An Orthodox Bishop Talks Politics

John Couretas over at that most excellent blog of the American Orthodox Institute has a post this morning on recent comments by Bishop Savas of Troas (GOA) on His Grace's blog "Sava on a Rolla." Let me let John speak for himself:

Did God ordain an Obama victory? You get that impression from Sava on a Rolla, the blog of Bishop Savas of Troas. In a post titled, "This is the Day that the Lord has made!," the chancellor of the Greek Archdiocese celebrates the victory of President-elect Barack Obama in terms that can only be described as divine:

Do I expect miracles from the President-Elect? Am I confusing the man with the Messiah? Of course not. But neither is he the Antichrist, as some of his opponents would have you believe. Americans did a good thing yesterday, an inspired thing. They didn't voice their opinion, they shouted it. A new day has dawned, a day that the Lord has most emphatically made. Are you as delighted as I am? Send up thanks to the Lord our God! Are you for any reason unhappy? Pray to the same God for our President-Elect's enlightenment.

I don't know. It's almost like reading the Genesis account of Creation. OK, the Bishop's guy won, and he has every right to celebrate. Then he goes — to put it nicely — really over the top.

You can read the rest of John's comments here.

Below for your thoughts are my comments posted on AOI:

John,

Thank you for your post and comments on Bishop Sava's blog.

The election of Sen Obama as the 44th president of the United States is, I think, a mixed good. Certainly, it is noteworthy that within Mr Obama's lifetime we have traveled as a society from the shame of Selma (a shame I should add was not limited to the South) to the election of an African-American as president. In addition to this, I think his election will have a generally positive effect on how we are viewed throughout the world, especially (though not exclusively) in Europe.

I agree with His Grace that "The Body Politic is another body altogether" from the Church. I agree as well that the "only way the [Body Politic] can approximate the [Body of Christ] is if the goal of government were to fulfill the law of Christ, which is to 'bear one another's burdens' (Gal 6:2). 'Have you seen your neighbor?' asks one of the Desert Fathers of the Church, and continues, 'You have seen your God.' Blasphemy? Reread St John's 1st Epistle."

Where I disagree with him, and agree with John, is his contention that "The goal of government ought not to be to protect us from one another, to teach us to treat the other as competition or nuisance or threat, but to help us to help one another." Here His Grace conflates a number of points in a manner that obscures rather illumines an Orthodox Christian response to government–secular or ecclesiastical.

To dismiss out of hand the policing function of the government is simply not biblical. St Paul is clear, the government is entrusted with the sword not only to punish wrong doers but also for the common good (see Rm 13.1-7).

Immediately after discussing the God-ordained authority of the government (a government hostile to Christians in general and Paul in particular) and the obligation of the Church to submit to that authority, the Apostle then begins to delineate in verses 8-10 the obligation of Christians to love their neighbor. Government, rightly ordered, I would argue, allow us the freedom and affluence to care for one another. While not perfect, there is no better example of this the US government.

While governments can and do have a role in the care of especially the weak, they do this first and foremost through the establishment of an society in which its citizens are (relatively) free from the predators among us (which I why abortion cannot be legalized–it is a threat to the life of one of the weakest among us).

This first step is admittedly a negative one–but the policing powers of the State or no less essential for being protective and preventative.

Following on its police powers, the State much ensure the equal treatment under the law of all it citizens. This means not only passing and enforcing laws against criminal conduct, but also contract law and the somewhat more mundane concern of government for commerce, weights and measures.

None of this of course will make us virtuous. But the American systems does not aim at cultivating virtue it the citizenry. Rather the US Constitution presuppose virtuous citizens and strives (however imperfectly at times) to provide them with the political freedoms need to exercise virtue without fear.

Where the American experiment seems to be breaking down is our transfer of virtue from the private realm to the governmental. We have come to expect the State to be virtuous so that we don't have to be.

The genius, and weakness, of the American experiment it that the government presuppose strong, healthy private (as distinct from governmental) mediating structures –the family, the church, newspapers and businesses–that stand between the person and the government and serve to foster virtue it the citizenry.

But these smaller, mediating structures, have more and more abdicated their responsibilities as corporate citizens–what does the Orthodox Church do for example to counter the range of social ills in her midst–unwed mothers, divorce and dead beat dads to name only three–that plague society as a whole?

I agree with those who say that Pro-Life Christians are sometime narrow in our focus. But that narrowness of vision is not the exclusive property of the religious right. The religious left also seem disinclined to foster virtue as well.

(For example, what percentage of the Orthodox Church's resources go to care for the poor? What percentage of the GOA's budget is given to the poor? What do we say to men who abandon their children and the mother of their children?)

There is much in Bishop Sava's words to reflect on. But I am worried that his post reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the American experiment and the Church's obligation as a corporate citizen in the Republic.

Again, thank you for your important ministry.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Receive That Which Has Already Been Given

Sunday, November 9, 2008: 21st SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (7th of Luke) —Onesiphorus and Porphyrius of Ephesus (3rd-4th c.). Ven. Matrona, Abbess, of Constantinople (ca. 492). Ven. Theoctiste of the Isle of Lesbos (881). Ven. Onísifor (Onesiphorus) the Confessor, of the Kiev Caves (Near Caves—1148). Martyr Alexander of Thessalonica (4th c.). Martyr Anthony of Apamea. Ven. John the Short, of Egypt (5th c.). Ss. Eustolia (610) and Sosipatra (ca. 625), of Constantinople. St. Nectarios Kephalas, Metropolitan of Pentapolis. Ven. Euthymius, Founder of Dochiariou Monastery (Mt. Athos—10th c.), and Ven. Neophytus, Co-founder of the Monastery. Icon of the Most-Holy Theotokos, "SHE WHO IS QUICK TO HEAR."

And behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue. And he fell down at Jesus' feet and begged Him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter about twelve years of age, and she was dying. But as He went, the multitudes thronged Him. Now a woman, having a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her livelihood on physicians and could not be healed by any, came from behind and touched the border of His garment. And immediately her flow of blood stopped. And Jesus said, "Who touched Me?" When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, "Master, the multitudes throng and press You, and You say, 'Who touched Me?' "But Jesus said, "Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me." Now when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before Him, she declared to Him in the presence of all the people the reason she had touched Him and how she was healed immediately. And He said to her, "Daughter, be of good cheer; your faith has made you well. Go in peace." While He was still speaking, someone came from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to him, "Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the Teacher." But when Jesus heard it, He answered him, saying, "Do not be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well." When He came into the house, He permitted no one to go in except Peter, James, and John, and the father and mother of the girl. Now all wept and mourned for her; but He said, "Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeping." And they ridiculed Him, knowing that she was dead. But He put them all outside, took her by the hand and called, saying, "Little girl, arise." Then her spirit returned, and she arose immediately. And He commanded that she be given something to eat. And her parents were astonished, but He charged them to tell no one what had happened.

(Luke 8:41-56)

For St Ambrose of Milan the woman with the issue of blood is an image of the Church of the Gentiles—of us who, before we came to faith in Christ, "lost all the gifts of nature and squandered the inheritance of life." He continues by saying that we did this, we squandered what wealth we had as we ran vainly from one hoped cure after another.

Thinking about Ambrose's observation, it is important to keep in mind that he is not of individual believers in the Church who came from outside Judaism. No, he is speaking about the whole of the non-Jewish people, the whole of the Gentile nations—who by grace must grafted on to the Jewish People (see Rms 11.16-24). As with the Apostle Paul, for Ambrose there can be in Christ no "me" or "you" or "them," only "we" and "us."

This isn't a denial of human uniqueness—far from it since this would be a denial of not only human responsibility but the love of God for each human person. It is rather a rather stark reminder that because I am social being what I do, always do as a member of some type of community.

Either, therefore, together we reach out for healing, for forgiveness and reconciliation in Christ with the Father and one another or we don't. And if we don't we simply continue to squander the gifts we've been given personally and as a community in our futile attempts to find life and health and hope and forgiveness and reconciliation and love separate from Christ.

This second path, the squander's way, is not really an option that we can choice. Because of Adam's sin this is where the human community already finds itself each and every single day, day in and day out. Not that love and forgiveness, to take two quick examples, are absent from the lives of fallen humanity. Love and forgiveness can be found outside the Church, but they are damaged. They do, but apart from Christ they remain still-born, a source of joy, but also something that drains us and wears us down.

And if this second path is always already with us when we were apart from Christ, it is always also with us even now that we are in Christ. This second path, the way of death, is always present as a temptation.

If we succumb to this temptation, if we return to that path that Adam laid out for us by his sin, we die.

But even here, even in death we are not abandoned. As with the little girl in the Gospel, the daughter of Jarius, Christ comes to restore us to life. Christ comes not to the immoral but to the dead; He comes, as the later Fr Alexander Schmemann once put the matter, not to make a bad people good, but a dead people alive.

This transition from death to life hinges not simply on the grace of God, but on our own willingness to understand, accept and act on the truth that no one is saved alone.

Yes salvation comes to me and to you.

Yes Jesus is my Lord and Savior, even as he is yours.

But, I am saved, because you are saved, because we are saved.

He is my Lord and Savior, because He is yours, because He is ours.

If we lose sight of this, if we forget or act as if we are not saved together, or as if the grace given you somehow comes at my expense, then in that moment we become again like the woman with the issue of blood. We become unclean, ever weaker, and more frustrated chasing one false hope after another.

But again, even when we fall, there is Christ. A life of false hope need not be our lot. What the Apostle Paul says of himself, he says for all of us, personally and as a community, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." "(Galatians 2:20)

Reflecting on his imprisonment by the Soviet government, Alexander Solzhenitsyn writes in The Gulag Archipelago,

It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer, and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart - and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains . . . an uprooted small corner of evil. Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions of the world: They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person.

No matter how deep the darkness in a person's heart or a community, no matter how much evil seems to have succeeded, we must not forget that Christ lives in us and that together we live in Him. For too long it seems that God's People have lived as if this were not true, as if there was some other standard besides Christ. In giving us Himself, Christ has given us everything—all that is necessary has been proved for us. All that is lacking is that which He cannot give us, our free consent to him. All that is needed is that, like the woman with the issue of blood, like Jarius and his wife, that together we reach our hand to Him and receive that which He has already give us: Himself and each other.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Confession & the Evangelism of the Faithful: Confessing the Angry Penitent

The confessor, I think, has to bear in mind that anger is not simply rooted developmentally in earlier vices but in a profound shift in the penitent's self-understanding. To put the matter simply, the penitent had a relatively narrow, but functional, vision of himself that has now proven to be false. This sudden shift in awareness is frightening and in evokes in the person a profound and radically unsettling sense of betrayal. "The person I always thought I was," so a more self-aware penitent might say, "has now proven itself to be false. I am not who I thought I was. I don't know who I am. All I know is that I have been lying to myself about who I am. My life is a lie."

We ought not to underestimate the terror that the person feels as his accustomed frame of reference for himself as well as the world of persons, events and things, is shattered by a confrontation with the Gospel. It is a psychologically and spiritually simplistic of us not to hear the real sense of existential disruption embodied in St Paul's words in Ephesians:

This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness. (4:17-24)

The change that Paul alludes to here is not like learning how to operate a new camera or trying to comprehend a difficult idea. No, Paul's words point to a radical transformation of how I view not only myself, but also God, my neighbor and creation. I am no longer in control, the world of persons, events and things are revealed as radically NOT at my disposal and NOT subjected to my own self-centered desires.

Or, to put it more simply, anger is my response to the realization that I am not God.

It is precisely this conflict that the proclamation of the Gospel provokes. And it is this conflict that the spiritual father must respond to in confession. How might he do this?

Again, Paul offers us an idea.

Therefore, putting away lying, "Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor," for we are members of one another. "Be angry, and do not sin": do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. (4:25-32)

The confessor, as he does with the regretful penitent, needs to attend to the traces of grace in the penitent's life. With the angry penitent, however, this means (1) pointing out as Paul does the comforting presence of God in the person's life and (2) being willing in word and deed to model with the penitent God's comforting response to his fear.

It is tempting simply to respond to penitent's anger and overlook the concrete fears that inspire the anger. But this, I think, is a mistake. Confessors have a unique opportunity to help people give voice to their fears. More than that though, we have the great calling of giving voice to God's comforting presence in life of the fearful person not only though sentimental sermonizing, but by embodying in word and deed a kind and gentle presence at that moment in a person's life when he least believes kindness and gentleness are possible for him.

In my next post, I want to reflect with you on what is for me the most challenging person to minister to, the indifferent penitent.

For now, and as always, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome, but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Confession & the Evangelism of the Faithful: Understanding the Angry Penitent

You may be wondering why it is important to consider how spiritual fathers minister to different classes of penitents in confession. While it might be useful for clergy, why would lay people care?

The simple answer is this: Confession is an essential part of the spiritual life of the all the faithful—laity and clergy. While we ought not to reduce the spiritual life to our participation as penitents in confession, it is important to keep in mind that confession is one very important part of what we are preparing to do. Confession is in a real sense a goal or teleos of all of the Church evangelistic and educational ministry. We are forming people not simply for various ministry, but for confession. In fact I would argue that as an essential part of the Church's prophetic ministry confession is the ordinary context within which we all of us come to understand ever more fully what the Father in Christ and through the Holy has called us to do.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the angry penitent.

We are accustomed to thinking of anger in terms of affect, of emotion. But in the Church's spiritual anthropology, and I'm thinking here especially of St John Cassian, affect is only one possible manifestation of anger.

Before it is emotion, it is according to Cassian a vice, a habit of thought and action that he describes as a "somber disorder" in the soul. Just as "regret" is the absence of gratitude (and specifically, gratitude to God for one's life), anger (again according to Cassian) is the absence of "discernment of what is for our own good, . . . [ and of] spiritual knowledge." ("Eight Vices," Philokalia, vol I, p. 82)

When gripped by anger we unable to "fulfill our good intentions, nor [can we] participate" in divine life. All of is rooted in a blinded intellect that has become "impervious to the contemplation of the true, divine light." (p. 82)

The angry person then is not only ineffectual in his attempts to do good, he behaves in a manner that is ultimately, and sometimes proximately and even immediately, self-destructive. And all of this because "No matter what provokes it, anger blinds the soul's eyes, preventing it from seeing the Sun of Righteousness." The saint continues,

Leaves, whether of gold or lead, placed over the eyes obstruct the sight equally, for the value of gold does not effects the blindness it produces. . . . [Anger] whether reasonable or unreasonable, obstructs our spiritual vision." (p. 83)

As well as a description of anger, Cassian offers us an understanding of both its developmental roots and consequences. Cassian, as with many of the writers found in the Philokalia, holds to a dynamic understanding of the human person that anticipates in broad strokes the later finds of developmental psychology.

In "Eight Vices," we learn that anger is the rooted in gluttony, unchastity and avarice. Of these three, it is gluttony which is the developmental origin of anger. In a nutshell, what is for the infant a virtue, or at least a necessity is for the adult a vice. And it is from anger that there develops other, increasingly more serious vices: dejection, listlessness, self-esteem (less in the modern sense and more in the sense of autarkic self-aggrandizement of pathological narcissism or even sociopathy), and pride.

But it is anger I think that is the lynchpin between the (relatively) minor sins gluttony, unchastity and avarice and the increasingly more deadly sins which follow. At its core anger arise when the person's desires are frustrated. Anger is the announcement that I have encountered, and rebelled against, the limits of my own life and most now decide either to accept the limits imposed upon me or withdrawn into a life of increasingly deadly and death deal fantasy.

In my next post, I want to reflect with you briefly on how as a confessor I respond to the angry penitent (at least in my better, more grace-filled moments).

For now, and as always, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome, but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Thoughts on Praying for the President

Gael, left a comment on my brief post asking God's blessing on President-elect Obama. You can read the comment here.

I'm assuming his comments above are meant to be humorous. Though given the heat of the recently finished presidential election campaign, it is understandable that they are not.

If they are not, I should point out that praying for the President as the servant of God is taken from the Orthodox Christian invocation asking God to bless someone that is used at the end of the Divine Liturgy.

Whether one agrees with his policies or not, whether his policies are compatible with the Gospel or not, Orthodox Christians--indeed Christians of any tradition--are required by God to pray for civil authorities.

And yes, President-elect Obama is God's servant. He may or may not understand himself as such and if he does he may or may not understand rightly, much less act rightly upon, what is required of him--but he is still God's servant as our we all.

That said, some of his policies (I'm thinking particularly about his support of abortion and stem cell research) are evil and within the realm of what I can do I will oppose them. Let me go further, I would hope that all Orthodox Christians--indeed all Christians--would oppose Mr Obama's policies on abortion and stem cell research.

Are there other policies with which I disagree? As a priest, I feel myself obligated by my office to limit my public political comments to only those things about which the Orthodox Church has spoken clearly. This means that in the realm of what is often called prudential matters--economics, or the general range of domestic or foreign policy matters--though I have my own view, but I remain silent about them.

Senator Obama has been elected the 44th President of the United States. Insofar as I or any of us can do so in good conscience and without violating the teaching of the Church, we should support the new administration at the very least with our prayers. Are there policy areas in which Orthodox Christians are bound to oppose the new administration? Yes certainly (particularly in matters of abortion and stem cell research) and again at a minimum with our prayers.

Finally, as for some of the rhetoric used by Mr Obama and his support--yes it often sounds messianic, but then American political rhetoric often does. And why are we suprised? Americans are, fundamentally, a religious people. Our nation was founded on an ideal drawn as much or more from Christianity as from any Enlightenment philosophical speculations.

Where I think the fault line lies in American politics is not between those who use and those who do not use religious rhetoric--but between those whose use of it I agree with and those whose use of it I find objectionable.

Let me go further, I do not object to the use of religious rhetoric by Mr Obama and his supporters--I welcome it as I did when it was used to such good effect by President Reagan. For all that it has become unfashionable, even among Christians, to do so it is important to remember that we are all of us called by God to fulfill certain roles in life. No the objection I have is not to the use of religious rhetoric by either the left or the right. It is rather to our unwillingness as a nation to take seriously the implications of that rhetoric--and again this is a problem I see on both the left and the right.

So God grant His servant President-elect Obama many years and may He also grant him, the wisdom need to govern and through his administration peace and prosperty to the people of the United States so that we may excel in every good work.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Confession & the Evangelism of the Faithful: the Regretful Penitent

My last post spoke about the place of education in the evangelism of the faithful. I argued that in the pastoral life of the Church education is not merely intellectual, but at the service of helping people see the outlines of the Gospel in their own hearts. This in turn can lead to a moment of crisis that typically leads in turn to in one of three ways: regret (a global sorrow for one's life), anger (a spiritual blindness or some other negative emotion often directed at the spiritual father, and ultimately God), and indifference (in which the person ignores or minimizes what is heard). I also said that these three responses are, or at least can be, grist for the mill in Holy Confession. In this and the following two posts, I want to look briefly at how I handle each response as a confessor.

Again, just remind people, my response will not involve what people have told me in confession. And again as I said last time, I do not think that the information I will offer is only for priests. People are often better able to approach confession with a open heart, more trust and less anxiety if they have some sense of what is, and is not, expected of them. Especially when people first come to me for confession I will tell them what is going to happen and the "ground rules." Chief among these ground rules is that they are free not to answer any question I ask them and not act on any advice I might may offer. I respect the freedom of the penitent to reveal as much, or a little, of his or her struggle as they wish. But I address the character of the confessor in a later post.

Now, to regret…

The regretful penitent comes to confession lamenting his or her past. Note that what I said here was "past" and not simply "sins." Merely looking back on one's life with sorrow is not the same as repentance though it is certainly may be a part of repentance. But a global regret for one's past is (I think) fundamentally unhealthy.

In both the East and the West the final morning service is the Office of Lauds—of the praise of God. The Church's liturgical tradition embodies what is I think a rather wise point of spiritual psychology. Repentance, as distinct from simple regret, bears fruit in the praise of God. The ability and willingness to praise and thank God sincerely is one of the key signs that the penitent has repented from his or her sins.

The fruit of repentance is gratitude, joy, and a lively awareness of God grace and mercy even in the darkest moments of one's life.

Likewise, the absence of gratitude toward God and an unwillingness, or even hostility, to considering the hidden mercy of God in the midst of one's sinfulness is a sign that the penitent has come to confession not with repentance for healing but mere regret.

My understanding and subsequent response to the regretful individual—and make no mistake, regret is always part of living as an individual, living not in communion with God and neighbor but within a world of one's own making—is guided by something I read by St John of Kronstadt.

The saint reminds the priest, that when hearing confessions he is not a judge but a witness to God's mercy. This means that both in word and deed, the priest most first remind the person, as St John writes in his own preparation for confession, of "the abundance of the Mercy of God." The harshness, the lack of gratitude (and the fear that typically accompanies it) reflects a more fundamental lack of an awareness of God's mercy. It is this lack that the confessor is called to respond to by his own gentleness.

But why is this gentle witness necessary?

For better or worse, people draw their view of God from their experience of the priest. For person whose self-image is framed by regret, the priest, by his kindness and acknowledgement of the goodness of the person, offers to the penitent the possibility of a new way of understand not only God, but also self and others. The confessor is called to model in confession what it means to love God and neighbor with one's whole heart and mind.

Even when correction is necessary it is important that it be given gently and with a clear and sincere indication on the part of the confessor that what is offered is offered not to shame the person but to comfort and heal. It is important as well that the priest makes clear that the penitent is free to act or not on the advice. Advice, like an epitimia (penance), is best offered rather than imposed.

But the witness to mercy must be more.

Any witness in the Church is necessarily prophetic. It is here where I think that confession becomes most challenge for confessor and penitent. As a witness of mercy the confessor is called by God is called to discern the presence of divine mercy in the life of the penitent. Building on what I said a moment ago, this means going beyond merely reminding the person that God is merciful. Bearing witness to God's mercy builds on, but necessarily transcends, the confessor being kind and gentle.

With the regretful penitent, I listen carefully to the life story that is told in confession. What I am listening for are those moments in the person's life where they may have overlooked the mercy of God for them. (As an aside, and without prejudice to "divine grace, which always heals that which is infirm and completes that which is lacking," I think my own training in the theory and practice of psychoanalysis has been a great help. After all, what is the unconscious but all that which is in our experience and yet, paradoxically, unknown to us?)

Bearing witness to the hidden presence of God and His mercy in the life of the penitent not only helps the person move from regret to repentance, it is also I think (to return to our more general topic) essential for the evangelism of the faithful. While education, or rather the lack of education, is a problem in the pastoral life of the Church, as I argued yesterday this is much more than simply an absence of information about God. The regretful penitent makes it clear to me that I (and all of us) suffer from is the lack of awareness of the mercy of God for me (God pro me, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer has it) in the concrete circumstance of my life.

In and through confession the discerning confessor, leaning as he does on the grace of ordination and his own personal talents and gifts, is called to give voice to the presence of mercy. Failure to do so in any confession, but especially in the case of the merely regretful penitent, leaves the penitent just outside the gates to the Kingdom of God.

It also robs the confessor of what I have found to be one of the great joys of priestly ministry—the transformation of mere regret into repentance (metanoia or a Godly sorrow) in which regret becomes thanksgiving for the gift of life and this not only in the penitent's heart but also my own.

For now, and as always, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome, but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Many Years!

"It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, at this defining moment, change has come to America," President-elect Barack Obama told 125,000 ecstatic supporters gathered in last night in Chicago's Grant Park to celebrate his victory as President of the United States.














May the Lord our God grant to His servant, President-elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle and their children Malia Ann and Sasha many years!

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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John Baden, “Republican Disenchantment and Decline”

Only a few years ago there was substantial talk of a permanent Republican majority. Through the workings of demographic, economic, cultural, and religious forces, the GOP was to become the powerful, controlling institution in Washington, DC and most states. While a few redistributive, "progressive", secular, archipelagoes would persist in the Northeast and West Coast, America would become ever more Republican. Among Republican strategists, hubris was the norm.

Now there is talk of the party's demise. What happened? Three related patterns explain much of their problem.

First, our economy slumped while the top one percent gained mighty returns.

Many flaunted their wealth, advertising disparities through private planes, massive houses in gated communities, and other bangles of financial success.

The GOP is portrayed as a handmaiden of this small but powerful class.

Further, power seduced and despoiled many high profile Republican leaders.

Considering only domestic policy (management of foreign affairs may be similarly flawed but is outside my purview), human follies and foibles trumped morality, propriety, and principle.

Consider these people; Sen. Ted Stevens, Rep. Duke Cunningham, lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Sen. Larry Craig, Rep. Mark Foley, prominent Republicans all. They and a host of fellow travelers and hangers on went down the road to ruin and along the way besmirched their party¹s label. All used their political positions and access to advance personal interests at public expense, always violating purported GOP standards.

Here¹s a true, empirical, universal, generalization that helps explain public reaction to this litany of failures and felonies: No one of substance and character respects hypocrites and liars. And those named above were exactly that, cowardly hypocrites who lied about and tried to hide transgressions.

All exploited their positions for personal, often petty, reasons. They violated supposed GOP ideals, modest and honest government at home, personal morality, and the market rather politics to coordinate and allocate resources. They ignored, neglected, or discounted these principles in exchange for financial gain or sexual favor. The entire Party was tainted by their hypocrisy.

Finally, the GOP jettisoned intellectual and ethical ballast. The Party lost opinion and community leaders when their candidates celebrated anti-intellectual predispositions. They ignored, dismissed, or discounted conservative and classical liberal (today's libertarians) critics of Republican policies and candidates. Party operatives failed to understand that honorable individuals are allies only when the Party honors and adheres to its announced principles.

Here¹s what they lost.

Beginning in the 1970s conservative and classical liberals of means engaged the public policy debate. They believed they had logic and data on their side and set out to fund the development of an intellectual movement. In addition to major investments at universities, they created think tanks such as American Enterprise, CATO, Heritage Foundation, Heartland, Hoover Institution, Manhattan Institute, NCPA, Reason Foundation, and many smaller, more specialized organizations.

Leaders in these organizations were emphatically not GOP groupies. Many are scholars from the best schools, including Berkeley, Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale. All held and espoused principled positions consistent with America¹s founding ideals. Their work provides excellent feedstock for America¹s opinion leaders including writers for the Economist, Wall Street Journal, and yes, even The New York Times.

For over thirty years this movement offered constructive alternatives to the policies of the politically correct but often ineffective, redistributive left.

The high water mark of this movement was 1984 when Reagan won all but one state. Since Reagan, the Republican Party has become more concerned with power and privilege than principle. They repelled educated people as GOP tacticians mobilized voters via cultural and class warfare. Losing opinion leaders such as David Brooks, Peggy Noonan and George Will is serious testimony to the failure of this approach.

For example Brooks observed: "...Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it¹s 2-to-1. With tech executives, it¹s 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it¹s 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community."

Explaining the downfall of the USSR, Dan Chirot wrote that when a party loses moral legitimacy and economic promises are broken, support collapses. That's what happened yesterday.

John Baden is Chairman of the Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment (FREE), based in Bozeman, MT.

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The Evangelism of the Faithful: Education

Image via Wikipedia
Earlier, I alluded to the importance in my own ministry of holy confession as a means of evangelizing the faithful. In this and later posts I would like to develop this theme somewhat.

After I finished my doctorate, I want back to work as a therapist and from there to ordination and assignment as a priest. Thinking back on this time, I realize that there were two very different "models" in the back of my mind about priestly ministry: didactic and therapeutic. Certainly both of these methods are found within the tradition of the Church. There are pastors such as St John Chrysostom or St Augustine, both extraordinary preachers who excelled in the didactic form of ministry.

But we have also had those who embodied a more therapeutic approach to ministry. I'm thinking here for example of St Silouan the Anthonite and his disciple and biographer Archimandrite Sophrony (pictured above at left). These monastics were extraordinary spiritual fathers who were able to heal others of deep spiritual pathologies.

The didactic and therapeutic are not mutually exclusive. Much less are they opposed to each other (There is an interesting look at this issue from the point of view of mental health counseling by Evan Hadkins, "Is Counselling Learning?" The post is short and worth a quick read.) For me at least, the struggle of those first years as a priest was finding the right balance between these two approaches to ministry.

What I had to do was learn two things. First, how to teach and preach in a manner that fostered in people a desire to lay aside their sins and be healed. Second, how to counsel in a way that fostered in people not only a rightly formed spiritual life but also a desire to learn about the faith in a humble, non-polemical manner.

At first I tended to lean toward a more educational method of evangelism. This certain was not a waste of time or effort on my part. Too many people want to live the Christian life but neglect the content of the faith. In a letter to Fr David Balfour, (a Catholic who converted to Orthodoxy), Fr Sophrony writes that "There are three things I cannot take in: nondogmatic faith, nonecclesiological Christianity and nonascetic Christianity. These three - the church, dogma, and asceticism - constitute one single life for me."

All of these three elements require from the spiritual father that he fulfill the role of teacher. But what kind of teacher should he be?

Especially in the beginning stages of the spiritual life Church, dogma and asceticism are more objects of intellectual inquiry than epiphanies of divine grace. Whether a person is raised in the Church or comes later as an adult, the faith, even if intellectually compelling, remain largely external to the person's own experience. Education for evangelism must present what I think of as the anthropological beauty of the faith, and especially of the Church, of dogma and of asceticism.

This requires a rather different style of teaching than what is typically done in graduate school. It requires that the teacher understand, from within his or her own experience, how the truth of the faith is inscribed in the human heart. Education for evangelism, even when done in a sermon or an adult education class, is not for the intellect alone. It is also for the heart and so information must be placed at the service of the heart. In a word, whatever the its content and style, education that is ordered toward evangelism must be evocative of the heart's longing and desire for God and in God for neighbor and the created order.

Because we are sinners, however, evocative teaching will also necessarily be provocative. Teaching that successfully shows how the Gospel is already written in the human heart will necessarily precipitate a crisis in at least some of those who listen to what is taught. Typically this crisis will take one of three forms.

First, and ideally, the person will respond positively to the crisis and desire to reform his or her life according to the Gospel. Second, and less frequently, the person will respond in a negative fashion. Unwilling to reform his or her life the student will instead blame the spiritual father accusing him of lacking in humility, of being arrogant or judgmental. Whether true or not such charges, especially when delivered in an angry or hostile tone, can undermine the spiritual father's confidence in his own ministry (this certainly was the effect that such encounters had one me at least). Third, and most typically, the person will try and minimize or ignore the call to change his or her life.

Whatever the immediate response, however, the material presented didactically becomes in time grist for confession. While this is clear in the case of a positive response, it is also is the case for those who respond in a negative or minimizing fashion. Of these two remaining responses, the negative is certainly more stressful for all involved, but it lends itself best to fostering repentance. It is the minimizing response which I have found most challenging to respond to evangelically.

In my next post I want to reflect with you on how I respond pastorally as a confessor to the three basic responses I outlined above. To anticipate questions and concerns, my response will not involve what people have told me in confession. Nor do I think that the information I will offer is only for priests. In my experience I have found that people are often able to approach confession with a more open heart and less anxiety if they have some sense of what is, and is not, expected of them. Especially when people first come to me for confession I will tell them what is going to happen and the "ground rules." Chief among these ground rules is that they are free not to answer any question I ask them—I respect the freedom of the penitent to reveal as much, or a little, of his or her struggle as they wish. But I address the character of the confessor in a later post.

For now, and as always, your comments, questions and criticism are not only welcome, but actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

What Really Matters

Image via WikipediaImage via WikipediaImage via WikipediaOver at NeoChalcedonian I've been involved in a spirited discussion on ecumenism.  Not all of the conversation, I should point out, has been particularly edifying.  

Thinking about the content of the conversation, I wanted to share here for your consideration and comment some of my thought there about online theological conversations.  


In Christ,


+Fr Gregory


Dearest All,

Reading through the thread, I am increasingly concerned by what I read here. There seems to be a desire on the part of some to make all council ecumenical. It appears to me that (and again, only for some) any suggestion that a council is not ecumenical calls into question either (a) the integrity of the teaching or, and this is much worse, (b) the integrity of the speaker who points out that the council is not ecumenical.

Reading through the comments, and again so it appears to me, there seems to be a desire on the part of some to claim for their own positions an ecumenical authority and to object when that authority is denied to them. A council need not be ecumenical for its teaching to be true. And the true teaching of true council, whether that council is ecumenical or not, does not exhaust the Mysteries of the Faith.

A council, indeed the dogmatic tradition of the Church, has primarily a negative function–it tells us the limits beyond which we cannot go with the surety of faith. The Church, and here I paraphrase the late Fr Georges Florvoksy, does not offer us a map to the Kingdom of God. Rather what we are offered in Holy Tradition–one important element of which are the teachings of the councils, ecumenical and local–are the Keys to the Kingdom.

It is up to each of us to personally take up those Keys and open the Gates to the Kingdom. And once the Gates are open, it is again up to each of us personally to enter in. We take up the Keys and enter in by way of the Sacraments, the life of prayer and our own asceticism.

Dogmatic definitions, no matter how well we understand them intellectually, or of no value unless we are men and women of prayer and humility.

It is worth noting, at least for my own spiritual life, that on the second to last Sunday before the Great and Holy Fast, when the Church asks us to reflect on the Last Judgment and She does so by calling to mind Our Lord's teaching not about dogma, but what in the West are the corporal works of mercy (Mt25.31-46).

While we must not push this too far, it is worth noting what absent is from our Lord's teaching about how I will be judged and what rather more typically consumes our attention when in internet forums when Orthodox Christians gather to comment about the faith.

It is only after we have gone through all this preparation embodied for us in the Triodion that we are able, and again with prayer and fasting, in a spirit of humility, mutual forgiveness, and a committed to the tangible care of our sick, naked, imprisoned the sick and forgotten of this world that we are now able to profess the Orthodox faith.

But, and here I return to Fr Georges, if we take up the Keys to the Kingdom, open the Gates and enter in as we sing during the Great Fast, what do we see but the Glory of God unmediated. This Glory consumes the creation without destroying it or us. In the Divine Light we see God and see creation and ourselves with His Vision.

No council, local or ecumenical, will ever exhaust the Truth Who is Jesus Christ. This does not mean that the councils are of no value–God forbid we any of us think that, much less that we teach this. But their teaching, and our reflections on their teaching, is never received in an absolute manner but only within the context of the whole of the Tradition.

Too often our conversations about the Faith are marked by an absence of those qualities described above. And these qualities are absent in my conversations because they are absent in my life. The sacraments, repentance prayer, humility, and care for the poor are the proper foundation for theological discussion. Absent these, the fathers tell us, education and intellectual acumen will do us no good. Our theological knowledge, especially apart from the care of the poor, will not save us.

How rarely we are concerned in our conversations with the feeding of the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and imprisoned. How much we speak of Orthodoxy, how little we speak of love, mercy and forgiveness and sadly we seem to speak of Jesus and His love for each of us not at all.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

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What's Next?

By John Baden, Chairman of the Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment (FREE), based in Bozeman, MT.

In response to my recent column, "What Went Wrong," several people emailed me this question: What's next? The answer is easy; America will attempt to emulate Europe's welfare state. Our perceived crisis is inimical to sound policy and provides a good seedbed for political opportunism.

First, though, a positive note. America can congratulate itself on successfully overcoming racial prejudice. Consider Obama's enthusiastic reception at the University of Mississippi, a school where, in 1962, federal marshals were required to protect James Meredith when he was admitted to the Law School. Riots followed, and it took several regiments of U.S. Army troops to restore order and protect Meredith from harm. This election is a benchmark, genuine progress to celebrate. It's as though we cured or, at the least, arrested a debilitating if not quite lethal cancer.

However significant this progress, and progress it surely is, 2008 may also mark the end of the great American experiment in individual liberty and responsibility. Attempts to activate the European welfare state in America will dominate politics for the foreseeable future. Here's why.

Those who created the American experiment recognized the problem of constraining two kinds of bandits: the stationary and the mobile. Mobile bandits include highwaymen, pirates, common thieves, and muggers. These are conceptually easy to constrain; enlist honest police.

Stationary bandits are more difficult, and were a focus of America's founders. Their challenge was to create a constitution to generate and maintain laws that foster progress-while constraining those making the laws.

How might those in power be kept from rigging the game to the advantage of themselves and their most politically powerful constituents?

Over the long run this may be impossible in a large democracy comprised of numerous factions, interest groups, and ethnic and racial identities. No such nation has successfully dealt with this challenge. It is easier in a small, relatively homogenous country, not one like ours.

The current worldwide financial crisis gives license to our stationary bandits to advantage themselves and powerful constituents. Franklin Raines, White House Budget Director under Clinton, became CEO of Fannie Mae and received $90 million in salary and bonuses. Of course Fannie Mae had made large and strategic concessions and donations to politicians. That's how politics works.

America's automakers, protected for years by tariffs from foreign competitors, are but one of numerous corporate examples of powerful firms, and unions, shaping the rules and seeking to loot taxpayers. Such pleading is bound to increase; the political tide is with those who see and seize opportunities for advantage, always, of course, in the "public interest." The results are ominous and the causes clear.

First, there is diminishing support for institutions that generate wealth rather than redistribute it. Who still advocates small government, low taxes, private property, and the market process? It's not a null, but surely a small, set of citizens-and few are among America's opinion leaders and political decision makers. We elect those who promise us our share. This does not augur well for the survival of a wholesome America.

A second factor is the huge increase in the disparity in income between the top one-tenth of one percent of the population and the remainder. While Americans have been more tolerant of substantial wage and salary differences than Europeans, there is a cultural threshold that we've long since passed.

Who thinks a CEO is really worth $25 or $50 million or more per year? Few voters do and resentment builds. And consider our reactions to $10 million dollar vacation homes.

Third, both positive and negative values increasingly converge and agglutinate. This promotes substantial class differences. If one is blessed with responsible parents, intelligence, favorable genetics, health, presentable appearance, and the ability to defer gratification, she is exceeding likely to prosper-and to marry one with similar characteristics.

However, everyone has one vote. The political calculus is obvious and on bold display; promising voters public largess brings victory and dependency.

What's next? A new and different America, one that will increasingly resemble the European welfare state. Some friends celebrate this anticipated change. Few however heed ecologists' admonition and ask: "And then what?

What are predictable consequences of the proposed changes?" That's a future column.

What Went Wrong?

As I have thought about the current economic world situation as well as some of the struggles facing the Orthodox Church in the United States, I have begun to wonder if there are not certain parallels.  Specifically, a shared lack of awareness of, or maybe indifference to, the human vocation to be wise stewards of the gifts we have been given by a loving and merciful God.

One thing that has helped me understand somewhat the struggles I see in the Church are the findings of a relatively new branch of the social sciences, the economic study of religion.  Applying economic theory, scholars in this discipline work to understand the different choices made in the area religion.

Now one of the different groups I am associated with is Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment (FREE), based in Bozeman, MT and chaired by the author of the essay I have posted here today, John Baden. 

In some John's earlier scholarship, he looked at how different religious political groups manage the stewardship of shared goods (the "tragedy of the commons").  I thought I word re-post some of Dr Baden's columns here to stimulate some conversation especially on the life of the Church.

As always, your comments, thoughts, questions and criticisms are not only welcome, they are actively sought.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

This column was prompted by the question: "Doesn¹t today's economic distress demolish the case for capitalism and free markets?"

Some, who inquired gleefully, anticipated my discomfort; others were genuinely curious and concerned. All were confused about the complex causes of our economic chaos.

I hope this helps clarify their thinking, but first a disclaimer: I'm not a general economist who knows macroeconomics, money and banking, and international trade. Rather, I'm a retired professor and farmer who has studied and written academic articles and books on political economy for 40 years. I focus on the ways in which institutions, that is culture, ethical norms, and law, influence wealth, opportunities, and strategic behavior.

Let's dismiss the claim that the greed of Wall Street and investment bankers caused our distress. Greed is ubiquitous, perhaps for evolutionary reasons. Jewish theologians have wrestled with this character flaw for three thousand years. Yet, Israeli politics remain plagued with pathological greed.

Blaming greed is like condemning gravity; both endure. Responsible people recognize and utilize these forces rather than deny them. It's most constructive to design institutions that contain and direct greed into productive channels, just as engineers put gravity to use in building arches. Obviously, our institutions are flawed, greed has run amuck, and innocent as well as complicit folks are hurt.

Let's first consider the basic function of capitalism. Its success lies in efficiently allocating capital toward profit, the difference between costs and returns. When the system works, market prices provide the information and the incentives to invest where legal returns are greatest.

But this is perhaps not capitalism's greatest asset. In addition to being an engine of prosperity, only free markets spontaneously and peacefully organize the daily, voluntary interactions of millions of primarily self-interested individuals.

Socialism works poorly because it is unable to efficiently coordinate and allocate resources. Hence, it never generates wealth for the masses but socialist elites enjoy privilege and plenty. Their greed rigs the game to their advantage. Likewise, America's investment bankers have rented and bribed politicians to rig the game to socialize risks and privatize profits. Fannie and Freddie's failures and rich rewards to former managers, $100 million to one, are prime examples.

Our current problems flow largely from Wall Street bankers' financial innovations. They discovered ways to profit by misallocating capital, and in the process they decoupled risk from their returns. Under legislation for which they lobbied, they were rewarded for pumping evermore capital into overvalued housing. Viewing their houses as ATMs, people bought consumer goods far beyond their means. (Expect massive credit card default next.)

Investment bankers arranged highly arcane financial instruments covering their loans with understated risks. Loans were bundled, sold internationally, and insured by American International Group (just bailed out with nearly $125 billion from the federal government) among others. This process endured as poor risk management was fostered by profits from capital misallocation.

Further, Wall Street adults who should have been in charge and responsible, didn't understand the complex, mathematical models directing investment decisions. Senior management ignored the admonition to loan money only to those likely to pay it back.

While some bankers knew better, the net result of bad loans is the erosion of capital. Assuming recovery, we need institutional reforms that inhibit capital misallocation. For example, removing legal requirements to make loans when risks are not reflected in interest rates. This generates loss while stressing people, especially the poor.

When politicians allocate capital, we can't expect efficiency, but corruption by special interests is certain. Investment banks benefited from this political arrangement. With the Bush Administration encouraging sub-prime lending (the "Ownership Society"), these home loans grew from 2 percent in 2002 to 30 percent in 2006. In October of 2004, President Bush said, "We're creating...an ownership society in this country, where more Americans than ever will be able to open up their door where they live and say, welcome to my house, welcome to my piece of property."

Sub-prime loans were bundled into Collateralized Debt Obligations and rated AAA. With this high rating, investment-banking firms neglected due diligence and sold the bundles worldwide. Defaults and massive write-offs naturally followed, banks collapsed, and we suffer.

That's what went wrong.

John Baden is Chairman of the Foundation for Research on Economics & the Environment (FREE), based in Bozeman, MT.

In his essay "On the Question of the Order of Reception of Persons into the Orthodox Church, Coming to Her from Other Christian Churches," Archimandrite Ambrosius (Pogodin) makes some interesting observations regarding at least the view of the Moscow Patriarchate that bear on the relationship between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Fr Ambrosius writes that

Following the Second Vatican Council an agreement was worked out between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Church that, in the case of extreme need and in the complete absence of their clergy, members of the Roman Church could receive the Holy Mysteries in Russian Churches and likewise, the Orthodox in Roman Catholic Churches. We have no knowledge whether this agreement was realized in practice or whether it only remains on paper. Not a single Orthodox Church, with the exception of the Russian Church Abroad, reproached the Patriarch of Moscow for this decision which was called forth by the terrible times and persecutions of Christians under godless regimes. Nonetheless this decision has not been rescinded even now, and the recently printed catechism of the Roman Church published with the blessing of Pope John Paul II speaks of the full recognition of the sacraments of the Orthodox Church. However, there is no doubt that as the result of the proselytism among the traditionally Orthodox population — by Roman Catholics and by Protestants — to which the Orthodox Church reacts with great distress, as well as on the repression against the Orthodox in Western Ukraine and even in Poland — there is no longer that warmth and cordiality towards the Orthodox as there was during the Second Vatican Council and for some time afterwards. However, the incisive question today is this: Has there been any change in the practice of the Roman Catholic or Lutheran Churches with respect to their sacrament of baptism? And the answer is this: Nothing has changed. Thus, our Churches (with the exception of the Russian Church Abroad), recognize the sacrament of baptism performed by Roman Catholics and Lutherans as valid.

(A side note, Fr Ambrosius attended the Vatican II as an official observer from the Russian Church Abroad.)

Contrary to what we some times imagine the divisions between East and West--at least as it pertains to the Orthodox and Catholic Churches--are not as wide as some would imagine.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Missional Theology for a Missional Church « Missional Church Network

The church does not do mission, it is mission. By its very calling and nature, it exists as God’s ’sent’ people (missio = sending). Its worship, its proclamation, its life as a distinctive community, and its concrete demonstration of God’s love in acts of prophetic and sacrificial service are all witness to the good news whose sign and foretaste it is to be.

Such is the consensus of missio Dei theology — but it is hard to translate into the deeply rooted and long since defined classical patterns of western theology. It is equally difficult to translate into the structures of churches which are still shaped by the mindset of Christendom and which have not come to terms with the paradigm shift that surrounds them.

No area of theological work or churchly practice is untouched by the theological agenda of the Missio Dei. This is demonstrated by the ways in which the study of missiology has evolved in this century. From a rather narrow focus upon the expansion of western Christianity and it implications, the discipline today intrudes into every area of theological discourse.

It is still possible to find seminary courses on “the theology of mission.” But the global paradigm shift requires now that we do “missionary theology.” This is the missional challenge that confronts the biblical scholar, the church historian, the systematic theologian, and the practical theologian.

Darrell Guder is Princeton Theological Seminary's Dean of Academic Affairs
and the Henry Winters Luce Professor of Missional and Ecumenical Theology

Patriarch at the Synod: Unexpected Impact: Interview With Fraternal Delegate From Orthodox Church

By Jesús Colina

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 24, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The intervention from Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople at the synod of bishops marked an ecumenical milestone, says a representative of the Orthodox Church of Greece.

Archimandrite Ignatios Sotiriadis is a fraternal delegate at the world Synod of Bishops on the Word of God, which ends Sunday.

The Church of Greece representative spoke with ZENIT about the intervention from Bartholomew I, given as a homily Oct. 18 in a celebration of vespers together with Benedict XVI.

Q: You have been participating in the entire synod. What have you heard from the synod fathers about Bartholomew I\'s homily?

Archimandrite Ignatios: First of all, I feel proud to see His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in the Sistine Chapel, where popes are elected, also famous worldwide for its artistic value, because I consider the invitation from Pope Benedict to the \"primus inter pares\" of the Orthodox Church a most great honor.

The event was welcomed by the synod fathers -- all of them were present -- as a true moment of \"grace\" and in the same way, the Vatican daily L\'Osservatore Romano has presented it in a headline on the front page.

The patriarch made reference in his homily to the interpretation of the Word of God-Divine Word, according to the teaching and the writings of the fathers of the Church. It was a magisterial homily, since it presented the position of the Orthodox Church on the discussion, inspired in the richness of Eastern and Orthodox spirituality.

It was a historical event, in which a Pope celebrates vespers before the representatives of the entire Catholic episcopate and on this occasion, doesn\'t exercise his ministry as teacher, but concedes it to the second bishop of the Church when it was not yet divided.

What most impressed me was what the Pope said when the patriarch\'s homily, received with long applause, was over: \"If we have common fathers, how can we not be brothers?\"

Q: The synod fathers have commented on the mediation of the patriarch. In particular, they were impressed by the passage in which he explained how to \"see\" the Word of God through icons, expression of the incarnation of God, and in creation, highlighting the importance of protecting it, as respect for the divine Logos.

Archimandrite Ignatios: The ecumenical patriarch is known for his passion and his tireless commitment at the ecological level and the synod fathers have much appreciated his contribution to a discussion of maximum importance and current value, in which the Church should be a protagonist.

Q: But the great novelty, perhaps, has not been the patriarch\'s intervention, but rather the desire of the Pope, expressed at the end of vespers, to include the patriarch\'s proposals in the synodal proposals. This is an initiative that appears to have been welcomed by the synod fathers. In this way, for the first time in history, the magisterium of an ecumenical patriarch could be taken up by the official magisterium of the Catholic Church in the postsynodal apostolic exhortation.

Archimandrite Ignatios: When we are united in the Word of God, our path inevitably leads us toward a second stage, which is full unity, that is, a common celebration of the Eucharist. But this will not be reached as much with human efforts as with the breath and will of the Holy Spirit.

Q: Yet those who hope for this unity sometimes see it as something far off …

Archimandrite Ignatios: The separation of the Eastern and Western Church occurred over various centuries; it was not an isolated event in the year 1054, but a long cultural, linguistic process. … I think that the re-encounter will happen in the same way, following a gradual path. We separated slowly, and slowly we will unite. But it is not for us to talk of dates.

What is certain is the desire of the Orthodox Church that the Church of Rome parts with its temporal power and dedicates itself totally to its spiritual mission for the transformation of the world.

Dialectical, Dialogical and Reconciliatory: The Evangelical Imperative

In his speech opening the recent gathering in Constantinople of Orthodox bishops His All Holiness, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew stress at one point the importance of evangelizing not only those outside the Church but also those who are baptized.

My first though on reading this was, well, thank God!

The need to evangelize our own faithful is something that Orthodox priests often discuss privately when we gather together, but we are sometime less forthright about publicly. Add to this that it is not at all unheard of for Orthodox Christian clergy and laity to minimize the need for the evangelism of the faithful (including the clergy). Sometimes this argument takes the form not of dismissing evangelism out of hand. More often though it is argued (at least by example) that participation in the service of the Church is sufficient.

His All Holiness points out in response to the neglect of the evangelism of the faithful "that in contemporary societies, especially in the context of western civilization, faith in Christ can in no way be taken at all for granted." Our evangelism whether it involves us with ministering to those outside or inside the Church can only "be developed or expounded [in] dialogue with modern currents of philosophical thought and social dynamics, as well as with various forms of art and culture of our times." At least in my better moments as a priest, I have taken to heart the primacy of dialog as the means of bring the Good News to others and have found it to be the most fruitful and joyful part of my ministry.

That said, there remains a central and ongoing struggle in me: Remembering that the proclamation of the Gospel "cannot be aggressive." When it is, "as it often unfortunately is; [it is] is of no benefit at all." To avoid aggression in the proclamation of the Gospel requires from me a real ascetical effort. Respecting the freedom of others, trying to find the points of commonality and convergence between us, can only proceed by an act of self-emptying (kenosis) that seems absent in much of what passes for Orthodox outreach and evangelism.

At least within the American context, Orthodox Christians seem to have often adopted a triumphalistic style of evangelism. Much of the material that we publish and much of what we say publicly seems specifically directed at convincing Western Christians (and specifically Evangelical Christians) to become Orthodox. Add to this that we produce very little that is directed to the non-Christian and it seems hard to deny that we are more concerned with proselytizing than evangelism. His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew challenges us who are more inclined to proselytize Western to undertake instead the much more difficult task of entering into a conversation with those without any religious faith, or indeed even those among us who are only marginally committed baptized Orthodox Christians.

Unlike proselytizing (which begins not with proclaiming the Gospel but by undermining the faith of those we speak with) evangelism (whether internal or external in focus) requires that we "first understand other people and discern their deeper concerns." As Bartholomew points out "even behind disbelief, there lies concealed the search for the true God." Entering into the disbelief of others, seeing it sympathetically and with compassion as a search for God, is personally challenging and to many threatening.

The empathic approach to evangelism requires that I find in my own heart the strains of disbelief, doubt and despair that are the seed bed of what the late Pope John Paul II called in Evangelium vitae

the "culture of death" or what Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) called in his 2005 homily the "dictatorship of relativism." Triumphalism, and all forms of intellectual and emotional manipulation of others, is itself a fleeing from the hard work of dialog grounded in accurate self-knowledge. Ironically, these and other forms of religious aggression (what His All Holiness calls "fanaticism") are themselves also symptoms of the very culture of death that the Church condemns.

What then are we to do? How are we to proceed in our evangelism in a way that avoids aggression and take seriously the concerns of those with whom we speak? Our evangelism, as with all of the Church's ministries must (and again I'm borrowing from His All Holiness) "dialectical, dialogical and reconciliatory."

Especially given the use of the intellectually loaded term "dialectical" is tempting to read the concerns of contemporary philosophy into the above. Given the openness toward modern thought that informs His All Holiness speech, this is not by any means an unwarranted approach. While it is certainly would be worthwhile to engage the different meanings possible in the term dialectical, I think it would be more profitable to understand the dialectical, dialogical and reconciliatory character of the Church's ministry in general, and evangelism in particular, by taking my cue from the text of the Patriarch's speech.

The vision of the Church's ministry outlined in the speech is one that reflects "the connection between the unity of the Church and the unity of the world, on which the Apostle to the Gentiles insist." This dual unity "imposes on us the need to assume the role of peacemaker within a world torn by conflicts." Precisely because we are called to be peacemakers, we "cannot—indeed, it must not—in any way nurture religious fanaticism, whether consciously or subconsciously." Certainly, "When zeal becomes fanaticism, it deviates from the nature of the Church," and so "we must develop initiatives of reconciliation wherever conflicts among people either loom or erupt." While I agree that "Inter-Christian and inter-religious dialogue is the very least of our obligations; and it is one that we must surely fulfill," I find myself wondering what such a dialog might look like. This is especially important, at least to me, when I wonder what such a dialog might look like pastorally.

In tomorrow's post I wish to offer one suggestion by returning to a idea I presented earlier. I would argue that we look to the Mystery of Confession as a model for a form of evangelism and ministry that is, as His All Holiness argues, is dialectical, dialogical and reconciliatory.

As always, I not only welcome your thoughts, questions and comments, but actively solicit them.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Catholics and Orthodox Are Being Reconciled

Two commentators, Michael and Fr Christian (that isn't them at left!), have asked questions in response to the recent speech by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. Rather than respond to them in the comment box, I thought I would do so here in the hopes of generating a more general conversation.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory


Dear Michael and Fr Christian,

Thank you both for your comments and questions. Let me please me answer you both in turn.

Michael, I read through the comments on Fr. John Zuhlsdorf's most excellent blog "What Does the Prayer Really Say." (For those interested in reading through them they are posted on 21 June and offered in response to an in accurate news report that the Ecumenical Patriarch was suggesting "dual communion" with Rome and Constantinople for Ukrainian Catholics.) To be honest, I found the comments from a number of the Catholic commentators to be harsh. While I appreciate their desire to defend the Catholic faith, both in content, and more importantly tone, the words seem likely not to foster reconciliation but rather lead only to a further estrangement between Catholic and Orthodox Christians. As I have argued before, I believe that ecumenical conversations, especially on the grassroots level, should be limited to the sphere of influence of the participants.

In other words, if I'm not in a position to change the dogmatic teaching of the Orthodox Church, I ought not to have a conversation about how the Catholic Church needs to change her own dogmatic teaching. Too often, and the comments both on Fr John's blog as well as on this one, have reflected the delusional conviction that the commentator was in himself (and why is it almost always a man?) to pass dogmatic judgment on what is, and is not, the authentic teaching of one Church relative to the other. We need to limit, or so it seems to me, to the areas of the Christian life entrusted to our care.

For those well versed in Catholic social teaching, or for that matter conservative political philosophy, this is a variation on the principle of subsidiarity. David A. Bosnich on the Acton Institute's blog describes subsidiarity as arguing "that nothing should be done by a larger and more complex organization which can be done as well by a smaller and simpler organization. In other words, any activity which can be performed by a more decentralized entity should be." The resolution of dogmatic differences between the Catholic and Orthodox Church (or between either of this communities and the communities that arose with and after the Reformation) is an profoundly complex undertaken and well beyond what can be done by individual Catholic or Orthodox Christians in private conversations (whether they are face to face or electronic).

As I said a moment ago, I found the some of the comments on Fr Z's blog, as I have some comments here and on other electronic forums, uncharitable and more likely to foster a grassroots spirit of distrust and estrangement rather than a grassroots spirit of trust and reconciliation. From my own experience, I fear this happens even when the comments are themselves are initially charitable. Part of this is a reflection of the limits of the internet. But more importantly I think it reflects the imprudence of engaging in theological conversations across traditions—too often we engage each other in ways that are simply irresponsible. At its core this reflects a willingness (including on more than one occasion, my own willingness I must confess) to take to ourselves a degree of responsibility that belongs to our respective bishops meeting together in council. The conversations so often degenerate into mere polemics because we are irresponsible in our conversations.

I am not a bishop and I need to limit my conversation with Catholics to matters appropriate to my office as a presbyter that is as a teacher, an administrator and a counselor. Likewise, when Catholic and Orthodox laypeople sit down to take across traditions they must limit themselves to their own office as members of the laity. One challenge here is that, though the Orthodox Church has a long history of active lay participation in the life of the Church, that tradition has largely been neglected in recent years. For many Orthodox laypeople, their understanding of their ministry is limited to parish council, teaching church school, or singing in the choir.

The ministry of the laity, and now I want to respond to Fr Christian's comments, is one area where I think both communities can profit by grassroots conversations. In my own ministry, conversations with Sherry Anne Weddell and Fr Mike Fones, OP, have deepened my understanding and appreciated of the role of the laity to sanctify the world. For example, and again I've said this here before, there are no Orthodox parishes in the United States that weren't founded by laypeople. This is especially true of the often unappreciated and unjustly criticized "ethnic" parishes. Among the Orthodox laity there are many very gifted and energetic evangelists whose ministry is often overlooked and under supported.

My own view as a priest who has spent the whole of my ministry working either as a missionary and/or with parishes in crisis and transition is that what is most needed is conversations between Catholic and Orthodox Christians that focus on what we can learn from each other to foster the ministries of our respective Churches. What, for example, can Catholics teach Orthodox Christians about the ministry of the laity? Likewise, what might Orthodox Christian have to offer to Catholic Christians about liturgy and spirituality?

Let me offer some examples from my own life.

I am generally considered a good preacher and spiritual director. Without presuming against divine grace, "that which always heals what is infirm and completes what is lacking" skills I learned how to do both from my Roman Catholic professors at Duquesne University and the University of Dallas. So too my ministry with college students and young adults is the fruit of my conversations with Roman Catholics, Protestant and Jewish campus ministers and clergy who served the students at the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

Fr Christian, your own interest in painting icons, as with Michael's interest in how the Orthodox Church ministers to marriages in crisis, both reflect outstanding beginnings in fostering grassroots reconciliation between our two Churches. We do not, in the main, trust each other because, in the main, we do not see any profit in learning from the other. And because we see no profit in learning from each other, we do not trust each other.

But, in the final analysis, what is really a miss is my own heart. Too often I substitute polemics against the other for a commitment to Christ and the Gospel. The more I commit myself to Christ, to the preaching of the Gospel and the demands of my own office as a priest, the more I find a hunger not only for the riches and wisdom of the Orthodox Tradition, but also an openness to the riches and wisdom of the Catholic Tradition (and I would add, the Protestant and Evangelical tradition, to say nothing of other religious traditions and the findings of the natural, social and human sciences as well as philosophy, politics, economics, and law to name only a few).

Michael and Fr Christian, thank you again for your comments and questions. I would invite not only your thoughts, but also the thoughts of the others who read this essay. In our small way, we are all of us creating here a community that demonstrates that, while not without its challenges, Catholics and Orthodox Christians can be reconciled. We can learn from each other, we can trust each others, we can support and sustain each other in our spiritual lives, our parishes and our ministry.

We can be, we are being, reconciled.

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

Congratulations

This morning I am in Elmsford, NY (just north of Manhattan). In about 20 minutes my wife Mary and I will leave for Liturgy at St Vladimir's Seminary. We are here this weekend to celebrate the wedding of our friend Robyn Alexander to her fiancé  Reader Gregory Hatrak this afternoon at 3.00PM. I'll be serving with His Grace Bishop Tikhon of Eastern Pennsylvania and Gregory's father Fr Michael from Millersburg, PA. Near as I can tell most, if not all, of the seminary community (faculty, staff and students will be in attendance as well).

May God grant His servants Gregory and Robyn many years!

In Christ,

+Fr Gregory

(I'll post pictures of the wedding when we have them.)