What We Believe

[Dorothea]

Continuing on from DVD #9 on the Resurrection. (can this thread become a sticky for inquirers that come in here please?)

"Now, those appearances of the Risen Jesus has a number of things in common, and if we look at the most important of the things they have in common, it will teach us something about the resurrection. The first is that when the risen Lord appeared to Mary Magdalene, to the Apostles, to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they don't recognize Him. See, they either think He's a ghost or for some other reason they don't recognize Him, that He has to open their eyes so that they can see who He is.

So there has been a transformation there. The risen Lord on the one hand, is not held by the things that normally hold people. He comes through locked doors, to the Apostles in the upper room twice - once without Thomas and once with. On the other hand, He is able in a mysterious way to even drink with them, and that happens on several occasions - that He eats and drinks with the two disciples on the road to Eramaus, when they recognize Him when he picks up the bread and blesses it, breaks it, and gives it to them, and their eyes are opened and they recognize Him and He vanishes out of their sight and leaves them with that beautiful expression of the Gospels with their hearts burning. And then He likewise eats with the Apostles in the upper room. He eats fish and honeycomb. And then He eve, in the 21st chapter of St. John, makes breakfast for the group of the seven of the Apostles who are mentioned being there all night. They go out fishing again. Reflecting on it, the church likes to say, because they're in this time when the Lord is risen on the one hand, but it is not clear what is going to happen, so they go back to their boats and their nets, but they cannot catch anything. Only when the risen Jesus appears to them in the early morning that they catch, and St. John is very careful to give the number - 153 fish. Then there is the other detail that a lot of times people don't notice but the Church hymnography just loves it. When they come to the land dragging their net full of fish, Jesus already has fish there cooking for them...that He has gotten from we're not told where. That meal He prepares for them of that which comes from Him is a sign in the Church of the Supper. It is the context of the meal.

In the crucifixion and death of Jesus, which is His rejection by His people and through His people by this world, already the end of the world takes place. Experience of the Church is not simply one of historical remembrance of these, those great acts of our salvation because we don't remember them the way Americans remember Independence Day - the 4th of July...something that happened in the past. These are divine acts, and although they take place in history, they are the intersection of history and eternity because they are the acts of God, and therefore, the whole purpose of the Church being the Church is that we not only do we remember, but the best expression to use is reactualize - enter into these great events of our salvation, and when we do that every year, when we encounter and pass through with Christ - His suffering and death - we realize that what ends at the death of Christ is not Christ, but in condemning Christ - and it is the world that condemns Christ. It's not just a couple of people. It's the world because those people act in the name of the world. They do what the world would do no matter what the circumstances would have been for the savior to come. When the world rejects and kills Christ, the world sentences itself to death.

What does it mean for the world to sentence itself to death? It means that the world, this world, this history, the whole system of things that we know and experience on the level of the senses, can never become by itself, of itself, the Kingdom of God. Paradise cannot be found within it. Just as the first paradise was lost by the sins of the first parents, so any hope for this world of itself to become paradise is lost in the crucifixion of Christ. That's why the risen Jesus cannot really be recognized by the eyes of this world. One has to go with Him where He is in His Kingdom. That's why the Church - His Body - the Greek for Church is Ecclesia, which means those who have been called out of this world. So just as this world is--here we are speaking what could be called mystical language--spiritual language that is more deeply true than the sensual language that we speak most of the time--so likewise, in the resurrection of Christ, which is the coming of the Kingdom, the Kingdom in which all power has been given to Jesus in heaven and on earth is already here. It lives and exists within His church, among all those who belong to Him. It exists invisibly as the seed planted in the earth, but its existence is real, we are not, as some people are, looking for any kind of 1000 year millennium to come when the Lord is going to reign with His saints on earth. Our experience is that the Lord is reigning with His saints now and has been since His resurrection."

 

[Dorothea]

Continued from previous post - DVD #9 Resurrection


"All that remains to be fulfilled is for the Lord to come in the same way that He was seen departing in the Ascension He will again in glory to judge the living and the dead, to bring history to an end. To, as He says in the Gospel, bring to light those things which are hidden and the Kingdom that has lived in the Church invisibly on earth will be made visible. All the wrong and evil that has gone on in history will be righted, and it will be righted in a way that is beyond the imagination of any kind of human justice, and that, finally, the time which has been given as something that is not meant to be permanent. The time, the history, the line - you know, we said at the beginning that the Christian experience of time in history is a linear one, that time has a beginning. Time has an end. And when the Lord returns as He will, and we understand that return of Christ is a real, historical happening that will bring history to an end. When He comes, then the time that had a beginning will come to an end.

Now what do we profess in the Church regarding the second coming of Christ? First of all, the Lord says in the Gospel - first of all we have to start with what we don't say - The Lord said that of that day and hour, no man knows, and it even goes so far as to say and it is not for us to analyze what that means, but the Gospel of Mark says not even the Son knows. Only the Father knows. so if in one of the Gospels, Jesus is saying not even the Son knows that day and hour, the rest of the Gospels say no one knows. The first thing the Church has always been very insistent upon is that speculation on when history is going to come to an end and the return of the Lord is going to take place are none of our business. None of the Church's business. The Church takes a very, very dim view of attempts to see various current events as fulfillment of various biblical prophesies. That's not to say that it may be that certain current events could be the fulfillment of certain biblical prophesies, but it is not the business of the Church to speculate that now is really the time. The answer -- it is the answer of the Bible so therefore the answer of the Church -- to the question when does the return of the Lord take place, when will it be? The answer is always soon. Could be next week, next year, 2000 years from now, 2 million years from now. Why soon? Because everything that has been accomplished by Christ for us has been accomplished in the resurrection, in the giving of the Holy Spirit - everything that makes the salvation - that reunion of man with God has been given. All that remains is for God to allow history to run as long as He wills it to run, for many like to say - until as many as possible come to know Him and to love Him and to realize the destiny of their creation - the purpose of their creation in union with Him.

But the signs of the coming. You know, we read the prophesies of the Gospel of the NT that before the end of the age, there will be an increase of war, there will be an increase of faithlessness, of evil, and the love of people will grow cold. The thing is about those prophesies - you know, there will be turning against the Church. The thing about those prophesies is that in every age, they're present, and in most ages, there have been people that said, 'Oh, it's never been as bad as it is now. Things really are. They've never been so bad as now...'

The Gospel tells us to always watch. That we are not waiting for any kind of thing which comes from a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of a couple of verses that come from the Gospel of Matthew. We're not waiting for some sort of rapture for the elect to be whisked away while everybody else remains in the world to face the tribulation. Rather, the Church is in the tribulation in every age, as long as there is history.

The book of Revelation is addressed to the Church living in every age who is constantly being attacked by her foes and the powers of this world and the Lord is always coming soon. There will be many ends of many worlds before finally there is the end of the world - the ultimate end.

The Lord will come to judge the living and the dead by love. By the God Who is love. All the living and all the dead on that ultimate day, just as the encounter on the one hand there is the encounter with the God of love at the death of each human being, but there is the ultimate encounter at the end with every human being. And the God whose judgment is so awesome and so fearful not because He is the God of wrath or anger, but because everyone must face the God who has sacrificed Himself unto death for each one of us in love. You see, that is the whole point of the Judgment - that you have to face that love - that love which is a consuming fire. And those who have loved that love and have believed in that love, and of course, the love is not an idea. The love is a Person - and conformed their lives to that love, and it's clearly the doctrine of the Church that the conforming of one's life to the love of God is what's understood by such expressions as 'He will come to judge everyone according to his works.' That does not mean a doctrine of salvation by works."

 

[Dorothea]

Cont'd DVD # 9 Resurrection

"What salvation is expressed in the Gospel of St. John - those who look upon the Face of God and live...one looks at the Face of the Son of God and one's face is able to bear the reflection of that face because love has been transformed by the love of God, then one is saved. The lost are not lost because of some failing on God's part. God has done ultimately everything for the salvation of everyone and if there are going to be lost - the doctrine of the Church and the Gospel say there are going to be the lost because there will be those who have come to hate love, who have made themselves into the opposite of the love of God.

For those who are becoming Orthodox, who have this notion that comes from various sources of the hell being those who are punished and tormented by God who finally gets back at them for all their sins and who hates them and takes out His wrath on them - that's a heresy. God is the God of love. And if there are going to be those who are tormented for all eternity, which there are, it is because they are going to be tormented by the love of God which they reject, and there is nothing worse than the torment of rejecting the love of God."

Fr. David quotes St. Isaac the Syrian on this subject:

"Those who find themselves in hell will be chastised with the scourge of love. How cruel and bitter this love will be. For those who understand they have sinned against love undergo greater sufferings than those produced by the most fearful tortures. The soul which takes hold of heart which has sinned against love is more piercing than any other pain. It is not right to say that sinners in hell are deprived of the love of God. But love acts in two different ways - as suffering in the lost and as joy in the blessed."

 

[Dorothea]

The next DVD #10 is on the Holy Spirit. Quite an in depth one and very important one. I have pages and pages of notes on this. This is where the filioque is brought up as well as Christomonism. I'll get to it hopefully a bit later. I need a break from typing all this up. lol

 

[Dorothea]

I hope all my jumbled notes typed here are helpful to those who are interested in what the Orthodox Church believes. I hope and pray there are people reading all of this. LOL

Just to add. I've been Orthodox just about all my adult life (was baptized Orthodox at 1, but didn't grow up in church), and I have learned lots from listening and watching these DVDs.

 

[Dorothea]

DVD #10 - The Holy Spirit

Some basic notes first off:

The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. The Son is begotten from the Father. The Spirit proceeds from the Father.

The Holy Spirit is a unique, distinct Person. Its origin is from the Father. The Holy Spirit is not the Son, and the Son is not the Spirit.

SPIRIT = RUAH (Hebrew) = PNEVMA (Greek) = Breath, air, wind = SPIRITUS (Latin)

"It is the Person of God that gives life. Here we are talking about a person. The Word of God is the Son. When God speaks, it is through the Son. When God breathes, it is through the Spirit. Through the Son and Spirit, God is revealed. Only God the Father has no origin. Without the Father, we do not have the Son or the Spirit. 'Let us make man in our image.'

When the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and those gathered on Pentacost, the Apostles were able to speak in many languages that people there could hear and understand.

The Spirit is the Giver of Life. The Spirit of Truth. The Spirit proceeds from the Father alone.

The Filioque. Why was it added?

1. Theological - St. Augustine - his idea of Original guilt is wrong. He had this view that looked like this:

Father -----------HS------------ Son. In between the Father and Son was divine and eternal love which was the Holy Spirit. He spoke of mutual love between the Father and Son is the Holy Spirit. This can make it sound as if the Holy Spirit is depersonalized, and made a kind of lesser Person.

2. Historical - The Latin Church was battling Arianism (still). In a century, the Eastern Greek Church cleaned out Arianism. In the Western Church, it still hung around for a longer amount of time because of invaders - barbarian tribes which were influenced by Arianism. Gradually, these Arian barbarians converted to Orthodox Catholic. The RCC used whatever they could to show Christ's divinity to combat arianism.

Under the influence of Augustine's theology of the Trinity - Father ------HS------Son, the RCC defended Christ as God.

The trouble is that the Western Church (the RCC), put it in the Creed without the consent of the universal Church. The Pope of Rome thought this was not right to do flat without the whole Church. He wasn't in favor of it. Then eventually, the Western Church expected all the Church to accept it. It's erroneous. The Greek Church rejected this.

The filioque caused theological imbalance and is false. It caused subordination of the Holy Spirit. It speaks of the Person of the Holy Spirit as a lesser of the Father and the Son. It is an unbalanced experience of Who God is.

See the Son is understood as greater than the Holy Spirit in this theology. Then this is what happened - Christomonism - means Christ Alone.

The most extremely heretical in this aspect is the Oneness Pentacostal - One Jesus. Jesus is related as God Only. Frequently, Western Christians, when they speak of God or when they pray, they were really praying to Jesus. It's only Jesus that matters. This is what happened through Christomonism.

Another way of expressing it is through Orthodox eyes, when the Orthodox look at the strain in so much of contemporary Protestantism, for example, which focuses on this private relationship - the relationship of me alone with Jesus alone, which I think I mentioned before, which in the Orthodox experience simply does not exist at all. The Christian alone has no relationship to Jesus alone in the Orthodox Church. Such a thing doesn't even exist. We don't have any kind of relationship with a private God. God is not known privately. God is known in the communion of the Persons of the Holy Trinity within the communion of the Church. That's how we know God. It's not to say that is impersonal or depersonalized knowledge. We do not know Him as isolated individuals, and the God we know is not a Jesus isolated from the Father and the Spirit, rather in the experience of the Church's prayer, for example, if you look at the Divine Liturgy, you'll see that virtually all of the prayers of the Divine Liturgy are addressed to the Father. They are addressed to the Father through the Person of the Son in the Person of the Holy Spirit. It is in the Holy Spirit Who makes the Son known - makes us to know the Son -Who He is, what He has done, what He has made possible and through the Spirit revealing the Son sending the Spirit Who proceeds from the Father, just as the Son is begotten of the Father, we know God, so the Divine Liturgy is addressed to the Father who is the source of All - the source of the Son and the Holy Spirit on the level of the divine life that exists in this world - the life of the universe within time that He creates by the Word of the Lord, the heavens were made by the Spirit of His mouth all these hosts."

 

[Dorothea]

cont'd DVD #10 - The Holy Spirit


"So that is how we know God. That doesn't mean we do not have prayers that are addressed directly to the Son. We do that, but they are on the level of the Church's liturgical prayers. The exception and in the prayers of the Church, there are a few prayers addressed to the Person of the Holy Spirit (Trisagion and such).

The Orthodox perception on this unbalanced understanding of the Trinity has led to an unbalanced understanding of authority in the Church. See, the subordination of the Person of the Holy Spirit to the Son on the level of the divinity has resulted in the desire for a specific authority principle to be functioning on the level of the Church in history. Whether it is the infallible Pope, the infallible Bible, or the infallible me. See, there has to be this tangible, infallible authority principle. And in the Orthodox eyes, it all seems to hang together. Once the actual perception on how God has revealed Himself and how that is lived out in the Church, once the balance is lost, these kinds of things creep in."

 

[Dorothea]

Next DVD #11 is on the Church. I am not done watching this one, as there is bunches to take notes on this important subject. I'll get back to you with some of the notes later on.

 

[Dorothea]

DVD #11 - The Church

Fr. David has been reading each part of the Creed. Now he's onto the part that says "One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church."

"These words are most central, especially anyone approaching the Orthodox faith from a nonOrthodox Christian background because this claim that the Church makes uniquely using the word 'One' to refer to the Church, in the same way as we had earlier in the Creed spoken of there being One God, the Father Almighty, and the Lord, Jesus Christ, His Son, so now the third time 'One' occurs in the Creed. 'I believe in One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.'

When we examine this phrase, the word we have to look at first is Church and then go back to these four characteristics or marks of the Church. What is the origin of this word - Church? We need to know from the Greek - Ecclesia - EK = from, and Kaleo = called out. To be called out from. So those who are part of what is called the Church (Ecclesia) - and of course we're using it not in the sense of the Church building - we speak of the Church building referring to the Church in the secondary sense. But when we speak of the Church, we are speaking of those human beings who comprise this society, which we are going to see is not merely a human community - what makes it be what it is - what gives it its essence is that it is the people, the assembly that have been called out of this world, called to a higher state of existence by God Who has made such a thing possible by everything we have described in the Creed up to this point. So this society, this body that we call the Church, the first of its characteristics is that it is a visible body. It has a real, concrete existence. There is nothing vague about it. Perhaps the best comparison to use so that we can understand this teaching about the visibility of the Church - its existence throughout time and history is to look at the Old Covenant and to realize that to be a member of God's people, the people that He had called to Himself in the Old Covenant was a very clear thing - you were either part of Israel or you weren't part of Israel. You were part of Israel if you were born of the seed of Abraham - if you were born of a woman descended from Abraham, and if you were a male bearing the mark of circumcision on your body. All of these are very organic, visible things, and all of that visibility of the people of the Old Covenant goes along with the promise that we mentioned.

I think in our first session - that it is to the chosen people that God promises that in the seed of Abraham, all the nations of the earth will be blessed. So it's very easy to know whether one was a member of the Old Covenant community - the chosen people. It was whether or not one was descended from Abraham.

Now in the New Covenant with Christ, the faith of the Church is that from the beginning - from Christ and the Apostles, the Lord's Will - the purpose of the Lord's coming was that He was going and has given this new life that He has made possible - and when we use that expression 'new life,' we have to use it in the most intense sense possible - that it is really a new creation that we are talking about when we speak of the new humanity. That if there is an immeasurable difference between a member of the human race and a creature of the animal kingdom, we would go as far as to say that there is also an immeasurable difference between a member of the human race, an ordinary human being in the image and likeness of God and a member of the people of God - those whom He has called and whom have responded to that invitation to become part of His new creation. It's not just a little window dressing that's been added to the New Covenant people. If anyone is in Christ, the Scripture says, he is a new creation The old order has passed away and everything is new.

So the language that the Scriptures and the tradition of the Church uses from the beginning to refer to the Church is a very concrete language. The Church is the Body of Christ. Christ is the head and those who are part of His Body are the members. When we spoke of the ascension of Christ, the Church experiences - where Christ is, there His Body is present also. Christ, the Head, is in Heaven, and the members of His Body are already mystically present in Heaven with Him. As we live time on earth so Christ is present with us until the end of the world. So if we are going to speak of the Church as the Body of Christ or as the Bride of Christ, and that Bridal marriage, nuptial imagery, to refer to the people of God, is consistent both in the OT and the NT, continually through the prophetic writings in the OT - Israel is spoken of as the Bride of God, and when the relationship between God and Israel is threatened because of Israel's unfaithfulness and idolatry - and that's, of course the amazing thing about the history of Israel - that from the beginning to the end, the relationship is always threatened by infidelity - God says that no matter how unfaithful His people are, no matter how many of them will be lost due to their infidelity, God will never cast off His people. God remains married to His people as a bridegroom to bride."

 

[Dorothea]

DVD #11 - The Church (cont'd.)

"So, if that image holds for the Old Covenant for God and Israel, it is brought to an indescribably higher level in the New Covenant when in the Church - of course we have that wonderful passage in the epistle of the Ephesians, Ch 5, that is read at every Orthodox marriage, 'The husband is head of the wife, so also Christ is head of the Church, for He is the savior of the body. Therefore, just as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse with the washing of water by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy without blemish. No one ever hated his own flesh but nourishes it and cherishes it just as the Lord does the Church. For we are members of His Body, of His Flesh, and of His Bones' - again a very physical, real, organic expression, 'this is a great mystery,' St. Paul says, 'but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.'

So if the bridegroom of the Church and the head of the Body - if those expressions do not refer to any kind of vague idea. See they refer to the Person of the incarnate Lord, Jesus Christ. Likewise, the members of the Body and the Bridegroom of the Bride refer something that is very, very visible, not vague - see we have to be very careful here because there are many people who are influenced in one way or another by the Reformation idea of - comes from one part of the Reformation - that the Church is invisible, that the Church is somehow the gathering that won't really be clear who's in it until we are in heaven. It is comprised of all those who believe in and love Jesus, who have this individual or private relationship with Him and that's the Church, and you can't tell by looking around who's really in it. Well, the teaching of the Church from the beginning - and later on we are going to see how the testimony not only in the Scriptures, but in the teachers of the Church who bear witness to this - is that the Church in this world is very visible, has very real boundaries, that you're either in it or you're not in it, just as for the Old Covenant. You were either of the seed of Abraham or you were not. So, likewise, in the New Covenant, in the new people that have been called by God to comprise the new creation, the new humanity, the same rule also holds - that just as Christ called real people to Himself, the Apostles, and through the Apostles, established the Church on their foundation, so throughout time until the end of time, through human history, the Church exists in this world as a visible body - a visible bride for Christ, the bridegroom.

Now we say that the first mark or characteristic of the Church is that the Church is one, just as God is one - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So also there cannot be divisions in the Church of God. According to the Orthodox doctrine, the Church of God is indivisible. There can no be two, three or several churches than there can be two, three, or several Gods because just as the life of the Godhead is shared in perfect communion by the Persons of that Holy Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - it is that life that one true and only God has given to His Church.

 

[Dorothea]

I'll type some more probably later tonight or tomorrow. Thanks for reading (whomever is doing so).

 

[Dorothea]

I really wish this thread had a sticky so that it doesn't get lost in the shuffle when I'm not typing in here. Maybe it'll get a sticky as I've requested so.

Anyhow, on with the next set of notes on ....

DVD #11 - The Church (cont'd.)

"The Church does not have any kind of life apart from God. It is the life of God that has been entrusted to the Church. Therefore, just as God is one, the Church is one. Now, of course, from the viewpoint of the world, and much of descriptions of Church history that we find, people speak of divisions even when we're not using that word in the most specific sense. People talk about what happened with the division between the Greek Church and the Latin Church. What happened in the Latin Church at the time of the Reformation. Or what happened in the 5th century Church in the time of the Council of Chalcedea (sp?), the 4th Ecumenical Council. All of those three cases.

Maybe we should look at them for a second. You know, we went through briefly the Ecumenical Councils - at the 4th Ecumenical Council in Chalcedea (sp?) in the year 451 that defined the doctrine (he says doctrine, but I'm thinking this is really a dogma-just my view-Dorothea) of Christ as being one Person - divine Person incarnate in two natures - divine nature, human nature. Well there was a rather large, significant chunk of the Church that did not accept that doctrinal definition of the Council of Chalcedea (sp?). They said, and it comprised of the large portion of the Church of Egypt - what we call the Coptic, the Church of Ethiopia, the Church of Armenia, and a chunk of the Syrian Church. These churches to this day are called the nonChalcedon (sp?) Churches. They reject the Council of Chalcedea (sp?) of Christ being one Person in two natures. Now, why did they reject it? Because they thought this distinction between person and nature was not adequate. They thought that to say that Christ had two natures sounded very dangerously close to what the heretic, Nestorius was saying - when he spoke of Christ as two people. Nestorius was the one who would not call Mary the Mother of God. He said you could only call Mary the Mother of Jesus, and of course, the third EC of Ephesus condemned that teaching. And these people thought - Ah, here it is again! They're talking about Christ having two natures. And that expression had never come before, and it was back to the same old trouble, treating Him as two people, so they rejected that.

Now, it's taken about 1500 years, but in the case of this trouble that happened in the history of the Church, we are witnessing in our own time, coming very near to the healing of that because in this century, it's become evident that these nonChalcedonian Churches, although they didn't like the expression 'two natures' in Christ, believe Jesus is fully God and fully man. See, and that was what the expression 'two natures' was trying to defend. They just didn't like the way that was expressed.

There was also another side of this division between the Chalcedonean and nonChalcedonean Churches. There was a political side to this. In Egypt, Ethiopia, Syria, and Armenia - these are all the frontier areas of - at the outskirts, you could say, of the Byzantine Empire, and they were in this political turmoil, they were getting sick and tired of the new city - the upstart city - Constantinople - the big capital that was always dictating to them and taxing them to death, and part of the rejection of this definition of the the Council of Chalcedea comes from political reasons. We'll talk about that later on too this evening.

But this one - the first significant - I'll use division here in the loose sense because we must insist that just as the Persons of the Trinity cannot be divided, so also there must always be one Church in this world - the Church cannot be divided. If there is strife in the Church, it means there are people that are leaving the communion of the Church. There are people who are doing what John describes in his first epistle - when he talks about people even then in the first generation of the Church - who are leaving the Church - and he says 'they went out from us because they were not of us.' That's a significant thing to see there because what he's talking about is the Body there. He's not talking about people who weren't members of the Church. He's talking about people who were members of the Church, who were leaving the Church, and he said, well, this does not divide the Church, but rather what is being brought to light here is these people who leave the Church, it's being shown that they are not of the Church."

 

[mark46]

1) We should keep bumping this thread until it is a sticky.

2) Brendonmark gave me this reference on another thread. Is it a good representation of the dogma of the faith?

3) Between the two (and my new Orthodox Study Bible), I seem to have some good Lenten reading.

 

[musicluvr83]

1) We should keep bumping this thread until it is a sticky.

I agree!

 

[Dorothea]

To Mark: Yes, these are the dogmas and doctrines of the Orthodox Church. I do believe the two natures of Christ and Mary being ever-virgin are dogmas, though, not doctrines.)

Thank you, mark and musicluvr, for bumping the thread!



DVD #11 - The Church (cont'd.)


"They have a different spirit than the Holy Spirit that holds the Church together. That we have, and it's important we speak of it this evening. Then we have the second great, in the order historical chronology, strife in the Christian history and that is, of course, the division of the Greek Church and the Latin Church.

We mentioned last time the teaching concerning the Holy Spirit. The Orthodox Church - the Greek Church - rejected the innovation of the filioque - of saying that the Holy Spirit proceeded equally from the Father and the Son - and also rejected a development which in Orthodox eyes was an addition to the faith that had not been held from the beginning, and that is what evolved into the RCC teaching concerning the authority of the Pope - of the Papacy. It's this - this is at the center of the rift between Latin West and Greek East. This is what caused after several centuries of tension - it's important to not have an overly simplistic attitude toward this schism between the Eastern and Western Church.

In summary form, the year 1054 is given as the year of division between East and West. There really is not an accurate way to look at it. In the year 1054, there was an unfortunate occurrence. There had been other unfortunate occurrences before that, that had their consequences. There would be other ones afterwards, but the division between East and West occurred over six centuries, ending really in the 15th century, and at that time, what was different at the end of the flat time. Before this time of trouble, when the Greek East and the Latin West looked at each other, they saw themselves as two different expressions of the same Church comprising one Church together. At the end of this time of schism and strife, when the Greek Church and the Latin Church looked at each other, they did not recognize in each other an expression of the one Church. They saw themselves as two different phenomena. And though there might have been a continuation of many things that were held in common, in the Faith, there had been a breach that resulted and continues to result to our day in the breaking of communion between the Greek Church and the Latin Church, and it was over this question of authority in the Church.

So, it's good for us right now to talk about the three things that are taught in the Latin Church concerning the papacy and how the Orthodox regards those things. The first is that in the early Church from the days of the Apostles, it was always understood that there is order in the Church. The Church is not an anarchy. The Church is not a monarchy. The Church is not a democracy. The Church reflects the life of the Holy Trinity. And just as there is an order in the Persons of the Holy Trinity - the Son is begotten of the Father, not the other way around. The Spirit proceeds from the Father, not the other way around. The Son is begotten. The Spirit proceeds. The Son and the Spirit are not confused. The relationship of each of the Persons of the Son and the Spirit is a unique one. So likewise, it was understood that Christ established an order in His Church. There was an order in the Apostles, we can see it even in the Scriptural account that Christ singled out Peter, James and John. From Peter, James, and John, He singled out Peter, after Peter gave that confession of Him as Messiah, when Peter said speaking, we can say, for all the Apostles, to Jesus, 'You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.' Jesus says to him, 'blessed are you Simon Peter, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father in heaven. And so I say to you, that you are Peter and upon this Rock, I will built my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.'

It had been understood in the Church from the beginning that Peter was first among equals, together with Paul, we sing in the Orthodox Church, they are first enthroned of the Apostles. We don't have this idea in the Church that the relationship of each person to God within the communion of the Church is an identical relationship. There are people who are greater, there are people who are lesser.

Jesus spoke of Himself in the sermon on the mount. He said there will be those that are least in the Kingdom of Heaven. There will be those who are greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. So, Peter was always considered to be the first among the Apostles. The first among equals. That teaching regarding Peter is called Primacy - from the word meaning first. And it means that first of all, in the rank of the Apostles, Peter had the first place.

Likewise, it was the understanding of the early Church of Rome that had a special relationship - is the best way to speak of it - to the Apostles Peter and Paul, and also because, of course, Rome was the central city of the known world. There are practical reasons fro this. It was agreed in the early Church, among all the Churches, the Church of Rome had the first place, and that the bishop of Rome was the first bishop in the ranks of the Church. For the bishop of Rome to be called the descendant of St. Peter was understood by the entire Church and accepted. Though that does not mean, for example, that the bishop of Antioch, where Peter also was, claimed the same thing. But that didn't matter. All of this was able to coexist very well."

 

[Dorothea]

DVD #11 - The Church (cont'd.)


At the Ecumenical Councils, the representatives sent by the Pope always had the first place, you see. But as time went on and as the Church of Rome became more and more responsible - some of this is the result of historical circumstances - you know, the Greek-speaking half of the empire, the whole political structure did not fall apart for 1500 years. Constantinople did not fall to the Turks until 1453. But the old Rome in the West - the Latin Empire, had fallen to barbarian invaders by the 5th century. So the whole structure of society - political/social structure - was collapsing, and it was the figure of the bishop of Rome in the West, even beginning with for example, Pope Gregory the Great (pointing to an icon of St. Gregory) in the 6th and early 7th century, who had to pull the pieces together of the entire society, not simply be the first bishop of the Church, but be really the leader of society at that time. But as a result, as the centuries progressed, the bishops of Rome began ascribing to themselves an authority that in the eyes of the Greek Church was something that was not there in the early Church. They claimed to have two things that we reject, regarded as additions to the deposit of Faith.

1. Supremacy
2. Infallibility

The bishops of Rome claimed to exercise infallibility. Now, infallibility isn't the problem here because as we're going to see, as Orthodox, we believe in the infallibility of the Church. To believe in the infallibility of the Church is a very simple thing. It means that because it is not a human society - the Church is a communion of persons called by God to share the life of the Holy Trinity, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit; therefore, we have the promise of God, the promise of Christ, Who will be with his people until the end of the world, that the truth that He came to give us will always be taught in this world until the end of time. That's what we mean, as Orthodox, when we speak of the infallibility of the Church.

However, in the Roman Church, when it began to be claimed that this infallibility was expressed through one mouthpiece, you see, the bishops of Rome, well, this was a great problem. This was something that was not in our understanding and experience of the early Church...something that was not present in the early Church. Likewise, when the bishops of Rome began to claim, what is called supremacy - Supremacy is the understanding that the bishops of Rome - the Pope- has immediate authority over the entire Church. You see, that's quite different than saying that those who have received the Apostolic authority, just as the Apostles, everywhere, by the laying on of hands, established bishops and presbyters and deacons to be means through which the authority that Christ gave to His Apostles is perpetuated in the Church until the end of the world. That these Churches begun by the Apostles, whose existence continued through the bishops, priests, and deacons, that the Apostles established, all existed together in communion with the bishops being in communion with one another just as the Apostles were. The bishops of the great Churches, the great cities, the Patriarchs, as they were called. The cities of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Constantinople, and among these Patriarchs, the bishop of the greatest city, Rome, having the first place. That's one thing. But to say that the bishop of Rome has immediate jurisdiction over the entire Church is quite another thing.

That is the doctrine of supremacy of the Pope that began to be exercised with great force in the middle ages. And it's over this that the core, we could say, the center of the division between Greek East and Latin West occurs. And we would say, the Orthodox claim would be that what happened here in this great tragedy - no one would deny it is a tragedy - is by claiming that these doctrines regarding the papacy, together with the doctrine of the filioque - regarding the Holy Spirit - were, in fact, to be imposed on the entire Church. You see, they tried to force the Orthodox Church to accept these doctrines. By doing so, the Latin Church, the Roman Catholic Church, left the communion of the one Church.

So, there was no division of the Church that occurred here. You did not have the Church split into two Churches because there cannot be two Churches anymore than there can be two Gods. It cannot be that the claims made by one Church and the claims made by the other are equally true because we are dealing here not simply secondary matters. Rather we are dealing with things that are at the very core of what God wills to do for the human race, the revelation that He has made of Himself and entrusted to those human beings that compose His Church. So it is the Orthodox doctrine when there is this kind of strife in the Church that either one claim must be true or the other must be true. They cannot be equally true. Nor can one say that both are false, that truth is relative. There is no such thing as relative truth in the Christian experience. Truth regarding God is always absolute.

In the third tragedy to befall Christianity, the Reformation, which is when the Orthodox look at Reformation beginning in the 16th century, of course it is a phenomena of the Latin Church. The Orthodox Church never underwent the Reformation. The Latin Church continued to have this tension within itself regarding the nature of authority. You see, in the Orthodox Church's eyes, I believe we mentioned this already, that once there is the attempt to narrow down the tradition of the Church, insist on a visible criterion of authority, rather than seeing as the criteria of authority in the Church, the entire tradition found in the Scriptures, the Fathers, the liturgical services, the councils, the Creed, the Saints, and everything else that goes along with it. To say that instead of that, we will have this one point of authority whether it's in the case of the infallible and supreme pontiff, the bishop of Rome, or later on when that is cast off by the teachers of the Reformation - whether it is the Bible independent from how the Bible has been understood in the communion of the Church, and the inevitable consequence of that - that the criterion of the truth becomes my own interpretation of the Bible - my own conscience regarding what is right and wrong. Of course, the result of that is umpteen hundred Protestant denominations."

 

[Dorothea]

Ok, I'll try to be back later on today to add some more on the Church from my extensive notes.

 

[Dorothea]

Sorry. I will try to get back to this tomorrow.

 

[Dorothea]

Ugh....still not sticky. Really, could we get one soon?!!!


Ok, back to the next part of the notes...


DVD # 11 - The Church (cont'd.)


"The Orthodox doctrine is that the Church must be one, the Church is the image on earth of the perfect communion in unity of the Holy Trinity in heaven. So, we must say then that the Church cannot be understood - I used the expression earlier as some sort of monarchy, some sort of thing, where the authority is imposed on people in the same way political authority is imposed on people in nations states. God does not impose His authority on the human race that way. God did not, in the Old Covenant, impose His authority on Israel that way. God did not impose His authority on Adam and Eve that way. He said there are two ways. Here's the way of life. Here's the way of death. Which one will you choose. You must choose. It's always you must choose. Always free will. But the authority that exists in the Church is the authority of the truth that God has revealed. It's not a monarchical authority imposed by those who rule the Church on those who are ruled in the Church.

Jesus insisted on that over and over again with His disciples. The greatest among you must be the slave - modern English translation is servant. They would be much more to the point if they used the more, even humbling word, slave. That at the Last Supper table when the mystery that is at the heart of the Church is given to the Apostles, the Holy Eucharist, before it's given, Christ performs the act of slave in washing the disciples' feet. He says before going to Jerusalem for His death, after James and John ask Him - they want to have a place next to Him in His Kingdom - He says you don't know what you're asking. 'Can you drink the cup I drink? Can you be baptized with the baptism that I will be baptized with?' They say we can, and He said, yes you will, but then He goes on to say, 'You know how it is among the gentiles, that their great ones, their lords exercise authority over them and make their authority felt. It shall not be so among you.' So the authority that exists in the Church is not authority of a monarch. On the other hand, there is no anarchy in the Church. The Church is hierarchically-structured. There is an order there, an order that reflects the Holy Trinity.

The Church is not a corporation. The Church is not a club. The Church is not a political institution. The one model that is really the only acceptable one for the Church to be understood as comprised as that of a family. The Church is a family. Just as the Holy Trinity on the divine level is a family. Now I say that - I don't mean to say that the life of the Persons of the Holy Trinity is like the life of the persons of the human family. We're talking about divine Persons on one level, the creator and the creature on the other level. There is that immeasurable difference between the two. But what we are saying is that the members of the Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ, the people of God, who are called from this world to be the new humanity, the new creation, share that same life in the communion of love, and that's the mystery of the Church. The Church is the family of God. And the human family - mother, father, and children - that exists in this world also is meant to be a reflection of that. That's why St. John Chrysostom speaks of the family as a miniature church. You see, it's very clear when we think of our human families - it's very clear what makes us a member of a human family. Either we're the father, mother or child in the human family. Likewise, in the Church family, it's the same thing.

The Church is comprised of those who confess the teachings and the life of the Church that have been held from the beginning everywhere by everyone who have claimed to be the Church, who partake of the life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that has been made present in the Church through the channels we call the sacraments. That's what makes you a member of the Church. Nothing else. No kind of idea, no kind of individualized conviction, no kind of privatized act of faith. These things may all have their place, but what makes a person a member of the Body, a member of the family of God that we call the one Church is if one confesses the life and doctrine of the Church and partakes of the life that is made present to her by the Holy Trinity in the sacraments."

 

[Dorothea]

DVD #11 - The Church (cont'd.)

"So, the Church is one. Jesus prays in the Gospel of St. John, the 17th chapter, when He has that prayer for....I'll read a little bit...right before going to his agony and death, Jesus prays to His Father, 'I pray for them' - here He's speaking of His disciples - 'I do not pray for the world, but for those whom You have given Me' - those called from the world - 'for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine and I am glorified in them. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your Truth. Your Word is Truth. As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. I do not pray for these alone' - the Apostles, that is - 'but also for those who believe in Me through their word.' So, at the Last Supper, the Lord prays for all those who will believe in Him through the word of the Apostles. 'That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I in You. That they also may be one in us. That the world may believe that You sent Me. I in them and You in Me, that they may be made perfectly one and that the world may know that You have sent Me and have loved them as You have loved Me.'

Now, it's the understanding of the Church from the beginning that prayer of Jesus Christ is answered, see. That, yes, those who belong to His Body, that the visible Body, that we call the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church - the Orthodox Church - has remained one despite its wounds, despite its strife, despite those that have left her communion; nevertheless, remains one in history in time until the end of the world. And if it is not, then there is no Church at all. If there are many churches, then there is no Church. If there are many churches, there are many Gods. If there are many churches, then there are many truths. There is One God, One Truth, and One Church.

I want to read to you a short series of teachings from the great Saints, Fathers of the Church from the very early times to later on, so you see this continuity of teaching regarding the One Church.

***St. Iraneus of Lyons, whom I've mentioned a number of times before - he's third generation - knew those who knew the Apostles - writes, 'Where the Church is, there also is the Spirit of God. Where the Spirit of God is, there also is the Church and all its grace.'

***St. Cyprian of Carthage, who was a great bishop in the third century, in the city of North Africa, where there was once a great and mighty Church that isn't there anymore at all....I'll mention something on that later - says 'The Church is one' - capital 'c' - 'even though the number of churches' - small 'c' - 'is constantly growing, as the Church' - capital 'c' - 'becomes more fertile. There are many churches' - small 'c' - 'but only one Church.' - and then this statement, I think it's very important for you to take with you this evening from St. Cyprian - 'he cannot have God as Father who does not have the Church as Mother.'

It cannot be because how one comes to have God as a father is by adoption. We do not come into this world as children of God. We come into this world as creatures of God. We must be reborn in water and spirit within the Body of those whom God called to Himself from this world within. The early teachers of the Church like to say - God is my Father, the Church is my Mother, the womb I came out of is the baptismal font. See, the breasts that I nurse at are the Holy Eucharist.

***'The Church is greater than heaven and earth,' St. Ambrose of Milan writes in the 5th century. 'It is a new world, and Christ is its sun. Christ is its light.'

***St. Athanasius, 'The Body of Christ, to which Christians are united through baptism, is the source of our resurrection and salvation.' Our resurrection and salvation we do not find by ourselves isolated off in a corner. Rather it is in the Body of Christ that is made the Body of Christ, through the sacraments. This is the source of our resurrection.

***'The Church is the earthly paradise in which the God of heaven dwells' - St. Germanos of Constantinople in the 8th century. Actually a statement like that is very expressive of how the Church has always experienced herself when she comes together - the Church being paradise on earth - heaven on earth. That's even why in the Orthodox architecture - when I say Orthodox architecture, I don't mean just modern Orthodox architecture or Greek, Russian, or Middle Eastern architecture. I mean there was a continuity of architectural, iconographic and musical expression in the early Church, and one of the architectural images of that is the dome. Every Orthodox Church that is built traditionally has a dome. The dome stands for the sky so that those who are assembled in the Church under the dome are a world - the new world that has been made possible by ascending to be with Christ where He is. And whether you were in the East or in the West for the first many centuries of the Church is why that was the characteristic of the Christian Church building, even when they brought it to Russia, they couldn't built domes that would collapse under the snow, so they had to devise something else. So they made the so-called 'onion,' but what it's really called is the 'candle flame' dome."