Ascension, Presence, and... Absence?

Ever notice how hard it is to find scholarly commentary on the Ascension of Christ? Probably you haven’t, because Ascension is one of those feasts that seems to slip by practically unnoticed; it’s hard to imagine a packed church for the feast, let alone anyone scouring the religion section at Barnes and Noble for the latest theological discourse on the event. Nonetheless, although it seems lost between Pascha and Pentecost and so inconveniently always falls on a Thursday, Ascension is for me perhaps the highlight of the year: I was received into the Holy Orthodox Church on that very feast. And as I write this, I am anticipating two upcoming - and, as you will see, connected - ecclesial events: Ascension 2005 (the seventh anniversary of my reception into the Church) and the end of the 40 days of mourning for the newly-reposed Archpriest John Platko.

Admittedly, I haven’t looked extensively, but I’ve succeeded in finding only two scholarly treatises on the Ascension. Over the five or so years of their presence on my radar screen, I’ve read two-thirds of one….not a very good track record. Dr. Douglas Farrow’s book, Ascension and Ecclesia, stands impressively on one of my shelves, gracefully hiding all evidence that after starting it with vigor back in 2000, I didn’t make it past page 188. In a rare moment of lucid memory, however, I do recall that he notes that the “problem” the Ascension creates is the tension between the absence of Christ and His continued presence in the Church. Or something like that. Skimming back over my ever-present comments scratched in the margins of the book, I see that by the third page I was already scrawling red question marks by this concept of absence.

Ascension? Of course. Presence? Got it. But absence? Christ promises He will be with us to the end of the age. He sent the Spirit in Whom He ministers to indwell us. We confess the Eucharist to be Christ Himself, Who being offered and is offering, is the One Who serves every Divine Liturgy for us. Just as Christ – being on earth – never left His heavenly abode, so He now sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven and simultaneously remains with us below. Au contraire, Dr. Farrow, it is precisely in this so-called absence that He is most present.

And the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that presence-in-absence is a principle infusing much of our Orthodox journey. Fr. John’s role in my own life is a perfect example of this. I probably saw him less that 10 times in my life. I doubt we ever conversed for more than three minutes at a time. To the carnal eye, Fr. John was not only absent from my life: he was almost irrelevant. But the spiritual eye reveals a very different picture. As I, at that time a convinced Protestant, hurled theological questions at a new internet friend back in the early 1990s, I know that on some occasions her priest, Fr. John, was pinch hitting for her, slipping her answers to send on to me. Lyne ultimately became my godmother. A few years later, Fr. John and I became godparents to Lyne’s son, Stephen: we were now united by a tie that the Church considers as strong as those created by blood. I felt great peace, knowing that Stephen was in constant contact with a godfather who could mentor him in all aspects of the faith.

Fr. John was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer last fall and didn’t live long enough to serve Pascha with the community he had shepherded for over 20 years. We sang him away four days before Lazarus Saturday. I flew down to Kansas City for the funeral, and on the trip home to Chicago our plane encountered a thunderstorm. The storm actually didn’t affect the flight too much, but the sight of lightning flashing around us was enough to unnerve me. I mumbled something along the lines of, “Fr. John, you got me into this, now you better get me out!” And God heard his prayers.

In "departing" to the Father, Archpriest John’s presence has become more palpable than ever.

The kontakion of Ascension reads:

When Thou didst fulfill the dispensation for our sake, and unite earth to heaven: Thou didst ascend in glory, O Christ our God, not being parted from those who love Thee, but remaining with them and crying: I am with you and no one will be against you!

Not a word about absence. In fact, quite the opposite: the Ascension and the sending of the Spirit that flows from it is the foundation of our unity with Christ and one another, regardless of where that other might be.

May God grant peace to the soul of his servant, Archpriest John, and to us a greater understanding and appreciation of the reality and meaning of His Son’s Ascension!



Fr. John, serving at the old Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Kansas City, KS (the new church is located in Overland Park, KS)

A letter home from the Arctic Circle

From August, 2001

Many of you will remember that when I was in Russia a year ago, I inundated you with posts about my various experience and activities. I’m determined not to do that again, but I recently went on a pilgrimage that is worth an email. As many of you know, I recently returned from Solovki, a men’s monastery founded in the 1400's that was turned into a ruthless labor camp during the early days of the Soviet Union. I should warn you that this letter probably gets an R-rating for violence, but the ending is a happy one.

We left Moscow on August 3 at 1:20 AM on the train to Murmansk, one of the northern-most cities in the world. Our actual destination by train was Kem, almost exactly a 24-hour train ride from Moscow. For those of you who have been on Russian trains, you can imagine how we spent the time: eating & drinking (which started about five minutes after departure), talking,singing, sleeping, and reading (the latter two only occasionally). We were in a large open car (platzkart) with lots of other people, who I'm sure were intrigued (to say the least) when most of our group stood up to say morning prayers together. Upon arriving in Kem, all 22 of us ― as well as our belongings ― packed into the back of a large, square, army green truck. As an American, my first thought was of the old TV show, Hogan’s Heroes, but the Russians joked about escaping the Leningrad blockade from WWII. (Oh well, same war, at least.)

About 15 minutes later, we arrived at the dock on the shores of the White Sea, where we were met by the crew of the Onega, a boat which would take us on to our final destinations. At 2:30 AM, the White Sea was anything but white: more like a grey mass that turned silver as the first rays of sunlight hit it. (August mornings come early just south of the Arctic Circle.) We had a rather choppy ride ahead of us, but we consoled ourselves partly by singing a simple little song appealing to the Savior and each of our patron saints to be with us. After a three hour boat ride, we docked at Solovki to refuel, and then headed out for another three hour trip to Anzer, an island that I had heard much about. The vegetation there was astounding. Flowers of almost all colors greeted us near the place where we came ashore. The landscape changed from forest to meadow to swamp and back again as we made a 30 minute trek to the place where we would have lunch. (At one point, I thought I saw a large pink building through the trees and was sure we had reached the chapel where we were headed; it turned out to be a huge field of flowers!) There were so many different berries growing, we could have lived on them alone during our stay.

Our final destination that day was Holy Trinity Skete, where we stayed for two days. The skete is no longer functioning and is in pretty bad shape; in fact, I was a little worried when we had to walk under a huge sign that said Danger Zone to enter! Fortunately, there was an operational banya there (kind of like a sauna), so we all got a good, hot bath. The church itself ― an octagonal brick structure ― is all but devastated. There was no iconostas (the stand with icons on near the front of an Orthodox church), a stack of bricks served as an altar, a tree stump was the main stand where we placed a few little icons and candles, and the “floor” was a series of boards suspended a yard or so above the foundation. Most of these were 2-x-4's placed on their 2" side, so you had to be really careful where and how you walked! For those of you who have attended Orthodox services, you can only imagine how difficult it must have been for Fr. Anatoly to walk around and cense the church.

At Holy Trinity, we served a short prayer service and Divine Liturgy (communion service). Of course, after the relative splendor of most Orthodox churches, this church seemed rather spare (understatement), but the sparseness itself was an icon of what had happened over the course of the last century on that island. Knowing of the suffering that had taken place there, combined with the beautifully simple chanting of our choir and the chance to take communion made this service one of the most inspiring in which I have participated. That was repeated yet again the following day, a Sunday, when we packed up our things and headed back to the chapel where we ate lunch the first day. The chapel sits at the bottom of a steep hill, and at the top of that hill is the Golgotha-Crucifixion Skete. The church there is a square, brick affair, and as was the case at Holy Trinity, there is basically nothing inside the church at this point. (Instead of boards suspended over a cavern, however, there was a dirt floor in this church.) Some of the pre-revolutionary frescos were still visible beneath the white-wash.

Golgotha-Crucifixion Skete was founded by St. Job of Anzer, himself exiled to Solovki in the early 1700's by one of his spiritual children, Tsar Peter the Great. According to tradition, the Mother of God visited St. Job and told him to build a skete here in honor of Christ's Crucifixion on Golgotha. Today they consider that this was a prophecy, for this place would become the Golgotha of the Russian Church about 300 years later. For all its beauty, Anzer Island was a place of terror during the 1920s-30s. Just as those on the USSR mainland knew about and feared the labor camp located on Solovki, so did the inmates at Solovki fear Anzer. The grey wooden building next to the Golgotha-Crucifixion church, which housed prayerful monks before the revolution, was used later to stack dead bodies, sometimes to house barely- clothed prisoners at any time of year. (It was “wearing-my-Chicago-winter-coat” cold and windy when we celebrated Divine Liturgy in early August; you can perhaps imagine how hellish it would be in January.) Between the church and this building was a large wooden cross erected by some of the spiritual children of Archbishop Peter of Voronezh, one of the members of the hierarchy who died in this very place. At the other end of the structure was nature’s own cross: a birch tree that had sprouted two very thick, low branches that grew out perpendicular from the trunk, exactly opposite each other. If you are familiar with birch trees and their thin branches that tend to grow upward, you know how unusual this is.

After Divine Liturgy at Golgotha-Crucifixion Skete, we headed back to the shore where our boat would meet us to take us back to Solovki. The boat ride back was incredible. There were just a few clouds in the sky and the White Sea was a gorgeous pale blue; it stood so still, it was almost like glass. The islands in the area were nothing but dark blue silhouettes, and as the sun changed positions and began to set, various shades of pastel red and orange played on the water, clouds, and islands. Truly one of the most beautiful things I have seen. Golgotha-Crucifixion Skete, being so high up, was visible for the first hour or so after our departure. As we watched it disappear, some sang hymns to various Holy New Martyrs of Russia. Things eventually “lightened up” some, as we told jokes, drank coffee, and chatted. We arrived at the main monastery at Solovki just in time to get our sleeping bags set up in the hostel before it got totally dark (no electricity, but a real bathroom!).

The next day we attended Divine Liturgy at the monastery and spent several hours fulfilling our obedience as pilgrims: in this case, helping to stack wood. We formed a long chain and passed logs from the stacks outside into the basement where they would be stored for the winter. Most of the time, part of our group sang Russian folk songs. That evening, we rested, because the next morning at 6 AM, we headed out for a 12-kilometer trek (mostly uphill, it seemed) to Ascension Church on Sekirnaja Mountain. The dome of the church there is actually a lighthouse. During the days of the labor camp, Sekirnaja was about on the same level as Anzer: a place of no return. There we saw a steep wooden staircase (over 300 steps, if I recall) down which camp guards used to throw bound prisoners. The church there was in about the same shape as the others. In addition to Divine Liturgy, we served an extraordinarily poignant memorial service for those who had suffered at that place.

We headed back to the monastery from Sekirnaja by rowboat. Rain started just as we reached the dock to board, so we had a wet 2-hour trip home. Not exactly the most comfortable experience in the world, but we agreed that a trip to a place like Sekirnaja should involve a little suffering; after all, two hours in the rain is nothing compared to what prisoners went through there 75 years ago. Upon arriving back at the main monastery, Fr. Anatoly insisted that in order to ward off any illness that might develop from sitting in the rain for 2 hours, I should take either cold medicine or a large shot of vodka. I chose the latter.

The next day was our last one at Solovki. We attended Divine Liturgy in the morning, had a tour of the monastery in the afternoon, and attended part of the evening service before boarding the St. Nicholas to head back to Kem, where we caught our train to Moscow (repeating 24 hours of eating, singing, talking, eating, reading, eating, etc.). Before leaving, I was able to stop in at the museum in the monastery, where they have a large hall dedicated to the history of the labor camp.

I expected this trip to be intense, and it was. We in the west are used to looking on the deeds of Hitler as the embodiment of evil, and indeed they were. But for some reason, we never think of Russia. The Russian people, and in particular the Russian Church, experienced something just as bad, if not worse (if indeed we can compare such outrageously terrible things): over the course of 75 years, tens of millions of people killed, millions of others imprisoned, churches ravished. The clergy ― in particular the bishops ― were lightening rods for Bolshevik aggression. A list of just a few of their names and causes of death is sobering: Peter (imprisoned in Siberia for years, finally executed), Vladimir (tortured and shot), Benjamin, Thaddeus, and Pimen (all shot), Tikhon (hung from the iconostas in the church), Ioakim (also hung), Isidor (impaled on a stake), Amvrosii (tied to a horse's tail and dragged until dead), and so on, and so on, and so on. But thankfully (as Steve wrote me recently), God always wins in the end. Solovki is now a thriving monastery. There are even a few monks living on Anzer. And we have a host of new saints in heaven interceding for us before the Most Holy Trinity.

As I send this out, the Russian Church is beginning a general council of bishops that is expected to ratify an earlier decision to canonize all who suffered for Christ - both known and unknown - at the hands of the communists. (Many individuals have been glorified already.) If I'm not mistaken, the general glorification will take place this coming weekend. As we look forward to this, let us keep in our hearts the Eternal Truth of our Faith: Christ is Risen! And let us entreat our glorified fathers, brothers, and sisters: Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, pray to God for us!

Sophia's Wedding

(I wrote this June 30, 2001...the day I started formally writing about liturgical life)

If I were liturgically sensitive, I would have begun a formal journal about the liturgical life of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church on some apparently more fitting day: Pascha, perhaps, or the Church New Year, September 1. But the Spirit blows where (or more accurately for my purposes, when) it wills, so today I begin. And as you shall see, in some ways today is a very fitting day.

June 30 - the Synaxis of the Most Holy Apostles. One might think that this would be our focus as we gathered today at Christ the Savior Orthodox Church in downtown Chicago. But, I must admit, we gave the feast barely a thought, it coming to mind only as Fr. Luke read the dismissal at the end of the service, naming each of the apostles in honor of this day. More importantly to the 12 (yes, there were really 12!) of us who had gathered was the long-awaited baptism of year-and-a-half old Sophia.

Christ the Savior is a beautiful church: a former Anglican cathedral that has been easternized by the presence of icons, candles, bells, and a beautiful acapella choir. The wood in the church is stained quite dark, giving the temple a deep, prayerful atmosphere. This made Sophia=s dazzling white satin gown and loud cries all the more salient. Little Sophia, who has a long mop of dark hair and a round, garnet-red mouth that makes her look more like a fashion model than a toddler, remained quite and pensive during the churching of her mother, but when her mother passed her to her soon-to-be godparents during the prayers of exorcism, all hell broke loose.

Although her mother held her at the beginning of the service, in reality Sophia is passionately attached to her father. When her godparents gladly received her into their arms, Sophia began to whimper, and then to wail. The only intelligible sound to be heard amidst the crying and blubbering was an occasional "Daddy!" But considering the day, such cries were actually apropos. What is the essence of baptism? Yes, it is participating in the death and resurrection of Christ, illumination, the defeat of Satan, the joining of a person to the Church. But ultimately, what does this mean? It is - in the final count - a uniting of a beloved child of God to the most Holy Trinity: Spirit, Son, and, of course, Father.

Finally, over halfway through the service, Fr. Luke performed the actual baptism. Sophia was stripped of the shorts and t-shirt she was wearing up until that moment; she was stripped also of her diaper (what does one do with a diaper while in the temple of God?). Fr. Luke took the naked and seemingly-petrified little girl in his arms, set her in the copper-colored font, and - pronouncing the baptismal affirmation - poured water over her head three times, signifying each Person of the Trinity. A soggy, screaming toddler was lifted into a large, warm white towel, adorned with a shiny gold cross by her proud godmother, and then fitted in a white, lacy dress with a big taffeta bow in back. Now safely in her beloved father=s arms, Sophia found peace and comfort that - to her - must have seemed eternal. The most compelling icon in the entire church at that moment was the two of them.

The choir - composed this day of Sophia's big brother's godparents - sang the baptismal troparion: Those who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Sophia had indeed put something on - a pretty white dress, one that echoed the wedding dress she may wear 20 or 30 years from now.

Last week at bible study, Deacon John read Malachi 2:15-16 with us:
Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth. "I hate divorce," says the LORD God of Israel, "and I hate a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment," says the LORD Almighty. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith. (NIV)

We were discussing various translations of the text, but probably the most interesting question concerned the part of verse 16 that refers to a man's garment. Fr. John shared with us research on Aramaic and Arabic languages that showed that the word "garment" can be used as a euphemism for "spouse" (in this context, by the way, a more adequate translation of Malachi 2:16 becomes an indictment of spousal abuse).

Putting on Christ.... a new white dress.... "garment" as a euphemism for "spouse."

I began to wonder if this Mystery was as much matrimony as baptism. Through dying and rising again in the baptismal font, Sophia had put on a new Garment, a new Spouse: Christ. Her soul had become His bride. It is probably not a coincidence that there are similarities between the baptismal and wedding services, not the least of which is the participants being led by the priest three times around the table. Also not coincidentally, the service of monastic tonsure, which begins a life for a persons sometimes referred to as Christ's spouse, parallels that of baptism.

So today is definitely a day of new beginnings. For this amateur writer, it is the beginning of a journal chronicling heaven on earth, the services of the Eastern Orthodox Church. But for Sophia, it is the beginning of her new life in Christ. To the naked eye, today Sophia was dunked in water and slathered with oil, but to the noetic eye, a marriage of sorts was effected both on heaven and on earth. Christ will be sure to keep His part of this most holy covenant; let us pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit given to her in chrismation and the prayers of the Holy Apostles whom we celebrate this day, little Sophia will also keep hers. May she - and all of us baptized and chrismated into the Holy Orthodox Faith - take to heart the words about marriage spoken by the prophet Malachi, cited above: In flesh and spirit we are His, so let us guard ourselves in our spirit, and do not break faith.

Self-denying love of others as the height of human perfection

This was presented at the 2001 Znamenskie Readings in St. Petersburg, Russia
(I can send any references upon request, and knowing that the Russians are looser with copyright than the Americans, I'm not hesitating to post this... :-0)

When reading Russian Orthodox psychological literature about the concept of loving others, one typically comes across the idea that we must love others as we love ourselves. It is not unusual, as the latest work of respected and prolific Igumen Evmeny shows, for Orthodox psychological literature to cite only “love your neighbor as yourself” when discussing relevant Biblical material regarding love. This is held up as the ideal for human relations and in modern times is sometimes used as a justification for “loving oneself”. While I am not a theologian or a Biblical scholar, using Scripture, the works of St. Maximus the Confessor, and recent psychological research, I would like to argue that in fact “loving one’s neighbor as oneself” is not necessarily the ideal for Orthodox Christians struggling to attain salvation. It must be interpreted properly, and St. Maximus the Confessor and modern psychological works help us in this endeavor.

Let us look briefly at the Gospels in which the Savior’s words are found. Both St. Matthew (chapter 22) and St. Mark (chapter 12) place the discussion of the two greatest commandments near the end of Christ’s earthly ministry, after His triumphant entry into Jerusalem. St. Luke (chapter 10) recounts a similar episode much earlier in Christ’s ministry. In all cases, the Savior is speaking to Pharisees and scribes in the Temple. In the Lukan version, the Pharisee who asks Christ about the greatest commands then challenges Him to define the concept of “neighbor”, a challenge to which Christ responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

We immediately note that in defining the two greatest commands, Christ is directly citing the Old Testament (Leviticus 19:18). He quotes these words to Pharisees and scribes, who are extremely concerned with following the letter of the Law. In the context of OT morality, which often focuses on caring for the needy, it is not unreasonable to assume that this injunction calls people to care as much about the basic needs of others as they do their own needs. In short, given the source and interpretation of “love your neighbor as yourself” and the audience to whom Christ was speaking, it is not unreasonable to call this approach to love “Old Testament morality”. Nonetheless, as we will see, this does not mean we – the children of the New Testament - fully reject OT morality.

If “love your neighbor as yourself” is the Old Testament ideal of love, then what is the New Testament ideal, especially when we are speaking about relationships within the Church? To answer this, we must turn to the Gospel of St. John. In the upper room discourse, while speaking to His disciples (whom we recognize as the foundation of the Church), Christ says that He is giving them a new command, that they must love one another as He Himself has loved them (St. John 13:34), and that the highest form of love is “laying down one’s life for one’s friends” (St. John 15:13). This is a much more “severe”, self-giving morality than that of the OT.

As we mentioned above, if we limit ourselves to Scripture, we might claim that this New Testament ideal of love is applied only in the Church. However, St. Maximus challenges us to broaden our thinking, claiming that the one who has attained perfect love will love all people equally, making no distinction between believers and unbelievers.

How can we rescue the concept of “love your neighbor as yourself”? Is it still relevant to the ecclesiological life of the New Testament Church? Yes, but as the works of St. Maximus show, it may take on meanings different than expected. (We will still assume that it also implies we must care for the basic physical and psychological needs of both self and other.)

St. Maximus often speaks very negatively about “self-love”, but he is clear that this means indulging one’s body. Positive self-love, according to St. Maximus, is working toward one’s own salvation and deification (St. Maximus, 1981a, 1981b). Paradoxically, this means self-denial in both the desiring and irascible aspects of the soul. Fasting and prayer vigils transform the passions of the desiring aspect of the soul and helps us love God more purely, a love which St. Maximus sometimes refers to as eros. Forgiveness and non-attachment to created things transform the irascible aspect of the soul and help us love others more purely (and here, St. Maximus often uses the word agape). Perfect, salvific love demands showing leniency and mercy towards others but strictness and judgment towards oneself. “Loving others as oneself” now means that with equal zeal we must 1) condescend[1] and show mercy to others and 2) subject ourselves to moderate physical and psychological deprivation in order to have more authentic communion with God. In fact, according to St. Maximus, it is only through the second that we can achieve the first, and perhaps the most sound evidence that we have achieved this holy form of self-love is that we love all equally, including our enemies. And paradoxically, this all means that in fulfilling the command of Leviticus and the Synoptic Gospels, we should love others more than we love ourselves (St. Maximus the Confessor, Questions to Thalassius LXV; cited in Epifanovich, 1996).

What confirmation (or refutation) of St. Maximus’ view might psychological research provide? First we must ask, do people somehow “love” others better by sacrificing themselves? Daniel Batson’s experimental laboratory research on helping behavior suggests a positive answer to this question (cited in Franzoi, 2000). Batson’s work has shown that people who help out of empathy for a victim (rather than out of a desire to alleviate their own personal stress at seeing another suffer) offer help even in cases where they can avoid helping. The state of empathy by its nature is a self-sacrificial state: one puts aside their own concerns and perspectives to enter the world of another. Such a state allows people to help others even when they could easily pass up the opportunity to help. So at least in one series of studies, it does seem that one type of self-sacrifice and quality of care for another are related.

This leads to the questions, is self-sacrificial love somehow “higher” than a love that caters equally to self and other, and does this kind of love somehow contribute to the salvation of the “lover”? There are very few answers to these questions in psychology, but some of the recent work on the psychology of interpersonal forgiveness begins to answer them. Briefly, “forgiveness” in psychological work is general defined as actively overcoming a negative orientation and developing a positive orientation toward an offender. Theoretical work on various understandings of forgiveness places “forgiveness based on love” as a more mature perspective on forgiveness than “forgiveness offered to improve one’s own mental health” (Gassin & Enright, 1995). Empirical work in the USA (Enright, Santos, & Al-Mabuk, 1989), Taiwan (Huang, 1990), Korea (Park & Enright, 1997), and France (Mullet & Girard, 2000) shows that indeed older (presumably more mature) people are more likely to view forgiveness as being offered out of love, or at least not being conditional on external factors such as receiving an apology from the offender.

While it is clear from psychological research that forgiveness is beneficial for the psychological (and probably physical) health of the forgiver, is there any evidence that forgiveness offered out of love is more “salvific” for the forgiver than forgiveness offered only from other motives? Currently there is very little work addressing this question directly. Huang (1990) compared psychological and physiological measures of people who had forgiven either out of duty or out of love. Those who reported forgiving out of love demonstrated lower blood pressure readings and less facial tension while retelling their forgiveness stories than those who forgave out of duty. There were no differences between the two groups on self-report measures of anger. While this study cannot prove cause and effect, it suggests that those who forgave out of love developed a psychological peace so much deeper than those who forgave out of duty that the difference was reflected only in physiological – but not psychological – measures. In that peace stunts the passions of anger and anxiety, this study offers some suggestion that forgiving out of love may be related to the dispassion of the offended person.

Despite the emphasis here on self-sacrificial motives for forgiving another, we should also recognize that clinical experience shows that people often begin the forgiveness process out of self-oriented motives (e.g., to help alleviate depression) but ends in a balance between self- and other-oriented motives. This observation is still consonant with St. Maximus’ ideas about “loving others as oneself”, for in forgiving out of mixed motives, a person offers mercy to an offender from the strength he or she gain by fighting the passions of depression, hurt, and anger in him- or herself.

Although the psychological evidence is far from complete at this time, there is a suggestion, especially in the forgiveness work, that loving another in a self-sacrificial way is connected to better outcomes for the self, although this does not completely preclude forgiving for self-oriented reasons as well. In many cases, these better outcomes for the self are related to the Orthodox conception of salvation and include less anger and depression and more peace and hope. This is consonant with St. Maximus’ idea that holy self-love involves self-renunciation, while true love of another involves mercy and forgiveness and is achieved on the foundation of this holy self-love. These ideas should force Orthodox psychologists to rethink their widespread reliance on the OT definition of love as found in the Synoptics, interpreted in isolation from the ascetic patristic tradition, and their consistent disregard of Christ’s new commandment in the Gospel of St. John, to love others in the same kenotic, self-sacrificing way that Christ Himself loved us. In following St. Maximus’ definition of holy self-love and the Johannine definition of New Testament other-love, we fulfill the likeness of God in ourselves, the likeness of Crucified Love[2] that saves even enemies, and in turn experience our own Resurrection and Pentecost, our own union with God, our own deification.

[1] I have chosen this word in English because it is the usual translation of the Russian word sniskhoditelnost’. While the English word carries negative connotations, the Russian word carries positive connotations and describes the state of patiently and empathetically bearing with the faults of another.
[2] I am indebted to Archpriest Anatoly Frolov for his insistence that the ultimate meaning of being created in the image and likeness of God is not our ability to think, our position as the master of creation, or our ability to create, but instead our capacity to show saving, crucified love for others.

Entering Great Lent through the Gate of Forgiveness

Here's something I wrote back in 2000...

One Sunday morning in mid-March, Christians in the Eastern Orthodox tradition around the world commemorated Adam’s expulsion from Paradise and prepared to enter Great Lent. Listening to the hymns that day, one is struck by Adam’s physical, psychological, and spiritual pain upon getting himself cast from the Garden of Eden, and by his insistent pleas to be brought back to God, that God would open the Gates to Paradise for him. As I listened to these beautiful but tragic hymns, I recalled the literal definition of sin. Sin (in Greek, harmartia) is a term from archery, literally meaning to miss the mark. Some Christians may be accustomed to thinking of that mark as God’s law or moral behavior. But in essence, sin is a break in relationship with God: the mark is none other than God Himself. Sin is a broken relationship with God and by extension, broken relationships with others.

Adam cried for the gates to be opened, and for Orthodox Christians, the gate which leads into the Lenten time of repentance is forgiveness of and from one another. On that Sunday night when Great Lent began, we gathered to serve forgiveness vespers. As I walked into our cathedral, the large, free-standing icon of Christ on the cross dominated my attention. Usually located in the southeast corner of the church, it had been moved to the center, and before it was a smaller icon of the crucifixion. As people came into the church, they approached these two icons of the Crucified Christ; those who were able made two full prostrations before the icons, venerated the smaller one with a kiss, and then made one final prostration. How appropriate to enter our time of Lenten repentance with a reminder of our Savior's sacrifice--our ultimate model of love manifest through self-renunciation (a Lenten goal)--and to be reminded of the self-crucifixion inherent in offering forgiveness to and receiving forgiveness from others.

On any given Sunday, there are not many chairs in our parish, as Orthodox Christians traditionally stand during all services. The few chairs that are usually available had been stacked up and pushed to the side, so the entire nave was open, the icons of Christ’s passion standing in the center. The vespers service commenced, and after the chanting of a penitential psalm part-way through the service, our bishop, priests, and deacons exchanged their festive gold vestments for more somber purple ones, marking the transition into Great Lent. Several parishioners removed the gold icon-stand covers to reveal purple ones below, and gold vigil lamps were replaced with purple. A sober quiet blanketed the parish.

As vespers ended, our bishop, himself an icon of Christ as Suffering Servant, stood in the center of the church. He recounted how he relied on his subdeacons to vest him at the beginning of hierarchical services; it was impossible for him to undertake alone this simple task of dressing for a service. This, he said, pointed to a basic truth of life, even the episcopal life: without us, he is nothing. His identity as a hierarch--indeed, as a Christian--is defined in relationship to God and to his flock. He explained that sin is not just between an individual and God. Since we are the Body of Christ, sin becomes social, interpersonal. And then he said something that really struck me: “When I sin against God, I sin against you.” Upon hearing this, it occurred to me that we usually hear the opposite: when we sin against another, we sin against God, presumably because we have broken some commandment in hurting that other person. But do we realize that when we sin against God--when we separate ourselves from Him to any degree, even only in our heart--we sin against others? Christian relationships are sacramental: each person bears the image and likeness of God and has Christ and the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, and so in the relational triangle of God-self-other, one person's offense against another by necessity involves the remaining third party. To the extent that we are not fully united with God in perfect love, we stand in need of forgiveness from Him and others.

Ending his short homily, Vladyka (a diminutive and affectionate Russian word, used to address Orthodox hierarchs) asked our forgiveness and made a full prostration before us all. We answered with the traditional response, “God forgives.” And then one by one--beginning with the other clergy--we again venerated the icon of the crucified Christ and prostrated before and asked forgiveness from our archpastor. The first person to approach the bishop then stood to his side, and the next person, after approaching Vladyka, was then able to prostrate before this person, and ask for and offer forgiveness to him. And so it continued, until we made a huge circle around the church, each person prostrating before every other person individually, asking and offering forgiveness. “Forgive me and pray for me.” “God forgives...forgive me, too, and pray for me, a sinner.” “God forgives. May God grant you a blessed Lent.”

Resurrection was foreshadowed not only interpersonally, as we took the first steps toward restored relationships, but also liturgically, as the choir chanted Paschal hymns at the ending of the service.

As a student of forgiveness for 10 years, at first I was bothered that people usually responded, “God forgives,” rather than, “God forgives, and I forgive you, too.” It seemed like a cop-out, like an easy way to get around the hard work of personally forgiving another. But slowly, I have come to understand this traditional response. As Orthodox Christians, our goal is theosis: union with God that fulfills the image and likeness of God within us. If God forgives, then I will, too. Note the use of future tense: I will forgive. It may not happen instantaneously, it may involve a long struggle on my part. In such cases, forgiveness vespers is the “wedding”--the vow--before the “marriage,” the struggle to fully forgive. But even this is the understanding of the neophyte. I suspect there are people so humble and loving, so united with God, that interpersonal forgiveness almost becomes a non-issue. If I am so taken up into the life of God, if my will is so conformed to His will, then if God forgives, de facto I also forgive (present tense).

Furthermore, Orthodox Christians see humility as the foundation of holiness, the foundation of demonstrating a perfect, Godly love to others. This follows St. Paul, who considered himself the worst of sinners and directed us to consider others as better than ourselves. By typically not employing the words “I forgive you” at forgiveness vespers, we avoid a potential source of pride. God forgives: this is the alpha and omega of our own forgiveness of others.

Anastasia, our choir director’s five-year-old daughter, often stands with me during services; forgiveness vespers was no exception. As our turn to begin this forgiveness ritual approached, I tried to describe to her what would happen as we progressed through the line. Her response betrayed her exposure to traditional teaching about forgiveness: “Why do I have to ask forgiveness? I didn’t do anything wrong!” After 11 years of formal education in child development, it seemed I ought to be able to explain this to her. I thought for a moment, and instead of trying to summarize deep theology at a preschooler’s level, I simply explained that sometimes we do things to hurt other people and we don’t even know it. So we ask forgiveness of everyone just to make sure that our relationships with them are positive. (Fortunately, I was able to use a relevant situation from the morning service as an example.) A less-than-desirable explanation, but one that seemed to work. Anastasia bravely approached the bishop and the others (whether or not she actually asked forgiveness, I don’t know) and ultimately seemed to appreciate the ritual. It’s always wonderful to watch the amazement on children’s faces when adults bow down before them and ask their forgiveness and prayers. These are the seeds that one day will hopefully bloom into a more mature understanding of forgiveness, humility, and Christian love.

The experience of asking forgiveness from and offering it to each person varied, depending on before whom I was standing. From my close friends there was always something for which to ask forgiveness: a harsh word, a secret betrayed. From our bishop and other clergy, I needed forgiveness for not being as supportive as I should, especially for not praying for them as much as I should. From those I hardly know, I asked forgiveness for the times I was less than hospitable at church or for the uninformed, judgmental thought I had about them. And from the occasional stranger, I asked forgiveness for the bad example I set as a Christian. Forgiveness in all these contexts is not the same, but it is needed nonetheless. And there is a common denominator: as one priest said, since each person is made in the image and likeness of God, in a sense we ask forgiveness of God as we ask forgiveness of others.

St. Thaddeus, an Orthodox bishop martyred by the Communists in 1937, wrote, “The fast [Lent] is removing ourselves from all evil, and because the essence of Christ’s law is contained in love, then what kind of evil is greater than anger and hatred toward another? And therefore, doesn’t a true fast first of all include eliminating anger at others? Should not the fast begin with forgiving the offenses of others...?” (1998, p. 187). Indeed, for the Orthodox Christian, it is only through Spirit-sustained self-sacrifice (embodied most perfectly in Great Lent) that we are resurrected with Christ at Easter, and our initial steps toward this rebirth are those of seeking forgiveness from God and one another.

Reference
St. Thaddeus (Uspensky). (1998). Radujtes! [Rejoice!]. Moscow: Eleon.

What am I doing here?

When I first started teaching at Olivet, someone complimented me for being technologically advanced. Since that time, I have fallen hopelessly behind in the world of computers and the internet. Starting a blog is my attempt to join the 21st century. OK, so I am also a lazy, frustrated writer who is looking for a place to display her work! More soon....