Kevin Basil

A close friend of mine (and my godson) recently preached on the Sunday of the Paralytic. As I commented when he posted the text of his sermon, “I particularly liked the reversal of the ‘crutch’ accusation at the end, and how it tied in with the central medical theme. Great job, and I hope that your hearers were edified.” I highly recommend reading the whole thing.

I would like to offer one further remark — and it may simply reflect a different perspective: I have become somewhat sensitive of late to the fact that the cross is the center and sine qua non of Christian faith. Chris mentioned the Lord’s passion (which is the cross); it could have been a bit more central to the entire homily. The cross is the sacrament from which every other sacrament flows. You see this in icons of the crucifixion: A cup capturing the blood and water flowing from the Lord’s side. (This image of baptism and eucharist — of the church as sacrament — represents a timeless connection rather than an historical event. The crucified Lord eternally gives birth to the church in the timeless reality of the cross.) I would have nailed the fact that the Lord’s cross is the medicine (and sometimes, we don’t get a spoonful of sugar to make it go down more easily).

Sometimes we speak easily of the church and theology without referring it back to the cross. However, the earliest patristic writers, as well as many of the most important through the centuries, always took the cross as their starting point and referred to it constantly. The more that our teaching becomes able to stand apart from the cross (which is the revelation of God enfleshed), the less it resembles patristic teaching. A theology which can stand without the cross is not the gospel and it is not really Christian.

In closing, I reemphasize that I really liked this homily. However, I think that the cross is crucial to Christian teaching and thought it important enough to mention. In some ways, this merely reflects a different perspective. I am emphasizing this crucial element of Christian teaching partly due to the deep vale where my own journey has taken me. However, part of it is also a shift in thinking spearheaded by Fr John Behr, now the dean at St Vladimir’s Seminary, where I am a student. I highly recommend his book, The Mystery of Christ. To get an idea of his central thesis, read this article: “The Paschal Foundations of Christian Theology.”

Today’s gospel:
Mark 8:34-9:1 (Schmemann Standard Version)

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him find what makes him happy and take up his joy and follow me. For whoever would save his happiness is blessed, but whoever loses his joy for my sake and the gospel’s will be cast out into eternal darkness where the fire never ceases and the worm never dies. For what does it profit a man to gain his soul and forfeit his happiness? For what can a man give in return for his joy? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my happiness in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the happiness of his Father with the holy angels.” And he said to them, “Truly, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God coming with joy.”

Today’s hymn:
Troparion of the resurrection

O Lord, save your people, and make joyful your inheritance. Grant happiness to the people who are always happy, and by your resurrection preserve your habitation.

O Lord and master of my life! Dispel from me the spirit of discouragement and slothfulness, of ambition and vain talk!
Prostration.

Instead, give me the spirit of prudence and humility, of patience and charity.
Prostration.

Yes, my king and Lord, let me look at my own sins and refrain from judging others: For you are bless’d unto ages of ages, amen.
Prostration.

Then, with three lesser reverences:

O God, have mercy on me, a sinner!
O God, in your mercy wipe out my sins!
I have sinned very often, Lord; forgive me!

Prayer text copyright © The Monks of New Skete.

The chapel of St Athanasius Orthodox Church, circa 2009.

Nine years ago, a tiny transformation occurred. Christ the Life-giver Orthodox Church in Nicholasville, Ky., formerly a mission of the Evangelical Orthodox Church (EOC), entered the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). Unlike other parishes that entered at the same time, every single member of Christ the Life-giver chose to remain with the parish in its transition to the OCA, an amazing detail that is sometimes forgotten. In the days that followed, a new name (Saint Athanasius) appeared in the window, and the layman who was formerly the priest would again be ordained to lead the tiny band of pilgrims. To better understand the place of that decisive moment in the history of the parish, I present it here through the lens of my own life.

My story begins in 1995, when I entered the Roman Catholic Church. Before that, I was an evangelical, and I continued to attend an evangelical college. One of my art professors began reading about Eastern Orthodoxy and attending prayers held in the living room of a nearby seminarian, David Rucker. Rucker was studying missiology. He served in Hong Kong, and he was frustrated over inadequate responses to ancestor veneration in Asian cultures. He believed that Eastern Orthodoxy could provide a positive answer for Asians. My professor’s interest piqued my own, and I began attending the Sunday evening prayers. In the fall of 1995, Rucker began holding catechism classes. He invited me to attend, and I did.

In 1996, Rucker’s doctoral thesis advisor unexpectedly died, and he faced the prospect of completely rewriting his thesis on ancestor veneration in Chinese culture. When he discussed returning to Hong Kong with his missions board, he realized that Orthodox practices had become more than an academic investigation. The evangelical mission board forbade him to use the sign of the cross or icons in his ministry. They required the impossible. Read the rest of “The Transformation”

A meditation on the meaning of the season of Advent.

I grew up in the West, and so Advent was an important part of the preparation for Christmas.^[1] The Advent wreath, Advent calendars, singing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” “Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus” — these memories burn in mind like a flame as shining examples of what Advent means.

Advent comes from the Latin adventus, meaning “coming.” “Beginning the Church’s liturgical year, Advent is the season leading up to the celebration of Christmas. The Advent season is a time of preparation that directs our hearts and minds to Christ’s second coming at the end of time and also to the anniversary of the Lord’s birth on Christmas,” according to the website of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. The second coming of Christ is the focus of Advent because the readings and proper hymnography of the church remind the faithful of the yearning of suffering Israel, as well as the imminent coming of the Lord. The burning desire of the old covenant saints burns in our hearts as we long for the coming of the Lord.

The first Sunday of Advent always follows the last Sunday of the church year, the Solemnity of Christ the King. Prior to the liturgical reforms of the twentieth century, the gospel for Christ the King led directly into the yearning of Advent (Mt 24.15–35): “And then the sign of the Son of man will appear in heaven; then, too, all the peoples of the earth will beat their breasts; and they will see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” (v. 30, NJB)^[2] The King is coming: Be ready! It is the perfect prelude to the penitence of the coming season of preparation. Read the rest of “The Coming One”

At St Vladimir’s Seminary, where we have been hosting the relics of our community’s patron, the holy great prince Vladimir, the Seminary’s octet and St Tikhon’s Seminary’s Mission Choir sang the Saturday all-night vigil antiphonally. There are already some videos up. The videos uploaded on November 13 all capture the vigil we celebrated before the relics of St. Vladimir.

Ephesians 5.20–33a (epistle reading 230) is the epistle reading for the sacrament (or mystery) of marriage in the Orthodox lectionary. Here is a quote from St John Chrysostom’s commentary on the passage:

So if you think that the wife is the loser because she is told to fear her husband, remember that the principal duty of love is assigned to the husband, and you will see that it is her gain. “And what if my wife refuses to obey me?” a husband will ask. Never mind! Your obligation is to love her; do your duty! Even when we don’t receive our due from others, we must do our duty. If a spouse doesn’t obey God’s law, you are not excused. A wife should respect her husband even when he shows her no love, and a husband should love his wife even when she shows him no respect. Then they will both be found to lack nothing, since each has fulfilled the commandment given. (John Chrysostom, Homily 20 on Ephesians)

Read the full homily (in an older translation, with an antiquated and awkward style) at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

Fr Ted Bobosh has some excellent background on fasting and what it means in the twenty-first century: Fasting: Curbing the Desires of the Heart.

I love that the rules for fasting were originally meant to curb ascetical showmanship and place fasting in a communal context of discipline and obedience.

I wish I could spend my time posting delicious recipes of our family’s fasting menu. Instead, I’ll be struggling with providing three different diets to my family (mine, [my eldest daughter]‘s and everyone else’s which includes some serious Asperger’s-related food aversion issues). I guess I’ll write about the struggle. It’s just so NOT neat and tidy, so NOT well organized and so NOT perfect. Morning Coffee: I’m not READY!!!!!.

It sounds like you are ready.

According to a fellow traveler (a choir director whose late father was a prominent priest and whose brother is an archdeacon), in Russia if you cut out meat you are fasting.^[1] During the Christmas fast the refectory was not without a steady supply of hard-boiled eggs. (For the weak, of course. And I was so weak.)

In directed reflection on the purpose of the fast, one of our classes discussed the probability that the aim of all the ascetic struggle and lenten hymnody is to break down the delusion that we have done anything. If we keep the fast, we are accused of pride and self-righteousness. If we break the fast, we are accused of slovenliness. (And we all break the fast.) At the Pasch, Saint John Chrysostom’s preaching kills us:

You are welcome at the banquet anyway. You have not done anything to deserve the feast: That is the whole point. (Still, what do we do with the soiled wedding garment which we were to keep spotless? Or those Boy Scout virgins when we run out of oil? Or those frightening tales of burning trash heaps and lakes of liquid fire?)

The great fast not about getting anything right; that is why the Triodion^[2] begins with a contrast between a sinful tax collector and a religious zealot four weeks before Lent. The fast forces us to admit that we are broken and destitute without Christ, and Christ himself will give each of us what we need to bring us home.

sung at Psalm 50(51)
In Tone VIII:
Open the gates of repentance for me, O giver of life, * for at early morning my spirit seeks your holy temple * though the temple of my body remains defiled. * In your compassion, cleanse it with your loving kindness and your mercy.

Direct me back to the path of repentance, O Theotokos, * for I have defiled my soul with sin, and wasted my life in laziness. * By your prayers, preserve me from every impurity of soul and body.

Then, Tone VI:
Have mercy on me, O God, in your kindness, * in your great tenderness wipe out my sin.

And:
When I ponder the number of my sins, * the day of judgment looms before me. * But in your compassion do I trust, O Lord, * and, like David, I implore you: * Have mercy on me, O God, in your kindness.

These hymns are sung after the reading of the resurrection gospels on Saturday evenings. They are sung from the beginning of pre-lent until the end of the great fast (Lent). Pre-lent begins on the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, yesterday. Lent ends with the Saturday of Lazarus, marking the transition to holy week. This year, Lazarus Saturday is March 27. This year we see one of the earliest dates for Easter (Pascha) in the East. Easter falls on the same date in both Eastern and Western calendars this year. (This serendipity is a coincidence of the two formulas for determining the date of Easter and not, unfortunately, a sign of sympathy for union among the Orthodox.)

Lists of paschal greetings are everywhere. Stéphane Bigham has paschal greetings with sound files! You know, just in case you wanted to actually say them, or something. Maybe I’m just weird.

In the history of the Roman Catholic Church, the Ultramontane party supported the power of the papacy. Their name means, “beyond the mountains,” that is, beyond the Alps in Italy. Ultramontanism ultimately ruled the day, in part because the Conciliarists were prevented from attending the Council of Florence and talking with the Eastern Orthodox bishops.

And this [unity] is something of the utmost importance, and it is something imminent. It is not something where we can wait and say “Oh maybe in my grandchildren’s time there will be Orthodox unity.” I’m talking about June. And, if you think I’m kidding, there is a conference being convened in the Phanar in June to discuss exactly this — (actually, it’s in Cypress) — to subject the Diaspora to the single, singular control, the so-called Diaspora, to the Patriarchate of Constantinople, and thereby come into unity.

Well, that’s one model for unity. I would submit if we wanted a Pope we’d be under the real one. And I don’t think any of us want a Pope, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.

Metropolitan Jonah is in Dallas, Texas — the see city of our diocese — to facilitate transition between him as temporary administrator and our former archbishop, his eminence, Dmitri. Last Sunday, he gave a sermon on Orthodox unity in North America to a pan-Orthodox assembly at the cathedral. I was blown away at every moment as I watched.

Check out the video: Pan-Orthodox Sermon by His Beatitude Metropolitan Jonah. Watch the video first, because he’s a magnificent homilist, and this is one electrifying. However, if you would rather, there is also a transcript of the homily.

For background you may wish to read the lecture, “Challenges of Orthodoxy in America and the Role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate,” if you have not already. It was given at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology a few weeks ago by the Very Reverend Archimandrite Dr. Elpidophoros Lambriniadis, Chief Secretary of the Holy and Sacred Synod (of Constantinople).

Whether it is beyond the mountains or beyond the sea, if it is beyond the local church, it is alien to our tradition.

Note: This post was formerly titled, “Greek Ultramontanism.”

Imagine this: You are a Native American living on a reservation. Because some members of your reservation have been agitating for change, your home has been blockaded by the National Guard for several years. You cannot get in or out, and basic living supplies are difficult to come by. Attacks by the American troops sometimes destroy power plants, and you survive without electricity or running water for days. The American people, many of whom are descendants of European colonists, first arrived a few centuries ago on the soil that your ancestors inhabited for thousands of years. In spite of this, the international community is deaf to your cries for help and relief. Now imagine that the United States has had enough of your agitators and is launching a full-scale assault on your people with all its military superiority, even though your people are barely armed with rifles and a few missiles. Your home looks to be a parking lot in a few years.

Sounds outlandish! Unreal. Even as fiction, no one would believe it. Now, stop imagining and see that this is the reality of the situation in the Gaza strip.

The current conflict has been marked by little or no restraint on the part of Israel. Israel Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said in an interview with the Washington Post, “I don’t like the term cease-fire since it looks like an agreement between two legitimate sides.” Elsewhere in the same interview she said, “Israel is not going to show restraint anymore. . . . it is not a missile against a missile. We are going to attack strongly if they continue.”^[1] If we were to decode the political rhetoric, Livni’s statement might read:

“We have a far bigger stick than you, and we will level you to the dirt.”

Israel supports its overwhelming use of military force by saying it is a response to “terror.”^[2] Many nations list Hamas as a terrorist organization.^[3] Yet according to many sources, Israel originally supported Hamas secretly to destabilize support for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). “according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials, beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas over a period of years. … Israel’s support for Hamas ‘was a direct attempt to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO by using a competing religious alternative,’ said a former senior CIA official.”^[4] In a recent email letter to her supporters, Dr. Maria Khoury, a Palestinian Christian who lives in Taybeh, West Bank, relates a personal memory of this support for Hamas by the Israeli government. If this knowledge was widespread throughout Palestine, how demoralizing it must be for Palestinians to be used as pawns.

Far more demoralizing, though, is the human cost. Families seeking refuge from the destruction are killed while they try to escape.
“Movement [while fleeing] is complicated by the confusion over when it is safe to leave,” writes the New York Times. “When the Abu Hajaj family received a leaflet last weekend, they took it as a sign of safe passage. But Majad Abdel Karim Abu Hajaj, a teacher at a United Nations school, said his mother and sister were killed as they walked holding a white flag. Their bodies remain where they fell, he said, because ambulances cannot get to the area.”^[5]

We have a far bigger stick than you, and we will level you to the dirt.

And what has been the cost for Israel? The Los Angeles Times reports that the death toll for Israel is thirteen. “Israel has suffered 13 dead: 10 soldiers, four of them by ‘friendly fire,’ and three civilians by Hamas rockets.” How does that compare to the cost suffered by Palestine?

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported Monday that the death toll had risen from 884 to 910, according to an update from United Nations officials in Gaza. The dead include 292 children and 75 women, the officials said. The number of injured Palestinians stood at 4,250, of whom 1,497 are children and 626 are women….

More than 28,000 Palestinian civilians have been displaced, inundating makeshift refugee centers.^[6]

We have a far bigger stick than you, and we will level you to the dirt.

We can do little to change the political situation. The nations of this world will continue their demonic use of military power until the end of the age. However, we must help sacrificially as we are able. Recently, Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen), the Primate of the Orthodox Church in America, released a public statement encouraging support of the International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) and spoke directly about our obligation to Palestine:

The parishes and members of the Orthodox Church in America should urgently offer their financial support to IOCC, earmarking this support at this time for work in Gaza. As Orthodox Christians, members of the Orthodox Church in America are in deep solidarity with the suffering people in the Middle East — Christians, Muslims, and Jews. The many hundreds of dead and wounded civilians in Gaza and in the whole region bear witness in their suffering to the real meaning of military and political conflict: it is innocent people who suffer the most.^[7]

We are mostly powerless to change the political situation, but I can express solidarity with the Palestinian people through sacrifice — giving of myself as an offering. Here are three things I will be doing:

1. Give. I will give to the IOCC.^[8] They already have an infrastructure on the ground in Palestine, because they have been working there for many years. Give sacrificially.
2. Pray. “The heartfelt prayer of someone upright works very powerfully.”^[9] I will pray an akathist for the people of Palestine and specifically for Gaza. Take extra time during your day or your week to pray for the people of Gaza and Palestine. Pray an akathist, a decade of the rosary, or an additional round on your prayer rope (chotki, komboskini) for release and relief. If set prayers are not part of your faith tradition, set aside extra time to pray extemporaneously for Palestine. Pray sacrificially.
3. Speak. Declare it. I have already written this article, obviously. Get the word out. Blog, tweet, or post on Facebook and other social networking sites. I will also speak out at my church. Speak out at your church, mosque, temple, or other house of worship. Be bold. Tell people what you know. Speak sacrificially.

Of course, there is so much more. Be creative. You can sacrifice your time, either by organizing a fundraiser or even by participating in one near you. The most daring among you can sacrifice your time by volunteering with an organization and traveling to Gaza in the flesh. This is ultimately the deepest sacrfice you can make. Do not let your fear put your motivation on the shelf: Do something.

When I attended a Greek parish in New Hampshire, I was always asked if I was Greek. That is, if I was spoken to at all. After all, it does not take an ethnological genius to determine that the 6’3″ gentleman with fair skin and blue eyes is probably not of Hellenic extraction. While looking for Orthodox news, I stumbled upon this editorial, and I thanked the holy Trinity that no one in the Orthodox Church in America talks about Russian culture like this.

The inevitable consequence of converting Christians and non-Christians who have no Greek heritage is that the more successful the outreach, the greater the erosion of Greek identity within the Church. The only counter-argument made to this observation by many who support the conversion strategy is that, given the demographic challenges at hand, a larger, more inclusive Church is the only realistic way to preserve the Greek cultural heritage in America.

Modern Greek is a certain loser in the conversion scenario. The historical structure of Orthodoxy has been to have a Church based on a national language/culture headed by a national hierarchy which stands on an equal basis with other Orthodox entities. In that sense, the idea of “Americanizing” Orthodoxy is to adhere to the major Orthodox tradition, rather than continue with Greek American exceptionalism.

At its core, however, Orthodox tradition is culturally Hellenic. If the emphasis of the Church turns to conversion efforts, there will surely be parishes that will seek affiliation with, or form an Orthodox organization which prioritizes, Greek identity. Simultaneously, especially in areas with a limited Greek population, other Christian denominations supported by American friends will become increasingly attractive.

At present, the Greek culture of the Church is ebbing away, and the conversions come in dribbles. Just talking about the need to revitalize Greek culture or just talking about an evangelical mandate is not useful. What is required is a dynamic commitment by the Church to what it wants to be and do in this new century.

The future, and perhaps even the existence, of a viable Greek America is at stake.

Read more: The Ethnic Church and the Hellenic Identity – The National Herald (via Orthodox News, an organ of Orthodox Christian Laity).

Allow me a postscript to add that I have also had very good experiences with many Greeks. Specifically, the people at Annunciation Cathedral in Norfolk, Virginia, have always been quite friendly to me, as was the priest at St Sophia parish in New London, Connecticut.

The first week of Lent (called “the Great Fast” in the Byzantine rite) always reminds me of the doctrine of creation and the various discussions that spring from it, because our scripture readings are from the beginning of Genesis (along with the opening of the Prophet Isaiah and the Proverbs of Solomon). I was thinking about writing about my reflections this year, and as it turns out, Archpriest John Breck has beaten me to it with a wonderful reflection on the stories of creation in Genesis.

He begins with the most important point, that of our contingency — our complete dependence on God, without whom we would be nothing:

The concept of “nothingness” is impossible for us to grasp. “Nothingness” suggests a void, an emptiness, bounded by something. Yet nothing existed to circumscribe that void or provide contrast to that emptiness. Nothingness is not just the absence of being; it is its denial, its rejection. It is an absolute negation, immeasurable and incomprehensible. It is non-existence, non-being, a negative power that by its very nature is devoid of all meaning , purpose or hope. As such, nothingness finds its closest human analogy in despair.

Then suddenly, “in the beginning” there was something. In that timeless moment, from a locus that transcends every notion of space or dimension, God created ex nihilo. He fashioned being from non-being, space-time from non-existence. Out of that beginning, God – who is Himself the arche or ultimate beginning, principle and source of all that is – brought forth the heavens and the earth.

The idea of non-being as a “power” seems a little strong, as if something existed outside the holy Trinity which was negating being. If “nothingness is not just the absence of being; it is its denial, its rejection,” then an agent must be denying and rejecting.

The agent here, though, is not pre-existing but created along with the cosmos: It is I. I am the agent who rejects God’s life-giving existence and denies my own being. I fear death and so I choose death over life, because that is the ultimate meaning of our freedom. We are free to choose life, the life that is communion with God, or we are free to choose death, to embrace the nothingness from which we are created. This is the death that the first man chose first, passing on mortality to us all. We are born to die, and so we act in fear of that death.

That is why, in the Eastern tradition, death is the enemy that is overthrown. Satan? Sure, he’s a major player in the drama. But death is the power that kept us bound, the power that keeps us from hitting the mark (hamartia, miss the mark, usually translated as “sin”) and keeps persuading us to live in death’s dominion rather than die to ourselves and live in God’s resplendent new creation.

That is why the Christian faith can be summed up in these words: Christ is risen from the dead, trampling death by death, and on those in the grave bestowing life.

It is as an aside that Fr. John mentions the “tedious” arguments between “‘creationists’ and ‘evolutionists’”:

These opening verses are not meant to describe historical process or provide a scientific explanation for the appearance and development of the world and human life. The passage says nothing that can be exploited one way or another in the tedious debate between “creationists” and “evolutionists.” Its concern is not with historiography or paleontology, and its curious chronology (water existed before heaven or earth, living things appeared on earth before creation of the sun and moon) should not trouble the minds of any but those who insist on reading the narrative as a description of cosmological or biological development. The Genesis creation story is not concerned with scientifically determinable events. A we shall stress in the next column, it is concerned with salvation history, the creating and redeeming work of God, from the first creation to the last.

As the polarization intensifies in our schools and legislatures between “believers” and “Darwinists,” it is important for us to remember this point. Increasingly, Christian scientists are coming to see that this is a false choice, that on the question of the origin and development of species there is no necessary conflict between the biblical witness on the one hand and the findings of geologists, paleontologists and molecular biologists on the other. [See in this regard Francis Collins' recent work, The Language of God (Free Press, 2006).] “Young earth” theorists and fundamentalists of various stripes will reject this point, as will those who insist on the total “randomness” of mutations in the process of natural selection. Evolutionary process (if not Darwinian theory in all its details) has been confirmed by recent studies of DNA, the genetic code of living organisms. Yet this need not call into question the basic conviction that the Creator of all things is God, that God created ex nihilo, that He infuses all things with ultimate meaning and purpose, and that apparent randomness conforms wholly, if for us imperceptibly, to His divine will.

Read all of Fr. John’s article: OCA – “Life in Christ” Articles