Of Information and Belief

Irony?

At the Touchstone web-log, Hunter Baker--a recent addition to the blog's cadre of posters--has a brief entry up entitled, "Sacred Selling."  Even though Baker is discussing a rather "advanced" stage of marketing Christianity, it's a tad bit ironic that this post comes during the same week that an editor of Touchstone took it upon himself to try and lampoon some of his fellow Orthodox for calling into question this phenomena as it relates to an Orthodox media endeavor.  Perhaps the line will be drawn when we start following companies like Zondervan by peddling niche Bibles riddled with errors.

Iohan's Birth

For those interested, my wife wrote an account of our son Iohan's birth at her blog here.  It's the sort of thing I would try to write if I had but a fraction of her clarity and love.

Anathema Against Abortion?

Over at the Ochlophobist's blog, I made an offhanded remark about the local Orthodox jurisdictions in the United States issuing separate anathemas against the sin of abortion--not against those who perform or procure the procedure, but those who in any way, shape, or form support this practice.  Och rightly called attention to the fact that such a statement would instantly set off a firestorm of debate over what it means to "support" abortion: Does voting for a pro-choice Democrat count?; What if the vote hinges on the hope that this Democrat or a Democratically controlled Government will lead to social policies which reduce the overall number of abortions?; What if you give money to a charitable organization which, as an attendant matter, in some way supports Planned Parenthood or other pro-abortion organizations? Etc.  Those questions and the literally thousands of others which could be raised are all valid.  Perhaps more importantly, I should note that I went a bit far in using the category of "anathema."  Such decrees have historically been reserved only for heresy and while it has been the consistent witness of the Church to hold abortion as a grave sin, abortion is not a heresy.  Consider Canon 21 of the Council of Ancyra:

Regarding women who become prostitutes and kill their babies, and who make it their business to concoct abortives, the former rule barred them for life from communion, and they are left without recourse.  But, having found a more philanthropic alternative, we have fixed the penalty at ten years, in accordance with the fixed degrees.

Here we see that both a woman who receives an abortion and the one who performs it are excommunicated for a period of ten years.  This is a "lighter" (pardon the term) penalty than an anathema which not only excludes an individual from Communion, but expels them from the Church until they repent. 

There appears to be little controversy within the Church (even the Church in the U.S.) that abortion is a sin and those who procure or perform it must repent of this sin before being allowed back to the Chalice.  While I have no direct evidence to support this view, my strong suspicion is that the ten-year pently of excommunication is rarely, if ever, imposed.  That may be for the best, particularly in a day and age when the whole of society treats the act as a trivial matter and the Church's witness against it has been so pathetically poor.  It seems to me--though I am only speculating here--that a severe penalty of prolonged excommuncation ought to be reserved only for those who repent and then fall back into either procuring or performing abortions.  Ultimately, that is for an individual's Father Confessor to decide.  As we know, the canons of the Church have and continue to be applied with charity; but we must remember that is quite distinct from not applying them at all.

By far, the more controversial issue is whether those who support abortion ought to be excommunicated as well until they repent.  As noted above, much hinges on what might by meant by "support."  There are certainly any number of outward acts which could be construed as support and a few which may appear supportive but, in fact, intend something else altogether.  Ultimately, it is a matter of conscience.  And that is why the Church must be clear on the boundaries.  Is it possible to accept the tenets of Orthodoxy and hold in one's thoughts views which are antithetical to the sacred gift of life which God has provided?  I fear, based on the evidence which is available, that many Orthodox Christians in the U.S. believe they can be good and faithful members of the Body of Christ while harboring opinions which cut directly against a core moral teaching of the Church?  The witness against abortion is not a "development," it is textually present as early as the start of the second century where the Didache or Teachings of the Tweleve Apostles commands Chritians to "not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant" and "[n]ever do away with an unborn child or destroy it after its birth."  On what basis, then, do we waver now? 

The sad reality remains that we do not have prophetic voices in American Orthodoxy calling the faithful to account for the gross incongruity between their "private beliefs" and the objective moral truth which the Church has preserved through the ages.  Too many, it seems, believe the Church's witness ought to end at merely "discouraging" mothers from seeking abortions or "admonishing" doctors who perform them.  The Church's witness must be more robust; it must be to all Orthodox Christians and, from there, all people.  To let those who may not procure or perform abortions but who support its legalization--either actively or tacitly, inwardly or outwardly--to wander in the darkness is inexcusable.  It amounts to an acceptance of the mentalitie which has given rise in the U.S. to a culture of death, i.e., a mentalite at war with Christ and His Church.

Metropolitan Philaret of New York

According to my St. John of Kronstadt Press liturgical calendar, the Sunday closest to November 8 (O.S.) is the day certain groups which broke away from ROCOR commemorate Metropolitan +Philaret of New York.  Not surprisingly, it's what one might call a "touchy subject."  A number of individuals in ROCOR have accused these groups of attempting to hijack the memory of +Philaret through a "political" canonization.  These groups, in turn, accuse ROCOR of suppressing the late Metropolitan's memory, including evidence that his relics are incorrupt.  (See here and here for more on the controversy, but remember that these are accounts with a polemical purpose.)  HOCNA, the oldest splinter group from ROCOR, has been celebrating his memory since at least 2002 and has published online a partial liturgical service in his honor.  (See here for the service and here for sheet music to his troparia in Byzantine chant.  Alternatively, there is a full liturgical service for him in Church Slavonic here.)

To be honest, I have never formulated a concrete position on the controversy.  On a previous version of this blog, I took a weak stab at it and received a few e-mails for my efforts.  They represented divergent views on the matter, but all of them made good points.  Some of their remarks, coupled with the commentary I have read online, reminds me of the yet-resolved matter of Blessed Seraphim (Rose)'s official status, though no group to my knowledge has canonized him.  (I believe this is also true of Fr. Justin Popovic, though as I mentioned on my blog a week or so ago, +Hilarion of ROCOR fully acknowledged him as a Saint in a recent letter to the Serbian Orthodox Church.)  I have no doubt that both Frs. Seraphim and Justin will be officially canonized.  From everything I have read and heard, I certainly want to believe that is true of +Philaret as well.

To be clear, +Philaret is not a "P.C." choice for canonization.  Then again, neither is Bl. Seraphim.  Both men were unwavering in their respective stances against various modernist and reonovationist trends which were besetting the Church during their lifetime and, indeed, still assails her to this very day.  There are many who have sought to "detoxify" the prophetic voice of Bl. Seraphim in recent years, positing something akin to an "intellectual bipolarism" in the man.  While there is no doubt that he tempered his rhetoric a bit as he advanced in his monastic struggles, there is no evidence that he abandoned his commitment to an Orthodoxy free of ideologies, compromises, and worldliness. 

+Philaret's legacy, on the other hand, hasn't so much been "detoxified" as quietly set aside in some circles.  His series of "Sorrowful Epistles," widely reprinted on the Internet and in various books, still remain some of the strongest statements against ecumenism in the Orthodox Church.  Those who posit that there is no such thing as "ecumenism" or assert that the category is so ill-defined as to be meaningless ought to spend some time with these brief, but spiritually rich, works.  They are challenging documents, especially in this day and age.  But they shouldn't be read in isolation.  More than a defender of the Faith, +Philaret was also a deeply spiritual man who constantly taught his flock humility by word and deed.  (See, e.g., his work, "On the Law of God" and a brief account of his life.)

Manhattan Declaration

As with any extended statement which tries to speak across divides without compromising the truth, the Manhattan Declaration has its flaws.  But they are minor and need not be discussed at the moment.  At the end of the day, there's nothing in it I wouldn't use all of my faculties to defend.  Read the entire declaration and consider putting your name on it.

 

A Miracle?

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Back in Print

 

Michigan Slavic Publications has finally brought Archpriest Avvakum: The Life Written by Himself back in print.  You can order a copy from Amazon here.  I think it's impossible to understand Russian Orthodoxy without reading this text, regardless of where your sympathies lie with respect to the Old Believers/Old Ritualists.  Also, as far as religious biographies go, Avvakum's Life is something to behold.

Theotokos or Mother of God?

I recently read a strong defense on a listserv over English-speaking Orthodox primarily using the expression "Mother of God" rather than the Greek, "Theotokos," when referring to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  The author of the post, Fr. German (Ciuba), has translated a number of Slavonic texts into English, including the Old Orthodox Prayer Book, the Sunday Octoechos, and The Horologion (Old Rite).  Slavonic is not the only tongue he is fluent in, however.  Since I don't have permission to quote his e-mail, I will have to write "around it" a bit.  Nothing I say should be directly attributed to Fr. German, however.

Fr. German's point is simple and direct: We speak English, not Greek.  (And for that matter, we don't speak Slavonic or Latin either.)  Those who still use the "Old" Jordanville Prayer Book translated by the late Fr. Lazarus (Moore) will recall that Fr. Lazarus opted to use "Mother of God" over "Theotokos" throughout.  This is one of the reasons, in fact, that some have defended his translation over the current edition which primarily uses "Theotokos."  The Old Orthodox Prayer Book generally uses "Mother of God" for the Slavonic Bogoroditsa (which is a translation of "Theotokos").  The one notable exception is the the opening line of "It Is Truly Meet."  Some have quarraled with this.  They act as if "Theotokos" is the proper English translation of Bogoroditsa, forgetting that this itself is a move from Greek to Slavonic.  So, why the trouble with moving from Greek to English?

While Fr. German doesn't raise the Greek-to-Slavonic translation matter, he does note that the Oxford English Dictionary marks "Theotokos" as a foreign word.  He also goes on to point out that we do not use terms like homoousious in the Creed or Kristos for "Christ."  So, why all the guff over "Theotokos"? 

One argument is that while "Theotokos" is not an "official" English word, it has become part of the English-speaking Orthodox lexicon and should be accepted as such.  The problem, as he rightly notes, is that the expression is still foreign to almost everyone outside of the Orthodox Church.  It adds, I would contend, another layer of "mystery" to the Church which is both unnecessary and confusing.  But at the same time, it seems a bit too late to start mandating sweeping revisions to the liturgical and prayer books of the Church. 

To be honest, I don't think Fr. German is looking for "revisionism."  He made a defense and a good one at that.  I recall that at my wedding, a certain priest whose name I must never mention in public took the the initiative to use "Mother of God" during the litanies since 90% of those present at the ceremony were not Orthodox.  Unless I'm not thinking, I refuse to use "Theotokos" when talking with non-Orthodox.  Indeed, I rarely use it when talking to Orthodox.  It sounds pretentious and alien, particularly when the topic is decidedly not about the Council of Ephesus.  With that said, I don't mind seeing "Theotokos" in my prayer books, hymns, or other Orthodox texts.  Maybe it's just habit, but I've grown accustomed to seeing it in those contexts.  I don't think I could properly sing, "It is truly meet and right to Bless Thee, O Mother of God..." anymore than I can subscribe to the OCA's insistence of using "you/your" for her and yet "Thee/Thou" for her Son.  People can nitpick--and indeed they love to nitpick--about how much more "precise" the original word, Theotokos, is than any English (or, for that matter, Slavonic) equivalent is.  But eventually those arguments slide right into the abyss of holding that no language but Greek is "pure" or "right" for Orthodox Christians.  That some Orthodox actually believe this I won't deny...

More on This

There appears to be some room right now for myself and others to say how tired we are of the "discussions" which spring up around certain contemporary American Orthodox evangelistic forms which are present in certain broadcasts and publicans produced by Orthodox Christians.  That would be a bit self-serving, I think.  It would also open us up to the charge that our "tiredness" is a "clear indication" of our collective "wrongheadedness."  Yes, some of us could be truly tired, but then it seems that we should simply drop the subject altogether and move on.  Most of us have not.  Even if we're disinclined from making much of it in the future, the odds are that the issue will resurface in some way, shape, or form.  Then the whole rigmarole recommences.  If there is any value to it, I suspect it is found in the fact that blog readers come and go; even old debates have a way of taking on relevance when examined by fresh eyes.  Perhaps it would be easier if instead of engaging in a new round of banter, people would just go back and cut n' paste their old posts and comments before seeing whether or not there is anything new to be said.  I know (blogging) life doesn't work that way, but from an efficiency standpoint, it really would be the best course of action.

Speaking only for myself, I can't say that I am tired.  Perhaps I am a bit bored, but only because I'm still waiting for the most fundamental criticisms advanced by myself and others against certain contemporary American Orthodox evangelistic forms to be met with a concrete defense (or a good offense--which is the best defense...or is it the other way around?).  I'd really rather not be personally attacked, mocked, parodied, or psychologized, though I like to think of myself as pretty thick skinned and not apt to get too bent out of shape by such things. 

I could, I suppose, let all of this stuff go and just take satisfaction that most of my criticisms and the criticisms of others against the aforementioned forms are on target.  That is, I could revel in my rightness.  But why?  Again, speaking only for myself, I never set out to show how "right" I am when I've criticized anything on the Internet.  My criticisms, and the criticisms of others, are set out because we see concrete problems which ought to be addressed.  At times I have been told to take my problems to "the source."  I confess that I have failed to do this on multiple occasions.  On the other hand, I have taken these admonishments to heart and have opted to voice my views to some in private.  All the same, I'm not daft.  I have very little confidence that what I say to certain individuals or groups of individuals will have a transformative effect.  Matters rarely work out so simply and I only have so much time to give to any issues--and this goes well beyond Orthodoxy--which I take up in my daily life.  Oftentimes I have to resign myself to the fact that if I want to make any impact at all, I have to try and air my views in the open to see if I might persuade others with their truthfulness while at the same time risking exposure of my falsehoods.  This is why, when I was 19 years old, I took it upon myself to write in to the op-ed page of the Grand Rapids Press my views on Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace rather than pen a personal letter to George Lucas himself.  I surmised that Mr. Lucas was too busy counting his money to read a note from yours truly.  I also suspected that any man who wrote dialog like someone who had never had an actual conversation with another human being in his life probably wouldn't be able to understand my criticisms in the first place.

But, back to the topic at hand...

I have never suffered under the delusion that anything I wrote online or to people personally will magically transform reality.  That's not "the point."  The point is to air my criticisms in public and let those who choose to read them do with them as they will.  If they find them beyond the pale, they can simply drop this web-log from their RSS feeds and add it to their web browser's list of blocked sites.  Since this is a web-log with an open combox, they can offer concurring or dissenting points of view.  The responses are posted instantly and, unlike letters to the editor to newspapers or magazines, remain unedited.  Perhaps people will reference them at a later date or perhaps they'll be lost in cyberspace for all time.  I really don't have any control over it.  Like many others, this is the "best" I have and if it fails, it fails. 

Now, maybe I shouldn't do this at all.  The classic question remains: "Who are you to do/say/think X?"  Such questions, whether or not they're intended rhetorically, used to generate a fairly spirited defense from me.  But why?  I don't have any "credentials" and I never will.  And even the "credentials" I do have to write, speak, and instruct on certain topics means very little if the substance of what I say is lacking or my logic has derailed.  The one thing I will not do is try to use a certain set of "credentials" in one area to prop-up my "legitimacy" in others.  (For an outstanding discussion of how this practice has become ubiquitous amongst our society's intelligentsia, see Richard Posner's Public Intellectuals: A Study in Decline.)  So, if you believe that a trained lawyer who works in academia is a priori incapable of rendering meaningful criticism about, say, certain contemporary American Orthodox evangelistic forms, then so be it.  My feelings won't be hurt.  I promise. 

All the same, it's the (New Calendar) Nativity Fast and I should take my own priest's recent sermon to heart--even on a web-log.  Surely I can find other things to write about.  The problems in American Orthodoxy aren't going to cure themselves in the next 40 days (though I pray they would).  I can return to these topics later.  So can others.  They'll still be here and so too our brother and sister despisers.  But given the season, I'll let Tiny Tim have the last word: "God Bless Us, Every One!"

Indicted

I have been indicted as a co-conspirator in the worst crime imaginable: criticizing an American Orthodox evangelism effort.  If I may be so bold, I share the repentance of the ringleader.