The Saints

St. John of Kronstadt
(1829-1908)

"What does the daily invocation of the saints signify - of different ones each day, during the whole year, and during our whole life? It signifies that God's saints - as our brethren, but perfect - live, and are near us, ever ready to help us, by the grace of God. We live together with them in the house of our Heavenly Father, only in different parts of it. We live in the earthly, they in the heavenly half; but we can converse with them, and they with us. God's saints are near to the believing heart, and are ready in a moment to help those who call upon them with faith and love." 

- St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ

Church Websites

The other day I looked up a church website to find something and was startled by what I saw.  It was difficult to know if I was looking at a church website or the home page of a local chamber of commerce.  I wondered if other churches were doing the same thing with their websites and began to Google a variety of Protestant denominations and Bible churches that I was familiar with in the area.  Here are some of the common themes and layouts of many:

• Minimizing or completely eliminating the word “church” from the name or the particular denomination.  Instead, the focus is on other words in the church’s name: “Oak Tree”, “River Creek”, “Winding River”, or “First Amarillo” (the names have been changed to protect the innocent).  On several websites, the word “Welcome” was about 4 times larger than the church’s name.  Other sites had the denomination or the word “church” in a much darker color so that the non-churchy words would stand out.

• Frequent use of key words:
  
  
  
  • “Experience” – not the noun in this case but the verb meaning “to have certain sensations or feelings”;  I found this 4 times on one church’s website – and this was just on the home page!
  
  
  • “Real” – as in “Real Worship”, “Real People”, “Real Women”, “Real Community”
  
  
  • “Transformed” – as in “Transformed Lives” or “Transformed People” or “Spiritual Transformation”
  
  
  
  

• A majority of the churches use a “rotating images” block which can feature:
  
  
  
  • the latest sermon series
  
  
  • upcoming services
  
  
  • new books being offered
  
  
  • special multimedia presentations
  
  
  • ways to stay “connected” with Facebook, Twitter and the church blog
  
  
  
  

• Other columns on the Home page will list all the bible studies and help groups that are available or upcoming events.

Have we really come to the point where church is just another thing to be marketed, using the latest technology and gimmicks that have proven “successful” in the corporate world?  When did church become all about “community” and programs instead of about God?  One staff pastor was actually called an “Assimilation Pastor”.  I had flashbacks of old Star Trek episodes where the Borg (pseudo-race of cybernetic organisms) assimilated anyone in its path with the promise that “resistance is futile”!  By blurring the lines of the church and the world in this way, doesn’t the church become just another institution or organization trying to gain members and encourage involvement?  When did the church begin competing with the world?

What is a Localist?

The world is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time; so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and to save the world from suicide. - T.S. Eliot

This article is worth reading and some serious contemplation: Confessions of a Localist in Training

In or Out?

If you glimpse how grand God’s love is, you realize that the question is not who’s in and who’s out, but who knows this love and who doesn’t. The whole human race is in the fold of God’s love. What Christians believe is that we have been privileged to see the depth and breadth of that revealed love of salvation in a one-of-a-kind way. And it’s our duty to tell that story as generously and imaginatively and energetically as we can. -

- from "Who's In, Who's Out?" in The Orthodox Light, October 2009, by the Very Rev. Archimandrite Ambrose Bitziadis-Bowers

A Cradle, Nails and a Spear

Something that increasingly bothered me during my many years in evangelical churches was the emphasis on only two spiritual events: Christmas and Easter.  Granted, there were attempts to try and connect the two theologically, but experientially Christmas evoked thoughts of joy and peace and Easter focused on sorrow, the promise of forgiveness of sins and eternal life.  One had to kind of gear up for the emotions of two very different celebrations.

One of the bloggers I read on a weekly basis (A Catechumen's Tale) helped me understand this rather fragmented view of Christ's life and the dangers therein.  His posting was the result of an observation that many times the second verse is omitted from the well loved Christmas carol, "What Child Is This?", because it contains reference to the Cross, nails and a spear.  Here is an excerpt:

This latter point - the removal of the second part - seems to be the most common change made to the carol. One can only wonder why this is...perhaps the most obvious is, at the risk of drawing a hasty conclusion, the inclusion of the description of the crucifixion. One rarely hears of nails and spears piercing someone through in a Christmas song. I was originally going to focus this post entirely on the carol and the second part, but my mind (as it often does) began to wander around the point, and I began to think harder on this issue. Namely, how we seem to focus solely on one aspect of our Blessed Lord's life.

Just as we must believe in the fullness of Christ, so must we believe in the fullness of our Lord's time on earth. We cannot divide it into isolated incidents, for in focusing on one we lose the affect of all the others. For example, if we focus on our Lord's Incarnation, we turn Him into a happy Christmas story. If we focus on our Lord's ministry, we turn Him into just another friendly man with helpful advice. If we focus on our Lord's passion, we devalue His pain and suffering to the point where even a monkey could die on the cross for our salvation. If we focus on our Lord's Resurrection, then Christ serves no greater purpose than Lazarus.

The fullness of Christ is the fullness of His life. He was the Incarnate Word born into our sinful flesh, Who lived a pure and blessed life, Who suffered as the sacrificial lamb, and Who rose again to free us from the death that separated us from God. Due to our natural habit of thinking in limited terms, it's quite easy to fall into the trap of limiting our acknowledgment of Christ's life. Doing so, however, limits our understanding of Christ. If we forget the crucifixion at Easter, it's only easy enough for us to forget it at Christmas.

Letting it Sink In

John Chrysostom speaking on the importance of setting Sunday apart from the other days of the week:

I hear many say, While we are here, and enjoying the privilege of hearing, we are awed, but when we are gone out, we become altered men again, and the flame of zeal is quenched. What then may be done, that this may not come to pass? Let us observe whence it arises. Whence then does so great a change in us arise? From the unbecoming employment of ourtime, and from the company of evil men. For we ought not as soon as we retire from the Communion, to plunge into business unsuited to the Communion, but as soon as ever we get home, to take our Bible into our hands, and call our wife and children to join us in putting together what we have heard, and then, not before, engage in the business of life.

For if after the bath you would not choose to hurry into the market place, lest by the business in the market you should destroy the refreshment thence derived; much more ought we toact on this principle after the Communion . But as it is, we do the contrary, and in this very way throw away all. For while the profitable effect of what has been said to us is not yet well fixed, the great force of the things that press upon us from without sweeps all entirely away.

That this then may not be the case, when you retire from the Communion, you must account nothing more necessary than that you should put together the things that have been said to you. Yes, for it were the utmost folly for us, while we give up five and even six days to the business of this life, not to bestow on things spiritual so much as one day, or rather not so much as a small part of one day. See ye not our own children, that whatever lessons are given them, those they study throughout the whole day? This then let us do likewise, since otherwise we shall derive no profit from coming here, drawing water daily into a vessel with holes, and not bestowing on the retaining of what we have heard even so much earnestness as we plainly show with respect to gold and silver. For any one who has received a few pence both puts them into a bag and sets aseal thereon; but we, having given us oracles more precious than either gold or costly stones, and receiving the treasures of the Spirit, do not put them away in the storehouses of our soul, but thoughtlessly and at random suffer them to escape from our minds. Who then will pity us after all this, plotting against our own interests, and casting ourselves into so deep poverty? Therefore, that this may not be so, let us write it down an unalterable law for ourselves, for our wives, and for our children, to give up this one day of the week entire to hearing, and to the recollection of the things we have heard. For thus with greater aptness for learning shall we approach what is next to be said; and to us the labor will be less, and to you the profit greater, when, bearing inmemory what has been lately spoken, you hearken accordingly to what comes afterwards. For no little does this also contribute towards the understanding of what is said, when you know accurately the connection of the thoughts, which we are busy in weaving together for you. For since it is not possible to set down all in one day, you must by continued remembrance make the things laid before you on many days into a kind of chain, and so wrap it about your soul: that the body of the Scriptures may appear entire.

- Homily 5 on Matthew

Creating Our Own Enemy

In order to be right about anything, the mind has the need to find someone or something that is wrong. In a sense, the mind is always looking for an enemy (the person who is “wrong”), since without an enemy, the mind is not quite sure of its own identity. When it has an enemy, it is able to be more confident about itself. Since the mind also continually seeks for certainty, which is a by-product of the desire to be right, the process of finding and defining enemies is an ongoing struggle for survival. Declaring enemies is, for the mind, not an unfortunate character flaw, but an essential and necessary task.

Unfortunately, being right is not what people really need, even though a great deal of their lives may be taken up in its pursuit. Defense of the ego is almost always a matter of trying to be right. Interestingly enough, Jesus never once suggeted to His disciples that they be right. What He did demand is that they be righteous. In listening to His words we find that we spend almost all our energy in the wrong direction, since we generally pursue being right with every ounce of our being, but leave being good to the weak and the naive.

- Archimandrite Meletios

For a more complete discussion of this topic, go to Father Stephen's site - Glory to God for All Things

Handing Over the Bride

More from the homilies of John Chrysostom (347-407)

Evangelical churches do not impart the same significance to John the Baptist (Forerunner) as does the Orthodox faith.  So, I was always puzzled by this seemingly radical statement by Jesus concerning John:

I tell you, among those born of women there is no one greater than John; yet the one who is the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.  - Luke 7:28

Obviously I was missing something pretty grand in the whole scheme of things for Christ to make such a claim about John.  Indeed, in the Orthodox church, where there is an icon of Christ, one often finds an icon of his mother, Mary (Theotokos) on His left and an icon of John the Baptist on His right. Through my reading of the early Church Fathers, I am learning more about the significance of John's role in ushering in the salvation of the human race.  John Chrysostom offers a wonderful allegory to help explain one aspect of John's incredible ministry.

...says the Evangelist [the Apostle John], "John stood, and says, Behold, the Lamb of God." Christ utters no word, His messenger says all. So it is with a bridegroom. He says not for a while anything to the bride, but is there in silence, while some show him to the bride, and others give her into his hands; she merely appears, and he departs not having taken her himself, but when he has received her from another who gives her to him. And when he has received her thus given, he so disposes her, that she no more remembers those who betrothed her. So it was with Christ. He came to join to Himself the Church; He said nothing, but merely came. It was His friend, John, who put into His the bride's right hand, when by his discourses he gave into His hand the souls of men. He having received them, afterwards so disposed them, that they departed no more to John who had committed them to Him.

And here we may remark, not this only, but something besides. As at a marriage the maiden goes not to the bridegroom, but he hastens to her, though he be a king's son, and though he be about to espouse some poor and abject person, or even a servant, so it was here. Man's nature did not go up, but contemptible and poor as it was, He came to it, and when the marriage had taken place, He suffered it no longer to tarry here, but having taken it to Himself, transported it to the house of His Father.

- Gospel of John, homily 18

Pentecost and Trees

Fr. Stephen Freeman (priest at St. Anne Orthodox Church in Oak Ridge, TN) explains the Russian Orthodox tradition of bringing trees into the church on Pentecost Sunday: Babylon and the Trees of Pentecost.

The Love of the Father

My husband and I were at St. Seraphim’s this morning and witnessed a very touching scene.

As an Orthodox Christian, one of the first things you do when you enter the church is venerate various icons of the saints which are situated around the sanctuary. Venerating an icon does not mean that we worship the piece of wood or the person it portrays. It is merely showing love, reverence, respect and honor to that person and the life represented. Icons can vary in size and how they are displayed. One may be in an alcove specifically constructed for that particular icon. Another may be hung on a wall. Some may be carefully placed on a pedestal. Venerating a saint or an icon involves standing before it, crossing yourself and bowing twice, approaching the icon itself and gently kissing it or kissing your fingers and then touching the icon with those fingers. Finally, you step back a little and cross yourself and bow one more time (three times being symbolic of the Trinity).

This tradition was very strange to me, coming from a purely Protestant background. However, I have learned that my uneasiness was basically a result of not understanding the meaning behind the tradition. As I have come to know and appreciate the lives of these incredible saints and martyrs of the Church, they have become more and more dear and personal to me. On Sunday morning, we join with all the saints – past and present – in worshiping the Holy Trinity.

Back to this morning! We were standing (in the Orthodox Church you stand for the entire service – there are no pews) listening to one of the deacons chant the reading for the Third Hour. A father and his little daughter came into the sanctuary. The father was taking the lead in venerating one icon after another, and his little girl was following his example. I watched her as she approached a very large icon of Christ displayed quite high and out of her reach. She crossed herself, bowed, kissed her fingers and then stretched as much as she could to reach the image of Christ. Her fingers just couldn’t touch it. After a few more tries, she looked around for her father who turned and realized her dilemma. He quietly walked over as she was straining to touch the icon, placed his fingers on hers, slid them off and touched the icon for her. The connection was made.

There are many times that I feel like that little girl – wanting to be so close to God, wanting to touch Him and let him know how grateful I am for his love for me. God hears our longings. In his love and compassion and by the Holy Spirit, he extends his hand toward us and for us.

Even if we speak with a low voice, even if we whisper without opening the lips, even if we call to Him only from the depths of our heart, our unspoken word always reaches God and God always hears.  - St Clement of Alexandria

What Does Christianity Look Like?

I am in the middle of reading From the Holy Mountain, by Scottish born author William Dalrymple.  At the end of the 20th century, Dalrymple (in much the same fashion as Bruce Feiler did in his book, Walking the Bible) revisits the now-faint trail which was taken by the sixth-century monk John Moschos, who wandered the world of Eastern Byzantium, visiting the scattered Christian monasteries and hermitages and recording the rituals he saw and the preaching he heard in a book called The Spiritual Meadow.  Dalrymple's observations on Islam and Christianity have challenged my thinking.

Today the West often views Islam as a civilisation very different from and indeed innately hostile to Christianity.  Only when you travel in Christianity's Eastern homelands do you realise how closely the two religions are really linked.  For the former grew directly out of the latter and still, to this day, embodies many aspects and practices of the early Christian world now lost in Christianity's modern Western incarnation.  When the early Byzantines were first confronted by the Prophet's armies, they assumed that Islam was merely a heretical form of Christianity, and in many ways they were not so far wrong:  Islam accepts much of the Old and the New Testaments, and venerates both Jesus and the ancient Jewish prophets.

Certainly if John Moschos were to come back today it is likely that he would find much more that was familiar in the practices of a modern Muslim Sufi than he would with those of, say, a contemporary American Evangelical.  Yet this simple truth has been lost by our tendency to think of Christianity as a Western religion rather than the Oriental faith it actually is.  Moreover the modern demonization of Islam in the West, and the recent growth of Muslim fundamentalism (itself in many ways a reaction to the West's repeated humiliation of the Muslim world), have led to an atmosphere where few are aware of, or indeed wish to be aware of, the profound kinship of Christianity and Islam.

It is this as much as anything else that has made the delicate position of the contemporary Eastern Christians - awkwardly caught between their co-religionists in the West and their strong cultural links with their Muslim compatriots - increasingly untenable in recent years.  Hence the vital importance of the syncretism which still exists at shrines like that of Nebi Uri [Northwest Syria].  Such popular syncretism - Christians worshipping at Muslim shrines and vice versa - was once much more general across the Middle East, but now survives only in a few oases of relative religious tolerance.  The practice emphasizes an important truth about the close affinity of the two great religions easily forgotten as the Eastern Christians - the last surviving bridge between Islam and Western Christianity - emigrate in reaction to the increasing hostility of the Islamic establishment.

In an interview with Radio National (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's national radio network) in April of 1999, Dalrymple summarizes much of the book and has some sobering predictions of how the Middle East would change in 10-50 years.  Keep in mind that this interview was before 9/11.

Holy Things

• A crayon drawing from 1st grade.  Your favorite teacher thought it was the best one in the class.  You still hang on to it.  It's just a piece of paper.


• A photograph of your children when they were preschoolers.  It captures their innocence and joy even though the subjects aren't "framed" correctly and there is even a bit of blurring.  It's your favorite photo, and you smile each time you pass by it.


• A dresser scarf that was hand embroidered by your mother years ago.  No one uses dresser scarves anymore, but it doesn't matter.  It gracefully adorns your table and gives you great comfort.


• Boy scout badges earned on campouts when you were growing up.  They are only little fabric circles with crude symbols embroidered on them.  One glance, however, and you are right back in that camp, learning how to build a fire and seeing the pride on the face of your instructor as you completed the task.  You can still smell the campfire and hear the pine trees around you.

Growing up in Bible churches for much of my life, there didn't seem to be much of a sense of the holiness of objects in our church services.  Everything - from the pews (if there were any), the hymnals, the table for communion, the podium, the cross in the sanctuary - were all viewed as material objects and nothing else.  They could be used for a variety of purposes and services.  There was a big emphasis on practicality and utility.  Indeed, communion was viewed merely as a "memorial" to Christ's death on the cross.  There was nothing special about the bread or the wine/grape juice.  Indeed, some even reported seeing children in the kitchen after the service eating the extra communion bread as if it was an added snack for the Sunday School kids.  What does this communicate to the children?

Why such an aversion to imparting value and sacredness to an object?  We do it all the time in the rest of our lives.  But when it comes to faith and worship, many Evangelicals have a knee-jerk reaction to "setting apart" things in the church for one and only one purpose. The Old Testament is full of places, events, and objects that were set apart for specific purposes and to help the people in their worship and reverence of God.  Why did we think that all that changed when Christ came?

I can't help but think that such lack of respect for those things which should hold great meaning in our spiritual lives will ultimately do damage to the soul in the long run.

Great Lent

I must admit that Great Lent is fast approaching, and I have been caught off guard. Ill health and other circumstances have prevented my being able to regularly attend services on Sundays, so I have, sadly, missed out on the wonderful preparation that is built into the Orthodox liturgy for this season of the year.  However, this week I am attempting to get back on track with the church calendar and allow God to begin plowing the soil of my heart, uprooting areas that are spiritually unhealthy and turning over tired ground. Fr. David Moser wrote a Lenten Meditation several years ago which I found very helpful. Here is an excerpt. The entire piece is posted at monachos.net.

The intrinsic merits of the Fast

Beyond simply the preparation for the feast of the Resurrection, Great Lent offers us many other benefits as well. Throughout the year, the focus of our lives tends to drift. While we are moved in our spiritual life by the love for God, there are many little variations that creep in and distract us, a little here and a little there, until the little variations finally add up to produce a drift from the true and central path to the Kingdom of God. When a spacecraft is sent towards a far off destination, even the smallest variation in its path can result in a huge error and missing the target by the end of the journey, unless that drift is corrected and the craft is brought back on course. This 'drift' in our spiritual life may seem small at the present, but over the whole course of life – and indeed the whole course of eternity - it may well lead us astray if it is not corrected.

Great Lent gives us the opportunity and tools to correct that 'drift' and set our soul again firmly in the centre of the path of salvation. All of the little passions for pleasure that have somehow found their ways into our lives are revealed by the discipline of Great Lent and their hold on us broken. Perhaps there is a new delicacy or food which we have learned to love or some new drink that we crave or a television program that we 'can’t miss' or some other little distraction that pulls at our heart, tugging it away from its pure and true drive toward Christ. During Great Lent, when we set all these things aside, the inordinate hold that such things begin to develop on the soul is broken by our ascetic labour and they can be returned to a place in our lives that is balanced and proper. We are reoriented and recentered on the path of salvation.

Beauty and the Church

This morning as I was waiting for the Divine Liturgy to begin at our Eastern Orthodox Church, I took great delight watching various parents bring their little ones up to the front to the iconostasis. The time before and after the service is a marvelous opportunity to bring the children closer to the beautiful, life size icons up front and allow them to light a candle before the icon of Mary (Theotokos), Jesus, St. Basil or St. Nicholas. If you are familiar with Orthodox churches, you are already aware of the beauty that resides inside. There are bright colors everywhere, candles, and various pieces edged or covered with gold. Such a feast for the eyes!

Having come from an evangelical background, I am not accustomed to such dramatic beauty in a place in which I worship. Most of the churches I have grown up with are fairly neutral in colors and architecture is usually without ornamentation. I suppose the thinking is that those elements can be a distraction to worship. Or perhaps we have had negative associations with churches that spend inordinate amounts of money on such extras. I'm not really sure. I do think we have become impoverished by focusing exclusively on functionality and practicality when it comes to worship and communing with God and the saints.

Tradition has it that when Prince Vladimir was looking for the best religion for the people of his new country (which would later become Russia), he sent ten "good and wise men" to various nations to observe different religions and ways in which to worship. These men returned with various reports of the different religions, practices and their places of worship. Of their visit to the Orthodox churches in Constantinople they said,

We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no such splendor or such beauty... ¹

I can certainly understand a little bit of their observation now that I have seen some of that beauty myself.

What a joy it is to see the children slowly approach the front of the church with wonder and delight in their eyes, carefully lighting their candle from a candle that is already burning and gently placing it in the sand before the icons. The very young must be lifted up by a parent or grandparent in order to place their special candle among the others. A prayer of thanksgiving is said as the child's face is radiant from the small and quiet flame that burns. Such a short moment but it is filled with love on many levels - love of the parent for the child, love of the child for the beauty before him/her, love for the person whom the icon represents, love of the child for the parent who cares enough to share such an intimate moment. Yes, the church is beautiful but the activities that take place within that beauty are equally breath-taking.

¹ Russian Primary Chronicle: a history of the Kievan Rus' from around 850-1110 originally compiled in Kiev about 1113.