The Book of Psalms

Any part of the Scripture you like to choose is inspired by God. The Holy Spirit composed the Scriptures so that in them, as in a pharmacy open to all souls, we might each of us be able to find the medicine suited to our own particular illness.

Thus, the teaching of the Prophets is one thing, and that of the historical books is another. And, again, the Law has one meaning, and the advice we read in the Book of Proverbs has a different one.

But the Book of Psalms contains everything useful that the others have. It predicts the future, it recalls the past, it gives directions for living, it suggests the right behavior to adopt. It is, in short, a jewel case in which have been collected all the valid teachings in such a way that individuals find remedies just right for their cases.

It heals the old wounds of the soul and gives relief to recent ones. It cures the illnesses and preserves the health of the soul.

Every Psalm brings peace, soothes the internal conflicts, calms the rough waves of evil thoughts, dissolves anger, corrects and moderates profligacy.

Every Psalm preserves friendship and reconciles those who are separated. Who could actually regard as an enemy the person beside whom they have raised a song to the one God?

Every Psalm anticipates the anguish of the night and gives rest after the efforts of the day. It is safety for babes, beauty for the young, comfort for the aged, adornment for women.

Every Psalm is the voice of the Church.

Basil the Great
AD 329-379
Greek bishop of Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia, Asia Minor

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

Avoiding the trap

It  is… difficult to take the afterlife and the resurrection seriously when there are many theologians who contest the nature of the second death or otherwise soften hell into being a heaven you do not like.
Or when they insist that the challenges of Hades as a seductive bed of eternal sleep are actually successive portals of judgment where only the prayers of someone holier than you can boost you through the justified accusations of an entire host of demons.

The challenge of the faith in its primitive form is simple.
Hades enchants you into not wanting to wake up.
It does it by offering you three illusions:
sustenance, doubt (or to be more precise, belief in God's frailty)
and demigod status if one chooses to stay and serve god of the dead.

These illusions entice pretty much everybody—except Christ, as the gospel goes.

So folks who do not want to fall into the trap of eternal sleep
need to:
a) build up personality independent of creature comforts—
do not identify who you are through your material encumbrances,
b) believe in the power of God,
c) be atheistic to any competing deities who offer you godlike status so long as you remain in the fleshless void of the dead.

— Jacob Aaron Gorny,

commenting on my post What can we expect?

What can we expect?

Pope Francis said today (September 16, 2016) that Christians must dismiss the false notion that there is no resurrection of the dead, the Newsmax website reports.

During his mass today in Vatican City, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church said questions on what happens after death can lead to people not understanding Christianity's ‘logic of the future.’

Believers will rise again in body and soul like Jesus Christ did following His Crucifixion, that logic follows.

‘A spiritualistic piety, a nuanced piety is much easier; but to enter into the logic of the flesh of Christ, this is difficult. And this is the logic of the day after tomorrow. We will resurrect like the risen Christ, with our own flesh,’ the pontiff said.

And does it take a word from the pope like this to convince Catholic Christians of the truth of their faith? Many people of all Christian ‘traditions’ have a nebulous belief in the afterlife, sometimes indistinguishable from the near unbelief of their non-Christian neighbors. Ask an average Christian on the street what they believe happens to you after you die, and what answer do you get? ‘I dunno. Go to heaven or hell, I guess.’ Maybe the answer wouldn’t be quite so Simpsonistic, but I wonder.

Orthodoxy, aka ‘the Church,’ has made the resurrection of Christ the central theme of every Sunday service. We who belong to this Church cannot escape it, unless we’re dead in our tracks and more than tone deaf. ‘Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tombs bestowing life.’ We may not sing this Easter hymn every Sunday, but there are hymns of the resurrection, eight different ones to be exact, that are sung all year round in every Sunday liturgy. How is it, then, that many of us are, like our non-Orthodox neighbors, unable to grasp the truth of the bodily resurrection of the dead that we confess every time we recite the Symbol of Nicaea?

My eldest son Jacob, a seminary graduate and very astute theologian, says it’s because ‘cradle Orthodox’ do not get any systematic instruction, just what Sunday School may have taught them when they were little, and then, whatever they glean from the Divine Liturgy as adults. When catechism classes are held for potential converts, an announcement usually goes out, inviting veteran Orthodox believers to join in and take a refresher course. I wonder how many go? I think Orthodoxy is plagued by the same malady that afflicts other Christians—we act as though we are all Baptists: ‘once saved, always saved’—and it doesn’t seem to bother us, until we get into some kind of trouble, that we pay little actual attention to knowing God in Christ, and knowing what His plan of salvation is.

Back to the pope. He has become famous for saying and doing things that are for people who are unable to see what is right in front of them, hidden in plain sight. I can see him, metaphorically, as the thief in the night wielding his crowbar to break into the homes of his sleeping church members, making as much noise as he can in breaking in, so as to wake up some of them before the Real Thief in the Night comes, the One who cannot be resisted because by the time He arrives our last chance will have slipped away. I think Pope Francis is putting the Church, not just the Roman Catholics, in a dry run of what will occur when the Lord Himself returns, yes, at a time we do not expect, and only those who have stayed awake will be… I don’t know how to say it, but if we sleep, what can we expect when we awake?

Three spiritual principles

Do  not resent.
Do not react.
Keep inner stillness.

These three spiritual principles, or disciplines, are really a summation of the Philokalia, the collection of Orthodox Christian spiritual wisdom. And they are disciplines every single one of us can practice, no matter where we are in life—whether we’re in the monastery or in school; whether we’re housewives or retired; whether we’ve got a job or we’ve got little kids to run after. If we can hold on to and exercise these three principles, we will be able to go deeper and deeper in our spiritual life.

…

One of the things which is so difficult to come to terms with is the reality that when we bear anger and resentment and bitterness in our hearts, we erect barriers to God’s grace within ourselves.
It’s not that God stops giving us His grace.
It’s that we say, ‘No. I don’t want it.’

What is His grace? It is His love, His mercy, His compassion, His activity in our lives. The holy Fathers tell us that each and every human person who has ever been born on this earth bears the image of God undistorted within themselves.

There is no such thing as fallen nature. There are fallen persons, but not fallen nature. The implication of this truth is that we have no excuses for our sins. We are responsible for our sins, for the choices we make. We are responsible for our actions, and our reactions.

‘The devil made me do it’ is no excuse, because the devil has no more power over us than we give him. This is hard to accept, because it is really convenient to blame the devil. It is also really convenient to blame the other person, or our past. But, it is also a lie.
Our choices are our own.

On an even deeper level, this spiritual principle—do not react—teaches us that we need to learn to not react to thoughts. One of the fundamental aspects of this is inner watchfulness. This might seem like a daunting task, considering how many thoughts we have.

However, our watchfulness does not need to be focused on our thoughts. Our watchfulness needs to be focused on God. We need to maintain the conscious awareness of God’s presence.

If we can maintain the conscious awareness of His presence, our thoughts will have no power over us. We can, to paraphrase St. Benedict, dash our thoughts against the presence of God. This is a very ancient patristic teaching. We focus our attention on the remembrance of God.

If we can do that, we will begin to control our troubling thoughts. Our reactions are about our thoughts. After all, if someone says something nasty to us, how are we reacting? We react first through our thinking, our thoughts.

Perhaps we’re habitually accustomed to just lashing out after taking offense with some kind of nasty response of our own. But keeping watch over our minds so that we maintain that living communion with God leaves no room for distracting thoughts.

It leaves plenty of room if we decide we need to think something through intentionally in the presence of God. But as soon as we engage in something hateful, we close God out. And the converse is true—as long as we maintain our connection to God, we won’t be capable of engaging in something hateful. We won’t react.

— attributed to Bishop Kállistos of Xelon
former metropolitan of Denver

Through many tribulations

I just finished reading the European Union’s ‘State of the Union’ address, though I’m not sure exactly who gave this address. Was it the E.U. President? and is that Donald Tusk? or is it Juncker? I get so confused trying to sort out all the different dignitaries that manage Europe from their fluffy white thrones. I also read other news and information articles online about the E.U., an institution for which I have a soft spot and wish would work, but doesn’t look like it’s going to. The Brexit campaign did open my eyes to the inner workings of the thing, and they’re not very pretty, despite the rhetoric.

The State of the Union, I take it from reading the address, is bad but not hopeless, and many pledges to defend Europe and its way of life were made, yet not one mention of the Islamic presence on the continent, only talk about refugees. I came away with a feeling after reading the long document that I had just inhaled a lot of hot air, or maybe nothing at all. No warm fuzzy feelings for sure, just minuscule heart murmurs when I read things that made me think the E.U. leaders are almost trying to be honest with themselves. You see, I wish they would be, and I live in hope, but I was glad the Brits got away.

After reading the address I wandered over to other news from the continent of our ‘old countries’ and noticed that a dignitary of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg had made a statement to the effect that the Republic of Hungary (it is a republic now, isn’t it? or is it a cloaked monarchy? who knows?) ought to be suspended from (does that mean kicked out of?) the European Union, because it treats the refugees like animals. This reminded me that even pipsqueaks like Luxembourg can harbor delusions of grandeur on an authoritative level, and that if such a thing could even be suggested, Europe’s not much of a union.

Imagine the governor, no, not even the governor, let’s say, the secretary of state, of Delaware making such a statement about another state, say, Michigan, that Michigan should be expelled from the Union because it treats the people of Detroit like animals. Or maybe not so ridiculously, that the police chief of Boise, Idaho, should make a public statement to the effect that Oregon and Washington should be expelled from the United States for legalizing marijuana. Myself, I wish the army would be sent to scatter the potheads that’ve taken over my state. They went in and ended polygamy in Utah, didn’t they?

Thankfully, in these United States, since the Civil War, we’ve come to the conclusion that staying together even under the worst circumstances is better than trying to go it alone. That is a point that was made in the European State of the Union address. It said, ‘We’re not the United States of America, we’re not that simple’ or something to that effect. I agree that they’re not the U.S.A., but very soon, if they don’t wake up and smell the (Turkish) coffee, they won’t be the E.U. either, but a run-down, violent and repressive backwater called Eurabia. If nothing else, their tourist industry will probably dry up.

This is just an evening ramble as I watch the sun go down ever sooner, now that we approach the autumn equinox. Hopefully nothing I’ve said has pricked anyone’s ears or poked anyone’s eyes out. Not just in the European Union address, but practically everywhere I look and listen, I’m seeing and hearing ‘existential crisis,’ both in writing and in things acted out. If I were a religious man, I’d say things like, ‘Thank God, Jesus is coming back soon!’ and start packing my bags for the Rapture. But I’m not religious, I’m a Christian, and I know for sure, ‘that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God’ (Acts 14:22).

Only a rib's worth

John Knox

Years ago I discovered quite by accident a pamphlet written by Scotland’s religious reformer John Knox in 1558, titled The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women, a daring polemical piece written against the female sovereigns of his day, particularly Mary of Guise, Dowager Queen of Scotland and regent to her daughter Mary, Queen of Scots, and Queen Mary I of England. I never read it completely through, because the archaic language was a discouragement. Perhaps I should find a modernized edition of it, if there is one, and read it. Or maybe I should write a pamphlet myself on this topic.

Queen Elizabeth I

Just as his work was catching the public eye, a new queen, Elizabeth I, began her reign, and she was not happy with it. Not surprisingly, she was offended. As history bore out, Elizabeth I was probably one of the best monarchs ever to rule England, and arguably the best queen. In the archaic title of Knox’s pamphlet, ‘the Monstruous Regiment of Women’ means something like ‘the unnatural rule of women,’ and his ideas came directly out of the Bible.

The King James Bible? No, that hadn’t been commissioned yet. Knox composed his pamphlet while in exile in Geneva, Switzerland, where everyone who could escape Catholic England under Queen Mary I, ‘bloody Mary,’ holed up. The New Testament of The Geneva Bible, a Protestant translation, came out a year before Knox wrote his pamphlet, and the rest of the Geneva Bible two years later, in 1560. As a divine, Knox probably knew the Bible in the Latin Vulgate version. In any case, he made his case against women rulers by reference to Bible verses that made women subject to men, forbade them from having authority over men, both because they were inferior to men by virtue of being ‘taken out of man,’ that is, only a rib’s worth of what a man is, and because they were thus the weaker sex, not physically only, but in every other way.

21st Century ‘Happy Days’

Those were times when sweeping generalizations could be credibly made by prominent intellectuals—or radical ‘reformers’—and be believed, at least sometimes. I suppose the current age is quite similar in many respects. In the mid-sixteenth century, most people still didn’t read much, and writers could be catapulted into prominence if their ideas could find a hearing. Today, the same, as most people still don’t read much—at least not real books, just fantasy novels, and electronically, newsfeeds, blogs, twitters, and whatever else they fancy—and the media moguls feed us with reports and surveys spiced any way they like it. Wikipedia articles, written by who knows who with or without what credentials can divert the attitudes of self-made scholars to slant eventually the attitudes of a whole nation.

Notice, I said ‘attitudes’ and not ‘thinking,’ because the thinking man or woman has enough self-respect not to defer to such dubious authorities. But here we are, history doesn’t stop cycling and recycling the mistakes, and the victories, of past ages, thus keeping the Bible, especially the book of Ecclesiastes, relevant. Not only in America, heading for either the abyss or the next golden age, depending on whether you color yourself red or blue, whether you read, or go with the flow, but in much of the destabilized Western world, the uneducated public is being played with by the unprincipled privileged, and the things that really should matter are eclipsed by ephemeral, even fantasy, issues. If Knox were alive and writing his fiery pamphlets today, I wonder who he would target, using his faithful, old Bible as ammunition.

We don’t really need to wonder for long, because though Knox is long gone and perhaps spinning in his grave, matters far worse than women rulers have taken centre stage in state, church, and society at large. Whether or not the Bible should be taken literally as to the status of women, we nevertheless will always do what we want with this, and every other issue, anyway. The wise are not troubled by these things, but if they are Christians, they follow the Lord, all things—even biblical laws—being subject to His authority.

Governor Matt Bevin of Kentucky

Then, there are Christians who will fight, even physically do battle, or threaten to, when what they perceive as ‘the enemy’ takes control of what they believe belongs only to God. My thought, for example, that a female president being elected in the States this November might provoke a mutiny in the armed forces, or widespread public revolt by ‘fundamentalists’ and other patriots, has already been voiced by the governor of Kentucky.

‘America is worth fighting for ideologically. I want us to be able to fight ideologically, mentally, spiritually, economically, so that we don’t have to do it physically. But that may, in fact, be the case,’ is what the governor said. This is an alarming thought that I’ve had, and now it’s even made it to the headlines, as though we are being prepared for a great default. These are critical times, times of what is called ‘krisis’ in Biblical Greek, meaning ‘judgment,’ and none of us, man, woman, or child, will be left untested.

Lord, have mercy.

‘Don’t worry, We’ll only take a rib’s worth…’

Of mystics and uninterchangables

In Orthodoxy there is no putting of ‘mystics’ on a pedestal, and we don’t have mystics like the Roman Catholics do, of either sex. Orthodox mysticism is akin to Jewish mysticism, very experiential, apophatic, imageless, even existentialist, and difficult to put into writing. Not only that, but Orthodox mystics tend not to think of themselves as mystics.

Female saints, spiritual mothers, the Orthodox have in abundance. None of them, I don’t think, would presume to write and teach men in the way that Theresa of Avila, Catherine of Sienna, and other Roman Catholic female saints have done, nor do we have (at least not yet) the Joyce Meyer type of female teachers.

In the Greek Church there is beginning to be a presence of women in teaching (other than Sunday school) and even preaching (more as ‘witnessing’ from the pulpit), but the scripture cannot be put aside without consequences. In Orthodoxy, as in the Christian denominations, women can serve the church in many positions of authority, just not in the offices of bishop, priest, and deacon.

On the other hand, as I mentioned, the Orthodox have female saints and some of them have teachings and writings.

Among the early apostles are included women who are called Isapóstoli, ‘equal to the apostles.’ and we cannot imagine that these women did not exert some sort of didactic and moral authority over everyone they came into contact with, including men.

Still, as with the Theotokos, who is certainly higher than even the apostles without ever presuming to teach them, women in the Body of Christ can have any role that God assigns them: How that looks in practice is not what most modern Christians are prepared to accept. They are still looking for equality and interchangeability of women and men in the same functional roles. This, for the Orthodox, the scriptures and tradition cannot allow. Men and women are simply not interchangeable, not in physical roles, or spiritual ones either.

I hope I have not put my thoughts forward as an authoritative statement or as a challenge to anyone: I am just an ordinary layman in the Greek Church, writing about what I have observed. As to my personal opinion, I have none, but leave the Church to decide what it will do.

My life in Christ is just to love the brethren close up and minister to them, and let them do the same to me, and never to let myself become an enemy where I should remain a friend.

Controversianity

Controversianity.

Yes, this word has been caught by my English spell-check and underlined in red for me to correct. Well, I hardly need to be corrected for my spelling almost ever, but as for my coining new words, I guess I may deserve to be under the gun once in a while. Controversianity is a very unorthodox way of combining two concepts: controversy and Christianity. My new word describes a modern, particularly American, version of religious war-mongering.

This morning I was distracted by a news item that reported a certain Baptist preacher had been denied a visa to enter the Republic of South Africa. Why was he denied? Simply put, for hate speech. Most of us probably can guess that this means he is pushing a hard line interpretation of biblical passages condemning homosexuality. Actually, in his case, he boldly proclaims that in a properly governed country, homosexuals should be executed.

How a man can call himself a Christian preacher and proclaim such things is beyond me, but so is his belief that only the King James Bible is authoritative, along with most of his other Baptist-sectarian idiosyncracies. The Church of Christ, somehow escaped being corralled into one organism and now divided up among quarreling shepherds, some of whom say theirs is the only flock, has also had some of her members kidnapped by the spiritually insane.

These kidnappers take hold of men’s minds by preaching controversies, stealing from the flock of Christ others with wavering, weak minds. They preach not Christ, but themselves, as the holy apostle Paul warns us, and hide from their charges the true and eternal gospel, substituting for it man-made controversies. Instead of teaching men how to fight the true battle, that is, with personal sin, they promote crusades against imaginary foes.

Controversianity, just one more form of what C. S. Lewis calls ‘Christianity plus,’ is taking anything, any idea, whether true or false, and elevating it above Christ Himself and His Divine teachings. I’m afraid to say, this is not confined to the crackpots like the most dangerous and vile ones as I have been mentioning, but can also deceive us who consider ourselves true Christians, true Catholics, yes, even true Orthodox, and have the credentials to prove it.

Because in the end, those credentials may turn out to be the very things that will witness against us at the Last Judgment. Have we sought first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, or have we put our own kingdoms and our own righteousnesses above ‘the only thing needful,’ that is, to learn and observe the love and the commandments of Jesus Christ. Are we doing what we see Him doing? Are we teaching what we hear Him teaching in the Holy Gospel?

For He teaches no controversy, except that we should follow Him, controversy enough ‘to stagger sextillions of infidels,’ nor does He argue, He simply states the Truth about Himself and about us. And when He calls, we answer not with excuses or with offerings of what we are willing to do for Him, but by following Him, immediately, unconditionally, as the Lord God in whom we trust, knowing that it is ‘not by us, not by us that glory is deserved.’

Let’s be Christians, then, and not get side-tracked by controversies, especially not by those that raise us to the judgment seat reserved alone for God, but also not by those that would increase fear in us, fear of imaginary foes, whether political, social, religious, of whatever form. For there is no weapon forged by any controversy, any conspiracy, any open enemy that can triumph against us. Following the Lord Jesus, and taking up our crosses—that is safety, that is salvation.

This too is no fairy tale

Once upon a time the entire Middle East, as well as both northern and southern shores the Mediterranean Sea and all of its islands were predominantly Christian lands, or at least lands with large and vital Christian communities. This includes the peninsula now known as Sa’udi Arabia, where the prophet Muhammad and the religion of Islam arose. These regions, before the advent of Christianity, were, except for the Jews, inhabited of polytheistic peoples worshipping a pantheon of various deities. It took six centuries for Christianity to establish itself in these lands, the first three by voluntary conversion inspired by the blood of the martyrs, the latter three sometimes by imperial decree combined with the enticement of social and material advancement. It took less than two centuries for Islam to overrun these same territories and peoples, arguably by military expansion and forced conversions of the population, either by threat of death or by enticement to social advancement as in later Christian times. The eighth wonder of the ancient world, that any Christians should remain in the Middle East and North Africa, is still with us.

Though I began with a formula used in English to open a fairy tale, ‘once upon a time,’ this is no fairy tale but the reality of history ancient and modern. I am a Greek Orthodox Christian but a member of an Arab Orthodox community in America, composed of families whose roots are in the Arab Christian communities of the Middle East, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Egypt and other places. Our community belongs to the Patriarchate of Antioch, whose head sits no longer in Antioch (a city which no longer exists) but in Damascus, Syria. It is composed of ‘cradle Orthodox’ from Arabic speaking lands, along with a large minority of American (mostly ex-Protestant) converts, and a sprinkling of other European and African Orthodox. We are the evidence and contemporary witness of the Christianity native to those lands now under the rule of Islam, churches belonging to three of the four ancient patriarchates, Antioch (Syria), Alexandria (Egypt), and Jerusalem (Palestine). Though we are Arabic speaking and worship in English and Arabic, this language is the heritage of the conquerors of our ancestors, who originally spoke Aramaic, Coptic, and other ancient tongues.

The current crisis in ‘the lands of Islam’ is not so much the occupation of Palestine by ‘first world’ Jewish Zionists, nor the appearance of aggressive Islamic fundamentalism, no, not even the boasted restoration of the Caliphate. The current crisis is the desperate state of the Christian communities of the region, all of which have roots in antiquity, all of which are lineal descendants of Jesus Christ and the Apostles. These are the people whom I earlier called ‘the eighth wonder of the ancient world.’ They are those who did not, and who do not, submit to Islam, despite threats of death and enticements of worldly gain. They have submitted to the language of Islam, Arabic, but not to its ideology. They can claim the bismillah as their own, even though that formula was stolen by Muhammad from his Christian relatives and neighbors, and they can call on God as ‘Allah’ without confusing their faith with the beliefs of their oppressors—for yes, though they were, or are, in various times and places on ‘friendly terms’ with Islam, they were usually demoted to inferior status, called dhimmi, and denied many of the rights of their Muslim neighbors. Their status in the lands of Christianity’s origin is that of an endangered species.

An endangered species, yet they are human, not animals. Unlike endangered animal and plant species, the world does not give them any protection in order to let them replenish themselves and escape extinction. No, on the contrary, the world—I am now speaking of the ‘first world,’ that which was formed by Christianity though it now denies it—does everything to push them over the cliff. The governments of the West bend over backwards to support regimes that when they fight each other use their Christians as cannon fodder. Or else, as they did in the Kosovo crisis, look the other way while the Christian heritage of an ancient land is materially eradicated, and its Christian inhabitants declared to be aliens in their own homeland. Not only do the governments of the West ‘mind their own business’ while Christians are being rooted out in the Middle East, but missionaries from the West, calling themselves evangelical, seek to undermine the Church with their divisive and competitive ‘evangelism,’ not recognizing that the people they consider ‘unsaved’ are the very ones who gave them the Bible and who still sit at the feet of Jesus Christ and the Apostles. God, help us!

Once upon a time there was a nation called America. It started out as a small community of Christians of various denominations who worked together toward a common goal of living the good life, ‘one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.’ Though its beginnings were humble, and it did not deliver these promises to all its inhabitants at first, it gradually came to the point where at least the opportunity for ‘living the good life’ was secured for most, if not all, its inhabitants. This is because in freedom, human wills can follow their own course, and not everyone’s will is unclouded and bright. At both the high and the low ends of society, severe social ills existed, and secret human rights violations occurred at all levels. Yet, the land was still blessed with promise, and peoples from the world over still looked to it as a beacon of hope, many of them immigrating there to share its blessings. Through its inventiveness the nation earned great prestige and power, and in times of great need and danger came to the relief of its neighbors. But it often tripped over true justice in applying help to them, and finally, forgetting that the source of its blessings was Christ, no longer could tell friend from foe.

This too is no fairy tale, but it could portend the unexpected finale of a great nation that is now teetering on the brink of an abyss. All good graces have been granted to us—I am now speaking to my brethren in Christ who inhabit these western lands—and all opportunities are open, if we only return, if we only turn our faith to work, if we only unprivatize our Christianity, and make this country ‘Christian’ not in name only but, at the risk of offending those of other faiths, in spirit and in truth. This has nothing to do with triumphalism, this is not making the Christian faith supreme over other religions, but giving all religious faiths their due respect as co-worshipers of the Divine Nature, denying to none what we ourselves would enjoy. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, promulgated by the United Nations and signed by many states, does not even go far enough. No, Christ goes even beyond that declaration. He always did and He always will, because He stands, even if hidden, amidst every people and every faith that seeks the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. Let us listen to Him, as He continues to preach among us, ‘You have heard it was written that… but I tell you…’

Yes, brethren, let us make it real, let us in spirit and truth, say ‘In God we trust.’

Kings and Queens

Orthodoxy is the Church, the Body of Christ, His indefectible Presence in the human race, which He established by His death, His resurrection, His ascension, and His sending the Holy Spirit, and to which the whole of mankind without exception is called, so that the Church is potentially a pan-human reality.

The Church is the New creation of the New and second Adam, namely Jesus Christ, and is made in His Divine image, as a body has parts and a head, so the Church as the Body of Christ has parts and a Head, Christ Himself, and as creation both old and New is ordered by Divine hierarchy, so is the Church.

The Divine hierarchy is inherent in God the Holy Triad, as Father the Principle of Unity, as Son the Word expressed by the Father coeternal and consubstantial with Him, and as Spirit the fullness of Wisdom who is not only Giver of life and Lord, but the Divine agent of the Father in begetting His priestly nation.

The life of God the Holy Triad provides for humanity the pattern of our fulfillment, and earthly society is able to function in health, happiness, and holiness only when it is modeled on this pattern, which has been revealed in Holy and Divine scriptures, vindicated by the Church, and transmitted by Holy tradition.

God is sovereign in the heavens and on the earth. He alone is the King, but by His only-begotten Son, the Word, the King has arrived among us, and by His Spirit, the heavenly King on whom we call, we have been made a nation of kings in the Divine image, and the Kingdom of God is revealed among men.

Patriarchy is the Divine order in the Holy Triad, expressed in the universe at large, and written into human society, such that all human societies originate as patriarchies, and so long as they continue in emulating the Divine order they survive, while those which devolve into matriarchies break down and die.

The Church in all her formularies and ceremonies expresses the sovereignty of God and teaches the right ordering of humanity as patriarchal society, following the oracle of Holy and Divine scripture, and this is nowhere better revealed than in the blessing and crowning of a wedded couple, a man and a woman.

The wedding service is a formulary and a ceremony that teaches, by means of the mystery of marriage, the right ordering and establishment of the Christian family, as a Kingdom of the first degree, with a crowned King, and a crowned Queen, anointed by the Spirit to beget, to bear and to raise royal children.

Far from being a mere mystery play enacted to inspire the bridal couple with an ideal, or to entertain the wedding guests, the wedding service is a God-empowered, Spirit-filled anointing, and the blessings and the crowning not mere tokens, but the substance of Divine nature enacting an unrepeatable incarnation.

He who makes all things New becomes the Mediator between a New Adam and a New Eve, the old Adam and Eve being put to death by irreversible covenant, and His peace dissolves the enmity between man and woman, and opens to them the gates of the earthly Paradise, blessing them as the kings and queens of old.

Bless them, O Lord our God, as you blessed Abraham and Sara. Bless them, O Lord our God, as You blessed Isaac and Rebecca. Bless them, O Lord our God, as you blessed Jacob and all the Prophets. Bless them, O Lord our God, as You blessed Joseph and Asenath. Bless them, O Lord our God, as You blessed Moses and Zipporah. Bless them, O Lord our God, as You blessed Joakim and Anna. Bless them, O Lord our God, as You blessed Zacharias and Elizabeth.

The wedding service is constitution and charter of the New kingdom of the family begotten and born of the Bridegroom and the Bride, detailing the Divine order which is to work out among them their salvation, and establish the next generation, the children born of them, in the Kingdom of God and righteousness.

In the prayers and in the lessons read, all the essentials are presented for the Bridegroom’s and the Bride’s instruction, which they ought to not only hear, but regularly hereafter rehearse in word and deed, by their mutual obedience to the Divine commandments, that their lives may indeed be the life of the Holy Triad.

Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, His Body, and is Himself its Saviour. As the Church is subject to Christ, so let wives be also subject in everything to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present the Church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the Church, because we are members of His Body. Let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

The apostle is not expressing his own opinion, nor restating the cultural norms of the time in which he lived, but handing over to the Church in every place and in every age the timeless pattern of Divine order found in the Holy Triad and manifested in the Lord Jesus, who was obedient even to death on the Cross.

He tells the men, that is, the Kings, to love their wives. He repeats himself, because it is more natural to men to respect their wives rather than to love them. He tells the women, that is, the Queens, only once, to respect their husbands, for it is more natural to women to love their husbands rather than to respect them.

The subjection of the woman to the man, of the Queen to the King, is not onerous, does not denigrate, has no part in exploitation, no earthly advantage to the man, for as the apostle hands over to us men, we must lay down our lives for our wives, and by extension, for our families, as Christ does for the Church.

The pattern of the Divine order is seen to permeate all things, carried along from the remote past even in our genes, even in the natural evolution of life as it issues out of the Spirit, the writing in scriptures and the traditions passed down through the generations of every nation under the heavens, only confirming it.

In  the Church, the Divine order is taught in the traditional icons given to the Bridegroom and the Bride. To the King is given the ikon of the King, Christ Jesus holding open the Book and blessing. To the Queen is given the ikon of the Queen, All-Holy Mary holding the Child, looking toward and pointing to Him.

The gifts signify the Divine order. The man begets a child, and the woman gives it birth, she becomes a mother. The woman begets wisdom, and the man gives it expression, he becomes a father. Neither man nor woman is complete without the other. The King and the Queen, and the Kingdom, earthly Triad.

Each has their own sphere of authority within the Kingdom. The King creates and sustains, with his brothers, the outer world, they become the walls of the City of God. The Queen creates and maintains, with her sisters, the inner world, they become the guardians of home and hearth of the Kingdom of God.

Patriarchy is the earthly reflection and realization in mankind of the Divine order in the Holy Triad. It is not imposed on us from above, but is indivisibly part of our human nature. Even without having Divine scripture, the Greeks understood the pattern well, their philosophers articulated it, as in Plato’s Meno.

Πρῶτον μέν,
εἰ βούλει ἀνδρὸς ἀρετήν,
ῥᾴδιον, ὅτι αὕτη ἐστὶν ἀνδρὸς ἀρετή,
ἱκανὸν εἶναι τὰ τῆς πόλεως πράττειν,
καὶ πράττοντα τοὺς μὲν φίλους εὖ ποιεῖν,
τοὺς δ᾽ ἐχθροὺς κακῶς,
καὶ αὐτὸν εὐλαβεῖσθαι μηδὲν τοιοῦτον παθεῖν.
Εἰ δὲ βούλει γυναικὸς ἀρετήν,
οὐ χαλεπὸν διελθεῖν, ὅτι δεῖ αὐτὴν τὴν οἰκίαν εὖ οἰκεῖν,
σῴζουσάν τε τὰ ἔνδον καὶ κατήκοον οὖσαν τοῦ ἀνδρός.

First of all,
if you take the virtue of a man,
it is easily stated that a man's virtue is this—
that he be competent to manage the affairs of his city, and to manage them so as to benefit his friends
and harm his enemies,
and to take care to avoid suffering harm himself.
Or take a woman's virtue:
there is no difficulty in describing it as the duty of ordering the house well,
looking after the property indoors, and obeying her husband.
— Meno, section 71e

Man creates, sustains and protects the outer world. Woman creates, maintains and provides the inner world. Two together, two are one, indivisible and according to Divine order, as the Creator designed them, as They designed us, ‘Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them be masters…’

Yes, Kings and Queens.

In God We Trust

Life in the world is seen to require a practical orientation: one must be practical to succeed. Methodical, too, and persistent. Otherwise we risk failure, and that must be avoided at all costs. That's why we run after modern gurus of business, fashion, health and, yes, even religion.

Even Christians, those who claim to follow Jesus as well as those who prefer only to identify themselves as church members, can fall into the mindset of the priority of practical wisdom which, first, is no wisdom at all, and second, isn't ultimately practical.

Why isn't it wisdom? Because all wisdom is from the Lord and leads back to the Lord, and it comes to us when we have decided to make the Lord the priority ‘…seek first His kingdom and His righteousness…’

Why isn't it practical? Because all that is practical is included in following the commandments of God, which assure us of receiving everything good that He has in store for us, ‘…and all these things will be given to you as well’ (Matthew 6:33 NIV).

So the question for every man or woman, but especially for every Christian, is… Whom do you trust?

Practical wisdom teaches, God helps those who help themselves.
As any worldly proverb, this is both true and false at the same time. These words are not found in scripture, which reveals the mind of Christ. Some say they are, but the Word does not tease us with riddles.

The saying actually comes from Aesop's fable of the wagon driver and Hercules. The wagoner gets stuck in a rut and prays to Hercules to get his wheel out. Hercules appears to him and says, ‘Sluggard, put your shoulder to the wheel, and push! The gods help those who help themselves!’

Yes, this attitude of practical wisdom goes a long way back, and many Christians actually follow Hercules’ doctrine without realising it. Like those described by the psalmist, they claim to be devoted Christians when it is convenient, but ‘when push comes to shove,’ they honor the gods.

Look after me, God, I take shelter in You.
To Yahweh you say, ‘My Lord,
You are my fortune, nothing else but You,’
yet to those pagan deities in the land,
‘My princes, all my pleasure is in you.’
Their idols teem, after these they run…
Psalm 16:1-4a Jerusalem Bible

What should be more natural, and more sympathetically regarded by everyone, than that parents should watch out for their children's welfare, not only when they are under age, but even after they reach adulthood?

Yet how often does this protective attitude stem not from the mind of Christ, but from that other mind, the mindset of practical wisdom? I have seen it again and again, even in my own church, parents leading their children to serve Mammon in place of Christ.

Instead of holding Christ before their offspring, by teaching, by example, by exhortation, by guidance, by love, as the One whom they should not only emulate but follow, they hold up successful businessmen, engineers, politicians, athletes, and even clergymen.

Is it any wonder, then, that the children outstrip their parents in worldliness, as they are only trying to please them? Is it any wonder that they take husbands and wives from among the denizens of this world instead of from the City of God?

There is a scene in the film The Hiding Place, in which Corrie Ten Boom, who was later to become a world renown evangelist, was asked by a Jewish cantor she was hiding in her home during the Nazi occupation, ‘Wasn't marriage ever in the picture for the daughters Ten Boom?’

She replied, ‘Betsy was always sickly, and was told she couldn't bear children, so she didn't marry. Myself, I had a young man, but we didn't marry, because his parents didn't think I was cut out of good enough cloth.’

These are all Christians we are talking about, in 19th century Holland. But the same situation obtains today. In the selection of life partners, husbands or wives, Christian parents are still bent on making a good match for their son or daughter, rather than seeking the will of God.

Putting Christ out of the picture is very unwise. He is not only the unique Mediator between God and man, but also between man and man, and in these particulars, between husband and wife. It is only Christ who can bring them together in truth, and hold them together.

It is not a woman's background, culture, educational level, social status, wealth, intelligence or physical beauty that is getting married to a man's family heritage, prowess, worldly success, ability to provide well, social connexions, possessions, talents or stamina.

No, all these are what they will bring into the marriage in order to complement each other's weaknesses with strengths. They are the resources that God has given them and which they will use to fulfill His will for them. It is not these things that are getting married.

A man and a woman are getting married, nothing else. They are as naked as Adam and Eve were. This is how it is when God is allowed to bring them together. ‘This is why a man leaves his father and mother and joins himself to his wife, and they become one body’ (Genesis 2:24 JB).

The alternative, which all too often happens, is what happened to Corrie Ten Boom and her young man, Christian parents restricting the pool of available mates for their children to those who are practical like they are, those who are successful, ‘known entities.’

The justification for this is, ‘We only want to do what's best for him/her. We want to prevent heartbreak and disaster down the road.’ This attitude, though, is not restricted to the practical parents, but to the religious as well. Both, however, are following the same mind, their own.

This post is not especially about the relationships between parents and children, but essentially about trust, the word we see prominently displayed on every piece of United States money, from the humble penny to the hundred dollar bill.
In God We Trust. It's so pervasive, that it's no longer persuasive. Like many another monument of formal Christianity in America—Ten Commandments plaques in court houses, the Pledge of Allegiance to ‘one nation under God’—it too may cave in under secular pressures.

Where it can only truly be written, in our hearts and minds, is all that matters. Will it prevail over the practical and worldly wisdom of success, allowing true liberty, true freedom of choice, to mold not only individual lives but families, churches, and nations?

Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ … ‘Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.’
John 8:31-32, 36 NKJV

A new gospel

There is a new gospel, a fresh gospel, that is preached to every person, in every circumstance, and that gospel is going to always be slightly different from the gospel preached to the next guy. That is the strength of the gospel, not its weakness: that it can be all things to all men.

Paul was not saying something astonishing or scandalous when he says he is all things to all men: he was only saying of himself (since he was the servant of that gospel) what is true of the gospel itself, fitting itself into the ears of each one, for ‘faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.’

Isn't that what is so good about the good news? That Christ who is Himself one person of the Divine and Holy Triad, sheds the might of His divinity, coming down to our level, to live among us, to speak our language, not just to feel our pain and endure the temptations we suffer.

If He must die on the Cross for our salvation, that cannot be conveyed to us, placed within our reach, without it being sized and fitted to the broken hearts of each of us. Yes, the Man of Sorrows, but also, the God of Joys. The latter doesn’t balance the former; it engulfs it like the sea engulfs a pebble, leaving no trace.

Hence, the gospel, always new, always fresh, containing all, supporting all, adapted to all, welcoming all, transforming all, but one by one, even as one by one we each receive the call, and one by one are seated at our places in the banquet of the Divine Nature, the wedding feast of the Lamb.

The kiss

What is wrong with this picture? Well, first, it looks like a former Roman pope, John Paul II, in the company of an Arab Muslim. And second, is it a large copy of the Qur’an that the pope is kissing? Or am I dreaming? When I first saw it, I asked myself the question at the head of this paragraph. I then went on to ask myself, If the pope is kissing a copy of the Muslim scriptures, why doesn't the Muslim—probably a Saudi prince, but who knows?—kiss a copy of the Christian bible?

This is very old news, but when I first saw it, it was news to me. The image touched me in a number of places, bringing a lot of memory, even racial memory, into my active mind, but not much to my emotions. When the Bible says, ‘the world of the past is gone’ (Revelation 21:4), for me it's gone, really gone. I can think about it, study it, but my emotions as well as my life, are in the world of NOW, the ‘New Order of the World’—and that's not the ‘new world order’ proclaimed on the back of the dollar bill, NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM, but the one inaugurated by Christ—the Kingdom of God.

But what about this disturbing image?
Why is it disturbing?
Who is this man and what is he kissing?
And why does he kiss it?

I gather from doing a bit of online research that this incident provoked quite a heated response among not only Roman Catholics, but also among Protestants and other Christians. Roman Catholic apologists were at pains to explain it away as merely a gesture of friendship and respect, that the pope was not affirming the Qur’an or its teachings. Others said he was affirming those good things that are in the Qur’an and in Islam, but not the bad things. To me, this latter defense seems completely absurd. All these excuses and explanations came from American observers, from people who are evidently completely cut off from traditional culture. The pope, however, was not.

To answer the questions asked above, this image is disturbing because it is the pope (self-proclaimed ‘father of all Christians’ and de facto head of the Roman Catholic confession), and he is kissing a ceremonial copy of a book, namely the Qur’an, which its proponents say refutes and replaces the Bible of both Old and New Testaments. As to why he kisses it, that has to be a profound mystery. In modern Western, particularly Americanized, culture the act of kissing has limited meaning. Generally it is a token of familiar or romantic relationship, occasionally a token of formal respect. People know about and generally think anachronistic such things as kissing the pope's ring. Americans feel a little uneasy and flustered at the idea of the formal cheek kissing of politicians. Only those Westerners who belong to Orthodox Christian and Jewish faiths know the deeper significance of the kiss. Not all could explain it, if asked. They just do it.

Even within Roman Catholicism the kiss still forms part of the ceremonial of religious services. Though few Roman Catholics privately kiss the Bible, they see priests and others kissing it during worship. Not generally having ikons, they are not accustomed to kissing sacred images. You can't kiss a statue. So from the Roman Catholic point of view, the kiss, even in the context of worshipful acts, takes on more the current meaning of showing respect than its original meaning.

In the ancient world (which is still alive today in traditional cultures) the kiss means more.

Even the ancient Greeks and Romans showed their worship of the gods by kissing their hands and then raising them and blowing the kiss towards a favored statue. The early Christians considered this an act of idolatry, which it certainly was, and refused to participate; hence, they were termed ‘atheists.’ But the innate urge of mankind to kiss as an act of worship would not be eradicated: it was passed on to the early Christians from two directions, from the Greeks and from the Jews. The latter kissed the scrolls of Torah and anything associated with the Holy One of Israel, ‘the Being.’ This became the act of kissing the Book of the holy and divine Gospels, and then of the Old Testament, the New Testament and, finally, of the graphic representations of both—the ikons.

But wait! There had to be a change in the meaning of this action—the kiss—or else the Christians would, like their pagan predecessors, be guilty of idolatry as well. After much deliberation and a sometimes violent history of confrontation, the Orthodox Church declared that the kiss was not an act of worship, which was due to God alone, but only an act of veneration: The kiss is a tangible testimony of both faith in and assent to That which is represented by the Book of the Gospels, the Bible, and the pictures, all of which are forms of the ‘ikon,’ visible evidences of the Invisible, Only God. The kiss is not, or should not be, given thoughtlessly. It is the visible place of meeting between our personal faith and the plan of salvation of our man-loving God.

This may be a mystery or a novelty to some, but not to the pope, especially as one who came from a traditional culture like Poland, where Roman Catholicism still includes vestiges of the more ancient practices of Orthodoxy. That he should kiss the Qur’an was indeed disturbing. It was not, as some of his apologists have said, the same as giving the diplomatic kiss to a head of state. Another evidence of the ignorance of the kiss prevailing in the West was the incident where the United States President bowed and kissed the hand of the Sa’udi monarch. Far from being a sign of his submission to the Muslim king, the President was simply a glaring and embarrassing example of the ignorance of his people, few of whom even cared that he did it.

The point of this post is not to judge the actions of the late Roman pope, nor of the current United States President, nor of the Orthodox Christians who kiss everything and everyone in sight; not to label and define idolatry, apostasy, dissimulation, or false witness. It is just to remind us that what we do is important, is an act of testimony, and hence is even an act of worship. To worship is to consider someone or something ‘worthy,’ which is the origin of the word ‘worship.’ Of course, for us, only One is worthy, and we know Who That Is. That the pope should have sacrificed his testimony to the Truth of Christ by kissing the false scripture of antichrist is indeed deplorable. He knew better, but the pope is, after all, a politician, and we all know what compromises a politician is prepared to make. It is for God to judge them, not for us, who have only to keep in mind the words we pray before receiving the Holy Mysteries…

Receive me today, Son of God, as a partaker of Your mystical Supper. I will not reveal Your mystery to Your adversaries. Nor will I give You a kiss as did Judas. But as the thief I confess to You: Lord, remember me in Your kingdom.

Choice

Hell is an itch that only gets worse the more you scratch it. It is the home of everything that the Lord God would divide us from as far as the East is divided from the West. It is the jaws of every destructive, every consumptive, cruel thing that Christ descended to pluck us out of. It is the land where every dark dream comes true that men desire to inhabit, until they arrive there, only to realize it was not where dreams, but nightmares, come true. It is the fear, uncontrollable, for which fear was given us. And yet, for all this, the wonder is that men actually choose it, choose hell, over heaven.

Addiction, a word much made fun of, until it becomes one’s state of being. There is no slavery quite like it. Other types of slavery, at worst, must be endured until death, but death at least means liberation. Not so with addiction. Addiction prepares its bearers for an eternity of ever increasing terror, just as devotion prepares its companions for a world of ever increasing joy without end. Death is always a door, never a wall, always the entrance to the land we have chosen, never an exit from the prison we built for ourselves. Hence, the dreadful truth of ‘she made her bed, now let her sleep in it.’

God, the Divine Rescuer from all calamity, He whom we can wait upon for unconditional mercy, who makes even our worst choices and their results null and void in the end, whom we praise with songs of deliverance, ‘He tore the net, and we escaped, blessed be the name of Yahweh,’ Him we call Holy God, Mighty and Immortal, for all He is, all He can do, and eternally, yet does not annul our choice, but subjects Himself to our rejection, or joyfully accepts us all who truly turn to Him from the depths of our being, that He may show us the good things He has laid up for those who love Him.

Religion, as men call it, not really knowing what it is they name, is a switch. We walk into a room. It is dark. We feel for the switch to turn on the light, and when we find it, we flip the switch and the light comes. We can see our way. We can find what it is we came into the room for. No one has to tell us the switch is there. We just assume it is, because a dark room must have a switch to turn on the light. There’s no other reason to have a room. Sometimes, if we doubt the room has a switch we might enter it with a torch, a flash light, but when we find the switch, we flip it, and put the torch away.

Words are metaphors. They carry us over and above themselves, raising us high enough, if they are well spoken, to see over obstacles we find blocking our way. Sometimes they even reveal to us our destination, why there is a way at all, why we find ourselves already travelers when we awake, why we waken to know that where we are is not home, that we really live somewhere else, and that we must get back there. Thus the gift of language, proof of the Divine Word who speaks and it is done, and who has spared nothing but our choice, to lead us back to Himself and to the Father by the Spirit.

Even in Jesus

How ironic it is, that the Blessed Virgin Theotokos is the apostle and abbess of Mount Athos, an isolated peninsular republic composed only of male monastics! How she came into that inheritance, becoming the apostle of that ‘almost island’ of the Chalkidhikí is a little known story that I have recounted elsewhere.

My favorite ikon of the Theotokos as Abbess of Mount Athos is the one shown right, recently written in Byzantine style. It has replaced an older image that is still frequently found, painted in Western style.

One of the strangest but most potent proofs of the status of the Virgin Mary in the Kingdom of God is her constant, sometimes visible, presence on the Holy Mountain. At times the monks literally see her standing among them during services, or walking abroad on the mountain. True, she has reposed, yet her body has disappeared, and so her state resembles that of the ‘raptured’ (1 Thessalonians 4:17, αρπαγησόμεθα, ‘snatched away’), almost a sort of ‘first fruits of the New Creation’ in a similar way to Christ being the ‘first fruits of the Resurrection.’ These facts, at least, should commend her to the attention of Christians, even if only as their model. The Virgin Mary is, after all, the first Christian, and everything that happened to her can and will happen to every follower of Jesus, if we only allow it.

Sometimes the Church’s use of the saints as our role models is totally off the mark! An example of this is the emphasis on the Virgin Mary as a role model only for women: this misrepresents both the Mother of God and the Christian woman. Though I am not sure that in Roman Catholic hagiography you ever hear women called ‘equal-to-the-apostles’ as in the Greek Church ‘isapóstolos’, yet not only the Theotokos, but Photini (the woman at the well) and Mary Magdalen among others have this distinction. Perhaps since the Virgin Mary never became a ‘priest’ it is safe to make her the role model for women, and bolster it with such images of her that conform to a mistaken ideal of feminine virtue and piety.

The fact that the Mother of God’s life ended in the extraordinary way that is recorded in the Orthodox Church points to the fact that her example and existence is for all Christians to imitate. She is the first Christian as well as the last faithful Jew, and so she retains her position among all of humanity—not just among Christians, ‘all generations shall call me blessed’—as, if nothing else, at least our first and most transparent model of what a follower of Jesus is. Far from waiting on our prayers and devotions (though she is aware of them and offers them to God the Holy Triad) she is walking the world beside her Divine Son as He searches each one of us for hearts that can be saved—hearts, not just souls, for as the Desert Father says, ‘If you have a heart you can be saved.’

There are some Christians who simply don’t believe in the ‘communion of saints,’ that is, their living but invisible presence among us, because they haven’t really grasped the significance and power of the Resurrection—that is, Jesus Christ risen from the dead.

The saints are only present because they are in paradise, and paradise is a Person, not a place. It is Jesus. Lack of attention to Mary is part of this failure to appreciate what the Resurrection means. From their point of view, Jesus ‘ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father.’ They have grasped that but have neglected His words, ‘Lo, I am with you to the end of the age.’ They confine His real presence to the sacraments if they still accept these at all, and they make ‘Christ is in our midst’ into a mere metaphor, to be applied as a consolation for the aridity and sterility of their devotions.

At worst some of them don’t even have a clue as to what eternal life, even what salvation, is, or how it applies to our earthly life. This is where the atheist and agnostic find ample opportunity to mock what they think Christianity is, but which is only a ghost of it, an attenuated parody of authentic Christianity, which does not reside in mere systems or institutions, but in the arena of spiritual struggle in which the saints have toiled from the beginning till now. Yes, these things are understood and lionized in the traditional Church, Catholic and Orthodox, yet even there, they are often reduced to systems of self-serving spiritual materialism, and finally, church imperialism.

How deeply the true knowledge of the meaning and power of the Resurrection can transform our lives, if we only believe. ‘All things are possible, if you only believe.’ Yes, even in the communion of saints. Yes, even in Christ in our midst. Yes, even in Jesus.

Seek the good wine

Greek bishop Hierotheos of Nafpaktos asks, ‘Do figures like elders Païsios and Porphýrios exist today?’ and then continues…

Fortunately, we knew these really enlightened elders, Fathers Païsios and Porphýrios and other patristic personalities, who showed us what the Church is and how God shows, through the Church, His friends. Many of us felt God's love near them. These elders comforted thousands of people and in many cases brought rest to the most unruly children of God. We must feel unworthy of such a gift.

However, since God and the Church exist, such holy figures always exist. As I said before, the saints are the offspring of the Church, having passed through the Cross and Resurrection of Christ, and Pentecost, and they testify of the new life which God brought to earth.

Alas, if there were no such figures today. It's like thinking that the Church has ceased to exist or is barren and cannot give birth. The truth is, that when saints cease to exist, then will occur the Second Coming of Christ.

On Mount Athos today there are many blessed monks who glorify God and are glorified by Him. Mount Athos is still a great light, which, when those who see it do not have adequate vision, they are blinded and they blame the monks who live there. And outside Mount Athos also, in monasteries and communities there are blessed children of God and the Church, which illuminate those who understand this and have need.

The problem is that we do not see the saints, do not feel them, do not smell their presence. This is because we do not have high pursuits, we do not have spiritual senses to recognize them and to feel them. We can apply in this case the words of Christ: ‘For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened’ (Matthew 7:8).

Those who truly seek God and His saints, they will certainly encounter them, or rather the living modern saints themselves will go to find them and fill them with the gifts of God. Such is our God. He comes secretly, He likes to reverse all logical possibilities, He shows His love loudly, suddenly and surprisingly to those who hurt and are looking for Him. Soberly intoxicated are those who seek the good wine, the strong wine.

— original text translated by John Sanidopoulos and posted at Mystagogy