debate about the necessity and profit of such pilgrimages – understood early on mainly in terms of visiting the sites associated with the Earthly life of the Savior – was present in the Church from the very early centuries. We can find citations in the writing of respectable Fathers of the Church in favour of such earthly-tied spiritual journeys; there were, on the other hand, some Holy Fathers who were critical of journeys to the places of the “glory revealed,” and almost condemned them as something unessential and irrelevant. However, from the historical perspective, we can say that the overwhelming attitude of Christians toward pilgrimages was positive. A number of classic Christian writings of Late Antiquity that deal with relationship of pious, ascetic and hagiographical material link very closely to the “journeys of faith”, and in one form or another are associated with the “memory of the eyes”. In the later, Medieval period, pilgrimages became a prominent and noble thing both in the East and in the West; the practice brought together the whole spectrum of society, as peasant simpletons to royal monarchs participated in pilgrimages. There is a debate about pilgrimage in the modern world as well. As always, we can find zealous supporters and adamant opponents of such ventures, but in this article, I’d like to reflect on our religious environment in application to the given theme and some other subjects that in my mind can be closely linked to a modern day pilgrimage and that under the circumstances can make them even more necessary and beneficial. In the new reality of the post-Christian world, where the Christian population finds itself increasingly in the minority and overall church attendance is dramatically decreasing across all of the traditional Christian denominations, people who truly care about the well-being and the very existence of the Church are compelled to take some kind of measures in an attempt to change the situation. |
| Sermon on the New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia 2016 Source: Hermitage of the Holy Cross February 7, 2016 Today we celebrate the memory of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian land. These are all the multitude of bishops, priests, monks, nuns, laymen, laywomen, and children who were killed or suffered gravely because of their faith and their refusal to compromise their faith, to cooperate with the new revolutionary government, or to renounce their faith in Christ. The experience of each and every one of these martyrs and confessors was unique. Even if their manner of death or suffering was similar in many cases, each of them brought with them to that moment of confession or martyrdom a unique soul, a unique set of experiences and circumstances. If we were to enter into the mind and heart of each one of these saints and observe the unique way in which they experienced their suffering and the knowledge of their coming martyrdom, we would see a wondrous tapestry of experience. And the thread which holds all this tapestry together is love, love for Christ. Bishops of this time faced a particularly complex assortment of temptations. Events were changing quickly from the time the revolution began. The revolution itself was disorganized and chaotic, with different revolutionary leaders taking power in various places and turning on each other when disagreements arose. Having lived until now under the God-anointed Orthodox Tsar, the bishops found themselves without the security of the support of the government almost overnight. And almost immediately the demands began to be issued from the revolutionaries: “You must turn over all the precious vessels and metalwork belonging to the church for the benefit of the poor and starving. You will cease to use the church building because it will be commandeered by the People and used for other purposes.” In many cases if the hierarchs even hesitated or sought a compromise, they were killed immediately. Even though many of them remained apolitical in their outward expression and accepted the abdication of the Tsar and the coming revolution as a form of chastisement from God for the apostasy of the people, the very fact of their existence was so distasteful to the God-hating new regime that they could not escape the accusation of “counter-revolutionary activity.” And for this they could be killed quickly, imprisoned, or sent into exile, depending on the will of God and the particular character of the local authorities. |
| 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 UOC Chancellor believes that conciliar church wisdom should give assessment for Patriarch Bartholomew’s actions Having come to Ukraine, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople refused to talk with thousands of the faithful of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church meeting him at the building of Verhovna Rada in Kiev. During this visit which threatens to overgrow with conflicts and to exacerbate the church conflict in that country further, chancellor of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Anthony of Borispol and Brovary spoke with Ria Novosti about what developments the canonical Church could expect and what could be done to meet them; how the UOC assesses the current situation; if the Local Churches are ready to defend the purity of the faith and whether it is necessary for them to continue the dialogue in the “Amman format”. – Vladyka Anthony, Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople has arrived in Kiev on the occasion of the Independence Day of Ukraine; and there were talks about Pope Francis coming too. What do the followers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church think about the visit of these religious leaders? Is the refusal of your clergy to participate in the events around Bartholomew’s visit still in force? – Judging by what state officials say, Pope Francis’ visit to Ukraine is unlikely to happen, because nothing was said about preparations for it. As for the visit of Patriarch Bartholomew, it was announced several months ago. Many experts predict that this event would accelerate the aggravation of religious situation in the country. This visit and reception of the Phanar’s head on the highest political level could be taken by the followers and supporters of the “OCU” as a signal in support of their efforts for the weakening of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which might provoke a new wave of raider attacks on the communities and parishes of the canonical Church. In this context, we announced that we would not be able to take part in a pre-planned event in the Cathedral of St. Sophia of Kiev if the delegation of the Patriarchate of Constantinople were present there, because none other but the Phanar and its head were responsible for the violation of the rights of the believers of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. How can one share presence with those whose decisions have brought so many troubles, so much suffering and evil to people who just wanted to preserve intact the faith of their grandfathers and grand-grandfathers? |
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