Love as a Spiritual Lens Through Which to View the Gospel

We have been thinking about the role of love in the interpretation of the Gospel. It seems to us that the experience of love in the heart acts as a lens through which we perceive the lived experience of being Orthodox. Let us look carefully at this love. Diadochos of Photiki speaks of an intermediate stage where one has not attained to perfect love but one has an increase in love. This is a love given by the Holy Spirit. It is not a love of the flesh nor a natural (sentimental) love, although it may implicate elements of both.

Also, we are habitually praying with the mind in the heart, so this love is encountered in the heart consciously. So what we encounter is the experience of a partial love in a partially opened heart. Nothing is perfect. Much suffering has gone into the opening of the heart; there is no other way for the heart to open and without the heart being open this love cannot be lived. So we can consciously experience this love for others and for Christ. This experience acts as a spiritual lens through which we see the elements of the Gospel.

Let us look at some practical examples. Let us take the fundamental message of the Gospel: “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” We all know the story. Adam and Eve in Paradise were created perfect but spiritually infant-like. Eve was tempted and fell; she gave the fruit to Adam; he accepted and fell. Original Sin. Guilt. “All fall short of the Glory of God.” This is very much an element of the Protestant, especially Calvinist, interpretation of the Bible. We are to acknowledge our sinfulness before God; he will save us.

Now the issue is not the core of the Gospel; it is what it is. The issue is how we understand the core of the Gospel. With the love we spoke of—or without. For viewing the Gospel through the lens of this love in the heart, we understand that God’s primary motivation is that he loves us and wants us to be happy. So yes it is true; we have sinned in Adam and by ourselves. But God’s ultimate intention in telling us this is not to punish us but to save us. It’s just a spiritual fact that we cannot be saved unless we confess our sins.

It is very very hard for a man to acknowledge his sins and in the hands of an unloving preacher a man can be destroyed at this point. The unloving preacher might turn the sinner into twice as much an authoritarian hater of man as himself. However, if a man have love in his heart then he recognizes that the confession of sins from the heart, from the inner core of one’s being, is not self-destruction but the door to life. And he also recognizes that the only possible way that he can receive the forgiveness of sins is if he himself forgives those who have sinned against him. So as we have said, it is not the core message of the Gospel that has changed but how that message is perceived and lived: with love or without.

Let us take another example. Someone is celebrating the Divine Liturgy. As everyone knows, the Orthodox liturgy is complex. Someone without love can see it as a set of external rigid rules to be obeyed and argued about. They might even think that the heart of Orthodoxy is the flawless external performance of the Liturgy. However, a celebrant with love in his heart sees the typikon as the structure of an encounter with God in love. He knows which mistakes in the performance of the liturgy are important and which can be overlooked and perhaps corrected at another time.

A priest or Elder is hearing confessions. Here of course the confessor or Elder with and without love is well known by his fruits. The priest or Elder with love in his heart is easily approachable and non-condemnatory—although again he knows what is an important part of the Gospel that must be obeyed and what is secondary; he knows the intentions of the heart. We are not in the least suggesting that this love in the heart relatives or “modernizes” Christianity so that what was sin is no longer sin. But again, the confessor knows that God’s intention is to save the wayward sheep in the wilderness not to kill and eat it.

In some respects this love in the heart changes our perception of the Gospel in the way that a performer changes the feel of a musical melody. The melody is the same but the interpretation of love gives a different feel to the music.

Let us take another example. A young person has been brought up badly. They have left school and family and are living on their own. This is not an ideal Christian life. They have made an effort to resume their education but spiritually they are among lost ones. Perhaps, however, less lost than many still in school. They have spiritual interests. However, the first obstacle to their conversion is the notion of sin.

Will they find someone with love in their heart to guide them to Christ? For let us look at such a young person’s encounter with the notion of personal sin. A young person sins—in this day and age, who knows how? But they have spiritual interests. In some way God is calling to them, to their heart. God is calling them to Life. But the first thing they hear is, “Repent!” In the hands of the unloving preacher this is the road to an authoritarian judgmental Christianity; in the hands of the loving Elder or confessor, this is the beginning of a conversion to an Orthodoxy that is not formalist but a mystagogy of Life and Truth.

Some ranting and some questions 2

Let us begin with the issue on everyone’s mind: why we say ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. Here’s what the Oxford English Dictionary says about ‘we, pronoun’ (quotations by the OED giving usage omitted):

…

2. Used by a single person to denote himself:

a. by a sovereign or ruler. Often defined by the name or title added.

b. by a speaker or writer, in order to secure an impersonal style and tone, or to avoid the obtrusive repetition of ‘I’. (The OED notes about this usage: ‘Regularly so used in editorials and unsigned articles in newspapers and other periodicals, where the writer is understood to be supported in his opinions by the editorial staff collectively.’)

We do not suffer from multiple personality disorder. There is only one of us. Of course we are not a king—unless king of the blog, which is a far cry from King of some country. Of course we are not on the editorial staff of some collective periodical, nor do we speak on behalf of anyone but ourselves. Now we find Jennifer’s email charming; and we prefer to say that ‘we’ find her email charming, speaking as an Orthodox monk, than ‘I’ find her email charming, speaking as a man who one day might meet Jennifer. For us, the ‘I’ is far too personal, being suitable for a blog in which the author discusses how he felt when he got up in the morning, what he ate for breakfast and what he did over the weekend. So it’s ‘we’ on the blog.

Jennifer’s email is quite apt, pointing out a very serious problem within the Orthodox Church. But writing a post explaining the problem and the solution is difficult, very difficult. If it were easy, Jennifer would already have found a solution: one would be already waiting for her somewhere.

Let’s start of with the self-identity of the Church. For the Orthodox Church, the core statement of belief is the Nicene Creed. It is the Nicene Creed that a person must ultimately confess in order to become a catechumen in the Orthodox Church; today the service of the catechumen is usually done just before the actual baptism so one might think it is part of the actual service of baptism. It isn’t. Anciently there could be years between the two services. In the service of the catechumen the person, facing west, renounces the Devil and spits on the Devil, and then turning to the east and facing the icon of Christ formally joins himself to Christ. In infant baptism this is done on the child’s behalf by the godparent. The person then recites the Nicene Creed as their profession of faith; the godparent does so in the case of an infant. Then the priest—saint or sinner; it doesn’t matter for the efficacy of the prayers—reads certain prayers over the person. So if Jennifer or Tess or anyone else wants to become Orthodox, the Nicene Creed is the bottom line on what they have to believe.

Now the classical belief of the Orthodox Church is that it itself is in whole and not in part the ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’ confessed in the Nicene Creed. The classical belief of the Orthodox Church is not that it is a part of the ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’ but that it is the ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’. Moreover, the Orthodox Church is largely silent theologically on the status of professed Christians outside the Orthodox Church.

This Orthodox belief is the same belief that the Roman Catholic Church has about itself. The Roman Catholic Church believes (Vatican II) that the ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’ subsists in the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church also believes that non-Roman Catholic Christians are joined in some fashion to the Roman Catholic Church whether they know it or not. The Pope is the ‘Vicar of Christ’ for all Christians whether they know it or not. This of course makes for a collision with the Orthodox belief: there can’t be two ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Churches’.

The Anglican view is that the ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’ subsists in various co-equal branches, among which branches are the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church and the Anglican or Episcopal national churches. According to this view (called the ‘Branch Theory’ by its detractors), there is a spiritual unity among these branches so that the sum of them is the ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’, even though they co-exist in visible disunity.

The Calvinist view is that the ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’ is comprised of all believers who have been ‘born again’ through accepting salvation by faith in Jesus Christ, something given to them by an eternal personal predestination to salvation. Hence, according to the Calvinist view the ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’ picks and chooses among the members of the various Protestant denominations, selecting those who are born again. It might also pick and choose among Catholics and Orthodox if they too have been ‘born again’ according to Calvinist criteria (not just baptized—some Calvinists even give greater spiritual weight to the ‘born again’ experience over the actual practice of baptism, treating baptism as mere confirmation of the born-again experience). This would explain, among those Calvinists that believe in the Rapture (a belief dating from the 19^th Century that entails a two-part Second Coming), why they believe that among all the Christian denominations some persons will be raptured up when Christ comes back the first time and some won’t: the born-again will be raptured up and the non-born-again whether baptized or not won’t. It also explains why the Rapturists are so sure that they themselves will be raptured up: they know they have been ‘born again’.

The various beliefs above are matters in what is called ‘ecclesiology’, the theology of the nature of the Church. It is clear that these various ecclesiological beliefs are incompatible. What to do? More conservative Orthodox theologians gravitate to the traditional view that the Orthodox Church is the ‘One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.’ However, there is a tendency among Orthodox theologians who are more ecumenically minded to gravitate to either the ‘Branch Theory’ or the Roman Catholic understanding of the nature of the Church. But of course this is not something that can be stated out loud. Moreover, it should be understood that the ecumenical movement is really a Protestant movement in its historical origins, so that it would tend either to a ‘Branch Theory’ ecclesiology or even to a Calvinist ecclesiology.

One of the issues underlying the problem Jennifer is addressing is that compared to the Roman Catholic Church, or even the Lutheran Church in its various forms, Orthodoxy is not as centrally organized. There is no central authority that imposes a uniformity of opinion either on theologians or on the various jurisdictions. This results in an openness to outside influences, usually Western Christian influences (we are speaking descriptively and historically here). Hence, we find a multiplicity of theological currents and ecclesiastical practices within the Orthodox Church.

Now the point at which the ecclesiological theories sketched above collide in a practical way is in the reception of Christian converts. Everyone agrees that non-Christians are to be received by baptism. However, the Nicene Creed professes ‘one baptism for the remission of sins’. So we can be baptized only once. But what happens when a Roman Catholic wishes to join the Orthodox Church (or vice versa), or an Anglican wishes to join the Orthodox Church, or a Mormon (where the Mormons have a supplementary book of revelation not accepted by traditional Christians)? In ancient times, Orthodox Christians received non-orthodox believers from other Christian groups either by baptism or by chrismation, or even by confession of faith, the method used depending on the particular group being received. St Basil the Great occupied himself with rules on this.

The Roman Catholic Church treats all Christian baptisms (with some exceptions) as valid baptisms. Indeed, according to the Roman Catholic Church a non-Christian can baptize a non-Christian in a valid baptism if intent is there and water is used. In our own experience, we know of a case where as a prank a non-Christian contemptuous of Christians baptized another non-Christian who wished to become Christian using water from a mud puddle. Voila! Newly baptized Christian.

Now, today the more conservative Orthodox prefer to receive converts from other Christian denominations by Orthodox baptism in accordance with a strict interpretation of the canons and in accordance with the view that the Orthodox Church is the ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’, there being no divine grace in sacraments outside the ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’. Less conservative Orthodox prefer to receive Christian converts to the Orthodox Church by chrismation or even by confession of faith either because the Church supplies what is lacking in the original baptism or because the original baptism is actually valid. The first view supporting chrismation or confession, that the Church supplies what is lacking, while theologically arguable at least has the merit of being consistent with the classical self-identity of the Orthodox Church as the ‘One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’. The second view supporting chrismation or confession, that the original baptism is valid, indicates that the theologian tends either to the ‘Branch Theory’ or to a Roman Catholic understanding of the Church.

From the discussion above we can now see the background of disputes in the Orthodox Church concerning ecumenism. They have to do with issues of the Orthodox Church’s self-identity. They also have to do with the doctrinal and moral liberalism and relativism found among the largely Protestant ecumenists. In other words, there is an issue both about how the Orthodox Church defines itself and about how the Orthodox Church responds to theologically fashionable currents within the ecumenical movement, most notably homosexuality and related moral issues, although there are also doctrinal issues concerning whether for example one actually believes in the Resurrection—some professed Christians who are ecumenists don’t.

However, it should be understand that issues of doctrinal and moral liberalism arise outside specifically ecumenist settings, so that they are an issue in some Orthodox jurisdictions even beyond the matter of formal ecumenism.

We can also see that connected with these broader issues is the very specific issue of how Jennifer is to be received into the Orthodox Church.

Moreover, because the Orthodox Church emphasizes tradition over reason, where tradition is correctly defined (by Vladimir Lossky) as the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, there is a tendency in the Orthodox Church for heresies or deviations to develop from an overemphasis on the external forms of tradition, most notable in our view being the Old-Calendarist schism in the Greek Church (20th Century) and the Old Believer schism in the Russian Church (17th Century). This would be different from tendencies to over-emphasize human reason, something that characterizes the West. Reactions in the West to the over-emphasis on reason led to the pietist movement in Lutheranism and also to the various Pentecostalist and fundamentalist sects.

So not only are there issues that arise from legitimate questions about how the self-identity of the Orthodox Church is viewed and how issues of doctrinal and moral liberalism or relativism are viewed but there are also issues that arise from an excessive adherence to the external shell of traditional practice in the Orthodox Church.

To clear up a small point in Jennifer’s letter before we go on, Jennifer says that she is considering being baptized again in order to become Orthodox. She does not state whether her first baptism was Orthodox but if so she is already Orthodox—unless she has in the meantime denied Christ or joined another religion—and it is a matter of being taught the beliefs of the Church and getting herself sorted out with the mystery of confession of sins. Of course if Jennifer has denied Christ or joined another religion, then the canons of the Church provide that she be re-chrismated. Denial of Christ is a formal renunciation of Christ; if one has the thought that they might have done this it should be discussed with a priest empowered to hear confessions before any weight is assigned to this possibility. If in fact there has been a formal renunciation of Christ, it is better for the ministering priest to explain why re-chrismation is necessary.

However, if Jennifer was baptized originally with a non-Orthodox baptism, then we are back to the issue of how she is to be received into the Orthodox Church, and here we pick up the thread of her email.

In our view the best thing to do for someone joining the Orthodox Church is to receive a canonical baptism in the Orthodox Church even if they have previously been baptized as a Christian. By ‘canonical baptism’ we mean the full service of baptism, including the service of the catechumen, as found in the priest’s book of prayers. Then the person should concentrate on the inner spiritual transformation that begins with baptism, as lived within a healthy canonical parish. By ‘canonical parish’ we mean a parish whose Bishop is in communion with the various Patriarchs and Hierarchs of the national churches of the Orthodox Church.

It is ultimately the conscious contact with the Holy Spirit received in the heart in Orthodox baptism that forms the Orthodox conscience of the believer and this Orthodox conscience solves all the problems of jurisdiction and belief and hatred that Jennifer refers to. In the particular case of Jennifer’s situation, she might wish to look at the Russian Church Outside of Russia as a possible entry point into Orthodoxy—assuming that the parish is in communion with the Patriarch of Moscow.

Now let us look at particular issues raised by Jennifer’s email.

The first issue is that Jennifer lives in a country where there is only a sprinkling of Orthodox parishes. We don’t know details.

Jennifer remarks on the lack of aggressive missionary work by the Orthodox Church. Speaking humanly, not preaching the Gospel is a weakness of the Orthodox Church. The charge to preach the Gospel ‘to all Creation’ is given by Christ himself. The Orthodox Church is weak on this, and especially on inner preaching—to those who are nominally Orthodox but who really do not believe. However, this preaching whether on the institutional or individual level is quite different from the proselytization that Jennifer refers to (hard core knocking on doors to make converts).

Jennifer writes:

I interpreted this (correct me if I’m wrong) as the Orthodox Church being satisfied with co-existing with other religious movements, acknowledging that other people have other beliefs, and that—even though they may not agree that their beliefs lead to salvation the way the Orthodox Church sees it, they certainly have the capacity to guide people spiritually into living more fulfilled and righteous lives.

Here we enter into the dynamic of Jennifer’s own conversion or not to Orthodoxy. The norm in Orthodoxy is the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, a loosely defined group of authors over the centuries who among themselves define good Orthodox dogma, thus interpreting the Gospel, which ultimately is itself the criterion of sound belief. What Jennifer is going to have to do—perhaps for the rest of her life—is to study how the Fathers of the Church handled this very issue of non-Orthodox and non-Christian believers who may indeed be pious in the context of their own belief system and from at least a human point of view virtuous. On a more practical level it is something she will have to discuss with the parish priest who catechizes her. On a more theological level we would recommend St. Silouan the Athonite by Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov) where both in Archimandrite Sophrony’s extended introduction and in St. Silouan’s own writings this issue is touched upon. We think that Jennifer will appreciate St. Silouan’s attitude.

Jennifer continues:

It has come to my attention that quite a severe schism has been going on for quite some time between the more conservative parts of the Orthodox Church and the Ecumenical Movement (as well as that about the calendars), and one of the largest ‘counter-ecumenical’ movements is the largest Orthodox parish in my country. I am confused. Is it not the teaching of the Orthodox Church that love for another should be extended, whether or not we are of the same opinion, and that forgiveness should be given whether asked for or not? I understand why you might not want to admit their teachings to be the way of salvation, but is there a need to proclaim half the world to be heretics and blasphemers?

St Paul the Apostle remarks to the Corinthians concerning schisms among them that to a certain extent he can believe it because that way it can be seen who is authentic. However, he certainly doesn’t encourage schism. And writing to the Corinthians he says that we should make love our aim. In practical terms, Jennifer should first of all only have to do with canonical non-schismatic jurisdictions in communion with the Patriarchs and Hierarchs of the various national Orthodox churches. She should have nothing to do with schismatic or ‘fly-by-night’ self-erected ‘Orthodox’ churches, of which unfortunately there are a number. However, even if a parish is canonical, Jennifer should be ‘cunning as a snake and innocent as a dove’, sizing up the parish using the criterion of the Gospel: ‘By their fruits you shall know them.’ If a parish is characterized by hatred and anger, it is not acting under the impulsion of the Holy Spirit and Jennifer should go elsewhere.

Is there not a fundamental difference here between learning about the ways of the other and adopting them yourself? Enough strength in one’s own belief should make it possible to meet others without fear of losing oneself. I was taken aback when seeing some very harsh comments on the subject and, not having found my place in the Church yet, I fear I will discover the whole Church to be like this. Should I make inquiries here on the political opinions of the priests and of the Bishop of the parish I hope to enter, to make sure we see ‘eye-to-eye’? I had rather hoped I could avoid such a political mix into my stumbling attempts at spiritual advancement. (Wow, that sounded bitter!)

…

I believe good advice is good advice wherever it comes from (now we are obviously not talking Gospel, but simple humility, aid and comfort of a purely humanitarian nature). This basic view is, I fear, rather well established in me by now (I am 33) so how can I see and believe in the wisdom of priests who seem so full of anger and are so hell-bent on their way as being the right one that they will not even talk to some fellow priest who has chosen another path? I mean, these guys are fellow Christians, granted maybe not of the same kind. But at least they’re not of some weird cult from New Guinea that wants to shrink your head. One could think they could find SOMETHING to talk about over dinner...

The answer to the preceding should now be clear. While the Orthodox Church bears witness to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ it does so under the impulsion of the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of Truth and Love, and not under the impulsion of other spirits of anger and hatred.

Jennifer continues:

Problem is: am I too open-minded? Have I lived too long in a world of multiple ways of the mind to be welcome and able to stay on the road I want to follow? Does Orthodoxy imply not only that I choose to believe in the path of Orthodoxy but also that I must reject those others who for their own reasons may have chosen another path? Am I on the wrong path in searching Orthodoxy with this mind-set?

We think that Jennifer is going to have to search for sound teachers to catechize her. She is going to have to hear the Gospel presented in its entirety and either accept or reject it. Some of what she now believes she will have to discard; some she will have to purify; some she will have to retain. This is a matter of a year or more.

… The crux is that I fear I will enter the Orthodox Church retaining the feeling that my view of the world is ‘better’ and that I need to convince these people to change, or at least to give them a new perspective. But I came to get a new perspective myself! In the secular world I have the ‘I-know-what-the-problem-here-is-and-I-am-going-to-fix-it’ mentality, and I am currently struggling to get out of that business. Changing that was (is?) one of the steps down the road to change.

While no one is going to make a serious change to Jennifer’s character at the age of 33 without doing her serious psychological damage of a very nasty kind (cults, brainwashing and all that), still as Jennifer well realizes we join the Orthodox Church to change ourselves, not to change the Church. There is a dynamic here between learning humbly and then later serving God in various ways given our own human capacity and character.

… So now we have arrived at the interesting conclusion that the problem is not that of Orthodox priests arguing but of me believing I know better. Ergo, solution will be to grab the first priest I come across and start listening, without concern for his political background.

Not at all, unless Jennifer is intent on self-destruction. ‘Cunning as a snake; innocent as a dove.’ ‘By their fruits you shall know them.’

Great! See—you can even get good advice from a silent computer screen. Now I don’t even have to bother sending the letter. But I will anyway (tomorrow) for three, no four, reasons:

...

3. In diagnosing myself I may be back to my well-known original sin again. (The reasoning is circular—will this ever end? Does this mean I have to doubt every time I think I understand something; otherwise I’m just full of pride?)

We are not so convinced that this is pride. Moreover, as Jennifer will learn when she begins to practise the Jesus Prayer, we are more than the flow or stream of our intellectual ideation. Part of coming into contact with the Holy Spirit in the heart through the practice of the Jesus Prayer is learning to go beyond our thoughts to our heart (which is not our emotions but our spiritual centre). St Diadochos of Photiki discusses this progression (click on the Diadochos label in the right-hand margin).

4. Most importantly—I am very curious to hear why you refer to yourself in plural.

We’re curious why it’s important.

Sorry about the ranting. I will stop now. Do whatever you want with this (as long as you answer question number 4).

Cheers,

Jennifer

Thanks. It’s been a pleasure. Answer with your thoughts. –Orthodox Monk

Update on the Gnostic Chapters of St Diadochos of Photiki

We have passed our translation of the Gnostic Chapters of St Diadochos of Photiki, together with all the rights, notes and commentary, to Fr Theophanes (Constantine) of Kavsokalyvia, Mount Athos. He has thoroughly reviewed the translation and published it on his own site. Hence, those wishing the best translation of the work should go there. We will be removing our own translation and commentary shortly. Fr Theophanes will be writing an introductory essay on the work which he will be posting to his site in due course.

Theodor Returns

Theodor has returned. He is insistent that we answer some of his questions. We didn’t want to but we see that we haven’t posted for a while so we are going to answer his questions. Here they are:

Hello.

A few odd but serious (or so I think) questions:

1. What is the Orthodox Church's teaching/belief regarding intelligent/sapient (human-like) extraterrestrial lifeforms? Could the belief in their existence be in some way compatible with the belief in Christ (as true God and true man)?
2. What on Earth were the “sons of God” and the “Nephilim” or “giants” mentioned in the Old Testament?
3. And why used Jesus to call Himself the “Son of Man” rather than the “Son of God”?
4. What would have happened if the Jews and the Romans would have refused to crucify Christ? I mean, was it really necessary that Christ should die on the cross and only on the cross?

If you have the time, please answer. Thank you.

Whether there are or are not sapient extraterrestrial life-forms is a matter of science. So far no positive evidence has been presented that is both public and scientifically confirmed. There are of course reports (some probably conscious fabrications given their provenance) of visits of alien spacecraft and the like. (We will return to this aspect of the matter below because it is important.)

As far as we know there has been no success with attempts by NASA to discern alien radio signals in the cosmic background noise and there has been no reply to Carl Sagan’s specially coded message to alien life-forms that he had put on an American satellite travelling into deep space.

As Enrico Fermi the Nobel physicist is said to have remarked on the subject of extraterrestrial intelligences, “So where are they?”

Moreover, there’s just an itty-bitty problem with the structure of the universe. Under the current cosmological model, the absolute maximum speed that anything can travel (in any frame of reference) is the speed of light. Some scientists using a cute trick (maybe they’ll get a Nobel for it) managed to photograph the youngest extra-solar planet known to date. It’s about the size and condition of Jupiter. No place that Theodor or we would want to live. How far away was that planet? 450 light-years. That’s a long way away. Under the current cosmological model it would take at least 450 years for aliens living on that planet to reach earth.

So is the current cosmological model valid? Who knows? Some guys think they may have discovered some neutrinos moving faster than the speed of light. Their evidence is being investigated. If the scientific community finally judges that in fact their evidence is valid and something was moving faster than the speed of light, it’s roll over Einstein.

It is certainly true that science is not a finished business and that one day Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity might be over-turned. But for the moment it’s all we have. Everything else is sheer speculation: worm-holes, extra dimensions etc. Using tricks like worm-holes or short-cuts through extra dimensions to visit that youngest planet just discovered is the stuff of science fiction. (Of course we all know that that youngest planet’s moon is Pandora and that there are mystical 12-foot-tall blue humanoids on Pandora.) We can’t even get an electron to do the trick. Moreover, there is absolutely no way to know whether a human being going through a worm-hole would come out the other end anything more than hamburger—after all we’ve never ever found a worm-hole in the cosmos to experiment with.

So one distinct possibility—subject to further discoveries in science—is that the universe is structured the way it is because that’s the way God wanted it to be: although there are sapient extraterrestrial intelligences they are so far away that we’ll never be able to meet. There’s simply no way to know given the state of science today.

As far as we know, there is no teaching in the Fathers on extraterrestrial life-forms. The world-view of the Fathers simply did not encompass that possibility. The Fathers do talk of angels and demons as spiritual realities but there is NO reason to conflate patristic discussion of spiritual realities with the scientific question “Are there extraterrestrial intelligences?”

So we are in a situation where Theodor wants to know whether something that is at the moment extremely hypothetical—there’s still a problem finding a microbe on Mars, Theodor—is going to interfere with his faith in Jesus Christ as true Man and true God; let us say with his faith in the Nicene Creed.

Theodor, don’t you understand that the question itself is the problem, not the answer? The question is the temptation. You might just as well get caught up in speculation, “Well what happens if a meteor strikes my village in Bulgaria?” Well yes it’s possible that a meteor might strike your village; we can’t exclude that possibility. But it’s never happened in recorded human history that someone’s village was wiped out by a meteor. So why would you want to spend all your time making preparations for the event?

Theodor, it is true that a Professor of Theology in the Faculty of Theology in your home-town university might want to deal with the issue in a study of dogmatic theology. Then again he might not. But it is simply too hypothetical for you to worry about. The temptation is that you accept to think about such things. These are the thoughts that make your head spin. If you want to get off the merry-go-round, stop thinking and start loving.

Theodor, the passages in the Old Testament that refer to the “Sons of God” and the “giants” and the “nephilim” are very intriguing and we suspect that if you refer to St John Chrysostom’s commentaries on the relevant passages, you will see what he thinks the terms signify. But the fact of the matter is that no one knows what exactly is being referred to. Scripture seems to be referring to actual realities but with such brevity that nothing concrete can be made of the references. However, if you are interested, you might wish to read some recorded homilies of Elder Porphyrios Baϊraktares (1906 – 1991). These are published in English as Wounded by Love. In these homilies, the Elder, who had very strong gifts of clairvoyance and prevoyance, discusses with a woman her finding ruins on Patmos which would correspond to giants. He also discusses the excavations of the house that the ancient Greek seer Tiresias lived in, with the archaeologist doing the excavations. However, Wounded by Love is the translation of an early edition of Bios kai Logoi, the Greek original, so some material might be missing.

Jesus called himself both “Son of Man” and “Son of God” depending on the particular Gospel. Since he was both true man and true God, this is reasonable.

Theodor, with regard to your fourth question, if you look at St Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Trinity, you will see a portrayal of the pre-eternal counsel of the Persons of the Holy Trinity concerning the creation of Man, the fall of Man, the incarnation of the Word and the earthly life of the incarnate Word, including his Crucifixion and Resurrection. (Incidentally, the angel on the left is the Father; the angel in the middle is the Word; and the angel on the right is the Holy Spirit.)

The point of looking at this icon of great serenity and transcendent beauty is to consider that God had it “all planned out from the beginning”. There is simply no possibility that Christ would not have been crucified. You are dealing with a hypothetical that couldn’t and didn’t occur.

Theodor, the problem is that you allow yourself to think about these things. As St. Diadochos of Photiki writes, when we have a simple faith we are calm but when we insist on investigating everything then we are agitated. The spiritual life is a life of becoming like a small child who loves its mother (one of the psalms portrays this) and its father (all the Gospels portray this). You will go to Heaven based on whether you had mercy, not on whether you knew the answers to the questions you are posing.

That is part of the problem.

The other part of the problem is that the topics you are addressing—the existence of extraterrestrial intelligences, mysterious references to mysterious beings in the Old Testament, what-if questions about what would have happened if those who crucified Christ decided to stone Him instead—are eruptions into your life of a demonic fantasy world. You would be far better off avoiding these issues and others like them.

It is hard to explain this. Even if we assume that these are valid theological questions—and we are sure that a Roman Catholic professor somewhere has addressed them—they are not for you. For although they are questions that might deserve a theoretical answer, the psychological and SPIRITUAL dynamic that you are living is such that for you they are temptations to take you away from reality. In the general case this is clear in historical reports of people taking trips on flying saucers. The people who have made such trips who are not outright charlatans have problems staying in contact with reality. Moreover, this is not just a psychological problem but a spiritual problem also. In addition to anything else these people might have a problem with, they are being tempted by demons. Keep your feet on the ground, Theodor, going to the church of your preference (we are not going to try to convert you to Orthodoxy) and emptying your mind of all such thoughts and questions. Try to be nice to someone instead of thinking about such things. Pray to God that he free you from these things.

The Jesus Prayer in the Roman Catholic Church Revisited (Updated Twice)

A reader has sent us an email concerning the Jesus Prayer.  We will call our reader Felix Courtney-Smith, not his real name.  Mr Courtney-Smith has accepted that we discuss his email on the blog.  Here is what he says, slightly edited:

I recently read your post about the Jesus Prayer and Hesychasm in the Eastern Rite Catholic Church.

I was looking up the Jesus prayer because a song writer I like was getting ready to publish a song based on it on his next album. He quoted Pope John Paul II as saying ‘The Church must come to breathe the Spirit of God with both lungs (Eastern and Western)’.  It is a saying I've heard often and you may not be aware of it but there seems to be a growing resurgence and appreciation of Eastern theology within the Western church.

I was wondering if you could take some time to explain to me more fully what the concept of 'bringing your mind into your heart' means to you.  You stated that the concept is at odds with 'Thomistic psychology' which I must admit some ignorance of, at least under that term. However the explanation of it that you gave seems perfectly compatible with Franciscan spirituality as well as the writing of St. John of the Cross, St. Thérèse of Lisieux and a somewhat new and mildly controversial practice promoted by the United States Catholic Bishops known by the name 'centering prayer'.

I was at a loss as to what the incompatibility that you see and what you mean by ‘bringing the mind into the heart’?

Do you believe your mind to have physical existence? By heart do you mean the red pulsating organ that physicians operate on?  Or (as I assume) are you referring to some kind of conceptual constructs?  Can you define or describe those constructs so as to explain what you mean by ‘bringing your heart into your mind’?

The idea of a repeated prayer that helps to keep one in constant union with Christ is one familiar to me both from recommended practices taught in various books—either the name Jesus repeated always or the phrase ‘Jesus have mercy on me’—and from various Roman Theologians such as Dietrich Von Hildebrand.

In any case I would like to understand what the differences are that you see between these two traditions on this topic (if you have the time and are willing to assist me).

Thank you sir,

Felix

Let see if we can address the issues.  There is both a simple answer and a very complex answer.

The simple answer is that Mr Courtney-Smith would do well to use the right hand margin of this blog, where the labels are, clicking on ‘Jesus Prayer’ and reading all the entries in chronological order, from the oldest to the newest.  In that series there is a set of posts entitled Jesus Prayer 1 through Jesus Prayer 7 that addresses some of his issues and also contains a small reading list.

Also there is a series of posts that constitute a dialogue with an Episcopalian who was practising the form of Centering Prayer taught by Dom John Main, OSB.  The first post, dated December 16, 2006, is here.  The reader should use the archive facility in the right hand margin and starting with the post indicated read each newer post until the dialogue finishes.

Finally the post that the reader originally cited contains links to a polemic with the Byzantine Catholic Forum.  That would handle the ecclesiastical – theological issues.

Let’s see if we can now approach directly the issue that Mr Courtney-Smith is raising.

First of all, best wishes to his song-writer friend.

Next, we have never heard of Dietrich Von Hildebrand.

Next, we are aware of Pope John-Paul II’s dictum.  However, although Pope John-Paul II is fast-tracked for canonization in the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox laity is as a whole indifferent.  He is not looked at favourably, especially in Russia where his missionary actions were considered to be very aggressive.

Next, the very fact that Mr Courtney-Smith can’t make sense of what we might intend by ‘bringing the mind into the heart’—although it must be admitted that Orthodox often have difficulties with the concept—is an indication of what the problem is.

First of all, our mind is our consciousness.  The idea of bringing the mind into the heart suggests that we can move our consciousness around, in particular making it descend to the physical region of the heart.  The portrait of human faculties delineated by St Thomas Aquinas in the Summa simply does not foresee this.  This is what we meant when we said that the practice was incompatible with St Thomas’ philosophical psychology.  There is simply no provision in St Thomas for what the Orthodox Philokalic tradition teaches concerning the Jesus Prayer.

Moreover, St Thomas has a very restricted view as to what philosophically intuitive functions the human mind has, restricting human intuitive cognition to very simple axioms of logic.  But the Jesus Prayer is based on intuitive cognition.

The result is that someone coming out of the Roman Catholic tradition thinks that apart from reason there is only emotion.  That is why Roman Catholic spirituality tends to be either intellectualistic or sentimental.  But the tradition of the Orthodox Church in the Jesus Prayer depends on intuitive cognition and eschews sentimentality.  This is not to deny the role of Grace, but it is to suggest that the two traditions have different understandings of how the human person interacts with Divine Grace on the level of philosophical psychology.

Moreover, while Mr Courtney-Smith thinks that the practice of the Jesus Prayer must be consistent with St John of the Cross, St Thérèse of Lisieux and the Franciscans, we doubt this.  St John of the Cross was a scholastic in psychology; St Thérèse was a 19^th Century French mystic who would have been following the spirituality of the Discalced Carmelites, derived from St John of the Cross and St Theresa of Avila.  And we simply don’t think that the Franciscans bring their mind into their heart.

The Jesus Prayer is not only a matter of the repetition of a pious, repentant formula.  There is more to it.

It is true that St John Cassian, who transmitted the Philokalic tradition in part to the West, would have had some indirect influence on St John of the Cross.  But by the time the texts of Cassian would have reached St John of the Cross, they would have been reinterpreted in conformity with Roman Catholic scholastic understandings of the human person.

Where we can find a discussion in context of bringing the mind into the heart is in the Philokalia and in the Ladder of Divine Ascent of St John of Sinai.  Also there is Elder Sophrony’s recent book on St. Silouan the Athonite.  There are texts in the Philokalia, such as of St Gregory of Sinai (14^th Century), which discuss how to force the mind into the heart when it doesn’t want to descend on its own.  We are not recommending that anyone take up this practice of forcing, but we want to point out just how important the concept of bringing the mind into the heart is to the spirituality of the Orthodox Church.  However, precisely because the Roman Catholic tradition doesn’t foresee a basic aspect of this form of Orthodox Spirituality—intuitive cognition—Roman Catholic translations of Orthodox spiritual texts tend to present the texts in a sentimental light and are therefore to be avoided if one wants to understand how the Orthodox themselves view the Jesus Prayer.

It should be understood that the repetition of the Jesus Prayer is only the beginning of the spiritual road of the Philokalia.  The other part is the battle against tempting thoughts.  But this is an aspect of the Jesus Prayer that we dare say is completely ignored in Roman Catholic renditions of the practice.  For an understanding of the Jesus Prayer at this level, we would suggest the Ladder of St John of Sinai and St Diadochos of Photiki.  Our own translation of St Diadochos can be found in the archives for August, 2008.  Our commentary on his text can be found in the archives for March, April and May, 2009.

Briefly, the practice of the Jesus Prayer as found in the Orthodox Church begins with the repetition of the formula, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner’—although other formulas are in use—and proceeds to the continuous oral repetition of the formula.  Then the practitioner proceeds to the silent repetition of the formula with the consciousness in the head.  Then the consciousness is gradually brought into the physical region of the heart (this takes a number of years of practice of the Prayer under the guidance of an experienced practitioner).  Then at some point, through Grace, the Prayer should begin to be repeated automatically in the heart.  St Diadochos discusses in his 5^th Century work the repetition of the Prayer even in sleep.

As the consciousness becomes more focused because of the repetition of the Prayer the practitioner becomes more aware of tempting thoughts that intrude into the consciousness.  The practitioner of the Prayer begins to combat the intrusive tempting thoughts under the guidance of his spiritual teacher.  This is the mental ascesis that is so important a part of the tradition of the Jesus Prayer.  St Diadochos has much on this aspect of the Prayer.

Hence, the Jesus Prayer begins with the oral repetition of the Jesus Prayer and ends with the conscious automatic repetition of the formula in the heart, all the while the practitioner keeping the consciousness clear of tempting thoughts.

We are of the opinion that none of this is foreseen in Roman Catholic spiritual practice.

May God bless you.

UPDATE 2011/02/18:

Mr Courtney-Smith replies as follows (see his comment below the post):

Mr Courtney-Smith writes:

You encouraged me to read so I read many pages of the suggested material on this blog. I also did a search for the phrase ‘mind into heart’ and read the very few places the phrase actually occurs in context.

Still I find there is no answer provided to what seems a simple enough question.

You have said it is important to ‘move one’s mind into one’s heart’. (Am I correct?)

To which I simply wanted to ask the question:  “What do you mean?”

You said “we can move our consciousness around, in particular making it descend to the physical region of the heart”

I am asking sincerely, because in truth I am fully ignorant as I hope you will see.

Do you mean to suggest that it is your belief that it is possible to measure (in feet or cm) the distance of my consciousness from my eyes or heart or finger, or some other part of my body?

If I take the literal meaning of your words, that is what I would take them to mean. What do you mean?

I'm trying to be as specific as possible because I don't know what language you speak natively and subtleness can be easily lost in translation.

To me doing something 'physically' implies a change is some material the can be measured as a function of the physically properties of the object changed.

How do you mean the word physically?

These are reasonable questions.  First of all, our native language is not in issue.  What is in issue is a conceptual confusion.  Wittgenstein wanted to show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle of conceptual confusion; Orthodox Monk wants to show Mr. Courtney-Smith the way out of the conceptual confusion in his head and into his heart.

Mr Courtney-Smith seems to have been trained in the physical sciences, possibly chemistry.  We would think that the only possible way to study the Jesus Prayer and the descent of the mind into the heart would be to have a practitioner from Mt Athos, if one could be found, to leave his cave and go to MIT to be studied in MIT’s program for studying meditation.  There they use a functional nuclear magnetic resonance imaging machine to study the parts of the brain that are active during various stages of meditation.  Presumably the practitioner would not be distracted by the machine environment and would bring his mind into his heart while the scholars studied what was happening to his brain function.  How the practitioner would signal that his mind was now into his heart is unknown to us, so we don’t know how the scientists would calibrate their images of brain function against the Athonite cave-dweller’s subjective experience.  Let’s suppose that it could be done.  We don’t know what would be found, but we are interested.  Orthodox Monk is an amateur but he would be delighted to go to MIT from his igloo in the Arctic for such a test.

Now while the Athonite cave-dweller was lying in the functional NMRI machine and bringing his mind into his heart, what would he understand?  Surely he would subjectively understand that his mind was in his heart.  What would that mean? Mr Courtney-Smith asks with exasperation.  Well, let’s see if we can explain on the basis of our amateur understanding.

Since our mind is our consciousness, we can focus it on a point.  Let us start with our finger.  I can concentrate on my finger.  Or I can concentrate on the mountain in the distance.

Now, remember that the Jesus Prayer is being repeated.  It is a fixed formula.  This has the effect of concentrating our mind on the words of the Prayer.  It’s a bit like karate.  The student of karate learns to concentrate on his fist the instant his fist makes contact with his opponent, so that all his mental energy is focused on the actual blow.

(Incidentally this is why you shouldn’t be doing the martial arts when you are doing the Jesus Prayer: they’re both tapping into some of the same human potentialities, but at cross purposes.  This is true even of the ‘soft-style’ martial arts, perhaps even more so because the soft-style martial arts are more systematically training the practitioner in a form of oriental meditation.  The principle, apart from dogmatic issues, is not to mix two forms of meditation.  Moreover, although we have defined the mind to Mr Courtney-Smith as the consciousness with which we experience reality, it should be understood that the mind is also the created spirit of man, the highest part of the soul.  It is with the mind that we apprehend spiritual realities, using the mind’s potential for intuitive cognition.  The problem is to encounter Orthodox spiritual realities; the danger is that we might encounter Satan masquerading as an angel of light.  Moreover, in our original reply to Sarah Jones, we recommended that she have a quiet time apart from prayer where ideally she would be working with her hands.  Our reasoning is that the practice of a handicraft, well-attested in the ascetical tradition, helps train the mind.)

So instead of concentrating on my finger, or even on the karate blow I am landing, I concentrate on the words of the Jesus Prayer.  But since the repetition of the Jesus Prayer is focusing my consciousness like a flame from a gas jet, and since I have an orientation in space and time, as I advance in the oral repetition of the Jesus Prayer, my consciousness is naturally focused on my tongue and mouth—after all that is where I am articulating the Jesus Prayer all day long.

Now let us say that I advance to the silent repetition of the Jesus Prayer.  Given the preceding, it should be clear that the silent words of the Jesus Prayer will present themselves as physically located in my head—that’s where we think and that is where our thoughts present themselves to us in consciousness.  Our mind has ascended from our mouth to inside our head.  So far we are sure that Mr Courtney-Smith is following.

Now the next stage is to integrate the silent repetition of the Jesus Prayer with the breath.  One mentally articulates the first half of the formula with the intake of the breath; one mentally articulates the second half of the formula with the outtake of the breath.  Now since the breath is descending into the lungs, the effect of this is that the gas jet of consciousness is going to follow the words of the Prayer into the lungs and then out of the lungs again.

The next stage is to bring the mind into the heart.  Here, the subjective experience is that there is a ‘road of descent’ into the heart that has been mapped by combining the silent repetition of the Prayer with the breath and that there is a place where the consciousness unites with the heart, taken to be the spiritual centre of the person.  The fathers place this spiritual centre in the region of the physical heart.  This is where the results of the functional NMRI would be interesting, although all it would show would be what the brain is doing at that moment, not what the heart is doing.  We suppose that they might also hook up an electrocardiograph to the practitioner of the Jesus Prayer, but we don’t know what it would show.  What the practitioner experiences subjectively is that his gas jet of consciousness is now centred in the region of his physical heart and that he is deep inside himself.

Mr Courtney-Smith wants to know what can be measured.  Hard to say since we are dealing with consciousness and with subjective experience.  Is it a mere fantasy?  No.  Without going into details, a Staretz can tell a disciple exactly where the disciple is silently praying the Jesus Prayer (in the heart?  in the head?) and could probably even tell him what formula he was using in his silent prayer—and sometimes even at a distance.  This is not just some Athonite mumbo-jumbo, self-hypnosis or whatever.  There is an objective dimension, but as with all religious experience it isn’t easily susceptible to scientific measurement.

Moreover, St Silouan the Athonite (†1938) attests that he was given the automatic repetition of the Jesus Prayer in the heart as a gift while he was praying before an icon of the Mother of God.  So we can see that there is also an element of the Grace of God in the practice of the Prayer.  See St. Silouan the Athonite by Arch. Sophrony (Sakharov).

Now to make things clear we have presented the above as a method of meditation.  Recall that in a previous post, Sarah Jones wanted to know about mechanical repetition of the Jesus Prayer and the danger of delusion.  Here we can see more clearly what the danger is.  Let us suppose that we are following the above schema (and it is schematic for ease of presentation) without being a committed member of the Church—the Orthodox Church.  Sarah quoted to us in her email a passage that suggested that there is a serious danger of falling into delusion, the deception of the Devil, if we do the above in a mechanical way.  We agree.

The descent of the mind into the heart is not only a phenomenon with spatial attributes but it is also a conscious penetration into the psychological regions of our personality that are usually called the unconscious or subconscious.  The result is that descending with the mind into the heart brings about an encounter with personal subconscious repressed material.  This material initially presents itself as an image that invites one to commit sin (of any number of kinds).  The ascetical Fathers discuss this sort of thing.  It is possible to force your mind into your heart before you are ready but you won’t have the strength to combat the tempting material you will encounter on the way.  You can go mad.

We have presented this in terms of natural psychology but at this level the ascetical tradition speaks of temptations from the demons.  This encounter on the road to the heart is also a spiritual phenomenon.  Recall that the gas jet of consciousness is our created spirit and that its capacity for intuitive cognition enables us to encounter spiritual realities.  The problem is that we are going to have to battle against demonic spiritual realities on the way to God.

To return to the issue of mechanical repetition, while the Jesus Prayer is being prayed in the above way, in the normal Orthodox case it is also ‘meant’ or ‘intended’.  As members of the Church we are engaged emotionally, psychologically and spiritually with the meanings or concepts contained in the words of the Prayer (‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner’) in the way people understand when they say ‘he is praying from the heart’.  This is of course a different sense from what we mean by ‘bringing the mind into the heart’.  The repetition of the Prayer becomes an emotional, psychological and spiritual encounter, although there is equally a danger if too much emphasis is placed on emotion—that could lead to emotional exaggeration, and its attendant imbalance of personality.  Moreover, the Philokalia and all the other writings on the Jesus Prayer assume that the practitioner of the Jesus Prayer is a member in good standing of the Orthodox Church, regularly going to confession and when permitted to communion.  The Jesus Prayer is a part of the life of an engaged member of the Church.  Moreover, it is assumed that there will be a guide.  In this see Way of the Pilgrim, trans. by French.  Of course it is not clear if that book and its sequel is really a narrative of what actually happened, or else a literary creation in the form of autobiography.

We are not suggesting that anyone take up the Jesus Prayer without a guide.  We are merely trying to clarify how it is prayed.

UPDATE 2 2011/02/18:

Mr Courtney-Smith has again replied with a comment:

Interesting. Thank you very much, that actually makes quite a bit of sense to me.

The description you give of the subjective experienced has strong parallels to the descriptions found in The Dark Night of the Soul [by St John of the Cross] which is the only book of its type I have ever fully read.  To my recollection however The Dark Night does not give any specific instruction on how or what one should contemplate (other than God).  So I can see how this information seems to make a nice complement too it.  Inasmuch as they both describe meditation and its effects.

I looked up the Philokalia as I had never heard of it before. It seems like something that would be interesting to read. Although perhaps, like The Dark Night, it might be of limited value to me as I am not called to monasticism (at least not at this time).  How many pages is it?

Also, since you mentioned it, could you explain why grace being created or non-created is relevant to the topic of ‘bringing one’s mind into one’s heart’?  I don't see the connection.

Of course that is quite probably because the only definition of grace I was ever taught was ‘a gift freely given from God’.

It seems the purpose of prayer and meditation is closer union with God through Jesus, and I don't think there is any debate about the facts that Jesus is both uncreated Godhead and created Man.

Certainly we receive Jesus in the sacrament of Holy Communion (and this is all of him created and uncreated).

Isn't it the same being encountered in the sacrament but in deeper measure that the mystic hopes to encounter?

Let us give brief answers to the above.  The full extent of our knowledge of the theology of St John of the Cross is found in this post.

The Philokalia is, in the standard Greek edition, a five-volume work of texts on the Hesychastic tradition (what we’ve been discussing) that go from the 4^th Century to the 18^th (we believe).  The texts are arranged in chronological sequence.  His Eminence, Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware), was chief editor of an English translation published by Faber & Faber.  There is a good introduction.  Only the first four volumes of the English translation have been published.  We imagine that the five volumes of the English translation together would come to around 2000 pages.  The unpublished 5^th volume is the one that contains material on forcing the mind into the heart; perhaps there was a fear that such information might be dangerous for the immature reader, we don’t know.  There is no canon of the Philokalia: it is a literary compilation that is witness to an oral tradition in the Orthodox Church.  There are editions of the Philokalia in Old Church Slavonic (liturgical Russian) and Romanian which are much longer than the Greek Philokalia.  This simply means that the various editors had access to much more material they thought suitable for inclusion in their edition.  The texts are written by the ascetical Fathers of the Orthodox tradition, so they are definitely at the level of St John of the Cross or St Theresa of Avila—i.e. not introductory.

At the level at which we have been discussing the Jesus Prayer in this post, the uncreated nature of Grace has nothing to do with it.

The uncreated nature of Grace is addressed by St Gregory Palamas (14^th Century), who was a practitioner of the Jesus Prayer.  The issue has to do with the nature of light that Hesychasts experience: is it the uncreated effulgence of God or something else?  That is, the issue has more to do with the end of the Hesychastic road not with the basic practice as we have been describing it.

While we understand what Mr Courtney-Smith intends by ‘uncreated Godhead’, it is more proper to say that Jesus is true God and true Man, where as God he is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.  It should also be pointed out that the person of Jesus Christ is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.  That person took on a complete human nature.  But that human nature has never subsisted in a person other than the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.  To say otherwise is to fall into a Nestorian Christology.

It is certainly true that in the Orthodox Church it would be a perverse reading of Hesychasm indeed to say that there was something different about what the Orthodox Hesychast experiences receiving Holy Communion and what he experiences practising the Jesus Prayer.