What the Greek Orthodox Church has to be proud of, if it is anything, is its faithfulness to the Good News, “Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, sprung from the race of David” (2 Timothy 2:8), and that it has remained faithful, root and branch, from the beginning, so that like the apostle Paul, many of us can say, “It is on account of this that I have my own hardships to bear, even to being chained like a criminal—but they cannot chain the Good News” (2 Timothy 2:9). What the Church has to be ashamed of, though, is also present, so that those of us who witness it can also say, with the same apostle, “So I bear it all for the sake of those who are chosen, so that in the end they may have the salvation that is in Christ Jesus and the eternal glory that comes with it” (2 Timothy 2:10).I have been standing at my post inside the sanctuary of the Aghía Triás Cathedral in Portland, Oregon during the Greek Festival the last two days, and I will shortly return there this Sunday morning, first to participate in the divine worship, and then to complete my assignment as God’s porter in that holy place. I guard the temple and I guide the visitors who enter it, from all religious persuasions and of none, welcoming them, ushering them, answering their questions. This is my twentieth year doing this. In the confines of the temple and on its steps, I witness for Jesus Christ, and in me He witnesses for the Church. Occasionally I give an unscheduled interpretive tour of the temple for a small group that ends up being as large as one of the scheduled, official tours given by one of the priests or the deacon.
The content of the tour is not specified, but I know what it should include; we all do. You guide the visitors’ attention through all the architectural and graphic details of the building, explaining what each is and why it is there. You tell them that ‘there is no meaningless detail in the Orthodox Church.’ You show them how the form of the temple in all its aspects is ‘the Bible expressed as architecture’ and ‘the Bible expressed as visual art’ and then you clearly emphasize that everything is there to draw our attention to the Eternal, Living God revealed in Jesus Christ and in the saints. You tell them that the ikons are not to be considered art or decoration but rather as ‘windows into heaven’ to help us see with our hearts and by faith those things which are unseen to our physical eyes.
When the tour is given by a Greek Orthodox priest, though each has his own distinct style and focus, you can depend on hearing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, expressed in a way that excludes the giving of offense on denominational or creedal lines. Even in the question and answer time after the formal review of all the temple’s contents, the answers given are non-confrontational, apolitical, crisp and true, without stripping the flesh off our brothers’ backs. If anything could be taken offensively in an answer, the offense would not come from the flesh, not from unwarranted pride in anything man-made, but from the testimony to Jesus, from the Word of God.
I tremble to think that anything that I might do in my assignment during the Greek Festival as porter in God’s church would be unwelcoming or even injurious to any visitor, to any man, woman or child. For many of them, coming to view the inside of a Greek Orthodox church is their only contact with anything that represents God for a whole year. They may drive past the church buildings every day on the way to work or school, and I want them to remember, when they see it, that God is good, that His house is not only beautiful but welcoming. For us who worship and live there, the Church is Home, and our only desire is to spread the knowledge, as Christ’s ambassadors, that the invisible Holy God, the Creator, is also a loving Father, and that He has reconciled the world to Himself through His Son, Jesus Christ.
What I have also seen during my years manning the temple, though, and it has been especially bad this year, is the commandeering of this precious opportunity to catch the world’s eyes and ears for three days, by unbridled ‘Orthodox triumphalism’ and the use of the church tour to promote a politically charged version of ‘Orthodoxy’ by the deacon of the cathedral, who has also been appointed the official catechist, complete with titles and full authority to teach classes, likewise charged with his personal philosophy. He is a dynamic and entertaining speaker, animated, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, and with a winning manner—virtues in a man of God, witnessing for the truth, but a disaster in one who is ambitious for the wrong things, for human glory dressed up as divine.
I was able to listen in to the talks and the question and answer times on Saturday night, and I was horrified and ashamed at many of the things that the deacon was promoting as Orthodox. The day before, a woman whom I’ve known for twenty-two years and whom I regard as a spiritual elder in the community confessed to me that she was deeply troubled with the deacon’s teaching. “Where does he get these ideas?” she asked me. “I’ve never heard of any of this and he’s saying it’s the teaching of the Church.” She was very dismayed, and so was I. This woman knows both the scriptures and the fathers. She has studied with elders and priests. She knows what she is talking about.
What bothered me most was the constant attitude of comparison of Orthodoxy with other Christian groups, and always unfavorably. I was also bothered by the deacon’s promoting of Islam and implying that Muslims were better and more faithful than Protestants because they highly honor and venerate the Virgin Mary; grouping Orthodoxy with Judaism and Islam as real faiths and all peaceably coexisting, as opposed to ‘Western’ Christians who are troublemakers; saying that for the most part the Orthodox clergy of Portland are pro-Palestinian. I was used to the fact that this deacon is very outspoken politically, and that he promotes his views in a variety of ways as a deacon, but this year it was too much. I have to speak up. This is an abuse of his position. As I wrote in a recent post, Changing churches into mosques, he is doing at one end of the political spectrum what some fundamentalist Christian pastors are doing at the other end.
As I ushered the last group of visitors out the doors of the church, I joked a little bit with some of them. “Well, I hope the deacon helped you realize how right we are, and how wrong everybody else is.” They smiled, and I wondered what they were really thinking, what message the deacon got across to them, and what its effects would be. Would any of them have a change of heart? Would any of them be encouraged to follow Christ? Would any of them be drawn into a life of prayer and a desire for God? The history lesson was very long and hard last night, and even facts can be presented in a very distorted way. A speaker can say a lot of true things and yet not speak the truth. But all that I came away with was, “We’re better than you.”
Lord, have mercy!
3 comments:
This is so heartbreaking, Romanós. It is the same thing happening to all other denominations throughout the spectrum of Christianity. My prayer for us all is that we remain true to the Gospel, and fearless in the face of persecution, no matter where it comes, or when it comes. Thank you for all you are doing in this regard, my brother in Christ.
PS. I have found the wonderful Orthodox site Pilgrims From Paradise, and just downloaded about 300 megs of lovely homilies from the Ancient Fathers. How I wish I would have known these teachings and elders much earlier in my life.
The final night of the Greek Festival, I popped into the deacon's last lecture of the festival just long enough to hear him say, "There is no Islamic threat," and then he continued debunking the threat by saying that in Belgium the Muslims get along just fine with the other Belgians, and so on. Of course he accuses anyone who unveils the Islamic threat as a dangerous fanatic on the lunatic fringe. This is an ordained Orthodox deacon, though a convert from the left wing intelligentsia, a retired West Coast high school teacher. Need I say more?
When discussing the Egyptian Orthodox Church, he somehow seemed not to notice that he had just said that Orthodoxy was doing just fine in Egypt and the Middle East until the Islamic invasions.
What the…! So there's no Islamic threat, but Egyptian Christianity was doing well until the Islamic invasions? And of course, the 8 million Egyptian Orthodox Christians are fully free and able to practice their faith and evangelize, right? ’Fraid not, man: the descendants of pharaohs are second class citizens in their own country. Yet there is no Islamic threat. Of course not, father deacon, until you're subjected to Shariah law and are no longer free to promote Orthodox Christianity in your own country.
My blog is not about politics, nor is the public preaching of the Church supposed to be. We preach Christ crucified, if we are in fact following the apostles. Anything else is as good as a Judas kiss.
My prayer is this and always will be, that God raise up men and women of courage and conviction, in whose mouths the word of God will pour forth and water the parched souls in Egypt and beyond. Father Zakaria Botros is doing an amazing job in countering the lies of Islam. Who knows how many souls have been harvested because of him. I have heard this same lie about Islam not being a threat from Methodists and other Calvinistic types. I have come out from among them, thanks in large part to your kind words. I'm finding my faith renewed and restored and deepened. I thank you for that, too, brother. Don't lose heart. Many of us are coming out from among 'them' from all the denominations. I think the internet is how we are finding each other. God is not hindered by technology or the lack thereof.
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