Posts Tagged eastern orthodox tradition
Hierotheos: Orthodox Psychotherapy
Posted by Dallas Wolf in New Nuggets, Theology on August 21, 2015
Metropolitan Hierotheos (Vlachos) – (1945- ) is a Greek Orthodox metropolitan and theologian. He graduated from the Theological School of the University of Thessaloniki and is one of the finest Patristic scholars living.
“The term “Orthodox Psychotherapy” does not refer to specific cases of people suffering from psychological problems of neurosis. Rather it refers to all people. According to Orthodox Tradition, after Adam’s fall man became ill; his “nous” was darkened and lost communion with God. Death entered into the person’s being and caused many anthropological, social, even ecological problems. In the tragedy of his fall man maintained the image of God within him but lost completely the likeness of Him, since his communion with God was disrupted. However the incarnation of Christ and the work of the Church aim at enabling the person to attain to the likeness of God, that is to reestablish communion with God. This passage way from a fallen state to divinization is called the healing of the person, because it is connected with his return from a state of being contrary to nature, to that of a state according to nature and above nature. By adhering to Orthodox therapeutic treatment as conceived by the Holy Fathers of the Church man can cope successfully with the thoughts (logismoi) and thus solve his problems completely and comprehensively.” ~ Met. Hierotheos Vlachos, from “Orthodox Psychotherapy – The Science of the Fathers”
Justin Popovich: “In truth there is only one freedom”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in New Nuggets on July 17, 2015
“In truth there is only one freedom – the holy freedom of Christ, whereby He freed us from sin, from evil, from the devil. It binds us to God. All other freedoms are illusory, false, that is to say, they are all, in fact, slavery.”
– Saint Justin Popovich
D.B. Hart: “For my money, if Origen was not a saint and church father, then no one has any claim to those titles.”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, New Nuggets on May 13, 2015
David Bentley Hart (born 1965) an Eastern Orthodox scholar of religion, is a philosopher, writer, and cultural commentator. His books include The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss and That All Shall Be Saved: Heaven, Hell, Universal Salvation, and The New Testament – A Translation. He lives in South Bend, IN.
“East or West, all Christians are burdened with the absurdities of Christian imperial history. But any conception of orthodoxy that obliges one to grant the title of “saint” to a murderous thug like Justinian while denying it to a man as holy as Origen is obviously—indeed ludicrously—self-refuting. And one does not defend tradition well by making it appear not only atrociously unjust, but utterly ridiculous.”
D.B. Hart, from Saint Origen, First Things, October 2015.
“For my money, if Origen was not a saint and church father, then no one has any claim to those titles. And the contrary claims made by a brutish imbecile Emperor are of no consequence.”
D.B. Hart, from Eclectic Orthodoxy blog post, 11 May 2015.
Anthony Bloom: “the Church must never speak from a position of strength”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, New Nuggets on April 22, 2015
“It seems to me, and I am personally convinced, that the Church must never speak from a position of strength…It ought not to be one of the forces influencing this or that state. The Church ought to be, if you will, just as powerless as God himself, which does not coerce but which calls and unveils the beauty and the truth of things without imposing them. As soon as the Church begins to exercise power, it loses its most profound characteristic which is divine love [i.e.] the understanding of those it is called to save and not to smash…”
– Metropolitan Anthony Bloom
St. Diadochos of Photiki: “Early Mention of the ‘Jesus Prayer’, c. AD 450”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, Patristic Pearls on January 11, 2015
St. Diadochos of Photiki (c. AD 400 – c. 486). One of the earliest written references to the “Jesus Prayer”; “the remembrance of the glorious and holy name of the Lord Jesus…“
“When our intellect begins to perceive the grace of the Holy Spirit, then Satan, too, importunes the soul with a sense of deceptive sweetness in the quiet times of the night, when we fall into a light kind of sleep. If the intellect at that time cleaves fervently to the remembrance of the glorious and holy name of the Lord Jesus and uses it as a weapon against Satan’s deception, he gives up this trick and for the future will attack the soul directly and personally. As a result the intellect clearly discerns the deception of the evil one and advances even further in the art of discrimination.”
~ from: “On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination. One Hundred Texts“, No. 31. From Philokalia, Vol. 1.
Yannaras: “Towards a New Ecumenism”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Ekklesia and church, New Nuggets on January 9, 2015
Christos Yannaras (1935 – ) was Professor of Philosophy at Pantion University of Social and Political Sciences, Athens. His books include Freedom of Morality and Person and Eros. His essay first appeared in French in Contacts, No. 179 (1997), pp. 202-206.
“I dream of an ecumenism which will begin with a confession of sins on the part of each Church. If we begin with this confession of our historic sins, perhaps we can manage to give ourselves to each other in the end. We are full of faults, full of weaknesses which distort our human nature. But Saint Paul says that from our weakness can be born a life which will triumph over death. I dream of an ecumenism that begins with the voluntary acceptance of that weakness.” ~ Christos Yannaras
Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware): “Inner Meaning of The Jesus Prayer”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, New Nuggets on January 2, 2015
“There is a story told from 18th century France of an old man who used to go for a long time each day into Church. His friends asked him: “What are you doing all the time in Church?” “I’m praying”, he said. And they answered: “You must have a great many things to ask God, if you take such a long time praying?” With indignation he responded: “I’m not asking God for anything!” “Well”, they said, “what are you doing all that time in Church?”
And he replied: “I just sit and look at God and God sits and looks at me”.
That is one of the best definitions that I know of prayer. And it sums up the Jesus Prayer in particular; it is a way of sitting and looking at God!
Let us now consider a little the inner meaning of the Jesus Prayer. In the Sermon of the Mount Christ says: “When you pray do not use vain repetitions”. Don’t heap up empty phrases as the heathen do thinking that they will be heard because of their many words. Does then the Jesus Prayer come under Christ’s rebuke? Certainly it is a repetition, but it is not a vain repetition if it is said with faith and with love. Within the Jesus Prayer every word has weight, every word has meaning. It is not verbosity, but the Jesus Prayer is on the contrary, a precise and eloquent confession of faith.
Let us explore then a little of the meaning of the Jesus Prayer. In that very attractive 19th century Russian text; attractive, but also in some ways misleading: The Tales of a Pilgrim. It is said, that the Jesus Prayer contains the whole of the Gospel; all embracing. In what way? First, the Jesus Prayer contains the two poles, the two moments of Christian experience. And these two moments are: adoration and penitence, or glory and forgiveness. There is in the Jesus Prayer a circular movement, a double movement of assent and return. First we ascend to God in adoration “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God” and then we return to ourselves in penitence “have Mercy on me the sinner”.
Now, the gulf, the abyss between the divine glory and our human brokenness is bridged in the Jesus Prayer by two words “Jesus” and “Mercy”. In this connection we need to recall the literal meaning of the name Jesus. It means: Salvation! As the angel says before the birth of Christ (Matt 1:21): “You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sin”.
First of all then, the gulf between glory and sin is bridged by Jesus, who is salvation. Then the other bridge building word in the Jesus Prayer is the word “Mercy”, Eleos in Greek. What does the word “Mercy” mean to you? For me it means love in action, love poured out to heal, to reconcile, to renew. Sometime people say to me that the Jesus Prayer is a rather gloomy prayer. I don’t experience it in that way. I see it as a prayer full of light and hope, because it speaks of Salvation and of Mercy.” ~ From a lecture delivered in 1997
Saint Maximus the Confessor: “Flee from self-love”, philautía (φιλαυτία)
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, Patristic Pearls on November 28, 2014
“Flee from self-love, the mother of malice, which is an irrational love for the body. For from it are born the three chief sinful passions: gluttony, avarice, and vainglory, which take their causes from bodily needs, and from them all the tribe of the passions is born. This why we must always oppose self-love and fight against it. Whoever rejects self-love will easily conquer all the other passions with the help of God: anger, despondency, rancor, and the others. But whoever is retained by self-love will even unwillingly be conquered by the above-named passions.”
– Saint Maximus the Confessor
St. Gregory of Nyssa – “… only wonder grasps anything”
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Hesychasm - Jesus Prayer, Monasticism, Patristic Pearls on August 5, 2014
St. Gregory of Nyssa (c. AD 335 – 395) – Along with his older brother, Basil of Caesarea, and their friend, Gregory of Nazianzus, Nyssen was one the three great Cappadocian Fathers of the 4th century. He was also younger brother of St. Macrina the Younger; virgin, mystic, monasatic, wonder worker, and philosopher of God.
“Concepts create idols; only wonder grasps anything; People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees.”
~ from: The Life of Moses
Atonement Theory 1
Posted by Dallas Wolf in Atonement Theory (series) on July 13, 2014
“We know that the Atonement works; but how it works is not as clear.”
Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins (cf., 1 Cor. 15:3). In this way he fulfilled the old covenant sacrificial system, reconciled us to God, and changed our lives forever.
That is the doctrine of the Atonement. Its reality is not in dispute. However, many Christians struggle to understand this doctrine. We know that the Atonement works; but how it works is not as clear. Over the centuries many different theories have been suggested to explain how the Atonement works.
Many contemporary Western Latin Christians (Roman Catholics and Protestants) are unaware that there are other theories of the nature of Jesus Christ’s atonement. Most are only familiar with their own Roman Catholic Satisfaction Theory of atonement or the related Protestant Penal Substitution Theory. My guess is that few Catholics or Protestants are aware that both of their respective atonement theories are relatively new innovations theologically and neither reflects the theology of the ancient Christian church. Consequently, even fewer Western Christians are likely familiar with the predominant atonement view held by those in the Eastern Orthodox Church, which is commonly called The Recapitulation Theory, which does reflect ancient Christian tradition dating back to the late 2nd century.
First, a very general chronological overview of the four major Christian atonement theories
- Moral Influence Theory (2nd century)
- “Christus Victor”/Ransom/Recapitulation Theory (late 2nd century)
- These are different, but generally considered together as the “Patristic” or “Classical” understandings of the early Church Fathers
- Satisfaction Theory (11th century)
- Developed by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109).
- Penal Substitution Theory (16th century)
- A variation of Anselm’s satisfaction theory developed by the Protestant Reformers, especially John Calvin (1509-1564), and is often treated together with the satisfaction theory
First Thoughts 