On silence and silence

This is another essay that I wrote a few years ago, shortly before I became Orthodox, and never got to publishing. I thought that it may be worth publishing it here as it relates to things that I also keep coming across here and so have expanded and updated it slightly in the hope that it may be helpful.  Of course, there is more that can be said on related matters if I ever get to it…

A few years ago, while I was still in the Netherlands, I became aware of a certain media interest in monasticism. Despite their declining numbers and the secularization of society, monasteries continued to fascinate people and had even become rather fashionable destinations for those in search of some sort of inner peace.

What struck me then about this phenomenon was that it was fundamentally redefining monasticism. I read an article that managed to explain the meaning of monasticism for a broad public without once mentioning God or Christ. Instead, it told us that monastics withdraw from society in order to search for silence, for the heart of their life is concerned with what happens in this silence.

That silence is important for the monastic life is indisputable. But for a concept such as “silence” to come to define monasticism, even to the point of replacing any reference to God, is at the very least rather problematic. For Saint Benedict, the necessary condition for becoming a monk was that one truly sought God. Silence can be an important means by which we seek God, but we also need to ask ourselves what silence means. Is silence something neutral? How and with what is silence filled? What is the relationship between word and silence? Is the silence of a Christian monastery different to that of a Buddhist monastery? And what is it that actually happens in the silence?

Since coming back to South Africa, I have become aware that there is a similar dynamic at work among many people who are seeking after “spirituality” – something that I keep hoping to write more about. All too often I have seen references to retreats, courses, groups, and “inspirational” quotes (I could name names but I won’t) that originate in a Christian context but would seem to replace any specifically Christian content with a reference to silence, or solitude, or the absolute. An experience of this silence is what we are told that we need to seek, often by contrasting it to dogma which is invariably viewed in negative terms. But, once more, what is this silence? What is its relationship to Christian tradition and to dogma?

 

The mark of the Spirit

When St Basil was attempting to define the hypostatic qualities of the Holy Spirit, he could find no other words than hagiasmos or hagiosyne, meaning “sanctification” or “holiness.” It is difficult, therefore, to speak of the Spirit without taking into account his work of sanctification, but it is no less difficult to speak of the Church’s holiness without evoking the Holy Spirit, the source and power of sanctification. It sheds light on the whole final section of the Creed: the communion of saints, the remission of sins, the resurrection of the body and eternal life. Sanctification is not only moral sanctification, it is the sharing of divine life, of eternal life, of the resurrection. It is the very mark of the Spirit on the flesh itself, on all of human nature, the gift of incorruptibility, of deification.

Father Boris Bobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Church: A Course in Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, 133.

I haven’t started reading this book properly yet, but was looking through it today, came across this, and thought it worth sharing!

 

Where does the Gospel begin?

I have been wanting to get back to a discussion of our understanding of Scripture, Tradition and the Gospel for months now – motivated partly, I suppose, out of frustration that I keep coming across people who identify their particular theology, often Calvinism, with “what the Bible teaches”, or, alternatively, people who hold all interpretations as equally valid. I don’t know when I’ll get back to this, but in the meantime Father Stephen Freeman has an excellent post on these matters today. He writes:

Where does the Gospel begin?

That the Gospel would begin by reading the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) would seem the handiest answer to that question. But this leaves another question unanswered: how do we read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? St. Irenaeus (2nd century) gives an extremely insightful example in a discussion directed to Gnostics, whom he contended could not read the gospels correctly.

Irenaeus believed there was an unbroken line of tradition from the apostles, to those they mentored, and eventually down to himself and other Christian leaders. The Gnostics interpreted the Scriptures according to their own tradition. “In doing so, however,” Irenaeus warned, “they disregard the order and connection of the Scriptures and … dismember and destroy the truth.” So while their biblical theology may at first appear to be the precious jewel of orthodoxy, it was actually an imitation in glass. Put together properly, Irenaeus said, the parts of Scripture were like a mosaic in which the gems or tiles form the portrait of a king. But the Gnostics rearranged the tiles into the form of a dog or fox.

As a pastor, then, Irenaeus wrote Against Heresies in order to describe the heresies that were threatening his congregation and to present the apostolic interpretation of the Scriptures. He revealed the cloaked deception for what it was and displayed the apostolic tradition as a saving reminder to the faithful.

Quoted from Christianity Today’s Church History site.

Irenaeus (bishop of Lyons), it is worth noting, knew St. Polycarp, who knew St. John. Thus he was third-generation in the life of the Christian Church.

Irenaeus’ contention that those who are not in the line and community of the Christian Tradition are not able to properly interpret Scriptures (in a Christian manner) is dramatically important. It sets the Scriptures in a non-objective context. The Scriptures are not “self-interpreting,” as some modern Protestants would contend, neither is their reading and interpretation a matter of reason or historical knowledge. Their reading is ecclesiastical, traditional, liturgical or, in Irenaeus’ language, “according to the Apostolic Hypothesis.” In short, the Scriptures are understood within the life of the Church and cannot be rightly read in any other manner. St. Paul’s letters are written to Churches or individuals holding positions within the Church. None of his letters are addressed, “To whom it may concern.”

Go and read the whole post here.

 

A blessed Christmas!

The feast of Christmas is the feast of the mystical Body, for it is through the Incarnation that men have become members of Christ. Whatever theological interpretation we give to this great scriptural and patristic affirmation of our incorporation into Christ, we must believe that with the Incarnation, an ineffable union – that passes all understanding – began, in human flesh, between Jesus Christ and men. Beyond the particular historical event which took place at Bethlehem and through which the Son of God took on a visible human body, another event took place that concerns the whole of the human race: God, in becoming incarnate, in some way weds and assumes the human nature which we all share and creates between himself and us a relationship which, without ever ceasing to be that between the Creator and his creature, is also that between the body and its members. There is union without confusion. Christmas allows us to become most deeply conscious of what is our true nature, human nature, regenerated by Jesus Christ.

Father Lev Gillet, The Year of Grace of the Lord: A Scriptural and Liturgical Commentary on the Calendar of the Orthodox Church, 70-71.

A blessed Christmas to all, whenever you celebrate it!

 

On monastic marketing, or the lack thereof

Having visited literally hundreds of monasteries in my research, I have collected a great number of momentos bearing the insignias of particular monasteries. I have calendars with pictures of abbots with various people; I have glossy books filled with pictures of religious treasures and the monastic way of life; and I have CDs of their choirs chanting. I can show friends publicity newsletters and web sites of monasteries I have visited. Many contemporary monasteries seem to excel at self-promotion.

The monastery in Preveza is very different. It has no newsletter, no colorful calendar, no picture books, and no web site. It does not sell a single item in its store bearing its name. It barely has a sign indicating its presence in Famboura. This anonymity is not due to a lack of organization but rather to a conscious emphasis by Bishop Meletios that one of the primary virtues of the monk should be afania (anonymity). As one monk told me:

He doesn’t want to make publicity because he says it is a great shame for a pastor to say that I helped the poor or I built this thing or went and preached in the churches – this is my job; it is not something to be proud of. It is the least I can do. So, you don’t write in the paper that I celebrated the liturgy in this or that region. It is much more serious than that and you have to do much more.

Stephen R. Lloyd-Moffett, Beauty for Ashes: The Spiritual Transformation of a Modern Greek Community (St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009) 173.

I can’t remember where I first heard about this book, but the account that it chronicles did grab my attention when I first heard about it, and so when I discovered that a friend had it I asked to borrow it. She dropped it off yesterday and I immediately started dipping into it. I do, admittedly, have a pile of books that I really do want to read and am not getting to, but this is a more accessible book for reading over lunch at work than, say, tomes on patristic theology. As the subtitle says, it is about the spiritual transformation of a modern Greek community, a town that had been left in a mess by episcopal scandals, and the difference that the new bishop made. What strikes me so far is the credibility of the tale told. The author comes across as a serious but believing scholar and the people that he portrays have the mark of authenticity about them.

And, although I still have to read the chapter on monasticism properly, I was particularly struck by the words quoted here. If there is one thing that has made me uncomfortable about Orthodox monasticism, it is the romanticism associated with it, and the cult-like figures that seem to be associated with at least parts of this – although, to be fair, the marketing aspect is something that also affects Roman Catholic communities. The words quoted here remind me of all sorts of things, from some thoughts on Saint Basil to some recent words of my own bishop. In short, they are somehow about authenticity. But then I still have to read the book properly and may say more again…

 

Transparent to the action of the Spirit

What is essential to remember, here [in the thought of St Irenaeus], is, on the one hand, the double movement of the Father who sends the Spirit on creation through the Son, but also of the Spirit who returns and brings the creature back to the Father, also through the Son. The Son will always be the mediator in all things; man’s entire life, his most incarnate, most fleshly human existence, will be summoned and made capable of being transparent to the action of the Spirit. Consequently, the Holy Spirit knows no boundaries in His work of permeating, of penetrating, precisely, this flesh or this human being He must soften, which He must constitute into one bread, one body, the Body of Christ. … It is the same action of the Holy Spirit on the Son and on the Church; it is the same action of the Holy Spirit in the sacraments and in man himself. Man too, to the degree that he becomes conformed to Christ, in the Church, through the Holy Spirit, becomes, in turn, “sacrament”: he becomes a sacrament of the new life, which means that his body rediscovers why it was created. The totality of the human psycho-physical composite, our entire created reality is capable of being penetrated, of being filled with the divine life. If the sacraments are symbols, if they are signs, they are this because the human body, man’s natural being, is this in the first place. I would call this the anthropological finality, and the continuity of the sacraments in the life and in the building up of the new man.

Boris Bobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Trinity: Trinitarian Experience and Vision in the Biblical and Patristic Tradition (Crestwood, N.Y.: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999) 205-206.

 

The Earnest-money of incorruption

This faith, which we have received from the Church, which we preserve carefully, because, through the action of the Spirit of God, like a deposit of great price enclosed in a pure vessel, it rejuvenates ceaselessly, and makes the vessel that contains it to be rejuvenated. It is to the Church herself that the gift of God has been imparted, as the breath had been to the created man, so that all the members may partake of it and be vivified thereby; it is in her that the communion with Christ, that is, the Holy Spirit has been deposited, the Earnest-money of incorruption, a confirmation of our faith, and the ladder of our ascent to God [...]. For where the Church is, there is also the Spirit of God and where the Spirit of God is, there is the Church and all grace. And the Spirit is Truth.

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, Adv. Haereses, III, 24, 1, quoted in Boris Bobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Trinity: Trinitarian Experience and Vision in the Biblical and Patristic Tradition (Crestwood, N.Y.: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999) 199.

 

Consubstantial and heterogenous

The theological undertaking is always conditioned by the human problems – political, cultural, philosophic, religious – in which theology moves, and in which are as many question marks, existential, not theoretical, about the faith and the Gospel. Through such questioning, the Church is contested in her ultimate hope and in the expression of her faith. This contestation occurs at the precise point where the Church and the world meet – a world to which the Church is simultaneously consubstantial and heterogenous, leading to a necessary ambiguity, an unavoidable tension.

This whole situation of the Church and of theology at the frontier between God and the world will be reflected particularly in the language of theology, where the Church gives an account of her faith, of her hope, of her knowledge of the trinitarian God. This language is “capable of God” (capax Dei), but, at the same time, always inadequate, having to undergo itself the baptism of fire, of dying to human wisdom, to be reborn to “God’s folly” (1 Cor 1:25), even to the point of martyrdom and the profession of blood.

Boris Bobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Trinity: Trinitarian Experience and Vision in the Biblical and Patristic Tradition (Crestwood, N.Y.: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999) 197.

 

No Christ without the Church

The one and the many are mutually constitutive: there is no Son and Spirit without the Father, but equally there is no Father without the Son and the Spirit. This pattern of relations recurs throughout the Church, which participates in God’s life. The one and the many is indeed “the mystery of Christology and Pneumatology, the mystery of Church and at the same time of the Eucharist.” Christ Himself, in whom the Church participates in God’s life, is constituted by the Spirit as a “corporate personality”: there is no Church without Christ, but also paradoxically there is no Christ without the Church: “Christology without ecclesiology is inconceivable” – “What is at stake is the very identity of Christ.” The Church, says Zizioulas, “is part of the definition of Christ;” and he acknowledges how problematic this notion is: “This de-individualization of Christ is in my view the stumbling block of all ecclesiological discussion in the ecumenical movement.”

Rev. Msgr. Paul McPartlan, “Introduction” to John D. Zizioulas, The One And The Many (Sebastian Press, 2010) xv-xvi.

It should be pretty obvious by now that I’ve been neglecting this blog, and, while it is tempting to apologize and promise to try and amend my ways, that may not be terribly realistic, at least not for the next couple of months. I do hope to finish the posts on Earthen Vessels and I do hope to continue the blog in the future, although I’m not sure how that will develop, but for the time being posting may well be somewhat sporadic.

However, I have been meaning to say something about this book by Metropolitan John (Zizioulas) of Pergamon which arrived a few weeks ago courtesy of Sebastian Press of the Western American Diocese of the Serbian Orthodox Church. It is a collection of essays edited by Father Gregory Edwards and is subtitled “Studies on God, Man, the Church, and the World Today.” I have only dipped into it and, as I know from previous experience, to really benefit from Metropolitan John’s works one has to do considerably more than just dipping into them, to say nothing of the fact that I still have to get my head around some of the critical issues that people have with his work. Given that at present the word “books” unfortunately conjures up more the thought of binding than that of reading, it will probably take a while before I really get into this. On the other hand, the advantage of a collection of essays is that they can be read separately and so I hope to say more on at least some of them before too long.

The collection of essays is organised around three themes. The first is entitled “Studies in Triadology” and deals with questions of Trinitarian theology and anthropology. The second is entitled “Studies in Ecclesiology” and addresses  questions relate to the Eucharist, Pneumatology, Liturgy, eschatology and authority. The third is entitled “Studies on the Ecumenical Movement” and addresses the Orthodox understanding of participation in the Ecumenical Movement and specific related issues such as theological education and proselytism.

More again, hopefully!

 

The human person as mystical Church

… the holy Church is like a man because for the soul it has the sanctuary, for mind it has the divine altar, and for body it has the nave. It is thus the image and likeness of God.  By means of the nave, representing the body, it proposes moral wisdom, while by means of the sanctuary, representing the soul, it spiritually interprets natural contemplation, and by means of the mind of the divine altar it manifests mystical theology. Conversely, man is a mystical church, because through the nave which is his body he brightens by virtue the ascetic force of the soul by the observance of the commandments in moral wisdom. Through  the sanctuary of his soul he conveys to God in natural contemplation through reason the principles of sense purely in spirit cut off from matter. Finally, through the altar of the mind he summons the silence abounding in song in the innermost recesses of the unseen and unknown utterance of divinity by another silence, rich in speech and tone. And as far as man is capable, he dwells familiarly within mystical theology and becomes such as is fitting for one made worthy of his indwelling and he is marked with his dazzling splendor.

Saint Maximus the Confessor, The Church’s Mystagogy, 4, in Maximus Confessor: Selected Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality)(SPCK / Paulist, 1985), 189-190.