As the Council date draws closer, expect to see even more commentaries on it by different groups. Beyond the obvious journalists and blogs there have been Churches making their positions clear as well (the EP, the Russian Church, ROCOR, et al.). Now the Bulgarians have given their two cents. One recent commentator stated that some Churches are "out of touch" because they exist in traditionally Orthodox countries and lack the urbanity to understand how to engage the non-Orthodox world. There may well be an established lexicon from the World Council of Churches or from the bilateral commissions that litter the globe, but to my mind the Truth of Orthodoxy is as successfully preached by a Bulgarian cleric as by a pastor from New York City.
(Pravoslavie.ru) - The Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church announced on Thursday April 21 policy positions stemming from its recent meeting and pertaining to the upcoming Pan-Orthodox Council to be held on Crete in June, reports The Sofia Globe.
In particular the Synod proclaimed, amending an earlier draft document, that besides the “Holy Orthodox Church there are no other churches, but only heresies and schisms, and to call these ‘churches’ is theologically, dogmatically and canonically completely wrong”. That some have been able to couch such truths in kinder words does not change their veracity. At the same time there has to be some path to the Church that brings people in little by little without rebuffing them for their imperfections. This is the challenge of today. Once we can fill our churches with the unchurched and the lost then I think we can engage in the accession of other ecclesial bodies into Orthodoxy.
On the matter of the Orthodox Church’s stance towards the wider Christian world, the Synod took into consideration a letter from Metropolitan Gavriil of Lovech and priests of his diocese, and a letter from Metropolitan Nikolai of Plovdiv that included a petition signed by 240 priests of his diocese
Concerning dialogues with other Christian confessions in a search for “unity” the Bulgarian Church proclaimed that the Orthodox Church understands itself to have never lost and incapable of losing its unity, as those following heresies and schisms simply fall away from the Church, and “through repentance, they may be received into the Church … The Holy Orthodox Church, which is the one and only, never lost unity in the faith and fellowship of the Holy Spirit among Christians and as it will last until the end of the world, the Lord has said that ‘the gates of hell will not prevail against it.’”
The document put forth by the Holy Synod also gave thanks to God that the Bulgarian Orthodox Church had withdrawn from the World Council of Churches, in which it took part from 1961 until 1998, under Soviet coercion. The pastors of the Church proclaimed that they could not take part in any organization that views Orthodoxy simply as “one of many or as a branch of the One church, which seeks a way and struggles for its restoration through this World Council of Churches”.
The Synod quoted the Creed, saying that there was one God and one Church.
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To the best of my knowledge, none of the Patriarchates or other local Orthodox Churches has ever said that the Orthodox Church is "simply as 'one of many or as a branch of the One church, which seeks a way and struggles for its restoration through this World Council of Churches.'" If I'm wrong on this, I am happy to be corrected.
ReplyDeleteThe question being addressed by the Council is, and again maybe I'm wrong here, the ecclesiastical status of Christian communities relative to the Orthodox Church. Is it, in other words, possible to call the Roman Catholic Church a Church or is it, as some Orthodox apologists would say, merely the Roman Religious Organization.
The critics of the Synod documents seem to me to be criticizing the documents not so much for what they say but for the questions they ask. While individual fathers and saints and even local churches have argued for the position outlined here, there is no consensus or agreement on the status of these other ecclesial bodies.
So the question to debated a the Synod is this; What is the ecclesiastical status of Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Protestants and Evangelical Christian? The document cited here, like other criticisms of the forthcoming Synod, assume a consensus that, at this point, doesn't exist.
"The critics of the Synod documents seem to me to be criticizing the documents not so much for what they say but for the questions they ask. "
ReplyDeleteAnd I think that's valid. If the document brings up more questions than it answers and you feel you are on less firm ground _after_ the document than before it, maybe the document needs more work.
I also don't think we're debating whether the other bodies are Churches. I take their non-Church status as read. It's not like Catholic theology that calls us a Church though damaged by the lack of Peter. One is either in or out. The difficulty is, where do we go from here? Do we demand complete uniformity of belief and public repentance or do we accept something less and have faith in growing towards one another?
I have to confess I am torn with regard to the upcoming Council in Crete. Whereas I'd like to think it's an outstanding opportunity to demonstrate Orthodox unity, I kind of feel like what's the point? There is no unity to demonstrate. We cannot even agree on how to use the word "church."
ReplyDelete"Once we can fill our churches with the unchurched and the lost then I think we can engage in the accession of other ecclesial bodies into Orthodoxy."
ReplyDeleteWhat a fascinating and lovely idea! To seek primarily to fill our churches with the unchurched, rather than focusing on competition with other Christian groups. Almost all Orthodox evangelistic efforts in the U.S. that I am aware of seem to mainly target (whether explicitly or implicitly) church-going members of other Christian groups.
Now, as a formerly-protestant convert to Orthodoxy, I thank God for all such evangelistic efforts. I want to see more and more of them. If we really believe that "besides the Holy Orthodox Church there are no other churches, but only heresies and schisms", then it is a very serious duty for us to spread the word to others and not to keep it to ourselves. Nothing makes me more indignant to than to hear that kind of uncompromising language coupled with a complacency about doing anything substantial to bring in those who love Jesus devoutly but have never heard of the Orthodox Church. Too often we smugly say that we just need to be the church and others will come to us. Why would they? In the majority of cases, they have never heard of us. Those who do hear of us seldom realize that we even claim to be anything more than an ethnic alternative to mainstream American Christianity. How will the know if nobody tells them?
The same applies the the un-churched, only they are even less likely to know or care about who we are without being given some reason. We've got to reach out to them.
And I think we've got to find some way of evangelizing beyond simply inviting people to church. In my experience, the majority of the unchurched are poor and uneducated. They typically would feel out of place in a social context that consists mainly of middle class folks. More importantly, the Liturgy was not designed as an outreach tool. It is important to experience it in order to understand what Orthodoxy is, but it shouldn't ideally be the first introduction one has to the Orthodox faith. That just doesn't make sense. But what alternative is there? If anyone has figured out a good strategy for introducing outsiders, especially non-Christians, to the Orthodox faith with others prior to inviting them to services, please let me know.
"Too often we smugly say that we just need to be the church and others will come to us. Why would they?"
DeletePerhaps the answer may be found in, if I may, my paraphrase of Chesterton's remark: It's not that Orthodoxy has been tried and found wanting; it's that it has not been tried." In his fascinating book "The Illuminating Icon" Anthony Ugolnik relates having visited a Russian Orthodox priest in rural Finland who, when asked if the Church's presence made a difference, replied by saying that if the Church were not there the local people would not have the opportunity to "see" the Gospel. He didn't say "hear"; that was a given. So the question is "Do outsiders "see" the Gospel when they come to your Church?"
"In my experience, the majority of the unchurched are poor and uneducated."
I regret that I am unable to find it but several years ago I read a compelling article written by an Orthodox priest who pointedly asked where the poor are. Why aren't they in our Churches? No doubt you are right. Who among the poor will assume they will be welcomed into a church that is filled with prosperous (white?) folks? Perhaps mission churches should be started in the poorer parts of town. If you go to Mexico you will see an inspiring mix of poor, not-so-poor, and prosperous in the Orthodox Churches there.
Lastly, I hear and read alot about the Church's duty to leave the 99 and go look for the lost 1. Before we go and apply this on the grand scale I would like to point out a more immediate application. As a single person I dare say I'm somewhat attuned to what it can be like as a single person in the Church. In short, it is often lonely. I mention this because I have been in church's where single people, who are actual members of that church, disappear and nobody knows where they are--sadly, not even the priest. For my part I have taken it upon myself to befriend them--all of them. I know first-hand how easy it is to wander off and become lost. They (like the poor) must actually come to believe that they matter and, if we haven't seen them for a while, it matters alot. Again, may I offer another paraphrase of an old public service announcement some of us used to hear on the television each evening? "It's 9:30. It's time for the Liturgy to begin. Do you know where "your" sheep are?" Can you account for all the sheep that belong to "your" flock?
I'm also a convert from Protestantism, so I have no inherent objection to evangelizing the heterodox. My own concern with our efforts being focused there is that we're kind of using the heterodox as "Introductory Christianity", while we're "Advanced Christianity" — which is totally wrong.
Delete"More importantly, the Liturgy was not designed as an outreach tool."
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right. At the same time, barring inquirers and catechumens in today's parishes is probably impractical. But you are right: we cannot rely on the "religious experience" as an evangelistic tool unless we do not want our catechumens to ever be converted out of an already narcissistic culture of self-fulfillment. Not to mention that too much Orthodox evangelism and apologetic relies heavily on aesthetic arguments which seem ad hoc. We should focus less on razzle dazzle evangelism (which is *very* Protestant) and incorporate more extended catechumenates that involve parish & community service as well as robust catechesis that goes deeper than pop theology and apologetics.
Isn't this the same Bulgarian Church that was in schism not so long ago because of its ethnophyletism?
ReplyDelete