It may seem unusual for a traditionalist Orthodox Christian to write an article for a traditionalist Anglican journal. Unusual, because Anglicanism claims to be a branch of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church by virtue of its possession of the historic episcopate, priestly ministry and celebration of catholic sacraments, and unusual because the Eastern Church, on the contrary, unequivocally maintains that the Holy Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church is not a branch, but the whole tree, roots, trunk, limbs, branches, twigs and leaves, by virtue of its preservation without amendment, alteration or suppression of the Faith of the Undivided Church, expressed in its liturgies, the unaltered Nicene Creed, and the seven Ecumenical Councils. For the Orthodox Church the West, beginning with Rome, is in schism and heresy.
Nevertheless, while I do wholeheartedly accept, as an Orthodox Christian, these ecclesiological and dogmatic positions, I also bear a fondness for Anglican Christianity. Like many, I came to a love for sacramental and liturgical worship and a basically catholic world view as an Anglican. And like many who discover the dogmatic writings of the Church Fathers, my love and study of Patristics began with the Eerdmans translations of the Church Fathers that were largely inspired by Anglicanism and the Oxford Movement, a series that still remains indispensable for Patristic study. I have an affection for Anglicanism, therefore, that runs very deep, for in many ways Anglicanism brought me to Orthodoxy.
But there are deeper theological reasons for an article such as this, for there are parallels within the Anglican and Orthodox experience in this century, particularly in North America and Westem Europe. Briefly put, both Anglicanism and Orthodoxy have been struggling to preserve their respective integral doctrinal, ministerial and liturgical traditions in the face of hierarchs who seem at best indifferent to or ignorant of them, and at worst deliberately out to destroy them and change them into the cheap Ersatz of modernism. Of course this phenomenon is not confined merely to Anglicanism and Orthodoxy but has also profoundly affected the lives of other ecclesiastical bodies as well. Part of the reason may be assigned to the prevailing materialism and scepticism of the age, but this would not account for the vitality of Christian communities in the Third World, nor for the disturbing theological undercurrents evident in many areas of the Third World.
Father George William Rutler at the Denver Consecrations of the first four bishops of the Continuum diagnosed a much deeper cause. What we are experiencing, he warned, was part of a struggle between orthodoxy and modernism that was transforming and renewing all the churches of Christendom. The former Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Graham Leonard, was even less optimistic with his repeated warnings of a type of trans-confessional apostasy which would, he maintained, redraw the boundaries of orthodoxy and apostasy upon lines very different from the current denominational institutions.
These opinions found a remarkably similar echo in the writings of the Russian Orthodox Archimandrite Constantine (Russian Church Abroad):
"...there appear two conflicting processes which cannot but develop more and more clearly in the process of the unfolding of apostasy: on the one hand, the appearance within all Christian denominations of a certain kernel of "faithful" who are prepared to endure all in their faithfulness to their denomination in its original form...and at the same time the appearance, completely natural, with the drawing together in the name of faithfulness to Christ, of a sympathetic interest in the content of the faith of all the denominations thus drawn together,,"
At first glance, the approach of these three men, each of unimpeachable orthodoxy at the time they made their remarks, may seem to be but a restatement of Saint Augustine of Hippo's formulation of the church in the "City of God", where he distinguished between the visible Church on earth, composed both of holy and unholy members, and the invisible heavenly Church, all of whose members were holy, but whose members were known only to God in the inscrutability of His divine election.
Closer analysis reveals this is not the mere restatement of Augustine, however. Saint Augustine's focus is largely moral.
The new situation described by these three clerics is something entirely different. Augustine's "true" and "false" church were formulated in part on the basis of his theory of predestination: the true Church was invisible and known only to God. The true Church existed inside of the visible, corrupt Church on earth.
The new situation, while confusing, is different precisely because the focus is on the "visible" Church entirely. It is visible and discernible because its focus is not the invisible human heart nor the unknown and inscrutable divine election of Augustine's theory, but the doctrinal truth and traditions of a particular ecclesiastical body and the degree to which that body adheres to its own traditions.
What distinguishes the Church from this "anti-Church", regardless of the denomination in question, is thus not morality but whether or not the individual in view accepts the very idea of religious or dogmatic truth at all. An orthodox Presbyterian, for example, would have far more in common with an orthodox Roman Catholic, in spite of their very real differences, simply because both would recognise this principle of truth, and, by virtue of it, be capable of genuine disagreement.
The anti-Church, rejecting this principle, views doctrinal, liturgical, conciliar and confessional formularies, no matter how ancient or venerable, as adiaphora, subject to revision or rejection as the situation demands. Consequently, since truth is no longer the issue, it is incapable of genuine differences of doctrine; it sees only differences of emphasis and formulation.
At this point a variety of subtle tactics may be employed to suppress or to paper over such differences, all variations on the ancient Gnostic practice of pseudomorphosis, of borrowing familiar Christian terms and coupling entirely new meanings to them.
These variations may take the form of inventing new terms altogether, of detaching the meaning of a term from the term and ascribing meaning to "what was really intended", and even the simple expedients of failing to define key terms at all or quietly dropping such formularies as cannot be dealt with in any other fashion.
The documents of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU) very effectively illustrate all these tactics and assumptions of the anti-church at work. The various ministries of participating member denominations are to be integrated into a threefold ministry which will be called that of "bishop, presbyter and deacon" simply because most denominations have offices which correspond administratively to the functions of these orders. But COCU is quick to point out that the ancient church allegedly exercised many different types of ministry, and that the warrant of Scripture cannot be exclusively claimed for any of them. Thus, confessional statements of the various member churches on ministry and polity are to be subordinated to the COCU scheme
itself and the terms "bishop, presbyter and deacon" interpreted in accordance with the scheme itself, and not in accordance with the original confessional positions. As a consequence of its abandonment of revealed truth, the anti-church movement contains within itself an imperative towards a merely institutional union, since genuine unity in truth, worship, ministry and life is rejected. Thus, any union achieved by the anti-church can only rest on the flimsy foundations of mere externals, in homogenised ritualism and a "consensus of expression".
The process of this liturgical and ecclesiological homogenisation will be familiar to most Continuing Anglicans, so there is no need to recount it here. But it may be summarised by stating that radicals in position of authority will attempt to coerce debate by proceeding with an action or agenda that is contrary to the doctrinal tradition of a given church, as was the case of the Episcopal bishops who "ordained" the in famous Philadelphia Eleven: first establish the precedent, then make it law.
In this situation, some orthodox Anglicans see in Eastern Orthodoxy what other orthodox Anglicans see in Rome: a bedrock of stability, orthodoxy, a confidence in its institutions and a willingness to perpetuate and strengthen them. They have accordingly been attracted to both bodies, particularly in north America. But sadly it must be clearly and frankly stated that Orthodoxy, particularly in North America, is in a state of grave spiritual, doctrinal and liturgical sickness. Each of the assumptions and tactics previously mentioned have become the modus vivendi of the upper echelons of most Orthodox jurisdictions in North America, and have fuelled "Continuing Orthodox" jurisdictions both in Europe and America. The Anglican considering joining the Orthodox Church must therefore make his decision based upon a prayerful appraisal of the truth of Orthodoxy on the one hand, and on the other hand on a mature consideration of the actual realities of Orthodoxy's current practice and jurisdictional fragmentation. He must train himself to be aware of the form that the tactics and assumptions of what I have called the "anti-church" will take in the Eastem Church. Some of these I will now attempt to survey.
One
Orthodoxy presents a facade of doctrinal and liturgical unity that evaporates on close inspection. In North America, there are no less than five major jurisdictions with any claim to "canonical" status, and a bewildering array of micro-jurisdictions, usually, with two significant exceptions, of a questionably "traditional" character. This in and of itself should indicate that something is seriously wrong within Orthodoxy. While even a survey of these various jurisdictions would be too lengthy to recount here, it is useful to distinguish broadly between the two types, modernist and traditionalist.
Modernist jurisdictions may be easily discerned by their involvement in the official organs of the ecumenical movement, by their abandonment of the unrevised Julian calendar in favour of the Revised Julian calendar, by a tendency to liturgical experimentation and confusion, by a more or less uniform abandonment of biblical and liturgical English, by the teaching of the liberal forms of higher Biblical criticism in their seminaries, and by the exercise of sheer brute force on the part of some hierarchs to coerce changes in the canonical traditions of
the Orthodox Church. The three best-known jurisdictions in North America are the Syrian Antiochian Archdiocese (Metropolitan Philip Saliba, Primate) ,the Greek Archdiocese of North and South America (Archbishop Iakavos) and the Orthodox Church in America (Metropolitan Theodosius). Mention must also be made of the parishes in North America still under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate.
To a certain extent, these jurisdictions all share a common history, and to that extent, common problems. At the turn of the century, when North America was a more or less united jurisdiction under the Russian Church, Greek and Arab parishes were served for the most part by clergy of their own ethnic background. In one instance, the Russian Church petitioned Antioch for an Arab bishop to minister to the Arabic speaking Orthodox churches. In the wake of the Russian
Revolution, however, jurisdictional and canonical unity fragmented into the component ethnic groups, as each sought out its mother church in Europe and formed its own jurisdiction in lieu of the moral and theological implications of remaining in communion with Moscow, whose theological and ecclesiological position in the aftermath of the Revolution was confusing if not precarious.
Lacking unified episcopal direction, the orthodox Churches in America each began in their own different way, to come to grips with maintaining the Orthodox identity in America on the one hand, and the task of evangelism within a very different culture on the other. America became by default the testing ground on which Orthodox scholars and theologians educated largely in France could test new approaches to ecclesiology, liturgy and theology in the ecumenical context of the
United States. In this atmosphere, a variety of small concessions such as pews, clerical suits, less stylized iconography and of course the New Calendar, was tolerated.
Much more serious, however, was the emerging development within each of these jurisdictions of its own peculiar vision of dealing with more fundamental issues.
For example, the parishes of the Greek Archdiocese often continue to use Greek in their services, while at the official level the bishops espouse the use of Modern English in services, while some Greek scholars rightly protest that the English of the King James version is far better equipped to the task of dealing with the subtleties of the Greek. The Antiochian Archdiocese, on the other
hand, has recently published a Liturgikon (similar to an altar missal) which uses liturgical English throughout The Orthodox Church in America seems unable to make up its mind, and practice varies greatly from parish to parish and diocese to diocese.
The issue of the form of English is not a trifling one, nor simply a matter of mere aesthetics. At one level, it reflects the inability of these jurisdictions to come to terms with the clear indications of Orthodox tradition: that where there exists a form of the language specifically associated with religious and philosophical expression, that form of the language should be used; the vernacular is one thing, the colloquial and mundane is quite another. By adopting this form of English, these individuals and jurisdictions have chosen the opposite tack to that of the King James translators and the Book of Common Prayer. Rather than trying to force the English to bear biblical and Orthodox concepts, reverence and mystery, they have opted for the tried and failed expedient of the "easily understood", when neither the Bible nor Orthodox theology are about things "easily understood".
These jurisdictions have compounded the picture in another deep and fundamental way, for they have each sanctioned the use of the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Scriptures. For the Orthodox, as for the Anglicans, this is no small matter, for it means nothing less than the fact that these jurisdictions have abandoned the only version of the Scriptures in the English language
- the King James - which preserves a New Testament text substantially that of the ecclesiastical text of the Orthodox Church, for a version whose underlying Greek text is the mutilated, threadbare and seductive textual clothing of the latest critical fashions. While the issues here are numerous and too complex to consider in detail, the consequences of this step alone will be far-reaching, for the Holy Gospels are not only read at every Orthodox service, but venerated as well.
Such a step implies spiritual and doctrinal consequences that bode ill for the health of Orthodoxy in the future.
Of the traditionalist jurisdictions there are primarily two, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, variously known as the Russian Synod, or the Synod Abroad, and the Greek Old Calendarists. Both jurisdictions reject outright any involvement with the ecumenical movement, reject the New Calendar, and tend to favour both the traditional liturgical English and the King James Bible in their English language parishes. Neither jurisdiction was formed in reaction to currents in North America, but were transplanted from Europe, where they were constituted in part in reaction to deviations from what they understood to be canonical norms. Like all traditionalist resistance movements, however, they have attracted extremist elements. These extremist elements usually manifest themselves in some sort of extreme reaction to "the West". In one case, some attempted even to deny the status of Saint Augustine of Hippo as a Church Father simply because many of the peculiarly western deviations from Orthodoxy stem from his theological writings.
Unfortunately, these types of extremist groups end in the same revisionism they attempt to deny, for Saint Augustine's name is clearly enumerated as a father of the Church by the Fifth Ecumenical Council, and thus his status as a father of the Church can only be denied by an assertion that the Fifth Ecumenical Council did not really know what it was talking about! While it is true that Saint Augustine has never approached the stature in the East that he has in the West, it is nevertheless a fact that he is a saint of the Orthodox Church, read for instruction in piety, but not for instruction in theology, a position remarkably similar to the position he held in some portions of the West prior to his elevation to the status of the quintessential Father in the Carolingian period.
Holy
We saw that a favourite tactic of an individual committed to an agenda of "reform" is to establish his agenda through a precedent dependent for its validity on the exercise of brute authority. The Antiochian Archdiocese affords perhaps the best, though not the only example to appreciate the application of this strategem in Orthodoxy. By Orthodox canon law, a priest may be married if he marries before ordination. If his wife should die before he does, he is to remain a widower the rest of his life, and may not remarry. These strictures may seem odd or even erroneous to an Anglican, but it is important to see behind them to the principle involved in unsettling these norms.
Recently Metropolitan Philip (Saliba) of the Antiochian Archdiocese allowed a priest to remarry after his wife had died after a tragic illness. This produced a furor throughout not only the Antiochian Archdiocese but other Orthodox jurisdictions as well, both Modernist and
Traditionalist. There was no canonical justification forthcoming, but only the insistence by Metropolitan Philip that he had the authority to do so, and that everyone must accept his decision. This unfortunate incident is not an isolated example, however, of erratic behaviour, for a few short years previous to this Metropolitan Philip had received en masse the so-called "Evangelical Orthodox Church", a group of former Protestants who had read themselves into Orthodoxy. While the motivations for their reception were laudable, the manner and timing of it were at best questionable. Orthodox tradition is to ordain only one person to any rank of clergy in any given church on any given day.
Again, Metropolitan Philip, on the basis of very dubious precedent, decided unilaterally to set aside tradition and proceed with ordinations of Evangelical Orthodox clergy en masse. While these may seem trifling matters, they loom much more ominously when one considers the fact
that within Orthodoxy there is a disturbing trend among a few theologians who wish for the Church to rethink her understanding of the role of women in the Church; with the presence of bishops willing on their own authority to flout received tradition and canonical norms, the situation is much more ominous than first meets the eye.
Read: Part 2
