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Monday, June 12, 2023

The Eastern Orthodox Divine Liturgy


Entering into an Eastern Orthodox divine liturgy can be a daunting, confusing experience for most people. It may be quite unlike anything you’re likely to have experienced before. If your background is Roman Catholic, Lutheran or Anglican, some things may be familiar, but there’s still a lot going on and it can be confusing. I’m writing this to try to de-mystify the experience. You’ll appreciate it a lot more if you have some idea of what’s going on, and why. There’s a lot of motion that seems repetitious and confusing at times, but it all has a purpose. I hope you’ll appreciate the solemnity of the service and the seriousness with which the priest and participants give it.

First, some history

The normal divine liturgy used by the Eastern Orthodox is the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, who was the Bishop of Constantinople from 398 to 404. It’s derived from the older mass of St. Basil, which was derived directly from the Mass of St. James the Lesser, Apostle of Christ. The changes St. John Chrysostom introduced reflected the matured theology from the ecumenical councils - for example, the inclusion of the Nicene Creed - and he streamlined the complex liturgy of St. Basil to be more accessible and understandable to the rapidly growing Christian mission communities. The essential elements are still present, and first century Christians would recognize their mass in the modern divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. There are many echoes of Jewish worship in it. For example, the altar area is distinctly separate from the rest of the church and only those with business on the altar may go there. The use of incense is prevalent, as it was in Jewish services in the first century.

The Church

When you enter the Eastern Orthodox church, you come in through the Nave, or entryway. From there you go through the Narthex, which is where the uninitiated attendees would traditionally sit, separate from the main sanctuary. That tradition is rarely observed or enforced today. In the Narthex, you’ll have several icons. The iconography style of the Eastern Orthodox is simply traditional – the eastern church never experienced the photorealistic art renaissance that Western Europe did. To the right of the main entry way to the sanctuary will be the Pantocrator, the Icon of Christ the Ruler of All. To the left of the entrance will be an icon of Mary, the Theotokos, or God-bearer. Typically, there will also be an icon of the patron saint of the church, of which the church is named after, and an icon of the saint whose feast day is currently being celebrated. Most Orthodox pay some sort of homage to the Pantocrator and Theotokos upon entry into the church, typically a metanoia, or bow to the touch the ground and a kiss on the icon. The Eastern Orthodox have a solid historical connection to the Seventh Ecumenical Council which held that veneration of an icon wasn’t idolatry, that the honor paid to an image traverses it, reaching the model, and they who venerate the image, venerate the person represented in that image.

Symbolism is everywhere in the Eastern Orthodox church. Compare the icons of the Pantocrator and the Theotokos. Note that Christ wears a red or burgundy tunic, with a blue cloak over it. Red is the color of the divine, and blue is the color of humanity. Christ is divine, cloaked in humanity. On the other side, the Theotokos is wearing a blue tunic, and a maroon cloak. Human, cloaked in the divine. As you enter the church, if you look back and above, you’ll see you passed under a tapestry depicting the burial of Christ. By entering the sanctuary, you are passing through the grave to eternal life. 

You’ll notice that, unlike modern Western churches, the altar is behind a screen or a wall called the iconostasis. The center doors are the Royal Doors, and only ordained clergy may go through them. This is in keeping with the ancient Jewish temple layout, where the holy of holies was physically separate from the main area. There are two doors to either side, for utility and non-ordained acolytes and sub-deacons. Typically, the traffic flows counterclockwise, out the left door and back in through the right. If the priest is speaking on the other side of the screen, he is praying to God. To address the congregation in any way, he’ll come out to our side of the screen.

Responses

The priest sometimes addresses the congregation in a formulaic statement. If you aren’t familiar with the correct response, well, I feel like an idiot not knowing what to say. The most common, of course is “Peace be with you!” which is used several times in the liturgy. The response, sung by the choir is, “Also with your spirit!” Another common one is “Christ is in our midst!” The response to this is, “He is and always shall be!” During the Paschal season, this will be replaced with “Christ is risen!” and the response is, “Truly He is risen!” This may come in any language, the most common is Greek, “Christós Anésti!” to which you respond, “Alíthos anésti!” In our Arabic speaking Antiochian church, you may also hear, “Almasih qam!” to which you respond, “Haqana qam!”

Orthodox Christianity is a trinitarian theology, and the trinity is invoked many times in the liturgy. When it’s done so, it’s customary to make the sign of the cross. You’ll see a lot of this during the service.

Standing and sitting

In many more traditional Orthodox churches, there are no pews. The congregation stands for the entire service. Standing in the East is the position of reverence. Pews are provided in more westernized congregations. Generally speaking, you’ll stand whenever the priest addresses or blesses the congregation, during the Gospel reading, and especially when he brings out the Eucharist.

Music

Unlike Western churches, the choir’s participation is an integral part of the liturgy and prayers, many times taking the form of a dialogue between the choir and priest. All are encouraged to join the choir if you know the hymns and responses. There are no hymnals as such, the liturgical books provided give the responses, if you can follow them.

The Liturgy

In preparation for the divine liturgy, there are two other services said. Vespers is said the evening before the Divine Liturgy, and Orthros begins about an hour before the Divine Liturgy and sort of segues into it. So when you arrive at church and walk in a few minutes before the stated time and things already seem to be happening, don’t worry, you’re not late. The Orthros service is in full swing.

You’ll recognize the beginning of the Divine Liturgy when the priest intones, “Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, now and ever unto ages of ages.” This is the opening line of the actual liturgy.

Throughout the Divine Liturgy there are prayers of supplication, praise, and preparation. The priest says these. Some are brief, others are lengthy, and most of the time the priest says them quietly. During these prayers, a deacon will be simultaneously leading an ektenia, or litany, which consists of prayerful petitions, to which the congregation typically responds singing, “Lord, have Mercy” led by the choir. When the ektenia is complete, the priest will say the final portion of his prayer aloud. Most prayer books have both the litany and the prayer, which makes it a little confusing to follow at first, because they happen simultaneously. After the prayer there’s typically a refrain from the choir.

After the opening line of the Liturgy, the priest will say the first antiphon while a deacon leads the Great Ektenia. This is a prayer of praise to God in preparation for the Liturgy.

Then the priest prays the second antiphon while the deacon says the little ektenia. The second prayer is a petition of blessing for the congregation.

Then the priest prays the third antiphon while the deacon says another little ektenia. The third prayer is a petition of blessing for the liturgy being celebrated.

After these preparatory prayers come the little entrance. The priest and the acolytes leave the altar by a side door and form up in front of the Royal doors, with the book of the Gospel held high. The priest will say the prayer of entrance and will carry the Gospel through the royal doors and place it on the altar. The choir will sing the troparia for the day, which is typically a passage from psalms. This entrance seems unnecessary and redundant in today’s churches, but it hearkens back to a time where the Gospel was kept separately in a side chapel and had to be retrieved for the Liturgy and paraded before the congregation. The old forms are kept, even when not strictly necessary. 

After the little entrance, the choir will sing the beautiful Trisagion hymn while the priest quietly prays the trisagion prayer of praise and invitation to God. The hymn is repeated three times. The form varies from church to church, but in our Antiochian church, it’s sung each time in a different language. The first is in English, “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, Have mercy upon us,” then in Arabic, “Quddῡsun Allāh, Quddῡsun al-qawī, Quddῡsun alladī, lā yamῡt urhamnā,” and finally in Greek, “Hagios o Theos, Hagios ischyros, Hagios athanatos, eleison imas.” Many people cross themselves repeatedly while this is sung. At the end, a deacon will call out, “Dynamis!” which translates to strength, force or power, and this call is echoed back from the choir leader.

Then the scripture is read. First, a reading from the Acts of the Apostles, one of the letters or epistles. A lay person does this, and it may be spoken or sung, depending on the reader. In our church, the readings are in both English and Arabic. Then a priest or deacon reads the Gospel. During the Gospel, it’s customary to stand in the presence of the Word. After the readings will come a short homily.

The homily ends the liturgy of the word and marks the beginning of the liturgy of the Eucharist. This starts out with a series of ektenias and prayers. The ektenia is, again, a call and response between a deacon and the congregation, while the priest prays quietly. The last line or two of the prayer is said aloud when the deacon finishes the ektenia.

The prayer of Fervent Supplication is a prayer for mercy and compassion preparatory to celebrating the Eucharist. This may be omitted at the priest’s discretion.

Then there’s a prayer for the Catechumens, that they may be made worthy to be baptized. This prayer is omitted if there are no catechumens in the congregation.

The first prayer of the Faithful is a prayer that all present be made worthy to call upon God.

The second prayer of the Faithful is a prayer that all present be made worthy to receive the Eucharist. Both of these prayers may be omitted at the priest’s discretion.

Then begins the Cherubimic prayer. This is lengthy prayer that prepares the altar and the sacred space of the church for the performance of the Eucharistic celebration. The priest blesses altar, the icons, and the congregation with incense. All the while, the choir sings the Cherubimic hymn, which essentially places the congregation in the role of the cherubim, singing the praises of God and setting aside all earthly cares in preparation to receive the Eucharist. The hymn is sung slowly, because there’s not much content to it, and the priest has a very long preparatory prayer to say. 

With the altar prepared, the priest, deacons and acolytes perform the Great Entrance. They leave the altar through a side door and process all the way to the back of the church and down the main aisle, carrying the chalice and holy bread. A deacon leads the priest with incense. During the procession, the Priest calls upon the congregation to draw near and attend, and offers blessings to the Metropolitan (Bishop), the civil authorities and the armed forces. Remember that the priest perfoms the liturgy only by the express permission of the Metropolitan. At the end of the procession, before the altar, the priest will pray especially for special intentions for specific people for whom he has been asked to pray. During the procession, many people will touch the priest’s garments in the fashion of the Canaanite woman who was healed by touching Jesus’ cloak. Again, this Great Entrance recalls a time when the bread and wine were kept in a separate chapel, frequently another building.

Having re-entered the altar, the priest quietly prays the ektenia of prosthesis while the deacon leads the litany. This prayer is a prayer of preparation for celebrating the Eucharist, asking God to accept the offering. In some churches, this prayer may conclude with the announcement that “Christ is in our Midst,” to which the congregation responds, “He is and always shall be!” During the time of Pascha, this is replaced with “Christ is risen!” to which the congregation responds, “Truly He is risen!” Either of these is followed by the congregation greeting those around them with the same formula. This greeting can take the form of a cheek-to-cheek kiss, a handshake or a simple bow.

Then the priest cries out, “The doors! The doors! In wisdom let us attend!” This was once a signal to doorkeepers that all who weren’t admitted to Holy Communion would be sent away. The congregation follows this by saying the Nicene Creed. The Eastern Orthodox have a different lineage of translation than does the Western Christian world, so the precise wording of the creed may be slightly different than what you’re used to. Take note that near the end the Holy Spirit is declared to proceed from the Father alone, not the Father and the Son as is common in the Western Christian world. This addition by Western Christianity ultimately precipitated the Great Schism.

The Priest then says the Anaphora, which is the prayer of mystery of the Eucharist, calling upon the Holy Spirit to descend upon the gifts and turn them into the body and blood of Christ. The recollection of the last supper is taken from the Gospel of Mark, which is unusual in Western Christianity. This series of prayers is lengthy. Some of them are said quietly by the priest, punctuated with proclamations. The belief in the real presence of Christ, foreign to most Protestants, goes all the way back to the mass of St. James the Lesser, Apostle of Christ, whose prayer before communion includes the words, “I believe also that this is truly Thine own pure Body, and that this is truly Thine own precious Blood.”  This prayer is still used today.

A deacon will come out from the altar to lead the congregation in the litany in preparation for the Lord’s Prayer. During this litany, the priest will be praying quietly that those present be worthy to partake of the Eucharist, ending with, “. . . and Vouchsafe, oh Lord that with boldness and without condemnation we may dare to call upon thee, the heavenly God, as father and say:” At this point, the Congregation responds with the Lord’s Prayer, which may be done in multiple languages.

After the Lord’s Prayer, the priest concludes the Eucharistic prayer while the choir leads the congregation in the Eucharistic hymn. The priest and deacons then prepare the Eucharist for distribution by cutting the bread and mixing it with the wine in the chalice. The Orthodox use leavened bread made of flour, water and salt, unlike the Western Christian tradition, which uses unleavened bread in the form of the Passover feast. The Orthodox believe that Christ provided the leaven for Passover, and that the feast of the unleavened bread has been replaced. The bread is shaved in thin cuts, and with each cut the deacon says a quick, quiet, prayer of remembrance for someone identified by the person who made the bread. This can be a long list. As this takes place, the congregation recites the beautiful prayer before communion.

Once the communion is prepared, the priest(s) and arch-deacons begin the distribution. If there are any recently baptized, they come forth first to receive communion, followed normally by the children and the choir. Because the body and blood are mixed, communion is distributed from a small spoon. Acolytes hold a cloth under the chin of the communicant to prevent anything from falling to the ground. When communing someone, the minister will say, “The servant of God [name] partakes of the precious and all-holy body and blood of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ, unto remission of sins and unto life everlasting.” You may see small children and even babies being communed, for the Orthodox believe that baptism makes one a full member of the church, able to partake of all the mysteries. If you aren’t a baptized Orthodox, it’s best to just remain in your place during communion, standing reverently.

After receiving, the communicant may take some antidoron, which is parts of the bread that was blessed but not consecrated, to eat back in their place. They may also distribute this to other members who didn’t receive communion as a sign of fellowship. This bread isn’t consecrated as part of the Eucharist, so anyone can partake.

Once everyone has received communion and the priest has returned to the altar, a deacon will lead a short litany while the priest makes a brief prayer of thanksgiving. After this the priest says a prayer for the church and the congregation. In this prayer the Church is meant to include all Orthodox churches. 

Then the prayers of dismissal are said. The priest leaves the altar and prays before the icons of Christ and Mary the Theotokos in turn, then blesses the congregation.

Normally there’s a brief pause here for announcements. Unlike western churches there’s no general dismissal. After the announcements, the priest will stand before the congregation and the people will come forward to be dismissed individually. He will usually have a small cross, and it’s customary to venerate the cross with a kiss. If this is uncomfortable for you, you may simply touch the cross and bow. The priest may greet you, and if he doesn’t know you, may inquire more about you. Orthodox priests take their charge as shepherds very seriously and want to know who’s in their church. A bowl with the antidoron will be available to grab some as you depart.

But wait! The service isn’t over yet! The celebration of the divine liturgy was the community participating in the liturgy, but now the community participates with each other. Coffee and food are normally available in the parish hall for all to partake. Part of the Orthodox preparation for communion is to fast since the night before, so people are famished. If you’re new, or a visitor, a deacon or priest may seek you out during the fellowship and ask more about you and answer any questions you may have. Please don’t leave right after the dismissal, come be a part of the community.

Unlike Western churches the whole community gathers to participate in the divine liturgy. Canon law states that a priest may only conduct a divine liturgy once a day, and an altar may only host a divine liturgy once a day. There are no multiple services. The whole community comes together as one.

If you want to review a divine liturgy our Deacon Steve Bambakidis generously livestreams Orthros and the divine liturgy every Sunday on Youtube.  You can see the latest services here.

Friday, March 31, 2023

Salvation by Belief Alone?

One of the trendy things that seems to come into vogue lately among Protestants is the idea that you can be saved by simply professing faith in Jesus Christ. Protestants use this argument to make the case that sacraments are unnecessary. No need for baptism, chrismation, regular participation in the Eucharist, anointing of the sick, or reconciliation. I’m curious where this idea originated. It seems to have caught on quite recently and spread like wildfire through the Protestant faith communities. The proof they provide to support this claim lies in the gospel of Luke and the confession of the thief that was crucified with Christ.

And one of the criminals who were hanged there was hurling abuse at Him, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us!” But the other answered, and rebuking him said, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving what we deserve for our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
- Luke 23: 39-43

 As the argument goes, the thief wasn’t baptized and took part in no other sacraments and yet was saved, so that should be good enough for us.

 One of the hallmarks of the Protestant movement seems to be a complete ignorance of Christian history. There are no new heresies, just variations on old ones that are often as ancient as Christianity itself. This particular case resembles the heresy of Pelagius in the fifth century which was condemned in the Second Council of Ephesus in 431.

 The salvation of the thief was never intended to be a model for the salvation of all the faithful. It must be understood within the context of Scripture. To start with we must consider the story of the widow's offering:

And He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the multitude were putting money into the treasury; and many rich people were putting in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. And calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.”
- Mark 12: 41-44

 The thief had nothing to provide except his faith. He couldn’t spread the gospel, be a living example to others, raise children in the faith, participate in the Eucharist, or in any way be a member of the early Christian community. His profession was the final act of a dying man. Should you be lucky enough to be executed alongside the Christ, it’s probably all you would need, too.

 We should also consider the parable of the laborers in the vineyard:

 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; and to those he said, ‘You too go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went. Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did the same thing. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing; and he *said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’ They *said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He *said to them, ‘You too go into the vineyard.’ And when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard *said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius. And when those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; and they also received each one a denarius. And when they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’ But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? ‘Take what is yours and go your way, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. ‘Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ Thus the last shall be first, and the first last.”
- Matt 20: 1-16

The good thief was most certainly one of the last. His life was at its end, he would be dead within hours. And yet he would be the first Christian to join Christ in heaven, and indeed one of the first saints of the church. But his example in the extremis of torture and death is not - and never has been - the blueprint for salvation. For those who profess that it is, they ignore Scripture at their peril. Jesus himself commanded his apostles to baptize the faithful:

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
- Matt 28: 18-20

The importance of baptism cannot be understated. Even Jesus refrained from beginning his ministry until his own baptism by his cousin John in the River Jordan, which is recounted in all four Gospels:

Then Jesus arrived from Galilee at the Jordan coming to John, to be baptized by him. But John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I have need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” But Jesus answering said to him, “Permit it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he *permitted Him. And after being baptized, Jesus went up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove, and coming upon Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
- Matt3: 13-17

Indeed, Jesus emphasizes this to his Apostles. Are we to put ourselves above the Apostles?

And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
- Acts 1: 4-5

The ancient rite of baptism is performed by full immersion in water, symbolizing death and resurrection. We are born anew in baptism, as faithful followers of Christ. It’s not a solitary act, but a community event in which all of the faithful participate to recognize and welcome the newly illuminated into the church. In the ancient church and today in the Eastern Orthodox baptism was accompanied by an exorcism and absolution. The Sacrament of baptism isn’t the final act of salvation, but the first step of a lifetime of seeking perfection. As we continue to live our lives, it is in our nature to sin. The purity of the newly illumined in baptism must be regularly renewed by the sacrament of reconciliation. It’s said that we are purified by the holy waters of baptism, and that the purification is regularly renewed by the baptism of tears in the sacrament of reconciliation.

As members of the Christian community we are obligated to perfect our understanding of the faith through regular participation in the liturgy. In the early church the liturgy of the Word was literally preaching and homilies by the eyewitnesses who had traveled with Christ. As time passed and the church communities became more numerous in the eyewitnesses succumbed to their repose, extemporaneous sermons gave way to reading the accounts from the Gospels, accompanied by sermons to place those gospel stories in context and relate them to everyday Christian living. The liturgy of the word was accompanied by the sacrament of the Eucharist which the earliest Christians understood was the literal transubstantiation of simple bread and wine into the literal body and blood of Jesus Christ. This understanding survives today in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions. The celebration of the sacrament of the Eucharist is not merely a symbolic act. Its source is in Scripture:

 And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.
- Luke 22: 19-20

Christ didn’t say that this is like my body, or that this represents my body. He specifically said this is my body and that this is my blood. The miracle of the Eucharist is repeated weekly across the world as the Holy Spirit changes simple bread and wine into the literal body and blood of our Savior. This is what the ancient Christians believed and practiced all the way back to the mass of St. James the Greater, apostle of Christ. If you have a theological problem with that I suggest you take it up with the apostle James.

The sacraments are a vital part of our Christian life, to be illumined and to grow closer to God as individuals and participate in play our role as members of the body of Christ on earth, as described by St. Paul in his letters to the Romans and to the Corinthians. Salvation is a process, and faith is a community activity centered around the sacraments. One does not take a small lump of iron and proclaim, “Behold the sword!” The sword is forged through a process of cleansing fire and cooling water, shaped by the craftsman to perfection. Likewise, one does not proclaim oneself a Christian and thereby claim salvation without participating in the lifelong process of perfection with the goal of eternal theosis — the unification with our Creator.

Monday, October 10, 2022

Holy Mary, Ever Virgin, Theotokos

The Eastern Orthodox Icon of the Theotokos, shows her wearing a blue bloouse, the color of humanity, with a maroon cloak, the color of divinity. She is human, cloaked in the divine.
I was recently “instructed” by a Protestant to “Read God's word in His New Testament and God tells us the names of Jesus brothers, biological blood related brothers and says he also had a sister. Man continues to ignore God and deny God's word saying idolize the virgin. Mary was a virgin appointed by God for only one virgin birth. There after Mary had normal births, multiple normal births. No longer a virgin.”

In the same offering, this person called the Catholic church a “cult”, and claimed that “Look further at worshiping idols, Jesus Christ died, was taken OFF THE CROSS and buried but catholicism [sic] keeps Christ hanging.”

Taking that second screed first, worshipping idols issue was resolved at the seventh ecumenical council, which took place in 787 AD. Protestants are either ignorant of this or ignore it because it doesn’t agree with their agenda. As for keeping Christ hanging, the most important feast of the Roman Catholic church, as well as the Eastern Orthodox church is the feast of Easter, called Pascha by most of the non-English speaking world. This is the feast of the resurrection. The writer clearly knows nothing of actual Catholic teaching, but instead relies on Calvinist propaganda to inform him.

I find it disingenuous for Protestants to claim that the Catholic church innovated doctrines and then almost in the same breath they go on to innovate their own doctrine. I’m not denying the Roman Catholic church has done some innovation. The infallibility of the Pope, the Filioque controversy, the doctrine of the immaculate Conception, which follows from a misunderstanding of the nature of original sin – all of these are doctrines developed since the Great Schism of 1054 (except for the Filioque, which was the proximate cause of the schism).

 But the virgin nature of Mary throughout her life is a foundational belief among Christians since the dawn of Christianity. It’s interesting how simple statements of fact to those proximate to the events become beliefs as generations pass. What Protestants miss in their blinkered sola scriptura frame of reference is that there is copious documentation of nearly every aspect of Christianity by the Early Church Fathers, who were prolific writers. Early Christianity didn’t base their belief or practices on the Bible. That would have been absurd, since the Church had been established and thriving for decades before the first Gospel was written. The divine liturgy of St. James the Greater, from which the modern divine liturgy of St. John Chrysostom derived, was practiced by the actual Apostle St. James long before Mark wrote the first Gospel.

As time passes, facts which are taken for granted by the eyewitnesses become beliefs, and then become articles of faith, which become doctrine. If there’s a question of whether a belief of early Christians was correct or not (never mind Biblical), we simply look to the writings of the Early Church Fathers, and then to the ecumenical councils. The writings of the Early church fathers provide a touch point of when a belief was first documented – not necessarily when the belief was first introduced. After that, if the Early church had a problem with that belief, it was addressed in an ecumenical council. One need only review the conclusions of the ecumenical councils to understand that they would debate and establish doctrine on the most arcane minutia of faith that one can imagine. So if someone popped up and said, “Hey, I think Mary was ever-virgin!” and it wasn’t generally accepted as a fact, there would have been a discussion and an article of faith established by an ecumenical council.

Mary is only discussed in the third ecumenical council, the council of Ephesus of 431 AD, which was convened to address the Nestorian heresy. In this council Christ was declared the incarnate Word of God and declared that Mary was the Theotokos – the God-bearer. There was no discussion of her perpetual virginity. Indeed, in the divine liturgy of St. John Chrysostom which dates sometime between 397 and 407 makes several references to the ever-virgin Mary. This is the most widely used liturgy today among the Eastern Orthodox. This wasn’t a fringe concept of Early Christianity, it was a core belief, never called into question in an ecumenical council.

Where did this idea of Mary having other children come from? The first record was promoted by Helvidius sometime before 383, but was soundly refuted by Jerome (The same Jerome who translated the New Testament to Latin, which became the authoritative Latin Vulgate, the basis of most modern western Bibles). Jerome writes that Ignatius (100 AD), Polycarp (150 AD, disciple of John the Apostle), Justin Martyr (160 AD), and Irenaeus (200) all “held these same views” of Mary’s perpetual virginity and “wrote volumes replete with wisdom” (in his The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary: Against Helvidius, section 19). No writings from these four men survive that unambiguously identifies their belief in this doctrine, but we assume Jerome had access to some of their many works that did not survive until the modern day. After Jerome’s thorough rebuttal of Helvidius, the subject wasn’t raised again until after the Protestant movement tossed out pretty much everything except the Bible.

 In 248 AD, Origen wrote, "Mary, as those declare who with sound mind extol her, had no other son but Jesus" [Origen's Commentary on the Gospel of John (Book I), Section 6].

In 354 AD: Hilary of Poitiers wrote, "If they [the brethren of the Lord] had been Mary's sons and not those taken from Joseph's former marriage, she would never have been given over in the moment of the passion [crucifixion] to the apostle John as his mother, the Lord saying to each, 'Woman, behold your son,' and to John, 'Behold your mother' [John 19:26-27], as he bequeathed filial love to a disciple as a consolation to the one desolate"” [Hilary's Commentary on Matthew 1:4]

Around 360 AD: Athanasius identifies Mary as "Mary Ever-Virgin" in his Discourse 2 Against the Arians, Section 70.

In 373 AD: Ephrem wrote, “Because there are those who dare to say that Mary cohabited with Joseph after she bore the Redeemer, we reply, 'How would it have been possible for her who was the home of the indwelling of the Spirit, whom the divine power overshadowed, that she be joined by a mortal being, and gave birth filled with birthpangs, in the image of the primeval curse?'" [Ephrem's Commentary on Tatian's Diatessaron]

Around 375 AD: Basil of Caesarea wrote, "...the lovers of Christ do not allow themselves to hear that the Mother of God ceased at a given moment to be a virgin..." [Basil’s Homily: On the holy generation of Christ 5; PG 31, 1468 B]

In 375 AD: Epiphanius wrote, "For I have heard from someone that certain persons are venturing to say that [Mary] had marital relations after the Savior’s birth. And I am not surprised. The ignorance of persons who do not know the sacred scriptures well and have not consulted histories, always turn them to one thing after another, and distracts anyone who wants to track down something about the truth out of his own head.” [The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis: De fide. Books II and III, page 620, 7.1]

In 386 AD: Didymus the Blind wrote, "Mary... remained always and forever an immaculate virgin" [Didymus's The Trinity 3:4]

In 388 AD: Ambrose of Milan identified prophecy of Ezekiel 44:2 as proof of Mary's perpetual virginity in his De Institutione Virginum 8.52

In 401 AD: Augustine wrote, "A Virgin conceiving, a Virgin bearing, a Virgin pregnant, a Virgin bringing forth, a Virgin perpetual. Why do you wonder at this, O man?" [Augustine, Sermons 186:1]

The issue wasn’t raised again until the Protestants resurrected it hand in hand with their Sola Scriptura heresy. The claim that Mary had other children is based References to Jesus’ brothers (Matthew 12:46-47 and Matthew 13:55, Mark 3:31-32, Luke 8:19-20, John 2:12, John 7:1-10) Most of these reference the same event, first referenced in the Gospel of Mark and promulgated in the other gospels that drew on Mark as a primary source.

There’s a romantic modern Western misunderstanding of Mary and Joseph as a young couple, in love, and Joseph patiently acting as foster-father to the Christ. This isn’t supported by tradition or the deuterocanonical written sources. The Protoevangelium of James, which the Eastern Orthodox Church accepts as authoritative, goes into great detail about the life of Mary and her betrothal to Joseph.

In summary, Joachim and Anna, Mary’s parents, were childless, and pledged their child to the temple if Anna were allowed to conceive. An angel appeared to Anna and said, “Anna, the Lord has heard your prayer, and you shall conceive, and shall bring forth; and your seed shall be spoken of in all the world.”

Mary was born, and true to their word, her parents consecrated her to the temple as one of the temple virgins when she was two years old. Years later when she reached marriageable age, it was determined that she could no longer serve in the temple and should be married. All the bachelors of Judea were assembled, their rods were taken and consecrated. When their rods were returned to them, a dove flew out of Joseph’s and alighted on his head. The high priest proclaimed him to be chosen by God to take the virgin into his keeping, but he refused, stating, “I have children, and I am an old man, and she is a young girl. I am afraid lest I become a laughing-stock to the sons of Israel.” The priests prevailed, and the betrothal was made.

The Protoevangelium continues in detail about the annunciation and the drama that ensued when Joseph discovered Mary was with child, the Birth of Christ, and the murder of Zacharias by Herod. It’s worth reading, but not central to the issue at hand, as to whether Mary had other children herself.

Under Jewish law and custom, Joseph’s children from his first wife would have been considered the brothers and sisters of Christ. The last we hear of Joseph is in Luke 2:41-50 when Jesus was about 12 years old. His death after that went without remark as he was an old man. His children from his first marriage would have felt no obligation to Mary as their mother. The plight of a widow with no children to care for her in first century Israel was dire. This is why Christ entrusted her care to John from the cross, (John 19:26-27), further indication that Mary had no other children.

Protestant apologetics claim that the church was corrupted, and that the Protestant breakaway corrected the error. It would be nice if the Protestant churches could agree on exactly which Protestant church was correct. This claim is also based on the assumption that the church had fallen into apostasy. If that actually happened, then Jesus would be a false prophet, and should not be followed, for he prophesied that his church would stand and not even the gates of hell would overpower it (Matt 16:18). Also, if such an apostasy happened, then the Bible cannot be taken as authoritative, for such apostasy must have happened before the final canon of the Bible was established. Protestants cannot resolve this dilemma logically, and they resort to Orwellian doublethink to maintain their illogical, ahistorical position.

A fundamental tenet of Protestantism is to reject all “Innovations” by the Roman Catholic church. While the Roman Catholic church is guilty of some innovations, when determining if a teaching is an innovation, one need only compare the Roman Catholic church to the Eastern Orthodox. If the two churches agree on an article of faith, it’s certain that that understanding is rooted in the earliest practices of Christianity. Indeed, every church that maintains an unbroken line of apostolic succession to the twelve apostles, the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Chaldean, Coptic and Thomas churches of India all maintain that Mary was perpetually a virgin. The writings of the Early church fathers and the absence of any debate in ecumenical councils on the question supports this. The Protestant position of Mary having other children is in itself an innovation, and evidence of why one should not interpret scripture outside of the frame of reference of the church that wrote and compiled and canonized it.


Thursday, January 6, 2022

Washington State to Consider Authorizing Medical Tyranny

On Jan. 12th at 9:30 AM – 3:30 PM, the WA State Board of Health will discuss applying current infectious disease WAC codes to include Covid-19 for all WA State residents. This, if authorized, will allow local health officers to use law enforcement (WAC 246-100-070) to force an emergency order to involuntarily detain a person or group of persons (families) to be isolated in a quarantine facility (WAC 246-100-045) following refusal to voluntary comply with requests for medical examination, testing, treatment, counseling, vaccination (WAC 246-100-040). These specifics come from WAC 246-100. It would also make Covid-19 injections part of school immunization requirements using WAC 246-105. 

 Citizens are encouraged to comment on this until Noon, Friday, Jan7, at wsboh@sboh.wa.gov.  

To voice your concerns, register for the live webinar here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_DjusY10WTj-EyQyDTdyxsw

You can also dial-in using your phone for listen-only mode: Call in: +1 (253) 215-8782 (not toll-free) 

Webinar ID: 894 7406 4216
Passcode: 957396

Location: 101 Israel Rd. SE, Tumwater, WA 98501

This is my comment:

I am writing with concern to encourage you to reject the proposal to apply current infectious disease WAC codes to include COVID-19 for all WA State residents, and to reject making COVID-19 a requirement for school admissions.

COVID-19 is a coronavirus respiratory disease. Unlike many other diseases for which vaccinations are effective, corona viruses are similar to the flu in that they mutate quickly. The vaccine for one variant may have limited or no effect on other variants. There’s absolutely no point in mandating a vaccine for a disease that literally mutates out from under the protection of the vaccine faster than new vaccines can be introduced.

COVID-19 is no longer a pandemic. Pandemic is a word used to characterize the spread of a disease across national boundaries to previously uninfected populations and suggests that the spread can be mitigated and controlled through strict quarantine efforts. COVID-19 quit being a pandemic months ago, as it is now present in almost every part of the world. It exists at a baseline level among all populations without being infused through external means. COVID-19 is now endemic. Preventive treatments need to give way to palliative mitigation efforts.

The vaccines are experimental. They have been released using an Emergency Use Authorization. They have not, and cannot have been, adequately tested to normal FDA standards for safety and efficacy. The long-term effects of these treatments are unknown, but preliminary data is alarming. 

The vaccines are not safe. These vaccines have been associated with thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, Guillain-Barré syndrome, myocarditis and pericarditis and more than 10,000 reports of death in otherwise healthy people, many of them young, according to the CDC(1). In a study by Columbia University, VAERS data used by the CDC may be undercounting adverse COVID-19 vaccination effects by a factor of 20. Columbia’s data showed that there were over 146,000 to 187,000 vaccine-related deaths in the U.S. alone between February to August 2021 (2).

The vaccines are demonstrably ineffective. They do not protect the vaccinated against infection. There are many reported cases of vaccinated individuals contracting COVID and even dying from COVID – to the point that one is hard pressed to show the vaccine has any effect at all, except for the reported adverse effects. The CDC itself admits that the vaccines don’t prevent the vaccinated from transmitting the disease.

The vaccines don’t lessen the severity of infection. Without the vaccines, symptoms range from, “Oh, was I sick?” (The majority) to death. There’s no way to predict the reaction of an individual to the disease, and no way to measure the reaction of an individual with and without vaccination. Group studies suffer from sampling bias, because a majority of unvaccinated infections without symptoms go unreported, and because the COVID-19 infections have become more virulent and less deadly as time goes on – as happens with all respiratory viruses. The measurement errors in these studies haven’t even been identified, much less quantified.

The deaths associated with COVID-19 have followed Farr’s Law(3) no matter where the analysis has been applied. States with vaccine, mask and social gathering mandates have shown no deviation from Farr’s Law compared to states with no such mandates. The vaccine and preventive measure mandates are ineffective with regards to COVID-19 outcomes and are deleterious to the physical and mental health of citizens in many other ways that have yet to be studied or quantified. 

The vaccine should not be considered a primary treatment for COVID-19. COVID-19 has adequate and effective active and prophylactic treatments which negate the need for vaccines. The National Library of Medicine(4) reports that vitamin D insufficiency may account for almost nine of ten COVID-19 deaths. It has been known for decades that anyone living north of the 35th Parallel suffers from some level of vitamin D deficiency. This is most severe in winter months where there’s little sunlight, and among dark-skinned ethnic groups, who produce less vitamin D in response to light stimulus. Instead of enacting a dangerous and untested vaccine requirement for schoolchildren, it would be cheaper, safer, and more effective to ensure that each child was administered 10,000 units of Vitamin D orally at the beginning of each school day.

For the clinically ill COVID patient, safe and effective treatments are available. Many doctors have reported excellent outcomes with critical patients who have been administered Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin. The government and CDC propaganda discouraging these treatments borders on criminal, and is indicative that the pharmaceutical industry is spending huge amounts of money to push the vaccine narrative:

1) Hydroxychloroquine is a well-known and well-understood anti-malarial drug. It’s not dangerous when administered or prescribed under a doctor’s care. In countries where malaria is endemic, it’s been sold as an over-the-counter preventive medication for decades. Preliminary studies show it has been effective in reducing or eliminating COVID-19 symptoms, yet doctors risk losing their medical license for prescribing a safe and potentially effective drug.

2) Ivermectin won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 2015, hailed as a wonder drug, with many applications. It, too, is safe when administered or prescribed under a doctor’s care and has been shown to be effective when treating COVID-19 patients. To withhold this drug from a critically ill COVID-19 victim is medical malpractice forced on our doctors by a government that cares more about the profits of deep-pocket pharmaceuticals than about the health of Americans.

3) There is no medical precedent for prohibiting doctors from prescribing Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin. Off-label drug prescriptions are a common medical practice and may account for as much as 21% of overall use for 160 commonly prescribed drugs in the United States, and more than 99% of prescriptions for some drugs like quinine sulfate (99.5% of total prescriptions), followed by gabapentin (99.2%), and clonazepam (96.2%) (Radley DC, et al. Off-label prescribing among office-based physicians. Arch Intern Med 2006;166:1021-1026.). The prosecution – nay, persecution – of doctors for prescribing Hydroxychloroquine or Ivermectin to COVID-19 patients borders on the criminal.

Authorizing the use of law enforcement to involuntarily enforce vaccination and quarantine mandates is totalitarian, prejudicial, and un-American. It specifically targets and makes second-class citizens of typically conservative and liberty-minded citizens who have a well-earned distrust of government and who are known to vote in opposition to the government in Olympia. This authorization will effectively criminalize the very American act of disagreeing with the government. This demographic has been pushed hard in recent years, and some may consider this to be a hill they’re willing to die on. Passing such an authorization may lead to violence and unnecessary criminal prosecutions for a made-up crime. It will certainly lead to an exodus of citizens from Washington State to states where tyranny is not the rule of the day.

The fact that such an action is even being considered is very disturbing. This is not the Washington I grew up in and love. These measures – and all the unnecessary measures taken by the Washington State government to date – have had and will have no effect on the progression of the disease among the population, will not save lives, and will continue to unnecessarily disrupt our society for years to come. The sad fact that all citizens need to come to terms with is that the government cannot and never could protect them, that it’s the individual’s responsibility to take whatever measures that person deems prudent to protect themselves.

Notes:
(1) https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html

(2) https://www.christianitydaily.com/articles/14298/20211216/columbia-university-study-finds-vaers-deaths-undercounted-by-factor-of-20.htm

(3) https://www.trillianthealth.com/insights/blog/farrs-law-its-happening

(4) https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33260798/

Monday, November 29, 2021

My Journey to Orthodoxy. Follow Me.

The resurrection of Adam and Eve. By lifting The original Man
 from the grave, Christ redeems all of Adam's posterity.
I’ve recently been attending a catechism preparatory to entering life in the Eastern Orthodox Christian church. I’m a cradle Catholic and have practiced (often poorly) Roman Catholicism all my life. My mother was an Irish Catholic from the old sod, so I was brought up in a rigidly Catholic fashion that was doing its best to reconcile itself to the innovations of Vatican II. My father was an atheist, or more properly an anti-theist. He wasn’t supposed to interfere in my faith upbringing according to the nuptial agreement, but as a teen, on late nights after Mom went to bed, he would start probing, and I found myself defending my faith at a relatively early age. I would usually lose these philosophical debates, which did nothing but make me study so I could come back better prepared the next time. It also made me think a lot about my faith and why I believed the way I did.

Why am I a Christian? 

History records a man we refer to as Jesus of Nazareth. Like many holy men of history, he has a certain mythology about him, that we could attribute to legend and myth. He taught a unique philosophy, challenged the status quo, performed miracles. Nothing really to differentiate him from numerous other holy men on whom religions have been founded. The unique thing about Jesus, though, was the behavior of his followers. They weren’t the typical people from the fringe of society who gravitate towards the guru du jour. These were fishermen, tax collectors, tent makers, one may have been a minor politician. They were practical men in respected professions.

Had Jesus died on the cross and been put to rest and the Twelve had scattered and made their way to Galilee without being further arrested or harassed, they would have returned to their profession and the memory of the failed teacher they had followed would fade. They would have bounced their grandchildren on their knee and tried to impart some of the Wisdom of Jesus to them, but it would have just been a man they had once known. A man with great ideas, but mortal and flawed like anyone else, and his religion would have died with them or at most their second or third generation.

But something happened, something so profound that it changed these men, opened their eyes, and made them believe. They believed that Jesus was the Son of God and was in fact God incarnate. They believed this so vehemently that they would no sooner deny their knowledge than they would say that the sky wasn’t blue. They didn’t believe it, they knew it, and they went cheerfully to their deaths – all martyred but John – proclaiming this truth with joy with their dying breaths. The Gospels tell us why. After dying a public and humiliating death, Jesus rose from the dead, conquered death so that his followers would know that life is everlasting. And there’s no doubt that Jesus was dead. The Roman executioners were experts at their job. The mode of death in crucifixion is suffocation, as the diaphragm is paralyzed unless the victim can hoist himself upward for a breath. It was clear that Jesus had died because he was no longer breathing.

The behavior of the Apostles after the recorded account of the resurrection is the evidence for me to accept that the accounts of the Gospels are largely accurate. That Christianity has fundamentally changed the world and every culture it’s contacted is historical fact. The historical evidence is compelling, and the narrative is more consistent than one would expect from a work of fiction. The Shroud of Turin is, for me, a compelling relic. I’ve studied it extensively. I understand how the STURP investigation was adulterated to give the result the director was seeking. There’s no explanation for the shroud. I believe that it is in fact the burial cloth of Jesus of Nazareth. There are too many details that would have been unknown to a forger, too many details that precisely match and even explain some of the Gospel accounts of the passion.

Why was I a Catholic?

Growing up Catholic, I wasn’t subjected to many of the myths about the Catholic church that are promoted by Protestants. If everything Protestants said about the Catholic faith were true, there would be no Catholics. Unfortunately for the Protestants, their understanding of the Roman Catholic faith is based on straw man arguments and propaganda promoted by Calvin and Knox to justify their many heresies. I’ve been a faithful Catholic because of what the church is, not what the protestants say it is, which has little to do with what Catholics actually believe.

If I am to be a Christian, then I naturally want to practice the faith that most closely represents what the first Christians believed. All Protestant sects – every single one – derive their faith and traditions from the Roman Catholic church, either directly or indirectly. They’re either breakaway sects who broke faith directly from Rome, like the Anglican or the Lutheran, or they’re offshoots of those who did. Some are homegrown versions of Christianity who picked up a Bible and tried to reproduce what’s there, but that Bible came to them through the Roman Catholic church. Almost all western Bible translations are derived from Jerome’s Latin Vulgate – the authoritative Latin translation from the fifth century. Why would I be a Protestant – be a branch on the tree – when I could be a Catholic, the trunk from which all branches derive?

As a Catholic, I celebrate an unbroken line of apostolic succession from the twelve Apostles, particularly the Apostle Peter, to present day. I practice a faith that was practiced for decades before the first gospels were written, and for centuries before the canon was finalized. The Bible is based on the Catholic faith, not the other way around. The term Catholic means “universal” and was first applied to Christianity by Ignatius of Antioch in his letter to the Smyrnaeans in the year 107. 

Growing up, the idea of the infallibility of the Pope didn’t sit well with me, but when I joined the military, I began to understand and reconcile myself to it. The idea is that the Pope is infallible by virtue of his authority. It doesn’t mean he’s necessarily right, it just means that if he says something is so, his decision is infallible, because the responsibility falls on him, not on those he’s charged with leading. There are other beliefs that I wasn’t quite so fond of defending. I understood the theology well enough to argue it but doing so felt uncomfortable. It seemed to me that sometimes the church developed its theology by running an idea beyond where it should have ended, like the concept of the Immaculate Conception. The doctrine goes that Christ couldn’t have been born of a woman tainted with original sin, so for Mary’s womb to be sacred enough to bear Christ, she must have been born free of original sin. This brought up a whole slough of uncomfortable questions to me, though. Did Mary have free will, or was she predestined to be the mother of Christ? If she was born immaculately, how could she have been born so if her mother was tainted with original sin? When you run into a question where the answers do nothing but create more questions and paradoxes, something in your understanding has gone wrong.

When I was a teen, the church we attended had a folk choir, with guitars. They were very good, and the music was wonderful, but I realized something was wrong at the end of one Sunday mass when they gave a rousing recessional song, and at the end everyone applauded. That didn’t sit well with me. We were supposed to be there to give glory to God and worship Him, not attend a music festival. As an altar boy I had a behind the scenes view of the liturgy and appreciated the solemnity of the sanctification of the gifts and the sacrifice of the eucharistic liturgy.

Why am I an Orthodox Christian?

The break for me came when Pope Francis was seated in Rome. Francis is a small man, not up to the standard of the Papacy. I was dismayed with his political calls to embrace socialism, for the USA to go against its best interests and throw open its borders to foreign invaders. I began to refer to him as the commie pope. The commie pope enacted policies of appeasement towards the arch-enemy of the church, Islam. The commie pope embraced the deviant and anti-family agenda of the alphabet soup crowd, instead of calling them out to repent and return to Christ. The commie pope embraced the manmade climate change narrative and scolded Catholics for generating too much CO2.

Apologists have argued that none of these have been enacted with the Pope’s dogma of infallibility, which is only when the Pope is speaking ex cathedra on matters of faith and morals. Until that happens, it’s just one man’s opinions. Yeah, but. . . . The Pope is the leader of the Roman Catholic faith, and faithful Roman Catholics are obliged to embrace his teachings even when he’s not speaking ex cathedra. I cannot in good conscience do so. I know as clearly and profoundly as the apostles knew that Christ had risen from the dead that Islam is the arch-enemy of Christianity worldwide. I absolutely know that socialism and communism is an evil, bankrupt economic model that’s been directly responsible for the deaths of millions of people and the suffering of countless more in the last century. I know as a scientist who has investigated the claims from the perspective of my particular specialty field that the claims of the manmade global warming apologists are flat out wrong, and that the physics of CO2 spectral absorption are such that adding more CO2 cannot possibly result in increased global temperatures.

How can I follow a man who’s profoundly and fundamentally wrong on three critical issues like this? And what does that mean for me as a Catholic? Christ prophesied that his church would withstand the Gates of Hell, but I’m watching it melt into an incoherent mess riddled with political corruption and sexual deviancy right before my eyes.

It's okay, I assured myself. The church isn’t the Pope or the Bishops. The church is and always has been the rank-and-file congregation. All I have to do is ignore the many Obama and Biden bumper stickers on the cars in the parking lot as I make my way into mass.

My first exposure to Eastern Orthodoxy was when a colleague invited me to the Pascha service. Note to my Orthodox friends: if you want to invite someone to experience Orthodoxy, the Pascha service is probably not the place to start. It was confusing and disorganized to the point of seeming randomness, with a lot of motion and bustle that I really didn’t understand.

When I married my wife, who’s Eastern Orthodox, we did so on the understanding that our faiths were very similar and that we would respect each other’s faith and beliefs. We attended mass at the local Catholic church, and then also at a slightly more distant Antiochian Orthodox church.

Attending the Orthodox divine liturgy made a big impression on me. It was strange at first, because while all the elements of the Catholic mass are there, they’re rearranged, and out of order. The common prayers, like the Nicene creed are the same (almost), but the translation is slightly varied. The meaning is the same, but in English there’s always at least three ways of saying something, and it’s clear the Orthodox and Catholics didn’t share the same English translators. Then the Orthodox has some parts of the liturgy that are missing in the Catholic ordinary mass, like a beautiful prayer before communion.

Shortly after having attended the Orthodox liturgy, I happened to attend mass at the proto-Cathedral of St. James in downtown Vancouver. The priest there was a traditional curmudgeon who used the building’s status as an historical landmark to remove the free-standing altar and restore the sanctuary to what it had been before Vatican II. It was the first time I’d experienced the mass said ad orientum (toward God) instead of vox populi (toward the congregation). The Orthodox always celebrate the liturgy ad orientum and go one step further by placing the priest behind a screen, with only a door through which to view him. If he’s on the other side of the screen, he’s praying to God. To address the congregation, even to give a peace blessing, he comes through the door to our side of the screen. It was the mass at St. James that made me realize what an insidious heresy it was to say the mass vox populi. By orienting the priest towards the congregation, he quits being the leader of the congregation leading the prayer directed at God, but becomes the focus of attention, removing our attention from God. When the priest says mass ad orientum, we’re naturally inclined to direct our attention at that which the priest is attending, and the focus is on God. Using vox populi, the priest’s attention is either on us or behind us, and our attention is on him, interrupting our attention which should be towards God.

This then manifests itself in all sorts of undesired behaviors. The priest naturally falls into the role that his position casts him in, and he quits being the liturgical celebrant, but the master of ceremonies, with a retinue of supporting cast, in the form of altar servers, liturgical ministers, and even a live band to provide an appropriate soundtrack to set the mood. Since I was young, I’ve seen innovations of allowing lay persons to distribute the consecrated Eucharist, bringing girls and women onto the altar as servers and ministers. I’ve seen priests invite non-ordained lay people to the pulpit to give a homily. And at the end of mass, I’ve even seen the priests invite the crowd to “give it up” and applaud the altar boys, the band (I refuse to dignify it by calling it a choir), and all those who help produce the show.

Honestly, after attending the Orthodox divine liturgy with my wife, it was embarrassing to go to the Catholic mass. I can only remember once or twice that I attended a High Mass outside of the Easter Vigil, and I don’t even think most parish priests know how to celebrate it.

So I started investigating the differences. The most glaring difference is the Orthodox have no Pope in the way that Roman Catholics understand the Pope. This goes back to the Great Schism of 1054, when the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic church mutually excommunicated one another. The proximal cause of the schism was that the Roman Bishop had made some changes that hadn’t been approved by an ecumenical council. When the question arose if the Bishop of Rome had the authority to do that, four out of five of the Christian patriarchs at the time said he did not.

The Bishop of Rome has always held a special place in Christianity. He was considered the first among equals by the other bishops. This was on account of his physical proximity to the Roman seat of government, and his subsequent ability to influence legislation and imperial decrees. This never gave him any authority over the other bishops. Catholic apologists will direct you to many historical instances to demonstrate that the Roman Bishop did, in fact, exercise such authority over the rest of Christendom since the earliest days of Christianity, but they wonderfully ignore the many historical times when the rest of Christendom told the Roman Bishop to go screw and he had no recourse but to do anything but mutter about it. Indeed, the Book of the Acts of the Apostles tells us about times when St. Paul called out Peter on something he felt was wrong, and argued him back to parade rest, thus destroying the myth that the throne of Peter is infallible. The doctrine of infallibility is a relatively recent innovation in the Roman Catholic church and would have been quite a foreign concept to the earliest Christian churches. When the Great Schism happened, the Pope claimed ecumenical authority over all of Christendom. Sad for him, four out of five patriarchs disagreed.

The Roman Pope had the secular power to anoint kings, and this made who sat on the bishop’s seat a huge political issue. Consequently, many Popes were pretty rotten people, and corrupt through and through. One Pope turned the Vatican into his personal brothel, and from his position of power pretty much sexually assaulted anyone he encountered, be they male or female. Another bankrupted the Vatican treasury to outfit his personal villa, and resort to the heretical practice of selling indulgences to prop up his flagging finances. Other Popes murdered their way into power, executed rivals, had children by mistresses, pretty much proved the adage that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and put to lie the doctrine of papal infallibility. These abuses disenchanted many Catholics, to the point that Martin Luthor nailed his thesis to the door of the church (Luthor approached the eastern Orthodox to avoid the abuse of the Roman Pontiff, but was given the cold shoulder, because an Orthodox infringement into Roman Catholic Germany would have started a war).

By their fruits you shall know them.

Differences

Ask any Orthodox and the first difference they’re likely to cite is the filioque. The filioque was the point of contention that led to the great schism of 1054. The Nicene creed, amended by the first Council of Constantinople stated, “[we believe] in the Holy Spirit, the Lord the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father, who with Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified.” 500 years later the Western church under Rome begin to insert a single word, filioque, which means “and the Son”. Catholics today are used to the creed saying, “[we believe] in the Holy Spirit, the Lord the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified.” Part of the reason for this was to address the ongoing Arian heresy in the west, which the Eastern Orthodox church didn’t have to deal with. The question of whether this is correct or appropriate is relatively insignificant, although most Orthodox will disagree. It’s a question that should be addressed in an ecumenical Council. I could make a case from Scripture for either position. The real issue was whether the Roman Pope had the authority to make such a change to the creed without an ecumenical Council. It was the last of a long list of doctrinal issues that the Roman Bishop had unilaterally resolved outside of an ecumenical Council, to the dismay of the other bishops Christendom. It’s not really a doctrinal hill that I’m interested in dying on.

More significant, to my mind, is the understanding of original sin. The Roman Catholic understanding is that we are all born tainted by original sin, and that this sin is washed away with baptism. The Eastern Orthodox understanding, which is apparently more in line with what the earliest Christians believed, is that we all suffer the consequences of Adam’s original sin, but we are only guilty of the sins that we commit. I’ve never been a fan of the theology of the children bearing the guilt of their parents, which seems unfair and arbitrary. This also results the paradoxes created by the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Without the guilt of original sin there’s no need to postulate that Mary (Or, as the Orthodox refer to her, the Theotokos or Christ-bearer) was immaculately conceived, and therefore no question whether her fate was predestined. Indeed, it glorifies the Theotokos, in that she was without sin through her life of her own agency. This makes much more sense to me.

Of course, the Orthodox have no Pope in the way that the Roman Catholic church understands it. The Orthodox resolve doctrinal issues through councils the way it’s been done since the earliest days of Christianity. They don’t have to apologize for the infallibility of their church leaders when they do fail.

Culturally, the Roman Catholic church is very legalistic, with a list of rules and prescriptions for punishment if the rules are broken. To the lay person and many clergy these are rigid and inviolable. Do this, or do that, you go to Hell. They say the Jews invented guilt and the Catholics perfected it. The Orthodox church, on the other hand, seems to take the rules and glance at them, then throw them over their shoulder and get to work on saving your soul and keeping it saved. Indeed, it seems the Orthodox priests take their charge as shepherds very seriously, and if you’re seen to be straying, they’re not shy about snapping you back in line. 

If you go to a divine liturgy, everything seems out of place at first. It takes two or three times, but you begin to recognize that all the essential elements of the Latin Mass are there, and then some. The normal first reading from the Old Testament seems to be missing, until you realize that the Sunday Divine Liturgy actually starts on Saturday Evening with Vespers, and the old testament reading is there.

If Divine Liturgy is scheduled for 10:00am, as most are, you’ll walk in and think you’re late, because the service already seems to be in progress. That’s because Orthros starts about an hour beforehand and segues right into the Divine liturgy. After you’ve been a few times, you realize that the Divine Liturgy actually starts with the small entrance (A holdover from days when the Orthros was often said in a smaller chapel from the main sanctuary). The Creed, the Our Father, and the eucharistic prayers are all nearly identical to the Roman Catholic rite, with a few translation differences that have no impact on the meaning. There’s a beautiful prayer before communion that the Roman Catholic church lacks. Many Orthodox churches in America service an immigrant congregation, so the Divine Liturgies are often bilingual.

Most Orthodox churches have no pews. You stand through the whole ceremony, in a kind of Brownian motion around the sanctuary. Wear comfortable shoes. More western congregations have pews.

The decoration will seem strange. The religious artwork is mostly icons. The Eastern Churches never participated in the medieval art renaissance, so traditionally their artwork isn’t as photorealistic as it is in the Western churches, and it certainly eschews the modern look you see in many Protestant and some unfortunate recent Roman Catholic churches. If you know to look, you’ll see that in the icon art, the saints and holy subjects of the art aren’t illuminated, but the illumination seems to come from them. There’s no proscription against statuary or more realistic artwork that you see in Roman Catholic and more traditional Protestant churches (which, after all, derive their sensibilities from their Roman Catholic roots), but it’s just not a tradition that caught on in Orthodoxy.

The communion uses leavened bread which is mixed with the wine and served to the communicant on a spoon. Very different. No lay people are involved in communion, the Orthodox take the Eucharist very seriously, as the Roman Catholics have forgotten how to do.

At the end of the liturgy, there’s no recession, and you don’t just get up and leave. The congregation is called forward as in communion to venerate the cross, at which time they’re dismissed individually. Frequently antidoron is distributed either with communion or during the dismissal. This is the bread that was blessed but not consecrated, and all congregants can partake, unlike communion, which is only for the Orthodox who have prepared themselves through confession and fasting.

If you’re a Protestant, you’ll find the Divine Liturgy strange. The degree of strangeness will depend on how traditional your Protestant background was. Lutherans and Anglicans probably wouldn’t feel too out of place. Baptists and Pentecostals will find it unrecognizable. The Orthodox church isn’t a place you go to get saved, or have your faith jumpstarted by a motivational speaker, or sing and dance and show how happy you are to believe in Jesus. The Orthodox Divine Liturgy is where you go to worship God, admit to yourself that you are a sinner unworthy of His love or Forgiveness, yet by His divine grace you’ve been forgiven and loved. It’s a hospital for the soul, whether you need to heal the hurts of the day or deeper wounds that haunt your sleep at night and make your soul ache. You won’t leave the Liturgy feeling good about yourself and ready to excitedly go out in the world and make it better for Jesus, but you’ll leave with a sense of calm and relief that there’s hope for you but knowing that you face a struggle to stay true to His word and example in the coming week. It’s not unusual to cry at some point during the Liturgy if you’re really paying attention to what’s happening.

If you’re a Catholic who’s sick of what’s happening in the Church and feel powerless to do something about it, a Protestant who’s realizing that the Sunday services are still leaving your spirit hungry, or a lonely soul looking for a meaning, come to Divine Liturgy a few times. Give it a chance for the strangeness to fade, and you’ll realize you’ve come home.