Social Aims ?

THE SOCIAL AIMS OF ORTHODOXY

Now what is the social aspect of our present subject? Take any human being, any person whatsoever, who lives in society and must function as a healthy social entity.

Earlier we referred to the healing of the human souls noetic energy. The completion of this course of treatment automatically results in the creation of a social human being, a person whose soul is healthy and who is prepared for all aspects of social activity. And such healed people, automatically and implicitly, are “ordained” doctors for others whose souls are sick. Here, the medical science called Orthodoxy differs from other sciences: once patients have been healed, they automatically become people who can heal others. For this reason, it is inconceivable for people who have been healed not to have spiritual children – that is to say, other people who depend on them spiritually, other people whom they advise and guide towards healing.

In the early Church, there was no special or official healer, because every Christian was a healer. Healing was the mission of the early Church. The missionary effort of the early Church was not like that of today’s Orthodox Church, which sometimes consists of advertising our beautiful beliefs and traditional form of worship as though they were nothing but products for sale. For example, we talk like this: “Take a look, folks! We have the most beautiful doctrines, the most beautiful worship, the most beautiful chanting, and the most beautiful vestments. See what a beautiful robe the bishop is wearing today!” And that sort of thing. We try to dazzle them with our staffs, our robes, and our head coverings so that we can carry out our missionary work. Of course, there is some sense and some success in doing missionary work this way, but it is not genuine missionary work like that of the early Church.

Today’s missionary work consists mainly of this: we enlighten superstitious people and make them Orthodox Christians, without trying to heal them. By doing this, however, we are just replacing or exchanging their former beliefs with a new set of beliefs. We are replacing one superstition with another. And I say this because when Orthodoxy is presented in this way and is offered in this way, how is it different from superstition? After all, when Orthodoxy is presented and offered as a Christianity that does not heal – despite the fact that healing is its primary task – how is it different from superstition?

There are Christians in the West who also have Christian dogmas and accept certain councils. On the basis of outward appearance, there does not seem to be such a great difference between the dogmas of the heretics and those of the Orthodox. The difference is not as huge as it is between Christians and idolaters. On the surface, Orthodox doctrine is not so strikingly different from that of heterodox Christians, especially given the fact that Orthodox doctrine, as taught today in Greece, is unrelated to the therapeutic treatment found in Orthodox tradition. So from the perspective of doctrine, how is Orthodox tradition different from the tradition of the heterodox? And why should someone who is not Orthodox believe in Orthodoxy and not in some other Christian dogma? After all, in the way that they are presented, neither one of them is offered as a treatment or pathway towards healing, but as superstition.

These days we talk about changing our way of thinking, about changing our beliefs, about changing our outlook on life, and this is the way we view repentance. In other words, for Orthodoxy today repentance is identified merely with the acceptance of Christ. That is to say, we accept Christ. And because we accept Him, we go to Church, we light a candle or two, and we become good little boys and girls. If we are young, we go to Sunday school. If we are adults, we go to a religious meeting now and then. And supposedly we are living in repentance; supposedly we are repentant. Or else, if we have done something bad in our life, we show some regret and ask forgiveness and call what we are doing repentance. However, this is not repentance. It is simply regret. Regret is the beginning of repentance, but the human soul is not purified by mere regret. In order for one’s soul to be purified of the passions, the fear of God and repentance must first be present and continue throughout the stage of purification until it is completed with divine illumination, the illumination of our nous by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

Since the Orthodox do not put this therapeutic treatment into practice, what makes them different from those who are not Orthodox? Is it doctrine? And what good are Orthodox doctrines if they are not used for the healing of the soul? When used in such a way, doctrine offers no benefit whatsoever.

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Patristic Theology: The University Lectures of Protopresbyter John Romanides

Part One -The Rudiments of Orthodox Anthropology and Theology

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Ecclesiastical Music …

usic is of two kinds (as are the other arts also)—secular and ecclesiastical. Each of these has been developed by different feelings and different states of the soul. Secular music expresses worldly (i.e., carnal) feelings and desires. Although these feelings may be very refined (romantic, sentimental, idealistic, etc.), they do not cease being carnal. Nevertheless, many people believe that these feelings are spiritual. However, spiritual feelings are expressed only by ecclesiastical music. Only ecclesiastical music can truly express the secret movements of the heart, which are entirely different from those inspired and developed by secular music. That is, it expresses contrition, humility, suffering and godly grief, which, as Paul says, “worketh repentance to salvation.”2 Ecclesiastical music can also evoke feelings of praise, thanksgiving, and holy enthusiasm. Secular music, on the other hand—even the purest—expresses carnal emotions, even when it is inspired by suffering and affliction. This type of suffering, Paul calls “worldly grief,” which “worketh death.”3

Thus two kinds of music were formed, the secular, which arouses emotion—any kind of emotion—and ecclesiastical music, which evokes contrition. St. John Chrysostom strongly condemns the attempts that were made by some of his contemporaries to introduce into the Church secular music, the music of the theater and the mimes.

Only the arts which were developed by devout motives since the early years of Christianity have given expression to the spiritual essence of the religion. These alone can be called liturgical, that is, spiritual, in the sense that religion gives to the term spiritual. The “spiritual odes” of which Paul speaks4 were works of such art. All the liturgical arts express the same thing: architecture, hymnody, iconography, embroidery, and even writing, the manner of walking, and in general the movements and gestures of the priests, the chiming of the bells, and so forth.

That these arts are truly of unique spirituality has been realized by many non-Orthodox, especially clergymen, whose sense-organs have been exposed, from youth on, to formative influences different from those in which Orthodox Christians have been brought up. Nevertheless, they confess that our icons and psalmody evoke in them contrition—of course, when executed by inspired and pious artists.

Thus, the value of the liturgical arts is not merely conventional, but real, extending beyond the limited conceptions that are due to nurture, habit, and taste, since even persons who are not of the Orthodox faith recognize that the arts of the Orthodox Church reflect the spirit of the Gospels and for this reason lift the soul above the earthly realm. And how could it be otherwise, inasmuch as these arts have been developed by sanctified hearts, which felt deeply the liturgical element in speech and music? Liturgical music is the natural musical garb of liturgical speech. Both sprang up together; they are one and the same thing. Essence and expression here have an absolute correspondence, even more exact than that of an object and its reflection in a mirror, for the objects of which we speak here belong to the spiritual realm. The profound and apocalyptic spirit of Christian religion and its mysteries could not be expressed faithfully and worthily except by these arts, which are called liturgical and spiritual, and which were developed by that same profound spirit. Only this music, and none other, uniquely expresses the spirit of our religion, because only this music has an absolute and most exact correspondence with it. This is testified to, I repeat, by certain men whose spiritual upbringing, religious training, phyletic and other heritage have no relation to that of the Orthodox. “The Spirit bloweth where it listeth,”5 and is transmitted to souls by means of sounds which the same Spirit formed, by illuminating the souls of the holy writers of hymns.

The Fathers of the Church ordained that Christians use the voice alone in execution of hymns, chanting as did our Lord Himself and His disciples. St. John Chrysostom says: “Our Savior chanted hymns just as we do.” The Apostolic Constitutions forbid the use of musical instruments in the church. From the time of the Apostles, psalmody was monophonic, or homophonic, as it is to this day in our churches [in Greece].

The “Western Church”, in order to gratify people and flatter their tastes, put instruments inside the churches, disobeying what was ordained by the Fathers. They did this because they had no idea what liturgical music was and what secular music was, just as they did not know the difference between liturgical painting and secular painting. But the Byzantines distinguished the one from the other, and this shows how much more spiritual they were in comparison with the Westerners and how much more truly they experienced the spirit of Christianity. Byzantine music is, in comparison with the music of the West, exactly as Orthodox iconography is in comparison with the religious painting of the West.

How divine, indeed, is the psalmody of the Orthodox Church! It seems sweeter and sweeter each year to the Christian—a new wine that fills the heart with joy and makes it soar to the ethereal region of immortal life.

Byzantine music is peaceful, sad but consoling, enthusiastic but reserved, humble but heroic, simple but profound. It has the same spiritual essence as the Gospels, the hymns, the psalms, the books of the lives of the saints, and the iconography of Byzantium. That is why Byzantine music is monotonous for one to whom the Gospels are monotonous, naive for one to whom the Gospels are naive, circumscribed for one to whom the Gospels are circumscribed, mournful for one to whom the Gospels are mournful, antiquated for one to whom the Gospels are antiquated. But it is joyful for one to whom the Gospels are joyful, filled with compunction for one to whom the Gospels are filled with compunction, enthusiastic but humble for one to whom the Gospels, are enthusiastic but humble, and peaceful for one who experiences the peace of Christ.

Byzantine art is spiritual, and it is necessary that a man have spiritual depth in order to understand its mystical treasures. Byzantine music expresses “gladdening sorrow,”6 that is, that spiritual fragrance which only the spiritual senses are capable of experiencing. Its melody is not unholy, ostentatious, despondent, shallow, tasteless, or aimless; it is meek, humble, sweet with a certain bittersweetness, and full of contrition and mercy. It bestows an unwaning spiritual glory upon souls that have become worthy of the eternal mysteries and the compassion of God. It expresses thanksgiving; it causes the flow of tears of gratitude and spiritual joy. This music is the warmest, the most direct, and the most concise expression of the religious feeling of faithful Orthodox people.

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NOTES:

1 Photios Kontoglou of blessed memory (1895-1965) played a major role in the glorious return of traditional Byzantine
iconography to the Greek Orthodox world in the twentieth century. He was also an accomplished chanter and a spiritual
writer who inspired countless souls to embrace the unadultered traditions of the Orthodox faith. This epilogue consists
of selections from his writings translated in the book Byzantine Sacred Art by Dr. Constantine Cavarnos, who was one
of his disciples.
2 II Cor. 7:10
3 Ibid.
4 Vid. Eph. 5:19 and Col. 3:16
5 Jn. 3:8
6 Vid. The Ladder, Step 7:9 (Migne, Patrologia Graeca, vol. 88, col. 804B)

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Click here for PDF version

Modernism …

Orthodox Tradition and Modernism, [<- pdf file] a monograph by Dr. Constantine Cavarnos that introduces the concept of Orthodox Tradition and discusses the modern innovations of our day. He concludes with a short discussion of ecumenism, for which modernism is the “midwife.”

Three degrees . . .

Degrees of theoria

-A few days ago you mentioned that theoria has many degrees; noetic prayer is only one of its first stages and there is always an evolution. Can you analyse this more for us?

-St. Gregory Palamas distinguishes illumination, theoria-vision of God and constant theoria of God, which may last for a few hours, days or even weeks. St. Maximos the Confessor teaches that the knowledge of the causes of beings -which occurs at the stage of illumination consists in the theoria of the uncreated providential energy of God. Many Fathers, also, say that repentance is inspired by the Comforter. It is only through repentance that we are granted to see our spiritual desolation, our passions, and start struggling against them. At this point I would like to refer to the eight levels of spiritual theoria, according to St. Peter Damascene.

The f i r s t theoria is the knowledge of the afflictions and temptations of life. It is when man realises the beneficial presence of God and His blessedness in temptations. The s e c o n d theoria is the knowledge of the benefactions of God and the awareness of our sins and passions. The t h i r d theoria is the knowledge of the sufferings awaiting for us before and after death. The f o u r t h theoria is the understanding of the life of Christ before the Passions and of the Resurrection as well as the real knowledge of the words and deeds of all the Saints and martyrs. The f i f t h theoria is the knowledge of the nature and flux of things. The s i x t h theoria is the theoria of beings. It is the knowledge of the uncreated providential energy of God which maintains and enlivens creatures. The s e v e n t h theoria is perceiving the angels which are the noetic creatures of God. Finally the e i g h t h theoria is the theoria-vision of God, the knowledge of God which is called theology. St. Peter Damascene says that the first three theoriae are of the man of praxis (action), that is, of him who is at the stage of purification. The other five are theoriae of man who is at the illumination of the nous. The eighth is the theoria of the age to come and belongs actually to the age to come, but some people are granted to enjoy it in betrothal even in this life.

-Therefore, theoria develops. The more man progresses in his spiritual life, the more he ascends the stages of spiritual perfection, the more he obtains higher theoria of God and, consequently, knowledge of God, said Irene. Does this evolution ever cease?

-Spiritual life is not static, but dynamic. St. Maximos speaks of the “ever-moving cessation” and the “standing motion”. St. Gregory of Nyssa teaches that virtue has no limit. And naturally, when he speaks of virtues he does not mean human deeds, which are natural virtues, but the fruits of the Most Holy Spirit, which are the result of man’s communion with God. Perfection, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, has no boundaries. For virtue has only one condition, that it has no limits. Man is continually perfected and there is no end to this perfection. This will also continue in the life to come. There will be continuous progress for the man who has entered the stage of purification and illumination. St. Gregory of Nyssa points out that participation in the divine good becomes richer and fuller and it continually increases “him who is fed by it and this increase never ceases”. St. Gregory the Sinaite says that in the age to come the angels and Saints “shall not ever cease advancing in grace”. St. John the Sinaite teaches the same thing. He says that the good workers progress from the power of practical life (i.e. stage of purification) to the power of theoria and since love never ends its limit is unlimited. The progress of the good workers shall never cease, “receiving Light upon Light”. St. Gregory brings as an example the noetic angelic powers, who always receive glory upon glory and knowledge in addition to their knowledge. This ceaseless perfection takes place not only in the present life, but also in the age to come. Asking whether the Saints will infinitely advance in theoria in the future age, St. Gregory Palamas gives himself the answer: “It is obvious that they infinitely will”. Thus, the people of God constantly develop. They grow in spiritual life. There is never an end to this development and theoria. Man can never reach the perfection of Christ. This is evident even in the terms which are used in the Holy Scripture: The term “in the image” signifies something static, whereas a continuous evolution is implied by the phrase “in the likeness”. When we live in the Orthodox tradition, we cannot ever come to a stand still, because this leads us to pietism. The knowledge and experience of tradition begets humility, but also progress in spiritual life.

-However, why has all of this tradition, which you develop for us here, been lost? asked Basil. Why have we come to be unaware of essential elements in our Christian life? Why is this “maternal language” of our Church not spoken today? Why have we lost the living patristic word? I understand, as the time goes by and the conversation unfolds, that this is the real Orthodox life. Only in this way can we understand that the Church is not a religious organisation, but a living organism, which enlivens man and makes him a member of the Body of Christ. Thus we realise that Christ is the life of people. Christ is the life of the world and of people, because He heals man and helps him pass the stages of perfection. Why, I repeat, have we lost this tradition?

God’s blessings equally …

Saint Peter the Damascene writes: ”We all receive God’s blessings equally. But some of us, receiving God’s fire, that is, His word, become soft like beeswax, while the others like clay become hard as stone. And if we do not want Him, He does not force any of us, but like the sun He sends His rays and illuminates the whole world, and he who wants to see Him, sees Him, whereas the one who does not want to see Him, is not forced by Him. And no one is responsible for this privation of light except the one who does not want to have it. God created the sun and the eye. Man is free to receive the sun’s light or not. The same is true here. God sends the light of knowledge like rays to all, but He also gave us faith like an eye. The one who wants to receive knowledge through faith, keeps it by his works, and so God gives him more willingness, knowledge, and power” (Philokalia,vol. 3, p. 8).

Fotis Kontoglou said somewhere that “Faith is fire, and gives warmth to the heart. The Holy Spirit came down upon the heads of the apostles in the form of tongues of fire. The two disciples, when the Lord was revealed to them, said ‘Did not our heart burn within us, while He talked with us in the way?’ Christ compares faith to a ‘burning candle.’ Saint John the Forerunner said in his sermons that Christ will baptize men ‘in the Holy Spirit and fire.’ And truly, the Lord said, ‘I am come to send fire on the earth and what will I if it be already kindled? Well, the most tangible characteristic of faith is warmth; this is why they speak about ‘warm faith,’ or ‘faith provoking warmth.’ And even as the distinctive mark of faith is warmth, the sure mark of unbelief is coldness.

“Do not deceive yourself,” says Saint Symeon the New Theologian, “God is fire and when He came into the world, and became man, He sent fire on the earth, as He Himself says; this fire turns about searching to find material – that is a disposition and an intention that is good – to fall into and to kindle; and for those in whom this fire will ignite, it becomes a great flame, which reaches Heaven…. this flame at first purifies us from the pollution of passions and then it becomes in us food and drink and light and joy, and renders us light ourselves because we participate in His light” (Discourse 78).

The River of Fire by Dr. Alexander Kalomiros

closer to death . . .

The Journal of the Elder-Confessor Nikon of Optina Skete

A conversation with the holy Elder Barsanuphius of Optina

“While we were talking, the clock struck nine in the evening. As always, we crossed ourselves. The Elder stopped, and then said, “It won’t strike that way ever again.”

“What?” I said.

“It’s nine o’clock in the evening, on March 4, 1908, and it won’t ever strike that hour again. True, it will strike tomorrow morning, and again in the evening, but it won’t strike that way again, for that time is already gone, and each sound of the pendulum takes time away from us and draws us closer to death.”

Godliness

GODLINESS: TO KEEP WHAT IS GOD’S IN HONOR

(From a sermon delivered at a priests’ conference at Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, New York, in 1966; Orthodox Russia, 1966, no. 19, pg.8 .)

What to do? With such a question I appealed in 1921 to an Optina Elder…. After going through the frightful revolutionary years of 1917, 1918, and 1919, when everything was collapsing and being destroyed, I came to a state which was simply pathological: why fight when everything is coming to an end? My outlook was transmitted to my close ones. The Revolution, the chaos as it were, confirmed my words for those around me.

I became a priest, but the conditions of my soul remained the same. And thus it was that I went to Optina to the Elder with the question: What to do?

The most important thing the Elder [Nectarius] told me was this: “The Church of Christ goes as it were on a railroad track. The path of the rails is known, it is defined, but you and I must pay attention to what happens in the coach which is on the rails. In the coach occurs the personal life of a man. A man goes in and out of the coach, and there will be an end to the rails, but the end of each person is separate: one leaves the coach earlier, another later, and here it is that Christian godliness is necessary.

“The dogmas of faith, faith itself is revealed to us, and none of us doubts it; but the confession of faith must be in godliness. ‘No one is good save God alone’—this is to hold what is God’s in honor. It is the Divine that must be our concern; it must enter into all sides of our life—personal, family, public. Godliness is disclosed to us by the daily Divine services. At the daily Midnight Service is read the 17th Kathisma, which is a disclosure of God’s righteousness by the Prophet David to his son Solomon. And the Church offers the 17th Kathisma in order to reveal our inward being. One of the methods for godliness is given by the Holy Church in a spiritual exercise which trains our mind to the remembrance of the Name of God—’Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us.’ Monastics are given a prayer-rope, but for a priest in the world the prayerful remembrance of his spiritual children can serve for training in the remembrance of the Name of God.”

And so: What to do? The Elder said: “Live in such away that what is God’s will be in honor; and the first, the chief thing is your mind, which must be in God.”

automatically ?

“Baptism . . . is not a negative forgiveness of guilt inherited as a consequence of the sin of Adam. On the contrary, it is a release from the powers of the devil. (-) This abolition of the power of the devil, however, does not happen with only a passive participation of the one being baptized. He must have not only faith, but also the desire to die with Christ in the waters of baptism.”

Fr. John Romanides

Asceticism . . .

Buddhism and Eastern Asceticism Compared to

Orthodox Christian Asceticism*

An Excerpt from The Hidden Man of the Heart

by Archimandrite Zacharias

It is unfortunate that there is widespread confusion, not to mention delusion, in the inexperienced, whereby the Jesus Prayer is thought to be equivalent to yoga in Buddhism, or ‘transcendental meditation’, and other such Eastern exotica. Any similarity, however, is mostly external, and any inner convergence does not rise beyond the natural ‘anatomy’ of the human soul. The fundamental difference between Christianity and other beliefs and practices lies in the fact that the Jesus Prayer is based on the revelation of the One true living and personal God as Holy Trinity No other path admits any possibility of a living relationship between God and the person who prays.

Eastern asceticism aims at divesting the mind of all that is relative and transitory, so that man may identify with the impersonal Absolute. This Absolute is believed to be man’s original ‘nature’, which suffered degradation and degeneration by entering a multiform and ever-changing earth-bound life. Ascetic practice like this is, above all, centred upon the self, and is totally dependent on man’s will. Its intellectual character betrays the fullness of human nature, in that it takes no account of the heart. Man’s main struggle is to return to the anonymous Supra-personal Absolute and to be dissolved in it. He must therefore aspire to efface the soul (Atman) in order to be one with this anonymous ocean of the Suprapersonal Absolute, and in this lies its basically negative purpose.

In his struggle to divest himself of all suffering and instability connected with transient life, the eastern ascetic immerses himself in the abstract and intellectual sphere of so-called pure Existence, a negative and impersonal sphere in which no vision of God is possible, only man’s vision of himself. There is no place for the heart in this practice. Progress in this form of asceticism depends only on one’s individual will to succeed. The Upanishads do not say anywhere that pride is an obstacle to spiritual progress, or that humility is a virtue. The positive dimension of Christian asceticism, in which self-denial leads to one’s clothing with the heavenly man, to the assumption of a supernatural form of life, the Source of which is the One True, Self-revealing God, is obviously and totally absent. Even in its more noble expressions, the self-denial in Buddhism is only the insignificant half of the picture. In the mind’s desire to return to its merely ‘natural’ self, it beholds its own nakedness in a ‘cloud of divestiture’. But at this point there is a grave risk of obsession with itself, of its marvelling at its own luminous but created beauty, and worshipping the creature more than the Creator (Rom. 1:25). The mind has by now begun to deify or idolise its self and then, according to the words of the Lord, ‘the last state of that man is worse than the first’ (Matt. 12:45).

Such are the limits of Eastern styles of contemplation, which do not claim to be the contemplation of God, and are in fact man’s contemplation of himself. This does not go beyond the boundaries of created being, nor does it draw anywhere near to the Truth of primordial Being, to the uncreated living God Who has revealed Himself to man. This kind of practice may well afford some relaxation or sharpen man’s psychological and intellectual functions, yet ‘that which is born of the flesh is flesh’ (John 3:6) and ‘they that are in the flesh cannot please God’ (Rom. 8:8).

In order to be authentic, any divestiture of the mind from its passionate attachments to the visible and transitory elements of this life must be linked to the truth about man. When man sees himself as he is in the sight of God, his only response is one of repentance. Such repentance is itself a gift of God, and it generates a certain pain of the heart which not only detaches the mind from corruptible things, but also unites it to the unseen and eternal things of God. In other words, divestiture as an end in itself is only half the matter, and it consists of human effort operating on the level of Created being. Christianity on the other hand, enjoins the ascetic to strive in the hope and expectation that his soul will be clothed, invested, with the grace of God, which leads him into the fullness of the immortal life for which he knows he has been created.

Many admire Buddha and compare him to Christ. Buddha. Buddha is particularly attractive because of his compassionate understanding of man’s condition and his eloquent teaching on freedom from suffering. But the Christian knows that Christ, the Only begotten Son of God, by His Passion, Cross, Death and Resurrection, willingly and sinlessly entered into the totality of human pain, transforming it into an expression of His perfect love. He thereby healed His creature from the mortal wound inflicted by the ancestral sin, and made it ‘a new creation’ unto eternal life. Pain of heart is therefore of great value in the practice of prayer, for its presence is a sign that the ascetic is not far from the true and holy path of love for God. If God, through suffering, showed His perfect love for us, similarly, man has the possibility, through suffering, to return his love to God.

Consequently, prayer is a matter of love. Man expresses love through prayer, and if we pray, it is an indication that we love God. If we do not pray, this indicates that we do not love God, for the measure of our prayer is the measure of our love for God. St. Silouan identifies love for God with prayer, and the Holy Fathers say that forgetfulness of God is the greatest of all passions, for it is the only passion that will not be fought by prayer through the Name of God. If we humble ourselves and invoke God’s help, trusting in His love, we are given the strength to conquer any passion; but when we are unmindful of God, the enemy is free to slay us.

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* OCIC note: The title was added for publication on this site. The untitled excerpt is from Chapter 5, “The Building Up of the Heart by Vigilance and Prayer”.

From The Hidden Man of the Heart: The Cultivation of the Heart in Orthodox Christian Anthropology, by Archimandrite Zacharias (Waymart, PA: Mount Thabor Publishing, 2008), pp. 66-68. Copyright 2008, The Stavropegic Monastery of St John the Baptist, Essex, UK. Posted on 8/9/2008 with the permission of the publisher.

Such a thing as …

On Conservatives and Liberals

Chapter 29 from Patristic Theology

by Father John Romanides

In their mudslinging campaign, the opponents of the hesychast revival have now called the supporters of this tradition conservative. But what does the word conservative mean in the West? In the West, a conservative is someone who still identifies the Bible with Gods revelation to mankind and the world, because in the old days Protestants and Roman Catholics believed in the literal inspiration of Holy Scripture. In other words, they believed that Christ dictated the Bible word for word to the prophets and writers of the gospels by means of the Holy Spirit, so that the writers of the Bible were like scribes who wrote down whatever they heard the Holy Spirit say.

But now Biblical criticism has come along and discredited this line of thought, dividing those in the Protestant world into conservative and liberal camps. For example, the Lutherans are divided into conservative and liberal factions. In America, there are separate Lutheran churches one church for liberals, and the church of the Missouri Synod for conservatives. One faction does not accept the Bible as revelation on absolute terms, while the other faction does. One can also observe the same phenomenon with the Baptists. The liberal Baptists do not accept the Holy Scripture as literally inspired revelation, while the others embrace it as revelation that is inspired word for word. You can also find the same division among the Methodists. In fact, this split between liberals and conservatives over the issue of Holy Scripture can be seen in all the Protestant denominations in America.

Now, ask yourself whether this division can be applied to Orthodox tradition. Are there conservative Fathers and liberal Fathers with respect to the Bible? Is there a single Church Father who teaches the literal inspiration of Holy Scripture? Is there a single Church Father who identifies the Holy Scripture with the experience of theosis itself? No, there is not one, because Gods revelation to mankind is the experience of theosis. In fact, since revelation is the experience of theosis, an experience that transcends all expressions and concepts, the identification of Holy Scripture with revelation is, in terms of dogmatic theology, pure heresy.

Can someone who accepts this Patristic teaching on theosis be characterized as conservative, based on the split over Scripture in the Protestant world? When liberal Protestants hear about this Patristic principle, they say, Oh yes, thats liberalism! while conservative Protestants say, No, its heresy! In other words, when we follow the Fathers, we Orthodox are heretics as far as conservative Protestants are concerned.

You may well ask, who are the Orthodox liberals and the Orthodox conservatives? They are those who do theology in a way that corresponds to the theology of Protestant liberals and conservatives. This is the reason why certain theologians in Greece have been divided into liberal and conservatives camps. The liberals follow liberal Protestants on these subjects while the conservatives follow their conservative counterparts.

But can we classify Patristic tradition using such characterizations and buzzwords? Of course not. Nevertheless, a hesychast theologian of the Eastern Church will be viewed as a liberal in the West, because he refuses to identify the written text of Holy Scripture, including its sayings and concepts, with revelation.

Since revelation is the experience of theosis, it is beyond comprehension, expression, and conceptualization. This means that the labels conservative or liberal should not be applied to those who adhere to Orthodox tradition. Based on what is meant by revelation, the Fathers are neither liberals nor conservatives. Simply put, there are Church Fathers who are saints of the Church who have only reached illumination and there are saints of the Church who have also reached theosis and are more glorious than the former class of saints.

This is the Patristic tradition either you attain to illumination or you attain to theosis once you have already passed through illumination. Orthodox tradition is nothing other than this curative course of treatment through which the nous is purified, illumined, and eventually glorified together with the entire man, if God so wills. Therefore, is there such a thing as an illumined liberal or an illumined conservative in this context? Of course not. You are either illumined or you are not. You have either reached theosis or you have not. You have either undergone this treatment, or you have not. Apart from these distinctions, there are no others.

From Patristic Theology – The University Lectures of Father John Romanides (Thessaloniki, Greece: Uncut Mountain Press, 2008), pp. 108-111. This book is distributed in North America by Uncut Mountain Supply.