Selections from Seminary

This is the making of a paschal troparion, the hymn “Christ is risen from the dead…”, in the Thai language and from the Thai culture. For obvious reasons—my wife is Thai and the whole family is highly affected by our ties to Thai culture—we have closely watched the progress of the Orthodox Church in Thailand. If there had been a paschal troparion in Thai, we would have been using it in our house years ago. But instead, every year, we bemoan the lack of a Thai troparion and talk about how wonderful it would be to have one. It is a small consolation that we have a Chinese paschal troparion that we love, one that feels Chinese, and thus a little bit closer to our Asian home. And then, a Thai troparion appeared. A few weeks ago, my wife showed me a Facebook post with a Thai paschal troparion, sung by Matushka Ksenia , wife of a Russian priest serving a parish in Thailand. (In that video, he is singing the isan, the drone note, but it is my understanding that she wrote the troparion.) Jus...

  In the gospel passage today, on the Sunday of the Last Judgment, our Lord relates what the Last Judgment will be like: as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats . Clearly, the Church prescribes this focus on the Last Judgment right before Lent to help aid us on the path toward repentance. But when we think of repentance, we often think of a list of “don’ts”. That is, we have done some of the don’ts , and need to repent . In my training as a teacher, it was highly suggested that I not have a sign of class rules full of don’ts: No talking. No eating. I nstead of telling the students what not to do, I was encouraged to tell them what behavior was expected: Please be respectful when others are talking. Water is allowed in the classroom, but eating needs to be in the cafeteria only. As a result, student behavior was less rebellious and more cooperative. In the same way, instead of thinking of a list of don’ts for the Christian life, w hat would be our list of dos ? In fact,...

One day last year, during a dogmatics class, the verse in St. John’s Prologue where he says Christ came and dwelt among us came up conversation. I forget why it came up, but what caught my attention was the little preposition: εν (“en”). That is what is normally translated as ‘among’ in most English translations, but to my knowledge it had more of the meaning of the English word ‘in’. ‘Among’ and ‘in’ have two very different meanings in my mind. Orthodox theology is very clear about God taking on human nature and deifying it. ‘Among’ sounds more like God coming, living alongside us, maybe the same place and same time, but still as something other than us. But I only have a feel for these words in English; what I really wondered was what the feel of the Greek word εν is in Greek, that is, to a native Greek speaker. When we were discussing this, Bishop Alexis happened to be right down the hall, and he spent more than twenty years living and breathing the services, the Scriptures, and the...

The "Prologue" of the Gospel of John employs a chiastic structure. Indeed, biblical writers of the Old and New Testaments used this structure to help lead our attention to their main point. The only problem is that we moderns are almost completely unacquainted with "chiasmus". "Chiasmus" is named for the Greek letter X (chi). To help explain, here is an example from 1John 4:7-8 (an example borrowed from the The Shape of Biblical Language by John Breck): A: for love  is of God ,    B: and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.    B': The one who does not love does not know God, A': for God  is love. A and A' relate to each other, and B and B' relate to each other. If there were more phrases, the order would be something like A, B, C, D, E, D', C', B', A', working toward the center and then working back out from it, with similarities in D and D', the C and C', and so on. Maybe you can see why the X is us...

“Hypocrite”, Jesus says. That’s a hard word. It is so easy, when reading the gospels, to see that hard word spoken to others, and so hard to hear it as a word to us. We, too, are hypocrites. The hypocrites in this lesson (Luke 13:10-17) followed all the rules, but missed spirit of the Law. We, in the midst of the fast, focus on the fasting rules. Maybe we follow them and maybe we don’t, but, still, our focus during the fast is on the rules. So easily, we lose sight of why we are fasting. Fasting is exercise. Like the athlete who disciplines himself, who diligently shows up everyday, who pushes himself: in the same way, we show up. We exercise. And better than that, these are more than random rules the Church has passed down to us; this training regimen is time-tested and proven. Do this...and you will find eternal life. Fasting is exercise. Fasting also... acquires the Holy Spirit . St. Seraphim of Sarov explains this when he says, "Prayer, fasting, vigil, and all other Christian ...

St. Jacob of Alaska was also an astute observer of the native people: their habits, their customs, and sometimes even their disposition towards the gospel. Every once in a while, his journals have an aside to explain points of interest—the dangers of navigation and shipping in Alaskan waters, the entryway of native houses in different regions, and such—in some of which, he speaks about the people’s receptivity to the gospel: “In matters of religion, I found the Kuriles to be devout or, as one may say, ready to be devout. However, presumably because of very rare approaches to them on behalf of the Christian Religion, they have no proper understanding either of the Christian faith or of their obligations as Christians.” In another of these asides, St. Jacob offers an almost humorous comment on the Tlingit people as he dwells on the prospects of a Protestant missionary who has come to convert them: "February 28: (1829) A second three masted American vessel [the barque Volunteer, Capt...

There is something fascinating to me about the moments that Jesus prays. It really challenges me to reevaluate what I think prayer is. What runs through my head is this simple question: Jesus is God...what is he praying about? We see one of these passages in Matthew 14.  At the first of this chapter Jesus finds out that Herod has killed John the Baptist. Jesus's reaction is to go out to the desert places to pray, but as often happens, the multitudes follow him. He doesn't send them away so he can pray, but rather, he has compassion on them he sees their needs, that they have been following him for three days with no food, and he feeds all 5,000 of them.  Then, he sends away the disciples, he sends away the multitude, and finally, he prays. So, what or how does God pray to God? A quote about prayer on this year's St. Tikhon Monastery wall calendar seems to help explain this a little. Two or three months back, it had a quote from St. John Climacus: "prayer is converse an...

For those of us coming from a Protestant background, especially from the "Evangelical" realm, we might be tempted to think of "saved" as 'made it into heaven', and thus accidentally read into St. Seraphim's saying a meaning something to the effect of, '...and thousands of people around you will accept Christ and become Christians as a result'. Though that meaning might be included in what St. Seraphim meant, it certainly is not the primary meaning, because that is not a traditionally Christian understanding of the word "saved". Without delving into the deep end of trying to fully understand "saved" in a more Orthodox manner, I will try to hone in on the one important aspect I see at work, to help us understand this quote. Think of the many places in the New Testament which speak of those "being saved"...well, that is not totally fair, because our translations do not always make that so clear in English. Search aroun...

St. Seraphim’s guidance in the spiritual life was focused on acquiring the grace of the Holy Spirit, and, as you will see, his use of the word “acquire”, a money and business term, is no accident: "Prayer, fasting, vigil, and all other Christian practices, however good they may be in themselves, do not constitute the aim of our Christian life, although they serve as the indispensable means of reaching this end. The true aim of our Christian life consists in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God." "'Acquiring is the same as obtaining,' he replied to me. 'You understand, of course, what acquiring money means. Acquiring the Spirit of God is exactly the same. You know well what it means in a worldly sense, your godliness, to acquire. The aim of life of ordinary worldly people is to acquire or make money, and for the nobility it is in addition to receive honors, distinctions, and other rewards for their services to the government. The acquisition of God's ...

As mentioned in the first of these posts about St. Seraphim, this may feel like a rabbit trail, but after establishing the authenticity of St. Seraphim's message and its connection to the fathers of old (in this post), then moving on to his primary teaching about the spiritual life (in the next post), we will finally be able to accept the understanding of his most famous quote for what it is: a condensed version of everything he lived and taught. The Little Russian Philokalia, in covering the life and teachings of St. Seraphim of Sarov, reminds us that “there is nothing whatever that is new in the spiritual face of St. Seraphim; all is from the Holy Fathers, of whom he is a most faithful disciple, appearing in the latter times like some great desert father of antiquity, like a new St. Macarius the Great.” The author goes on to say: "His spiritual instructions like his celebrated conversation with Motovilov on the acquisition of the Holy Spirit contain no new teaching, but sim...

These different variations of St. Seraphim's famous quote can carry slightly different emphases, but there seems to be another issue with this quote and how it challenges our understanding of salvation and “missions” in the Orthodox Church. There seems to be a thread of anti-monastic sentiment among Orthodox Christians today, as if the monastic life is something different than “normal” Christian life, and especially seeing monastics as anti-evangelical. This is theologically problematic, to be sure, but here, I will focus only on the desired re-interpretation of St. Seraphim’s quote. One respected source of Orthodox missions thinking today, a statement I heard with my own ears, suggested that Frederica Mathewes-Green was right in suggesting we have a misunderstanding of this quote, that is, the monk going out in the “desert” does not “save” anybody. I could not confirm any place that Frederica Mathewes-Green suggested this. Instead, she writes: "Being a saint is not a private ...

One of the most common patron saints American converts choose is St. Seraphim of Sarov. He has an obvious appeal. He, somehow, sums up Americans’ desire for conservative and traditional Christianity, while living out a beautifully “wild” and zealous life. He personifies the depths of spiritual life that so many of us yearn to possess. What more could we say about St. Seraphim than what our own enlightened, clairvoyant, and wonderworking San Franciscan saint, John Maximovitch, said of him in a homily, when he was still Hieromonk John, a seminary teacher in Serbia: "Thus, despite the changes that have taken place in the world, the memory of St. Seraphim not only does not fade, but it remains a lamp that shines ever brighter to humanity. … He was wholly occupied with the acquisition of 'the one thing needful'. ...The Lord gave us to see Himself in those like unto Him, in His saints. And so, one of these likenesses was St. Seraphim. In him we see restored human nature, freed ...

The Cappodocians, as well as St. Athanasius before them, had to respond to heretical teachings. As a result, their language was necessarily limited to refutation. That does not leave us with a clear affirmation of how to proceed toward the knowledge of God. Basil’s scriptural references, as well as the homilies and other non-polemical writings from Athanasius, the other Cappadocians, and Chrysostom, can give us a fuller picture, using more affirmative language, of how we can begin to know God. The Apostle Peter, at the end of his second epistle, leaves us with a very clear and affirmative charge to continue on into the depths of the knowledge of God: You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Then, 2 Peter starts off running: Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature (ἵνα διὰ τούτων γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως), having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. Not only is he speaking of partaking of the divine nature, but clearly connecting that with a practical, lived-out life of virtue, “escaping corruption”. Throughout Peter’s epistles, he develops this lived knowledge of God, which is important to understand when reading the Cappadocians in their response to Eunomius. Peter continues, For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ —importantly, immediately...

The Apostle Peter also builds a connection between our own works and the revelation of Christ: rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts , as in your ignorance; but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct . Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever. Here, St. Peter brings up the corruptible/incorruptible theme, which in context, when taking both his epistles together, is referring to the life in Christ, the process of uniting ourselves to him, which ultimately is knowing God. And again, we see St. Athanasius making the connection between our own works and participation in God, and like the apostle, us...

In reading all these responses to specific theological problems, we all too easily lose our way trying to understand how much of God we will know and how the whole process works. St. Gregory the Theologian brings us back to the right path: “What God is in nature and essence, ... In my opinion it will be discovered when that within us which is godlike and divine, I mean our mind (νοῦν) and reason (λόγον), shall have mingled with its Like, and the image shall have ascended to the Archetype, of which it has now the desire.” In other words, he is saying, ‘I think we will find that out some day’. However, immediately following those words, he warns that this way of thinking, “as it seems to me, is altogether philosophical speculation ” (Καὶ τοῦτο εἶναί μοι δοκεῖ τὸ πάνυ φιλοσοφούμενον, ἐπιγνώσεσθαί ποτε ἡμᾶς, ὅςον ἐγνώσμευα). The Cappadocians, when speaking affirmatively of the life in Christ and knowing him, see no disconnection in their teaching from that of the Gospels, the Apostles, or ...

St. Basil follows and is followed by fathers of the Church responding with all the same ideas to these dangerous misinterpretations of the faith. We can see themes of right doctrine carried throughout all these storms which fell upon Christ’s faithful, from the Apostles, through the Cappadocians, and beyond. St. Athanasius the Great of Alexandria starts his explanation back at the creation of man, explaining the “further gift” given to man, that is, more than the irrational beasts, “making them according to his own image, giving them a share of the power of his own Word, so that...they might be able to abide in blessedness, living the true life which is really that of the holy ones in paradise.” This focus on the image stamped in man is carried throughout, up to St. John Chrysostom: What then was the tabernacle in which He dwelt? Hear the Prophet say; I will raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen.  It was fallen indeed, our nature had fallen an incurable fall, and needed o...

Out of necessity, St. Basil the Great responds to the Eunomian teaching primarily to negate the fallacies. Meaning, in those responses, and those of the other Cappadocian fathers after him, they are stating more of why those teachings are problematic and less setting forth a full and affirmative understanding of the knowledge of God. St. Basil, himself, mentions the need for a “more accurate” approach to combat Eunomius: “Now marveling at the beautiful things is not difficult, but attaining an accurate comprehension of the things at which one marvels is hard and nearly impossible.” In Basil’s homily on the first two verses of the Gospel of John, he boils down his argument to what the people would need to hear to avoid confusion about such teachings. He points out how St. John’s statement, He was with God in beginning , places “he was” in perfect apposition to “in beginning”, leaving no room for misunderstanding. However, when speaking directly against Eunomius, that is, back in the lan...

What do we know about God? How intimately can we know God? The fathers of the Church had no inclination to speak on these topics of their own volition, until questionable teachings began to arise which threatened the very foundation of life in Christ. We do not need to know the relationship between the persons of the Trinity simply to know the proper title when addressing our prayers to God; our life in Christ is little more than having another human friend if we are not in Christ, and he, in the Father. In the early parts of the fourth century, the Arian teaching threatened the Church. Arius, and those in line with his thought, taught that the Word of God, since he was begotten, was not eternal with the Father. In the years following the First Ecumenical Council, the Arian teaching grew more radical, and in doing so, more obviously problematic. These “neo-Arians” held to “anomoianism”, that is, that not only is the Son and Word not of the same essential being as the Father, but that h...

I noticed this beautiful hymn last week during the service for St. Innocent, Enlightener of the peoples of America: "Peoples of two continents of diverse languages and customs, through thee rejoice today in the mystery of the fiery tongues: The fall of the cursèd Babel of human pride which had kept in enmity all nations of the earth until they were swept into the net of faith, worshiping the consubstantial Trinity." I do not remember much hymnography making a comment on language itself, but then again, St. Innocent of Alaska is quite a unique character. If ever there was a Renaissance man, a jack of all trades, and one full of a true missionary spirit, completely focused on living out an incarnated Gospel, it is St. Innocent. This hymn seems to speak of language and customs as keeping nations at enmity, and then, the mystery of the fiery tongues bringing all into worship of the Trinity. That just strikes me; I had not thought of language and culture as a division quite in tha...