“All current versions of Christianity can be very conditionally divided into two major groups – traditional and liberal,” said Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the chairman of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Department for External Church Relations, speaking to a group of Anglicans in London.
The abyss that exists today divides not so much the Orthodox from the Catholics or the Catholics from the Protestants as it does the ‘traditionalists’ from the ‘liberals’. Some Christian leaders, for example, tell us that marriage between a man and a woman is no longer the only way of building a Christian family: there are other models and the Church should become appropriately ‘inclusive’ to recognize alternative behavioural standards and give them official blessing. Some try to persuade us that human life is no longer an absolute value; that it can be terminated in a mother’s womb or that one can terminate one’s life at will. Christian ‘traditionalists’ are being asked to reconsider their views under the slogan of keeping abreast with modernity.
The metropolitan goes on, after a review of the generally friendly relation of Orthodoxy and Anglicanism for the last 150 years, to say that he is concerned about “the fate of this dialogue,” which is “approaching collapse” because of “the liberalism and relativism which have become so characteristic of today’s Anglican theology,” and practice as well, when some Anglican “have taken them [steps] even farther away from our common Christian Church Tradition.”
He mentions the problem of the Anglicans’ ordination of women bishops and the cheerful Anglican idea that if this harms relations with Orthodoxy and Catholicism, it’ll improve relations with the Scandinavian Lutheran Churches (Titanic, meet Lusitania). And then he says something startlingly blunt for such an occasion:
Many Protestant and Anglican communities refuse to preach Christian moral values in secular society and prefer to adjust to worldly standards.
Our Church must sever its relations with those churches and communities that trample on the principles of Christian ethics and traditional morals. Here we uphold a firm stand based on Holy Scripture. . . .
What can these churches say to their faithful and to secular society? What kind of light do they shine upon the world (cf. Mt. 5:14)? What is their ‘salt’? I am afraid the words of Christ can be applied to them: If the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men (Mt. 5:13).
The situation leaves Orthodoxy looking at its allies in other ecclesial bodies, especially the Catholic Church, which is a significant statement in itself.
We are not alone in our concern for the preservation of Christian values. . . . [W]e seek and find allies in opposing the destruction of the very essence of Christianity. One of the major tasks in our inter-Christian work today is to unite the efforts of Christians for building a system of solidarity on the basis of Gospel morality in Europe and throughout the world. Our positions are shared by the Roman Catholic Church, with which we have held numerous meetings and conferences. Together we are considering the possibility of establishing an Orthodox-Catholic alliance in Europe for defending the traditional values of Christianity. The primary aim of this alliance would be to restore a Christian soul to Europe. We should be engaged in common defence of Christian values against secularism and relativism.
Thanks to the weekly newsletter from Robert Moynihan, the editor of the magazine Inside the Vatican, for the lead and the link.
September 15th, 2010 | 1:09 am
There is a need for discernment on both sides. Liberals may be too uncritical in embracing new trends, such as gender equality. Taditionalists may be too uncritical of traditional ideas and practices, such as the patriarchal structure of most Christian churches. Issues of human sexuality are key. I am not ready to throw out the traditions accumulated for 2000 years, but we must recognize that such traditions must be sanitized of primitive thinking that is no longer relevant. This is especially true with regard to the ordination of women to the diaconate, the priesthood, and the episcopate. It is time to recognize that the maleness of Jesus and the 12 apostles is a limitation, not a norm. What matters is the Jesus was human, not that he was male. It follows, that the traditional view that only males can represent Jesus at the celebration of the Eucharist is a theologically baseless absurdity.
September 15th, 2010 | 1:21 am
Mr. Gutierrez, I think the Metropolitan was speaking against the exact ideas you are endorsing.
September 15th, 2010 | 1:42 am
If any comment led off to simply illustrate the concerns of Metropolitan Hilarion that of Ms. Gutierrez (above) is a prime example of the mush of “liberal” thinking (sic). In the course of not throwing “out the traditions accumulated for 2000 years,” she just threw out the baby, the bathwater and the bowl.
September 15th, 2010 | 8:58 am
Mr. Gutierrez demonstrates the same kind of compromised thinking one finds in Progressives who believe in the so-called ‘living’ Constitution–you know, the one where our God-given rights aren’t quite so ‘inalienable’ after all.
Give me the Remnant any day.
September 15th, 2010 | 9:04 am
I just don’t buy the tired old argument that the male priesthood is a cultural artifact of its ancient time. It’s difficult for us to fully grasp just how radical Christ’s message was to his contemporaries…healing on the sabbath, forgiveness of sins, inclusion of the gentiles, respect for women, the loosening — in some cases outright abandonment– of Jewish law; I doubt the One who came to usher in a new reality would have had any qualms about ordaining women if that was His intent. An earnest study of Mary’s role is the only medicine here.
September 15th, 2010 | 10:15 am
What supporters of women’s ordination don’t realize is that this, the ordination of women, is not just an isolated phenonemon – that we can just ordain women but everything else in Christian practice and doctrine will stay the same. To the contrary, ordination of women brings with it a whole trainload of modernist heresy. This has been the clear lesson of all the denominations that have ordained women: soon all the fundamental doctrines of Christianity are betrayed and a soft sort of neo-paganism is put in its place. The argument that “Jesus would have ordained women” is, besides, a pure fallacy – the fallacy from silence or ignorance (“Since this writer doesn’t mention having husband or child, she must’ve been unmarried and childless” – real, answer, we don’t know). This the the most common fallacy that modernists committ when they want the Gospel to fit the trends of the moment. What we do know is that Jesus made men his apostles. Oh, he was just conceding to the “patriarchical prejudices” of his time. But since when did Jesus concede anything to anyone’s prejudices?
September 15th, 2010 | 12:47 pm
I wonder if the words chosen by the Metropolitan cause a misunderstanding of his intent.
He seems to be speaking mainly of the compromise of Christian moral principles, when he uses the term “liberal”, and the retention of true moral principles when using the term “traditional.”
I would use the terms “orthodox” (small o) vs “dissenting”–or better yet, “true” vs “false.”
But beyond the question of finding “allies” in the cause, we need to be seeking unity. The scandal of Christian disunity is a deeper and more harmful problem than whom to include or exclude from one’s list.
September 15th, 2010 | 12:56 pm
If the facts that Jesus was incarnated as a man and the person who made his birth possible was a woman are “theologically baseless absurdities,” without significance for men and women and children of today, we may as well have the decency to admit, as Pope Benedict once commented, that we have reached “the end of the road” as a coherent faith.
September 17th, 2010 | 12:12 pm
[...] Russian Orthodox Archbishop Hilarion, a friend of Benedict’s, did not make friends with secularists in London, the other day. I saw a clever headline about it: Hilarion not Nice at Nicean [...]
September 17th, 2010 | 4:20 pm
BINGO! Brilliant, Caroline W. You’ve hit the nail on the head. May I add that a study of the motherhood and bridehood of the Church will also be salutary?
To Ars Artium’s comments, I add that the view the Jesus’ maleness is only a “theologically baseless absurdity” because our cultural education system has lost sense of the distinctiveness of men and women as such, and in general, of the nature of authentic masculinity and femininity and how they relate. They might consider a study of the Dao De Ching (I kid you not), a text whose bona fides they will surely accept, for a sense of how the two relate to each other in nature and in an idealized way among people who do not know Christ. Christ does not obliterate male and female (pace quoters of St. Paul – that’s not what he meant, which you would know if you read his whole corpus) but rather sanctifies them.
September 18th, 2010 | 7:59 am
Strictly speaking, Jesus did not ordain anyone, did He?
September 18th, 2010 | 3:27 pm
Luis, It really doesn’t matter what individual’s opinion is…even yours. Jesus is God. We’re following in His footprints. That’s all that matters.
BTW, when more time is spent listening to Him & His Church rather than speculating/lecturing, water again becomes wine.
September 18th, 2010 | 9:25 pm
Very interesting topic. As a conservative Christian I have some distaste for having female clergy and do not believe in gay marriage. But that aside I think there is a larger problem facing the West and Christianity. There are some denominations I would deem “cultish” in the past and wanted nothing to do with them however with the threat we face I think we need to take a step back from our possibly narrow interpretation and set up a bigger tent and invite more in with us.
If one can’t figure out what threat I am talking about then I’m not sure I could help you if I named it.
September 21st, 2010 | 11:45 pm
For BE:
Jesus ordained the Apostles before His Ascension, as St. Luke says He “entellomai”-ed the Apostles and charged them with the mission of spreading the Gospel. Luke says this at the beginning of Acts: “We composed the first discourse, O Theophilus, touching upon all the things which Jesus began to do and to teach, until the day wherein, after He had endowed His apostles with the power to act in His name through the Holy Spirit, He was taken up (into Heaven).”
The Greek, if it shows up, is: Τὸν μὲν πρῶτον λόγον ἐποιησάμην περὶ πάντων, ὦ Θεόφιλε, ὧν ἤρξατο Ἰησοῦς ποιεῖν τε καὶ διδάσκειν, 2 ἄχρι ἧς ἡμέρας ἐντειλάμενος τοῖς ἀποστόλοις διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου οὓς ἐξελέξατο ἀνελήμφθη.
The Greek word “entellomai,” can roughly mean “deputize” – it means to endow someone with one’s own personal power and authority for a certain task. Liddel and Scott translate it as: “invest with legal powers; authorize to act.” The first definition of the word is “to command,” but it definitely has this other meaning (hence Liddel and Scott give it). In this context, and especially in the middle voice, I think it really makes more sense to translate it as “invest with legal power and authorize to act.” Jerome translates it as “praecipere,” which lacks the sense of “endow with powers,” but does contain the sense of “gave precepts,” that is, duties to perform and instruction as to how to perform them.
The consensus of the Tradition is that Christ did ordain the Apostles. There are a few instances where Christ directly commits priestly tasks to the Apostles, and the understanding of how Christ Himself would ordain, is ovbiously different from how a (merely) human bishop would ordain. The bishops must supplicate the Holy Spirit in a formal way and transmit the Holy Orders, by God’s grace, in the prescribed manner. Christ, being God Himself, was capable of ordaining the Apostles in a more direct way. It may be that Christ did something formal, which is not recorded. More probably (and traditionally) the various commissions given them by Christ, are in fact the way in which He ordained them.
Christ gave the Apostles the power of binding and loosing and forgiving sins (“Whose sins ye forgive, they are forgiven them,” etc.); He commanded them to go forth and preach the Gospel, initiating converts into the Church by baptism (“Go ye forth into all nations and preach the Gospel, baptizing them in the name…” etc.); He gave them the task of celebrating the Eucharist (“Do this in commemoration of Me,” etc.); St. Luke informs us that Jesus deputized the Apostles before His Ascension (see above), albeit without specifically saying when or how; finally, the Lord poured the Holy Spirit out upon them at Pentecost, and entrusted only the Apostles with the power to transmit the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands (hence the need for the Apostles to complete, or confirm, the work of St. Phillip the deacon).
So, while mere men have a different rite for ordaining new men to succeed them to the priesthood, our Lord simply entrusted the Apostles with the power and mission and doctrine and rites, with which He wanted to invest the priesthood.
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact