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AXIOS NEWSLETTER
IF ANYONE, REGARDLESS OF POSITION AND RANK SHOULD SAY THAT THE WESTERN
RITE IS NOT A PART OF OR BELONG IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH...............
THEN THEY HAVE AN IMPROPER VIEW OF THE CHURCH AND IT'S ECCLESIOLOGY AND
MAY, PERHAPS BY THAT VIEW PLACE THEMSELVES OUTSIDE OF THE ONE TRUE
CHURCH!!!!
AXIOS
The Orthodox Journal
806 South Euclid Street
Fullerton, California 92632
Telephone: (714) 526-6257
and (714) 526-2131
Computer Number
(714)526-2387
ISSN 0278-551X
USPS 679-570
November-December 1987, Volume Seven, Number Seven.
Published bi-monthly by Axios Newsletter, Inc., a non-profit California
corporation, established in 1981. AXIOS is designed to be a review of
public affairs, religion, literature and the arts, and is especially
interested in the Orthodox Catholic Church (sometimes called The Eastern
Orthodox Church) and its world view. Second Class Postage is paid at
Fullerton, California.
Printed in the U.S.A., copyright 1987 by Axios Newsletter, Inc., with
all rights reserved under International and Pan-American copy-right
conventions. Reproduction of any part without prior written permission
is strictly prohibited. Subscriptions: Single copy: $1.00; yearly
subscriptions $10.00; special two year rate: $15.00. All Canadian and
foreign subscriptions must be paid in U.S. dollars by international
money-order or by check on a U.S. bank. POSTMASTER: Send address
changes to AXIOS, 806 South Euclid Street, Fullerton, CA 92632. AXIOS
is a member of the Associated Church Press.
===============================
Father Daniel, Editor
Deacon Joseph, Assistant
Brother Richard, Assistant
===============================
If you would be interested in learning more about the Monastery of Saint
Michael please write to us at AXIOS.
===============================
WHEN YOU WRITE YOUR WILL,
LEAVE US A FEW WORDS
After you have provided for your family, you can do something for the
future salvation of America -- support for the church. A gift thru your
will can enable us to continue to publish and to educate and to plant
the Orthodox Church here in our own land. We need this support to aid
our efforts. Tell your attorney to add this sentence to your will: "I
give to Axios Newsletter, Inc., the sum of _______ dollars to be used
for the general purposes of the corporation." What you leave behind with
those few words can do much for the world you leave behind.
===============================
A Problem of the Orthodox Church
CANONICAL OR NON-CANONICAL, OR JUST WHAT IS CANONICAL?
Many people may have heard the term 'canonical' often used in Orthodox
circles. It refers to the laws or canons of the Church, created either
by ecumenical councils or local synods and approved by the entire
Church. To be 'canonical' therefore means that you follow faithfully
all of the laws as enacted.
Now each of the Orthodox organizations within the English speaking
world, of the United States, England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand,
etc., like to think of themselves as being fully canonical, and several
of them have even created a committee to call themselves 'canonical'
(entitled, the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in
America). Here they try to judge the correctness of others on matters
canonical.
One of the major problems is that Canon Law REQUIRES within the
traditional apostolic and catholic regulations of the Orthodox Church
that in each city, there would be only one bishop, and in each province
there would be only one metropolitan. Because of this requirement NONE
of the Orthodox Churches within the English speaking world are
'canonical' ALL are un-lawful, they are UN-CANONICAL.
It is our own humble opinion, therefore, that none of the Churches may
presume to speak for the Orthodox Church within the English speaking
world.
In the French speaking world, the problem has been solved very simply,
an autocephalous French Orthodox Church was established, and it now has
a good history going back to the 1870's. Any other Church that should
find itself in France is now an 'outsider' and in good faith and for
the welfare of the whole church should submit to the Bishop of Saint
Denis in Paris. Any other action is unthinkable and would lead to
confusion and chaos.
In order to establish a true native Orthodox American Church the Bishop
de Saint Denis has establish Churches within America under his own
authority. This is the same as has the Greek, Russian, Serbian, Syrian,
Bulgarian, Albanian, etc., have done.
This action is neither more 'canonical' nor less 'canonical' than the
actions of the other foreign Orthodox Churches.
It is, indeed, more fruitful for the future of the Orthodox Church in
America that the Bishop de Saint Denis has taken this step. America is
a 'western' nation, and those forms of worship and outlook that would
help them into the Truth of the One Church, can be found within the
parishes under the Bishop de Saint Denis.
The parishes of the American Church under Bishop Germain de Saint Denis,
use the liturgy of Western Europe established before the year 800 A.D.,
they also use English, the language of the people, and they recognized
also the Eastern forms of worship of the Church. This fulfills a great
need, and echos the heart felt desire of the native American to be
allowed to be American within the truth of the One True Church of
Orthodoxy.
Nothing else will do, nothing else will work, nothing else has the
charity of purpose that opens itself to all of the people.
===============================
The AXIOS BBS has been established. This is a computer bulletin board,
operating 12 hours a day at telephone number (714) 526-2387. The board
exists so files may be transferred easily and information shared for the
benefit of the Church and its people. AXIOS itself may be downloaded
from the computer bulletin board. We also hope that suggestions will be
offered for improvement of this new service.
===============================
An Important Step
PRIVATIZE THE MAIL
Some day the United States Postal Service will wake up and
realize that its best future lies in privatization -- in the end of its
monopoly over first class mail and in its transformation into a private
company. Such a change would benefit Postal Service employees most of
all. They would cease being wards of the government, and would become
free men and women working for a free company.
That transformation would best occur sooner rather than later.
Right now, Postal Service employees can control their own fate. They
could insist, for example, that they be given a large chunk of the stock
of a privatized postal company.
But that time is limited. Technological changes are already
undercutting the Postal Service's monopoly, a trend that will only
accelerate. The lightning advances in computers will son make
electronic mail the cheapest way for most businesses to conduct
correspondence. And private overnight companies, such as Federal
Express, already thrive despite charging twice the rate of the Postal
Service's less reliable overnight (sometimes) Express Mail.
What may force the issue is the Postal Service's own continued
inability to keep costs reasonable. A Senate budget-cutting proposal,
for example, has Postal Service officials up in arms. Complains
Postmaster General Preston R. Tisch: "The plain truth is if this
legislation is enacted we will be unable to provide the level of service
we have been working so hard to achieve."
If the Senate proposal becomes law, the Postal Service might
eliminate Saturday deliveries and reduce post office hours. "As a final
resort," threatens Deputy Postmaster General Michael S. Coughlin, "we
would have to reconsider the possibility of closing some 10,000 to
12,000 small post offices -- most of them in rural areas of the
country." This is an old Postal Service trick: Rile up Congress by
threatening local service.
This time Congress and President Reagan should call the Postal
Service's bluff. They should say to the mailcarriers: "All right. If
you can't provide decent service to rural areas and elsewhere, then we
know something that can: private enterprise."
What's more, in many rural areas private companies already
deliver the mail. The Postal Service contracts out such deliveries,
usually at wages lower than it pays its own employees. And even in
metropolitan areas, many drug or convenience stores now provide Saturday
postal services.
Both rural and city people would best be served by a privatized
postal company, just as all of us are better served by privatized
department stores or fast food chains. If McDonald's can provide tasty,
cheap burgers everywhere across the country (and indeed the world), so a
private postal service could provide efficient, cheap mail delivery
everywhere.
===============================
BEWARE
THE 'NEW AGE' TEACHING
BEWARE
Most of our other Christian churches seem to be deeply infected.
Take the example of the Roman Catholic faithful who attended
"Jesus Day VII" at the Quigley Seminary in Chicago, Illinois, this past
October 10th. Instead of hearing about the Jesus of Tradition and the
New Testament from the speakers, many gladly absorbed teaching from
speakers on the "Christ consciousness" of the New Age, a concept
differing from traditional Biblical concepts of the person of Christ,
and from the teachings of the Church.
One of the most popular speakers was Dominican Father Matthew
Fox of Oakland, California who is under investigation for heresy by the
Vatican. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, areas of
concern center around Fox's views on feminism, homosexuality, premarital
sex, the doctrine of original sin, and charges that he advocates
pantheism -- a central tenant of the New Age Movement.
Fox would not allow his lecture to be taped. But in it he
advocated throwing out traditional images of "the historical Jesus" and
concentrate on the "cosmic Christ" within. Fox also likened the
Catholic Church to a burning building. He thought Christians ought to
save only a few things from traditional Christianity and adopt
traditions from ancient African and Greek religions, and from nature.
After the speech Fox told the press he rejects the doctrine of
hell, and he likens purgatory to reincarnation. When asked about what
practices he would like to see instituted in the church, he replied he'd
want some pews removed to make room for "circle dances" which are
conducted by pagan and wiccan (witchcraft) groups. Fox also defended
the retention of Starhawk to his faculty at Holy Names College. She is
a self-described witch who teaches ritual-making.
Fox's speech was not the only one laced with Eastern mysticism
and New Age themes. Richard Woods, O.P. author of New Age
Spirituality-Symbion advocated the redistribution of the world's wealth
into a new world order (where have we heard that before), worldwide
population control by central planners, and he lauded the "Green
politics" of Europe which is steeped in New Age mysticism. Following
his speech, he blamed the abundance of food in the U.S. for much of the
world's poverty and overpopulation.
If this isn't something to be alarmed about, then we are all
totally lost, since so many others will absorb this false teaching.
This challenge posed by the New Age is great.
There is much to weep about in the ways that New Age and related
ideologies have made their way into the media, the schools, and popular
culture generally. Since we have yet to find any Orthodox writer that
has dealt with this subject we will have to draw attention to a new
book, Unmasking the New Age. It is by Douglas R. Groothuis and is
published by InterVarsity Press (Downers Grove, Illinois). The title
makes the book sound more strident than it is. In fact, it is not
strident at all, being a very judicious analysis of the teachings,
organizations and personalities that constitute the "New Age Network."
So if you know people who have been confused by listening too much to
folk such as John Denver and have begun to think that they are god or
"into" feminist witchcraft or suspect they are on the way to becoming
Pharoah in the XXIV Dynasty, run to your nearest Christian bookstore and
be enlightened by Mr. Groothuis. We only need to remember while reading
him, that he does not carry the entire truth with him, since he is not
Orthodox.
===============================
THE UNSINKABLE SHIP OF SALVATION
by D. H. Stamatis
With the proliferation of world wide evangelical preaching, one
wonders what is the Christian Truth and if indeed, the Truth can be
isolated and identified. Furthermore, if the TRuth can be isolated
identified, is it possible to recognize it, amidst such a high push for
'healing', 'born again', and 'speaking in tongues' and other euphemisms?
For an examination, let us first look at the scriptures,
specifically, the scriptural text of Matthew, chapter 16, verses 13-19.
(All scripture quotes are from the King James Bible).
"When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Phillippi, He asked
His disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the son of man am? And
they said, some say that Thou art John the Baptist: some Elias, and
others, Jeremia, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, but whom
say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the
Christ the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him,
blessed art thou, Simon Bar Jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed
it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto
thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church;
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give
unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt
bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose
on earth shall be loosed in heaven."
One can see without hesitation, without being a graduate of a
seminary school and go without being a theologian, that Jesus Christ,
our Lord, indeed founded ONE church and not many. It is an imperative
truth, that any one can recognize, whether they have any education or
not. It is a definite truth, because Jesus Himself clearly reassured
Peter, that He would found the church (based on faith) and NOT ONE
satanic power would be able to destroy it. On the other hand, it will
remain for ever and immortal; and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it. (Matt.16:18).
Powerful words are these, coming from Jesus, yet, they clearly
state that His Church is One. His words are uncompromising, without
hesitation and stated with authority. We (Orthodox christians) believe
these words because Jesus is our Lord and our God and furthermore
because His credibility is at the highest.
Let us examine what has happened since Jesus spoke these words.
In the last 2000 years much has taken place. Specifically, countries
were destroyed, kings and kingdoms fell, autocrats and empires were lost
and science and theories have changed. The church, however, that Jesus
Christ founded, remains and will remain forever, standing and
functioning. Many tried to prophesize the demise and death of the
church, but they themselves died and are forgotten. The church,
however, the one that belongs to Jesus, the one He founded and the one
He protects, is alive and CONSTANTLY CONQUERS. St. John Chrysostom,
regarding the victory of the church states: "Nothing can be equal with
the church. The church is higher than the sky. The church is wider
than the earth. The church never knows old age because it is constantly
finding itself in its zenith. Do not tell me about walls and weapons,
because the walls with the passage of time will definitely fail, but the
church never. These words are not bragging but truths that can be
substantiated in reality. How many have declared war with the Church?
Nevertheless everyone was lost and at the same time the church was
elevated higher than the sky. The church always conquers those who are
at war with it. It prevails when it is pushed, it becomes brighter when
they try to defile it. It allows itself to be bruised and or wounded
and yet it never succumbs or rather falls down due to those wounds. It
passes thru high seas but it never sinks to the bottom. It goes thru
high hurricanes but it never shipwrecks. Always wrestles but never gets
defiled. They always dare her to fight but they do not win."
From the above, we can deduct, that only ONE church has to be
the true one and the one that was indeed founded by Jesus Himself. All
others must be fakes and or elusive of the truth.
Let us examine the Orthodox Church. The people who believe in
the Triune God, receive Jesus as their salvation and believe in all that
the Holy Scriptures and Holy Tradition proclaim, they make up the visual
church -- the church that Jesus founded in this world. This church is
loved by Jesus, so much, so that, '....even as Christ also loved the
church, and gave Himself for it.'(Eph.5:25).
For us, the Orthodox Christian, it is a dogma of faith that the
church, the one founded by Jesus, is One, Catholic, and Apostolic. In
fact, St. Paul, in his letter to Timothy proclaims that the church of
the Living God is 'the pillar and ground of the truth' (1 Tim. 3:15).
Therefore, only the church possesses the whole truth. Or, as St.
Cyprian puts it "Outside and distant from the church, salvation does not
exist." It is precisely the issue of salvation, that caused the Fathers
to name the church 'the vassal of salvation'. St.Augustine, exemplifies
this point when he declares that 'the church is Christ in perpetuity'.
After all this, one might wonder and in fact ask, why is it that
today there are many churches (denominations) and all of them preach the
name of Christ, they hold the Holy Bible as foundation of their faith
and they are asking the populace to follow them?
They tell us with all sincerity that they are the 'real' church
and that they are the holders of the 'truth'. Between all of them which
one is the one and true church which Christ Himself founded? Is it the
Protestants, is it the Church of the Later Day Saints, is it the Jehovah
Witness, the Roman Catholic, or is it the Orthodox Christians? Can we
isolate the truth? Can we research the question without being too
dogmatic and/or academic? I believe we can. In fact, we can answer the
question without hesitation and ambivalence -- just like Christ did --
that the true church, the one founded by Jesus is the Orthodox Church.
One might say, however, that the other denominations claim the same,
with the same authority and sureness. Because of the significance that
the point of 'church' has in the ultimate salvation of man, let us
examine in a cursory fashion the facts of the 'church' before it was
fragmented into so many 'churches'.
That Christ founded one church and only one church no one will
refute. In fact, even secular history refers to one church up to the
9th century. (During this century we begin to have major differences in
dogmas). Up to this point in time both the East and the West had one
faith. All Christians made up One Church and believed the same things.
In the 9th century, however, Rome's Pope rebelled from the true
teachings and formed his own form of Christianity, i.e. Catholicism. In
the 16th century a break was made from this new Catholicism because of
the inequities of the faith and as a result the Protestant movement came
into existence. Since then, the Protestants have been dividing
themselves into groups, such as the Baptists, Pentecostals, Methodists,
etc.
All these churches that left the One Church of Jesus Christ
began to add human teachings and to subtract Apostolic teachings,
because of these changings, the basic faith does not agree with the
foundations of the original undivided church.
This discrepancy happened because in their eagerness to defend
the new innovations, all the founders of these denominations began to
misinterpret and misguide the words of the Bible to suite their flavor
of faith.
We as Orthodox Christians, proclaim to the world and especially
to the heretics that we indeed hold the faith and the teachings of the
original Christians, pure and in congruence with Jesus Christ's
teachings. To show that I am not bending the truth or exaggerating
minute facts, let us look at the Holy Bible and examine the 'church' of
Jesus Christ. St. Paul, in calling the bishops of Ephesus, proclaims
'Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over which
the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers (epescopoe), to feed the church
of God, which He hath purchased with His own blood' (Acts 20:28). We
see that the words in addition to the apostles and people (flock) are
specific in identification of clerics i.e., bishops (epescopoe).
Elsewhere, St.Paul states: 'Paul and Timotheus the servants of Jesus
Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Phillippi with
the bishops (epescopoe) and deacons' (Philipp. 1:1). Paul's
delineation of the clerics is quite evident, because here, he
unmistakenably differentiates between lay people, bishops, and deacons.
As a matter of fact, in 1 Timothy 3:2-7 and 8-13 he goes on to say, what
is the requirement of becoming a bishop and deacon respectively.
Furthermore, in Titus 1:5 he orders Titus to identify and set 'ordained
elders' (presbyters) in each city.
We can see that the church of Christ during the apostolic years,
was organized and also was made up of shepherds (clerics) and sheep (lay
people). In fact, the shepherds received the grace and their title
(honor of ordination) of cleric via the laying on of hands (1 Tim.
5:22).
You then, judge if your Christian denomination follows the
Tradition of church organization and the division of clergy. Upon
examination, you will find that ONLY Orthodoxy has kept this.
Another characteristic of the True Church is that it is
unconsumable: 'That thou are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my
church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it'(Matt.
16:18). Here Jesus tells us in no uncertain terms that His church will
not succumb to any satanic power. On the other hand, it will stand up
onto the ages of ages unwavering, so that, it can continue its purpose,
i.e. the salvation of the people. Again, you be the judge of your
denomination. Does your denomination have the roots to Jesus? You will
find that ONLY Orthodoxy (founded in 33 A.D.) was always. All others
came after 1054 A.D. Since Jesus reassured us that His Church will not
be destroyed, to the contrary, it will be in existence for ever and
since all the denominations came after 1054 A.D. what happened to the
church for the first 1021 years?
The third characteristic of the church is the infallibility
i.e., the True Church does not make errors. The True Church does not go
astray because the Holy Spirit guides it 'into all the truth' (John
16:13). ONLY the church that was founded by Christ Himself is 'the
pillar and ground of the truth' (1 Tim. 3:15) and never the churches
that were founded by mortals.
Again, there is only one church that fits these descriptions,
i.e., the Orthodox Church. How does your denomination compare?
The fourth characteristic of the True Church is the Apostolic
Tradition. Since the church was before the total scripture (the New
Testament was completed some 70 years after Christ's death and the
Pentecost -- the birthday of the Church -- the True Church must continue
the Tradition of the early and developing church. In fact, John the
Evangelist explicitly identifies in his Gospel, in the 21st chapter and
25th verse, the rationale for Tradition. He summarizes it as: "and
there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they
should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could
not contain the books that should be written. Amen.' Also, 'And we
commend you brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye
withdraw yourselves from every brother that walketh disorderly, and not
after the tradition which he received of us' (2 Thes. 3:6). Also, 'For
as much as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as
silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from
your fathers' (1 Peter 1:18). See also (Matt 15: 2-3,6; Mark
7:3,5,8,9,13; and Col.2:8).
Again, you judge if your denomination follows the Holy Tradition
of Jesus Christ and the Apostles. You will find that the ONLY church
that follows, keeps and guards thes commandments of the New Testament
writers is the ONE, CATHOLIC and APOSTOLIC Church, i.e., the Orthodox
Church.
After a really short cursory, I hope that you will agree with me
and you will not doubt that indeed there is only One, True Church that
was founded by Christ. In fact, it is in that Church that one may find
salvation and become God's child, with the right of the everlasting
life. What do you think? What are you going to choose? The Church
that is founded in Jesus Christ or a church that was founded by a mortal
person? What are you going to choose, the light or the darkness, the
absolute truth or the perceived truth, the Orthodoxy or the heretical
denominations? The choice is clearly yours.
===============================
POPE JOHN PAUL II MAKES TWO UNPRECEDENTED CONCESSIONS TO THE ORTHODOX
CATHOLIC CHURCH!
The Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios of Constantinople while on an
Apostolic journey thru out Europe, stopped off in Rome where Pope John
Paul II recited together with His All Holiness the Patriarch the Nicene
Creed without the 4th century Roman Catholic addition of the "filioque"
clause, easing one of the oldest theological disputes between the Church
and the followers of the Bishop of Rome. The clause states that the
Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, but the Orthodox
Catholic believe He proceeds from the Father only, a belief that was
once the belief of all Christians everywhere. In the other concession
the pope said he is willing to reevaluate the role of the papacy to
reach a compromise with the Orthodox Catholic Church. His All Holiness
Patriarch Dimitrios I is hoping to reunite the followers of the pope of
Rome with the Church with a pope sharing authority with the council of
bishops.
During the meeting the pope presented His All Holiness with a
golden chalice, an 11th century painting of Christ, an anthology of
sacred texts, and pontifical medals.
The Patriarch reciprocated by presenting the pope with a replica
of a sixth-century Byzantine crucifix, a gold vase, and medals of his
travels.
The historic journey of the Patriarch covered visits to the
Patriarchates of Alexandria and Jerusalem, the Patriarchate of Moscow,
and the Church of Georgia, as well as the Church of Serbia and the
Patriarchate of Romania.
The journey also included visits to Geneva, Warsaw, and London.
In London His All Holiness was received by Queen Elizabeth; he also met
with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Robert Runcie, as well as other
officials.
BOOK REVIEWS.............
The Anti-Soviet Soviet Union, by Vladimir Voinovich; Harcourt Brace,
1986, 325 pp., $19.95.
In December 1980, Vladimir Voinovich was exiled from the Soviet
Union. His crime was candor; his method was satire. For years, he'd
been committing the unforgivable sin of describing Soviet life
realistically, never failing to see the irony and hypocrisy in the
system.
In his first book since his exile, Voinovich depicts the Soviet
Union not as a well-oiled man-eating machine, but as a rusty,
broken-down collection of worn-out mechanisms and spare parts.
This is a land where there are no rights, only privileges. And
there are two types of people: those who resist, and live impoverished
lives, and those who acquiesce, and live like caged animals. Voinovich
shows each type living side by side.
He tells of Eremenko, 46-year-old 10th grade night school
student, who heads a district Party department.
"He was equally poor in all his subjects, including history ...
(But the substitute teacher's) job was entirely dependent on Eremenko,
and for that reason she was always well disposed to him in class.
'Comrade Eremenko, can you tell me when the Fifteenth Party Congress
took place?'
"Silence.
"'In 1927, Is that correct?'
"'It is,' Eremenko would answer. 'In 1927.'
"'Look at that,' the teacher would say. 'Excellent preparation.
I'm giving you an A.'"
"There is Oleg, a doctor living poorly because he refuses to
attend the absurd political meetings."
"Whenever I think of that doctor, I also remember other people I
met in my life ... who often spent their entire lives working at the
lowest positions and at the lowest pay ... By avoiding taking part in
the lies and hypocrisy, they keep their souls from being violated; they
radiate goodness, humanity, and spiritual nobility...."
Voinovich has not shown the Soviet people as "just like us."
True, they are born, grow up, get married, have children, grow old and
die just as we do here. But there is a difference. They cling to the
chains of authoritarianism. Freedom requires that they conquer fear and
shed their resignation.
And if the state keeps throwing out those who try, Russia will
never make it.
===============================
THE EXPERIENCE OF ORTHODOXY
by Guthrie E. Janssen
[reprinted from B & R Reviews, Fall 1987]
Hymn of Entry, Liturgy and Life in the Orthodox Church, by Archimandrite
Vasileios of Stavronikita, trans. from the Greek by Elizabeth Briere;
St.Vladimir's Seminary Press,139 pp. $6.95.
The Freedom of Morality, by Christos Yannaras, trans from the Greek by
Elizabeth Briere; St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 278 pp.,$12.95.
Being as Communion, Studies in Personhood and the Church, by John D.
Zizioulas, St.Vladimir's Seminary Press, 269 pp.,$12.95.
The Deification of Man: St.Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition;
by Georgios I. Mantzaridis, trans. from the Greek by Liadain Sherrard;
St.Vladimir's Seminary Press, 137 pp.,$7.95.
The Communion of Love, by Matthew the Poor; St.Vladimir's Seminary
Press, 234 pp.,$8.95.
On the fourth of July, A.D. 1054, a star exploded, a supernova
so brilliant that for twenty-three days it was visible thruout the
northern hemisphere in broad daylight. Eventually it subsided to become
what we know today as the Crab Nebula in the constellation of Taurus.
Twelve days later, on the 16th of July, delegates from Pope Leo
IX, who may have been acting under duress as a prisoner of the Normans,
entered the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) in Constantinople,
advanced to the great altar during a celebration of the Eucharist, flung
down the Pope's sentence of excommunication of the Orthodox Catholic
Patriarch, and departed, shaking the dust off their feet as they went.
The Emperor, who was conciliatory toward the West, nevertheless,
convoked a synod of Orthodox Catholic bishops that promptly
excommunicated the papal legates. Thus was sealed the Great Schism of
Christendom that persists to this day. The super-nova may or may not
have been a sign from heaven, but it dramatically underscored the cosmic
importance of the event. For in rending the two great branches of
Christendom, the Schism of 1054 was to adumbrate many future fracturings
of the Church that Christ had prayed might be forever one -- the
fourteenth century Schism of the West with its "antipopes," the
Reformation, the repeated splintering of Protestantism, and the human
suffering that was to follow in religious wars in the West.
The East also suffered. One hundred and fifty years later, in
1204, the knights of the Fourth Crusade in what the Byzantine historian
Sir Steven Runciman has called "the greatest crime in history" burned,
raped and pillaged Constantinople. For years they shipped back to
Venice and other cities of the West an immeasurable loot of Byzantine
gold, jewels and art treasures, at a time when Rome had been reduced to
a muddy backwater of empire. The Crusader's sack of Constantinople was
motivated as much by jealousy and monumental avarice as by any
theological scruples. However, Byzantium's loss introduced the West to
Greek culture and laid the foundation for the Renaissance and the
subsequent flowering of Western civilization. It is ironic that the
West was to adopt not the profound patristic theology and spiritual
perceptions of the East but, in a roundabout way, the pagan culture of
ancient Greece, and in particular Aristotelian philosophy, which it then
used to shape and define the peculiar Western epistemology and
theological methods characteristic of both Roman Catholic and Protestant
thought. We will have more to say about this later, for these
differences were the crux of the East-West schism and remain so today.
Rome's repudiation of the East has been superfically attributed
to language and cultural differences, politics, theology and a dispute
over the locus of authority in the Church. Latin had become the
theological language of the West while the East had retained Greek, and
there were difficulties of translation. The West emphasized Christ's
suffering as "atonement" for man's sin, the East His "frenzy of love" in
which He took on human nature and thru His death, resurrection and
Ascension made possible the "deification" of man. The West asserted the
absolute authority of the Pope, the East perceived him as a primus inter
pares. The West had tampered with the Creed by adding the filoque
clause (the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son); such
tampering was anathema to the East. And political motives lurked on the
periphery. Rome, by arrogating to itself absolute ecclesiastical
authority could control as well the temporal affairs of Europe against
the twin threats of the northern barbarians and the "caesaropapism" of
the Carolingian emperors. In that enterprise the East had nothing to
offer but nagging interference. Thus an East/West cleavage was all but
inevitable.
Today of course most of the historic reasons are long past, and
we in the West are prone to treat the Great Schism as an accident of
history. But as the historic causes have disappeared, so now the extent
of underlying doctrinal and "philosophical" differences is becoming more
apparent. At the same time in the West, where churches are being
increasingly invaded by worldly counsels of compromise and expediency,
and where the faith is constantly being diluted by a variety of
syncretions, there is a growing curiosity about the understandings of
Orthodoxy, which are derived from apostolic and patristic teaching and
experience. There appears to be a hankering after the ancient vitality
and depths of the faith which nothing in the West, not even (perhaps
especially not) the Church of Rome, seems able to satisfy. Thus we find
such an erudite Protestant and thoroughly Western scholar as Paul
Tillich writing:
"...the Eastern Church represents something which we have
lost.... We should not imagine that we have nothing to learn from them.
It may happen that with centuries of more intimate contact, the
dimension of depth may again enter Western thinking." [Paul Tillich, A
History of Christian Thought, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968, p.97]
Meanwhile Orthodoxy in America is shedding much of the ethnic
wrapping in which it was imported and is increasingly emphasizing its
essential perceptions. Today it is as large as some mainline Protestant
denominations, and growing, with converts accounting for between thirty
to fifty percent of its membership.
Yet the West remains largely ignorant of Orthodoxy. For a
Western scholar to write as Paul Tillich did is unusual; most have
either a distorted view of Orthodoxy or dismiss it as just "mysticism,"
which it is not. As for reconciliation, the popular attitude in the
West is that the differences are nothing but a matter of style, and if
we will just sit down in a spirit of mutual forbearance, a little give
and take will heal the great breach. But that very attitude typifies
the problem. The West is prone to overestimate what can be achieved by
verbal fiat framed in a spirit of naive good will. The East says,
"Talking is not knowing. You must experience the depths of the truth in
the Liturgy." Vasileios quotes the pseudonymous Dionysius the
Areopagite, "...what is known is known only thru participation in it."
This, in Orthodox understanding, is "doing the truth" (John 3:21).
Words, not even the words of scripture, are enough, for as St. Paul
wrote, it is the Church, a living entity, not scripture (which is of
necessity words) that is the 'pillar and foundation of the truth'" (1
Timothy 3:15).
Furthermore, while a strong "spirituality" is justly attributed
to the East, Orthodoxy places yet greater emphasis on the incarnational
-- experiencing the reality of the godhead in its divine-human
hypostasis, which is Jesus Christ. Because the East is older, its
perspective longer, it stresses the apophatic nature of God -- His
undefinability in human "philosophical" terms, least of all those of
Western scholasticism. Scripture it perceives and venerates as the
written apostolic witness to Christ in the stream of living tradition,
which is the Holy Spirit alive and at work in the continuity of the
historic Church. Reconciliation will require some Western
acknowledgment and appreciation of all this.
Fortunately, Orthodoxy is awakening to the need to explain
itself, not only to the West but to its own people, many of whom remain
bound to a blind ethnic traditionalism. And if the experience of the
Liturgy cannot be expressed in words, it can at least be illuminated by
some felicious descriptions of the mind of Orthodoxy now being published
in the United States.
An especially bright aura of illumination is being cast these
days by a series being published by St. Vladimir's Seminary Press under
the general rubric, "Contemporary Greek Theologians." Four volumes have
appeared to date, and a fifth is projected. Although they are scholarly
works, they are well within the grasp of a moderately informed
layperson. The authors present no innovative theology, for the
wellspring of their understanding is the early Fathers. They will seem
novel only to the extent that many in the West are unfamiliar with the
light the Fathers shed on what they took from the beginning to be the
Christian intendment: the deification of humanity thru God's mighty
incarnational act. But for those with an eye to see and to accept, the
sense of novelty may quickly turn into an illuminating and rewarding
experience.
As the title of his book suggests, Vasileio's Hymn of Entry
links liturgy with theology, and both with life in the body of Christ,
which is Church. Each mirrors the other two. If to the Western mind
this seems "mystical," it is no more so than the Lord's Prayer or Jesus'
commands to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Bear in mind what we
said earlier about liturgy and life in Orthodoxy as not mysticism but
experience. The experience is not that of the intellect nor the
emotions," least of all in passions, which are of the fall, but of
living the liturgical life of the Church in all that it implies of
quiet, humble obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ. Thus excessive
reliance on cerebral formulations must be curbed. Vasileios is
emphatic:
"This theological life and witness is a blessing which sweetens
man's life. It is a food which is cut up and given to others; a drink
poured out and offered in abundance for man to consume and quench his
thirst. In this state one does not talk about life, one gives it. One
feeds the hungry and gives drink to the thirsty. By contrast,
scholastic theology and intellectual constructions do not resemble the
Body of the Lord, the true food, nor His blood, the true drink; rather
they are like a stone one finds in one's food. This is how indigestible
and inhumanly hard the mass of scholasticism seems to the taste and the
mouth of one accustomed to the liturgy of the Church, and it is rejected
as something foreign and unacceptable."
It is apparent at once how alien this is to the traditional
thought patterns of the West. The implications are far-reaching. A
strong case can be made for saying that every time Orthodoxy has
seriously stumbled it has been because of an invasion from the West of
Aristotelian-Thomist scholasticism or its many cousins, all of which
tend to defeat the spirit and essential understandings of Orthodoxy.
That is not to say that the Greek Fathers were ignorant of Aristotle.
On the contrary, they knew him intimately, being thoroughly schooled in
classic Greek philosophy. But unlike Western theologians, they
perceived its total inadequacy as a basis for defining theology. Human
philosophy must itself pass thru the baptism of Golgotha.
A Protestant may at this point interject, "But in breaking with
Rome, we rejected scholasticism." Technically, perhaps yes, but not
really. The thought patterns derived from pagan philosophy remain. The
verbal manipulation of technicalities characteristic of scholasticism is
no less characteristic of much of Protestantism, especially in
Evangelical-Fundamentalist camps, where dependence on scripture (words
of necessity) and verbal rationalities deduced therefrom (still words)
prevails over the experience of "taste and see." So great, however, is
human yearning after experience that in the West we are witnessing a
growing "charismatic" movement that seeks non-verbal realizations of
spiritual truth. It is the stones crying out against the sterile
rationalism of the seminaries and of much preaching, both Roman and
Protestant. The experience of Orthodoxy, on the other hand, stresses
silence. It is aware that "the thoughts of men are all miserable"
(Wisdom 9:14). Vasileios asserts,
"Patristic theology is an area of silence; it is a heavenly
affirmation, a state. It is not an occasion for an exchange of blows or
for verbal battles. It is the "Yes" and "Amen" of eternity."
And he quotes Abba Isaac of Syria (sixth century), "Words are an
instrument of the present age; silence is a mystery of the age to come."
Orthodoxy proclaims that "the age to come" begins here and now in the
experience of the living Church.
Ask almost anyone schooled in Western habits of thought, "Where
will I find theology?" and they will say, "Why, in books, of course; or
in seminaries; or in the minds of scholars." "No," says Orthodoxy, "that
is not theology but only a superficial, argumentative aspect of it.
Theology is not a head trip. It embraces the whole person,
experientially. Every Christian is to be a living textbook of
theology." The "depth" of which Tillich spoke is hinted at in Vasileio's
explanation that "Orthodox theology ... does not assert a proposition;
it bears witness. It is not contradiction, but confession;" "...it
seeks the person and his salvation;" and, "How beautiful it is for a man
to become theology."
Today on Mt.Athos, a vast peninsula of ancient monasteries in
northeastern Greece often called "The Holy Mountain," there is a
burgeoning renewal -- an influx of young Orthodox monks from many
nations seeking to live their theology in total dedication and prayer.
Archimandrite (his title) Vasileios is Abbot of Stavronikita Monastery
and one of the pioneers of this modern revival. As we mentioned
earlier, the theology here is not innovative but a reassertion of what
was known in apostolic times and immediately following. Nor is it
unique even now, for a number of modern Orthodox writers in Western
Europe and the United States have set forth the ancient insights in
their works. However, even some of the most knowledgeable of Roman
Catholic and Protestant scholars remain only too likely to regard their
views somewhat askance, as a peculiarly Eastern "aberration" to which
they accord a certain charitable indulgence. But who is indulging whom?
To the Orthodox the West is the aberration, having strayed from
apostolic understanding into a theology bearing in virtually all its
aspects the stamp of pagan philosophy. Perhaps the super-nova was no
accident -- heaven was alarmed.
The Freedom of Morality is likely to prove even more exciting to
Western minds than Hymn. It reveals that the Orthodox, and truly
scriptural (uninfluenced by philosophy) understanding of freedom and of
passions is in certain crucial aspects the very antithesis of Western
understanding. This will alarm some and gratify others.
Throughout my own Calvinst upbringing it was implicit in all I
was taught that the truth of the Bible is to make you virtuous. Sermons
were packed with exhortations to "right" behavior. That this curbed my
earthly freedom was obvious on the face of it. Imagine, then, my
astonishment at reading for the first time the two quotations from the
Fathers with which Yannaras introduces his book:
"Virtue exists for truth; but truth does not exist for virtue."
(Maximus the Confessor, d.655).
"When you enter upon the path of righteousness, then you will
cleave to freedom in everything." (Abba Isaac the Syrian)
Is Orthodoxy topsy-turvy? Or is there here a greater depth of
insight into the fallen and redeemed states? Already, the answer has
been suggested by Vasileios in a chapter headed, "Spirituality as
'Bondage' to Freedom." For perfect freedom is to love; it is "an exodus,
a departure from the narrow prison of self-love for the promised land,
the land of the Other." Vasileios even goes so far as to suggest that
the human attitude reflected in Calvinist "morality" is a kind of
heresy, because of it s self-assurance, "its attachment to human
reasoning and sanctity which are its idols." Could this be one reason
for youthful rebellion against conventional "morality"? Yannaras, for
his part, pulls no punches:
"Increasingly, Christian life seems to be nothing more than a
particular way of behaving, a code of good conduct. Christianity is
increasingly alienated, becoming a social attribute adapted to meet the
least worthy of human demands -- conformity, sterile conservatism,
pusillanimity and timidity; it is adapted to the trivial moralizing
which seeks to adorn cowardice and individual security with the funerary
decoration of social decorum. The people who really thirst for life,
who stand daily on the brink of every kind of death, who struggle
desperately to distinguish some light in the sealed mystery of human
existence -- these are the people to whom the Gospel of salvation is
primarily and most especially addressed, and inevitably they all remain
far removed from the rationalistically organized social conventionalism
of established Christianity."
And he adds:
"What distances man from Christ and the Church is falsity of
life, the "existential lie" of the masks of the superego, and conformity
to the external formalities of conventional behavior."
It appears that Orthodoxy, ancient though it is, can indeed
explain much of the confrontational attitude and alienation of today's
youth, and may possibly hold a cure for it.
But the Westerner will at once ask, "Of what, then, does
morality consist?" Yannaras answers that it is not even a measure of
character or behavior but the ultimate expression of human freedom, "the
dynamic response of personal freedom to the existential truth and
authenticity of man."
And how is that "authenticity" to be found that is so eagerly
sought at vast cost in the consulting rooms of psychologists, and
psychiatrists and by youth in their rebellious capers with forays into
drugs and sex? Orthodoxy insist that the only way is thru humility
learned in suffering, by death to self-will and self-love, letting
Christ lead us by way of the cross, for His command was: follow me! As
Yannaras writes:
"...one has to make the fullness of the saving truth incarnate
in oneself. The shocking freedom of the fools ["fools for Christ"] is
first and foremost a total death, a complete mortification of every
individual element in their lives. This death is the freedom which can
break and destroy every conventional form; it is resurrection into ...
the life of love which knows neither bounds nor barriers."
It is also ultimate morality. Nor is death such a bad thing,
for it generates love. Yannaras quotes Isaac the Syrian concerning the
person who has died to all self-desire and surrendered to the will of
God: "... striving, fear, trouble and toil in all things pass from
him. And he is exalted above nature, and attains love."
A Westerner will naturally ask, "What about worship then? If
Orthodox worship does not consist of exhortations to morality, and
proclamation of the word is peripheral, then of what does it consist?"
It consists of the Divine Liturgy, the Eucharist, which gives life, for
Jesus said that unless we eat His flesh and drink His blood we have no
life in us (John 6:53-58). Yannaras offers this succinct statement of
the relevance of the Orthodox understanding of this in our time:
"Orthodox worship is a direct answer to the peculiarly modern
quest for immediate, experiential knowledge of God, beyond any abstract
intellectual schemes or anthropocentric sentimental elevations. In the
Orthodox eucharist nothing is theory, autonomous doctrine or abstract
reference; all is action, tangible experience and total bodily
participation."
The Orthodox notion of freedom cannot be fully explained without
some understanding of the Orthodox notion of passions. To the Western
mind, passions are the affective part of our nature, the more personal
part of us, linked with the warmth of feelings and emotions. Thus
American youth are likely to insist that they are most fully realizing
themselves when they have the "freedom" to indulge their passions,
whatever these may be. This posture dates back to the "Enlightenment"
and its "free t hinkers," of whom Rousseau was a chief exemplar, a man
who regarded his periodic bouts with venereal disease as the price to be
paid for his exercise of personal "freedom." The age sought a return to
"nature," and to pursue one's passions was deemed me rely "natural."
This is precisely the opposite of the Orthodox understanding of
the meaning of "freedom," "passions," and "natural," and while Yannaras
does not treat of it at any length, it is implicit in all that he says.
The Fathers listed dozens of passions, as many as a hundred: avarice,
lust, gluttony, every inordinate desire, hate, fear, envy, and so on.
Love is emphatically not one of them. Not even an emotion, it is,
rather, an act of will, a commitment, a decision taken in freedom to
concern one-self solely for others. It is obedience to the "new
command" of Christ that we love one another in exactly the same way that
he loves us (John 13:34). If love were a passion or an emotion, it
could not be commanded of us. Rather, it is commitment and obedi ence
to love that quenches passions. Passions are to the Fathers an
unnatural state, a consequence of the fall. The committed Christian is
dispassionate, as spelled out by Georges Florovsky, another prominent
Orthodox writer:
"Passions are always impersonal; they are a concentration of
cosmic energies which make the human person its prisoner, its slave.
They are blind and they blind those whom they possess. The impassioned
man, "the man of passions," does not act on his own, but is rather acted
upon: fata trabunt. He often loses the consciousness of being a free
agent. He doubts the existence and the possibility of freedom in
general. He adopts rather the "necessarionist" concept of reality
[psychological determinism] ... And as a consequence, he loses his
personality, his personal identity. He becomes chaotic, with multiple
faces, or rather -- masks. The "man of passions" is not at all free,
although he can give the impression of activity and energy. He is not
hing more than a "ball" of impersonal influences. He is hypnotized by
those influences which actually have a power over him. Arbitrariness is
not freedom" (George Florovsky, "The Darkness of Night," in Creation and
Redemption, Vol. 3 of Collected Works of Georges Florovsky, Belmont,
MA.: Nordland, 1976, p.87)
Christos Yannaras is a leading Greek lay theologian and
Professor of Philosophy at Panteios Institute, and the author of over a
dozen books on ethics, theology, and modern religious theology. John D.
Zizioulas is an academic colleague of his, Pro fessor of Systematic
Theology at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and a major Orthodox
spokesman in ecumenical discussions. Yannaras is a member of the
editorial committee in charge of the Contemporary Greek Theologians
series, together with Bishop Kallistos (Timothy Ware) of Diokleia, who
is one of the most articulate Western authorities on Orthodoxy. The
book by Zizioulas, Being as Communion, is of particular significance to
those desiring to understand and appreciate the spirit and experience of
Orthodoxy.
Being is in some respects a more technical and more difficult
work than Hymn and Freedom. Complex and extremely sophisticated in its
argument, it probes the depths of Orthodoxy even further than the other
two, though still within the capacity of an informed layperson. Its
far-reaching implications are likely to shock Westerners schooled to
think in terms of categories, of either/or dichotomies and the
exaltation of the individual, for being in the Orthodox understanding
consists not of sterile entities but of persons related to one another
in communion. "A human being left to himself cannot be a person." The
model is the Holy Trinity, a communion of persons. St. Paul expresses
it in Ephesians 4:25: "... we are members of one another." Th is is
the "grand co-inherence" of all in Christ so familiar to the Fathers.
Individualism is of the fall, and ultimately fruitless. As Antony of
Egypt put it, "Your life and your death are with your neighbor."
The implications of this can carry us far into the depths of
Orthodox theology. "Truth as communion ... [leads] to the affirmation
of otherness in and through love" ...the fall consists in the refusal to
make being dependent on communion, in a rupture between truth and
communion." For truth is not a "concept," nor even primarily a matter of
epistemology "but is connected with what we might call life," and if we
are to have life and truth we must, in a reciprocal relationship of
love, identify ourselves with the person of Jesus Christ who asserted
that He was in Himself truth and life (John 14:6). "His knowledge is
nothing other than His love. If He ceases to love what exists, nothing
will be. Being depends on love. The substratum of existence is not
being but love," and love by its very nature implies relationship.
Such is the thesis of Being. In addition Zizioulas delves yet
further into themes of Vasileios and of Yannaras already mentioned:
freedom of love in morality and obedience, theology as praxis (doing the
truth), the distortions of scholasticism and of pagan philosophy in
general, and much else. Heavy sledding, but well worth the effort.
Deification is in a sense yet more difficult, and the work lacks
something of the excitement of the other three. Its subtitle is St.
Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition. Interestingly, the author
holds the chair of Moral Theology and Christian Sociology in the
Theological School of the University of Thessalonki, which was Gregory's
home ground.
Gregory, however, was not the source of the notion of
"defication," which is very ancient, harking back to Genesis and Adam
and Eve's having been made "in the image and likeness of God," and to
St. Paul in Galatians 2:20, "...it is no longer I who live, but Christ
lives in me..." and to the great Athanasius who in the fourth century
summed it up saying, "God became man that man might become God." This
has never ceased to be the "ideal" of Orthodoxy and the "chief aim" of
the Church.
Gregory's role had to do once again with scholasticism. He
resisted Barlaam of Calabria, who in the fourteenth century came to
Constantinople attempting to impose scholasticism on the East, believing
that "a knowledge of pagan wisdom was an indispensable prerequisite for
human perfection." Gregory denied this, and prevailed, and Orthodoxy was
spared the straitjacket of over-intellectualization.
The West, however, still predominantly cerebral in its approach
to the faith, tends to have deep misgivings about the notion of
"deification." It is not, however, that we as created beings are to
become part of the Holy Trinity, but rather that w e become identified
with Christ, who was also God. Mantzaridis explains:
"...the deification of human nature was accomplished for the
first time in the person of Jesus Christ. His human nature was united
with the Logos of God...Christ's human nature became the vessel for
uncreated divine energy, and henceforth communicates this grace in the
Holy Spirit to all believers...Christ's uncreated life and energy became
the property of the man who is united with Him, and in whose person
Christ Himself lives and operates."
Any repair of the East-West schism will require the West's
somehow coming to terms with deification (or theosis), which as Bishop
Kallistos says in his "foreward" is no "abstract theory" but "the living
experience of the saints." This volume expounds it well for those
desiring to comprehend it.
The author of Communion of Love (Foreward by Henri J.M.Nouwen)
is in a sense a "living saint." A pharmacist by profession, he owned
several stores in Cairo and was quite successful by age 29, when he felt
Jesus's call to "follow," obeyed the command to "sell what you have" and
became a Coptic monk. Today, as head of Deir el Makarios monastery in
the desert 50 miles southwest of Cairo, he devotes himself to the
ascetic life and delivers short homilies to as many as 500 persons a day
who come to hear him.
This collection of the words of "Matthew the Poor" holds meat
and drink for the mind of every searching Christian. Nothing
innovative, it simply articulates Orthodox understanding in a lucid and
cogent way deeply satisfying to modern hunger. "There is no
intellectual means of entering into the Gospel," he says, "for the
Gospel is spiritual." And, '...spiritual understanding expands with the
knowledge [experience] of the truth, and the truth, in its turn, opens
up 'all the fullness of God'." He reiterates the powerful Orthodox theme
of Dionysius mentioned earlier that what is known is known only thru
participation in it:
"God is truth and life and everlasting light.The knowledge of
truth is participation in the truth; the knowledge of life is life; the
knowledge of light is illumination. Man, thru his loss of the knowledge
of God, has lost the truth within himself, and has lost eternal life and
light."
Matthew is as eminently quotable as he is readable. In the end
he sums up why Christ's Church has not achieved the "catholicity," the
all-embracing unity that Jesus intended, and again the spoiler proves to
be human reliance on fallen intellect:
"It has not yet conceived its divine concepts as pure and
elevated above logic or human reason; i.e., its concepts are still bound
to articulate and philosophical interpretations which hinder the vision
of the serenity of the catholic nature of Christ."
All this we now find to be linked to the present day in a rather
startling way. Science, it is often admitted, has taken on for us the
character of deity, as Zizioulas writes in Being:
"If theology creatively uses the Greek patristic synthesis
concerning truth and communion and applies it courageously to the sphere
of the Church, the split between the Church and science can be overcome
again."
An eminent science writer, D.E.Thomsen, intimates that "the
history of science represents in some ways an emancipation from the
Hellenic intellectual heritage." (Science News, Vol.131, No.12, March
21, 1987, p.184). Orthodoxy escaped that entrapment. How ironic, then,
if Orthodoxy, thought by many to be so ancient and passe should in our
computer age turn out to be exceedingly up to date.
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