post by Inga Leonova, on group Pan-Orthodox Council & the Future of Conciliarity
April 1968
The definition of our stand as Orthodox Christians with other Christians, either in the sphere of broad institutions, such as that of the ecumenical movement, or in more modest meetings and in our everyday life, depends entirely upon our own conception of what we are. Controversies about actual name of our Church – is it or is it not an Orthodox “Catholic” Church? Is it “Greek”? Is it “Russian”? – show that our real stand has not yet been really clarified in some minds. And there are other signs, much more important than these misunderstandings about words, which indicate that we are not yet quite clear about the way we are supposed to follow, particularly here in America.
Meanwhile, time is running short; the responsibility clearly belongs to our generation – today!
First of all there is one striking fact about the Orthodox Church in this mid-twentieth century: she is no more physically absent in the Western World. She is present here both physically and spiritually and we - you and I – are responsible for the efficiency of that presence. She can no more be really called “Eastern” when millions and millions of her faithful are, for several generations, citizens of the Western countries, when they speak the language of these countries, when they intend to remain here and to build up the Church and when hundreds of converts join the Church regularly, without any real proselytizing on our part. This Orthodox “diaspora” is obviously one of the most important spiritual events of the twentieth century and it can not be considered as just as historical accident: a definite will of God entrusts us with the responsibility for a worthwhile message about the True Christian Church.
Do we really meet the challenge? With special reference to the situation of Orthodoxy in America, it is clear that three basic conditions are to be fulfilled by us in order to respond to the situation in which we find ourselves by the will of God:
1. We must be united. The nationalistic feelings which currently separate the Orthodox Church in America into a dozen or more jurisdictions (Greek, Russian, Serbian, etc.) is sinful, uncanonical and impractical for further progress. It is sinful because it is contrary to Christian Love. It is uncanonical because in contradicts the clearest statements of Ecumenical Councils: “There may not be two bishops in one city” (First Ecumenical Council, Cannon 8). It is impractical for the obvious reason that a united church of some 3,000,000 communicants would be much more able to face the problems we face now in our individual jurisdictions.
2. We must have more concern for education. Building churches – without teaching our youth, without giving the necessary training to future priests, without giving to our community the means to give an articulate witness to Orthodoxy – cannot lead very far in the future of the Church. And it is dangerous, because without education many elements of our Faith are lost or distorted: our entire thinking becomes sickly polarized between superficial liberalism and a fanatical “super-Orthodoxy”, which confuse the Holy Tradition of the Church with simple human-made practices and local traditions. Meanwhile, our seminaries are deprived either of the required material means or of adequate academic standards. We have no high schools of our own, no colleges nor universities.
3. since we claim to possess the Christian Faith in its truly “catholic” (i.e., all embracing and universal) form, we must accept with love and humility the problems of the Western Christianity as our own and search for their Orthodox solution. To think that we will convert America to Byzantine culture, or preserve Orthodoxy by locking it in nationalistic ghetto, sentimentally attached to the past – be it “Holy Russia” or “Hellenism” – is possible only through self-righteous naivete. The great Fathers of the Church were called “Fathers” because they faced the problems of their time and were concerned with the heresies of their day. Our task is to become their authentic “sons”.
This requires a tremendous effort of our part, but an effort which will be immensely profitable for our own sake. It means that nothing but heresy and error should be foreign to us, either in Western Christianity or in the Western World as a whole, which has become our world because God has placed us here. We surely can keep and preserve the great Byzantine tradition which has been tested vehicle of Orthodox Christianity for so many centuries but as a basic, not as a prison.
“The Truth shall make you free”, said the Lord (John 8:32) and St. Paul gives us the great example of the true Christian attitude versus a conflicting society – this attitude is that of a debtor: “I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise” (Rom. 1:14).
There can be no clearer expression of our task for today.
The definition of our stand as Orthodox Christians with other Christians, either in the sphere of broad institutions, such as that of the ecumenical movement, or in more modest meetings and in our everyday life, depends entirely upon our own conception of what we are. Controversies about actual name of our Church – is it or is it not an Orthodox “Catholic” Church? Is it “Greek”? Is it “Russian”? – show that our real stand has not yet been really clarified in some minds. And there are other signs, much more important than these misunderstandings about words, which indicate that we are not yet quite clear about the way we are supposed to follow, particularly here in America.
Meanwhile, time is running short; the responsibility clearly belongs to our generation – today!
First of all there is one striking fact about the Orthodox Church in this mid-twentieth century: she is no more physically absent in the Western World. She is present here both physically and spiritually and we - you and I – are responsible for the efficiency of that presence. She can no more be really called “Eastern” when millions and millions of her faithful are, for several generations, citizens of the Western countries, when they speak the language of these countries, when they intend to remain here and to build up the Church and when hundreds of converts join the Church regularly, without any real proselytizing on our part. This Orthodox “diaspora” is obviously one of the most important spiritual events of the twentieth century and it can not be considered as just as historical accident: a definite will of God entrusts us with the responsibility for a worthwhile message about the True Christian Church.
Do we really meet the challenge? With special reference to the situation of Orthodoxy in America, it is clear that three basic conditions are to be fulfilled by us in order to respond to the situation in which we find ourselves by the will of God:
1. We must be united. The nationalistic feelings which currently separate the Orthodox Church in America into a dozen or more jurisdictions (Greek, Russian, Serbian, etc.) is sinful, uncanonical and impractical for further progress. It is sinful because it is contrary to Christian Love. It is uncanonical because in contradicts the clearest statements of Ecumenical Councils: “There may not be two bishops in one city” (First Ecumenical Council, Cannon 8). It is impractical for the obvious reason that a united church of some 3,000,000 communicants would be much more able to face the problems we face now in our individual jurisdictions.
2. We must have more concern for education. Building churches – without teaching our youth, without giving the necessary training to future priests, without giving to our community the means to give an articulate witness to Orthodoxy – cannot lead very far in the future of the Church. And it is dangerous, because without education many elements of our Faith are lost or distorted: our entire thinking becomes sickly polarized between superficial liberalism and a fanatical “super-Orthodoxy”, which confuse the Holy Tradition of the Church with simple human-made practices and local traditions. Meanwhile, our seminaries are deprived either of the required material means or of adequate academic standards. We have no high schools of our own, no colleges nor universities.
3. since we claim to possess the Christian Faith in its truly “catholic” (i.e., all embracing and universal) form, we must accept with love and humility the problems of the Western Christianity as our own and search for their Orthodox solution. To think that we will convert America to Byzantine culture, or preserve Orthodoxy by locking it in nationalistic ghetto, sentimentally attached to the past – be it “Holy Russia” or “Hellenism” – is possible only through self-righteous naivete. The great Fathers of the Church were called “Fathers” because they faced the problems of their time and were concerned with the heresies of their day. Our task is to become their authentic “sons”.
This requires a tremendous effort of our part, but an effort which will be immensely profitable for our own sake. It means that nothing but heresy and error should be foreign to us, either in Western Christianity or in the Western World as a whole, which has become our world because God has placed us here. We surely can keep and preserve the great Byzantine tradition which has been tested vehicle of Orthodox Christianity for so many centuries but as a basic, not as a prison.
“The Truth shall make you free”, said the Lord (John 8:32) and St. Paul gives us the great example of the true Christian attitude versus a conflicting society – this attitude is that of a debtor: “I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise” (Rom. 1:14).
There can be no clearer expression of our task for today.
Fr. John Meyendorff. “Witness to the World”, S. Vladimir Seminary Press. Crestwood, N.Y. 1987. Pages 211-213.