On Inexperienced Teachers in the Church

 By Father George Schoinas

We live in the age when we all speak without submitting ourselves to personal experience, without submitting ourselves to the price for the words we say. We believe that we should and can do so.

We all become teachers without having entered into the process of becoming students. Whoever does not take responsibility, whoever does not learn, whoever does not search like a hound to sniff out the teachings of the Saints of the Church, it is best that they shut their mouths.

And I say this first for us clergy who act as teachers, but I say it for you too because right outside the door of the church is someone making themselves a teacher to the other - or even worse one is making themselves an elder to the other, they want to guide, tell others what to do and how to do it.

The Areopagite in 20th Century Orthodoxy

By Fr. Felix Culpa

On Wednesday, March 10, 1982, Fr Alexander Schmemann made the following entry into his diary:

Yesterday I read the Church Hierarchy of Psuedo-Dionysius the Areopagite. What can it mean in our contemporary world? What could it have meant in a world where it was written? What does the success of this corpus mean in Byzantium? If one would apply the Gospel's basic principle, "for the tree is known by its fruit" (Matthew 12:33), to the history of the Church, one would see that what happened was the reduction of the Church to a mysterious piety, the dying of its eschatological essence and mission, and, finally, the de-Christianization of this world and its secularization. But, it seems that there is an impulse precisely to return to this very legacy. (1)

This is a very harsh judgment, yet one that is by no means unrepresentative of Dionysius' reception by Orthodox scholars in the twentieth century. The goal of this essay is to analyze the basis for such a reading of the Dionysian corpus. I will attempt to realize this goal by analyzing the work of one of Dionysius' harshest critic's, Fr John Meyendorff, and then reviewing the work of two other Orthodox scholars who have responded to him, the late Fr John Romanides and Hieromonk Alexander (Golitzin). Following a summary consideration of the conversation among these three outstanding scholars, I will offer my own critique of the work of each and conclude with a consideration of the nature of patristic scholarship within the contemporary Orthodox Church and Dionysius' place within it.

The Lessons I Learned From My Acquaintance With the Athonite Father Paisios

By Protopresbyter Fr. George Metallinos

On July 12th is honored the newly-appeared star of Orthodoxy, Saint Paisios the Athonite, or "Father Paisios", as we used to call him.

I have often been asked to give an opinion on Father Paisios, but I have avoided it. Not by indifference or devaluation of the person - away with the blasphemy! My hesitation is due to the fact that I do not consider myself worthy of such a thing. The Apostle Paul taught us that "he that is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man" (1 Cor. 2:15) (The bearer of spiritual gifts sees and understands everything, but he is not understood by anyone who is not illuminated by the Holy Spirit.) And according to Saint Makarios of Egypt: "He knows each man, from whence he speaks, and where he stands, and what measures he is in; but not a man of those that have the spirit of the world is able to know and judge him, but only he that has the like heavenly Spirit of the Godhead knows his like."

Contemporary Theological Movements in Orthodoxy (Metr. Hierotheos of Nafpaktos)

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

One of the greatest gifts of Christians (clergy, monastics, laity) who are members of the Church is that they consist of an alert conscience, and the greatest offering of the Shepherds of the Church, as the late Abbot of the Holy Monastery of Gregoriou of Mount Athos Archimandrite George (Kapsanis) writes, is the activation of this alertness of the conscience of the fullness of the Church. This is very important, especially when the people of God today largely leave "dormant and unactivated this gift." Alertness of the Orthodox consciousness is the greatest proof that the members of the Church are alive.

The Spiritual Twilight of the West

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos

Saint Paisios was a blessed ascetic and eventually a saint of the Church who had clear theological thoughts, he had prophetic and apostolic gifts, which is why his words are timeless.

Once he talked about the spiritual preconditions needed for the Holy Spirit to act. He said:

"The word of the mind does not transform the soul, because it is of flesh. The word of God, born of the Holy Spirit, has divine energy and transforms the soul. The Holy Spirit does not need engines to descend. This is why theology has nothing to do with a sterile scientific spirit. The Holy Spirit descends on His own volition, when He finds the right spiritual preconditions in man. And these conditions exist when we remove the rust from our spiritual cables, and become good conductors for the spiritual current of divine illumination. It is then that we can become a spiritual scientist, a theologian. By 'theologian,' I mean those theologians who have theological reserves, whose degree has value, not those who only carry a diploma as worthless as the paper money we had during the German Occupation."

Theology and Secular Education

By Fr. Panteleimon Krouskos

I notice that academic theology is consistently demonized and degraded with an almost sensual-like pleasure and with maxims. Of course not everyone who is educated theologically is illumined by God, but it also doesn't mean that every uneducated person who makes two or three patristic quotes on the internet is heavenly illumined and charged with a mission. Let's not get crazy!

The Dangers of Parisian Theology

Orthodox Ecclesiastical Theology

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

When we speak of Parisian theology, we mean that theology which was formed from various Russian theologians that had opposed the reforms of Peter the Great, and which was expressed in the West by Russian slavophile immigrants. The Theological Institute of St. Sergius in Paris cultivated the basic concepts of this theology, because many Russian theologians fled there.

It is, of course, known that these Russian theologians had a sense of the Orthodox hesychastic tradition and, observing the humanistic principles of western civilization, entered into dialogue with the various philosophical and religious movements of the West and tried to help. That is, they sought to do what the Church Fathers of the fourth century did, namely to respond to the inquiries of westerners, and to solve, by means of Orthodox Revelation, the existential, philosophical, anthropological, social, and other such problems prevailing in the West.

Saint Diadochos of Photiki as a Model for our Lives

St. Diadochos of Photiki (Feast Day - March 29)

By Protopresbyter Fr. George Papavarnavas

The life of the venerable Diadochos of Photiki is, unfortunately, largely unknown. What we know is that he was born in the first decades of the fifth century and that he became a Bishop, in the period between the years 451-458 in the District of Epirus in Photiki. The Diocese of Photiki, which is located in today's Paramythia, was important for many centuries.

He was a great Theologian of the fifth century, and the fact that he is not mentioned by his contemporaries, except only slightly, "can easily be explained," according to the late Fr. Theoklitos Dionysiatis, "if one considers the remoteness of Photiki at that time, not to mention that the education of Saint Diadochos remains unknown, in accordance with his desire as expressed out of humility, in the 13th chapter of the '100 Gnostic Chapters'."

Saint Gregory Palamas, Father of the Ninth Ecumenical Synod (3 of 3)

...continued from part two.

The Theology of Theosis

Saint Gregory Palamas, on this point, continues the work of Photios the Great. The first to become aware of the alienation of western Christendom - that it is something else, beside the Christianity of the Fathers - was Saint Photios, in his famous work "On the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit", which until today is a source for the teachings and writings of all the Theologians on the Holy Spirit. Saint Gregory Palamas opened the road even further. With the challenges of Barlaam the Calabrian, he captured the complete alienation of western Theology. What is the essence of the teaching of Saint Gregory, who continued in the tradition of the Holy Fathers? Saint Gregory Palamas recapitulates the Holy Fathers of all ages, and he restates and re-expresses this faith with the means given to him by his era. Saint Gregory Palamas expresses the same Orthodoxy, in his own language, in his own way, yet remained faithful to the theological confession of the Fathers of the previous centuries. First he makes the distinction between the essence and energies of God, which he calls the "distinction of the divine-befitting and the unspeakable", which is the condition of theosis.

The Danger of "Mutant" Theology

The Sunday of Orthodoxy invites us to realize the danger that threatens us. It is the danger of a "mutant" theology! It is known that our epoch is characterized by theological gatherings, theological dialogues, inter-Christian conferences, etc. Often after such conferences and dialogues, communiqués are issued or statements made where novel terms are used, unknown in the theology of the Holy Fathers of the Church; terms of "polite diplomacy", terms trying to reconcile the irreconcilable, and they are mostly totally inappropriate in expressing theological truths. Communiqués establish these terms that are clearly outside of theology, such as the "branch theory", "baptismal theology", "post-patristic theology", "neo-patristic theology", "contextual theology", "eucharistic theology", etc. But these are terms that are products of human reason, which are based purely on secular and intellectualist thought. They clearly imply a "mutant" theology with perverted contents. That is, they reiterate the tactics used by the Papal theologians at the pseudo-Synod of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1439).

"Pseudo-Macarius" and the "Messalian Origin" of the Spiritual Homilies

In re­cent centuries heterodox scholars in the West (and those Orthodox scholars who have fallen under their influence) have shifted the center of interest in Patristic studies to an entirely secondary question, that of comparison of texts, establishment of authorship and "influences", and the like. In itself there is nothing reprehensible in such a study; as long as the meaning of the text itself remains primary, and the individual scholar knows enough to trust the judgment of Orthodox tradition over his own personal opinions and whims, and to place any "new discoveries" he may make into the context of that tradition. Alas, in our own times there are very few Patristic scholars of the maturity of Professor Kontzevitch, who, while being familiar with the science of textual criticism, knew how to subordinate it to the higher science of the meaning of Patristic texts.

Heretic Theologians and the Good News of Christ

By St. Nikolai Velimirovich

The Lord said: "Repent and believe in the Gospel." True repentance is not only to grieve over the sins one has committed, but it is a complete return of the soul from darkness to light, from the worldly to the heavenly, from me to God.

What does faith in the Gospel mean? It means to believe the Good News that the Heavenly Messenger (Angel), the Son of God and God, brought to the human race. In other words, it is to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and His revelation. The Revelation of Christ is the greatest revelation since the creation of the world. It is the only revelation that can change the man-worm into man-god and a son of God.

Only "the One who descended from Heaven, the Son of Man who is in Heaven" (John 3:13) could bear witness to the world what exists in Heaven, who God is, what the spiritual reality is in the other world, how the spiritual world is that encompasses God, and what happens to human souls after bodily death. "What we saw we preach and what we heard we confess (John 3:11)."

We could say His witness is on a spiritual level, completely empirical. He does not bear witness according to worldly logic, or according to the conclusions of human understanding, or according to the wisdom or philosophies of the earthly man, but according to Him who has seen and heard. He is the Heavenly Messenger of the heavenly reality. "And to this end am I come to this world, that I should bear witness to the truth" (John 18:37), which no one of those born on earth could bear witness to accurately. He Himself calls this witness Good News.

The Heavenly Messenger of the Good News bears witness that: God is one, in the triune harmony of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; that God is not only the Creator but also Father, namely the most beloved and closest relative of all who wish to become His children; that God as Father is true Love, and out of love for the human race He sent His only-begotten Son to save the world. He bears witness: that the soul of man has greater value than the whole material world and that there are legions of innumerable Angels in that world who - sometimes invisibly and at other times visibly, ceaselessly nonetheless - work for people in the events of this world; that after their death, the righteous of this world shine like the sun in the other world; and that the Son of God came down to the world with the purpose of making wormish men the sons of God, to make them gods, according to the will and mercy of the Father. He bears witness to the just judgment of God, the Resurrection of the dead and eternal life, and to many more things - one more joyous than the other.

Christ called men to believe this Good News: repent and believe in the Gospel. This means that He called us to believe Him and in Him, in His every word. Since for humans there is no other way to come to the knowledge of the truth about the most important questions of life and existence, other than accepting to believe His words, seeing as He is an eyewitness to the heavenly and spiritual truths. Either they will believe in Christ or they will continue to walk in the dark and stormy seas of life, guessing and hypothesizing about the earth and the edge of the ocean. A third solution does not exist in the history of the human anthill to this day.

From this it becomes obvious that the Christian faith does not in the least resemble the other faiths and theories of the world, since the other faiths are man made, from the earth and of the earth, by people who spoke about the spiritual world, either according to their natural reasoning or through the deceit of evil spirits. None of the founders of other religions said about himself that he had descended from heaven, or that he had been sent by the Father, or that he bears witness to that concerning heaven which he saw and heard and that he will return to heaven. For this reason, there can be no talk about the equality of or similarity between the witness of Christ and that of the other religions and confessions of the rest of the world.

Do not ask a Christian if he believes in God but ask if he believes in the Gospel, in the Good News of Christ. For if he says he believes in God according to his own logic but not in the Gospel, then he is regressing and is a pagan, since he arrived at faith just as people who lived some two thousand years ago (e.g. some of the philosophers of Greece and Asia). Then for what reason did Christ descend from Heaven? For what reason did He seal with His blood His revelation to the world, the Good News? Such a Christian has in truth the All-Holy Blood of the Son of God on his head like those who cried, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!"

The Orthodox Church - the only Church of Christ in the world - has kept the faith in the Gospel, without looking right or left, without being supported by other faiths, or by pagan philosophies or by the natural sciences. For if one follows a far-sighted and keen eyed leader, it is useless and laughable to ask the crooked and blind for directions.

While Christ says: "Without Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5), the heretic world in thousands of ways expresses the following saying: "Without Christ we can do everything". The entire contemporary culture is turned against Christ. All the modern sciences compete in seeing who will succeed in serving the hardest blow to Christ's teaching. It is a revolution of the vulgar servants against the mistress of the house, a revolution of worldly science against the heavenly science of Christ. However, this whole revolution in our days boils down to what has been written with such clarity: "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Rom 1:22).

Truthfully, no one knows where the greatest insanity of the modern world that has fallen away from Christ lies: in each person's private life or in marriage? In school or in politics? In the economic structure or legislation? In war or in peace? Everywhere one sees what we call vulgar and barbaric. Falsehood and violence triumph.

Just as the faithless Jews once trampled upon the commandments of God, one after the other, and marched according to the wishes of the world and their hearts, they now have done the same with the teaching of Christ, the Master of all teachings. They have undermined and abolished one dogma after the other. They have gotten rid of all the Gospel commandments. They have rejected the apostolic and patristic decrees. They have ridiculed all the sayings of the saints, and the ascetic examples they have reduced to myths.

The strongest blow the heretic theologians have imparted to the Gospel is in their questioning the divinity of the Messiah of the world, some doubting it and others totally rejecting it. This was followed by a whole string of denials of spiritual truths such as: the existence of Angels and Demons, of Paradise and Hell, of the eternal glory of the Saints and the Just, fasting, the power of the Cross, the value of the prayer, etc.

Simply put, the heretic theologians have concerned themselves with adaptations and homogenizations (of different faiths), even since the schism of the West from the East, with greater emphasis in the last 150 years. They conformed the heavens to earth, Christ to other "founders of religions" and the Good News to other religions: the Jewish, Muslim and pagan. Everything allegedly in the name of "tolerance" and "for the benefit of peace" between people and nations. However, this is where the beginning of wars and revolutions lie, such as have never been heard of before. For the Truth can in no way tolerate joining with half-truths and lies.

The theosophical view that the truth is scattered among all the religions, philosophies and mysteries got the best of the heretic theologians of the Western world. Thus, they say that there must be some truth in Christianity, as well as in Islam, and Hinduism or Brahmanism, in Plato and Aristotle, in Zed-Avesta, in Tantra and Mantras of Tibet. If it were so, then the ark of humanity would keep on sailing without hope in the dark seas of life, without compass or captain.

Then, why did Christ say this strange saying: "I am the Truth" (John 14:6). He did not say "I am a part of the truth", but "the truth". Also, "I am the light of the world" (John 8:12). So, He is the whole truth and the whole light. Moreover, according to His word, He is the only guide to the path to eternal life and the only One who knows God. He said to the Jews: "And you have not come to know Him, but I know Him and if I say that I do not know Him I will be a liar like you." (John 8:55). Is it possible Christ was deceived? Or perhaps He deceived us?

May God forgive us for putting forth such questions. We do not pose them ourselves, but the heretics posed them from very early on. And they are constantly answering them, one so and so and another differently - the one like the Jews, that Christ was a deceiver, and the other like the theosophists, that He was deceived. For us such a case does not exist.

The Orthodox believe and confess that Jesus Christ is the one and only Messiah, Savior of the World, the One who has redeemed the human race from sin and restored it, the Son of God who was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit, God of God, the fulfillment of truth, the source of life, the victor over death, the cause of resurrection, the only true path toward the proper goal, the judge of the living and the dead.

There is something which remains unexplained till now and forms the basic difference between our Eastern Church and the heretical churches of the West. However, before we proceed to its explanation, we must settle the fact that the new period for the heretics of the West did not start with the Reformation or with the French Revolution, but from the 11th century when the Christian West fell away from the Christian East. From that point on, Western Christianity started with the adaptations and the homogenizations. This constitutes the essence of this new period for them, of the contemporary age of modernism about which they even brag. For the Eastern Church, from the time of Christ's appearance in the world, there is no old and new age but everything is exactly the same and real, independent of periods, situations and subjugations.

Dogmatics is an applied science. This is something that the heretic theologians either don't realize or neglected. From the beginning dogmatics was an applied science - something that the Apostles were aware of, as well as the saints and the ascetics of the Eastern Church and for this reason they struggled to personally fulfill every dogma in their life.

The dogma of the Holy Trinity, for example concerning the one Triune God, seemed to many lay people and even to heretic theologians as the most abstract of all dogmas. However, in the Menaion of the Orthodox Church, it mentions many saints who through asceticism made themselves "the abode of the Holy Trinity." They illumined their mind, their heart and their will, these three, like connected receptacles which they filled with the Holy Spirit according to the Lord's parable of the leaven bread (Luke 13:21).

The Apostle Paul expressed it beautifully by saying: "What? Don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which you have of God and you are not your own?" (1Cor 6:19) Of course wherever God the Holy Spirit is, there God the Father and God the Son are: the Holy Trinity, indivisible, inseparable and life giving. This is why in some stichera of the Saints we sing, "You became the abode of the Holy Trinity."

All the mysteries of the Orthodox Church, but also of many of the Services, begin with the prayer to the Holy Spirit, "Heavenly King, the Spirit of Truth... come and dwell in us." We pray, therefore, for the Holy Spirit to come and dwell in us. This does not happen immediately but after much asceticism with prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and toil. And then after all these things, with frequent weeping and sighing, the heart is cleansed and the Holy Spirit dwells in it (the heart) to enlighten the heart and the mind and the will. Then the Most High God dwells in man and works everything through him.

Mind, heart and will comprise the triune man. In the sinful and passionate soul, these three do not exist in union and divine harmony but are divided and ill-sorted. In such a case man looks like a house that is split, cannot stand and falls. Such a dwelling of the soul cannot then be saved, except through repentance and faith in the Gospel.

From Inspired Articles of Orthodox Spirituality.