The Orthodox Christian Church in North America at a Crossroad

Greek News ^ | Sept. 5, 2005 | George Matsoukas

[Queen Beruthiel]

Thanks for the link, kosta50. I see what you were driving at now. I apologize for being so obtuse.

[kosta50]

Please, no apologies. Being Orthodox in a western mindset is difficult because we usually love our freedom and modern marvels. In countries where the regimes are disliked, it's much easier to dispense with the worldly things and embrace spiritual values. So, I am fully aware of how tormenting it must be for so many good souls in the west who want to be Orthodox because Orthodoxy is not a "denomination" but a way of life -- a very different way of life than what we know and practice in the west. Take, for instance the "just" war issue. Orthodoxy teaches that God never returns evil for evil; so if we hope to become Christ-like, we may not return evil for evil either. Such opposites are difficult to integrate and generally you will find that one either becomes all Orthodox or no-Orthodox at all.

May I suggest that you read New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk (he dies in the 1960's). The way that book reads is the way Orthodoxy teaches.

[MarMema]

One year we had five or six to do for Church. Neighbors saw us spitting them and called the cops reporting that "those Greeks" were getting ready to cook dogs! :) The cops came and we offered them a drink and some olives and cheese and they went away happy.

Reminds one of a certain movie...does it not?

[MarMema]

I went anyway, hoping he might be off for the day and that I might find a gyros.

LOL! You should write a book.

[Kolokotronis]

" May I suggest that you read New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk (he dies in the 1960's). The way that book reads is the way Orthodoxy teaches."

I love Thos. Merton, especially his older writings. When I need a break alone, I go up to the cottage in the woods, turn on some classical music and one lamp and just read Merton. By the time he died in 1968 at a Bhuddist retreat in Bankok, he had gone off the rails a bit, though.

[Kolokotronis]

"Reminds one of a certain movie...does it not?"

Which one?

[kosta50]

I love Thos. Merton, especially his older writings. When I need a break alone, I go up to the cottage in the woods, turn on some classical music and one lamp and just read Merton. By the time he died in 1968 at a Bhuddist retreat in Bankok, he had gone off the rails a bit, though

I am only getting now to his last writings, so I will leave it at that. Suffice it to say that he did recognize the same thing I recognized when I encountered Buddhists, and Hindu, believers -- a notion of God based on spiritual knowledge. God inscribed Himself in our hearts so that we may know Him -- and that is why we always must recognize that even the worst of the worst can become Christ-like and pray for their souls.

That being said, their pagan beliefs fail to reveal a God whom they can embrace and love because they only know that God must exist but do not know Him as Christians do.

From the Upanishads and from other Oriental teachings it is clear that they know God in a distant and incomplete way and that they, miraculously, recognize God's goodness, God's unchanging and eternal nature.

"He who knows the Bliss of Brahman, whence words together with the mind turn away, unable to reach It? He is not afraid of anything whatsoever. He does not distress himself with the thought: "Why did I not do what is good? Why did I do what is evil?"[Taittiriya Upanishad, Ch 9]

Not here that they speak of "knowing the Bliss of Brahman," (God) Who is recognized as the unchanging, infinite, immanent and transcendent reality that is a divine "singular substrate from which all that is arises."

In time the Vedantic scriptures (around 1 BC) recognized that God is utterly inconceivable and that He is not a "being" as we think of in solitary terms but rather a "Godhead."

Thus, Hinduism (the oldest written religion) recognizes that there is One God (surprise!). The other gods are only different appearances of the one and the same God, they say, the way white light is separated into different colors.

Buddhists recognize that things of this world are not the end in themselves and that "letting go" is an important step in "finding peace," and see the necessity to continuously seek enlightenment ("theosis"). Buddhists recognize that suffering of the world (i.e. death and destruction) comes from a curse and ignorance (as we would say darkness as a result of Adam's sin), but that there is a way out by following the path of eightfold enlightenment. Obstacles to this are harming living creatures (killing), stealing, intoxications, sexual misconduct, harsh language or idle chat.

To dismiss them as pure speculations is wrong. Rather they are visions and notions of God's Love, but without the necessary lens to focus God's light, which is Jesus Christ; they are incomplete, or "deficient" as the Roman Catholic Church says it; they all seem to lack that apex that became visible through and by our Savior.

So, while Merton apparently had some encounters with Oriental spirituality, I am still discovering how far he "blended" it into his own personal faith, if at all. From his previous writings, his orthodoxy would almost make it impossible to slip into a relativistic formula of false ecumenism. Rather, I think -- and I have to to establsh that as a fact or prove myself wrong -- he only recognized that all humanity knows God intrinsically, but that only Christ provides the final and complete revelation of God's truth.

More importantly, I am much more focused on his earlier works which are a sobering spiritual food.

[Kolokotronis]

In Greek we call these glimpses of the Divine "sporoi", or seeds. They are indeed present in virtually all cultures and should be recognized as such. This of course does not mean that we should ever tolerate syncretism, but rather observe, try to understand and marvel at how God through the ages has made Himself known to creation.

Kosta, you are coming up here someday and you and I are heading off to the cottage in the woods with some domaca, some fresh fish, olives, cheese and two copies of whatever of Merton's strikes our fancy!

[kosta50]

In Greek we call these glimpses of the Divine "sporoi", or seeds

Indeed, Kolo, "sporoi" is the same word we borrowed from Greeks -- spore (pl). Tolarating synchretism is never an option in Orthodoxy. I don't think (I could be mistaken, of course) that Merton headed that way. I believe (thbus far from what I have seen) that he merely discovered the "sporoi" and called it a "religious experience."

Kosta, you are coming up here someday and you and I are heading off to the cottage in the woods with some domaca, some fresh fish, olives, cheese and two copies of whatever of Merton's strikes our fancy!

You got it, Kolo!