Long journey to Orthodoxy
Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2016 12:10 pm
I made a few comments about my journey to Orthodoxy and was given a suggestion by agricola to start a topic on Orthodoxy in America. I am in no way an expert in Orthodox Christianity but I do consider myself an amateur and I mean amateur historical theologian, with an emphasis on the history. First, thanks agricola for the suggestion because this has been a thoughtful few days for me and I am glad you thought about my comments.
The thing that has impressed me the most over the last 10 or 15 years is that I can see a liturgical group of people worshiping very similar to people worshiping today. Yes, I understand that things change and sometimes change for the worse. But the beauty of Orthodoxy is that it has this strong desire to remain true to the ancient ways and is very slow to change. When I write about change, it is regional customs not core doctrinal points.
Even though I grew up in an ultra-conservative, NI, "anti" church in North East Texas, I consider my up bringing normal. However, I remember at a very young age noticing contradictions. For example, the use of the Church Fathers such as Justin Martyr to give credence for how we "do worship". All the while discounting the rest of the letter. You see we can use some of his writings as good but the other stuff is a departure from the pattern. I never understood why or how the Church was lost. I could not square up the notion of the "seed principle" and the analogy with baseball rules. Either the Church was a functioning entity that could with stand the "gates of Hell" or it wasn't! I thought Jesus promised the Comforter and that all the troubles the Apostles and the early Christians faced would be for nothing until the reformation got the ball rolling and of course the restoration movement finally got religion "right".
With the writings of the early church and the writings of the contemporaries of the day I saw a different picture. I saw Christians working out their salvation with the best tools they had: the writings of the Apostles, the writings of their disciples, the traditions passed down through their bishops and the sacramental and liturgical framework that borrowed from the familiar synagogue worship. We all know, if people disagree in the CoC, people can take up and leave to form another church. Why? Because there is no guiding authoritative framework. Each church is an island unto itself and every man can interpret the scripture to fit their immediate need, usually, I don't like what is going on so I am going to leave. We have all seen varying degrees of that type of behavior, but all to common in the churches of Christ.
I am asked, "isn't the Greek Church just the eastern branch of the Roman Catholic Church?". Short answer no. Long answer a little more involved. The two were together on paper for the first thousand years but the divide started centuries before. Without getting all technical and stuff, one bishop wanted more control the other 5 wanted to maintain the conciliar framework, see Acts 15. Because of language differences, latin in the west and greek in the east, things became harder to over come and the two began to have real problems talking about the person of Christ, the trinity and legal terms (Pelagius comes to mind). The west tends to try to put things into legalistic terms i.e. Thomas Aquinas and his works on proving God. The east tends to just accept mysteries as a the place of God and has an easier time with just asking for mercy and believing that God and his grace will grant it. That folks is way simplified.
I do find it interesting that the eastern Church did not go through a "reformation" period and even during the reformation in the west some of the western theologians were hoping to gain approval from the Eastern Church for their break from the Roman Church. Bishop Jeremiah from Constantinople exchanged some interesting letters with them and finally had to stop talking theology with them because of their stubbornness.
I am not sure who come up with this phrase but many writers have used it and it is very common place by current Orthodoxy writers to use this phrase when talking about the Church and how to identify it. I goes something like this " I can tell you where it is, but I can not tell you where it is not.", this is usually brought up when talking about the Nicene-Constantinople Creed. The creed lays out a framework for where the church is, but we can not go around pointing fingers because of the sin of pride. You see to be so puffed up in our "religion" the church fathers have warned against pride of being right. St. John of the Ladder (I think?) taught about us being the bee, that goes around looking for "the good" and avoiding the bad or dirty things like the common house fly. Most religious people and churches have something good but the orthodox church sees itself as preserving the fullness of what Jesus and the Apostles taught and handed down and preserved in the Church through the centuries.
I think Orthodoxy seems so foreign to people because of the national attachments: Greek, Russian, Antiochian and so on. Cultural connections are strong and so these churches have kept the language to some degree even though the former generations have gone on and the newer generations exclusively speak english. Those connections are special if your heritage is Greek or Russian. I have found the Greek that is used is not that difficult to follow and I have started reading it during the liturgy when it is sung or read. There is not much in Greek, it is mostly in English.
To sum up, how many times has that been said in an hour long sermon? I have been able to see a church, The Church through history. I see a firm starting point for the restoration movement and the divisions that have resulted from sola scriptura and interpreting them through the lens of CENI.
The thing that has impressed me the most over the last 10 or 15 years is that I can see a liturgical group of people worshiping very similar to people worshiping today. Yes, I understand that things change and sometimes change for the worse. But the beauty of Orthodoxy is that it has this strong desire to remain true to the ancient ways and is very slow to change. When I write about change, it is regional customs not core doctrinal points.
Even though I grew up in an ultra-conservative, NI, "anti" church in North East Texas, I consider my up bringing normal. However, I remember at a very young age noticing contradictions. For example, the use of the Church Fathers such as Justin Martyr to give credence for how we "do worship". All the while discounting the rest of the letter. You see we can use some of his writings as good but the other stuff is a departure from the pattern. I never understood why or how the Church was lost. I could not square up the notion of the "seed principle" and the analogy with baseball rules. Either the Church was a functioning entity that could with stand the "gates of Hell" or it wasn't! I thought Jesus promised the Comforter and that all the troubles the Apostles and the early Christians faced would be for nothing until the reformation got the ball rolling and of course the restoration movement finally got religion "right".
With the writings of the early church and the writings of the contemporaries of the day I saw a different picture. I saw Christians working out their salvation with the best tools they had: the writings of the Apostles, the writings of their disciples, the traditions passed down through their bishops and the sacramental and liturgical framework that borrowed from the familiar synagogue worship. We all know, if people disagree in the CoC, people can take up and leave to form another church. Why? Because there is no guiding authoritative framework. Each church is an island unto itself and every man can interpret the scripture to fit their immediate need, usually, I don't like what is going on so I am going to leave. We have all seen varying degrees of that type of behavior, but all to common in the churches of Christ.
I am asked, "isn't the Greek Church just the eastern branch of the Roman Catholic Church?". Short answer no. Long answer a little more involved. The two were together on paper for the first thousand years but the divide started centuries before. Without getting all technical and stuff, one bishop wanted more control the other 5 wanted to maintain the conciliar framework, see Acts 15. Because of language differences, latin in the west and greek in the east, things became harder to over come and the two began to have real problems talking about the person of Christ, the trinity and legal terms (Pelagius comes to mind). The west tends to try to put things into legalistic terms i.e. Thomas Aquinas and his works on proving God. The east tends to just accept mysteries as a the place of God and has an easier time with just asking for mercy and believing that God and his grace will grant it. That folks is way simplified.
I do find it interesting that the eastern Church did not go through a "reformation" period and even during the reformation in the west some of the western theologians were hoping to gain approval from the Eastern Church for their break from the Roman Church. Bishop Jeremiah from Constantinople exchanged some interesting letters with them and finally had to stop talking theology with them because of their stubbornness.
I am not sure who come up with this phrase but many writers have used it and it is very common place by current Orthodoxy writers to use this phrase when talking about the Church and how to identify it. I goes something like this " I can tell you where it is, but I can not tell you where it is not.", this is usually brought up when talking about the Nicene-Constantinople Creed. The creed lays out a framework for where the church is, but we can not go around pointing fingers because of the sin of pride. You see to be so puffed up in our "religion" the church fathers have warned against pride of being right. St. John of the Ladder (I think?) taught about us being the bee, that goes around looking for "the good" and avoiding the bad or dirty things like the common house fly. Most religious people and churches have something good but the orthodox church sees itself as preserving the fullness of what Jesus and the Apostles taught and handed down and preserved in the Church through the centuries.
I think Orthodoxy seems so foreign to people because of the national attachments: Greek, Russian, Antiochian and so on. Cultural connections are strong and so these churches have kept the language to some degree even though the former generations have gone on and the newer generations exclusively speak english. Those connections are special if your heritage is Greek or Russian. I have found the Greek that is used is not that difficult to follow and I have started reading it during the liturgy when it is sung or read. There is not much in Greek, it is mostly in English.
To sum up, how many times has that been said in an hour long sermon? I have been able to see a church, The Church through history. I see a firm starting point for the restoration movement and the divisions that have resulted from sola scriptura and interpreting them through the lens of CENI.