Posted on 03/19/2006 10:05:40 AM PST by Kolokotronis
"What are the controversial issues in Orthodoxy?" This question, recently posed on a Beliefnet message board, is the dandelion in the lawn of Orthodox inquirers. It’s the question I kept asking, fifteen years ago, when my family was deciding to leave our mainline denomination. If we became Orthodox, what would we be getting into? Was it going to be the same heartbreaking arguments and debate - just over pierogis instead of doughnuts?
Well, there are controversies in Orthodoxy, all right, but they’re not *those* controversies. You can find people on the internet arguing heatedly about whether churches should follow the old or the new calendar, or whether Orthodox should participate in any kind of ecumenical dialogue. But the fierce internet debates don’t seem to come up much at the parish level (though you’ll find garden-variety power struggles, nominal faith, and other frustrations that plague any church).
Some very big controversies are actually on the mend. For a century there was a split between those Orthodox who left Russia in order to preserve the faith, and those who stayed behind. But on the feast of Pentecost (June 19, 2005), leaders of both bodies signed an agreement that paves the way for reunion. That’s cause for rejoicing.
So, yes, there are controversies — but that’s not what American inquirers mean. What about gay marriage? What about women’s ordination? Is there an abortion-rights movement in Orthodoxy? Are there bishops who teach that the Resurrection was a myth?
Those are the questions causing turmoil in most American denominations. When my husband and I began looking into Orthodoxy, gay issues weren’t yet on the horizon, and we didn’t have any problem with women’s ordination. (I attended seminary myself and sought ordination, until I got a good look at how hard a pastor’s job is.) What concerned us instead was theological upheaval - for example, bishops questioning the Virgin Birth, miracles, and the bodily Resurrection. We wanted to find a place where our children could be secure in the original faith. My husband had a t-shirt that read, "Have a Nicene Day!"
But as I moved toward my chrismation I felt worried. I could see that Orthodoxy was preserving the faith just fine - for now. But it had no visible means of *enforcing* that faith. The Orthodox hierarchy doesn’t have the kind of power that high-ranking clergy do in other churches. There isn’t even a world-wide governing board to hold all the various Orthodox bodies together. On the ground it looked pretty ad hoc, especially in America, where waves of immigrants have set up parallel administrative bodies.
And there didn’t even seem to be an Orthodox *catechism,* for goodness’ sake. It seemed like the faith was supposed to be learned almost by osmosis, by living it. How could that work? If a church with an infallible pope and a magisterium could have as much rioting in the pews as the Catholics did, what hope did the Orthodox have?
So I figured it was just a matter of time. Trying to maintain the classic faith without a powerful hierarchy didn’t look like doing a high-wire act without the net; it looked like doing it without the *wire*.
The following fifteen years have been devastating to the peace of most American churches. People who have lived through these battles are battered and worn. And yet - unbelievably enough — Orthodoxy has remained untouched. It’s as if the contemporary American furor is just a tiny blip in history, and not our concern. We still don’t have demands for gay marriage, or nuns agitating for women in the priesthood. We don’t see theological revision or liturgical innovation. The biggest controversy today would be the painful wrangle among Greek Orthodox about their charter - yet, when it comes to theological and moral issues, people on both sides there still believe the same things. That’s what being Orthodox means: holding a common faith. All the "big questions" were settled over a millennium ago, and no one is inclined to revise them.
How can we resist the cultural tides this way? I have a theory. I think it’s because you can only change something if you have the authority to change it. You have to be in a position of power, enabled to explain and define the faith anew; or you can battle noisily against those in that position, and make it awkward for them to use their power. In any case, faith is understood as something eternally under construction, responding to the challenges of each new generation.
But in the Orthodox Church, nobody has that kind of power. The church is too decentralized for that. Even those who are our leaders are a different kind of leader. Orthodoxy is less of an institution (like, say, the Episcopal Church) and more of a spiritual path (like Buddhism). It’s a treasury of wisdom about how to grow in union with God — theosis.
And that wisdom works, so people don’t itch to change it. It doesn’t need to be adapted to a new generation, because God is still making the same basic model of human being he has from the beginning. Practictioners of the way don’t find it irksome or boring; they just want to get into it deeper. For us, authority is not located in a person or an organization, but in the faith itself - what other Orthodox before us have believed.
Every question is settled by asking, What did previous generations believe? And since previous generations asked the same thing, the snowball just keeps getting larger. Against that weight of accumulated witness, a notion that blew in on the cultural breeze doesn’t stand a chance.
What’s surprising is that there is so little variation from culture to culture. As missionaries carried Christianity to new lands, each new outpost looked back to the "faith once delivered." So Russian, Greek, Romanian, Antiochian and other Orthodox all share the same beliefs. Even the Oriental Orthodox, the Armenians and Copts and others, who have been separated from us since the fifth century, still look an awful lot like us. They, too, are looking back toward the authoritative early faith.
So someone who wanted to challenge Orthodoxy would not be able to locate a building to hold a protest march in front of. The faith is too diffused. And what if a high-ranking hierarch attempted to enforce innovations? He’d be recognized as a kook and rejected. Anyone who disagrees with the inherited faith has stepped outside the building.
Although we don’t have innovation, we do have nominalism. Lots of Orthodox go to church every Sunday but don’t know much about the faith. Yet they know that there is something that they don’t know much about. They don’t try to redefine "Orthodoxy" to cover whatever they’re doing or not doing. If they’re dissatisfied, if they want something more contemporary, if they want to attend a more "American" church, there are plenty they can choose from.
And meanwhile, of course, lots of people are coming in the other door. The Dallas Morning News reports that, in the Antiochian Archdiocese, 78% of the clergy are converts. This means an infusion of parish leaders who are very well-informed about theological and cultural issues, and very intentional about why they have become Orthodox (sometimes at great personal sacrifice).
So instead of spending the last fifteen years fighting and worrying and being bruised in a hostile denomination, I’ve been able to focus on the face of Jesus Christ. I’ve been able to dig deeper into awareness of my own sinfulness, and take baby steps toward spiritual healing. I’m able to worship in an ancient communion full of awesome beauty, one that is now being blessed with quiet revival. My one regret? That I didn’t do it sooner.
[This article originally appeared in Beliefnet.com in August 2005]
Ping
This guy doesn't have a proverbial clue.
He needs to retake his class again, if he thinks we can't enforce our doctrine :)
Frederica's a gal.
I love Frederica: good writer, good thinker, quite knowledgeable on Orthodox subjects. But I've gotta ask: how does this "We never change" perspective fit in with Orthodox approval for divorce/remarriage and contraceptive sex? That seems to be an innovation (not something we can derive from the Nicene Fathers.)
Thank you very much, Mama Fred.
"Orthodoxy is less of an institution (like, say, the Episcopal Church) and more of a spiritual path (like Buddhism)."
Exactly.
Actually, the attitude toward divorce and remarriage is quite old, dating back at least to the novellas of Justinian (which interestingly no one, not even the Pope of Rome, which was inside the Empire at the time, objected to): he gave a number of grounds for divorce beyond adultery, including abandonment, participation of a spouse in a plot to kill the Emperor, and forced prostitution (an interesting take on the dominical exexption for 'pornea').
I think you also misstate the Orthodox position on both issues by characterizing it as 'approval'. Both are a matter of economia, and are tolerated--properly only with the blessing of a spiritual father on a case-by-case basis--rather that offered 'approval'.
“I must speak about the temptation I went through during the bitter days in the Crimea under the Bolsheviks, at the time of the first and the most devastating persecution of the Church in Russia. It played terrible havoc with the church as an institution, and led to its inner disintegration expressed by the appearance of the so called “Living Church”; all this made me feel how dreadfully defenceless and disorganised the church was, how unprepared for the struggle..."
Simplistic and narrow analysis...and one that deserves an honest but aggressive response. First Christian Churches are vitally alive and growing. It is the so-called mainline Protestant churches and the RC Church that have grappled with the attacks that arise from the unbelievers both within and outside the church. But the conservative pentecostal and evangelical church movements stand firmly against these heresies...and these bulwarks against secularism and islamic accomodation are growing everywhere.
Second, to deny that there is flux and distrust in Christian Orthodoxy begs the question of why so many have left the Orthodox Church and have adopted the ways of their more forcefully Christian homes...and thank God for that in these times of Islamic and secular aggression.
Not doing well in the US - more concerned with politics and WCC than salvation
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/25/AR2006022501266.html
The Russians are at least trying to do the right thing.
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2006/03/8C9A0F76-E2CB-459A-AF8C-9B9CDBA9E563.html
It's a long road from the OCA to the back country of Russia and Georgia, and along the way one goes from those who teach the Orthodox faith to those practising and living it.
I know it's Great Lent and I am not posting this to be unkind, but I shared here once the story of the homeless man turned away while asking for food because our Bishop was coming, with guests, and everything was all too nice to feed the homeless. "Not today" he was told, because we normally do feed the homeless, at least when the right person is outside that morning.
Travel around the world to Georgia or rural Russia, and you see very poor people digging for change to give each beggar on the street, and making daily *difficult* sacrifices while never wavering in their faith.
I am reminded of the news article about the shivering woman in Georgia standing in line for kerosene after their pipeline was blown up. Her given waiting number was over 400. Temperatures were hitting a high of 18 degrees in the daytime. She said to the reporter, "I believe in God".
MarMema: Thank you very much, Mama Fred.
sanormal: Exactly.
There is no God in Buddhism. Any belief in God or concept of God is an illusion that must be renounced. This is quite different from a religion that not only believes in a God but God as Holy Trinity. Buddhism also posits only the great Void--nothingness--as the basis of reality. This again is quite different from an apophatic theology that makes a distinction between the essence of God and the energies of God.
And then there is the question of the body and personal existence. A Buhhhist must renounce the body. It has no real existence. Neither does personal existence or the world of sense, since personal identity and all material existence must be absorbed into the grand nothingness at the center of the Universe. Once again, this is quite different from an ascetical struggle for the sake of the salvation and resurrection of the body along with whole man--and the transformation of the Cosmos at the end of time in the eschaton.
So perhaps you could explain the similarities between Orthodoxy and Buddhism, because the author of the article doesn't explain the analogy--there is only an assertion.
Oh Yes! The Orthodox Christians are alive and well and fulfillng the Lord's demands in many places abroad.
But the fabric of holiness is being torn in many places including in the US and the holy land. It's the "church lite" version of Orthodoxy that I object to.
Fr. Alexander FC Webster, the author of several Regina Press books, says Orthodoxy is not an organized religion, rather it is disorganized one.
I think probably it is the approach, and not the faith itself, which she is using to make the comparison.
Perhaps you would be so kind to explain how the approach of Buddhism is similar to the approach of Orthodoxy.
I realize that you didn't write the article. I am trying to determine the author's meaning. Since you responded to this passage in the essay, I thought perhaps you could explain the analogy to me.
Sorry for the misstatement. I'm sincerely looking for understanding here.
I understand that approval of divorce/remarriage and contraception aren't carte blanche, laissez-faire; but my impression is that "toleration" means "we Orthodox do it, and we don't think it's wrong," whereas amongst the Catholics, it's "we do it, but actually, it's wrong."
Since it's Lent and I'm trying to be good, I don't want to wrangle too much about "issues." But how can I interpret a "blessing" as something other than "approval"? It doesn't look, to me, like disapproval.
Personal note: an Orthodox friend of mine, married 25 years, mother of 5 kids, divorced her (Orthodox) husband, with the approval of her priest, essentially because marriage was rankling her and she felt too conflicted and constrained --- but none of the "big A" issues, no Abortion, Abandonment, Adultery, Abuse. She is now planning a second marriage IN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH to an old flame, and I am in anguish about it. In good conscience, I don't think I can attend the wedding.
It just pains my heart to see either Catholics or Orthodox make this sort of semi-surrender to a sexually disintegrating culture. This Lent: let us pray for each other and draw nearer to Our Lord.
There is an organic unity between understanding of precepts and the quality of practice in Buddhism that serves well when learning about Orthodoxy.
Buddhism has always had some form of ‘iconography’.
Buddhists venerate the lives of ascetics, relics and ‘saints’.
Buddhists (at least the Tibetans) have highly complex and developed forms of liturgical practice, including chanting, incense, etc. (e.g. they aren't intimidated by the typicon :-))
Buddhists understand that it is wise not to live for the present life, but to struggle for the future one.
Buddhists understand the value of dispassion and mental stillness.
Because here in America, we have "life lite". An entire television channel devoted to food, I am told, among other things.
Because that's only an innovation when viewed through a Latin lens. The simple fact is that there is no meaningful difference between a Roman Catholic annulment (which would permit a second marriage) and the Orthodox Christian granting of a second marriage.
On the question of contraception, the Orthodox reject any abortiofacient contraception, they just don't dance on the head of pin to pretend there's a theological difference between certain "artifical" contraception condemned by the Romans and the "natural" variety approved by the Romans.
By the way, did you know that an Orthodox couple can be refused Communion for using contraception?
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