Norman H. Redington on Bright Week

A friend of mine, Norman Redington of Lubbock, Texas, sent me the following reflection on Bright Week last Friday; in my reply, emailed the same day, I offered to publish his essay here on this blog, and early this morning he wrote back, telling me to go ahead and do so. So I offer it now, a little late for Bright Week, but still worth reading. A couple of things to note: first, Norman Redington is an Orthodox Christian and a physicist by training, who maintains a blog titled The Net Advance of Physics. Secondly, my publication of his essay here should not be taken as implying an endorsement of all the opinions, political or otherwise, contained in it.

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BRIGHT WEEK 2023

This is Bright Week. Did it seem bright to them, to the Twelve hiding behind locked doors in the upper room, to the Seventy and the rest hiding who knows where, waiting for the policeman’s knock: ‘Were you not one of them? Even your accent betrays you!’ Yes, it was bright, the brightest of all weeks, the same week as this. But did it seem so?

Does it seem so now? Is it bright in the holy New Jerusalem of Kyiv, where monks sworn to live out every precept of the Gospel and accept all suffering with joy are now whining because, God forbid, they are being forced to change their digs? Is it bright in the holy Third Rome – well, yes, it is, everything seems to be gilded there – but is it truly bright in the Third Rome, where the most wise patriarch is honouring the ancient and sacred tradition of trusting in princes and their chariots (so long as the princes endorse no gay-pride parades, only Soviet-pride parades, and the chariots are hypersonic)? Is it bright in the Second Rome, without which the Church – the faith that established the universe! – cannot exist? Surely it must be bright where the Primus Sine Paribus shines glorious as the sun over benighted Türkiye, for whose conversion he and his predecessors have toiled so ceaselessly and selflessly as regional bishops! But yes, despite all that, it is bright in these places: καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν. 

Is it bright in Africa, the “dark continent” of the fallen empires, as new empires on other continents seek to perpetuate division and revive slavery: Africa, where the ever-so-canonical and ever-so-apolitical Russian Exarchate builds its bailiwick on the territory of His Divine Beatitude the Pope and Patriarch, Father of Fathers, Pastor of Pastors, Prelate of Prelates, Thirteenth Apostle, Judge of the Universe, and, perhaps most importantly, member of the chosen Greek genos? Yes, nevertheless, it is bright even in Africa. καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει …

Is it bright east of the Dnieper, where an invading army of Orthodox Christians (after a fashion) carrying red flags and ikons of Stalin and Ivan the Terrible battle a defending army of Orthodox Christians (after a fashion) who prefer red-and-black flags and images of Bandera and the Theotokos-with-a-Tomahawk? … καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν.

How about here? Is it bright here in the English-speaking world? All Orthodox of course scoff: Here? Here in the decadent, materialistic, heterodox West, with its declining religiosity, its silicon-fuelled shallowness, its fundamentalist preachers and flagrant pornographers, Trumpites and tree-huggers, Brexiteers and abortionists, incels and snowflakes? Here, in the Orthodox Anglosphere, with no Patriarch to hold the course, with all the competing jurisdictions, all the ‘canonical’ bishops sharing the same city?  Here? 

Yes, here. In fact, it is brighter here. Here, where there is no persecution worth mentioning. Here, where there is no war (yet). Here, where there is no censorship. Here, where there is nothing whatever to impede the Gospel. Here, where the Orthodox have limitless access both to every part of their own tradition and to the learning and wisdom of the whole non-Orthodox world, endless clover fields from which St. Basil’s bee might gather nectar new and old. Here, where physical riches, too, abound — ah, is that it? Is wealth the source of the darkness we all perceive, shadowing us even in Bright Week? And yet, in itself, wealth is not harmful. Unshared wealth, perhaps, but there is no force that stops us Orthodox of the Anglosphere (or, more broadly, of the Global West) from sharing wealth physical, intellectual, or spiritual.

No force but ourselves. 

Interview with Erick Ybarra

I had a discussion yesterday evening with the Catholic blogger and author Erick Ybarra on his YouTube channel, mostly about John Bekkos. The interview can be watched at the link below.

Dionysius Petavius: Dogmata Theologica

I have on my bookshelves at home a multi-volume work which I purchased many years ago, the Opus de Theologicis Dogmatibus of Dionysius Petavius, S.J. (Denis Pétau, 1583-1652). This monumental work has been described as “the first systematic attempt ever made to treat the development of Christian doctrine from the historical point of view.” It is the size of moderately large encyclopedia, and, indeed, if one takes the word “encyclopedia” in its root sense to mean a complete course of studies, that is exactly what it is, a complete course of studies in dogmatic theology. Unlike the medieval summae, however, this is not a work of speculation; Petavius’s main concern is to make clear what was the authoritative teaching of the Fathers of the Church, both Greek and Latin. Because it is such a huge work, and because it is written in fairly elaborate Latin, it is not easy to read; so far as I know, it has never been translated into English. But it occurred to me today that it can be found these days on Google Books, and that it might be useful to provide links to it. So that is what I am doing here; it would have been possible to go into even greater detail, linking to the various chapters of the work, but that would have been a much larger labor; for the present, I think it sufficient to link to the six tomes and the various books into which those tomes are divided. These links, I know, will help me to navigate this work, and allow me to consult it when I am not at home; perhaps they may be of use also to others.

Tomus Primus: In quo de Deo Deique proprietatibus agitur

• Prolegomena: In quibus de theologia ipsa eiusque principiis atque natura disputatur.
• Liber Primus: In quo de Dei essentia eiusque proprietatibus generatim agitur.
• Liber Secundus: In quo de attributis quae negativa dicuntur singillatim agi incipit ac nominatim de iis quae ad ipsam Dei substantiam pertinent.
• Liber Tertius: Qui proprietates Dei negantes explicare pergit.
• Liber Quartus: In quo de divinis proprietatibus agitur quae affirmantes vocantur et ad Dei scientiam spectant.
• Liber Quintus: In quo de voluntate Dei, potentia et operatione agitur.
• Liber Sextus: In quo de Dei bonitate, deque summo bono agitur : necnon de malo : tum de Dei impeccabilitate: deque eius perfectione ac pulchritudine.
• Liber Septimus: In quo de Dei visione agitur.
• Liber Octavus: In quo de providentia et Dei nominibus agitur.

Tomus Secundus: In quo, primum de praedestinatione, post[ea] de Trinitate agitur

• Liber Nonus: Qui est primus de praedestinatione ac reprobatione.
• Liber Decimus: Qui est de praedestinatione secundus.
• In tomum secundum operis Theologicorum dogmatum Praefatio.
• Liber Primus: In quo mysterii illius, hoc est opinionem de eo τὰ ἱστορούμενα traduntur.
• Liber Secundus. [Haereticorum argumenta … et catholicorum ad ea responsa….]
• Liber Tertius.
• Liber Quartus: In quo communes personis tribus notiones propriatetesque declarantur.
• Index.

Tomus Tertius: In quo primum de Trinitate, postea de angelis agitur

• Liber Quartus (sequentia).
• Liber Quintus: In quo personae primae, id est, Patris, propriae notiones et vocabula declarantur.
• Liber Sextus: In quo secundae personae Trinitatis, qui est Filius, propriae notiones ac vocabula declarantur.
• Liber Septimus: In quo de processione sancti Spiritus agitur.
• Liber Octavus: Qui est de missione personarum.
• De Photino haeretico eiusque damnatione in quinque synodis facta … dissertatio.
• Jacobi Sirmondi … diatriba secunda Sirmitana.
• Elenchus diatribae utriusque de Photino et Sirmiensi synodo.
• Dissertatio de commentitio liberii lapsu, auctore F.-A. Zacharia, S.I.
• Appendix seu Diatriba in qua nonnulla Petavianarum de Sirmiensi synodo dissertationum loca emendantur, illustrantur, vindicantur.
• Liber Primus de Angelis: In quo universe de angelorum natura, et proprietatibus, ac praesertim de bonis agitur.
• Index.

Tomus Quartus: In quo rursum de angelis, de sex priorum mundi dierum opificio, de Pelagianorum Semipelagianorumque haeresi et quibusdam aliis agitur

• Liber Secundus: In quo de ordinibus, et officiis bonorum angelorum agitur.
• Liber Tertius: Qui est de diabolo, et angelis eius.
• Liber Primus de sex primorum mundi dierum opificio.
• Prooemium.
• Liber Secundus: Qui est de hominis opificio.
• Liber Tertius: In quo de libero arbitrio agitur.
• Liber Quartus: In quo ex Augustini sententia liberi arbitrii natura constituitur.
• Liber Quintus: In quo libertatis vera ratio ex latinis Augustino posterioribus expenditur.
• Appendix ad Librum II de opificio sex dierum, seu R. P. Antonii Casini e Societate Jesu controversia de statu purae naturae.
• Liber Unus de Pelagianorum et Semipelagianorum dogmatum historia.
• Liber Unus de Tridentini Concilii interpretatione, et S. Augustini doctrina.
• Index.

Tomus Quintus: In quo rursum de lege et gratia, postea de incarnatione agitur

• Liber Primus de lege et gratia.
• Liber Secundus de lege et gratia.
• Elenchus Theriacae Vincentii Lenis.
• De Incarnatione Praefatio.
• Liber Primus: In quo haeresum omnium, quae catholicae de incarnatione fidei adversatae sunt, historia describitur.
• Liber Secundus: Qui est de causis incarnati Verbi, maxime de ea quam finalem vocant.
• Liber Tertius: In quo de naturarum duarum conjunctione, sive unitione agitur.
• Liber Quartus: In quo de generalibus naturarum in Christo duarum affectionibus agitur, quae ex unitione consequuntur.
• Liber Quintus: In quo de naturis Christi duabus separatim agitur.
• Index.

Tomus Sextus: In quo rursum de incarnatione Verbi agitur

• Liber Sextus: In quo ab haeretici nuperi calumniis, Cyrilli, et Ephesinae synodi integritas fidei, et auctoritas defenditur; ac Nestorius, quem ille catholicum fuisse dicit, recte pro haeretico damnatus ostenditur.
• Liber Septimus: In quo de eo genere dignitatis, et ornamenti agitur, quod absolutum, et οὐσιῶδες id est substantivum, in humanam Christi naturam fluxit et divinae conjunctione.
• Liber Octavus: In quo de ἐνεργείᾳ, id est operatione Christi, agitur.
• Liber Nonus: In quo de voluntate Christi disseritur.
• Liber Decimus: In quo humanae in Christo naturae proprietates explicantur, quas ἐπιγεννηματικὰς Graeci, Latini accidentes, et consectarias vocant : et imprimis eae quae ad corpus propius attinent.
• Liber Undecimus: Qui est de animi Christi propriis ornamentis.
• Liber Duodecimus: In quo de eo genere accidentium proprietatum dissertitur, quae morales appellantur.
• Liber Decimus Tertius: In quo de officio Christi mediatoris, sive salvatoris erga homines potissimum agitur: hoc est quatenus ad omnes vis illius benefica pertineat.
• Index.

Ὁ Φιλοπρωτεύων

Last week, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew, sent two exarchs into Ukraine for the purpose of setting up an independent patriarchate there, in what the Church of Moscow regards as, historically and canonically, its own territory, and where a third of its parishes are found. This action was taken by the Ecumenical Patriarch without consultation with the Orthodox Church at large, and in spite of clear statements from the Moscow Patriarchate that it considered such an action uncanonical, and that it would respond by breaking off communion. On Friday, the Holy Synod in Moscow declared that it was removing Bartholomew’s name from the diptychs, and would no longer commemorate him in hierarchical liturgies or participate in joint liturgical services with hierarchs of the Patriarchate of Constantinople; it further declared that it would “break off the participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Episcopal Assemblies and in the theological dialogues, multilateral commissions and any other structures chaired or co-chaired by representatives of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.” Any further moves by the Patriarch of Constantinople to establish a separate patriarchate in Ukraine, its communiqué stated, would result in a complete break in communion, i.e., the faithful under the Patriarch of Constantinople would not be allowed to receive the sacraments in churches under the Patriarch of Moscow, and the faithful under the Patriarch of Moscow would be directed not to receive sacraments at churches affiliated with Constantinople. Since there are many Russians resident in Turkey, this might mean the creation of a separate ecclesiastical organization upon Constantinople’s immediate territory (although, since the Turks do not allow Christians to build new churches, it may be that, within Turkey itself, such an organization would be strictly limited in its activities).

These are dismal, soul-destroying events, and I would agree with the Moscow Patriarchate that, behind them, there stands a new theory being asserted by the Patriarch of Constantinople about his own authority. As an example of what I mean by this, I would note a recent paper by the Metropolitan of Bursa, Elpidophoros Lambriniadis, which, in place of the usual Orthodox description of the authority of the primus as “first among equals,” pointedly characterizes the Patriarch of Constantinople as “first without equals,” primus sine paribus.

In response to these events, yesterday I composed a troparion, which I herewith present to readers of my blog, along with a translation and a recording. For the reference to “Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first,” see 3 John 9.

Ὁ φιλοπρωτεύων Βαρθολομαῖος εἰς τὴν Οὐκραϊνὴν δύο ἐξάρχους ἔστειλεν, ὁ καὶ νέος Διοτρεφὴς αἰτία νέου σχίσματος ἐγένετο. Νῦν κλαίουσι πάντες ἰδόντες τὴν Ὀρθοδοξίαν σπαραττομένην ὑπὸ τοῦ κοσμικοῦ κράτους, νῦν στενάζουσιν, διότι τὸν μέγαν καὶ φιλόχριστον λαὸν τῆς Ῥωσσίας ἠτίμασεν. Ὦ φιλάνθρωπε Χριστέ, δώρησαι τῷ κόσμῳ τὸ μέγα σου ἔλεος.

Bartholomew, who likes to put himself first, has sent two exarchs to Ukraine, and the new Diotrephes has become the cause of a new schism. Now all weep when they see Orthodoxy torn apart by the worldly power; now they groan, because he has dishonored the great and Christloving people of Russia. O Christ, lover of mankind, grant the world your great mercy.

 

Rejoice in the Lord always

Every Sunday is the Lord’s day, the day of the resurrection; but today, Sunday, April 8, 2018, is, for millions of Orthodox Christians throughout the world, the day of the resurrection par excellence, the feast of feasts, holy day of holy days, the Lord’s Pascha. Yesterday evening and earlier this morning, I experienced this feast in a new way: for most of the past month I have been conducting our church choir in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, our official choir director being incapacitated due to a recent hip replacement. So, although I have sung in many Easter services, today was the first time in my life of some 59 years that I conducted one. Thanks be to God, our singers sang well, we acquitted ourselves of our task with jubilation, and, I think, helped the congregation to pray and to focus their minds and hearts on the glory of God, which is what a choir is supposed to do.

Whether it is this novel experience of directing a church choir during an Easter service that has awakened these reflections, I don’t know, but I think it is right, on this feast day, to speak of joy. What is the joy that characterizes the life of a Christian? A Christian is, like other human beings, subject to innumerable ups and downs, a Christian is not, any more than anyone else, continually floating on a cloud of earthly and material bliss, and, even in spiritual matters, a Christian is acquainted with the grief first of all of his or her own sinfulness and the estrangement from God and man that sin entails, and secondly, with the grief of living in a fallen world in which might frequently triumphs over right and falsehood over truth. Nevertheless, the life of a Christian is characterized by joy. How is this possible?

It is possible, I think, because of the resurrection. The resurrection contains the entire message of Christianity, and, if we are to understand what makes the life of a Christian what it is, it is there that we must look. On the cross, Christ broke the power of sin, the demonic forces that tyrannize human life, and provided, for all time, an infallible key for escaping spiritual imprisonment; by rising from the dead, Jesus showed us that death is not the final reality, he showed himself the victor over death and corruption, and gives us the possibility of sharing in his victory and in newness of life. That is what Christian joy is all about; it is the response of one who begins to live in the light of the risen Christ, who has overcome the world. And Easter, as it is the feast of Christ’s resurrection, is preeminently a feast of joy — a joy, not in ourselves or our accomplishments, but in Christ who gives us the victory. It is the communal joy of Christ’s redeemed people. If the singers at a liturgy, by their voices, are able to communicate this joy to the congregation, they have done their part in proclaiming the gospel.

May God grant the readers of this blog a joyous Easter. Christ is risen!

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique

The Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique is a massive and invaluable theological reference work, which was begun in 1898 under the editorial direction of Jean Michel Alfred Vacant and continued to appear under successive editors (E. Mangenot, E. Amann) and with various revisions until work on it ended in 1950. Much of it is now in the public domain; the complete text of at least an early version of it is available online, on Internet Archive. Below I provide links to these volumes, and to a few articles from them.

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 1, part 1 (Aaron – Apollinaire)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 1, part 2 (Apollinaire de Saint-Thomas – Azzoni)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 2, part 1 (Baader – Cisterciens)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 2, part 2 (Cajetan – Cisterciens)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 3 (Clarke – Czepanski)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 3, part 2

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 4, part 1 (Dabillon – Emser) (Note: this copy is missing cols. 941-948)

(another copy of this)

[fascicle: Dieu – Dogme]

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 5 (Enchantement – Fiume)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 5, part 2 (Eucharistie – Fiume)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 6, part 1 (Flacius Illyricus – Hizler)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 6, part 2 (Géorgie – Hizler)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 7, part 1 (Hobbes – Immunités)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 7, part 2 (Impanation – Irvingiens)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 8, part 1 (Isaac -Jeûne)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 8, part 2 (Joachim de Flore – Latrie)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 9, part 1 (Laubrussel – Lyre)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 9, part 2 (Mabillon – Marletta)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 10, part 1 (Maronite – Messe)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 10, part 2 (Messe – Mystique)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 11, part 1 (Naaséniens – Ordinales)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 11, part 2 (Ordéric Vital – Paul [Saint])

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 12, part 1 (Paul Ie – Philopald)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 12, part 2 (Philosophie – Prédestination)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 13, part 1 (Préexistence – Puy [Archange de])

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 13, part 2 (Quadratus – Rosmini)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 14, part 1 (Rosny – Schneider)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 14, part 2 (Scholarios – Szczaniecki)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 15, part 1 (Tabaraud – Trincarella)

Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 15, part 2 (Trinité – Zwinglianisme)

 

Some links to articles in this collection:

“Dieu. Sa nature d’après les Pères,” by X. Le Bachelet, in vol. 4. (A partial translation of this article was given on this blog eight years ago in the post “On the Cappadocians and Eunomius.”)

“Esprit-Saint,” by A. Palmieri, in vol. 5.

“Hypostase,” “Hypostatique (Union),” and “Idiomes (Communication des),” by A. Michel, in vol. 7, part 1.

“Le IIᵉ Concile de Lyon,” by V. Grumel, in vol. 9, part 1.

“Palamas, Grégoire” and “Palamite (Controverse),” by M. Jugie, in vol. 11, part 2. (A partial translation of the latter article may be found on this blog, beginning here.)

“Platonisme des Pères,” by R. Arnou, in vol. 12, part 2.

 

Mother Agnes Mariam of the Cross speaks in Cleveland

Mother Agnes-Mariam de la Croix, prioress of the Monastery of St. James the Mangled in Qâra, Syria, gave a talk yesterday evening at St. George’s Antiochian Orthodox Church in Cleveland, titled What is Really Happening in Syria Today? I made a point of attending, having first heard about Mother Agnes-Mariam and her work a couple of months ago. In September, in the aftermath of the chemical weapons attack on East Ghouta, an eastern suburb of Damascus, she presented a report to the United Nations in Geneva, pointing out that some of the children who were shown as victims in the amateur videos that began circulating on the internet on the morning of the attack had been kidnapped by rebels two weeks earlier after a massacre by rebel forces in the town of Latakia; also, in different videos, purportedly filmed at different locations, the same dead children reappear. In brief, the children were cynically used as props. (A brief summary of the report, written by Mother Agnes-Mariam herself, along with a link to the PDF of the full report, will be found here.)

Most of Mother Agnes-Mariam’s talk yesterday centered upon the work of the organization she heads, Mussalaha (“Reconciliation”), described as “a popular movement in Syria that mediates disputes and organizes ceasefires between opposing forces.” It became clear to me, in hearing her speak, that her peace activism in Syria long preceded the incident in August that nearly brought about US airstrikes; in her talk, she described some of the more memorable incidents in which she and her organization had made a difference. She seems to have a rare ability to maintain communications with all the different sides in this war, not excluding the Al Nusra Front. (I should qualify that: she explicitly stated that the aim of her organization is to promote reconciliation among the various Syrian parties in this war; she does not negotiate with the foreign jihadists who have flocked to the country.) One of her most moving stories concerned a local meeting in (I think) Aleppo between opposing political forces; the meeting was full of mutual recriminations, and nothing was getting done. Then a man, attending the meeting, related the story of the kidnapping of his only son, named Fayyad, 20-years-old. He and his wife tried for months to secure his release. One day, he received a phone call; the voice asked, “would you like to see your son?” The father replied, “Of course, we are ready to do whatever you ask.” The voice replied that, okay, they would bring him. The father and mother were overjoyed, and anticipated meeting their son. Two days later a car drove by their house, very fast; when the parents opened the door, they found a bag containing the remains of their son Fayyad, who had been hacked into pieces. But the point of the story, as Mother Agnes-Mariam told it, was not the heinous crime as such. The man who told the story said to the warring factions that, although the death of his son was a crime without justification, a loss that had taken away his reason for living, and that, if there was anyone there who had good reason for wanting to seek revenge, it was him, he was, nevertheless, there and then, forgiving his enemies, and beseeching them all, for the good of Syria, to forgive each other. This man, as Mother Agnes-Mariam pointed out, was a Sunni Muslim. She said this, pointing out that this kind of reconciliation is open to all, and is the only way forward if Syria is to have a future.

Like a lot of people, I have been much preoccupied over the past year by what is going on in Syria; in general, I see my own government’s policies there as shameful, duplicitous, and motivated more by calculations of geopolitics than by any genuine concern for the people in that country who are suffering and dying. It is easy to become cynical about what is going on, both in Washington and in Syria itself. It is easy to despair, or to be critical. Mother Agnes-Mariam is one courageous woman who, instead of despairing about the situation, is there on the ground actively doing something about it. She is certainly critical about lies that are told to perpetuate the war; yet the focus of her effort is not there, but on the process of reconciliation which is necessary if all the various parties are to live in peace. She is going to be in the United States for the next month, raising support for her ministry; if she plans to speak in your town, I would urge you to go and hear what she has to say.

Happy Easter

I have not written anything on this blog for a long time; indeed, some readers (if this blog still has readers) may wonder to find me still among the living. But I would like, first, to wish those who celebrated today Christ’s resurrection a Happy Easter. For myself, due to an unusually long gap this year between the dates of Orthodox Easter (or Pascha, if you prefer*) on the one hand and Catholic and Protestant Easter on the other, I shall not be celebrating the paschal feast until May 5th, along with the rest of the Orthodox world. (This discrepancy is rooted in a difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendars; more precisely, it arises from the fact that the Orthodox churches, or most of them, use the date of the vernal equinox on the Julian calendar — March 21st Julian = April 3rd Gregorian — to calculate the feast day, even though this date now falls 13 or 14 days later than the actual, astronomical vernal equinox. The Orthodox calculation of Easter — first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox — also requires that the feast come after Passover: that is, after the whole seven days of that feast are concluded. But there are so many minutiae involved in the calculation of Easter that even the above description is doubtless only partially complete; for instance, there is a full moon this year on April 25th, so why isn’t Orthodox Easter celebrated on the Sunday immediately following this, April 28th? I don’t know, and I despair of knowing.) Most Orthodox I speak with feel the discrepancy between Easter dates is silly and scandalous, and wish that a common date could be arrived at. It won’t be, mainly because the bishops know that any further changes to the calendar would only exacerbate existing divisions amongst the Orthodox — it would further aggravate and complicate the New Calendar / Old Calendar split that already plagues us.

The month of March 2013 has been a bitter one for me and my family. My sister died on March 6th, a cousin’s wife drowned on March 12th, an uncle died today of old age. My address list is slowly being transformed into a necrology, as I write the dates of death next to the names of the people I know. My sister, Ann Gilbert Ortiz, would have been 60 years old in May; she died of cancer, which she had fought for some twenty years. She was a gentle, decent person, loving towards her family, kind to friends and strangers. Human beings are unique and irreplaceable. I console myself sometimes with the thought that, if God took my sister away at this time, it was perhaps because there are miseries in store that he didn’t want her to have to see. I’m glad that my mother didn’t have to witness 9/11 and all the hysteria that followed it.

I like Pope Francis. I particularly like his economics. As for those who grumble because he does not countenance blessing homosexual unions as holy matrimony, well, neither does the New Testament (see Romans ch. 1, if you are in any doubt concerning this). He is simply doing his job, which is to defend the moral and doctrinal teaching of the Catholic Church.

I suppose I have said enough. Again, Happy Easter.
_________

*Some Orthodox boldly assert that “we don’t celebrate Easter — we celebrate Pascha.” See, for instance, an article from the Orthodox Information Center — which also makes the ingenious excuse for ignoring the astronomical date of the vernal equinox, that to observe it would require that the feast be celebrated on different dates in the northern and southern hemispheres. As though the fathers of the Nicene Council, when they laid down canons for a common celebration for the paschal feast, and tied it to the date of the vernal equinox, left it equivocal which hemisphere’s vernal equinox they meant — or else did not mean to speak of the astronomical vernal equinox, but instead meant to fix a particular date on the Julian calendar in perpetuum, however far that calendar might diverge from astronomical reality. Thus, we “observe days, and months, and times, and years” (Gal 4:10). And we are proud of this, as it shows us how deeply spiritual we are.

Notes on Creation and Evolution

As part of an ongoing series of lectures at my church here in Cleveland, I was asked to give a talk this past Sunday; I chose to do so on the topic of Creation and Evolution. Aside from certain initial problems connecting my laptop computer to the projector, the presentation went fairly well. I used the following outline as a basis for the talk, although it should be said that, because of time constraints, not everything in the outline was actually touched upon during the lecture.

Creation and Evolution: Some thoughts on Earth history and its significance for Orthodox Christianity (16 December 2012)

1. Introduction
   1. Who am I, and why am I talking about evolution?
      1. Peter Gilbert. I teach these days at a private Catholic school in South Euclid; I also taught for seven years at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM, and, for three and a half years, I taught at the Orthodox seminary in Durrës, Albania.
      2. I am not a biologist. In matters of biology, I am what might be called an educated layman. My doctorate is in church history, from the Catholic University of America. However, last year at the Lyceum School I was asked to teach a biology class, amongst a number of other subjects.… I also taught biology from time to time at a college in New Mexico, St. John’s College (although the approach to the subject there differed from what you would find at most colleges; it does not presuppose biological expertise on the part of the instructor).
      3. Another personal note. Some twenty years ago, I taught in Albania at the Orthodox Seminary of the Resurrection in Durrës. Albania had recently emerged from forty years of Communism, of the most virulent kind; the persecution of religion in Albania was about as bad as it gets. And one result of the communist indoctrination that my students had been through is that almost all of them took it for granted that, if one accepts evolution as a fact, then one is an atheist; if one is a believer, then one rejects evolution. Because Fr. Luke Veronis knew that that was not my view, he asked me, at one point, to speak about this subject at a student forum at the University of Tirana. I did so. It wasn’t a very good lecture; it showed me, in fact, how little I really knew about this subject. But it did increase my interest in the question. The present forum is, in a way, an opportunity for me to revise the thoughts that I first tried to formulate then.
      4. One other thing. When I was four years old, I visited the 1964-65 World’s Fair in Queens, NY. It helped to produce an interest in dinosaurs that was probably my first scientific interest. That interest never entirely disappeared, although it was eclipsed by other things over time, and I did not, in the end, become a paleontologist.
   2. The importance of the question.
      1. Evolution is not merely a scientific issue, but is also a political one, particularly in the United States. It has been debated in American courts since the Scopes’ trial in the 1920s.
2. The Earth History time chart
   1. 
      
      A good synoptic presentation of the current scientific consensus view of geological chronology. Has the advantage that, unlike most such charts, it is to scale. It takes the form of a clock; thus, one can get a better sense of how short a time humanity has been upon the earth.
   2. Radiometric dating, based on a knowledge of the “half lives” of unstable elements, is one source of this chart. But, in fact, it brings together findings from numerous sources.
3. The Tree of Life (include a slide of this as part of your presentation).
   1. Note that, when you were young, living things were divided into “Plants” and “Animals.” The biological consensus nowadays is that things are much more complicated than this. You might have to explain what the words “Prokaryote” and “Eukaryote” mean. (κάρυον = “nut”)
   2. 
      
4. Two meanings of the word “evolution”
   1. The two meanings are often confused, and this is one reason why much of the debate over whether evolution is or is not a “theory” is so pointless.
   2. On the one hand, the word refers to the claim that species have come into being and gone out of existence over the earth’s long history, and that new species in some way derive from earlier ones. This claim deserves to be called, not a theory, but a fact, testified to by all the evidence of geology and paleontology.
   3. On the other hand, a theory meant to account for the factual evidence. Usually refers to what Charles Darwin called “natural selection,” or, Descent with Modification. A theory first presented in 1859, jointly by Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.
      1. This view claims that new species appear because certain individuals are better fitted to their environment, more able to survive, than others are and, thus, are better able to pass on their peculiar characteristics to their offspring. The claim is made that, over a series of generations, such peculiarities in the offspring can accumulate to the point where one must speak, not merely of a variant breed within the species, but of a different species.
      2. This is a theory, but it is a theory accepted by the vast majority of biologists as being consistent with observable facts: e.g., with the fossil record, with mutations seen in rapidly multiplying populations (like microorganisms), and with the evidence of genetics. It is a theory much in the same way that, say, quantum theory is a “theory”: there are still questions surrounding it, but virtually every working scientist accepts this hypothesis as basically correct and as accounting for the evidence. (People who say “only a theory” when talking about evolution do not know what science is.)
      3. There have been other theories of evolution besides the darwinian one. Notably, the view of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744-1829) was that characteristics acquired during a creature’s lifetime were passed down to its offspring. Others in the eighteenth century (Lord Monboddo; Erasmus Darwin) also held various evolutionary views.
   4. Darwin’s theory of natural selection received substantial support in the mid-20th century with the growth of the study of genetics, in particular with the deciphering of the molecular structure of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) by Watson and Crick in the 1950’s. The union of darwinian theory with genetics constitutes what is usually called the modern evolutionary synthesis.
5. Four theological attitudes towards evolution:
   1. Rejection (1): Young Earth Creationism
      1. Takes the biblical chronology literally (Archbp. James Ussher).
      2. Sees the earth to have been created in 4004 B.C.; takes the six days of Genesis ch. 1 as 24-hour days.
      3. Worth noting that some of the fathers of the Church, e.g., St. Augustine, already rejected this position, without the benefit of Geology.
   2. Rejection (2): “Intelligent Design”
      1. Might be called “Old Earth Creationism”: at least, most of those who hold this position are willing to concede the geological evidence that the earth is very old.
      2. Holds that natural causes cannot fully account for the complexity observed in life forms, and that an Intelligent Designer has to be posited, even on scientific grounds. (I.e., it posits the inadequacy of natural science, and naturalistic explanation, in the presence of the facts of biology.)
      3. Its favorite expression is “irreducible complexity.” One favorite example of this, an argument advanced by Michael Behe: the flagellum of a particular species of bacteria is described as a kind of perfect molecular machine, any of whose parts would be useless except as working in concert with the whole.
         1. I have read a response to this position by a biologist who is also a practicing Catholic, who points out that some of the parts of this machine have been observed in other organisms, serving entirely different functions, which undercuts the whole intelligent design argument. (Rather like the way the carpal bones, which in primates serve as fingers, function in bats as a support for wings.)
      4. Much of the activity of the advocates of Intelligent Design is meant (designed) to affect the science curriculum at public schools in the United States. Such attempts at influencing school curricula have generally been rejected in the courts, e.g. in the case Kitzmiller et al. vs. Dover (December 20, 2005), which ruled that the school board’s biology curriculum, which included Intelligent Design as an alternative to the darwinian account, “violates the Establishment Clause” of the Constitution.
   3. Acceptance (1): Theistic Evolution
      1. Sees evolution as compatible with Christian belief (or Jewish or Muslim). Evolution, on this view, is God’s way of creating new species, just as natural geological processes may be held responsible for the present physical shape of the earth.
         1. For this reason, this view is sometimes called “evolutionary creationism.”
      2. Implies that certain passages of scripture must be read allegorically, a position which, it may be said, is nothing new; Origen, in the third century, said the same thing.
      3. The current pope and his immediate predecessor both expressed support for theistic evolution. So did Cardinal Newman in the 19th century; he thought Darwin’s theory could be accommodated within the doctrine of divine providence.
   4. Acceptance (2): Atheistic Evolution
      1. Sometimes called “radical Darwinism” or “Neo-Darwinism.”
      2. Examples: Richard Dawkins; Stephen Jay Gould
      3. Take the view that evolution is necessarily atheistic, that it rules out any divine action in the origination of species. Evolution, these authors stress, is a mechanical process, and depends on certain changes happening randomly and automatically, without design. Such authors love to point to apparently improvidential features in natural history, as a way of arguing that divinity had no hand in bringing about the forms of life we see.
         1. My own view is that, when biologists start making theological claims about what God can or cannot do, they usually show their theological incompetence. They make God out to be one observable cause among many. The presumption is that God can only act miraculously, outside of the normal order of things, and cannot act through this order, cannot, in fact, have set it up.
6. Attitudes towards evolution taken by Orthodox theologians
   1. Against
      1. Fr. Seraphim Rose (wrote Genesis, Creation, and Early Man)
      2. One of the founders of the Discovery Institute (an Intelligent Design think tank) is an Orthodox Christian. (See if you can find out his name before the lecture.) [William Dembski]
      3. The late Patriarch of Moscow, Alexei II.
      4. Under Protestant influence, a creationist institute was established in Russia not long ago. Titled “Shestodnev” (Creatio), it was blessed in May 2000 by Patriarch Alexei II. It “conducts conferences, arranges disputes, publishes books, and is actively involved in Internet projects. It places itself as an orthodox society for the defense, study, and revealing the essence of [the] Holy Fathers’ doctrine about the Creation of the World.” As in the United States, attempts have been made in Russia in recent years to include “creation science” as part of the science curriculum in the public schools; one famous case involved a Maria Schreiber, who “refused to study biology in school, saying her world outlook is in contradiction to the one Darwin’s theory of evolution is based on.” The case was brought to court; on February 21, 2007, the Russian court rejected the girl’s case; it has been labeled the “Russian monkey trial.”
   2. For
      1. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware. Metropolitan John Zizioulas. Most likely, the present Patriarch of Constantinople (the “Green” Patriarch).
         1. Metropolitan Kallistos:
         2. http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=DYKGPGNX
         3. “Religion and science are working on different levels and are following different methods, and using different kinds of evidence. And, indeed, what each is saying is relevant for the other, but we mustn’t confuse these two levels of discourse. The scientist is working from the evidence of our senses, the theologian, the religious thinker, is using the data of revelation, scripture. So here are two different forms of evidence, and two different ways of arguing. As I see it, there need not be any conflict between religion and science, if each is properly understood, because they are answering different kinds of question. The scientist is telling us what there is in the universe, and he is also saying, as far as we can discover, how the universe came to exist in the form which it now has, by what stages it developed. In the religious sphere, we are asking why was the world created, and what is the purpose of our life on earth. Now, in my view, those are not strictly scientific questions, and the scientist does not claim to answer them, though what he tells us about how the world is and how it came to be the way it is may help us to answer these religious questions. Some scientists would say that the question Why is there a universe, where did it come from, what existed before the Big Bang, some scientists would say that these are simply non-questions, which shouldn’t be asked. But in fact these are questions which as human beings we want to ask and need to ask. But I don’t think the scientist, simply on the basis of his scientific discipline, can answer them.

 

4. 4. 4. 4. “What about the theory of evolution? Very many Orthodox reject this; some of them uphold a form of intelligent design; I don’t care very much for the theory of intelligent design, because I believe it is mixing the levels of science and religion in an unhelpful way. For myself as an Orthodox, I have no difficulty in accepting the evolutionary picture of the universe that is presented by modern science. And I think we shouldn’t say that evolution is merely a theory or speculation; the evidence is very powerful. I don’t find a problem here for my faith as an Orthodox Christian. It is possible for God to work through evolution. He did not have to create everything as it is now in the beginning; he could work through the evolutionary process. But of course, in saying that, we’re moving outside the realm of science, which is not going to make statements of that kind. Again, from the religious point of view, we wish to affirm that human beings have a unique status in the universe, because they are made in the image and likeness of God. The human being is not merely a superior ape. But again, using a phrase like ‘the image and likeness of God’ we are saying something about human beings that science can neither confirm nor deny. We are moving outside the scientific area. So, I believe that a correct understanding of science and the way it works can indeed help our task as religious thinkers, but we need to keep a proper distinction; and if the distinction is kept, I do not think we need see science as a threat. Thank you.”
      5. the late Theodosius Dobzhansky, geneticist and Russian Orthodox Christian (“nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”)
      6. Dr. George Theokritoff, geologist (a friend of mine who lives in New Jersey)
      7. Alexander Kalomiros.
      8. Fr. George Nicozisin. http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/dogmatics/nicozisin_creationism.htm
      9. “The Eastern Fathers, generally speaking, did not take a fundamentalist viewpoint of creation. For example, Vladimir Lossky, a great Orthodox theologian of the past century, says in his famous book, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, ‘The Church always freely makes use of philosophy and the sciences for apologetic (explanatory) purposes, but she never has any cause to defend these relative and changing truths as she defends the unchangeable truth of her doctrines.’”
      10. Sees the only possible conflict between the scientific account and Christian doctrine in connection with the understanding of Adam.
      11. Yours truly
   5. Some describe this difference as that between “dualism” and “compatibilism” — on the one hand, the view that view that science and faith are philosophically incompatible, that science rests upon a philosophical naturalism that denies faith necessarily; and, on the other hand, the view that both scripture and the physical world are divine revelation, and testify to the same God.
      1. The compatibilist position might be summed up by a statement of the late Pope John Paul II, who said (in connection with the question of evolution) that “truth cannot contradict truth.”
   6. My guess is that, at most Orthodox seminaries (certainly in America), the prevalent view accepts evolution as a scientific fact.
5. Theological problems that evolution raises for Christian belief
   1. How to interpret the Genesis account(s) of creation. In particular:
      1. What is meant by the “days of creation”? (As mentioned, that already received an allegorizing response from the fathers of the church in the fourth and fifth centuries.)
      2. If human beings are descended from earlier forms of life, and if man is genetically related to all other known life forms, then how are we to understand the fundamental scriptural claim, that man is created “in the image and likeness of God”?
         1. Genetic inheritance does not preclude essential difference.
   2. Who was Adam?
   3. How to understand the doctrine of the fall of man.
      1. If the whole story of evolution presupposes death, how is one to understand the claim, that the sin of Adam and Eve brought death into the world?
   4. The official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church is that, while one may accept evolution as an explanation for Adam’s body, one must hold that Adam’s soul was independently created, by a special act of God, and is not merely the result of natural evolution. Some Orthodox priests I have spoken to hold essentially the same position. Pope Pius XII also declared that one must hold Adam to have been a real individual person.
      1. This does raise the question, though, of the status of earlier hominids. For example, it is now known that Neanderthal DNA is present in both European and Asian human beings, constituting about 2% of their genome. Similarly, Australian aborigines have been found to possess DNA deriving from Denisovan man. Is one to include the Neanderthals and Denisovan man amongst the children of Adam?
      2. Some years ago, on the basis of a comparative study of mitochondrial DNA, it was announced that all current human beings could be traced back to a single mother.
6. Final reflections.
   1. Why this question is important.
      1. At once a religious, a scientific, and a political question.
      2. If, like the present Patriarch of Constantinople, one is an environmentalist, one cannot ignore evolution. To understand how the world is in the present, one has to understand how it has been in the past.
      3. One’s attitude towards this question has a number of practical consequences. If one thinks that the earth is 6,000 years old, one will not be terribly concerned about, say, the inherent limitations in the earth’s supply of fossil fuels. If one is a new earth creationist, everything in the past is, in some sense, miraculous; the apparent necessity for hundreds of millions of years of geological processes for petroleum to be naturally produced is, on this reading, merely an illusion. Nor will one take much thought about global warming, or the idea that there have been, in the earth’s history, major extinction events, most of them having to do with changes in the earth’s climate.
   2. The debate concerns fundamental matters of faith, how one understands the world and God’s activity as “Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things, visible and invisible.” The issue is not going to go away.

 

Patriarchal Encyclical for the Indiction and the Day for the Protection of our Natural Environment

From the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America website.

Prot. No. 718

+ BARTHOLOMEW

By the Mercy of God
Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome
And Ecumenical Patriarch
To the Fullness of the Church
Grace and Peace from the Creator
and Sustainer of All Creation
Our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ

Beloved brothers and children in the Lord,

Our God, who created the universe and formed the earth as a perfect dwelling place for humanity, granted us the commandment and possibility to increase, multiply and fulfill creation, with dominion over all animals and plants.

The world that surrounds us was thus offered to us as a gift by our Creator as an arena of social activity but also of spiritual sanctification in order that we might inherit the creation to be renewed in the future age. Such has always been the theological position of the Holy Great Church of Christ, which is the reason why we have pioneered an ecological effort on behalf of the sacred Ecumenical Throne for the protection of our planet, which has long suffered from us both knowingly and unknowingly.

Of course, biodiversity is the work of divine wisdom and was not granted to humanity for its unruly control. By the same token, dominion over the earth and its environs implies rational use and enjoyment of its benefits, and not destructive acquisition of its resources out of a sense of greed. Nevertheless, especially in our times, we observe an excessive abuse of natural resources, resulting in the destruction of the environmental balance of the planet’s ecosystems and generally of ecological conditions, so that the divinely-ordained regulations of human existence on earth are increasingly transgressed. For instance, all of us – scientists, as well as religious and political leaders, indeed all people – are witnessing a rise in the atmosphere’s temperature, extreme weather conditions, the pollution of ecosystems both on land and in the sea, and an overall disturbance – sometimes to the point of utter destruction – of the potential for life in some regions of the world.

Inasmuch as the Mother Church perceives and evaluates the ensuing dangers of such ecological conditions for humanity, already from the time of our blessed predecessor, Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios, [it has] established September 1st of each year as a day of prayer for the natural environment. Yet, we are obliged to admit that the causes of the aforementioned ecological changes are not inspired by God but initiated by humans. Thus, the invocation and supplication of the Church and us all to God as the Lord of lords and Ruler of all for the restoration of creation are essentially a petition of repentance for our sinfulness in destroying the world instead of working to preserve and sustain its ever-flourishing resources reasonably and carefully.

When we pray to and entreat God for the preservation of the natural environment, we are ultimately imploring God to change [the] mindset of the powerful in the world, enlightening them not to destroy the planet’s ecosystem for reasons of financial profit and ephemeral interest. This in turn, however, also concerns each one of us inasmuch as we all generate small ecological damage in our individual capacity and ignorance. Therefore, in praying for the natural environment, we are praying for personal repentance for our contribution – smaller or greater – to the disfigurement and destruction of creation, which we collectively experience regionally and occasionally through the immense phenomena of our time.

In addressing this appeal, petition and exhortation from the sacred Center of Orthodoxy to all people throughout the world, we pray that our gracious Lord, who granted this earthly paradise to all people dwelling on our planet, will speak to the hearts of everyone so that we may respect the ecological balance that He offered in His wisdom and goodness, so that both we and future generations will enjoy His gifts with thanksgiving and glorification.

May this divine wisdom, peace and power, which created and sustains and guides all creation in its hope for salvation in the kingdom, always maintain the beauty of the world and the welfare of humanity, leading all people of good will to produce fruitful works toward this purpose. And we invoke His grace and mercy on all of you, particularly those who respect and protect creation. Amen.

September 1, 2012