Thursday 7 October 2010

The Gift of Tongues


We have received an email from a man in Brazil who wishes to learn how the Orthodox Church views the gift of tongues as practised among the Pentecostalists of the ‘Assemblies of God’.  The Assemblies of God is a classical Pentecostalist church that derives from the Azusa Street Revival of the early 20th Century in Los Angeles.  This is the church that in Wasilla Sarah Palin grew up in and was re-baptized in (she has since changed churches without publicly renouncing any of her beliefs).  However, Palin’s particular Assemblies of God church in Wasilla evidently taught a doctrine that was condemned by the majority of other Assemblies of God churches in the late 1940’s.
We have already discussed Pentecostalism a number of times.  In our post called Pentecostalism and the Jesus Prayer, we made some remarks on the contrast between the operation of the charisms among Orthodox saints and among the Pentecostalists.  We received two comments, which we printed on the post, and exchanged emails with the persons making the comments.  In those comments a variety of issues were raised, to which we responded in another post called Ecclesiological Dimensions in the Pentecostalist Practice of the Jesus Prayer.  So this is a third time in recent history that we are addressing Pentecostalism and Orthodoxy.
Here is the man’s email.  Since he is clearly a non-native speaker of English, we have had to edit his text.  We have appended his original text as a footnote.  We have changed his name both in the text and in the footnote.  The name he gives in the text does not in any event agree with the name on his email address, so it is not even clear to us that the name he provides in his email is in fact the man’s real name.
Hello,
My name is Alphonso Luis Borges and I am a Pentecostal Christian, currently attending the church called the ‘Assemblies of God’ located in Brazil.
My question is about the ‘Gift of Tongues’.
The Pentecostal gift of tongues is the ability to speak languages and/or dialects.  These dialects may be known, unknown or so-called dialects of angels.
I grew up with and lived with this phenomenon for 30 years.  I recently met a friend who is Orthodox Christian and he told me the gift of tongues is not the ability to ‘speak new languages’.
From what he told me that I could understand, the gift of tongues happens silently in the heart of every Son of God and when this person has the gift of interpreting languages, he can then through the voice build up the Church (people) with prophecies, teachings and so on.
I would humbly ask that you explain to me what then is the ‘Gift of Tongues’ in the tradition of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Hugs.[1]
First of all, let us look at what Alphonso thinks his friend is telling him about the gift of tongues in the Orthodox Church.  Now we frankly are not clear what Alphonso means or what his Orthodox friend actually told him.  It appears to us that what was said by the Orthodox friend is that through assiduous practice, the Jesus Prayer becomes automatic, repeated in the heart.[2]  Then through further grace, the practitioner of the Jesus Prayer is given the gifts of the word and prophecy in order to edify the church.  This would be the condition of an Elder of the Orthodox Church.[3]  So what appears to us to be meant is the known progression by means of the Jesus Prayer, say among the Elders on Mt Athos, or at Optina in the 19th Century, of the monk from beginner through to the condition of Elder.  Examples would be the Elders of Mt. Athos or Optina or, most notably, St Seraphim of Sarov.  It should be noted that a monk proceeding on this road normally has an Elder to guide him.
If this is what Alphonso’s Orthodox friend means, we have no problem with any of it.  This is a well-known progression.  The only caveat that we have is that not everyone on Mt Athos is an Elder, and not everyone at Optina was an Elder or Staretz (Russian for Elder), and not everyone at Sarov was a Saint.
Next, we emphasized the historical background of the origin of the Assemblies of God about 100 years ago to emphasize the difference between such a new and young church and the Orthodox Church.
Next, we have to look at how the Orthodox Church looks at the spiritual life, the charisms and in particular the Holy Spirit.  We have discussed much of this in other posts, but we think it important to repeat all of this material in one place for Alphonso.
The Orthodox Church teaches us that we receive the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Baptism.  This Baptism cleanses the nous or innermost soul of the person from the Devil and from all demons and demonic influences.  Baptism then grants the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the innermost soul of the person.  This indwelling of the Holy Spirit is lost only in cases of denial of Christ—if we join another religion for example.  In the Orthodox Church, Chrismation—anointing with specially blessed oil—corresponds to the laying on of hands for the reception of the Holy Spirit that the Apostles did after they baptized converts.  In the Orthodox Church Chrismation occurs right after Baptism, at the same time.  Since the person has in Baptism received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, this laying on of hands or Chrismation is for the reception of the Holy Spirit in the way the Apostles received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and through the laying on of hands subsequently transmitted it to others who were baptized; it is for the reception of the power and charisms of the Holy Spirit.
Even if after your Orthodox Baptism you commit murder, you do not lose the Holy Spirit—you are in bad shape but you are still Orthodox and can still repent and still go to confession and still ultimately receive communion and be saved.  But if you deny Christ, say by becoming a Buddhist—even without doing anything bad like killing someone—you have lost the Holy Spirit.  You are no longer Christian.  You cannot merely go to confession.  What happens in these cases, and only in these cases, is that the person is received back into the Church through a second Chrismation.  Normally he or she is not allowed to receive communion until he or she is on his or her death bed.
Since the Orthodox Church practises infant baptism and Orthodox receive the Holy Spirit in Baptism, all Orthodox have the Holy Spirit.  But clearly not all Orthodox are Elders.  There’s more to it.
Now it has to be understood that the interpretation of the laying on of hands for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit as implying the ability to speak in tongues in the way Pentecostalists speak in tongues today derives from Protestant experiences in 19th Century England, Wales and the United States.  There was no such doctrine or practice before that.  There are certainly episodes of speaking in tongues in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles of Paul, but it is not obvious that the same thing is being referred to.
Let us look at Acts.  On the day of Pentecost, Scripture records that the Apostles were praising God and that the Jews who came at the sound of the mighty wind heard the Apostles praising God each in his own language, which were all the languages under Heaven because the Jews had come from everywhere.  Elder Porphyrios (1906 – 1991) interprets this to mean that although the Apostles were speaking in Hebrew, through the Grace of the Holy Spirit each of their listeners heard them in his own language.  Peter speaks Hebrew; Solomon from Persia hears him in Persian; Barnabas from Cyprus hears him in Greek.
In the Orthodox Church, it is recorded that St Ephraim the Syrian visited St Basil the Great (4th Century) and the two communicated by this means: each spoke his own language and the other understood.
In the actual life of Elder Porphyrios, it is recorded that an atheist French woman visited him in Greece and the two communicated in this way: Elder Porphyrios spoke Greek; the woman spoke French; and the two understood each other.  The French woman was later received into the Orthodox Church.  She is, as far as we know, still alive.  This event would have occurred within the last 50 years.
Now in the Epistles of Paul it is recorded that a person might speak a new or even angelic language.  However, the question arises, did a Church service that St Paul attended sound like an Assemblies of God service today?  We really do not have any way to know.  There is simply not enough information for us to judge.
However, there is no recorded case that we are aware of that following voluntary Orthodox Baptism and Chrismation of an adult, that person spoke in tongues in the way people who have been ‘baptized in the Spirit’ do in the Assemblies of God or any other Pentecostalist or charismatic church or group.  It just doesn’t happen in the Orthodox Church.  Moreover, practice on Mt Athos, that beacon of discernment, is to receive members of the Orthodox Church who convert to Pentecostalism with rebaptism by the Pentecostalists and who then return to the Orthodox Church—to receive them back into the Orthodox Church by Chrismation after certain other prayers.
Hence, it is quite clear that there is no tradition in the Orthodox Church of speaking in tongues in the way that it is done in the Assemblies of God.
Now the question arises of charisms in the Orthodox Church.  Here there are two points to make.  St John Chrysostom (died 5th Century) discusses the question of the cessation of the charisms.  We do not recall exactly what his answer was; our point is that the growing rarity of the charisms was already an issue then.
In the Orthodox Church, great Elders and great Saints do exercise the charisms of the Holy Spirit.  Great miracle workers and healers and prophets who come to mind are St Seraphim of Sarov (died early 19th Century), St John Kronstadt (died early 20th Century), Elder Paisios (1924 – 1994) and Elder Porphyrios (1906 – 1991).  There are many others.  However, what characterizes all these great healers and miracle workers and prophets in the Orthodox Church is that before they either received the charisms or publicly exercised them they went through the preparation of a long and arduous asceticism so that they might be spiritually cleansed from their tendencies to sin.  Such Elders and Saints are characterized by great personal holiness.  Such Elders and Saints are also characterized by their rareness.
This is different from Pentecostalist circles where the charisms are acquired quickly (sometimes it seems that all it takes is to go to a revival).  The charisms are also quite common (how many persons are claiming to be Apostles and Prophets today?).  These charisms are exercised quickly after their reception (no preparation for a public ministry). These charisms are often exercised by persons who might not only lack distinction for their holiness but might even be involved in serious sin.  There’s nothing odder than a great miracle worker who gets a divorce on account of his adultery.
What Alphonso has to understand is that Orthodoxy is a completely different road from the Assemblies of God.



[1] Hello
My name is Alphonso Luis Borges and I am a Pentecostal Christian, currently has attended the church called the Assemblies of God located in Brazil.
My question is about the "Gift of Tongues."
In designing the Pentecostal gift of tongues is the ability to speak languages and / or dialects known (these dialects may be known, unknown or so-called dialects of angels).
I grew up and lived for 30 years this phenomenon has recently met a friend who is Orthodox Christian, and he told me the gift of tongues is not the ability to "speak new languages."
From what he told me and I could understand, the gift of tongues happens silently in the heart of every Son of God and when this person has the gift of interpreting languages, can then through the voice  build up the Church (people) with prophecies, teachings and so on .
I would humbly that you explain to me what then is the "Gift of Tongues" in the tradition of the Greek Orthodox Church.
Hugs.
[2] The reader can find much material in the early posts on the Jesus Prayer.
[3] An Elder is a senior monk in the Orthodox Church, one distinguished by his gifts of clairvoyance and prophecy.  We have various posts on the blog that discuss Elders.

4 comments:

  1. Hello. I am an Orthodox convert. The priest I had in Arkansas, prior to his becoming Orthodox, prayed for a Mormon lady in tongues. It came out in Portuguese, a langauge that he did not know and that the Mormon lady did know. That lady became a Trinitarian Christian, and is now Orthodox. I know another Orthodox man who, prior to his conversion to Orthodox as a charismatic Christian, prayed for a secular Jewish roommate in Hebrew, a language that the Christian man did not know, and it was Jesus talking to the Jewish man. The Jewish man, three days later, reported his experience to the house prayer meeting of the Orthodox man, and while attending the prayer meeting was further confronted with the Lord Jesus Christ through a vision and a prophecy that occurred during the meeting. As a result the Jewish man converted to Trinitarian Christianity and was baptized. The Jewish man was seen after this jumping up and down saying 'it's real, it's real, it's real.' So, whatever, the Pentecostalists have, in some of them anyway, there is something real, and something that is converting people to Jesus and has to do with the gifts of the Spirit. I think of the epistle to the Corinthians and in their case, at any rate, there were marked expressions of gifts of the Spirit, in the same group of people who were also noted by the Apostle as being rife with carnality and party spirit. It also seems that in the epistle of I Corinthians that all receive gifts of the Spirit upon baptism/chrismation, for the edification of the Church, and to my eyes those are quite different from the gifts of oversight/eldership/staretzship, which seem more on the order of Old Testament prophets, the fruit of a life of Christian devotion, and not the front-end gifts given to all believers, as an encouragement to becoming staretz, or elders or fathers in the faith. This is personal pious opinion, but I like to try to square what is seen in Scripture with the Tradition of the Church.

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  2. Dear Orthodox Monk:

    I belong to the OCA and saw your essay discussing the charismatics. I basically agree with you when you write:


    "However, there is no recorded case that we are aware of that following voluntary Orthodox Baptism and Chrismation of an adult, that person spoke in tongues in the way people who have been ‘baptized in the Spirit’ do in the Assemblies of God or any other Pentecostalist or charismatic church or group. It just doesn’t happen in the Orthodox Church. Moreover, practice on Mt Athos, that beacon of discernment, is to receive members of the Orthodox Church who convert to Pentecostalism with rebaptism by the Pentecostalists and who then return to the Orthodox Church—to receive them back into the Orthodox Church by Chrismation after certain other prayers.
    Hence, it is quite clear that there is no tradition in the Orthodox Church of speaking in tongues in the way that it is done in the Assemblies of God.
    Now the question arises of charisms in the Orthodox Church. Here there are two points to make. St John Chrysostom (died 5th Century) discusses the question of the cessation of the charisms. We do not recall exactly what his answer was; our point is that the growing rarity of the charisms was already an issue then.
    In the Orthodox Church, great Elders and great Saints do exercise the charisms of the Holy Spirit. Great miracle workers and healers and prophets who come to mind are St Seraphim of Sarov (died early 19th Century), St John Kronstadt (died early 20th Century), Elder Paisios (1924 – 1994) and Elder Porphyrios (1906 – 1991). There are many others. However, what characterizes all these great healers and miracle workers and prophets in the Orthodox Church is that before they either received the charisms or publicly exercised them they went through the preparation of a long and arduous asceticism so that they might be spiritually cleansed from their tendencies to sin. Such Elders and Saints are characterized by great personal holiness. Such Elders and Saints are also characterized by their rareness.
    This is different from Pentecostalist circles where the charisms are acquired quickly (sometimes it seems that all it takes is to go to a revival). The charisms are also quite common (how many persons are claiming to be Apostles and Prophets today?). These charisms are exercised quickly after their reception (no preparation for a public ministry). These charisms are often exercised by persons who might not only lack distinction for their holiness but might even be involved in serious sin. There’s nothing odder than a great miracle worker who gets a divorce on account of his adultery."


    Your main points are that in the charismatic groups, the charisms come quickly after joining the movement, and they are common and exercized by people without discernment about the gifts or holiness. Further, St. John Chrysostom talked about the cessation of the Holy Spirit and how nowadays such miracles as miraculously speaking in discernible tongues are basically confined to unusually holy people. I basically agree and think that at least most of what the charismatics claim to be miracles are really psychological or mental phenomena, including their visions.
    (Continued next)

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  3. (PAGE 2 CONTINUED FROM THE LAST POST THAT STARTED WITH "DEAR ORTHODOX MONK")
    The charismatics however claim that in the New Testament times, the charisms were common even among people who lacked ascetic training like this Orthodox charismatic claims:

    "Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?"(Mat 9:14) Holiness and ascetic striving is not a pre-requisite for endowment with spiritual gifts. During the majority of the disciples ministries while they were sent to “preach.. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons” Mat 10:7-8 they were not fasting but operating in Supernatural gifts of the holy Spirit."

    Another charismatic Orthodox claims:
    "in Acts 11, the spirit falls upon un-baptized Gentiles, while the book of I Corinthians is addressed to people who exercise the gifts of the Holy Spirit apart from the fruit of that same Spirit. After the New Testament period, we read in the Didache instructions for dealing with people exercising charismatic gifts while at the same time indulging the flesh. In none of these situations is it automatically assumed that the “spirit” behind the gift is from the devil. Just as one can receive Holy Communion unworthily, so one who is unworthy can exercise the gifts of the Spirit - but there is danger in doing so. (http://www.workofchrist.com/Theosis/reply.htm)"

    Further, in your essay you noted that Paul mentioned Christians speaking in an angelic tongue, but that we don't know if this was like the Assemblies of God today. The only way I can think of people speaking an "angelic tongue", if taken at face value, would be that they would speak in a different language that did not belong to men, but to angels, and thus would sound unintelligible to the normal ear. That makes me think that they were using glossolalia, and it also sounds like in 1 Cor 14 Paul actually advocates glossolalia so long as someone was there to interpret it.

    Finally, you correctly note the teaching of St. John Chrysostom, held probably by many others in the Church, about the cessation of the spirit. This creates a quandary for me. How could it be that there were extreme miraculous events in Old Testament times like God appearing in a pillar of fire to the Israelites, and then the miraculous events became commonplace in the first century as people proclaimed that the Second Coming was upon them (As Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4:17), but that after the apostolic age these commonplace miracles ceased as Christianity spread? It seems more likely that (A) the charisms should have continued to be widespread and that people were missing them for some reason, or else (B) that the Old Testament extreme miracles were myths and that the New Testament claims, unfortunately, were the same kind of psychological or invented claims that the modern charismatics seem to be making. I suppose that it could be that Gold granted gifts to the apostles, and then as Christianity expanded the gifts "diluted", but it still seems strange to me that the Holy Spirit would undergo dilution.

    (CONTINUED)

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  4. (PAGE 3. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2)

    Finally, you correctly note the teaching of St. John Chrysostom, held probably by many others in the Church, about the cessation of the spirit. This creates a quandary for me. How could it be that there were extreme miraculous events in Old Testament times like God appearing in a pillar of fire to the Israelites, and then the miraculous events became commonplace in the first century as people proclaimed that the Second Coming was upon them (As Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4:17), but that after the apostolic age these commonplace miracles ceased as Christianity spread? It seems more likely that (A) the charisms should have continued to be widespread and that people were missing them for some reason, or else (B) that the Old Testament extreme miracles were myths and that the New Testament claims, unfortunately, were the same kind of psychological or invented claims that the modern charismatics seem to be making. I suppose that it could be that Gold granted gifts to the apostles, and then as Christianity expanded the gifts "diluted", but it still seems strange to me that the Holy Spirit would undergo dilution.

    And this brings me to why I am writing to you. I love God and Jesus, and believe that Orthodoxy includes the worship forms and theology of early Christianity. But I have uncertainty over the main miracles reported in the first century, because it seems to me that the disciples and early Christians could really have been a version of the Charismatic Christians today. The gospels are inspiring and I love their story, but it sounds a bit like the kind of thing that a charismatic Christian from today might write. And if it were a story that the charismatics gave today, I would think that they were probably psychologically confused or making some things up.

    I am not sure what to do about this. I read Biblical commentaries and attend church and pray regularly, I just am in a place of uncertainty when it comes to the main miracles, whereas instead I would like to have a serious faith. What do you think, Orthodox Monk?

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