Holy Week at the Monastery

HOLY WEEK AT THE MONASTERY

For those curious to know, the following is an account of Holy Week which I recently  (written in 2006) spent at Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, MA.  The services at the monastery are the same services held in parishes during Holy Week.  A few of them are an hour or so longer than they may be in most parishes.  There are no pews, only benches along the wall.  The idea is to stand for all the services if possible since the services are seen as a labor of love and sacrifice to God.

The monastery building is an old mansion built in 1881 by the Schlesinger family as their home.  They were a wealthy steel family in Boston.  (Arthur Schlesinger, a descendent, was secretary of defense under Richard Nixon.)

The building has some 70 rooms with lots of thick oak doors, paneling and elaborate carvings.  It feels like and resembles an old castle.  They paid $400,000.00 for it in 1970.  It has 20 acres with woods, a creek and a cemetery.  The monks have goats, a green house for growing herbs, paint icons, make incense and publish books to earn a living.

There are some 40 monks at the monastery ranging in age from the 20’s to the 70’s and maybe one or two in their 80’s.  They are from several different nationalities and countries and come from backgrounds in most major Protestant denominations, Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism and various independent and charismatic movements including Oral Roberts University (including two former professors).  It is quite an eclectic group.

I arrived on Holy Wednesday of Holy Week.  They had already had two days of special services that began on Palm Sunday evening and continued on Holy Monday and Holy Tuesday.

The abbot of the monastery, Fr. Isaac, picked me up at the airport and we arrived at the monastery at 12:45, just in time for the 1:00 Pre-Sanctified Liturgy. It is called by this name because the Bread and Wine used for the Eucharist are pre-sanctified on Sunday for use during the weekday liturgies to maintain a penitential mood during the week.  Sundays always celebrate the Resurrection and thus the Bread and Wine are sanctified on that day.

Since the Eucharist must always be preceded by fasting, the monks had not eaten since the day before.  The Pre-Sanctified Liturgy ended at 3:00 PM.

We then had lunch, the only meal of the day, in keeping with the Lenten Fast.  It consisted of vegetable soup that had red beans, macaroni, squash, zucchini, carrots, onions, peas, celery and potatoes.  For dessert there was strawberry sorbet, a banana, fresh olives, bread and water. The Lenten Fast (not just for monks but all Orthodox Christians) is essentially eating without meat, wine, olive oil, dairy and eggs for 8 weeks.  Fish is permitted only on a few days during the fast.

 During meals at the monastery, there is no talking and one of the monks stands and reads from some spiritual writings while everyone eats. After we ate, everyone had an assigned clean up duty.  In about 20 minutes we had the tables cleared, the dishes in the dishwasher, the left over food put away and the tables completely reset and ready for the next meal.  (The abbot told me they spend about $1,000.00 per week at the market even without the purchase of meat, since they never eat meat).

I then road with Fr. Sergios, one of the monks, to deliver some fasting food to a family who owes a Pizza/Sub shop in town and are close friends of the monastery. This was so they could keep the Lenten fast while working.

From 6:30-9:00 PM we had the service of Holy Unction, which always falls on Holy Wednesday.  This is a service that includes anointing with Holy Oil blessed by the bishop for the healing of soul and body.  Incidentally, the bishop resides at this monastery.

I slept in a guest room with two other guests.  One was an 84-year-old retired businessman who comes often just to visit.  He was from upstate New York.  The other guest was Sergei from St. Petersburg, Russia.  He is a portrait painter who gets commissioned by wealthy families in America to come and paint their family portrait.  He was in town on business but was able to participate in most of the services of Holy Week.  There were several other guests staying in another guest room, all young men whose wives were staying at the convent that is just five minutes away.  They were all recent converts to Orthodoxy from various backgrounds.

On Holy Thursday morning, the Abbot assigned me to help with the dying of eggs in the kitchen at 7:30 AM .  We dyed red some 1,000 boiled eggs which the monks give away and eat during the 40 days of Pascha (more on this later) until the Feast of the Ascension.

The next service was a Hierarchical Divine Liturgy from 11:30 AM till 3:00 PM.  It is called hierarchical because a hierarch, the bishop, presides and celebrates this liturgy.  This liturgy commemorates the institution of the Eucharist by the Savior on Thursday of Holy Week.

After this liturgy, we had the only meal of the day, which consisted of boiled potatoes, slaw with vinegar dressing, grapes, olives, sugar cookies, bread, water and wine.  On Holy Thursday, wine is permitted during the Lenten Fast since this day is the commemoration of the institution of the Lord’s Supper.  This was the last meal we would have until Saturday afternoon.

On Holy Thursday evening we had the Service of the Twelve Passion Gospels, which lasted from 7:00 PM till Midnight.  This service consists of many prayers and hymns interspersed between 12 readings taken from the four Gospels describing all the events leading up to the betrayal of Christ, the Crucifixion, the Burial and the events that followed except for the Resurrection.

During this service the icon of the body of Christ is placed on a cross that stands front and center and the faithful prostrate themselves before the cross.

Incidentally, in the chapel, there are no electric lights.  The only lights are oil lamps and candles.

On Great and Holy Friday the service began at 10:00 AM and ended at 3:30 PM.  This consists of several services put together: The Royal Hours, Vespers, Pre-Sanctified Liturgy and the taking down from the cross service.  During this time the body of Christ is removed from the Cross, wrapped in linen cloth and taken in procession as to the tomb which has been prepared before hand and now sits in the front of the temple.  Here the image of the body of Christ is adorned with flowers, spices and myrrh in imitation of the burial preparation by the myrrh-bearing women as described in the Holy Gospels.  All the faithful then come and prostrate themselves before the tomb and worship His Holy Suffering and Death.

On Holy Friday evening we had the Service of Lamentations which lasted from 7:00 PM till 11:00 PM.  During this service we gather around the tomb and sing hymns of lamentations, which are hymns of repentance and of praise for the Savior’s love, suffering, and death.  I attended this service with the nuns at the convert just down the street from the monastery.

On Holy Saturday morning there was another Hierarchical Liturgy with the bishop.  This lasted from 11:30 AM till 3:00 PM.  This is a solemn service in awareness that during this time the Savior was in the tomb and descended into Hades (the realm of death where all went who died before the Advent of Christ) and proclaimed his Resurrection to all those who had fallen asleep prior to his coming.  Those who embraced Him in Faith were led from the captivity of the grave into Paradise with the thief who had been crucified with Him on Holy Friday.

After this service we had our first meal since Holy Thursday.  It consisted of Tofu Soup w/pasta shells, ½ of an avocado, a banana, dates, figs, an orange, bread and water.  This was followed by the usual clean up.

Immediately after this meal the spirit of the anticipated Feast of the Resurrection begins to fill the air.  All the monks get busy cleaning the building, washing windows, preparing many floral arrangements and cleaning all the holy vessels and utensils used in all the services.

Then on Saturday evening at 11:30 PM we gathered to celebrate the Feast of the Resurrection, a joyous and festive service that lasted until 4:00 AM.  From this time until the Feast of the Ascension forty days later, the Resurrection hymns are song every week in every service and the customary greetings of “hello,” “good morning,” etc. are replaced for 40 days with the greeting of “Christ is Risen!” and the response, “Truly He is Risen!” 

This service was followed by a light meal which breaks the fast and consisted of fish soup, feta cheese, Pascha bread and Pascha cheese, an orange, chocolates, wine, coffee and water.  (In the Orthodox Church Easter is called Pascha, which means Passover since the death and resurrection of Christ are the fulfillment of the meaning of the Old Testament Feast of Passover.)

We went to bed at 5:00 AM and gathered again at noon for the main Pasha meal which consisted of baked cod, green beans almandine, boiled egg, an orange, Pascha bread and cheese, chocolates, wine and coffee.

Agape Vespers were chanted from 6 till 7 PM.  During this service the Resurrection Gospel is chanted in many different languages to emphasis the universality of the Gospel.  At the monastery it was done in 12 different languages.  This was followed by the evening meal, which I didn’t attend due to a phone call about Nathan’s arrest.

The week following Pascha is called Bright Week and there are services everyday to celebrate the Resurrection.  We had the liturgy for Bright Monday from 7 till 10 AM. 

This was followed by lunch which consisted of baked fish filet, baked potato with butter, chives and sour cream, a pear, boiled egg, Pascha bread and cheese, chocolates, cookies, wine and coffee.

Monday evening I flew home to Nashville.

Joseph Bragg

WHICH CHRIST DO YOU BELIEVE IN?

WHICH CHRIST DO YOU BELIEVE IN?

Or in proper English, “IN WHICH CHRIST DO YOU BELIEVE? 

Is there more than one Christ?  Is there more than one God?  Is there more than one Church?  Is there more than one Christian Faith?  Is there more than one Baptism?

The Scriptures tell us that there will be false teachings and false Christs.  Jesus said that many would come “in My Name” saying “here is Christ and there is Christ” and then He told us “go ye not out to meet them”.   The Saviour said there would be a great falling away from truth as people turn to what pleases their ears, so much so that He raised the question, “When the Son of Man comes, will He find Faith on the Earth?”  All the teachings from Scripture that warn us about false Christs and false Faiths suggest that the false will appear so right and be so close to the true that it will be difficult to distinguish it and many will be deceived.  In fact, it will be so deceptive that the true believers will scarcely be saved.  That which is false rarely comes at us with blatant denial but with subtle deceptions.

Last week when I was working my second job at the library, I got into a conversation with an elderly gentleman who was visiting here from India.  I asked him about life in India and religion in particular.  He was enthusiastic about the democracy of India and the spread of many religions.  He, himself, was Hindu, he said, but he believes in Christ, too. 

I remember talking with the Hara Krishna’s on the street in downtown Detroit when I lived there in the 70’s.  They enthusiastically told me of their belief in Christ as Saviour.   They, of course, and the man from India, do not believe in  Christ of the Bible and the Church.  They have a very different understanding of Christ from that which the Church has held from the beginning.

From this we can see that it is not enough for someone to simply say, “I believe in Christ”.  It is important to know what you believe about Christ – who He is and what He has done to save you.   We must believe in the one true Christ and not in one made up in someone’s mind or imagination. 

In the world of modern day Christianity there is a common understanding that if a person says they believe in Christ as their Lord and Saviour they are considered to be Christians.  Thus, we have many “Christian” preachers, books, radio stations, authors, movies and music (Rap, even!) that are all considered Christian because they use the name of Christ and other Christian terminology.  But Christian terminology means different things to different people.  The same Christian terminology means one thing to a Mormon and another to a Jehovah’s Witness.  It means one thing to a Scientologist and another thing to an Evangelical.  So just because someone uses Christian terms or even confesses faith in Christ does not mean they believe in the one true Christ and one true Faith.  It doesn’t even necessarily mean they are Christians. 

St. Paul warned about those who preach “another gospel”.  They were using the same terminology but attaching different meanings to the words.  St. Paul considered another gospel so serious and wrong that he anathematized those who preach another gospel than that which was preached by the apostles.  Today, the word gospel has come to mean just the basic kernel of good news concerning Christ’s death and resurrection.  But in the Scriptures and throughout the history of the Church the Gospel of Christ embraces all that He is, all that He did and all that He taught for our salvation, not just one or two things.  Without this content, you can easily end up with a false Christ.

So, which Christ do you believe in?  Do you even know?  Have you even thought about it?  Many have not.  They just believe in a Christ who died for their sins.  But so does the Mormon, and Scientologist, and Jehovah’s Witness, and Roman Catholic, and Hindu, and Seventh Day Adventist, and D.J Jakes, and The World Wide Church of God (founded by Garner Ted Armstrong), and Prophetess’ Bynum and White, and Kenneth Copeland and the “name it and claim it” movement, and the “holy laughter” movement, and Mike Murdoch, and Joel Osteen, and scores of other movements, denominations, mega churches and religious gurus. 

I recently had a conversation with a good friend who attends a large Evangelical church.  I was talking about how important it is that we believe in the true Christ.  It didn’t take long for my friend to admit he had never thought about these issues and his pastor never preaches or teaches about them.  The central thrust of his church is on life lessons – how to be a leader, how to succeed in life, how to have joy and contentment and how to live a good moral life.  To be sure, faith in Christ is understood to be the motivation and reason for all of this but there is little emphasis on the content of the Christian Faith since the goal is to embrace as many people as possible.   Emphasis on doctrine has a way of turning people off or offending them.

Thus, many of the mega churches avoid doctrine beyond a few basic and general themes.    The content of the Christian Faith beyond these themes is considered unimportant.  Thus, their music doesn’t teach the content of the faith but focuses on feelings, emotions, experiences, joys, sorrows, victories and feel-goodisms.  The sermons are mostly motivational lectures on how to live a good and happy life. They celebrate the Fourth of July, Veteran’s Day, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day but they don’t celebrate the feast days of Pentecost, the Ascension, the Baptism of Christ, the Transfiguration or any of the other great feasts of the Christian Faith that are essential for understanding who Christ is and how He saves us.  My friend didn’t even know what the Transfiguration was or meant and didn’t see how it related to our view of Christ or our understanding of salvation.  However, Mother’s Day and the Fourth of July are very important celebrations at his church.  This should lead us to ask, “What then, is the content of my Christian Faith?” 

More probing with my Evangelical friend revealed beliefs that the Church condemned long ago as heretical and outside of the Christian Faith.  He thought Joseph was really somehow the father of Jesus.  He didn’t believe that Jesus took His flesh from the Virgin Mary but that it was somehow miraculously given by God.  He didn’t believe that the baby born of the Virgin Mary was God but thought the baby was just Jesus or Christ who received the Holy Spirit at His Baptism.

 If we believe in Christ without content and many of the details really don’t matter, then it is possible that such a Christ could just be an emotional feeling or a psychological crutch.   Christ, in this context, could be very much like the higher being that is espoused in the twelve-step program of AA.  It doesn’t matter whom you believe in or what the content of that belief is so long as you believe in something or someone.  You draw your strength and hope and help from this psychological crutch.  Whether the something or someone you believe in is truth or a figment of your imagination doesn’t matter.   All that matters is that you believe in someone or something greater than or outside of yourself.

A Mormon who truly believes the Mormon doctrine of Christ does not believe in the Christ of the true Christian Faith.  But he/she may tell you that the Christ they believe in has changed their lives and saved them from a life of sin and failure.   This Christ gives them hope and comfort and assures them of heaven just like your Christ.  And the way they know it is true is from a “burning in the bosom” – an emotional feeling they got when they embraced the Mormon faith.  The same, or something similar, may be said by someone who has been saved from being an alcoholic through AA simply by focusing their faith on someone or something in their imagination.   

The point is, there is a big difference between faith in an emotional crutch of someone’s imagination and faith in the true Christ of the historic Christian Faith; the difference resides in the content of Christ and that faith.   A person may find an emotional experience of salvation in anyone or anything but it is not necessarily the salvation of the Christian Faith.

The faith that does not give due attention to the content of Christ or the Christian Faith beyond a few basic terms will not have the same understanding of salvation as held by the Orthodox Christian Church.  Speaking in general terms, my Evangelical friend perceives salvation primarily as a spiritual salvation of the soul that centers in the private experience of the individual.  Thus, content beyond “Christ died for our sins” is not that important.  The soul is saved from its sins by believing in Christ who died for our sins.   What was necessary for Christ to do that, in terms of the meaning of the fall of Adam, and how Christ accomplished our salvation (beyond just dying for our sins) are not very important.  Thus, the content of Christ’s birth and life and the salvation provided in all that He did and taught are not so important.  For my friend, the essential importance is to feel that one’s sins are forgiven by trusting in Christ and with that comes the hope of heaven.  

The Orthodox Faith, on the other hand perceives salvation, not just as forgiveness of sins and not just as a private experience, but as the redemption and restoration of body and soul as one, in the context of the life of the Church, the Body of Christ.  In Adam, creation became subject to sin, corruption and death.  Christ had to be a true second Adam, a true man, who took human nature from a human being.  A divinely created human nature would not be a true man but a superman who could not stand in man’s place to restore our nature.   As true man, Christ became one of us and partook of our nature.  Does that mean he partook of our sin since human nature is sinful?  No.  Human nature is not sinful in and of itself.  Sin has attached itself to human nature as a foreign element but human nature was created good by God.  Christ took on human nature (and this is why the Incarnation is so central in Orthodoxy) in order to redeem human nature from the curse of the fall.  He was tempted as was Adam but Christ overcame that temptation and became the perfect man.   In and through His saving deeds all of fallen creation is redeemed – restored and made holy.  It is essential that we be united to this Saviour.  This Christ alone is the path back to God.  He alone is the Door and the Way because He alone, as true man, is flesh of our flesh, and as true God, is very God of very God.  This is why the Scriptures tell us that there is no salvation in any other Name under heaven, than the Name of Christ.   But simply to use His Name with any and all understandings of that Name does not join us to the one true Christ.

Thus, Christ redeemed creation and man as both body and soul.  The body must be redeemed and saved along with our soul for what one does affects the other.  Salvation then, is perceived not just as an emotional feeling in the heart and not just as the forgiveness of sins but as a restoration of body and soul to God’s intended purpose and design.  By being united to Christ, we are made partakers of His perfect nature (the second Adam) and thus set on the path to the salvation of body and soul.   Forgiveness of sins is only the beginning.   In that forgiveness both body and soul must, through union with Christ, return to God as a holy and acceptable sacrifice.  Salvation is a return of our fallen nature to God, a journey of sanctification and deification; a journey of throwing off sin and corruption and a putting on or partaking of the divine nature of Christ.  From this view of salvation we can begin to see why the Orthodox Faith emphasizes prayer, fasting, asceticism, self-denial and the acquiring of virtues.  All of this is necessary for our separation from the sin that has attached itself to our bodies and souls.  All of this is necessary to unite ourselves, body and soul, with the perfect nature of Christ.   Thus, there is a strong emphasis on the restoration of both body and soul and not merely on forgiveness of sins and hope of heaven.

Now we can begin to see the importance of the proper understanding of the birth of Christ.  He had to take his human nature from the Virgin Mary in order to be truly man to reverse the curse of Adam.  Yet, at the same time, he had to be God or else he could not overcome sin and death, thus he was conceived by the Holy Spirit and not by Joseph.   The hymns and prayers in every Orthodox service emphasize these truths as crucial to our salvation.  In the Church we call Mary the Theotokos which is Greek for “God-bearer”.  In this way we preserve the truth that the baby born of the Virgin Mary was and is God - Immanuel.   We constantly confess this in the Creed, that Christ is begotten, not made,… true God of true God. of one essence with the Father. We confess Christ with two natures in one Person, unconfused and undivided.

Along with all of this, in Orthodoxy, salvation is perceived more as a corporate experience than as a private experience. Salvation is not left up to each individual to decide how or what it is.  Nor is it left depending on some spiritual or emotional experience.  These things have their place but they cannot be separated from the corporate experience and life of the Church or set up over and above it.  Our salvation is not derived from our private spiritual and emotional experiences but from the Life of the God-man in the Church.  Private experiences may lead us to Christ, but they, of themselves are not the new birth.  Besides, we can easily be deluded and deceived by private experiences that grow out of the sin and death that has attached itself to our nature.   This is why all spirituality and experience must be subjected to the judgment of the Church.  Without this you have….well, you have the proliferation of  Faiths, and Christs and churches that is Protestant/Evangelicalism.  

The Orthodox Christian Faith teaches that Christ established His Church as the means of our salvation. (Incidentally, the Church makes no distinction between the Orthodox Christian faith and the Christian faith, believing they are one and the same.  Why would anyone hold to a faith that they do not consider to be identical to the Christian faith?) Christ said, “I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it”.  The only Christianity described in the New Testament is described in terms of the Church.  This salvation was preached by the Church and accomplished in communion with the Church.  The Church is the Body of Christ, of which He is the Head.  In the New Testament there is no mention of Christianity, only the Church that is composed of each visible community in communion with the apostles’ doctrine and life.   

In the Church our salvation is personal (personal faith is essential) but it is not privatized.  We are saved by uniting our faith to the Faith of the Church, which is the Body of Christ. Salvation flows from Christ the Head to all members of that Body.   The Faith of the Church was established once and for all by Christ through His apostles. When we unite ourselves to this Body we don’t have to figure out what is or isn’t true or how we should understand this or that.  All of this has been settled.  Christ told the apostles that the Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth.  Thus, it is essential to be united to that one Faith and one Body that has an unbroken continuity with the apostolic Faith.     Only in this Body can we be certain that we possess the fullness of the Gospel of Christ and not something different.

We enter the Church through Holy Baptism.  Water, along with all of creation, has been redeemed by the God-man and thus is used to affect our communion with God.  God has chosen to unite us to Christ through Holy Baptism in the Church.  Space does not permit citing all the New Testament passages that teach this but a search of the verses under “baptism” in a good concordance will show this to be true.   In the New Testament there is no private salvation.  Everyone who believes is born again and united to Christ in the Church through Holy Baptism.  Baptism is the new birth, as Christ told Nicodemus.  There is no mention of the new birth in the New Testament apart from its association with baptism.  It should also be noted that Holy Baptism, as well as all the sacraments, cannot be given outside of the Church.  How could Holy Baptism, which unites us to Christ and His Body, be given by someone or something other than the Church?  The Church is the Ark of Salvation and no other organization or person, however good and sincere, can be that Ark.  Protestant/Evangelicals believe this also.  The difference is in whether there is one Church or many Churches.

The life given in Holy Baptism is then sealed with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit in the Church.  Once again, redeemed matter, Holy Oil, derived from the Bishop, the successor to the apostles, becomes the visible means and channel that God uses to seal the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who are born again in Holy Baptism. 

This new life is then nourished and nurtured through various other means given in the Church.   Life in the Holy Spirit must be guarded, weeded, protected and fed.  The means God has given include prayer, fasting, struggle against sin and the struggle to be like Christ.  When we sin and soil our robe of baptism, we receive restoration through Confession and Absolution.  Once again, God uses redeemed matter, the person of a priest, to convey or channel this grace to us just as He did throughout the Old Testament and in the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament.  Then, as the life given to any child in natural birth must be nourished with food, so the Life of Christ in us is nourished and fed by the Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion.   Here again, redeemed matter, the bread and wine, are used as the means of uniting our nature to the nature of Christ.  Both body and soul are united to Christ by partaking of the Body and Blood of the Saviour.

Holy Communion is the central focus of the Divine Liturgy of the Church.  Here the redeemed matter of icons, candles and incense are used to bring us into communion with God.  Here our bodies, along with the soul, are being redeemed, not only by Holy Communion, but by signing our bodies with the Cross of Christ, offering our prayers up to God with the incense that we breath, venerating the icons (the communion of the saints), bowing, and other physical activity.  We see, and touch, and hear and taste our salvation through a redeemed Creation in Christ the Redeemer. The hymns and prayers, written by holy men of God in communion with the apostolic Faith, also convey the grace of God in that they all teach and expound the content of the Orthodox Faith and mystically unite us to that Faith. 

 In contrast to this is the Protestant/Evangelical service where the focus is on the song leader, the singers, the music and the preacher. The content of the services focus, not so much on the saving doctrines of Christ as much as on the people leading the services and the feelings and emotions of the worshipers.  These services put man, his words and his actions, at the center and promote a privatized and emotional view of salvation of the soul.

What we can gather from all of this is that the view we have of Christ is reflected in the way we worship.  You really can tell pretty much what people believe by the way they worship.  Worship tends to be either worldly and man-centered or other-worldly and God centered, depending on the basic core of beliefs of the worshipers.  One emphasizes the feelings and emotions of the worshipers with an entertainment format, while the other emphasizes the content of the Christian Faith and other-worldly format.  One is directed more at salvation in the heart, while the other seeks to unite us to the Faith of the Church.

 The conclusion of the whole matter is this.  Our view and understanding of Christ determines our view and understanding of salvation.  The path of salvation we take and the forms of worship we use do not simply reflect different tastes for different people.  They reflect different understandings of Christ, the Church and salvation.  We may use the same terms but we also may attach different understandings to those terms.  That is why we should unite ourselves to the Church that preserves the apostolic content and meanings with faithfulness and fullness.  

Which Christ do you believe in? 

       Joseph Bragg  10/10/10

     

The Good Turkish Judge - A Muslim Convert

THE GOOD TURKISH JUDGE 

(From the Life of the Elder Hieronymos of Aegina +1966)

Shortly before World War I, a Turk visited Fr. Hieronymos' humble hermitage.  The Turk told the elder that his master, a judge, had sent him to invite the elder to his house.

The elder became a little worried. He was not accustomed to receiving invitations to "social receptions," and his mind began to suspect that he might experience some evil or temptation. However, he prayed to God and followed the Turkish servant.

On their arrival at the judge's large home, the judge himself welcomed him ~ with much warmth, as a matter of fact. They sat on a great divan and the judge began the conversation:

"Efendi papa, I am a Turk, a Moslem. From the salary I receive, I keep whatever is necessary for my family's support, and the rest I spend on alms. I help widows, orphans, the poor; I provide dowries for impoverished young women so that they can get married, I help the sick. I keep the fasts with exactness, I pray and, in general, I try to live a life consistent with my faith. Also, when I sit in judgment, I strive to be just, and never take a person's position into account, no matter how great he is. What do you say? Are all these things that I do sufficient for me to gain that Paradise that you Christians talk about?

The elder was impressed by all that the Turkish judge told him, and he immediately brought to mind the Roman centurion Cornelius mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. In the Turkish judge and the Roman centurion he perceived two similar lives. He understood that the judge was a just man of noble sentiments. "Perhaps," thought the elder, "my mission is like that of the Apostle Peter, who instructed the Roman centurion." The elder determined, therefore, that he would bear witness to his Faith.

"Tell me, efendi cadi,² do you have children?"

"Yes, I do."

"Do you have servants?"

"I have servants also."

"Which of the two carry out your orders better — your children or your servants?"

"Assuredly, my servants, because my children — with the familiarity that they have toward me — often disobey me and do whatever they wish, whereas my servants always do whatever I tell them."

"Tell me, I pray thee, efendi, when you die, who will inherit your wealth — your servants, who executed your wishes faithfully, or your children who disobey you?"

"Well, my children, of course. Only they have rights of inheritance, whereas the servants do not."

"Well then, efendi, what you do is good, but the only thing your good works can do is place you in the category of those that are good servants. If, however, you desire to inherit Paradise, the Kingdom of the Heavens, then you have to become a son. And that can be accomplished only through Baptism."

The Turkish judge was greatly impressed by the elder's parable. They spoke for a long time after this, and at the end he asked the elder to catechize him and baptize him. And thus, after a little while, the good judge was baptized and became a Christian.

Translated from "The Elder Hieronymos, the Hesychast of Aegina," by Peter Botsis, Athens, 1991, published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, MA.

2   Cadi is the Turkish word for "judge." 

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ORTHODOX TRUTH

THE GOD-MAN

THE FOUNDATION OF THE TRUTH OF ORTHODOXY

by Archimandrite Justin Popovich

All the truths of Orthodoxy emerge from one truth and converge on one truth, infinite and eternal. That truth is the God-man Christ. If you experience any truth of Orthodoxy to its limit, you will inevitably discover that its kernel is the God-man Christ. In fact, all the truths of Orthodoxy are nothing other than different aspects of the one Truth--the God-man Christ.

Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy by reason of the God-man, and not by reason of anything else or anyone else. Hence another name for Orthodoxy is God-manhood. In it nothing exists through man or by man, but everything comes from the God-man and exists through the God-man. This means that man experiences and finds out about the fundamental eternal truth of life and the world only with the help of the God-man, in the God-man. And it means something else: man learns the complete truth about man, about the purpose and meaning of his existence only through the God-man. Outside of Him a man turns into an apparition, into a scarecrow, into nonsense. Instead of a man you find the dregs of a man, the fragments of a man, the scraps of a man. Therefore, true manhood lies only in God-manhood; and no other manhood exists under heaven.

Why is the God-man the fundamental truth of Orthodoxy? Because He answered all the questions that torture and torment the human spirit: the question of life and death, the question of good and evil, the question of earth and heaven, the question of truth and falsehood, the question of love and hate, the question of justice and injustice. In brief: the question of man and God.

Why is the God-man the fundamental truth of Orthodoxy? Because He proved in the most obvious way by His own earthly life that He is the incarnate, humanized, and personified eternal Truth, eternal Justice, eternal Love, eternal Joy, eternal Power: Total-Truth, Total-Justice, Total-Love, Total-Joy, Total-Power.

He brought down all the divine perfections from heaven to earth. And He did not just bring them down, but also taught them to us and gave us grace-filled power to transform them into our life, into our thoughts, into our feelings, into our deeds. Hence, our calling is to incarnate them in ourselves and in the world around us.

Consider the best of the best people in the human race. In all of them it is the God-man that is best, most important and most eternal. For He is the holiness of the Saints, the martyrdom of the Martyrs, the righteousness of the Righteous, the apostleship of the Apostles, the goodness of the Good, the mercy of the Merciful, the love of the Loving. Why is the God-man each and every aspect of Orthodoxy? Because He, as One of the Holy Trinity, the incarnate Son of God, is distinct as God, as Comforter, as Defender, as Teacher, and as Saviour. Only in Him, in the all-merciful Lord Jesus, does man, tormented by earthly tragedies, find the God who can truly give meaning to suffering, the Comforter who can truly give comfort in every misfortune and sorrow, the Defender who can truly defend from every evil, the Saviour who can truly save from death and sin, the Teacher who can truly teach eternal Truth and Justice.

The God-man is each and every aspect of Orthodoxy, for He infinitely magnifies man. He elevates him to God; He makes him a god by grace. And He did this without reckoning man less than God, but filled man with all divine perfections. The God-man has glorified man as no other has. He has given him life eternal, Truth eternal, Love eternal, Justice eternal, Joy eternal, Goodness eternal, Blessedness eternal. Man has become divine majesty through the God-man.

While the God-man is the fundamental truth of Orthodoxy, the fundamental truth of every heterodoxy is man, or fragments of his being--reason, the will, the senses, the soul, the body, expertise.

Integral man does not exist in heterodoxy; the whole man is divided into atoms, into particles. And it is all for the glory of man's greatness. But just as "art for the sake of art" is non­sense, so also is it nonsense to say "man for the sake of man." That path leads to a most pitiful pandemonium, where man is the supreme idol--and nowhere is there a more pitiful idol than he.

The first truth of Orthodoxy is that man does not exist for the sake of man, but for the sake of God or, more fully, for the sake of the God-man. Therefore, we stay with the God-man in the name of man. In Him alone is an understanding of man's being possible; in Him alone is a justification for man's existence possible. All the mysteries of heaven and earth are attained in this truth, all the values of all the worlds that man can contemplate, all the joys of all the perfections that man can attain.

Indirectly and directly, the God-man is everything in Or­thodoxy, and thus man is in Him, but in heterodoxy there is merely man.

In its very essence, Orthodoxy is nothing other than the Personality of the God-man Christ extended across all ages, extended as the Church. Orthodoxy has its own seal and sign by which it distinguishes itself. It is the radiant Person of the God-man Jesus.

Everything that does not have that Person is not Orthodox. Everything that does not have the God-man's Justice, Truth, Love, and Eternity is not Orthodox. Everything that wants to carry out the God-man's Gospel in this world through the methods of this world and through the methods of the kingdoms of this world is not Orthodox, but implies enslavement to the third temptation of the devil.

To be Orthodox means to have the God-man constantly in your soul, to live in Him, think in Him, feel in Him, act in Him. In other words, to be Orthodox means to be a Christ-bearer and a Spirit-bearer.

A man attains this when, in the body of Christ--the Church, his whole being is filled with the God-man Christ from top to bottom. For this reason the Orthodox man “is hidden with Christ in God" (Col. 3:1-3).

The God-man is the axis of all worlds, from the world of the atom to the world of the cherubim. Whatever being breaks off from that axis, tumbles into terror, into tortures, into agony. Lucifer broke off--and became Satan; angels broke off--and became demons; man broke off in large part-­and became inhuman ("non-man").

Anything created that breaks off from it inevitably plunges into chaos and grief. And when a people, as a group, deny the God-man, their history turns into a journey through hell and its horrors.

The God-man is not just the fundamental truth of Orthodoxy, but the power and omnipotence of Orthodoxy as well; for He alone saves man from death, sin, and the devil.

No man whatsoever, nor even mankind as a whole ever could, can, or will be able to do that. The outcome of man's struggle with death, sin, and the devil is always defeat, unless he is led by the God-man. Only through the God-man Christ can man conquer death, sin, and the devil.

Hence, the purpose of man is: to fill himself with the God-man, in His body--the Orthodox Church; to be transfigured in Him through grace-filled feats; to become omnipotent. Even while he walks prayerfully through the gloomy earthly anthill in the body, in his soul he lives above, where Christ Sits at the right hand of God, for his life is constantly stretched out between earth and heaven by prayers, like a rainbow that connects the summit of heaven with the abyss of earth.

To become immortal in Him by the power of the Holy Spirit, to become God, to become the God-man--this is the purpose, the true purpose of the whole human race. It is also the joy, the only joy in this world of boundless sorrow and toxic bitterness.

 

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Orthodoxy is Orthodoxy through the God-man. And we Orthodox, by confessing the God-man, indirectly confess the Christ-image of man, the divine origin of man, the divine exaltation of man, and thus also the divine value and sacredness of the human personality.

In fact, the struggle for the God-man is the struggle for man. Not the humanists, but the people of the Orthodox faith and life of the God-man are struggling for true man, man in the image of God and the image of Christ.

 

A TRIP TO THE MONASTERY

Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, MA



 Here are some thoughts I jotted down while sitting on the plane awaiting take off at O'Hare airport in Chicago one cold and bleak morning several years ago.

A Trip To The Monastery

Joseph Bragg

"Waiting for the plane to take off from O'Hare airport I see a sky completely covered with dark, thick and ominous clouds - the kind that make you feel depressed and warn of an approaching snow storm.  

Looking out the window of the plane I see the airport workers loading luggage into the belly of the plane.  By the way they are bundled up, blowing smoke when they talk and breathe, and having their hair whipped about by the wind I can tell it is a cold and blustery day.

Here on earth the only thing apparent now is a cold and dreary day where it seems the sun's bright warmth and joy have ceased to exist.  

Then the plane takes off.  In a few seconds we enter the clouds where there is only darkness.  Everything is black.  A few seconds later we break through the clouds.  Below is an unbelievable and endless sea of cotton.  All the black clouds had tops of pure white, invisible from the earth.  Above us is an endless sea of cloudless blue where the sun is shining brightly and flooding me with warmth through the window.  If we had not taken flight, none of this would have existed for me. The only reality would have been the gloomy coldness of a dreary day in Chicago.   

I thought how like life this is.  Often we can't see anything but the dark and dreary clouds of life.  It feels like the beauty, joy, warmth, and hope of the sun have ceased to exist.  But this is only because we are on earth and are of the earth.  If we can ascend to heaven through faith we will know that above the foreboding clouds the blue sky, and light, and warmth of the sun never cease and it is only a matter of time until the clouds will part and disappear and the dark coldness will turn to warmth, and light, and joy again.  

This is one reason I go to the monastery.  Daily life has a way of perverting my reality.  I start thinking that what I see here everyday - life with its endless struggle to know, and do, and be, and experience, and get, and possess, and horde, and enjoy is the reality, and the Kingdom of God is the distant and unreal illusion.  At the monastery I am able to see again that what seems to be reality in this life is really like the black storm clouds.  This is the illusion that will soon disappear as vapor.  And the Kingdom of God is the reality of the always existing and endless blue sky.  At the monastery I break through the clouds and see what is real once again."

Glory Be To God For All Things!

Mount Athos

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