Posted on 09/30/2004 4:42:17 PM PDT by Destro
Orthodox Church drawing converts from other branches of the faith
Saturday, September 25, 2004
By CHARITA M. GOSHAY Repository staff writer
AN ENDURING FAITH. The Very Rev. John Peck, pastor at Holy Assumption Orthodox Church in Canton, ministers to many converts of Orthodox Christianity like himself. Peck said Orthodoxy attracts people who are tired of congregational splits and denominational infighting.
CANTON -- The Very Rev. John Peck calls his faith “a religion off the radar.” The pastor of Holy Assumption Orthodox Church at 2027 18th St. NE for three years, Peck is overseeing a growing congregation that includes a sizable number of Christians who grew up in non-Orthodox denominations.
Peck said Christians are growing tired of churches that constantly change their doctrine or are splitting as a result of bitter divisions.
In contrast, Peck said, the essence of Orthodoxy has remained unchanged since it was born in the first century.
The Christian Church was a single entity until 1054, when it split into two parts, Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Protestantism was created as a result of a split from Catholicism in 1517.
“I wasn’t looking for Orthodoxy,” said Kim Krajci, a member at Holy Assumption for nine years. “It was the people that drew me in. My husband was Catholic and I was with the Friends. We weren’t worshipping together. I told him, ‘Wherever you go, I’ll go.’ A nun with whom he worked and a friend of his from college told him about this church. The people here are very loving. They manifest Christ. I find that irresistible.”
Unlike many Orthodox parishes that have strong ethnic identities, Holy Assumption does not. Peck, whose first parish was in Fairbanks, Alaska, conducts the liturgy in English.
“I don’t know Latin. Apart from (Eskimo), English is the only language I know,” he said with a smile.
A smiling Diane Wilkinson said that when she told her father she was converting to Orthodoxy, he asked her if she were becoming Greek.
Raised Catholic, Wilkinson said she joined the Charismatic movement, which led her to several Protestant churches in search of the truth.
“It irked my husband that there were so many denominations,” she said. “He was looking for the one true church, if it existed. I was looking for a real worship experience. People are really struggling with what is worship. They’re not looking for a make-it-up-as-you-go-along church. Everything you could want for your life is in Orthodoxy. You just have to take advantage of it.”
Peck said that like himself, about 60 percent of his members are converts. Most recently, the church has produced the Very Rev. Stephen Frase of Tuslaw, a Protestant convert and Malone College graduate who recently became a priest.
Peck himself grew up a Lutheran, then joined the Episcopal Church with his wife. They left Protestantism 12 years ago. Peck has been a priest for seven years.
Though Orthodoxy remains somewhat of a mystery, Peck said there’s less ignorance about the church these days.
“In Orthodoxy, there’s no arguing about basic Christian things that have been taught,” he said. “The tether of slicked-up Christianity has been turned loose in terms of theology and worship. We just don’t go for that.”
Peck said Orthodoxy requires commitment of its members. For example, the Orthodox are required to fast much more often than other Christians.
“It’s off the radar,” Peck said of his faith. “It takes a long time to complete the conversion process. That’s not popular.”
“This is a practice of faith that asks you to live a certain way, to act in a certain way,” Krajci said. “When I became a Christian, I was looking to live the Christian lifestyle. I even looked at several Christian communities. I didn’t understand until I came to Orthodoxy that I’d found it.
“There are a lot of people who think the guys in black do it all. ‘Liturgy’ means ‘work of the people.’ You work to worship. It’s not entertainment,” she said.
After attending one of Akron’s largest nondenominational churches for years, Kalle Obeng said she lost faith when the church changed its doctrine.
“When a church changes its doctrine, there’s a rift in that church,” she said. “People become disillusioned.”
Obeng said the experience sent her on a quest to study early church history.
“I visited different denominations and finally asked myself, ‘What am I supposed to be looking for?’ ” she said.
Obeng said a friend invited her to Holy Assumption, and that during the second time she attended, she had a revelation of the Virgin Mary as the mother of God and of the church.
That was eight years ago.
“It hasn’t been an easy thing, but it’s been a great thing,” she said.
Obeng, who is biracial, said she feels comfortable with Orthodoxy, which has deep roots in Africa.
Peck said Orthodoxy is appealing because it cuts across cultural boundaries though its doctrine remains unchanged.
“To the Orthodox, Catholicism is the Protestant Church,” he said. “It’s Orthodox-lite. I don’t mean that in a bad way. The framework of Catholic services is Orthodox. The Roman Church doesn’t do anything the way they did 100 years ago, let alone 500 or 1,000 years ago.”
“Continuity is a tremendous aspect most Protestants don’t understand,” Krajci said. “Repeating the same things week after week is an anathema in a culture that wants change.”
“There’s freedom in accountability,” Peck said. “Our newest liturgy is 1,300 years old.”
"economia", has its origins in the Jewish faith. Many Jewish denominations have it (though I am sure some have none) via the supervision of Rabbis.
Which God's law?
That is a sweeping generalization. How can you say that with such absolute conviction? If Orthodoxy takes credit for its stance on sex in medieval Russia (as I posted), it is obvious that your generalization is wrong, because the Orthodox Church and hence Orthodoxy no longer stands for that, and the Chgurch was terirbly wrong in that particular instance.
The faith Jesus Christ gave us has nothing to do with understandinhg human nature. It has to do with defeating it by doing what he said we need to do: obey the commandments, rules, absolute unchaining principles, as spelled out. The Church does not need to understand human nature; it should teach that which Jesus taught; not more and not less.
Only fallen human nature... and even then, it is not a matter of defeating human nature (how would Christ instruct us to defeat something that he assumed in its fullness?), but rather working to make complete its transformation -- a transformation that begins with our baptism when we undergo the three-fold immersion in the saving waters.
When we undergo the spiritual labors that the Orthodox Church points us towards, we are not escaping or defeating human nature. We are rather working to become truly and fully human. This is why when we pray certain Orthodox private prayers, we ask God to deliver us from "animality." Ultimately, the choice is between becoming transformed into the glorified human nature (which participates directly in the Divine through the energies of God) or becoming like the animals. Or, as another prayer puts it "worse than a beast."
There is a very real sense in which, in its practical theology, the Orthodox Church does indeed understand and take into account bhfallen human nature. The canons, the commandments of the Gospel, the prescribed spiritual and physical labors, and the prayers of the Church are necessary because we, in our fallen human nature need them. It is because of our fallenness that we have, for instance, the fasting guidelines of the Church. If we were able to be temperate and continent, we wouldn't need such guidelines. And it is only within this context that Orthodox guidelines on relations within the marital bond are to be understood.
I'm surprised that the discussion of artificial contraception has gone on this long on this thread. Only an Orthodox priest who is well-versed in the spiritual life has the grace to deal with this subject, and even those usually won't speak on it in public, because each individual Orthodox Christian needs to be met where he is in the spiritual life. It is (like our teachings on the Theotokos/Panagia and on the inner spiritual life) not a part of the public witness of the Church. That witness is, and should be, largely restricted to the teachings of the Gospel.
St. Paul, in a famous passage, talks about all of the things he would do in order to save people -- he would do one thing to save one, and another to save another.
The Orthodox standard is that of a pious ascetic monastic saint, living "the angelic life." Next to that, all of us fall short and miss the mark, so the question is how we pursue our life-long attempt to get there. There is a combination of strictness and mercy that is the hallmark of good Orthodox father-confessors -- strictness in teaching (as strict as the hearer can bear without going into despair), and mercy in forgiving and allowing for shortcomings (in a way that will encourage and give tools to the faithful to do better in the future.)
The starting point that a father-confessor will take is not with do's and don'ts, but rather with laying the groundwork of a life of prayer, from which ever higher levels of ascetical struggle can be built. Trying to do it in the reverse fashion is like starting a building by constructing the roof first.
Yes, exactly what I was trying to say earlier. Thank you for your much better words.
Is there any other kind in us?
but rather working to make complete its transformation
From what to what? Animal to human or human to god-like? If we go from animal to human, we go from innocence to corrupt; if we go from human to god-like it is not becoming more human, but more unlike what we are. We are not animals, not because we are better then they are, but because the animals are not fallen. We are insulting God's creatures when we say "animal like."
You say that God took our human nature -- yes He did, so he could die for us. Even God, Who became Flesh without sin, and lived a life without sin, even He was mortal in His human form (although our teaching says: that which is without sin is immortal). The Son of Man suffered and died on the cross; the Son of God neither suffered nor died.
Te whole aim of Orthodoxy is to help us humans become something better by the process called theosis. The Orthodox standard, as you say of "a pious ascetic monastic saint, living 'the angelic life'" is anything but what our human nature tells us to do. It's a struggle, not some natural process; it's a transformation -- metamorphosis, a new form of life; it's an act of conscious self-denial, not something that comes "naturally."
There is nothing, nothing in the teachings of Jesus Christ that even resembles anything the Church made later on with respect to humanity, especially human sexuality, and veiled it in some kind of psuedo-theological exercise of personal preferences.
When we read that someone in medieval Russia took the time to count the number of times a woman came to church in a month, then accused her of being "unclean," and the church condoned that by punishing her by denying her the Eucharist for up to three years (!), that is not knowing human nature but sheer ignorance, prejudice, and superstition. It is not the business of the Church to tell you how to live -- but to teach you how you should live. After all, even God let's us make a choice whether we turn to Him or whether we face the darkness; bat ism in and of itself does not change your nature; you are still prone to sin and, left in the dark, will choose that which your nature compliers you to do -- and it will never be theosis.
Either we do it out of love or we fake it. I don't fast because the Church says I should. The Church has changed its mind on fasting a number of times (yes, the primitive and the Orthodox Church; never mind the Catholic!). I fast because I want to, not because I have to. It gives me pleasure to fast. Yet my nature tempts me to do otherwise.
So, do we still count the number of times women show up in church or did women somehow through the ages become "cleaner" when they are on their period??? Could it be that the Church was (a) ignorant or (b) wrong or (c) both -- to do so? Or do we simply choose to sweep the whole embarrassing episode under the rug and hope that no one will ever discover it? Oh, let me guess -- we choose not to discuss it in public, as you so clearly point out.
Yeah, Kosta, what Agrarian says! Besides, if our spiritual fathers didn't show mercy, all the Greeks would still be pagans. :)
Kosta, at least those of us who grew up with old Orthodox relatives around, people from the old country, have all heard these stories. Of course the Church was wrong. I certainly have no problem saying that. Perhaps I haven't been following this thread well enough. Was someone denying that the Church acted inappropriately regarding women and natural functions in the past?
Kolokotronis wrote: "Kosta, at least those of us who grew up with old Orthodox relatives around, people from the old country, have all heard these stories. Of course the Church was wrong. I certainly have no problem saying that. Perhaps I haven't been following this thread well enough. Was someone denying that the Church acted inappropriately regarding women and natural functions in the past?"
What I am going to ask could sound like a snide comment from the peanut gallery, but it isn't. It's a real question, one to which there isn't a snappy answer. One that ought to make us pause and think.
We have been reading here in part about the hard minded practices of the old Russian Orthodox Church concerning women and their periods and attendance in Church. And we are just about to put all of that to bed as bad old superstition.
But then query: in the Torah, God lays out rules just as specific and of a very similar nature concerning female spiritual impurity at the time of their monthly cycle. They were not to partake in sacrifice, they were not to touch sacred things, etc., etc. That's in the Bible itself in black and white. So, when God imposed those rules, that was not divine, but when the Russian Orthodox imposed the same rules, it was superstitious tradition? Is that the truth? Or is it more true to say that some of the ancient Jewish superstitious traditions about the female cycle crept into the Bible, in the same way that traditions concerning the divorce of wives appear in the Bible, but Jesus says that they never came from God?
Kolokotronis wrote: "Kosta, at least those of us who grew up with old Orthodox relatives around, people from the old country, have all heard these stories. Of course the Church was wrong. I certainly have no problem saying that. Perhaps I haven't been following this thread well enough. Was someone denying that the Church acted inappropriately regarding women and natural functions in the past?"
What I am going to ask could sound like a snide comment from the peanut gallery, but it isn't. It's a real question, one to which there isn't a snappy answer. One that ought to make us pause and think.
We have been reading here in part about the hard minded practices of the old Russian Orthodox Church concerning women and their periods and attendance in Church. And we are just about to put all of that to bed as bad old superstition.
But then query: in the Torah, God lays out rules just as specific and of a very similar nature concerning female spiritual impurity at the time of their monthly cycle. They were not to partake in sacrifice, they were not to touch sacred things, etc., etc. That's in the Bible itself in black and white. So, when God imposed those rules, that was not divine, but when the Russian Orthodox imposed the same rules, it was superstitious tradition? Is that the truth? Or is it more true to say that some of the ancient Jewish superstitious traditions about the female cycle crept into the Bible, in the same way that traditions concerning the divorce of wives appear in the Bible, but Jesus says that they never came from God?
I apologize for the repeat posting.
Incompetence.
Kolokotronis, I grew up with Orthodox relatives and we never talked about this. The Church was not to judge, not to serve as a policeman, but to be a loving guide.
The whole Serbian Kosovo love-affair is based on the Orthodox mindset of the Serbs: when faced with the choice to either bow to the Sultan and embrace Islam, or to choose Heavenly Kingdom, Serbian Prince Lazar and his knights chose the Kingdom of God because, as he said the earthly kingdoms are temporary and that of God is ever lasting.
When in march of this year, Kosovo Albanians torched Serb houses, the inhabitants left everything behind but took the icons and the candillas; nothing else mattered to them.
The Church that prosecutes women because of their period is alien to me. Tolstoy's famous story "The Three Hermits" is what Orthodoxy of my youth is, although it was written in the late 1800's. So, when you tell me that you knew about medieval Russian Church's puritanical ways, this is news to me because we have no moral leg to stand on and criticize Catholics and Protestants for similar transgressions.
My point was that sometimes Orthodoxy is portrayed as holier than Grail. Orthodoxy keeps theology unchanged, but the rest is a different story.
The Church should teach us what Jesus taught. It should stay out of people's bedrooms. Birth control is birth control no matter what method is used. If that is immoral, then preventive medicine is immoral too.
You're stuck on this, for some reason, Kosta. It's not worth the discussion.
Bad things happen, even in our churches. Other bad things happen in our churches. Not often but occasionally.
We're not immune to evil. It permeates our society. All societies.
Anyway the way I understood it, it had to do with any serious bleeding, not just in women. That's the way Etna teaches it in one of their booklets.
Read Heb 8:8 and 8:13. The Torah is not our way of life. We are not Jews. We don't sacrifice animals. We don't atone for sins by killing innocent God's creatures. The New Testament makes it clear that the Old Covenant was "not faultless" and that God has given us the New one, for that which is "old decayeth."
Again that's not the way I heard it. It was some elaboration of the transubstantiation thing, that if you bled you somehow lost Christ by bleeding. It held the same if you had recently had oral surgery, for instance.
We briefly attended the local ROCOR church and the priest had come from Etna and he handed out one of their booklets, which explained it like this.
There was something about men too.
It's ridiculous because if you take it far enough, well, never mind. Just suffice to say there was some belief that one could lose the Body and Blood of Christ in a body fluid. Etna is bizarre, if you ask me. But it was not just about women, as I was told this stuff.
Right. Good point. The same priest from Etna let his son work through pneumonia because God was more powerful than a physician. The poor kid coughed almost nonstop for a few weeks at liturgy. And I work in the field and I can tell you that was not bronchitis.
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