Source: Ancient Faith Radio
February 25, 2011 Length: 101:41
A lecture delivered at North Park University in Chicago in Feb of 2011.
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Let me begin this evening with words, neither from an Orthodox Christian nor from an Evangelical Christian but from a Roman Catholic—Cardinal Suenens. He has said, “In order to unite, we must first love one another. In order to love one another, we must first get to know one another.” That sums up in a nutshell the purpose of our Orthodox-Evangelical dialogue. As with every Inter-Christian and indeed Inter-faith dialogue, we are seeking to get to know one another better, so that we may come to love another more fully and so may be enabled by God’s grace and mercy to fulfill the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ for his disciples “that they all may be one”. (John 17:21).
Nowadays, we often hear the word dialogue, used in the title of my lecture tonight. Some people are in favor of dialogue and others are against. For myself, I am strongly in favor. A dialogue that is sincere, a dialogue of love—yes—but also a dialogue of truth, without evasion and without compromise. Let me tell you why I am in favor of dialogue.
Half a century ago, a highly instructive book was written on the Christian understanding of the human person, a book still worth reading and too much neglected. It was by a Scottish philosopher, John MacMurray, entitled Persons in Relation. His theme was “personhood is relational”. As persons, we are what we are only in relation to other persons. No one—isolated, cut off from others, turned inward—is truly a person according the image and likeness of God, the Holy Trinity. Not that John MacMurray actually mentions the Trinity. It would have greatly strengthened his argument had he done so.
The early Christians used to say [0:10:11] unos christianus, nolos christianus—one Christian, isolated and cut off from the others, is no Christian. We can extend that saying—[0:10:29] una persona, nula persona—one person, cut off, isolated from others is not truly a person. As MacMurray puts it, “The self exists only in dynamic relation with the other. The self is constituted by its relation with the other. It has its being in its relationship. There is no true person,” he continues, unless there are at least two persons communicating with one another. To be human is to be dialogic—to engage in dialogue.” And so MacMurray concludes, “I need you in order to be myself.” All of this has been developed from the Orthodox side by the Greek theologian, John Zizioulas, Metropolitan of Pergamon. This theme, that human personhood is relational, is evident in the very word used for “person” in the Greek language. The word for “person” in Greek is prosopon—it means “face” or “countenance”. I am not a person unless I face other persons, unless I look into their eyes and let them look into mine.
Now, we should apply all this, not only to individual persons but to church communities—isolated, cut off from other Christian communities. No ecclesial group is truly fulfilling its vocation in Christ. Each Christian community should be willing to say to the others, “We need you in order to be ourselves.” That can certainly be applied to Orthodox-Evangelical dialogue.
At first sight, Orthodox and Evangelicals appear widely different, even opposed. But, in fact, we share in common far more than might at first seem evident. We share a common faith in God, the Holy Trinity; a common faith in Jesus Christ, as fully and truly God, fully and truly human. We share a common faith in his virgin birth, his miracles, his sacrificial death on the cross for our salvation, his bodily resurrection, his second coming. We share a common faith in Holy Scripture as inspired by God and altogether truthful. But for neither side does this necessarily imply fundamentalism. We share a common faith in the divine ordering of marriage and the family; a common conviction that sexuality is indeed a gift from God, but a gift to be used in the lifelong commitment of marriage. We share a common approach to problems of homosexuality, bioethics, and euthanasia. Yes, there are significant divergences between us. But they are not as great as we might suppose. The present day Anglican Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, has said, “There are two kinds of Christians. On the one side, those who believe that Christianity is a revealed religion and, on the other side, those who believe that you can make it up as you go along.” Well, in regard to that division, Orthodox and Evangelicals come down firmly on the first side.
Of course, as an Orthodox I allow for the fact that there are many variations within Evangelicalism—notably, the difference between Arminians and Calvinists. I am firmly an Arminian. Also, the difference between Charismatics and non-Charismatics. I would put myself in the Charismatic class. Orthodoxy is, of course, much more uniform in doctrine and forms of worship than Evangelicalism. But, here too, we have differences among ourselves, especially in our attitude to non-Orthodox Christians and in our approach to Christian unity and the Ecumenical Movement. Please take note that in the title of my address, I do not say, “What have Evangelicals to learn from the Orthodox?” But I say, “What have we to learn from one another?” Dialogue, if truly such, is always mutual—never just one-sided.
Tonight, let me explore three areas. The list is by no means exhaustive. Let us look at Church and Eucharist. Then, secondly, Scripture and Tradition. Thirdly, the Work of Christ. Here I am trying to follow the advice of the bishop who ordained me priest. At the end of the service, I asked him for guidance in my future ministry. He said (he was not in fact the first person to say this), “Always have three points in your sermon; not less and not more.” [laughter] Actually, I think it’s often quite enough to have one point in your sermon, and some sermons seem to have no point at all! [laughter]
Let’s start with Church and Eucharist—the first item in my list of three. What is the Church here for? What is the unique function of the Church? What is it that it alone does and what no one and nothing else can do? We might answer, “The Church is here to proclaim salvation in Jesus Christ.” That is true, but it is incomplete. We are not here merely to proclaim. Jesus, at the last supper, did not tell his disciples, “Say this.” He told them, “Do this.” He was speaking of the action of the Holy Communion. So the basis of the Church is not just words but an action—the action of the Eucharist to which Baptism is indissolubly linked. It is through these two primary Sacraments of the Church—Baptism and Eucharist—that salvation is made available to us, while on our side is needed the response of faith. So the Church is a Eucharistic organism. Unity is not imposed from above by power of jurisdiction. Unity in the Church is created from within through sharing together in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Body and Blood. So in thinking of Orthodox contacts with the Evangelicals, I feel it is good to start from the Eucharist.
Now, the Orthodox attitude to the Eucharist, to the Divine Liturgy, is well summed up in a sermon preached around the year 864 by St. Photios, Patron of Constantinople. He describes the impression made on him by a newly decorated church in the city. He begins by speaking of the delight and wonder felt by the worshiper on entering the courtyard in front of the church. He stands as if rooted to the ground. “The façade of the church”, he says, “is a new miracle and a joy to see.” “But when, with difficulty,” continues Photios, “one has torn oneself away from there and looked into the church itself, with what joy and trepidation and astonishment is one filled. It is as if one had entered heaven itself.” Now, there are a number of things we may note here. The first is the stress on the visual. The Evangelical tradition relies primarily on the Word spoken and heard. Of course, that is also important for us Orthodox. But we believe that grace is transmitted to us not only through the ear but through the eye. In the words of Photios, we notice the place of beauty in worship. That’s a theme that is dear to the heart of the Orthodox. In a famous statement, the Russian novelist, Theodore Dostoyevsky, said, “Beauty will save the world.”
We notice also in Photios’ account the value of the physical and the material. Icons are very important for Orthodox worship. Relics have a special place. And behind this stress on the value of the physical and material, there is a strong doctrine of creation, as is said in the first chapter of Genesis: “God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was altogether good and beautiful.” This doctrine of creation, of course, is highly relevant for the present day ecological crisis. But most important of all in Photios’ account, notice his words, “It is as if one had entered heaven itself.” That is the primary image that Orthodox have of the Church at worship of the Divine Liturgy—heaven on earth, an earthly heaven.
Many of you may know the legendary story of the conversion of Russia. Prince Vladimir of Kiev, still a pagan, sent out his emissaries to the different countries of the world to try and discover which was the true faith. When they came to Constantinople, the Greeks took them into the Great Church of the Holy Wisdom—Hagia Sophia—and there they attended the Divine Liturgy. Returning home, they reported to Vladimir that it was there in Constantinople at the liturgy that they found what they were looking for. “We knew not,” they said, “whether we were in heaven or on earth. For surely there is no such beauty anywhere on the earth. Only this we know: that God dwells there among humankind and that their worship surpasses the worship of all other places; for we cannot forget that beauty.” Heaven on earth—there we come very close to the meaning of the Church for Orthodox Christians. In the words of St. John Chrysostom: “The Church is the place of angels, archangels, the Kingdom of God, heaven itself.”
The Russian bishop in London who died a few years ago, Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, whose writings on prayer are well known has said: “The Church is vast—so vast that it holds both heaven and earth, so vast that people of all nations, of all cultures, of all languages, are at home within it.” Heaven on earth. When we pray, we Orthodox feel that we are joined in our worship by the company of heaven, by the departed as well as the living; hence, in our worship, we always include prayers for the departed. We pray for one another while we are alive. Should we not pray for one another even though some of us have crossed the river of death? And, of course, we include also the invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints. We are conscious that they are praying with us, and we are not afraid to ask for their prayers.
Here, I would like to share with you my own experience—the first time I ever attended Orthodox worship. I had been brought up as an Anglican. One Saturday afternoon when I was seventeen, I was wandering through a part of London that I had not previously explored, and I saw a church into which I had never entered. Out of curiosity I went in. It was, in fact, the Russian Church in London. It was a brilliant, sunny afternoon outside. As I entered the church, it was dark within. At first, I could see hardly anything. I only noticed that there were no pews—just a vast expanse of polished floor, because the Orthodox at prayer—at least in the tradition of the original Orthodox countries—usually remain standing. Although this is changing in a country like Greece.
My first impression then was the church is empty. Then I realized it wasn’t entirely empty. Close to the walls, there were a few people (not very many—elderly for the most part) and icons with lamps burning in front of them. Across the east end was an icon screen with many candles in front of it. Somewhere out of sight, a choir was singing. It was, in fact, the normal Saturday evening Vigil service that the Russians celebrate. From behind the icon screen, a deacon came out and intoned a litany. Then, I had an entirely contrary impression from what I had felt initially. With overwhelming conviction I felt: The church is not empty. It is full, full of invisible worshipers. We—this small, visible congregation—are being taken up into an action far greater than ourselves. There is no division, I felt, between earth and heaven. The angels are here praying with us, the saints, the Holy Mother of God, our Lord Jesus Christ himself—we are all participating in one, undivided action.
This is what we Orthodox wish first and foremost to share with our Evangelical brothers and sisters. Sometimes we feel that the doctrine of the Church in Evangelicalism is not as full as we would wish. Yes, the Church is the company of those who are saved by faith. But it is much more than that. Sometimes we feel that there is not enough emphasis upon the presence of heaven and earth—the presence of heaven on earth—in the Sacraments. But we should avoid making sharp contrasts. I recall, for example, the hymn of Charles Wesley, “Let heaven and earth combine, angels and men, agree.” That is the way we Orthodox understand the chief action of the Church—the Holy Eucharist.
But we Orthodox may ask ourselves, “What might the Evangelicals offer to us?” The first thing that occurs to me is the sermon. I was going around the city of London a few weeks ago, exploring the churches, most of the designed by Christopher Wren, in the city built just after the Great Fire of London in 1666. What is the first thing that strikes you when you enter these 17th century churches?—a great pulpit, high up, with a large sounding board over the top. By comparison, the Holy Table for the Eucharist is almost hidden away against the East wall—very small, inconspicuous. Orthodox churches often have no pulpit at all. Our Orthodox church in Oxford doesn’t have a pulpit. I preach from the sanctuary steps. If there is a pulpit, it’s usually not at all prominent. Now, yes, sermons are preached in Orthodox churches, more here in the United States than in the old countries. But the sermon is not seen by Orthodox as being decisively important. We could attach greater value to it. We could as clergy take more trouble over preparing our sermons.
And I would like to extend that point. Orthodox Christians love the liturgy, but often their understanding of the liturgy is very incomplete. It is instinctive rather than articulate. Evangelicals can help us to develop an understanding of faith that is more conscious, more reflective, and above all, more personal.
I come unto my second theme: Scripture and Tradition. We Orthodox like to describe ourselves as the Church of Holy Tradition. An Evangelical, with justification, might respond, “What about Scripture?” It is important, therefore, for us Orthodox to remind the Evangelicals, and ourselves (for we Orthodox often forget this), that our Orthodox Church is also a Church of Holy Scripture. I remember once when I was on the Island of Patmos in Greece, in the Monastery of St. John, of which I am a member. I was working in the library. Two gentlemen came in (I think they were Americans) and wanted to photograph some of the manuscripts. They didn’t take much notice of me—“just a monk over there”. They assumed that I didn’t know any English, and they kept turning the lights on and off (which rather irritated me because I was trying to read) [laughter] and kept talking with rather loud voices. One said to the other, “Don’t these guys ever read the Bible?” And the other one said, “No. They just read legends about the saints.” At this point, I thought the moment had come for me to intervene. [laughter] So I looked up and said, “We do read the Bible sometimes, you know.” They immediately blushed red and fell silent and completed their work without saying anything more. [laughter] I’ve sometimes find that visitors to the monastery are surprised that I do speak English. I remember coming down into the courtyard once and finding a group of American students there. They said to me, “Do you speak English?” I said, “Yes, a little.” [laughter] After a time, they said, “You speak English very well!” Modestly, I replied, “I try my best.” [laughter] Then, finally, they said to me, “Do tell us how did you learn your English.” Truthfully, I responded, “I just picked it up.” [laughter and applause]
Let’s go back to the people photographing manuscripts in the library. After I’d said, “Yes, we do read the Bible sometimes,” I thought to myself, “But do they not have a point? Do we Orthodox really know the Bible in the way that we should? Is it really part of our daily life in the way that it is for an Evangelical Christian?” The Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church stress the importance of scripture. St. Gregory of Nyssa writes, “We treat the Holy Bible as the test of every dogma and rule, excepting only such things that agree with the meaning of scripture.” St. John Chrysostom affirms, “That which the scriptures state, ‘the Lord himself has said’, and so, even if someone were to rise from the dead or an angel were to come down from heaven, they would not deserve more credence than the scriptures.” In the 19th century, a great churchman of the Russian Church, Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow, now glorified as a saint, has this to say, “The only pure and all-sufficient source of the doctrines of faith is the revealed Word of God contained now in the Holy Scriptures. Everything necessary for salvation is stated in the Holy Scriptures. Holy Scripture being the very Word of God himself is the only supreme judge of controversies. The decisions of councils are to be tried by the Holy Scriptures. The traditions of the Church are to be tried by the Holy Scriptures.”
We put the Gospel book on the middle of the Holy Table in the sanctuary of every Orthodox church. We carry the Gospel book in procession. It is venerated by the faithful at Matins. It is carried again in procession during the Divine Liturgy. Yet, at the same, in all humility we Orthodox must examine ourselves. Do we live up to what Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, and Philaret of Moscow are saying? We venerate the Gospel book, but do our people really know what lies between the covers? There is, alas, a