July
29
2010
Image via Wikipedia
Returning now to the question of whether or not schism is a separation from the Church or a separation within the Church, we will turn to the Church’s liturgical witness. It is here, that I think we see that schism while a grievous sin is not necessarily a separation from the Church. This is not to say that those in schism from the Church have not suffered because of this. They have much like the real pain of divorce is the remnant of love and affection and the loss of the hope that was (ideally) there not only on the wedding day but for sometime thereafter.
Fr Georges Florovosky sums up schism in this way:
The unity of the Church is based on a twofold bond – the ‘unity of the Spirit’ and the ‘bond of peace’ (cf. Eph. 4.3). In sects and schisms the ‘bond of peace’ is broken and torn, but the ‘unity of the Spirit’ in the sacraments is not brought to an end. This is the unique paradox of sectarian existence: the sect remains united with the Church in the grace of the sacraments, and this becomes a condemnation once love and communal mutuality have withered and died (The Limits of the Church emphasis added).
Taking Florovosky at his word, in the sacraments we see the real, if damaged, unity of Catholics with the Orthodox Church. Though the term is not used in the article I cited, the argument being mad here is a variety of lex orandi, lex credendi, the rule of prayer is the rule of faith. Or, to put the matter more directly, what determines our interpretation of schism is not an abstract argument–no matter how many fathers we cite, how eloquent our words or erudite our theology–but what the Church does at prayer. It is our liturgical practice that tells us what we believe about the relationship of Catholic (and to some degree, Protestant) to the Orthodox Church.
Continue Reading >>
July
28
2010
Image via Wikipedia
David Bentley Hart, that bad boy of post-Modern Orthodox theology, writes in his essay “The Myth of Schism” about “how porous (or, in some cases, nonexistent) were the partitions between the churches for centuries after the excommunications of 1054.” He continues by arguing, on good historical grounds, that
Communicatio in sacris between Orthodox and Catholics … continued in some places till the 17th century. At the Council of Florence (1438-39), for instance, both sides spoke of the division between East and West as a wall of separation erected within the one Catholic Church. In various reaches of the Ottoman Empire … great numbers of Orthodox and Catholic believers—among the clergy no less than among the laity—proceeded as if there were no division. Latin missionaries were even known to regard the local Orthodox bishop as their ordinary, and Catholic priests were allowed to preach in Orthodox churches, catechize, hear confessions, and even on occasion administer the Eucharist. Orthodox Christians did not hesitate to show their reverence for the Catholic sacrament at corpus Christi processions, and on the Island of Andros the Orthodox bishop and his clergy—fully vested and bearing candles—participated in the procession itself. In the 17th century, Frank shows, there were abundant signs of cordiality between the communions: a former Athonite abbot in 1628 asking Rome to open a school on the Holy Mountain, the Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch in 1644 inviting the Jesuits to open a house in Damascus, the Metropolitan of Aegina in 1690 petitioning the pope for Jesuits to undertake pastoral work in his diocese.
July
27
2010
Image via Wikipedia
Our conversation on the unfortunate tendency of some Orthodox Christians toward anti-Catholicism has produced a number of very good insights from several readers, While I didn’t touch on it in the original post, any conversation on Catholic/Orthodox relations raises the question of whether or not the Orthodox and Catholic Churches are, in some way, still one Church or something else. Put another way, is schism a division within the Church or a division from the Church? And either case is the division absolute or does there remain at least some vestige of communion between the Orthodox Church and (in the current case) the Catholic Church?
For simplicity sake, I will limit my discussion here to some thoughts about the relationship of the Roman Catholic Church to the Orthodox Church. The diversity among Protestant communities is simply too great to make general statements with any security. Often within the broad expanse of Protestantism one tradition serves as a counter-example to what an Orthodox Christian might say about another Protestant tradition. Baptism is a good example. Some Protestant communities practice infant baptism, other hold dedication services for the children on believing parents, while still others reject anything other than believers baptism (though even here, the range of practices and doctrine are so broad as to frustrate any general statement of the “Protestant” position). Nevertheless, I do think that what I say here may, at certain points anyway, be applicable to at least some members of the Protestant family.
A couple of provisos.
Continue Reading >>
July
26
2010
- Image via Wikipedia
In this post I want to highlight an interesting is the parallel between the pastoral vision of the Strategic Plan and that of the Second Vatican Council, especially as articulated and applied by the late Pope John Paul II during his tenure as the Archbishop of Kraków, Poland.
Reflecting on the theme of the Church as the People of God, then Archbishop Karl Wojtyla argues that according to the fathers of the Second Vatican Council the Catholic Church is a communion of persons. And so, he writes we have in the Church “the communio ecclesiarum [communion of churches] and the communio munerum [the communion of gifts, tasks, or offices] and, through these, the communio personarum [communion of persons].” He concludes
Such is the image of the Church presented by the Council. The type of union and unity that is proper to the community of the Church as People of God essentially determines the nature of this community. The Church as People of God, by reason of its most basic premise and its communal nature, is oriented towards the resemblance there ought to be between “the union of the sons of God in truth and love [Gaudium et Spes, 24:3] and the essentially divine unity of the divine persons, in the [communion of the Most Holy Trinity] (Sources of Renewal: The Implementation of Vatican II, 1980, pp. 137-138, quoted in Pope John Paul II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology Of The Body (2006), trans. by Michael Waldstein, p. 90).
Whatever might be the practical differences between us, the John Paul II’s summary of Catholic ecclesiology would fit easily within the framework of the OCA’s strategic plan.
Continue Reading >>
July
24
2010
Any guess who said the follow (you can find out after the break):
As a man of faith, you are troubled by the thought: what will Providence do with Gandhi? And what is the meaning of the appearance of this strange person among the statesmen and politicians of our time?
A warning from God. That is surely the meani
ng of the leader of the great Indian nation. Through that person, Providence is showing politicians and the statesmen of the world, even Christian ones, that there are other methods in politics than skill, wiliness and violence. Gandhi’s political method is very simple and obvious: he does not require anything except the man who cries out and the God Who hearkens. Against weapons, ammunition and army, Gandhi places fasting; against skill, wiliness and violence – prayer; and against political quarrel – silence. How puny and pathetic that looks in the eyes of modern men, right?
In modern political textbooks, these three methods are not even mentioned in footnotes. Fasting, prayer and silence! There is hardly a statesman in Europe or America who would not ironically see these three secrets of the Indian statesmen as three dry twigs pointed on the battlefield against a heap of steel, lead, fire and poison. However, Gandhi succeeds with these three “spells” of his; he succeeds to the astonishment of the whole world. And whether they want to or not, political lawmakers in England and other countries will have to add a chapter into their textbooks: “Fasting, Prayer and Silence as Powerful Weapons in Politics.” Imagine, would it not be to the fortune of all mankind if these methods of the unbaptized Gandhi replaced the methods of the baptized Machiavelli in political science?
But it is not the Indian’s method in itself that is such a surprise to the world, as it is the person using the method. The method is Christian, as old as the Christian faith, and yet new in this day and age. The example of fasting, prayer and silence was shown by Christ to His Disciples. They handed it down to the Church, along with their whole example, and the Church hands it to the faithful from generation to generation until this day. Fasting is a sacrifice, silence is inward examination of oneself, prayer is crying out to God. Those are the three sources of great spiritual power which make man victorious in battle and excellent in life. Is there a man who cannot arm himself with these weapons? And which crude force in this world can defeat these weapons? Of course, these three things do not include all of the Christian faith, but are only a part of its rules, its supernatural mysteries.
Sadly, in our time, among Christians, many of these principles are disregarded, and many wonder-working mysteries are forgotten. People have started thinking that one wins only by using steel, that the hailing clouds are dispersed only by cannons, that diseases are cured only by pills, and that everything in the world can be explained simply through electricity. Spiritual and moral energies are looked upon almost as working magic.
I think that this is the reason why ever-active Providence has chosen Gandhi, an unbaptized man, to serve as a warning to the baptized, especially those baptized people who pile up one misfortune on another upon themselves and their peoples by using ruthless and harsh means.
The Gospel also tells us that Providence sometimes uses such warnings for the good of the people. Your Grace will immediately realize that I am alluding to the Roman captain from Capernaum (Matt. ch. 8). On the one hand, you see the Elders of Israel who, as chosen monotheists of the time, boasted of their faith, meanwhile rejecting Christ, and, on the other hand, you see the despised Roman pagan who came to Christ with great faith and humility, asking Him to heal his servant. And when Jesus heard it, He was astonished and said to those who followed Him, “Truly I say to you, not even in Israel have I found faith like this.”
The Christian world is the new, baptized Israel. Listen! Is Christ not telling the same words today to the consciences of the Christian Elders by pointing to today’s captain of India?
Peace and health from the Lord to you.
July
23
2010
We’ll finish in this post our consideration the practical theological anthropology of the Orthodox Church in America’s (OCA) strategic plan (download a pdf of the whole report here). Specifically, we will look at proximate conditions for a Church that is spiritual wholesome as well as emotional and social healthy. The question we’re trying to answer is what most be in place in the Church’s life for people to pursue a life of holiness? Or what needs to be in place for people to actually embody the Christian faith in the concrete circumstances of their own lives?
Proximate. This leads us then to the more concrete or applied dimension of our life in Christ. While the first two levels are removed from Christian experience, not so the struggle against sin and its effects. Yes, the sacramental life of the Church–baptism, chrismation, the Eucharist as well as confession, anointing, marriage and holy orders–all express and bring about the unity in diversity of our life in Christ. But it remains for us, for me, to actually embody that triumph in my own life.
Continue Reading >>
July
22
2010
- Image via Wikipedia
Following on a brief sketch of Orthodox ecclesiology, the Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) of the Metropolitan Council of the OCA lists 8 anthropological principles meant to help guide the Church at the beginning of the 21st Century (download a pdf of the whole report here). Reading through the list (pp. 5-6), I see them breaking down naturally into three sections, the ultimate, remote and proximate foundations of our Christian life. Let me look brief with you at each level. I’ll do the first two in this post and the third tomorrow.
Ultimate. The ultimate, or ontological foundation of our life in Christ is the creation of each human person “in the image of God.” Though we are poor relative to God, God has in His mercy and love for us given each person his or her “own unique gifts to be used for God’s glory and the building up of His Holy Church.” To this I would add a third element–it is only through the right exercise of my gifts that I can grow in holiness. Or, to put the matter slightly differently, personal holiness is only possible in response to God’s grace and in the right exercise of the gifts I have been given. Whether in the Church, the parish, the family or the person, sanctity is intimately and necessarily bound up with our fidelity to our vocation.
Remote. But all is not well in the Church (and the parish, the family and in my own heart). Though “God created the world in all its goodness … as a result of sin it has fallen.” Within the tradition of the Church, a distinction is drawn between the image and likeness of God in the human person. Image is our by creation, likeness by personal effort. By Adam’s sin, and my own, I have lost my likeness to God; the image remains but is now obscured and this is the source of great existential suffering. Try as I might, I cannot be who I am as long as I remain separate from God and I do not have the ability to overcome this separation.
But the Good News of the Gospel is that through “the incarnation of God the Word, Christ is restoring creation to its proper relationship to Himself.” In Christ, my estrangement from God is overcome, I can again become who I am, I can become a living image (icon) of God. And this is not for me alone but is a gifted offered to the whole human family in and through the life of the Church.
What is important here I think is that sinfulness–even though cosmic in scope–does not touch the ultimate or ontological goodness of creation in general or the human person in particular. While we struggle with sin in our personal, familial, parochial and even Church lives, this struggle presupposes an enduring fundamental goodness. Sin obscures but does not destroy the image of God in the person and in humanity. It does, however, l leave us estranged not only from God but also our neighbor, creation and even ourselves. As a consequence of sin, the catholic character of creation is lost.
But even so, and as the text of the plan makes clear, there is hope. The triumph over sin is not simply formal but personal. In the life of the Church the catholic character of life is restored and can be experienced.
Though our lives have been shattered and scared by sin “through participation … in the sacramental life of the Church” this can be overcome. Indeed, the life of the Church is the experience of a true “unity expressed through the diversity of gifts … given to the faithful” by the Holy Spirit. And again, these gifts are given not simply in creation but above all in and through the sacraments.
In my next post, I want to look at how, in a proximate way, what we’ve seen here is to be embodied in the life of the Orthodox Church in America.
Until then, and as always, your comments, questions and criticisms are not only welcome but actively sought.
In Christ,
+Fr Gregory
Related articles by Zemanta
- OCA’s Strategic Plan Working Draft (palamas.info)
- A Pastoral Ecclesiological Vision (palamas.info)
- Yep. That about says it. (beliefnet.com)
- The sacramental imagination (geneveith.com)
July
21
2010
Privacy in our culture has come to serve not a deepening of community life but an ever deeper sense of social isolation. Even otherwise laudable behavior is increasingly justified not by the goodness of what is done but by the modern sense of privacy. Even among those who ought to know better, the Gospel is presented in terms that are almost wholly personal without any sense of its public character and demands. Our sense of isolation from each other has become so profound that even to suggest that there is a human nature and that true happiness is only possible when we live in conformity to our nature, is seen a provocation and an assault on the radical autonomy of the individual.
Paradoxically, when privacy is in the service of isolation it is also the source of what Peggy Noonan (The Eyes Have It) describes as our increasingly “exhibitionist culture.” She writes that more and more we “know things about each other (or think we do) that we should not know, have no right to know, and have a right, actually, not to know.” While technology has a role to play here, Noonan sees the cause as rooted in the loss of what I would call the right sense of personal privacy. Lose this, Noonan says, and “we lose some of our humanity; we lose things that are particular to us, that make us separate and distinctive as souls, as, actually, children of God.” And with this loss comes as well the loss of a truly civil society. “We also lose trust, not only in each other but in our institutions, which we come to fear. “
Not that the modern sense of privacy is all bad. Without privacy, without a door I can close (and the trust that you will respect that closed door) I cannot from time to time withdraw into solitude. Rightly understood, privacy is the functional expression of solitude.
Continue Reading >>
July
21
2010
- Image via Wikipedia
The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) working draft of its strategic plan (download a pdf here) grounds pastoral direction of the Church in the Church’s nature. After the introduction and overview of the plan (which helpfully includes of key terms) the document proper begins with a section entitled “Identity and Directions” with a summary of what we might call the OCA’s “mission statement”:
As the Body of Christ, the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) is committed to bringing the Gospel to all the people of North America – indigenous and immigrant alike – embracing all languages, cultures and races. This is Christ’s commandment to “Go into all the world 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 that [He has commanded us]” (Mt. 28:19-20).
The practical, dare I say catechetical, nature of the plan leads the authors to begin their reflection on the mission statement by asking, and answering, a question of the OCA: “Who Are We?” Their answer is very basic statement of Orthodox ecclesiology:
Continue Reading >>
July
20
2010
- Image via Wikipedia
Recently the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) released a working draft of its strategic plan (you can download a pdf of the plan here). While the content of the plan is worth attention–and I will look at it in the coming days–what I think is most immediately noteworthy is the decision by the OCA’s Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) to adopt “a conciliar process” in the formulation of what they term “the vision, goals, culture and structure” of the OCA “for the foreseeable future.” (p. 2) As part of the conciliar process, the SPC has circulated a draft copy of its plan and solicited the views on the plan of “all levels of the Church…beginning with the Metropolitan and the Holy Synod, then the Metropolitan Council and then expanding to the dioceses and parishes.
How well will this work in practice? I’m not sure.
Continue Reading >>
I Also Write for the American Orthodox Insitute (AOI)- Met. Jonah Keynote Address – The Episcopal Assembly July 29, 2010
- From the OCA Strategic Planning Committee: July 28, 2010
- Ground Zero is American Holy Ground. No Mosque Near Ground Zero July 27, 2010
- A grand slam and no hitter — all in the same game! July 27, 2010
- Tulsa World: Speaker didn’t reflect the church’s views July 24, 2010
- I Also Write for Acton Institute PowerBlog
- Krista Tippett: Effective Compassion through Faith July 29, 2010
- DeKoster on Work and Food July 29, 2010
- Democrat Outreach to Religious Left ‘Aggressive’ and ‘Not Diminishing’ July 29, 2010
- A ‘Reality Economics’ View of Entrepreneurship July 28, 2010
- Work, Globalization, and Civilization July 28, 2010