The Freedom of Religion in the United States of America is being threatened by our current federal officials. The Christian faithful of the Orthodox Church in the United States must act NOW to prevent this grevous transgression of our God-given and Constitutionally-protected rights as Americans.

The time to act is now.

On January 20, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reaffirmed a rule that virtually all private health care plans must cover sterilization, abortifacients, and contraception. The rule is set to take effect August 1, 2012. Non-profit religious employers that do not now provide such coverage, and are not exempt under the rule’s extremely narrow definition of religious employer, will be given one year—until August 1, 2013—to comply.

Responding to the announcement, Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, stated:

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences.” Cardinal-designate Dolan continued: “To force Americans to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable. . . It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom.”

Noting that the Obama administration

“has now drawn an unprecedented line in the sand,”

the Cardinal-designate urged that the HHS mandate be overturned.

“The Catholic bishops are committed to working with our fellow Americans to reform the law and change this unjust regulation.”

Last August, the HHS issued a list of “preventive services for women” to be mandated in almost all private health plans under the new health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The mandated services include sterilization, all FDA-approved birth control (such as the IUD, Depo-Provera, ‘morning-after’ pills, and the abortion-inducing drug Ella), and “education and counseling” to promote these among all “women of reproductive capacity.” HHS’s interim final rule allowed only a very narrow exemption for a “religious employer.” The January 20 announcement makes this interim rule final.

To correct the threats to religious liberty and rights of conscience posed by PPACA, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act has been introduced in Congress (H.R. 1179, S. 1467).

This measure will ensure that those who participate in the health care system

“retain the right to provide, purchase, or enroll in health coverage that is consistent with their religious beliefs and moral convictions.”

It is more important than ever that Members of Congress be urged to co-sponsor this measure. For co-sponsors, please check H.R. 1179 and S. 1467 at: thomas.loc.gov.

ACTION: Contact your U.S. Representative by e-mail, phone, or FAX letter:

• Call the President/White House switchboard: 202-456-1111.
• Call your Senators:
• John McCain – Prescott: (928) 445-0833, Washington DC (202) 224-2235; Web Contact
• Jon Kyl – Phoenix (602) 840-1891, Washington DC (202) 224-4521; Web Contact
• Contact your Congressmen:
• Paul Gosar – Prescott: (928)445-1683; Web Contact
• Call the U.S. Capitol switchboard at: 202-224-3121, or call your Members’ local offices.
• Additional contact info can be found on Members’ web sites at: www.house.gov and www.senate.gov.

SEND THIS MESSAGE:

“Please co-sponsor the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179, S. 1467) and help enact it into law.

“The Obama administration’s decision to require even religious institutions to provide coverage of sterilization and contraceptives, including drugs that can cause an abortion, makes passage of this measure especially urgent.

“Please ensure that the rights of conscience of all participants in our nation’s health care system are respected.”

by Bethany Blankley

The Mormon Temple. Not a cross to be found.

Ultimately, it is Christians, after all, who determine what beliefs are considered Christian and what beliefs aren’t. In other words, if you want to know if what you believe is Christian – ask one, especially one who can speak with some authority about Christian teaching (like, say, an Orthodox Christian priest?). Mormonism isn’t a Christian faith, nor an Abrahamic faith. It is polytheistic and its rituals are clearly and verifiably based on Freemasonry.

Again, if you want to know if you are a Christian, read THIS – The Nicene Creed. This is the historical statement of the Christian faith, what Christians believe and have always believed, and something no believing Mormon can affirm.

If you want to know more, try this: For Those Investigating Mormonism, and this excellent website: Ex-Mormons.org.

Reading the results of the Pew poll about Mormonism, reminds me of what Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in “Strength to Love“:

“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

The fact that two thirds of mainline Protestants and Catholics believe Mormonism is a Christian religion is an unfortunate example of both.

The Mormon faith is not the same as the Christian faith. Examples abound.

Consider these few.

The Ministry of Jesus

In the 2 Nephi 5:21, in the Book of Mormon, in 600 B.C., Lehi, a Jewish prophet from the tribe of Manassah, left Jerusalem with several others, sailed east and landed in South America. Two of Lehi’s sons, Lamen and Lemuel, rebelled against God. God cursed them and gave them dark skin — birthing the Native American race. In 2 Nephi 12:3-12, in A.D. 34, Jesus Christ descended from heaven, baptized the Native Americans, called and commissioned 12 disciples, instituted sacraments, and taught the message of the Sermon on the Mount.

According to the first four gospels of the Bible, Jesus Christ lived and ministered in the region of modern-day Israel. He never appeared in the Americas.

The Virgin Birth

The Mormon Church teaches that Mary, the mother of Jesus, conceived Jesus through sexual relations with God the father. Brigham Young wrote in the Journal of Discourses 8:115, “The birth of the Savior was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood — was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers.” Likewise, the Mormon Apostle Bruce McConkie wrote,

“Christ was begotten by an Immortal Father in the same way mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers”

(Mormon Doctrine, 1966, pg. 547; Read also, The Seer, by Orsen Pratt; Doctrines of Salvation Vol. 1; or The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson).

The Bible teaches that Mary, a virgin,

“was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18).

It is a miracle that is difficult for many to understand, but not one that occurred as a result of Mary having intercourse with a human or a spiritual being.

The Spirit World

Mormons believe that God, angels and humans are the same. BYU religion professor Robert Millet clarifies this concept in “The Mormon Faith: A New Look at Christianity” (1998, pg. 39):

“Latter-day Saints believe that angels are men and women, human beings, sons and daughters of God, personages of the same type as we are. Parley P. Pratt, an early apostle wrote, ‘Gods, angels and men are all of one species, one race, one great family.’”

Additionally, angels are created through sexual relations, better known as “celestial exaltation” between God and his heavenly wife in the spirit world. In the LDS Church manual, Achieving a Celestial Marriage, celestial exaltation

“includes the ability to procreate the family unit throughout eternity. This our Father in heaven has power to do. His marriage partner is our mother in heaven. We are their spirit children, born to them in the bonds of celestial marriage.”

Spirits are gender specific, immortal and eternal:

“Each [male and female] is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose”

(“The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” issued by the First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles of the LDS Church, 1995).

Brigham Young stated:

“Mankind are organized of element designed to endure to all eternity; it never had a beginning and never can have an end. There never was a time when this matter, of which you and I are composed, was not in existence, and there never can be a time when it will pass out of existence; it cannot be annihilated. It is brought together, organized, and capacitated to receive knowledge and intelligence, to be enthroned in glory, to be made angels, Gods — beings who will hold control over the elements, and have power by their word to command the creation and redemption of worlds, or to extinguish suns by their breath, and disorganize worlds, hurling them back into their chaotic state. This is what you and I are created for.”

(Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 48; see also Doctrines and Covenants 93:29-33)

The Bible teaches that angels (immortals) and humans (mortals) are to worship God (the sole eternal being) their creator (Hebrews 1). Angels have taken on anthropomorphic characteristics but they are not human. They bore messages to humans from God (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:11, 26, 2:9; Acts 8:26) and assisted Jesus (Matthew 26:53; Luke 22:43) and his people (Psalm 91:11, 12; Acts 5:19; Hebrews 1:14).

Jesus and Satan

The Mormon church explicitly teaches in the Pearl of Great Price in both the books of Moses (chapter 4) and Abraham (chapter 3) that Jesus Christ and Satan are both sons of God and are not only spirit brothers to each other but are spirit brothers to humans and angels as well. Brigham Young referred to

“the Devil, the mighty Lucifer, the great prince of the angels, and the brother of Jesus“

in the Journal of Discourses 6:207. In an Ensign magazine (a publication of the Mormon church) answer to a question from a reader,

“How can Jesus and Lucifer be spirit brothers when their characters and purposes are so utterly opposed?” the magazine stated, “On first hearing, the doctrine that Lucifer and our Lord, Jesus Christ, are brothers may seem surprising to some–especially to those unacquainted with latter-day revelations. But both the scriptures and the prophets affirm that Jesus Christ and Lucifer are indeed offspring of our Heavenly Father and, therefore, spirit brothers….But as the Firstborn of the Father, Jesus was Lucifer’s older brother” (1986, pg. 25).

The Bible teaches that God has only one son, Jesus Christ (John 3:16, 17) who came to destroy the work of the devil (I John 3:8).

Both Mormonism and Christianity make very different truth claims.

Christians must know what they say they believe otherwise their claim to faith is meaningless.

HT: Mystagogy

Source: The Huffington Post

What does it mean to repent? When our Lord Jesus Christ began His public preaching,he began with the word ‘repent.’

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17)

If we are to repent, then we need to know our sinfulness. That’s a tall order, frankly. As St. John put it,

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8)

This is basic Christianity 101. We are sinners. Christ tells us to repent. This is why the Church has always offered confession of sins prior to receiving the Holy Eucharist, for as St. Paul says,

Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup…That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. (1 Cor. 11:27-28, 30)

The following examination of conscience is also available in print form in the narthex of the Church.

Preparation for Confession

During Great Lent, and the other fasts of the Church Year, it is customary for all Orthodox Christians to go to confession to their priest. Properly this should be done several times a year, the exact frequency depending upon how often one is blessed to receive the Holy Mysteries and on the counsel and blessing of one’s spiritual father.

As a preparation for this sacramental confession and to help one examine one’s conscience before coming to confession, the following  questions are sometimes distributed in parishes and, although of course the list is not exhaustive, it may be a help to those of our readers who are Orthodox Christians.

Sins Against God

Do you pray to God in the morning and evening, before and after meals?

During prayer have you allowed your thoughts to wander?

Have you rushed or garbled your prayers? or when reading in church?

Do you read the Scriptures daily?

Do you read other spiritual writings regularly?

Have you read books whose content is not Orthodox or even anti-Orthodox, or which you know is spiritually damaging?

Have you pronounced the name of God without reverence, joking?

Have you asked God’s help before starting every activity?

Have you made the sign of the Cross carelessly, thoughtlessly?

Have you cursed?

Have you murmured against God?

Have you sinned by forgetting God?

Have you been slack in attending worship?

Have you consecrated even part of the feast days, particularly Sundays and the Twelve Great Feasts, to God?

Have you tried your best to attend church on these days?

Have you spent them more sinfully than ordinary days?

If unable to attend church for some reason, have you nonetheless tried to devote some part of these days to prayer and spiritual reading?

Have you joined with people not of the Faith in prayer, or attended their worship services?

Have you kept the fasts?

Have you behaved irreverently in church, or before the clergy?

Have you laughed or talked in church, or moved about unnecessarily, thus also distracting other people from prayer?

Have dressed appropriately, modestly and in a becoming manner when in church?

Have you tried to pay reverent attention to the readings, hymns, and prayers in church?

Have you striven to pray with the service, crossing yourself, etc.

Have you rather simply stood and day-dreamed?

Have you prepared for the services beforehand, looking up the Scriptural readings, making sure you have the texts to follow the service etc.

Have you ever left church after the Divine Services, and particularly after receiving the Holy Mysteries and immediately engaged in light talk and thus forgotten the blessings and graces you have received?

Have you been ashamed of your Faith or the sign of the Cross in the presence of others?

Have you made a show of your piety?

Have you used your Orthodox Faith or its teachings merely to browbeat others or belittle them?

Have you used it as a shield or excuse for your own inadequacies rather than humbling yourself?

Have you believed in dreams, fortune telling,   astrology, signs and other superstitions?

Do you give thanks to the Lord for all things?

Have you ever doubted God’s providence concerning yourself?

Do you at least try to perceive His purpose in all the things that come upon you?

Sins Against Your Neighbors

Do you respect and obey your parents?

Have you offended them by rudeness or contradiction?

Have you properly shown respect and obedience to your priest? Teachers? Superiors?

Have you insulted anyone?

Have you quarreled or fought with anyone? Have you hit anyone?

Are you always respectful to old people?

Are you ever angry, bad tempered or irritable?

Have you called anyone names?

Do you use foul language?

Have you derided anyone that is disabled, poor, old or in some way disadvantaged?

Have you entertained bad feelings, ill will or hatred against anyone?

Have you forgiven those who have offended you?

Have you asked forgiveness from those whom you have offended?

Have you refused to forgive anyone who has hurt you?

Are you at peace with everyone?

Have you left the needy without help when you could have helped?

Have you attended the sick or elderly when they have asked you to do so?

Have you shown kindness and attention to all, remembering that God is expecting just such an attitude from you?

Have you hit animals without a cause or been cruel to them, or neglectful of those in your care?

Have you stolen anything?

Have you taken or used other people’s things without asking?

Have you kept money or things that were lent you without returning them?

Have you wasted your employers’ time or resources?

Have you taken things from work for your own use, used the firm’s phone or other facilities for your own purposes without permission or repayment?

Are you obstinate, and do you always try to have your own way?

Have you been inconsiderate of other people’s feelings?

Have you tried to have your revenge against those who have offended you?

Have you harbored resentment?

Have you deceived anyone?

Have you gossiped?

Have you told untruths?

Have you judged and condemned others?

Have you taken pains before approaching for confession to be reconciled with all?

Sins Against Yourself

Have you been proud?

Do you boast of your abilities, achievements, family, connections or riches?

Do you consider yourself worthy before God?

Are you vain, ambitious? Do you try to win praise and glory?

Do you bear it easily when you are blamed, scolded or treated unjustly?

Do you think too much about your looks, outward appearance and the impression you make?

Have you sinned in thought, word or deed, by a look or glance, or in any other way against the seventh commandment?

The seventh commandment includes the sins of adultery, fornication (sex outside of marriage),  masturbation, engaging in unnatural sexual acts, sexual fantasy, pornography, etc.

Have you envied anyone over anything?

Have you been over-sensitive?

Have you been lazy?

Have you done your duties heartily?

Have you wasted your time, energy or abilities in things that do not profit the soul?

Have you become obsessive about anything?

Have you been despondent or listless?

Have you had thoughts of committing suicide?

Have you brought a curse on yourself or others or ill-wished them, being impatient?

Have you a weakness for alcohol?

Have you drunk too much, or become dependent on drink?

Have you taken drugs, other than necessary medicines? Have you smoked?

Have you watched television too much or  indiscriminately?

Have you given yourself up to any other similar pastime which wastes your time and energy and might have harmed you?

Have you been greedy, either with regard to food or to possessions?

Have you indulged in comfort-eating? (for example – have you become accustomed to eating between meals?)

Have you been picky about your food, or wasteful of foods, forgetting that so many people are without proper nourishment?

Have you been extravagant?

Have you been wasteful?

Do you care for and seek first the salvation of your soul, the spiritual life and the kingdom of God, or have you put earthly considerations in the first place?

Is there any other sin, which burdens your conscience, or which you are ashamed to tell?

+ + +

Anyone preparing for confession must ask God to help his resolve to tell all his sins. A penitent should prepare for confession and collect his thoughts regarding his sins at least a day before confession. The most valuable thing in the eyes of God is the confession of the sin which weighs most on the conscience. The questions listed are intended to help the  Orthodox Christian examine himself and identify the symptoms of his spiritual ills; they should not be taken as some kind of test to ascertain how well we are doing as if there was a certain “pass-mark.”

Before God’s perfections, we shall always fail. It is for that reason that, as believing Christians, we throw ourselves on the mercy of the Lord and do not trust in our own righteousness.

Remember that our sins can never outweigh God’s love towards us.

Even if we should seem to have failed with regard to all the points mentioned above and more, we should not lose heart but confess our sins without shame, we should regret the wrongs we have done, be resolved to make amends, and receive whatever remedy our confessor should be guided to lay upon us.

Most of all, one should be assured of the blessing of God which these endeavors will bring upon you.

Remember

He Loves You!

by Andrei Zolotov, Jr.

The Thirteenth Apostle was in town earlier this week. The Judge of the Whole Universe. I am not kidding. His name is Theodoros II, and he is the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa.

His full title is a bit of a going joke among the knowing: His Most Divine Beatitude the Pope and Patriarch of the Great City of Alexandria, Libya, Pentapolis, Ethiopia, all the land of Egypt, and all Africa, Father of Fathers, Shepherd of Shepherds, Prelate of Prelates, thirteenth of the Apostles, and Judge of the Œcumene (inhabited Greco-Roman Universe). A bit too much for the head of the ever dwindling Hellenic community of Egypt and neighboring countries, not to be confused with the Coptic Pope, who bears a similar title but leads Egypt’s much greater indigenous Christian community, which broke away from the Greek Orthodox Church in the 5th century over Christological and political differences.

That could well be just one of those anachronistic tributes to the Golden Age, whenever one can find it, that people in the Orthodox Church are so fond of – after all Alexandria was indeed the second most important city in the Roman Empire — if it wasn’t for the remarkable missionary outreach into the black, sub-Saharan Africa in the past several decades that turned the Patriarchate of Alexandria into one of the fastest growing and most actively evangelizing Orthodox Churches in the world. And if the Western Christian mission in Africa has been vividly described, vastly romanticized on the one hand, and criticized as a part of the European colonialism on the other, the Eastern Christian mission, both by the Greeks and by the Copts, both taking place largely in the late colonial and post-colonial era, to a large extent based on indigenous quest by native Africans, remains tremendously underresearched and underreported.

Patriarch Theodoros was in Moscow to receive the prestigious award from the Patriarch of Moscow, Kirill, and the Foundation for the Unity of the Orthodox Peoples, which he shared with Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and the world’s number one tennis player – and apparently a church benefactor, Serbia’s Novak Djokovic. He also presided over a glorious service last Sunday at the Christ the Savior Cathedral.

Russian Patriarch Kirill made clear that he honors his “senior brother” in the unruly family of Orthodox patriarchs not only for his missionary efforts, but also as a token of solidarity with Christians in Egypt and elsewhere, who are suffering attacks from radical Muslims.

“We are praying today for the Christians of Africa, especially Northern Africa, where Christian blood is being spilled now, but not only for them,”

said Patriarch Kirill addressing Patriarch Theodoros.

“We know that in the countries of Central Africa, Christians are being killed, sometimes whole villages are being annihilated because the very fact of a Christian preaching appears to someone untimely, superfluous and even dangerous… After visiting Moscow, you will go on a missionary trip to 14 countries, including those where Christians are being killed. We will be praying for you.”

The pomposity of the hierarchical liturgy somehow makes it hard to imagine Patriarch Theodoros playing the drum in a Madagascar village or surrounded by ritual dancers in Cameroon. But in his acceptance speech in Moscow, he made it all clear:

“When I leave this world, I would like to be remembered as a missionary Patriarch,” he said.

It was only in the 20th century, and particularly since the 1950s, that the mission to Black Africa began in earnest. Both the first President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios, and the present Archbishop of Albania Anastasios spent time as missionaries in Kenya and Uganda – the countries with the largest Orthodox presence in sub-Saharan Africa. Another towering figure in this effort was Patriarch Petros VII (1996-2004) who increased the number of dioceses and spearheaded a major missionary campaign in areas previously untouched until his dramatic death, together with three bishops and his brother, in a helicopter crash en route to Mount Athos.

I remember interviewing Patriarch Petros in Zimbabwe’s capital of Harare in 1998. When asked about the pompous ancient title, he appeared to have some weary embarrassment, as if he is often asked about it.

“It is a tribute to an old tradition, and we only use it rarely in a liturgical context,” he said.

The numbers of Orthodox Christians in Africa is a big unknown. It is known that there are presently 21 archdioceses and 4 dioceses in the Church. Only two out of 27 active bishops are black. But the majority of clergy are native and locally trained in African seminaries. The total number of Orthodox Christians in Africa is estimated to have grown in the past 20 years from 200,000 to 1.5 million. Some sources speak of several million members, but it is impossible to verify any figures. What is important is that the growth is out there.

What is also remarkable is how this church combines in its worship the Greek, Russian and local cultural forms such as instruments and dance unheard of, if not to say an anathema in more traditional Orthodox cultures. The video of an Easter celebration in Ghana went viral last year among the world’s Orthodox Christians precisely for that reason – the dynamism and enthusiasm so long lost in our crystallized ritual. In a sign of a growing interest in Russia, a popular Russian Orthodox magazine Foma (Thomas) published a report about the life of a parish in Kenya which generated a large response from readers.

“In my view, this is probably the most interesting phenomenon within the ‘Orthodox world’ in the twenty-first century, and one that is very little known and even less understood,” Irina Papkova, the associate professor of political science at Central European University in Budapest said in an email interview. Papkova is also launching a research program on African Orthodox Christianity. “I think that it is important because of the ways in which Africans are adopting Orthodoxy. They are accepting the content of Orthodoxy, but they are transforming the form, which shows to us really that common images of Orthodoxy as a completely rigid, traditionalist religion are not accurate. There is plenty of space within the faith for creative transformation, at least as far as the form of outward worship is concerned. This is really important for us to remember, as Orthodox populations in Europe and Russia in particular are struggling with the question of how Orthodoxy fits with (post)modernity and whether it is heretical or not to adapt certain non-dogmatic aspects of worship (such as language) to contemporary cultural conditions.”

When one sees what is happening in Africa, it is impossible not to be inspired by the absolute purity of faith with which the people of Ghana, Kenya, etc. are accepting Orthodox Christianity. The joy that one sees in their liturgical celebrations is something quite different from the solemnity that tends to overwhelm congregations in other Orthodox contexts. You get the sense that the Africans are experiencing communion with Christ immediately, here and now, and that’s a powerful experience we more ‘hereditary’ Orthodox should perhaps learn from.”

HT: The Orthodox Church: OCP Media Network

Source:

From The Orthodox Life blog.  I like this article because it shows precisely why we Orthodox Christians do everything we do: it’s Biblical!

“Let my prayer arise … as incense” (Psalm 141:2)

Throughout Scripture we see the inward and outward aspects of worship offered to God in unity with one another. For example, Scripture tells us to lift our hands and our hearts to God. The hands are outward, and the heart is inward. God is glorified by both, and He commands us to worship Him with both.

We rightfully advocate both the lifting of our hearts and the lifting of our hands to God. They are complimentary to one another. Incense and prayer work the same way. They are two halves to the same coin:

“Let my prayer arise in Thy sight as incense. And let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice.

(Psalm 141:2)

In the New Testament, Jesus teaches us to pray the Lord’s Prayer. In that prayer, we pray,

“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

God wants to be worshiped on earth in the same way He is worshiped in heaven. Heavenly worship includes incense, in both the Old Testament (Isa. 6) and the New Testament (Rev. 8). If heavenly worship includes liturgy, robes, and incense, then our earthly worship should include the same.

Scripture is literally filled with references to incense for the worship of God. For example:

• Exodus 25, 30, 31, 35, 37, 39, 40
• Leviticus 4, 16
• Numbers 4, 7, 16
• Deuteronomy 33
• 1 Samuel 2
• 1 Chronicles 6, 9, 23
• 2 Chronicles 2, 13, 26, 29
• Psalm 141
• Isaiah 60
• Jeremiah 17, 41
• Malachi 1
• Luke 1
• Revelation 5, 8

By considering all of these passages, we should be able to discern the usage of incense which would please God in the context of worship.

One of my favorite incense passages is Malachi 1:11. He prophecies of the New Testament Church age, during which time God expands His blessings to the Gentiles in the world at large:

“For from the rising of the sun, even to its going down, My name shall be great among the Gentiles; In every place incense shall be offered to My name, And a pure offering; For My name shall be great among the nations,” Says the LORD of hosts.

And here is a helpful passage from the New Testament:

And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended before God from the angel’s hand.

(Revelation 8:2-4)

According to the New Testament, our prayers actually ascend to God with the smoke of incense.

Pretty cool, huh?

Source

by Archimandrite Job (Getcha)

Evangelisation is the proclamation of the good news of salvation. It is not merely teaching a system of beliefs or transmitting a moral code. In this article Professor Archimandrite Job Getcha highlights the connection between evangelisation and our encounter with the living God in the Orthodox Liturgy.

Introduction

Evangelisation is the proclamation of the good news of salvation. It is not merely teaching a system of beliefs or transmitting a moral code. Therefore, evangelisation should always be linked with a personal experience, and an encounter with the living God, and not only with a pedagogical method. For the Orthodox Church, mission and evangelisation have always been linked with the liturgical experience. Worship has always been the starting point of mission and the heart of evangelisation.

If we look in history, we can find several illustrations of this. One can recall the story of Cyril and Methodius. In the 9th century, when Rastislav, the chief of the people of Moravia, became irritated by the attitude of the Franc missionaries who were using Latin in the evangelisation process of his people, he asked the Byzantine emperor Michael III to send him missionaries who would know the Slavic language. Then the two learned brothers of Thessalonica, Cyril and Methodius, were sent to Moravia, and started their missionary work by translating the liturgical lectionary into the Slavic language as well as the liturgical books. It is said that Cyril translated the text of the four gospels to be read at worship, as well as the texts of the various liturgical services: matins, hours, vespers, compline and the Divine Liturgy. This is an important detail: the two famous missionaries did not start their evangelisation mission by translating a catechism, neither a handbook of doctrine, nor a compilation of sermons, but by bringing the liturgical texts to the language of the local people so that their mission could be done by the means of the liturgy.

Another great example is the conversion of Kievan Rus’ around 988. In the famous Russian Primary Chronicle, it is said that the decisive point in the Christianisation of the Russian people was the experience of Prince Vladimir’s legates attending worship at Saint Sophia Cathedral in Constantinople: “We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendour or beauty anywhere on earth. We cannot describe it to you: only this we know, that God dwells there among humans, and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places. For we cannot forget that beauty”.

Indeed, this beauty, which is transmitted through the liturgical worship, is perceived in the Orthodox Church as an epiphany of Heaven on earth, as a way of uniting to the heavenly beauty, a bridge between the Kingdom of God and this world, a connecting point between time and eternity. Through worship, the Christian message does not remain merely a dead letter but becomes a living spirit, which vivifies and deifies.

This story shows us that one cannot reduce Christianity to a series of moral rules, neither to a philosophical or doctrinal system. Christianity is a way of life, where doctrine is inseparable from the glorification of God. According to Georges Florovsky, “Christianity is a liturgical religion. The Church is first of all a worshipping community. Worship comes first, doctrine and discipline second”[1]. Through worship, the true glorification becomes the expression of the true doctrine: “lex orandi” becomes “lex credendi”, since worship is the bearer and transmitter of faith. This is an important fact that one should have always in mind when addressing the question of Christian evangelisation and mission in today’s world.

Recalling his encounter with the Orthodox Church when he was a young student, Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia writes:

“As I entered St. Philip’s – for that was the name of the [Russian Orthodox] church – at first I thought that it was entirely empty. Outside in the street there had been brilliant sunshine, but inside it was cool, cavernous and dark. As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, the first thing that caught my attention was an absence. There were no pews, no chairs in neat rows; in front of me stretched a wide and vacant expanse of polished floor. Then I realized that the church was not altogether empty. Scattered in the nave and aisles there were a few worshipers, most of them elderly. Along the walls there were icons, with flickering lamps in front of them, and at the east end there were burning candles in front of the icon screen. Somewhere out of sight a choir was singing. After a while a deacon came out from the sanctuary and went round the church censing the icons and the people, and I noticed that his brocade vestment was old and slightly torn. My initial impression of an absence was now replaced, with a sudden rush, by an overwhelming sense of presence. I felt that the church, so far from being empty, was full – full of countless unseen worshipers, surrounding me on every side. Intuitively I realized that we, the visible congregation, were part of a much larger whole, and that as we prayed we were being taken into an action far greater than ourselves, into an undivided, all-embracing celebration that united time and eternity, things below and things above”[2].

Even today, in Africa, within the very active mission of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, worship remains the essential and privileged means for evangelisation. When the chief of a tribe comes to see a bishop or a priest, asking for evangelisation, the first thing that the missionary bishop or priest usually does is to go and celebrate worship outside in the fields. The chief would gather his tribe that would attend the worship and listen to the predication, and usually, this experience would lead them to accept the Christian faith and be baptised. For the African people are very sensible to the fact that faith in God should be essentially expressed through a way of life and not merely in a written book.

Holy Scripture as a Liturgical Element

These examples may sound strange to us who very often associate evangelisation with a distribution of Bibles or other printed material free of charge, with missionaries who knock at the door of houses, or with some educational and training process. If this is the case, it is because we often have the perception of Christianity as a “religion of the book”, forgetting that the starting point of the Christian faith is not a book, but an event: the paschal mystery of Christ. As J. Behr points out in his book, The Mystery of Christ,

“it is a stubborn fact that for almost two centuries after Christ there was no such a thing as a book called ‘The New Testament’. Nor, for that matter, was the picture or pictures it presents the only version asserted: there were many other ways of explaining the work of God in Christ; many others claiming to be speaking on the authority of the Spirit or to be representing the true tradition…”[3]

Indeed, the Bible that we know and read today did not fall one day upon men from Heaven. It is certainly an inspired book, or rather inspired books, but they were all written by men belonging to God’s people and for God’s people. The New Testament books were all written within the Church and for the Church, and at the time of their composition, the Church was certainly not perceived as an international institution but rather as a gathering, an assembly (ekklêsia) of the believers around Christ. The Gospels or the epistles were to be read during these gatherings, when the people of God was gathered “to break the bread”, that is for liturgy. In fact, contemporary exegetes have pointed out that several passages from the epistles of Paul were in fact liturgical hymns.

We have to remember that before the arrival of printing, individual Christians did not have access to the biblical text, which was transmitted through expensive manuscripts that were the property of a particular community. Therefore, the reading of the Scriptures and its commentary were done during worship. Tertullian makes a testimony of this in his Apologeticum:

“I will now at once proclaim the actual occupations of the Christian association, in order that I who rejected the idea that they were evil may show that they are good. We are a corporation with a common knowledge of religion, a common rule of life, and an union of hope. We come together for meeting and assembly, in order that having formed a band as it were to come before God we may encompass him with prayers. This violence is pleasing to God. We pray also for the emperors, for their ministers and those in authority, for the state of the world, for general quiet, for the postponement of the end. We meet to call one another to remembrance of the Scripture, if the aspect of affairs requires us either to be forewarned or to be reminded of anything. In any case we feed our belief on holy words, we raise our hope, we strengthen our confidence, we clinch the teaching none the less by driving home precepts. There too are pronounced exhortations, corrections and godly judgments”[4].

Until today, the liturgical tradition of the Orthodox Church, through its lectionary, makes sure that the most essential biblical texts are read during the church liturgical year. Almost all the New Testament, with the exception of the book of Revelation, is to be read in one year at the Divine Liturgy. According to the Typikon (Ordo) of Saint Sabas, the four gospels have to be read at the hours during the three first days of Great Week. Most important passages from the Old Testament, relevant to salvation history, are read throughout the year at vespers, on the eve of major feast days, and daily during the Great Lent. The whole Psalter is read once entirely every week at matins and vespers, and it is read twice a week during Great Lent. We have also to have in mind that the psalms, which were not only the prayers of the Jewish people but of the first Christians as well, together with the biblical canticles, constitute the permanent structure of the different liturgical services of the Orthodox Church. Therefore, one can say that the language of the liturgy is a biblical language. For instance, it has been calculated that the text of the Divine Liturgy contains 98 quotations from the Old Testament and 114 from the New Testament[5].

The Word of God ought not only to be read and studied; it has to be heard, meditated and put into practice. Therefore, having in mind that the Holy Scripture was written initially in a liturgical context, and let us say, for the liturgy, the proper place for its proclamation and interpretation should remain within the liturgy, without of course excluding other ways and places for its reading and commentary. In fact, predication, which is intimately linked with the proclamation of the Word of God, remains a constitutive liturgical element.

Didactic Aspect of Worship

The aim of worship is not only the glorification of God, but also the edification of the people of God. As Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia has pointed out in his famous book The Orthodox Church,

“Certain doctrines, never formally defined, are yet held by the Church with an unmistakable inner conviction, an unruffled unanimity, which is just as binding as an explicit formulation. ‘Some things we have from written teaching’ said St. Basil, ‘others we have received from the Apostolic Tradition handed down to us in a mystery; and both these things have the same force for piety’. This inner Tradition ‘handed down to us in a mystery’ is preserved above all in the Church’s worship”[6].

In fact, Saint Basil himself used the liturgical texts in his theological disputes: taking the defence of the divinity of the Holy Spirit against the Pneumatomacs on the eve of the Second Ecumenical Council in 381, he made use of the very ancient Christian hymn, O Gentle Light (Fôs ‘ilaron) which is still sung today daily at Orthodox vespers:

“It seemed fitting to our fathers not to receive the gift of the light at eventide in silence, but, on its appearing, immediately to give thanks. Who was the author of these words of thanksgiving at the lighting of the lamps (tês epiluchniou eucharistias), we are not able to say. The people, however, utter the ancient form, and no one has ever reckoned guilty of impiety those who say ‘We praise Father, Son, and God’s Holy Spirit’ (ainoumen Patera, kai ‘Uion, kai Pneuma Theou)”[7].

If God’s revelation is being preserved in the liturgy, this comes from the fact that worship is first of all an interpreter of the Holy Scriptures. Through its prayers and hymnology, worship makes a commentary of the biblical text, adopting a pluralistic interpretation. Each biblical passage is not to being interpreted not only in one particular manner, let us say historical, spiritual or moral, but can be interpreted in each of these ways. Using typology, which brings the Old and the New Testaments together, worship looks at the Old Testament stories with the lenses of the New, in the light of the paschal mystery, in which everything is recapitulated by Christ and in Christ.

But the typological reading of the biblical text used by the liturgical interpretation does not only unite major figures of the Old Testament with Christ in a relation of type and antitype; they also unite any biblical figure – such as those of the parables – with each one of us who participates in the liturgical worship of the Church.

Hymnology reads the Scriptures in a spiritual way, and therefore, following the path of Saint Paul and of the Church Fathers, biblical history becomes our personal history; salvation history becomes indeed the story of our own salvation. Through this typological link, one can say indeed that biblical history recapitulates the history of each human being. The Bible is not a dead book, but a living one, which speaks to each one of us today.

As in the patristic homilies, hymnology proclaims at each liturgical celebration the actuality of salvation. Worship celebrates the eternal “present”, the eternal “now” of the Divine economy. Thus Byzantine hymnography proclaims on Christmas day:

“Heaven and earth have been made one today, now that Christ is born. Today God has come upon earth, and humanity gone up to heaven. Today for humankind the One who by nature is unseen is seen. Therefore let us too give glory as we cry to him, ‘Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth, with which your Coming has rewarded us. Our Saviour, glory to you!’”[8].

And at Easter:

“Now all things have been filled with light, both heaven and earth and those beneath the earth; so let all creation sing Christ’s rising, by which it is established. Yesterday I was buried with you O Christ, today I rise with you as you arise. Yesterday I was crucified with you; glorify me with you, Saviour, in your Kingdom”[9].

Father Kiprian Kern emphasised this didactic and pedagogical aspects of worship in the Orthodox Church, which ought to be taken into consideration when speaking on mission and evangelisation. He often stated that the theological and religious education in Byzantium or in Ancient Russia was done through liturgy:

“There were no seminaries, no academies, neither theological faculties, but the God loving monks and pious Christians were drinking the living water of God’s knowledge from the stichira, canons, kathismata, prologues and synaxaria. The church’s choir and ambo replaced at that time the professor’s chair”[10].

But unfortunately, often this rich liturgical treasure of the Orthodox Church becomes a kind of best-kept secret even for the Orthodox faithful. One can ask the question why Orthodox Christians often do not take advantage of this heritage? Reflecting on this question could be in fact useful when considering the issue of mission and evangelisation. Father Kiprian Kern was already pointing out at the beginning of the 20th century that this hymnological richness is often inaccessible for the modern man who does not understand it for different reasons. One reason might be the usage of an ancient liturgical language, such as classical Greek or Church Slavonic, which are not accessible to everybody. But the reason could be also a question of a different culture. Father Kiprian was pointing out that the people who were raised in the realism of the 19th century had often a difficulty to understand the profound meaning and beauty of the hymnological poetry as they could not perceive the sense of Byzantine iconography. And from there his conclusion:

“Having come back to the church, we do not understand what is being sung. It has to be explained, it needs a commentary”[11].

This is even more true in our epoch, when the younger generations have not received a Christian education in their childhood. But this problem could become an opportunity: the “incomprehensible” liturgical texts, the beauty of singing of the endless Orthodox services, the fascinating Byzantine icons could become a starting point for evangelisation. I remember a schoolteacher telling me the success he had with his pupils when explaining the mystery of the Trinity by bringing a copy of Rublev’s icon of the Trinity to the classroom. John of Damascus had already pointed this out when saying:

“What the book is to the literate, the image is to the illiterate”.

Therefore, mission and evangelisation should make use of this liturgical material, and thus, the explanation of an icon, the commentary of a liturgical hymn or of a service could be the occasion of entering into the mystery of salvation.

The Sacramental Dimension of Christian life

As we said at the beginning of our paper, the aim of mission and evangelisation is not merely to hand out a system of doctrine or moral values. Therefore, the aim of mission and evangelisation is neither to bring people into an organisation, although this organisation should be called the Church. The Church is not merely an institution, but the living body of Christ. Therefore, the aim of mission and evangelisation should be helping people to encounter the Living, the Risen Christ. And here again, the liturgy could be a decisive element.

As Father Alexander Schmemann once wrote: “The Church, the sacrament of Christ, is not a ‘religious’ society of converts, an organisation to satisfy the ‘religious’ needs of man. It is the new life and redeems therefore the whole life, the total being of man”[12]. Being the Body of Christ, the Church is not merely the Kingdom, which is to come, but the Kingdom, which is already present… The purpose of mission of evangelisation, as the aim of the Church, is to proclaim and offer the new life in Christ.

On this topic, I will refer here to the famous conversion of a French atheist called André Frossard to Christianity, which he recalls in his book entitled: God exists, I have met Him (Dieu existe, je L’ai recontré). His testimony could be easily compared to the one of Prince Vladimir’s legates or the one of the young Timothy Ware:

“Having entered a chapel in the Latin Quarter of Paris at 5:10 in the afternoon to look for a friend, I left at a quarter after 5 in the company of a friendship that was not of this earth. Having entered as a sceptic and an atheist…and ever more sceptical and atheistic, indifferent and preoccupied with so many things other than a God to Whom I never even gave a thought even to deny… […] I was twenty years old when I entered. When I left, I was a child ready for baptism, who was looking around him, with his eyes open, this inhabited sky…”[13].

Frossard’s testimony summarizes admirably what the Church is all about, what mission and evangelisation is aimed at. The Church’s raison d’être is to provide salvation through the celebration of its sacrament, of its mysteries as we say in the Christian East. Some time ago, Metropolitan Emilianos Timiadis said:

“The chief aim of Christ’s Incarnation was to enable man to participate in all possible divine blessings and to make him a partner and co-heir of God’s kingdom”[14]

While saying this, he was very close to the thought of the 15th century great Byzantine liturgist, Symeon of Thessalonica, who says in his treatise on priesthood that as the Incarnation was necessary for the salvation of mankind, so priesthood is indispensable, since it perpetuates and actualises the work of Christ, who could not remain eternally on earth to work out man’s regeneration[15].

In this sense, the celebration of the sacraments and liturgical services should be aimed at the edification of what Nicolas Cabasilas called “Life in Christ”. Speaking about it, Cabasilas says:

“The life in Christ originates in this life and arises from it. It is perfected, however, in the life to come, when we shall have reached that last day. It cannot attain perfection in men’s souls in this life, nor even in that which is to come without already having begun here. […] Baptism confers being and in short, existence according to Christ. It receives us when we are dead and corrupted and first leads us into life. The anointing with chrism perfects him who has received [new] birth by infusing into him the energy that benefits such a life. The Holy Eucharist preserves and continues that life and health, since the Bread of Life enables us to preserve that which has been acquired and to continue in life. […] In this way we live in God. We remove our life from the visible world to the world which is not seen by exchanging, not the place, but the very life itself and mode”[16].

When speaking of the very first sacrament in the Christian life – baptism – which is at the same time closely linked, as we know, with mission and evangelisation, we shall recall that in the Ancient Church this mystery was not only celebrated but also prepared in a liturgical context. Indeed, the period of preparation of the catechumens for baptism coincided with Great Lent, since baptism was most often celebrated on Easter in the Ancient Church, and consisted not of a preparation in a classroom but attending the liturgical services, receiving appropriate exorcisms and hearing the Scriptural readings and the catechetical homilies. The catechetical homilies of Cyril of Jerusalem are a good testimony of this ancient practice, as well as his mystagogical homilies. For the evangelisation of the catechumen did not stop at his baptism, but was continuing after, during eight days, when the neophyte was remaining in the church, in a liturgical setting, and receiving explanations about the sacraments to which he had participated. In fact, the catechetical homilies dealt most often with the mystery of salvation and the basic elements of faith, as the mystagogical homilies were usually commentaries giving explanations of the liturgical and sacramental actions. This point could also be inspiring our mission and evangelisation today.

For the starting point of our mission should always be the liturgy. As Father Alexander Schmemann once wrote:

“Nothing reveals better the relation between the Church as fullness and the Church as mission than the Eucharist, the central act of the Church’s leitourgia, the sacrament of the Church itself. […] The Eucharist begins as an ascension toward the throne of God, toward the Kingdom. […] The Eucharist is always the End, the sacrament of the parousia, and yet it is always the beginning, the starting point: now mission begins”[17].

Indeed, the Church is a gathering: it is the assembly of the people of God, of the body of Christ, around Christ, for the celebration of the Eucharist through which it already partakes of the Kingdom to come. But this reality, this experience, should become the starting point of mission and evangelisation, which is witnessing the Risen Christ, witnessing the new life in Christ in the world, “not seen by exchanging the place, but the very life itself and lifestyle” as Nicolas Cabasilas would say.

Conclusion

The time has come to conclude our paper in which we were asked to reflect on the liturgy as a way of evangelisation. We should perhaps retain three important points.

1. Evangelisation is the proclamation of the good news of salvation and not merely teaching a system of beliefs or transmitting a moral code. Its aim should always be a personal encounter with Christ, and therefore evangelisation should always be linked with a personal experience. We have seen many examples showing that liturgy is the most proper context for this encounter with the living God. Indeed, the beauty transmitted through the liturgical worship is perceived in the Orthodox Church as an epiphany of Heaven on earth, as a way of uniting to the heavenly beauty, a bridge between the Kingdom of God and this world, a connecting point between time and eternity.

2. The role of the liturgy is not only to implore, glorify and thank God, but is also didactic and pedagogical. Indeed, the Tradition of the Church, that is the transmission of God’s Revelation, is being handed on through the Scriptural readings, which are a constituting part of worship, and the different texts of prayers and hymns that could be considered both as a commentary on the Scriptures and as means of transmitting the oral tradition. Therefore, one could easily agree with Fr. Kiprian Kern that the church’s choir and ambo, since many centuries, replace the professor’s chair. Having said this, one can understand that worship should always be the centre and the heart of any missionary enterprise. In order that the liturgy could fulfil its pedagogical role, it is important that the liturgical texts would be comprehensible and accessible to the people. This explains, as we have seen, the preference that was always given by Orthodox missionaries to the use of the vernacular language in the liturgy precisely for that purpose.

3. But understanding the language does not necessarily means understanding the Mystery. It is not sufficient to understand the meaning of the words of what is being sung or read in the worship: one has to be initiated into the Mystery of Christ. The liturgical and sacramental actions have to be explained, need a commentary. Therefore, both liturgy and evangelisation need mystagogy. It is through mystagogy, the explanation of the mysteries, that someone who has encountered the Living Christ and decided to join His Church could grow in the knowledge of God and move on towards His Kingdom, “by exchanging, not the place, but the very life itself and mode” as Nicolas Cabasilas once said.

[1] G. Florovsky, “The Elements of Liturgy in the Orthodox Catholic Church”, One Church 13 (1959), nos. 1-2, p. 24.

[2] Kallistos Ware, The Inner Kingdom, Crestwood, NY, 2000, p. 1-2.

[3] J. Behr, The Mystery of Christ. Life in Death. Crestwood, NY, 2006, p. 45-46.

[4] Tertullian, Apologeticum XXXIX, 1-4 (English translation A. Souter, 1917, p. 112-113).

[5] P. Evdokimov, L’Orthodoxie, Paris, 1965, p. 241, note 96.

[6] Kallistos Ware, The Orthodox Church, London, 1993, p. 204-205.

[7] Saint Basile le Grand, Traité du Saint-Esprit 29, 73 (SC 17, éd. et trad. B. Pruche, Paris, 1945, p. 250). English translation from: Schaff – Wace, (ed.), Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Series II, v. 8, tr. by the Rev. Blomfield Jackson, London 1894.

[8] Menaion, December 25. Second idiomel at the Liti by John the Monk. English translation by Archimandrite Ephrem (Lash).

[9] Pentecostarion, Paschal Matins. Ode 3 of the canon. English translation by Archimandrite Ephrem (Lash).

[10] K. Kern , Kriny molitvennye. Sbornik statej po liturgiheskomu bogosloviœ, Belgrade, 1928, p. II-III [2nd edition : Moscow, 2002, p. 4]. See also: K. Kern , Liturgika. Gimnografiå i qortologiå. Paris, 1964, p. 4 [Moscow, 2000, p. 10].

[11] Ibid., p. III-IV [p. 5-6].

[12] Ibid., p. 216.

[13] A. Frossard, Dieu existe, je L’ai recontré, Paris, 1969, p. 10-11.

[14] E. Timiadis, The Orthodox Understanding of Ministry. Joensuu, 1990, p. 125.

[15] Symeon of Thessalonica, On the Priesthood, PG 960A-D. Cf. our article: J. Getcha, “The treatise on the Priesthood by Symeon of Thessalonica”, Studia Patristica 42 (2006), p. 310-311.

[16] Nicolas Cabasilas, The Life in Christ, Book 1, 1-6. English translation by C. De Catanzaro, Crestwood, NY, 1974, p. 43-50.

[17] A. Schmemann, Church, World, Mission. Crestwood, NY, 1979, p. 214-215.

Source

by St. Nikolai Velimirovich

Although this may seem odd or simplified to unbelievers, St. Nikolai is speaking to believing Orthodox Christians. Unbelievers would not understand anyway.

Although the Holy Fathers praised monasticism as the angelic state, and although many of the greatest saints lived their lives and attained perfection in the deaf and lifeless desert, nevertheless, the Orthodox Church does not recommend tonsuring to all the faithful.

“Neither all those in the desert were saved nor all those in the world were lost,”

said one saint.

To a city dweller who, with no inclination for monasticism, desired to enter the monastery, St. Niphon said:

“My child, a place neither saves nor destroys a man, but deeds save or destroy. For him who does not fulfill all the commandments of the Lord, there is no benefit from a sacred place or from a sacred rank.

King Saul lived in the midst of royal luxury and he perished. King David lived in the same kind of luxury and he received a wreath.

Lot lived among the lawless Sodomites and he was saved. Judas was numbered among the apostles and he went to Hades.

Whoever says that it is impossible to be saved with a wife and children deceives himself. Abraham had a wife and children, three-hundred-eighteen servants and handmaidens, much gold and silver but, nevertheless, he was called the Friend of God.

Oh, how many servants of the Church and lovers of the desert have been saved! How many aristocrats and soldiers! How many artesians and field-workers!

Be pious and be a lover of men and you will be saved!”

William J. Tighe on the Story Behind December 25

In this, one of my favorite articles, William Tighe explodes the notion we were all taught in public school about the ‘Christianization’ of a pagan festival for the date of Christmas. He uses historical fact to prove his point, and has thereby offered all Christians that most precious of all jewels – the truth, regarding the Church’s celebration on Dec. 25th.

Enjoy!

Many Christians think that Christians celebrate Christ’s birth on December 25th because the church fathers appropriated the date of a pagan festival. Almost no one minds, except for a few groups on the fringes of American Evangelicalism, who seem to think that this makes Christmas itself a pagan festival. But it is perhaps interesting to know that the choice of December 25th is the result of attempts among the earliest Christians to figure out the date of Jesus’ birth based on calendrical calculations that had nothing to do with pagan festivals.

Rather, the pagan festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Sun” instituted by the Roman Emperor Aurelian on 25 December 274, was almost certainly an attempt to create a pagan alternative to a date that was already of some significance to Roman Christians. Thus the “pagan origins of Christmas” is a myth without historical substance.

A Mistake

The idea that the date was taken from the pagans goes back to two scholars from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Paul Ernst Jablonski, a German Protestant, wished to show that the celebration of Christ’s birth on December 25th was one of the many “paganizations” of Christianity that the Church of the fourth century embraced, as one of many “degenerations” that transformed pure apostolic Christianity into Catholicism. Dom Jean Hardouin, a Benedictine monk, tried to show that the Catholic Church adopted pagan festivals for Christian purposes without paganizing the gospel.

In the Julian calendar, created in 45 B.C. under Julius Caesar, the winter solstice fell on December 25th, and it therefore seemed obvious to Jablonski and Hardouin that the day must have had a pagan significance before it had a Christian one. But in fact, the date had no religious significance in the Roman pagan festal calendar before Aurelian’s time, nor did the cult of the sun play a prominent role in Rome before him.

There were two temples of the sun in Rome, one of which (maintained by the clan into which Aurelian was born or adopted) celebrated its dedication festival on August 9th, the other of which celebrated its dedication festival on August 28th. But both of these cults fell into neglect in the second century, when eastern cults of the sun, such as Mithraism, began to win a following in Rome. And in any case, none of these cults, old or new, had festivals associated with solstices or equinoxes.

As things actually happened, Aurelian, who ruled from 270 until his assassination in 275, was hostile to Christianity and appears to have promoted the establishment of the festival of the “Birth of the Unconquered Sun” as a device to unify the various pagan cults of the Roman Empire around a commemoration of the annual “rebirth” of the sun. He led an empire that appeared to be collapsing in the face of internal unrest, rebellions in the provinces, economic decay, and repeated attacks from German tribes to the north and the Persian Empire to the east.

In creating the new feast, he intended the beginning of the lengthening of the daylight, and the arresting of the lengthening of darkness, on December 25th to be a symbol of the hoped-for “rebirth,” or perpetual rejuvenation, of the Roman Empire, resulting from the maintenance of the worship of the gods whose tutelage (the Romans thought) had brought Rome to greatness and world-rule. If it co-opted the Christian celebration, so much the better.

A By-Product

It is true that the first evidence of Christians celebrating December 25th as the date of the Lord’s nativity comes from Rome some years after Aurelian, in A.D. 336, but there is evidence from both the Greek East and the Latin West that Christians attempted to figure out the date of Christ’s birth long before they began to celebrate it liturgically, even in the second and third centuries. The evidence indicates, in fact, that the attribution of the date of December 25th was a by-product of attempts to determine when to celebrate his death and resurrection.

How did this happen? There is a seeming contradiction between the date of the Lord’s death as given in the synoptic Gospels and in John’s Gospel. The synoptics would appear to place it on Passover Day (after the Lord had celebrated the Passover Meal on the preceding evening), and John on the Eve of Passover, just when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Jerusalem Temple for the feast that was to ensue after sunset on that day.

Solving this problem involves answering the question of whether the Lord’s Last Supper was a Passover Meal, or a meal celebrated a day earlier, which we cannot enter into here. Suffice it to say that the early Church followed John rather than the synoptics, and thus believed that Christ’s death would have taken place on 14 Nisan, according to the Jewish lunar calendar. (Modern scholars agree, by the way, that the death of Christ could have taken place only in A.D. 30 or 33, as those two are the only years of that time when the eve of Passover could have fallen on a Friday, the possibilities being either 7 April 30 or 3 April 33.)

However, as the early Church was forcibly separated from Judaism, it entered into a world with different calendars, and had to devise its own time to celebrate the Lord’s Passion, not least so as to be independent of the rabbinic calculations of the date of Passover. Also, since the Jewish calendar was a lunar calendar consisting of twelve months of thirty days each, every few years a thirteenth month had to be added by a decree of the Sanhedrin to keep the calendar in synchronization with the equinoxes and solstices, as well as to prevent the seasons from “straying” into inappropriate months.

Apart from the difficulty Christians would have had in following—or perhaps even being accurately informed about—the dating of Passover in any given year, to follow a lunar calendar of their own devising would have set them at odds with both Jews and pagans, and very likely embroiled them in endless disputes among themselves. (The second century saw severe disputes about whether Pascha had always to fall on a Sunday or on whatever weekday followed two days after 14 Artemision/Nisan, but to have followed a lunar calendar would have made such problems much worse.)

These difficulties played out in different ways among the Greek Christians in the eastern part of the empire and the Latin Christians in the western part of it. Greek Christians seem to have wanted to find a date equivalent to 14 Nisan in their own solar calendar, and since Nisan was the month in which the spring equinox occurred, they chose the 14th day of Artemision, the month in which the spring equinox invariably fell in their own calendar. Around A.D. 300, the Greek calendar was superseded by the Roman calendar, and since the dates of the beginnings and endings of the months in these two systems did not coincide, 14 Artemision became April 6th.

In contrast, second-century Latin Christians in Rome and North Africa appear to have desired to establish the historical date on which the Lord Jesus died. By the time of Tertullian they had concluded that he died on Friday, 25 March 29. (As an aside, I will note that this is impossible: 25 March 29 was not a Friday, and Passover Eve in A.D. 29 did not fall on a Friday and was not on March 25th, or in March at all.)

Integral Age

So in the East we have April 6th, in the West, March 25th. At this point, we have to introduce a belief that seems to have been widespread in Judaism at the time of Christ, but which, as it is nowhere taught in the Bible, has completely fallen from the awareness of Christians. The idea is that of the “integral age” of the great Jewish prophets: the idea that the prophets of Israel died on the same dates as their birth or conception.

This notion is a key factor in understanding how some early Christians came to believe that December 25th is the date of Christ’s birth. The early Christians applied this idea to Jesus, so that March 25th and April 6th were not only the supposed dates of Christ’s death, but of his conception or birth as well. There is some fleeting evidence that at least some first- and second-century Christians thought of March 25th or April 6th as the date of Christ’s birth, but rather quickly the assignment of March 25th as the date of Christ’s conception prevailed.

It is to this day, commemorated almost universally among Christians as the Feast of the Annunciation, when the Archangel Gabriel brought the good tidings of a savior to the Virgin Mary, upon whose acquiescence the Eternal Word of God (“Light of Light, True God of True God, begotten of the Father before all ages”) forthwith became incarnate in her womb. What is the length of pregnancy? Nine months. Add nine months to March 25th and you get December 25th; add it to April 6th and you get January 6th. December 25th is Christmas, and January 6th is Epiphany.

Christmas (December 25th) is a feast of Western Christian origin. In Constantinople it appears to have been introduced in 379 or 380. From a sermon of St. John Chrysostom, at the time a renowned ascetic and preacher in his native Antioch, it appears that the feast was first celebrated there on 25 December 386. From these centers it spread throughout the Christian East, being adopted in Alexandria around 432 and in Jerusalem a century or more later. The Armenians, alone among ancient Christian churches, have never adopted it, and to this day celebrate Christ’s birth, manifestation to the magi, and baptism on January 6th.

Western churches, in turn, gradually adopted the January 6th Epiphany feast from the East, Rome doing so sometime between 366 and 394. But in the West, the feast was generally presented as the commemoration of the visit of the magi to the infant Christ, and as such, it was an important feast, but not one of the most important ones—a striking contrast to its position in the East, where it remains the second most important festival of the church year, second only to Pascha (Easter).

In the East, Epiphany far outstrips Christmas. The reason is that the feast celebrates Christ’s baptism in the Jordan and the occasion on which the Voice of the Father and the Descent of the Spirit both manifested for the first time to mortal men the divinity of the Incarnate Christ and the Trinity of the Persons in the One Godhead.

A Christian Feast

Thus, December 25th as the date of the Christ’s birth appears to owe nothing whatsoever to pagan influences upon the practice of the Church during or after Constantine’s time. It is wholly unlikely to have been the actual date of Christ’s birth, but it arose entirely from the efforts of early Latin Christians to determine the historical date of Christ’s death.

And the pagan feast which the Emperor Aurelian instituted on that date in the year 274 was not only an effort to use the winter solstice to make a political statement, but also almost certainly an attempt to give a pagan significance to a date already of importance to Roman Christians. The Christians, in turn, could at a later date re-appropriate the pagan “Birth of the Unconquered Sun” to refer, on the occasion of the birth of Christ, to the rising of the “Sun of Salvation” or the “Sun of Justice.”

Copyright © 2003 the Fellowship of St. James. All rights reserved. This article appeared in Touchstone Magazine, and was reprinted by Orthodoxytoday.org. We have reprinted it with permission.

The author refers interested readers to Thomas J. Talley’s The Origins of the Liturgical Year (The Liturgical Press). A draft of this article appeared on the listserve Virtuosity.

William J. Tighe is Associate Professor of History at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and a faculty advisor to the Catholic Campus Ministry. He is a Member of St. Josaphat Ukrainian Catholic Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is a contributing editor for Touchstone Magazine.

Facts Prove The Existence of St. Nicholas of Myra.

by Catherine Tsounis

The detailed investigation of the existence of St. Nicholas of Myra by international scientist Andreas George is the final word on the subject. His scientific examination of sources and historical sites disproves the 1970’s action of the Vatican, demoting St. Nicholas as a major saint or characterization as a mythological figure. Mr. George’s says his goal is to

“present reasonably, accurate historical information about his life. During my search for St. Nicholas, the bishop of Myra, who lived in the 3rd-4th centuries A.D., I tried to establish credibility in the face of conflicting information, distortion and exaggeration.”

The author visited places that influenced St. Nicholas’ character. His search through Greek documents in Byzantine Bari, Italy, Greece, Asia Minor and Cyprus reflects his scientific background for accuracy. He describes the evolution of St. Nicholas of Myra as Santa Claus, in its evolution in America, primarily in New York. His miracles are explained in detail. Relics of St. Nicholas were in several churches in New York. The customs, traditions, social and religious life of St. Nicholas Shrine Church in Flushing, New York are described in detail. I personally was touched to see some of the famous political figures of Queens such as Mark Weprin and Sheldon Leffler mentioned.

The life of St. Nicholas in Myra, modern Demre in Asia Minor, Turkey is not widely known. Mr. George describes his life in detail referring to many sources. His major source is Michael the Archimandrite of 842 A.D., Symeon the Translator, written five centuries after St. Nicholas’s death in 335 A.D. and others. The problem with his research, he admits is that it is not based on primary sources. There are no primary sources describing his personal life, only secondary sources centuries after St. Nicholas’ death. Alexander the Great’s life is based on the same secondary sources.

St. Nicholas’ ancestors were Greeks, descendants of Alexander the Great’s colonists or of Cretans. The author believes St. Nicholas’ ancestors were most likely from Crete, because of similar customs and traditions with the Greek island. Modern Greek sources on the Greek Cities of Asia Minor show that the Greek communities along the Asia Minor coast had up to 50 percent Cretans until the 1922 Catastrophe. Their dialect and customs were also similar to the Cretan culture. Mr. George’s research added information that St. Nicholas spent time in Cyprus through his visits to monasteries and study of Greek sources. His translations into English of these facts are invaluable to a serious reader.

The author explains that the lack of written information on St. Nicholas comes from the following historical events: suppression of information by Julius the Apostate; destruction of church documents by the 9th century Iconoclastic movement, the Crusaders, Moslems, Arab pirates and the Protestant Reformation. The 11th and 12th chapters provide facts that will open the reader’s eyes on the real St. Nicholas of Myra. The author’s pilgrimage to Demre in Turkey (Ancient Myra) shows the rediscovery of the Christian homeland.

I personally was fascinated by his portrayal of Bari, Italy as a Byzantine stronghold. In Modern Greek history books, the fall of Byzantine Bari to the Normans was a major catastrophe listed on every timeline. The relics of St. Nicholas were sent to Bari in the 11th century to save them from the Moslem invaders of Myra, Asia Minor. The history and the building of the Basilica of St. Nicholas of Bari give one a total view of this center of Byzantium in the west. The glory of Bari, unknown to many makes chapter 6 and 7 of major interest to all whose ancestors were from this major trade center.

What did St. Nicholas look like? Unknown to many, the author describes the reconstruction of the saint’s bones in the 1950’s by Anatomy Professor L. Martino of the University of Bari and two doctors. Their scientific investigation showed the bones were of a man 1.67 meters (about 5 feet and six inches) tall with a broad forehead and large sunken eyes. This description is similar to the facial characteristics in Byzantine icons. Professor Martino explained the bones belonged to a Mediterranean, more likely a Greek from Asia Minor. Mr. Andreas George is a scholar, having written scientific papers on radioactivity and radiation exposure. His background as a scientific investigator and author makes this one of the finest books written on St. Nicholas of Myra.

The book is available at Seaburn, 3318 Broadway
Astoria, NY 11106, (718) 784-2224, www.seaburn.com.

Source

Orthodox Christians are exceptionally creative, especially when it comes to erecting churches to the glory of God!

A family in Serbia is commercializing a portable mini-church that it can deliver to anyone who wants a place of worship in their backyard, reports Radio Free Europe.

The 5-ton, stone-and-steel construction is equipped with a cross, a bell tower, an altar, and frescoes. It can accommodate up to 15 worshipers.

The enterprise was initiated by Svetislav Mancic and his son Goran from the town of Gadzin Han, close to the southern Serbian city of Nis.

Svetislav Mancic, founder of the interior- and exterior-design company Mancic Granit, tells RFE/RL’s Balkan Service that he came up with this idea when portable churches were used to hold services in the army. He says he quickly realized that there was likely a wider market for such mobile churches.

“It will be available in every restaurant that organizes weddings, in hotels, motels, and hospitals,” says the older Mancic. “The only thing that we need is a blessing from the Serbian Orthodox Church, and we don’t need any construction permits and approvals.”

Svetislav Mancic describes the sales and delivery process in simple terms.

“We load it onto a truck and deliver it to the address. The church is painted with frescoes, you just have to take a cable and connect it to electricity and you are ready in 10 minutes,” he says. “It also has a bell that weights 17 kilograms and you make a sound by pulling the rope, but it can also be electronic.”

The portable church can be ordered online, with the cheapest model selling for about 12,000 euros ($16,000). The price, however, varies depending on each client’s individual needs, such as the quality of stone, size of the cross, bell, and altar.

​​Svetislav’s son says that the churches have already has attracted a lot of public attention.

“People are asking about it. Some of them want the bigger one, some of them want the smaller one, even though this is still an experimental model,” he says. “We are still testing the market.”

He says that potential customers from small villages have called them and said that “they don’t need a big church and that they would put this one on the main square.”

“A man who has a private cemetery in Svrljig contacted us,” Goran says. “We also had a case of a man who wants to put it next to his weekend house and he wants it to be small. I also spoke with the owner of the restaurant on Belgrade-Nis highway.”

The Mancic family says it has orders for its mobile churches but hasn’t completed any sales yet. Before that happens, they need to get clearance from Orthodox authorities to assure that each construction has been constructed according to its rules and standards.

Svetislav Mancic says this should happen very soon.

“We are about to get a blessing from the Bishop of Nis,” he says. “We already held talks, they checked the church, and by the end of the week we will have their blessing.”

Source: Pravmir.ru