SOURCE: Mystagogy
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This gathering in mutual honor gives to our Modesty an
opportunity to address, in love, a few fatherly words
about the need to preserve the pure truth of Orthodoxy in
this country and in our contemporary age. In America, just
as in a great melting-pot, cultures and religions blend in
the search for a new synthesis and faith, manufactured by
man, and wrongly hope that it will unite all people around
it, and will set us free from religious divisions and
opposition.
First of all, we ought to assuage our fellow man, who
might think that our message is one of disunity, for such
is not the case. The Orthodox Church feels and lives Her
catholicity as a salvific embrace of openness to all, not
only for those who belong to Her or who are kindly
disposed to Her, but even to Her enemies and persecutors.
What is more, the Church clearly forbids Her members from
every fanatical and divisive tendency. As the Church
accepts all of creation as very good (the body and soul of
man, the material and spiritual world), so does She accept
every person, “Jew and Greek, male and female, bond
and free.” Indifferent to these and all the other
distinctions, She accepts all people as children of God
and brethren of Her faithful members. And even if She
worships God in a special and unique way, excluding the
non-Orthodox from Her worship, according to the example of
our Lord Jesus Christ, Who gave to us the lofty and sacred
Mysteries in the “Mystical” Supper, in all the
rest of the life of the faithful, She does not divide them
from the rest of humanity. As the author from among the
first Christians characteristically wrote to Diogenetes,
Christians “follow customs not belonging to the
world in their raiment and way of life and living ... they
believe in certain laws ... they uphold the
world.”
Orthodoxy is a lived and continuously living truth. It is
not a truth which is comprehended intellectually and
received through some cold-hearted belief. It is truth,
which is revealed to us by the incarnate Son and Logos of
God, and from that time is confirmed experientially
through the heart’s assurance by divine grace. It
invites change in the whole mentality of the believer,
which change confers substantial transformations in his
inner condition as regards the world, his fellow man and
his God, as in the sanctification of his behavior by
grace. These changes of his condition and his life does
not lead to isolation and quarrels with his fellow man,
but to an abundance of joy, enthusiasm, peace, love toward
all and, to employ the words of the Apostle Paul, lead to
the fulfillment of his Christian vocation through the
fruits of the Holy Spirit, which are “love, joy,
peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
meekness, self-control.”
As we have said, Orthodoxy is a lived truth. This means
that it is lived dogma. The Brother of God, Iakovos,
writes about this in his Catholic Epistle, when he says
“show me your faith by your deeds.” That is,
deeds reveal belief, not as an abstract concept, but as
genuine content. For of one sort are the deeds of a
believing Orthodox, of another sort are the deeds in the
example of Hinduism. Consequently, the deeds of Orthodox
Christians reveal the careful observation which is the
content of our faith. We are not speaking about sins and
failings, to which we incline out of weakness; we are
speaking about works in accordance with our attempts to do
what is right. For example, the way of chanting in the
Holy Churches reveals eloquently if the faithful give a
greater significance to contrition or to aesthetic
enjoyment. Likewise, the manner of iconography reveals if
greater importance is given to the natural light, or to
the uncreated light which illumines the saints from
within; to the natural condition and natural comeliness,
or to the supernatural beauty, for which we are reaching.
The manner in which we arrange seating in Church manifests
our right worship, or our excessive concern for comfort,
and so on.
Because of this, the Orthodox Church, aside from Her basic
teaching, which contains the Symbol of Faith [Creed] and
the sacred Catechism, does not demand from the faithful a
hair-splitting concern with Her dogmatic teaching. Rather,
the Church dissuades the majority from doing so because of
the danger of misinterpretation and error. However, the
Church preserves the dogmatic teaching unalloyed with
great care, and calls that teaching to mind, when She sees
an erroneous way of life being followed, which reveals a
faulty understanding about the truth, that is, a faulty
understanding about the realities such as our Lord Jesus
Christ, Who is Himself the Truth, or the Church, which is
the Body of Christ. In these circumstances, the Church
reveals by the Holy Spirit the correct dogma, the correct
truth, so that She might teach the correct life and give
peace to troubled souls.
Orthodox Christians who live in a country where full
religious freedom reigns and where adherents of various
religions live side by side, the country of the United
States of America which has been so hospitable to us,
constantly see various ways of living and are in danger of
being beguiled by certain of them, without examining if
their way of life is consonant with the Orthodox Faith.
Constant vigilance and constant watchfulness are needed,
especially by the shepherds, who are particularly
responsible for the protection of the Orthodox inheritance
of the faith. Already, many of the old and new Orthodox,
who with zeal are deepening their understanding and living
of the Orthodox truth, are stressing a continually
expanding tendency of secularization, that is, a tendency
of judging ecclesiastical subjects and problems by worldly
criteria, with a debasement of ecclesiastical criteria.
They are also stressing, from ignorance, a substitution of
specific and general Orthodox dogmatic positions and
understandings, with Protestant and Roman Catholic ones,
as in the case of an overvaluation of personal opinion,
indifference to dogma, and recrimination at the expense of
character or practical virtue. They also stress many
extraneous liturgical customs out of an ignorance of the
rich symbolism of each liturgical action and its deeper
meaning, with the result that they become, in certain
instances, arbitrary and altered.
The subject of the quality and faithfulness of the
translations of ecclesiastical and liturgical texts into
English that are being used requires special attention.
Already one can note that in many instances, not only are
these inferior, but they are seen unconsciously
introducing wrong beliefs and even heretical notions into
Orthodox worship. The conveyance of subtle and precise
meanings of sacred texts and of the poetical hymnology of
the Orthodox Church into another language is a most
difficult task. Even the best knowledge of both languages
is not enough. It demands holiness of life, for only then
does the translator enter into the depths of divine
meanings and is able to convey them faithfully into
another language. It is sufficient to observe that only
Saint John Chrysostom abbreviated the Divine Liturgy of
Saint Basil the Great, that Saints Cyril and Methodios
successfully translated sacred texts into the Slavic
language, and after them, holy persons successfully
translated other texts into other languages. Many of the
Saints translated into new languages hitherto untranslated
ecclesiastical terminology and thus enriched these
languages with thousands of new foreign words from the
Greek language.
The ecclesiastical language of the prototypes is poetic,
lofty, rich, deep and draws those who hear it to spiritual
ascents, to a place where the sacred and wondrous mystery
is perfected, where the Most High Triune God is
worshipped. It is not fitting that this worship be
rendered prosaically into the usual everyday language, but
through a subtle and exalted clarity, be rendered in such
a way that the hearer is transported to another reality,
to another higher world. Besides, the whole performance of
liturgy aims at this mystagogical elevation to the Throne
of God, before Whom the Trisagion Hymn is sung with the
Cherubim. The amazement at the sacred vestments, the
contrite psalmody, the fragrance of the incense, the
environment of the Church decorated with sacred figures,
the unique quality of the architecture - all these things
transport us to the other reality, [which is] the Church.
Within all this sanctity, we ought not use everyday
language, which brings us down once again to earth.
We know that many will say that the meanings of the
prayers, the troparia, the readings and the rest of the
liturgical texts must be understood. In principle, this is
correct, but that which hinders understanding is not so
much the form of the language, as much as it is the lack
of familiarity on the part of the hearers with the
meanings of our faith. Not a single text is comprehensible
without familiarity by the reader and the hearer of its
content. Impoverishment not capable beyond only certain
limits, will little support the understanding of a musical
or medical book. That which is required for the unfamiliar
is a simplified expression. In the Orthodox Church this
ought to be done through preaching, through study and
through similar means, and not through the enfeebling
popularization of sacred texts, for its own sake. Besides,
as we said, these texts call us and ought to remain
invitations to ascend.
Through all of this, we do not take sides against
translations. Rather, the Orthodox Church has always
recommended that the people be taught the faith and
worship God in their own language. We draw your attention,
however, to concern over quality, dogmatic exactitude and
a loftier language for translations.
Another subject, in which special attention is required,
is the subject of the mixture, sometimes, of different
local traditions with Orthodox Tradition. As is well
known, the Orthodox Church came to America through
immigrants, who brought to America at the same time their
Orthodox Faith and their local or ethnic traditions. We
respect these traditions and we congratulate those who
make an effort to preserve them. However, we must
distinguish them from the Orthodox Tradition. This has a
special significance for those coming to Orthodoxy from
other Confessions, who do not relate with the country of
provenance of the community in which they are enrolled,
for they have no obligation to follow the local traditions
of the national provenance of the community, but only
those of Orthodoxy. This certainly does not mean that the
other members of the community are deterred in any way,
rather we encourage them to preserve the traditions of
their people. As regards, however, to our people we
encourage them to keep the beautiful traditions of our
race. This simply means that whatever traditions do not
relate to Orthodoxy, but to other parts of our life, ought
not to be imposed on the newcomers as a so-called part of
Orthodoxy. For example, ethnic choirs of different
Christian peoples ought not to be imposed as an obligation
on our brethren committed to Orthodoxy of another
nationality.
The offering [of this example] of our brothers and sisters
brings us to another serious spiritual problem, which we
ought to face. It is the problem of the suitable reception
and instruction of those coming to Orthodoxy from another
dogma or religion. As is known, Orthodox ecclesiastical
communities were established by groups of immigrants of a
certain ancestry, with the purpose of serving them and
their descendants. The Orthodox Church is open to all,
however, for it has pleased the Lord in these latter days
that the seed of truth should bear much fruit in the
hearts of many non-Orthodox, who are returning to the
Mother Church. We must prepare how we are to receive them
suitably. The fitting manner of their reception has many
wrinkles, from problems of language to their meeting in
love, from the knowledge of their peculiarities, the
remains of their former beliefs and mentality, and
adapting to their needs for catechism and preaching, to
their correct living out of the practical consequences of
being Orthodox. This issue is serious and large and will
be faced henceforth more frequently. For this reason and
without setting forth solutions at this time, we propose
that this occupy you seriously and that it occupy you
continuously.
The aforementioned do not mean that these problems exist
in all the parishes, or that they have impact everywhere.
However, they do comprise a cautionary note for all of us
to be vigilant about. This vigilance is the command of the
Lord. The Lord said “watch and pray that you enter
not into temptation,” meaning surely temptations as
regards the truth, which temptation is significantly more
insidious. For usually, all of us notice the temptation to
sin, and perchance we fall, we repent, are confessed and
are restored. But if we fall into the temptation of error
as regards the faith, with great difficulty can we discern
it, and sometimes we remain in our error, rejecting the
suggestion that we return to the correct path.
There is, therefore, a great need in these critical times,
that we watch, so not to fall into the temptation of error
concerning the faith, or a further course away from our
faith. In this matter, the responsibility of the
professors and students of this Theological School is even
greater. For they have the necessary means and are able to
note the stealthy insinuations which find their way into
Orthodox teachings and life these days, even that which is
written from a non-Orthodox perspective. It is not right
for our newly-enlightened brethren, full of zeal, to point
out such issues, before we have done so ourselves.
We hope that it will be a joint effort on all our parts to
remove every inimical and worldly effect from our Orthodox
Faith, and that the Orthodox Faith may be preserved pure
and unalloyed in America. We close our talk with our
heartfelt paternal and Patriarchal prayer that we see our
faith be true to itself and untainted, and that those who
labor in this work may have the blessing of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
May His grace, and the infinite mercy of the Father, and the illumination of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
