Posted on 06/11/2005 7:27:43 AM PDT by sionnsar
Ten years ago or so I dreamed that I was an Orthodox priest. If you had asked me even three years ago what if I would become if I ever decided to leave the Episcopal Church, I would have replied “Eastern Orthodox.” Yet today I find myself becoming what I truly never seriously considered until the past two years.
Why did I not choose to become Orthodox? Who but God can answer? All such matters are a mystery, a mystery between the mystery of the human heart and the mystery of the Holy Trinity. Rational analysis takes one only so far. All I really know is that during the past two years, as I intently studied both Orthodoxy and Catholicism, I found myself increasingly drawn, against my will and desire, and certainly to my amazement, to Catholicism.
I love the liturgy and sacramental life of the Orthodox Church. It speaks to the depths of my heart. I long to pray the Divine Liturgy and be formed by its music, poetry, beaity, and ritual.
I love the integration of theology, dogma, spirituality, and asceticism within Orthodoxy. There is a wholeness to Orthodox experience that is compelling, powerful, and attractive on many different levels. This wholeness refuses any bifurcation between mind and heart and invites the believer into deeper reconciliation in Christ by the Spirit. This wholeness is something that Western Christians particularly need, as we confront and battle the corrosive powers of Western modernity and secularism.
I love the reverence and devotion Orthodoxy gives to the saints and church fathers, who are experienced in the Church as living witnesses to the gospel of Christ Jesus. I love the icons.
And I love the theological writings of many Orthodox writers, especially Alexander Schmemann and Georges Florovsky. For all these reasons and for many more, it would have been oh so very easy for me to become Orthodox.
But two features in particular gave me pause.
First, I am troubled by Orthodoxy’s “Easternness.” The coherence and power of Orthodoxy is partially achieved by excluding the Western tradition from its spiritual and theological life. One is hard-pressed to find an Orthodox writer who speaks highly of the Western Church, of her saints, ascetics, and theologians, of her manifold contributions to Christian religion and Western civilization. According to Orthodox consensus, Western Christianity went off the tracks somewhere along the way and must now be judged as a heresy. Understandably, Eastern Christianity considers itself the touchstone and standard by which the Western tradition is to be judged.
To put it simply, Orthodoxy has no real place for St Augustine. He is commemorated as a saint, but the bulk of his theological work is rejected. The noted scholar, Fr John Romanides, has been particularly extreme. I raised my concern about Orthodoxy and the West a year ago in my blog article Bad, bad Augustine. In that article I cited one of the few Orthodox scholars, David B. Hart, who has been willing to address Orthodox caricature of Western theologians:
The most damaging consequence, however, of Orthodoxy’s twentieth-century pilgrimage ad fontes—and this is no small irony, given the ecumenical possibilities that opened up all along the way—has been an increase in the intensity of Eastern theology’s anti-Western polemic. Or, rather, an increase in the confidence with which such polemic is uttered. Nor is this only a problem for ecumenism: the anti-Western passion (or, frankly, paranoia) of Lossky and his followers has on occasion led to rather severe distortions of Eastern theology. More to the point here, though, it has made intelligent interpretations of Western Christian theology (which are so very necessary) apparently almost impossible for Orthodox thinkers. Neo-patristic Orthodox scholarship has usually gone hand in hand with some of the most excruciatingly inaccurate treatments of Western theologians that one could imagine—which, quite apart form the harm they do to the collective acuity of Orthodox Christians, can become a source of considerable embarrassment when they fall into the hands of Western scholars who actually know something of the figures that Orthodox scholars choose to caluminiate. When one repairs to modern Orthodox texts, one is almost certain to encounter some wild mischaracterization of one or another Western author; and four figures enjoy a special eminence in Orthodox polemics: Augustine, Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and John of the Cross.
Ironically, the various contributions by Perry Robinson and Daniel Jones, here on Pontifications and elsewhere, have heightened my concern. Both have sought, in various ways, to demonstrate that Western theology is incompatible with the catholic faith. While I have neither the training nor wit to follow many of their arguments, I am convinced that their project is wrong. Both presume that one can know the catholic faith independent of ecclesial commitment and formation. If one insists, for example, that St Maximos the Confessor, read through a post-schism Eastern lens, is our authoritative guide to a proper reading of the sixth Ecumenical Council, then of course Augustinian Catholicism will come off looking badly, despite the fact that Maximos was himself a great supporter of the prerogatives of Rome and despite the fact that Rome was instrumental in the defeat of monotheletism. Yet Catholicism embraces both Augustine and Maximos as saints, even though it is clear that Maximos has had minimal influence upon Western reflection, at least until very recently. Clearly Rome did not, and does not, understand the dogmatic decrees of III Constantinople as contradicting Western christological and trinitarian commitments. As much as I respect Perry and Daniel and am grateful for both their erudition and civility and their stimulating articles on these matters, it seems to me that their conclusions are more determined by their theological and ecclesial starting points than by “neutral” scholarship. And one thing I do know: there is always a brighter guy somewhere who will contest one’s favorite thesis.
Neither Orthodoxy nor Catholicism, in my judgment, can be conclusively identified as the one and true Church by these kinds of rational arguments, as interesting and important as they may be in themselves. Arguments and reasons must be presented and considered as we seek to make the necessary choice between Rome and Constantinople, yet ultimately we are still confronted by mystery and the decision and risk of faith.
If the catholicity of Orthodoxy can only be purchased by the practical expulsion of Augustine and Aquinas, then, at least in my own mind, Orthodoxy’s claim to be the one and true Church is seriously undermined. A truly catholic Church will and must include St Augustine and St Maximos the Confessor, St Gregory Palamas and St Thomas Aquinas. A truly catholic Church will keep these great theologians in conversation with each other, and their differences and disagreements will invite the Church to a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the divine mysteries. To set one against the other is not catholic, but partisan.
Second, I am troubled by the absence of a final court of appeal in controversies of faith and morals. We Anglicans are now witnessing first-hand the disintegration of a world-wide communion partially because of the absence of a divinely instituted organ of central authority. In the first millenium the Church employed the Ecumenical Council to serve as this final authority; but for the past thirteen centuries Orthodoxy has been unable to convene such a council. Is it a matter of logistics, or is the matter perhaps more serious, a question of constitutional impotence? Or has God simply protected the Orthodox from serious church-dividing heresies during this time, thereby temporarily obviating the need for such a council? Regardless, it seems to me that if Orthodoxy truly is the one Church of Jesus Christ in the exclusive sense it claims to be, then not only would it be confident in its power and authority to convene an Ecumenical Council, but it would have done so by now.
Yet as Orthodoxy begins to seriously engage the worldview and values of modernity (and post-modernity), the need for a final tribunal will perhaps become more evident. Consider just one example—contraception. It used to be the case that all Orthodox theologians would have roundly denounced most (all?) forms of contraception. But over the past twenty years or so, we have seen a growing diversity on this issue amongst Orthodox thinkers. Some state that this is really a private matter that needs to be decided between the believer and his parish priest. Clearly this privatization of the issue accords with modern sensibilities; but I am fearful of the consequences. Given the absence of a final court of appeal, does Orthodoxy have any choice but to simply accept diversity on many of the burning ethical questions now confronting us? Can Orthodoxy speak authoritatively to any of them?
For the past two years I have struggled to discern whether to remain an Anglican (in some form or another) or to embrace either Orthodoxy or Catholicism. Both Orthodoxy and Catholicism make mutually exclusive claims to be the one and true Church of Jesus Christ. We are confronted by a stark either/or choice. An Anglican is tempted to retreat to a branch theory of the Church, and on that basis make a decision on which tradition appeals to him most; but both Orthodoxy and Catholicism emphatically reject all such branch theories. There is only one visible Church. To become either Orthodox or Catholic means accepting the claim of the respective communion to ecclesial exclusivity. How do we rightly judge between them?
One thing we cannot do. We cannot pretend that we can assume a neutral vantage point. Oh how much easier things would be for all of us if God would call us on our telephones right now and tell us what to do!
The Pope convenes the College of Cardinals in emergency session. “I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” he says. “The good news is this: I just received a phone call from God!” Everyone cheers. “But here’s the bad news: God lives in Salt Lake City.”
I cannot see the Church from God’s perspective. I am faced with a choice. Good arguments can be presented for both Orthodoxy and Catholicism; none appear to be absolutely decisive and coercive. Moreoever, considerations that seem important to me are probably irrelevant to the large majority of people. “The Church is a house with a hundred gates,” wrote Chesterton; “and no two men enter at exactly the same angle.” Finally, I can only rely upon my reason, my intuitions, my feelings, my faith, under the grace and mercy of God. May God forgive me if I have chosen wrongly.
(cont)
"We could of course dismiss it and go about our way, but that's not the purpose of the believers, is it?"
Well, that's sort of the Greek way, though we usually offer someone another cup of cafe and a sweet before we go. Interesting about the use of the word "believer" in Serbia and Georgia. I've never heard that in Greece. Down there, one is either a Christian, meaning Orthodox, a Catholic, a Musselmanos (Mohammaden) or a Jew. You don't hear much about anyone else. :)
One basically has to decide whether to trust, because one trusts the Church, that the tradition of venerating the saints going back to the age of the Ecumenical Councils is in continuity with the practice of the "primitive Church". Or whether to believe, based on an absence of written documentation in Scripture, "that Mary's sainthood and veneration were neither part of the primitive Church's phronema, nor internal or external teaching."
The issue of venerating saints was intensely tied up with the iconoclastic movement. There were three strains of iconoclasm, and one of the strongest strains was one made up of those whose objections to icons were intimately tied up with the belief that the Church had gone overboard with the veneration of the Theotokos and the saints. The declarations of the 7th Ecumenical Council and the writings of key figures surrounding the controversy such as St. Theodore the Studite and St. John of Damascus are very explicit affirmations of the beliefs and practices of the Church regarding the veneration of the saints.
Perhaps he was alluding to the Protoevangelium. Isn't "the woman" generally interpreted as a reference to St. Mary?
THE KEEPER OF THE HOLY MOUNTAIN
I would also draw attention to a couple of quotations:
Because she became the mother of Christ, when she gave her flesh to the Second Person of the Holy Trinity to become incarnate, therefore, on the one hand she is a holy of all that is holy, above all the saints, and on the other hand she gives gifts to the saints, since she is the treasurer of the wealth of the goodness of the Lord. On this point St. Gregory Palamas is astonishing.
... this happens because the Theotokos is united with God, because the Logos Christ, who received human flesh from her, gave her great glory. Therefore all who recognise the glory of God and all who partake of the glory of God will also partake of and know the glory of the Theotokos. St. Gregory writes: " All who partake of God partake through her, and all who know God will recognise her as a place of the infinite, and all who praise God will praise her with God".
St. Gregory's love for the Panagia came from his personal partaking of the Grace of God, as he felt gratitude for her who was the cause of Grace, and from the deep feeling that he was living in her 'Garden' on the Holy Mountain and was its citizen. As a Hagiorite [i.e. an Athonite monastic] he cherished great reverence and love for the Panagia. He regarded her as his patron and benefactress. He received rich gifts from her. For she is "the summit and completion of every saint".
I think that the thing to take away from all of this is that Orthodox ways of talking about the Panagia are intimately tied up with the overall spiritual life in Christ. To the extent that one directly experiences the energies of God, one tends to be overwhelmed by the significance of what the Theotokos made possible, and overwhelmed with love, almost beyond words, for her. St. Gregory had dwelt in the uncreated light of God himself -- this was possible because of the Theotokos, who was the instrument of the Incarnation and the summit of the hesychastic life. He loved her more than any man could love his earthly mother -- and why wouldn't he?
For the God-seeing fathers who composed our services which wax so eloquent, the same is true. They love her beyond words, and can hardly reach high enough in their reaching for words to describe this love and the wonder of it all.
The poetic heights of praise and love that the Orthodox services pour out to the Theotokos are moving beyond belief. They are not meant to be dissected, historically analyzed, critiqued, or even dogmatized and systematized -- but prayed and experienced.
I remember the first time I chanted the complete Paraklesis service. I still burn within my chest at the memory, my heart wants to burst just thinking about it. This isn't systematic theology -- it is love: her for us, us for her, Christ for his mother and for us, the Holy Spirit permeating all, the Father the ultimate source of all love.
It is possible that St. Gregory waxed too eloquent and went too far in his words (although I'm not at all convinced that he did) -- but if he did, it was because he had seen God.
"To the extent that one directly experiences the energies of God, one tends to be overwhelmed by the significance of what the Theotokos made possible, and overwhelmed with love, almost beyond words, for her. St. Gregory had dwelt in the uncreated light of God himself -- this was possible because of the Theotokos, who was the instrument of the Incarnation and the summit of the hesychastic life."
This is exactly it, Agrarian, exactly it! But this is not to say that now the Most Holy Theotokos is the only mediator between us and Christ or that no Grace flows to us from God except through her. What you have said here, and what Met. Hierotheos means in accordance with the Fathers is what we pray in the Akathist and more regularly when in the Creed we pray that Our Lord and Savior "..was incarnated of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary and became man."
Thank you for giving a logical reason that Orthodoxy speaks to my soul. I don't have the words to say anything more.
Now, since St. John says that baptism adds to the infants holiness and justice, isn't that the same thing as saying that they don't have it?
Okay, what you said was "If we are born deprived of Grace as the RCC teaches" - I understand what you meant now, not that we are not deprived of grace but that God is not the cause of the deprivation.
In other words, she was destined to theosis by God's own doing, and not of her own free will.
This objection would apply with equal force to the baptism of infants, who cannot exercise the will. Besides these, there is an equivalent case with St. Jeremias: "before thou camest forth out of the womb, I sanctified thee, and made thee a prophet unto the nations" (Jer. 1:5).
God by His own will deliberately depirves the rest of us of His Grace as He deliberately infused mary with it
No, this is a faulty objection. What about the baptism of infants? Some are baptized, some are not. Does this make the unbaptized deliberately deprived of grace?
"Now, since St. John says that baptism adds to the infants holiness and justice, isn't that the same thing as saying that they don't have it?"
Not at all, as any Orthodox Christian will tell you. The sacrament of Baptism has for us absolutely nothing to do with any concept of punishment or guilt for the sin of Adam and Eve being visited on us. The Fathers teach that prior to the Fall sin did not exist in the world and Adam and Eve were in a state of potential theosis. After the Fall, sin entered the world and the entire Creation is burdened and distorted by it especially including us. The Sacrament of Baptism gives us the blessings +John Chrysostomos writes of and opens to us the possibility of theosis in spite of that distortion in our nature and the creation we live in, that Adam and Eve originally possessed without the distortion caused by sin and sin upon sin.
I think I've said it before, almost certainly to Tantumergo our resident deacon and I think to Sionnsar the Anglican, but I say again, that many, perhaps even the overwhelming majority, of theological differences between the Church in the West and the Church in the East come down to this issue over ancestral sin. We honestly are not saying the same thing at all.
" Does this make the unbaptized deliberately deprived of grace?"
No one is "deprived of grace". Some may not respond to it, intentionally or otherwise, but God's grace falls on the good and the evil, the baptised and the unbaptised equally, or so the Fathers taught.
So you would say, then, that everyone is conceived as already having the holiness and justice that Adam and Eve had originally? I don't understand how on the one hand you can say that without baptism deification is impossible, and on the other you can say that Adam's descendants don't inherit his loss of justice. If they still had Adam's original righteousness, then they wouldn't need baptism to make theosis possible.
You would seem to imply that the Catholic church teaches that what the Theotokos received at her conception was no more, no less, than what an infant receives at baptism.
Leaving aside the issue of whether the Theotokos retroactively received the grace of a Christian baptism (which we don't believe at all), that's not how I read Pius IX's encyclical. When he does touch on the infusion of grace at the time of conception, it is much, much, much more than that. He said that she received, at that moment, more grace than she remotely needed to do what she did.
And are you implying,BTW, that the Prophet Jeremiah also received an Immaculate conception, since all that the IC is is the infusing of grace, and since he was sanctified in the womb?
It seems to me that the modern Catholic church (if you good folks are representative) really wants to move away from the old language of sin, guilt, spot, stain, etc... in describing the IC, even though Pius IX's encyclical is full of it, retaining only the "infusion of grace" bit, even though this is a relatively minor feature of the encyclical. This is an improvement from our perspective.
But it would seem to me that the only way that this path is going to lead is down the road to an Orthodox conception of the effects of the ancestral sin. Make it so!
We teach the same: "For God on His part is ready to give grace to all men: He wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. ii, 4). But they alone are deprived of grace, who in themselves raise an obstacle to grace. So when the sun lights up the world, any evil that comes to a man who shuts his eyes is counted his own fault, although he could not see unless the sunlight first came in upon him." (St. Thomas, Summa Contra Gentiles, III, 160).
You are misunderstanding what I am saying. Sin has distorted us and all Creation. Because our nature is distorted by the ancestral sin, not as a punishment from God on us, by the way, rather than having the "innate" potential to respond fully to God's grace, we have a propensity to reject grace and sin more, thus further distorting ourselves and all creation for that matter and instead of becoming more like God, we beome increasingly unlike God. Baptism doesn't clean up the original distortion (and I understand that the Latin Church doesn't say it does either) but rather empowers us to respond more fully to grace, if we choose, than we might otherwise.
Our conception as distorted images of God is an inherited condition (with admittedly serious implications), not a punishment for a sin we didn't commit or a result of a guilt which isn't ours.
"Ah, but you will have to direct that reply to kosta, whose argument leads (I think) to that conclusion"
OK. Kosta, what say ye?
""For God on His part is ready to give grace to all men: He wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. ii, 4). But they alone are deprived of grace, who in themselves raise an obstacle to grace. So when the sun lights up the world, any evil that comes to a man who shuts his eyes is counted his own fault, although he could not see unless the sunlight first came in upon him."
Bravo for Aquinas, though I think it might be more patristicly said that God isn't simply ready to pour out His grace on all, He actually does pour it out.
When discussing the meaning of the IC, yes. The "stain of original sin" is the privation of original holiness and justice. We have never said anything else. Consider the Baltimore Catechism:
Q. 258. But how did the loss of the gift of original justice leave our first parents and us in mortal sin?
A. The loss of the gift of original justice left our first parents and us in mortal sin because it deprived them of the Grace of God, and to be without this gift of Grace which they should have had was to be in mortal sin. As all their children are deprived of the same gift, they, too, come into the world in a state of mortal sin.Q. 268. Was any one ever preserved from original sin?
A. The Blessed Virgin Mary, through the merits of her Divine Son, was preserved free from the guilt of original sin, and this privilege is called her Immaculate Conception.Q. 269. Why was the Blessed Virgin preserved from original sin?
A. The Blessed Virgin was preserved from original sin because it would not be consistent with the dignity of the Son of God to have His Mother, even for an instant, in the power of the devil and an enemy of God.Q. 271. What does the "Immaculate Conception" mean?
A. The Immaculate Conception means the Blessed Virgin´s own exclusive privilege of coming into existence, through the merits of Jesus Christ, without the stain of original sin. It does not mean, therefore, her sinless life, perpetual virginity or the miraculous conception of Our Divine Lord by the power of the Holy Ghost.Q. 621. What is Baptism?
A. Baptism is a Sacrament which cleanses us from original sin, makes us Christians, children of God, and heirs of heaven.
And are you implying,BTW, that the Prophet Jeremiah also received an Immaculate conception
No, but he was sanctified (that is, cleansed from original sin) while still in the womb.
Rome teaches that we are born in a state of "mortal sin"?
Agrarian, they aren't heading in our direction at all, my friend.
Her being infused with grace did not change the fact that she still (1) could choose to sin (but did not) and (2) had to grow in knowledge to actually experience theosis, since eternal life is the knowledge of Jesus Christ (St. John 17.3), while infants obviously do not have such knowledge. So her free will was still involved, however she was more fully prepared than others were.
The only thing we can conclude, assuming the IC is correct, is that God by His own will deliberately depirves the rest of us of His Grace as He deliberately infused mary with it.
Yes. St. Paul says: "Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will. And whom he will, he hardeneth. Thou wilt say therefore to me: Why doth he then find fault? For who resisteth his will? O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it: Why hast thou made me thus?" (Romans 9.18-20)
Or as St. Augustine put it: "See every day how many rascals are saved on their deathbed by Baptism in extremis and how many sincere Catechumens perish!"
The Divine decree is mysterious and unknown to us. Some are saved, others are lost. That any are saved is thanks to God's grace, that some are lost is due to their own pride and sins.
If the Latin Church denies that God deliberately filled Mary and deprives others of His Grace, then the IC was an accident, and not an act of God.
No, it was an act of God. God in His foreknowledge knew that St. Mary would be the perfect instrument for the divine plan of the redemption, as opposed to Jane Doe.
However, grace is not something owed to man, as if God must give it to us, but does not to punish us. Rather, grace is a supernatural gift which we do not deserve, but which God freely gives to us that we might have communion with Him, for Wisdom says: "my delight is to be with the children of men" (Proverbs 8.31).
For God to give much grace to St. Mary is pure undeserved munificence on His part. "Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid: for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Because he that is mighty hath done great things to me: and holy is his name." (St. Luke 1.48-49)
For Him to only give first grace to us at Baptism is also undeserved munificence on His part. "When as yet we were sinners according to the time, Christ died for us." (Romans 5.8-9) According to strict justice, it should be us up on that Cross, not our loving Savior.
It seems to me almost like you think it unfair that God showed more favor to St. Mary than to us, since she was infused with grace 9 months earlier than we were. Unfortunately, only one human could be the Immaculate Mother of God. The rest of us must strive to imitate her humility and obedience.
Or on the other hand, one can simply take the references made, go to a good seminary library, and look up the sermons themselves and read them.
St. Gregory Palamas was not given over to making mountains of words without meaning. When he spoke as he did, it is simple enough to take the meaning of the words and sentences as literally written, rather than attempting to search for hidden intent behind otherwise intelligible thoughts that is contrary to the literal meaning of what he said. Certainly it is valid to ask, to what purpose does a Saintly Bishop give a discourse to his simple flock where he confuses them with concepts far above their level of education and faith?
You're edging into clericalism there, friend. Don't forget the three hermits is a classic for us.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.