Meat-Eating in the Orthodox Church

We have received a request for a post and we would like to respond. This turns out to be our Thanksgiving post. But the question is about the Orthodox attitude to meat-eating. We think the timing is coincidental. But here you have our 2010 Thanksgiving post, those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving today.

The request goes like this, (slightly edited, see the comment on our post New Look for the original text):

I would be interested in reading a post that addresses compassionate diet and its relation to Orthodoxy. To elaborate, over time I have become increasingly concerned with unnecessary animal suffering as a component of human dietary patterns. Of course, this concern presupposes:

that animals are capable of suffering; as may be evident from:

(1a) scientific evidence wherein we can observe biological prerequisites for pain;

(1b) psychological evidence wherein we can observe stress, pain avoidance patterns, etc;

(1c) human-commonality wherein God-image differentiated sentience does not seem to confer an entirely unique mode of suffering (i.e. when I suffer, there is a strong existential analogy to how animals suffer, and as such I should be able to empathize in a real way);

that there is a standard of necessity; ostensibly that:

(2a) necessary suffering either has some teleological good in view (i.e. if I choose to suffer breaking my attachment to meat as a way to reduce animal suffering) or it is unavoidable in the course of mitigating or preventing an even greater suffering;

(2b) pleasure (at least impassioned) is not a teleological good if it is acquired in a manner which causes suffering (sadism?). If the basis of this concern is well-founded, then it seems that there is a good warrant to examine one's own dietary practices.

In addition to the above, I wonder whether a diet which minimizes death and suffering is:

1. prophetic insofar that it points to an eschatological reality where death and suffering are no more (perhaps akin to how celibacy may be prophetic);

2. a way to be more consistently pro-life;

3. part of a compassionate Christianity which is not surpassed by Buddhism's regard for animal life;

4. consistent with a eremitic/monastic precedent (which would seem related to the prophetic aspect at least).

What has to be discussed is Orthodox anthropology in relation to animal suffering and in relation to Buddhist anthropology.

Let us state the obvious. Christianity arises out of the Old Testament and can only be understood in that framework. This is not to say that both the Lord and the Church did not look at the Old Testament in certain ways that are now normative. It is to say that ‘Salvation is from the Jews’, as Our Lord said; that he was a Jew according to the flesh; and that he followed the Mosaic Law.

The basic element of Orthodox anthropology that concerns us is the creation of Man, and the relation of Man to the animals. Man is different from the animals in that God himself fashioned Man from the dust of the earth and breathed into him a breath of life, later taking a rib from Adam from which to fashion Eve. In the case of the animals, God merely gave a command and they were created.

Man was created in the image and likeness of God. The animals were not. There is a disjunction between the nature of Man and the nature of animals.

This is different from Buddhism in that Buddhism treats all sentient beings (‘sentient’ means ‘having sensation’) as being the same sort of thing. In Buddhism there is a continuity between Man and the animals. Indeed Buddhism treats all animals as ‘mothers’ to Man because of the doctrine of reincarnation: all animals were once men and all men were once animals. So there is a very big difference between Orthodox Christian anthropology and Buddhist anthropology.

St Gregory of Nyssa addresses the creation of Man in a work called On the Making of Man. This work was written to finish his brother St Basil the Great’s own work On the Six Days of Creation, interrupted at the creation of Man by Basil’s death.

The interesting thing that St Gregory does in On the Making of Man is combine Aristotelian psychology with the Genesis creation narrative in a way which really seems to foresee the Theory of Evolution. In Aristotelian psychology, there are a number of souls—the plant, the animal and the human—which coexist in Man. We might look at these various souls as functionalities in man. The Vegetative functionality is mere cellular nutrition; the Animal functionality is the sentient experience of one’s environment; the Human functionality is the image of God in Man. Man as the union of body and soul has all these functionalities.

Moreover, according to St Gregory these different souls or functionalities were created by God in stages (the days of creation). The Vegetative soul or functionality was created when the Lord created the plants. The Animal soul or functionality was created when the Lord created the animals. So in On the Making of Man we have the outline of a theory of evolution which treats of the gradual development of vegetative and animal functionalities in the world; and when man is created and given human functionalities, it is on the foundation of these lesser vegetative and animal functionalities which already exist in Creation.

Now the issue that ‘Memory of Death’ is raising revolves around the nature of suffering. Is it merely something that Man has because he has the Human functionality (soul) of the Image of God, or is it something Man shares with the animals as part of his animal functionality?

Clearly, all animals, by definition sentient, can feel pain. No one ever suggested that only Man can feel pain. Moreover, we do not think that anyone would want to insist that animals cannot suffer.

However, in the Old Testament, despite the fact that they can suffer, animals are eaten and sacrificed to God. When Our Lord cleansed the Temple, he did not suggest that sacrificing animals to God was wrong; he was reacting to the avarice of the men buying and selling in the Temple. At no time did Our Lord ever say that we should not eat meat. While he himself is recorded in the Gospel of John only as eating fish (after his resurrection), he attended various meals during his ministry and meat would have been served at those meals. At no time is he recorded as objecting to the meat.

Moreover, Our Lord at no time taught that sacrificing animals was wrong. Indeed, he directed at least one person he healed to show himself to the priest and to make the prescribed sacrifice so as to demonstrate that he was now clean.

Our Lord’s mother and Joseph the Guardian offered the prescribed sacrifice of two young birds when Our Lord was presented in the Temple on the 40^th day after his birth.

Moreover, Our Lord, as a devout Jew, would have eaten the Passover lamb every year.  The Mosaic Law is clear that anyone who does not eat the Passover lamb is to be cut off from the Jewish people.  Clearly, if Jesus was not keeping the Passover, that would have been one of the charges against him in his trial.

(We are referring to the sacrifice of animals not in relation to Thanksgiving but to discuss Our Lord’s attitude to animals. Thanksgiving is a secular feast having its roots in Puritan culture in early America; it has nothing to do with Orthodoxy.)

In the New Testament, it is evident that some Christians (including, we believe, St James the Brother of the Lord) ate only vegetables. In the Apostolic Council at Jerusalem where St James was present, the Gentile converts to Christianity were exempted from the ritual provisions of the Mosaic law except that they were not to eat blood or animals that had been strangled (both things forbidden in the Mosaic law). Clearly, meat-eating was permitted.

In Acts St Peter was shown a vision of a sheet held up by its four corners that was full of all the animals of the earth and told to eat of all of them. He at first refused, saying that he had never eaten anything unclean, but God insisted. Hence, God explicitly allowed the eating not only of animals but of animals that Jews had previously considered unclean.

In his Epistles St Paul legislates that meat-eating is acceptable. He makes some points: we should not eat meat that we know is sacrificed to idols (although we can eat meat sold in the market without raising questions on the grounds of conscience if we do not know if the meat was sacrificed to an idol); we should not have disputes between those who eat only vegetables and those who eat meat: St Paul would rather not ever eat meat than cause scandal to a brother who eats only vegetables. Hence, St Paul has no problem with meat-eating but he also has no problem with people who are vegetarian. He thinks that the issues are elsewhere.

It should be clear from the above that there can be no dogmatic basis in Christianity for a ban on meat-eating.

Some points.

1. From the beginning, being vegetarian was acceptable—but as a personal choice, not as a dogmatic position.
2. Monks in the Orthodox Church do not normally eat meat. This derives from 4^th Century Egypt. We don’t really recall a long explanation of why. If there is a prophetic or eschatological element in this, it is not emphasized. Moreover, in cases of serious illness monks are served meat.
3. If an Orthodox Christian follows the fast rules of the Church, he will not eat that much meat. This is good from the point of view of the person’s health since a high-meat diet is dangerous from a medical point of view. The fast rules of the Church are based on the Mediterranean Diet, which is considered beneficial.

(The situation among the religious in the Roman Catholic Church is somewhat more ambiguous: the older orders with deeper roots in Egyptian monasticism do not ordinarily eat meat. The Cistercians come to mind. However newer orders which are not really monastic, such as the Jesuits, do eat meat.)

Now given that animals do suffer, should a Christian take this into account? We would imagine that a Christian would want to slaughter an animal with the least suffering simply on the basis of being a human being with a conscience. But we have never heard of the Bishops of the Church occupying themselves with slaughter-house practices.

It is true that industrial meat-raising—such as of pigs or chickens in sheds—is terrible from two points of view. First the animals are treated as commodities or machines, so they presumably suffer. Second, they are filled with all kinds of drugs and chemicals and whatever to get them ready as fast as possible for slaughter at a good price, and the food these animals are provided is an unnatural concoction. Apart from any issue of compassion for sentient beings, this makes the meat potentially dangerous for human consumption. But it is a long way to go from finding these practices distasteful to reaching a dogmatic position on meat-eating.

It should also be pointed out that although Buddhist anthropology makes the human nature continuous with the animal nature, Buddhist norms on meat-eating are by no means consistent across all forms of Buddhism. The Dalai Lama, for example eats meat, by all accounts with a good appetite. Only some schools of Mahayana Buddhism absolutely forbid the eating of meat. Hence, trying to accommodate Orthodox Christianity to Buddhist compassion for all sentient beings is to follow a will-o’-the-wisp.

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers!

–Orthodox Monk

New Look

We decided to use labels on the blog. That forced us to upgrade the template, and to a new design.  It’s not bad.  We’ve tried to bring the labels up to date.

The Gift of Tongues

We have received an email from a man in Brazil who wishes to learn how the Orthodox Church views the gift of tongues as practised among the Pentecostalists of the ‘Assemblies of God’.  The Assemblies of God is a classical Pentecostalist church that derives from the Azusa Street Revival of the early 20^th Century in Los Angeles.  This is the church that in Wasilla Sarah Palin grew up in and was re-baptized in (she has since changed churches without publicly renouncing any of her beliefs).  However, Palin’s particular Assemblies of God church in Wasilla evidently taught a doctrine that was condemned by the majority of other Assemblies of God churches in the late 1940’s.

We have already discussed Pentecostalism a number of times.  In our post called Pentecostalism and the Jesus Prayer, we made some remarks on the contrast between the operation of the charisms among Orthodox saints and among the Pentecostalists.  We received two comments, which we printed on the post, and exchanged emails with the persons making the comments.  In those comments a variety of issues were raised, to which we responded in another post called Ecclesiological Dimensions in the Pentecostalist Practice of the Jesus Prayer.  So this is a third time in recent history that we are addressing Pentecostalism and Orthodoxy.

Here is the man’s email.  Since he is clearly a non-native speaker of English, we have had to edit his text.  We have appended his original text as a footnote.  We have changed his name both in the text and in the footnote.  The name he gives in the text does not in any event agree with the name on his email address, so it is not even clear to us that the name he provides in his email is in fact the man’s real name.

Hello,

My name is Alphonso Luis Borges and I am a Pentecostal Christian, currently attending the church called the ‘Assemblies of God’ located in Brazil.

My question is about the ‘Gift of Tongues’.

The Pentecostal gift of tongues is the ability to speak languages and/or dialects.  These dialects may be known, unknown or so-called dialects of angels.

I grew up with and lived with this phenomenon for 30 years.  I recently met a friend who is Orthodox Christian and he told me the gift of tongues is not the ability to ‘speak new languages’.

From what he told me that I could understand, the gift of tongues happens silently in the heart of every Son of God and when this person has the gift of interpreting languages, he can then through the voice build up the Church (people) with prophecies, teachings and so on.

I would humbly ask that you explain to me what then is the ‘Gift of Tongues’ in the tradition of the Greek Orthodox Church.

Hugs.[1]

First of all, let us look at what Alphonso thinks his friend is telling him about the gift of tongues in the Orthodox Church.  Now we frankly are not clear what Alphonso means or what his Orthodox friend actually told him.  It appears to us that what was said by the Orthodox friend is that through assiduous practice, the Jesus Prayer becomes automatic, repeated in the heart.[2]  Then through further grace, the practitioner of the Jesus Prayer is given the gifts of the word and prophecy in order to edify the church.  This would be the condition of an Elder of the Orthodox Church.[3]  So what appears to us to be meant is the known progression by means of the Jesus Prayer, say among the Elders on Mt Athos, or at Optina in the 19^th Century, of the monk from beginner through to the condition of Elder.  Examples would be the Elders of Mt. Athos or Optina or, most notably, St Seraphim of Sarov.  It should be noted that a monk proceeding on this road normally has an Elder to guide him.

If this is what Alphonso’s Orthodox friend means, we have no problem with any of it.  This is a well-known progression.  The only caveat that we have is that not everyone on Mt Athos is an Elder, and not everyone at Optina was an Elder or Staretz (Russian for Elder), and not everyone at Sarov was a Saint.

Next, we emphasized the historical background of the origin of the Assemblies of God about 100 years ago to emphasize the difference between such a new and young church and the Orthodox Church.

Next, we have to look at how the Orthodox Church looks at the spiritual life, the charisms and in particular the Holy Spirit.  We have discussed much of this in other posts, but we think it important to repeat all of this material in one place for Alphonso.

The Orthodox Church teaches us that we receive the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Baptism.  This Baptism cleanses the nous or innermost soul of the person from the Devil and from all demons and demonic influences.  Baptism then grants the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the innermost soul of the person.  This indwelling of the Holy Spirit is lost only in cases of denial of Christ—if we join another religion for example.  In the Orthodox Church, Chrismation—anointing with specially blessed oil—corresponds to the laying on of hands for the reception of the Holy Spirit that the Apostles did after they baptized converts.  In the Orthodox Church Chrismation occurs right after Baptism, at the same time.  Since the person has in Baptism received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, this laying on of hands or Chrismation is for the reception of the Holy Spirit in the way the Apostles received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost and through the laying on of hands subsequently transmitted it to others who were baptized; it is for the reception of the power and charisms of the Holy Spirit.

Even if after your Orthodox Baptism you commit murder, you do not lose the Holy Spirit—you are in bad shape but you are still Orthodox and can still repent and still go to confession and still ultimately receive communion and be saved.  But if you deny Christ, say by becoming a Buddhist—even without doing anything bad like killing someone—you have lost the Holy Spirit.  You are no longer Christian.  You cannot merely go to confession.  What happens in these cases, and only in these cases, is that the person is received back into the Church through a second Chrismation.  Normally he or she is not allowed to receive communion until he or she is on his or her death bed.

Since the Orthodox Church practises infant baptism and Orthodox receive the Holy Spirit in Baptism, all Orthodox have the Holy Spirit.  But clearly not all Orthodox are Elders.  There’s more to it.

Now it has to be understood that the interpretation of the laying on of hands for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit as implying the ability to speak in tongues in the way Pentecostalists speak in tongues today derives from Protestant experiences in 19^th Century England, Wales and the United States.  There was no such doctrine or practice before that.  There are certainly episodes of speaking in tongues in the Acts of the Apostles and in the Epistles of Paul, but it is not obvious that the same thing is being referred to.

Let us look at Acts.  On the day of Pentecost, Scripture records that the Apostles were praising God and that the Jews who came at the sound of the mighty wind heard the Apostles praising God each in his own language, which were all the languages under Heaven because the Jews had come from everywhere.  Elder Porphyrios (1906 – 1991) interprets this to mean that although the Apostles were speaking in Hebrew, through the Grace of the Holy Spirit each of their listeners heard them in his own language.  Peter speaks Hebrew; Solomon from Persia hears him in Persian; Barnabas from Cyprus hears him in Greek.

In the Orthodox Church, it is recorded that St Ephraim the Syrian visited St Basil the Great (4th Century) and the two communicated by this means: each spoke his own language and the other understood.

In the actual life of Elder Porphyrios, it is recorded that an atheist French woman visited him in Greece and the two communicated in this way: Elder Porphyrios spoke Greek; the woman spoke French; and the two understood each other.  The French woman was later received into the Orthodox Church.  She is, as far as we know, still alive.  This event would have occurred within the last 50 years.

Now in the Epistles of Paul it is recorded that a person might speak a new or even angelic language.  However, the question arises, did a Church service that St Paul attended sound like an Assemblies of God service today?  We really do not have any way to know.  There is simply not enough information for us to judge.

However, there is no recorded case that we are aware of that following voluntary Orthodox Baptism and Chrismation of an adult, that person spoke in tongues in the way people who have been ‘baptized in the Spirit’ do in the Assemblies of God or any other Pentecostalist or charismatic church or group.  It just doesn’t happen in the Orthodox Church.  Moreover, practice on Mt Athos, that beacon of discernment, is to receive members of the Orthodox Church who convert to Pentecostalism with rebaptism by the Pentecostalists and who then return to the Orthodox Church—to receive them back into the Orthodox Church by Chrismation after certain other prayers.

Hence, it is quite clear that there is no tradition in the Orthodox Church of speaking in tongues in the way that it is done in the Assemblies of God.

Now the question arises of charisms in the Orthodox Church.  Here there are two points to make.  St John Chrysostom (died 5^th Century) discusses the question of the cessation of the charisms.  We do not recall exactly what his answer was; our point is that the growing rarity of the charisms was already an issue then.

In the Orthodox Church, great Elders and great Saints do exercise the charisms of the Holy Spirit.  Great miracle workers and healers and prophets who come to mind are St Seraphim of Sarov (died early 19th Century), St John Kronstadt (died early 20^th Century), Elder Paisios (1924 – 1994) and Elder Porphyrios (1906 – 1991).  There are many others.  However, what characterizes all these great healers and miracle workers and prophets in the Orthodox Church is that before they either received the charisms or publicly exercised them they went through the preparation of a long and arduous asceticism so that they might be spiritually cleansed from their tendencies to sin.  Such Elders and Saints are characterized by great personal holiness.  Such Elders and Saints are also characterized by their rareness.

This is different from Pentecostalist circles where the charisms are acquired quickly (sometimes it seems that all it takes is to go to a revival).  The charisms are also quite common (how many persons are claiming to be Apostles and Prophets today?).  These charisms are exercised quickly after their reception (no preparation for a public ministry). These charisms are often exercised by persons who might not only lack distinction for their holiness but might even be involved in serious sin.  There’s nothing odder than a great miracle worker who gets a divorce on account of his adultery.

What Alphonso has to understand is that Orthodoxy is a completely different road from the Assemblies of God.

---

[1] Hello

My name is Alphonso Luis Borges and I am a Pentecostal Christian, currently has attended the church called the Assemblies of God located in Brazil.

My question is about the "Gift of Tongues."

In designing the Pentecostal gift of tongues is the ability to speak languages and / or dialects known (these dialects may be known, unknown or so-called dialects of angels).

I grew up and lived for 30 years this phenomenon has recently met a friend who is Orthodox Christian, and he told me the gift of tongues is not the ability to "speak new languages."

From what he told me and I could understand, the gift of tongues happens silently in the heart of every Son of God and when this person has the gift of interpreting languages, can then through the voice  build up the Church (people) with prophecies, teachings and so on .

I would humbly that you explain to me what then is the "Gift of Tongues" in the tradition of the Greek Orthodox Church.

Hugs.

[2] The reader can find much material in the early posts on the Jesus Prayer.

[3] An Elder is a senior monk in the Orthodox Church, one distinguished by his gifts of clairvoyance and prophecy.  We have various posts on the blog that discuss Elders.

September 14 Elevation of the Holy Cross

The Elevation of the Holy Cross is the first feast of the Master in the ecclesiastical year.

Let us begin with the Synaxarion.  The Synaxarion records the vision of St Constantine the Great, Equal to the Apostles, before the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312.  St Constantine had a vision of a cross above the sun in the midday sky and around the cross a legend in Greek, ‘In this sign conquer’.  St Constantine had a standard made according to the vision, which standard led his troops into the battle.  St Constantine’s troops won a decisive victory.

Subsequent to this, St Constantine’s mother, St Helen went to Jerusalem to find the Cross of Christ.  She found the Cross and also the crosses of the two thieves who were crucified with Christ, but only the Cross of Christ did a miracle, raising an old widow from the dead, and so the thieves’ crosses were discarded.  St Helen and her retinue venerated the Holy Cross.  The Christian population of Jerusalem also wished to venerate the Cross but were unable to because of their number. Therefore the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Makarios, standing in the pulpit raised the Cross up with his two hands before the people, who responded by repeatedly chanting ‘Lord have mercy’.  Since then the elevation of the Holy Cross has been celebrated every year in the Orthodox Church.  Part of the Cross was brought to Constantinople, along with nails of the Crucifixion, while part of the Cross remained in Jerusalem.

St Constantine granted toleration to Christianity in 313 by the Edict of Milan and St Constantine himself certainly favoured Christianity but it was Theodosius the Great who made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire, in 380. The Byzantine Empire was a Christian empire, indeed an Orthodox Christian empire, until it fell in 1453.  Similarly the Russian Empire was an Orthodox Christian empire until it was overthrown in 1917.

In 614 the Zoroastrian Persians sacked Jerusalem taking the Cross as booty.  The Persians then ransomed the Cross back to the Greeks.  (In those days there was no reason to destroy someone else’s relic—it was worth money.)  Then in 628 Heraclius invaded Persia and achieved victory.  When he returned to Constantinople he had the Cross raised before the people in the main church of St Sophia the way it had been raised in Jerusalem three hundred years before.

This historical background helps us to understand the Apolytikion and the Kontakion of the feast:

Save, O Lord, your people and bless your inheritance, granting victories to the Kings against barbarians and guarding your nation by means of your Cross.

                                       (Apolytikion of the feast.)

O Christ God, you who have voluntarily been raised on the Cross, grant your mercies to the society called by your name.  Make our faithful Kings glad in your power, dispensing to them victories against the enemies.  May they have your alliance in battle, which alliance is the weapon of peace and the unconquerable standard.

                                       (Kontakion of the feast.)

Let us now look at the deeper meaning of the feast on the basis of a number of hymns from the service.

When you were raised on the Cross, O Master, you raised together with yourself all the fallen nature in Adam.  Therefore raising up your spotless Cross, O Lover of Mankind, we ask for your power from on high, crying: ‘Save us, O Most High, showing mercy as God to those who honour the reverend and light-bearing elevation of your divine Cross.’

                                       (At Lord have I cried in Small Vespers.)

As we can see, the Church does not lose sight of the central mystery of the Christian religion: when Christ was raised on the Cross, all of Man’s fallen nature was raised with him.  In what sense did Christ raise with him on the Cross all of Man’s fallen nature in Adam?  In two senses.  First Christ died for our sins—for the sins of all men.  Salvation is open to all men and women without exception.  No one is predestined to damnation.  There is a second sense, however, in which on the Cross Christ raises the fallen nature of Adam.  As we have learned from the Gnostic Chapters of St Diadochos of Photiki, Baptism restores the image of God in us, cleansing us from all sin and all influence of the Devil in our innermost self, and granting us in our innermost self the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  It is of course for us after our Baptism to work with the Holy Spirit to restore in ourselves the likeness to God.  As St Paul puts it, if we have died with Christ in Baptism we shall surely share in his Resurrection.  Here is how the service puts it:

The Cross when it is raised calls the whole creation to praise the spotless passion of him who was raised on the Cross.  For he revived and beautified those who in the Cross kill the one who kills us, those who had been put to death; and as compassionate because of exceeding goodness he made us worthy to live a life in Heaven.  Whence, having rejoiced, let us elevate his name and magnify his extreme condescension.

                                       (At Lord have I cried in Great Vespers.)

September 8 Birth of Our Exceedingly Holy Mistress, She who Gave Birth to God

The first major feast of the ecclesiastical year, which begins on September 1, is the Birth of Our Exceedingly Holy Mistress, She who Gave Birth to God.

The most concise explanation of this feast is found in this hymn, attributed to Sergius, chanted in Vespers of the Feast:

Today God who abides in the heavenly thrones has prepared for himself a holy throne upon the earth.  He who in wisdom established the Heavens has in love for mankind created a heaven with a living, rational soul.  For from a barren root he has made to grow for us a life-bearing plant, his Mother.  O God of the wonders and hope of the hopeless, glory to you!

God who abides in the highest order of angels, who gaze on him through the Word of God, has for the sake of his Incarnation prepared for himself a holy throne upon the earth.  God who with wisdom established the Heavens with their multifarious stars and constellations has in love for mankind stooped to create a new heaven upon the earth, a heaven that will contain his Son, the Word of God.  And that new Heaven has a living, rational soul: that new Heaven is a person like us, Mariam, the daughter of sterile Ann and her husband the blessed Joachim.  The daughter of the sterile woman gives birth in virginity to the Word of God made flesh.  O God of wonders and hope of the hopeless, glory to you, who have loved mankind which remained in despair after the fall of Adam and Eve.

Blog Post 250

We noticed both that we were completing our 5th Anniversary as ‘Orthodox Monk’ and that our next post would be No 250.  So we thought we would take the opportunity to make a few brief ‘looking-back’ remarks.

We have written an average of approximately 1 post a week for 5 years.  The number of words in the collected posts is around 300,000.  That’s a lot of words.

Readers come and go.  Some readers ‘sign up’ for a period of time and then drop the blog, evidently moving on to something else.  That is normal.

Many people come to the blog from a Google search on becoming an Orthodox monk or nun, perhaps after having been divorced.  We are rather surprised at the level of interest in becoming an Orthodox monastic.  We have written specific posts on those subjects and those posts show up in the Google searches so there is no need to repeat the links.  We would like to emphasize, however, that the blog was always conceived not as a running forum that discusses the issues of the day and then moves on, but as a place where we set down for permanent reference our considered thoughts on topics with which this blog is concerned.  We therefore encourage all our readers, if our views interest them, to make the effort to go back to the beginning of the blog and read it in ascending chronological order.  An alternative would be for readers to use the search field at the top of the blog to search it on a topic that interests them.  As readers can see, we are not a fan of ‘tags’ and don’t use them.

Would we do anything over again if we could?  Our biggest mistake has been to engage in private email correspondences.  We should have established a policy from the beginning that emails would be answered only on the blog, with full or partial quotation of the email at our discretion.  Of course if someone sends us an email marked ‘not for publication’, we will respect that—but we will not engage in an email correspondence except to send our email policy.  We have put the email policy in the margin of the blog.

Because this is not a forum, it is not automatic that we will want to discuss your email.  We have to think after prayer that there is reason to.  The same applies to comments.  If you just want to argue, there are a lot of blogs and forums that love ‘vigorous discussion’.  This isn’t one of them.  We also like vigorous discussion but the discussion has to be both literate and substantive from the point of view of how we conceive the blog.

Are we literate?  Yes.  Are we holy?  No.  We are sometimes quite sharp with our correspondents, at the risk of wounding their pride.  There is a fine line between using scorn to bring someone to his senses—sometimes only when you are publicly laughed at do you realize you are wrong—and using scorn out of pride and arrogance.  If we do use scorn it is, we hope, as a rhetorical device.  We would like to think that the underlying tone we have established on the blog is one of Christian charity and courtesy.

All our positions are rationally defended.  Is this a sign of the Holy Spirit’s absence?  We do not claim to have the Holy Spirit except by Baptism and Chrismation but we also do not think that the presence of the Holy Spirit is necessarily characterized by incoherence.  Moreover, sometimes there is a problem when we have to stand up for what we think is right and the other guy or gal disagrees.

Let’s see how the future will go.

Ecclesiological Dimensions in the Pentecostalist Practice of the Jesus Prayer

In our post called Pentecostalism and the Jesus Prayer, we made some remarks on the contrast between the operation of the charisms among Orthodox saints and among the Pentecostalists.  We received two comments, which we printed on the post, and exchanged emails with the persons making the comments.  In those comments a variety of issues were raised.

Before we turn to the comments, however, we would like to make a general remark about the study of Pentecostalism, especially in the United States.  We have been reading

R. Holvast: Spiritual Mapping: The Turbulent Career of a Contested American Missionary Paradigm, 1989-2005

This is the PhD dissertation of Mr. Holvast, who is a member of the Evangelical Church and formerly a missionary in Mali.  The dissertation is not hard to read.  It can be downloaded free by clicking on the title above.

‘Spiritual Mapping’ is a practice among certain Pentecostalists first of identifying ‘territorial demons’ that are preventing the spread of the Gospel in a region and then of attacking those demons in power through prayer and even through anointing whole towns with blessed oil.  Names associated with the practice include Ted Haggard, formerly of the New Life Church and now of St James Church, both in Colorado Springs; Reverend Muthee; and Sarah Palin—perhaps indirectly through others who practise a prayer ministry of spiritual warfare.  Also associated with this practice is the notion that what is involved when these ‘territorial demons’ are attacked is not only the spread of the Gospel but also the Christianization of all aspects of society, including government.  This is a doctrine usually known as Dominionism.  There is a great emphasis in this practice on relations of power.

Now Spiritual Mapping does not seem to be what is in play, at least obviously, at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City.  We will see what is in play, at least in part, below.  However, Mr. Horvast’s dissertation has historical information on the various contemporary Pentecostalist currents and their interconnections.  Since American Pentecostalism is a very complex phenomenon, the historical information in the dissertation is illuminating.

Before we begin we also have to discuss a related concept.  This is the restoration of the five-fold ministry to the Church.  This five-fold ministry derives from Ephesians 4, 11 where the five ministries are listed as: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers.  The Pentecostalists who believe in the restoration of the five-fold ministry literally mean that today God is through his Holy Spirit raising up Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers in the Church to prepare the Church for the End Times.  These charismatic ministers of the Church are thought to have divine authority over the Church of Christ.  This is particularly true of the Apostles and Prophets.

We cannot emphasize strongly enough that the doctrine is that just as the Apostle Peter was an Apostle, and the Apostle Paul, so today—not yesterday—there are Apostles in the Church raised up by God.  And these Apostles have authority from God to rule the Church.

Similarly, just as in Acts of the Apostles a prophet named Agabus bound Paul’s hands with his belt before Paul went up to Jerusalem prophesying that the Jews there would bind Paul’s hands in a similar way, so today—not yesterday—there are prophets of equal or perhaps even greater power in the Church of Christ.

Now an obvious question arises: what is the Church that these Apostles and Prophets have divine authority over?  Here we have to understand the ecclesiology[1] that underlies this doctrine.

The ecclesiology involved derives from the Protestant Reformation.  It teaches that the Church is an invisible, spiritual reality that is comprised of all the believers in Christ.  According to this theory the Church is not confined to any one denomination and is certainly not to be identified with either the Orthodox Church or the Roman Catholic Church.  Now we are a little uncertain whether this invisible Church is comprised only of all born-again believers in Christ, or merely of all people who think they believe in Christ even if they do not consider themselves born again.  Perhaps this is a doctrine that varies among the various Protestant groups.  Moreover, it is not at all clear whether Baptism (of whatever kind) is considered to be a criterion for membership in this invisible Church.  Some Evangelical and Pentecostalist groups give primacy not to Baptism but to the born-again experience or even to the Baptism in the Holy Spirit as the criterion for membership in the invisible Church.

The Orthodox Church formally believes that it is the Church instituted by Jesus Christ.  That is different from what these people believe.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the true Church founded by Jesus Christ subsists in the Roman Catholic Church, whose head is the Pope.  That is different from what these people believe.

So we have a situation where a number of Pentecostalists believe that God has anointed them Apostles over the whole Church, which is comprised of the totality of all (born-again) believers in Christ, whether these believers recognize the Apostles’ authority or not.

Similarly for Prophets.  Certain prophets believe that they have prophetic authority over the whole Church, whether the Church’s members believe it or not.

That is what we understand to be the substance of the doctrine of the restoration of the five-fold ministry to the Church in these End Times.

It should be obvious from what we have said above that the Pentecostalists, especially those who subscribe to the theory of the restoration of the five-fold ministry, have a completely different theory of the Church than the Orthodox Church does.  Let us suppose that you believe in the restoration of the five-fold ministry.  If you believe that there are Apostles anointed by God walking the earth today who have genuine apostolic authority over the whole Church, how can you believe what the Orthodox Church believes?  For the Orthodox Church believes that that apostolic authority resides in the Orthodox bishops, especially in council.  Your divinely anointed Pentecostalist Apostles are not going to accept the authority of the Orthodox Bishops in council, and the Orthodox bishops in council are not going to accept the authority of your divinely anointed Pentecostalist Apostles.  So the Pentecostalist Apostles and the Orthodox bishops can’t both be right.  Someone has to be wrong.  Otherwise, it’s a matter of a house divided that cannot stand, as Jesus himself teaches in the Gospel.

Moreover, we imagine that the Roman Catholic Church might be surprised to hear that it is under the authority of divinely ordained Apostles who have nothing to do with the Pope.  Of course, the divinely ordained Pentecostalist Apostles don’t believe that the Roman Catholic Church has anything to do with God, so that might explain things.

Let us turn to the first comment, from Mr. Oystein Lid.  (We should point out that we have edited all comments and other material quoted for clarity and style.  The originals of the comments can be found in the original post.  In the case of other material we are quoting after editing, the original material is posted here in a footnote.)

Since I am a convert to orthodoxy from Pentecostalism (charismatic, third wave, Benny Hinn-style, Kenneth Hagin-style; however, not so much International House Of Prayer, Joel's Army, prophetic, Lakeland, Toronto-style) this topic very much interests me. Perhaps particularly what you write regarding the charismatic gifts as acquired after years of ascetic practice vs. the microwave, quick-fix, instant-anointing Pentecostal approach.  But in the years since I converted I have never really heard a good Orthodox exegesis of these key Bible verses which Pentecostals use as a foundation for their "restoration movement":

Mark 16, 17 – 18:

17 And these signs shall follow them that believe.  In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; 18 They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

In this passage Christ does not appear to limit the gift of healing to the specialists, does he? While the following Old Testament prophecy does not deal with the gift of healing specifically, there does seem to be an indication of a release of charismatic gifts to all, not only to those who lived on vegetables for 30 years.

Joel 2, 28 – 29:

28 And it shall come to pass afterward, [that] I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions.  29 And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit.

Hence, the name “Joel's Army,”[2] by the way.

Another key passage for us charismatics back in the old days was this passage in John:

John 14, 12 – 14:

12 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater [works] than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father.  13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do [it].

Is it not the case that the Orthodox Church recognizes many lay-saints who also possess(ed) the gift of healing?  An example here in Norway is the king-saint Olav. His vita (taken from the Orthodox Church in Norway's website) says among other things that:

St. Olav was not an ascetic saint [but a layman] who lived a virtuous life in piety and purity. His religiosity needed a long time to mature. ... When he travelled to Russia he let his Christian faith develop. There it became apparent that he possessed the gift of healing the sick, among others the blind son of Ingegjerd, Vladimir.

Another issue of course is that in Christianity great wonders and signs come second to the all-encompassing commandment of love. As Saint Paul reminds us in 1 Cor. 13, 2:

And though I have [the gift of] prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.

I am reminded here of St Silouan’s[3] praise of his father (non-monastic, but an Elder) a family man. "He never got angry, was always even-tempered and humble." "I have never reached my father’s stature" St. Silouan[4] said.

Is it therefore not also possible for laypeople to attain to a likeness to Christ and a higher level of spirituality while living in the world?

Let us look at what Mr. Lid is saying.  Let us look first at his request for exegesis of the prophetic passages about the descent of the Holy Spirit.

In evaluating the interpretation of the Scriptural passages that Mr. Lid brings forward, we have to consider the ecclesiological framework of the person giving the interpretation.  In other words, if you are a devout member of the Orthodox Church, you are going to read those Scriptural passages in the context of the Orthodox Church’s understanding of itself.  If you are a Pentecostalist, you are going to read those Scriptural passages in accordance with your own understanding of the nature of the Church.

And this is the basic issue in the interpretation of those passages.

Let us put it a little more clearly.  The Orthodox Church believes that Scripture belongs to the Orthodox Church.  The Orthodox Church has been on the face of the earth since the time of the first Pentecost 50 days after the Resurrection of Christ.  The Orthodox Church both wrote the New Testament and interprets it, also interpreting the prophecies of the Old Testament.

The signs that Our Lord speaks of in the passage from Matthew inhere in the Orthodox Church, not in individual believers outside the Orthodox Church.

In the second passage the eschatological outpouring of the Holy Spirit prophesied in Joel, for us, refers to the outpouring on Pentecost on the believers in Jesus, which outpouring formed the Orthodox Church.  All Orthodox receive the Holy Spirit in their Baptism and Chrismation.  Their Baptism renews them in Christ.  Their Baptism is the foundation of any spiritual life in Christ until they die.

Now the next Scriptural passage quoted, from the Gospel of John, concerns the greater works that a believer shall do.  The Orthodox Church, as we understand it, considers that this passage is indeed true but that it has to be understood in an Orthodox context.

Moreover, in assessing the significance of this Scriptural passage for the modern-day Pentecostalist movement, one has to balance it with the other passages of the New Testament that speak of false prophets.  Merely doing great works in the name of Christ doesn’t necessarily mean you’re from God—even if you do greater works than the works done by Christ himself.  Keeping the commandments of Christ and being a member of the Orthodox Church who believes what the Orthodox Church believes means you’re from God.

There are a number of passages of the Gospel that speak of false prophets, especially in the End Times.  The basic criterion for judging whether someone is a false or true prophet is by his fruits.  The same thing for miracle workers.  Are they keeping the commandments of Christ?

Moreover, the Sermon on the Mount is crystal clear.  Many will in the Day of Judgement say to Jesus that they did many mighty prophetic and charismatic works in his name and Jesus will say to them that he never knew them, sending them to Hell.  Jesus then goes on to say that he who builds his life on the commandments of the Gospel will be great in the Kingdom of Heaven, but that he who does not—whether or not he has done great prophetic or charismatic works—will be least in the Kingdom of Heaven.  Nothing could be clearer.

Now the issue arises of the layman and the charismatic gifts in the Orthodox Church.  It is indeed true dogmatically that the charismatic gifts are in no way limited to monks.  What we wanted to do in the original post  was to emphasize the contrast between the rarity and difficulty in the Orthodox Church of finding authentic charismatic gifts, and the ease with which the charismatic gifts are exercised among Pentecostalists.  In this, see below, where we see a living example.

Even in the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, there are passages which indicate that laypeople can exceed monks in sanctity.  Looking at our self, a monk, we can easily see that this is true.  The most famous example of the holy layman is the cobbler in Alexandria who was revealed by God to St. Anthony as exceeding St. Anthony in holiness.  So there is no problem with Saint Olaf.

Now let us turn to the second comment, from Seafra:

I would like to put some input into the discussion if I may.  The International House of Prayer (IHOP) is itself an inter-denominational center.  We have Anglicans, Catholics, Baptists and people from a variety of many other backgrounds.  In the early stages of IHOP there was a leader affiliated with the “latter rain movement” who tried to plant the “sons of God” heresy.  There was much trouble and he left but many people still seem to connect him to the center. Now talking about IHOP can be tricky because it is really only a prayer room.  However, as the IHOP prayer room grew a community church formed. As for our worship, it really does vary.  There is a lot of charismatic and contemporary music but hymns are also done and sometimes instrumental solos.   Now “IHOP” is a very broad label because there are many ministries that have been started by IHOP.  However common to all members of the leadership of IHOP is a belief in the five-fold ministry with the proviso that any believer can be used by God to operate in any situation.  Personally I am here to learn the model as I will be planting houses of prayer in Ireland.  However, I also plan to have more of an Orthodox focus.  I noticed that you have frequently referred to Orthodox monks; however my studies have shown me that all are able to pray the Jesus prayer.  At IHOP there is actually a strong emphasis on contemplative prayer.  In my understanding the Jesus Prayer is Orthodoxy’s primary form of contemplative prayer and since I am considering converting I naturally wanted to learn more about it. There are various books in our library here but they largely focus[5] on the Desert Fathers and the Church mystics from Catholicism so I wanted to obtain more instruction from an Orthodox point of view. That is my primary reason for seeking your help.  I realize that IHOP has a peculiar reputation and I’m in no way trying to defend it.  However, I do believe in IHOP’s mission of night and day prayer and I believe a model can be constructed that would actually make Orthodoxy more noticed in the west.

Now we are going to quote a passage from a second comment from Seafra:

Scripture teaches that every believer can operate in any gift but are for God’s own purpose more prominent in a certain gift. I have prophesied over complete strangers and told them their childhood; I have prayed over a comatose [woman] on her deathbed and saw her dancing two days later, but my primary gift is as an evangelist.[6]

We didn’t print the comment on the original post in accordance with one of Seafra’s emails to us:

Oops, could you ignore my second post.  I am doing this on my phone and misread what the other poster said.  Thanks also for informing me.  I believe you are referring to the Jesus prayer prayed with breath control and all the other techniques, correct?  But isn't there a way that laymen are encouraged to pray?   Also the Greek church I have been attending said the general thought is that if you are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit you do indeed have the Holy Spirit—but you’re saying otherwise.  Any reason for the contradiction?[7]

First of all, let us point out that Seafra, judging from his photograph, is in his early twenties.  He has already “prophesied over complete strangers and told them their childhood; … prayed over a comatose [woman] on her deathbed and saw her dancing two days later.”  However, his “primary gift is as an evangelist”.  We take this to mean that Seafra has the divinely ordained ministry of Evangelist just like in the Acts of the Apostles, in accordance with the doctrine of the restoration of the five-fold ministry to the Church in the End Times—one of the ministries is Evangelist.

Now, frankly, if Seafra is a divinely anointed Evangelist who does these things, what does he need us for?  We’ve been an Orthodox monk for a long time.  We can’t do any of them. We suspect that Seafra has also raised people from the dead.  Really.  We’re not being sarcastic. He’s just too modest to admit it. 

Here’s the problem.  We have a situation in which a layman in his twenties has got involved with the Pentecostalists and now does miracles.  In the Orthodox Church, as we put it, St Seraphim of Sarov “… spends decades in the wilderness silently praying the Jesus Prayer as a hermit keeping a vow of complete and utter silence and living only on snits, a local weed, before by revelation he returns to the world as a great prophet and miracle worker.”  In the Orthodox Church, even if we suppose that a layman is going to do miracles we should be very surprised if it were without a decades-long period of ascesis of some sort.

Now, our miracle-working Evangelist in his twenties who as far as we can tell has no experience of Orthodox monasticism on the one hand is interested in joining the Orthodox Church and on the other hand wishes to go to Ireland to plant houses of Prayer modelled on the Pentecostalist International House of Prayer, where there are Anglicans, Catholics, Baptists and people from a variety of many other backgrounds living and praying in inter-denominational harmony.  And there, it appears, he wants to teach the Jesus Prayer.

Moreover, he says, “The Greek [Orthodox] church I have been attending said the general thought is that if you are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit you do indeed have the Holy Spirit.”  So evidently the Orthodox Church has agreed with Seafra that Seafra has the Holy Spirit—so that Seafra must indeed be a miracle-working divinely ordained Evangelist just like it says in the Acts of the Apostles.  Presumably, since it’s the Holy Spirit that’s acting, it would be acceptable to the Orthodox Church once Seafra became a member for Seafra to go to Ireland to establish the inter-denominational Pentecostalist Houses of Prayer that he intends to establish there.  Evidently it would also be acceptable to the Orthodox Church for Seafra to teach the Jesus Prayer in those Houses of Prayer as part of his divinely anointed ministry of Evangelist.

It is in this context that Seafra wishes to learn about Hesychasm.

If Seafra has the Holy Spirit, he doesn’t need Hesychasm.  He needs someone to write his biography for the Lives of the Saints.

Hesychasm is for sinners who want to repent.

St. Diadochos of Photiki gives a very good explanation of the practice of the Jesus Prayer by the baptized Orthodox.  We refer all our readers to our translation and commentary: for the translation go to the archives for August, 2008, and for our commentary go to the archives starting in March, 2009 and ending in May, 2009.[8]

The Jesus Prayer is part of a whole method, called Hesychasm, which orients its practitioner to passing from the initial state of the restoration of the image of God in Baptism to the likeness to God in dispassion.  Baptism does not make a person perfect but restores the image of God in him or her.  After Baptism the Orthodox Christian practices an ascesis usually called Hesychasm until the likeness to God is restored, when by the grace of the merciful God the person is granted perfect love for God and man in an experience of light.  This is the broad path that St. Diadochos is describing.  This path is aimed at monastics, but laymen and laywomen participate in it under the guidance of an Elder to the extent of their abilities.  This path is not necessary for salvation, as St John of Sinai indicates in the Ladder of Divine Ascent.  It is moreover very difficult and only a very few monastics are able to carry it out in its entirety.  There is also another monastic road, of obedience in a coenobitic monastery, which, as St. Athanasios of Athos testifies, is of equal value before God.

The reason that the Orthodox Church expects people—whether laymen or monks—to go through a long period of ascesis is precisely to remove the passions that prevent God from restoring the likeness to God in them.  This period of ascesis is perhaps also necessary to remove from the soul the results of serious sin after baptism.  In this regard it might be useful to read about St. Silouan the Athonite.  Soon after his entry into the Russian Monastery of  St Panteleimon on Mt Athos Silouan had a vision of the risen Christ that was authentic.  He then spent close to twenty years praying the Jesus Prayer in a continuous fight against demons that were physically visible to him.  During this time he was deceived twice by false visions.  Only after this long and terrible ascesis was St. Silouan made perfect.

Now the whole point of Pentecostalism is that none of this is necessary.

So why would a miracle-working Pentecostalist be interested in the Jesus Prayer, in its mild form for laymen?

Part of it seems to be the idea that it should be possible in a Pentecostalist inter-denominational House of Prayer to engage in ‘contemplation’ by means of the Jesus Prayer.  Now, what we think these people understand by ‘contemplation’ is that having been baptized in the Holy Spirit they can engage in a mild form of the Jesus Prayer that keeps them united to the Holy Spirit.  What they are ignoring, however, is the whole apparatus of ascesis that is part and parcel of the practice of the Jesus Prayer—not to mention all the other issues involved.

Nothing good is going to come of this, Seafra.  Leave it alone.

Best wishes—

Orthodox Monk, the sinner who practises the Jesus Prayer

---

[1] Ecclesiology: the theology of the nature and structure of the Church, i.e. one’s beliefs about the nature and structure of the Church.

[2] Joel’s Army is a Pentecostalist Group associated with the Lakeland Outpouring.  It is noted for Revivals with miracles being worked, often in very striking ways.

[3] After an email correspondence with Mr. Lid, this has been corrected from ‘Elder Paisios’.

[4] See fn. 1.

[5]  It was hard for us to understand this sentence up to here.  This rendering is the best we can do.  See the original comment.

[6] Original Comment in full:  Oysten.... Regarding your comment you must keep in mind protestants don't age on anything some believe add you posted others believe in what I believe scripture teaches that every believer can operate in any gift but are for Gods own purpose more prominent in a certain gift. I have prophesied over complete strangers and told then their childhood, I have prayed over a comatose on her death bed and saw her dancing two days later, but my primary gifting is as an evangelist.

[7] Original text of email:  Oops could you ignore my second post I am doing this on my phone and misread what the other poster said... Thanks also thanks for informing me I believer you are referencing the Jesus prayer prayed with the breath control and all the other disciplined traits correct? but isn't there a way that laymen are encouraged to pray... Also the Greek church I have been attending said the general thought is that if you are baptized on the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit you do indeed have the holy spirit but your saying other wise any reason for the contradiction?

[8] Those who want can find another translation in the Philokalia Vol. I (trans. Palmer, Sherrard and Ware, published by Faber & Faber).