And, speaking of C.S. Lewis…

Check out the trailer for “Prince Caspian”
Opens May 16, 2008!!!

God takes on flesh and dwells among us!

Prior to my Journey to Holy Orthodoxy, I, like many Evangelical fundamentalists, was blissfully unaware of the importance of the incarnation. After coming to the Church, it has been an obsession of sorts, in as much as I have become an unashamed endorser, yeah “pusher of “On The Incarnation of The Word of God” by St. Athanasius. I am continually amazed that so many Evangelicals that I recommend it to are, in fact, scandalized by it. But, if you haven’t taken the opportunity to read it, I highly recommend it, particularly the version I have linked with a most excellent introduction by C.S. Lewis.
And, following along the same line of thought, I have included here a quote from Fr. Stephen Freeman’s blog “Glory To God For All Things”

Only in the proclamation that God has become man is the value of being a man underwritten – indeed the value of being any human being. The God Who made us all has become one of us and in such a union has also united us to Himself in His exaltation. Compared to that exaltation, every human excellence is as dung. Whether beauty, intelligence or wealth – all will perish in the grave and become nothing more than the bread of worms. This is the gift of a world without God – worms.

Worth re-posting

During a recent visit with our Godchildren in Coaldale, PA., we had a brief discussion about the upcoming movie release of “The Golden Compass”. I had seen the trailer, and found the cinematography fascinating. Fr. Daniel noted that he had heard some rather distressing things about the movie and the books upon which it is based. His tendency, and mine as well, to dismiss criticism out of hand kicked in with the caveat that the movie ought to be viewed first, criticized later.
Well, I have recently run into a most excellent review from “First Things”. And although one may rightly accuse me of being lazy (one would correct in doing so) I found the review so compelling, that I have provided a perma-link here. I would put the review here in it’s entirety, but for the sake of conserving space and taking the reader to a wonderful blog-site, I have decided on the former.
None of this is to say that one must avoid the movie at all costs, though I think I may, rather it is to say that one should go into it understanding the guiding principals behind it.

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Now playing: Fr. Stephen Freeman and Ancient Faith Radio – Christianity In A One-Storey Universe – Part 4; Christian Atheism
via FoxyTunes

A Brief Follow Up

With regard to my last entry regarding John Hagee’s comments about Jesus not being the messiah. At the behest of a reader,I have taken the opportunity to go back to his web-site to check the statement of beliefs.
It certainly seems to be standard Evangelical Protestant fare This just adds a bit to my confusion over his rather bizarre statements.
It seems to me, at a glance, that it is the trap of extreme dispensationalism. In order to make sense of one extreme proposition, another becomes inevitable. I hope to take a closer look at Rev. Hagee’s other writings in order to try to better understand what is driving this unusual belief. I’ll keep you posted.

Off the deep end and into some deep apostasy

I must admit that at times I take an almost perverse joy in looking in on TBN or CBN just to see how silly things can get in “Health and Wealth Land” I am oft time amused and occasionally a tad miffed about what I encounter. I was recently shocked to hear from my Goddaughter Barb that John Hagee, the outspoken Zionist pastor of the 18,000 member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio , TX., had recently written a book entitled “In Defense of Israel” in which he asserts that Jesus is not the Messiah, and that he never claimed to be. I had to see for myself, and so after a quick search, I indeed found the video ad for the book, hereto attached;

Needles to say, I was mortified,especially since this is not some obscure “nut-case”, but rather a respected pastor of a large American mega church, with a television presence that likely reaches several million people.Hagee’s particular brand of Dispensationalism is truly frightening and should serve as extra impetus for those who proclaim an orthodox Christian message to step up their efforts in setting the record straight. It should also drive us toward renewed effort in prayer that those who have fallen into such apostasy will once again return to an orthodox position. Lord have mercy!

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Now playing: Daniel Amos – Faithful Street
via FoxyTunes

REFLECTIONS ON THE LIFE OF A PARISH PRIEST: St. John Kochurov

It was once pointed out to me, that in the Orthodox tradition, there were very few parish priests who have been canonized as saints. That makes the man whose memory we celebrate on this day rather unique. And he was in fact a most unique individual Born in Russia, to pious parents, and from a long line of priests. He certainly seemed destined to the priesthood and was educated first in his local academy and finally at St. Petersburg. He showed a tremendous interest in missions, believing it to be the crux of a parish priest’s life and ministry. After graduation he was assigned to the Diocese of Alaska and The Aleutians, and eventually ended up being assigned to the remote Orthodox outpost of Chicago, IL.
In the greater Chicago-land area (the are that I grew up in) he shepherded two parishes, some 90+ miles apart, in that sense being not so unlike so many others, including St. Herman of Alaska.He also tirelessly served the diocese, and through prayerful self sacrifice he built up the faith in Illinois bringing together a wide range of immigrants, and not unlike St.Alexis of Minneapolis and Wilkes Barre, led many back to the faith who had been swept into the uniate.
Several considerations, including the desire for his children to be educated at the best Russian theological schools, the declining health of his Father-in-Law, a parish priest in the Diocese of St. Petersburg, and his own extreme home-sickness caused him to request a transfer from the Diocese of Alaska to that of St. Petersburg, which was granted in mid 1907.
Once he had arrived in Russia, (to his great dismay, his beloved Father-in-Law had already reposed) he was assigned to a small parish in Neva, and later to St. Catherine’s in Tsarkoye Selo. It was there , that on Oct. 31, 1917 he would suffer for Christ at the hands of the Bolsheviks An anonymous chronicler would write:

.when the Bolsheviks entered Tsarskoye Selo with the Red Guard, they began to make the rounds of the apartments of the military officers, making arrests. Fr John (Alexandrovich Kochurov) was conveyed to the outskirts of the town, to St Theodore’s Cathedral, and there they assassinated him because of the fact that those who organized the sacred procession had allegedly been praying for a victory by the Cossacks, which surely was not, and could not have been, what actually happened. The other clergymen were released yesterday evening. Thus, another Martyr for the Faith in Christ has appeared. The deceased, though he had not been in Tsarskoye Selo for long, had gained the utmost love of all, and many people used to gather to listen to his preaching.”[35] .

It makes me wonder what kind of opposition St. John faced in his ministry. Obviously he faced this external threat which cost him his life, but what of internal rancor and dissension. Those things are unfortunately rarely chronicled. This story clearly shows however that it is not impossible for the parish priest to be included in the ranks of known and celebrated saints and serves as a reminder to the faithful that there are wonderful examples of great love and boldness to be found. It also should urge us to pray daily for our own parish priests, as we never know when the events of October 1917 may rear their ugly heads once more.
Holy Heiromartyr John, pray unto God for us!

American Culture on the Skids

A quick quote from a recent blog-post on my favorite Ortho-Blog, Fr. Stephen’s Glory to God for All Things (If you have stumbled here by accident I thank you and hope you come back, but Fr. Stephen’s blog should be part of your daily reading!)In speaking of the importance of Christ not merely in relation to the individual, but to the culture of a people, Fr. Stephen states:

The same is true of a culture. To remove the fullness of Christ from a culture would be to leave it little more than costume and stage play. Too much of our American culture is precisely that – many professing the Christian faith racing to compete in new ways to present the faith as yet another stage play – Church as karaoke.

America is truly a land that offers its people a good deal of freedom. It seems to me however that it is this very freedom which has led us to the situation that Fr. Stephen describes. Church, for many American ,has become a show, just another place to be entertained, not unlike one’s living room, the movie theater or sports arena. Many churches (note the small “c” and rest assured that I have intentionally used it here) have installed theater style seating in auditorium type settings with sound reinforcement systems that rival those found in the finest clubs. Unfortunately , when we look for entertainment and self satisfaction,( I need to be fed brother!), the tendency seems to be to squeeze Christ out of the equation. Certainly we are , in the early 21st century, seeing the fruits of this type of thinking in several major confessions, including , but not limited too, Episcopalians, Presbyterians and the confession of my youth, the United Methodists who struggle over basic Christological, not to mention ecclesiastic and perhaps most notably, moral questions.The ordination of practicing homosexuals to the clerical ranks, the ordination of women, the questioning of Christ’s divinity are but a few symptoms of a situation that demonstrates an “open-mindedness” that appears to have led to our collective brain leaking out.
This situation within the Church, has led to an ever increasing slide of American culture towards the least common denominator as well.I’m not pining here for any lost “good old days” because I don’t necessarily believe such days have existed, at least not during my lifetime. American culture has always been plagued it seems by horrid and nagging deficiencies, ugly warts if you will. My ancestors managed to systematically nearly wipe out 500 sovereign American Indian nations, and force the nearly total assimilation of the survivors. The slave trace, Jim Crow, Plessy V. Ferguson, consternation over Brown V. The Board of Education, busing for forced integration, Little Rock, Memphis (the litany could go on and on in this vein) I think the point is made, there have never been any real “good old days”. And, in any event the important time is the present. We can not afford to dwell on the past (real or imagined) nor can we look for some type of Utopian future, we must live in the only moment which we can, the now. But the now seems too often filled with a total lack of decorum, characterized by a ready disdain for our fellow man, precipitated , in my opinion, by a devaluing of human life and person-hood. In his essay from the mid 1960s dealing with the problems of Orthodoxy in America, Fr. Alexander Schmemann of blessed memory sums it up thusly:

It is at this point that one must forcefully state that Christianity deals not with “cultures”, “societies”, and “ages”, and even not with “people”—but it is based on a concept which precisely is not reducible to history and sociology. This does not mean that Christianity is limited to personal or individual salvation. On the contrary, its scope is indeed cosmical and catholic, it embraces in its vision the whole creation and the totality of life, it has always been preached and believed as the salvation of the world. It means only that the salvation of the world is announced and, in a sense, entrusted to each person, is made a personal vocation and responsibility and ultimately depends on each person. In the Christian teaching man is always a person and thus not only a “microcosm” reflecting the whole world, but also a unique bearer of its destiny and a potential “king of creation.” The whole world is given—in a unique way—to each person and thus in each person it is “saved” or “perishes.” Thus in every Saint the world is saved and it is fully saved in the one totally fulfilled Person: Jesus Christ. And within this perspective evil (“… and we know . . . that the whole world is in the power of evil” 1 John 5: 19) is precisely the surrender of man, of the human person to the “impersonal” nature and thus his reduction to, and enslavement by it. It is the triumph of “nature” over the “person,” a triumph which results in a fatal deterioration or fall of both nature and person, for the very calling of the person is to possess and thus to fulfill the nature. Hence the fundamentally personal character of Christian faith. It is preached to the world but in the person of man. Its fruit is unity, communion, love, but it is unity of persons, communion of persons, love among persons. In the Orthodox doctrine of Church no “belonging”, no “participation”, no external “membership” is as such a “guarantee” of salvation; i.e., of the true belonging to Christ and to the new life, but only a truly personal “appropriation” and fulfillment of all these gifts. And, in a sense, a sinful Christian does not belong to the Church, and this in spite of all formal “belonging.”It is at this point that one must forcefully state that Christianity deals not with “cultures”, “societies”, and “ages”, and even not with “people”—but it is based on a concept which precisely is not reducible to history and sociology. This does not mean that Christianity is limited to personal or individual salvation. On the contrary, its scope is indeed cosmical and catholic, it embraces in its vision the whole creation and the totality of life, it has always been preached and believed as the salvation of the world. It means only that the salvation of the world is announced and, in a sense, entrusted to each person, is made a personal vocation and responsibility and ultimately depends on each person. In the Christian teaching man is always a person and thus not only a “microcosm” reflecting the whole world, but also a unique bearer of its destiny and a potential “king of creation.” The whole world is given—in a unique way—to each person and thus in each person it is “saved” or “perishes.” Thus in every Saint the world is saved and it is fully saved in the one totally fulfilled Person: Jesus Christ. And within this perspective evil (“… and we know . . . that the whole world is in the power of evil” 1 John 5: 19) is precisely the surrender of man, of the human person to the “impersonal” nature and thus his reduction to, and enslavement by it. It is the triumph of “nature” over the “person,” a triumph which results in a fatal deterioration or fall of both nature and person, for the very calling of the person is to possess and thus to fulfill the nature. Hence the fundamentally personal character of Christian faith. It is preached to the world but in the person of man. Its fruit is unity, communion, love, but it is unity of persons, communion of persons, love among persons. In the Orthodox doctrine of Church no “belonging”, no “participation”, no external “membership” is as such a “guarantee” of salvation; i.e., of the true belonging to Christ and to the new life, but only a truly personal “appropriation” and fulfillment of all these gifts. And, in a sense, a sinful Christian does not belong to the Church, and this in spite of all formal “belonging.”

We, as individual Christians, if we are concerned about our culture, the incentive, the responsibility rests squarely on our shoulders. We must subdue that portion of our human nature which leads us away from Christ. The only way to “win” the “culture wars” is to be willing to engage the culture on a personal level, and to do so honestly and fearlessly as whole persons in Christ with a reliance on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. How do we do this? A good question. I believe the answer lies in our willingness to steep in the services of the Church, but more importantly by loving and forgiving one another. This is hard work. It is oftentimes distasteful, but it is ultimately and absolutely necessary.
Alas, I ramble.

Staggering towards salvation

It seems to me that in most cases and at many times that we Christians, Orthodox included, tend to stagger and stumble towards our salvation in fits and starts. It seems that we do so by our own utter failure to recognize the prophetic gift bestowed upon us at our baptisms. In his wonderful work “Of Water and The Spirit” Fr. Alexander Schmemann reminds us exactly what has been bestowed on us by God at the time of our baptism and chrismation, including the offices of Priest , Prophet and King. While certainly we are called to walk humbly with our God, it seems that we struggle a good deal in our failure to realize that the Holy Spirit is truly “everywhere present, filling all things” including our lives, if we will only cooperate. A recent comment at what have been ostensibly group therapy sessions for our parish brought this fact out. The parish’s ecclesiarch, a distinguished gentleman who has been an active participant in parish life since the day the parish opened it’s doors, some years ago, remarked that it seems that we only see God’s will for us in hindsight, because we are not prophetic enough to see it clearly at the time we are experiencing whatever conditions we are dealing with at the present. Fr. Gregory Jensen seized upon this comment, it seems to point out the very thing I am attempting to deal with here, that we do so because of our failure to appreciate the gifts we have been given, hence failing to exercise them.Is it because it is too much of an imposition on our perceived sovereignty? I really don’t know. I do know that I need to take more time to allow that still small voice to speak to me, and to listen with ears that are both eager and willing to hear and respond, but sometimes I just don’t want to., hence I continue to stagger and stumble.

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Now playing: Daniel Amos – The Staggering Gods
via FoxyTunes

I have NOT fallen off the face of the earth

Though it certainly may seem like it. The intervening months in between my last actual post and this one have been full to overflowing with events, some pleasant, some far less than so. I am convinced however that all has been meant for my benefit, and ultimately for my salvation, though I am remiss to see it.
On the 21st of July, Fr. Dcn. Daniel, (mentioned above), became Fr. Daniel the priest. It was an exciting day, but one that remains largely a blur to me, as I was also ordained to the sub-deaconate. Since I was busy holding a wash basin, I was unable to take any photos and am yet to see any taken by others. AS always, it was wonderful to have His Eminence, +JOB with us. I marvel at his ability to set aside larger issues to concentrate on issues which while perhaps are just as “weighty”, are none-the-less important.
FR. Daniel has now been assigned to the Diocese of Eastern PA., and is serving as Rector at St. Mary’s in Coaldale, PA.(Fr. Daniel reminds me that this new website is still in “Beta” mode!)
I have had the privilege of serving alongside him several times and am looking forward to doing so at St. Mary’s next month.
Our own parish has been experiencing no small amount of turmoil, and yet, I remind myself, or actually God reminds me, that it is His parish, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. We have two priests now serving who have both been wonderful in their own respective ways. Fr. Peter, a long time OCA priest brings a level of comfort and familiarity as well as much wisdom to us. Fr. Gregory Jensen has brought fresh air and insight to us. It has been a pleasure serving with, and getting to know this good, (but not nice :>) ) man. His ability to help our parish start thinking more openly has at times been painful, but certainly beneficial. Your prayers for Holy Assumption would be most appreciated.
We were also recently treated to a presentation by Mother Mary Ann Renner, the Abbess of the Presentation of The Virgin Mary Monastery, a long time member of our small parish. It was truly exciting to see God at work in the lives of she, her dear mother Louise and another of our former parishioners, Sister Alexandra!
Well, there is at least now a post here, I’ll try to have another much sooner than 6 months from now! Thanks to others for their inspiration, thanks to you for checking in!
Peace,
Subdeacon Eusebios

Why is the Incarnation so important?

It never ceases to amaze me, that in the 20 some odd years that I lived proclaiming a faith in Christ, before coming to His One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, that I so completely failed to see the nexus between His incarnation and our salvation
The parish priest who guided my wife and I into the Orthodox Church often told us that we were entering into a completely different religion, and I must admit that this puzzled me , and certainly caused a degree of discomfort. And , as it turns out, it should have. In his recent blog entry “I really wasn’t kidding-There’s another Gospel out there”, Fr. Stephen has a good deal to say about the harrowing of hell (Or hades) by Christ. He is shocked that apparently conservative Anglicans, from whose ranks he came, have rejected this doctrine. Of the Orthodox view, he states:

“The Descent into Hades is not a minor theological side issue. Iconographically, it stands at the very center of the faith. If one reads St. Athanasius’ On the Incarnation you can quickly see that in the doctrine of the Divine Solidarity (an image he uses to describe how it is that Christ saves us), Christ’s descent into Hades is utterly necessary to the Christian understanding of His victory over sin and death. The services of the Orthodox Church surrounding Pascha are all grounded on the dogma of Christ’s descent into Hades and His victory.”

Christ takes human flesh to hell, and defeats sin and death there clothed in it.
I must admit, that as a Protestant, I had no clue that such a doctrine existed, or why it may be important to our salvation. Fr. Stephen goes onto state that:

I will be bold, very bold indeed, and say that if this doctrine of Christ Descent into Hades is not known, then the most essential doctrines of our salvation are misunderstood and incorrectly taught. This is not to create an argument about whose Church is more correct, but to state a simple and plain fact of theology. If the primary story of our salvation is not a matter of agreement, then the conversation regarding the faith has barely begun.

A bold statement indeed, but one that is absolutely true. What has become apparent to me over my nearly 7 years of being Orthodox (yes, I am still an infant) is that there are so few points on which we agree with the West, though we touch our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters hands on issues of ecclesiology and much doctrine, and hold certain similarities in common with our Anglican brethren as well as various other Protestant groups, we remain largely divided on many other issues, not the least of which seems to be the incarnation, it’s purpose and function in Christology, soteriology, eschatology, heck, just Theology in general.
Commenting on this same subject Bishop +HILARION states:

The descent of Christ into Hades is one of the most mysterious, enigmatic and inexplicable events in New Testament history. In today’s Christian world, this event is understood differently. Liberal Western theology rejects altogether any possibility for speaking of the descent of Christ into Hades literally, arguing that the scriptural texts on this theme should be understood metaphorically. The traditional Catholic doctrine insists that after His death on the cross Christ descended to hell only to deliver the Old Testament righteous from it. A similar understanding is quite widespread among Orthodox Christians.

On the other hand, the New Testament speaks of the preaching of Christ in hell as addressed to the unrepentant sinners: ‘For Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit; in which he went and preached to the spirit in prison, who formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited’[2]. However, many Church Fathers and liturgical texts of the Orthodox Church repeatedly underline that having descended to hell, Christ opened the way to salvation for all people, not only the Old Testament righteous. The descent of Christ into Hades is perceived as an event of cosmic significance involving all people without exception. They also speak about the victory of Christ over death, the full devastation of hell and that after the descent of Christ into Hades there was nobody left there except for the devil and demons.

How can these two points of view be reconciled? What was the original faith of the Church? What do early Christian sources tell us about the descent into Hades? And what is the soteriological significance of the descent of Christ into Hades?

He goes on to point out that the teaching of the Early Church Fathers is clear, citing examples from various 2nd, 3rd and 4th century writers, including but not limited to Polycarp of Smyrna, Ignatius of Antioch and Iraneus of Lyon, the latter being significant in that he was clearly a “Western” writer if you will. Further discussed in the later writings of Athanasius, and John Chrysostom. Later still John Damascene and Maximus The Confessor. He also expounds at some length the thoughts of Gregory of Nyssa on the subject,from whcih comes the following extensive quote:

Gregory of Nyssa entwines the theme of the descent in hell with the theory of ‘divine deception’. On the latter he builds his teaching on the Redemption. According to this theory, Christ, being God incarnate, deliberately concealed His divine nature from the devil so that he, mistaking Him for an ordinary man, would not be terrified at the sight of an overwhelming power approaching him. When Christ descended in hell, the devil supposed Him to be a human being, but this was a divine ‘hook’ disguised under a human ‘bait’ that the devil swallowed[11] . By admitting God incarnate into his domain, the devil himself signed his own death warrant: incapable of enduring the divine presence, he was overcome and defeated, and hell was destroyed.

This is precisely the idea that Gregory of Nyssa developed in one of his Easter sermons on ‘The Three-Day Period of the Resurrection of Christ’. Judging by its contents, this homily was intended for Holy Saturday, and in it Gregory poses the question of why Christ spent three days ‘in the heart of the earth’. This period was necessary and sufficient, he argues, for Christ to ‘expose the foolishness’ (moranai) of the devil, i.e, to outwit, ridicule and deceive him. How did Christ manage to ‘outwit’ the devil? Gregory gives the following reply to this question:

As the ruler of darkness could not approach the presence of the Light unimpeded, had he not seen in Him something of flesh, then, as soon as he saw the God-bearing flesh and saw the miracle performed through it by the Deity, he hoped that if he came to take hold of the flesh through death, then he would take hold of all the power contained in it. Therefore, having swallowed the bait of the flesh, he was pierced by the hook of the Deity and thus the dragon was transfixed by the hook.

This train of thought obviously still had a profound influence in the west not only in the middle ages and into the Renaissance as well, as evidenced by writing’s like Gustav Aulen’s Christus Victor, but also into the 20th Century as evidenced in the writings of C.S. Lewsi, particularly in his classic “Chronicles of Narnia. I was reminded of this just last evening as Sally and I watched the Disney production of “The Lion , The Witch and The Wardrobe”. As Aslan rises from the dead, he tells the astonished Lucy and Susan (not unlike the Holy Myhr-bearing Women) that the White Witch did not fully comprehend the “Deep Magic”of Narnia which he himself had been an integral part of, in fact having been it’s very author.

Another sterling example of where a disconnect with Incarnational Theology creates a gap is clearly in the celebration of the Ascension.

I suppose that there are a few High Liturgical Church’s who still celebrate this important feast along with the Orthodox, but again, as a fairly devout Protestant, I was clueless about the Feast, and more importantly about it’s importance. I knew the Gospel story, but didn’t really see or understand any practical application of it. Our parish priest, Fr. John Peck is most fond of this feast, and I have always appreciated his patented line about Jesus ascending bodily to heaven, taking human flesh to the very throne of God, not “dropping it off like some 2nd stage booster rocket” Once again, the implications of the Incarnation are clear, no incarnation, no chance for theosis, no restoration of fallen Adam in any sense other than perhaps a purely judicial one.
The undisputed masterpiece with regard to the importance, imho, is clearly that offered by Athanasius, “On The Incarnation of The Word of God” (I am particularly fond of this version with an excellent introduction by C.S. Lewis) I’m sure that many of you, who have had the patience to read this far have already read this piece, if you have not, may I heartily recommend it.
I suppose I have said all of this to say, that the more time goes by, the more I am convinced that the doctrine of the Incarnation is so important, that , as Fr. Stephen rightly points out with regard to the subsequent harrowing of hell, a failure to understand it’s implications makes dialog difficult. We can’t blame individual persons for their ignorance so much as we can blame religious institutions who have failed for one reason or another to teach it. It is why it is paramount for Orthodox Christians everywhere to engage and educate the culture.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us”