As an undergrad, many years before my actual conversion to Orthodoxy, I was blessed to take several Russian History classes. I had been raised an Evangelical. At the time, I had a good understanding of historical Roman Catholicism, but almost no knowledge of Orthodoxy. Early in the course, I was immensely impressed with the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to the Slavs. In complete opposition to the Catholic German clergy with whom they were in competition, the Greek saints translated the Bible and the Liturgy into Slavonic – a language understandable for the people they were trying to convert.
Compared to the Roman Catholic restriction of sacred texts to Hebrew, Latin, and Greek, this approach seemed amazingly benevolent and farsighted. It was also impressive when compared to my understanding of Protestant missions in the American West, the goal of which seemed to have been the extinguishing of native languages and cultures as part of the process of conversion.
Years later, I would learn as an Orthodox Christian that the actions of Saints Cyril and Methodius reflected the belief that the Orthodox Faith must become incarnated (indigenized) in local cultures to produce authentic fruits of human cooperation with God.
Father Emmanuel Clapsis explained it this way in his book Orthodoxy in Conversation:
The different cultures human communities have produced all have the potential to receive the gospel and be transformed by it because God is already active in them through the omnipresence of His Spirit… The gospel, as it encounters different cultures, affirms some elements of them, rejects whatever is incompatible with essential tenets of the coming reign of God, and challenges them to be transformed through development so that they may come closer to God’s intentions for the world. Theology in its role as mediator between faith and culture has the task of assisting the Church in assessing critically the whole process of conversation between gospel and culture, and of developing principles and criteria of authentic inculturation that maintain faithfulness to the Christian tradition.
All missionaries, to every place that we now think of as “Orthodox,” found a culture there when they arrived. The missionaries sought ways to present the Gospel in terms that the indigenous people could best understand, without changing the essentials of the Faith. The Churches they founded, over time, sorted the “wheat” from the “chaff” (culturally speaking) while transforming those cultures to become “closer to God’s intentions for the world.” The results are the great “Orthodox cultures” we think of today, without usually stopping to remember that there was never a fully-formed, Orthodox culture that just dropped in from Heaven. Every one of them arose from the same historical “conversation” between the Gospel and pre-existing cultures.
This is the pattern of Orthodox missionary activity throughout most of history and in most places. The Russians did thusly with the Inuit in Alaska. Missionaries such as Saints Herman and Innocent translated the scriptures and holy books into the Inuit languages and blessed the best aspects of the native cultures. The Alaskans saw that they could be Orthodox Christians, and still be who they were as a people. After the transfer to American rule, almost all the Russian clergy went home. But as this article from the OCA phrased it, “The Orthodox Church in Alaska was able to survive because, from its very beginning, it was envisioned, in the best tradition of Orthodox missionary spirituality, as an indigenous church, not as a “diaspora.”
In some areas of Alaska, they still say, “To be native is to be Orthodox.”
This pattern of missionary activity is not just ancient history. The Russian Church in Taiwan is actually creating new Chinese words to better express Theological concepts as translations are made of the Bible, lives of Saints, etc..
At the same time, the translators managed to develop Biblical terminology, as many concepts have not developed in the Chinese language, such as “to bless” and “be vigilant.”
“’Be vigilant’ could be translated with a long phrase, but we wanted to find one word that could be used and in the imperative mood. And when we came up with it and proposed it, it was accepted by native speakers and it fit with the language very well,” Fr. Kirill commented.
Fr. Kirill and the other translators labored over the translation and preparation for publication of the Gospel of Mark for 8 years and they hope it will soon see the light of day. They are currently working on the translation of the Gospel of Matthew.
Not only Chinese falls short in some ways as a Theological language. One writer on this site once explained the hidden depths of the Greek word Παραδοσις (paradosis) when compared to the English word “tradition.” Perhaps the same kind of effort being devoted to Chinese could be beneficial in expanding the Theological and cultural richness of English?
Given the spread of Christianity from a small, Roman backwater to every quarter of the globe, the Orthodox Church clearly understands evangelism. Transforming a culture is a long-term project to be sure, but 2,000 years of history testify that authentic inculturation of the Gospel works.
So when does authentic inculturation start for American Culture?
Over twenty-five years ago, I got my first Orthodox calendar from a GOA parish in which I was a catechumen. The priest there had converted as an adult, and had been a secular historian prior to seminary. He and I were great friends. We often met for lunch as my office was close to the parish. One day I asked him, “Are we supposed to fast on Thanksgiving? Because on the calendar it is a fasting day.”
He laughed and said, “No. They always give us permission not to every year since it is such an important American holiday.”
Perplexed, I asked, “If the bishops give us permission every year to participate in an American holiday, why not just change the calendar to reflect that?” He laughed and patted my arm as if to say, “You poor, poor deluded man.” Every year, I get a calendar. Every year, Thanksgiving is shown as part of the Nativity Fast. Every year, there is some kind of discussion and controversy over it among new converts, catechumens, “online” elders, various jurisdictions, etc. Every year, almost all of us American Orthodox, clergy and laity alike, get together with our friends and family to eat like pigs at the trough.
Fr. Panayiotis Papageorgiou said it this way about how the Greek Archdiocese views Thanksgiving:
As Orthodox Christians, who value the unity and strength of the family, we are inclined to adopt this feast as our own, especially at a time when the institution of the family is under attack from all directions. Considering the traditional Thanksgiving meal, however, which involves turkey, ham and dairy products, Orthodox Christians trying to hold the fast of Christmas are faced with the dilemma: Should I hold the fast and go contrary to the established social and cultural norms associated with Thanksgiving Day or should I break the fast in order to facilitate the need of blending in and not making others uncomfortable with my presence?
Several years ago, responding to the request of the faithful under its jurisdiction in America, the Patriarchate of Constantinople applying “economia” discreetly granted its blessing for those who live in America to break the fast on Thanksgiving Day while focusing on the unity of the family and the “eucharistic” aspects of this feast, but quickly return to the observance of the fast immediately afterwards. The non-Orthodox cultural norm is thus transformed through our theology and this pastoral approach to a positive element for the strengthening of family bonds, while keeping with the necessity of our spiritual ascesis of fasting.
So celebrating Thanksgiving is economia – an exception to the letter of the law based on pastoral charity. One of our biggest American holidays, which does have a Christian underpinning, has not been “transformed” or even “adopted” by the Church. It is merely tolerated, because though it is a non-Orthodox cultural norm, the day is kind of important to roughly 330 million people. I suppose inculturation does not include turkey as a holiday food in late November. But as Americans this is our national holiday, regardless of what shade the day is on the Orthodox Calendar – so ham and turkey win.
Thanksgiving has been observed annually in the United States since 1863. The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South America was incorporated in 1921. The Russians were here way before then. Orthodoxy in America is not new. At least in this case, the holiday schedule is also not new. Is this the best we can really do? It seems like such an ad hoc solution, “Oh look! Wow, didn’t expect that Thanksgiving thing to happen again this year. Better let those Americans off the hook for one day of fasting. Sure hope we don’t have to do this again next year.”
Truly embracing Thanksgiving would require the church to change the calendar and clearly, officially say, “This is an American Orthodox Feast Day in what is otherwise a fasting period. Let us celebrate it!” Maybe we could even emphasize a saint for that day? What about icons for the feast? Possibly even write some prayers specifically for church and home use? Alternatively, the Church could proclaim, “Temporarily you can feast on this day, but as we progress towards America becoming an Orthodox nation, Thanksgiving will eventually have to be rescheduled to an earlier date in November. The Nativity Fast is vitally important and it is not moving. When Americans shape up, we’ll fully embrace the feast.” Either solution seems more credible and more permanent than annually renewing economia discreetly because the American national feast day is a non-Orthodox cultural norm.
The Greek Archdiocese constantly talks about the “Greek Diaspora” as if its parishes were filled with recent immigrants from Greece. Here is an example, upon assuming office Archbishop Elpidophoros said this to the President of Greece, “The Greek Diaspora of the United States of America is the pride of our Nation, of Hellenism throughout the world.” But this is not an accurate description of a lot of “Greek” parishes. In fact, quite a few parishes are full of adult converts, non-ethnic cradle Orthodox, and those of Greek or partial Greek descent whose families have been here two or more generations.
The phrases “diaspora” and “omogeneia” just don’t fit the facts on the ground across the entire Greek Archdiocese. Constantly using them seems to indicate that the Greek Archdiocese cares less about “inculturation” of the gospel and “transforming” American culture than it does about preserving Greek culture that is actually foreign to these shores. The primary goal of forever keeping the “Greek” in “Greek Orthodoxy” appears to be encouraging perpetual loyalty to the Ecumenical Patriarchate among a prosperous and influential donor base. The main goal does not appear to be effective evangelism, even though many priests in the Greek Archdiocese are excellent evangelists and apologists for the Faith. In my case alone, five cradle Orthodox children with no ethnic background have been raised in the Greek Archdiocese because of just one such priest.
At the institutional-level, the Greek Archdiocese is clearly not trying to be God’s agent in transforming American Culture into the best possible version of itself. Rather, the Greek Archdiocese promotes American “diversity” so as to justify keeping Greek Americans culturally isolated. Instead of being a foundation for unifying all Americans as Orthodox Christians, the Greek Archdiocese sees a future of Greek Americans keeping their own unique culture in a diverse, pluralistic America:
Today’s omogeneia has overcome that denial and has come to understand that the secret of the American civilization’s success does not lie in the obliteration of one’s cultural background but rather in the free and harmonious co-existence of people and races who have come to this hospitable land seeking a life in freedom, in faith and in dignity.
For purposes of its own, the Greek Archdiocese is clearly in the “Diversity is our strength” crowd.
Now before you get upset with what I have previously written, my family doesn’t walk around the parish complaining about Greek culture. We help out at Greekfest, as best we can. I taught all the kids the basic prayers in Greek so that they could more fully participate. I’m even a GOYA chaperone, since my kids go to activities. Most of the non-Greeks and “barely” Greeks are the same – keeping their heads down and helping out where they can. Our silence, however, doesn’t imply that there is no problem with essentially ignoring our existence and that of our non-ethnic, cradle children. It also doesn’t mean that we plan to become culturally Greek, or that we don’t dream of a culturally unified American Orthodox Church.
The Greek Archdiocese is not alone among jurisdictions in shortsightedness. Other jurisdictions are just as fixated on preserving foreign cultures rather than on transforming the American one. Some jurisdictions actually suffer from a kind of internal cultural anarchy brought about by smashing together multiple immigrant communities with no single standard for many important activities. Our oldest cradle was baptized in the Greek Archdiocese. When it came time to baptize the second kid, we had temporarily switched to an OCA parish. With the godparents, I approached the priest a couple of weeks in advance to ask for instructions on how to prepare for the baptism and what to do after. I said, “In the Greek parish, they gave us a list of things to do for the parents and the godparents. You know, who bought the candle, the cross, bring the baby in the baptismal garment for three Sundays after baptism, and all that.”
The priest shrugged and said, “You can pretty much do what you want.” He then launched into a long speech about how Ukrainians did this, and Russians did that, but Serbians did this other thing, on the other hand Romanians… Eventually I put my hand up and stopped him. “That’s all great, Father. But what are Americans supposed to do?” He spluttered for a moment, then seemed likely to restart the list of options. There was just no clear answer here. I asked for his blessing, and told him we’d follow the Greek instructions left over from the first kid. The answer of what traditions to follow around a baptism appears to depend on whether your OCA priest is an adult convert, a cradle with a specific tradition, or a non-ethnic cradle (like my own sons would be if called to the priesthood).
Someone reading this far is going to say that these examples are just so much whining by a convert over things that don’t matter. Compared to the fullness of the Faith? Maybe they matter less. But if they did not matter at all, then Orthodoxy would not have developed its own successful model of evangelism. A model that is diametrically opposed to how we are doing things in the United States and much of the “Western” world. The examples I have given are symptoms, not the disease. The disease is that instead of trying to build an Orthodox culture native to these shores, most Orthodox jurisdictions seem bent on propagating foreign cultures indefinitely. And sadly, this applies the same to many jurisdictions that use English as a primary liturgical language. The language may be native, but the cultural context is not.
As one priest confided in me, “How can we Orthodox save something we don’t love?”
This past Christmas, thanks to COVID, my family celebrated the Nativity at a Western Rite parish. Halfway through the service, I actually started crying as I sang, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” After 25 years of Orthodoxy, I was unprepared for how powerfully the singing of a “traditional” Christmas Carol in a church service would affect me. Greek Pascha is amazing. Western Rite Christmas, as we just experienced, is also amazing. It makes me sad that, as Americans, we are expected to choose between all these various competing options because of what was deemed appropriate in other cultures and at other historical times. If we set out to build an Orthodoxy native to the United States, using earlier traditions to which we were faithful but not held captive – what would the result look like?
The United States of America has a history. The United States of America has a culture. A unique one. We aren’t English, or German, or French, or Greek, or Russian. We are even different from Canada, despite our close proximity. Our history, our political institutions, our founding myths – these have all shaped us into a different people than our ancestors were when they arrived. We are not a blank slate, any more than the Serbs or the Russians or the Inuit were blank slates when Orthodox missionaries first showed up. In those situations, the missionaries worked with what they had and the results were native, grounded Orthodox Churches and transformed cultures.
The Orthodox Faith continues to grow in the United States, thanks be to God, but imagine how many more souls could be reached if we made it our task to transform American culture through the Orthodox Faith into the best possible version of itself.
Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America, a COVID refugee from the Greek Archdiocese
The essential point is how to achive God’s grace and the communion of the Holly Spirit! The way for that is indifferent(mind the words of St Serafim of Sarov in his discussion with Motovilof).But be careful.Which are the churches that emerge Saints? With love from a Greek Orthodox Christian.
Nicholas and Editors,
Blessed Feast of the Theophany of Christ Our Savior!
Please forgive this long reply to another well written article describing relevant concerns for traditional, Patristic Orthodox -and to Annunzio’s comment on phyletism…I understand not being able to print due to its length. It an excerpt of a longer piece I’ve been working on over several years. Just wanted most of all to share it with you and say thanks again for your diligence.
Blessed Feast! Doxa to Theo, John D.
Quotations from Blessed Hieromonk Seraphim Rose
Orthodoxy is not merely a ritual, or belief, or a pattern of behavior, or anything else that a man may possess, thinking that he is thereby a Christian, and be spiritually dead; it is rather an elemental reality of power which transforms a man and gives him strength to live in the most difficult and tormenting conditions, and prepares him to depart with peace into eternal life. – The Orthodox World View
Every Orthodox Christian is placed between two worlds: this fallen world where we try to work out our salvation, and the other world, heaven, the homeland towards which we are striving and which, if we are leading a true Christian life, gives us the inspiration to live from day to day in Christian virtue and love.
But the world is too much with us. We often, and in fact nowadays we usually forget the heavenly world. The pressure of worldliness is so strong today that we often lose track of what our life as a Christian is all about. Even if we may be attending church services frequently and consider ourselves “active” church members, how often our churchliness is only something external, bound up with beautiful services and the whole richness of our Orthodox tradition of worship, but lacking in real inner conviction that Orthodoxy is the faith that can save our soul for eternity, lacking in real love for and commitment to Christ, the incarnate God and Founder of our faith. How often our church life is just a matter of habit, something we go through outwardly but which does not change us inwardly, does not make us grow spiritually and lead us to eternal life in God. – The Future of Russia and the End of the World
Another “hurdle” an American Orthodox Christian can face is when the subject arises when questioned or told right out by ethnic Orthodox that “because you’re an American convert you don’t really understand or know what it means to “be” Orthodox; or “you’re not Russian, or Greek, or ‘fill in the blank’, so you can’t understand or ever be “true” Orthodox.” Then there is this one: ‘because you’re on the “new” calendar you don’t have the fullness of grace of the Holy Spirit and your sacraments aren’t valid’, or ‘you don’t have a real priest’, etc., etc. These are the same people who can be quantified as “holiday” Orthodox; that is, they attend church twice a year –Christmas and Pascha – not to be seen again until the next year. These are the same people who come ten minutes before Communion and leave minutes after. These are the same people whom we never see until their family’s or country’s Slava celebration –or celebrating the “Independence” day of this or that country they left behind – when they show up by the literally by the hundreds sometimes. One Question: where are they the rest of the year? [I personally experienced this while attending a “national” holiday service at HT by the Serbs, where it was literally “standing room only” due to the crowd gathered.]
The problem with such misguided generalizations, rituals and practices is that they arise from several errors. The first is to confuse the outward with the inward. This is a superficial approach to Orthodoxy. The focus is on externals rather the internal transformation of the heart. This attachment to externals can extend to foreign clothes [trends such as antiquated 19th century fashions; beards for laymen –the longer the beard –the “more Orthodox” you must be because we have “Who’s Got the Longest Beard Contests”; head coverings must be worn–even though she’s wearing shorts/slacks or a dress that could pass for a negligee], foreign languages [you really think you’re going to get your spouse and kids to love—and convert—to the Church and come when they can’t even understand it?…delusion…] food and superstitious folklore. These attachments are another “disconnect” that can lead to imagined formalities, obligations and outright superstitions.
“…there must be an awareness that the externals they preserve are not of the essence of Orthodoxy” (FAY p 136). And secondly, that the battle of the Old Believers “to keep their traditions is not the same battle as we have to keep alive the spirit of Orthodoxy… the preservation of old customs isn’t going to help when the spirit is gone” (FAY p151).
These may seem like hard words. But the point is not to dismiss those who follow the Old Rite; he broaches a risk that exists as much for us as for them: the risk that we mistake the outward forms for the heart.” – The Desert in the Backyard; the Desert in Our Hearts; Not of This World, Life & Works of Fr. Seraphim Rose
Ethnic and cultural practices, traditions, and customs divorced from, and disconnected from, regular participation in the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church become private imaginations and secularized forms of understanding that lead to delusion and superstition. To understand correctly, one must be a living, functioning, participating member of the Church. That is, you must be practicing the faith by regular attendance of the divine services and regularly receiving Her Mysteries –practicing those esteemed virtues the Fathers call “constancy” and “stability”. Look at any contemporary “healthy” and “ethnic” parish outside USA and the world over. They are not dressing like it’s the 1800’s. [Except maybe the schismatic “Old-Believers” here in the U.S.] That would be like us going around in colonial outfits! How goofy and absurd that would be!
Yes, there are many beautiful “ethnic” and cultural traditions and liturgical practices worth emulating and adopting into our lives as American Orthodox. Here’s a thought though: before we adopt a “tradition” outside of our normal-daily lives, let’s first establish ‘traditions’ of saying our daily prayers – morning and evening prayers – on a regular basis; let’s establish a ‘tradition’ of coming to – and participating in Church services on a regular basis; let’s establish a ‘tradition’ of being on time for those services and not leaving until the end; a ‘tradition’ of properly receiving the Mysteries of the Church; and a ‘tradition’ of not letting our worldly pursuits, cares and entertainments take the place of our presence in the Divine Services.
Then maybe, we can start to understand and live that life of wholeness we seek and were meant to live. If we separate our lives into “ethnic” or “cultural” practices and solely based on our heritage and family traditions, we run the risk of losing that wholeness and unity found only within the Church. To do this is to embrace and practice phyletism –which was condemned as heresy by the Church in the 19th century.
What is “phyletism”?
Now what is phyletism then? ….Well, it is placing all of that, which we’ve said—the love of one’s country, the strong healthy identity, wanting to maintain ethnic traditions—above and beyond and first before the Church, above the Church, as a criteria for how the Church is viewed, as the overarching identity of one to the detriment of his identity as an Orthodox Christian—such that his decisions and his desires and policies, let’s say if one’s government policies first by their ethnic identity and their ethnic needs and desires to the detriment or complete indifference to the Church and the Church’s teaching. This is phyletism.….“And that’s why we can say that every local Church is a catholic Church, is the catholic Church, because it has the whole God, the whole faith, the whole truth, all of life and salvation is given to every local gathering, synaxis of the faithful. There’s nothing missing from the local Church when it is gathered around its Holy Altar—a bishop, priests, deacons, and faithful. The whole of the Gospel, the whole of salvation, is given to each and every local Church, each and every parish.
Now phyletism, as we can see when we understand catholicity properly, attacks the wholeness of the Church, divides the Church. It sets up divisions, barriers, between Orthodox Christians and between people generally. But mainly we’re speaking about the Church, and this is what concerns us—that in the midst of this wholeness, this unity, there is division; there is disintegration; there is schism; there is a loss of the whole truth and a loss of brotherliness and brotherhood.
Catholicity of course—and we should put phyletism in its proper perspective—is undermined in many ways, not just by phyletism; phyletism is but one way. Phyletism is an expression of secularism. It is a worldly way of living and understanding. It belongs to this world, and it makes the Church into something of this world. It limits it and does not allow it to be the Kingdom of Heaven. The whole truth is no longer understood and is made into the world. So phyletism is an expression, is one aspect, of secularism.
Along with that, there are other ways that catholicity is undermined. We’ll try to briefly give a description of a few of those. Conservativism or an extreme attachment to the letter of the law, to the external aspect of the faith, making things into ritual without meaning, a type without essence, as opposed to tradition, because tradition is the life of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Conservativism is something that, again, is a part of this world, and it is purely human attachments and not divine life.” – Phyletism – Part One and Part Two; Transcript Postcards from Greece AFR: Fr. Peter Alban Heers • August 21, 2009
Surface appearances (ethnicity, national and cultural ‘traditions’, going through the “forms”, “super-correctness”, or ‘dogmatizing’ where “things” are placed in the church) become the criteria for acceptance and what is “authentic” or “true” Orthodoxy. This is “surface” Orthodoxy; an Orthodoxy of “the head” and not “the heart.” It lacks the personal experiential nature of Orthodox spiritual depth, growth and understanding that is all about internal changes from a life lived within the Church guided by her Tradition, Saints, Holy Fathers and Mothers, and normal-everyday-living members of the Church.
Unfortunately, this kind of mindset leads to an externalizing of the faith, which in turn leads to representing Orthodoxy as an ethnic identity, or a national culture and their respective practices…more surface benchmarks. You don’t need to convert to a foreign nationality first to become Orthodox. This would be like the Judaizers who said you have to be circumcised first, then you can be Christian. I believe St. Paul and formally by St. James at the council in Acts 15 clarified the falsehood of that fallacy. Detrimentally, newly-converted Orthodox are drawn to this pseudo-Orthodoxy and with “zeal without knowledge” succumb to these outward-surface-trappings and slip further into an Orthodoxy of their own making [web-spinning] –thus deluded, they buy into the lie that ‘if you do not belong to the “correct” ethnicity, country-nation and its representative church, grow long beards and hair, dress like 19th century Russian peasants, pick the most exotic Greek or Russian saint name, you simply cannot be, understand, or become a “true” Orthodox Christian.’ Again, this is Orthodoxy of the head and not the heart. More delusion, more surface without any depth. Good luck converting your spouse and kids [or anyone else, for that matter] to this pseudo- Orthodoxy.
These “holiday” Orthodox (as they most often only come to Church services on the holidays of Christmas and Pascha) ‘give the impression that it isn’t Christ and His Church that attracts them, but their foreign and exotic culture – the more exotic the better.’
Archpriest Fr. Andrew Phillips of “Orthodox England” wonderfully sums up this battle between externals (surface) and internals (depth):
What I am saying is that if we attach ourselves to externals, then we should first ask ourselves: What externals are we attaching ourselves to? If we do not use our discernment, we can look very silly indeed. All externals are only natural if they reflect what is inside us. If Orthodox Christianity is inside us, then our externals will be those of any Orthodox Christian. We should certainly make a habit of visiting other Orthodox parishes, countries where there are many Orthodox churches, observing and feeling our way towards authenticity. The worst thing is little closed communities of ‘converts’ who never see anything else. They can end up practicing things which exist nowhere else on earth, and yet they think that they are ‘more Orthodox’ than anyone else! Humility is once again the solution to this illness and humility starts with realism, not with fantasy. No spirituality has ever been built on fantasy. Without sober humility, there is always illusion, which is followed by discouragement and depression. This is the spiritual law.
…Yes, Church life is about commitment, the one thing which is so missing in our present-day luke-warm, indifferentist British culture. Being a Christian, and I remind you again, that is all that the word ‘Orthodox’ means, is very difficult. Nobody, from Christ down, ever said anything else. Without commitment, we will never remain Orthodox. Being a Christian is about loving God and loving our neighbor. If we are not prepared to even try and do that, then there is no point anyway. Unfortunately, some people think that being an Orthodox Christian – that’s a tautology, I know – is not about loving God and loving our neighbor. They think that it is about reading books, having opinions, condemning others, eating weird food, being intolerant, or dressing strangely. Our Lord never said any of that. He said: ‘Behold, I give you a new commandment, love one another’.
…We come to the Church and we remain in the Church in order to save our souls, and nothing else. Church is not a hobby, a game, a private interest, a pretense, or even a community. It is our soul’s salvation. We achieve this by first being ourselves and then being the best of ourselves. If there is anything else, it is all secondary. We must never lose this perspective. If we do, then we are out of perspective and on our way out of the Church.
In order to save our souls, we first have to know ourselves, searching out and discovering our own faults, sins and failings. Then we have to take issue with them and fight, however slowly and weakly, and begin to tame them and never give up this battle. We will know when we are not doing this, it is when we start dwelling on the faults of others
If our personal pride is hurt in the course of Church life, thank God. That is what we are there for, to become humble… – ON BECOMING AND REMAINING AN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN; A Talk given at the Orthodox Pilgrimage to Felixstowe in August 2001
Phyletism Transcript Postcards from Greece: Fr. Peter Alban Heers · July 24, 2009
URL: http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/postcards/phyletism
Audio length: 20:20 minutes
Transcript published: November 13, 2009
Phyletism – Part Two Transcript Postcards from Greece:
Fr. Peter Alban Heers · August 21, 2009
URL: http://www.ancientfaith.com/podcasts/postcards/phyletism_-_part_two
Audio length: 24:09 minutes
Transcript published: November 13, 2009
The irony of people whining about things like philetism in the US is that they are in reality promoting the ugliest kinds of philetism around, whether it be Greek-Messianic Domination or Anglo-American White Nationalism. As mentioned in the previous comment, people need to learn some humility and patience. You don’t have a good perspective if you’ve just been a convert for 5 or even 50 years, it takes more like 500 years of continual, lived experience – real, cultivated tradition. And no, OCA historical revisionism (Alaska is somewhat more relevant to American Orthodoxy than the research base in Antarctica) and Antiochian crypto-Evangelicalism do not count.
Cyril and Methodius didn’t go out into the wilderness, they went to a province/territory that had been a part of the Church for hundreds of years, even if it was a backwater. It very much was NOT Protestant/Jesuit style evangelism. Likewise, I very much doubt they went up to Greeks or Franks or whatnot in those lands and told them to “speak Slavonic” in a way akin to how Americans seem to insist. As an aside, I cannot tell whether people prefer more to declare Church Slavonic an artificial language to delegitimize its use or a native language to justify silly liturgical and translation practices. Whatever, the Russians still use it even though Russian is more different from it compared to some other Slavic languages and they seem to be the only ones with their heads on straight at the moment.
CS Lewis talks about how we respect other peoples’ love for their communities and nations because we know how we love our own. If Americans cannot respect and honor other people’s love for their traditions, cultures, and language, maybe it is in fact just Americans who do not really understand how to authentically love their own? And I would say that this is the dismal reality for card-carrying Republicans, not just left-wing wackos. No amount of screaming about “family values” will make up for the fact that they do not respect other peoples’ families, let alone traditions. There’s that pesky phrase that some guy said in the Bible, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” No less true on the communal or national level.
Beautifully well-written! I think some of our problems as Americans also come from a lack of acceptance of a common culture with it’s African, European, and Native American mix. This is not just an Orthodox problem but an American problem too. I believe that a good mix of Americanisms can be found in the Antiochian archdiocese and in some ROCOR places like Holy Cross. But we must be patient. The Russians had about 500 years being under the influence of the Greeks and Slavonic (though relate) was still a foreign language. We cannot create culture but we can encourage it and see what the Holy Spirit accepts. The challenge though will be stripping modernism from American culture or finding a way to ‘baptize’ it.