Athonite Monasticism at the Dawn of the Second Millennium

As it reached the end of its first millennium in 1963, the monastic republic of Mount Athos seemed to have completed its life cycle and to be breathing its last. It had been born, grown to maturity, produced a rich harvest of fruit, and grown old. Its strength was shockingly reduced. The numbers of the monks had fallen considerably and their average age was now over fifty-five. The elders were dying naturally, without seeing younger men come to take their place in the monasteries and hermitages. Huge monastic complexes that had once pulsated with life now stood derelict and deserted. Everything betokened decline and decay. Certainly, this was not the first decline the monastic republic had experienced in its long history. Yet almost everyone believed it would be the last. Many of the monks, even, had come to believe that they would have no successors. And so, on the fringes of the millennial celebrations, it was being said that the festivities were in fact the 'funeral service' or even the 'requiem' for Athonite monasticism. The first decade of the second millennium gave every indication of confirming the gloomy prognostications. The monks' numbers continued to dwindle, the signs of depopulation were unmistakable, and the future looked bleak indeed. What was more, the notion began to glimmer in the minds of some of those responsible, and of others less responsible, that efforts should be made to exploit the inestimable treasures of this thousand-year-old republic as tourist attractions. But the prospects in this direction were not promising. Special studies showed that the cost of bringing tourists to Mount Athos and possibly of replacing the monks with custodians to look after and protect the treasures would be considerably greater than the anticipated revenue. While all this was going on, a curious change started to take place on Mount Athos, 'the Garden of the Virgin', as the monks like to call it. It was a change which not even the most sanguine objective view could have foreseen, a change which vindicated the naive and simple hopes of those Athonite monks who had always insisted that the Virgin would never allow her garden to be deserted. A rough head count carried out at the end of that first decade after the 'funeral service' produced an important indication, which attracted our close attention. In recent decades, the statistics had shown that the number of monks on Mount Athos was steadily falling; but in 1972, for the first time, the data showed that the number had not fallen but had in fact risen over the previous year, by one. There had been 1,145 monks on Athos in 1971; in 1972 there were 1,146. Apparently negligible then, but in fact highly significant, the increase has continued right up to the present day. The occasional down-turn in the generally upward trend has been due to the high mortality rate in the older monastic population. Thus, from 1972 to 1996, when the last census was taken, 1,036 new monks came to Mount Athos. More specifically, in the first five years (1972-6), 143 new monks arrived, averaging out at about 29 a year. Between 1977 and 1986, 284 new monks came, with the same average annual rate. And the decade 1987-96 saw the arrival of 609 new monks, an average of about 61 a year. So it is clear that the influx of new monks has not merely been sustained, it has in fact increased by more than 100% in the last ten years. The increase in the number of monks was not evenly distributed among all the monasteries. Until the mid-1970s, only eight of the twenty monasteries saw an increase in their population, while the numbers continued to fall in the other twelve. The eight were: Iviron, Chelandari, Karakalou, Philotheou, Simonopetra, St Paul's, Gregoriou, and Esphigmenou. Three of these (Philotheou, Simonopetra, and Gregoriou) showed a striking increase, which in the case of Simonopetra actually tripled the number of monks. This was because they did not arrive singly, but in groups known as synodeies, chiefly made up of young men from monasteries outside Athos, who had been invited by the remaining incumbents, alarmed by the relentless depopulation of their monasteries. In most cases, it was necessary to by-pass a number of formalities for the newcomers to take up permanent residence. Thus, a monastery which, having consulted the Holy Community, invited a group of monks, was contravening article 112 of the Charter, with regard to the age of the group's spiritual father or the place where he had been tonsured, in permitting him to live on Athos and to become a hegumen. In the initial period of the resurgence of monasticism on Mount Athos, there was a tendency for synodeies to move en bloc from dependencies, which contained about three fifths of the Athonite population, to monasteries. However, owing to the ramshackle state of the monasteries, the lone individuals arriving to take up the monastic life did not stay in the monasteries, but preferred the sketae and hermitages, where they lived an ascetic life and exerted a considerable spiritual influence. It was in the 1950s that the synodeia of Father Joseph Spelaiotis started to come together, followed in the 1960s by that of Father Padsios. The growing membership of the new synodeies, which brought with it an increased need for housing, made it difficult for them to continue in the dependencies. The need to seek more suitable accommodation became pressing; and this accommodation was now available in the monasteries, which were gradually falling empty and offered ample space to meet the growing needs of the synodeies. So flourishing synodeies were now invited to move into the depopulated monasteries. The new arrivals gradually took over the administration of the monasteries in which they settled, and made them suitable not only for their own occupation but also to receive new monks. In the second stage, from the mid-1970s onwards, monks began to move, again in groups, from the more flourishing monasteries to the weaker ones. Again the new arrivals took over the administration and running of their new abode; and thus was avoided a disproportionate increase in the population of some monasteries and the total depopulation of others. Early in the 1980s, there began a gradual movement from the monasteries back to the dependencies. Monks who had lived in the monasteries for some years and acquired the necessary monastic experience withdrew to dependencies, where there was more peace and quiet. And thus began the broader revival of the hesychasteria. The number of monks on Mount Athos is rising in inverse proportion to their average age, because almost all the recent arrivals are young men. Already the vast majority of Athonite monks have arrived within the past twenty-five years. This has had a rejuvenating effect on Athonite monasticism and fully re-established the age pyramid, reducing the average age to about forty-eight. Most of the monks today are aged between thirty-one and forty, and there are more and younger monks in the monasteries than in the dependencies. Furthermore, their level of education is appreciably higher than the average in the Greek population as a whole. Many of the novices have completed further or higher education and hold qualifications in a variety of disciplines. In the five-year period 1960-4, for instance, only three holders of university degrees took up residence on Mount Athos (2.8%), whereas today there are 343 monks (27%) with university degrees. Of these, 133 (10.5%) have degrees in Theology, and 210 (16.5%) degrees in other subjects. Only 1.7% of the monks today have not completed primary education. Regarding the organisation of monastic life on Mount Athos, there have been some rapid developments during this recent period. It is the coenobitic system, which rejects personal ownership of property, that is generally acknowledged as the truest form of collective monastic life. The idiorrhythmic system may be described as a development of the old lavran system: it has prevailed at various crucial turning-points in the history of monasticism, and permits personal ownership of property. All of the twenty sovereign monasteries on Athos today have passed through an idiorrhythmic stage at some point in their history. The Athonite Charter forbids a coenobitic house to become idiorrhythmic, though an idiorrhythmic house may become coenobitic (article 85). Twenty-five years ago, nine of the twenty monasteries were idiorrhythmic; today they are all coenobia. All the other monastic foundations on Mount Athos (sketae, kellia, kalyvae, hesychasteria, and kathismata) are under the jurisdiction of one or another of the twenty sovereign monasteries, as are the metochia outside Mount Athos, many of which are notable spiritual centres. It is important to note that it is not only the traditionally Orthodox countries (Greece, Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Georgia) that are represented on Athos today: there are monks from many other parts of the world, including Britain, France, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Peru, Syria, and Africa. Athonite monasticism is thus truly ecumenical. It is vitally important that this ecumenical aspect be preserved and strengthened, for the sake not only of monasticism, but of the whole Church too. The source of this resurgence of Athonite monasticism may be traced to a number of powerful charismatic figures who have exerted a strong spiritual and moral influence. Some of them are still alive, others have died within our own time, but they all created powerful currents that attracted many to the monastic life. Those who have passed away include Joseph Spilaiotis (d.E1959), a hermit and elder who may be regarded as the spiritual father of six of the twenty sovereign monasteries; Father Padsios (d.E1994), who also played a part in the establishment or revival of some of the monasteries, and was a spiritual guide for many Athonite monks and countless other believers; and Father Sophronios (d.E1993), who, although he spent the last decades of his life at the Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex, which he himself founded, lived on Mount Athos for more than twenty years (1925-47) and, through his book St Silvan the Athonite, brought many young men to the monastic life. As far as the form of monastic life is concerned, one notable feature of this early second millennium has been a certain coming together of the coenobitic and the Hesychastic tradition. The Hesychastic tradition with its continuous, internalised Jesus Prayer, which was cultivated almost exclusively in the hesychasteria, has entered and spread through the coenobia, and is now a fundamental aspect of coenobitic life. By the same token, the regular church services of the coenobitic tradition, which were once unknown in the Hesychastic tradition, have entered and become an established part of it. Regular services now structure Hesychastic life in almost all the hesychasteria on Athos. This interpenetration of the Hesychastic and coenobitic traditions has been accompanied by a certain broader rapprochement between monasticism and the secular world. It was always a feature of the Orthodox Church, but had flagged somewhat in modern times. The situation has now changed completely. Thousands of visitors flock to Mount Athos every year and experience for themselves the spirituality and the life of the monks. Similarly, through public talks, periodicals, and special publications, by taking a stand on serious ecclesiastical and social issues, and, even more, by offering individual spiritual guidance, the monks are strongly influencing the spiritual life of the Christian community and are making a substantial impact on the Church and society. The re-animation of religious life and the great interest in Orthodox spiritual life now being manifested both in Greece and in the Orthodox Christian world as a whole are a direct result of this rapprochement between monasticism and society in the secular world. The Centre for the Preservation of Athonite Heritage was founded in 1981. It involves representatives of the Holy Community of Mount Athos, the Greek government, and the Secretary General of the Ministry of Macedonia and Thrace, which is the civil body responsible for Mount Athos. Among other things, the Centre handles the moneys allocated for projects and works on Mount Athos. Greece's accession to the EU naturally posed problems with regard to the very special way of life on the Holy Mountain. These were resolved when Greece and the other member-states signed a common declaration safeguarding the distinctive nature and the special legal status of Mount Athos. One gratifying activity that is now taking place on Athos – though some people find it a matter of some concern – is feverish rebuilding. The ruined and dilapidated monastery buildings are rapidly being restored, which is proving to be a source of distraction and apprehension for the monks. Furthermore, the large numbers of pilgrims and visitors – who turn up almost all the year round –, machinery, and road vehicles, coupled with the present road-building activities, are taking a toll on the way and the pace of life on Mount Athos. But what tends to be forgotten is that no serious rebuilding has been done on the peninsula since the end of the nineteenth century. The natural wear and tear on the buildings requires major rectification. The growing number of pilgrims creates additional needs. And if one bears in mind that the rapid changes that have taken place in social life and technology in recent decades must inevitably affect the way and the pace of life on Mount Athos, all this may be regarded as part of the natural course of events. Georgios I. Mantzaridis Bibliography: Andreas 1969. Mantzaridis 1973, pp. 313-28. Athonikoi Dialogoi 1973-80. Dorotheos 1985. Tsamis 1986. Christou 1987. Angelopoulos 1987. Tachiaos 1993. Holy Mountain 1996. Source: http://www.culture.gr/2/21/218/e21813.html Photos of Athonite Hermits

Starting a Ministry to the Poor

So far I've received a lot of encouraging feedback from many of you regarding this series. My hope is that this helps many of you catch a vision for how you can step out and begin to serve others and learn to love as Jesus does. A Long List of Valuable Lessons *You Will Get Back More Than You Give, Everytime. - I used to drive away from our various ministry sites feeling depressed. In my heart I always felt like we could have done more to help, or that I was desperately inadequate to meet the incredible needs of the people we were in relationship with. After awhile I began to understand that this is part of what it's all about. I also began to realize that the blessing I was taking home with me was always greater than the one I had just brought to the people we were in ministry to. No matter how massive or outrageous our ministry was, I always felt like it wasn't enough..and it never would be enough. Part of what I learned was how to be ok with this. ADVERTISMENT *You Can Only Help People Who Want Help. - There's a great passage in the Gospel where Jesus comes upon a man who is laying beside the Pool of Siloam. He is lame and obviously in need of healing. However, Jesus looks at this man and asks him, "Do you want to be made well?" It seems, at first, like a very stupid question. However, in my years of ministry with the homeless and the addicted and the broken, I have been amazed at how many of them don't really want to be made well. For some of them, if I were to reach out my hand and take away their addiction, or their poverty, or their infirmity, they would hate me for it. Sometimes you have to ask people if they're really looking for healing or not. *Some People Only Want Help Staying The Way They Are, Not Help Getting Better. -Honestly, I'm a push-over. If someone asks me for food or money or assistance I have a hard time saying "No" and turning them away, especially if it's in my power or ability to do something. I think it has something to do about the Lord Jesus saying, "Give to anyone who asks of you expecting nothing in return" (Matthew 5:42). So, I will almost always help someone who comes to me for help...the first time. However, I've learned to help them further by saying, "Here's food/shelter/money/assistance for tonight, but what about tomorrow and next week? You need a long-term solution to your problem. Here's a few phone numbers to call. These people can help you make long-term changes and get off the street/off drugs/self sufficient/healing/counseling, etc." The next time I see them, if they ask for help again, I will ask them, "Did you call those numbers I gave you last time?" and if they say "No" then I explain that the reason I'm not helping them today is because they didn't take any steps towards helping themselves in the long-term. Another response is to help someone financially with the understanding that they need to agree to sit down and allow us to help them create a budget to live on. If they agree, we help them. If they don't then we've established the terms under which were willing to help them out. However, sometimes I do just hand them food or money or pay their rent without any conditions attached. It depends on the person, the situation, and a bit of discernment. *Be Prepared To Welcome The Poor Into Your Church, Your House, Your Family, and Your Life. - I usually caution people who come to me asking how to start a compassion ministry with this statement: "If you're not willing to sit next to these people in Church on Sunday, or to have them play with your kids, or to invite them over for pizza afterwards, then don't start a compassion ministry." Nowadays I usually just let them get their feet wet and after they've been doing it a while I'll suggest that this ministry is more about loving people and less about an outreach. Outreach implies going out to accomplish something. It keeps the poor "Out There" and that's not what Jesus modeled for us. If we're going to step out and demonstrate to people that Jesus Loves Them it has be consistent. It has to mean "We love you too," otherwise what we're really saying is "Jesus loves you but we're not too comfortable around you. Stay out here and we'll come back next month and minister to you again." This isn't the Gospel and we can damage the true power of the Gospel if we say one thing and model another. *Change Is Difficult. - As you begin to minister to people who are homeless or living in poverty you'll no doubt come across a few people who just can't seem to get the courage to take that big step towards escaping poverty. I've seen people, more than once, come right up to the point of escaping poverty only to run as fast as they can in the other direction. Here's what I've learned: Holding their hand is good, but doing it for them is a big mistake. Sometimes the psychological leap is too great. It's much easier to remain in the world they know than to take a big step and risk failure. Some people will need you to be there with them every little step of the way. It can be frustrating, but when they finally do escape their situation the celebration will be well worth it. Others will just not ever be able to take that test or apply for that federal aid or drive down to that learning center or make that phone call to the counseling center, no matter how much you hold their hand and urge them to take the step. Taking that step for them will ease your frustration in the moment, but unless it's their idea and they're ready to follow through with things, they'll just back out of things eventually anyway. Prayer is really your best weapon usually. *Don't Withhold The Blessing. - This is one of my big pet peeves in compassion ministry. I understand that everyone does things their own way, but nothing makes me more angry than to watch Christians withhold the food or the assistance, etc. until after people have sat through an hour long sermon or church service. The Gospel is expressed just as much in showing love and compassion without cost or agenda…maybe moreso. People understand love. They understand compassion. They appreciate sincere giving done without an ulterior motive. Just try it. It's incredibly powerful. Maybe if you bless them without strings attached they will WANT to know more about why you love them, and why you love Jesus. *Listening Is The Best Ministry Possible. - File this under "Bigger is not Better." When you boil it all down, people just need to know you really care about them. Listening to people is the most powerful way you can demonstrate real love to them. Spending time with people and really paying attention to them is the best ministry you can ever do, and it doesn't cost you a thing. *Don't Forget The Poor Among You. - I'm embarrassed to say I needed someone from my compassion team to point this out to me. Our church was so busy knocking ourselves out to minister to the poor in the community that we were neglecting the poor and the orphan and the widow and the single Moms in our very own congregation. Let the blessing begin in the Family of God. There are those among us who are also poor and need the love and the compassion of the Body. Don't forget them. *Don't Use This Ministry As A Way To Market Your Church. - File this under "Things that make me very angry". I've noticed a disturbing trend among some churches lately where ministry to the poor is seen as being trendy and hip. They treat compassion ministry as a selling point for their church because it makes them look cool and it looks great on their website and in their bulletin each week. However, caring for people in need is typically not what they have foremost in mind. It's marketing their church. This really ticks me off. So, when we first started our Compassion Ministry I told our team members that, although I wasn't forbidding anyone else, I would never wear one of our church t-shirts to our ministry events. "Why not?" someone would always ask me. Because I don't want them to ever see that t-shirt and say "Oh…that's why they're being so nice to us." In fact, recently we've been joined by another large mega-church at the motel. Although we've been there for five years now, this mega-church has been serving breakfast every other Sunday and setting up tents and chairs and tables and having an on-site Church service. Beause their presence is quite large, many of those we minister to often assume that we're from this mega-church. They will even end their prayers by saying, "And God bless the good people of **** Church" to which I always say, "Amen!" I love it that our specific church is able to bring Glory to Jesus and even favor to another local Church by serving these people. It's a great reminder that our service to these people isn't about making our church famous or competing with other churches. It's simply about modelling the love of Jesus for people. *Don't think of it as "Outreach" but as Loving People. - After awhile the word Outreach becomes a dirty word. To me, the word carries the connotation of keeping people at arms length. I prefer to refer to what we do as Compassion Ministry or Service or simply "Being with our friends". Even to call them "The Poor" in some ways puts them into a classification that is demeaning and de-humanizing. Whenever possible think of them as your friends. They are people. They have the same needs as you and I. Love them as Jesus loves you. -End Part 3 Next we'll look at specific ideas for the types of ministry to the poor that can be done and a brief "How To" for each of them. After that I'll end off this series with more detailed discussions of what ministry to the homeless and to prostitutes looks like, and the specific challenges involved with each. Keith Giles writes a free, weekly e-newsletter called [Subversive Underground] and is the author of the book, "Nobody Follows Jesus (So Why Should You?)" which is available as a free PDF download at his website. Find out more at keithgiles.com.

Mount Athos Blog

Now there is a Blog by, for and about the Holy Mountain http://athos.web-log.nl/athos_agios_oros_/cat4365268/index.html

Starting a Ministry to the Poor

This week I want to share a long list of valuable lessons I've learned over the last five years when it comes to serving others. Keep in mind that a lot of what I learned here had to be experienced. Even as I share this with you I understand that reading about this is no substitute for actually experiencing it for yourself. Hopefully as you move forward in your own journey with serving people you'll discover the truth of these observations in your own heart. A Long List of Valuable Lessons As you take your first tentative steps into compassion ministry, you'll need to know what to expect. Here are some basic things I've discovered in my journey serving others in our community: *Consistency Is Vital - We started ministry at the motel in Santa Ana almost five years ago. Over time we've consistently come every month with a bounce house, games, snacks and a puppet show for the kids who live in this motel. For over four years we only blessed them. We never preached a sermon or passed out maps to our Church. (Although we weren't shy about sharing with them if they had need or if they asked us why were doing this for them.) ADVERTISMENT Recently, in our fifth year, we've started passing out free groceries and asking them if we can pray with them about anything. Why? The goal of the ministry is to show the love of Jesus to them in tangible ways. Not to market our church or to get them to buy something. We have intentionally withheld a sermon or an evangelistic message so that we create the question in their minds- "Why?" We want people to respond to our compassion by asking "Why would you come out here and bless us like this every month?" When they ask us (and they eventually do) we then share with them the difference that Jesus has made in our hearts and lives. Having no agenda disarms them and, more importantly, demonstrates that we really are only interested in loving them and blessing them in practical ways. *You WILL Get Burned. It's Part Of The Process- A fellow compassion ministries pastor once suggested that we publish a guide to help local churches serve the poor. He wanted to include a section that would help prevent them from getting burned by some of the poor who take advantage of our goodwill. I protested against this quite vocally because the best lessons I've learned in loving the poor have come from the numerous times I've been played like a violin. Without those experiences of being lied to, taken advantage of and played for a fool I wouldn't have a shred of discernment regarding the poor. Getting burned is part of the process. Try to learn from it. The biggest challenge is to get burned and continue to love people and bless them, even knowing they might be playing you. *Bigger Is Not better- For the longest time our ministry to the families in the motel was pretty much my wife, my two elementary-age sons and one other woman from our church. We still managed to put together great games for the kids, snacks, puppet shows and a meaningful ministry to the families who live in this motel. Sometimes having a massive ministry footprint means that the people you're ministering to get lost in the hype. I'd rather sit down and share a sandwich under a tree with one homeless guy than have a massive army of people running a huge event where the poor feel like outsiders. *Don't Pet the Poor- Early on I was warned not to treat the poor as a project or an outreach. When we do this we end up treating them like people who are less than the rest of us. The goal in serving the poor is to make them feel like an equal human being. Look them in the eye. Laugh with them. Learn their story. Pray for them during the week. Get to know them. If you can think of your ministry as being more about making new friends (who happen to be living in poverty) and less about fixing these poor people you'll be fine. *Don't Attempt To Cure Poverty In Your City- This is a common mistake for those who start off doing compassion ministry. In their zeal to bring justice to the poor they get off target and begin to see their ministry as a grandiose scheme to end poverty forever in their city. The sad thing is that when we do this we stop caring for the actual people who are in need. If our focus can remain on finding a few people and learning how to love them we'll be closer to the heart of Jesus. One of my early mentors, David Ruis, used to communicate it this way: "What do you see and what do you have?" Meaning, start with the people in front of you who have a need. Ask yourself what you have that you could share with them. Befriend people and learn to love them. *It's About Sharing, Not Giving- Giving to the poor, although important is not what we're necessarily called to as followers of Jesus. We're called to share. Giving means writing a check and walking away (and taking the tax break on our IRS return). Sharing means taking something that is mine and giving it away to someone who needs it more than I do. That's an investment. That's also about friendship and relationship, not compassion from a distance. *Befriend A Few and Learn To Love Them Deeply- When we first started our Motel Ministry I had grand visions of leading huge outreach teams to lead worship and preach the Gospel and rescue hundreds from the despair of poverty. God quickly corrected my vision and showed me one small family living in the motel. Love them, He said. Get to know them. Invite them to your house for lunch. For the first two years or so that was the main focus of our ministry in that motel. The difference was that this ministry soon became less about ending poverty in that motel and more about the struggles of my new friends, Mike and Pam and their two children. *You Will Learn More From Them Than You Teach- My relationship with Mike and Pam and their children taught me more about courage and forgiveness and humility than I could have ever learned from reading a book or a blog or listening to a sermon. The things I heard and saw and experienced by knowing this incredible family had the greatest impact on me of all. (END PART 2) Keith Giles is a writer, pastor, teacher, and missional house church leader in Orange, California. He's the author of the book, "Nobody Follows Jesus (So Why Should You?)" which is available as a free downloadable PDF file at keithgiles.com.

July 4th: Feast of the Royal New Martyrs

Love and Hate: St. John 15:17-16:2, especially vs. 24: "'If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father.'" On the night He was betrayed, Christ Jesus our Savior was acutely aware of the violent, imminent storm of hatred rushing toward Him - the terrible things we know as His Passion. This furious enmity He attributes to those whom He identifies simply as "the world" (vss. 18,19). Further, to all of us whom He has chosen "out of the world" (vs. 19), He adds another, solemn warning: "'...they will also persecute you'" (vs. 20). He earnestly desires that you and I be prepared for like fury. Why? "'...that you should not be made to stumble'" (vs. 1), for "'the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service'" (vs. 2). Beloved, do not shrug off His warning because you have lived in a momentary lull. Our God has the vantage point above all history. He sees every bit of the hatreds, persecutions, and martyrdoms aimed at Him, His Father, and at us - His servants - through all time. So, how does He begin this counsel? He commands us to "love one another" (vs. 17). Yes, from His vantage point, He has shown us how it really is: that we are not "of the world," and that we urgently need to be kind, thoughtful, supportive, and loving to one another. Think about it: love is especially what we must have in the face of the sort of naked, implacable hatred of which He speaks and that will be ours because we "bear witness," having been with Him "from the beginning" (vs. 27 ). Very simple: the world has "'seen and also hated both Me and My Father'" (vs. 24); and never forget that "the time is coming" for us (vs. 2). This is insider information that we are being given from the reliable One Who truly knows. Oh, pray God that we will remain on the love side of the equation and not rejoin the world in the hate that we renounced along with "Satan, and all his angels, and all his works, and all his service, and all his pride." Having received the seal of the gift of "1...the Spirit of truth Who proceeds from the Father...'" (vs. 26), please, may we never turn back. Listen to St. Seraphim of Sarov: "One must not nurse in one's heart malice or hatred toward a neighbor who bears ill-will, but we must strive to love him and, as much as possible, do good, following the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ: Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you" (see Mt. 5:44). You do not feel very loving? That is all right. It is not God's highest and best, but the condition need not be fatal, principally because love is not foremost feelings, but choices, decisions, actions we can take whether or not we feel like doing them. Your eternal life and mine are at stake in this world. Listen, therefore, to the caution of St. Maximos the Confessor who had his tongue cut out for sticking by the truth: "strive to cleanse the nous (which the Lord calls 'heart') from hatred and dissipation. For these defile the nous and do not allow it to see Christ, who dwells in it by the grace of Holy Baptism." Love may be cultivated and nursed in a determined way just as hatred is harbored by those whom St. John of the Ladder identifies as the spiteful and slanderous: "they are piteously plunged in the spirit of hatred; and with pleasure and without a qualm, they slander the teaching or affairs or achievements of their neighbor." St. John also knew that "a banquet of love dispels hatred, and sincere gifts soothe a soul." We can choose to take our place at that banquet table of the Lord Jesus, feast on love, and share platters of kindness and bowls of support to those around us in their hunger. You have seen the Lord's works. You have received the Heavenly Spirit. Now is the time. Sleepers, let us awake! Christ shall give us light! (see Eph. 5:14).

Opposition to capital punishment

by Fr. Ted Bobosh Any pastor living in a country in which executions are still carried out is likely to be asked why the Orthodox Church throughout the world has for so many centuries opposed, and still opposes, the death penalty. It is all the more confusing to many Christians because the death penalty is sanctioned in the Old Testament. Let me try to explain, even though I am well aware that such a brief reflection cannot provide a final word. The scriptures that sanction the death penalty are part of the 613 laws of the Jewish Torah. The keeping of these laws was understood by the Jews to be the only way to be righteous in the eyes of God. For Christians, on the other hand, righteousness is no longer attained through the keeping of the Torah. As we see in such passages as Acts 15:28-29, the keeping of the Torah is not regarded as possible or even desirable. Jesus Himself, most of the Apostles, and nearly all the early martyrs were themselves victimized by laws allowing capital punishment. The Christian understanding of capital punishment cannot be reduced to quoting a few Bible passages. It is rather seeing the issue in the context of the overall message and witness of Christ, who came to destroy death, the final enemy of humanity. It is this Paschal dimension of Christianity that causes Christians to proclaim the sanctity of human life. Christ died on the cross to save sinners, not to condemn or punish them. In destroying death, Christ doesn’t transform death into a useful tool for overpowering the nations of the world. St. Paul portrayed the Christian struggle as the defeat of spiritual powers and principalities and specifically rejected the idea that our warfare was with flesh and blood. Christians are not meant to conquer the world with armed forces, like a jihad, but rather to engage in spiritual warfare for the hearts and minds of all people. “For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12). Also, we should bear in mind St. Luke’s account of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. Satan claimed the political world was his dominion, a claim Jesus doesn’t deny. Apart from the Gospel message and the Paschal experience, it is not surprising that capital punishment was not viewed in a positive light in the early Church for it allowed the punishment of both righteous people and those, even if not righteous, who might still find their way to conversion. The relationship of Christians to the death penalty has a long history. For the first 325 years of Christianity, Christians were a persecuted minority with no share in government power. Christians saw many practices of the Empire as the very opposite of what was expected of those who had, through baptism, become citizens of the kingdom of heaven, a kingdom “not of this world” in which there was no capital punishment or an army sanctioned to kill anyone, not even Christ’s enemies. Early Christians saw military service as incompatible with the life and teaching of the Crucified Christ. Likewise, from the Roman point of view, Jews and Christians were forbidden from being in the army since neither Jew nor Christian would recognize the emperor’s divinity, nor would they honor the gods of the Roman pantheon. Both the Roman Government and the Christians were in agreement that Christians could not participate in the military or in executions. Inevitably a problem arose for those like St. Martin of Tours who found their way to baptism while in the army. Martin explained to the emperor, “I am a soldier of Christ. To kill is not permissible for me.” Remarkably, in his case he was given a special discharge and went on to become one of the great bishops of the fourth century. But not all soldier converts were given a discharge – some died as martyrs. Once emperors began to accept Christianity, a serious tension was created between the apostolic values of Christianity, which forbade killing, and the demands of the state, which sanctioned killing. In the first centuries of the Church’s existence, Christians could not be in the army nor be gladiators, could not authorize or carry out executions, nor were they permitted to commit murder in any form even in self defense. What happened for numerous emperors and public officials who knew they might have to kill or order an execution as a consequence of their office was the postponement of baptism until they retired from office or were on their deathbeds (as was the case with Constantine) so that through baptism they would be forgiven for any killing they had done in the past and, now so close to death, would never have any role in killing once they became a Christian. One can see in the New Testament the struggle of Christians with government authority. St. Paul writes: Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. … For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. (Rom 13:1-4) St. Paul assumes that government is necessary for civilization to exist and so Christians should have a proper respect for such a God-authorized institution, including the government’s authority to punish wrongdoers. His statement is exceptional, because Jews in general did not defend Roman authority in their lives. But, as many have noted, Paul oversimplified his case. He does not take into account government persecution of Christians (he may have written his letter before persecution of Christians had begun) or the possibility of an evil government punishing good citizens. Note, however, that for St. Paul government authority is limited – it is not supreme or divine in itself; the emperor is not divine, just God’s servant – but receives its power from a higher authority, the one God, to whom it must answer. He is in fact making a case for the Lordship of God over government, even over a pagan government or an emperor who was considered a deity. One need only look at the Book of Revelations, written when persecution was in full swing, to see a Christian view in which the government, far from being blessed by God, is identified with Satan and all that is evil. Since most ancient governments were totalitarian, by the time Revelations was written early Christians no doubt assumed they would always be dealing with such a grim reality – as indeed they have, time and again, down through the centuries right to our own day. One could hope for a benevolent and just government, but even if the government opposed all righteousness, Christians would have to live with that. After all, their real citizenship was not in a kingdom of this world. The martyrs gave the most powerful witness of being citizens only of the kingdom of heaven – a witness many Christians are still giving even in the present day. It is no surprise that Christians living in situations of oppression view capital punishment as a tool of oppression that has the approval of the devil himself. After Constantine’s conversion came the time of government officials and emperors who had been either raised in Christian families or been baptized as adults. Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. Virtually all public officials were Christians. At the beginning of the fourth century, it was forbidden both by Christians and by the Roman government for Christians to be in the military, but by the end of that century, the Roman government required everyone in the army to be Christian. The Church faced the reality that its members would be killing others or authorizing killing. In the centuries which followed, a reality emerged which Christians of earlier generations could never have imagined: an all-Christian army. Christians struggled with this new reality. Many found it intolerable. To a large extent, the monastic movement was a reaction against imperial Christianity. Not only monks but many others felt that the values of the Kingdom of God were incompatible with the values of the Roman Empire. One of the attractions of flight to the desert was that, in desolate places, one was out of reach of imperial interference. Despite the monastic protest, the embrace of the Church by the Empire was completed. Many Christians now found themselves in positions where they had to participate, directly or indirectly, in killing others, or face severe punishment. St. John Chrysostom remarked, “Our warfare is to make the dead to live, not to make the living dead.” Like many others, he was troubled by the Church and state becoming identical. It is hardly surprising that he suffered so much at the hands of the state. St. Basil the Great lamented the situation by declaring that Christians could serve in the army if called by the state to do so, but then afterward they had to serve a three-year penitential excommunication for having participated in such activity – even if they had not actually killed anyone. No matter what their role, they had been part of activity that led to others being killed and thus had to repent. St. Basil saw the continuing need for the military as a terrible consequence of the failure of Christians to convert the world. The Byzantines believed that somehow as Christians they were to create an empire “on earth as it is in heaven.” Their earthly empire was to conform to their notions of heaven – including love, forgiveness and mercy. But this ideal proved impossible to realize, especially since they found themselves so often threatened by invading armies – Persian, Arab, Rus, Bulgar, Turk, and Latin armies. Short of surrender, the Byzantines found it all but impossible to uphold purely Christian practices in dealing with their enemies. Christians, no matter what their rank. St. Vladimir, Prince of Kiev, when he accepted Christianity and was baptized, abolished the death penalty in his kingdom, on the grounds that it was incompatible with Christian faith. He did not want to be responsible before God for deaths that were committed in his name or by his decree. Two of his sons, Boris and Gleb, the first saints to be canonized by the Church in Russia, preferred to accept death rather than defend themselves against their murderous and ambitious brother, Sviatopolk. Even once the Roman Empire embraced Christianity, there was a real struggle with the Christian message and Christian ideal about life and how it relates to such things as capital punishment. The Canons of the Church command bishops, as part of their normal duties, to go to the courts and plead for mercy for prisoners and the condemned. Church buildings throughout the empire became sanctuaries, where persecuted and condemned people could take refuge. In this same tradition, all the Orthodox Patriarchs and self-governing Churches still condemn the death penalty as an excessive power abuse by human governments. This does not change the reality that we live in a fallen world, in which not only individual people do evil, but evil is a force to be reckoned with by both Church and governments. Governments have a responsibility to protect their citizens from murderous people within the society. Armies and wars are part of this fallen world, and, though undesirable, can in some cases be seen as a “lesser of two evils” or an “evil necessity,” but an evil nonetheless. Jesus said there is no greater love than for a man to lay down his life for his friends. Strangely, many Christians have come to understand these words as a justification of warfare, though the statement only blesses dying on behalf of others, not killing to protect them. Since the basic message of Christianity is forgiveness, mercy, love, peace, and the defeat of death itself, Christians have had a fairly consistent belief in the sanctity of human life and have struggled with the use of capital punishment and armies to deal with the evil present in the world. Christ did not teach his disciples to kill anyone, nor did he advocate warfare or killing as a means to spread His faith, nor indeed did he bless any of his followers to kill. He even gave the example of rescuing from death a woman who was awaiting her execution by stoning. The early Christians conquered the Roman Empire without having any army or police on their side and without killing anyone. Sadly, it is true that once the Christians came into power within the Roman Empire, some of them were not shy to use and rely on the police to enforce their teachings and to persecute nonconformists, heretics and non-Christians. Constantine placed the police at the disposal of Christian leaders, and Constantine demanded the Christians to conform to a uniformity of belief and practice which they had never had before his embrace of Christianity. Constantine used his powers exactly as he had as a pagan – there was no change in his totalitarian methods even after he granted toleration to Christianity. He even had his own son killed, when he believed his son had become a threat to his reign. Perhaps because the Christians were not prepared to be regarded so favorably by the government, or because they didn’t take time to envision what a Christianized government would look like, many uncritically accepted the old ways of government as the inevitable ways of government and the only possible way of governing. The partnership of Church and State ended up with a large scale acceptance by Christians of government practices that were in most respects unchanged from pre-Christian times, though over time efforts were made by the emperors to modify some old practices – crucifixion as a form of capital punishment was abolished and gladiator fights and chariot races abolished. Let me make a personal confession: I was present when, a number of years ago, the All American Council of the Orthodox Church in America took up the issue of the death penalty. Ours was at the time perhaps the only Orthodox body in the world which had not spoken out against capital punishment. A vote taken of the delegates solidly favored opposing the death penalty. I regret to say I was in the minority which voted against that resolution. My opposition stemmed from the fact that I could imagine people who would only see our mercy as weakness and who would move to destroy us when they could and who would show no mercy to us and would be quite willing to kill us since we hadn’t killed them. I could even imagine filling our prisons with such people and then not being able to control these prison populations. However, since that time I have been converted to the view of the early Church. I believe the execution of prisoners, even of murderers, is incompatible with the Gospel. This change occurred in me even as I watch al-Qaeda in action, well aware that those who embrace that movement would kill me in a second, both because I am a Christian and an American. But I do not want to become like them, embracing their values and methods. I want to be more Christ-like. I am a disciple of the Crucified Christ. God is the giver of life while evil is the destroyer of life. Human life is sacred and sanctified, even though any human being can become distorted by evil. One Byzantine emperor boasted that his Christ-loving army could destroy evil. It never happened. Neither evil nor the evil one can be defeated by war or the death penalty. I have come to accept that the battle with evil will continue on earth until Christ comes in His Kingdom and the final enemy, death, has its final defeat. Meanwhile I will sing, “Christ is risen from the dead trampling down death by death.” ? Fr. Ted Bobosh is the pastor of St. Paul Orthodox Church in Dayton, Ohio. His most recent book, Questioning God: a Look at Genesis 1-3, is published by Light & Life. ? From the Pascha / Spring 2008 issue of In Communion / IC 49 source: http://incommunion.org/articles/previous-issues/regarding-the-church%e2%80%99s-opposition-to-capital-punishment

Confessing Christ

St. Matthew 10:32-33, 37-38; 19:27-30 (6/22) Gospel for the Sunday of All Saints: 1st APE Confessing Christ: St. Matthew 10:32-33,37-38; 19:27-30, especially vs. 32: "Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father Who is in heaven." At the time of the trial of St. Maximos the Confessor in Constantinople (654-655 AD), numerous political pressures were applied to gain the Saint's "cooperation" in obeying the imperial order of silence imposed upon all parties engaged in the Monothelite controversy. Many dignitaries testified that they tried to convince St. Maximos to cease his speaking and writing in support of the teaching that Christ has two complete wills, human and Divine. One of these witnesses recalled making an official visit to the great monk in jail in an effort to gain St. Maximos' support in reestablishing Communion between Rome and Constantinople over the issue. However, the great Confessor said plainly, "This, I think, is an impossible thing; for the Romans will not consent that the illuminating statements of the holy Fathers be annulled together with the voices of impure heretics, or that the truth be extinguished with falsehood, or that the light disappear along with the darkness....Silence according to the divine Scripture is denial as well." After his refusal to keep silence voluntarily, St. Maximos died in exile of wounds and his tongue cut out to silence him (AD 662). However, the true doctrine of Christ's two wills finally prevailed at the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 681 AD, upholding Maximos' Orthodox truth. This collection of sayings from the Lord Jesus have a common message: we are to confess Him truly and fully before men. The word, "confess," in the original Greek (homologizi) means literally, "to say the same thing" - to speak from the same assumptions with the same outlook, upholding the same truth. The case of St. Maximos reveals how much harder it is to confess the Lord than merely to claim that one is a Christian. All parties "said" they were Christians, but the truth could reside only with one side or the other, not with both. Brethren, there are many forces being applied to Orthodoxy today to encourage us to compromise our confession. Family, business, and friendship ties are used to apply their pressure. Financial and social obligations and loyalties are often employed to pull at us. There is fear, spoken or unspoken, of consequences that are sure to come should one speak the full truth of Christ. While it is easy to rationalize, how does one truly make a God-pleasing confession? At times we are asked to "tone down" our remarks or simply not to "speak out." Family or friends remind us "to be nice, cooperate, just let it ride" so there "can be peace," so that "everyone can have a good time." On other occasions we are reminded of the pain we will inflict on someone, or that will come down on us, if we persist in defending the truth. Beloved of the Lord, there are occasions when silence extinguishes the truth just as does falsehood. It is not necessary always to speak in the language of Faith. Christ's Name does not always need to be used in order to "confess or to deny Him before men." Our duty before God is to say the same thing that Christ would say, and to be as careful of silence as we are of speaking. The Lord does not say that we must always leave "...houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands..." for His sake (Mt. 19:29), yet He does say clearly that our "eternal life" depends on our acting, speaking, and living "for [His] name's sake" (vs. 29). How can we respond faithfully amidst all the voices that claim our loyalty and attention? The Lord directs us to "be with Him" through the Holy Spirit, so that when the times come, we may confess and "bear witness," like the Saints, in word and deed despite the world's pressures (Jn. 15:26, 27). O Master, overshadow my acts with the spirit of Thy fear; and by Thy Sovereign Spirit strengthen mine unstable mind, that I may do Thy commandments unto that which is profitable.

The Wounded Torturer

by Frederica Mathewes-Green They buried my spiritual father last November. I have never seen a body in a casket look so not-there; the indistinct pale husk he left behind looked like something a breeze could lift up and carry away. It was the contrast, I suppose. Few people in life are as radiant and vigorous as Fr. George Calciu, or as full of joy. He was a few days short of his 81st birthday, still full-time pastor of a church in the suburbs of Washington, DC, still traveling world-wide to those who sought him as a teacher and spiritual father, still diligently reaching out to the poor and unchurched around him. Fr. George’s radiance was a lasting rebuke to the darkest intentions of torturers. In his native Romania he was imprisoned twice by the Communist authorities, for a total of 21 years. He was a survivor of the brief but appalling “Pitesti Experiment,” the most intensive program of brainwashing to take place. The plan at the prison in the Romanian city of Pitesti was to take promising young men, 18 to 25 years old, and utterly break them down, then rebuild them into the ideal “Communist man.” In the book Christ is Calling You! (St. Herman Press, 1997), Fr. George explained to an interviewer that the Pitesti experiment involved several distinct steps. Incoming prisoners would be handed over to a team of guards and experienced prisoners, who would beat them and kill one or two, whoever appeared to be a leader. Then the “unmaskings” began, in which prisoners were required under torture to renounce everything they believed. Fr. George recalled being compelled to say, for example, “I lied when I said ‘I believe in God.’ I lied when I said, ‘I love my mother and my father’.” This was extremely painful, as it was designed to be. The intention was to undermine the prisoner’s memory and personality, to infiltrate his consciousness with lies until he came to believe them. A few months ago I was able to talk with another survivor of Pitesti, Fr. Roman Braga, when I visited the Michigan convent where he now is in residence. The Communists had arrested Fr. Roman on an inventive charge: he was accused of trying to overthrow the government by discussing the writings of St. Basil the Great, St. John Climacus, and St. Gregory of Nyssa. He spent his first year in solitary confinement. In the dark, narrow cell, he could not tell one season from another, nor could he look out the small, high window and see a horizon. “You had to go somewhere; you had to find an inner perspective,” he said, “because otherwise you would truly go crazy.” Fr. Roman told me that religious beliefs were particularly mocked. Tormenters would set obscene lyrics to the tunes of familiar hymns, and celebrate parody liturgies designed to break believers’ hearts. His sole clue that Christmas or Pascha (Easter) might be near would be the appearance of their themes in the torturers’ arsenal. One way guards particularly taunted Christians was by telling them that Christ and Mary Magdalene had had a sexual relationship. Fr. Roman noted, laughing, that in Romania this constituted torture, but in America people line up to pay for it in movies and books.Neither man would describe what they’d endured. “It is secret, intimate,” Fr. Roman said, “I saw saints fall, and I saw the simple rise and become saints.” Fr. George admitted that he gave way under torture. When a victim is out of his mind with pain, he doesn’t know what he is saying. Fr. George told his interviewer, “It was a spiritual fight, between good spirits and evil spirits. And we failed on the field of battle; we failed, many of us, because it was beyond our ability to resist … The limit of the human soul’s resistance was tried there by the devil.” This emotional and spiritual damage was even worse than the physical pain. Fr. George went on, “When you were tortured, after one or two hours of suffering, the pain would not be so strong. But after denying God and knowing yourself to be a blasphemer – that was the pain that lasted … We forgive the torturers. But it is very difficult to forgive ourselves.” At night a wash of tears would come, and with it, returning prayer. “You knew very well that the next day you would again say something against God. But a few moments in the night, when you started to cry and to pray to God to forgive you and help you, was very good.” Fr. George once attempted to write a memoir of his Pitesti experience, but found it impossible: “Sometimes I was hammering at one word, timidly, then persistently, then intensely, to madness. The word became nothing other than a sequence of letters or sounds. It had no meaning. It didn’t tell me anything. I would say: ‘beating’ or ‘pain’ or ‘prayer’ or ‘curse’ … and I would substitute one for another without any change; none told me anything! I would say ‘cell’ and the word would not speak. I could say instead ‘lelc’ or ‘clel’ or ‘ellc’ with the same result. Everything was mute and absurd. “And suddenly a curse from that time would resound in my mind, or a song somebody sang during the unmaskings, and the whole atmosphere would install itself with a painfully striking character and with a reality more real than it was then. Affective memory! Proust was a genius in his intuitions, a part of the literature he wrote.” Yet the worst was still to come. In order to demonstrate that they had truly become “the Communist man,” in order to fully embody the persona demanded of them, these mentally and physically battered prisoners were required to become torturers. They were compelled to assist in the “re-education” of new prisoners, and any reluctance or leniency was cruelly punished. “This was the most difficult part,” Fr. George said, “for under terror and torture one can say, ‘yes, yes, yes.’ But now, to have to act? It was very difficult. It was during this part that the majority of us tried to kill ourselves.” In his case, “I was on a big staircase, three stories high. The moment I tried to climb over it to throw myself down, a friend of mine caught me and saved me.” It may sound surprising that being a torturer was so much more painful and soul-destroying than being a victim. Yet the pattern holds in other realms. In her book, Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress (Praeger, 2002), Rachel MacNair examines a number of situations in which a person may be more distraught over harming someone – even if it’s socially sanctioned or in self-defense – than by being harmed personally. This sounds reasonable enough in the case of a policeman who kills someone in the line of duty, or of the person whose sad role it is to carry out a death sentence. Yet even soldiers, who have been trained to kill and may well be themselves in mortal danger, can feel great distress about the violence they do to others. In “The Price of Valor” (The New Yorker, July 12 & 19, 2004), Dan Baum examines this puzzle. He spent a week with amputees at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and “was struck by how easily they could tell the stories of the horrible things that had happened to them. They could talk about having their arms or legs blown off in vivid detail, and even joke about it, but, as soon as the subject changed to the killing they’d done, a pall would settle over them.” When he asked a Vietnam vet how often he experienced flashbacks of killing villagers, he first said, “Every ten minutes,” but then corrected himself: “Really, it’s more like I’m always looking at a double image.” The Army’s textbook for the medical corps, War Psychiatry, notes that “casualties the soldier inflicted himself on enemy soldiers were usually described as the most stressful events” and quotes a company commander that it is easier for a soldier to accept the death of a friend than to cope with the fact of having shot someone. MacNair considers evidence for Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress among a number of groups – soldiers, executioners, police, criminals, and abortion providers – and presents some unusual information about the Nazi “Einsatzgruppen.” These were the soldiers who were charged with shooting Jews lined up at the edge of a pit – an act of unspeakable callousness. But, from the perspective of Nazi efficiency standards, the soldiers weren’t able to be callous enough. Because they shot their victims in the back they were spared the memory of the victims’ faces, yet found their nightmares haunted by those vulnerable, individual necks. Adolf Eichmann wrote that many of them, “unable to endure wading through blood any longer, had committed suicide. Some had even gone mad. Most of the members of these Kommandos had to rely on alcohol.” When Heinrich Himmler observed a shooting squad in action, it disturbed him so much that he ordered a “more humane” approach be found; the result was the gas chambers, which allowed the killer to avoid seeing his victims die. An officer in charge of the Einsatzgruppen, von dem Bach-Zelewski (who would himself later succumb to hallucinations), insisted to Himmler, “Look at the eyes of the men in this Kommando, how deeply shaken they are! These men are finished for the rest of their lives.” The torture he endured did not “finish” Fr. George; it made him courageous enough to defy the authorities, and even accept a second term of imprisonment as the price of preaching the gospel. Fr. Roman says that, in fact, his time in prison brought him an unexpected blessing, because it was there that he first discovered the depths of prayer. “I was forced to find myself in prison,” he writes in his book, Exploring the Inner Universe (HDM Press, 1996). “Only then was I able to discover how beautiful the interior life of man is … We will never reach the same spiritual level of life as in Communist imprisonment.” I asked Fr. Roman whether he was able to forgive his torturers. “Those who suffer much, forgive,” he said. “Those who do not forgive become victims. I embraced my torturers, once I saw that they were controlled by the devil. The devil is real, not a bedtime story.”That would be one piece of the puzzle which Orthodox Christians would bring to a discussion of torture. We still believe in a real devil. Not a pitchfork-and-tail cartoon, but a vicious malevolence who gorges on human suffering. The person who feels an inner compulsion to acts of sadism is not being driven by human nature. As Fr. Roman concluded, “Man is a sacrament; he is a mystery, too. We do not know what we are.” ? Frederica Mathewes-Green is the khouria of Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Church in Linthicum, Maryland. She is a columnist and movie reviewer, and author of several books, including most recently, The Lost Gospel of Mary: The Mother of Jesus in Three Ancient Texts (Paraclete Press). Her essay is reprinted with the author’s permission from The Review of Faith & International Affairs. * * *from the Summer 2007 issue of In Communion / IC 46 them. source: http://incommunion.org/articles/previous-issues/the-wounded-torturer

Ancient Christian Communities, Leaving the Land that God Gave Them.

He refused to leave Baghdad, even after the day last year when masked Sunni gunmen forced him and eight co-workers to line up against a wall and said, "Say your prayers." An Assyrian Christian, Rayid Albert closed his eyes and prayed to Jesus as the killers opened fire. He alone survived, shot seven times. But a month ago a note was left at his front door, warning, "You have three choices: change your religion, leave or pay the jeziya"—a tax on Christians levied by ancient Islamic rulers. It was signed "The Islamic Emirate of Iraq," a Qaeda pseudonym. That was the day Albert decided to get out immediately. He and the other 10 members of his household are now living as refugees in Kurdistan. Across the lands of the Bible, Christians like Albert and his family are abandoning their homes. According to the World Council of Churches, the region's Christian population has plunged from 12 million to 2 million in the past 10 years. Lebanon, until recently a majority Christian country—the only one in the Mideast—has become two-thirds Muslim. The Greek Orthodox archbishop in Jerusalem, where only 12,000 Christians remain, is pleading with his followers not to leave. "We have to persevere," says Theodosios Atallah Hanna. "How can the land of Jesus Christ stay without Christians?" The proportion of Christians in Bethlehem, once 85 percent, is now 20 percent. Egypt's Coptic Christians, who trace the roots of their faith back to Saint Mark's preaching in the first century, used to account for 10 percent of their country's population. Now they've dwindled to an estimated 6 percent. "The flight of Christians out of these areas is similar to the hunt for Jews," says Magdi Allam, an Egyptian-Italian author and expert on Islam, himself a Muslim. "There is no better example of what will happen if this human tragedy in the Arab-Muslim world is allowed to continue." Nowhere is the exodus more extreme than in Iraq. Before the war, members of the Assyrian and Chaldean rites, along with smaller numbers of Armenians and others, constituted roughly 1.2 million of the country's 25 million people. Most sources agree that well over half of those Christians have fled the country now, and many or most of the rest have been internally displaced, but some estimates are far more drastic. According to the Roman Catholic relief organization Caritas, the number of Christians in Iraq had plummeted to 25,000 by last year. Of the 1.7 million Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria, half are Christians, says Father Raymond Moussalli, a Chaldean vicar who now says mass every night in a basement in Amman. "The government of Saddam used to protect us," he says. "Mr. Bush doesn't protect us. The Shia don't protect us. No Christian was persecuted under Saddam for being Christian." Over the centuries, the region's Christians have frequently made common cause with their Muslim neighbors. Leaders of some Christian factions even backed Hizbullah during last summer's Lebanon war, and Arabic-speaking Christians in the Palestinian territories have regularly sided with the Muslim majority against the Israeli occupation. Five years ago Palestinian militants found sanctuary from Israel's tanks inside Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity. Nevertheless, old relationships are crumbling now. When Pope Benedict XVI quoted a medieval scholar's critical comments on the Prophet Muhammad, last September, furious Palestinians reacted by torching at least half a dozen churches on the West Bank. About 3,000 Christians remain in Gaza—many of them seeking new homes somewhere else. "We're living in a state of anxiety," says Hanady Missak, deputy principal of the Rosary Sisters School in Gaza City. Militants ransacked the school's chapel during the battle between Hamas and Fatah last month. Crosses were broken and prayer books burned. At least a few moderate imams are speaking out against attacks on Christians. "I ask the culprits to return to the Holy Qur'an and reread it," said Sheik Muhammed Faieq in a recent sermon at the Mussab Mosque in the Baghdad suburb of Dora, where jihadists have waged a cleansing campaign against Christians. "Forcing people to leave their religion or properties is contradicting Islam's traditions and instructions." For many in the Middle East, the admonition comes too late. "There is no future for Christians in Iraq for the next thousand years," says Rayid Paulus Tuma, a Chaldean Christian who fled his home in Mosul after two of his brothers were gunned down gangland style. His pessimism is shared by Srood Mattei, an Assyrian Christian now in Kurdistan: "We can see the end of the tunnel—and it is dark." With Kevin Peraino in Jerusalem, Salih Mehdi in Baghdad, Barbie Nadeau in Rome and Mandi Fahmy in Alexandria URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/33067

True Brotherhood

St. Matthew 5:42-48 (6/21) The Gospel for Saturday of the Week of the Holy Spirit The Sermon on the Mount V ~ The Challenge: St. Matthew 5:43-48, especially vs. 48: "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." As it should be noted throughout the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus' aim is to free the Faithful from the dark ways of mankind, illumine us with His Light, and assist us to attain the Kingdom of heaven. The logic of fallen mankind is to love one's own neighbors, friends, and family, and to ignore or despise those who differ from and oppose us (vs. 43). Our Lord reveals a new logic, a true logic, a theo-logic: to love all men in the manner in which God loves every one of us (vss. 44, 45). St. Theophylact of Ochrid states God's new way succinctly, "To love some men, that is, one's own friends, and to hate others, is imperfection. Perfection is to love everyone." Here is The journey which the Lord invites us to take. It is an ascent to the land of peace and joy known as the Kingdom of God. The journey is long and arduous, requiring us to redefine love itself. Our Lord invites us to accept His awesome definition of love, take His challenge to learn it, and succeed by relying on Him as our Guide to show us how, where, and when to love (vss. 43-48). Christ our God's definition of love is to bless those who curse us, to do good to those who hate us, and to pray for those who persecute us or use us out of sheer spite (vs. 44). Being weak and corrupt, I beg to ask, "How can I attain to such a lofty peak? Who is capable of meeting His challenge?" Brethren, thank God for He discloses the path, provides grace to follow it, and gives us the witness of "a great cloud" of saints to go upwards with us (Heb. 12:1). In the Lord Jesus' Saints we have the testimony of many - ascetics and monastics, fools for Christ, ordinary people who combined the impossibility and the necessity of God's way of loving. Remember, the Lord's initial instruction is: "Return to your own house, and tell what great things God has done for you" (Lk. 8:39). Then, as many demons are cast out, you and I may return to "uncivilized" society as those being healed. The Faithful in Christ have a vital message to be lived among our neighbors - a life-saving effort: to deliver love as a visible, unqualified, and pure gift to our neighbors, our families, our friends, and our enemies. The parched, infertile and wasted fields of men and women around us beg even for the seeds of love, thirst for the waters of the Spirit of love, languish for the food of the loving God. The evil and the good, the just and the unjust, our friends and the scoundrels of the world wait for such love. Begin today to act like our Father and shed some warmth of love on all, but not on the basis of their worthiness. Deliberately choose to pour out a drop of the water of blessings, sow some genuine good deed, and let God nurture our neighbors' unproductive lives by our inadequate prayers (vs. 45). Can we not be like children and imitate our Father in Heaven? Disdain the fear of clumsiness, being called a hypocrite, or being rebuffed and disliked! Brethren, the Lord calls us to extend love beyond those we prefer. As children of our Father, let us love the just and the unjust, the spiteful, and abusive, as well as those we like. St. Nikolai of Zica adds his voice to the Lord Jesus' guidance: "Be like this, brother: Reckon all men as your brothers, and sick brothers at that. And if you come to feel that God has given something healthier to you than to them, know that is given through mercy, that, as a healthy man, you may serve your frailer brethren. Who could take pride in that - as if health were all your own doing rather than God's? As if a stagnant pool could clear of itself and not be cleared by some spring, deeper and purer." By the power of Thy blessing, O Lord, enable me at all times to speak and act to Thy glory with a pure spirit, with humility, patience, love, and wisdom: aware always of Thy Life-giving presence.

A Saint who stopped an execution

by Jim Forest St. Nicholas of Myra was born in about 280 AD in the town of Patara within the Province of Lycia, Asia Minor. His life was later embroidered with many legends, yet there are several stories about him which seem solidly historical. One of these relates how, while Nicholas was visiting a remote part of his diocese, several citizens from Myra came to him with urgent news: the ruler of the city, Eustathius, had condemned three innocent men to death. Nicholas set out immediately for home. Reaching the outskirts of the city, he asked those he met on the road if they had news of the prisoners. Informed that their execution was to be carried out that morning, he hurried to the executioner’s field. Here he found a large crowd of people and the three men kneeling with their arms bound, awaiting the fatal blow. Nicholas passed through the crowd, took the sword from the executioner’s hands and threw it to the ground, then ordered that the condemned men be freed from their bonds. His authority was such that the executioner left his sword where it fell. Later Eustathius confessed his sin and sought the saint’s forgiveness. Nicholas absolved him, but only after the ruler had undergone a period of repentance. In the late 19th century, when Russians were embroiled in controversy regarding capital punishment, the artist Ilya Repin made his comment with the painting reproduced on the cover. Having studied ancient icons in which St. Nicholas is shown grasping the sword with his bare hand, Repin reproduced the image, but in a realistic modern style in which each face reveals various altitudes regarding the bishop’s brave intervention – the shocked astonishment of the executioner, the pious resignation of the prisoner on his knees who is not yet aware his life has been saved, and the appeal of a red-cloaked flunky representing the governor, no doubt pointing out that Nicholas would do well not to interfere. In this issue of In Communion, several authors reflect on aspects of the death penalty, still a punishment in many parts of the USA as it is in China, most Middle Eastern countries, regions of Africa in which Islam is dominant, and parts of Southeast Asia. Needless to say, unlike the prisoners for whom St. Nicholas intervened, many on death row are guilty of murder. Yet knowing the disciplines of the early Church, one can safely assume Nicholas would have intervened for the guilty no less than the falsely accused. For what good is served by their killing? How is the God of mercy honored by bloodshed? In the early Church those being prepared for baptism had to make promises regarding their future conduct. One of these was to not kill. This vow was required even of magistrates and soldiers. It is a requirement long ago abandoned and nearly forgotten, so that no one in our world is surprised when Christians take the lives of others or order others to shed blood. What a pity that we who claim to be followers of Christ give such a flawed witness to the kingdom of God. May we live to see the death penalty abandoned. May our own efforts help speed that day. * * *from the Summer 2007 issue of In Communion / IC 46

Waliking in the Way

St. Matthew 5:33-41 (6/20) The Gospel for Friday of the Week of the Holy Spirit The Sermon on the Mount IV ~ The Living Way: St. Matthew 5:33-41, especially vs. 39: "...whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also." In this portion of the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord Jesus first addresses truth-telling (vss. 33-37), and then teaches how to respond to the demands of others (vss. 38-41). He begins each topic with the familiar formula, "You have heard...but I tell you...." What He discloses is a new way to exist, a blessed life marked by relationships that are "...not of this world" (Jn. 8:23). He seeks by His words to open the "eyes of our hearts," in the same manner as the Prophet Elisha once prayed: "...Open, I pray thee, O Lord, their eyes, and let them see" (4 Kdms. 6:20). First, the Lord's teaching concerning the swearing of oaths: He does not deny that oaths have a legitimate place. Hence, in legal disputes and with governments, men may not always desire to tell the truth, therefore, the power of the state is applied to obtain trustworthy testimony. In giving the Law to Moses, God Himself commands this type of coercive pressure: "...ye shall not lie, neither shall one bear false witness as an informer against his neighbor"(Lev. 19:11). "And if thou wilt vow a vow to the Lord thy God, thou shalt not delay to pay it..." (Deut. 23:21). These are the commands of God to which the Lord refers when He says, "...You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord" (Mt. 5:33). What the Lord rejects is a scheming legalistic devising. The scribes and Pharisees of the first century deemed that as long as one swore by something other than God, he was not bound absolutely by his oath. Commonly, they swore "fidelity" by other things, assuming they were then free from having to tell the whole truth (vss. 34-36). Think of sales talks: when a salesman says, "It's the honest-to-God truth," one often suspects his motives. Abuse of vowing misses what the Lord desires to impart: we are always to tell the truth, and were this command honored, the need for oaths would be eliminated. As Disciples, we are to speak "...the truth in love...," to "grow up in all things into Him Who is the head - Christ..." (Eph. 4:15). Next, the Lord Jesus teaches us concerning the undue demands on us by others. He refers to the law of "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" - called "retributive justice" (see Ex. 21:24). Notice that He strictly limits retaliation, making it solely a function of government and the courts. For the Faithful there are no grounds for taking the law into one's own hands. Rather, Christ our God reveals the perfect approach of the Kingdom of Heaven: non-resistance of evil, which is turning the other cheek, surrendering one's goods, going the extra mile (Mt. 5:39-41). Is such a radical approach possible? Yes! It is the Lord Jesus' intention for us, which is why the Lord Himself is the Living Way (Jn.18:22-23), calling us, by example, to follow Him (1 Pet. 2:23). Of course, His way is contrary to our hardened, coarse human nature, which He wishes to soften. As St. Nikolai of Zica says, "To men not initiated into the mystery of Christ's suffering, the connection between suffering and life, between pain and glory, is, to this day, not clear. They would always want, in some way, to separate life and glory from suffering and pain, blessing the one and making it their own, but cursing and rejecting the other." We are drawn to Christ's way, but our fallen flesh asks, "How can I walk this way?" St. Nikolai of Zica says of the Apostles: "They achieved this...when the Spirit of God descended as tongues of fire into their hearts, setting them on fire with love for Christ." We are at the starting line, for Christ has broken the power of death and given us His Spirit. Let us act from His love! O Holy and Life-giving Spirit, fill us with streams and passages of grace as Thou doth water all creation with refreshing life, that we may be purified for the Kingdom of Heaven.

Doing Justice, Loving Mercy

by Catherine Brockenborough

The great eighteenth-century English jurist Sir William Blackstone said, “It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.” Blackstone based this opinion on his understanding of the exchange between God and Abraham regarding the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah found in Genesis 18:20-33. On May 11, 2007, some 250 years after Blackstone wrote his Commentaries, Curtis McCarty was released from an Oklahoma prison, becoming the 124th exonerated death row inmate in the United States since the modern era of capital punishment began in 1976. Of the 204 wrongfully convicted who have been exonerated after conviction as a result of DNA evidence, fifteen had been sentenced to death. The remaining exonerations have primarily been the result of newly discovered evidence, including evidence of prosecutorial misconduct and state malfeasance. These numbers suggest that many more wrongfully convicted persons remain incarcerated and on death row. The numbers also give flesh to an underlying fear in our death penalty system – the execution of an innocent person. Indeed, substantial evidence exists that at least nine innocent people have been executed in the United States, since 1976; in 2005, Georgia issued a posthumous pardon for a woman executed in 1945. The number of exonerated is but one of many reasons why so many Americans have come to oppose today’s system of capital punishment. Other reasons run the ideological gamut and include frustration with the length of the appeals process, the disproportionate number of black, poor and mentally ill inmates on death row, critique of “Big Government’s” ability or need to be involved in certain aspects of life, skepticism that any death penalty scheme can be fair, onerous financial costs, and disquiet with a double standard in which the democratic history and rhetoric of the United States confront the country’s membership in a club that includes the three nations of the so-called “axis of evil”: Iran, Iraq and North Korea. In the end, these reasons are secular in nature – that is, opposition to the death penalty based on any of these reasons does not require any particular theology. I am interested in whether support of capital punishment is compatible with the Christian faith. Does belief in Christianity – specifically in Orthodox Christianity – provide a reason to oppose the death penalty that is above all theological in nature? Suppose we had a system that guaranteed no execution of innocents, that was fiscally sustainable, and that was truly free of all forms of bias – in other words, a system where all the secular concerns with capital punishment have been resolved. Is support of such a system consistent with our Faith? This is no theoretical question. It goes to the very heart of Christianity, involves the Orthodox understanding of the natures of God and man and implicates our very salvation. As Orthodox Christians living in a world in which the death penalty is imposed and carried out, I submit that wrestling with this issue is a necessary part of our theosis. Ultimately, I believe we will discover that the most fundamental core principles of the Faith impel Orthodox Christians to reject capital punishment in any form. Man: Icon of God: “Then God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26a.) The knowledge that man was made in the image of God lies at the very heart of Christian belief side by side with the knowledge that the Fall warped and tarnished that image while the Incarnation and Resurrection provided for its restoration. I wonder whether the very pervasiveness and elemental nature of this teaching may diminish our appreciation of its awesomeness. You have been made in the image of God. You are an icon of God Incarnate, of our Lord Jesus Christ. Recognizing this reality, St. Seraphim of Sarov greeted all whom he met with the exclamation “My joy!” Had he encountered you, he would have greeted you thus, as well. Do you believe this of yourself? Do you believe this of others? Regardless of our belief, the truth is that everyone has been created in God’s image. Whi