s i l o u a n » incarnation

You see an abandoned chair on the street

Silouan — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 17:15:38 +0000

(via jamesfromta: orthodoxbrit: les-artiste: cerbear: di-vine)

John 1 should blow your mind

Silouan — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 21:13:42 +0000

Billy Kangas writes:

This passage is often called the “prologue of John.” Some scholars once theorized that this section was a Hymn inserted based on the uniqueness of certain terms (logos and grace in the prologue that appear nowhere else in the Book). This idea doesn’t take into account much of the significance of this passage to the whole. The prologue in John sets the stage for the rest of the book. It shows the areas of focus John takes in Gospel: A) Jesus’ Divine role, and B) the authority of those who believe in God.

Alan Culpepper (“The Pivot of John’s Prologue,” New Testament Studies 27, 1980, 1-31) believes that the prologue is a chiasmus with 12b at the center. I think he might be on to something take a look at the structure:

A vv.1-2 The Word as God and with God
. B v. 3 Creation came through the Word
. . C vv. 4-5 We have received life through the Word
. . . D vv. 6-8 John the Baptist is sent to testify
. . . . E vv. 9-10 Incarnation and the response of the world
. . . . . F v. 11 The Word and his own (Israel)
. . . . . . G v. 12a Those who accepted the Word
. . . . . . . . H v. 12b Authority to become children of God
. . . . . . G’ v. 12c Those who believed the Word
. . . . . F’ v. 13 The Word and his own (believers)
. . . . E’ v. 14 Incarnation and the response of the community
. . . D’ v. 15 The testimony of John the Baptist
. .C’ v. 16 We have received grace through the Word
. B’ v. 17 Grace and truth came through the Word
A’ v. 18 The Word as God and with God

The theme’s of John’s Gospel are laid out right from the get go! But it gets better…

More…

What purpose does Jesus’ death serve?

Silouan — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 06:45:11 +0000

This week an online acquaintance asked:

Let’s assume that Jesus was God, as the Nicean Council determined. What purpose would Jesus’ death serve?

About 318 AD, Athanasius (the future bishop of Alexandria) wrote an article called “On the Incarnation of the Word” which has become a classic answer to this question. Athanasius wrote, “He became man that we might become divine; and He revealed Himself through a body that we might receive an idea of the invisible Father; and He endured insults from men that we might inherit incorruption.”

Athanasius writes that man doesn’t exist apart from God. Man is increasingly corrupted by rebellion and alienated from God, the source of life. As a result, “as they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again.” This isn’t a law in a juridicial sense, but an observation, like the observed laws of nature. Following scripture, Athanasius calls this “the law of death.”

A Person of the Godhead, whom John’s Gospel calls &rldquo;The Word,” entered the world. He prepared a body for Himself in the virgin. Then as a human He surrendered himself to death, and rose up again by divine power into new and unending life. In this way he abolished the “law of death” and returned man back to incorruption.

The nature of man is now united to the nature of God. That’s what was accomplished by the incarnation, passion and resurrection of Christ. Now humans have a capax dei, a capacity for God, and by participating in His nature, can repent and experience the righteousness, love and life of God as their own.

Athanasius’ teaching here is one of the main reasons the Nicene council later agreed that Christ cannot be other than divine. If Christ is God, of the same kind as the Father, then Christ is capable of uniting us to the life of the Godhead, by being at once God and man. Hence the image in John and in Romans of the life of God in us. If Christ is merely an angel or demigod or something other than YHWH by nature, then in Him we remain unconnected to the Creator.

If Christ is not God, then the eternal life of God is not in us.

The Arians had no Gospel that could address man’s ontological alienation from God; the Jesus of their doctrine was no more than a moral example, not a Savior.

Less explaining, more doing

Silouan — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:52:45 +0000

The early church did not seek to formulate a theory of illness; instead, it healed the sick. It did not attempt to explain how the demonic could exist in a good world made by a good God; instead, they cast out demons. They had no hypotheses about how prayer works. They simply prayed… Their attitude was not anti-rational or anti-theological, but merely concrete. They looked, not for adequate ways to conceptualize the Kingdom, but for ways to actualize it.

— Walter Wink in Engaging the Powers

Isaac of Syria on Humility

Silouan — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:51:29 +0000

From Met. Hilarion Alfeyev”s The Spiritual World of Isaac the Syrian:

To speak of humility (mukkaka or makkikuta) meant to Isaac to speak of God, for God in his vision is primarily the One who is ‘meek and lowly in heart’. God’s humility was revealed to the world in the Incarnation of the Word. In the Old Testament, God remained invisible to and unattainable by everyone approaching him. But when he clothed himself in humility and hid his glory under human flesh, he became both visible and attainable:

Humility is the raiment of the Godhead. The Word who became human clothed himself in it, and he spoke to us in our body. Everyone who has been clothed with humility has truly been made like unto Him who came down from his own exaltedness and hid the splendor of his majesty and concealed his glory with humility, lest creation be utterly consumed by the contemplation of him.

Every Christian is called to imitate Christ in humility. In acquiring humility, a person becomes like the Lord and clothes himself in Christ:

Wherefore every man has put on Christ when he is clothed with the raiment wherein the Creator was seen through the body that he put on. For the likeness in which he was seen by his own creation and in which he kept company with it, he willed to put on in his inner man, and to be seen therein by his fellow servants.

Should Christians use psychiatric drugs?

Silouan — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 22:15:58 +0000

Elder Epiphanios was asked:

“Are Christians allowed to take psychiatric medicines? Because many maintain that anxiety, depression, melancholy and, in general, psychiatric disorders of the soul are healed only with spiritual life: that is, with prayer, going to church, confession, Holy Communion, etc.”

“When necessary, the Christian must also take them.”

“But what can these medications do to the soul of man?”

“We must clarify from the beginning that the so-called psychiatric medicines or tranquilizers — that is, these material substances — cannot in any way give man’s soul the longed-for calmness, nor to bring consolation and hope to the soul of a mother, for example, whose son has died, nor even to deliver the conscience of a man from the guilt of the sins which he has committed. These gifts “come down only from above, from the Father of lights.” And only the celebrants (the priests and, furthermore, the spiritual fathers) of the Church are able to heal these conditions of people.”

“Then why did you say that psychiatric medications are necessary?”

“Listen, anxiety and depression in people are caused not only by such above-mentioned factors, or even from financial ruin or from repression of their personalities and loss of self-esteem, etc., but also from factors which originate in the nervous system (the brain) of man — in other words, from the disturbance of the higher functions of the brain, such as emotion, thought, will, etc. This type of anxiety or depression, etc. is improved or even healed with psychiatric medicines, medicines, that is, which act on the brain functions in such a way as to bring them back to their normal rhythm.

To put it more simply, many Christians focus their attention on the immaterial component of man — that is, the soul, attributing to her alone the manifestations of anxiety, melancholy, etc. and thus they reject the medicines given the fact that matter cannot affect the immaterial. They forget though, that man also has a body. And because the brain, through which the soul is expressed, is an instrument of the body, with material means (that is, with medicines or earlier on with insulin comas or electroshock) its disturbances must be dealt with.”

“What do you mean when you say that soul expresses itself through the brain?”

“An image which we can use to describe the relationship of soul and brain is the violin with the violinist. Just as even the best musician cannot make good music if the the violin is broken or unstrung, in the same manner man’s behavior will not be whole (see 2 Tim. 3:17) if his brain presents a certain disturbance, in which case the soul cannot be expressed correctly. It is precisely this disturbance of the brain that certain medicines help correct and so aid the soul in expressing itself correctly.”

“Let me ask something else. Can intense sacramental life or fervent prayer heal these disturbances of the brain?”

“Of course, God can do a miracle for these sufferings. The question, however, which was posed to me in the beginning was something else. I was asked if Christians are allowed to use psychiatric medicines. And to this I respond undoubtedly: Yes!

Simultaneously, however, I also ask you: Why don’t you ask the same questions about bronchial asthma, for example, or eczema or migraine headaches or glaucoma or intestinal ulcers, etc. etc.? Let us finally realize that anxiety or melancholy, etc. does not come only from the disturbance of the soul, but also from the disturbance of the brain or from a combination of the two. In the final case, psychological support is also needed (the solution of problems, selfless assistance, behavior salted with the salt of discernment, so that those who pose such problems do not feel difficulty from the manifestations of our love, examination from an educated, pious psychiatrist who will also enlighten them about the nature of the disturbances, the invocation of divine aid, the approaching to the Sacraments of the Church, etc.) and simultaneously a medical therapy.”

(via johnsanidopoulos.com)

Jesus asks: Where did I say that?

Silouan — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 21:00:40 +0000

buynothingchristmas.org

The Sunday of Orthodoxy

Silouan — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 03:00:57 +0000

The Restoration of the Icons

This Sunday we commemorate “the Triumph of Orthodoxy”. We know it’s the day we bring icons to church, and celebrate the restoration of the icons after the iconoclast heresy long ago. But even though icons are highly visible, the Triumph of Orthodoxy does not simply mean we can have icons.

There’s a subtext to iconoclasm that we miss because we aren’t ancient Greeks or Romans. Saint Paul writes that “Christ crucified [is] to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness” (1 Corinthians 1:23). The religions of the Greeks emphasized the transcendence of God: The high, exalted, remote Deity, they believed, could not be associated with the grossness of the flesh. To them, spirit was good; matter was bad — and man was a divine spirit trapped in a lowly material world, unless he can escape through secret knowledge.

In the face of that belief, the first Christians proclaimed that God has become a perfectly material, fully physical human being; that he actually died; and not only did he rise bodily from the dead, He promises to raise us for eternity in bodies. Salvation doesn’t lie in an escape from matter. Instead Christians expect to live eternally, bodily, in the Resurrection.

Although this pagan Greek disdain for matter and the body was alien to the Christian Gospel, it remained alive in heresies around the periphery of the Church. Finally, in the eighth century, in the wake of Islam’s impact on Christian culture, this delusion reared its head among the Christians.

The iconoclasts [literally, image-breakers] asserted that since “God is spirit” (John 4:24), then He cannot be depicted using matter. Since (they said) an icon can only show the humanity of Christ, not His invisible divine nature, they claimed icons of Christ improperly divided Jesus the man from Christ our God. And, scandalized by Christian veneration of icons, the iconoclasts called it the same as worship of pagan idols. Gaining the ear of the emperor, they arranged to have the Archbishop of Constantinople replaced by one of their own, and began persecuting the Orthodox who venerated images, even putting them to death.

The history of the present feast is that of the restoration of icons to the Church. In answering the iconoclasts’ objections, the holy Fathers remind us that the holy, transcendent God has become a Man; “He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8). He saves us by participating fully in our visible, material nature — uniting it to Himself in His triumph over death, in His ascension and return to His own divine glory and throne, in His eternal life, divine nature, holiness and righteousness. Saint Gregory the Theologian famously says, “That which was not assumed is not healed; but that which is united to God is saved.”

Jesus Christ is the God who gets His hands dirty.

Christ can be depicted in matter — in paint on wood, in mosaics in stone, on metal bells and vessels — precisely because ever since Gabriel’s annunciation, “Hail, full of grace,” God the Word is forevermore a material, human Person. He saves us on an entirely material Cross of wood, shedding real blood; He heals and sanctifies us with oil, water, the bodies of the saints, and above all with His own Body and Blood.

God is Spirit, and Christ our God is also human. He is impassible — but in His incarnation, He’s no stranger to pain or tribulation. In Him the human and divine natures are united “without mingling, change, division, or separation,” as the Fathers have said. In the light of this fearful divine Mystery, no Orthodox Christian is tempted to worship the mere wood or paint of an icon: as Saint Basil wrote, when we venerate Christ or the saints in an icon, the honor we show passes on to the one the image represents.

Jesus Christ is the God who gets His hands dirty. That still scandalizes people who prefer a deity they can keep on a pedestal. We live in a culture that — like the ancient Greeks — prefers to be merely a fan of an impersonal god that we can compartmentalize, ignore, and salute when appropriate. The message of the restoration of the icons is that this conveniently uninvolved deity of civil religion is a false god. Ironically, the god that cannot be depicted in images is an idol invented by the minds of men. But the living God – the I AM whose bodily resurrection we will celebrate in a few weeks, is “that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled” (1 John 1:1) This God, who saves the world by His material Incarnation, is fittingly depicted using matter. This is the Orthodoxy that triumphs today.

Resisting Advent

Silouan — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:34:14 +0000

At Ream of Paper:

His fists flexed closed as he said, “I don’t want a God you can hold in two hands, one if you’re experienced at holding babies! I don’t want a God covered in afterbirth or crowning out of a young woman. I don’t want a God wrapped up in a blanket covered in meconium. I don’t want a God clutching at a woman’s breast. I want pomp, and God-type things. I want thunder and rain and lightning, well-placed too.”

More…

Icons of the Christ Child and His mother

Silouan — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:12:41 +0000

What shall we offer Thee, O Christ, Who for our sakes hast appeared on the earth as a man? Every creature which Thou hast made offers Thee thanks. The angels offer Thee a song; the heavens, their star; the wise men, their gifts; the shepherds, their wonder; the earth, its cave; the wilderness; the manger; and we offer Thee a virgin mother. O Pre-eternal God, have mercy on us!

— A hymn from the Royal Hours of Christmas

What did Christ do for us?

Silouan — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:09:35 +0000

A friend wrote to ask me how Orthodoxy looks at what Christ accomplished for us.

You wrote:

I am under the impression that certain ideas regarding why Christ died that I understood as a Protestant, are not really Orthodox teachings. Such as… Sin has a price: death; Christ came to pay the price for sin; His resurrection shows that God accepted His payment for our sins…

An Orthodox take on that would be that there isn’t really any price to be paid, no divine satisfaction required. God gave Adam a warning about disobedience — it’ll cause death in you. Like “Don’t jump off the roof or you’ll break your leg” or “Don’t look into the laser or it’ll blind you.” It’s not a crime-and-pubishment thing, it’s a warning about consequences. So of course in the story Adam goes and eats the fruit anyway, and sure enough he’s caught this “death” disease in his soul and body.

The Old Testament idea of death involves separation. Somebody dies and they’re cut off from you, inaccessible. In fact to be “cut off” (like a rotten branch) is a biblical euphemism for dying or being killed. What died in Adam was his direct connection to God. One day he’s got a high-speed internet connection to God, the next he’s traded that in for experience of both good and evil, and now man is offline.

Now man is stuck with just his five physical senses, plus the rational, emotional, and willful parts of his soul. The part that’s meant to see and hear from God (the nous) has gotten clouded, and Adam’s attention is fragmented, stuck on all the shiny things he sees with his eyes and feels with his body. He’s like a sleepwalker, just shambling away from pain and toward pleasure without any purpose.

It’s like Captain Stubing has left the Love Boat, and the only officer left to run the whole ship is Julie the tour guide, and her ship-to-shore radio is mostly on the fritz. The rational mind is meant to be a tool and a servant, not a master, and the appetites and the will are definitely not supposed to be anywhere near the driver’s seat. But the part that thinks like God has gone comatose so the rest of the soul muddles on, half-blind and distracted.

The Fathers call that state a sickness. The Greek word that gives us pathology and pathetic means suffering from illness, and in Latin it’s passions. That’s why the suffering of Christ is called the Passion. So Adam has traded in his divine life with God for existence as a spiritually sick, suffering stranger to God, and everything he tries just makes his state worse. So God mercifully locks away the other tree, the tree of life — that is, God says “You’ll live only a limited time in this body.” …Imagine Adam living forever in a body that began to age and die in the day he first sinned.

When the Fathers look at what Adam needed to be saved from, and what Christ did, they look at healing and restoring life to a race that’s drifting away from the source of existence.

Isaiah says that Christ was wounded because of our sins, and carried away our sorrows on His shoulders. Jesus’ death is foreshadowed by the Old Testament idea of sacrifice for sin — but an even clearer illustration is the scapegoat, which carried the sins of the people away. Christ took our death and sin and pain, all there is, and He carried it away, and brought back the prisoners. (Check out the Harrowing of hell — we’ll sing some of this story during Holy Week.)

About 318 AD, Athanasius of Alexandria wrote an excellent article called On the Incarnation of the Word of God to answer the question “What did Christ accomplish?” Conveniently, I’ve put it online; print it out and give it a read.

Meanwhile… if death is separation from God, then life is union with Him. In fact, “life” is used in the New Testament as a synonym for the nature of God. Vine’s NT dictionary, under “ZOE” says: “Life as a principle, life in the absolute, life as God has it. That which the Father has in Himself, and which he gave to the Incarnate Son to have in Himself, which the Son manifested in the world. From this Life man has become alienated in consequences of the Fall, and of this life men become partakers through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Author of Life to all that trust in Him, for the Life that He gives, He maintains. Life is the present actual possession of the believer because of his relationship with Christ. The fact that Life will one day extend its domain to the sphere of the body is assured by the resurrection of Christ.”

I once read some advice for Bible translators to be careful with the term “eternal life.” They were warned not to accidentally translate it as “existence without end.” In Greek and Hebrew it literally means the Life of Eternity. The life of God Himself. Eternal life isn’t a binary thing (you got it/you don’t). Everyone with any connection to God has His life in them to one degree or another. Some flourish and bear fruit, while others wither. In John 15 Jesus calls that life the sap that’s in Him, the Vine — and He says that the exact same thing that’s in Him is in us. Then in Romans 11:16-24 St. Paul says the same thing — that we’re grafted into Christ, and the life that’s in the root is in the branch (us).

When a Person of the Trinity becomes a human, He does something mind-boggling: He makes Himself one Person with two different natures, Uncreated and created. He’s still part of the Trinity, ruling the universe, and He’s also totally a member of our species. One of us sits on the throne of the universe.

Life, and forgiveness, and holiness, righteousness, healing… it’s a mistake to think those are gifts God gives us. Instead Jesus IS the life in us. He Himself is our righteousness, our peace, our wholeness. You don’t receive these things as gifts, like created items separate from Him — instead in Christ you get all of God. He says that you exist in Him — when He busts out of death from the inside, your human nature is in Him, and you’re in Him when He tramples on satan. And when you get the unexpected peace to endure hardship and to love your wife, and the extra strength to say no to what tempts you, He is in you. It’s all Him. That’s why Orthodox people insist on that expression “uncreated grace” — because grace is God at work, in people, in places and in stuff.

Christ told one person “Your faith has saved you” and another “your faith has made you whole” but in Greek those are the same sentence, in both passages. Salvation is restoration, wholeness, reconciliation, reunion. Oh, and forgiveness of sins, too — that’s free for the asking because God wants to forgive us. He didn’t need to crush Jesus on the cross to forgive us. That was all us — humans being sinners and the devil getting in his licks — and God permitted the incredible injustice of it because He doesn’t care about being just; He’s merciful.

One last thing: Here’s something I started writing before I was Orthodox, and finished after I’d been Orthodox for a while: The River.

Christ became one of us, uniting what we are to what He is in one Person. As long as He lives, our nature and God’s nature are held together in perfect union, and He lives forever because He is Life.

An ancient hymn on the Nativity of Christ

Silouan — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 23:05:01 +0000

Sons of men,
do you truly speak of justice?
Dwellers on the earth,
do you truly judge with fairness?
We confess with unshakable faith
God, who was made man
and who was given birth by a Virgin.
Before all time he was begotten
of an immeasurable Father;
now we adore him who became incarnate
in a Virgin’s womb.
He is the creator or all,
himself remaining invisible and distinct from creation.
So we are able to say:
in you, Lord, is mercy; glory be to you.
Holy God!
you have deigned to be born, a tiny child, from a Virgin.
Holy Mighty!
you have willed to rest in the arms of Mary.
Holy Immortal One!
you have come to rescue Adam from hell.
O immaculate Virgin, Mother of God, full of grace,
Emmanuel, whom you have carried,
is the fruit of your womb.
In your maternal bosom you have nourished all men.
You are above all praise and all glory.
Hail, Mother of God, joy of the angels!
The fullness of grace in you
goes beyond what the prophets foretold.
The Lord is with you,
for you have given birth
to the Saviour of the world.

An ancient eastern hymn on the Nativity; found on an ostrakon now in the National Museum of Brussels
Monumenta Ecclesiae Liturgica, Vol. I, p. 232

Perichoresis: God and His mother

Silouan — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 05:09:45 +0000

by Father Jonathan

Even though the veneration of the Theotokos is old-fashioned and obscure in the modern world, this veneration and supplication for her intercession lie at the very heart of the Christian faith. Our fellowship with the Virgin and our communication with her are realities that exist at the center of life.

There is no such thing as Christian faith without regard for the Virgin Mary. Our supplications to the Theotokos cannot be optional or secondary. The reason why Orthodox Tradition gives so much devotion to the Mother of God is not because it is superstitious or obscure. It calls us to venerate the Theotokos, and to call upon her intercession simply because Orthodoxy is so completely Trinitarian and so fully Christological. We are Marian in the Orthodox Church because we are “conservative” in the best sense of the word – we maintain a deep fidelity to the Apostolic witness of the “theanthropos,” the “God-manhood” of Christ.

The Christian faith, which is fully realized in the Orthodox Church alone, is not merely a set of beliefs and propositions. Orthodoxy is better described as a “relationship” – and even this modern word is inadequate. It is better to use the old word perichoresis, or “co-inherence.”

This old Patristic term describes the current of love which flows within the Tri-Hypostatic Union of the Godhead, wherein the Father begets the Son, Who adores the Father and is glorified by the Holy Spirit, Who proceeds eternally from the Father. That Trinitarian love is the opposite of self-absorption. Instead, Trinitarian love proceeds in Grace, through an infinity of Names, to create the spiritual and physical universe, to redeem that which is lost in sin and death, and to set life upon the way of infinite perfection and communion. Trinitarian love is the source of all beauty and truth.

There is no determinism in the Divine plenitude of love. The Archangel Gabriel announced to the Theotokos, as the very first essentially Christian proclamation, “With God nothing is impossible!” (Luke 1.37). This crucial affirmation is the great theme of all prayer, supplication and intercession. Prayer is possible, simply because “with God all things are possible.” The future is not a prison in the apostolic testimony of the Orthodox Church – it is a mystery charged by the brightness of redemption, an endless set of possibilities that are always changeable by prayer.

That theme of “co-inherence” also describes the relationship of the Virgin Mary with her Son, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It describes the mutual surrender and the gift of self to the other. Thus, it beautifully depicts the profound and life-long surrender of the Theotokos to her God, her Son and Saviour.

When there is this deeply psychic exchange of life, Mary represents her Son to humanity. She becomes the pre-eminent icon of the Christian, the example to us all in how life should be lived, and how holiness should be pursued.

But there is another side to the exchange. Jesus, in turn, represents His Mother and all humanity to the Godhead. God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit respond to human need and concern. God responds because the Holy Spirit moves His creatures to pray – and the one who is most sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit is the Virgin Mary herself. She prays best, because she knows God best – more than any other saint, more than even the angels. She was the first to receive Jesus into her heart, and she bore Christ God in her womb, and suckled the Son of God in the Manger.

She knows God better than the Angels, because she knew Christ in His humanity. She knows God better than the rest of mankind, because she knew Jesus in His divinity. She adores her God Who is also her Son. Jesus, the Son of God, loves His Mother, who is also His creature.

In that singular perichoresis between God and the Theotokos, there is the tenderness of Mother and Son … there is also the compassion of the Infinite God for His creature, and the awestruck adoration of the deified Virgin Mary for the Everlasting God.

It is that singular relationship we appeal to whenever we pray. Our prayer to God is founded and rooted in this very first Christian “co-inherence.” Our supplications to the Theotokos rely upon the primacy of the Virgin Mary over all humanity, in her ability to intercede in her “maternal boldness,” with her Son Who is also God.

This we see portrayed in tender warmth in the very first of the Gospel miracles, the Wedding at Cana. In this homely and familiar story, we see the Mother of God become aware of a very human, humble concern. The problem strikes us as unworthy of a miracle. It is a wedding party, after all, and the problem seems not to be as serious as later needs for the miraculous intervention of Christ. The need is for wine, as it ran out prematurely. That does not seem so important as the need for healing or exorcism. But despite the smallness of the need, the Virgin Mary presents this request to her Son.

And despite the apparent priorities of the ministry of Christ, Jesus is moved by His mother’s maternal boldness to respond to the need. And, as is always true of His miracles, His intervention results in an excess of Grace. His miracles are always “more than enough.” There is never mere “efficiency” in Grace: the Trinitarian radiance of Love can never be characterized as “just enough.” There are always leftovers in the aftermath of the Power of God. There is too much wine. There are twelve baskets of bread. There is 153 fish in a net. There are aliens, Canaanites and Samaritans who are accidentally healed, despite historical strictures. There are Messianic secrets that are always broken. Animals speak, the rocks cry out, entire storms are soothed into Peace.

This was always true in the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. Now that Christ has ascended, and now that Christ has assumed His Mother into His fellowship in Paradise, the miracle of the Wedding of Cana is repeated over and over again. It is replayed, afresh, beautiful like the first time, established in truth in a myriad of enactments, every single occasion when we call upon the Virgin Mary for her help and intercession.

She is present with us, borne upon the wings and breath of the Holy Spirit. While she is not omnipresent and omniscient, the Holy Spirit certainly is. The entirety of the Theotokos’ intercessory ministry is enabled by the inspiration and fullness of the Spirit of God. It is by the Grace and Power of God that the Theotokos hears our supplication. It is by this same Grace and Power that she responds. And it is by her relationship with her Son – a relationship that is the example for all human adoration of God – that our prayers are answered.

I say all this, not only because of the moment this day’s Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, but mainly because the intercessory ministry of the Virgin to us in the twenty-first century is crucial, and cannot be done without.

Can this be doubted? Are you surprised that I emphasize so strongly the necessity of the Virgin’s prayerful assistance? It is a symptom of the age, and how myopic and dark it has become, that it is possible to even consider that we could do without the intercessions of the Theotokos.

There is no such thing as Christian faith without regard for the Virgin Mary. Here, at the conclusion, I would go one step further. It is impossible to continue on as an Orthodox Christian in this age of idols and confusion, without the intercession of the Virgin. It is impossible to even “be” a Christian at all anymore, without the intercession of the very first and best Christian, who is the Virgin Mary and Mother of our God.

There are many today who try to be Christian on their own, in their own little self-enclosed, existentialist envelope. They try to live for Christ without appealing to the Saints and the Mother of God. Theirs is a desperate struggle that will grow all the more difficult as the years pass by, and as the future rushes toward the Day of Judgment.

As time goes on, I want you remember this: the coldness of unbelief, and the darkness of the modern age, will boil down the Christian options of civilization into only one hopeful possibility – and that will be the Holy Apostolic Church, charged with liturgy, hiearchy, sacraments and tradition, eternal order, and filled with the veneration of the Theotokos.

And the main reason for this single possibility is mainly because of the tender, maternal affections of the Mother of God, whom we glorify this day.

The body of Christ

Silouan — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 12:00:12 +0000

Page 95 of the Leabhar Breac

The body which was born of the Virgin Mary, without any stain, without destruction of her virginity, without opening of the womb, without presence of man, and which was crucified by the unbelieving people out of spite and envy, and which arose after three days from death, and sits upon the right hand of God the father in heaven, in glory and in dignity before the angels of heaven. It is the body the same as it is in this great glory, which the righteous consume off God’s table, that is, off the holy altar. For this body is the rich medicine of the faithful, who journey through the paths of pilgrimage and repentance of this world to the heavenly homeland. This is the seed of the resurrection in the life eternal to the righteous.

— From the ancient Irish manuscript called the Leabhar Breac, the “Speckled Book.”

In many ways the writings of the ancient Christians of Ireland, Scotland, and Gaul sound familiar to Orthodox ears. Here’s an Irish writer, whose words would be just as much at home in ancient Egypt, Palestine or Syria.

God the Logos

Silouan — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:08:16 +0000

Notes from a Jewish and Christian Orthodox Dialogue¹

Bucharest, Romania, October 29-31,1979, a follow-up of the dialogue held in March of 1977 in Lucerne, Switzerland. Under the Sponsorship of Patriarch Justinian of Romania and Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen of Romania

By Father John S. Romanides

The meeting was chaired jointly by H.E. Metropolitan Damaskinos of Tranoupolis,² Director of the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate at Chambesy, Switzerland and Prof. Shemaryahu Talmon, Chairman of the Jewish Council for Inter-religious Consultations in Israel, Professor of Bible, Institute of Jewish Studies and Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The papers presented during the sessions of the first day had been prepared and presented by Prof. Michael Wyschogrod of the City University of New York entitled “Tradition and Society in Judaism” and the Orthodox paper had been prepared by Deacon Elie Jones Golitzin of the Institut Des Sciences Bibliques, Faculte de Theologie; Suisse entitled “The role of the Bible in Orthodox Tradition”.³

Before the meeting began I had distributed a study about the Logos in the Old Testament according to the Fathers of the Orthodox Ecumenical Councils. The Jewish representatives reacted by pointing out that is was the first time that they encountered Christians who could point out Who the Logos is in the Old Testament and also asked permission to reproduce this little paper and distribute it.

The two conference papers on “Bible and Tradition” had essentially such similar positions which made it possible to terminate discussion early. In the light of this I asked whether I may pose a question to the Jewish chairman in the light of the paper I had distributed before the meeting began. My question was, “Is the Angel of the Lord Who appeared to Moses in the burning bush a manifestation of God?” “Of course it is!” came the rapid answer.

I reacted with the following question, “Is He created or uncreated?” Then the reply shot back, “Of course uncreated! We Jews do not believe that God reveals Himself by means of creatures!”

I quickly retorted, “That is our Orthodox doctrine of the Holy Trinity”.

Then the Jewish chairman reacted with, “then why all the philosophical terms like “one essence,” ” three hypostases” and “homoousion”?

I replied that “These terms were reactions to heretics who had been transforming the Church’s doctrine into philosophical systems, whereas,” I continued, “the only purpose of such terms was to guarantee the cure of the center of the human personality by means of the purification of the heart, its illumination and the glorification of the whole person”.

The Jews reacted with the information that this is the Hassidim tradition. Then I asked whether this is also that of the modern Hassidim. They answered that, “as far as we know it probably is”.

But this is not only the tradition of the Hassidim. It was and has been the very foundation of prophethood and apostleship of both the Old and New Testaments and the ongoing life of the Church since Pentecost. The only way one becomes a member of the Body of Christ is by means of the purification of the heart completed by its illumination and glorification both in this life and the next.

I have been a member of WCC General Assemblies since Nairobi 1975 and of Central Committee since Vancouver 1983. I have heard a lot of Protestant claims of being moved by God’s Holy Spirit. However, the only sign of being really moved by the uncreated Holy Spirit of God is this purification, illumination of the heart, and glorification, which is the foundation of the Ecumenical Councils sponsored by New Rome. This therapy cures fantasies, among which religions are capable of being extremely dangerous. This is why the tradition — of the Old and New Testaments and the Ecumenical Councils sponsored by New Rome — is not at all a religion. On the contrary this tradition is the cure of the sickness of Religion.

Although the Jews at this meeting pointed out to us that our Orthodox tradition of the cure of the human personality by means of the purification and illumination of the heart and glorification was that of Old Testament Hasidim, this did not become part of the résumé of our discussions which follows.

“The center of discussion was the relation between Scripture and Tradition with a focus on the interpretation of Scripture in Tradition. It was found that both sides agree that the interpretation that the interpretation of Scripture was always inextricably bound to the text of Scripture since tradition is first and foremost the tradition of revelation. Furthermore, both sides stressed that Scripture and Tradition came into existence in a faithful community which preserves them but also, which interprets and applies them to its ongoing life, as the authority and source of its identity”.

“The text of Scripture and its interpretation are both the result of or part of revelation at whose center is God’s revelation to Moses on Mt Sinai.

“The Jewish tradition of the revelation of the written and oral Torah on Mt. Sinai was found to have a parallel in the Orthodox Christian tradition whereby God revealed on Sinai His uncreated Torah [the Logos] and thus inspired Moses to give His chosen people the created or written Torah”.

“The centrality of God’s revelation of Himself to Moses for Jewish and Orthodox Christian understandings of faith and spirituality became evident from the discussions”.

“It was found that in spite of the well known differences in belief there are nevertheless areas of identity and similarity which would be worthwhile to explore in an ongoing dialogue”.

“It was therefore decided that the subject of investigation for the next meeting would be the subject of the law in the spiritual and social life of the Jewish and Orthodox Christian tradition”.

Footnotes

Jewish Participants: 1. Rabbi Balfour Brickner, Union of American Hebrew Congregations: 2. Dr. Andre Chouraqui, Jewish Committee for Inter-religious Consultations of Israel; 3. Michael J. Klein, World Jewish Congress; 4. Dr. Moses Rosen, Chief Rabbi of Romania; 5. Rabbi Elie Sabetal, Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece; 6. Zachariah Shuster, American Jewish Committee; 7. Israel Singer, World Jewish Congress; 8. Prof. Shemaryahu Talmon, Jewish Committee for Inter-religious Consultations; 9. Prof. Michael Wyschogrod, Synagogue Council of America.
Orthodox Christian Participants: Father Dumitru, Prof. of Old Testament at the Theological Institute of Sibiu, Romania; Bishop Anthony, Vicar of the Patriarchate of Romania, Bucharest; Father Cyril Argenti, Marseilles, France; Prof. Ion Bria, World Council of Churches; Deacon Emilian Conritescu, Theological Institute of Bucharest; Metropolitan Damaskinos of Tranoupolis, Director of the Orthodox Center of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Chambesy, Switzerland; Deacon Elie Jones Golitzin, Institute des Sciences Bibliques, The Faculty of Theology, Lausanne, Switzerland; Deacon Vassilios Karayannis, Orthodox Center, Chambesy, Geneva; Prof. John S. Romanides, University of Thessaloniki, Greece; Slavco Valcanov Slavov, The Theological Academy of Sofia, Bulgaria.
Currently also Metropolitan of Switzerland.
Papers evidently not originally programmed but read at this conference were as follows: “Tradition and the Bible in the Orthodox Church,” by Rev. Cyril Argenti from Marseilles, France: “Le role des diversses traditions dans la vie de l’Eglise Orhodoxe,” by Rev. Dumitru, of the Theological Institute of Sibiu, Romania: “Peace and Justice in Biblical Tradition, ” by Cand. theol. Slavco Valcanov Slavov: “Jewish Community in the Light of Jewish Tradition,” by Israel Singer of the City University of New York and The World Jewish Congress.