www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Effects of Protestant Refomation on Orthodoxy

The rejection in 1485 by a Council of Constantinople of the Reunion Council of Florence witnessed a violent animus against the Popes and the hated Latins. Luther himself appealed to the separated Eastern churches in support of his rejection of Papal supremacy. The Lutheran scholar Ernst Benz even noted in his book "The Eastern Orthodox Church", that the abolishing of the patriarchate of Moscow by Peter the Great who set up a new synodal constitution for the Russian Church on the model of the German Protestant territorial churches, had been suggested by the German Lutheran Samuel von Pufendorf. He also wrote how "Both the Russian and the Greek Orthodox churches approached particularly close to German Protestantism during the heyday of Pietism."

After the Union of Brest-Litovsk (1596) which reconciled millions of Ukrainians and Ruthenians to the Holy See, "numerous young Orthodox theologians attended Protestant universities in Germany, Switzerland and England since there were no Orthodox academies in the Orthodox countries under Turkish rule." Other authors have noted the influence of Calvinist theology on 17th c. Greek "Orthodoxy" exemplified in the writings of the heretical Calvinist patriarch of Constantinople, Cyril Lucaris. Such Calvinism with its militant anti-Roman spirit would persist after Lucaris' condemnation by a Synod of Constantinople (1638), the Synod of Jassy (1642), and a Synod of Jerusalem (1672). This Calvinist influence was to remain among Lucaris' disciples, Metrophanes Critopoulos, Zacharias Gerganos, Theophilos Corydalleus, Maximos Callipolita, and John Carophyllos.

It is not difficult to trace the origin of Orthodox polemics directed against Catholic teaching on original sin, mortal and venial sin, grace, purgatory, indulgences, and Transubstantiation to such influences. Sadly, such influences have continued to our day, as I pointed out with specific reference to the writings of Clark Carlton, an evangelical Protestant minister who became an Eastern Orthodox. Whatever the doctrinal and pedagogical opposition of the Catholic Church to Protestantism and the Byzantine Greco-Russian schism, the lasting bitterness and hatred jointly registered toward the Papacy and the Catholic Church by its avowed enemies, i.e., the most intransigent Protestant and Orthodox polemicists, remains an utterly extraordinary historical phenomenon.

James Likoudis

IOAN CHINDRIŞ


THE SETTING UP OF THE NATIONAL BIBLE FOR ROMANIANS
(1550-1795)



The German Reformation carried off by Martin Luther changed in no time the course of European history and the social-spiritual configuration of the Continent. Once consolidated among Germans, the Reformation extended across the whole territory inhabited by them and carried on by virtue of its standard thought process soon overpassed its onthological borders. Popular hope and weak-willed proselytism were the routes followed by the new religious programme initiated by Luther. It’s necessary to observe that from the very outset the external succes of Lutheranism benefited by a Central-European environment in which public awareness had been increased through attempts of the kind made by Jan Huss and Jean Calvin. The two of them were implicitly the forerunners of the nationalistic component of the entire Reformation movement. In the sphere of religious life, the Middle Ages ended for a large part of the European continent with a separation from its Latin speaking empire and an establishment of the vernacular, preceding its national languages. As a lucky beneficiary of these older rather harsh reformatory efforts, Martin Luther crowned the theological nationalism of the Reformation by translating the Bible into German and printing it, in 1543.

Cultural religious nationalism of a Protestant type extended over two vulnerable areas: that of the French milieu in endemic disidence with Rome and that of the orthodox South-Eastern part of the Continent, whose schism with Rome had started way back, in 1054. Of interest for the case we are dealing with is the latter, since it was in its affluence that the process of setting up the Romanian national Bible was started.

The great bulk of the Romanian population within the ancient boundaries of Dacia belonged historicalty to Byzantine orthodoxy, divided as it was by the Carpathians into two habitats most differently fated. During the Middle Ages, the Romanians from outside the Carpathian arch who populated the territories of nowadays Moldavia and Wallachia led a plenary orthodox church life, their medieval princes and state dignitaries belonging to the elite of the orthodox Church, as great supporters of the Eastern centres of pietism, among which Athos held the most important place. Belonging to the Orthodox Eastern Church, the Romanian inhabitants of the intra-Carpathian area, as far as the Tisza, Western Galicia and Slovakia, were subject to the Hungarian Kingdom, a powerful Catholic state up to the Moh�cs disaster and the dispersion of the Hungarian population in various countries, where it was subjected to obedience of different kinds. These Romanians from Transylvania (extensively considered) had a deplorable religious status, of tolerated and undesirable people irrespective of the religion adopted by Hungarians. Credible historians such as David Prodan, an Orthodox Christian, describe an Orthodox Church ceaselessly on the point of disintegration due to the systematic oppression exerted on it. Unfortunate from a religious point of view, these Romanians were the first to come into contact with the ideas of the Reformation and with the proselytism of the trend, due to their immediate cohabitation with the Hungarians and Saxons converted to the Reformation.

The Romanians’ accomplishment of their national Bible started under the influence of messages of a national type propagated by the Reformation. There have been clashes of opinion between Romanian specialists with regard to the weight of the influence exerted on Romanians by one or another of the sundry reformist variants. Hussitism was engendered in Transylvania by a great peasant uprising in 1437. The spirit of Jan Huss exerted its influence on the popular Romanian mentality to the effect of stirring a social awareness connected the religious one. Calvinism was frantically adopted by a large part of the Hungarian population especially in Transylvania, as a desperate reaction to the wiping of medieval Hungary off the map of Europe in the only too well known year 1526. An assiduous propaganda for the conversion of Transylvanian Romanians to Calvinism by brutal means and with the assistance of the new government of a princely set up by John Z�polya was started almost instantly. Quite obversely, Lutheranism was brought over to Transylvania in peaceful and scholarly ways, through the Saxons linving in the principality, who benefited from the dissolution of the Hungarian kingdom. Johann Honterus was the spearhead of Lutheranism on Romanian territory. Its peaceful and inductive proselytism led to the configuration of the first cultural movement of a Protestant type among Romanians, after 1550.

What was the offer made to Romanians in the message of the Reformation? The peoples who had adopted the Reformation, be it of a Calvinist, or Lutheran type had been cut off from the Catholic world by accepting – through a revolutionary act – the new dogma which crushed that of Rome. When Protestant proselytism set its eyes on Romanians, it could behold a large un-Catholic people of a faith with which the Reformation was not at war. Since salvation of the soul was observed by Romanians in accordance with Eastern religious tropisms dating from times immemorial, the dethronement of a hope didn’t mean too much to them, whereas the iconoclasm and sanctiphobia of Protestants meant quite a lot, in the sense that it stirred their repulsion. The Calvinist proselyte experience, which attempted a brutal dogmatic interference was doomed to failure. More successful was, however, the cultural offer, concerning the promotion of national languages to be used in church for the clerical service instead of the old „sacred” ones. The language of the Romanian creed was Slavonic. The old Romanian spirituality was dressed in a Slavonic garment, in which hand – written manuscript masterpieces greatly admired even nowadays were skilfully achieved. The pawns of Lutheranism identified, however, in the sphere of the Romanian mentality no reserve regarding the abolition of Church Slavonic. The basic explanation resides in the ancestral attachment of Romanians to their Romance language, which made the great historian Antonio Bonfini remark in amazement that Romanians would fight for their language more biercely than for their life „Non tantum provitae, quantum pro linguae incolumitate certasse videntur”). On this background, the Protestant direction of nationalization yielded early fruit. Lutherans provied with the necessary tools printing centres for propaganda books in the Romanian creed. The earliest printed texts were chapters from the Bible. The name of a scholar, clerk Coresi, who has enjoyed in the history of Romanian culture the fame of an apostle is linked with this pioneering stage of printing.

Like in all European cultures, the printing of the Bible in Romanian was preceded by translations which circulated in manuscript form. The best known of them are three manuscript Psalters subsequently called The Psalter of Şchei, The Psalter of Voroneţ and The Hurmuzachi Psalter, as well as a composite manuscript comprising fragments from the Apostles Deeds and the oecumenical epistles of Apostles Jacob and Peter in The Codex of Voroneţ. Manuscripts and elementary printings have one point in common in so far as biblical texts directly connected with religious service officiated at church are concerned. Between 1561-1580, Coresi managed to print in Romanian 12 works, among which The Gospels (1561), the Apostles Deeds (1563) and a Psalter (1567). The translation trend took over from 1 Corinthians 14, 19 the Protestant slogan in which Apostle Paul reckons that „in the church I had rather speak five words with my understanding, that by my voice. I might teach others also, than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue”. The quote is available in the foreword to the majority of the mentioned biblical publications. The school of translators grouped around Coresi was important on account of its extension so as to comprise within its range the Romanians from Moldavia and Wallachia with regard to the translation of clerical Books. Come from the South of the Carpathians, of Greek origin himself, master Coresi and his disciples cultivated their carisma in both of the Romanian areas geographically and politically split. He was a unifying factor in the pursued end of begetting a national Bible.

As academician Virgil C�ndea has rightly observed, the translation of the Bible was not entailed in Europe by spiritual necessities, but by cultural ones, pertaining to the general image of a faith, rather than to the petty requirements of its sanctuary. The first attempt at achieving a systematic translation of the Bible into Romanian occured in Transylvania under Calvinist influence. It comprised the first two Books of the Old Testament: Genesis and Exodus, translated after a 1551 Hungarian edition of the Pentateuch ascribed to Moses, printed by Gasp�r Heltai at Cluj. The respective Romanian translation was printed at Orăştie in 1582. Beyond its significance as a d�but in the field, The Pentateuch of Orăştie, as that printed work is called, also reflects a linguistic reality specific for the Romanian population of Transylvania. In the introduction to that book, our ethnic name is for the first time spelt with an „o”: Romanians instead of the earlier spelling variant with a „u”: Rumanians, meaning that the Latin etymon is more closely observed....cont.

Originally posted by Rilian:
Now I suppose one could go back and look at all of the historical influences of Protestantism on both Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy if you wanted to. A better test might simply be to go to services in both churches and see where the influences are today. Lex orandi, lex credendi. How you worship is what you believe. I�m a great believer in that saying.

Andrew

Book Reviews: The Faith and Facing East
The Faith: Understanding Orthodox Christianity�An Orthodox Catechism, Clark Carlton, 1997, 286 pp., Regina Press, $22.95.

Facing East: A Pilgrim�s Journey into the Mysteries of Orthodoxy, Frederica Mathewes-Green, Harper, 1996, 245 pp.

Two books about Orthodox Christianity have been recently published, different in content and structure, and yet possessing an underlying similarity. Both works say something about Orthodoxy in America today, and what they say bears some attention.

Clark Carlton came to Orthodoxy in 1988 from a Southern Baptist background and is a graduate of St Vladimir�s Seminary. He wrote The Faith, he said, as "the kind of book I would like to have had when I was a catechumen." It has been widely advertised as being approved by all jurisdictions, (including the Russian Church Abroad), although in fact, the personal opinions of a number of individuals in different jurisdictions were sought and received, nothing more.

The Faith consists of eighteen chapters that deal broadly with the subjects of "The Doctrine of Christ" and "The Life in Christ" (as though these were two separate things). Each chapter consists of four short parts: the content of the chapter itself, a few quotations from the Fathers on the subject under consideration, a "Special Study" that focuses on a particular aspect of that subject, and a section called "Reflection," wherein the reader (or study group) is invited to ask and answer certain relevant questions about that particular chapter. The book has some other interesting features. One section, on the Ecumenical Councils, lists all of the Councils and gives a brief summary of each one�a useful reference. There is also a brief but quite well written chapter on "Creation and Evolution." However, the book lacks an index�an indispensable tool for the reader of a text of this kind. And there are some other lapses.

It is ironic that Mr. Carlton, while making use of a Protestant pedagogic format (perhaps not inappropriate in a vast missionary territory such as North America; it has its uses), criticizes Fr. Michael Pomazansky's classic text, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, for having a Roman Catholic approach. This gratuitous criticism, at the very beginning of the book, is unfortunate, implying as it does that Mr. Carlton considers himself to be some kind of "authority" and his book superior to Fr. Michael�s. It conveys a tone of arrogance typical of some converts who think they "know better"�one of the many spiritual diseases infecting the Church in this country today. The late Fr. Michael, by contrast, was an icon of humility, and a widely and deeply respected theologian, the product of a Russian pre-revolutionary theological education that was steeped in Orthodox spirituality and piety and formed by healthy monastic influences. He was an almost unerring barometer of what is sound and patristic and what is not.

Throughout his text, Mr. Carlton speaks of Orthodoxy in this country as though it were one united Church rather than divided into several troubled jurisdictions. The author speaks glowingly of the 2000 or so evangelical Christians that converted as a group in 1987, but he does not tell his readers that the disturbingly innovative way in which these sincere seekers were received into the Church was very controversial, reflecting a uniquely American kind of Orthodoxy, something consciously trying so hard not to be traditional and old world, that it is becoming something different from Orthodoxy altogether. For example, the author says that "the Orthodox Church has faithfully maintained the apostolic faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3), neither adding to nor subtracting from it." A fine statement, but one which is, in this context, at best an optimistic generalization, for some Orthodox jurisdictions have in fact departed significantly from the Faith "once delivered to the saints," as even a cursory study will reveal.

Although Mr. Carlton gives some of the reasons why Orthodox Christianity is not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, he fails to mention that at the very highest levels (patriarchs and bishops) some Orthodox bodies are in fact very close�dangerously so�to intercommunion with Rome; negotiations, discussions, and joint commissions continue to lay the groundwork for actual union�a goal that few would deny and many ardently await. Also, the chapter on Baptism fails to mention that in the New Calendar jurisdictions the traditional and historic norm for receiving converts by Baptism has now been replaced in this country by the exception to the rule�Chrismation alone�which was historically used only in cases of pastoral necessity, as an act of "economy" rather than as a standard practice. This abuse has created problems of conscience for some converts after they discovered that they were not united to the Church in the traditional way. This is also a matter of serious dispute between various jurisdictions in this country and abroad (for example, on the Holy Mountain, where reception into Orthodoxy is only recognized if it is done by Baptism).

Although Mr. Carlton speaks well of monasticism and encourages people to make pilgrimages to monasteries as an important part of normal spiritual formation, he does not acknowledge that much of what passes for monastic life in this country is unhealthy and, at times, even spiritually or morally diseased. Furthermore, in the Antiochian Archdiocese there are at present no monasteries at all, reflecting the vociferous anti-monastic views of its leaders (who insist that it there are going to be any monastics they must be "good-deed-doers"�viz, running homes for the aged, etc.�and not "merely" praying).

The most problematic chapter concerns marriage and "The Mystery of Love" (with its special Study section, "God and Gender") �a chapter which has generated some controversy and debate because the author has failed to understand the genuine patristic view of marriage and human sexuality. He has not taken fully into account the fact that we live in a sexually dysfunctional and obsessed society (where the word "eros" is commonly equated with "erotic" and "lust"), as a result of which anyone who seeks to discuss this subject must do so with a very careful and sober approach that is thoroughly grounded in the teachings of the Holy Fathers and the lives of the saints. To cite just one example out of many bewildering statements, Mr. Carlton says that "marriage is an end in and of itself"�something that the Church has never taught�and that "the first purpose of Christian marriage is to focus our sexual energies on one person as long as we live"�thus overlooking the Church�s consistent teaching that, in fact, the first purpose of marriage is for the partners to help each other gain the Kingdom of Heaven!

+ + +
Facing East was written by Frederica Mathewes-Green, a commentator on National Public Radio, a syndicated columnist for Religion News Service, and a writer for different publications. This is an account of her journey into Orthodoxy together with her husband (a former Episcopal priest) and their children (two sons, one daughter), who were Chrismated into the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in 1993.

Mrs. Mathewes-Green�s book is interesting, well written, and at times quite entertaining. But there is a kind of "down-home" American casualness and glibness about the way she describes many of her experiences�a quality at once familiar and cloying, as though she were writing for Ladies Home Journal. One suspects that although it will be a best seller in some Orthodox circles, many Orthodox will, if their faith is deeply rooted, find this author�s work strangely alien.

This is not to say that Facing East is a "bad" book, only that it lacks a certain sober Orthodox worldview and "tone." For example, we are introduced to a number of liturgical novelties (such as paschal services in the morning rather than in the middle of the night), fasting rules that seem to be somewhat more flexible than traditional (i.e., dispensing from fasting on Thanksgiving, even though the Nativity Fast has begun), lots of kissing and hugging (Protestant-style), not being given a saint�s name (or worse, as in the case of a baby christened "Peter Aslan"* on page 92), giving one�s life "to Jesus" and taking Him "as your Lord" (as in a Protestant "born again" experience), holding hands when praying, etc. The author revels in statements like "Orthodoxy is a guy thing" �as if somehow Orthodox Christianity is primarily for men. (Under the Soviet Yoke the Faith was preserved and transmitted from one generation to another primarily by women�especially grandmothers!).

It has been suggested that this would be a good book to give to women potentially interested in coming into Orthodoxy. I think not.

Neither The Faith nor Facing East deals with the single most divisive and problematic issue in world Orthodoxy in the 20th century�the Calendar Question, and its close fellow-traveler, ecumenism. These are, admittedly, difficult issues, especially for those in New Calendar jurisdictions to address. From a pastoral perspective, however, even an introduction to Orthodoxy should at least inform the reader that such issues do exist.

+ + +
The purpose of this review is not to criticize the sincere work of others. Rather, it is important to understand that two kinds of Orthodoxy are developing today, right before our very eyes. This has little to do with jurisdictions but a great deal to do with concepts of "traditional" versus "modern" Orthodoxy, "historic" versus "innovative," the "Faith of our fathers" versus the personal faith of this or that church leader (be he bishop, metropolitan or patriarch). Until we come to terms with this, our Holy Church remains deeply embedded in a crisis of nearly apocalyptic proportions.

Probably no one in our time understood this crisis better than the late Hieromonk Seraphim Rose. He wrote of the modern cultural milieu that produces books like The Faith and Facing East. He said that many now "are easily led into error, accepting customs which the Church has allowed out of her condescension or economy as if they were the best of Orthodoxy, and also improper customs of recent heterodox origin and inspiration, together with the pure and meaningful Orthodox customs handed down from the Holy Fathers."

Fr. Seraphim continued, "Far worse, however, is the state of those who, being unrooted in the true sources of Holy Orthodoxy ... in their �learned ignorance� seek to guide [others] according to some fashionable intellectual current of the day ... who, being at home in heterodox modes of thought and life, dare to present the Holy Fathers themselves according to the disfigured modern understanding of them, transmitting neither their true message nor (much less) their Orthodox savor...

"We have today," he wrote, "a prevailing atmosphere of modernist heterodoxy and senseless � keeping up with the times� which has pierced the very heart of some Orthodox Churches so deeply that they will doubtless never recover, and their children are deprived of Orthodoxy without even knowing what they have lost..."**

The great challenge for Orthodoxy in the near future is not to find new and better ways of adapting to the dominant culture by assimilation and thus becoming "relevant"; the challenge is to establish and maintain genuine continuity with the Saints and Fathers of the past. This means more education, for ignorance of the Faith among many Orthodox today is appalling and is the single greatest factor in the crisis we are now facing.

In her book, Frederica Mathewes-Green observed that "I know I�ll never get to the end of Orthodoxy." This is true for all of us. But one must at least be positive that one is for sure walking a true Orthodox path that can eventually lead into the deeper experience of Orthodoxy; we must not be fooled into thinking that the fashionable, modern, and "relevant" Orthodoxy of some jurisdictions today is, in fact, the real thing.

�Fr. Alexey Young

Endnotes
*Aslan refers, of course, to the Lion (representing Christ) in C.S. Lewis' classic series The Chronicles of Narnia.�webmaster

** Fr. Seraphim Rose, Introduction to Blessed Paisius Velichkovsky by Schema-monk Metrophanes, 1976.

From Orthodox America, February 1997.

I am afraid that you must look at the doctrinal teaching as well Andrew. The congregationalism apparent in the Greek Church in the 1990's is a clear example of the Protestantization of Orthodoxy.

That phrase, by the way, Andrew is one I learned from an Orthodox priest. I can post Orthodox sources for that phrase if you need me to do so.

Some of the more recent catechetical resources are sounding more and more like the Catechism of the Catholic Church, particularly with regard to such things as the ancestral sin and Baptism for the remission of sin.

I'd like to see more corrections made in the pastoral teachings concerning the Eucharist in many of the jurisdictions and individual parishes where the priests have had no training or very little training, and who come from protestant backgrounds with various understandings of real presence. But I suspect all that will come in time.

Jim Likoudis may not be my favorite Catholic apologist either, but he is not dead wrong by any means.

You struggle so hard to deny the elephant in the living room. I don't want to beat you over the head with it. I've made my point sufficiently.

BTW Andrew my only point has been that one does not want to paint Orthodoxy with a protestant brush simply because of some fairly strong influences over the centuries. By the same token I'd like to see Orthodox faithful, some of the more virulent anti-papal ones at least, extend that same curtesy to the papal Church.

And as a PS: there are many very loud and bossy Anglo-Protestants who know full well that Cranmer and Calvin sip from the same cup. All you have to do is ask them

Originally posted by Rilian:
I am afraid that you must look at the doctrinal teaching as well Andrew. The congregationalism apparent in the Greek Church in the 1990's is a clear example of the Protestantization of Orthodoxy.

If you want to find a clear example of Protestantization go to the RCC parish in the town where I grew up. You�ll find a starkly bare interior, a �holy table� in place of the altar with a cross (not a crucifix) behind it, a priest who faces west, concert style singing and folk hymns, and female lay people serving communion.

Originally posted by JonnNightwatcher:
...the point here is that we should not assume that we live in isolated and sterile boxes. we are going to be influenced by other concepts and insights. it's just part of being human.
Much Love,
Jonn [/QB]

Contact with the West



The third major factor in our Church's development has been the influence of Western Christianity. Although there was never a time when there was not some kind of relationship between Eastern and Western Christians, perhaps the most decisive of such contacts came in the wake of the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation in Western Europe. The challenges of this age motivated a great deal of activity of all kinds in the West. One of these movements concerned the East.

Early in the Reformation some Protestant authorities had established communication with the Greek patriarch in Constantinople, hoping to find a common faith with the Orthodox. Although one patriarch, Cyril (Lukaris), showed marked Calvinist leanings, the Orthodox were quick to refute Protestantism in their church.

In reaction Roman began opening a series of colleges for Eastern Christians in Rome: the Greek College, the Maronite college, the Armenian college. These were welcomed by the Easterners who had no opportunities for learning under the Turks. The renaissance and baroque eras were the West�s most creative and developed ages, and the contrast with the subjected Christians of the East was painfully obvious. The next hundred years were marked by a continually increasing Westernization of the Eastern Churches. The Orthodox in Eastern Europe, were free to establish learning centers, adopted Western methods, even in the study of theology. The Orthodox in the Middle East, who were not free in this way, welcomed the presence of Western clergy and nuns who opened schools on European models under the protection of the European embassies. From a cultural standpoint the Westernization of the Byzantine Churches, which began in earnest at this time, continued unchecked until the present century.

Throughout the seventeenth century, a number of bishops and patriarchs favored union with Rome, for various reasons. They were accustomed to seeing an outside patriarch as a patron, a role which the equally subject patriarch in Constantinople could no longer fulfill. In addition, local ecclesiastical politics was often a factor. One party in a controversy would appeal to Constantinople: the other would profess union with Rome. If the favorite of Rome achieved his goal, he often rennounced his association with the Pope. It had served its purpose. It can be said that the flirtation with Rome in this period was a reaction to Constantinople�s centuries old habit of interfering in the affairs of the Middle East.

Towards the end of the seventeenth century several bishops of the Antiochian patriarchate sent a profession of faith to Rome. The Pope appointed one of them, Bishop Euthymios (Saifi) of Tyre and Sidon as vicar for any Catholics not under any of these bishops. Finally in 1724 the Catholics chose Euthymios� nephew, Seraphim Tanas, the preacher of the patriarchate, to head the Antiochian Church. The Orthodox appealed to Constantinople which appointed a Cypriot monk on Mount Athos, Sylvester, as patriarch. This marks the beginning of the two Greek patriarchates of Antioch , Catholic and Orthodox, which exist today.

Curiously enough the Latin man missionaries in the Middle East at the time were themselves divided over which patriarch to recognize. International politics and regional loyalties enabled with questions of doctrine any clues he asked ideology, leaving the situation fluid for several years. It was not until a full 20 years later after his election that Cyril was recognized by Rome as patriarch.

This division into two rival patriarchates has several consequences which affect us to this day. The first is institutional: that we exist as a distinct community, separated from the Antiochian Orthodox Church with which we were one for 1700 years. We share the same liturgical, spiritual and theologic tradition but have gone on own way for over two centuries. At the beginning the division was bitter, later on people got used to it and accepted it as normal. This is perhaps worse than the bitterness, because it says that the division is to be expected in the Body of Christ.



For Your Reflection


In many places, particularly in some parts of the Middle East, there is cooperation between our patriarchs, bishops, and local parish priest. Yet it is too easy for us to concentrate on our own activities and not feel the pain of separation from this, our closest Sister Church. Reflect on your own experience, then consider this:

What do you think can be done in your community in common with our sister Antiochian Orthodox Church? What must be done separately?
How important is it to you that such cooperation take place?
Where might you start to initiate such activity?




The Second Consequence


The second consequence is on the level of ideas and attitudes: because of our union with Rome, we've come under an ever increasing Westernizing influence during the last 250 years. As clergy and people promoted Western Catholic education for themselves and their children, they exchanged their own proper heritage for the western theology and spirituality of the time. What was a Roman Catholic was, after all, European and what was European was clearly superior to anything and their experience, or so it seemed.

While clearly seeking to introduce Western thinking into the Melkite community, Rome insisted that the liturgy remain unadulterated. Nevertheless, a growing number of Western customs found their way into Melkite practice. Even when they did not, our community understood less and less of the spirit which had formed its worship. It retained the forms, but was going further and further away from the thinking which underlies these forms. We approached Byzantine Christianity in much the way that Kierkegaard described religion and modernist Europe. We were making tea with a piece of paper that had lain in a drawer next to used tea bag. In other words, there was some connection back in with our Eastern heritage, but it had become so watered down as to be unrecognizable in many instances.

Curiously, something similar happened to the Orthodox. In reaction to Rome, which had swallowed a goodly number of its children, the Antiochian Orthodox Church welcomed the Protestant missionaries from England and the US. Although the goal was first to assist the Local Church, these missionaries some decided that orthodoxy was "unreformed" (or on reformable) and set up their own congregations, drawing many away from the Church. The result was a number of former Orthodox Christians formed into imitation Victorian Protestants, singing "Nearer My God to Thee" in Arabic. As in the Catholic experience, Protestantism was seen as superior because it was European. The importance of this cultural factor is clear when we realize that in some parts of the Middle East the popular name for all Catholics was "Frenchmen" (Frangi) and for all Protestants was �Englishmen" (Ingleesi)!



Recovering an Identity


Throughout the eighteenth century our Melkite ancestors lived in a fragile existence. Spiritually and culturally they had identified with European Catholics and yet we're not European. Civilly they remained as part of the Greek or Rum millet, which meant that they were still civil subjects of the Ecumenical Patriarch, although no longer in communion with him. This only changed in the nineteenth century when the Sultan removed the Catholics from his rule. The Sultan was not doing this out of any consideration for the Melkites, but to punish the Ecumenical Patriarch for the Greek Revolution of the 1820' s!

At first the Melkites were made part of a generic Catholic millet with an Armenian priest as ethnarch, but they continued to agitate for recognition as a separate "nation". This was achieved at last in 1848 through the efforts of Patriarch Maximos III. Over 100 years after its ecclesiastical identity was determined, the Melkite community attained civil recognition.

Civic status was extremely important to the Melkites of that day. It provided them with a sense of identity, recognition that they were a Church, a distinct community, not a part of another identity. They continued to find their identity in this civil nationhood as long as the Turks governed the Middle East. The Church retains some civil functions to this day in some parts of the Middle East, where Church courts often have the power which belong to probate courts in the U.S.

The millet system continued until the downfall of the Ottoman Empire after World War One when power in the Middle East passed from the Turks to the British and French. When that happened, a new nationalist identity (eg. Syrian or Lebanese) began to emerge and the Churches began losing their tribal functions. The Melkite community started to look elsewhere to find its purpose: back to the roots of its Eastern spiritual heritage.

The Westernizing tendency mentioned above was especially strong after the First Vatican Council. Vatican officials constantly sought to control the activities of the patriarchate, despite continual Papal assurances that the patriarchal autonomy of our Church would be respected. This prompted several of our clergy in Egypt to begin investigating the sources of Eastern Christianity during the 1930's. This coterie, nicknamed the Cairo School, included our present patriarch, Maximos V, our eparch, Archbishop Joseph, and the late Archimandrite Orestes Kerame as well as Archbishop Elias Zoghby and Father Michael Geday. Their studies and writings over the next 30 years made a strong impression on our community, reorienting its direction from being a willing participant in the Latinization process. Now the leadership in the Melkite community began to oppose the same Westernizing tendencies in had so long endorsed.

This turnabout came to a head at the Second Vatican Council (1960-65) when an articulate group of Melkite bishops had a great effect in returning the Catholic Church to more collegial and participatory lifestyle. The addresses of Patriarch Maximos IV and other bishops were significant in determining the council's teachings and the nature of the Church and the question of freedom and conscience. Their liturgical witness was received with respect and affected a number of changes in Roman worship. The Ecumenical Patriarch, Athenagoras, considered that Maximos IV was his "representative" at the Catholic Council.

In terms of our own community, this Council�s Decree on Eastern Catholic Church's confirmed the direction begun by the �Cairo School� a generation before. It called on us to remain faithful to all our traditions as well as to any which had been allowed to lapse through misunderstanding and neglect. It recognized that we had, not only our own Liturgy, but our own proper spirituality, theology and discipline as well. We were a constituent Church in the Catholic family and needed to maintain fidelity to our traditions if our witness was to be credible. Finally, as a result of this conciliar activity, our community in America was formally instituted as a local Church under the presidency of our own hierarchy, Bishop Justin (Najmy).

The recovery of our Eastern identity is an ongoing process. We have made great strides in this direction in the past 20 years, especially in the area of liturgy. There remains much to be done, particularly on the level of the structural and ecumenical levels, if we are to fulfill our call to witness to the possibility of an authentically Eastern Christian Church living in communion with the Church of Rome.

Working out of this process in our parishes has sometimes been welcomed with joy and at other times has been a source of contention. People have been shaken by the removal of statues or holy water fonts, were confused by the introduction of vespers and orthros. This was anticipated by the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council who said,

"All Eastern right members should know and be convinced that they can and should always preserve their lawful liturgical rites and their established way of life, and that these should not be altered except by way of an appropriate an organic development. Easterner�s themselves should honor all these things with the greatest fidelity. Besides they should acquire an even greater knowledge and more exact use of them. If they have improperly fall of away from them because of circumstances of time or personage, let them take pains to return to their ancestral ways." (Decree on Eastern Catholic Churches, 6)