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The Disease of 'Over-Correctness'
by Hieromonk Seraphim (Rose)

Bound up with this is a disease of today's Orthodox Christians which can be deadly: the
"correctness disease." In a way this is a natural temptation to anyone who has just awakened to Christian faith and to spiritual life -- the more one finds out about Christian doctrine and practice, the more one discovers how many "mistakes" one has been making up to now, and one's natural desire is to be "correct." This is praiseworthy, although in the beginning one is probably going to be too artificially "strict" and make many new mistakes out of pride (to which we are constantly blind). If you are critical of others, self-confident about your own correctness, eager to quote canons to prove someone else is wrong, constantly "knowing better" than others -- you have the germs of the "correctness disease." These are signs of immaturity in spiritual life, and often one outgrows them if one is living a normal spiritual life.

But especially in our days, the spirit of worldliness is so strong, and there is obviously so much wrong in our church life -- that there is a strong temptation to make "correctness" a way of life, to get stuck in it. And this is not only a disease of converts; one of the best bishops of the Old Calendar Greeks, Bishop Cyprian of Sts. Cyprian and Justina Monastery near Athens, has written that this spirit of "correctness" has already done untold damage to Orthodoxy in Greece, causing fights and schisms one after the other. Sometimes one's zeal for "Orthodoxy" (in quotes) can be so excessive that it produces a situation similar to that which caused an old Russian woman to remark of an enthusiastic American convert "Well, he's certainly Orthodox all right -- but is he a Christian?"

To be "Orthodox but not Christian" is a state that has a particular name in Christian language: it means to be a Pharisee, to be so bogged down in the letter of the Church's laws that one loses the spirit that gives them life, the spirit of true Christianity. In saying this my aim is not to be critical or to point to anyone in particular -- we all suffer from this -- but only to point out a pitfall which can cause one to fail to take advantage of the riches which the Orthodox Church provides for our salvation, even in these evil times.

Even when it is not fanatical, this spirit of "correctness" for its own sake turns out to be
fruitless. As an example, I can tell you of a very good friend of ours, one of the zealot fathers of Mt. Athos. He is a "moderate" zealot, in that he recognizes the grace of New Calendar sacraments, accepts the blessings of priests of our Church, and the like; but he is absolutely strict when it comes to applying the basic Zealot principle, not to have communion not only with bishops whose teaching departs from Orthodox truth, such as the Patriarch of Constantinople, and not only with anyone who has communion with him, but with anyone who has communion with anyone who in any remote way has communion with him. Such "purity" is so difficult to attain in our days (our whole Russian Church Abroad, for example, is "tainted" in his eyes by some measure of communion with the other Orthodox Churches) that he is in communion with only his own priest and ten other monks in his group on the Holy Mountain; all of the rest of the Orthodox Church is not "pure."

Perhaps there are only ten or twelve people left in the world who are perfectly "strict" and
"pure" in their Orthodoxy -- this I really don't know; but it simply cannot be that there are really only ten or twelve Orthodox Christians left in the world with whom one can have true oneness of faith, expressed in common communion. I think that you can see that there is some kind of spiritual dead-end here; even if we had to believe such a narrow view of Orthodoxy according to the letter, our believing Christian heart would rebel against it. We cannot really live by such strictness; we must somehow be less "correct" and closer to the heart of Orthodox Christianity.

In smaller ways, too, we can get carried away with "correctness':' we can like well-done
Byzantine icons (which is a good thing), but we go too far if we are disdainful of the more
modern style icons which are still in many of our churches. The same goes for church singing, architecture, the following of correct rules of fasting, of kneeling in church, etc. While striving to be as correct as we can, we must also remember that these things belong to the outward side of our Orthodox faith, and they are good only if they are used in the right spirit of the true Christianity St. Tikhon talks about. Vladimir Soloviev, in his Short Story of Antichrist, ingeniously suggests that Antichrist, in order to attract Orthodox conservatives, will open a museum of all Christian antiquities. Perhaps the very images of Antichrist himself (Apoc. 13:14) will be in good Byzantine style -- this should be a sobering thought for us.

In His great lover for us all,
+Fr. Gregory

Thanks for the article, Father. I especially like his reference to Soloviev's analogy, which is worthwhile to reflect on frequently.

"Such "purity" is so difficult to attain in our days (our whole Russian Church Abroad, for example, is "tainted" in his eyes by some measure of communion with the other Orthodox Churches)"

I was unaware that in Seraphim Rose's time ROCOR had some measure of communion with other Orthodox churches. For example, as far as I know, ROCOR usually doesn't permit OCA members to take communion in their churches (I am told that the reverse is not usually true, however.), and also doesn't have ties with churches actively associated with the Ecumenical Patriarch, which would include most of Orthodoxy. Maybe, since there are reconciliation efforts under way with the Moscow Patriarchate, Rose's ideas will take root.

Thank you Father for this article.

Certainly it makes me wonder how much of this "Over-Correctness Disease" may lead to the sin of Pride?

I remember having read on G.K. Chesterton's "Orthodxy" a description of how to be extremely self-confident (to believe too much in one self I think are the words in the book)becomes in the sin of Pride, and hence it turns from being a strength to a real weakness.

Considering the above, does anyone believe that this over-correctness is one of the issues that has weaken us, both Catholics and Orthodox, and that is a strong issue against re-union?

God bless

Bernardo, it is rather the other way around. Pride is the source of this, not the result. May we have recourse to the Prayer of St. Ephraim. Ronald Knox's "Enthusiasm" is also along the lines you mention of Chesterton, with Msgr. Knox giving wise counsel to not be overcome with zeal and false "enthusiasm" which may be intertwined with pride that we have found what we conceive to be our own definition of "truth".

i struggle greatly with the sins that Fr. Rose points out above. Thank you Fr. Gregory for sharing that piece... my soul needs to hear it over and over again. If you remember and have time, please offer a prayer for me.

Yours,
the_grip

Jim,

ROCOR often will commune OCA members and is in full communion with the Serbian Patriarchate, the Jerusalem Patriarchate, and the True Orthodox Churches of Bulgaria, Romania, and Greece. The latter three are considered schismatic by other Orthodox Churches while they consider them to be schismatic. So you have ROCOR as a type of bridge between the two worlds.

Anastasios

Anastasios, the vast majority of Orthodox are not in communion with ROCOR today. But then, the vast majority of Orthodox are not in communion with Rome, either. The Holy Father is probably the best example of a bridge builder we have in our time, but there is still a long way to go. Not everyone is willing to listen. St. Nicephorus, commemorated yesterday, died a martyr for the sake of one who refused to listen, but his death was not in vain. All of us are praying for reconciliation with God's help.

Thank you again Fr. Gregory, for posting this and reminding us of our weakness, I often confront myself with this zeal of correctness which many times leads to very uncharitable words & statements.

Another article for me to print and study during Lent.

The blessing of the Lord be upon you Fr.Gregory, as you guide us during this Lenten Season !

james

Father, bless! I was recently considering your post in the light of this statement by the wonderful Vladimir Lossky:

Dear Diak, +The LORD bless you! I remember a Russian Orthodox priest telling me one time, that striking one's breast had no basis in Christian tradition and that it was not even a Christian practice and that's why, we Orthodox do not ever do this. I then asked him to read CAREFULLY the Gospel account again of the Publican and Pharisee. (." But the Publican, who knew that he was wicked, and felt sorry for it, stood afar off in a quiet part of the Temple where none would see him. He bowed his head and beat upon his breast, saying, "God be merciful to me a sinner.")...he then said, I never thought of that before...thank you Father. Sometimes we have a real prejudice against things from other traditions, simply because they are not 'OURS' and we judge other traditions have having little or nothing to teach us. As Alice would say, this is why, in order to see the total complete icon of Christ, we need both lungs of the Church. It provides us with a more complete Divine Revelation and adds more 'colors' to the Icon of Christ and His Church. Without this, we are the poorer...and it would seem in this day and age, we can use all the helps we can get to live a full and vibrant Christian life.

May it be so!

In His Holy Name,
+Fr. Gregory

I must confess that I was doing this(over-correctness) at Mass on Sunday, even after I had promised to have patience and correct my own faults.

Do we so easily forget !

Yes I do strike my breast in prayer, it is my outward sign(besides quiet verbal and mental) of acknowlegement of my sins/transgressions.

james

Thank you Fr. Gregory. On the other hand the Church needs those who work for reform and the re-establishment of meaningful lost traditions. The problem Fr. Seraphim points out is indeed real only when it is "over" correctness as resulting from pride. Genuine concern for Church tradition and remaining in the truth of the Fathers is also certainly legitimate. Surely Fr. Seraphim would not endorse the indifferentism which also plagues many of the ancient Churches (espeically in the West) just as much as does over-correctness (in the East). There has to be a middle ground between radical liberal indifferntism and radical conservative over-correctness. I think Ecumenical dialogue between the Churches promotes finding the middle "C" between the two as well as forums like the one we are on right now. The open-dialogue which the internet lends itself to can cetainly be an aid to inter-Church Ecumenism. Who knows, perhaps if in ancient times people could so freely communicate with one another people like Nestorius and Cyril, Dioscuros and Leo, etc., would have remained in Communion with one another and our Churches would not have the divisions we have today?

A friend sent me a gift subscription to a Traditional Latin Mass magazine. There are a lot of good articles in it.
Some are not so good. "Over-correctness" is not exclusive to Orthodoxy. The Church of Rome has it too, in abundance in some cases.

I am not in favor of over-correctness and can find those folks a little tedious after awhile. But the one's who think they can half-way slap everything together are also pretty hard to take. I have met some who think liturgy is just a big warm and fuzzy encounter group where you make things up as you go along. That's total nonsense!