I remember in my early years as an Anglican priest being appointed as the “Ecumenical Officer” of the Diocese. It was a tip of the hat from my Bishop that my interest in other Churches (including the Orthodox) would make me a very good candidate for ecumenical representative. As it happened, there really were no great ecumenical events in South Carolina in those years with the single exception of the visit of the Pope to Columbia (yes, he even visited Columbia, S.C.). I thus found myself one bright sunny afternoon, with a field of other strangely dressed clergy, sitting on the football field of the University of South Carolina, while we watched Pope John Paul II and many others address and entertain us. It is hard to know what the event was all about - other than that we all got to see the Pope - and he got another photo shoot.

Ecumenism, at least as it evolved in the 20th century, became largely the play-thing of denominational bureaucrats. Organizations such as the National Council of Churches and the World Council, long ago became the pawns of political concerns (whether of the Communists of old, or of today’s American religious left). As such, they were religiously irrelevant - human organizations that had no relationship to God.

There has been a growing sentiment within Orthodoxy that we need have no relationship with these organizations. This sentiment has been more clearly expressed since the fall of communist regimes gave freedom for churches to express their thoughts.

But there are forms of ecumenism that do not involve Churches making statements they do not believe and which clearly contradict the faith. There is an ecumenism, far more nefarious, that presumes that Churches are but human creations and that the real goal in life is simply the betterment of the planet and its peoples. It is, indeed, simply a restatement of the secular goals of any number of organizations. The Churches are coopted to agree that goals are good and noble and worth pursuing.

I will not argue here about the nature of Churches. Most of them do not make much of a claim for Divine origin, so I will not have to point out the obvious. But the Orthodox Church is indeed of Divine origin and would sell its birthright for a mess of pottage, were we to every allow ourselves to be defined as of an origin other than that of Jesus Christ.

There are many goals of this form of ecumenism - all of them laudable from a distance. People everywhere should be well fed; healthcare should be readily available at least on a minimal basis, etc. It is also the case that such lofty goals will frequently come with attached agenda: the population must be controlled in its growth; the distribution of food must be controlled to some extrent, and other such things common to the secular goals of the secular man.

I can well understand that the Church does not want to appear to be against feeding children, nor is the Church against such a thing. So long as the price extracted is not too high.

We have just come out of 70 years of oppression in which the stated goals were always undeniably good. The extracted price was genocide and the virtual extinction of the Church in places (as if that would help grow more food). The goal of the Church, however friendly it may be towards the goapl of the utopians, is not, however, the improvement of the world. As I have repeatedly written: Christ did not come to make bad men good, but dead men live. It is only in the true transformation of human life, from the merely psychological to the truly spiritual - the true entering into communion with God - that will save us or those around us.

This world should be cared for wisely and well, but the plans of those who do not believe there is any goal for man other than survival cannot possibly understand the goals of the gospel of the Kingdom. There is only one true ecumenism. It is set forth in Scripture:

For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fulness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth (Eph. 1:9-10).

True Prayer uniting us with the Most-High is nothing other than light and strength coming down to us from heaven. In its essence ittranscends our plane of existence. This world contains no source of energy for prayer. If I eat well so that my body may be strong, my flesh will rebel against prayer. If I mortify the flesh by excessive fasting, for a while sbstinence favors prayer but soon the body grows faint and refuses to follow the spirit. If I associate with good people, I may find moral satisfaction and acquire new psychological or intellectual experience but only very rarely will I be stimulated to prayer in depth. If I have a talent for science or the arts, my success will give rise to vanity and I shall not be able to find the deep heart, the place of spiritual prayer. If I am materially well-off and busy wielding the power associated with riches or with satisfying my aesthetic or intellectual desires, my soul does not rise up to God as we know Him through Christ. If I renounce all that I have and go into the desert, even there the opposition of the cosmic energies will paralyse my prayer. And so on, ad infinitum.

Elder Sophrony in On Prayer.

Christ, in a dialog with the rulers of His time, refused to ask His followers to be quiet. His answer is very instructive:

As he was now drawing near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out” (Luke 19:37-40).

It is a profound proclamation that what Christ has to say, and Who He is, are not just appeals to the religious questions of humanity, but an answer to the very universe itself. The very stones would cry out.

In truth, Creation has been crying out since the very beginning of creation. St. Paul refers to creation as “made subject to futility,” because man himself had sinned and could only live in a broken world - a world whose very brokenness would help bring man to his right mind - to repentance before God.

Today we live in a time when the reigning ideology (as an ideology) is environmentalism. The only absolutes taught in our schools today are environmental absolutes. The result is a predictable concern for the environment - but not a Christian-informed concern for the environment. Thus the environmental teachings of the Patriarch of Constantinople (the so-called “Green” Patriarch) are likely to be heard in terms other than those he speaks, and simply as an endorsement of political environmentalism.

There is a true “Green” that belongs to the gospel. I would say that one of the proper characteristics of this “Green” is an understanding that Christ is not speaking metaphorically when He says the “very stones would cry out.” In truth, many may absolutize the creation (or the earth) for their own political ends, but they do not believe that stones can “cry out.” That is to say, though they care about stones, they do not actually know stones at all.

This is a witness of the saints of Orthodoxy, whose many stories of miraculous relationships with nature litter the landscape of Orthodox hagiography. In the presence of saints, wild animals become tame. In their presence flowers bloom out of season. All of this is similar to the gospel image of Christ, in whose presence and at whose word the winds and sea became quiet, and the waters became as a solid surface.

Environmentalism, true Christian environmentalism, begins with the repentance of Christians and our seeking of true union with God. Mere care for the earth is a poor political substitute (not to be despised) for the ontological reality promised us in Scripture.

The silence of the saints found in the depths of the heart is also a silence that can hear the crying of the stones and the voice of creation itself. It is thus that creation loves the saints as creation loves God.

We must all begin where we are. We should be good stewards of creation and recognize in every stone, a fellow creature of the One God. But we should not stop at mere environmentalism lest we become pawns in someone else’s game. We press forward to the goal of all things being gathered together in Christ, the great environmental movement, in which not only stones sing, but all of creation rejoices. What music there will be!

I officiated at a wedding last Sunday - one of several this year at the Church. It is always interesting to be part of an Orthodox wedding. Unlike most of our services, there is likely to be a majority of non-Orthodox in attendance. And they will have come to a service which even Baptists (no criticism intended) have a mental model for how it should look, liturgically. I recall my first Orthodox wedding as a priest. I had to travel across country (a parishioner was marrying a girl in another state). My second daughter explained to myself and her mother that she simply had to go with us to the wedding. Her reasoning was impeccable: “All my life I have dreamed of my wedding. Now that I’m Orthodox, I need to alter my dream. I need to see an Orthodox wedding.” We took her with us.

One of the things I often say about Orthodox weddings (to the non-Orthodox) is to comment on the absence of vows. There are no promises made - just prayers and blessings. My explanation (which is historically incorrect) is to say, “It does not do a couple any good to perjure themselves on their wedding day.” Usually I am greeted with a smile - at least that is my intent.

However unintentional the absence of vows may be in an Orthodox wedding, there is still something of a point in my observation. Words are extremely powerful and should be used carefully. As a child I was taught, “A man’s word is his bond.” I have learned repeatedly to my own embarrassment (and occasional loss) that this is no longer true with every man. The criminal conviction of perjury has extended even to the highest office of the land - without great consequence. Words are simply things to use for effect.

But Christ says:

I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned (Matt. 12:36-37).

I come from a family of “talkers.” No one believes me when I say that in my family “I am the quiet one.” My talkativeness has been the occasion for trouble since I was in grade school and will likely be the occasion for trouble on the Day of Judgment.

Christ’s words are an eloquent plea for silence - or at least care - in our speaking. If we must speak, let it be kind. If we must speak, let it be true. If we must speak, let it be in peace. Everything else is trouble - both now and later. Everything else darkens our heart and does not clarify a situation nor add to the wisdom of the world.

There is humility in an Orthodox wedding. No words of perfection, other than those that speak of God. Before Him stand a man and a woman - sinners at best. Without grace a marriage is without hope. Thus we view marriage as a sacrament - a miracle of God. The words that are best spoken are those to which we respond, “Lord, have mercy.”

Perhaps that is a good rule for all speech.

Amoun found Abba Poemen and told him, “When I visit a neighbor or he visits me, he hesitate to talk with each other. We are afraid that we might bring up a worldly topic.

The old man replied, “Yes, young people need to guard their mouths.”

Amoun asked, “But how do old men handle this problem?”

Abba Poemen said, “Those who have advanced in virtue no longer have any worldliness in them. Nothing will taint their speech.”

Amoun continued his questioning. “When I must speak with my neighbor, should I speak of the Scriptures or of the Fathers?”

The old man answered, “It is best to keep silence. If you can’t, talk about the sayings of the Fathers. Speaking about the Scriptures is risky.”

From the Sayings of the Desert Fathers

In our modern world the above conversation of two monks in the desert sounds rather quaint. We have very little concern about our subjects for conversations. As autonomous individuals, we talk about whatever we want to talk about and never give a second thought as to whether the topic was suitable or whether our words were helpful or harmful.

I was particularly struck by Abba Poemen’s statement that “speaking about the Scriptures is risky.” It brought a smile. Of course, all this has radically changed in our culture. The Bible is no longer a rare book (or copied laboriously by hand). Everyone has numerous copies (usually) and more opinions than copies.

I was making a presentation several years ago at a fundamentalist Christian school in Tennessee. Somewhere in the course of my comments I spoke about the 6th chapter of St. John’s gospel and Christ’s discourse on the Eucharist within it (though it occurs as a commentary on the feeding of the 5,000 - it is most decidedly a teaching on the Eucharist). It is in this chapter that Christ says, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you,” and many similar things.

A young man (a freshman) in the audience approached me after the lecture and was absolutely beside himself. He began to argue and to explain how the passage could not be about the Eucharist and how Christ was speaking figuratively about something else. I pointed out to him that even Protestant scholars agree that the chapter concerns the Eucharist - but to no avail.

Discussing Scripture is risky business. Part of what is missing in our Christian culture is a proper reverence for the Word of God. Even those who claim to hold it as utterly infallible in every jot and tittle, do not hesitate to use it in an cavalier manner.

I can recall several years ago a conversation that occurred within a group of Orthodox priests. The subject was the ever-Virginity of the Mother of God. Someone mentioned some of the traditional physical details associated with this doctrine. The conversation quickly ceased. One of the priests said, “I cannot discuss such things about the Mother of God.” There was no disagreement among the priests, only a sense that somethings are better left unsaid and that respect dictates that silence is best in some matters.

It was very instructive for me. The Holy always involves “boundaries” (I have written about this before). In an Orthodox Church such boundaries are particularly emphasized in the “boundary” of the altar area, and even within the altar area, the boundary of the altar itself. Only some may enter the altar area, and then only with a blessing. And generally, only bishops, priests and deacons may touch the holy altar or the things that are on it. It is an action, or refraining from action, that helps interiorize the reality of the Holy and how we should handle such things.

The Scriptures are certainly Holy, and should be rightly handled, that is rightly interpreted. But there is rarely a Godly fear in approaching such a task. Were such respect present, we would argue less and listen more, and many times remain silent.

It is utterly essential in the Christian life that believers begin to pay attention to their inner life and the state of their souls and dwell less in the fantasy of ideas and argument. The Christian faith is a way of salvation that involves the transformation of our inmost being - it is not a set of ideas with which we are trying to conquer the world.

None of this is to suggest restricted access to the Scriptures. Neither do I mean to suggest restricting access to the Holy (indeed in an Orthodox service, the Body and Blood of Christ are brought forth from the altar and given to the faithful to eat). What I mean to suggest is that we think about what it means that something is Holy and treat it accordingly. For with such treatment our hearts will begin to recognize things in the “truth of their being” and realize as well that we are not autonomous individuals in charge of the universe, but are, at most, servants of the Most High God, to Whom be glory.

We have noticed with sadness that nowadays men suffer dreadfully because their mind is fragmented. Imagination, which is only one of the mind’s activities, is overindulged and dominates men’s lives, leading some to hardness of heart due to pride, and others to mental illness. According to the teaching of the Gospel and the Scriptures, the mind works naturally only when it is united with the heart. Mind and heart are naturally joined together when the fire of contrition is in the heart.

Archimandrite Zacharias in The Enlargement of the Heart.

I’m certain that my experience of prayer is similar to that of most of my readers - a struggle to pray with a scattered mind. To read of the return of the mind to the heart is to know how far my prayers are from where they should be. It is also a realization that to “love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind,” is virtually impossible in such a scattered state. We lack the wholeness to make such an offering.

The desire of my heart is to not forget that there is such a thing as a mind united to the heart. My desire is to settle for nothing less. There is an emptiness in theology when it remains only a recitation of ideas and a fantasy of the imagination.

Thus, when I speak of a fullness (as I often do in my writings), I speak of something that belongs to God and can only come to man as a gift. There is a fullness in the sacraments of the Church, though in our scattered state we approach that fullness only with faith - with a hope for what we do not yet see. There is a need for steadfastness in that hope - a steadfastness that refuses to turn aside for something less.

We have been promised heaven - indeed I believe the union of mind and heart is a place where that promise begins to be fulfilled. Thus I will not turn aside for something else - whether argument or curiosity. For the fantasies of our scattered thoughts are not the stuff of reality - only the stuff of delusion.

There are moments of clarity - even for those whose most common experience is a scattered state. These moments come as flashes - sometimes in the Liturgy - sometimes in prayer - sometimes in very unexpected places. The flashes themselves are gifts - small insights that call us to remain steadfast and not to turn aside from hope.

In a very few cases in my life, I have had the pleasure of meeting someone whose thoughts were not scattered - who were wholly present - mind and heart. In each case it has been an encounter with humanity bordering on fullness - not something that overwhelms but something that welcomes and makes all things around seem brighter and more truly alive. I would not dare to say that I was encountering a saint, for God alone knows such a thing. But I have met those who were clearly moving in that direction in a way that we rarely see.

I saw it once in a woman who was a hospice patient. She had been homebound and bed-ridden for better than six months. I noticed that every day a constant stream of friends passed through her home. It was unusual. Generally when someone is sick for a prolonged period, vists become fewer as people readjust their lives and turn their attention elsewhere. It is sad but true. However, in this case just the opposite was happening. I cannot say that her friends were of such great quality that they never left her - but rather that she was a person of such good heart that people continued to visit because they always received more than they gave.

She was not Orthodox, but she was curious about my faith. What I was able to share with her was received with gratitude and with an understanding that immediately seemed to grasp the heart of each matter. I discovered that my visits to her (as her “hospice chaplain”) were themselves unusually frequent. I always left with more than I had brought.

She died perhaps eight years ago. As a priest, I have kept her name in my prayers of remembrance for the departed. I pray for her, for I hope that she will remember and pray for me.  

She was a fullness in an unexpected place. God’s grace appears where it appears. But the reality of it all is the heart of the matter for me. She, like several others I have known, was real and not a fantasy. She was a largeness of life that defied explanation apart from God. In such a life the mind is not scattered but brought to where it should remain - united to the heart. From such a heart love flows in a manner that draws the hungry souls of all around. And the fire of contrition burns in all who remain in its presence for arrogance and pride are reduced to ashes in such a holy furnace.

It is frequently the case that Orthodox theology uses the word “fullness” to describe its understanding and life of the gospel. This is a far more apt expression than simply saying “we have the truth.” Fullness, I think, better describes something. Truth, in our modern vocabulary, can mean something quite flat - as in a correct answer on a test. However, “fullness” describes not only the truth but the truth with an embodiment, the life of grace, but life as it is lived. The truth, but as it is incarnate.

Part of the celebration in which I participated during this last week, was a recognition on the part of the Diocese of the South (OCA) of a fullness - most particularly as we have experienced in the life and ministry of our Archbishop DMITRI. It is a recognition that for 30 years, the diocese has been formed and shaped by someone whose primary concern has been for the fullness of the faith and its embodiment, both in himself and in his priests, and not simply a concern for the machinery of the diocese.

Most of the priests of the diocese have been ordained by him, and their ministries have been formed and shaped by this living model we have before us.

It is the case in Orthodoxy, that when we speak of Holy Tradition, that, although we mean the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church, we also mean that presence as it is mediated to us in the liturgical life of the Church, in our communion with God, and as embodied in our midst through the minstries which God has set among us. Without the gospel expressed in a life, it is only the gospel as an idea - some abstract. It is the incarnation of the gospel in the ministries in which God has set in His Church that saves us from the obscurity of the Gospel as mere “idea.” Anybody can preach an idea - but an idea that has become incarnate is a different thing. The life itself says more than words, and it gives to its words a meaning that the words would never have by themselves.

That is the experience of the Diocese of the South. We have both heard the Gospel, but it has also been enfleshed among us. I am challenged by the humility of Christ because I have lived with the meekness of my Archbishop.

This, of course, is the great crisis of Christianity. It’s modern temptation is to be reduced to ideas and slogans. Indeed, this has often been its temptation during times of safety. By the grace of God, monastics and other Christians of serious commitment have rescued the gospel from the mediocrity of mere idealism.

Humility is a difficult task, as is the kindness of a good heart. I have never known anything else from my father in God.

I know that “God resists the proud,” and I have seen this illustrated amply in my years of ministry. I know what it is for God to resist my own pride or the pride of a parishioner. I have seen Him resist the pride of those who believe that their titles “entitles” them to something - which is simply not true.

We honored 30 years of the gospel enfleshed in the Diocese of the South last Thursday night at a banquet. We also celebrated the possibility of an Auxiliary Bishop (Jonah Paffhausen) who is himself a model of meekness.

Orthodoxy faces many deep challenges in the modern world. Some of them are brought on us by both the abuses of the past century as well as the new challenges of the present century. Our ecclesiology, which is never more than love (a canon cannot produce the Church), is and will be tested to the maximum. But the world is not hungry for the Canons or for pride of place, but for the self-sacrificing love of Christ and the fullness of His emptiness on the Cross.

The way forward for Orthodoxy in America will only be through the Cross, God help us. But there is no other way forward for anyone, ever, anywhere.

The Cross is the emptiness of God, but also His fullness. The Church will truly embody that fullness only as it embraces the emptiness set before us.

I am only an Orthodox priest with a limited scope of responsibility. I stand in awe of the men who have been brave enough to embrace the Cross of the Episcopacy. I believe that as much as anyone is not more than everyone, they will have to face the temptation to live something less than the Cross. I pray for grace for each and all of them. May God grant us servants of the Cross - crucified Bishops who proclaim the crucified God - crucified priests who proclaim the crucified Christ - crucified laity who proclaim the crucified life of the Gospel.

For this the world has hungered for all its life - for the Crucified life is the only life. May God hear us and keep us. May God give us grace to take up the cross and live for nothing else. Glory to God.

I give thanks to God for a safe journey home from Dallas. Slight mishap with our plane in Memphis. It was delayed because the cargo bay caught on fire. Then things got complicated. But we arrived home just a few minutes ago. Glory to God.

I hope to do more writing in the next day or so. I was greatly moved by my time with Archbishop Dmitri and with the life of the Church in the Diocese of the South. As God wills I’ll share more.

I occasionally have to answer the question from the non-Orthodox who wonder why we refer to priests as “father,” particularly when the Scripture says, “Call no man father.” Of course, the verse following that would also forbid the use of the word, “mister,” but few seem to notice. St. Paul uses the term “father,” however, and it became and has remained a useful term, not because there is any disdain for the teaching of Christ, but because there is a recognition that there is such a thing as spiritual fatherhood and there always has been. It is a gift of Christ and a traditioning in the manner of a father with his children, as Christ gave to His own apostles.

We actually live in an age when fatherhood, even natural fatherhood, is in crisis. Adolescent youths (particularly young men) generally do not need to associate with lots of other young men their age (they usually just wind up in trouble). What they desperately need is apprenticeship - an opportunity to learn how to be a man and for someone to model and show them what that looks like.

The same is certainly true for Christians. We need spiritual fathers - men who can model what it is to be truly whole and truly a follower of Christ. This is not just true of men - we need the same thing for young women - spiritual mothers who can model what it is to be truly whole and truly a follower of Christ.

The proper role of a Bishop with his people, and particularly with his priests, is to be a spiritual father. In my years in the Diocese of the South, both before my conversion and after, I have found this phenomenon to be alive and well in the ministry of my Archbishop DMITRI. Being with him this week is simply another immersion in the model and the reminder of what everything is truly about. When he teaches the gospel there is a simplicity but a simplicity that reaches to the very depths of the Christian life. There is a joy in his presence and an abiding sense that you are loved and cared for. What child could ask more of a father?

We are celebrating the 30th year of our diocese, and a ministry of a bishop that is slowly drawing to its close. But the light does not grow dim as things draw to a close, but only grow brighter and clearer. To stand with him in the altar this morning as one of the concelebrants, was to remember again what it is to be a priest and what the meaning and the depths of the sacrifice truly mean. I saw a man ordained a deacon, and another, priest - and remembered my own ordinations at the hand of this blessed man. And found rekindled in me again the hope that what I have done as a priest has been faithful to what was given me.

This is the true fullness of Tradition. It is tremendously personal as, indeed, it should be. The Tradition is finally a gift of the Holy Spirit but always mediated through the ministry of the Church. To stand with a successor of the Apostles, indeed with a true Apostle to the South, is one of my life’s greatest honors. May God grant him many years!

I will be in Dallas on Tuesday through Friday, attending the annual Diocesan Assembly of the Diocese of the South (OCA). My great joy is to spend time with my Archbishop DMITRI. It is also on our agenda to elect Igumen Jonah Paffhausen of St. John Maximovitch Monastery in California as our Auxiliary Bishop. May God direct our hearts. I will post articles from Dallas as I am able, and ask your prayers for God’s grace. Many thanks!