DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF ST. JOHN, ARCHBISHOP OF SHANGHAI AND SAN
FRANCISCO
ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN WITNESS (USPS 412-260)
is published monthly by St. Nectarios American Orthodox Cathedral,
10300 Ashworth Avenue North, Seattle, Washington 98133-9410.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
OCW, 10300 Ashworth Ave. N., Seattle, WA. 98133-9410
Fr. Neketas S. Palassis, Editor Email: frneketas@stnectariospress.com
Telephone (206) 522-4471; (800) 643-4233 U.S. & Canada;
Fax: 206-523-0550
SEPTEMBER, 2007, Vol. XLI, No. 9 (1576)
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
1. OBJECTIONS I HAVE HEARD by Joseph Bragg
2. FROM THE NEW BOOK, “ELDER IERONYMOS OF AEGINA”
3. ORTHODOX CHURCH OPENS DOORS TO SYNAGOGUE
4. FROM SOUP TO SCIENCE
5. CORRECTION TO “GETTING DOWN TO THE REAL ISSUES” (May, 2007)
6. NEW ITEMS FROM THE BOOK CENTER
Today a new world and a mysterious paradise have been revealed, in
which and from which a New Adam came into being, re-making the Old Adam
and renewing the universe. He is not led astray by the deceiver, but
deceives him, and bestows freedom on those enslaved to sin through his
treachery. Today a paradoxical book has been made ready on earth, which
in as indescribable way can hold, not the imprint of words, but the
living Word Himself, not a word consisting of air, but the heavenly
Word, not a word that perishes as soon as it is formed, but the Word
Who snatches those who draw near Him from periditon.
St. Gregory Palamas, Homilies Vol. II (On the Nativity of the Mother of
God)
1. OBJECTIONS I HAVE HEARD
by Joseph Bragg
There is an abundance of material that is cited for
support by those who have ceased to have communion with heresy and/or
those in communion with heresy. Many writings in support of
this action can be cited from Scripture, the Fathers, and numerous
Councils, Synods, and Canons. A good summary of this reality was
set forth by St. Mark of Ephesus when he said, “All the teachers of the
Church, all the Councils, and all the Divine Scriptures, exhort us to
flee those who uphold other doctrines and to separate from communion
with them.”
But what material or what sources are cited by those
who remain in communion with heresy? What arguments or defense do
they set forth?
They certainly cannot cite any teachings of
Scripture, the Fathers, Councils or Canons that tell us to remain in
communion with heresy. The arguments I have most often
encountered are as follows:
1) The heresy in World Orthodoxy is not
official but merely the private opinions of various bishops.
First, where do we get the distinction between
official heresy and unofficial heresy? Heresy is heresy,
period. The only distinction made by the Church is the public
proclamation of heresy vs. private and unexpressed opinions. Once
a bishop publicly proclaims heretical teachings and attempts to correct
his heretical teachings have failed, separation is in order and, in
fact, required and praised by the Fathers and Canons.
But the fact is that many of the heresies of
World Orthodoxy have received an “official” status if such a thing is
important. Heretical statements and position papers have been
published in official journals, signed officially and even approved by
synods. But whether such an “official” status is given to heresy
is irrelevant as to separation according to the Fathers, and Canons.
2) It is wrong to separate from the Church.
This statement and thinking shows how far
World Orthodoxy has fallen from the Orthodox Faith. Such thinking
reflects the Latin understanding of the Church as an organization or
political entity that is defined primarily by what is “official” and by
external associations.. Since the Church is the Body of
Christ that holds the Orthodox Faith under Orthodox bishops, those who
separate from the heresy of officialdom are not leaving the Church but
are, as one Canon puts it, “preserving the Church, since they have not
left bishops but false shepherds”. In World Orthodoxy, the
externals of officialdom are equated with the “Church”. This, of
course, is not true. How can it be that those who hold the faith
unchanged have left the Church while those who have changed it have
preserved the Church? You see how perverted and deceived the
thinking of World Orthodoxy has become! Those who have changed
the faith (heresy) are the ones who have left. Those who have not
changed the faith are the ones who have continued the Church.
The perception of the Church as membership in
“officialdom” stands in sharp contrast to the teachings of Holy
Scriptures, the Canons, and the holy Fathers, including St. Gregory
Palamas who wrote:
They that are of the Church
of Christ are they that are of the truth; and they that are not of the
truth are not of the Church of Christ...for we are reminded that we are
to distinguish Christianity not by persons who have ecclesiastical
titles, but by the truth and by the exactness of the Faith.
(2) Everything is not so black and white as to
the teachings of the Fathers and the Canons on this issue. There
is a lot of gray area.
At this point I want to ask, “What is it that
is not black and white and what is it that is gray?
Is it the Truth of the Church that is not
certain? Is it the teachings of the Fathers and the Canons that
are not certain? Is it not possible to know heresy when you hear
it? How did the Church throughout history know, identify and
anathematize heresy if it is all so gray and uncertain? And why
are the teachings of the Fathers uncertain and gray only when it comes
to what they say about separation from heresy? Why aren’t their
teachings unclear and uncertain when they teach about the Holy Trinity,
the Nature of Christ, the Veneration of the Saints, the doctrine of the
Church, the meaning of the Eucharist, the necessity of the Hierarchy,
the Canon of Holy Scriptures, etc.? What is unclear or
uncertain when the Scriptures tell us to have no association with those
who do not continue in the Apostolic Tradition? Is it not
possible to know the Apostolic Tradition? If not, then Orthodoxy
is a joke and unworthy of serious consideration. What is unclear
or uncertain about the words that tell us to flee from heresy as from a
plague? What is unclear or uncertain when Orthodox bishops do the
things they have done and make the statements they have made?
They are public knowledge and as clear as any news event. No, the
argument that it is all gray and uncertain is contrary to the facts and
dare not be applied to the teachings of the Church.
3) We should not be judgmental.
This understanding reflects a confusion of
what it means to be judgmental. The Scriptures and Fathers all
urge us to discern and judge between right and wrong, truth and error,
and light and darkness. The Fathers made many such
judgments. The Canons are judgments about what is good and proper
and Orthodox and what is not. St. Paul taught that we are to judge a
“different gospel” as false and under Divine Judgment. He also
tells us to discern the sprits to determine if they are of God and to
turn away from that which is false. If we are to make no judgments
about the truth or error of beliefs then, again, Orthodoxy is a joke
and there is no reason to be Orthodox. The kind of judging that
is condemned by Scripture and the Church is that which judges a
person’s unknown heart or motives when we really don’t know what is in
his heart. Thus, we are not to make judgments about people’s
unknown motives or eternal destiny but only about their false beliefs
and teachings. The Church has always made judgments between truth
and heresy and has always called on the faithful to do the same.
4) Those who separate are guilty of violating
the canons that condemn schisms.
It is interesting how the teachings of the
Fathers and the Canons suddenly are clear and no longer gray when it
comes to understanding schisms and how it is no longer judgmental to
make such judgments. But the “schisms” canons do not apply to
separation due to heresy. The canons tell us to separate from
heresy but if we separate from our bishop for other reasons, then we
are guilty of schism. The “schism” argument does not apply to the
heresy issue and is used as a smoke screen since there are no canons
that forbid separation due to heresy.
5) We should stay and fight from within.
This is contrary to all the teachings of
Scripture, the Fathers, the Councils and the Canons that tell us to
flee. Beside, if you stay to fight from within, how do you do
that? Do you stand up and speak out when you see the Faith being
violated and betrayed? Do you bring these issues to the attention
of your priest and others? Do you write to your bishop objecting
to the heresies of World Orthodoxy? Or do you just learn to
adapt, go along and ignore? Again, which of the Fathers ever
taught us to remain in communion with heresy and fight from within?
6) Ecumenism has never been condemned by a
Council
The Fifteenth Canon of the First-Second
Council of Constantinople clearly tells us that we do not have to wait
for an official council before we separate from heresy. But the
fact is that all or most of the heresies present in Roman Catholicism,
Monothelistism, and Ecumenism have already been anathematized by
numerous councils. This is why Ecumenism is called a
“pan-heresy”. It contains all the heresies already condemned by
the Church.
7) What the bishops do or say doesn’t affect
me. I don’t agree with them and neither does my priest so we will
be Orthodox and ignore the bishops.
This is fine if you are a Protestant but it is
not Orthodox. The Orthodox Faith teaches us that when we receive
the Eucharist from the antimins of the bishop and commemorate his name
at the Liturgy we are united in faith with him. The faith he
holds is also the faith of the priest and the people. The bishop
is the line of apostolic succession through which the Grace bearing
Mysteries are passed on. If we do not believe what the bishop
believes why would we be under his omophorion and commemorate him as a
right believing bishop?
______________________________________________________________________________
2. FROM THE NEW BOOK, “ELDER IERONYMOS OF AEGINA”
The following is an excerpt from
the long-awaited English translation of the book by Peter Botsis on the
Elder Ieronymos who reposed in 1966 on the island of Aegina in
Greece. Truly, “Wondrous is God in His saint.”- even in these
latter times.
I remember being very impressed when, on
one of my visits to the convent of Saint Nectarius in the year 1967
(about one year after Father Ieronymos's repose), I heard the then
abbess, Eldress Theodosia, say to me, 'Father Ieronymos and our Saint
changed the life of the island towards a more spiritual direction."
The Eldress Theodosia had known Saint
Nectarius and had been his disciple; and it is a well known fact that
all spiritual children have a special weakness for their elder-even
more so when he is a Saint recognized by the Church. Often this
weakness can influence his disciples to be partial to him, their own
elder, and to disfavor others. Therefore this testimony of the Eldress
Theodosia, which put the two (Saint Nectarius and Father feronymos) in
the same rank of holiness and spiritual service, has special weight.
He also went rather frequently to the
Convent of the Most Holy Mother of God Chrysoleontissa, where he had
once served for a time as Abbot when it was a men's monastery. He often
stayed there for a number of days and with his brother John taught the
nuns how to make tiles and bricks. The nuns marvelled at Father
Ieronymos's endurance. He worked hard all day long, and in the
evenings, notwithstanding the labor and weariness, he spent many hours
with them praying, and also chanted or spoke to them concerning the
monastic life and prayer.
While all loved him and especially
honored him, he remained simple and humble. He would never gainsay,
never became angry, he never insulted or grieved anyone, nor did he
criticize or judge anyone. If someone insulted him and acted badly
towards him or berated him, he would endure it without answering. The
higher he attained to the heights of sanctity, the more he felt himself
a sinner and worse than all. He accepted all things with patience. The
only thing that he could not endure was separation from Christ.
"I could wish to be a worm, that all
might trample me under- foot, only-aman!-that I might not lose my
Christ,' he would say.
Once he was travelling to Piraeus on a
ship named The Enchantress. As usual he sat somewhere off to the side
and prayed. Suddenly he was approached by the captain who said to him,
“Priest, get up from here and sit further on.”
Father Ieronymos humbly and obediently
conformed to his command. But shortly afterward the captain ordered him
to change his place again. The same thing was repeated a third time.
The captain's attitude was very provocative. The other passengers were
indignant and made a remark to him about why he had behaved in such a
manner to a venerable elder, who after all had paid his ticket. And the
captain answered, "My mother told me that whenever I see refugees I
should throw them into the sea."
Father Ieronymos was grieved when he
heard this, but said nothing. He only decided never to travel on this
ship again, in order to avoid temptation. But he prayed fervently for
the captain and implored God to enlighten him. On another occasion,
however, he had to travel to Piraeus and there was no other ship except
The Enchantress. He said his prayers, boarded the ship, and sat in some
corner. He hoped that the captain would not see him, so that he could
avoid the pointless temptation. But eventually the captain passed by
and saw him and approached him.
"Do you have a ticket?" he asked.
"Yes, I do.”
"Give it to me and I'll return it.” He
took the ticket and returned to him the amount that he had paid,
saying, "My mother scolded me and told me never to take money from you
again. From now on, come aboard whenever you want and travel for free.”
The humility and prayer of Father Ieronymos - and possibly some vision
that his mother had seen - had subdued the proud captain.
On another occasion he was coming down
one of the well-known narrow lanes to Aegina. It was the Feast of Saint
Nicholas, and after the Divine Liturgy he was going into town for his
accustomed ministry and in order to greet certain of his acquaintances
who were celebrating their nameday. Passing by outside of a store he
saw the proprietor, whose son celebrated for Saint Nicholas. He stopped
a moment and greeted him, "Good morning! Many years! May Saint Nicholas
be with us, and may you rejoice in your son.”
The shopkeeper, for some unknown reason,
instead of rejoicing at his blessings, answered with rudeness and in an
exceedingly insulting way, "Get out of here, Priest, as fast as you
can. That's right! Get going-bravo! before I make some nasty remark to
you.”
Father Ieronymos went away in sorrow,
not so much for the insult, but because he did not wish to grieve any
man. Even if he was not at fault in the least, he felt obliged to
comfort his fellow man. No one ever left him saddened; he always found
a way to comfort and relieve whomever he saw in affliction. And in this
instance he felt that he had to redress matters. Another in his place
would likely have been angry, or at least would have avoided speaking
with the offender again, or would await his apologies, But egotism had
no place in Father Ieronymos's heart, For the meek and humble disciple
of Jesus, that which was important was that the lost sheep be saved. As
always, he left the matter to Christ, his Lord. He prayed all day and
night and on the morrow he took the same path again. As soon as he came
near the shop of his reviler, he saw him sweeping his courtyard. He
approached him and with a great deal of sweetness and humility said to
him, "Forgive me, my brother, if in any way I have grieved you. But
won’t you allow me even to bid you Good Morning?"
The shopkeeper was dumbstruck; he would
never have expected such kindness and humility. He ran and fell on his
bosom saying, "Forgive me, Elder. I don’t know what satan put me up to
speaking to you like that. I have repented over it bitterly and ask
your forgiveness.”
His prayer and humility had worked a
miracle. In such a manner did Father Ieronymos conduct himself; he made
use of all things, becoming "all things to all men" that he might gain
men and guide them to repentance. This explains the fact that almost
everybody on Aegina reverenced him as a Saint and loved him
exceedingly.
________________________________________________________________________
3. ORTHODOX CHURCH OPENS DOORS TO SYNAGOGUE
By Matt Russell
Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN
B'nai Israel Synagogue member Deb Altchuler went to a Greek Orthodox
church for the first time Wednesday night, pausing to look at the high,
domed ceiling before taking her seat.
"It's certainly different than a synagogue, but it's a beautiful
building," she said shortly before a service to celebrate B'nai
Israel's Jewish new year, or Rosh Hashanah, began at Holy Anargyroi
Greek Orthodox Church in Rochester.
What caused a Jewish congregation to observe one of its most important
holidays surrounded by colorful Christian iconography?
It started when B'nai Israel demolished its building at 621 Second St.
S.W. in late July, leaving the synagogue without a home for a year as
it builds a new synagogue.
B'nai Israel has since held services at the Ronald McDonald House, and
Holy Anargyroi Greek Orthodox also offered its traditional-architecture
church for use during the Jewish congregation's busy High Holidays of
Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kippur, a solemn observance of atonement
scheduled for Sept. 21 and 22.
"They don't have a worship space, and we're commanded to love our
neighbor," said the Rev. Nick Kasemeotes of Holy Anargyroi. "When your
neighbor doesn't have a home, you offer them yours -- it's as simple as
that."
Without Holy Anargyroi's offer, B'nai Israel might have had to observe
its High Holidays in a hotel ballroom, Altchuler said. Other B'nai
members also said they were glad that Wednesday's service could be held
in a sacred space.
B'nai Israel member Amalie Frankel called Holy Anargyroi's hospitality
"wonderful."
"To me, it shows a commonality of people of all faiths," she said. "I'd
like to think that's the way the world can be."
While Rabbi Michelle Werner called the Holy Anargyroi building
"gorgeous," she noted that holding services at the church might take
people a bit outside their comfort zones -- which isn't a bad thing.
"You can't just sit back and say, 'Oh, this is how it's always been,'"
Werner said.
She added that a more-aware mindset could help people take stock of
their lives during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.
If everything goes as planned, B'nai Israel's new synagogue will be
open in time for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur next year, Werner said.
In the meantime, the congregation will hold the bulk of its services at
the Ronald McDonald House. Werner said she doesn't expect B'nai Israel
to need the extra space available at Holy Anargyroi after the High
Holidays this month.
________________________________________________________________________
4. FROM SOUP TO SCIENCE
By Phillip Johnson
Touchstone, April 2006
The final 2005 issue
of Harvard Magazine advertised on its cover a feature on "Evolution
versus Intelligent Design," which turned out to be an article titled
"Intelligent Evolution," by Edward O. Wilson, Harvard’s most prominent
Darwinist. The article is taken from the Introduction and Afterword he
contributed to a new edition of some of Darwin’s classic works.
Despite the title, Wilson denies that
evolution is intelligent. With all the assumed authority of a pope of
science, he proclaims that "we must conclude that life has diversified
on earth autonomously without any kind of external guidance." He
continues: "Evolution in a pure Darwinian world has no goal or purpose:
the exclusive driving force is random mutations sorted out by natural
selection from one generation to the next."
No doubt that is true, but the question
Wilson does not raise, let alone answer, is whether we actually live in
that hypothetical pure Darwinian world.
DARWINIST DEFINITIONS
Darwinists often assert their claims in
generalities like that, and I have learned to respond with a simple
request for a definition: What is evolution? In one sense, "evolution"
simply refers to the relatively trivial process that we commonly call
"microevolution." Microevolution involves only changes in gene
frequencies in a population of a species that does not receive any new
biological information or undergo any transformation that would require
it to be reclassified as a different kind of animal.
Evolution in the more important and
controversial sense is the grand creative process that began by
producing unicellular life from nonliving chemicals and then eventually
produced far more complex organisms such as human beings.
This grand creative process is generally
called macroevolution.
When Wilson defends "evolution," he
clearly means grand-scale macroevolution, because he says that even the
purposes and goals chosen by human beings have "evolved as adaptive
devices by an otherwise purposeless natural selection." Presumably,
this explains Wilson’s promoting the theory of evolution and using it
to replace any theistic understanding of the living world. This goal,
like all others, must have been evolved as an adaptive device by an
otherwise purposeless natural selection.
When he comes to science rather than
philosophical speculation, however, Wilson describes only
microevolution. He writes that the theory of evolution he is defending
"states simply that if a population contains multiple hereditary
variants in some trait (say, red versus blue eyes in a bird
population), and if one of these variants succeeds in contributing more
offspring to the next generation than the other variants, the overall
composition of the population changes, and evolution has occurred." Of
course that conclusion is correct, if "evolution" means only
microevolution.
To vary Wilson’s example only slightly,
assume a population of humans, half of them blue-eyed, and the other
half brown-eyed. If the blue-eyed adults have many children and the
brown-eyed have few, then, assuming eye color to be heritable, a
majority of the next generation will have blue eyes. If this breeding
pattern continues indefinitely, eventually brown-eyed people will be
very rare.
Microevolution is the only evolution
that can actually be observed, and at that level Wilson’s logic is
unassailable. No doubt the animals that leave the most offspring are
the ones whose genes are most abundant in succeeding generations. No
one, including creationists, denies that population variation in that
non-creative sense is a mathematical certainty, when the necessary
preconditions are assumed.
Yet even a Darwinist as devout as Wilson
must be aware that observed micro-evolution tells us precisely nothing
about how or why we have birds or people in the first place. Perhaps
Darwin’s 1859 masterpiece should have been titled On Changing
Proportions of Varietals in Pre-existing Species. In that case, nobody
would have disputed his thesis or bothered to worry about its
implications.
DESIGN ANXIETY
Wilson seems unaware that there are any
problems with the extrapolation from microevolution to macroevolution,
so all he sees that needs to be done to combat public skepticism is to
repeat the Darwinian catechism, with the customary expressions of
contempt for unbelievers. A better indication of the level of anxiety
at Harvard was provided by an article in the Boston Globe last August
about how, spurred by the challenge of the Intelligent Design movement,
Harvard has launched a very expensive project to discover how life
emerged from the chemical soup of early earth.
The article reported that "like
Intelligent Design, the Harvard project begins with awe at the nature
of life, and with an admission that, almost 150 years after Charles
Darwin outlined his theory of evolution in the Origin of Species,
scientists cannot explain how the process began."
A scientist was quoted as saying that
this problem will still be remembered a hundred years from now. Surely
it will be remembered at least as long as it remains unsolved.
Another article from The Boston Globe
published late last year, explained that the "looming presence of
Intelligent Design" has motivated biologists at Harvard and elsewhere
to begin considering how their discoveries might contribute to
evolutionary theory. Most of them have done their laboratory work for
many years without taking account of evolution.
Some theistic evolutionists have
criticized me for publicizing deficiencies in Darwinian theory, because
they think that the challenge will only encourage evolutionary
scientists to redouble their efforts, with the result that inevitable
scientific progress will only reconfirm the adequacy of naturalistic
explanations of biological origins and thus confine God all the more
securely to the margins of modern life. If that is the outcome, so be
it. My purpose has never been to hinder scientists from discovering
whatever they can, but to challenge assumptions and arbitrary
extrapolations whenever these are presented in place of proof.
If anxiety over the challenge from
Intelligent Design motivates Harvard’s scientists to recognize the
flaws in their arguments and thus to support their position by making
genuine discoveries rather than by relying upon intimidation and a
priori assumptions, we should get credit for a major contribution to
science.
Contributing editor Philip E. Johnson is Professor of Law
(emeritus) at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the
author of many books, including Darwin on Trial, The Wedge of Truth,
and The Right Questions.
________________________________________________________________________
5. CORRECTION TO “GETTING DOWN TO THE REAL ISSUES” (May 2007).
The last few words on the bottom or page 9 were omitted. The
sentence concludes with ”remains little to argue about.” We
apologize for the omission.
____________________________________________________________________________
6. NEW ITEMS FROM THE BOOK CENTER
(EIA) THE ELDER IERONYMOS OF AEGINA by Peter Botsis with Memoirs
of the Elder Ieronymos, translated by Holy Transfiguration
Monastery. Father Ieronymos the Cappadocia, the renowned Elder of
the isle of Aegina in Greece, was an exceedingly compassionate healer
of souls, a clairvoyant Father-confessor who saw the secret thoughts
hidden in the heart, and a may of unceasing prayer who attained to the
heights of the vision of God. Those who knew him exclaimed that they
had met another Saint Isaac the Syrian. He reposed in 1966. Along
with many personal accounts, the book contains miracles worked by the
Elder, numerous illustrations and a service composed in his
honor. 351pp. Paper e$22.00
(HWPC/P)HOLY WEEK AND PASCHA by J. Euphemia Briere. This book
takes us through the period in the life of Christ from the raising of
Lazarus to the Resurrection, as reflected in the Divine Services of the
Holy Orthodox Church. These beautiful and moving services draw together
the Old Testament prophecies and the events which took place during
week into an experience and understanding of the Passion of our Lord.
Simply explained, with beautiful icons and illustrations in full color,
this book is a treasure for Christians of all ages. Includes the
Resurrection Hymn in Greek, English and Slavonic set to Byzantine Chant
in western notation. 30pp. 8.5 X 11 in. Hardcover a$20.00; Sewn
paperback a$12.00.
(CAT) THE LIFE AND SUFFERING OF SAINT CATHERINE THE GREAT
MARTYR Translated from the Greek of the Great Synaxaristes
by Leonidas J. Papadopoulos and Georgia Lizardos. Includes a
Supplicatory Canon (Parkaklesis) in English, metered to Greek
Chant. A revised edition of the life of the popular Great
Martyr of early 4th Century Alexandria, who defended the Christian
Faith against the most wise orators of the pagan world, and whose
relics were miraculously transported to a mountain top now overlooking
the famous Monastery of St. Catherine at Sinai. 56pp. Paper
a$6.00