By Archbishop Averky of blessed memory
Alas!
How few people there are in our times, even among the educated, and
at times even among contemporary "theologians" and those in
the ranks of the clergy, who understand correctly what Orthodoxy is
and wherein its essence lies. They approach this question in an
utterly external, formal manner and resolve it too primitively, even
naively, overlooking its depths completely and not at all seeing the
fullness of its spiritual contents.
The
superficial opinion of the majority notwithstanding, Orthodoxy is not
merely another of the many "Christian confessions" now in
existence, or as it is expressed here in America "denominations."
Orthodoxy is the true, undistorted, unperverted by any human
sophistry or invention, genuine teaching of Christ in all its purity
and fullness — the teaching of faith and piety which is life
according to the Faith.
Orthodoxy
is not only the sum total of dogmas accepted as true in a purely
formal manner. It is not only theory, but practice; it is not only
right Faith, but a life which agrees in everything with this Faith.
The true Orthodox Christian is not only he who thinks in an Orthodox
manner, but who feels according to Orthodoxy and lives Orthodoxy, who
strives to embody the true Orthodox teaching of Christ in his life.
"The
words that I speak unto you are spirit and life"—thus the Lord
Jesus Christ spoke to His disciples of His divine teaching (Jn.
6: 63). Consequently, the teaching of Christ is not only abstract
theory merely, cut off from life, but spirit and life. Therefore,
only he who thinks Orthodoxy, feels Orthodoxy and lives Orthodoxy can
be considered Orthodox in actuality.
At
the same time one must realize and remember that Orthodoxy is not
only and always that which is officially called "Orthodox,"
for in our false and evil times the appearance everywhere of
pseudo-Orthodoxy which raises its head and is established in the
world is an extremely grievous but, regrettably, an already
unquestionable fact. This false Orthodoxy strives fiercely to
substitute itself for true Orthodoxy, as in his time Antichrist will
strive to supplant and replace Christ with himself.
Orthodoxy
is not merely some type of purely earthly organization which is
headed by patriarchs, bishops and priests who hold the ministry in
the Church which officially is called "Orthodox." Orthodoxy
is the mystical "Body of Christ," the Head of which is
Christ Himself (see Eph. 1:22-23 and Col. 1:18, 24 et seq.), and
its composition includes not only priests but all who truly believe
in Christ, who have entered in a lawful way through Holy Baptism into
the Church He founded, those living upon the earth and those who have
died in the Faith and in piety.
The
Orthodox Church is not any kind of "monopoly" or "business"
of the clergy as think the ignorant and those alien to the spirit of
the Church. It is not the patrimony of this or that hierarch or
priest. It is the close-knit spiritual union of all who truly believe
in Christ, who strive in a holy manner to keep the commandments of
Christ with the sole aim of inheriting that eternal blessedness which
Christ the Savior has prepared for us, and if they sin out of
weakness, they sincerely repent and strive "to bring forth
fruits worthy of repentance" (Lk. 3:8).
The
Church, it is true, may not be removed completely from the world, for
people enter her who are still living on the earth, and therefore the
"earthly" element in her composition and external
organization is unavoidable, yet the less of this "earthly"
element there is, the better it will be for her eternal goals. In any
case this "earthly" element should not obscure or suppress
the purely spiritual element—the matter of salvation of the soul
unto eternal life—for the sake of which the Church was both founded
and exists.
The
first and fundamental criterion, which we may use as a guide to
distinguish the True Church of Christ from the false Churches (of
which there are now so many!), is the fact that it has preserved the
Truth intact, undistorted by human sophistries, for according to the
Word of God, "the Church is the pillar and ground of truth" (I
Tim. 3: 15), and therefore in her there can be no falsehood. Any
which in its name officially proclaims or confirms any falsehood is
already not the Church. Not only the higher servants of the Church,
but the ranks of believing laymen must shun every falsehood,
remembering the admonition of the Apostle: ''Wherefore, putting away
lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor" (Eph.
4:25), or "Lie not to one another"(Col. 3:9). Christians
must always remember that according to the words of Christ the
Savior, lying is from the devil, who "is a liar, and the father
of lies" (Jn. 8:44). And so, where there is falsehood there
is not the True Orthodox Church of Christ! There is instead a false
church which the holy visionary vividly and clearly depicted in his
Apocalypse as "a great whore that sitteth upon many waters, with
whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication" (Rev.
17:1-2).
Even
in the Old Testament from the prophets of God we see that
unfaithfulness to the True God frequently was represented by the
image of adultery (see, for example, Ezek. 16:8-58, or 23:2-49).
And it is terrifying for us not only to speak, but even to think that
in our insane days we would have to observe not a few attempts to
turn the very Church of Christ into a "brothel,"—and this
not only in the above figurative sense, but also in the literal sense
of this word, when it is so easy to justify oneself, fornication and
every impurity are not even considered sins! We saw an example of
this in the so-called "Living Churchmen" and
"renovationists" in our unfortunate homeland after the
Revolution, and now in the person of all the contemporary
"modernists" who strive to lighten the easy yoke of
Christ (Matt. 11:30) for themselves and betray the entire
ascetic structure of our Holy Church, legalizing every transgression
and moral impurity. To speak here about Orthodoxy, of course, is in
no way proper despite the fact that the dogmas of the Faith remain
untouched and unharmed!
True
Orthodoxy, on the other hand, is alien to every dead formalism. In it
there is no blind adherence to the "letter of the law," for
it is "spirit and life." Where, from an external and purely
formal point of view, everything seems quite correct and strictly
legal, this does not mean that it is so in reality. In Orthodoxy
there can be no place for Jesuitical casuistry; the favorite dictum
of worldly jurists cannot be applied: "One may not trample
upon the law—one must go around it."
Orthodoxy
is the one and only Truth, the pure Truth, without any admixture or
the least shadow of falsehood, lie, evil or fraud.
The
most essential thing in Orthodoxy is the podvig of prayer and fasting
which the Church particularly extols during the second week of the
Great Fast as the double-edged "wondrous sword" by which we
strike the enemies of our salvation—the dark demonic power. It is
through this podvig that our soul is illumined with grace-bearing
divine light, as teaches St. Gregory Palamas, who is 'triumphantly
honored by the Holy Church on the second Sunday of the Great Fast.
Glorifying his sacred memory, the Church calls this wondrous hierarch
"the preacher of grace," "the beacon of the Light,"
"the preacher of the divine light," "an immovable
pillar for the Church."
Christ
the Savior Himself stressed the great significance of the podvig of
prayer and fasting when His disciples found themselves unable to cast
out demons from an unfortunate boy who was possessed. He told them
clearly,`"This kind (of demon) goeth not out save by prayer and
fasting" (Matt. 17:21). Interpreting this passage in the
gospel narrative, our great patristic theologian-ascetic, the
hierarch Theophan the Recluse asks, "May we think that where
there is no prayer and fasting, there is a demon already?" And
he replies, "We may. Demons, when entering into a person do not
always betray their entry, but hide themselves, secretly teaching
their hosts every evil and to turn aside every good. That person may
be convinced that he is doing everything himself, while he is only
carrying out the will of his enemy. Only take up prayer and fasting
and the enemy will immediately leave and will wait elsewhere for an
opportunity to return; and he really will return if prayer and
fasting are soon abandoned" (Thoughts for Each Day of the
Year, pp. 245-246).
From
this a direct conclusion may be reached: where fasting and prayer are
disregarded, neglected or completely set aside, there is no trace of
Orthodoxy—there is the domain of demons who treat man as their own
pathetic toy.
Behold,
therefore, where all contemporary "modernism" leads, which
demands "reform" in our Orthodox Church! All these liberal
free thinkers and their lackies, who strive to belittle the
significance of prayer and fasting, however much they shout and
proclaim their alleged faithfulness to the dogmatic teaching of our
Orthodox Church, cannot be considered really Orthodox, and have shown
themselves to be apostates from Orthodoxy.
We
will always remember that by itself totally formal Orthodoxy has no
goal if it does not have "spirit and life"—and the
"spirit and life" of Orthodoxy are first and foremost in
the podvig of prayer and fasting; moreover, the genuine fasting of
which the Church teaches is understood in this instance to be
abstinence in every aspect, and not merely declining to taste
non-Lenten foods.
Without
podvig there is altogether no true Christianity, that is to say,
Orthodoxy. See what Christ, the First Ascetic, Himself clearly says;
"Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up
his cross, and follow Me" (Mark 8:34). The true Christian,
the Orthodox Christian, is only he who strives to emulate Christ in
the bearing of the cross and is prepared to crucify himself in the
Name of.Christ. The holy Apostles clearly taught this. Thus the
Apostle Peter writes: "If when you do well and suffer for it, ye
take it patiently, this is accepted with God. For even here unto were
ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an
example, that we should follow his steps" (I Pet. 2:2-21).
In precisely the same way the holy Apostle Paul says repeatedly in
his epistles that all true Christians must be ascetics, and the
ascetic labor o' the Christian consists of crucifying himself for the
sake of Christ: "They that are Christians have crucified the
flesh together with the passions and lusts" (Gal. 5:24). A
favorite expression of St. Paul is that we must be crucified with
Christ that we might rise with Him. He puts forth this thought in a
variety of his sayings in many of his epistles.
You
see, therefore, that one who loves only to spend time enjoying
himself and does not think of self-denial and self-sacrifice, but
continually wallows in every possible fleshly pleasure and delight is
completely un-Orthodox, un-Christian. Concerning this the great
ascetic of Christian antiquity, the Venerable Isaac the Syrian,
taught well: "The way of God is a daily cross. No one ascends to
heaven living cooly (i.e. comfortably, carefree, pleased with
himself, without struggle). And of the cool path, we know where it
ends" (Works, p. 158). This is that "wide and broad way"
which, in the words of the Lord Himself, "leadeth to
destruction" (Matt. 7:13).
This
then is what is Orthodoxy, or True Christianity!
(Originally
appeared in Orthodox Life, vol. 26, no. 3 (May-June, 1976), pp. 1-5.
)
