The Author and Finisher of our faith

We  are living in a miserable age as far as warfare and heresy (another form of warfare) is concerned, and we find it in many unexpected places, sometimes within the enclosure of Holy Church. It is there where it is most dangerous, because Christians, born and trained to be sheep, when not grounded in the Word of God, can follow, and often do, the voice of hirelings, instead of the voice of the Good Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ.

That voice can come from the mouth of an ‘authority’ that sets itself up to be worshiped outside the Church, but more often within her. Hence, we see from history, the departure of the popes of Old Rome from Holy Orthodoxy and, outside, the thousands of voices of the mini-popes of false, dysfunctional fundamentalism.

Anyone who sets themselves up against the Holy Church that we know as Orthodox is automatically disqualified as a teaching authority, even when speaking the truth, because of admixture of truth and falsehood. This is easy to recognize. What is difficult is when the admixture occurs within the Church, coming from hierarchs, yes, but in the current age, from unqualified populists, who use fear to corral the sheep into pens of their own making, where superstition and slander replace faith and discernment. They use the name ‘Orthodox’ with as much duplicity as the fundamentalist slavers use the name of ‘Jesus Christ.’ Both these types are, in fact, contemporary Nicolaitans, those whose object is to divide and conquer the people of God, as is prophesied by Christ in His messages to the seven churches of Asia (Revelation, chapters 2 and 3, in their entirety).

At the present moment, Holy Church is being bombarded by the Nicolaitans within, who are trying to divide and conquer us. Their aim is not the conversion of the flock to ‘True Orthodoxy.’ They only want those sheep who will listen to and obey them without reservation, and who will promote themselves as ‘the only connection’ between the believer and Christ-God. As for the rest of us, who cling to the words of Jesus and try to imitate Him and carry out His holy commands, they have already verbally consigned us to the outer darkness.

So, just as the darkness spreads, not only within Holy Church but all around her, we see open prejudice on the rise all around us. The scapegoats, as usual, are the Jews, and anyone who has a mind of their own. Reason has again become the enemy, even though Reason has appeared in human form as Christ, and those who hear Him and obey. Now, I am seeing more and more the rise of an anti-Roman sentiment and prejudice, compounding historical enmity (which those in Christ should abandon and abhor) with pure, malicious slander. The Roman pope is once again being called the Antichrist, or the one who ushers in the Antichrist.

It’s to be expected that ‘fundamentalist’ Christians outside the Church should speak and believe this way. In the dark days of late medieval Europe, Martin Luther and his followers boldly asserted the same. And now, centuries later, the Greeks are taking up the score, adding force to it by remembering historical atrocities and negligences of the popes of former times perpetrated against them. Mark of Ephesos and Photios are dialectically resurrected to bolster their mindless arguments. Mindless, because they ignore present realities, clinging to the past as if the present, and building fortresses on other foundations than on Christ, who is the only foundation of truth.

All this is nonsense. Someday we will have to heed the call of Christ, ‘Lazaros, come out!’ and emerge from our tombs of superstition and dead faith, where we lie in the dark slumber of slander instead of walking in the Light of Christ, following Him alone, and doing the same things we see Him doing. Don’t we believe that Christ is alive and in our midst, now and always, and to the ages of ages?

We are the God-protected City, not ancient Byzantion, that lost Constantinople that people who dwell in fantasy and fanaticism dream of. We are the great Church of Holy Wisdom, not that magnificent structure with floating dome and glittering mosaics that is now the jewel-box of a Godless people. We are the Orthodox, who say ‘I believe’ when Christ asks, ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life. Do you believe this?’ and who have promised to follow Him and no one else, declaring, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.’

As for the pope, we do not slander him or his office. He is still the fifth patriarch. His office was stolen by liars and sellers of indulgences and false promises, but before Christ returns, his seat at Old Rome will return to Holy Orthodoxy.

The Antichrist has been with us since the beginning, hidden in various persons and in various institutions, but too weakly to reveal itself (yes, itself, not himself, because the Antichrist is not only ‘instead of Christ’ but also ‘instead of human’) and the Fathers have already warned us that one of the worst Antichrists, if not the Antichrist itself, is the dark force of Islam, which says exactly what John the Evangelist says of it, that Antichrist will deny that Christ has come in the flesh, that God can become a man, which He did and He does in Jesus Christ.

Again, let us abandon our historical tombs and come out into life, following the command of Christ, ‘Lazaros, come out!’ For Christ is alive and in our midst. He is speaking to us now as He has since the beginning. His prayer to the Father, ‘that they all are One, even as You and I are One,’ cannot be opposed by flesh forever. He comes today, as He came once in Galilee, to do what He always does, ‘the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.’

Let us walk with Him, and do what we see Him doing, brethren, and slandering no one, yield ourselves gladly and without reserve, not to the Nicolaitans who call us to hate one another, but to Jesus, ‘the Author and Finisher of our faith.’

For the time is close

Belligerent advocates of ignorant opinions held to be infallible,
these are believers,
though that is all they are.

They have no theology.
They are, in fact, atheological,
locked in a mindset that is cryptically atheistic,
because their god is manufactured,
a crucible of molten brass
that emerges as self-fashioned
as the golden calf of Old Testament Aaron’s mistake,
not the living God
whom his brother Moses meets
and speaks with, face to face.

This is islamification of the gospel—
production of a false Christ,
adoration by a false Bride,
purification without suffering,
sanctification without grace,
seduction into pretended virginity,
reduction of the Holy Bible into sharia law,
devotion to man-made glory,
not to the Glory ‘not made by hands.’
These are the greatest lies and the boldest.
Once they have captured, it is hard to escape.

We think we are newly besieged
by hijackers of ‘the religion of peace,’
that is, if we are politic and polite deceitful dreamers,
but a brief foray into history will show us
which religions, if any, are truly peaceful,
and which are not,
yet all are nothing more than religions.

The two closest rivals, Islam and Christianity,
are both violent in history,
but there seems to be this difference:
In the one,
following his scriptures faithfully, the believer will slay the infidel.
In the other,
following his Lord, he betrays Him if he slays,
no matter who is slain.
Yet neither can look back and claim
either faithfulness or innocence.

It is Spirit,
always the living God,
that alone is Truth,
tells the truth,
and commands in truth,
whose Word none can evade without retreating into falsehood,
who speaks in peace,
‘Apart from me, all is nothing,’
uncoercing,
and receives his servants as sons
without recourse to any mediation on the part of man,
‘always, now and ever, and unto ages of ages.’

We know by hearing and seeing who brings the everlasting gospel,
inwardly grasping what it is because it is already our being.
And when we sense not truth but lies we flee,
not into the arms of men but into our hearts,
where the Kingdom has been buried deep by Him
who has seeded it within us,
‘The kingdom of heaven is within you.’

Our world has long been held,
pillaged and raped by purveyors of all that Christ is not,
while saying they do all He commands,
but His letters to us, the seven churches, are all true.

All has been foretold,
all has been decreed,
all have followed their hearts’ desire,
and therein all have hidden their personal apocalypse,
yet all that is hidden is soon to be revealed.

Brethren, watch and wait.
The ten day trial is about to close.
Those who claim to be… and are not, will soon,
for them too late,
confess that it is you He loves,
and go down before you.

These liars will soon be silenced.
And finally,
finally we shall understand who these Nicolaitans really were.

For the time is close.

Desire the right

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil,
who substitute darkness for light
and light for darkness,
who substitute bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.

Woe to those who think themselves wise
and believe themselves cunning.

Woe to those who for a bribe acquit the guilty
and cheat the good man of his due.

For this, as stubble is prey for the flames
and as straw vanishes in the fire,
so their root will rot,
their blossom be carried off like dust,
for rejecting the Law of Yahweh Sabaoth,
for despising the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah 5:20-21, 23-24 Jerusalem Bible

A young couple in Oregon who owned and operated a bakery that made wedding cakes to order refused to take the order of a lesbian couple for a wedding cake. This was judged illegal under the ruling that homosexuals can now be joined in state sanctioned marriage. The bakery was sued by the lesbian couple for damages in the amount of $135,000 and they won their case. That bakery, having paid the ‘damages’ is now out of business. This is clearly a sign that the justice system in the United States is seriously skewed toward select social groups. The ‘damages’ are, simply put, plunder of innocent citizens by state-sponsored social terrorists. This is not justice; it is rapine. I wonder, if the homosexual couple had been two men, would they have pushed for the utter destruction of the offending bakery? I think not. Hell has no fury like a woman scorned—in this case, like a lesbian scorned.

There are a lot of social issues on our plate here in these (thus far) United States, and the country is a veritable hotbed of potential ‘former Yugoslavias’ divided not so much along ethnic lines, but along splits between conservatives and libertines, between those who build civilization and those who tear it down. The former group is generally characterized by a calm but persistent rationalism and often (but not always) by a polemic courtesy that refrains from expletives; the latter group can be recognized by a ready willingness to inflict verbal and even material damage on their opponents, their arguments generously peppered with the ‘F’ word, combining it even with the name of God. Myself, like Little Black Sambo taking refuge in a palm tree to watch tigers below churn themselves into butter, I would prefer to stay there watching silently, but sitting on the sidelines is not what constitutes the call.

Contrary to the smug dismissal of the Bible by the modern, educated elite that have tricked their way into power in most countries over the course of at least a half century (but actually twice as long as that), the Book is not to be read and appreciated merely ‘as literature,’ nor scorned and mocked as ancient superstition and pseudo-science, nor does it belong enshrined and interpreted away inside houses of worship where it can do no damage. Even in English (or other languages) translation, it is still the most powerful and persistent—and I might add, persuasive—piece of human literature on the planet. Ancient Israel’s historic path the pattern of all rebellious human societies that ever existed has produced beyond itself in the words of the Prophets the corrective to everything we have ever wanted to do wrong, and in the Christ of the improbable Gospels the blueprint for social and even racial evolution.

The current clash between the kingdoms of the politicos (politically correct, tow the party line, doesn’t matter which party) and the magnificos (tell it like it is, mince not words, make America great) is actually no more than a prelude to what is to come, no more than the tip of an immense iceberg of civil revolution that will turn modern Western democracy on its head, emptying its pockets of the false coin it’s been passing off as true these past many decades, and restoring, even as a forest fire restores the fertility of the floor, the fertility of the human mind unfettered by imaginary lines. The screaming voices of the barbarous libertines that would silence all dissent, signs not of rightness and truth but prophecies of their imminent defeat, will themselves be silenced, not by bawling women and the cat-calls of effeminates, but by the irresistible forces of nature coming to our rescue, in us and in the earth.

Everyone deep down knows what the truth is, but to the illustrious bargain offered by the devil many have fallen, many fall, and many more are yet to fall, bought cheap by the enemy of mankind. That bargain has already proved itself fatal, as consumptive as cancer, taking no captives but killing all who embrace it, not quickly but slowly, always holding out false hope, flattering and tantalizing its victims.

Everyone deep down knows what is right, but it is still a choice, to desire it, or to deplore it.
Brethren, for safety’s sake, desire the right.

The fall of the Republic

And why must the Republic fall?
For the very same reasons that the original Republic, Rome, fell.

We were founded on virtuous principles, and we flounder on virtual laurels. Rome did the same. Before her, Athens did the same, and ancient Israel, and countless other civilisations known and unknown.

Yet why?
You and I know the answer due to the mercy of our man-loving God, who doesn't hang for long on a cross or sleep long in a tomb, but who once dead lives now and forever.

And we, without the solace of mere myths, do indeed live in our testimony, surrounded by walls the enemy cannot scale or breach; and that City not made with hands cannot fall, now or ever; and that heritage is what was handed over to us, and what we will hand over when our time comes, to our children, yes, but to the King, to whom our Republic and all true cities pointed.

What an honor, indeed, what a blessing, to live in these times, and to share with even one other, and to witness, the end of all things.

For the perfection of humanity is nothing else but to end, end so that it can finally begin. Our Republic existed to await the true King, so that it could die in the establishment of His Kingdom.

Faithfully He brings true justice; He will neither waver, nor be crushed until true justice is established on earth, for the islands are awaiting His law.
Isaiah 42:4 Jerusalem Bible

And if we follow Christ

The Warrior Ethos, by Bohdi Sanders, Ph.D., forward by Sifu Al Dacascos.

From the writeup on this book at Amazon:

The Warrior Ethos is a daily motivational book for martial artists and warriors. There are 365 quotes, commentaries and affirmations, one for each day of the year! The reader can read the text for the day, spend some time reflecting on the meaning for him or her, and then use the affirmation during his or her meditation time. The foreword is written by the legendary martial artist, Sifu Al Dacascos. The Warrior Ethos is endorsed by some of today's most respected martial artists. In addition to the quotes, commentaries, and affirmations, there is a entire list of all the quotes used in the book, plus a very comprehensive index which makes it easy to find exactly what you are looking for. The Warrior Ethos is a book that will motivate and inspire you every day of the year. This book is literally packed full of wisdom! The martial arts and warrior philosophy will make your think and inspire you to live a better life. This is one book that EVERY martial artist should have in his or her library!

I have not read this book. I am probably not going to read it. I have never practiced martial arts, though I approve of them, admire genuine practitioners, would urge my grandchildren (if I had any) to practice martial arts for physical discipline and self-defense, and enjoy watching some martial arts films.

What annoys me is the mistaken appropriation of the term ‘warrior’ by both secular and religious (specifically Christian, but also Islamic) culture, which applies it to a multitude of attitudes and activities that have little to do with its real meaning, but which supply the illusion of power to the powerless.

In my not-so-young youth, I also broadly and verbally abused the term ‘warrior,’ applying it to people I liked not only to encourage but also to flatter them. I applied it to myself, unbelievably, even though I hadn’t a shred of real courage and never even learned how to defend myself in a playground fight.

As a budding poet, I wrote what I thought were pearls of sage wisdom about the state of being a warrior. Ten years ago I published this poem written even longer ago, prefaced with my thinking on the topic, which has not changed since then, but become even more certain as I look about me and within me.

Because of the glib and unmerited use of the word ‘warrior’ by some of today’s Christians in reference to their performance as ‘prayer warriors’, ‘worship warriors’ and the like, I have been reluctant to publish this poem that I wrote many years ago. We don’t confer on ourselves the title ‘warrior.’ It is to be conferred by others, best of all, by God Himself. He is again forming heroes as prophesied in my poem.

The spiritual warrior is violent and fierce.
He is violent in scattering the enemies of the Cross
and fierce in opposing sin.
His lips do not sow threats or boasts.
His eyes are twin swords.
Because the power he wields is infinite,
he is perceived as gentle.
Because the power he wields is not his own,
he wields it with humility.
He honorably protects the victims of the warfare.
He battles only his enemy.

I quoted my preface above verbatim with only one minor edit. I blush now at my pretension in announcing that I prophesied the advent of heroes, but no more foolishly or pridefully than did Whitman in his epic poem Leaves of Grass, and probably for the same reasons, hopeful, well-meaning.

I liked my poem then, and I still do, for its epigraphic cadence, borrowed probably from my reading of the Tao Te Ching within the context of my Christian faith. I still think that it speaks the truth about the nature of a genuine ‘warrior.’ What I doubt is that it can emerge in real people, not just in heroic art.

Now that I am beyond the age of physical ‘warriorhood’ and hopefully wizened enough to reserve my verbal assaults against enemies I or society must combat to those truly worthy, my armchair exploits are confined to watching my favorite heroic and martial arts films—300, Red Cliff, and Musa the Warrior.

I need not provide corrective counsel to youths male or female of whatever age or polemical persuasion as they try to empower and define themselves by their particular ‘warrior ethos.’ To be a real warrior, if that’s what they want to be, will not spare them relinquishing any and all their romantic illusions.

If we are speaking of being real warriors in a cause, social, political, religious, we must realize that it will never be enough to be ‘a majority of one.’ I mean, all we can do is opine to those nearby, but the cause isn’t helped one budge. We have to be willing to follow a leader and unite with others in the same cause.

That, sadly, is something most of us have proven ourselves unwilling to do, because we put our personal welfare and comfort ahead of even our most fervent causes. It’s exactly this hypocritical ‘warriorhood’ that may forfeit the next presidential election, handing over power to the dangerous and unworthy.

But thinking less gloriously of ourselves, whether we be warriors or not, let’s stand up for what we know is true, and if we follow Christ, let’s be the kind of warrior He was, is, and shall be, sowing not threats or boasts, honorably protecting the victims, and wielding power with humility, for His victory is ours.

The music of that morning

Midwives Marilyn Milestone (left) and Pamela Truzinski

We  had been seeing naturopathic professionals in preparation for the birth of our second son, because as yet we had no medical insurance, and this is what we could afford. As I remember the overall cost was about six hundred dollars. That was in 1983 dollars, of course, but I had at last struck it rich—I had landed a job that paid me seven dollars an hour to start, after having worked previously for no more than about half that much, first as a technician in a plastic container factory in Illinois, then as a lead man in a traditional furniture factory in Portland, Oregon. In the latter position, I didn’t arrive at that three dollar something an hour wage until after working four years.

So we had decided on midwives to help us deliver our second child. I don’t think we knew its sex, because we had both boy’s and girl’s names picked out. Our first-born, Jacob, was born nine years prior in a hospital in Edmonton, Alberta, because, though we were literally dirt poor—I was earning perhaps two dollars an hour—the province had good medical coverage. Out of pocket charges amounted to literally just a few dollars, if they cost us at all. Besides, after Jacob was born, we received a monthly family allowance check of sixteen dollars to help offset the costs of raising a child. That’s what they paid in those days for an infant, up to a maximum of sixty-four dollars a month for older kids.

When Jacob was barely two years old we returned to the States, lured by the prospect of ‘free land’ and a homestead in a hippie commune in Oregon. The commune was, of course, ‘spiritual,’ but it wasn’t quite what we expected when we visited it. We opted out, unwilling to entrust ourselves to the ‘commune’ of Ahimsa, where anything was permitted, as long as it was ‘spiritual,’ even at the price of losing that ‘free land.’ But that is another story.

Andrew in his baptismal suit

My wife’s pregnancy was going well, nothing abnormal was detected, but we awaited the due date with some trepidation. When you’ve given birth to a child and then waited about nine years, the body parts have gone back almost to their condition before the previous birth. After the birth of our second child, two more followed in the course of five years, and these later births were relatively easy, even though our third son, Johnny, weighing in at eleven pounds fourteen ounces, was the largest infant ever delivered at the Providence Hospital up to that time. We were afraid that giving birth to this next child might be difficult, and as a matter of fact, it was.

It was a frosty October that year, the clear night sky speckled amply with stars. We retired to bed fairly early, darkness falling by eight o’clock, knowing that this might be the day. October the sixth, thirty-one years ago from today as I write this. Our little house was getting chilly as we went to sleep. We had to give up using our furnace for central heating, because it burned oil, and the price of oil was too costly. We used a Fisher wood stove, burning tree prunings and mill ends from the furniture factory when we couldn’t afford to buy a cord of partially split oak or alder for firewood. This year, we were better off. I had landed that seven dollar an hour job and we now could afford to buy real firewood. We even had a car again, after being unwheeled for a year or two when I was still making only half as much.

Andrew (3 mos) and Jacob (9 yrs)

‘Wake up! Norman, wake up! Call the midwives, and then go and start a fire in the woodstove!’ It truly was a wake up call. The house was freezing. Though we always banked the coals in the wood stove, after midnight they emitted barely any heat, and in the morning I usually had to start the fire from scratch. It must have been somewhere between one and two in the morning. I went downstairs—we lived in a small two storey farmhouse on a quarter acre corner lot at the edge of town—and phoned the midwives, Marilyn Milestone, and Pamela Truzinski (memory eternal). They gave me some instructions, and said they would be on their way.

Next, to start a fire. Well, easier said than done, especially when you have only a little bit of split wood in the house. We needed the stove to be good and hot, hotter than usual, and the upstairs bedroom which was going to be someone’s place of birth would only be heated by gravity, the hot air rising and ascending the stairwell and coming up through a grate in the floor. I got my clothes on, and went out to the wood shed to split wood and start a fire. Though I don’t exactly remember when Jacob, up to that night our only son, joined me, whether it was when I was chopping wood and starting a fire in the stove, or later, he was intimately involved in the events of that early pre-dawn, and the sunrise birth.

Going out to the shed, I looked up. The sky was blue black and emblazoned above the house and shed was the constellation Orion, the one that looks like a large ‘X’ or a cross of St Andrew. It may have been that stellar sign that leaned us, when the child came, in the direction of the name he was called. Yes, it was a boy.

The midwives arrived. The house was toasty hot, even up in that second storey bedroom. Jacob was with us there, sitting by the wall next to the big four-poster bed where his pregnant mother lay. Labor was not easy, but not being the mother, I’ve forgotten how hard it was. We had been up all night. Soon pre-dawn purple was showing through the eastward facing windows.

‘Push! Push!’ we urged over and over again. Like every birth, there’s a point where the mother feels she must give up, it’s too hard, and then—he’s out! No, no, not exactly, not this time. A tiny head had appeared at the door of the womb and the midwives massaged it out, and now it hung there, limply, eyes closed. A very scary moment.

Andrew, about age 2 years

‘Push! Push! Push!’ but the body behind that tiny head did not want to come out. Time was ticking tensely. We could all hear our own heartbeats more loudly than the tiny one’s. Daylight was starting to filter into the room, but we didn’t notice. Our eyes were nailed to that tiny, lifeless head, and then someone had an idea. ‘Quickly! Let’s get her off the bed onto the floor, in a squat with her back against the box spring and mattress!’ Awkwardly, but as gently as four people can push a woman in her condition, we pivoted her to the edge of the bed and helped her down and into a squatting position. Four pairs of hands did their work in an automatic movement that was instinctively guided.

Sploosh! With no further coaxing, a final muscular spasm ejected the baby with measured ease, his head cradled and protected as if by angelic hands, as a flood of uterine fluids, clear and dark red, poured onto the floor. The body followed, falling into welcoming, open palms, and then—quickly now!—the team of four, midwives, father and son, divided, again instinctively, into two teams: one lifting the mother back to at least a little comfort on the bed, the other keeping the baby right behind her, anxiously looking for signs of life. The little body was complete, all fingers and toes counted, a perfectly formed male child, but unbreathing. Startled, one of the midwives drew back, while the other gently massaged the tiny chest and puffed air into the little face.

Andrew, Byzantine chanter,
Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church

‘Hhhuhh!’ the baby gasped its first mouthful, lungsful of earthly air with a reflexive jerk, and then began crying. In what order I cannot remember, but I did the fatherly things as prompted by the midwives: clamp the umbilical cord, suction out the fluid from mouth and nostrils, to help breathing. Again, somewhat scary, I had to cut the umbilical cord. It didn’t seem to hurt the baby, but it would be hard to know, because first-born crying has only one dialect. As soon as I had enough wits about me, I looked up and noticed shafts of golden sunlight streaming in through the windows. I went to them, and there, the sun, already golden, was rising over the tree tops. I returned to join my wife and first-born son with their new son and brother. Had the afterbirth come yet? I cannot remember, but at some point, there it was. We gave it to one of the midwives, who wanted to plant it in her garden. Something to do with a tree, she said.

It was time now for the new mother to get up, with the assistance of the midwives, and go to the bath room and get properly cleaned and dressed. The newborn son was placed in my arms, and I quietly whistled like a flute the melody of a Provençal lullaby, as a first offering to welcome my son and give thanks to God for his safe birth and the health of my wife.

Flowers in the meadow softly sway
And all the little birds sing, merry May Day
Rabbits in the orchard sport and play
And all the little creatures smile and are gay

Showing Andrew his apricot tree

My little boy
Sing out your joy
I am near
My darling, do not fear
Love is all around you
Comforting
With gentle lullabies
To make your heart sing

October the seventh, nineteen hundred eighty-three, sometime between seven and eight in the morning, closer to seven, our second-born son, Andrew, was born, humbly and dangerously, at home in the upstairs bedroom with the flowery wallpaper and the four-poster bed, assisted by the eyes, hearts and hands of his father and older brother, two mystical midwives, and of course, his musical mother.

And the music of that morning has never left him.

A sad postscript

The ‘musical mother’ of this remarkable son passed away (reposed, as we say in Orthodoxy) on July 8, 2016.
We are all still in that twilight time as we wait for our new lives without her to sort themselves out. ‘Memory eternal’ is deeper and more everlasting than we can imagine, but that now she lives where she can walk into all moments she ever lived, in the light that never wanes, and hear the music she always loved to hear, without end.

Christ — ο Χριστος

This is the way we should see Christ—

He is our friend, our brother.
He is whatever is good and beautiful.
He is everything.
Yet, He is still a friend and He shouts it out, “You’re my friends, don’t you understand that? We’re brothers. I’m not threatening you. I don’t hold hell in my hands. I love you. I want you to enjoy life together with me.”

Christ is everything.
He is joy, He is life, He is light.
He is the true light who makes man joyful,
makes him soar with happiness;
makes him see everything, everybody;
makes him feel for everyone,
to want everyone with him, everyone with Christ.

Love Christ and put nothing before His Love.
Christ is everything.
He is the source of life, the ultimate desire,
He is everything.
Everything beautiful is in Christ.

Somebody who is Christ’s must love Christ, and when he loves Christ he is delivered from the devil, from hell and from death.

— Elder Porphyrios

So, who was Elder Porphyrios?
Elder Porphyrios was a Greek spiritual father, born February 7, 1906 and named Evangelos Bairaktaris. At the age of 15 he emigrated to Mount Athos and was accepted as the ‘nephew’ of Elder Panteleimon, his mentor. He was ordained a presbyter on July 27, 1927 by Archbishop Porphyrios III of Mount Sinai, and received his name.

Elder Porphyrios lived and worked in Greece from that time until he returned in 1984 to Mount Athos. The elder’s life and teachings reflect his great love for Christ.

He reposed on December 2, 1991.

Elder Porphyrios would not want our attention to be focused on him, but rather on Jesus Christ, who was the Love of his life, as anyone can see from this brief portion of the Elder’s sayings.

“And eternal life is this: To know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” John 17:3

By grace man is broken but not divided

Fortunate is the man who is broken in pieces and offered to others, who is poured out and given to others to drink. When his time of trial comes he will not be afraid. He will have nothing to fear. He will already have understood that, in the celebration of love, by grace man is broken but not divided, eaten and never consumed. By grace he has become Christ, and so his life gives food and drink to his brother. That is to say, he nourishes the other’s very existence and makes it grow.

—Archimandrite Vasileios

Make disciples

‘Make disciples,’ says Jesus. It is the second of the three commands the Lord gives us before His ascension, ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you’ (Matthew 28:19-20).

The Lord is very direct. He is easy to understand, when we want to understand Him. ‘Go’ needs no explanation. ‘Therefore’ implies that we know who it is we have put our trust in, and why. That needs no explanation either. It just is His way of letting us know that He knows everything about us, and that He has told us everything about Himself that we need to know.

‘And make disciples of all nations,’ packs a lot of meaning in its few words. Christ knows that we will want to excuse ourselves if we find the plain meaning of His words too much of a challenge. Before we have a chance to do that, He follows up with an explanation, but only after He utters the third command, ‘baptizing them,’ a very concrete action that should be obvious to anyone who has been with Him. Though Jesus never baptized anyone, His disciples did, because He had commanded it.

But ‘make disciples,’ what do we make of that? What should we make of it? The baptizing is something we do while we’re making disciples, but what does it take, to actually ‘make disciples’? Again, Jesus is easy to understand, when we want to understand Him, but when we don’t, well, He just calls someone else who does, and He tells them that making disciples means ‘teaching them to observe all things’ that He commands us. He always expects us to ‘just do it’ when He commands. He doesn’t wait. In the gospels we don’t see Him going back and giving anyone ‘a second chance,’ but I don’t think it’s out of character for Him to do so. Remember, He’s the same Lord who tells us to forgive not just seven, but seventy times seven times, and He’s no hypocrite.

‘Teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you’ seems intimidating at first, if you want to be intimidated. But stop and take stock. What did He command, really? What did He tell us to do? What did He call ‘the first and greatest commandment’ and what ‘the second which is like it’? And did His sayings fall on deaf ears, was He planting good seed in bad, stony soil, when He told us who are the ‘blessèd’? Don’t we want to be the good soil, the humus that nurtures the seed—that is, His words—so that they produce a hundred-fold in us? ‘How blessed are the merciful! for they shall have mercy shown them! How blessed are the peacemakers! God shall call them His sons!’

‘Make disciples,’ says Jesus, and, yes, this is a command. He always gives us things to do that push us beyond our limits, proving to us that they are only imaginary lines. If we want to obey His commands, He makes it possible. If we do not want to obey, we make it impossible. The Lord is very direct. He is easy to understand, when we want to understand Him. He even tells us, ‘Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light’ (Matthew 11:29-30). ‘Rest for your souls’ may seem a contradiction to what He describes as taking His yoke upon us. We think, ‘It’s bad enough we have to deny ourselves, and take up our cross, to follow Him. But now we’ve got to be yoked to a burden as well? And He calls the yoke easy and the burden light? He can’t be serious! He must mean something else…’

Since I have been rubbing it in, let me apply one more salve to soothe our seething flesh. He says, ‘Make disciples’ and tells us who they are, ‘all nations.’ Yes, that includes everyone. Like I have been saying till I was hoarse, ‘the Church is a pan-human reality.’ Nobody, absolutely no one, is to be excluded, considered untouchable, unredeemable, garbage. ‘All nations’ means people whom we don’t like, even people we hate, not just the ones we love, because ‘even sinners and tax collectors love those who love them.’ A horrid saying that we keep at arm’s length, even though Jesus says it, as we busy ourselves with anything that might make Him happy, but which doesn’t.

He knows we have heard Him clearly. He knows He has called each of us ‘to come out from among them’ by name. Out from among whom? No, not from the pigs. We are the pigs He is calling to come out from the mire. He doesn’t flinch from washing us, thoroughly, and He expects us to follow His example. No one starts out clean, but when He’s done with us, and with them, we are as clean as He is, we shine as a thousand suns, whiter, brighter even than a fuller could make a soiled garment.

‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you.’ 
Matthew 28:19-20

We have called these words ‘the Great Commission’ yet we neglect committing it. But they are far greater than we think. They are, as Jesus says, ‘the words of Him who is holy and true, who holds the key of David. What He opens no one can shut, and what He shuts no one can open’ (Revelation 3:7), and ‘the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life’ (John 6:63).

This is the preparation of the good news, of the gospel, and it can only begin when we go and ‘make disciples.’

Calling them to Christ

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a love for the lost? This is a term we use as part of our Christian jargon. Many believers search their hearts in condemnation, looking for the arrival of some feeling of benevolence that will propel them into bold evangelism. It will never happen. It is impossible to love ‘the lost.’ You can’t feel deeply for an abstraction or a concept. You would find it impossible to love deeply an unfamiliar individual portrayed in a photograph, let alone a nation or a race or something as vague as ‘all lost people.’

Don’t wait for a feeling or love in order to share Christ with a stranger. You already love your heavenly Father, and you know that this stranger is created by Him, but separated from Him, so take those first steps in evangelism because you love God. It is not primarily out of compassion for humanity that we share our faith or pray for the lost; it is first of all, love for God.

― John Piper

I agree that it is impossible to love the lost, well, maybe. I have known faithful Christians, usually women (my wife, recently deceased, was one), who make it a priority to pray for the lost. Since I have never really done this myself, except when praying from a prayer book litany, like the St Augustine's Prayer Book, I can't know what exactly they are feeling. Did my wife love the lost? I think she did, but only because whenever she met anyone who she thought was lost, that is, needing Christ, she did not hesitate to witness to them to the extent that they would allow it.

I am actually the same way. My experience, since my conversion at age 24 (I am now 65 and still at it) is that when I encounter anyone with whom I must engage in whatever kind of relationship, be it business, or church, or sharing a seat on the bus, train, or airplane, I look closely at the person and open a friendly conversation, and the longer I am with that person, the more (usually) I come to love them. That is what propels me into telling them about the Lord, each according to what the Spirit gives me. A tiny poem I wrote when I was just saved expresses this in one of its lines...

There was a boy
Sent off to war
Who fell in love
With everyone he saw

Though my tomb stone has already been carved, except for the end date, and it's too late to add my poem as an epitaph, this little poem is what I want people to remember me by when I'm gone. The second stanza goes like this...

Went up well armed
Helm, sword and shield
Himself to fight
On the body's field

Back to the topic, I suppose there are many kinds of personalities, and maybe it's true that most people don't automatically and irresistibly 'feel' a sympathy for others, especially strangers, that would propel them into 'loving the lost' in a one-at-a-time manner. In that case, I suppose it's best to share Christ just because one 'loves God.' Again, though, I find this kind of rationalisation a bit unconvincing.

As long as I've been a Christian, but even before I was 'born again' as an adult, the memory of my Christian childhood is very strong about one thing—you show that you love God by loving the people around you. That was something impressed on me by my grandparents and parents more than by the clergy or the church, though my experience there was always very positive. (I have no bad memories of church.)

Sometimes I think that 'loving the lost' can be used as a kind of cliché to justify a lot of what are really quite un-Christian ways of approaching unbelievers. What motivates me is not so much 'love for the lost' but just 'love for a fellow creature' which includes respect for them as they are when I meet them, and which keeps me from mauling them for Christ culturally, socially, and religiously, instead of calling them to Christ.

And that last thing, calling them to Christ, can be no more or less than the call that I have received. It's all I have to share, and it will have to be enough.

With his eyes open

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14

[Originally posted on September 5, 2010.]

Here follows a word of Truth that I found this morning at Pandelis' blog FOCUS which I want to share with my readers and keep for myself close at hand. With few words, it says much. This morning as I awoke I was thinking about the Truth, how difficult it is to express it in human language. Yet here is Fr Alexander Men, patiently and daringly speaking it. Glory to You, O God, glory to You, who have done wonders in Your saints!

The question is simple, brief and clear. Made in the image and likeness of the Creator, man finds meaning in life as he draws near to his Prototype. This is both the meaning and the goal. You see when we open up the Kingdom within us, Eternity begins to speak in us. And then we raise ourselves above vain pursuits, we cease to be slaves of circumstance, and we bravely stand against misfortunes which bring us down. This is not because we're indifferent or cold. The Christian isn't a stoic; he can suffer, but endures his sufferings through God's strength and not his own. In this way the meaning and goal of life is a forward and upward progression. It is not complacency, as some might think. We think of complacency as a rose-colored attitude towards our surroundings, when we close our eyes to evil and think that everything is wonderful. That's not how it is. Man must understand the tragic nature of life; he must look upon this tragic nature with his eyes open and at the same time remain standing—indeed not only remain standing, but move ever onwards and upwards. Our life becomes meaningful only as we move upwards, despite the fact that physically and mentally we descend as we grow older and weaker.

The image above is the detail of the face of Christ on the ikon crucifix in the church of San Damiano, near Assisi, Italy. It was standing under this ikon of the cross that Francesco of Assisi heard the first words of his call, "Rebuild My Church which, as you can see, is falling into ruin." Thinking that the call meant to physically rebuild the ruined church in which the cross hung, Francesco did exactly that. Only later did the nature of his call become apparent, as the Lord unfolded it in the events of his life. The contrast that lay at the heart of Francesco's call, made in the film Brother Sun, Sister Moon, is a contrast of images: a three-dimensional carving of a dead Christ robed as a king with eyes closed nailed to the cross, with a two-dimensional ikon of a living Christ clothed in suffering with eyes open nailed to a cross upon which other human figures are also written. To Francesco, as well as to all of us, this contrast is presented to us: To be satisfied with a dead, unseeing religiosity of man-made proportions, or to let ourselves be renewed daily by contact with a living, seeing Christ whose Cross contains everyone whom the Father draws to Him. To be spiritually still-born, dead and blind as a statue, or to be spiritually alive, seeing and participating in the crucified Life as living ikons.

Father Alexander Men has hit the nail on the head for me,
as has Francesco of Assisi,
and all the saints that I have met on this road to Calvary.

Francesco di Bernardone

His simplicity and poverty alienated him from or endeared him to his contemporaries. His fresh and honest boldness drew a sultan’s heart to his Savior and to the path of peace. His utter conformity to the pattern of the gospel attracted Christ Himself, by whom he received in a mystery the signs of His passion imprinted in his flesh. His gentleness brought nature’s creatures to full obedience to a son of Adam, revealing possibly for the first time in history the truth that Paradise is no mere myth, confirming Christ’s word that it still exists, ‘I tell you, today you will be with Me…’

When first I wrote this, it was a rainy evening. I thought, how apt for the feast day of this blessed saint, who trod homeless miles in the winter rains of Italy, begging his bread, not because he was too lazy to work for it, but because in working he never asked for wages. Knowing for Whom he labored, he expected his faithful Lord to supply all his needs, and he was never disappointed. We peer at Francesco of Assisi across a chasm more than eight centuries wide, squinting, because our eyes cannot look directly at him any more than we can gaze at the sun. God became Man once, and that was enough. Now this…

Personally, this is my ‘other name day.’ Yes, that name, Francis, has claimed someone in every generation of my family, my father, me, and my fourth son. Not just the name, either, but hopefully a share of his spirit. I too want to be included among his ‘little brothers’ even though I am unworthy. Like the rich young man in the gospel story, I have often gone away sad at the word of Christ, instead of joyfully and confidently following His command. I am no better than anyone else. We have all fallen short, but here is one who, once as fallen as us, dared to follow his Master…

Brother Francis, you spent your youth in earthly revelry, providing generously to your companions not from your own, but from your father’s store of, wealth. We find that we never really change: what we are deep inside we always remain: it is the pattern of our being. You also remained the same, but you exchanged the old world for the new, to become the herald of the age to come, providing generously to us, once more, not what was yours, but your Father’s. Following your Master Jesus as He walks in our needy world, pray for us, and help us, to find the heavenly treasure of Paradise.

A childlike religion

It's not often that I get to tell people about Orthodoxy, because we don't promote it: we usually wait to be asked. If someone wants to know about it so bad that they have to ask, then it's worth telling them, I think. For me, this happens mainly during the Greek Festival on the first weekend of October at Aghía Triás, my family parish. I have been standing watch in the church for the last quarter century—I think I've missed only a single year—not bragging, I just like to do it. I am a doorkeeper of the Lord's temple, that's my job, 24/7. At festival time, it takes on a literal meaning.

This is the Orthodoxy that I adhere to. Everything about it is paradox and irony. People ask, ‘How can you stand for so long in those services? They're hours long!’ and ‘How do you put up with all that repetition?’ and ‘Why do people seem to be crossing themselves all over the place, and not just once, but three times?’ The list of questions goes on, interminably. While I'm on duty, the Lord gives me infinite patience in dealing with them all—and their questions, what's more ironic, are just as long and repetitive and spontaneously ceremonial to me as our Orthodoxy seems to them. It's a perfect match!

The mystery of Orthodoxy is not what most people think. It's not arcane and secret doctrines or impossibly complex ‘byzantine’ theological dogmas. It's not the apparent rigidity of ceremonial which, for unsympathetic (or too grown-up) outsiders, seems empty and meaningless. It's not even (what appears to some as) the pomp and fussiness of worship, which combined with the Oriental chanting and the fragrant frankincense smoke filling the sanctuary, creates an almost psychedelic experience (a living, moving three-dimensional hieroglyphic, it's been called).

No, the mystery of Orthodoxy is that, underneath what the eye can see, lies a childlike religion, startling in its simplicity, a following of Jesus in the world, almost incognito. What the five senses perceive in the encounter with Orthodox Christianity in its traditions, is the luxuriant, redundant joy of the childlike heart exulting ceaselessly and seamlessly in the Presence of God. What some experience as ‘too much’ from an adult point of view, others receive gladly and can't seem to get enough of.

That's one reason, I think, why Orthodoxy isn't for everyone. It takes a child's heart, simple enough to trust that the Father is so totally caring and careful, that it doesn't just believe, it knows that nothing happens without Him knowing, and therefore, all will be well. That's also one reason why we immerse our young in every aspect of the faith, even giving communion to unknowing infants. It is this foundation that every Orthodox can fall back on, rebuilding, if need be, after suffering the damage that the world is sure to inflict.

A childlike religion, lighting candles and standing them up in sandboxes in the church, bringing flowers, even the most humble, and leaving them in front of the icons as a love gift, taking part in dozens of small ceremonies—not very different in some ways from Judaism, another childlike religion—and always asking questions, and full of wonder at the Presence of God. None of us ever really leaves our childhood behind, but not all of us will admit it. But it is to such as these that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs.

‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me…’ is a much wider invitation than most people realize, and that too is the invitation of true Orthodoxy, wherever it exists.

Oneness, Ένωσις

‘What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder’ (Mark 10:9). Yes, yes, I know. Christ is here speaking about the indissolubility of marriage. Of course, He is, and I accept it. I agree with Christ, and with the prophets, who declare, ‘I hate divorce’ (Malachi 2:16). But there are more meanings to the word ‘divorce’ just as there are more meanings to ‘adultery.’ Just as adultery is taken to mean, unfaithfulness to the Lord, in addition to marital infidelity, so divorce can surely refer to the rending of the seamless robe of Christ, that is, the Church, dividing it. It can also mean driving a wedge between Christ and His Bride.

Christ prays to His Father, ‘I ask not only on behalf of these men, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their message, so that they may all be one. Just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be one in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, so that they may be one, just as we are one. I am in them, and you are in me. May they be completely one, so that the world may know that you sent me and that you have loved them as you loved me’ (John 17:20-23).

It has always baffled me, how we Christians can read these words in the Holy Gospel, and continue going our separate, even competitive, ways. Here we have the Son of God, whom we say we believe in, whom we claim to know personally, who we claim has saved us, who we testify lives in our hearts and in our midst, here we have Him speaking in our hearing—through the mercy of God disclosed to His beloved disciple John—a prayer that cannot go unanswered, a request that cannot be refused, the prayer of not just any son to any father, but of the Son of God to His Heavenly Father.

Do we just ignore this prayer? Do we pretend that it has nothing to do with us? Do we think Christ is praying for some other people to be one? He can’t certainly mean us, I mean, we are the Orthodox, ‘we have seen the true Light, we have received the heavenly Spirit, we have found the true faith, worshiping the undivided Trinity who has saved us.’ We are already one, just as He prayed. It’s not our fault if those others who say they’re Christians don’t join us. If they really believed in Christ, they would be standing here with us. We’re not working against His prayer; they are.

Doro doro doro doro doro…

I am a Greek Orthodox Christian, as many of you know, and I am a member of an Antiochian (Arabic) Orthodox parish. I write as a follower of Jesus, hopefully even as a disciple. Sometimes I write to my fellow Orthodox, but usually I write to all the brethren, to all who love and believe in Jesus. Of course I can’t help sharing the faith treasury of the ancient Church, because that’s what surrounds me. Triple immersion for me is not just the Orthodox triple dunk in the waters of baptism. It’s also immersion in the Holy and Divine Scriptures, in the Undivided Tradition, and in the Sacred Mysteries.

I am unashamed to call anyone ‘brother’ who offers worship to the God-man Jesus the Christ, even if they do not know the truths that I know. I am certain that Christ is, as Paul writes, ‘the Savior of the whole human race, but particularly of all believers’ (1 Timothy 4:10), but I am also not a Universal Salvationist, if only on the grounds that such trifling with the will of God approaches blasphemy. I keep the saying of my Orthodox mentors, ‘Let God be God.’ That includes letting Him be Savior as well as Judge. Yet, here we are making it hard for each other, instead of making peace.

Since the earliest times, doctrinal controversies have continued to prune away believers from the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Of course, I know this phrase, used by Churches that claim the faith of at least the Council of Nicæa, did not exist at the very beginning. I know that those who have been pruned away all through history rejected the idea that they were pruned, and made the ‘big Church’ the culprit. So does it now boil down to who has the most members? Have we looked at that tree lately that we’ve been pruning for centuries? Could we have pruned off some of the more fruitful branches?

What bewilders me is, we have let doctrine divide us when Christ is here to unite us. How do we think we have been saved? Was it by doctrine? It’s true that Paul says, ‘The gospel will save you only if you keep believing what was preached to you. Believing anything else will not lead to anything’ (1 Corinthians 15:2), but just what is the gospel? Paul tells us, if we will believe him, ‘Remember the gospel that I carry: Jesus Christ risen from the dead, sprung from the race of David’ (2 Timothy 2:8), and, ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel: it is the power of God saving all who have faith’ (Romans 1:16). Can it really be that simple?

Yes, the Church has recognized a body of doctrine, starting with the simple, direct truth of the gospel that holy apostle Paul writes about. This should’ve been enough for us, but in combating heresies—yes, there are such things, though they would ‘not lead to anything’ (1 Corinthians 15:2) and if left alone would eventually self-destruct, as the psalmist declares, ‘He dug a pit, hollowed it out, only to fall into his own trap!’ (Psalm 7)—in combating heresies, we have unwittingly condemned generations of believers who came afterwards, because they merely differ from us, often on non-essentials.

Yes, I have said, continue to say, and keep believing, ‘The Church is not divided, never has been, and never can be.’ This is not my own saying, but I heard it once almost thirty years ago at a retreat given by an Orthodox priest. It seems to agree with scripture. It seems to affirm and believe in the priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever the Church looks like, however we have jurisdictionalized it, regardless of what we say the Bible means, despite our doctrines and dogmas however true, the reality of Oneness, Ένωσις (énosis), prevails in the Church. Christ is no polygamist. He has only One Bride.

So we refuse to agree on what Christ means when He says, ‘Take and eat; this is my body,’ what He intends when He says, ‘Drink from it, all of you. This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’ (Matthew 26:26-28). We refuse to agree on what Christ reveals when He says, ‘No one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again’ (John 3:3), even when He clarifies, ‘No one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit’ (John 3:5). But can any of us disagree on this? ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?’ (John 11:25-26).

There are many places in the Holy Bible where we are offered life and salvation, both personally and corporately, many examples in both Old and New Testaments of how God works when we let Him work with us. Our history, and our divisions, are sad testimonials of our failure to follow the Lord. We compare ourselves favorably to Christians of other communities, from whom we have divorced ourselves, even when no legal writ of divorce can be found. We excuse ourselves when we divorce ourselves from non-Christians, and believe we are justified, ‘Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you’ (2 Corinthians 6:17).

Still we stand under threat of the greater excommunication by the Lord, who walks, concealed in our neighbors—all of them, including Muslims, Jews, atheists, homosexuals, homeless people, and everyone else we think detestable for whatever reason. ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life’ (Matthew 25:41-46).

I was thinking about Oneness, Ένωσις (énosis), and somehow I find I have drifted into thinking about its true and, finally, its only opposite, eternal punishment. Faced with these two alternatives, I tremble for myself, for the Church, and for humanity. For the Only-Lover of Mankind, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ says that He ‘came to seek and to save the lost’ (Luke 19:10), and, ‘There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day’ (John 5:45). What clearer word could He ever have left with us?

… everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall…
Matthew 7:26-27

Our common heritage

That which is called ‘Orthodoxy’ is the common heritage of all followers of Jesus, all confessors of His name, and as such it encompasses all those who do not resist Him. Our denominational skirmishes and problems are all at our end, not at His. They are caused by all of us being somewhat imperfect in understanding, in experience, and in love. We have enemies who like to arouse our contempt for one another by abusing history to enflame us. But really, we are Christ’s, all of us, and whether we honor the saints outwardly and dogmatically or not, we worship one Christ, who is King of kings and Lord of lords. There really is only ‘One Lord, One faith, and One baptism,’ as the holy apostle Paul puts it. Whoever honors and worships the Son of God, also honors the saints by gratitude and worships the Father by faith. As holy apostle and evangelist John writes,

My dear people,
let us love one another
since love comes from God
and everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
…
My dear people,
since God has loved us so much, we too should love one another.
John 4:7, 11 Jerusalem Bible

They have revived all men

Brothers, we shall hymn with praise the tongues of the disciples
Because, not with elegant speech,
But in divine power they have revived all men.
Because they took up His Cross as a reed,
So that they might again use words as fishing lines
           and fish for the world
Since they had speech as a sharp fishhook,
Since the flesh of the Master of all
Has become for them a bait, it has not sought to kill
But it attracts to life those who worship and praise
The All-Holy Spirit.

Saint Romanos the Melodist 

As a harmonious harp of lofty wisdom from on high

and an expounder of things seen in God-inspired ascents, 

we extol thee, Father Romanos, and we hymn thee. 

As a trumpet of the gifts that pass the mind of man, 

do thou rouse us to divine and saving watchfulness,

as we cry to thee: Rejoice, O Father elect of God.