Orthodox Mission in the 21st Century by Metropolitan HILARION (Alfeyev)

According to a widespread view, the Orthodox Church is not a missionary church. Some Orthodox even claim that the Orthodox Church does not need any mission. ‘We are the holders of the Truth, and we testify to it by the very fact of our existence,’ said proudly one Orthodox clergyman with whom I was speaking on this subject. One wonders, though, whether this approach can be justified by the church history. If the apostles after Christ’s Resurrection sat behind closed doors in Jerusalem, testifying to the truth by the simple fact of their existence, any further spread of Christianity would have been extremely unlikely.

Any Christian church has to be missionary if it wants to be faithful to its call to be the Church. The Orthodox history knows many great missionaries, among whom there are men and women, bishops, monks and lay people. St Nina the Enlightener of Georgia (4th c.), St Vladimir the Baptiser of Russia and his grandmother Olga (10th c.), St Cyril and Methodius (10th c.), St Nicholas of Japan (19th c.) and many others are venerated as ‘equal to the apostles’.

Orthodoxy in Noth America, Japan and China is a fruit of missionary activity of the Russian Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy came to North America from Russia through Alaska (which, as Governor Sarah Palin has recently reminded us, is ‘sort of near the eastern border of Russia’). Among the first Russian missionaries was St Herman of Alaska, a simple monk from Valamo monastery, who came to Alaska in 1794 and spent more than 40 years there, until his death in 1837. He was venerated as a saint by local people already during his lifetime and was regarded as their intercessor before God.

The first episcopal see in America was established by the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1840, but the ruling bishop of this diocese, St Innocent (Veniaminov), future Metropolitan of Moscow, lived in Novoarchangelsk. In 1872, five years after the sale of Alaska to America, the see of the Russian bishop was transferred to San Francisco. From 1898 to 1907 St Tikhon, future Patriarch of Russia, governed the diocese. During his time the see was transferred to New York. It was he who organized the all-American council of 1907, which renamed the diocese as the ‘Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church in North America’. Thus began the future autocephalous American Orthodox Church.

During St Tikhon’s tenure in America a large number of Antiochian Christians arrived in the New World, for whom a Syrian-born assistant bishop, Raphael of Brooklyn, was ordained in 1903 at the request of St Tikhon. Thus began a new, unique ecclesiological model which foresaw that bishops of different nationalities could act within one Local Church and on the same canonical territory, with dioceses being created not on the basis of territory, but ethnicity. Such a model did not correspond to the ecclesiology of the Ancient Church, but it did correspond to the new reality which emerged as a result of immigration to Europe and America. If events had continued according to the plan outlined by St Tikhon, a Local Orthodox Church in America could have been created in the 1920s, headed by one metropolitan, under whom bishops of various nationalities would be in submission, with each caring for the flock of his own ethnic background, be it Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks, Antiochians, Romanians etc.

However, as a result of the mass immigration of Greeks from the former Ottoman Empire to Europe, America and Australia in the 1920s, metropolies of the Patriarchate of Constantinople were created on these continents. The Patriarchate of Constantinople declared its jurisdiction over the entire church ‘diaspora’, i.e. over all countries not within the borders of historical Orthodox Churches. According to this viewpoint, practically all of Western Europe, North and South America as well as Australia and Oceania, were encompassed by this definition of ‘diaspora’. In America, however, there already existed an Orthodox Church headed by a Russian metropolitan. Thus the creation there of a jurisdiction of Constantinople introduced divisions into American Orthodoxy, which was exacerbated after the establishment of jurisdictions of the Antiochian, Romanian and Serbian Patriarchates.

In 1970 the Russian Orthodox Church, inspired as before by the vision of St Tikhon, who dreamed of a single Orthodox Church on the American continent, granted autocephaly to that part of American Orthodoxy which was previously under its canonical authority. It was hoped that the Orthodox of other jurisdictions would eventually join this autocephalous Church, which received the name ‘Orthodox Church in America’. However, this has not yet happened, and in the Americas there are currently metropolies, archdioceses and dioceses of several Local Orthodox Churches alongside the autocephalous Orthodox Church in America.

In spite of a certain ‘jurisdictional mess’, which is, regrettably, characteristic of the Orthodox Church not only on the American continent, but also in other parts of the world, including Western Europe, the Orthodox Church worldwide contiues to be involved in a variety of missionary activities. One of the most notable theologians of the twentieth century, Father Alexander Schmemann, wrote several decades ago:

To recover the missionary dimension of the Church is today’s greatest imperative. We have to recover a very basic truth: that the Church is essentially Mission, that the very roots of her life are in the commandment of Christ: ‘Go ye therefore and teach all nations’ (Matt. 28:19). A Christian community that would lose this missionary zeal and purpose, that would become selfish and self-centered, that would limit itself to ‘satisfying the spiritual needs of its members’, that would identify itself completely with a nation, a society, a social or ethnic group – is on its way to spiritual decadence and death, because the essential spiritual need of a Christian is precisely that of sharing the life and the Truth with as many men as possible and ultimately with the whole world. Mission thus is the organic need and task of the Church in the world, the real meaning of Church’s presence in history between the first and the second advents of her Lord, or, in other terms, the meaning of Christian history. Obviously not all members of the Church can go and preach in the literal sense of the word. But all can have a concern for the missionary function of the Church, feel responsible for it, help and support it. In this respect each diocese, each parish and each member of the Church are involved in the missionary ministry.
In what follows I shall concentrate not so much on missionary activities as such, on various missionary tools, tactics and strategies which were, are and will be employed by the Orthodox Church. I shall rather attempt to outline certain features of Orthodox theology, liturgy and spirituality, which, I believe, have a strong missionary potential ingrained in them and which will give strength to the Orthodox Church in its mission in the 21st century.

The Orthodox Church as ‘the church of the Fathers’
On the first Sunday of Lent, which is called the Sunday of Orthodoxy, during a special service a protodeacon exclaims: ‘This faith is Orthodox, this faith is apostolic, this faith is patristic, this faith enlightened the universe’. It is more or less obvious why Christian faith should be ‘apostolic’ and ‘Orthodox’. But why should it be ‘patristic’? Does this imply that Orthodoxy must be necessarily styled as in the ‘patriarchal days of old’? Or is it that, as Christians, we should always be turned towards the past instead of living in the present or working for the future? Should perhaps some ‘golden age’ in which the great Fathers of the Church lived, the 4th century for instance, be our ideal, a bearing to guide us? Or, finally, could this imply that the formation of our theological and ecclesial tradition saw its completion during the ‘patristic era,’ and that, subsequently, nothing new could unfold in Orthodox theology and church life in general?

If this were so – and there are many who think exactly in this way – it would mean that our principal task is to watch over what remains of the Byzantine and Russian legacy, and vigilantly guard Orthodoxy against the infectious trends of modern times. Some act in precisely this way: fearfully rejecting the challenges of modernity, they dedicate all their time to preserving what they perceive as the traditional teaching of the Orthodox Church, explaining that in the present time of ‘universal apostasy’ there is no place for any creative understanding of Tradition, since everything had been clarified by the Fathers centuries earlier. Such supporters of ‘protective Orthodoxy’ prefer, as a rule, to refer to the ‘teachings of the holy Fathers.’ Yet in reality many of them do not know patristic doctrine: they make use of isolated notions to justify their own theories and ideas without studying patristic theology in all its pluriformity and fullness.

Were we to concentrate our energies solely on preserving the accumulated wisdom of past Fathers, then things would be quite simple. If, however, our vocation is to invest the talent of the patristic legacy, we would find ourselves confronted by a tremendous task indeed, not only one that would include study of works of the Fathers, but also their interpretation in the light of contemporary experience. Similarly, it would require an interpretation of our own contemporary experience in the light of patristic teaching. This evaluation does not only mean studying the Fathers; the task before us is also to think and to live in a patristic way. We shall never be able to understand the Fathers if we do not share, at least to some degree, in their experience and endeavours.

This is a tremendous and inspiring task; it is also quite hazardous. Just as no financial investor is immune from bankruptcy, neither is a theologian who approaches the patristic legacy in a creative way preserved from error. The distance – in time, culture, and spirituality – between the Fathers and us is too great; it would seem to be impossible to surmount the obstacles that confound our attempts to penetrate the mind of the Fathers. Yet so long as we fail to overcome them, we shall never be able to fulfil the mission entrusted to us by the modern age. This mission consists in possessing the capacity not only to make our faith truly ‘patristic,’ but also to express it in a language accessible to 21st century men and women.

The oeuvre of the Fathers is no mere museum exhibit, neither is the ‘patristic faith’ simply a legacy of the past. The opinion that the holy Fathers are the theologians of earlier times is widely held nowadays. The ‘past’ itself is defined in varying ways. According to some, the patristic age ends in the 8th century with St John Damascene’s Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, which epitomises several centuries of theological dispute. Others define its end in the 11th century with the final schism between the first and the second Rome, or mid-way through the 15th century, when the second Rome, Constantinople, fell, or in 1917, with the fall of the ‘third Rome,’ Moscow, as the last capital of an Orthodox empire. Consequently a return to ‘patristic roots’ is conceived as step back to the past, the restoration of 7th, 15th or 19th century spirituality.

This point of view must be rejected. In the opinion of Fr Georges Florovsky, ‘the Church is still fully authoritative as she has been in the ages past, since the Spirit of Truth quickens her now no less effectively than in the ancient times.’ It is not possible, therefore, to limit the ‘patristic age’ to one or other historic era. A well-known contemporary theologian, Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) of Diokleia states: ‘An Orthodox must not simply know and quote the Fathers, he must enter into the spirit of the Fathers and acquire a “patristic mind.” He must treat the Fathers not merely as relics from the past, but as living witnesses and contemporaries.’ Metropolitan Kallistos does not consider the patristic age to have ended in the 5th or 8th century; the patristic era of the Church continues to this day. ‘Indeed, it is dangerous to look on “the Fathers” as a closed cycle of writings belonging to a bygone age, for might not our own epoch produce a new Basil or Athanasius? To say that there can be no more Fathers is to suggest that the Holy Spirit has deserted the Church.’

Hence the confession of a ‘patristic faith’ not only implies the study of patristic writings and the attempt to bring the legacy of the Fathers to life, but also the belief that our era is no less ‘patristic’ than any other. The ‘Golden Age’ inaugurated by Christ, the apostles and the early Fathers endures in the works of the church Fathers of our days, to last for as long as the Church of Christ will stand on this earth. And it is the awareness of the continued presense of the Holy Spirit in the Church and afaithfulness to the ‘spirit of the Fathers’ which will give strength to the Orthodox mission in the 21st century.

Missionary potential of Orthodox liturgical service
I shall now turn to the missionary potential of Orthodox liturgical service. Orthodox divine services are characterized by inner integrity and astounding beauty. From the priest’s exclamation at the very beginning of the service we are immersed in an atmosphere of uninterrupted prayer, in which psalms, litanies, hymns, prayers and the celebrating priest’s invocations follow one another in a continuous stream. The entire service is conducted as if in one breath, in one rhythm, like an ever unfolding mystery in which nothing distracts one from prayer. Byzantine liturgical texts filled with profound theological and mystical content alternate with the prayerful incantation of the psalms, whose every word resonates in the hearts of the faithful. Even the elements of ‘choreography’ characteristic of Orthodox services, such as solemn entries and exits, prostrations and censing, are not intended to distract the faithful from prayer but, on the contrary, to put them in a prayerful disposition and draw them into the theourgia in which, according to the teaching of the Fathers, not only the Church on earth, but also the heavenly Church, including the angels and the saints, participates.

Orthodox liturgical texts have, for Orthodox Christians, an incontestable doctrinal authority, whose theological irreproachability is second only to Scripture. Liturgical texts are a ‘school of theology’ by virtue of being not simply the works of outstanding theologians and poets, but also the fruits of the prayerful experience of those who have attained sanctity and theosis. The theological authority of liturgical texts is, in my opinion, higher than that of the works of the Fathers of the Church, for not everything in the works of the latter is of equal theological value and not everything has been accepted by the fullness of the Church. Liturgical texts, on the contrary, have been accepted by the whole Church as a ‘rule of faith’ (kanon pisteos), for they have been read and sung everywhere in Orthodox churches over many centuries. Throughout this time, any erroneous ideas foreign to Orthodoxy that might have crept in either through misunderstanding or oversight were eliminated by church Tradition itself, leaving only pure and authoritative doctrine clothed by the poetic forms of the Church’s hymns.

The heart of Orthodox daily cicle of services is the Divine Liturgy. Some of my non-Orthodox friends complain that the Orthodox Liturgy is too long, saying ‘why do you have to stretch out the Eucharist when you can serve it in half an hour?’ My experience of the Liturgy is altogether different: two hours are never sufficient for me, since the time goes by so quickly and the dismissal comes too soon. It is always difficult to leave the altar and to descend from the heavens to earth, from the experience of the sublime to the cares of this world. There is a story about a priest in Saint-Petersburg at the end of the 19th century who had a small room above the church’s sanctuary. After serving Liturgy he would climb into this room by means of a ladder which he would then take with him. Only after two or three hours would he return to the church to talk with people. Although the majority of clergy in the 21st century cannot allow themselves this luxury, the reasons for this priest’s desire to prolong the sweetness of communion with God and the unearthly stillness and calm that enter the soul while serving the Liturgy, are wholly understandable.

The Liturgy is a ‘common act,’ and without doubt demands the presence and active participation of the laity. Orthodox practice knows of no private Liturgies which priests might serve by themselves, as is very widespread in the Roman Catholic Church. The entire structure of the Liturgy also presupposes the presence of a congregation which, together with the priest, is also a celebrant of the Liturgy. This is a congregation not of spectators, but of participants, who join in communion of the Mysteries of Christ. Many have rightly remarked (including Fr Alexander Schmemann, with special emphasis) that the order of the Liturgy of the Faithful does not at all presuppose the presence of believers who do not take communion. Contemporary practice, where only those who have prepared themselves commune while the remainder content to stand passively in church, does not correspond to the experience of the ancient Church.

I wholly agree with those who support the revival of ancient church practice whereby lay people receive communion at every Liturgy. Moreover, the guidelines for preparing for Holy Communion should be the same for both clergy and laity. It seems unfair and contradictory to the meaning of the Liturgy that different rules are laid down for clergy and laity. At the Liturgy everyone – bishops, priests and laity – stands before God with the same dignity, or rather with the same unworthiness, for ‘nobody attached to fleshly desires and delights is worthy to come near or approach’ the communion of Christ’s Holy Mysteries.

The active participation of lay people in the Liturgy presupposes the possibility of their responding to the exclamations of the priest and hearing the so-called ‘secret’ prayers. In contemporary church practice these prayers, as a rule, are read by the priest silently, which creates an additional barrier between the priest and his flock. More importantly, this habit deprives the faithful since the main point of the Liturgy passes them by. I have heard many arguments in favour of the practice of silent prayers, but none has seemed convincing to me. The so-called ‘silent’ prayers were originally read aloud by the celebrating clergy. I think that in our time the faithful should have the opportunity to hear these prayers in their entirety, not only their concluding subordinate clauses (these signify that the prayers have been read but do not give the least notion of their content: ‘That being always guarded by Thy might…,’ ‘Singing the triumphant hymn…,’ ‘For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory…’). At least the prayer of the anaphora, which summarizes the essence of the Liturgy, should be read aloud.

The celebration of the Liturgy is a creative act in which the fullness of the Church is involved. The text of the Liturgy is always the same, but each Liturgy grants us the opportunity to experience the mystery in a new light, renewing our encounter with the living God.

If we can call the services of the Orthodox Church a school of theology, then the Divine Liturgy is this school par excellence. It teaches us about the mysteries of the Heavenly Kingdom because it itself is an icon of this Kingdom, the most complete, perfect reflection of the heavenly reality in our earthly conditions, a revelation of the transcendent through the immanent. In the Kingdom of God all symbols shall pass away, and only the heavenly reality will remain. There we will not commune of the Body and Blood of Christ in the form of bread and wine, but in a more perfect way we shall be united with Christ Himself, the Source of life and immortality. If the manner of our communion with God will change, its essence will remain the same – always a personal encounter with God, not of isolated people, but of people in communion with each other. In this sense it is correctly said that the Liturgy served on earth is but a part of the incessant Liturgy celebrated by people and angels in the Heavenly Kingdom.

A few words need to be added about the liturgical ceremony of the Orthodox Church, especially the peculiarities of hierarchical service. People sometimes say that Byzantine liturgical ceremony is outdated and needs to be simplified. Some consider the bishop’s rites to be too ‘pompous’ and distractive, and say that the hierarchical ordo creates a ‘barrier’ between the praying faithful and the living God.

I do not agree with these statements. The hierarchical services, worked out in great detail, are intended not to distract the faithful from prayer but, on the contrary, to draw them into the theourgic mystery of the heavenly Eucharist. All aspects of the divine services are symbolic and iconic: not only the iconostasis and church singing, but also the very orders of the services and their so-called ceremony. When subdeacons, deacons, and priests leave the sanctuary one after another holding candles, the bishop’s staff and other liturgical items, the bishop reads the prayer ‘O Master, Lord our God, who hast established in the heavens the ranks and hosts of angels and archangels to serve Thy glory, do Thou make our entry an entry with the holy angels who serve and glorify with us Thy goodness.’ This entire solemn procession is an icon, a symbolic depiction of the majestic, intense, and reverent procession of angels accompanying the King of glory in Heaven. The same can be said of the Great Entrance, during which ‘The King of kings and the Lord of lords comes to be slain and give Himself as food for the faithful, preceded by the angelic hosts with all authority and power, the many-eyed cherubim and the six-winged seraphim.’ It is these ‘angelic hosts’ that are symbolized by the subdeacons, deacons and priests entering the altar to offer the bloodless sacrifice.

One of the most noticeable qualities of the divine services is their beauty and splendour. This beauty is also reflected in the external arrangement of the church. There is a well-known story from the ancient ‘Chronicle of the Years’ (Povest’ vremennykh let) that tells of how ambassadors of Prince Vladimir, sent by him to various countries to select the correct faith for Rus,’ returned, struck by the service which they attended in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople: ‘We did not know if we were on heaven or earth, for there is no such splendour and beauty on earth, and we are at a loss how to express what we saw. We only know that God is with these people and that their services were better than those of all other countries.’ Who knows what the destiny of Russia may have resembled if Prince Vladimir’s ambassadors did not visit Hagia Sophia and were not inspired by the grandeur of the church and the beauty of Orthodox services?

There is a deep symbolism and edifying quality in the very structure of the Orthodox churches. They are built either in the form of a cross or a rectangle (basilica), the latter symbolizing the Church as a ship, as Noah’s ark, in which the New Israel travels to the Heavenly Kingdom. Byzantine and Russian churches are decorated with frescoes which depict various events from Sacred History. Series of frescoes or mosaics stretch out along the inside of the church, explaining to the faithful the main themes of salvation history and serving as a ‘Bible in pictures.’

Ancient churches had no iconostasis; only a low barrier that divided the sanctuary from the rest of the church so that the former remained ‘transparent.’ The iconostasis appeared gradually: at first it was one-tiered, then later, multi-tiered, the latter becoming especially widespread in Russia. Today the iconostasis is often seen as a wall between the sanctuary and the rest of the church, between the clergy and the faithful. In fact, however, it is a window into another world, for the hosts of saints gaze down at the faithful from the icons. The aim of the iconostasis is not to create an obstacle, but rather to bring the faithful into the mystical life of the ‘Triumphant Church,’ whose saints and angels serve God in incessant rejoicing.

The missionary potential of the Orthodox liturgy as a ‘school of theology’ is somewhat undermined in those places where a non-understandable liturgical language is used. In particular, in modern Russia, Church-Slavonic language is used, which is not easily understood by ordinary believers. This issue was raised as early as the beginning of the twentieth century: at that time the difficulty in understanding Church Slavonic was already acutely felt. St Tikhon, the Archbishop of North America, wrote in 1906: ‘A new Slavonic translation of the service books is important for the Russian Church (the current one is outdated and in many places incorrect), and it could forestall the demands of certain persons to celebrate in vernacular Russian.’ Another hierarch, Bishop Seraphim of Polotsk, wrote as follows about the need to improve the Slavonic translation of the services:

In their polemics with Catholicism, Orthodox theologians always mention their services and their great edifying value as one of the advantages of the Orthodox Church. In practice, however, the services are far from fulfilling the purpose for which they were composed by their grace-filled Orthodox authors. The main reason for this lies in their incomprehensibility for the majority of believers. For this reason the liturgical language must first and foremost be improved, so as to make it clearer and more understandable.

An edition of liturgical texts with a new Church Slavonic wording was made and printed in a small quantity shortly before the 1917-1918 Local Council, but it never enjoyed wide circulation among the Orthodox. Discussions on the issue of liturgical language at the Council remained unfinished. The ensuing course of events is well known: attempts were made by the ‘renovationists’ to ‘russify’ the services, and the church-goers refused to accept the changes. Similar endeavours continue to be thwarted by the believers, who defend Church Slavonic as a stronghold of Orthodoxy.

Yet all this does not remove the unavoidable issue of the relative incomprehensibility of Church Slavonic. Alongside all that is justifiably being said about the need to preserve Church Slavonic, it is also evident that church services are meant to be understood; otherwise they lose their edifying force. The liturgical texts of the Orthodox Church contain a wealth of theology and moral teaching that must be accessible to people. It is clear that at the time of their composition, the Byzantine liturgical texts in use to this day were intelligible – if not to all, then at least to educated people.

The point here is not simply one of translating the services into Russian. The matter in hand concerns a much more global task which faces the Russian Orthodox Church, and first and foremost its theologians. His Holiness Patriarch Alexy II of Moscow and all Russia has clearly formulated this task:

Church Slavonic is not understood by all: for this reason many liturgists of our Church long ago raised the issue of translating the full cycle of liturgical texts into Russian. However, attempts to translate the services into the contemporary vernacular have shown that more is at stake than the replacement of one vocabulary with another, or of one type of grammatical form with another. The liturgical texts used in the Orthodox Church are a legacy from Byzantine antiquity; even when translated into Russian their comprehension requires special training... The issue of the incomprehensibility of church services is therefore not exhausted by questions of language alone, although these certainly must be raised and resolved as well. We face a more comprehensive and truly missionary task: to teach people to understand the meaning of the church services.

Hence it is evident that the Church must develop a strategy for its educational, catechetical and missionary work, making the treasures of Orthodox worship fully accessible to all. Without a strategy, the implementation of the ‘comprehensive missionary task’ mentioned by the Patriarch of Moscow will lack any feasibility. I believe, it is precisely the development of such missionary stratery whish is among the most essential tasks of the Orthodox Church worldwide in the 21st century.

Orthodoxy in dialogue
One could say much more about the missionary potential of the Orthodox Church, in particular, about the Orthodox icon as a missionary tool, as well as about the church music. In the remainder of my lecture, however, I would like to concentrate on something entirely different. I would like to say a few words about who are and will be the main opponents of the Orthodox mission in the 21st century, and who are likely to become the Orthodox Church’s closest partners in its missionary activity.

I believe that the 21st century will continue to be marked by the two ongoing conflicts, or battles, which will inevitably affect the mission and witness of the Orthodox Church. The first battle is that between Christianity and ‘militant secularism’. In modern secular society Christian values are being more and more marginalized and God is being driven to the outskirts of human existence. In many countries of the West it is now almost taken for granted that religion can operate only at the private level: you are free to believe in God or not, but this should in no way be manifested in your social life. Churches and religious communities are tolerated so long as they do not trespass their own borders, so long as they refrain from publicly expressing opinions that differ from those consonant with ‘political correctness’. Should they begin to express such opinions, they are readily accused of intolerance. The secular press is largely negative towards Christianity. Youth culture is predominantly anti-religious and largely anti-Christian. Moral standards accepted by modern society are markedly different from those that were until recently accepted by most Christian communities.

The second ongoing battle, which is likely to continue in the 21st century, is that between the two markedly different versions of Christianity. There is now a deep-seated discrepancy between Christian communities, such as the Orthodox, that attempt to preserve the sacred Tradition of the ancient, undivided Church, and those, like many Reform communities, that have revised and continue to revise Tradition in conformity with secular standards. This divergence is as evident at the level of religious teaching, including doctrine and ecclesiology, as it is at the level of church practice, such as worship and morality.

In my opinion, the recent liberalization of teaching and practice in many Protestant churches has greatly alienated them from both the Orthodox and the Catholics. It has also undermined the common Christian witness to the secularized world. The voice of Christendom is nowadays deeply disunited: we preach contradictory moral standards; our doctrinal positions are divergent; and our social perspectives vary a great deal. One wonders whether we can still speak at all of ‘Christianity’ or whether it would be more accurate to refer to ‘Christianities,’ that is to say, markedly diverse versions of the Christian faith.

Many Christian communities, particularly in Western Europe and North America, are experiencing a catastrophic shortage of vocations. But what is the reason for this? One, surely, is the mounting militant secularism that steals millions of the faithful, especially the youth. Another, however, is the doctrinal and moral liberalism within some Christian communities. It not only undermines their credibility in the eyes of the secular world but also makes Christianity uninteresting and irrelevant, for it neither challenges secular society nor has anything significantly different to offer to young people educated in a worldly culture.

Under these circumstances one of the most important missionary tasks of the Orthodox Church becomes to testify to the Tradition of the ancient undivided Church before all those Christian communities who for various reasons departed from this Tradition. The Jubilee Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthordox Church, which was convoked in 2000, stated:

The Orthodox Church is the guardian of the Tradition and the grace-filled gifts of the Early Church. Her primary task, therefore, in her relations with non-Orthodox confessions is to bear continuous and persistent witness which will lead to the truth expressed in this Tradition becoming understandable and acceptable… The goal of Orthodox witness is placed upon every member of the Church. Orthodox Christians must clearly see that the faith they preserve and confess has a catholic, universal character. The Church is not only called to teach its own children, but to bear witness of the truth to those who have left her.

In this missionary effort, I believe, the Orthodox Church needs allies, and its closest ally and partner is most likely to be the Catholic Church. There are well-known differences between Catholics and Orthodox on a certain number of doctrinal and ecclesiological points, notable on the understanding of the role of the Bishop of Rome. All these differences, however, appear to be rather minor in comparison to the fundamental elements of faith which are identical in both traditions. Both Churches have apostolic succession of hierarchy and de facto have mutual recognition of sacraments (while continuing not to have full Eucharistic communion). No less important is the solidarity between the Catholics and the Orthodox on major points of moral teaching, including questions of family ethics, human sexuality, bioethics etc.

It is against this background that I have repeatedly suggested that a Catholic-Orthodox Alliance should be formed. This alliance may enable Catholics and Orthodox to fight together for the preservation of traditional values and to combat against secularism, liberalism and relativism. Such alliance may help Orthodox and Catholics to speak with one voice in addressing secular society, may provide for them an ample space where they will discuss modern issues and come to common positions. The two traditions can speak with one voice, and there can be a united Catholic-Orthodox response to the challenges of modern times.

The rationale behind my proposal is the following: our Churches are on their way to unity, but one has to be realistic and understand that it will probably take decades, if not centuries, before this unity is realized. In the meantime we desperately need to address the world with a united voice. Without being one Church, can we act as one Church, can we present ourselves to the outside world as a unified structure, as an alliance? I am convinced that we can, and that by doing so we may become much stronger.

Such an alliance, whatever it shape may be, may well include those representatives of Protestant and Anglican communities who associate themselves with a traditional rather than liberal ‘wing’ of Christianity and who share the essential points of traditional Christian morality. I also believe that the Oriental Orthodox Churches should from the very beginning be a part of the alliance on behalf of the Orthodox family. There is no Eucharistic communion between the Eastern and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, but their spirituality and ethos, as well as their social and moral teachings are quite identical. Moreover, in an ecumenical context the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches have already proved to be able to act as one Orthodox family.

The modern battle between traditional Christianity on the one hand and secularism, liberalism and relativism on the other is primarily centred round the question of values. It is not a theological argument, because it is not the existence of God that is debated: it is the existence of an absolute moral norm, on which human life should be founded, that is put into question. The contest has an anthropological character, and it is the present and future of humanity that is at stake. By defending life, marriage and procreation, by struggling against legalization of contraception, abortion and euthanasia, against recognition of homosexual unions as equal to marital ones, against libertinage in all forms, the traditional Christians are engaged in a battle for survival of the Christian civilization and of those peoples who until recently identified themselves with Christianity.

The rediscovery of traditional Christian values is essential in the epoch which is marked by a deep demographic crisis, which in the course of the 21st century is likely to turn into an unprecedented catcstrophe for many countries of the so-called ‘Western civilization’. More and more people are coming to the understanding that the roots of the current demographic crisis are spiritual rathern than economic. It is loss of the traditional understanding of marriage and family, based on religious values, that led to a radical transformation of etical norms related to human sexuality in the second half of the 20th century. This conviction is shared today not only by religious leaders, but also by many social activists and politicians – first and foremost by those with conservative convictions. In his book with the characteristic title The Death of the West, American politician Patrick Buchanan calls the homo occidentalis an ‘endangered species.’ He writes:

As a growing population has long been a mark of healthy nations and rising civilizations, falling populations have been a sign of nations and civilizations in decline. If that holds true, Western civilization, power and wealth aside, is in critical condition… As late as 1960, European people, including Americans, Australians and Canadians, numbered 750 million, one-fourth of the 3 billion people alive… In 1960, people of European ancestry were one-fourth of the world's population; in 2000, they were one-sixth; in 2050, they will be one-tenth. These are the statistics of a vanishing race… If the present fertility rates hold, Europe’s population will decline to 207 million by the end of the twenty-first century, less than 30 percent of today’s. The cradle of Western civilization will have become its grave.

‘Irony of ironies,’ exclaims Buchanan. ‘Today, an aging, dying Christian West is pressing the Third World and the Islamic world to accept contraception, abortion, and sterilization as the West has done. But why should they enter a suicide pact with us when they stand to inherit the earth when we are gone?’

In his book Buchanan shows that the collapse of the institution of marriage and marital fertility, the triumph of promiscuity, the sharply rising number of divorces, the legalization of abortion, the widespread use of contraception and the liberalization of sexual ethics are all very closely linked with the West’s rejection of traditional moral norms formulated by the religious world-view. The ‘cultural revolution’ of the second half of the twentieth century, which undermined the foundations of traditional morality, directed the Western mind away from Christian values – self-sacrifice, altruism and faithfulness – and toward militant secular individualism, which has brought Western civilization to the brink of destruction. Buchanan concludes: ‘Only a social counterrevolution or a religious awakening can turn the West around before a falling birthrate closes off the last exit ramp and brings down the curtain on Western Man’s long-running play.’

The Orthodox Church can play a significant role in this religious awakening, which is perhaps the only thing that can save Western civilization from an irrecoverable collapse. On the threshold of the 21st century the Orthodox Church once again showed its capability to attract and inspire millions of people. A religious revival of unprecedented scale is going on in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and other countries of the former Soviet bloc. This renaissance, experienced by all religious confessions, is particularly noticeable in the Russian Orthodox Church: within twenty years, the number of its parishes grew from 6 to 30 thousand, the number of monasteries from 18 to 750, the number of theological schools from 3 to 100, and the number of priests more than quadrupled. Quantitative growth went hand in hand with qualitative changes. The Church, which for decades had only been able to serve the ‘religious needs’ of its members, turned to those outside and engaged in a wide range of missionary, educational and charitable activities.

Similar processes are underway in the Romanian, Serbian and Bulgarian Orthodox Churches, which also suffered under communist regimes, as well as in some other Local Orthodox Churches. Great missionaries carry out their aposlotic work, such as Archbishop Anastasios of Albania, who was able to practically re-create an Orthodox Church that had been reduced to zero by militant atheists. The Orthodox Church does not suffer from a ‘crisis of vocations’, about which so many Christian Churches are constantly complaining. On the contrary, Orthodox theological seminaries, academies and faculties are full of young men and women eager to serve the Church, monasteries and convents are filled with monks and nuns.

As one of the few Christian Churches which are growing rather than declining, the Orthodox Church is a living proof of continuing relevance of that sort of Christianity which is based on traditional doctrinal and moral values. It also disproves a widespread opinion that we are living in a ‘post-Christian’ epoch. I strongly believe that a worldwide revival of Christianity is ahead, and that the Orthodox Church will play a significant role in it.

My Journey Through Orthodoxy

15 years ago, in 1996, my journey began. I was in my searching phase and found a small Ukrainian Orthodox Mission in Lincoln, Nebraska, named after Saint Nicholas of Myra in Lycia.

I did not fully understand it at the time, but this was a breakaway group called the Kiev Patriarchate, in North America this Church was under (deposed ROCOR deacon) Lev Puhalo, now retired bishop Lazar of Ottawa. I just know I was told the other Orthodox churches in Lincoln were in error. The mission was in rented space and presided by a priest who lived in another city, named Father Romano Couch. After time, they were unable to continue travelling to Lincoln, and they moved the mission to their home, where I was unable to go. So I returned to the church of my birth, the Roman Catholic Church, as I could see some of those ancient traditions, I learned of in an old version of The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware, were still being practiced.^[1]

However, I was not spiritually fulfilled in Roman Catholicism. When I found out there was an Eastern Rite of Roman Catholicism, that is where I went. I kept on studying the Church Fathers and the Ecumenical Councils. Eventually I had to make a decision. Would I follow the Church that kept all that the early Church had taught and practiced? It was obvious that only one Church kept these traditions, and being focused on tradition, there was only choice back in 2001: ROCOR: The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. So I joined Saint Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church in Stratford rather than Three Hierarchs Orthodox Church that was literally a block away from my home! There, my daughter and I were baptized.

My traditionalism increased, fueled in part by my daughter's godmother, a member of the Genuine Greek Orthodox Church. With the talks of ROCOR uniting with the Moscow Patriarchate, ROCOR split in to two, and the ROAC: The Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church, with its origins in the Catacomb Churches of Russia started gaining ground in America. In time, after a move to Colorado, I joined a ROAC parish, Saint Basil of Kineshma Russian Orthodox Church.

In time, while studying via Suzdal Theological Academy, I became a deacon, and even after the temporary temple was abandoned, I kept going with Reader's Services.^[2]

That is, until I ran afoul Bishop Andrei due to my unwillingness to neither be ordained a presbyter nor break my lease and move to a parish in another state. I became a retired deacon in 2007 and quit the ROAC, but was still could not do Reader's Services, as this was an order from my last bishop, Andrei, and I had yet to find a new bishop to go under. So I prayed and prayed and prayed while many bishops offered to receive me, some even wanting to make me a presbyter.^[3]

In between time I was without a church and being I was laity now, I got married, however it was secularly in China. In time, I moved to Pueblo. My work rarely gave me Sundays off, but when they did, I went to Saint Michael the Archangel Orthodox Church. The parish priest told me he would be happy to receive me by confession. I ate dinner with the parish priest, but I never joined, even though the OCA: Orthodox Church of America had greatly improved since the long-needed removal of their ex-Metropolitan Herman and elevation of Metropolitan Jonah. It was a great parish and a properly focused priest, nonetheless. Meanwhile I continued to help the underground Chinese Orthodox Church which remains mostly in the catacombs but associated with the Moscow Patriarchate.

When I moved to Texas for a job opportunity, after long considering my options with fervent prayer, I eventually started visiting local Orthodox Churches. Saint John the Baptist Greek Orthodox Church was one I went to, and my wife loved Vespers there, so we attended there for Vespers. The Divine Liturgy there was not what I was used to, being that I was used to Slavic style music, and so thankfully we also had Saint Barbara Orthodox Church a little further away. While eventually I started to confess at Saint John's, it was a long time until we decided to join Saint Barbara's. We had our marriage blessed there and only after my son was Baptized there on his 100th day, I started to commune. The marriage blessing was something that was required before I could commune at either of the Texas parishes.

UPDATE: My journey continues at http://orthodoxscouter.blogspot.com/2011/10/my-continuing-journey-through-orthodoxy.html and then later further at http://orthodoxscouter.blogspot.com/2012/07/my-continuous-journey-through-orthodoxy.html

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[1] In 2003, when the bishop was accepted in to the OCA, he was accepted as a retired bishop with no teaching faculties, his clergy that came with him were accepted as laity. So that Saint Nicholas Ukrainian Orthodox Church was to merge with Saint John of Krondstadt Orthodox Church in Lincoln.

[2] The pastor, Archpriest Dionysi McGowan, left it to join then-vagante/bishopless Archpriest Spyridon Schneider and then later RTOC's Protopresbyter Victor Melehov in Massachusetts.

[3]I dared to ask him why he re-Baptized a priest who had been ordained in the ROCOR before the ROAC broke from it. A priest who was later defrocked by the GOA for having an affair with a parishioner, then moving in with her. When Vicar Bishop Andrei baptized this priest, then re-Ordained him, this woman was his only parishioner, other than his son. The three of them lived in the same house, so no other TOC would take him due to this, and after he later ran afoul of Bishop Andrei, (Bishop Andrei always has to have an enemy in his midst) no one still would until he found the always-accepting Milan Synod willing, many, many, many years later. Bishop Andrei would end up running everyone out of the ROAC who was a member before he joined!

*Of note, at my ROCOR parish of Saint Nicholas of Myra in Lycia, the younger Matushka said that people leave ROCOR for more traditional jurisdictions and keep going until they end up in the Matthewites, eventually leaving Orthodoxy altogether or ending up in the OCA, because it is "canonical"! I scoffed that anyone born in the Old Calendar ROCOR would join the New Calendar OCA. Of course, at that time, I never thought that the ROCOR would unite with the Moscow Patriarchate and be in communion with the OCA and the rest of "World Orthodoxy"! Thank God for His Mysterious Ways!

Paschal Weight Challenge

Today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day in America. He had a dream, that one day that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal." He had a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. He had a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. He had a dream that his four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. He had a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. Well, beyond his dream, today we even have a black president. Dream accomplished. Today I have a dream too...

...well, more of a challenge. My wife will stop nagging me about my weight, and I, on my own, will lose weight by Pascha, or more specifically, by Palm Sunday: The Feast of the Entry of the Lord in to Jerusalem. I gorged for 3 days to make this easier, weighing myself last night at 240#. Of course this morning, I am back down to 236#. So here I start with the first public logging. Let's see how low I can go!

Bishops and Saints on the Television

His Grace Venyamin, Bishop of Chernomorye and Kuban, has addressed his clergy and parishioners on the matter of the damage done by television. The text of this document was published in the February issue of the newspaper "The Candle of Repentance" (Svecha Pokayania), a publication of the Volgograd Parish in honor of the Zar's Martyrs (Jurisdiction of the Synod of Bishops of ROCOR).

The need to write an address against "one of the most dangerous instruments of Satan for the soul of the believers" was prompted in Bishop Venyamin by the decline in decency, piousness and devoutness among all believers and the desire to "protect his parishioners against the aggressive and soul destructive influence of the outside world."

"Television has a strong influence, causing debauchery and destruction in men and women, it exerts a negative influence on the willpower and weakness it, says Bishop Venyamin. People do not even notice how they become television's slaves (especially of the so-called "soap operas") a psychological dependence is created similar to that caused by alcohol or drugs. Thus television is a deadly venom for the soul."

The Bishop's address especially notices the most negative influence of television on children "who loose their childhood years through TV, and transforms them from children into old people almost immediately, they are no longer innocent children!" When they experience television, says the Bishop, children "will start considering Christianity as a system imposing bans or prohibitions. with a direct or silent protest against it. Switching on the TV freely we leave our own children in the power of antichrist.!"

Fighting against television is "the foremost task of the Orthodox priest", says Bishop Venyamin. The priests must prompt their parish members to "make a decision to throw out the TV or at least to get rid of it."

In closing his address, Bishop Venyamin recalls a true story: "A small girl, a Christian, was present when a TV set was blessed with Holy Water and saw that immediately demons flew out of it. A couple of minutes went by, and all demons returned to the TV without any opposition. They sat down in the form of musicians with their music instruments, balalaykas and started their concert, like in hell. The head of the Chernomor-Kuban Diocese entrusted his clergy with the task to "convince parishioners to reject television and not to allow them to take Communion if they do not promise to say goodbye to television."

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St. Cosmas of Aitolia said in the 18th century that there would be a box in people's homes having two horns which would make people stupid.

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Elder Lavrenty said: "The abomination of desolation will stand in the holy place and will show forth the foul seducers of the world who, working false miracles, will deceive all such men as have fallen way from God. And, after them, antichrist will appear! The entire world will see him at one and the same time."

To the question: "Where is the holy place -- in church?"

Venerable Lavrenty said: "Not in church, but in the home! Beforetimes, a table used to stand in the corner where the holy icons were. Then, however, that space will be occupied by seductive
instruments for the deception of men. Many who have departed away from the Truth will say: We need to watch and hear the news. And it is in the news that antichrist will appear; and they will accept him."

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Tevevision by Archbishop Vitaly of Montreal and Canada
We have not yet felt the huge after-shock of the coming of television which in a short while has managed to secure a niche for itself in almost every home. Its powers of persuasion and attraction have proved to be practically supernatural and are coupled with a subtle and awesome ability to corrupt. Today, the priesthood cannot and must not ignore the phenomenon of television—a phenomenon unrivaled in the extent of its influence over the human soul. Without exaggeration, a campaign against it must he our immediate and primary concern because every day and every hour its effects are being felt in our own homes.

Its power can be overcome! All we really need to do is to see it in perspective. It is indisputably a brilliant invention and our chief problem lies in the fact that our conflict is not really with it at all, but with ourselves and our own perpetually debilitated wills. We simply do not have the strength to tear ourselves away from its extraordinarily seductive spell. I am reminded of the words of St. Paul: "All things are lawful unto me but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any" (1 Cor. 6:12).

So let us look at television objectively, see the good and the evil in it, and only then will we be in a position to make use of its positive aspects and to reject the negative.

Firstly, no invention, no mechanism nor electronic device is inherently evil—there is no such thing as intrinsic evil, for evil exists only in the will of those who act contrary to the will of God. Such phenomena as television are rather manifestations of the Divine Wisdom which man has the privilege of discovering within the laws of nature, so that he may all the better and with all his heart give praise and thanks to the Creator. Given nothing else but the sheer quantity of programming, it would be foolish to say that no good at all comes of it. The chief good and perhaps the only good fully realized is this television has brought people home again.

The whole period beginning with the First World War and ending with the nineteen-fifties has been singled out by sociologists because of one characteristic, the tendency of people to "go out" in search of stimulation. People may have slept at home and even had their meals at home, but "leisure time" was spent elsewhere. People "went out," coaxed by sports events, movies, dancing, and an endless array of "entertainments." The results, especially for children, were catastrophic. "Home" became not much more than a dormitory and all the former connotations of the word were lost. It had been a place where children first learned to comprehend the things around them and to use their imaginations, a place where the newly-awakened imagination lovingly animated lifeless forms around it and first learned to dream. But now, the children were cast out into the streets, completely unprepared for the cruel and bitter realities they encountered, the realities of our times, which so insult the soul.

Suddenly, for the first time in five decades people came home—to watch television. Television was not presenting anything new; we cannot credit it with that. It was simply appealing to the lower instincts of the common man and bringing those same things which he had sought in the streets into his living room. So there is no use speaking of the "morality" of the change that came about, and yet the change itself gives cause for optimism. Amidst the indignity, corruption and temptation that we now live in, we must clutch at straws and hope that they will keep us afloat.

Let us concede, then, that television encourages us to stay home and try to build on that. Were we to darn it outright, we would find no one to listen. Such is the power it wields over us.

Conceivably, television could graphically and comprehensively present us with the complex issues confronting science, art and technology and thus increase our knowledge and awareness. Conceivably, it could eradicate ignorance and that peculiar semi-literacy which has always brought the world to grief.

Let us for a moment assume that it seeks to do these things, for the sake of the argument, and go on to examine its destructive influence on the soul.

Television keeps us from reading. Why bother when we can both hear and see everything on television? Why strain our imagination when television can do all the work for us? We are handed programs on a platter, masterfully prepared and piquantly sauced—all we have to do is eat.

Television has carried us to the ends of the earth and into space, taken us to the ocean’s bottom and into the earth's crust, into factories and operating rooms where we have practically participated in the most complex surgery. It has shown us nations and peoples whom we might otherwise never have seen. And yet, paradoxically, it has made us slothful and apathetic. Television's vast storehouse of audio-visual information has proven to be an indigestible glut which has made us indifferent to the reef world around us. When all is said and done, it has nurtured our ignorance.

I will try to explain. When we read, an extremely complex psychological process occurs. It involves, first and foremost, an effort of the will. To choose a book and read it through requires a concentrated effort, whereas it takes no effort at all to watch television. No matter how brilliant the author of a given book may be, our imagination creates its own images as we read. We create a universe of our own. In fact, we may be drawn to our favorite authors precisely because we participate with them in the mysterious process of creation.

The imagination is only one aspect of the soul. It is the source of creativity and exploration and it is developed through reading. This helps to make us not only useful members of society but life-loving individuals as well. Television, on the other hand, far from stimulating the imagination, has no need of it. The work of the imagination is completed by the time a program is broadcast, and all we end up doing is looking at the end-product of the imaginations of others, often alien to our own. As we are deprived of our imaginations, so are we deprived of our souls, and our creative powers are paralyzed.

We see God's creation through a glass darkly and forget that "...the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made..." (Rom. 1 20). Very subtly, television turns us into materialists who retain an intrinsic animal ability to see, but lack any inner vision—the vision of the soul. We are being encouraged to look more and more but not to see. We are becoming like the idols which King David the poet and prophet spoke of in his psalms: "They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not; noses have they, but they smell not. They have hands, but they touch not; feet have they, but they walk not; neither speak they through their throat. They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them (Ps. 115 5-8). Once we are able to look and yet not see the essence of things and the threads that bind them all together, we have become truly ignorant.

Much has already been written about the corrupting influence of television, but I would like to bring it to mind once more. No parent would ever take his or her children to any place of dubious repute. If someone suggested a stroll through the slums, it would be taken as a bad joke, a sign of mental instability, or of intoxication And yet, let us not be hypocritical, all you parents of respected and honorable; Orthodox families! Of course you declined the invitation to the slums, but you think nothing wrong in gathering in your living room and with a barely perceptible and innocent flick of

the wrist inviting the lowest forms of human society into your homes, the walls of which are probably even graced with icons. You are about to meet every conceivable sort of maniac, murderer and psychopath. You won't even flinch and your conscience will remain clean. But your children will have nightmares; they will grow nervous, irritable and insufferably rude. Even you will not fall asleep as easily as before because of the oppressive burden of the immoral hideousness you have seen.

All of these things are a profanation of your home, which, in the highest understanding of the Orthodox Church, is your church as well. The Apostle Paul often called the Christian home the "church within the house" (Rom. 16 5; I Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Phil. 1:2). You are also profaning your soul and the souls of your children, because your eyes and your ears are the instruments of your soul and the images you see, as well as the things you hear, enter into it. Images are stored in our subconscious like photos in an album and they can profane our heart of hearts. They re-emerge from the disturbed mind at any moment and in any place, in accordance with laws that we know nothing about at present. The interfere with our relationships with other human beings and take away the joy and the immediacy of living. It was with these things in view that the Orthodox Church stated succinctly and without equivocation, "Your eyes see the truth and what the eyes perceive goes directly to influence the soul. Wisdom tells us that this is so. Therefore guard your heart above all else you treasure, for the source of life is there" (100th canon of the Sixth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople).

What a Mephistophelian joke we have become the brunt of since then! Knowing full well that we Orthodox would never knowingly engage in unlawful assembly, Satan so cleverly and completely clouded our judgment that, with our own hard-earned money, we obtain an electronic device which introduces us to corruption, debauchery and murder and turns our home into an insane asylum. Satan has taken away from us that sense of human dignity which the holy prophet David so treasured that he constantly and tirelessly besought the Lord not to let the devil make a laughing-stock of him.

Since we undeniably do see all the above-mentioned depravity on television, it becomes important to note another critical consequence of our actions. In our everyday lives we have practical, moral, psychological and social barriers placed between us and the commission of evil. The soul, if only through inertness and laziness, tends never to remove them. But the impact and example of the realism of television effortlessly overcomes these barriers. It familiarizes us with all the approaches to sin as if they were of our own making, and consequently sin comes easily to us. This would explain the waves of appalling crimes which have become endemic in our time and which even our social agencies are concerned about—crimes which cannot be predicted—"motiveless crimes." A young boy, for no apparent reason, murders his parents one morning. A student indecently assaults his teacher. There are countless examples in the police records, but it would be inappropriate to cite any more here.

What means of resistance can I suggest, for it is clear that we must resist? First of all, we must work together, both the shepherd and the flock, making this our highest priority. Of course, the best and simplest thing to do would be to sell the television set, and the sooner the better. Let me qualify that: sell it and give the money to the Church for the benefit of the poor. This first suggestion is for those righteous souls who have already taken up the sword, those elect of Cod whose aim in life is salvation. Even more blessed are those who never acquired the thing in the first place, who never needed it. However, I understand that for the time being this, my first suggestion, will seem too harsh for the majority of the faithful. We have been captivated by television and our wills have become so feeble and sickly that few can respond to such a call. But do not be dismayed—there have always been few heroes and even fewer martyrs. The righteous always seem to be alone.

I would like to remind us all once more, as faithful Christians, of the positive qualities of television, particularly of its ability to keep us at home and together. We have all noticed on many occasions where the family gathers in the evening, with apparent dignity and decorum, before the television set in the semidarkness. Our struggle against the harmful effects of television comes down to taking advantage of its ability to bring us together and at the same time negating its corrupting influences. We must revitalize our willpower and establish a firm "modus operandi" in our use of this invention. Firstly, only the parents or some responsible member of the family should be allowed to turn it on. Secondly, it must be given the aura of "forbidden fruit" and children should be permitted to see only the occasional good movie, solely as a reward for their achievements and good behavior.

It is important to accompany every such film with a discussion and one's own conclusions, putting the subject into an historical perspective and citing related themes from literature. Everything must be seen in the light of Orthodoxy and the teachings of the Holy Fathers.

I would like to believe that those who choose to oppose fervently the corrupting influence of television will also be guided by the Lord who will suggest ways to ward off evil. During all fasts it could be made a rule to disconnect-the television or even to remove it altogether. Our diligence will of course depend on the extent of our desire for salvation, on our piety as a community and on our devotion to the Church.

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Children and Television by Monk Joseph
Brother Joseph was formerly an elementary school teacher and high school physical education instructor. He has worked extensively with underprivileged children in Chicago and San Francisco, and with Indian and Eskimo children in the Alaska public school system.

On any given night, tens of millions of Americans sit hypnotized by some kind of electronic device: stereos, television, or radios. Almost every school-aged child in the United States hungers for and receives his or her "media fix" on a daily basis. With the introduction of "Beta-Max" and cable TV into the American home, the future of Orthodox Christian family life and culture seems doomed.

The Effects of TV
Just what are the dooming effects of electronic entertainment (primarily television) on the minds and, more importantly, the souls of young Orthodox Christians? Let me suggest five crucial effects:

1. From questioning, curious, family-centered, book-and-art loving five-year-olds, most American children have, by the age of eleven, lost their ability to question their environment. One cannot ask a television for an answer. And schools do precious little, if anything, to promote curiosity or imagination. The television first hypnotizes, and then numbs, the imaginative capabilities of the young person. The young student, therefore, loses interest in books which approach life with any more complexity than that offered on TV (if, indeed, he reads at all). Creative writing, diaries, letter writing and the ability to discuss any topic for more than a few minutes -all of these diminish as the electronic device takes over.
2. By the age of ten, school children usually exhibit changes in speech patterns, as a result of watching TV. Either they become so passive that their verbal expressions are reduced to the minimum, or their speech—especially when describing events—increases in speed and becomes confused. Almost every parent has seen this phenomenon at one time or another. ("And then..., and then.... and then .... ") This is due in major part to the absorption of rapid-fire television language, where silence is non-existent and where a change in subjects is constant. By age eleven, having watched 4,000 hours of television, the normal American child has taken the majority of his English lessons from the TV screen, and not from school teachers or books. And there are few full paragraphs spoken on TV, almost no poetry, and no descriptive materials. Is it any wonder that the average eighteen-year-old American can hardly read or write?
3. Mythological television characters replace parents, relatives, the Saints, and Christ as role models. A normal American fourteen-year-old girl talks with her mother (in terms of actually discussing a subject in an intelligible way and in a sensible context) only about four minutes a week! Listen to your family's dinner conversations. Can they compete with hours of TV? Or for that matter, what do Church services mean to your children in terms of the thousands of hypnotic, mindless hours before the television? As family communication decreases, television watching increases. And as the TV devours more and more hours in young children's lives, almost nothing can compete with it for attention.
4. Creative silence, from which stem our relationships with God, the earth, and even our neighbors, is subconsciously discouraged by the ever-babbling television, radio, or stereo. Children and adults become increasingly "rattled" in the face of extended silence. Children learn that it is simply not fun to be silent. Prayer, of course, becomes boring. Church is unbearable. Quiet contemplation is unthinkable. 
5. The major issues of life are twisted and distorted by the media, which are primarily interested in creating spiritless consumers, rather than spiritual producers. Love, war, death, prejudice, the world of work, history, the future, and, most importantly, God and the fate of the human soul—all of these issues are either twisted, distorted, or ignored. Children—and adults—do not view television in context. For example, during the "Christmas Season" there may be, on any given night, a full length movie on the life of Christ, an inane situation comedy, and some show filled with mindless violence, half-sketched characters, and an infantile plot. The young child has no context in which to put the two shows, subconsciously admiring the criminal who evades the police as much as, or more than, Christ hanging on the Cross. The whole TV schedule is filled with a mixture of history, culture, and junk -with junk predominating at ninety percent of the material. A child equates it all: The Holocaust, Macbeth, the life of Christ, and "Magnum, P.I." Having no historical, cultural, or spiritual values, the good and the bad are swallowed up together, the good more than likely forgotten three days later.

What Can We Do?
What can we as Orthodox Christians do in the face of such an electronic onslaught? How can we compete withHollywood and the mindless materialistic society that surrounds us?

Schools, unfortunately, offer very little in terms of strengthening the Orthodox family, teaching cultural, historical, and literary skills, and in imparting spiritual and moral guidance to our young. Indeed, a young child in America is lucky to have one teacher in twenty who is capable of preparing the child for an active, productive Orthodox life. Most teachers are television-trained non-readers. They are materialists in their approach to society. And one is more than likely to find that teachers, if they have even heard of the Orthodox Church, are opposed to the Orthodox form of child-rearing.

The battle of the mind versus the media is one which must ultimately be waged in the home and in the Church. The relationship between our society and Orthodox culture is, in many ways, far more dangerous than the relationship which existed between pagan Rome and the Early Church. In pagan Rome, Christians gave up their bodies to society, but retained and elevated their souls. Modern society wants both body and soul! The task before the family and before the Church, therefore, is no small one. Nor will the battle be won by those who are weak or compromising.

There are some practical strategies that we can use in defeating the deleterious effects of television on the development of our Orthodox children. Young children in America are introduced to society, as we previously noted, by means of television and by means of the heroes and champions promoted by the media figures who are anything but inspiring and who almost always violate the true Christian view of man. If there are any non-media figures in their list of heroes and champions, these more often than not come by way of coloring books, fairy tales, and sometimes inane school books, these latter sources themselves often influenced by media personalities and the media "mind-set."

In this process of development, at least for Orthodox children, Church and prayer play some role. But by the time that the child reaches eight years old, the effect of the media bombardment is such that the Church and prayer rank almost last in his priorities. Any parish Priest can verify this fact. And the reason for this, again, is that there is no reinforcement for religious belief in the media-created and media-dominated world in which the child operates. What one must do is substitute television and normal reading with activities that are conducive to good Orthodox development. Before the age of eight, the following activities should be seriously considered by every Orthodox parent. They are activities that help toform the soul and to create a world-view that is compatible with that which one encounters in Church and which promotes prayerful introspection (of which children are really quite capable).

1. Instead of art by way of infantile coloring books and school projects, which tend to treat children as though they were artistic morons, teach your child to draw and to paint Icons. Start with teaching the child to trace Icons. In almost every town in America there are public libraries with large Icon books or with loan systems through which such books can be ordered. Start with just the face of Christ, the Theotokos, and the Saints, then move on to other parts of the Icon. In this, exercise, you should teach the child to begin with a prayer, to sketch a cross at the top of the paper on which he is working, and to go without an afternoon snack or evening dessert, so that the child will learn something about the sacred nature of iconography. One should stress to the child that, the more effort he puts forth in prayerfully sketching holy figures, the more that God will reward that effort with a good product. This, too, helps the child to understand better the mystical nature of an Icon. In order to teach your child perspective and drawing from nature, have him trace, draw, and paint scenes from nature by the great masters of western and oriental painting. In this way he will understand the diversity in perspective and learn to appreciate other cultures. Chinese and Japanese painters, moreover, are quite skilled in portraying landscapes and animals, which children especially love at a young age. Drawing will thus acquire the same importance that printing did, when your child first printed his name. These early skills will help to prepare the child for later skills in painting and, most importantly, will have helped him to learn to see something which the media can never do. We might also stress that, in approaching secular art as something separate from iconography, the child intuitively learns that iconography is not an art form as such, but a spiritual skill which is tied to spiritual vision.
2. Instead of reading the usual children's material (fairy tales and the incredibly far-fetched literature available in the public school system), read to your children each night from the lives of the Saints, from the life of Christ, and from the Old and New Testaments, weaving the Icons that the child is working on into the stories. In fact, there are some texts of the Bible illustrated with Orthodox Icons, which is an excellent way to reach children with verbal and pictorial images at the same time. Many children under eight years of age are terribly afraid of the dark and of death. They think, indeed, about metaphysical as well as physical matters—albeit in a somewhat crude way. The lives of Saints especially give the child a healthy view of the interaction of the Physical and metaphysical, helping him to overcome his fears. The questions which the children will have, after reading the lives of the Saints, will astound you in their directness and force. Both the child and the parent will thus grow spiritually.
3. If your child has a vivid dream or some striking experience, have him tell it to you and tape record it. If you do this, and then let the child go back and write about the experience after a few weeks, while listening to the tape, he will be able to see how his emotions change over time, how time changes our perceptions of events, and how we naturally forget much. It will also teach your child to read and to write better. Ask the child, in these writing exercises, to keep a word bank. What words cause him to smile? To frown? To be happy? To think about God? Your child will thus make associations between words and the mental world—something that television will never allow him to do.
4. Attend Church services on Saturday night and on Sunday morning. It is important for your child to be away from the "prime-time" television shows, which tend to concentrate their perverting messages into inane and harmful "features." The Orthodox Church's cycle of services gives you an opportunity to do just this, by always attending both Vespers and Matins and Liturgy. These services will help the child to understand that God belongs to the night and the day (thus helping him overcome his fear of the night), that God is not just someone whom we remember on Sunday morning, and that the Church is for every season, day, and time. The more that your child is in Church, the more that what he has learned about Icons and the holy heroes and champions about whom he has read will impress him.
5. Use the library extensively. There is no excuse for anyone in America to claim that he cannot find materials to help instruct his children. Even tiny towns have excellent libraries. You can even use tapes and records available through the library to introduce a child to classical music and the like. All of this will distract him from America's notorious "idiot box," the television. It will also provide him with an alternative to the sterile and sometimes stupid books that the common child finds at school.
6. Your children should know the nature of hard work and of physical exercise. However old-fashioned it may sound, hard work builds character. If anyone doubts this, simply think about children who do not work. They become hopelessly incapacitated. As well, exercise helps keep the body alert, which in turns helps keep the mind alert, which in turn helps keep the soul watchful.
7. Stress fasting and good eating habits. One of the most pernicious parts of television is that it exposes children to foods full of chemicals and sugar, the result being poor physical and mental health. Teach your children to fast each Wednesday and Friday and to eat good foods. As a result, their minds will be healthier and they will be less attracted to media idiocy. One way that the media are able to keep their control over the mind is by weakening it, by forming poor eating habits through commercials.

If these steps (and others that the reader may come up with on his own) are followed, by the time your child reaches the "magic" age of eight, he will be able to confront the temptations and perversion s of society and the values which are taught in a media age. He will have an Orthodox outlook and an Orthodox way of approaching the trials of the world. His moral life, his spiritual life, and his personal life will be formed in an atmosphere that, while at odds with the world, will nonetheless feel familiar to him. How this attitude is maintained through the teenage years will be the subject of our last comments on children and television.

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Turn Off Your Television!
A message from the White Dot International Campaign Against Television

The average American watches 4.5 hours of television every day.

You sleep for eight hours. You get up and work for eight hours. Come home, eat some dinner and turn on the television. A few hours later you're getting sleepy. Time for bed.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING??

We're not kidding. All those things you wanted to have in your life: passion, romance, love, childhood, parenthood, adventure; when are you going to do all that?

You're staring at a piece of furniture!

People on TV are not your friends. They're not in the room with you. You are alone in the dark, staring at a plastic box. Think about it. This is like a science fiction horror story; but it's really happening. People have stopped living as humans and connected themselves to machines instead.

You're only going to live for 75 years, if you're lucky. How much time do you have left? Enough to spend one whole day every week with fake friends, watching their imitation lives instead of living your own?

TV doesn't give you experiences, it takes them away!

On your deathbed, what if someone could give you back those ten years of television? What if they said you could have another ten years to be with the people you love, find new people, do things differently. What would you say?

Patriarchs Speak Out Against Ecumenism

In Moscow, on June 28,2010, His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia met with Dr Olav Fyske Tveit, the Secretary General of the World Council of Churches (WCC). His Holiness explained to Dr Tveit why Orthodox are alienated from the ecumenical organisation. Patriarch Kirill said that the WCC is in the midst of a protracted crisis, according to the MP official website.

Ecumenical dialogue, that is, communication and collaboration between the Orthodox Churches with Catholics and Protestants, causes concern and dissatisfaction amongst some Orthodox. Some of them are afraid that such cooperation will lead to a mechanical unification of churches. The consequence would be a falling away from the Truth of the Orthodox Church, and the True Church would only then be only a small handful of people. In any case, there are no longer ecumenists who defile the Church with involvement in joint prayer together with Catholics and Protestants. Nevertheless, some Orthodox do not understand why we need to cooperate with Catholics and Protestants. They point up that the ancient Church Fathers denounced heretics, rather than trying to find common ground with them on issues of morality.


More at... http://www.spc.rs/eng/patriarch_kyrill_moscow_receives_secretary_general_world_council_churches

The Catholic, Armenian Orthodox, Lutheran, Syrian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox, and Anglican communities of Jerusalem will host ecumenical prayer services. The Greek Orthodox Church does not host ecumenical events, but representatives of the other churches will attend a prayer service with the Greek Orthodox monks at the basilica of the Holy Sepulchre.


More at... http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=3D8840

An Open Letter to a Suffering Brother in Christ

Dear Brother in Christ,

Let us read from The Catholic Epistle of Saint Iakavos/James. The Book of James is a significant book of the Bible, even though Luther despised it (and almost removed it along with Jonah, 2nd Maccabees, Esther, Jude, Hebrews, 2nd Peter, 2nd John, 3rd John, and the Apocalypse/Revelation of Saint John) because it did not mesh with his new theology that he invented almost 50 years ago. Not only does it say Faith without Works is dead more than a half dozen different ways (James 2:14, 2:17, 2:20, 2:21, 2:22, 2:24, and 2:25), but it tells us what to do when we are sick, or others are sick, whether physically or spiritually.

Chapter 5 starts with admonishing the rich, and then goes on an exhortation for us to be patient with each other. But by verses 13-16, it is instructing us on what to do about when one needs help.

"Is anyone among you suffering ill? Let him keep on praying. Is anyone cheerful? Let him keep on chanting. Is anyone among you infirm? Let him call for the presbyters (priests) of the Church; and let them pray over him, having anointed him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the (presbyter's) prayer of faith shall save the one who is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he be one who hath committed sins, it shall be forgiven him. Keep on confessing your transgressions to one another and praying for one another, that ye might be healed. The entreaty of a righteous man hath much strength when it is energized."

 Elsewhere in the Bible, if we are having quarrel we are told by God the Son, Jesus Christ Himself exactly what to do, in this case I quote The Gospel of Saint Matthew Chapter 18, Verses 15-17:

"But if thy brother should commit a sin against thee, go and reprove him between thee and him alone. If he hear thee, thou didst gain thy brother. But if he hear thee not, take along with thee either one or two more, that 'at the mouth of two witnesses, or three, every word might be made to stand.' And if he take no heed of them, tell it to the Church. But if he taketh no heed of the Church, let him be to the even as the heathen and the tax collector."

Sadly, sometimes we even have issues with our spouses, but we still should take the above advice. If we cannot fix it among ourselves, then we ask other brothers and sisters to assist, if we still have the same problem, then we go to the ordained clergy of the Church: the deacons, the presbyters, and the bishops. This is the right thing for one of the spouses to do according to the Word of God in the Holy Bible.

Also off notice, if we continue in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Chapter 18, at Verse 21, Christ reminds us to always forgive:

Then Peter came to Him and said, "Lord, how ofter shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Until seven times?" Jesus saith to him, "I say not to thee, 'Until seven times,' but, 'Until seventy times seven.'

 Harder to do than to say, but still what we are called to do. Numerous times. Earlier in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, in Chapter 7 and thee Gospel of Luke, in Chapter 6, after warning the rich they will not be rich in the Kingdom of Heaven, but that the poor will be, Christ says not to judge anyone's heart at all. In Verses 37-38, God the Son says:

"And cease judging, and in no wise shall ye be judged; cease condemning, and in no wise shall ye be condemned; keep on acquitting, and ye shall be acquitted. Keep on giving, and it shall be given to you: a good measure which hath been pressed down and shaken together, and is overflowing shall they give into your bosom; for with the same measure with which ye measure, it shall be measured in turn to you."

Please do not be angry that your spouse went to the Church, to it's pastor of the sheep, to help. This was the right thing to do. It was the Biblical thing to do. It was what God told us to do through the writings of His Apostles. The advice she got in doing this, was exactly what she needed, which should improve this problem soon.

Another Recent Email to a Friend

(Edited excerpt to keep this person anonymous)

...The Holy Bible says there is only one reason to flee from the proper worship of the sacrifice of praise, and this is to go beg forgiveness of a brother or sister for being angry with them or angering them. I quote this from Matthew 5:22-24:

But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, 'vain,' is answerable to the Sanhedrin. But anyone who says, 'You fool!' will be in danger of the fire of hell. So if you are standing before the altar in the Temple, offering a sacrifice to God, and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, leave your sacrifice there beside the altar. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come and offer your sacrifice to God.

In fact, we are told not to go to bed angry at anyone. From Ephesians 4:26:

In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry.

And from 1 Peter 4:8:

Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins.

But what is this love we should have for one another? From 1 Corinthians 13:4-7:

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

If this is true for our brothers and sisters in Christ, how much more true is this for our brothers and sisters that we worship, not to mention, our God-appointed spouses that God says something strongly about in Mark 10:9:

What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

But right now, I want to focus on skipping the Divine Liturgy. A jealousy or anger that makes one argue on the Lord's Day and makes you skip church and tries to make others skip church, this truly must be anger and jealousy of the Devil, and not a righteous jealousy from God, right? God does not seek to separate his flock, see them angry, see them make the Lord's Day unclean with such actions, feelings, and words, does He? No. But does Satan? Yes, yes, he does, so please, I ask you to return to your nightly confessional prayers out loud, begging forgiveness for your sins, as we ALL are sinners and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). None of us are truly good, if we will measure ourselves up to the yardstick of the Lord (Matthew 19:17) -- and we should do this, as even many who proclaim to be good and preach in Jesus' name are condemned to Hell for all of eternity (Matthew 7:1-29) and so all of us must work out our salvation daily, with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). ...