A few items that might be of interest:

• Last week was the Orientale Lumen conference, which I was unfortunately not able to attend. However, many of the talks are now available online over at Ancient Faith Radio. I particularly recommend the talk by Sr. Vassa Larin.
• Fellow blogger Brandon Vogt has been giving away books, and this week’s giveways are personal favorites of mine: St. Josemaría Escrivá’s The Way, The Forge, and Furrow. Go there to get a chance to get some great books for free!
• This week’s OSV Newsweekly includes an article I wrote called Liturgical Attitude Adjustment. It is intended to help Catholics get the most out of their participation in the Mass.
• Finally, Jennifer Fulwiler over at Conversion Diary has been running a series of posts by guest bloggers on each word of the Our Father. I contributed today’s post on the word “us”.

Also, happy Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul!

Metropolitan Jonah, Archbishop of Washington of the Orthodox Church in America, recently gave a talk on importance of Christian asceticism in our modern consumerist society. It is a bit long, but I recommend that you print it out and read it in its entirety:

Among other things, living our life in Christ requires that we grasp the spiritual significance of two opposing forces with us:

1. The flesh vs. the body
2. The world vs. creation

In the current social context, and so for this evening’s conversation, let me please add another set of opposing movements in the human heart:

1. Consumerism vs. worship

Following traditional Orthodox (and orthodox) theology, the first of these terms—the flesh, the world and consumerism—refer to humanity in rebellion against God. Even when we refer to “the world” we are referring to how creation has become disordered by human sinfulness. Because of Adam’s sin and mine, my body, the creation and the works of my hands have all become estranged from God. Not only that, they have also become sources for my estrangement. As we have become estranged from God, oblivious to God, the body, created matter and the works of our hands, have become idols. They become the means of endless distraction from the reality of God, of communion with one another, and from both life and death.

Thus the tragic paradox of the fall, the great tragedy of human sinfulness is this: the gifts of God have become distorted. Rather than drawing us closer to Him and to each other, we misuse the good things of God to our own harm, spiritually, morally, psychologically, socially and physically.

Continue reading…

You can also download a PDF of the talk here.

A fascinating interview, by an Evangelical Protestant, with one of the most fascinating Christians alive today:

From Russia, with Love
Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion offers evangelicals more than an olive branch.

Hilarion Alfeyev, the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk, located 80 miles northwest of Moscow, has a very big job. As head of external relations for the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, Hilarion is responsible for talking to global Christianity on behalf of the 150 million people in Russian Orthodoxy worldwide.

Given his gift for languages, Hilarion arose as an easy pick for the job by Russian Patriarch Kirill. This year, the Russian-American Institute, a faith-based educational and support organization (formerly the Russian-American Christian University), helped Hilarion interact with a cross-section of evangelicals around the United States for the first time. Christianity Today deputy managing editor Timothy C. Morgan interviewed Hilarion while he was in Washington, D.C….

Do you want vigorous grassroots engagement between Orthodox and evangelicals?

Yes, on problems, for example, like the destruction of the family. Many marriages are split. Many families have either one child or no child.

There are many incomplete families, not to speak of various homosexual unions, which are equated with the family. This completely changes the whole picture of human relationships. It directly affects the future of many nations. The sign of a spiritually healthy nation is that it expands—it grows. If it shrinks, it is a very clear sign of unhealthiness.

There is a perception that religious freedom is declining in Russia. Is the perception true?

‘Secularism is dangerous because it destroys human life. It destroys essential notions related to human life, such as the family.’— Metropolitan Hilarion

It’s a completely wrong perception. We have to ask what we mean by religious freedom. If it’s a freedom for the sects, including dangerous sects, to buy time on television and to propagate their ideas, then I think we no longer have the freedom that existed in the beginning of the 1990s. But I think freedom was sometimes not used in a proper way. For example, I remember how every morning Shoka Asahara would preach on Russian television. He was later condemned to death in Japan for organizing a terrorist attack in the Tokyo underground.

With regards to traditional churches and religions: They have complete freedom of action. There is the law on the freedom of conscience, which makes a subtle distinction between traditional churches and religions that never existed in Russia. Religious communities are given a 15-year probationary period precisely for the reasons I described. They can act freely during this period. They can organize services. They can publish literature. They can do missionary activities. But they are not registered with the juridical status. After 15 years, they can be registered.

Continue reading…

The speakers for one of my favorite conferences, Orientale Lumen, have been announced:

• Metropolitan Jonah (Orthodox)
  Primate of the Orthodox Church in America, Washington, DC
  
• Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia (Orthodox)
  Professor Emeritus of Oxford University, Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople
  
• Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ (Greek Catholic)
  Professor Emeritus of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, The Vatican
  
• Msgr. Michael Magee (Roman Catholic)
  Chairman and Professor of Systematic Theology, St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Philadelphia, PA
  
• Father Ron Roberson, CSP (Roman Catholic)
  Associate Director for Ecumenical Affairs, USCCB, Washington, DC
  
• Sr. Dr. Vassa Larin (Orthodox)
  Lecturer, University of Vienna, Austria, Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia
  
• Dr. Adam DeVille (Greek Catholic)
  Assistant Professor, University of Saint Francis, Ft. Wayne, IN and Editor, LOGOS

This is quite an impressive, and ecumenical, line-up. Further details about the conference can be found here.

Today is the feast of St. Andrew, the brother of St. Peter and the patron of Constantinople and thus the Christian East. Often the union of East and West is represented by the icon of the two brother-apostles – who represent Rome and Constantinople – embracing:

In the spirit of today’s feast, here are two Eastern-related news items:

Patriarch’s meeting with Pope getting nearer – Metropolitan Hilarion

Moscow, November 26, Interfax – The meeting between the Moscow Patriarch and the Pope is getting nearer each day, the Russian Orthodox Church said.

“Each day brings us closer to this meeting between the Pope and Patriarch,” head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, told journalists in Moscow.

“Right now we are not prepared to make known the date, nor are we engaged in any concrete preparations for the meeting, but we are certainly getting closer to it. It is a calendar and astronomical fact,” he said.

The work carried out by the Russian Church with the Catholic Church is aimed “improving the general climate and achieving a higher level of mutual understanding,” he added.

This is great news. We have seen rumors for years that this meeting would take place, but now it looks like it might really happen. Let us pray for unity!

Also, many Catholics who frequent blogs do not know any good Eastern Christian blogs – but now there is a solution to that problem: the Eastern Christian New Media Awards! They have just announced their 2010 winners, so I recommend going there to find the best in the Eastern Christian blogosphere.

St. Andrew, pray for us!

A man born in Gary, Indiana has been raised to the altars of the Serbian Orthodox Church:

From his childhood in Gary to his death in Yugoslavia, St. Varnava always protected his faith and was dedicated to a Christian life.

St. Varnava is the first American-born Serbian to be proclaimed an Orthodox saint, said the Rev. Thomas Kazich, who also is a Gary native…

Varnava went to Froebel Elementary School while he and his family lived in Gary for about nine years. They moved Yugoslavia in 1923, Kazich said.

When he finished the equivalent of high school, Varnava’s father took him to see Bishop Nicholai Velimirovich to receive the bishop’s blessing to study theology.

“As (Varnava) wrote, ‘Theology is the science of sciences,’ ” Kazich said.

The bishop gave him his blessing, and he started his studies.

Kazich said Varnava’s family was influential in his upbringing in the church. He said everyone in the church has a spiritual guide, and “his spiritual father was his own father.”

Varnava was ordained a priest in the early 1940s, and the Serbian Church elected him to become a bishop in 1947, Kazich said.

Varnava began to preach against the Communist way of life after becoming a bishop, and Yugoslavia’s Communist government arrested him on treason charges.

During his trial, Varnava wasn’t allowed to deliver a final defense plea because “it was feared that he would expose and reveal the government’s criminal, terroristic and tyrannical policies,” according to a report written by Kazich.

In 1948, Varnava was sentenced to 11 years at one of the worst prisons at the time in Yugoslavia, Kazich said.

He spent about three years there, and the government intended to kill him when he was being transferred to another prison, Kazich said. He was placed on a train car with other prisoners, and the government ran another train into the car, he said.

Varnava survived the crash, but his legs were broken.

“And he suffered from that for the rest of his life,” Kazich said.

Due to health problems, Varnava was released from prison in 1951, but he always was under guard by the Communist government until he died in 1964.

Kazich said Varnava died under suspicious circumstances, and many believe he was poisoned. He said an autopsy couldn’t be conducted at the time.

Kazich said Varnava’s family knew he didn’t have a history of illness. He also wrote letters to them about his good health prior to his death.

No matter the circumstances, Varnava always remained “a follower of Christ,” Matic said.

“He became one of the strongest protectors of his faith,” he said.

Continue reading…

We should never forget that saints can come from anywhere – even your own neighborhood, even your own house!

At the recently-concluded synod of Middle Eastern bishops, there was a call for a “unified Easter”. One of the more unfortunate practical results of the split between East and West is that the two lungs of the Church do not celebrate Easter on the same day each year (although there are rare cases when the two dates coincide). There have been various efforts over the past few decades to have a unified Easter, but so far they have been fruitless.

It seems to me that competing Easters is the saddest consequence of the East-West split. It is not the most important or most controversial division between us, but it is extremely sad because there is no underlying theological or doctrinal reason behind it. At least with the issues of papal primacy or the filioque or purgatory there are real theological and doctrinal issues to be debated; in those cases, it is understandable that each side is firm in their resolve not to compromise what they believe is the true Faith. But with the date of Easter we have no such fundamental doctrine involved. Heck, the date of Easter could be the last Sunday of month after the fifth full moon on even-numbered years and the sixth full moon of odd-number years and it doesn’t affect our faith in any real way (although it would be a pedagogically poor decision). There is no important reason for the East and the West to stay divided on this issue.

But this is a prime example of what happens when two sides become entrenched in their divisions. You see this sometimes in families: two siblings have a falling-out, often over some important reason, but then over time their estrangement becomes solidified and they no longer talk and no longer trust the other on any issue. Sometimes one sibling will take one side on a debate specifically because it opposes the estranged sibling. When love fails, only discord and division can follow.

The date of Easter is a symptom of the larger issue of over 1,000 years of distrust between East and West. Let us pray that a unified date for Easter can be found and that it will be one small step towards a total reconciliation.

This week a synod of Middle Eastern bishops commenced at the Vatican. The majority of Catholics in the Middle East are members of one of the 22 Eastern Catholic churches*, so most of the representatives at the Synod are Eastern Catholics. As regular readers of this blog know, I have a special affinity for the Eastern Catholic churches, even though I am a member of the Latin church.

Over the past forty years, the Church’s magisterium has made clear that the Eastern Catholic churches are to maintain their Eastern traditions, something that Pope Benedict reiterated this week. This is something that most Western Catholics are willing to give lip service to, but often choke on the details. To many of us, traditions like infant communion (and confirmation), married priests, and self-ruling churches appear to be non-Catholic. But we should not judge the practices of the East in light of our historic battles with Protestantism and secularism, but instead in light of their own ancient traditions. For example, the East does not allow married priests because they despise celibacy (as many anti-Catholics in the West do), but because they live out the celibate lifestyle in monasteries and in the episcopate. The traditions of the East are as venerable as those in the West, and they can – and should – coexist in the Church without preference being given to one over the other.

The Eastern Catholic churches have a role in the Church that is remarkable and in many areas, rejected and even reviled. They are a witness for Eastern Christianity to the West, and a witness for communion with Rome to the East. As such, they are usually held in suspicion on both sides. Western Catholics suspect that they are not “Catholic” enough, and the Orthodox do not believe them to be truly Eastern. They must live out their vocation in the midst of a world which does not support them. Furthermore, their mission is to eventually no longer exist, for once reunion occurs, most would simply be subsumed into their sister Orthodox churches.

In other words, they have a mission which leads them to be rejected by this world and eventually to die. Who does that sound like? The Eastern Catholic churches follow in the footsteps of our Lord, who was rejected by men and was put to death. But just as the death of Christ led to resurrection, so too will the “death” of the Eastern Catholic churches lead to the Church’s resurrection as a reunited Church. All Catholics should pray fervently that the Eastern Catholic churches continue to grow and to be the special witness for a Church that breathes with both lungs again.

* The Catholic Near East Welfare Association has a wonderful overview of these churches in their latest ONE magazine, which can be found online here.

Today is the feast of the greatest Latin Scripture scholar of all time – St. Jerome.

Jerome is most famous for his Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate. This translation became the norm in Western Christianity for more than a millennium, and its impact was far-reaching. One area, however where it had an (unintended) impact is in the debate over the filioque (“and [from] the Son”), that addition to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed which has caused such division in the Church.

When translating John 15:26 (“When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me”), Jerome used the Latin verb procedere to translate the Greek word εκπορευεται (“proceeds from”). This decision is not a bad one, as both mean “proceed” or “come forth from”. However, by the time of Jerome, this Greek word had come to take on a particular meaning in Greek theology – a meaning that was not there originally. It was used to designate the Holy Spirit’s unique mode of proceeding as opposed to the begetting of the Son in the Godhead. But the Latin term had no such meaning in the West; it could be used interchangeably for both processions.

For example, in John 8:42 (“Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and am here; I did not come on my own, but he sent me”) Jerome again uses the Latin verb procedere, yet the Greek term used is εξηλθον, which means “come forth”, but by Jerome’s time was not identical to εκπορευεται. So in the Latin, both the Son’s procession and the Spirit’s procession used the same broad term – procedere – but the Greeks used different terms for them. Both East and West agreed that both processions could not be identical, so in the West there developed an understanding that the Spirit’s procession was “from the Father and the Son“, a development that did not take hold in the East, which saw the begetting of the Son and the generation of the Spirit as distinct even though both were “from the Father.”

It is important to note that there is absolutely nothing wrong with Jerome’s translation; the fact is that the languages are just different and any translation sometimes has to use the best word available even if it is not an exact match. Furthermore, the Greek language, like every language, had developed, so the term εκπορευεται came to have a precise theological meaning in the East which it did not have at the time of the New Testament. Even without Jerome’s translation decisions the debate over the filioque might have erupted, but the human constraints of language surely played their part in this divisive phrase.

St. Jerome, pray for us!

This is an interesting find: a document has been uncovered in which Pope St. Pius X tolerated communicatio in sacris (i.e. shared communion) with the Orthodox.

Translation:

Most Blessed Father!
Andrew Szeptycki, Metropolitan of Halycz, Metropolitan of Kiev and Administrator of all Russia at the foot of His Holiness most humbly asks that faculties may be conceded to himself and also to confessors in communion (capable of being communicated) for dispensing secular faithful from the law which forbids communicatio in sacris with the Orthodox as many times as they will judge it in conscience to be opportune.

Our Most Holy Father Pope Pius X deigned to sign with his own hand this document written by me with the words “May be tolerated”.

A number of years ago I wrote a paper on pre-Vatican II ecumenism in the Catholic Church. Many people are under the (false) impression that Vatican II “started” ecumenism in the Catholic Church, but my research showed me that while Vatican II was a giant leap for the Church in regards to ecumenism, it was the result of many years of ecumenical work within the Church.

Note: the purpose of this post is not to endorse a wider practice of communicatio in sacris with the Orthodox, but to emphasize that the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church did not consider the Orthodox to be simply schismatics outside the Church – which is the impression you get in some quarters.

Whenever the pope arrives somewhere, it seems like every possible protester comes out of the woodwork – atheists, women priests supporters, etc. I remember having a debate with a fundamentalist Christian in Denver back in 1993 when Pope John Paul II was there for World Youth Day. Most of these protesters are hard to take seriously, because none of them seem to take the Church’s teachings seriously. But there was one papal protester in London this past weekend that I can respect (even if I don’t agree with him):

It’s not every day you see Latin on a placard protesting the Pope. When the anti-papal crowd of several thousand atheists, radical feminists and gay activists gathered in London this weekend, most of the banners were pretty simple: stuff like “Nope to the Pope” and “Papa Don’t Preach.”

But later in the afternoon, on the edges of the papal motorcade, and amidst a number of cheering fans of Benedict, there was a poster raised demanding, “DROP THE FILIOQUE.”

What? You have to know a little bit of Latin, and a lot of theology and history to get that one.

It wasn’t really a poster; it more like Magic Marker theology on a pizza box. And a young man named Toby Guise was happy to explain where, in his opinion, the Catholic Church had gone wrong.

“Filioque” means “And the Son,” and refers to a centuries-old debate between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, about whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, as the Orthodox believe, or from the Father and the Son, which is the Catholic teaching.

That’s tough stuff, material for smart folks debating in a graduate school seminar. Perhaps it’s too bad the Pope didn’t see the pizza box; he would have been amused.

And in his former career as a professor and not a pontiff, he probably would have liked to talk to the young man holding it up.

H/t: Eirenikon

Fr. Gabriel Bunge – Benedictine monk, well-respected patristic scholar, and author of the book Earthen Vessels: The Practice of Personal Prayer According to the Patristic Tradition – was recently received into the Orthodox Church:

[Metropolitan] Hilarion also heartily welcomed hieromonk Gabriel (Bunge), who, for more than 30 years has lived a hermetical life in the mountains of Switzerland. “You were a Catholic, but in soul you were Orthodox” – Metropolitan Hilarion said to him – “Today, before the all-night vigil, you converted to Orthodoxy, which was a natural conclusion of a long spiritual journey. ”

Metropolitan Hilarion warmly congratulated Father Gabriel on his reception into holy Orthodoxy, and gave him an icon of the Heavenly Queen, “Joy of All Who Sorrow” in memory of the fact that he was united to the Orthodox Church in this church, consecrated in honor of this icon.

Most of us non-Orthodox here in the West do not realize the precarious situation the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is currently in. Due to persecution by the Turkish government, there is a good chance that the current occupant of the patriarchal chair, Bartholomew I, will be the last Ecumenical Patriarch to reside in Constantinople:

Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) — Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is the living embodiment of an ancient tradition. From his historic base in Istanbul, Turkey, the 270th Patriarch of Constantinople claims to be the direct successor of the Apostle Andrew.

Today he’s considered “first among equals” in the leadership of the Greek Orthodox church, and is the spiritual leader of 250 million Orthodox Christians around the world. But few of them are in his own home country.

“We are a small Christian minority,” Bartholomew laments.

“We have suffered because of Greek-Turkish confrontation, struggle, and a lack of mutual trust and confidence. And that is why we lost most of our faithful.”

Turkey’s once-flourishing Greek community is fading away. The country is predominantly Muslim and led by a secular government that’s had a complicated relationship with the patriarchate.

If Turkish laws, demographics and attitudes aren’t changed, Bartholomew could ultimately be the last Patriarch of Constantinople.

“We are not all in despair for the future of our church,” Bartholomew said. “It is not easy, but it is not impossible.”

The Turkish government can veto any candidate put forward for the position of patriarch. And it requires the patriarch be a Turkish citizen. Bartholomew is, but most of those best qualified to succeed him are not.

So the government has proposed offering Turkish citizenship to Orthodox archbishops overseas. Several have applied; so far, none has been approved.

The Turkish government also refuses to recognize the title Ecumenical Patriarch, or Bartholomew’s role as an international religious leader.

Officially, he is viewed as a local bishop who leads a shrinking community of a few thousand Greek Orthodox citizens. Yorgo Stefanopulos is one of them. “I am a curiosity now in Turkey,” he said. “We used to be a minority; now we are a curiosity.”

Stefanopulos is an outspoken leader of Istanbul’s Greek community. About 50 years ago, that community numbered more than 100,000. Today, it’s probably less than 3,000.

He insists that decline was not accidental. Instead, he blames the Turkish government. Decades ago, he said, they targeted ethnic Greeks with nationalist policies, like wealth taxes, property seizures, and campaigns to speak only Turkish in the streets.

Then there was the pogrom in 1955: riots directed against Greeks and Greek-owned property. The violence was later found to have been orchestrated by Turkish authorities.

As a result, Greeks left Istanbul in droves. “The Turkish government somehow managed to do a bloodless ethnic cleansing,” Stefanopulos said. Today’s Turkish government says those events are from the distant past, and they’re now looking ahead to reconciliation.

“Turkey is going through a period of transition,” said Egemen Bagis, the country’s Minister for European Union Affairs. “Turkey’s becoming a much more democratic, much more prosperous, much more transparent society.”

Yet, the government has resisted calls to reopen the patriarchate’s main school of theology.

For more than a century, the Halki seminary educated future Greek Orthodox bishops, theologians and patriarchs, until Turkey’s highest court ordered it closed in 1971. Since then, it’s remained empty, worrying former students like theologian Satirios Varnalidis.

“We want to reopen this school so that we can provide new priests to the Ecumenical Patriarchate,” Varnalidis said. “Otherwise, in a little while our community just won’t have any more priests.”

Continue reading…

Pray that this small Christian community can stand strong in the face of such persecution.

One of the most influential books in East-West relations is “After Nine Hundred Years,” written by Yves Congar in the 1950′s – nine hundred years after the mutual excommunications of 1054. In this book, Congar posits that the Catholic and Orthodox churches are not really in a state of schism, but of “estrangement.” By this he means that there was no formal act of schism by either side (the 1054 excommunications were not considered by anyone contemporary to them to be such an act), but instead the two churches simply grew apart over time until they finally acknowledged that they were no longer in communion with each other. Such an outlook has profound implications for how one views our current lack of communion.

I had heard about this book for years but never could get my hands on it because it is long out of print. I finally found it at a used book store about two years ago. But now, thanks to the wonders of the internet and expiring copyrights, it is available for free online. I highly recommend it.

This looks quite interesting:

And if that looks interesting to you as well, I highly recommend the movie “Ostrov,” which can be seen in its entirety on YouTube.