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Traveling to Bethlehem (16 Dec 2010)

Holy Theotokos Protect Our Church

Holy Theotokos Protect Our Church

Question: Is ours a Church or a Social Club?  This should be one of the first questions we ask. What is our parish and why does it exist?  To comprehensively seek the answers these questions, I think we need to look into our background. I will centre the discussion on the Greek communities; only because I know them best.  But, I truly believe that my remarks hold true for Arab, Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian(or fill in your own ethnic group) Orthodox Churches.  When we look into the past, all our Churches were social clubs in the past.  Why?  Our churches were made up of immigrants who transplanted their faith from the Mother countries. God bless them for their sacrifices and may their memories be eternal!  These were the pioneers, clergy and laity who formed and planted our parishes.  They needed each other and for the most part stuck together. That is excluding the political schisms, which often reflected old country politics. Truly, they needed the Church to be their social glue.  They banded together with the communities as the focal point of their social life.  Early in our American experience very few could join country clubs or other civic endeavors, most worked long hours and spoke little English and always with accents. Because of these factors and many more, the Churches were the social outlets. The families spent the majority of their time at Church sponsored activities or events.  That was then. Today, we are in our fourth or fifth generation in this country; our social, educational and financial integration in the fabric of American life is complete. The Church is no longer our only social outlet.  Our relationship to the Church has changed, but have our attitudes changed. What is the role of the Church in our lives?  There is no doubt that as a Christian community we need fellowship!  The question is: “Do we seek to have the Church fulfill deep spiritual needs or do we still consider it a social club where we go to get our ethnic fix?  This is the first and most basic question, we must ask ourselves. Church or social club? Which is it?  At this time of year as we prepare for the Nativity of Our Lord and as our families gather to  celebrate this joyous festival perhaps we can begin to ask each other serious questions about where we want to take our Church. After all, we are the Church!]]>

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Traveling to Bethlehem (15 December 2010)

We will be asked hard questions!
We will be asked hard questions!
Where are they?  As some of you know I am a cradle Orthodox.  The truth is that I am also a generational, cradle Orthodox. I grew up in the Church with many contemporaries that are no longer in the Church.  Where did they go and why did they leave?  These are questions we are either ashamed or frightened to ask.  I believe we delude ourselves by not seeking the answers to these questions.  What is it about the Orthodox Churches in America, all jurisdictions, that greet and speak with pride of the “new” Orthodox; people who embrace the faith, while generations walk out the back door? There are many others who are primarily unchurched or who are holiday Orthodox.  What do I mean? They come with parents or family for holidays or for family events either marriages, baptisms or funerals, but are absent the rest of the time.  Years ago, we used to say it was “the language issue” or the “ethnic issue” Hogwash! Even in the most ethnic or single language areas, there are still churches which are predominately English speaking. This is not the reason, this is an excuse.  We must look deeper, the vast majority of us need to ask serious question. Do I really understand what is going on in my Church?  Is it meeting my inner needs? Obviously, by the exodus of faithful, we as the Church are missing the boat. Are we prepared to ask hard questions and listen to the answers.  Over the next few blog posts I would like to ask some of these questions, but I would like this to be a dialogue.  Comment and let’s try to engage the issue. Personal note: Today is St. Eleftherios’ Feastday – to my beautiful wife Ria, Thea Ria, Granddaughter Ella, and Son Vastan (Eleftherios) I Love you all. Hronia Pola!
St. Eleftherios
St. Eleftherios
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Traveling to Bethlehem (14 December 2010)

Archbishop Iakovos
Archbishop Iakovos
Yesterday, I highlighted the North American saints. The names Herman, Juvenaly, Innocent, Peter the Aleut are familiar and are becoming part of our shared heritage as Orthodox in America.  To these names we can add St. John Maximovitch of San Francisco, St. Raphael of Brooklyn, St Alexis of Wilkes-Barre and others.  There is a curious omission in this list.  Are there none worthy of consideration who have served the Greek Archdiocese? We, of Greek heritage, can trace our root back to the St. Augustine, Florida experiment.  Our first  organized parishes in New Orleans, Galveston, and New York were founded in the mid to late nineteenth century.  Among the faithful and clergy are there none who’s lives are worthy of commemorating and examining? Names of leaders and spiritual guides do come to mind. Archbishops (later Patriarch) Athenagoras (Spyrou), Iakovos (Coucouzis) or Michael (Konstandinides) are prominent on the list.  There are bishops both accomplished in their contributions to our development and spiritual fathers. Bishops Athenagoras (Kavadas), Gerasimos (Papadopoulos) and Ezekiel (Tsoukalas) are a few among many.  This cursory list does not even scratch the surface; there are priests, deacons, monks and laity worthy of consideration. Some are only known to the heart of God. The point is ours is a rich history with more than a century of growth and development. When will we be able to point to our community’s past and identify souls which God has sent us to enrich our spiritual heritage?
Bishop Gerasimos
Bishop Gerasimos
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Traveling to Bethlehem (13 December 2010)

The Northern Lights
The Northern Lights
Northern lights – the Aurora Borealis, this phenomenon has longed amazed us. As we look into the northern skies, we Orthodox should remember that we have our own northern luminaries.  Today is a great day to reflect  on our own stars from the North. Today, Orthodoxy commemorates the first North American to be canonised a Saint. St Herman (Germanos) of Alaska was one of the trailblazers of the faith, who came to these shore not to find treasure, but to bring a treasure, the Holy Orthodox faith.  Yesterday, the Church commemorated a spiritual descendant of St. Herman, a martyr for the faith, St. Peter the Aleut.  In these two days, we look at labour and its fruit. St. Herman was the labourer and St. Peter the fruit of the labour. How can we Orthodox faithful in America not rejoice today?  No matter what our own backgrounds, how can we not express admiration and ask for the blessing of St. Herman? As the Enlightener of the Aleuts, Herman worked to save souls and to bring Christ to the Native peoples of Russian Alaska. The light by which he enlightened is brighter today because of the seeds St. Herman planted.  Orthodoxy is no longer a strange faith from a foreign land, but part of the fabric of life on this continent.  As we see in the news, a raging blizzard is blowing across the Midwest.  We hear of travel delays, snow and ice paralysing the country, but think how it was in the early nineteenth century in the small hut of St. Herman. He had the warmth of God’s Holy Spirit and the brightness within his heart to warm his hut. He has become an adornment in the northern sky.  Even though the Aurora Borealis is a natural occurrence; perhaps, it is God’s way of focusing our spiritual eyes on the great northern lights of Orthodoxy.
The Lights of the North
The Lights of the North
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Traveling to Bethlehem (12 December 2010)

St. Spyridon of Trimythous
St. Spyridon of Trimythous

All these icons look alike! How many time have we Orthodox heard this comment about icons.  The reality is that there are subtle differences, often with great theological meaning.  Today, is one of these times.  The saint who we commemorate today is St Spyridon of Thymithous. Look closely, what is different about this icon?  We see the familiar icon of a hierarch of the Church with his ecclesial vestments and carrying the Gospel book.  Not much different from many icons we see in the Church.  But, when we look closely we notice a strange hat on the figure.  Most icons of the hierarchs are bare headed, what is the meaning of this strange triangular hat.  By reading a bit, we discover that St. Spyridon had been a shepherd and was elected bishop because of his great piety.  What did Spyridon do then? According to the Prologue of Ohrid, he continued to live simply and care for his livestock.  He also shepherded his spiritual flock the people of his diocese.  He was devoted to being a shepherd of souls. As we know, St. Spyridon was present at the first Ecumenical Council. A country bishop from a backwater diocese, really an unsophisticated, uneducated delegate.  As his story tells us, the Holy Spirit enlightened Spyridon to expound the true theology of Christ, fully man and fully God.  While he preached the truth, Arian one of the most erudite scholars in the Empire was put to shame.  A shepherd and a bishop; perhaps our modern hierarchs can remember that they are at their hearts – simple shepherds. ]]>

 

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Traveling to Bethlehem (09 December 2010)

Sts. Joachim and Anna
Sts. Joachim and Anna

“Can you tell me the differences between the Roman Catholic Church and our Church?’  I cannot tell you how often I have been asked this question!  Well, today is a big part of that answer.  Today, we commemorate The Conception of the Theotokos by Saints Anna and Joachim.  Last night, I wrote about this holy couple’s great desire to have God intercede in their lives, listen to their prayers and bless them with a child.  Not unlike Sara and Abraham and other Old Testament couples, Joachim and Anna were advanced in age, perhaps too advanced. But, God did heard their prayers and allowed them to conceive. This is the first important point that must be noted, the Virgin Mary was conceived in the normal biological manner; the product of the loving union between a husband and wife. God’s blessing and the intervention of His Holy Spirit enabled this to happen.  This is one of the reasons Joachim and Anna are the image of married bliss for Orthodox couples. The Conception of the Theotokos is a source of another divergence in theology between  Orthodoxy and Catholicism.  We, Orthodox, do not believe in the “Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary.”  We must be very careful here! We (Orthodox) DO believe that Our Lord Jesus Christ was Immaculately Conceived.  Christ being Fully God and Full Man was born without sin. God can not have sin. But this was not the case for his mother, the Theotokos.  The Orthodox Church teaches that Mary was born with sin,  just as all of humanity. Furthermore, the Church believes that Mary lived a life of purity and she found favour with God because of her righteousness.  She was cleansed of her sin by the Spirit of God at the Annunciation, so that she could carry  the Christ Child within her body. Turning to the Roman Catholic understanding, it started to divert from the Orthodox very early. The Western Church began to develop the teaching of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin.  Their teaching states that God, fore-knowing, that Mary would bear the Christ; provided that she was born without sin.  This teaching was a pious belief until 1854, when Pope Pius lX declared the teaching – dogma of the Catholic Church.  This decree was then ratified by Vatican I in 1870. So we can see this is a relatively new doctrine.  This is a rather simplistic explanation. There are other deeper theological implications, but nonetheless, the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary is a major area of theological disagreement between the two Churches.]]>

 

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Traveling to Bethlehem (08 December 2010)

Prayer of St. Anna
Prayer of St. Anna

Today is one of those days of preparation that the Church provides us to get ready for a holiday.  Tomorrow, we commemorate the Conception of the Theotokos.  Today, we get ready.  We have an opportunity to pause and consider the importance of the coming event.  Where should we look for a better understanding of the feast?  Like many feasts of the Church this occurrence is not documented “in the Bible,” yet it is a significant happening in salvation history.  Where does one go to learn about this festival? Where do you start? I decided to ask this question out loud; so that we could learn from each other. We know that the hymns of the Church describe the theology of a feast. What do they say? The Troparion sung at the Vespers for tomorrow speaks of the “bonds of barrenness being loosed” and of the “prayers” of Joachim and Anna asking for “birth beyond hope.”  What do these clues tell us?  If we read closely, we see that this couple was without children and beyond the hope of having children, they prayed for God to change their life. In an earlier post, we stated that many of our hymnographers got inspiration from the other writings, from the Christian Apocrypha.  The book, the Protevagelium of James, (The Infancy Gospel of James) tells us the story of the birth of the Virgin Mary. We read in the first part of this book about the “prayer of St. Anna.” In her garden, Anna turns to God in her prayer. She describes her barren womb as contrasted to the fruitfulness of the natural creation. Anna begs Our Lord to bless her and allow to “bring forth fruit in her season.” An angel of the Lord appears to St. Anna and informs her that God has heard her prayer. He tells her that she would conceive and give birth to a child. In gratitude, Anna pledges to dedicate her child as a gift to God, since it would be a gift from God.  Not only are these ancient sources inspiration for hymnographers; but also for iconographers (as we can see above). The child, which the angel announces is conceived as every child is, as a blessing from God; but this child is a blessing for all of humanity. ]]>

 

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Traveling to Bethlehem (7 Dec. 2010)

St. Ambrose of Milan
St. Ambrose of Milan

Ours or Theirs?  Grammatically, this might be an odd construct, but the question is valid.  About now, you are probably asking yourself; what is he talking about?  Have you ever wondered why we as Orthodox have difficulty accepting pre-schism western saints as ours? This is most common, I believe, it applies more when the saint in question is a famous or well known western saints.  Today is a good example: St. Ambrose of Milan of St. Augustine.  The more significant the contribution of a saint to the history of the western church the less we tend to recognize them.  A few days ago, both Churches commemorated the memory of St. Cecelia.  The question would then follow: “Is she one of ours?” I had the privilege of studying in England, in a small town called Durham.  In the famous Durham Cathedral are entombed several Saints Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, Venerable Bede and King Oswald of North Umbria. My first reaction when I saw the tombs was to run to an Horologion to check if they were ”kosher.”  This type of reaction is complicated by linguistic variations.  How many know that St Photini, the Samaritan Woman, is called St Svetlana in Russia, St. Claire in France and St. Fiona in Celtic countries. Today the example of this possible confusion is St. Ambrose.  St Ambrose fought Arianism being influenced by Athanasius, corresponded with St Basil and was a great influence on St. Augustine of Hippo. When we look at Saints think across the universal Church.  Theirs are ours and ours are theirs and we are all enriched by this understanding.

 

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Traveling to Bethlehem (30 November 2010)

Sts. Andrew and Stachys
Sts. Andrew and Stachys
Today, we commemorate St. Andrew the Apostle. One of the titles by which we know St. Andrew is “the first called” (John 1, 40). The Gospels tell us that Andrew was a disciple of St. John the Baptist and that he joined Jesus at St. John’s direction.  This was the beginning of Christ’s ministry. Let’s take a minute to examine the word “called.” What is the implication of being called? Instead of using a dictionary to define the word “calling”, perhaps the best approach is to define the word by example. Today is the patronal feast of our Ecumenical Patriarchate. The Patriarchate is our example, par excellent, of calling.  Patriarch Bartholomew is the 270th successor of Sts. Andrew and Stachys. It is his calling to be a confessor for the faith, a living martyr. Yesterday, we listed several spiritual traits that we should acquire to prepare for our journey to the manger. Look at this list and add the phrase “The men and women of the Patriarchate, led by Patriarch Bartholomew show us …..”  Each spiritual trait describes the calling of the Ecumenical Throne. These people of faith keep the light of the Phanar bright, so that we Orthodox can truly understand calling.  Vocation is answering the call, dedicating one’s life to a higher expectation. These Orthodox souls keep vigil on our past, while looking to our future.  Today, we celebrate the rich heritage which we all inherited. Today, we commemorate St . Andrew who answered Christ’s invitation to change the world. Let us also celebrate our brothers and sisters in Constantinople, who have been called to be sentinels of the faith and bastions of Orthodoxy. Thank you and God Grant You Many Years!
His All Holiness Patriarch Bartholomew
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Traveling to Bethlehem (29 November 2010)

Checking it Twice
Checking it Twice
Now that Thanksgiving is behind us, the focus naturally turns toward Christmas.  In the language of the Church, turns to the Nativity of Our Lord in the Flesh. Even though, we are beginning to concentrate on Christmas; what does it take to be really ready. This question doesn’t have anything to do with trees, decorations, gifts or menus. Are we really ready? It seems to me we are overwhelmed with things and we neglect to get our interior self ready.  The Christmas carol says Santa has a list and he is checking it twice.  What about a spiritual list: CHARITY – are we concerned so much with ourselves that we forget our brothers and sisters? LOVE – do we express Christian Love to our neighbours or strangers? Christ told us it is easy to love those who love us. PATIENCE – with others and with ourselves. HUMILITY – do we try to consciously check our ego, to be less prideful and understand our own sinfulness. A PEACEFUL SPIRIT – do we seek to control our anger or rage? FORGIVENESS – are we willing to forgive and FORGET? SILENCE – are we able to shut out the hustle and bustle and seek tranquility of spirit? FAITH – do we trust in GOD as we encounter our daily challenges? Perhaps, we should make our list and check it twice!

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