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.”
So, what is the criterium for a "worthy discussion?" Something we all can tap each other on the shoulder and agree?
All I am saying is that the Church should stick to theology.
People like this give the Church the reputation of being in the "dark ages." The Orthodox Church I know welcomes science -- because science reveals ever more God's glory.
I just think it is a minute issue and that only a few rare churches have succumbed to it as a philosophy.
I have this movie, Triumph of Faith, a documentary about a pilgrimage in Russia in the late 90's I think. An Orthodox pilgrimage. I love the movie, but at one point the women do this ritual thing where they crawl three times around a tree stump and think it will bring them health or something.
And when you're watching this, you're thinking Argh!
But the rest of the movie is fun and very inspiring, for me at least. They walk miles and miles, sleep in the rain, are just like children in their approach - take very little food and water, no serious planning as we would here for a day hike.
Some of the elderly people have plastic wrapped around their swollen feet. And they keep walking.
In a church where we have so much ritual we tend toward superstitions. It says in the movie that the priests frown on what the women are doing but overlook it.
I think we posted at the same time on superstition.
Well, in part, but also your comment that Orthodoxy understands human nature. I really don't think so. History proves that it doesn't. It's not in its domain. I wish the Church would stay where it belongs -- which is toteahc us how to be better human beings instead of judging and punishing people for their nature.
I then tried to clear up the misconceptions that the Orthodox Church gives a carte blanche to all contraception and so I posted a lengthy article, which included a retrospective view of orthodox Church's position in medieval Russia to show that Church's policies on sexuality and human nature are not part of the Holy Tradition but a tradition of men who made it up as they went along. Consequently, it morphed through ages to fit the social and political correctness of present realities. Thus, the RCC now allows sex for pleasure of a married couple but with a caveat. The orthodox Church has no uniform teachings. destro defended the right of each bishop to make a call, depending on individual case-basis. I agree. The whole thread was to dispel misconceptions about our lack of 'doctrine' about contraception, and being linked to Protestants. Then came some sweeping generalizations about the OC knowing human nature and all that.
Again, not stuck on it -- just responding responsibly to other people's comments to clarify and ask. But thanks for your concern.
A thread on NFP... FYI...
kosta50 wrote: "I got on this thread because, as you know Catholics claim that it's against God's law to use contraceptives -- but they won't tell me which law that is."
Well, I'll tell you what I think, from my own Catholic perspective, for what it is worth. And if a Bishop or other ordained clergy of the Church wishes to contact me directly to correct my errors, if there are any, and discipline me for stating what follows, I will certainly listen and obey. If some other member of the Catholic laity wants to start presuming to administer discipline to me, on the other hand (as some have presumed to do on this board, although not on this thread), then I would demur by politely asking by what authority he presumes to command a peer.
Here is what I think the Catholic position on birth control is: The purpose of sex biologically is to reproduce, and spiritually is to increase human love. Now, certainly unmarried people can love each other, but God has told us not to share that love in its sexual form outside of marriage. God has his reasons, and they are many. One of them is that sex produces children, and children outside of the bond of marriage tend to suffer, and inflict a burden upon the mother, especially, which clouds and sours the love both between the adults and the child. Birth control outside of the bonds of marriage, then, is nothing but an enabler of fornication without the consequences of unwanted children - a very, very POWERFUL natural deterrent to fornication in the age before birth control.
Within marriage, the problem of birth control is still a problem of abridging love. Married couples express love through sex. They also do so by raising and nurturing the children who naturally come through sex. Putting a barrier up there so that the children do not come is abridging one of the functions of sex, sealing off an avenue for the expression of love. And it is often a bit more than that, for it is very frequently true...indeed, it is USUALLY true, that one partner in his or her inner heart, desires more children than the other. In the interest of domestic tranquility, and so that sex does not become a burden and a source of hostility, the one who does will often suppress her/his feelings on the subject in deference to the other's, and will allow the use of birth control to prevent the very thing that she/he secretly desires. This too damages the full expression of love, at its core. In the absence of birth control, the mother whose heart's desire is the third child that the father does not really want is not as frustrated when it doesn't happen, because it was in the hands of God. By contrast, if the man insists on wearing a condom, he is frustrating her desires and one of the things she earnestly would like to see occur as the result of their lovemaking, and thereby abridging love. People are not sophisticated, mature or rational enough as creatures to be able to fully talk these things out, and even if they were, the two positions are not likely to change. One will be imposed upon by the other if birth control is used, and this will leave a wound, even if it is completely understood and "agreed to". We all agree to adhesion contracts all the time, but we would change the terms if we could. With birth control it is no different. Leaving conception in the hands of God has the effect of removing the negotiation and secret wounds from people.
That is why there is ultimately loving wisdom behind the position of the Church on birth control. The only place it really matters is between married couples: the unmarried are not supposed to be fornicating anyway. And it is among married couples, especially, that suppressed desires about childbearing are most likely to leave deep, unexpressed wounds and scars if one "gets his way" (or her way) and the other is deprived of children s/he craves through the outward, intentional act of contraception.
The Church's position avoids these wounds and leaves it up to God.
Now, all of that said, the Church can certainly change its mind if this just doesn't work. The purpose is to help protect and protect human love. But if the doctrine really doesn't work, then it is a disciplinary rule, and disciplinary rules can be, and have been, changed over and over again over the course of history.
Why is the "rhythym method" -"Vatican Roulette" - allowed, then?
I would say because it is not wholly effective, and therefore things are still left in the hands of God.
Now I have a query, does the Orthodox Church allow divorced people to remarry in the Church? If they remarry outside of the Church anyway, may they still take the sacraments?
I think the largest issue in communication is this. You have a church which has black and white laws, this is allowed, and this is not.
We have a church in which people are considered on an individual basis for many issues, and many other issues are expected to be part of their spiritual growth, and a person entering the Orthodox church, in general, is expected to take several years just to get a grasp of it all.
The decisions made in our churches are, for the most part, made between a spiritual father, one who knows us well and even intimately, and the parishioner. Because we have these really close and special relationships with our clergy, because we are a church which relies on intuition, insight, and other spiritual kinds of decision-making instead of something written in a book, and because we see the canons as *guidelines*, not laws, we just are not able to say yes or no to many of your questions.
Both Monkfan and Kolokotronis tried to explain this, and did it well, I think. I don't know why I am trying to lamely follow in their footsteps, but there it is.
What I hope is not being revealed in your postings is a need for a church to be evaluated based on what they allow and what they do not allow. This, forgive me, is a very sad statement. And yes it is Pharisiacal. Extremely so.
Yes. Sometimes. Based on each individual situation.
Three things.
First, thank you for the answer, which is that there is not a rule. It is possible in the Orthodox Church to be married a second time after a divorce, in certain circumstances, if a parishoner works it out with his/her priest. Is that accurate?
Second, thank you for emphasizing the difference in approaches. Yes, the Catholic Church is rulebound, apparently much moreso than the Orthodox Church, or at least the Orthodox here seem to think that is so. I personally have my doubts. I suspect that were I to press the issue, forward (which I am not going to do), I would discover that Catholics have a lot of clear cut rules, while the Orthodox have a lot of rules that are not clear cut ab initio, but which become "clear matters of faith" when they are pushed. This would follow from the cultural difference between the primarily rationalistic approach of Westerners to things, contrasted with the primarily mystical approach of Easterners. In the Western Church, there is an answer, and anyone can go look it up in a book. In the Eastern Church, there is an answer, and it is found in the authority of the priests to perform, or not, a sacrament.
As to the Pharisee jab, it was unnecessary. I will let it pass without a counter-jab, but I will defend myself. Simply: Jesus is different. There is a Bible out there, with lots of rules. Jesus modified some of them, and his words and acts are written down in the Gospels. Divinely inspired men writing before and after Jesus wrote under the emprise of God the Father or the Holy the Spirit, but what they wrote has to be interpreted, since it is a man interpreting God.
Jesus is different because he WAS God. There is no filter. So, correctly, the words and deeds of Jesus are the only time that the direct and unfiltered Word of God was relayed directly, in the first person, over an extended period of time, in public. With Paul, there are indications at times that Paul thinks this or Paul thinks that. This is all interesting, and Paul's was a great spirit, worthy of consideration. But whatever Jesus thought or said or did are the thoughts, words and deeds of God, full stop. No filter, no "interpretation". In Jesus, we have God directly interpreting EXACTLY what He means. There is no room for confusion, there is no ambiguity. Jesus is God. Therefore, obviously, everything else in the Bible, and everything in religion, and everything else that man does has to be interpreted in light of what Jesus said and did, because Jesus was the only man who was literally God incarnate, and the only completely unfiltered and unintrepreted divine message we have.
Now, the Pharisees interpreted Moses this way and that way and added their own traditions, and they contradicted Jesus. Which means that they were automatically wrong. Jesus was God. He wasn't just a man inspired by God - He was God as a man. Therefore, when Jesus said that written parts of the Scripture itself - the divorce rules of the Torah - were mere human traditions and NOT inspired by God, that overrides every other human being who had ever spoken before or has spoken since who says that every word of the Bible was inspired by God. We have an inkling that is not so, because Paul himself says at some points that he has no message on a given point (like women and headscarves), but then ventures his opinion. Paul could have opinions that were not divine. Jesus could not, because he was God. That means that if Jesus says that the divorce rules in the Torah were Moses' allowances to the hardness of the hearts of men, but not from God, it means that the divorce rules in the Torah were not inspired by God, and Jesus has explicitly identified a part of the Bible as NOT the inspired Word of God (and therefore, one cannot simply hold up the Bible and say "Every word in this is the Inspired Word of God" - because Jesus WAS God, and Jesus said "No, it isn't" by giving an explicit example of something in the Bible that says "God said", but Jesus says "God never said that".) Where Jesus contradicts the older Bible, the older Biblical passages that contradict Jesus are revealed as human traditions and not divine by the very fact of Jesus' having said so. Because he was the only man in the Bible who was God, and therefore whatever HE says, specifically, is the Word of God, and everything that derogates from that is a Pharisaic tradition that defies the direct Word of God.
Now, yes, it is true, Jesus does say that not a jot nor a tittle shall pass from the Law until all is fulfilled. But by that he clearly means God's law, and not God's law plus all the human rules that have been written up as God's law, but which aren't. Jesus explicitly pointed to the Old Testament divorce rules as something in the Scriptures that is NOT the inspired Word of God. Jesus doesn't say "I am changing this." No, he says "It was not like that in the beginning" - it NEVER WAS the Law of God, and it NEVER WAS the Word of God, even though the Torah says, in black and white "God said". Jesus said 'God did NOT say', and Jesus was God, therefore, God did not say, and that is the end of the argument for all time, forever.
In the Catholic Church, we recognize that the Gospels are a different animal from the rest of the Bible, by singing the Alleluia and sealing our heads, lips and hearts with a cross while standing to hear the Gospel. Church traditions can interpret Paul, but no Church has the authority to allow its traditions to override the words of Jesus, because He was God.
This brings me to the point of divorce. It is not the Catholic Church that says "No remarriage after divorce".
It was Jesus, who says in three Gospels, no divorce except for adultery, and remarriage after divorce is adultery." That's God speaking directly. The traditions, ecumenical councils and reasoning of the Orthodox or Catholic or any other Church is unavailing against a direct and explicit rule laid down by God Jesus.
That is why I asked about divorce. I was not being Pharisaic in my eyes. When God walked the earth, this was a big issue for him, big enough for him to have made a public discourse of it. And it was a big enough issue for God that God sent the Holy Spirit to record the same message, straight from God's lips, in three separate Gospels. I am not a Pharisee at all. I was asking a question about something that God was utterly explicit about. I asked the question because I was curious to see the relative strengths of tradition. I cannot see any way around the prohibition on remarriage set out by Jesus at all. Jesus was more explicit, in more Gospels, about no remarriage than he was about anointing the sick with oil (a sacrament), and as explicit as he was about baptism. Is baptism optional?
Why not?
Because Jesus laid down the rule of baptism and bound me to it.
But Jesus was every bit as explicit about divorce, so why am I a "Pharisee" for bringing up the words of Christ Jesus?
Can one ever be a Pharisee by looking at what Jesus said and asking about it? That's all I did?
The counter-jab is obvious, but I will refrain. My question was not the question of a Pharisee. It was a question for information, from one who takes what Jesus said more seriously than anything that any other man before or since has said, even men in mitres. Because Jesus, alone, was God. Therefore, whatever He said is true and the law, and all of our traditions have to perfectly reflect that or they reveal themselves to be wrong ab initio.
Where Jesus DIDN'T say anything, we have to fill in the blanks. But where he DID say something, I believe that we are so utterly bound that even the power of the keys he gave to Peter are unavailing. Peter could make laws for the Church, but Peter could not directly overrule God. And certainly he never even attempted to. Therefore, we should not think that we can either.
To a limited extent, Churches MUST be evaluated based on what they allow and do not allow. That limited extent is Jesus. Whatever Jesus commanded, like baptism, is not optional, and any church that derogates from what Jesus commanded errs. That is not true for Old Testament or other New Testament traditions, because those were the traditions of men. But Jesus was God. What HE said is binding Law that cannot ever be changed without defying God. Thus think I. And that is why is asked the question about divorce.
Frankly, I was SURPRISED by the answer. I would have assumed that the answer would be that divorced people who remarry are in a state of sin, like Jesus said. I would have expected the Orthodox Church to be hard about that.
It is interesting that they apparently are not.
On what authority does any Christian Church override the explicit, thrice spoken rule of Christ that a remarriage after divorce is adultery?
That is not a Pharisaic question, because I refer to no tradition nor Church rule. I am referring to the stark words of God Incarnate in the Gospels. What authority can possibly override THAT?
And what makes you think this is true?
I wrote (re: divorce): "I would have expected the Orthodox Church to be hard about that. It is interesting that they apparently are not."
You responded: "And what makes you think this is true?"
I reply: What you wrote. I gathered from you that Orthodox priests sometimes permit divorced parishoners to remarry in the Church, and do not preach that is always adultery for as long as the divorced spouse still lives.
"If they remarry outside of the Church anyway, may they still take the sacraments?"
In Churches under the EP the answer is a resounding NO. I have seen this many times. The Synod of the GOA as recently as the late 80s or early 90s dropped the requirement of a remarriage in the Church of converts from Roman Catholicism. I know there is a requirement of at least a blessing for converts from generic Protestantism. For an Orthodox person to marry outside the Church means an automatic denial of at least communion until the union is regularized within the Church. Churches under the EP will allow three marriages in a lifetime, no matter what the reason for the end of the previous marriage. In the case of civil divorces, an exxlesiastical divorce must be obtained from the local bishop, which is an act of economia within the discretion of the bishop. He may or may not grant it. It should be noted that these are divorces and not annulments and are pure economia.
" Well, in part, but also your comment that Orthodoxy understands human nature."
I am not usually so obscure that my meaning isn't clear. Apparently here I was obscure. My apologies. My point is that the Orthodox doctrine of economia, along with the attitude that the canons were made for the people not the other way around, is an example of how the Church understands human nature, that humans screw up all the time and sometimes a strict application of the rules hinders, rather advances theosis.
Applause. Applause.
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