Taken from the website of the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle (Archons): http://www.archons.org/news/

New York, NY

6/18/2008

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has voiced his support for the Ecumenical Patriarchate, calling on the Turkish government to grant religious freedom for the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Obama’s remarks came in an interview with the Greek bureau of Voice of America, Greek media reported over the weekend.

“[Obama] called on Turkey to give religious freedom to the institution, return the property to the patriarchate and allow the opening of the theological school on the island of Halki,” Greek daily To Vima reported.

Ankara does not recognize Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s international role as the spiritual leader of hundreds of millions of Orthodox Christians worldwide. It rejects his use of the title “ecumenical,” or universal, arguing instead that the patriarch is merely the spiritual leader of Istanbul’s dwindling Orthodox community.

The Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul dates back to the 1,100-year-old Orthodox Greek Byzantine Empire, which collapsed when Muslim Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople, today’s Istanbul, in 1453.

Turkey has also been resisting EU pressure to reopen the Halki Seminary on the island of Heybeliada near Istanbul, which was closed to new students in 1971 under a law that put religious and military training under state control. The Theological School once trained generations of Greek Orthodox leaders, including the current Patriarch. The Seminary remained open until 1985, when the last five students graduated. An ethnic Greek but a Turkish citizen, Bartholomew says the Orthodox community could soon die out in Turkey if the Seminary is not reopened.

Recently, the nuns of our own St. John the Forerunner Monastery in Goldendale, Washington, were featured in a news article on OPB, the local National Public Radio station.  This is a very touching portrait of what the nuns’ life is like, how they chose a monastic vocation, and how their becoming nuns has affected their relationship with their families.

You can listen to the article and find a transcript here:

http://news.opb.org/article/2198-greek-orthodox-nuns-live-life-prayer-mountains-washington/

New York, NY — His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, spiritual leader of 250 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, has been recognized by Time Magazine as one of the world’s most influential people. This is the fifth annual list compiled by the magazine. In an article included with the selection and written by the Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Church, Rowan Williams, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is honored for his clear moral and spiritual vision and for his concern for the environment.

Williams states, “In a way that is profoundly loyal to the traditions of worship and reflection in the Eastern Orthodox Church, he has insisted that ecological questions are essentially spiritual ones. He has stressed that a world in which God the Creator uses the material stuff of the universe to communicate who he is and what he wants is one that demands reverence from human beings. Probably more than any other religious leader from any faith, Patriarch Bartholomew, 68, has kept open this spiritual dimension of environmentalism…. The title Ecumenical Patriarch historically refers to the Patriarch’s pastoral responsibility for ‘the whole inhabited world.’ This brave and visionary pastor has given a completely new sense to the ancient honorific; his work puts squarely on our agenda the question of how we express spiritual responsibility for the world we live in.”

Time Magazine’s complete list of the 100 most influential people appears in the May 12 issue, and the article on Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew can be viewed online by clicking here.

The following is my Dynamis article for May; as we enter the season of the Pentecostarion, it seemed appropriate to place it on the blog as well.

Taking Joy Seriously
Celebrating the Pentecost Season

Every year at about this time, I am struck by an observation about the season of Great Lent, the period leading up to Pascha, and the season of Pentecost, the period that follows.  In our Orthodox tradition, these two seasons are “symmetrical;” that is, just as there are forty days of fasting leading up to Easter, so there are forty days of celebration that follow.  And just as there is a “Holy Week” during which the events leading up to Christ’s death and Resurrection are commemorated with deep solemnity and seriousness, so there is a “Bright Week” in which every day is celebrated as another Easter, full of gladness and great joy.

And yet the observation that I come to each year is this: we do not take the forty days that follow Easter nearly as seriously as the forty days of Lent that precede it.  We are not serious about joy, so to speak.  After all, we have many additional services during the Lenten season, as well as retreats and special speakers discussing themes of fasting, repentance, and spiritual discipline.  Why then do we not have special events during the Easter season, in which we focus on joy and celebration as being just as essential to the Christian life as fasting and penitence?

I fear that the answer to this question is that we do not take joy seriously as a way of being in the world.  Penitence is seen as a more authentically spiritual state of being than happiness.  We seem almost suspicious of joy, as if the joyful person is somehow oblivious, not paying attention to all the serious matters that are going on in the world: war, poverty, disease, famine, death.  In the midst of such enormous problems, joy can seem frivolous or trivial.

And yet in his Epistle to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul tells us that joy is one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit (cf. Gal. 5:22); he does not include sorrow or repentance among these spiritual gifts.  And in the Epistle to the Romans Paul says, “The Kingdom of God is justice, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 14:17).  Joy is a gift, a foretaste of heaven, the presence of the Kingdom of God here and now.  It is not something that we can earn or manufacture, nor is it a reward for our good deeds.  Joy is rather a matter of receptivity and openness; it comes to us when we recognize that grace is hidden in all things.

Perhaps another reason that we neglect the Pentecost season is this: we invest so much energy in Lent and Holy Week that we simply feel exhausted after Easter, with nothing left to give for Bright Week and Pentecost.  We are like runners who use up all their energy in the first part of the race, and collapse halfway through.  Unfortunately, this is especially true of clergy.  And yet it seems especially important for us to give this season its due, since our community celebrates its feast day on the day following Pentecost, the Monday of the Holy Spirit, at the conclusion of the season that follows Easter.  If Clean Monday is the beginning of the preparation for Easter, then Bright Monday is the beginning of the preparation for Pentecost, and we should take this period of joyful preparation no less seriously than the sober preparation of Great Lent.

I want to conclude by offering one simple idea as to how we might take the joyous season of Pentecost more seriously. After the first few days of Pascha, it is easy for us to stop greeting each other with “Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!” and to lapse back into our routine of “hello” and “how are you.”  Perhaps one way of taking the season of Pentecost more seriously is to make a conscious effort to greet one another joyfully with these words throughout the forty days, or even simply to breathe them from time to time throughout the day as a prayer of joy and thanksgiving.

Throughout this season of Pentecost, I wish you the blessing and the gift of joy in the Holy Spirit.

The Archdiocese has published special resources on its website for Holy Week, including information about the biblical story of the events of Holy Week, commentary on the themes and icons of each day, and hymnography with audio links.

Kali Anastasi!

Fr. Paul

RESOURCES FOR HOLY WEEK AND PASCHA: This weekend is the beginning of Holy Week and the commemoration of our Lord’s Passion culminating in  celebration of His glorious Resurrection.  Visit this special site for resources for you, your home, and your parish during this solemn week of prayer, fasting, and worship.  http://www.lent.goarch.org/ 

Saturday of Lazarus: http://www.lent.goarch.org/saturday_of_lazarus/learn/

Palm Sunday: http://www.lent.goarch.org/palm_sunday/learn/ 

Bridegroom Services: http://www.lent.goarch.org/bridegroom_services/learn/ 

Holy Unction: http://www.lent.goarch.org/holy_wednesday/learn/

Holy Thursday: http://www.lent.goarch.org/holy_thursday/learn/

Holy Friday: http://www.lent.goarch.org/holy_friday/learn/

Holy Saturday: http://www.lent.goarch.org/holy_saturday/learn/ 

Great and Holy Pascha: http://www.lent.goarch.org/holy_pascha/learn/

Frank Schaeffer converted to Orthodoxy at about the same time that I did, and for years now I have watched the process of his development, from the angry young man of his earlier days to a somewhat more balanced and mature voice (although he can still be quite biting at times). Crazy for God, Schaeffer’s latest book, is also seemingly the most recent step in his process of personal transformation.

Fr. Paul

Publisher’s Weekly, 11/12/2007

Crazy For God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back
Frank Schaeffer. Carroll & Graf, $25.99 (416p) ISBN 9780786718917

Part autobiography, part parental tribute and part examination of how American evangelism got to where it is, versatile author Schaeffer tells a moving story of growing up and growing wise in his latest (after Baby Jack: A Novel). Raised in Switzerland in the utopian community and spiritual school his evangelical parents founded, Schaeffer was restless and aware even at a young age that “my life was being defined by my parent’s choices.” Still, he took to “the family business” well, following his dad as he became one of the “best-known evangelical leaders in the U.S.” on whirlwind speaking tours. While rubbing shoulders with such empire builders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson and Jerry Falwell, Schaeffer witnessed the birth of the Christian anti-abortion movement, and became an evangelical writer, speaker and star in his own right. His disillusionment, when it came, hit hard; while he would eventually achieve modest fame as a filmmaker and author (of novels and nonfiction), the initial stages of Schaeffer’s post-religious life were anything but glamorous; a particularly moving passage describes Schaeffer shoplifting pork chops rather than return to the evangelical fold. Schaeffer does not mince words, making his narrative honest, inflammatory and at times quite funny; despite its excess length and some confusing chronological leaps, this story of faith, fame and family in modern America is a worthy read.

I have been askd by the Clergy Brotherhood to give the homily this Sunday, the Sunday of Orthodoxy.  My chosen theme is that of “Orthodoxy and Religious Tolerance.”  Basically, on the one Sunday of the year when the “triumphal” spirit of Orthodoxy is perhaps most on display, I would like for us to consider what, if anything, religious tolerance means in an Orthodox framework.

 A couple of ideas I am working from.  The first is the apophatic dimension of Orthodox thought.  Apophaticism is the idea that it is always safer to say what God is not than what God is, since God’s essence cannot be grasped by human experience.  But another aspect of apophaticism is the refusal to define where God is, to set limits on the realm where the grace of God is present and active.  This is epitomized in a statement made by Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow: “We know where the Church is, we do not know where the Church is not; the walls we build on earth do not reach to heaven.”

And then there is this very interesting statement by one of the most prophetic voices of the modern Orthodox Church, Fr. Alexander Schmemann:

“As Christians, we believe that [Christ], who is the truth about both God and man, gives foretastes of His incarnation in all more fragmentary truths.  We believe as well that Christ is present in any seeker after truth.  Simone Weil has said that though a person may run as fast as he can away from Christ, if it is towards what he considers true, he runs straight into the arms of Christ.”

And as a final reference, I find this post (written by a Baptist preacher in Texas, if you can believe it) a very interesting reflection on tolerance and the future of Christianity.

Can Orthodoxy be considered a religion of tolerance?  Is tolerance even a desirable goal?  Can we be tolerant of other religions and still remain faithful and committed to the core of our tradition?

These are some of the questions I hope to address.

Blessed Lent.

Fr. Paul

This is an absolutely beautiful poem by Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras (1948-1972).  It is definitely going into my sermon this Sunday:

Disarmed

I have waged this war against myself for many years.
It was terrible.
But now I am disarmed.
I am no longer frightened of anything
because love banishes fear.
I am disarmed of the need to be right
and to justify myself by disqualifying others.
I am no longer on the defensive,
holding onto my riches,
I just want to welcome and to share.
I don’t hold on to my ideas and projects.
If someone shows me something better–
no, I shouldn’t say better but good–
I accept that person without any regrets.
I no longer seek to compare.
What is good, true and real is always for me the best.
That is why I have no fear.
When we are disarmed and dispossessed of self,
if we open our hearts to the God-Man
who makes all things new,
then He takes away past hurts
and reveals a new world
where everything is possible.

As we approach the Sunday of Forgiveness on March 9, I thought this website would be something interesting to peruse.  It is the website of the “Campaign for Love and Forgiveness,” a project of the Fetzer Foundation which seeks to ”encourage reflection and conversation about how love and forgiveness can effect meaningful change in individuals and society.”

www.loveandforgive.org

I’ll probably be looking through some of the materials here this week in preparation for my Sunday sermon.

 Fr. Paul

“But when he came to himself…” (Luke 15:17)

These few words from the Gospel of Luke are the central moment in the story of the Prodigal Son, the very heart of the narrative of this Sunday’s Gospel. The point of the story is that before we can repent, before we can make a new beginning or return to our true home, we must first return to ourselves, come to our senses; we have to wake up. Sometimes the spiritual life is portrayed as if it were a kind of narcotic, a drug that allows us to endure the pain and sorrow of life by inducing a pleasantly sleepy stupor; Karl Marx famously described religion as “the opiate of the masses.” But in truth, the spiritual life is not like this at all. It is a splash of cold water in the face, a bracing shock that allows us, perhaps for the very first time in our lives, to see ourselves and our situation clearly.

It may be said that our greatest spiritual problem is not that we do not repent, but rather that we do not come to ourselves, because until we do so, the way to repentance is not clear to us. We simply don’t know how or where to begin. As we embark upon the period of the Triodion, the season of preparation for Great Lent, we hear the prayer that is sung during the Orthros after the Resurrection Gospel: Open to me the door of repentance.The door to repentance is awakening, self-knowledge; self-awareness. It is returning to our senses. To open our eyes and face our true situation squarely can be a frightening task. We are afraid to look at ourselves honestly because we are afraid of what we might see, afraid, like the prodigal, of contemplating the depths of our reduced circumstances. And so we continue down the path we are on, blindly groping our way in darkness, afraid of what we might see if we opened up our eyes.

And yet coming to ourselves is not only a courageous act, it is also a hopeful act, perhaps the most hopeful act we can perform. We recognize that we have fallen far, but we also realize that all is not lost. When we come to ourselves we discover that change is possible. When we come to ourselves, we learn that we have options that we had not considered. When we come to ourselves, then the pathway home becomes clear. In the story of the Prodigal Son, it is said that the son returned home with no expectation of being received as a son, but only as a servant. But the Father rushed out to embrace him with open arms as a child and an heir, reminding us that at the moment that we take even one step towards God, God is already there to receive us with mercy and compassion surpassing all our expectations.

Lent is a hopeful season, perhaps the most hopeful season of the year. It is not intended as a dour observance of self-denial or a sublimated expression of self-loathing. Lent, above all, means coming to ourselves, making the profoundly optimistic discovery that change is possible, that there is a pathway home. If it is true, as it is said, that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” then perhaps the road back home is paved with self-awareness. Each step on this journey is simply a matter of waking up to the realization that all is not lost, that we are still children of a loving and compassionate Father, who is waiting for us, closer than we ever imagined.