Posted on 05/27/2005 7:36:52 PM PDT by Destro
"Is the Church in Greece facing the same radical secularizing pressure that the RCC in Spain is facing?"
Quite the opposite. It seems to be the sentiment of the people and at least the married clergy and monastics with whom we spoke, that the Church hierarchy has become so rich, powerful and corrupt that it is corrupting the State, and there seems to be ample evidence to back that up. In other words, the Church is endangering the State and not the other way around. Given what I heard over there, I think this may in fact be the case.
"While I am one of those few, I will agree with you although I do know about 10 converts from Rome in my old parish. What I have noticed is where one spouse is RC and one is EO, the children are always brought up Eastern Orthodox."
You know, now that I think of it, you're right and we do have s few formerly Roman Catholic people who converted some years after their marriage to an Orthodox person, one, who is now on the parish council, waited 25 years.
Thanks for sharing this info. You are making me want to pack up and visit Georgia next week!
I wish I could agree with you, Siobhan, but I suspect this congregation came in the same way the "Evangelical Orthodox" did, en mass with little or no catechesis. The "evangelicals" came knocking on the door of the GOA seeking chrismation. Among their terms were that their "priests" would be accepted as priests without any formal seminary training etc. +Iakovos of Blessed Memory showed them the door. +Philip jumped at the chance to accept them on their terms. Not good.
Glad you had a good trip Kolo!
Many Lutheran clergy have gone to Constantinople instead of Rome, mainly because of the Papal doctrines.
Do the orthodox monks take a vow of celibacy or are they also allowed to marry?
I myself grew up in a very conservative Calvinist Reformed denomination. While my parents certainly do not understand my choice to convert to Orthodox some 15 years ago now, I continue to see my journey to Orthodoxy as a direct and positive response to the Reformed background that I had -- I won't go on about it, but it really is true.
There are certainly Orthodox traditions that have developed passivity in worship, particularly in the diaspora where the old country languages persisted beyond the time when people were able to understand them.
But don't be fooled into thinking that just because everyone in an Orthodox parish isn't moving their mouths together, that they are being passive. Orthodox worship is always active, but always in different ways.
Sometimes the activeness is a physical one -- making the sign of the cross, bowing, lighting candles, touching or kissing icons, bowing as the priest censes you, receiving communion...
Sometimes the activeness is a vocal one -- in most parishes with a vibrant liturgical life, there will be common, fixed portions of the service that nearly everyone sings along on.
Sometimes the activeness is one of close inner attention. To "do" the full cycle of Orthodox services for a year, a library of a minimum of 20 volumes (text only -- this doesn't include any musical notation, and everything is sung) is required. There is a lot of hymnology that is known as "variable material," depending on the season, the saint being commemorated, the tone of the week, etc... There is simply no way to make all this a full vocal congregational participation. Solo chanters/psalti or choirs sing this variable material, and the people -- far from being passive in worship -- focus with inner attention, joining themselves to the prayers as they listen. There is no entertainment or performance to it, although some of those elements did creep into some traditions, especially the Russian tradition, in the 17th - 19th centuries and has been steadily reformed back to the "old ways" over the last century and a half.
We were chatting about this over coffee after Liturgy last week, discussing the glories of the Holy Week that had passed not long before. Everything is exactly the same every year, and yet everyone couldn't stop talking about the living vibrancy of it, and how they couldn't wait for next year to roll around, even as we continue to enjoy the liturgical life of the Paschal/Pentecost season -- one that has its own sweetness.
Many have a tendency to view the kind of affinity for Orthodoxy that you describe as a Protestant reflexive anti-Catholicism. I really don't think that this is what it is at all. I think that the Reformation was not just a reaction against the errors of Rome -- it was also an attempt to reach back to apostolic purity. We in the Orthodox Church, for all of our storied "fossilization," are constantly doing the same thing, although outsiders don't see it.
In my role as a chanter and choir director, I am constantly working to make sure that what happens on kliros is a reflection of the deep inner tradition of the Church, as best I can apprehend it. I don't choose any of the material -- that is all set. But the translations, the chant melodies, the way that the music is chanted by me or by the choir -- all of these things go into helping all of us live and move in that living tradition of the Church.
The same happens with our iconography, our architecture, our prayer and spiritual tradition -- we are constantly re-examining ourselves against the standards of Scripture and the Fathers of the Church who lived out the teachings of the Gospel. I think that there is something in that constant inner re-examination and reaching back to test ourselves against such standards that perhaps gives something that just seems familiar to Protestants -- even though we clearly teach many things that Protestantism rejected (albeit rejecting them in their post-Schismatic Catholic forms.)
Sounds like a wonderful trip, Marmema. It also sounds like driving there is rather like driving in Greece. The white lines and the speed limits there are similarly mere suggestions. You'll be interested to hear that my aunt and uncle down in the village have hired a Georgian woman to act as a housekeeper/cook as my aunt has become quite frail. She has been there two years living in the village and she has learned Greek. She told us that the village is like paradise compared to Georgia where in her area the income is about $25.00 per month. She said there is no money and little food, in the winter no heat. Children apparently are starving to death if they don't freeze first. Apparently the men send the women off to Greece to work so they can send money home and they sit around their villages getting drunk. She didn't paint a very pretty picture save with regard to the Faith which she described as strong and vibrant. She certainly loves Americans and said that was a sentiment shared by other Georgians, though she did say perhaps they could use more economic development expertise and loans rather than military aid, at least at the level she believes we are sending it.
I'm so glad to hear you spent time at a monastery and met with the nuns. Orthodox nuns are just about the most wonderful people on earth! We spent a delightful time at the monastery outside our village with "our" nuns. All we did was laugh nearly the whole time. One of the nuns offered us coffee or tea in the arkondariki. My wife asked for tea and off the nun went to prepare the tea and coffee. She was gone quite a while and when she returned, she gave my wife a cup of "mountain tea", explaining that she was sorry for the delay but she had had to climb up the mountain a ways for the tea! As my wife began to tell her how that had been unnecessary and was really too much, all the nuns burst out laughing as of course the sister had only been kidding. They also gave us a sweet and a small glass of their homemade mint liquor which was very light and delicious. Anyway, a visit with the nuns is always a highlight of a trip to an Orthodox land.
Good idea on getting a piece of land...even better to learn the language! I got my land finally registered and leased it to a farmer for 3 years for 60 euros! As we walked back to the village square from the farmer's house, my uncle leaned over to me and said I should be careful carrying around that kind of money!
Welcome home!
" Do the orthodox monks take a vow of celibacy or are they also allowed to marry?"
They are generally all celibate, NYer, but there is the possibility that an older couple might decide that each will enter a monastery and accept monastic tonsure but that is not at all common.
"Many Lutheran clergy have gone to Constantinople instead of Rome, mainly because of the Papal doctrines."
As you and I have discussed in the past, in the early years of Lutheranism there was a real effort on the part of the Lutherans to come to some modus with Orthodoxy. For those who are interested, here's a link:http://www.stpaulsirvine.org/html/sixteenthcentury.htm
I hadn't heard of any Lutheran clergy having converted other than the esteemed Jaroslav Pelikan. His reasons for conversion were quite profound.
My guess is "phronema" and I will leave it to the Orthodox to explain that to you.
Also, please note that not all "catholics" are of the Roman Church. Though small in number, there are others who come from the Eastern Catholic Churches. Like the Orthodox, they too display this "phronema", which sets them apart from their Latin cousins. They are very devout and will drive great distances to attend their denominational Catholic Church. Please don't lump us all together :-)
They will never have physical relationships with each other as husband and wife again (and generally, by the point they have reached the decision to enter monasteries, they will already have been living "as brother and sister" for a time.)
They likely will not even see each other again until the next life, in most circumstances. And as Kolokotronis says, this is a relatively rare occurence, but not unheard of, even today.
There are a number around. Our retired priest was a Lutheran pastor. I believe that Fr. Theodore Heckman, who teaches liturgics (brilliantly, I understand), at St. Tikhon's is a former Lutheran, although I don't know if he was clergy or not.
The Dean of St. Vladimir's Seminary, John Erickson, is a former Lutheran, although he is a layman (and many of us aren't particularly taken with the extent to which his writings represent an authentic Orthodox phronema.)
Congratulations on your new home!
I was more interested in the sudden rise of monasticism amongst the young men and, women? Thanks for the clarification and, Welcome Home, K! . Your absence was well noted in the forum.
I was in many villages and saw only well-fed children, but I do think in the orphanages this may not be the case.
Also on the outskirts of town are many old apartment buildings where Georgia let come and live the refugees from Abkhazia, and they are very very poor. So it may be that hunger is a problem there.
Please find out when you can where this woman is from in Georgia. I would like to know. I traveled both east and west for several hours while there and got to see many villages.
The nuns at Bodbe were incredible, and as you said, very fun. A small nun carried my suitcase with filled water bottles up the mountain for me, and she and I had a wonderful time together. We laughed a lot without speaking any language in common. Thanks for your funny story about the tea!
The land in Georgia right now is dirt cheap and I made many friends, Orthodox of course, whom I trust completely. So we will be buying a small farm, probably, just outside of town, in the next six months. I won't move there until they have decent healthcare, but I feel certain enough to bet on the future of Georgia and it's continuing improvement economically and socially. I happen to think our timing is perfect. There is just enough evidence to show a distinct trend toward a better life there, and still enough poverty that we can buy something wonderful for next-to-nothing.
I don't even care about rent, just so someone takes good care of the place while we are not there. But my husband was thinking in your direction, buying a larger farm and actually having someone farm it.
That's funny about your rent in euros! I really detest most of Europe and found Amsterdam to be just as disgusting as I had imagined it would be.
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