From Pascha to Pentecost

By Protopresbyter Dr. George D. Dragas

1. The Pentecostal Period. The word, Pentecost means “the fiftieth” and is used to designate the great event of the Outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Epiphoitesis) upon the Apostles and the Church on the 50th day after the Resurrection of Christ, just ten days after His Ascension into Heaven.

Before His Passion, the Lord spoke to his Disciples about the gift of the Holy Spirit, which they were to receive after the Ascension. The details are preserved in the Gospel of Saint John: “I will ask the Father to send you the Holy Spirit who will defend you and always be with you” (14:16). He also said, “The Holy Spirit can not come to defend you until I leave. But after I am gone, I will send the Spirit to you” (16:7). After His Resurrection, the Lord appeared to the Disciples, and He said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (20:22). This was a foretaste of the Outpouring (Epiphoitesis) on Pentecost Sunday.

Near the end of Saint Luke’s Gospel, Christ tells His Disciples, “I will send you the One My Father has promised, but you must stay in the city until you are given power from above” (24:49). It is in the Acts of the Apostles, however, that Saint Luke speaks of the fulfillment of this promise: “On the day of Pentecost, all the Lord’s followers were together in one place. Suddenly, there was a noise from heaven like the sound of a mighty wind. It filled the house where they were meeting. Then they saw what looked like fiery tongues moving in all directions, and a tongue came and settled on each person there. The Holy Spirit took control of everyone, and they began speaking whatever language the Spirit let them speak” (2:1-4).

Since ancient times, the 50-day period from Pascha to Pentecost has been called Pentecost because what began with the Lord breathing the Holy Spirit on His Disciples was consummated with the full descent of the Spirit upon the Disciples and the whole Church. Thus, the Church was fully born and began to grow.

During this period, all kneeling is prohibited as a tangible confession of the Resurrection of Christ. It is only on the actual day of Pentecost that kneeling is resumed, and is connected with a special kneeling ceremony (akolouthia gonyklesias), which consists of prayers for the gift of the Holy Spirit, hence the name, “Kneeling Day” (tes gonatistes) for Pentecost.

Later on, another week was added to these 50 days in order to celebrate the post-feast (metheorta) of the Feast of Pentecost. Thus, today the period of movable Feasts after Pascha spans eight weeks, to include the Sunday of All Saints (Agion Panton), and is divided into three parts: 1) The 40 post-festal days of Pascha, 2) The Feast of the Ascension, together with its post-festal period, and 3) The Feast of Pentecost together with its own post-festal period. The hymns of this period are contained in the special Pentecostal book, the Pentecostarion.

2. Sunday of the Myrrh-bearing Women. We have already spoken about the New Week (Diakainesimos) and the Sunday of Saint Thomas (the first Sunday after Pascha). The second Sunday after Pascha is called the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women (Kyriake ton Myroforon). It is dedicated to the women who brought myrrh to the tomb of Christ. It is also dedicated to the secret disciples of the Lord, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who arranged for and assisted in the Lord’s burial. This is clearly commemorated in the Gospel lesson for the day (Mark 15.43-16.8).

The Myrrh-Bearing Women we can identify from the Holy Gospels are Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, (a.k.a., Mary of Clopas, Joanna the wife of Huza, a guardian of Herod Antipas, Salome the mother of the sons of Zebedee, and Sozanna).

Joseph of Arimathea (a city of Judaea) was a rich nobleman and a member of the Sanhedrin (a council deputy in Jerusalem). He was the one who did not agree with the council’s decision against Christ. He was also the one who bravely asked Pontius Pilate for the body of Christ (Matthew 27.57-60, Mark 15.42-47, Luke 23.50-56, John 19.38-42). Nicodemus was a Jewish leader, a Pharisee, who was well read in the Scriptures and visited Christ by night (John 3.1-21 and 19.39-42).

All these sacred persons clearly demonstrate to us that people from all walks of life can be disciples of the Lord and enjoy the privilege of taking care of His body and become primary witnesses of the Lord’s mighty Resurrection.

3. Sundays of the Paralytic, The Samaritan Woman, and the Man Born Blind. The following three Sundays are known, in order, as the Sunday of the Paralytic, the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman, and the Sunday of the Man Born Blind, because of the Gospel readings and the hymns prescribed for them. The incidents commemorated in these feasts all demonstrate the divine authority, identity and power of Christ, which were then fully revealed by his Resurrection.

The healing of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda or Bethsaida (John 5.1-18) shows Christ’s authority over the Sabbath because it was on the Sabbath day that He healed the paralytic.

The conversation of the Lord with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well near Sychar (John 4.3-42) reaches its high point when the Lord discloses his identity: “I am the One [the Christ] Who is speaking to you now” (4:26). At the end of the story, the Samaritans openly declare, “We are certain that He is the Savior of the world" (4:42).

Finally, the healing of the blind man (John 9:1-41) demonstrates the divine power of Christ and the fact that He came from God: “This is the first time in history that anyone has ever given sight to someone born blind. Jesus could not do anything unless He came from God” (9:32).

4. Mid-Pentecost. The Wednesday after the Sunday of the Paralytic falls exactly in the middle of the 50 days of the period of Pentecost and is consequently called Mid-Pentecost (Mesopentekoste). It is a Festal Day, and according to ancient custom, it draws its meaning from the Gospel prescribed for it (John 7.14-30). This Gospel lesson contains the speech of the Lord made in the Temple, in the middle of the feast of the Tabernacles (Skenopegias), which explains His authority over the Sabbath in terms of the divine origin of both His teaching and His existence. Central to this are the Lord’s words to the people of Jerusalem: “I did not come on My own. The One Who sent Me is truthful, and you do not know Him. But I know the One Who sent Me, because I came from Him” (7:28). Also central are the words the Lord uttered on the last day of the Feast which anticipate the Outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost: “If you are thirsty, come to Me and drink! Have faith in Me, and you will have life-giving water flowing from deep inside you” (7:37). The hymns of this Feast recall the miracles of the Lord, which demonstrate His Godhead, and admonish the Christians “to keep steadfastly the commandments of the Lord in order to become worthy to celebrate his Ascension and to participate in the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Doxastikon ton Ainon).

5. The Return of Pascha. On the Wednesday after the Sunday of the Man Born Blind (the 6th Sunday after Pascha), we celebrate the Return (apodosis), or completion, of the post-festal period of Pascha. The services of the day, which include a paschal liturgy, are sung in a manner identical to that of the New Week. This is actually the 39th day after Pascha, the eve of the Ascension Day, when we sing the Resurrection Hymn, Christos Anesti, and exchange the Resurrection greeting for the last time.

6. The Ascension. On the following day, which is the 40th day after Pascha, the Ascension of the Lord into Heaven is commemorated. The feast of the Ascension (Analipseos) is explicitly mentioned in the fourth century, but its origins most probably go back to the preceding centuries. The ancient church manual, Apostolic Constitutions, makes the following comment about it: “Again counting 40 days after the first Sunday, you must celebrate from Sunday until Thursday the feast of the Ascension of the Lord, in which He fulfilled the whole economy and design of our salvation, ascended to God the Father, Who had sent Him, and sat at the right hand of the Power to wait until His enemies are placed under his feet” (Book V, chapter 20).

The feast of the Ascension, then, marks the end and the sealing of the work of the Lord on Earth, as well as the Ascension of human nature to heaven and consequently foreshadows the forthcoming Gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. It is celebrated until the Friday of the following week, when it is returned (and therefore closed).

The meaning of the Lord’s Ascension is also connected with His eternal priesthood. The Epistle to the Hebrews sums it up as follows: “We have a Great High Priest Who has gone into Heaven, Jesus the Son of God” (4:14)... Jesus has gone there (behind the curtain and into the most holy place) ahead of us, and He is our High Priest forever, just like Melchizedek (6:20)... Jesus will never die, and so He will be a Priest forever. He is forever able to save the people He leads to God because He always lives to speak to God for them. Jesus is the High Priest we need (7:24-26)... He is the perfect High Priest forever (7:28)... who sits at the right side of God’s great throne in heaven (8:1).”

7. Sunday of the Holy Fathers. The Sunday, which falls in the middle of the festal period of the Ascension (the 7th Sunday after Pascha), is dedicated to the 318 Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325 AD) and is consequently known as the Sunday of the Holy Fathers (Ton Pateron).

The Gospel of this day comes from the Lord’s High Priestly Prayer for the unity of Christians found in John 17:1-13. The Church ordered the commemoration of the Fathers on this particular Sunday because the Eparchial Synods, which were summoned for the purpose of dealing with various local matters, usually met during the Pentecostal period.

Successors of the Apostles, the Fathers, have kept the apostolic faith through their teachings. The Kontakion of the Feast puts this most eloquently and clearly: “The preaching of the Apostles and the dogmas of the Fathers sealed one faith for the Church which, wearing the garment of truth waved with theology from above, rightly dispenses and glorifies the great mystery of piety.”

The Saturday before Pentecost is a Saturday of the Souls (Psychosabbaton), and prayers are offered for those who fell asleep that they, too, may become worthy through our prayers of the Pentecostal gift, which is commemorated the next day.

8. Pentecost Sunday. The Christian feast of Pentecost corresponds to the Hebrew feast which bears the same name, and in which the first fruits of Israel’s new crops were offered to God (Protogennemata).

The Christian feast commemorates the first fruits of the preaching of the Apostles, which followed the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them on the day of Pentecost, and on account of which the first Christian Church was born and established with three thousand souls. Ever since Pentecost, the Spirit abides in the Church and regulates the Church’s life and growth. The Spirit brings the entire constitution of the Church together as the Body of Christ. As the Comforter (Parakletos), He is the pledge of Christ’s return and final victory with the entire body of the Church.

The celebration of this feast goes back to apostolic times. According to ancient custom, catechumens were baptized on this occasion and therefore, even today, no Trisagion is sung during the Liturgy. Instead, the hymn “Those baptized into Christ, have put on Christ,” is sung. The vespers of this day, following immediately after the Divine Liturgy, is especially notable because of the long kneeling supplication, which is offered after the Entrance. This supplication is the first of several which follow after the feast, having been previously suspended during the Pentecostal Period.

Pentecost is celebrated throughout the week and is returned on the following Saturday. The Monday of the post-festal period is distinguished from the other post-festal days because it is dedicated to the Holy Spirit (Deftera tou Agiou Pneumatos). The services of the day follow the pattern of the preceding Pentecostal Sunday. Fasting is not observed during the week of (after) Pentecost.

The Doxastikon hymn of the day is the well known prayer with which most Church services begin and which is used by many Orthodox Christians as a first Prayer of each day: “Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, present everywhere and filling all things, come and abide in us; cleanse us from every stain and save our souls Gracious Lord.”

9. Sunday of All-Saints. The Sunday after Pentecost is known as the Sunday of All Saints. It is a very ancient feast mentioned at the end of the fourth century and seems to have been initially instituted as a feast in honor of all the Martyrs.

The Church always honored the Martyrs. Since honoring the Martyrs was originally a local affair, however, many of the Martyrs were unknown, and it is probably for this reason that such a feast was instituted to honor all Martyrs, known and unknown. This feast was placed very appropriately after Pentecost because the Church was watered and increased through the witness and blood of the Martyrs. Later, when the Church honored others as Saints besides the Martyrs, the moveable feast after Pascha acquired a more general character and was changed into a feast in honor of all the Saints.

10. The Feast of the Holy Apostles. On the Monday after the Sunday of All Saints, a fast is observed for the Feast of the Holy Apostles. Originally, this was a weekly fast as it is explicitly stated in the Apostolic Constitutions (Book V, chapter 20). Later on, it was connected with the feast of the Holy Apostles (June 29-30) and was extended to the whole period from the Monday after the Sunday of All Saints to the 28th of June.

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Love God As a Son and Fear Him As a Slave

"It is befitting for a monk to love God as a son and to fear Him as a slave," says St. Evgarius. Naturally, this is also befitting to every Christian, even though he might not be a monk. It is a great art for anyone to unite love for God and to have fear of God. Many other Holy Fathers whenever they speak about love for God, at the same time, also mention fear of God, and vice-versa. In his homily: "On Perfect Love," St. John Chrysostom speaks about suffering and the pains of Hell at the same time. Why? Because the great love of man toward God without fear, imperceptibly crosses over into pride and then, again, a great fear of God without love leads to despair.

- St. Nikolai Velimirovich, Prologue

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Saints Anthony, John, and Eustathius of Lithuania

Holy Martyrs Anthony, John, and Eustathius (Feast Day - April 14)

The Holy Martyrs Anthony, John, and Eustathius were brothers who suffered for Christ under the Lithuanian Great Prince Olgerd (1345-1377). The prince was married to the Orthodox princess Maria Yaroslavna (+ 1346). He was baptized and during his wife's lifetime he allowed the preaching of Christianity. Two brothers, Nezhilo and Kumets, received holy Baptism from the priest Nestor, and they received the names Anthony and John. And at the request of Maria Yaroslavna an Orthodox church was built at Vilnius (Vilna).

After the death of his spouse, Prince Olgerd began to support the pagan priests of the fire-worshippers, who started a persecution against Christians. Sts John and Anthony endeavored not to flaunt their Christianity, but they did not observe pagan customs. They did not cut their hair as the pagans did, and on fast days they did not eat forbidden foods.

The prince soon became suspicious of the brothers, so he interrogated them and they confessed themselves Christians. Then he demanded that they eat meat (it was a fast day). The holy brothers refused, and the prince locked them up in prison. The brothers spent an entire year behind bars. John took fright at the impending tortures and declared that he would obey all the demands of the Great Prince. The delighted Olgerd released the brothers and brought them to himself.

But Anthony did not betray Christ. When he refused to eat meat on a fast day, the prince again locked him up in prison and subjected him to brutal tortures. The other brother remained free, but both Christians and pagans regarded him as a traitor and would not associate with him.

Repenting of his sin, John went to the priest Nestor and entreated him to ask his brother to forgive him. "When he openly confesses Christ, we will be reconciled," Anthony replied. Once, while serving the prince at the bath, St John spoke privately with him about his reconciliation with the Church. Olgerd did not display any anger and said that he could believe in Christ, but must conduct himself like all the pagans. Then St John confessed himself a Christian in the presence of numerous courtiers. They beat him fiercely with rods and sent him to his brother in prison. The martyrs met with joy, and received the Holy Mysteries that same day.

Many people went to the prison to see the new confessors. The brothers converted many to Christ by their preaching. The prison was transformed into a Christian school. The frightened pagan priests demanded the execution of the brothers, but they did not fear death.

On the morning of April 14, 1347 the Martyr Anthony was hanged on a tree after receiving the Holy Mysteries. This oak, which the pagans considered sacred, became truly sacred for Orthodox Christians.


The pagan priests who hoped that Christian preaching would stop with the death of St Anthony, were disappointed. A multitude of the people gathered before the walls of the prison where St John was being held. On April 24, 1347 they strangled him and hanged his dead body upon the same oak. The venerable bodies of both martyrs were buried by Christians in the church of St Nicholas the Wonderworker.

A third sufferer for Christ was their relative Kruglets. At Baptism the priest Nestor named him Eustathius. Kruglets stood out because of his comeliness, valor and bravery, but even more because of his mind and virtue of soul. A favorite of Olgerd, he could count on a very promising future. However, he also refused to eat meat at the festal table. St Eustathius openly declared that he was a Christian and would not eat meat because of the Nativity Fast.

They began to beat him with iron rods, but the youth did not make a sound. The prince tried refining the torture. Olgerd gave orders to strip the martyr naked, take him out on the street and to pour icy water in his mouth. But this did not break his spirit. Then they broke his ankle bones, and ripped the hair and skin from his head, and cut off his ears and nose. St Eustathius endured the torments with such gladness and courage, that the very torturers themselves were astounded by the divine power which strengthened him. The martyr Eustathius was sentenced to death and hanged on the same oak where Sts John and Anthony received a martyr's death (December 13, 1347).

For three days no one was permitted to take down the body of the martyr, and a column of cloud protected it from birds and beasts of prey. A church was later built on the hill where the holy martyrs suffered. The trinity of venerable passion bearers glorified the true God worshipped in the Holy Trinity, Father and Son and Holy Spirit. The church was dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity. The altar table was built on the stump of the sacred oak on which the martyrs died.


Soon their relics were found to be incorrupt. In 1364 Patriarch Philotheus of Constantinople (1354-1355, 1364-1376) sent a cross with the relics of the holy martyrs to St Sergius of Radonezh (September 25). The Church established the celebration of all three martyrs on April 14.

The holy martyrs were of immense significance for all the Western frontier. Vilnius's monastery of the Holy Trinity, where the holy relics are kept, became a stronghold of Orthodoxy on this frontier. In 1915 during the invasion of the Germans, these relics were taken to Moscow.

The relics of the holy passion-bearers were returned to the Vilnius Holy Spirit monastery in 1946. The commemoration of their return (July 13) is solemnly observed at the monastery each year.

On April 14 we also commemorate the Vilnius (Vilna) Icon of the Mother of God:

The Vilnius (Vilna) Icon of the Mother of God was painted by the holy Evangelist For a long time it was in the family of the Greek emperors at Constantinople. In 1472 Sophia Paleologina, wife of the Moscow Great Prince Ivan III (1462-1505), transferred the icon to Moscow.

In 1495 the Great Prince blessed his daughter Elena with this icon before giving her in marriage to the Lithuanian king Alexander. The Church celebrates the transfer of this icon to Vilnius on February 15.

Later, the holy icon was placed in the church of St John the Forerunner, in which Princess Elena was buried. Afterwards, they transferred the icon to Vilnius's Holy Trinity monastery.

The Vilnius icon is also commemorated on February 15.

Source

St. Nikolai Velimirovich writes of the Holy Martyrs:

All three were pagans and, at first, were fire worshippers. All of them were servants in the palace of the Lithuanian Prince Olgard in Vilna. They were formerly called: KRUGLETZ, KUMETZ AND NEZILO. All three were baptized by Nestor, the priest. All three were hanged, one after the other on the same oak tree in the year 1347 A.D. Christians cut down the tree and erected a church in honor of the Holy Trinity. The revered relics of these martyrs were then placed in this church and a holy altar table was carved from the stump of the oak tree. Their relics repose in Vilna.

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The Personal Experience of All the Apostles

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands, we proclaim now to you" (1 John 1:1).

Behold, such is the apostolic preaching! The apostles do not speak as worldly sages, nor like philosophers and even less as theoreticians who make suppositions about something in order to discover something. The apostles speak about things which they have not sought but which unexpectedly surrounded them; about the fact which they did not discover but, so to speak, unexpectedly found them and seized them. They did not occupy themselves with spiritual researches nor have they studied psychology, neither did they, much less, occupy themselves with spiritism.

Their occupation was fishing - one totally experiential physical occupation. While they were fishing, the God-Man [Jesus] appeared to them and cautiously and slowly introduced them to a new vocation in the service of Himself. At first, they did not believe Him but they, still more cautiously and slowly with fear and hesitation and much wavering, came toward Him and recognized Him. Until the apostles saw Him many times with their own eyes and until they discussed Him many times among themselves and, until they felt Him with their own hands, their experienced fact is supernatural but their method of recognizing this fact is thoroughly sensory and positively learned. Not even one contemporary scholar would be able to use a more positive method to know Christ. The apostles saw not only one miracle but numerous miracles. They heard not only one lesson but many lessons which could not be contained in numerous books. They saw the resurrected Lord for forty days; they walked with Him, they conversed with Him, they ate with Him, and they touched Him. In a word: they personally and first handedly had thousands of wondrous facts by which they learned and confirmed one great fact, i.e., that Christ is the God-Man, the Son of the Living God, the Man-loving Savior of mankind and the All-Powerful Judge of the living and the dead.

O Resurrected Lord, confirm us in the faith and ardor of Your Holy Apostles. Amen.

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Orthodox Nun Stops Suicide Surge in Russian Village

Nun Stops Suicide Surge in a Village of the Amur Region

Moscow, 14 April 2010, Interfax - An Orthodox nun managed to stop a suicide surge among the residents of Otvazhnoye village of the Amur Region, Russia.

From the 1970s, the whole families of the village have committed suicides. People willingly killed themselves almost every month. This trend was turned around only when the former agriculturist Galina Neuman had taken monastic vows and established a parish, reports Wednesday a Far Eastern issue of Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

Galina Neuman, now Mother Domnikia, came to live in the village about 40 years ago. After her elder son had hanged himself, she began regularly attending the church and decided to establish a parish in place of the dilapidated state farm office. She spent the whole amount of her retirement pension to renovate the building. However, her initiative found no support with her hometown who used to insult her and even spit her in the face.

After the parish was opened, people brought their whole families to take baptism. Those who used to spit the nun in the face were the first to ask for baptism. The residents of the village ceased to kill themselves on their own free will. Only one man committed suicide during the last three years, because he could not stand the agony of cancer.

The original Russian article here also contains the following detail:

Last February a tired traveler strolled into the village parish. He fell before the icons on his knees, prayed for a long time, then asked the nun to give him some water; and as if confessing told his story:

"I am from the next village. I was walking to the rails of the Trans-Siberian Railroad to lay down under a train [to commit suicide], when I saw an Orthodox Cross appear to me. [And I thought] 'my own legs brought me here. Now I will go back, I have two children at home....'

Mother Domnikia embraced him and, for the first time since the funeral of her son, the nun started to weep aloud, remembering those dozens of villagers who voluntarily were snuffed out of life, while she was struggling for years for state farm harvests (crops).

And now Mother Domnikia on her own is struggling with the village moonshiners, who are selling death and tears. [The suicides are primarily alcohol related].

"I visit their houses, and ask, try to appeal, and try to reach their conscience. I pray for them as they don't know what they do. Money won't bring them happiness," Mother Domnikia believes."

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The Jesus We'll Never Know

Why scholarly attempts to discover the 'real' Jesus have failed. And why that's a good thing.

Scot McKnight
4/09/2010
Christianity Today

On the opening day of my class on Jesus of Nazareth, I give a standardized psychological test divided into two parts. The results are nothing short of astounding.

The first part is about Jesus. It asks students to imagine Jesus' personality, with questions such as, "Does he prefer to go his own way rather than act by the rules?" and "Is he a worrier?" The second part asks the same questions of the students, but instead of "Is he a worrier?" it asks, "Are you a worrier?" The test is not about right or wrong answers, nor is it designed to help students understand Jesus. Instead, if given to enough people, the test will reveal that we all think Jesus is like us. Introverts think Jesus is introverted, for example, and, on the basis of the same questions, extroverts think Jesus is extroverted.

Spiritual formation experts would love to hear that students in my Jesus class are becoming like Jesus, but the test actually reveals the reverse: Students are fashioning Jesus to be more like themselves. If the test were given to a random sample of adults, the results would be measurably similar. To one degree or another, we all conform Jesus to our own image.

Since we are pushing this point, let's not forget historical Jesus scholars, whose academic goal is to study the records, set the evidence in historical context, render judgment about the value of the evidence, and compose a portrait of "what Jesus was really like." They, too, have ended up making Jesus in their own image.

Heyday for the Historical Jesus

In the 1980s, the central academic organization for biblical studies, the Society of Biblical Literature (SBL), was energized in remarkable ways by a renewed interest in the historical Jesus, a project that had been abandoned for some decades. At that time, the Jesus Seminar, designed by former childhood preacher and fervent critic of all things orthodox Robert Funk, frequently made headlines. Noted scholars sat at tables and voted on what Jesus really said and did based on the historical evidence. Funk and others drew up their conclusions in books that supposedly revealed the real Jesus.

Some of these studies were outlandish, some much closer to orthodoxy and the canonical Gospels. The headline-grabbing names included Ben F. Meyer, E. P. Sanders, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, Paula Fredriksen, and N. T. (Tom) Wright. I have sat in packed lecture halls to watch Tom and Dom go at it, and I've listened in as two friends, Marc and Tom, bantered back and forth about who was getting it right. Paula, a Catholic convert to Judaism, continued to warn the entire discipline that too many errors were being made about Judaism. Those were heady days, and I remember giving a paper to over 500 scholars about how Jesus understood his own death. The neon-light days for the historical Jesus are now over.

So, what did the loaded expression "the historical Jesus" really refer to?

To begin with, "Jesus" refers to the Jesus who lived and breathed and ate and talked and called disciples. This Jesus is the Jesus who was crucified under Pontius Pilate and, according to the witness of many, was raised again. Through historical studies, this Jesus has been set in his Jewish context. We might call this Jesus the "Jewish Jesus."

Then again, the four evangelists and the other New Testament authors, because they encountered Jesus in the context of how Scripture unfolded, interpreted Jesus by using terms like "Messiah," "Son of God," and "Son of Man," understanding him as the agent of God's redemption. We might call this Jesus the "canonical Jesus."

One more level needs to be observed: the church has amplified its understanding of "Jesus," because it has interpreted Jesus in light of theological concerns. Let us refer to this Jesus as the "orthodox Jesus," the second person of the Trinity, God from God and Light from Light.

But the historical Jesus is someone or something else. The historical Jesus is the Jesus whom scholars have reconstructed on the basis of historical methods over against the canonical portraits of Jesus in the Gospels of our New Testament, and over against the orthodox Jesus of the church. The historical Jesus is more like the Jewish Jesus than the canonical Jesus or the orthodox Jesus. Drawing distinctions between these various Jesuses is important in order to understand what has happened in the contemporary academic scene.

First, the historical Jesus is the Jesus whom scholars reconstruct on the basis of historical methods. Scholars differ, so reconstructions differ. Furthermore, the methods that scholars use differ, so the reconstructions differ all the more. But this must be said: Most historical Jesus scholars assume that the Gospels are historically unreliable; thus, as a matter of discipline, they assess the Gospels to see if the evidence is sound. They do this by using methods common to all historical work but that are uniquely shaped by historical Jesus studies. The essential criterion used in most historical Jesus studies is called "double dissimilarity." Even though it is riddled with holes, this method is still used by many historical Jesus scholars.

According to the criterion of double dissimilarity, the only sayings or actions of Jesus that can be trusted are those that are dissimilar to both Judaism at the time of Jesus and to the beliefs of the earliest Christians immediately after Jesus. One of the most noteworthy examples is Jesus' characteristically calling God Abba, a title for God rarely found in Judaism or in earliest Christianity.

This example, though, is problematic from the get-go: Abba (an affectionate term for "Father," something akin to "Daddy") is in fact not genuinely doubly dissimilar, for it is found in Judaism, if rarely, as well as in Aramaic in the New Testament; moreover, the word Father is found everywhere. But, historical exceptions aside, that Jesus called God Abba won the day as a historically reliable attribute, and therefore won the hearts of all historical Jesus scholars.

Other criteria were developed, criticized, dropped, and modified, but all have this in common: Historical Jesus scholars reconstruct what Jesus was like by using historical methods to determine what in the Gospels can be trusted.
Second, the word reconstruct needs more attention. Most historical Jesus scholars assume that the Gospels have overcooked their portrait of Jesus, and that the church's Trinitarian theology wildly exceeds anything Jesus thought about himself and anything the evangelists believed. These scholars pursue a Jesus who is less than or different from or more primitive than what the Gospels teach and the church believes. There is no reason to do historical Jesus studies—to probe "what Jesus was really like"—if the Gospels are accurate and the church's beliefs are justified. There are only two reasons to engage in historical Jesus studies: first, to see if the church got him right; and second, if the church did not, to find the Jesus who is more authentic than the church's Jesus.

This leads to a fundamental observation about all genuine historical Jesus studies: Historical Jesus scholars construct what is in effect a fifth gospel. The reconstructed Jesus is not identical to the canonical Jesus or the orthodox Jesus. He is the reconstructed Jesus, which means he is a "new" Jesus.

Furthermore, these scholars by and large believe in the Jesus they reconstruct. During what's called the "first quest" for the historical Jesus, in the early 20th century, Albert Schweitzer understood Jesus as an apocalyptic Jesus. In the latest quest, Sanders's Jesus is an eschatological prophet; Crossan's Jesus is a Mediterranean peasant cynic full of wit and critical of the Establishment; Borg's Jesus is a mystical genius; Wright's Jesus is an end-of-the-exile messianic prophet who believed he was God returning to Zion. We could go on, but we have made our point: Historical Jesus scholars reconstruct what Jesus was really like and orient their faith around that reconstruction.
This leads to a third point, one that needs renewed emphasis today: Historical Jesus scholars reconstruct Jesus in conscious contrast with the categories of the evangelists and the beliefs of the church. Wright is the most orthodox of the well-known historical Jesus scholars; I can count on one hand the number of historical Jesus scholars who hold orthodox beliefs. The inspiration for historical Jesus scholarship is that the Gospels overdid it, and that the church more or less absorbed the Galilean prophet into Greek philosophical categories. The quest for the historical Jesus is an attempt to get behind the theology and the established faith to the Jesus who was—I must say it this way—much more like the Jesus we would like him to be.

One has to wonder if the driving force behind much historical Jesus scholarship is more an a priori disbelief in orthodoxy than a historian's genuine (and disinterested) interest in what really happened. The theological conclusions of those who pursue the historical Jesus simply correlate too strongly with their own theological predilections to suggest otherwise.

The question that many of us in the discipline must ask is this: Can theology or Christology or, more importantly, faith itself be connected to the vicissitudes of historical research and results?

Whose Jesus will We Trust?

The last session on the historical Jesus that I attended at the SBL meetings met in a small room, and there were about 20 of us there. The session, during which I gave a short paper, tells the story of the discipline itself.

The scholarly hope that we would discover the original Jesus had crashed against the rugged rocks of reality, and on that day we witnessed the end of a disciplinary era. One by one, most of us had become convinced that no matter how hard we tried, reaching the uninterpreted Jesus was nearly impossible—however fun and rewarding it was and however many insights about the Gospels we discovered along the way. Furthermore, a reconstructed Jesus is just that—one scholar's version of Jesus. It is unlikely to convince anyone other than the scholar, his or her students (who more or less feel obligated to agree), and perhaps a few others.

German theologian Martin Kähler convinced his generation that faith in Jesus could not and should not rest on historians' conclusions about what did and did not happen and the consequent reconstructions that entailed. We must be willing to ask, Whose Jesus will we trust? Will it be that of the evangelists and the apostles? Will it be that of the church—the creedal, orthodox Jesus? Will it be the latest proposal from a brilliant historian? Or will it be our own consensus based on modern-day historical scholarship? There is an irreducible futility to the historical Jesus enterprise.

We have now seen the death of latest historical Jesus studies as we know them. Well, not for all, because some are busy trying to reconstruct Jesus for themselves and for any who will listen. Still, the enthusiasm is gone, and the critical proposals are more often met with a ho-hum "yet one more" than a hope that we may once and for all have found the one who was buried under the interpretation of the earliest Christians.

Sitting on my desk is volume four of J. P. Meier's Rethinking the Historical Jesus. What began as a two-volume venture has doubled, and one or two more volumes are forthcoming. Volume one generated all kinds of conversation; volume four entered the market with barely a notice. Sitting next to Meier on my desk is Martin Hengel's Jesus und das Judentum, over 700 pages and perhaps the last volume from the titan of scholarship. Someone will translate Hengel, doctoral students will read it, professors will use it, reviewers will say that it's brilliant, an occasional pastor will find it useful, but in a decade it will all be forgotten. Why? Historical Jesus scholarship has come to the end of the road.

Two recent scholars have read the obituary for historical Jesus studies. James D. G. Dunn, in both the hefty Jesus Remembered and the slender A New Perspective on Jesus, argues that the furthest we can get behind the Gospels is to the underlying strata of Jesus as his earliest followers remembered him. That is as far as we can go. That is the Jesus who gave rise to the Christian faith, and that is the only Jesus worth pursuing. In Dunn's view, the "remembered" Jesus contains the faith perspective of the earliest followers of Jesus, and behind that faith perspective we cannot go.

Dale Allison, whom I consider the most knowledgeable New Testament scholar in the United States, is less sanguine and more cynical than Dunn in his newest book, The Historical Christ and the Theological Jesus, which in my judgment plays Taps for the quest for the historical Jesus. After three decades of work in and around the historical Jesus, Allison sketches the variety of views about the historical Jesus and the supposed modern theory that if we put our heads together we will arrive at firm conclusions. Allison offers this depressing conclusion: "Progress has not touched all subjects equally, and whatever consensus may exist, it remains mostly boring."

Allison admits this about one of his own books on Jesus: "I opened my eyes to the obvious: I had created a Jesus in my own image, after my own likeness." He's not done: "Professional historians are not bloodless templates passively registering the facts: we actively and imaginatively project. Our rationality cannot be extricated from our sentiments and feelings, our hopes and fears, our hunches and ambitions." So, he ponders, "Maybe we have unthinkingly reduced biography [of Jesus] to autobiography."

On top of this genuine problem is the problem of method. Allison: "The fragmentary and imperfect nature of the evidence as well as the limitations of our historical-critical abilities should move us to confess, if we are conscientious, how hard it is to recover the past." With one ringing line, Allison pronounces death: "We wield our criteria to get what we want."

There is, in other words, no value-or theology-free method that will enable us to get back to Jesus. Allison is not a total skeptic; he thinks that we can get behind the Gospels to find some genuine impressions. But his book led me to conclude, "The era is over."

Two scholars, both highly devoted to the discipline of historical Jesus studies, come from two angles to relatively similar conclusions: the historical Jesus game has run its course and it cannot deliver us the original Jesus.

What has been Shown

I now make a confession. For the better part of my academic career, I have participated in studies of the Gospels and the historical Jesus. I am an insider to the conversation, and have been part of the steering committee for the SBL'S Historical Jesus Section. In fact, I was once asked to be the chair. Had that invitation come five years earlier, I would have eagerly accepted the responsibility. But that invitation came at the end of a long project of mine that culminated in my book Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory. I declined the position because I could no longer commit myself to historical Jesus studies. The last thing I wrote in that book was the first chapter, which was an essay about method and what historical Jesus studies can accomplish.

Attentive readers will observe that the first chapter relativizes the theological significance of historical Jesus efforts. I had tried my best to see where the methods would lead if I sought to examine if and how the historical Jesus understood his own death. Some of my results disappointed, because I wanted to be able to prove some texts as authentic that I found stubbornly resistant to the methods available to us. Historiography, I concluded, can only do so much. One day, while editing the final draft, I came across these words from Romans 4:25: "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification."

This is what I said to myself: As a historian I think I can prove that Jesus died and that he thought his death was atoning. I think I can establish that the tomb was empty and that resurrection is the best explanation for the empty tomb. But one thing the historical method cannot prove is that Jesus died for our sins and was raised for our justification. At some point, historical methods run out of steam and energy. Historical Jesus studies cannot get us to the point where the Holy Spirit and the church can take us. I know that once I was blind and that I can now see. I know that historical methods did not give me sight. They can't. Faith cannot be completely based on what the historian can prove. The quest for the real Jesus, through long and painful paths, has proven that much.

Scot McKnight is professor of religion at North Park University in Chicago, and the author of many books, including The Jesus Creed.

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Former Atheist Philosopher Anthony Flew Is Dead

Sadly, the famous philosopher Anthony Flew, who was most known for being the best-known academic atheist yet in his latter years came to believe in God, died on April 8th at the age of 87. I had the pleasure of meeting him about ten years ago when I attended a debate between Dr. Flew and Dr Gary Habermas, who was my professor at the time, on the topic of the resurrection of Christ on the set of the John Ankerburg Show in Charlotte, North Carolina. Dr. Flew was an atheist at the time arguing against the validity of Christ's resurrection from the dead, yet unlike today's militant atheists he was a very kind and pleasurable man to speak with. I believe it was this debate that helped put him on the road towards theism. During the debate he was obviously stumped against the powerful arguments in favor of the Gospel accounts of the resurrection and their historicity. I'll never forget during this moment, which can be seen on video, he turned to the audience and gave a rant about why he refuses to believe in the God of Christianity, which in fact was a rant against the vengeful bloodthirsty God of the West who requires atonement and appeasement to save man and who allows horrible suffering in the world. I remember turning to my wife at that point in a room full of Evangelical Protestants and saying how his arguments are not against God, but against the misconception of God exploited by the West. Yet it should be noted that the audience and his opponent in the debate treated him also with great respect and honor, of which I believe allowed for him to have an open mind and question his own thinking on the issue. Speaking with Dr. Habermas during the intermission, he mentioned to me that Dr. Flew had requested for further information into the evidence that was presented for the historicity of the resurrection that he could study in private. I knew back then that if given the time, Dr. Flew would abandon atheism. In 2004 my prediction came true. May the Lord grant him eternal rest.

Here are Dr. Flew's words on why he turned to a belief in God:

"There were two factors in particular that were decisive. One was my growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe. The second was my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself – which is far more complex than the physical Universe – can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source. I believe that the origin of life and reproduction simply cannot be explained from a biological standpoint despite numerous efforts to do so. With every passing year, the more that was discovered about the richness and inherent intelligence of life, the less it seemed likely that a chemical soup could magically generate the genetic code. The difference between life and non-life, it became apparent to me, was ontological and not chemical. The best confirmation of this radical gulf is Richard Dawkins' comical effort to argue in The God Delusion that the origin of life can be attributed to a 'lucky chance'. If that's the best argument you have, then the game is over. No, I did not hear a Voice. It was the evidence itself that led me to this conclusion..."


Obituary for Professor Antony Flew

More on Anthony Flew

Video on why he changed his mind

Video on belief in the after life

Dr. Habermas responds to atheist critics of Dr. Flew's conversion

Anthony Flew reviews Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion

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Hindu Absurdity of the Week: The Dog God

People Build a Temple For Dog in Karnataka

April 10, 2010
One India

A community in Karnataka has established an unconventional temple to pay respects to the epitome of faithfulness - the dog.

Buzz up!The common dog has been raised to the status of God in Channapatna's Ramanagar district, where the people not only have built a temple for the animal but are also conducting poojas to the dog-God.

Besides idolising the dog for its faithful nature, the worshippers believe that the dog has the capability of donning a far more grave and unplayful avatar, when needed, to stop any wrongdoing or to set things right.

This aggressive animal is believed to work alongside the village deity. There are two idols in the temple representing the two faces of the animal.

Animals are commonly worshipped in Hinduism, the religion followed by the majority in the country. The ancient religion bestows animals such as cows with divinity.

It is also interesting to note that India, which is often known as the land of temples, not only boasts of ancient and historically significant temples but also some peculiar specimens such as the famous temple for south Indian actress Khusboo in Tamil Nadu and the temple built for politician and Dalit leader Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh.

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My Lord and My God!

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

"My Lord and my God" (John 20:28).

When the Apostle Thomas felt the wounds of the Lord Jesus, he cried out: "My Lord and my God!"

When Mary Magdalene heard the voice of the resurrected One in her soul, she cried out: "My Lord and my God!"

When Saul saw the light and heard the words of the resurrected One, he acknowledged: "My Lord and my God!"

When the pagans, in amazement, observed how the countless numbers of martyrs joyfully undergo pains and asked them: "Who is this Christ?" All of them replied: "My Lord and my God!"

When the scoffers ridiculed the army of ascetics and asked them: "Who is He, for Whom they took upon themselves the awesome burden of mortification? They all had one answer: "My Lord and my God!"

When the scorners derided the virgins who vowed their virginity and asked them: "Who is He for Whom they renounced marriage?" They all had one answer: "My Lord and my God!"

When the avaricious in astonishment asked the very wealthy: "Who is He for Whom they distribute their wealth and become beggarly?" All of them replied, one and the same: "My Lord and my God!"

Some have seen Him and have said: "My Lord and my God!" Some have only heard Him and said: "My Lord and my God!" Some have only felt Him and said: "My Lord and my God!" Some have only observed Him in the fabric of events and in the destinies of peoples and said: "My Lord and my God!" Some have felt His presence in their lives and cried out: "My Lord and my God!" Some have recognized Him by some sign, on themselves or on others, and cried out: "My Lord and my God!" Still some have only heard about Him from others and believed and cried out: "My Lord and my God!" Truly, these last ones are the most blessed!

Let us also exclaim, with all our hearts, regardless of how we have come to recognize Him or how we have come to learn about Him: "My Lord and my God!"

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St. Crescens Served God In Both Body and Soul

St. Crescens the Martyr of Myra (Feast Day - April 13)

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Crescens was from the city of Myra in Lycia. He was an honored and well known citizen. He openly confessed his faith in Christ and mocked the dead idols. Because of that he was burned to death by the pagans.

When they brought the martyr Crescens, a nobleman of Myra in Lycia, to court the judge, in order to persuade him to worship idols, counseled him for a long time. When he did not succeed, he finally said to Crescens: "Worship [idols] only in the body and bow down before your God in the spirit!" To that, the honorable Crescens replied: "The body cannot do anything independent of the soul, which is its driving force and leader." For that Crescens was killed. An obvious lesson that a Christian cannot be duplicitous. Still another lesson: A Christian has an obligation to serve his Creator even with the body and not only with the soul. By this is refuted the false position of certain Christians who live physically as pagans and meanwhile praise themselves that they believe in God and love God with their souls. They divide themselves in two and place themselves in the service of two masters, even though the holiest lips [The Lips of Jesus Christ] proclaimed that as an impossibility.

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Vatican Does Not Recognize Kosovo Independence

Vatican on Kosovo and Serbian Orthodox Church

13 April 2010
Bojana Barlovac
Balkan Insight

Cardinal Walter Kasper, who is a member of the Pontifical Council, said that the Vatican had not recognised Kosovo's independence out of consideration for the Serbian Orthodox Church, SPC.

In an interview with the Catholic news agency Kathpress, Kasper said that "We, of course, know that Kosovo is a heavy wound and pain for the SPC. We also know that it is the cradle and centre of Serbian Orthodoxy in Kosovo. We understand that and wish to have consideration for it."

Kosovo's ethnic Albanians unilaterally declared independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008. Belgrade, which firmly opposes the move, then took the case to the International Court of Justice. The Court's public hearings were held last year from December 1 to 11, while the judges are expected to deliver their opinion this year.

Kosovo has been recognized by 22 out of 27 EU member states.

According to Kapser, the Vatican supports the protection of Orthodox monuments, churches and monasteries in Kosovo and that it is very upset due to "certain cultural brutality."

"In Kosovo, significant historical, cultural and religious monuments have been destroyed. This must not be so. One cannot erase history in this way," he added.

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Does Reason Know What It Is Missing?

By STANLEY FISH
April 12, 2010
New York Times

The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has long been recognized as the most persistent and influential defender of an Enlightenment rationality that has been attacked both by postmodernism, which derides formal reason’s claims of internal coherence and neutrality, and by various fundamentalisms, which subordinate reason to religious imperatives that sweep everything before them, often not stopping at violence.

In his earlier work, Habermas believed, as many did, that the ambition of religion to provide a foundation of social cohesion and normative guidance could now, in the Modern Age, be fulfilled by the full development of human rational capacities harnessed to a “discourse ethics” that admitted into the conversation only propositions vying for the status of “better reasons,” with “better” being determined by a free and open process rather than by presupposed ideological or religious commitments: “…the authority of the holy,” he once declared, “is gradually replaced by the authority of an achieved consensus.”

In recent years, however, Habermas’s stance toward religion has changed. First, he now believes that religion is not going away and that it will continue to play a large and indispensable part in many societies and social movements. And second, he believes that in a post-secular age — an age that recognizes the inability of the secular to go it alone — some form of interaction with religion is necessary: “Among the modern societies, only those that are able to introduce into the secular domain the essential contents of their religious traditions which point beyond the merely human realm will also be able to rescue the substance of the human.”

The question of course is what does Habermas mean by “introduce”? How exactly is the cooperation between secular reason and faith to be managed? Habermas attempted to answer that question in the course of a dialogue with four Jesuit academics who met with him in Munich in 2007. The proceedings have now been published in Ciaran Cronin’s English translation (they appeared in German in 2008) under the title “An Awareness of What is Missing: Faith and Reason in a Post-secular Age.”

Habermas begins his initial contribution to the conversation by recalling the funeral of a friend who in life “rejected any profession of faith,” and yet indicated before his death that he wanted his memorial service to take place at St. Peter’s Church in Zurich. Habermas decides that his friend “had sensed the awkwardness of non-religious burial practices and, by his choice of place, publicly declared that the enlightened modern age has failed to find a suitable replacement for a religious way of coping with the final rite de passage.” The point can be sharpened: in the context of full-bodied secularism, there would seem to be nothing to pass on to, and therefore no reason for anything like a funeral.

To be sure, one could regard funerals for faith-less persons as a vestige of values no longer vital or as a concession to the feelings and desires of family members, but Habermas chooses to take it seriously “as a paradoxical event which tells us something about secular reason.” What it tells us, he goes on to say, is that secular reason is missing something and without it threatens to “spin out of control.”

What secular reason is missing is self-awareness. It is “unenlightened about itself” in the sense that it has within itself no mechanism for questioning the products and conclusions of its formal, procedural entailments and experiments. “Postmetaphysical thinking,” Habermas contends, “cannot cope on its own with the defeatism concerning reason which we encounter today both in the postmodern radicalization of the ‘dialectic of the Enlightenment’ and in the naturalism founded on a naïve faith in science.”

Postmodernism announces (loudly and often) that a supposedly neutral, objective rationality is always a construct informed by interests it neither acknowledges nor knows nor can know. Meanwhile science goes its merry way endlessly inventing and proliferating technological marvels without having the slightest idea of why. The “naive faith” Habermas criticizes is not a faith in what science can do — it can do anything — but a faith in science’s ability to provide reasons, aside from the reason of its own keeping on going, for doing it and for declining to do it in a particular direction because to do so would be wrong.

The counterpart of science in the political world is the modern Liberal state, which, Habermas reminds us, maintains “a neutrality . . . towards world views,” that is, toward comprehensive visions (like religious visions) of what life means, where it is going and what we should be doing to help it get there. The problem is that a political structure that welcomes all worldviews into the marketplace of ideas, but holds itself aloof from any and all of them, will have no basis for judging the outcomes its procedures yield. Worldviews bring with them substantive long-term goals that serve as a check against local desires. Worldviews furnish those who live within them with reasons that are more than merely prudential or strategic for acting in one way rather than another.

The Liberal state, resting on a base of procedural rationality, delivers no such goals or reasons and thus suffers, Habermas says, from a “motivational weakness”; it cannot inspire its citizens to virtuous (as opposed to self-interested) acts because it has lost “its grip on the images, preserved by religion, of the moral whole” and is unable to formulate “collectively binding ideals.”

The liberal citizen is taught that he is the possessor of rights and that the state exists to protect those rights, chief among which is his right to choose. The content of what he chooses — the direction in which he points his life — is a matter of indifference to the state which guarantees his right to go there just as it guarantees the corresponding rights of his neighbors (“different strokes for different folks”). Enlightenment rational morality, Habermas concludes, “is aimed at the insight of individuals, and does not foster any impulse toward solidarity, that is, toward morally guided collective action.”

The consequences of this “motivational weakness” can be seen all around us in the massive injustices nations and tribes inflict on one another. In the face of these injustices, a reason “decoupled from worldviews” does not, Habermas laments, have “sufficient strength to awaken, and to keep awake, in the minds of secular subjects, an awareness of the violations of solidarity throughout the world, an awareness of what is missing, of what cries out to heaven.”

So what will supply the strength that is missing? The answer is more than implied by the reference to heaven. Religion will supply it. But Habermas does not want to embrace religion wholesale for he does not want to give up the “cognitive achievements of modernity” — which include tolerance, equality, individual freedom, freedom of thought, cosmopolitanism and scientific advancement — and risk surrendering to the fundamentalisms that, he says, willfully “cut themselves off” from everything that is good about the Enlightenment project. And so he proposes something less than a merger and more like an agreement between trading partners: “…the religious side must accept the authority of ‘natural’ reason as the fallible results of the institutionalized sciences and the basic principles of universalistic egalitarianism in law and morality. Conversely, secular reason may not set itself up as the judge concerning truths of faith, even though in the end it can accept as reasonable only what it can translate into its own, in principle universally accessible, discourses.”

As Norbert Brieskorn, one of Habermas’s interlocutors, points out, in Habermas’s bargain “reason addresses demands to the religious communities” but “there is no mention of demands from the opposite direction.” Religion must give up the spheres of law, government, morality and knowledge; reason is asked only to be nice and not dismiss religion as irrational, retrograde and irrelevant. The “truths of faith” can be heard but only those portions of them that have secular counterparts can be admitted into the realm of public discourse. (It seems like a case of “separate but not equal.”) Religion gets to be respected; reason gets to borrow the motivational resources it lacks on its own, resources it can then use to put a brake on its out-of-control spinning.

The result, as Michael Reder, another of Habermas’s interlocutors, observes, is a religion that has been “instrumentalized,” made into something useful for a secular reason that still has no use for its teleological and eschatological underpinnings. Religions, explains Reder, are brought in only “to help to prevent or overcome social disruptions.” Once they have performed this service they go back in their box and don’t trouble us with uncomfortable cosmic demands. At best (and at most), according to Habermas, “the encounter with theology,” like an encounter at a cocktail party, “can remind a self-forgetful secular reason of its origins” in the same “revolutions in worldviews” that gave us monotheism. (One God and one reason stem from the same historical source.)

But Habermas gives us no reason (if you will pardon the word) to believe that such a reminder would be heeded and lead to reason’s being furnished with the motivation-for-solidarity it lacks. Why would secular reason, asked only to acknowledge a genealogical kinship with a form of thought it still compartmentalizes and condescends to, pay serious attention to what that form of thought has to offer? By Habermas’s own account the two great worldviews still remain far apart. Religions resist becoming happy participants in a companionable pluralism and insist on the rightness, for everyone, of their doctrines. Liberal rationality is committed to pluralism and cannot affirm the absolute rightness of anything except its own (empty) proceduralism.

The borrowings and one-way concessions Habermas urges seem insufficient to effect a true and fruitful rapprochment. Nothing he proposes would remove the deficiency he acknowledges when he says that the “humanist self-confidence of a philosophical reason which thinks that it is capable of determining what is true and false” has been “shaken” by “the catastrophes of the twentieth century.” The edifice is not going to be propped up and made strong by something so weak as a reminder, and it is not clear at the end of a volume chock-full of rigorous and impassioned deliberations that secular reason can be saved. There is still something missing.

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Russian President's Life Changed After Baptism

Medvedev Confesses His Life Changed After He Was Baptized

Moscow, 13 April 2010, Interfax – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says his life has changed after he adopted Orthodoxy.

"I believe it's good for me, because afterwards my life changed. You don't really talk aloud about something like that because the religious feelings should be somewhere deep inside of you. If someone is displaying it, it's not really honest. It's more PR for yourself," head of the Russian state told ABC American TV Channel.

Answering why he walked into the church, Medvedev said, "I did feel that I needed it. I wanted to do it."

According to him, people go to church, "because they feel a need, except if they're sightseeing."

"So at 23 I felt I needed it," the President said.

See the whole inteview with George Stephanopoulos below:

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Russians Save Zacchaeus' Sycamore Tree

Moscow, 12 April 2010, Interfax - Russian botanists have saved one of the most famous trees in history - the ancient Gospels sycamore tree.

The tree was dying, termites lived there and its branches were dry. The experts got rid of the termites, cut down dry branches and the tree has become green again, even small fruit appeared on it.

According to St. Luke's Gospels, when Christ was passing through Jericho where Zacchaeus lived, the latter sought to see the Savior and climbed up a sycamore tree. Christ saw him and decided to stop in his house. Zacchaeus was deeply touched and promised to give fourfold to those whom he offended when he collected taxes.

The land lot where the Biblical sycamore tree grows has recently been transferred to Russia for building a cultural center.

"Russia is not just coming back to the holy places. Russia is coming back with new offers, new projects. The Russian House that is to be built here witness to the fact that hopefully Russia is coming back here forever," head of the Presidential Property Management Department of the Russian Federation Vladimir Kozhin told the Pervy Canal.

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Russian Mission to Moscow Chinese

Orthodox Missionaries Start Working With Moscow Chinese

Moscow, 13 April 2010, Interfax - Prophet Daniel Orthodox missionary movement carried out a guided tour to the Holy Trinity - St. Sergius Laura for Chinese living in Moscow.

"We believe the Lord has brought foreign guests to our city not only to work or to study here, but to learn more about Orthodoxy," the movement leader, renowned theologian Yury Maximov told Interfax-Religion on Tuesday.

"Thus, we searched for possible ways to carry out missionary work among foreigners living in Russia and finally we decided that they can get acquainted with Orthodoxy in trips to our monasteries with guided tours in their native language," the interviewee of the agency further said.

The initiative was once approved by the movement's founder Fr. Daniel Sysoyev who was shot dead by unidentified criminals in St. Thomas Church in south Moscow late on November 19, 2009.

"We were preparing it for almost a year. It's a great pleasure that the initiative was welcomed by Chinese. Though we first thought to attract a small group of six people, we finally have got a group of fourteen Chinese students," Maximov noted.

According to Maximov, Chinese students showed such a "deep and lively interest in Orthodox shrines that we hope many of them will continue studying Orthodoxy in frames of Chinese Orthodox lectures, which will be soon organized by Prophet Daniel missionary movement."


THE CHINESE COMMUNITY IN MOSCOW

Video: The Life of Chinese Merchants in Moscow

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Tuesday of St. Thomas: Radonitsa (Day of Rejoicing)

Radonitsa ("Day of Rejoicing") is a holiday in the Orthodox Church which falls on the Monday or (more commonly) Tuesday of Saint Thomas Week—eight or nine days, respectively, after Pascha (Easter). The day is a general memorial for the departed.

History and meaning

The Slavs, like many ancient peoples, had a tradition of visiting family members' graves during the springtime and feasting together with them. After their conversion to Christianity, this custom transferred into the Russian Orthodox Church as the festival of Radonitsa, the name of which comes from the Slavic word radost, meaning "joy." In Kievan Rus' the local name is 'Krasnaya Gorka and has the same meaning.

It may seem strange to call a memorial for the departed "joyful," but the Christian belief that lies behind this joy is the remembrance of Christ's Resurrection and the joy and hope it brings to all.

Because of the importance of the last few days of Holy Week and the joy of the Resurrection, the Typikon (Ustav) forbids the celebration of the Panikhida (memorial service) from Great and Holy Thursday through Thomas Sunday (a period of eleven days). Therefore, the first opportunity after Pascha to remember the dead is on the second Monday of Pascha. However, because in Orthodox countries a number of monasteries follow the custom of fasting on Mondays, the feast is often celebrated on Tuesday, so that all may partake of the paschal foods (which are intentionally non-fasting).


Ancient tradition

The practice of greeting the dead with the Resurrection is not merely a "baptism" of pagan practices, but has antecedents in the ancient Church. S. V. Bulgakov records the following:

"The commemoration of the departed after Pascha was also done in extreme antiquity. St. Ambrose of Milan (340 – 397) says in one of his sermons: 'It is truly meet and right, brethren, that after the celebration of Pascha, which we have celebrated, to share our joy with the holy martyrs and by them as participants in the suffering of the Lord, to announce the glory of the resurrection of the Lord.' Although these words of St. Ambrose relate to martyrs, they may be an indication of our custom to commemorate the departed after Pascha on Monday or Tuesday of Thomas Week because the beginning of the solemn commemorations in the faith of those who died is established in the New Testament Church as a pious custom to the memory of the martyrs, [both] among the martyrs buried in antiquity and the others who have died."[1]

St. John Chrysostom (349 - 407) also bears testimony that in his day they celebrated a joyful commemoration of the departed on Tuesday of Saint Thomas Week in his Homily on the Cemetery and the Cross.

Practices

Although the Typikon does not prescribe any special prayers for the departed on these days, the memorial is kept as a pious custom. Unlike the various Soul Saturdays throughout the year, there are no changes made to Vespers, Matins or the Divine Liturgy to reflect this being a day of the dead.

On this day, after Divine Liturgy, the priest will celebrate a Panikhida in the church, after which he will bless the paschal foods that the faithful have brought with them. The clergy, with incense and candles, will then go in procession with the cross, followed by the faithful, to visit the graves of departed believers either in churchyards or in cemeteries. At the graves, paschal hymns are chanted together with the usual litanies for the departed, concluding with the moving "Memory Eternal" (Вѣчнаѧ памѧть,Viechnaia pamiat).

The paschal foods will then be consumed with joy by the friends and relatives of the deceased. It is common to place an Easter egg, a symbol of Christ's coming forth from the Tomb, on the graves of the departed, saluting them with the traditional paschal greeting: "Christ is Risen!" This practice is both to remind the faithful of the General Resurrection of the dead, and to "announce the Resurrection" of Christ to the departed.

In pre-Revolutionary Russia bars remained closed and alcoholic beverages were not sold until this Day of Rejoicing so that the joy people felt would be because of the Resurrection, and not an artificial joy brought on by alcohol.


Customs

Among the traditions that have grown up around Radonitsa, the following are noteworthy:

* Foods traditionally eaten at Radonitsa are: funeral kutia, painted eggs, kulichi, pancakes, dracheni, honey prianiki, and cookies.

* Radonitsa begins the marriage season. Since weddings are forbidden during the Great Lenten Fast (because that time should be devoted to penance and self-examination, rather than merrymaking), as well as during Bright Week (because at that time we commemorate nothing else except the Resurrection), with Radonitsa comes the time for weddings.

* Men and women traditionally give gifts to their in-laws (more kindly known as "God-given" family members), at Radonitsa, so that joy may be in every house.

Notes

1. S. V. Bulgakov, Handbook for Church Servers, 2nd ed., 1274 pp. (Kharkov, 1900), pp. 586-589. Tr. by Archpriest Eugene D. Tarris © 2007.

Links

Radonitsa Brings Joy and Hope!

Pannihida for Radonitsa

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Serbia: the Birthplace of 18 Roman Emperors

Serbia to Boast Heritage as Birthplace of 18 Roman Emperors

By Ksenija Prodanovic
Apr 3, 2010
Monsters and Critics

Belgrade - The mention of Serbia usually brings to mind the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, but rarely ever the Roman Empire - despite the fact that 18 Roman rulers, one fifth of all emperors, were born on its territory.

With that in mind, archaeologist Miomir Korac has launched The Road of Roman Emperors in Serbia (Itinerarium Romanum Serbiae) - a project meant to combine dozens of antique places across the country into a 600-kilometre-long tourist itinerary.

'This is perhaps the most important project in Serbia because it is a chance to show the country's pretty face and earn money,' Korac, the head of the Viminacium archaeological site, told the German Press Agency dpa.

Emperors originating from Serbia represented the largest number of Roman monarchs born outside of Italy. Among them were Constantine the Great and Justinian I.

Remnants of imperial cities, residences, villas and forts also remain part of Serbia's Roman legacy.

Viminacium, which used to be the capital of the Roman province of Upper Moesia, is set on thousands of acres of land, some 60 kilometres east of Belgrade.

It is the best preserved and managed antique site in the country, a model for other Roman locations and two Serbian prehistoric spots - Vinca and Lepenski Vir. Both will also be included on the tourist route, because they 'are important for the world heritage,' Korac said.

The circuit will go from the north-western city of Sremska Mitrovica (Sirmium) along the Danube to Belgrade (Singidunum), Vinca and Kostolac (Viminacium), before heading to the southern city of Nis (Naissus), the birth place of emperor Constantine.

'These sites represent enormous heritage from antiquity, not only for Serbia but for the world as well,' Korac said.

The idea of the project is to combine science and culture with tourism, also generating new bicycle roads, inns and infrastructure, bringing money to the impoverished provinces, Korac said.

'We will build some 100 boarding houses - replicas of Roman villas - every 5 to 10 kilometres, so that the route can be traveled either by foot or on bike or by car or all of the above,' Korac said. 'That would initially cost around 39 million euros (52.6 million dollars), but would generate 300 million euros and 300,000 visitors each year.'

The inns, set in authentic surroundings - forests, fields and river banks - are to be family run, with elderly relatives managing the business, women cooking and youngsters helping out with modern aspects such as the internet.

'Serbia has nothing to show. A street in Florence has more beautiful houses than entire Belgrade. Our spas may have a 100-year- long tradition, but are old, outdated and devastated,' Korac said. 'We can not offer them that, but we can sell the energy of the local surroundings.'

Several Serbian ministries have recognized the potential of the project and contributed money for investments in Viminacium, Sirmium and Gamzigrad.

The construction of some inns has already begun, but the process is painfully slow, as the country struggles with the recession and the fact that many ordinary citizens do not know of Serbia's rich heritage.

'I know that Constantine was born in Nis, but I had no idea that there were so many of them,' pensioner Milka Petrovic told dpa.

The project might get a further boost next year when Nis will host a celebration to mark the anniversary of the Edict of Milan, which was signed by Constantine in 313 and proclaimed religious toleration in the Roman Empire.

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The Challenge of Our Time

by V. Rev. Georges Florovsky

The great Russian bishop of the last century, Theophanes “The Recluse” (d. 1894), in one of his pastoral letters makes a startling statement. What the Russian Church most needed, he said, was “a band of firebrands,” which would set the world on fire. The incendiaries must be themselves burning and go around to inflame human minds and hearts. Theophanes did not trust a “residual Christianity.” Customs could be perpetuated by inertia, he said, but convictions and beliefs could be kept only by spiritual vigilance and continuous effort by the spirit. Theophanes felt that there was too much routine and convention in the life of Russian Christians. He anticipated a crisis and even a collapse. He resigned his diocese and retired to a monastery, because he felt that he could do much more service to the Church by writing books than by administering a bishopric.

Theophanes was a man of wide learning and experience. For some time he was Rector of the Theological Academy (in St. Petersburg). He traveled extensively in the Christian East and was intimately linked with Mount Athos. He was a good Greek scholar, and he used this knowledge for translations. He always insisted that he retired not for an advanced spiritual life (which is possible, and should be practiced for the ordinary life) but to have time and leisure for literary and scholarly work. He took to his monastic cell all his books, a selected library from which were not excluded books by Western scholars and secular literature. He wanted to know the world to which he had to bring the message of salvation. He did not dispute the labors and achievements of those who did not belong to the Orthodox communion of faith.

The retired bishop spent his time in writing: He translated “Philokalia,” [see Book Reviews ]; the works of St. Simeon the New Theologian; the ancient Monastic Rules (Eastern and Western); he published several volumes of his commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul, intended not so much for scholars, but to help all believers understand this inspired teaching; he wrote several books on Christian Ethics and Spirituality. Theophanes began every day with the Divine Liturgy, which he celebrated alone in his tiny domestic chapel, and he would use the inspiration of the daily communion for his scholarly and pastoral work.

The impact of Theophanes' writings on the life of the Russian Church was enormous. In his retirement, as a “recluse,” he was more influential than he could ever have been as administrator of a worldly diocese. He made Christian doctrine available for average Christians, for all Christians. He wanted to equip them with spiritual weapons for their Christian struggle. He required from all Christians — from clergy first of all — a thorough knowledge and understanding of our Holy Faith, which alone could save our life from unhealthy sentimentalism and imagination. He insisted on the study of the Scriptures and of the Holy Fathers.

Now, many years have passed since Theophanes' time. His worst anticipations were justified. The whole Orthodox Church — not only in Russia — is involved in a desperate struggle with the raging assault of godlessness and unbelief. Human souls are undergoing an incredible trial. But the protecting veil of Divine Mercy is spread over the suffering Church and the possessed world, and men are called to be Christ's witnesses: His Messengers and Apostles. The Church is essentially a missionary institution. One has to thank God for that army of new martyrs and confessors who have revealed or manifested the strength and the beauty of Christian Faith. And yet one should not be too easily satisfied with what has been done by others. So much has been left not done by us.

Let us confine our attention this time to one aspect of our Christian duty. Everyone knows that we are desperately short of books. Behind the “iron curtain” an impressive literature of atheism has been created and widely spread. Special colleges have been established to train people “for a godless ministry.” Textbooks on anti-religious propaganda, and on the methodology of godless preaching have been prepared for classrooms.

What is our response to this challenge? In the Ancient Church, the Holy Fathers met the challenge of the pagan world by an outpouring of Christian writings, attacking point by point the arguments of the opponents. What have we done in our own situation? Can we really meet the enemy on the field and save the victims of this unparalleled spiritual persecution?

The rusty weapons will not do. I am not speaking of the Holy Tradition, of the writings of the Holy Fathers, but of the inadequate books of the last century, which were so often ephemeral and rarely presented a sufficient interpretation of the Holy Tradition. Our theological production stopped years ago, and that stoppage testifies to our neglect of the teaching mission of the Church. Ignorance is growing in the Church and we are not alarmed!

Are there any books in which our Holy Orthodox Faith can be convincingly preached and commended to our own generation?

We in America, where the majority of Orthodox Christians are English-speaking, are in an especially difficult situation. There is no Orthodox literature in English. There are occasional books, often of modest quality, and rarely on the most urgent or basic subjects. The real problem, however, is not that of books, but of study. Each generation, especially in a new country, has to assess the Christian truth afresh, in continuous contact with the past, as well as in close contact with the changing present. It is not enough to learn by rote some ready answers. They may be perfectly right and correct. But we have to solve the questions by thinking through the answers and not by merely reciting formulas, sacred and perfect though they are. Listen to the searching man! He knows the formula, but cannot relate it to his existential questioning. Our Creed is a most perfect formula. How often do we recite it without conviction? Are we able to relate it to our urgent spiritual needs? How many Orthodox dispense with the Creed, because it has ceased to have for them any immediate spiritual appeal? The Creed is charged with an eternal and loving Truth. It is an eternal key to human unrest, but it needs interpretation. Otherwise we would not know how to fit the key in the lock.

What our present generation wants, especially in our country, is a true theological revival — a revival of a living theology, which would unlock for us that Truth which one can find in the Scriptures, in the Tradition, and in the Liturgical life of the Church, but which is sealed away from us by our ignorance and neglect. We need today more than ever before, precisely a “band of spiritual firebrands” who can inflame minds and hearts with the fire of a loving knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, the Redeemer. God calls us, in our generation, to be His witnesses and messengers. How can men believe if they do not hear the quickening Word? Even if we are men of unclean lips, let us respond to the Divine call, and the fire of the Spirit will cleanse us, for the ministry of the Word.

St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall 1952, pp. 3-5.

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