Father Alexander Schmemann continues the seventh chapter of The Eucharist Sacrament of the Kingdom: Sacrament of the Kingdom,by focusing on the shifts that occurred in the shift in understand of the concept of unity. While the creed was introduced into the eucharistic liturgy at a relatively late stage (the beginning of the sixth century), its purpose was to set the limits of the eucharistic community in order to guard the faith from heresy.
…the inclusion of the symbol of faith in the order of the liturgy, which became universal relatively quickly, was nothing more than the confirmation of the originally obvious, organic and inalienable link between the unity of faith and the Church and her self-fulfilment in the eucharist. And this link constituted the heartbeat of the experience and life of the early Church. (141)
Father Schmemann argues that this link between the unity of faith and the Church, which is what precludes communion with those outside the Church, while still assented to, has become more a formality than something that lives in the consciousness of believers, for scholastic theology has separated this discipline from its living roots which is the primordial experience of the Eucharist as the sacrament of unity. In contemporary understanding the Eucharist has become an individualised “means of personal sanctification” to meet the “spiritual needs” of the believer, and this is sanctioned by and reflects the theological fragmentation that – influenced by the West – has isolated
each element of faith and church tradition into a self-sufficient object, if not into a separate “discipline,” as though the degree of comprehension of each of them depends precisely on one’s ability not to coordinate it with the others but, on the contrary, to apportion and “isolate” it. Thus, each of the three realities of which we are speaking here – i.e., faith, the Church, the eucharist – proves to be a subject of special study in a separate “division,” removed from any ties with the other two. This, in turn, actually leads to a paradoxical result. What falls out of the theological field of vision is precisely the thing that unifies these three realities: unity, which in the experience of the Church constitutes the genuine content of the new life that we receive through faith, live in the Church, and are granted as “communion of the one Spirit” in the eucharist. (142-143)
Allied to this is the dissolution of faith into what Father Schmemann describes as “religious feeling.” Whereas faith involves a meeting with the Other, and a conversion to the Other who takes over and changes one’s life, “religious feeling” is subjective and individual, and subordinated to personal tastes and emotional experiences. While faith involves inner struggle, religious feeling “satisfies.” Moreover,
True faith aspires to be the integral illumination of the entire human composite by subordinating to itself the reason, the will, the whole of life. Religious feeling, on the contrary, easily accepts a rupture between religion and life and gets along happily with ideas, convictions, sometimes entire worldviews that are not only alien to Christianity but frequently openly contradictory to it. (144)
While religious feeling may be mistaken for conservatism in contemporary Orthodox piety, this is a conservatism in name only, seeking to conserve a form that has become severed from its contents. However, the newness of Christianity does not lie in the form, but
lies only in faith, only in the truth, which is ascertained through faith and transformed into salvation and life. (145)
Religious feeling is ultimately not interested in truth. It lives
not by faith, as knowledge and possession of the truth, as the life of life, but by itself, by its own self-delight and self-sufficiency. The best witness to this is the startling indifference to the content of faith, the complete lack of interest in what faith believes, on the part of the overwhelming majority of people who call themselves believers and who are mostly sincerely devoted to the Church. The radical revelation of the triune God, of the trinitarian divine life, of the mystery of Christ’s God-manhood, of the union in him – “without confusion, without change, without division, without separation” – of God and man, the descent of the Holy Spirit into the world, and in the Spirit “the beginning of another life, new and eternal” – everything by which the early Church literally lived, in which she rejoiced as the “victory that overcomes the world,” and which therefore became the subject of strained attempts at comprehension and passionate disputes – all this holds no interest for the contemporary “religious man.” And this is not the result of sinful laziness or weakness. The content of faith, the truth to which it is directed, holds no interest for him because it is not necessary for his “religiosity,” for that religious feeling that gradually substituted itself for faith and dissolved faith in itself. (146)
In this context, unity of faith becomes unity from below instead of unity from above.
Actually, there is much talk today – in all likelihood immeasurably more than in times past – about Christian unity, about the unity of the Church. But here the whole fact of the matter, l am not afraid to say, lies in the heretical temptation of our day, that this unity is something other than the unity that constituted the heartbeat and chief joy, the very content of Christian faith and Christian life from the first day of the Church’s existence. Almost imperceptibly to religious consciousness, a substitution has occurred, and in our day this substitution manifests itself all the more obviously as a betrayal. (147)
Tragically, the contemporary preoccupation with “unity” is blind to the way it has substituted an alien cult based on the unity of flesh and blood for the unity given in Christ.
They are blind to it because they neither have nor know any experience of unity and, consequently, they do not want it, for the heart can only want that which, though only partly – “in a mirror dimly” – it has sensed, gotten to know, come to love and already cannot forget. But here, not knowing, not remembering, they want and seek unity from below. To it they transfer man’s unquenchable thirst for unity. And they fail to understand that, outside the unity from above given to us by Christ, any unity from below not only becomes inwardly senseless and useless, but inevitably becomes an idol and, strange as it may seem, draws religion itself, Christianity itself, backward – into idolatry. (148)
August 10, 2010 at 10:45 am
Fr. Alexander touches on some very foundational issues here. His insight that unity comes from above – from Jesus Christ – is found expressed in defense of the Nicene Faith shortly after the 2nd Ec. Council as follows:
“For as God is one, he unifies all when he comes into each; and number is done away with by the presence of the Unity (Evagrius Ponticus, On the Faith,25 ~ A. Casiday ed.).”
The unifying power of God is, of course, his love. This was brilliantly seen by St. Augustine of Hippo (as expounded in his “De Trinitate”) as is evident in his description of the Person of love unifying Father and Son.
“Faith is the beginning of love; the end of love, knowledge of God (Evagrius Ponticus, Ad Monachos 3).”
The “end” is of course “telos” the “goal” not the actual final stop before knowledge. Love opens the door to knowledge of God. It is the very cement that unites to God. Knowledge, as you are aware I am sure, has an ontological significance for Evagrius.
I would hope that the Orthodox – my own peeps – will eventually come to realize that the continued resistance to re-union with the ‘rest of the Catholica’ (Roman Catholics, Oriental Orthodox, certain Anglicans and Lutherans) is a refusal of unity, a blatant ‘NO’ to love – a sin and offense against God.
As Fr. Nicholas (Afanasieff) – Schmemann’s teacher – could have affirmed: the transformation of the gifts of wine and bread into the Body and Blood (and our transformation with it! ) comes from above (not below) and unifies in one and the same Body all those partaking of it. Iow the Catholica IS already – by divine grace – one and indivisible (in spite of the best human/demonic efforts)!
May we all be one in Jesus Christ as He is One with His Father.
August 10, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Father Gregory,
I appreciate and share your concern for Christian unity. However, insofar as I understand Father Schmemann, I think that he is also cautioning us to discernment. I am not sure that all Orthodox resistance to ecumenism is necessarily rooted in sin. In my experience an ecumenical openness can just as easily be based on the “unity from below” that Schmemann is criticising.
August 10, 2010 at 7:30 pm
Sister Macrina,
I thank you for appreciating what appears to be our common concern. I do not deny the need for discernment. I am trying to point out however that there are communions who mutually accept baptism and by that fact – at least on some level – are acknowledging the ecclesial character of the ‘other.’ I am also trying to point out that where the Eucharist exists there exists the Church also. This unity is Christ-given and from above. The resistance to this unity is from ‘below.’ So yes we need discernment.
The “discernment” involves – for one thing – the Scriptures and the way we receive them (which is part of the function of the creed). Orthodoxy in history and in my own experience (on the inside) is characterized by walking away from true ecumenism. To my knowledge, for example, the Orthodox broke the unity of the Church after it had been restored at Florence. Whatever problems later and current Catholicism may have (and it does have them) it seems to me that the initiative ought to come from “our” side.
JPII went out of his way to make the ‘confiteor’ a heartfelt gesture to all of us (whether or not we were willing to receive it). Not a single such move has yet been made by an Orthodox prelate of such standing to take ownership of breaking the unity of the Church there and then. Though, on occasion, an Orthodox might be found who would at least acknowledge the true ‘Ecumenicity’ of Florence (Olivier Clement & Archpriest Sergius Bulgakov come to mind).
I guess what I am saying is, the criteria for “discernment” are givens on which agreement already exists – at least between the Oriental Orthodox, the Roman Catholic, and the Eastern Orthodox communions. To continue to ‘discern’ where there is no more discernment to be done is dangerous. Such continued discussions will merely serve the finding of “new reasons” for separation which are conveniently given more weight to justify the continued ‘schism.’ It is not the unity of the Church – which is a given from above – that is from ‘below.’ I sincerely believe it is the continued state of schism which is from ‘below.’
Fr. Gregory +
August 17, 2010 at 11:46 am
Father Gregory,
My apologies for not responding to this earlier. I haven’t read Father Afanasiev. However, I am aware that his positions have been questioned, and not only by anti-ecumenical hardliners. Before making demands for the Church to take particular ecumenical actions, it would seem to me that there is perhaps a need for a more genuine intra-Orthodox dialogue (and the same could also be said for an intra-Catholic dialogue). Somewhere in his journals (I’m quoting from memory) Father Schmemann speaks about his frustration with bishops and yet goes on to express his thanksgiving for the fact that they do not change quickly – for if they are slow to implement his ideas, they are also slow to implement other ideas which he sees as disastrous. My experience with both Anglicans and with Dutch Catholics has led me to be grateful for the sacramental discipline of the Orthodox Church, and very hesitant about calls to change it.