Saturday Before Thomas

After those things Jesus and his disciples came into the land of Judah, and he remained there with them and baptized. Now John was baptizing in Ainon close to Salim, for there was much water there; and people came and were baptized. For John had not yet been put into prison. Now there occurred a discussion concerning purification between some of John’s disciples and a Judean. And they came to John and said to him: ‘Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, he to whom you have borne witness, see, he is baptizing and all come to him.’ John answered and said: ‘A man cannot receive anything unless it has been given to him from Heaven. You yourselves bear witness to me that I said that I am not the Christ but that I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the Bridegroom. The friend, then, of the Bridegroom, he who stands and hears him, rejoices with joy on account of the voice of the Bridegroom. That joy of mine has been fulfilled, then. He must increase but I must decrease. He who comes from above is above all men. He who is from the earth is from the earth and speaks from the earth. He who comes from above is above all men. And what he saw and heard, to that he bears witness and no one receives his witness. He who receives his witness has put his seal to this, that God is true.’

(John 3, 22–33)

We would like to take this Gospel for the Liturgy of Saturday of Bright Week as our starting point to share a few reflections for the Easter season. First of all, we would like to remark on the Holy Spirit. In the life of the Orthodox layman, it is the Holy Spirit who ‘gives’ from Heaven the charism of ministry to the body of the Church. It is not something we arrogate to ourselves. We see that St John the Baptist—than whom there is no one greater born of woman; he who, if you are willing to receive it, is Elias who is to come again—is careful not to arrogate to himself the title of Messiah or Christ. By divine calling he is the ‘friend of the Bridegroom’ but in his own eyes nothing more. He rejoices to hear the voice of Christ and is content with this joy: he himself must decrease while the Christ must increase. Similarly, properly speaking, the priesthood is not a profession the way ‘doctor’ or ‘lawyer’ or ‘engineer’ is a profession that by ourselves we can choose to adopt; the priesthood is a calling given from God to the layman to minister to his body, the Church. This calling is given from the Holy Spirit, as St Paul remarks in one of his epistles when he discusses the charisms and the charismatic ministries. And just as St John did not arrogate to himself more than God gave him, it behoves him who is called to a ministry to be careful not to arrogate to himself more than he has been given. Moreover, just as the Messiahship of Jesus Christ was validated by St John the Baptist, who saw the Spirit descending and remaining on him, so a calling to ministry to the body is validated by the Bishops of the Church—after all there are no ‘charismatic priests’ in the Orthodox Church; you have to be ordained by a Bishop, who has to be willing on his own judgement to ordain you.

The next point we would like to make concerns the interest of the followers of ISKCON (the International Society for Krishna Consciousness) in Mount Athos and the Jesus Prayer. We made a post on the matter here. We then received a number of comments which we haven’t posted. The authors took us to task for not taking Arnold seriously. Arnold was the person who wrote to us asking about a supposed tradition on Mount Athos that would have the name of God non-different from himself—hence, compatible with ‘Hare Krishna’ and hence making Mount Athos a place where Arnold would be well received and feel at home with his practice of ‘Hare Krishna’. Here is what one ‘John Moschus’ had to say:

Dear Orthodox Monk,

Your dismissal of the interesting phrase used by the seeker Arnold, namely, “the name of God non-different from himself” as nothing but Hinduism is a little too pat. I think Arnold’s query deserves a little more reflection or intellectual effort than merely a quick googling of the phrase, associating it with Hare Krishna or some other form of Hinduism, and then dismissing it as not Orthodox. That’s actually not quite fair. For in fact, the idea of the name of God being not different from God himself is not unknown in the Orthodox tradition. In Orthodoxy it is known by the name of “onomatodoxy”, and as a doctrinal movement surfaced most recently in the Russian Orthodox Church in the early 20th century, where it was known as “Imiaslavie”. With the publication of a book in 1907, called “In the Caucasus Mountains” by a much revered Russian schemamonk and hermit, Ilarion, where he spoke of his own experiences with the Jesus Prayer, and his conviction that the name of Jesus was not different from God Himself and could work miracles, the Imiaslavie movement became very popular with Russian monks on Mount Athos. A great controversy ensued with both proponents, such as the great saint, John of Kronstadt, and opponents, such as Archbishop Anthony Krapovitsky, in hot disagreement. The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church eventually declared Imiaslavie a heresy not unlike pantheism. Unfortunately, a full discussion of whether the name of Jesus is non different from God itself or whether it is really a form of pantheism (invoking the dreaded term “pantheism” is an easy refuge for anyone unwilling or afraid to look closely at the implications of any doctrine that draws close to “non-dualism”) was cut short by the October Revolution in Russia, but not before the pre-Marxist government sent a gunboat and two transport ships with troops to remove the offending monks by force. The great Pavel Florensky, Orthodox priest and mathematical genius, was a proponent of Imiaslavie. Florensky insisted that some mathematical functions, such as transfinite numbers, can be understood properly only in the context of the Imiaslavie philosophy, in which the name of God is not different from God himself. I can’t claim to understand this insight. Nevertheless, my point is only to say that to dismiss as nothing but Hinduism the idea that the name of God is not different from God is not quite fair, and that there may be much more that can—and should--be said about it in an Orthodox Christian context, especially as the concept has drawn a seeker to look more closely at Orthodoxy.

Sincerely,

J. Moschus

We should also point out that someone linked to our post on the ISKCON website with a tongue-in-cheek title something like ‘Looks like Arnold won’t get to be a monk on Mount Athos!’

We have been reluctant to get into the issue of Imiaslavie because we think that it is a red herring. We were given links in other comments to articles in Wikipedia on the Imiaslavie movement. Of course Wikipedia has the status of ‘Father of the Church’ if not ‘Father of the whole universe of human discourse’, but let us leave that aside for the moment. We went through all of this stuff, as much as we could stomach.

First of all, Mr Moschus, it seems to us that you are being disingenuous. You are, it seems to us, taking St John Kronstadt out of context. Remember this is the Saint who was treated as an incarnation of God by some Russian sectarians and who suffered great anguish over that (see above about ministries in the church and not arrogating more to yourself than is given). We saw what seemed to us to be the quotation in context that you were basing yourself on, and there is a gross distortion of the meaning if you think that St John of Kronstadt was preaching that the name of God is non-different from himself.

Next, the adjudication of the orthodoxy or not of Imiaslavie by the Russian Synod may or may not have been interrupted by the Revolution of 1917. In Orthodoxy, however, that is not necessarily an important issue. If you’re wrong in Orthodoxy, you’re wrong. Orthodoxy is not a legalistic religion that needs a formal legalistic determination of error to discard a wrong belief. If you don’t believe that, go to Mount Athos and inquire of the Abbots there, or anyone else there for that matter, about Imiaslavie. According to our own information there are no practitioners today of Imiaslavie on Mount Athos, or if there are they are under deep cover.

If someone is interested in a historical treatment of Imiaslavie, with we believe some reference to Ilarion (if it’s the same Ilarion), he might look at Nicholas Fennel’s The Russians on Athos.

Next, with regard to Pavel Florensky and his transfinite numbers only being understood in the context of Imiaslavie. This is silly. The mathematical layman finds it hard to understand that there is a variety of ‘infinities’ in mathematics, not all of which are equivalent (commensurable). For example there are an infinite number of integers and an infinite number of real numbers. But there are more real numbers than integers: when you put the integers and the real numbers into a correspondence, there are always real numbers left over. That’s just the way mathematics is. It’s the same way, only more so, with transfinite numbers. It’s like saying that a square has two dimensions and a cube has three—that there are more dimensions in a cube than in a square. It has nothing to do with Imiaslavie or the nature of God but with the nature of mathematics. In this regard it should be pointed out that Florensky was influenced by the theories of Bulgakov concerning ‘Sophia’, which have never been received by the Church. This is not stuff you learn from the Fathers of the Church. Mr. Moschus, if transfinite numbers can only be understood in the context of Imiaslavie, then in what context can 4-dimensional Minkowski Space-Time (the mathematical formalism of the Special and General Theories of Relativity) be understood, not to mention infinite-dimensional Hilbert Space, the formalism used in Quantum Mechanics?

Let us look at the real issue. The real issue is the nature of God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In the Burning Bush, in the Septuagint Translation used in the Church, when Moses asks, ‘Who shall I say has sent me?’ God replies, ‘say that “I am that which I am” has sent you [our free translation from memory]’. The Judeo-Christian (and even Islamic) tradition has always considered God to be transcendent to his creation: he is not the same in essence or substance as his creation.

In the 14^th Century, the presence of God in his creation and the problem of the mystical knowledge of God was analyzed in the context of a defence of the Jesus Prayer by St Gregory Palamas, an Athonite monk and saint. St Gregory took that presence of God in creation as having to do with the presence of the ‘uncreated energies or actions’ of God in his creation. But the ‘uncreated energies’ of God were never considered by St Gregory Palamas to be the substance or essence of God, but the activities of the uncreated essence of God. In other words, in the Orthodox Church, grace is considered to be uncreated. However, grace is considered to suffuse or permeate or transfigure that which is graced, not to be of the same substance as that which is graced. Similarly the mystical knowledge of God that the Hesychast experiences is attributed by St Gregory not to knowledge of the essence of God—in Orthodoxy that is not possible either in this life or the next life—but to the presence of the uncreated energies of God in the created spirit or nous of man, and in the case of saints, even in the body.

This is the significance of the statement in the Gospel reading that he who is from above is above all men[1]. What the Church has always understood by this is that the Word of God—he who is in the presence of the Father, he through whom all things were made, he who is God—came down from Heaven and was incarnated by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. Jesus is the Word of God become man. The Orthodox Church has always held that the Person of Jesus Christ is the Word of God and that the Word of God when it became man took on a complete human nature, so that Jesus Christ is one person (the Word of God) in two natures—a human and a divine nature, the one completely human and the other completely divine. As St John Damscene points out in the Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, the Son or Word is equal to the Father except for the relationship of being begotten from the Father and the Spirit is equal to the Father except for the relationship of proceeding from the Father.

These statements presuppose that ‘I am that I am’ who spoke to Moses in the Burning Bush is different from his creation. As St Maximos the Confessor remarks in the Ambigua, we cannot even predicate ‘existence’ of God, because God is beyond all creation and ‘existence’ is a predicate that properly belongs only to what is created, not to the Creator. Hence, according to St Maximos, God is beyond existence. This is a radical transcendence. This is completely contrary to the notion that the name of God is non-different from himself. Moreover, so that what is implied in this latter statement can be understood, on the ISKCON site, there is reference to a physical place, in India we believe, where the place itself—the stones, the trees, the grass, the whatever—is considered to be non-different from Krishna. Hence in worshipping or glorifying (not just venerating) the stones, the trees, the grass, the whatever in that place, one is worshipping or glorifying Krishna; one is worshipping or glorifying God—and, Mr Moschus suggests, the same God who spoke to Moses in the Burning Bush. But, Mr. Moschus, no one in the history of Judaism or Christianity has ever suggested that the Burning Bush is non-different from God himself. The contrary.

We can now understand the Gospel passage a little better. The transcendent God has sent St John the Baptist to bear witness to the Messiah. The Jew of the time took this to be a man who would restore the Kingdom to Israel, as is clear just before the Ascension in the Acts of the Apostles. St John bears witness. He must now decrease, having heard the voice of the Bridegroom, of the Messiah, of the Christ, while the Messiah must increase. And St John goes on that he himself is from the earth and speaks from the earth whereas the Christ, Jesus to whom he has born witness, is from above. This being ‘from above’ the Church understands to refer to the fact that Jesus is the Word of God of the same substance with the Father, the Word of God who has descended from heaven to save us, his lost sheep, who are from the earth—the creatures of God. The transcendent God in his infinite mercy has taken the form of a slave—of a created being—in order to save that created being, man. This is God’s love. May his grace be upon us.

Χριστός ανέστη!

---

[1] or, perhaps, ‘all things’; the text is ambiguous on the referent

A Note on the Jesus Prayer

Let us suppose that we pray the Jesus Prayer and let us suppose that we have joined our mind to our intention in such a way that when we pray ‘a sinner’, we indeed confess to the Lord that we are sinners. Then we might experience an increase of love.

This is a matter of the opening of our heart in repentance. As we confess that we are sinners we divest ourselves of what people nowadays call ‘ego’—what would traditionally be called our pride. We are humbling ourselves in front of God. But having broken down the ‘middle wall’ of enmity, we then find that we have an increase of love—genuine Christian love—for our neighbour. Let us recall that the criterion of our salvation will be the mercy we have shown to our neighbour. Let us also recall that St Paul says in II Corinthians that we should make love our aim.

This takes much work however—not in the sense that we must make an effort of two hours, say, of intense prayer so as to attain to this increase of love, but in the sense that this is something that comes after many years of hard work. And in Christianity, hard work is suffering. If truth be told, this is precisely what asceticism is all about: hard work, or suffering, so as to increase our love, our humility, our ability to confess that we, too, are sinners.

Sunday of the Abstention from Meat

The gospel reading for today:

Therefore, when the Son of Man comes in his glory and all his holy angels with him, then he will sit upon his throne of glory. And all the nations will be gathered before him and he will separate them from each other just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will set the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right: ‘Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I hungered and you gave me to eat; I thirsted and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger and you gathered me; naked and you clothed me; I was ill and you covered me; in prison and you came to me.’ Then the just will answer him, saying: ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and we fed you, or thirsting and we gave you to drink? When did we see you a stranger and we gathered you, or naked and we clothed you? When did we see you ill or in prison and we came to you? And, answering, the King will say to them: ‘Amen, I say to you, inasmuch as you [pl.] did so to one of these brothers of mine, the least, you did so to me.’ Then he will also say to those on the left: ‘Go from me you cursed ones to the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you did not give me to eat; I was thirsty and you did not give me to drink; I was a stranger and you did not gather me; naked and you did not clothe me; ill and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer him, saying: ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or naked or ill or in prison and we did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them saying: ‘Amen, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do so to one of these least, neither did you do so to me.’ And they will go into eternal Hell, but the just into eternal life.

(Matthew 25, 31 – 46)

This gospel reading has some of the deepest thoughts of the whole Gospel. For the Gospel is not merely a matter of words but of spiritual meanings conveyed into our hearts. The Gospel renders spiritually present to us that of which it speaks. Here it speaks of the Last Judgement, rendering it present to us (as in a glass darkly). The reading begins with the Second Coming. Christ will come in his glory with his holy angels and will sit upon his throne of glory. No longer is it a matter of the Suffering Servant who is crucified, of the Suffering Servant who is not comely to look upon, but of the King of Kings coming in glory with his holy angels. And his glory is the effulgence of his divinity. We are confronted in this gospel passage with that reality, the reality of the divinity of Christ as the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

Then a scene is portrayed of cosmic proportions: all the nations will be gathered before the King sitting on his throne of glory. These are all the souls who have ever lived and died. This is the resurrection of the dead. We will be present then.

Then the King will separate the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. We will be there.

Notice that those even on the left will acknowledge the Lordship of Christ. It is a truism that the light of the Divinity, apart from the fact that it can present itself either as the Dove or as a consuming fire according to the intention of God, presents itself differently to those who are of Christ and those who are not. Those who are of Christ rejoice to see Christ’s face; those who are not, tremble—but they know who he is.

Then the King of Kings will call those on his right to enter his Kingdom.

What criterion does the King of Kings provide for placing someone on his right and someone on his left? Mercy. Those who show mercy to their neighbour will be saved; those who do not will be damned.

There are a number of things that Christ does not say here. He does not say to the saved, ‘You said many prayers; you fasted; and so on.’ He says, ‘You showed mercy to my brethren, the least of them, and therefore you showed mercy to me.’ As the Lord said to the teacher of the Law in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, ‘Go and do likewise.’ Or as the Beatitudes say, ‘Blessed are those who show mercy, for they shall be shown mercy.’

The primary goal of Lent is repentance, and our primary goal is love so that we are able to show mercy. This is important to understand both for the Orthodox monastic and for the Orthodox layman. Our ascetical practices, including our Lenten ascetical practices, must be tools to help us to repent; they must lead us to love both for God and for our fellow man as we keep the Commandments.

It is in this general context that one should look at the meaning of the Jesus Prayer: ‘Lord, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

A good Lent to all!

–Orthodox Monk

‘The Name of God as Nondifferent From Himself’

We recently received the following email:

Dear Monks,

I am interested in Mount Athos and monastic life, since I heard you accept the name of god as nondifferent from himself. And also accept that chanting his name is the means to spiritual development.

Can people who are not orthodox become monks and live in Mount Athos? I myself follow the 4 regulative principles: No illicit sex, meat eating, intoxication or gambling.

Yours,

Arnold

We were struck by the phrase ‘nondifferent from himself’ since it sounded like a technical term in oriental religion. So we googled it. We saw that the phrase is associated with a branch of Hinduism that includes but does not seem to be limited to ‘Hare Krishna’.

From our vantage point here in the Arctic, here’s what we can say to Arnold:

According to law of the State of Greece, which exercises sovereignty over the peninsula of Mt Athos as an integral part of the Greek State, only members of the Orthodox Church in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch can take up permanent residence on Mt Athos. We imagine that Arnold would be able to visit Mt Athos for a few days but not to remain there.

Also, although there are similarities between the Jesus Prayer and ‘Hare Krishna’—both involve the repetition of a fixed phrase—the Orthodox Church definitely does not accept that the name of Jesus is ‘nondifferent from himself’. This is a Hindu position having to do with Hinduism in one of its manifestations, and not with the teachings of the Orthodox Church. For more information Arnold could look at our recent posts which contain the text and our commentary on the Gnostic Chapters of Diadochos of Photiki. In that work Diadochos discusses the practice of the Jesus Prayer in the Orthodox Church. He emphasizes the connection of the Jesus Prayer to Orthodox Baptism. This is a very ancient work in the Orthodox Church, from 450 AD. We would also suggest that Arnold read our recent Commentary on the Our Father, which at times discusses the relation between prayer and God.

If Arnold has more interest in the Orthodox understanding of these matters he should address himself to the nearest Orthodox Bishop or priest.

The Tax Collector and the Pharisee – Love and Authoritarianism 6

Let us see if we can give a definitive analysis of the American Christian Right Wing and move on. It seems to us that the basic spiritual problem behind all the very odd manifestations of Christianity in the American Christian Right Wing is self-righteousness.

The people on the American Christian Right Wing believe that they can interpret the truth by themselves. This belief that they can interpret the truth by themselves leads to self-righteousness.

This self-righteousness leads these people to raise themselves up higher than the Church. From the Orthodox point of view, people with the views of the American Christian Right Wing are not members of the Body of Christ. They lack integration into the Church. They are not properly joined to the Lord. Their lack of integration into the Church reinforces the disturbances in these peoples’ understanding of the truth that arise from their self-righteous reliance on their own reasoning.

The belief of these persons that they can interpret the truth by themselves leads, as we said, to self-righteousness. From this self-righteousness flows their ability both to mix political positions with the Gospel, as if those political positions were part of the Gospel, and to distort the meaning of the Gospel in order to bring it into line with these persons’ political positions and taste for violence. The lack of a proper integration into the Church leads these people to disregard the wisdom of the Church about what the Gospel means as they put forward their own views or the views of a sectarian author.

These peoples’ lack of integration into the Church also leads to disturbances in their spiritual relationship to Jesus Christ, even and especially despite a born-again turning to Jesus. (However, we understand that an actual spiritual ‘born again’ experience among these people is rather rarer than one might believe.) This is especially true when these people are also involved in Pentecostalism, especially of the ‘Third Wave’ or ‘Latter Rain’ variety. Lacking spiritual integration into the Church these people lack the corporate discernment of spirits of the Orthodox Church that would to protect them from spiritual delusion.

The lack of a proper integration into the Church, and hence the lack of a proper relationship to Christ and the lack of a proper corporate discernment of spirits, causes these people to be susceptible to spiritual temptations connected to pride. There are a variety of temptations that one can succumb to that are related to pride. One is self-righteousness. Another is the acceptance of false doctrine. Another is fanaticism. (One can easily see that the spiritual temptations of pride that arise from the lack of a proper integration into the Church, and the consequences of these peoples’ self-righteous reliance on themselves in the interpretation of the Gospel, mutually reinforce each other.) Once the demon of pride has found its home in the soul, it brings into the soul the demon of anger. From there it is easy for the person to pass on to vindictiveness and hatred and violence. And when these people get involved in Pentecostalism without the spiritual discernment of the Church, they are exposed to spiritual delusion and deception on a grand scale.

It might be useful to repeat here the Parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee:

Two men went up to the Temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. Having stood towards himself, the Pharisee prayed these things: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of Mankind, swindlers, unjust men, adulterers—or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of 10% on everything that I own.’ And having stood far off, the tax collector did not even want to lift his eyes to Heaven but beat his breast saying: ‘God, have mercy on me a sinner.’ I say to you, the latter went down justified to his house rather than the former. For everyone who raises himself up will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be raised up. (Luke 10 – 15.)

Note that the Gospel states that the Pharisee ‘stood towards himself’. This phrase is clear in the Greek but hard to render in English. Although the Pharisee was a least superficially and externally devout, he did not turn to God in prayer; he turned towards—depended on—himself.

Let us add to the Pharisee’s boast: ‘I am not like the rest of Mankind, committers of abortion, homosexuals, believers in Islam, drug users and spongers off the Government dole. I pay my own way, collect guns to protect the American Way of Life and help organize my local Tea Party Movement.’ Perhaps the point we are trying to make is now clear.

The Lord said that the leaven of the Pharisee was hypocrisy.

Let us who are Orthodox Christians say with the tax collector: ‘Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me a sinner.’

May all have a blessed Lent!

–Orthodox Monk

Becoming an Orthodox Nun

Some time ago we received the following message that we have only now been able to turn our attention to:

Dear beloved Orthodox Monk:

As always I am praying for you every day. I am just a simple woman, so I have a simple question. Is there an age limit for people who are thinking of monasticism?

I am sure many people in the world today are attracted to it, simply because the world is, well...more evil than ever. I understand that it is a calling, and not just a "whim". I understand that God either calls us to life in family or life in monasticism. But I would just like to know about this - and also, although I love your commentaries, (thank you so much for the explanation of the Lords Prayer!! Glory to God for that!) I would love to someday see a monk or nun write something like "A Day In the life of ..." Ivan Ivanovitch is interesting, but not as interesting to me as our wonderful Orthodox nuns and monks.

God bless you!

Blackincense

PS: Please forgive my spelling. I am embarrassed because you are very educated. I have severe dyslexia and I struggle. Please forgive me.

Let us first take the question of whether there is an age limit for people thinking of monasticism. The answer is no, but there are factors which both the postulant and the monastery have to take into account.

First of all, let us look at the issue of a lower age limit. Let us look at the situation in a jurisdiction such as the United States. In the United States, the Orthodox Church is a minority church and cultural norms from the countries of origin of various Orthodox jurisdictions cannot be applied across the board in the United States without modification. There is a historical tradition of early vocations in Orthodox countries which would not be proper in the United States largely for legal, but also for social, reasons. In other words, it wouldn’t make sense for a postulant to be received into a monastery who was not legally an adult. It would cause too much trouble legally and socially—too much scandal. That is not to say that a person interested in monasticism who was still a minor could not visit a monastery with the permission of his or her parents.

In general, moreover, nowadays young men and women from urban settings do not have the emotional and spiritual maturity—despite being old beyond their years because of what they see on television—to become monks or nuns until they are nearing their thirties. They are simply incapable before that of living a monastic vocation. Of course there are exceptions.

Moreover, our own view is that before the person enters the monastery he or she should be as well-educated as is suitable given his or her abilities. This is necessary in part for psychological reasons, in part for social reasons. The psychological reasons are that a person who is undereducated is going to get fed up with his way of life in the monastery. He or she is going to get fed up with his or her underutilization of his or her ability—for example, assuming that he or she is able, at not being able to read Scripture in the original language, at not being able to read the Fathers of the Church, at not being able to understand the Services in the original language, at not understanding deeply the dogmas of the Church.

The social reasons are that everyone, even in the monastery, has a reference group (their ‘cohort’). If the members of a person’s cohort are well-educated, while it might seem romantically wonderful that the vocation has renounced all of that to lead a simple life in the monastery worshipping the one true Trinitarian God, still, there will be a temptation for the monk or nun when the initial enthusiasm wears off and the monk or nun sees visiting members of his or her cohort functioning at a much higher intellectual level than he or she. This might lead the monk or nun to try to compensate in various non-monastic ways for the disparity in educational level with members of his or her cohort, to the detriment of his or her vocation and to the detriment of the peace and good order of the monastic brotherhood.

While we have emphasized intellectual skills, this is true even of musical or artistic skill.

In all of these cases, however, there will be a delay in the entry of the vocation into the monastery because of the time spent in studies.

We are also of the view that there is a danger if the vocation has not lived an adult role in society before entering the monastery. This is hard to explain but what we have in mind is the danger of a vocation that is trying to escape an adult role in society, and the responsibility that it entails, by entering the monastery. It would be better for the person to have an adult role in society for a period of time—for example by holding gainful employment in his or her field of training—so that there would occur the psychological maturation necessary for the vocation not to remain in a dependent, child-like state in the monastery. Ultimately, you have to take responsibility, even in the monastery. While the monk or nun is committed to obedience, it is better to be obedient in a condition of psychological adulthood.

Let us turn to the more substantive issue being raised by ‘Blackincense’. Is there an upper age limit to the monastic vocation? No.

However, the younger a person is (despite what we have just said about legal adulthood and emotional and spiritual maturity) the more able that person is able to adapt to the demands of the monastic vocation.

With very late vocations, there is a danger that the vocation will not really grasp what monasticism is all about—the combat against the passions so as to attain to the love of Christ, both given by Christ to the monk or nun, and given by the monk or nun to Christ and to others.

This being said, one of the most remarkable saints in the ‘Sayings of the Desert Fathers’ was an old man named Paul the Simple who went off to the desert to become a disciple of St Anthony when his wife cuckolded him. St Anthony refused him largely because of his age but Paul simply didn’t take no for an answer. St John of Sinai, the great theoretician of the monastic state, remarks that no one has ever made so much progress so quickly as Paul the Simple—exactly because of his simplicity.

As we age, there are greater difficulties in adapting to the monastery but we also have a clearer idea of who we are, and presumably our experience of life has given us the requisite psychological and spiritual maturity.

Now the next thing that is implicit in what ‘Blackincense’ is saying is whether there is an issue with her dyslexia. In general, cognitive difficulties that do not prevent one from leading a relatively normal life in the world do not prevent one from becoming a monk or nun. We ourselves, although we are by no means an expert, would tend to include dyslexia in this.

The problem arises when there are emotional or other disorders which prevent one from relating to other people normally or else are so debilitating as to prevent a normal life inside or outside the monastery.

We once saw a women’s monastery where the Abbess seemed to be collecting emotionally disturbed vocations. She was also a bit fanatical. This seemed to us to be a dead-end road. Eventually normal vocations will not be able to function in the fundamentally disturbed emotional environment of the monastery and they will leave either before or after their tonsure. Or they will themselves become disturbed as their own disturbed tendencies become exaggerated and reinforced within the disturbed society of the monastery.

In general terms, the only possible case in which a dysfunctional person can be successfully integrated into a monastery is if the Abbot or Abbess has the discernment and strength to handle the person spiritually, and if the monastery is otherwise large and healthy enough that the presence of the dysfunctional person does not distort the social fabric of the monastery so much as to make it a disturbed social system. Of course, dyslexia is not such a serious problem as this.

Blessed are the Merciful – Love and Authoritarianism 5

We have been puzzling over this topic of the authoritarian who proclaims his or her Christian commitment, the far-right Christian who hates his political opponent, the far-right Christian who perhaps is armed, the far-right Christian who perhaps lies about his political opponent. Unfortunately, our puzzlement remains. The only thing we can come up with is this beatitude: ‘Blessed are the merciful for they shall be shown mercy.’

We don’t know, being ignorant, but the spirit of this beatitude seems far, far away from the spirit of those who threaten their enemies.

We would ask these people: How do you understand the Gospel? Is it merely words?

Christmas in the Heart – Love and Authoritarianism 4

Now that it is the eve of Christmas for those who follow the Gregorian calendar, let us turn to look at how the Orthodox understand the Incarnation. First of all, the Word of God incarnate is ‘meek and humble of heart’; the Word of God came to seek the lost sheep to put it on his shoulders to take it back to the flock; he came to minister to the traveller who has been beaten by robbers and left for dead on the road to Jericho. He did not come to institute a political program: ‘So you are a king,’ Pontius Pilate said to him. ‘You say so,’ Jesus replied. ‘But know that my Kingdom is not from here…’

We have been trying to learn a little about two tendencies in Evangelical Protestantism: Premillennial Dispensationalism, the energizer of the ‘Left Behind’ series; and Reconstructionism, either allied to or the same thing as Dominionism.

Reconstructionism is the easier of the two doctrines to understand in its basics: it is a radical reinterpretation of Calvinist doctrine through the American Puritans that seeks to institute a Christian polity in the United States, in much the same way, we think, that Calvin instituted a Christian polity in Geneva and the Puritans instituted a Christian polity in New England. The radicalism of this doctrine arises from its very literalist interpretation of ‘Christian polity’: the Reconstructionists would implement the Mosaic Law as the law of the land, with the exception, we think, of certain provisions explicitly repealed in the New Testament.

But in other matters, the death penalty (by stoning?) would return for a number of transgressions against the Mosaic Law. It is not that we dispute the validity of the Mosaic moral law; we don’t. We do wonder, however, if today death by stoning or even lethal injection is an appropriate punishment for a number of transgressions of the Mosaic Law. We don’t see the early Church applying the Mosaic punishments at all. It is true that Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead at Peter the Apostle’s prophetic word, but the most severe punishment that Paul the Apostle applied to a transgressor was to deliver that transgressor to Satan—i.e. to cut him off from the body of the Church, to excommunicate him. And even then, Paul hastened to ask the Corinthians to restore the man to communion once the man had repented. Indeed, from an ecclesiastical point of view the canons of the Church revolve around defrocking offending clerics and excommunicating offending lay members of the Church.

When the Orthodox Church became the State Church (under Theodosius the Great in the late 4th Century), the Mosaic Law was not implemented wholesale as the law of the land, although it certainly influenced the laws of the state.

Slavery was permitted until quite late in Byzantium; St Theodore Studite (9th Century) is obliged to remark that slavery is permitted to lay persons but not to monastics. This seems to be one area where the Mosaic Law was implemented in Byzantium—i.e. in its acceptance of the practice of slavery. This would suggest that Reconstructionism, to be faithful to its principles, would have to reinstitute slavery as the law of the land in America.

The Reconstructionists also understand the Mosaic Law as supporting their own particular understanding of free-market economics.

The most radical aspect of Reconstructionism is that it would mandate a particular interpretation of Christianity (Reconstructionism) as the law of the land in America. All other forms of religion would be subject to the death penalty if exercised or promoted in public. This is pretty much the same legal standard as the one applied to non-Sunni Islam in Gulf States such as Saudi Arabia.

One of the problems with this sort of political program is what we find in places like Iran and Saudi Arabia: power is a powerful drug with a side-effect of hypocrisy. In other words, when zealots come to power they are often very sincere but when they taste power they often become less sincere; and their political progeny are often more interested in power than in the purity of doctrine.

Although Reconstructionism does not believe in Premillennial Dispensationalism, we have the impression that some of its ideas have been adopted by some Premillennial Dispensationalists, for example the notion that the laws of the United States should reflect Christian doctrine as understood by the Premillennial Dispensationalists. However, this is not at the heart of Premillennial Dispensationalism, which has another orientation entirely.

To understand Premillennial Dispensationalism, it is best to start with Dispensationalism. This is a complicated doctrine that was developed in the 19th Century by a certain J. N. Darby. Darby was an Anglican priest who became the founder of the Plymouth Brethren once he had left the Anglican Church. His ideas were promoted in the United States and elsewhere through being incorporated into the Scofield Reference Bible.

The key idea in Dispensationalism is that we can discern in the Bible a series of dispensations from God to Man that govern God’s relations to Man. The Mosaic Law is one such dispensation. The Church is another.

A key concept in Dispensationalism is the role of Israel in the dealings of God with Man. As we understand the matter, the Orthodox Church teaches that the Church is the new Israel that supersedes the old Israel in the sight of God. That is not the teaching of Dispensationalism, which teaches that the historical Israel is primary over the Church in the sight of God and that the Church is an interregnum in the dealings of God with Man until ‘the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled’. This is one of the underpinnings of the Dispensationalist support of the modern State of Israel: the State of Israel is the reconstitution of the Covenantal people primary to the history of salvation.

As we understand it, Darby also taught that his own people, the English, were descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. In other words, Darby’s theology gave the English primacy over the Church as members of the People of Israel. Nice move, Darby.

Now, the Premillennial part of it. Part of Darby’s theology was an analysis of the prophetic texts of the Bible as concerns eschatology—the theology of the last things and Jesus’ return for his people. Darby developed a doctrine of two Second Comings of Christ. The Orthodox Church teaches only one Second Coming, at the end of time when Christ will separate the sheep from the goats and the sheep will enter into eternal life. Darby’s analysis, however, requires two Second Comings. The first is a secret Second Coming, secret because the Son of Man does not come in the clouds with the angels in glory. In the first Second Coming the pious members of the Church (as understood by Darby) are raptured from the earth to be with Christ as the Bride of Christ. This first Second Coming closes the dispensation of the Church. The age of the Church is over at this point. At this point there will commence a Tribulation for those left behind at the Rapture. This Tribulation is to last 7 years, Darby interpreting literally the numbers in certain prophecies. Then Christ will physically establish his earthly kingdom in Jerusalem as King of Israel for exactly 1000 years (the millennium), after which will come the second Second Coming, and the final judgement of the Devil and the living and the dead. However, whether Jew or gentile those who accept Christ as the Messiah after his first Second Coming will not be part of the Church, the Bride of Christ, since the time of that dispensation will have passed.

Now what does all this have to do with us? Premillennial Dispensationalists believe that the first Second Coming of Christ is nigh; they are persuaded that only one generation of men can intervene between the founding of the State of Israel and the first Second Coming of Christ, or Rapture, to be followed immediately by the seven-year Tribulation. However, there is a certain flexibility introduced as to the date of the founding of the State of Israel: since the years since the actual founding of the State are passing, other more recent milestones in the history of the State of Israel are sometimes selected as the true founding of the State of Israel, so as to keep less than a generation between the founding of the State of Israel and the first Second Coming.

Now what does this have to do with our topic, love and authoritarianism? And Christmas in the heart?

We are not sure that we have all the details either of Reconstructionism or of Premillennial Dispensationalism correct. We find the details to be very confusing, although we found an historical treatment of Darby’s own development of his doctrine to be quite helpful. However, let us look at some aspects of these two doctrines.

It should be obvious that Reconstructionism is in its essence an extremely authoritarian doctrine. The key issue is what this means: ‘The Kingdom of God is within you.’ Reconstructionism essentially intends to introduce the Kingdom of God on earth as an authoritarian political system. This is its basic divergence from Orthodoxy. Orthodoxy has never claimed to establish the Kingdom of God on earth: it has always understood the Kingdom of God as a matter of personal spiritual development in the context of the mysteries of the Church, including perhaps monasticism, in loving expectation of the Second Coming of the Bridegroom. Yes it is true that the Byzantine and Russian emperors were anointed by the Church, but there is still a very big dogmatic distance between Reconstructionism and Orthodoxy. The Orthodox Church teaches that the Kingdom of God starts with our own repentance and continues with our own progress on the road of divinization through our participation in the mysteries or sacraments of the Church. Our divinization is our acquisition by Grace of the characteristics that God has by nature, a progress that continues in eternity both after we die and after the Second Coming.

In the case of Premillennial Dispensationalism, we would hazard the guess that a concentration on such an elaborate—and false—eschatology creates the presuppositions for a very disturbed spirituality. We would hazard the guess that this disturbed spirituality is what we see when we observe the rage and hatred of Premillennial Dispensationalists for those whom they consider to be secular humanists or otherwise their opponents.

By contrast, let us look at how the Orthodox Church understands the Incarnation of the Word of God. The best explanation of the attitude of God to the Incarnation is to be found in a very famous icon, the Holy Trinity of St Andrew Rublev. In the icon we see the three angels who visited Abraham on their way to destroy Sodom. They represent the persons of the Holy Trinity. The angels are depicted as having a great dispassion—there is no anger or rage in their faces, only a calm serenity. We see that the head of the angel in the centre and the head of the angel on the right are inclined to the angel on the left. The explanation of this is that the angel on the left represents the Father, whereas the angel in the centre represents the Son (note the band on this angel’s right shoulder, the iconographer’s standard ‘emblem’ of Christ; and the fingers of this angel’s hand set in the priest’s blessing based on the name of Christ) and the angel on the right represents the Holy Spirit (whence the green robes, where green is the colour of the Holy Spirit, Him who gives life). The similarity of the faces of the angels reflects the equality of the persons of the Trinity (except for the relations of generation of the Son and procession of the Spirit). In one standard interpretation of the icon, the icon as a whole portrays the eternal counsel of the Trinity concerning the Incarnation of the Word and all the events that will accompany it, up to and including the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

The Fathers of the Church teach concerning the Incarnation that God became Man so that Man might become God by grace. In the Orthodox Church this is the heart of the Gospel. There is no Reconstructionism in this doctrine, no Premillennial Dispensationalism. The emphasis is on entering into an ever deepening relationship with God through the mysteries or sacraments of the Church to ever become more like the God that became Man for our sake. The Orthodox Church is first and foremost a Trinitarian Church, and the believer’s relationship to God is a relationship with the three persons of the Holy Trinity, each of whom plays a role in the economy of salvation. Of course, it is the Word of God incarnate who has died on the cross. No one who has participated in the Easter Week services would accuse the Orthodox Church of disparaging the importance of the incarnation of the Word and of the death on the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. And it is the Body and Blood of the incarnate Word that we partake of in the Orthodox Church.

Hence, we might find this to be the meaning of Christmas in the heart: it is the love of Christ that is given to us when we communicate the Body and Blood of Christ. Someone said to us after we had received communion this morning on the Eve of Christmas: don’t you celebrate Christmas? We didn’t reply.

Love and Authoritarianism 3

The problematic we wish to address is very difficult: it is the psychology of faith in Orthodoxy and among the Christian right in the United States. The standard Protestant narrative is that all Christians believe in the same God, and that all Christians are motivated by the same Holy Spirit. We are not in a position to pronounce on who has and who has not the Holy Spirit; we do not have such a discernment charism. We therefore wish to approach the matter by examining the psychological differences between Orthodox faith and Christian-right belief through a consideration of the differences between a faith which emphasizes the development of a person who begins to love, and a belief which develops an authoritarian personality structure that enshrines power relations and, ultimately, pride. We apologize for writing so tersely, but we find it very difficult to enter into to the essence of this matter—we are struggling to understand and articulate.

What our hypothesis is, is this. On the Christian right, there is a conversion experience which is inserted into an authoritarian power structure in the pastoral setting. Because this dynamic creates rigidity in the personality without doing anything to purify the passions, the person who has converted to Christianity in this fashion has converted to an ideological belief structure—even if he has had a born-again experience. This is the only way we can understand the anger and rage expressed by devotees of an idol of the Christian right when he is slighted. In other words, where we would expect the evangelical virtues we find anger and rage. We find an attempt to seize worldly power through political means. But anger and quest for power indicates that the person is proud. There is no other analysis of such personal behaviour. But pride is of the Devil and not of Christ, who was meek and lowly of heart.

Love and Authoritarianism 2

To continue from where we left off in the last post, the Conservapedia Biblical scholar (again we are being ironic) should consider the connection between Christ’s ‘Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do,’ and this petition of the Our Father: ‘Forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are indebted to us.’ Also, the parable of the man who owed 100 talents.