The Jesus Prayer and the Hindu Mantra

by Dionysios Farasiotis

One of the greatest spiritual gifts that Elder Paisios gave me was his guidance along the mystical path of the Jesus Prayer. This started at the beginning of our acquaintance and continued until his repose twelve years later. The Jesus Prayer consists of the repetition of the phrase "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." The Jesus Prayer is not recited as a Mantra, but as a prayer to the Person of Christ.

Prayer, as I learned, is a relationship between two persons, God and man, who move towards each other. Thus, the swiftness or slowness with which a person advances in prayer depends on both the human and divine wills. Neither the freedom of God in His sovereignty nor the freedom of man in his free choice are ever violated. For his part, man offers his good intention, his labors, and his desire to draw near to God. God, in turn, offers His grace....

When yogis claim that the Jesus Prayer resembles their own mantras, they are in fact trying to fit the Jesus Prayer into their own Procrustean bed. Of course, there are similarities, but there are also enormous differences-both a table and a horse have four legs, but to conclude that they are consequently the same would be an error of the crudest sort. But this is just the kind of error the yogis make when they claim that the Jesus Prayer is a kind of mantra. A brief examination of the essential differences between the Jesus Prayer and a mantra should provide those with an open mind the wherewithal to draw the proper conclusions.

First, consider how the Orthodox tradition understands the meaning of the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me." The word "Lord" is the name for God most frequently encountered in the Old Testament in the oft-repeated formula "Thus saith the Lord ..." or in the commandments: "I am the Lord thy God". When Orthodox Christians call Jesus Christ, "Lord," they are confessing that He is the God of the Old Testament Who spoke to the patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Word is the Person who gave the law to Moses. In other words, the One who spoke to the prophets was none other than the second Person of the Holy Trinity, Who later took flesh and was united with human nature in the Person of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, when we say "Lord Jesus Christ"-with faith, with all our heart's strength-we come under the influence of the Holy Spirit, as Saint Paul says: "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 12:3).

Having recognized the existence of the true personal God outside and beyond his own self, from this God a Christian asks "mercy." The elder once told me, "Mercy contains all things. Love, forgiveness, healing, restoration, and repentance all fit within the word 'mercy."' It is the mercy of God that brings about repentance, purification from the passions, the illumination of the nous, and, in the end, theosis. From my journey I have learned that salvation comes from the mercy of Christ, the unique Savior of mankind, rather than from my intelligence, my prideful endeavors, or the techniques of yoga. Salvation and theosis are so very precious that it is impossible for anyone to make any effort or do any ascetic labor that would be equivalent to even the smallest fraction of their value.

Indeed, from my conversations with other fathers who were laborers in the Jesus Prayer and from my own experience, I know full well that prayer is a gift from God. Nothing is accomplished by human labor alone, for Christ said, "Without Me ye can do nothing" (John 15:5), and as the Apostle James bears witness, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights" (James 1:17) Even as God granted us existence, in the same way He gradually grants us to know Him and be united with Him through prayer, leading us ultimately to life eternal.

Now, consider how the yogis view a mantra. First of all, there are many mantras, and each refers to one of the many gods of the Hindu pantheon such as Krishna, Rama, Vishnu, or the goddess Kali. There is not one standard explanation given by yogis for the mantras; rather, their explanations are tailored to the receptivity of each listener. For beginners who are not disposed to worship idols, yogis give a pseudo-scientific, mechanistic explanation: they claim that the benefit accrued by repeating the mantra is due to certain frequencies produced by its pronunciation, which cause spiritual vibrations that activate spiritual centers within man. (However, the existence of such centers in man can only be taken on faith-if someone willingly chooses to believe such a claim.) For those who are inclined towards psychological interpretations, the yogis present the repetition of a mantra as a type of auto-suggestion that enables the practitioner to program his inner world according to positive models. When addressing those who have become more involved with Hinduism and now believe in many gods, the yogis claim that the worshipper receives the blessing of whatever god is being invoked.

What constitutes the infinite distance separating the Christian Jesus Prayer from the Hindu mantra, however, is that which lurks behind the name of the god being invoked in a mantra and invited into the soul. Through the mouth of the Holy Prophet David, God declares, "All the gods of the nations are demons" (1 Psalm 95:5)––In other words, behind the names Krishna, Rama, or Shiva are demons lying In wait. Once they are invoked by the use of the mantra, the door is open for the devil to begin his theatrical productions, using sounds, images, dreams, and the imagination in general in order to drag the practitioner deeper into deception.

Another significant difference between the Christian Jesus Prayer and the Hindu mantra is the diametrically opposed viewpoints of the two faiths regarding techniques and the human subject. I recall a conversation I had with Niranjan after he had given me permission to begin to practice some supposedly powerful yoga techniques. I said to him, "It's fine practicing the techniques, but what happens to the human passions of greed, lust for power, vainglory, and selfishness? Aren't we concerned about them?" "They disappear," he replied, "through the practice of the techniques." "Do they just disappear like that, on their own?" I asked. "Yes, they disappear automatically, while you are practicing the techniques."

What an astonishing assertion: physical exercises can wipe out the inclinations that a person's soul acquired in life through conscious choices. But, in reality, man, as a self-determining and free moral agent, can change the conscious aspect of his personality and his moral sense only by the use of his own free will to make conscious decisions in real-life situations. Any external means to automatically induce such a change in a person's consciousness without his consent circumvent man's free will, obliterate his volition, and destroy his freedom, reducing man to a spineless puppet manipulated by a marionettist's strings. Hinduism's relentless insistence on properly performed techniques with automatic results degrades man by depriving him of his most precious quality: the self-governing free will. It restricts the boundless human spirit within a framework of mechanical methods and reflexes.

Orthodox Christian Faith, on the contrary, recognizes and honors the gift of human freedom as a divine trait. This recognition and approach help man to be actualized as a free being. Precisely on account of the human freedom to choose, man's often- unpredictable responses can't be limited to the mechanical reflexes of a closed system, but can innovatively turn in any spiritual direction that he, as a free subject, wills. This is why Orthodoxy is not adamant about techniques and methods. In freedom and with respect, Orthodoxy seeks the human heart, encouraging the individual to do what is good for the sake of the good, and pointing out the appropriate moral stance of the soul before God, which an individual can then freely choose to embrace.

Genuine spiritual development entails a deepening familiarity with God and with one's own self, acquired through moral choices that a person freely makes in the depths of his heart. Spiritual progress is a product of man's way of relating to himself, to his fellow man, and to God by the good use of his innate moral freedom. This is why Christ calls out, "If any man wills to come after Me, let him freely deny himself" (Matt 16:24)––that is, without being deceived, without being psychologically compelled, and without being forced, all of which are inappropriate to the spiritual nobility of Christian life.

Father Porphyrios had a small parrot that he taught to pray in order to illustrate the absurdity of some Christians' empty repetition of the words of prayer, as well as the ridiculousness of the opinion commonly presented in Eastern religions that someone can make moral advances by physical exercises or breathing techniques. Every so often, the parrot would mechanically say, "Lord, have mercy." The elder would respond, “Look, the parrot can say the prayer, but does that mean that it is praying? Can prayer exist without the conscious and free participation of the person who prays?"

The Gurus, Young Man, and Elder Paisios by Dionysios Farasiotis, St Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2008, pp 276-285.

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Georgian Monasteries Offer To Take In Prisoners

By Tom Esslemont
BBC News, Tbilisi

Officials in the ex-Soviet republic of Georgia have announced a scheme to let prisoners shorten their jail terms by spending time in a monastery instead.

The scheme for petty criminals has been proposed by the country's Orthodox Church and government officials.

It comes as prisoner numbers in Georgia continue to rise and so too does the popularity of the Church.

It is unclear how many prisoners will be allowed to become monks or if they have any choice in the matter.

Overcrowding

To say that the Orthodox Church plays an important and influential role in Georgia is an understatement.

Some 80% of its population are said to be Orthodox Christians and its leaders have at times played a part in politics.

Now the Church has gone a step further by directly offering to help reform certain criminals by handing them a cassock and allowing them to serve out their sentence as monks.

In a joint statement, officials from the prisons ministry and the Church said they would work together to select the convicts they thought would benefit most from spending time in a monastery.

They said the purpose was to liberalise the criminal justice system, but the reality is that prisoner numbers are rising fast in Georgia.

A report last year by a penal reform organisation said the incarceration rate had risen by 300% since 2004 and that jails were badly overcrowded.

A senior cleric told the BBC he believed the Church played a positive role in society and that the scheme could work.

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Max Keiser on the Greek Crisis

Max Keiser lashing out against Goldman Sachs, defending Greece!

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Christian Serbia Maintains Its Faith In Folklore

While Serbia is a deeply religious nation, it also happens to be steeped in superstition. The BBC's Mark Lowen finds that folklore, legends, old wives' tales and stories of medieval military glory are part of daily life for many Serbians.

4 February 2010
BBC News

Belgrade's Saborna Cathedral is a gorgeous little place, its vaulted ceilings adorned with gilded frescoes and its baroque facade decorated with intricate mosaics.

Its beauty is such that I didn't mind getting up at an ungodly hour on a freezing Saturday morning for the enthronement of the new Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The only downside was being stuck next to undoubtedly the least musical member of the congregation. My ears suffered for the next hour or so as she sang out of sync and out of tune.

I tried to move away from my tone-deaf and rhythmically challenged neighbour, but to no avail. Physically, there was no space left.

The ornate cathedral was bursting with believers, their eyes closed in worship, breaking their concentration only to make a sign of the Orthodox cross, or to kiss the hand of the new Patriarch as he passed by.

It was a holy occasion for a deeply spiritual nation - 85% of Serbs declare themselves Orthodox.

Myth and folklore

Religion and ethnicity have always been fundamentally linked in this region. If you were Serb, you were Orthodox, and if you were Croat you were Catholic.

After decades of suppression under communism, religion again flourished as the 90s began - but it also fed ethnic division, playing its part in the Yugoslav wars that ensued.

As modern Serbia has emerged from the ashes of Yugoslavia, Orthodoxy remains central to the Serb identity.

Turn back many centuries, though, before the Christianisation of Slavs, and it was Paganism, not Orthodoxy, that commanded a widespread following.

With it came myth and folklore - some of which still live on for this nation of believers, as I've come to discover.

Invited for dinner by my landlord in early January, he handed me a belated Christmas gift of a wallet. No sooner had I opened it, than he gasped, grabbed it back and quickly put a token 20 dinar note (around 20 pence) inside. "It's bad luck to offer an empty wallet to somebody," he told me.

It was my first taste of Serb superstition. But there were many more...

Never place your handbag on the ground, or you'll become penniless.

Don't even think about going outside with wet hair, or your brain will become inflamed.

And if you dare to sit on the corner of a table, you'll never get married.

If you do find your future spouse (which would, incidentally never happen if you let somebody sweep the floor with a broom in your direction), you'd better not sing at the table, or your other half will go mad.

And whatever happens, make sure you call a newborn baby ugly. If you say it's sweet, the infant will be plagued by bad luck.

Above all, though, beware of the draught. Ladies who expose their stomachs to cold air will end up with frozen ovaries and never be able to have children.

Sit next to an open window and you'll have an eternally stiff neck. Even at the height of summer, you see older Serbs frantically closing windows on public buses.

There is even a Serbian saying: many have died from draughts, but nobody has died from a bad smell.

Vampire legend

When swine flu hit Serbia last year, people put their faith in natural remedies and sales of garlic soared - appropriate, perhaps, for a country which saw one of the world's first known vampires.

In the early 18th Century a local peasant, Peter Plogojowitz, died in eastern Serbia. In the week following his death, nine other villagers mysteriously passed away too.

Plogojowitz was blamed, his body exhumed and a stake driven through his heart.

So perhaps it is understandable that hordes of Serbs would tune in to watch a bizarre transvestite prophet on national television in the 90s.

The mysterious Kleopatra shot to fame predicting the future of anything from marriage problems to the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia during the Kosovan war.

But it is when nationalist politicians have harnessed the power of belief that Serbia has known some of its darkest moments.

Slobodan Milosevic gained power by whipping up patriotic frenzy, evoking the Battle of Kosovo in 1389.

The facts are still debated, but it has taken on a legendary status for this nation of believers, who are taught how their brethren died as martyrs on the fields of their cherished southern province, defending Christian Europe from the marauding Ottomans.

And President Milosevic led his people into wars, rekindling that old legend of the Greater Serbia.

Still today, Serbs' obsession with legend and myth means they often turn to the past for inspiration, rather than the future, searching for lost power and prestige.

I have been told by Serbs how they were eating with cutlery long before the rest of Europe and, spuriously, that they invented tweezers in the 12th Century.

It shows, perhaps, the uncertainty they feel about the road ahead for their country, smaller and weaker than it once was.

For this proud nation, it is somehow comforting to believe.

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Saint Ambrose the Confessor

St. Ambrose the Confessor (Feast Day - March 16)

Saint Ambrose the Confessor (in the world Besarion Khelaia) was born in 1861. He received his primary education at the theological school in Samegrelo and graduated from Tbilisi Seminary in 1885. He graduated and was ordained to the priesthood in the same year. Fr. Ambrose served as a priest in Sokhumi (in northwestern Georgia) for eight years, at the same time teaching the Georgian language in schools and directing the activity of various philanthropic societies. In 1896 he was widowed, and in 1897 he enrolled at the Kazan Theological Academy.

While in Kazan, Fr. Ambrose followed both the literary-cultural life of the city and the Georgian national independence movement with great interest. He researched the history of Georgia from primary sources and composed several essays based on his findings. His essay, entitled “The Struggle Between Christianity and Islam in Georgia,” was so compelling to one professor that he recommended that Fr. Ambrose continue exploring this theme and present his research for a master’s degree.

In 1901 Fr. Ambrose completed his studies at the Kazan Theological Academy, and in the same year he was tonsured a monk and returned to Georgia. Together with the greatest sons of his nation, he fought tirelessly for the autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church. As a punishment for his uncompromising commitment to this goal, Fr. Ambrose was exiled to Russia in 1905.

Upon his return to Georgia, he was elevated to the rank of archimandrite and appointed abbot of Chelishi Monastery. Chelishi Monastery had at one time been a center for theological education in Georgia, but many years had passed since then and the monastery’s student body was rapidly shrinking. Before long it would be completely deserted. But with the blessing of Bishop Leonid of Imereti (later Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia), St. Ambrose gathered a number of gifted young people to study at the seminary and began to instruct them in chanting and the reading of the Holy Gospel.

St. Ambrose devoted much of his time and energy to finding and restoring the old manuscripts of Chelishi Monastery. Once, while passing through the monastery yard, he heard a muted sound coming from beneath the earth. He began to dig at that place and discovered an ancient copy of the Holy Gospels. It was the “Chelishi Gospel,” a famous Georgian relic from the 9th or 10th century.

Soon St. Ambrose joined the Tbilisi Synodal Council and was enthroned as abbot of Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Tbilisi. But in 1908 he was accused of conspiring in the murder of the exarch Nikon and deprived of the right to serve in the Church. The prosecutors exiled him to the Holy Trinity Monastery in Ryazan, where he spent over a year under strict guard. In 1910 St. Ambrose was acquitted and again permitted to serve in the Church.

In 1917 Archimandrite Ambrose returned to Georgia and rejoined the struggle for an autocephalous Georgian Church. Within a few months the Church's autocephaly was proclaimed. He was consecrated Metropolitan of Chqondidi, later to be transferred to the Tskum-Abkhazeti region. In 1921 St. Ambrose was enthroned Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia.

The Soviet government began to persecute the Church not long after St. Ambrose’s enthronement. Some 1,200 churches were plundered, converted for other purposes, or destroyed. A great number of clergy were arrested, exiled, and later shot to death.

On February 7, 1922, Catholicos-Patriarch Ambrose, the spiritual father and chief shepherd of his nation, sent a memorandum to participants in the Conference of Genoa (In 1922 representatives of thirty-four nations met in Genoa, Italy to discuss the economic reconstruction of Central and Eastern Europe and to improve relations between the Soviet Union and Western Europe.) in which he defended the rights of the Georgian Church and nation. Every word of his appeal was penetrated with distress for the fate not only of his motherland but of the entire human race. St. Ambrose assured his audience that a nation and government deprived of Christian virtue would have no future and pleaded for help in this time of misfortune.

The receipt of such a memorandum was unprecedented for the Bolshevik regime, and in response the officials had St. Ambrose arrested. Nevertheless, he fearlessly criticized the government’s complaisance with acts of crime, injustice, and sacrilege.

In response to one of the Bolshevik interrogations, the patriarch asserted, “Confession of Faith is a spiritual necessity for every nation— persecution increases its necessity. Faith deepens, being contracted and accumulated, and it bursts out with new energy. So it was in the past, and so it will be in our country. Georgia is no exception to this universal law.”

St. Ambrose spoke these remarkable last words to his persecutors: “My soul belongs to God, my heart to my motherland, and with my flesh you may do whatever you wish.” The court sentenced the Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia to seven years, nine months and twenty-eight days in prison.

At the end of 1924 St. Ambrose and the other members of the Synodal Council were granted amnesty, but their grave experience had already taken its toll. The Georgian flock lost its faithful shepherd in 1927.

In 1995 the life of Catholicos-Patriarch of All Georgia Ambrose (Khelaia) was discussed at an expanded council of the Holy Synod of the Georgian Church. In recognition of his great achievements on behalf of the Church and nation, Ambrose was canonized as “St. Ambrose the Confessor.”

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"Your Law Is Within My Heart"

If we fulfill the law of God in our thoughts, how much easier would it be then for us to fulfill it in our deeds? That is, if we do not transgress the law of God in our thoughts, how much easier would it be not to transgress it in our deeds? Or still, if our hearts, tongues, hands and feet are with God, then our entire body cannot be against God. Heart, heart, prepare your heart for God. Consecrate it to God; worship God; fulfill the law of God in it; unite it with God; and all the rest will follow and will be governed by the heart. It is not he who holds the spoke of the wheel that steers the wheel, but he who holds its axis. The heart is the axis of our being. Speaking about the commandments of God, the Venerable Hesychius says, "If you compel yourself to fulfill them in your thought, then you will rarely have the need to strain yourself to fulfill them in deed." That is, if you set your hearts on God, as on an axis, then the wheels will easily and comfortably follow the axis. In other words all of man will follow after his own heart. "Your law is within my heart" (Psalm 40:9), says the all-wise David.

- St. Nikolai Velimirovich, Prologue

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Fr. Daniil Sysoyev's Murderer Is Killed

Priest Sysoyev's Murder Solved, Hitman Killed in Makhachkala

Moscow, 16 March 2010, Interfax - The Russian Prosecutor's Office Investigative Committee (POIC) has identified the murderer of Orthodox priest Daniil Sysoyev, who was shot dead at the St. Thomas Church in Moscow in November 2009, the committee spokesman told Interfax.

Some time ago police killed a man, who was under investigation for criminal involvement, at a road patrol post in Makhachkala after the man opened fire, the spokesman said.

He held a passport in the name of Beksultan Karykbekov, as well as an airgun reconverted for 9-millimeter cartridges.

"Investigators received conclusive evidence that it was this pistol that killed Sysoyev," the POIC said.

Fr. Daniil Sysoyev was shot dead on the night of November 19 in the Church of St. Thomas in south Moscow. Earlier he had received numerous threats from Muslim radicals dissatisfied with his rhetoric concerning Islam and his missionary efforts among Muslims.

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Battling The Antichrist By Outlawing Microchips

By Joseph Laycock
March 16, 2010
ReligionDispatches

We can rest safe, knowing that our government wants us to be safe from forced implantation of microchips. But it's not about civil liberties, it's about dispensational paranoia and fear of the "Mark of the Beast."

ast month, Virginia lawmaker Mark Cole, a Fredericksburg Republican, sponsored a bill in the House of Delegates to prohibit the involuntary implantation of microchips into human beings. “My understanding—I’m not a theologian—but there’s a prophecy in the Bible that says you’ll have to receive a mark, or you can neither buy nor sell things in end times,” said Cole. “Some people think these computer chips might be that mark.”

In spite of some ridicule, Cole’s bill passed the Virginia House of Delegates by an overwhelming 88-9 majority—because, as his fellow Republican David B. Albo opined, “The fact that some people who support it are a little wacky doesn’t make it a bad idea.”

Cole is not alone among state legislators nationwide. Wisconsin, California, and North Dakota have already passed legislation to protect their citizens from unwanted subdermal implants. A similar bill has just passed the house in Tennessee. The Georgia State Senate also passed an anti-microchip bill last month, sponsored by two Chips: Republican State Senators Chip Pearson and Chip Rogers, both Baptists and active in their churches.

Beast 2.0

The sponsors of these bills, all of them Republicans and outspoken conservative Christians, claim that preventing the forced implantation of microchips is a civil rights issue: they seek to protect citizens from unwanted bodily intrusions by employers and especially what they depict as a big brother-esque government. Yet the technology to embed radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips into animals and people has existed since the early nineties, and so far no one has attempted a forced implantation of the populace.

There are, of course, purely secular reasons against forced implantation of RFID chips and in favor of policies that particularly protect the truly vulnerable. But the true impetus behind these laws (give Cole points for honesty here) appears to lie squarely in Christian dispensationalism and speculation about “the mark of the beast” described in the Book of Revelation.

Conjecture about the mark of the beast has evolved alongside technology for at least the last forty years, merging with Orwellian concerns about how new technologies can enhance the power of the state. Of all innovations, those dealing with information and communication have held a special appeal for dispensationalist theories.

According to Robert C. Fuller in Naming the Antichrist, the Southwest Radio Church warned as early as 1975 that “The Beast” was the name of a supercomputer created to control the global economy. That same year, Christian dispensationalist Colin Deal expressed a similar theory, warning that “The Beast” could assign everyone on Earth an invisible “laser tattoo.” Similar technological suspicions were expressed by Emil Gaverluk and Patrick Fisher in Fiber Optics: The Eye of the Anti-Christ (1979) and David Webber and Noah Hutchings in Computers and the Beast of Revelation (1986).

The Mark of Paranoia

The first person to suggest that the mark of the beast could be a microchip may have been Peter Lalonde in his One World Under Anti-Christ (1991). However, the association of microchip technology with the mark of the beast was thoroughly hammered into the American consciousness by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins’ bestselling Left Behind Series. The eighth installment of the series, The Mark (2000), describes how the Antichrist’s new world order will require everyone to be implanted with a microchip or be guillotined by a “loyalty enforcement facilitator.” The Mark sold over three million copies by 2004.

That same year, the FDA approved the VeriChip, an RFID chip that can be implanted under the skin into human beings, marking them with personal data that can be read through a scanner. The VeriChip Corporation, now part of the company PositiveID, has suggested that this technology could have useful applications such as storing a patient’s medical data and—in apparent confirmation of apocalyptic anxieties—commerce. A VIP club in Barcelona has allowed customers to use Verichips as debit cards. “Marked” beachgoers can leave their wallets at home and simply have their arm scanned to purchase a drink.

The appeal of anti-microchip legislation is part of a larger narrative that equates “the beast” with foreign interests acting through the federal government; a theme that plays well in a political climate marked by populist anger and millenialist paranoia. Advocating laws because they will hinder the actions of the Antichrist, as preposterous as it seems, is made possible by a highly-politicized American subculture that has been profoundly influenced by the dispensationalist imagination. It is not an accident that the sponsors of anti-microchip legislation have admitted their concern about the mark of the beast. By making clear that their concerns are not purely secular, these legislators are able to build support from an energized evangelical base. Opponents can mock these politicians as paranoiacs, but among voters who have read The Mark, concern about the Antichrist is a political asset, not a liability.

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The Liturgical Theology of Fr. A. Schmemann

"RENOVATED ORTHODOXY": THE LITURGICAL THEOLOGY OF FR. A. SCHMEMANN

By PROTOPRESBYTER MICHAEL POMAZANSKY

BEFORE US is a work of Archpriest (now Protopresbyter) Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology (Paris, YMCA Press, 1961; English translation: The Faith Press, London, 1966). The book is presented as an "introduction" to a special course in liturgical theology projected by the author. In it are indicated the foundations of a proposed new system of theology, and then there is given an historical outline of the development of the Rule or Typicon of Divine services.

The basic part of the Introduction to Liturgical Theology — the history of the Typicon — is based primarily on Western scientific investigations in French, English, and German, and partially on Russian sources. The author is convinced that he has succeeded, as he expresses it, in "escaping the Western captivity" while using non-Orthodox sources. He writes: "We categorically reject the understanding of the Peace of Constantine (i.e., the era of Constantine the Great) as a 'pseudo-victory' of Christianity — victory bought at the price of compromise" (p. 86). But such affirmations are not enough in themselves, and we consider it our obligation to focus attention on the book's contents in one respect: has the author indeed escaped the Western captivity? As many facts testify, he has in fact not escaped it.

THE ORTHODOX LITURGICAL ORDER: THE PRODUCT OF HISTORICAL CAUSE AND EFFECT, OR DIVINE INSPIRATION AND GUIDANCE?

IN INVESTIGATING the chief stages of development of the Rule of Divine services, or Typicon, the author looks upon them as upon an ordinary historical manifestation, formed as a result of the influence of changing historical circumstances. He writes: "Orthodox writers are usually inclined to 'absolutize' the history of worship, to consider the whole of it as divinely established and Providential" (p. 72). The author rejects such a view. He does not see "the validity of principles" in the definitive formulation of the Rule; in any case he acknowledges them as dubious. He rejects or even censures a "blind absolutization of the Typicon" while in practice this is joined, in his observation, to a factual violation of it at every step. He acknowledges that "the restoration of the Rule is hopeless;" the theological idea of the daily cycle of services he finds "obscured and eclipsed by secondary strata in the Ordo" which have lain upon the Divine services since the 4th century (pp. 161-2). The ecclesiological key to the understanding of the Rule, according to the author, has been lost, and it remains by the historical path to seek and find the key to liturgical theology.

Such a view of the Rule is new to us. The Typicon, in the form which it has taken down to our time in its two basic versions, is the realized idea of Christian worship; the worship of the first century was a kernel which has grown into maturity in its present state, when it has taken its finished form. We have in mind, of course, not the content of the services, not the hymns and prayers themselves, which often bear the stamp of the literary style of an era and are replaced on by another, but the very system of Divine services, their order, concord, harmony, consistency of principles and fullness of God's glory and communion with the Heavenly Church on the one hand, and on the other the fullness of their expression of the human soul — from the Paschal hymns to the Great Lenten lamentation over moral falls. The present Rule of Divine services was already contained in the idea of the Divine services of the first Christians in the same way that in the seed of a plant are already contained the forms of the plant's future growth up to the moment when it begins to bear mature fruits, or in the way that in the embryonic organism of a living creature its future form is already concealed. To the foreign eye, to the non-Orthodox West, the fact that our Rule has taken a static form is present as a petrifaction, a fossilization; but for us this represents the finality of growth, the attainment of the possible fullness and finality; and such finality of the form of development we observe also in Eastern Church iconography, in church architecture, in the interior appearance of the best churches, in the traditional melodies of church singing: further attempts at development in these spheres so often lead to "decadence," leading not up but down. One can make only one conclusion: we are nearer to the end of history than to the beginning… And of course, as in other spheres of the Church's history, in this one also we should see a destiny established by God, a providentialness, and not a single logic of causes and effects.

The author of this book approaches the history of the Typicon from another point of view; we shall call it the pragmatic point of view. In his exposition the basic apostolic, early Christian liturgical order has been overlaid by a series of strata which lie one upon the other and partially supplant each other. These strata are: "mysteriological" worship, which arose not without the indirect influence of the pagan mysteries in the 4th century; then the liturgical order of desert monasticism; and finally the final working over which was given by monasticism that had entered the world. The scientific schema of the author is thus: the "thesis" of an extreme involvement of Christianity and its worship in the world of the Constantinian Era evoked the "antithesis" of monastic repulsion from the new form of "liturgical piety," and this process concludes with the "synthesis" of the Byzantine period. Alone and without argumentation stands this phrase as a description of the stormy Constantinian Era: "But everything has its germ in the preceding epoch" (p. 73). The author even pays tribute to the method that reigns completely in contemporary science: leaving aside the idea of an overshadowing by Divine grace, the concept of the sanctity of those who established the liturgical order, he limits himself to a naked chain of causes and effects. Thus does positivism intrude nowadays into Christian science, into the sphere of the Church's history in all its branches. But if the positivist method is acknowledged as a scientific working principle in science, in the natural sciences, one can by no means apply it to living religion, nor to every sphere of the life of Christianity and the Church, insofar as we remain believers. And when the author in one place notes concerning this era: "The Church experienced her new freedom as a providential act destined to bring to Christ people then dwelling in the darkness and shadow of death" (p. 87), one wishes to ask: And why does the author himself not express his solidarity with the Church in acknowledging this providentialness?

THE CONSTANTINIAN ERA

WE ALL KNOW what an immense change in the position of the Church occurred with Constantine the Great's proclamation of freedom for the Church at the beginning of the 4th century. This outward act was reflected also in every way in the inward life of the Church. Was there here a break in the inner structure of the Church's life, or was there a development? We know that to this question the self-awareness of the Orthodox Church replies in one way, and Protestantism in another. A chief part of Fr. A. Schmemann's book is given over to the elucidation of this question.

The era of Constantine the Great and afterwards is characterized by the author as the era of a profound "reformation of liturgical piety." Thus the author sees in the Church of this era not new forms of the expression of piety, flowing from the breadth and liberty of the Christian spirit in accord with the words of the Apostle: "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" — but rather a reformation of the interpretation of worship and a deviation from the early Christian liturgical spirit and forms: a point of view long ago inspired by the prejudices of the Lutheran Reformation.

A propos of this, it is difficult to reconcile oneself also to the term "liturgical piety." In the ordinary usage of words, piety is Christian faith, hope and love, independently of the forms of their expression. Such an understanding is instilled in us by the sacred Scriptures, which distinguish only authentic piety ("piety is profitable unto all things" — I Timothy 4:8) from false or empty piety (James 1:26, II Timothy 3:5). Piety is expressed in prayer, in Divine services, and the forms of its expression vary depending on circumstances: whether in church, at home, in prison, or in the catacombs. But we Orthodox scarcely need a special term like "liturgical piety" or "church piety," as if one were pious in a different manner in church than at home, and as if there existed two kinds of religiousness: "religiousness of faith" and "religiousness of cult." Both the language of the Holy Fathers and the language of theology have always done without such a concept. And therefore it is a new conception, foreign to us, of a special liturgical piety that the author instills when he writes: "It is in the profound reformation of liturgical piety and not in new forms of cult, however striking these may seem to be at first glance, that we must see the basic change brought about in the Church's liturgical life by the Peace of Constantine" (p. 78). And in another place: "The center of attention is shifted from the living Church to the church building itself, which was until then a simple place of assembly… Now the temple becomes a sanctuary, a place for the habitation and residence of the sacred… This is the beginning of church piety" (p. 80), a "mysteriological piety." In his usage of such terms one senses in the author something more than the replacement of one terminology by another more contemporary one; one sense something foreign to Orthodox consciousness. This fundamental point is decisively reflected in the book in the views on the sacraments, the hierarchy, and the veneration of saints, which we shall now examine.

THE SACRAMENTS AND THE SANCTIFYING ELEMENT IN SACRED RITES

THE AUTHOR adheres to the concept that the idea of "sanctification," of "sacraments," and in general of the sanctifying power of sacred rites was foreign to the ancient Church and arose only in the era after Constantine. Although the author denies a direct borrowing of the idea of "mysteries-sacraments" from the pagan Mysteries, he nonetheless recognizes the "mysteriality-sacralization" in worship as a new element of "stratification" in this era. "The very word 'sacrament,'" he writes, citing the Jesuit scholar (now Cardinal) J. Danielou, "did not originally have the meaning in Christianity that was subsequently given it, a mysteriological meaning; in the New Testament Scriptures it is used only in the singular and with the general significance of the economy of our salvation: the word "sacrament' (mysterion) in Paul and in early Christianity signified always the whole work of Christ, the whole of salvation;" thus, in the author's opinion, the application of this word even to separate aspects of the work of Christ belongs to the following era.

In vain, however, does the author cite a Western scholar concerning the word "sacrament," if in St. Paul we may read the precise words: "Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries [sacraments] of God" (I Corinthians 4:1). The Apostles were stewards of the sacraments, and this apostolic stewardship was expressed concretely in the service of the Divine stewardship: (a) in invocatory sermons, (b) in joining to the Church through Baptism, (c) in bringing down the Holy Spirit through laying on of hands, (d) in strengthening the union of the faithful with Christ in the sacrament of the Eucharist, (e) in their further deepening in the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, concerning which the same Apostle says: "Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom" (I Corinthians 2:6-7). Thus the activity of the Apostles was full of sacramental (mysterion) elements.

Basing himself on the ready conclusions of Western researches in his judgments on the ancient Church, the author pays no attention to the direct evidence of the apostolic writings, even though they have the primary significance as memorials of the life of the early Christian Church. The New Testament Scriptures speak directly of "sanctification," sanctification by the word of God and prayer. "Nothing is to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayers" (I Timothy 4:4-5). And it is said of Baptism: "Ye are washed, ye are sanctified, ye are justified" (I Corinthians 6:11). The very expression cup of blessing (I Corinthians 10:16) is testimony of sanctification through blessing. The apostolic laying on of hands cannot be understood otherwise than as a sanctification.

A special place in the book is occupied by a commentary on the sacrament of the Eucharist. The author maintains the idea that in the early Church the Eucharist had a totally different meaning from the one it subsequently received. The Eucharist, he believes, was an expression of the ecclesiological union in assembly of the faithful, the joyful banquet of the Lord, and its whole meaning was directed to the future, to eschatology, and therefore it presented itself as a "worship outside of time," not bound to history or remembrances, as eschatological worship, by which it was sharply distinct from the simple forms of worship, which are called in the book the "worship of time." In the 4th century, however, we are told, there occurred a severe reformation of the original character of the Eucharist. It was given an "individual-sanctifying" understanding, which was the result of two stratifications: at first the mysteriological, and then the monastic-ascetic.

Notwithstanding the assertions of this historico-liturgical school, the individual-sanctifying significance of the sacrament of the Eucharist, i.e., the significance not only of a union of believers among themselves, but before anything else the union of each believer with Christ through partaking of His Body and Blood, is fully and definitely expressed by the Apostle in the tenth and eleventh chapters of the First Epistle to the Corinthians: "Whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's Body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many die" (I Corinthians 11:27). These teachings of the Apostle are concerned with individual reception of the Holy Mysteries and with individual responsibility. And if unworthy reception of them is judged, it is clear that, according to the Apostle, a worthy reception of them causes an individual sanctification. It is absolutely clear that the Apostle understands the Eucharist as a sacrament: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the Blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the Body of Christ?" (I Corinthians 10:16). How can one say that the idea of "sacrament" was not in the Church in apostolic times?

Maintaining the idea of the total "extra-temporality" of the Eucharist in the early Church, Fr. A. Schmemann considers as a violation of tradition the uniting to it of historical remembrances of the Gospel. He writes: "In the early Eucharist there was no idea of a ritual symbolization of the life of Christ and His Sacrifice. This is a theme which will appear later… under the influence of one theology and as the point of departure for another. The remembrance of Christ which He instituted ("This do in remembrance of Me") is the affirmation of His 'Parousia,' of His presence; it is the actualization of His Kingdom… One may say without exaggeration that the early Church consciously and openly set herself in opposition to mysteriological piety and the cults of the mysteries" (pp. 85-6).

Despite all the categoricalness of the author's commentary on the words: "This do in remembrance of Me", it contradicts the indications of the New Testament Scriptures. The Apostle says outright: "For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He come" (I Corinthians 11:26). That is, until the very Second Coming of the Lord the Eucharist will be joined to the remembrance of Christ's death on the Cross. And how could the Apostles and Christians of the ancient Church pass by the thought, while celebrating the Eucharist, of the sufferings of Christ, if the Saviour in establishing it, at the Last Supper, Himself spoke of the sufferings of His Body, of the shedding of His Blood ("which is broken for you, which is shed for you and for many"), and in Gethsemene prayed of the cup: "Let this cup pass form Me"? How could they not preface the joyful thought of the resurrection and glory of the Lord with the thought of His Cross and death? Both Christ and the Apostles call upon us never to forget the Cross.

THE HIERARCHY AND THE SACRAMENT OF PRIESTHOOD

THE AUTHOR adheres to the idea that only in the post-Constantinian era did there occur a division into clergy and simple believers, which did not exist in the early Church and occurred as the result of a "breakthrough of mysteriological conceptions." The very idea of the "assembly of the Church," he says was reformed: "In the Byzantine era the emphasis is gradually transferred… to the clergy as celebrants of the mystery" (p. 99). "The early Church lived with the consciousness of herself as the people of God, a royal priesthood, with the idea of election, but she did not apply the principle of consecration either to entry into the Church or much less to ordination to the various hierarchical orders" (p. 100). From the 4th century on, he continues, there can be traced the "idea of sanctification," i.e., consecration to the hierarchical ranks. Now the baptized, the "consecrated," turn out to be not yet consecrated for the mysteries; "the true mystery of consecration became now not Baptism, but the sacrament of ordination." "The cult was removed from the unconsecrated not only 'psychologically,' but also in its external organization. The altar or sanctuary became its place, and access to the sanctuary was closed to the uninitiated" (p. 101); the division was increased by the gradual raising of the iconostasis. "The mystery presupposes theurgii, consecrated celebrants; the sacralization of the clergy led in its turn to the 'secularization' of the laity." There fell aside "the understanding of all Christians as a 'royal priesthood,'" expressed in the symbol of royal anointing, after which there is no "step by step elevation through the degrees of a sacred mystery" (p. 100). The author quotes St. Dionysius the Areopagite, who warned against revealing the holy mysteries "to profane impurity," and likewise similar warning of Sts. Cyril of Jerusalem and Basil the Great.

In the description cited here of the Constantian era and thereafter, the Protestant treatment is evident: the golden age of Christian freedom and the age of the great hierarchs, the age of the flowering of Christian literature, appears from the negative side of a supposed intrusion into the Church of pagan elements, rather than from the positive. But at any time in the Church have simple believers actually received the condemnatory appellation of "profane?" From the Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril of Jerusalem it is absolutely clear that he warns against communicating the mysteries of faith to pagans. And St. Basil the Great writes of the same thing: "What would be the propriety of writing to proclaim the teaching concerning that which the unbaptized are not permitted even to view?" (On the Holy Spirit, ch. 27). Do we really have to quote the numerous testimonies in the words of the Lord Himself and in the writings of the Apostles concerning the division into pastors and "flock," the warning to pastors of their duty, their responsibility, their obligation to give an accounting for the souls entrusted to them, the strict admonitions of the Angels to the Churches which are engraved in the Apocalypse? Do not the Acts of the Apostles and the pastoral Epistles of the Apostle Paul speak of a special consecration "through laying on of hands" into the hierarchal degrees? The author of this book acknowledges that a closed altar separated the clergy from the faithful. But he gives an incorrect conception of the altar. One should know that the altar and its altar-table in the Orthodox Church serve only for the offering of the Bloodless Sacrifice at the Liturgy. The remaining Divine services, according to the idea of the Typicon, are celebrated in the middle part of the church. An indication of this is the pontifical service. Even while celebrating the Liturgy the bishop enters the altar only at the "Little Entrance" in order to listen to the Gospel and celebrate the sacrament of the Eucharist; all remaining Divine services the bishop celebrates in the middle of the church. The litanies are intoned by the deacon at all services, including the Liturgy, outside the altar; and the Typicon directs priest who celebrate Vespers and Matins without a deacon to intone the litanies before the Royal Doors. All services of the Book of Needs (Trebnik) and all sacraments of the Church, except for the Eucharist and Ordination, are celebrated outside the altar. Only to augment the solemnity of the services at feast day Vespers and Matins is it accepted to pen the doors of the altar for a short time, and that only for the exit of the celebrants at solemn moments to go to the middle of the church. During daily and lenten services the altar, one may say, is excluded from the sphere of the faithful's attention; and if the celebrant goes off into the altar even then, this is rather in order not to attract needless attention to himself, and not at all to emphasize his hierarchical prestige.

One must consider an evident exaggeration the idea of the appearance from the 4th century of a new "church" piety. Christians who had been raised form the first days of the Church on images not only of the New Testament but also of the Old Testament, especially the Psalter, could not have been totally deprived of a feeling of special reverence for the places of worship (the House of the Lord). They had the example of the Lord Himself, Who called the Temple of Jerusalem "the House of My Father;" they had the instruction of the Apostle: "If any man defile the Temple of God, him shall God destroy" (I Corinthians 3:17), and although here in the Apostle the idea of temple is transferred to the soul of an, this does not destroy the acknowledgment by the Apostle of the sanctity of the material temple.

THE INVOCATION AND GLORIFICATION OF SAINTS

SPEAKING OF the invocation and glorification of saints in the form in which it was defined in the 4th to 5th centuries, Fr. A. Schmemann underlines the excessiveness of this glorification in the present structure of our Divine services, and he sees in this an indication of the "eclipse of catholic ecclesiological consciousness" in the Church (p. 166). But is not the trouble rather that he does not enter into the catholic fullness of the Orthodox view of the Church?

What is it in the Divine services—something significant, visible to everyone—that distinguishes the Orthodox Church from all other confessions of the Christian faith? It is communion with the Heavenly Church. In this is our pre-eminence, our primogeniture, our glory. The constant remembrance of the Heavenly Church is our guiding star in difficult circumstances; we are strengthened by the awareness that we are surrounded by choirs of invisible comforters, co-sufferers, defenders, guiders, examples of sanctity, from whose nearness we ourselves may receive a fragrance. How fully and how constantly we are reminded of this communion of the heavenly with the earthly by the content of our whole worship—precisely that material in place of which Fr. A. Schmemann intends to build his system of "liturgical theology!" How fully did St. John of Kronstadt live by this sense of nearness to us of the saints of Heaven!

Is this awareness of the unity of the heavenly and the earthly justified by the Revelation of the New Testament? It is completely justified. Its firm general foundation is found in the words of the Saviour: "God is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for in Him all are living" (St. Luke 20:38). We are commanded by the Apostles to remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their lives (Hebrews 13:7). Protestantism is completely without an answer before the teaching of the Apostle in Hebrews 12:22-23, where it is said that Christians have entered into close communion with the Lord Jesus Christ and with the Heavenly Church of angels and righteous men who have attained perfection in Christ. And which for us is more necessary and important: to strive for ecumenical communion and union with those who think differently and who remain in their different opinion, or to preserve catholic communion of spirit with those teachers of faith, lamps of faith, who by their life and by their death showed faithfulness to Christ and His Church and entered into yet fuller union with Her Head?

Let us hear how this side of the Church's life is accepted by Fr. A. Schmemann.

He affirms that there occurred an abrupt change in the Constantian era in that there appeared a new stratum to worship in the form of "the extraordinary and rapid growth of the veneration of saints" (p. 141). As the final result of this, with us "the monthly Menaion dominates in worship… The attention of liturgical historians has been for some time directed at this literal inundation of worship by the monthly calendar of saints' days" (p. 141).

Concerning this supposed "inundation" of worship we shall note the following. The execution of the daily Vespers and Matins requires no less than three hours, while a simple service to a saint takes up some four pages in the Menaion, occupying only a small part of the service. In the remaining services of the daily cycle (the Hours, Compline, Nocturn) the remembrance of the saints is limited to a kontakion, sometimes a troparion also, or it does not appear at all; and it occupies a small place in the services of Great Lent. If the day of worship is lengthened by a festive service to a saint, precisely thereby it acquires that "major tone," for the diminishing of which the author reproaches the contemporary Typicon.

Let us continue the description given in the book of the glorification of saints. The author writes: "In the broadest terms this change may be defined as follows. The 'emphasis' in the cult of saints shifted from the sacramentally eschatological to the sanctifying and intercessory meaning of veneration. The remains of the saint, and later even articles belonging to him or having once touched his body, came to be regarded as sacred objects having the effect of communicating their power to those who touched them… The early Church treated the relics of martyrs with great honor—'But there is no indication,' writes Fr. Delahaye, 'that any special power was ascribed to relics in this era, or that any special, supernatural result would be obtained by touching them. Toward the end of the fourth century, however, there is ample evidence to show that in the eyes of believers some special power flowed from the relics themselves.' This new faith helps to explain such facts of the new era as the invention of relics, their division into pieces, and their movement or translation, as well as the whole development of the veneration of 'secondary holy objects'—objects which have touched relics and become n turn themselves sources of sanctifying power."

Let us note: under the pen of an Orthodox writer this description shows a particular primitivization and irreverence.

"At the same time," the author continues, "the intercessory character of the cult of saints was also developing. Again, this was rooted in the tradition of the early Church, in which prayers addressed to deceased members of the Church were very widespread, as evidenced by the inscriptions in the catacombs. But between this early practice and that which developed gradually from the 4th century on there is an essential difference. Originally the invocation of the departed was rooted in the faith in the 'communion of saints'—prayers were addressed to any departed person and not especially to martyrs… But a very substantial change took place when this invocation of the departed was narrowed down and began to be addressed only to a particular category of the departed."

Thus it turns out, according to the author, that if we appeal with the words 'pray for us' to the departed members of the Church without reference to whether they were devout in their faith and life or were Christians only in name, then this fully corresponds to the spirit of the Church; but if we appeal to those who by their whole ascetic life or martyr's death testified to their faith, then this is already a lowering of the spirit of the Church!

"From the 4th century onward," continues the excerpt from the book, "there appeared in the Church first an everyday and practical, but later a theoretical and theological concept of the saints as special intercessors before God, as intermediaries between men and God."

This is a completely Protestant approach, unexpected from an Orthodox theologian. It is sufficient to read in the Apostle Paul how he asks those to whom he writes to be intercessors for him and intermediaries before God so that he might be restored to them from imprisonment and might visit them; in the Apostle James (5:16): "The prayer of a righteous man availeth much"; in the Book of Job (42:8): "My servant Job shall pray for you; for him will I accept".

The author continues: "The original Christocentric significance of the veneration of saints was altered in this intercessory concept. In the early tradition the martyr or saint was first and foremost a witness to the new life and therefore an image of Christ." The reading of the Acts of the Martyrs in the early Church had as its purpose "to show the presence and action of Christ in the martyr, i.e., the presence in him of the 'new life.' It was not meant to glorify the saint himself… But in the new intercessory view of the saint the center of gravity shifted. The saint is now an intercessor and a helper… The honoring of saints fell into the category of a Feast Day," with the purpose of "the communication to the faithful of the sacred power of a particular saint, his special grace… The saint is present and as it were manifest in his relics or icon, and the meaning of his holy day lies in acquiring sanctification by means of praising him or coming into contact with him, which is, as we know, the main element in mysteriological piety."

Likewise unfavorable is the literary appraisal by the author of the liturgical material referring to the veneration of saints. We read: "We know also how important in the development of Christian hagiography was the form of the panegyric… It was precisely this conventional, rhetorical form of solemn praise which almost wholly determined the liturgical texts dealing with the veneration of saints. One cannot fail to be struck by the rhetorical elements in our Menaion, and especially the 'impersonality' of the countless prayers to and readings about the saints. Indeed this impersonality is retained even when the saint's life is well known and a wealth of material could be offered as an inspired 'instruction.' While the lives of the saints are designed mainly to strike the reader's imagination with miracles, horrors, etc., the liturgical material consists almost exclusively of praises and petitions." (pp. 143-146).

We presume that there is no need to sort out in detail this whole long series of assertions made by the author, who so often exaggerates the forms of our veneration of saints. We are amazed that an Orthodox author takes his stand in the line of un-Orthodox reviewers of Orthodox piety who are incapable of entering into a psychology foreign to them. We shall make only a few short remarks.

The honoring of saints is included in the category of feasts because in them Christ is glorified, concerning which it is constantly and clearly stated in the hymns and other appeals to them; for in the saints is fulfilled the Apostle's testament: "That Christ may dwell in you" (Ephesians 3:17).

We touch the icon of a saint or his relics guided not by the calculation of receiving a sanctification from them, or some kind of power, a special grace, but by the natural desire of expressing in act our veneration and love for the saint.

Besides, we receive the fragrance of sanctity, the fullness of grace, in various forms. Everything material that reminds us of the sacred sphere, everything that diverts our consciousness, even if only for a moment, from the vanity of the world and directs it to the thought of the destination of our soul and acts beneficially on it, on our moral state — whether it be an icon, antidoron, sanctified water, a particle of relics, a part of a vestment that belonged to a saint, a blessing with the sign of the cross — all this is sacred for us because, as we see in practice, it is capable of making reverent and awakening the soul. And for such a relationship to tangible objects we have a direct justification in Holy Scripture: in the accounts of the woman with a flow of blood who touched the garment of the Saviour, of the healing action of pieces of the garment of the Apostle Paul and even of the shadow of the Apostle Peter (St. Luke 8:40-48, Acts 5:14-15, 19:11-12).

The reason for the seemingly stereotyped character of church hymns, in particular hymns to saints, are to be found not in the intellectual poverty nor the spiritual primitiveness of the hymn-writers. We see that in all spheres of the Church's work there reigns a canon, a model: whether in sacred melodies, in the construction of hymns, or in iconography. Characteristic of hymns is a typification corresponding to the particular rank of saints to which the saint belongs: hierarchs, monk-saints, etc. But at the same time there is always the element of individualization, so that one cannot speak of the impersonality of the images of saints. Evidently the Church has sufficient psychological motives for such a representation.

As for the petitions to saints, they have almost exclusively as object their prayers for our salvation. Is this reprehensible? Is there here a lowering of church spirit? Thus did the Apostle Paul pray for his spiritual children: "I pray to God that ye do no evil; and for this also we pray, even for your perfection" (I Corinthians 13:7). If in prayers, especially in molebens, we pray for protection from general disasters and for general needs, this is only natural; but these molebens do not even enter into the framework of the Typicon.

CHURCH FEASTS

WE SHALL CONCLUDE our review with a question of secondary importance, namely, concerning Church feasts as they are presented in the book.. The author agrees with a Western liturgical historian that for ancient Christians there was no distinction between Church feasts and ordinary days, and he says in the words of this historian (J. Danielou, S.J.): "Baptism introduced each person into the only Feast — the eternal Passover, the Eighth Day. There were no holidays — since everything had in fact become a holy day" (p. 133). But with the beginning of the mysteriological era this sense was lost. Feast days were multiplied, and together with them ordinary days were also multiplied (So asserts the author; but in reality it is precisely according to the Typicon that there are no "ordinary days," since every day there is prescribed the whole cycle of church services). According to Fr. A. Schmemann, the bond with the liturgical self-awareness of the early Church was lost, and the element of chance was introduced in the uniting of feasts among themselves and the "Christian year." The author gives examples: "The dating of the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord on August 6th has no explanation other than that this was the date of consecration of three churches on Mount Tabor" (p. 136), whereas in antiquity, according to the author's assertion, this commemoration was bound up with Pascha, which is indicated also by the words of the kontakion: "that when they should see Thee crucified…" The dates of the feasts of the Mother of God, in the words of the author, are accidental. "The Feast of the Dormition on August 15th, originates in the consecration of a church to the Mother of God located between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and the dates of September 8 (The Nativity of the Mother of God) and November 21 (Her Entrance into the Temple) have a similar origin. Outside the Mariological cycle there appeared, for similar reasons, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross (connected with the consecration of the Holy Sepulchre), and the Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist on August 29th (the consecration of the Church of St. John the Baptist in Samaria at Sebaste)" (p. 137).

In these references of the author, a characteristic sign is his trust of Western conclusions in the face of, as we believe, the simple conclusion from the order of the church-worship year. The Byzantine church year begins on September 1st. The first feast in the year corresponds to the beginning of New Testament history: the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God; the last great feast of the church year is in its last month: the Dormition of the Mother of God. This is sequential and logical. The Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord occurs at the beginning of August doubtless because the cycle of Gospel readings at about this time approaches the account of the Evangelist Matthew of the Lord's Transfiguration, and the commemoration of this significant Gospel event is apportioned to a special feast. As for the words of the kontakion of the Transfiguration: "From that time forth began Jesus to show unto His disciples, how that He must go into Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day" (St. Matthew 16:21, 17:9, 22). Therefore the Church, in accordance with the Gospel, six days before the Transfiguration begins the singing of the katavasia "Moses, inscribing the Cross" (it may be that the bringing out of the Cross on August 1st is bound up with this), and just forty days after the Feast of the Transfiguration is celebrated the commemoration of the Lord's suffering on the Cross and death on the day of the Exaltation of the Precious Cross. And the designation of the time of this feast is also scarcely accidental: this time corresponds, like the time of the Feast of the Transfiguration, to the approach of the Gospel reading at the Liturgy of the Lord's suffering on the Cross and death. Here is one of the examples that indicated that the structure of Divine services in the Typicon is distinguished by proper sequence, harmony, and a sound basis.

If it be represented that in the church calendar a strict sequentialness of the Gospel events is not observed, this is because the Gospel remembrances take in many years and in the calendar they are arranged as it were in the form of a spiral embracing several years: it contains a series of nine-month periods (from the conception to the nativity of St. John the Baptist, the Mother of God, the Saviour), two 40-day periods of the Gospel, etc.

In the concluding part of his book the author, not in entire agreement with what he has said up to that point, is ready to come closer, it would seem, to the historical Orthodox point of view; but just here he makes such reservations that they virtually conceal the basic position. He says: "The Byzantine synthesis must be accepted as the elaboration and revelation of the Church's original 'rule of prayer,' no matter how well developed in it are the elements which are alien (?) to this lex orandi and which have obscured it. Thus in spite of the strong influence of the mysteriological psychology on the one hand and the ascetical-individualistic psychology on the other — an influence that affected above all the reformation of liturgical piety, the Ordo (Rule) as such has remained organically connected with the 'worship of time' which, as we have tried to show, contained the original organizing principle. This worship of time, we repeat, was obscured and eclipsed by 'secondary' layers in the Ordo, but it remained always the foundation of its inner logic and the principle of its inner unity" (p. 162).

Such is the author's resume. It remains for one to be satisfied with little. It was too much to expect that our Rule has preserved even the very principle of Christian worship!

CONCLUSION

WE HAVE CONSIDERED in so much detail the book of Father A. Schmemann because in the future there will be given the Orthodox reader, based on the views presented in this book, a liturgical dogmatics. But if the foundations are so dubious, can we be convinced that the building erected on them will be sound? We do not at all negate the Western historico-liturgical and theological science and its objective values. We cannot entirely manage without it. We acknowledge its merits. But we cannot blindly trust the conclusions of Western historians of the Church. If we speak of worship as members of the Orthodox Church, there should be present to us that principle in the understanding of the history of our worship and its present status by which the Church Herself lives. The principle diverges fundamentally from Western Protestant attitudes. If we have not understood this principle, our efforts should be directed to finding it, discovering it, understanding it.

The logic of history tells us that in public life departures from a straight path occur as the consequence of changes in principles and ideas. And if we maintain the Orthodoxy Symbol of Faith, if we confess that we stand on the right dogmatic path, we should not doubt that both the direction of church life and the structure of worship which was erected on the foundation of our Orthodox confession of faith, are faultless and true. We cannot acknowledge that our "liturgical piety," after a series of reformations, has gone far, far away from the spirit of Apostolic times. If we see a decline of piety, a failure to understand the Divine services, the reason for this lies outside the Church: it is in the decline of faith in the masses, in the decline of morality, in the loss of church consciousness. But where church consciousness and piety are preserved, there is no reformation in the understanding of Christianity. We accept the Gospel and Apostolic Scriptures not in a refraction through some kind of special prism, but in their immediate, straightforward sense. And we are convinced that our public prayer is made on the very same dogmatic and psychological foundations on which it was made in Apostolic and ancient Christian times, notwithstanding the difference in forms of worship.

But is Father Alexander Schmemann prepared to acknowledge that the character of his piety is different from the character of the piety of the ancient Church?


Reprinted from The Orthodox Word, Vol. 6, No. 6 (35), November-December, 1970.

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The Ladder of Divine Ascent For Those In the World

St. John of the Ladder gives the following advice for those living in the world:

Some people living carelessly in the world have asked me: "We have wives and are beset with social cares, and how can we lead the solitary life?"

I replied to them: "Do all the good you can; do not speak evil of anyone; do not steal from anyone; do not hate anyone; do not be absent from Divine Services; do not offend anyone; do not wreck another man's domestic happiness, and be content with what your own wives can give you. If you behave in this way, you will not be far from the Kingdom of Heaven."

"A life lived in the world can be as good, in the eyes of God, as one spent in a monastery. It is indeed only the keeping of God's commandments, love of all, and a true sense of humility that matter, wherever we are." - Saint Macarius of Optina

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Patrologia Graeca Online

Parts of the PG can be found for free at the following sites:

http://www.documentacatholicaomnia.eu/
http://khazarzar.skeptik.net/pgm/
http://cyprianproject.info/PG.htm
http://classicsindex.wikispaces.com/migne_PG
http://ancientworldonline.blogspot.com/2009/10/migne-online.html

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Eldress Gabriela: The Five Languages of Love

The First is a smile.

The Second is tears.

The Third is a gentle touch.

The Fourth is prayer.

The Fifth is love.

With these five languages you can travel the entire earth and the whole world will be yours.

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Climbing Mount Sinai

In The Footsteps of Moses, Climbing Mount Sinai

Expedition to summit a challenge and deep religious significance for many.

By Charmaine Noronha
March 10, 2010
Associated Press

St. Catherine, Egypt - In the Bible, Moses climbs Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments.

But he was the chosen one, and I am a mere mortal. Divine intervention seemed unlikely as I stood at the base of the mountain, chilled to the bone at 2 a.m., with only the faint light from a spattering of stars and sliver of moon on the dark rocky terrain.

I'd decided to head to the fabled mountain peak while frolicking in the sun in the azure waters of the Red Sea, where the temperatures were warm and balmy. I would retrace Moses' footsteps on a hike to witness the sunrise from the summit. If Moses could do it, why couldn't I?

But once I arrived for this overnight trek, sleepless and in temperatures that felt like North American winter, I wasn't so sure.

Then out popped our guide, a sprightly young Egyptian man with a yellow-toothed grin. He was dressed in little more than a gallibaya, the traditional long men's shirt, while I felt cold wearing almost all the clothing I brought with me on my trip, including a borrowed jacket and my woolliest socks from Canada, where I live. His garment billowed in the wind as he led me and a group of travelers from around the world up to the summit.

As we began our ascent up the 7,500-foot mountain (2,285 meters), I searched the black sky for a glimpse of our endpoint. But the only thing visible to me was my vaporous breath and what appeared to be the shadows of camels lumbering up the mountain. I wondered for a moment if I was hallucinating.

We followed in step with our guide as he led us through the darkness, up the winding trail, over granite crags and slippery rocks. I'm not religious, but the irony of the moment hit me: I'd literally put all my faith in this man I'd just met.

For others on the hike, the expedition had deep religious significance. The Bible says this is where God gave Moses two stone tablets inscribed with the commandments. Moses received these laws after leading the Jews out of slavery in Egypt, a story that is retold during the Jewish holiday of Passover, which begins this year at sundown March 29. But Sinai is an important site for Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, and every night, hundreds of pilgrims make the climb.

There are two routes for the 4.3-mile (7 km) round trip: The camel path, which was our route, or a steeper, more direct route of some 3,750 stairs to the top, sometimes referred to as "God's Stairmaster."

For me, the camel route was challenging enough. I could feel my heart pounding through layers of clothes, and the sweat trickling on my forehead felt like a fever chill. The Bible says Moses made two sojourns here to receive the tablets, spending 40 days on the mountain each time, but we would be up and down in 4 1/2 hours.

The sanctity of the hike was disrupted by scores of other hikers vying to reach the top quickly to mark their spot to watch the sunrise, and the constant calls of, "Camel ride, camel ride" from Egyptian entrepreneurs. But I preferred following the guide on foot rather than trusting a camel on the messy, pebbly trail.

The hours rolled into each other. At about 5 a.m., the sky began its slow transformation, turning from black to shades of gray, our cue to get to the top, where the sun could be seen slowly rising. Our guide stopped short of the final ascent; we were to lead ourselves up the last 750 rocky steps to the summit.

As we climbed the last bit, stone silhouettes began to form in the distance. The summit appeared to be blanketed with mummified people tucked in sleeping bags and camel blankets. The wind was treacherous; my fingers were too frozen to unzip my sleeping bag. I took my spot on a jagged piece of rock face, too cold to do much except pray for the warmth of the sun. My prayers were answered slowly as a dusty orange light filtered through the sky.

As the sun came into view, a group of Romanian pilgrims broke into a hymn. Their booming voices provided an almost eerie soundtrack to the sunrise. The rest of us stared quietly across the Sinai desert as the light began to cast a warm glow, unveiling rocky peaks all around us. The mountains turned crimson, gold and orange, and I felt my spirits lifting with the heat of the sun.

I almost expected the Romanians to start singing "Hallelujah." They didn't, but I did, in my head.

If you go

Mount Sinai, Egypt: Mount Sinai can be reached from the Red Sea resort towns of Dahab and Sharm El Sheik (about 1.5 to 2 hours by car to the mountain).

Tours: You can easily join or organize tours from either of these resort towns or hire a taxi to drive you out and wait for you (about $75 or 400-500 Egyptian pounds). If you don't go with a tour, you can hire a local guide when you arrive for a few U.S. dollars. Expeditions to Sinai can also be arranged from Israel.

Tips: Most hikes take place in early afternoon to reach the peak for sunset, or more often, in early morning for sunrise, which means you'll be jostling for place at the summit due to the sheer number of like-minded hikers. Bring a sleeping bag and/or blanket to keep warm at the summit and layer your clothing so you can easily add or remove items as you heat up and cool down. Wear trekking shoes if you can, as it's easy to lose your footing in the dark and on the rocky trail.

Nearby attraction: St. Catherine's Monastery, at the base of the mountain, houses a pictorial story of Moses and a large bush that believers identify as the Burning Bush from the Bible.

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Fr. Theodore Zisis: Orthodoxy In America

The following lecture is in Greek by Fr. Theodore Zisis in which he examines the history of Orthodoxy in America as well as the happenings and way of life of contemporay American Orthodoxy from a traditionalist Orthodox perspective.

His main thesis deals with how the Greek bishops of America were "liberalizing" Orthodoxy in America and thus were bringing it down in its spiritual level, and how the only answer to restoring Orthodox to their authentic roots which would bear spiritual fruit is monasticism, particularly the monasteries of Elder Ephraim.

Of particular interest are his comments on St. John Maximovitch and Fr. Seraphim Rose, as well as his introduction of the letter of Fr. John Romanides to Fr Theoklitos Dionysiatis in which Fr. Romanides describes that the only hope for Orthodoxy in America is to bring the authentic monastic spirit to it (this was before any monasteries existed in America). I will be translating this letter into English in the very near future. And of further interest is his own very positive experience of traveling to the monasteries of Elder Ephraim in America and other holy shrines in America.

The lecture can be seen and heard here.

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First Lady of Russia Observes Great Lent Even On Her Birthday

Svetlana Medvedeva Prefers to Serve Lenten Dishes On Her Birthday
Moscow, 15 March 2010, Interfax – The Russian President's spouse Svetlana Medvedeva observes rules of the Great Lent on her birthday as March 15 falls on the Lenten period.

Medvedeva plans to celebrate it with her family and the birthday dinner will consist mostly of Lenten dishes, the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily has reported on Monday.

The edition cites people from the first lady's circle who say the President's spouse believes that "the most important is not only observing religious canons, but rather preserving purity of thoughts and realizing spiritual importance of Lent."

Medvedeva has headed the guardian board of the program for Spiritual and Moral Culture of Russia's Growing Generation, set up on Patriarch Alexy II's blessing for almost three years. On her initiative, Sts Peter and Fevronia commemoration day was announced an annual feast – the Day of Family, Love and Devotion.

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The Truth About Events In Kosovo

Kosovo Can you Imagine?, Косово Можете ли да замислите? from Владимир Чановић on Vimeo.

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Beware of Demonic Biblical Exegesis

St. John of the Ladder (Ladder, Step 26:152) writes:

"At the beginning, some of the unclean demons instruct us in the interpretation of the Divine Scriptures. And they are particularly fond of behaving in this way in the case of vainglorious people and of those who have been educated in secular studies, so that by gradually deceiving them, they may lead them into heresy and blasphemy. We can recognize this diabolical theology, or rather, theomachy, by the disturbances and the confused and unholy joy which are felt in the soul during the instruction."

Illustration: a Slavonic-language manuscript of The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Russia, 1560.

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Video: The Weeping Virgin of Paris

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Interview With Metropolitan Hierotheos of Naupaktos

The following interview with Metropolitan Hierotheos of Naupaktos was recently published in Σφήνα and addresses the most pressing issues the Church of Greece is currently dealing with:

What is your opinion regarding the abolition of religion classes in the schools as well as the abolition of morning prayers?

Neither lessons in religion or prayer should be abolished by the schools.

This is not only because the Constitution and the existing laws forbid this, which clearly state that education "has as its purpose the ethical, spiritual, professional and physical nurturing of the Greek people, the development of the national and religious conscience, and their formation in free and responsible citizens" (Article 16), but also because if the responsible State doesn't care for the "religious sentiments" which exist in children, then they will be exploited by others, with the result that "destructive cults" of various sects will filter in with unpredictable results. For this reason the responsible State must view this issue seriously.

What is your opinion on the abolition of oaths? Are we heading towards a nation of atheism or multiculturalism?

Christ advised categorically: "Do not swear" (Matt. 5:34). Christians should not take oaths and violate the command of Christ, nor should they pressure others to do so.

There are many ways to establish honesty, seriousness, and sincerity. These may be helped by faith in God.

To the question about "heading towards a nation of atheism or multiculturalism", I am inclined towards the latter, even though they don't correlate with my alternative questions, which end up most of the time being pseudo-dilemmas.

Every nation has its own particular cultural lifestyle and the relationship of every nation with its religious communities is measured analogous to the tradition of the land, as it is foreseen in the Treaty of Lisbon.

Are you in favor of the Greek citizenship to immigrants?

The Standing Holy Synod has decided on the issue, that it is the responsibility of the State, but it should take the necessary measures and establish the appropriate conditions in compliance with European legislation in trying to avoid distorting the social and cultural cohesion. The State must civilize the people and the Church must make them its members.

How, in your opinion, can the problem of illegal immigration be solved?

I do not have a particular opinion on this issue. We must give priority to the experts. What I know is that the State should move in between the general principles of maintaining social cohesion and the sensitivity to human suffering.

This is a balancing act. From the news I notice that in the end the illegal immigrants are victims of unscrupulous individuals, thus they are suffering beings.

What is your opinion on the separation of Church and State?

The phrase "separation of Church and State" doesn't express me in any way, because no organization and no person can live separated from the State or to live as a state within a State.

That which is characterized as separation already exists, since why else is there the work of the State and on the other hand the work of the Church. Although there are some points of friction, they can be completely settled calmly and in a serious manner.

So we should not talk about separation of Church and State, but correct relations between ecclesiastical and civil administration for the good of the citizen and society.

Do you believe there is a return from Interfaith Dialogue? And what is happening today?

There were and are many interfaith dialogues, but the only good that comes out of them is that there is an understanding between religious leaders and this could possibly improve on some points that cause friction.

But I think that Interfaith Dialogue can not be part of a political objective, because in this case religion would play political games, nor should we secularize the Orthodox faith and reach a syncretism which is the aim of the 'new age', where everything is gathered and mashed together.

Can the environment be saved and how?

The Orthodox Church believes that the environment went wild because of the sin of the First-Created and it is "violated" by the greediness of people, and its renovation is achieved by the restoration of man to his previous glory.

I believe the Saints can change the environment, as their lives show, since the Saints were reconciled with the environment.

I do not have the hope that politicians and the United Nations will improve this, as the biggest polluters are the most powerful and richest countries which have large interests, as was evident recently in Copenhagen.

These days there is a lot of talk about the "appeal". What is your opinion?

The "appeal", namely the appeal of recourse to the Ecumenical Patriarchate, is one of the main canonical rights of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which the Church of Greece has commitments to comply with. Generally we should fully respect the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Parallel to all the issues there is the canonical principle of "oikonomia", namely leniency.

The canons provide for both akriveia (exactness) and oikonomia (leniency). The Church mostly applies oikonomia, instead of akriveia, since the bishops according to the Apostle Peter are to be "good economists of God's varied grace" ("καλοί οικονόμοι ποικίλης χάριτος Θεού") and according to Basil the Great are "the economists of the churches of God" (οι οικονομούντες τάς Εκκλησίας του Θεού).

We believe that God also will judge us according to His mercy and His love for mankind.

Source. Translated by John Sanidopoulos

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