Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 6: Late Byzantium

This chapter is extensive in the topics presented, and each have been given individual attention in scholarly literature. In short, it covers the Great Schism, the Crusades, the Union of Lyons, Hesychasm and the Palamite Controversy, the Union of Ferrara-Florence, the Fall of Constantinople and the following conditions of Orthodoxy in many countries under the Islamic Ottoman empire. It has a very chess board type of history that makes it difficult to really identify any purely good or bad characters. There were Latin rite Christians worshipping in the city of Constantinople and there were many well-established Greek Orthodox churches and monasteries in Italy before 1054. Rash decisions were made, and wise calculations taken too. The Hellenic and Italic cultures have been melding for millennia in the Mediterranean, not to mention how the Etruscans also helped to Orientalize Italy. How Greece and Italy have been integrated over thousands of years dwarfs in comparison this most recent and artificial break in the ecclesial and political spheres between them. Another example of integration is the Septuagint, which is the Bible translated into Greek by Alexandrian Jews as well as most of the wisdom books in scripture that could be described as products of reaction and synthesis of Hellenic and Hebraic wisdom traditions. Wisdom is universal. To reiterate a little, the Byzantines viewed themselves as Romans who did speak Greek, and no longer Latin. But for convenience sake, we refer to them as different peoples. The Byzantines were in fact heirs of classical culture, and imparted much inspiration, not its only source, to the Italian Renaissance in the 1400s. The Latins in Italy, as they came to be called by Greek Orthodox Christians, also saw themselves as inheritors of the pure faith and heirs of the Romans. So Rome and Constantinople are the apex of the schism and also probably the most similar to each other in many ways. The Byzantine empire had to be defended from multiple angles, as it happens. Often the attempts to preserve the original ecumenical territory that included Italy wasn’t perfectly reintegrated and there were new forces on the peninsula such as the Lombard kings and Norman mercenaries. Charlemagne’s translatio imperii performed and sanctioned by a part of the hierarchy, the Pope, was a strange sight for Byzantines who didn’t have this kind of direct relationship between church and state. The Roman pontiff, in the end, was able to maintain more independence from the Byzantine emperor while the patriarchs of the East submitted to the earthily authority of the rulers. These two ecclesial patterns more or less continued into the divergent histories of western Europe and eastern Europe and Asia. The Holy Roman emperors and princes vied with the Papacy while the Orthodox East fell under the control of the Muslim Ottoman empire.

Many scholars and typical accounts of the schism focus on a few characters or several key factors that are easy to list and summarize. But other crucial events and socio-political changes also began with the Merovingians and Clovis, then Charlemagne and the Franks leading to the Lombards and Normans ruling various Italian city states. There doesn’t seem to be any kingdom or culture in the past that didn’t see religion and power as working together. When Pope Leo III gave political legitimacy to the Frankish king Charlemagne, the Greeks considered this action unjustifiable and against political and religious order. Pepin the Short (probably ironically so-called) donated lands that would form the Papal States in 756. The Normans had a hand in ridding Orthodoxy from Italy and imposing the Latin rite from Rome. While in Sicily the Norman elite created an amazing amalgamation of indigenous Sicilian, Byzantine, Viking and Arab culture and art. These historical events aren’t given much detail in the volume but are worth understanding in our North American culture. But even earlier, as Metropolitan Hilarion recounts, there were provocations already in 732 when the anti-icon emperor Leo III the Isaurian took dioceses from southern Italy from the pope’s jurisdiction and placed under the control of Constantinople. All of this set up the coming collision between these two rival powers of spiritual and secular authority. It might be useful to remember that Christianity is a more accurately a kingdom not of this world, and not just a religion among other world religions. The Muslims were religious, the Jews were religious, the Franks were religious, the Latins were religious as well as the Byzantines and the lands of the Rus’. The rules and canons differed and were similar among these peoples.

Metropolitan Hilarion reminds us that “Papal Primacy was repeatedly advanced in the east …” during the age of ecumenical councils with hardly any protest at all. The Pope could be “the most divine head of all heads” if he were to maintain the Orthodox faith; and there is no doctrine of papal supremacy or infallibility in the strongly pro-papal examples provided in these volumes, or in the patristic history and literature. Both papal supremacy and infallibility are dogmas now of the Roman Catholicism. These doctrines are not accepted by the Orthodox Churches today. Papal primacy is accepted on the condition that the Bishop of Rome is Orthodox in faith. The Roman Church was one of the greatest churches because it maintained Orthodoxy, fought against heretical politicians and emperors, and they had the honor of being purified by the martyrdom of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. The filioque occupied more attention than purgatory or the papacy in the theological discussions at the Ferrara-Florence is noteworthy.

The Latin filioque comes from the addition to the Nicene Creed the Son (Patre filioque procedit) meaning the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. It was more serious than the minor differences in Latin ritual practices, although they were often taken together to form anti-Latin polemics with a lack of discernment. The Holy Trinity was the cornerstone of the traditions of the Church and faith that kept the Orthodox world together. The emperor Michael was the person who pushed the most for viewing the Latins as non-Orthodox, whenever they were. Patriarch Peter of Antioch wrote to Patriarch Michael Cerularius about Roman practices saying:

But I think the other things … should be overlooked, since the word of truth is not at all harmed by them. For we should not readily be persuaded by vain accusations, nor believe in our own suspicions, and we should not change the things which are established and right.

And Peter ended his letter to Cerularius by saying:

If ever they [the Romans] would correct the addition to the holy creed, I would demand nothing else, leaving as a matter of indifference, along with all the other matters, even their fault regarding the azyme.

There were schisms before 1054 that were healed. Surprisingly even this local split between Patriarch Michael Cerularius and the papal legates of Pope Leo did not end until the Fourth Crusade of 1204.

The Fourth Crusade in 1204 recounts the liberation from the Muslim armies but also the plundering of Orthodox churches and cities. Latin patriarchs were assigned to Constantinople and Antioch. It was abolished in 1291 in Jerusalem, but reinstated by the Roman Catholic Church in 1847 to the present day. Between the 10th and 15th c. the eastern Roman empire along with the patriarchates in the east began to decline slowly. But there were cultural flowerings of learning such as the Macedonian, Comneian and Palaeologan renaissances, named after the emperors responsible for supporting them in the church.

The Union of Lyons was a regrettable attempt at reunification. The Greek clergy arrived to celebrate the liturgy together and they chanted the filioque with the Latin patriarchs from western Europe. The emperor Michael VIII forced this union. Neither the Pope of Rome’s papal supremacy or his privileges healed the schism, nor did the emperor without adhering to the Orthodox faith can heal the schism by unilateral means. Emperor John VIII Palaeologos (1425-1448) met with Pope Eugene IV. Patriarch Joseph II came too. Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem came. In 1438, a council was convened in Ferrara, Florence. Metropolitan Mark of Ephesus came.

Purgatorium. They discussed the idea of purgatory that only those who are in good standing with the Church, the elect, can be cleansed of venial sins and go to heaven after this purifying fire. Mortal sins cannot be purified and the fire of hell isn’t the same as purgatory according to the Roman Catholic Catechism. The modern catechism describes purgatorial fire as not coming from God’s anger but out of charity. It isn’t clear or talked about whether the fire is created or uncreated, literal or allegorical. But no one in hell can escape; no one in heaven needs prayers. The Orthodox Church doesn’t teach this purgatory. St. Mark of Ephesus and the Orthodox did not know this doctrine, since they prayed for all the departed either in heaven or hell. What it really ends up saying theologically is that there is a limit to forgiveness and mercy.

Filioque. They discussed the filioque clause at the council. After a year and a half of discussions they couldn’t agree to each other’s explanations of purgatory or the filioque. The Latins gave an ultimatum. The pope promised military help against the Turks on the condition that they accept purgatory, filioque, and all that the Latins teach. Only Mark of Ephesus refused to sign in agreement. Transubstantiation, papal supremacy, and the use of unleavened bread, the specific way of saying the epiklesis were also doctrines that the Greeks had to accept. Papal supremacy meant that not only did the Pope of Rome have primacy of honor, but primacy of jurisdiction and doctrine. The Orthodox had to accept that the Pope of Rome was the “vicar of Christ” and “head of the Church.” That means the Pope could act unilaterally. The filioque really implied that there is not one source of the Godhead – God the Father – that the will and energy of God are not created but uncreated.

St.Mark of Ephesus says that the Greek delegation sent to Ferrara had sold out the Orthodox Faith. He lists what the Orthodox Church taught in opposition to the Latins at that time. “And we say that the saints do not enter the kingdom and the unspeakable delights prepared for them, nor are sinners sent to Gehenna, but both await their fate, which will be entered into in the age to come after the resurrection and judgment; but they along with the Latins, wish that these might receive according to their deeds immediately after death, granting those in between … the purifying fire, which is not identical to that of Gehenna ….”

He also says about the Patriarch of Rome, “For us the pope is one of the patriarchs, and only if he is Orthodox; but they declare with great self-importance that he is the vicar of Christ, the father and teacher of all Christians …. Therefore, brethren, run from them and avoid contact with them.” The Russian Church at the time under Constantinople was the first to reject the Union of Florence.

Even though Metropolitan Isidore of Kiev accepted and commemorated the Bishop of Rome in liturgy at Moscow, the Grand Prince Vasily Vasilievich declared Isidore a heretic and arrested him. Then, all the Russian bishops and priests rose against the union with the Latins. Isidore fled to Rome and became a cardinal. (135-136). In concert, the state and church worked together to reject a false union.

Laetentur Caeli was the document that the Basel group had to sign. The Russians declared autocephaly and excoummunicated sympathizers to the Latin doctrines. Etsi non dubitemus (1441) sealed the doctrine of the papal supremacy over church councils. But just before the Union of Florence, the Great Western Schism had just been broiling among western bishops who never resolved how to settle a dispute between rival claimants to the papal office – do they hold a council or do they not? If they hold a council, a council becomes the mechanism and superior to the Pope, as they reasoned and feared that conciliarism would become a guiding precedent.

All these events are interlocking. Since the military help needed to repel the Ottomans from sieging Constantinople hinged on accepting the Union of Florence and hence a different set of dogmas and traditions of the Church, Constantinople Fell in 1443. May 28 was the last day that the divine liturgy was held in Constantinople up to today. May 29 was the day that the Turks finally took the city after a week long defense by the Greeks, Genovese Italians, and others. The city had officially accepted the Latin doctrine and Papacy, yet they fell nevertheless. Constantine XI Palaeologos was the last Roman Emperor. Cardinal Isidore was there and was caught and executed along with many Byzantine priests, nobility, and aristocracy. Churches were looted and destroyed.

Uniatism was an idea and practice that was banned by the Roman Catholic Church in 1993. Pope Benedict XVI has taught that there is nothing else required from Orthodoxy except for the first millennium (including papal primacy as defined by the Orthodox Church, not papal supremacy or the filioque).

Another Italian-Greek debate occurred between Barlaam of Calabria, a Greek, and St. Gregory Palamas of Constantinople. The knowledge of God is a topic related to hesychasm as well as the ability to experience “the divine light.” Palamas defended the essence-energies distinction that is common way of explaining how we can know and experience God while God’s essence remains unknowable and inscrutable. Barlaam lost the debate at the council in Hagia Sophia in the summer of 1341; Barlaam fled the city and sought refuge in Avignon under Pope Clement VI who appointed Barlaam bishop of Gerace in Naples, Italy with the help of Francesco Petrarca. Gregory defends that we worship one God, not two – one essence God. Hesychasm as taught by St. Gregory Palamas was confirmed three times in council in Constantinople, although one of his disciples and others later opposed him like Barlaam.

By 1453 most of the historical splits that endure today have occurred. Italy still isn’t a unified country at this time but it’s divided into various kingdoms, city-states, and the Papal states. Russia is germinating in Kiev and the northern lands of the Rus’ including Moscow haven’t been united under one monarch. What is now Greece is under Muslim control in the Ottoman empire, and it isn’t a national concept yet. But the Fall of Constantinople is considered by many scholars in the West, even Edward Gibbons, to be the last of the Roman emperors on July 4, 1453. The Byzantines, however, didn’t disappear. In 1498, the Scuola dei Greci was established by Byzantine Greeks residing in Venice after the Fall of 1453. San Giorgio dei Greci was built later. The last grand duke of the Byzantine emperor fled to Venice where treasures are kept at this church. They began building an Orthodox temple in 1456 about a decade after the city of Constantinople fell. Napoleon and the Enlightenment movement eventually closed these Greek and Slavic confraternities in 1806.

Many older Greek and Middle Eastern immigrants to America would later have the Ottoman empire on their passport while many Eastern Europeans would have the stamp ofvthe Austro-Hungarian empire, or the Russian Orthodox missionaries to America would have a passport from the Russian empire. Just as the Jewish nation fell to allow the totality of the gentiles into the church, so too global immigration, imperial missionaries, and the fall of empires have allowed those of us who live in non-Orthodox countries to experience Orthodox Christianity freely. Whatever interpretation we take on these historical events we know in divine wisdom that God orders all things according to his mercy. The next chapter discusses how Orthodoxy in Rus’ became Orthodoxy in Russia, and the historical development of Russia came to influence Europe, France, and the United States.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 5: Summary of the First Millennium

During the first millennium around 537 AD, emperor Justinian oversaw the completion of the Church of Holy Wisdom in Constantinople. It’s a common attribution that he said, “I have outdone Solomon.” The Wisdom of Solomon, includinig all sapiential scriptures, is known to have many connections to apostolic teaching and many typological references to Christ and his doctrines of resurrection, salvation, and judgment. Christ’s stands at the center of creation as Holy Wisdom Itself – a fulfillment of the prophets and patriarchs and priesthood. Justinian is also recorded to have said that God’s greatest gifts to us are the priesthood and “the dignity” of imperial rule. While the latter hasn’t surpassed the passage of time, the liturgical and royal priesthood have continued today. True royalty of the heart never fades and is always filled with treasures.

In God’s wisdom, much unlike our own thinking, he prophesied and promised to Abraham that “all nations” will be saved. The Apostles Peter and Paul teach that “all of Israel will be saved,” meaning every individual Jew according to the flesh in toto will be saved, and that until the totality (pleroma) of the nations enters the Church where Wisdom resides and saves, Israel awaits its salvation. Israel is hardened now for other nations of the world of whom we have been studying in these volumes, and about their particular history of conversion. Because Israel fell away the gentiles can be shown mercy and salvation. The Jewish people will not reject God forever, as the Apostle Paul clearly apportioned a temporary character to it, because God never rejects people forever. By keeping Israel in disobedience to have mercy on the gentiles, all Israel too will be shown mercy in the end. That logic of doctrine aligns with the teaching of the Wisdom of Solomon that God orders all things in mercy for all people teaching them the truth and virtuous way of life. It is Wisdom, the Word, the Logos, the Christ who opened the mouths of infants and the uneducated to speak wiser than the worldly philosophers, astronomers, emperors and law-givers. Solomon, not Solon, teaches that God shows mercy on “all beings” (panta onta). This explanation gives us a background for understanding how Christianity has been a fulfillment of the Old Testament and how it expanded within the Jewish, Hellenic, and Roman cultures from 70 AD to 1000 AD.

So, there were many martyrs under the Roman empire, and a long time afterward. The emperors were converted and many pagan nations converted: Latins, Greeks, Syrians, Arabs, North Africans, Britons, Gauls, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, the Slavic peoples. One after another each nation and ruler accepted wisdom as taught by king Solomon, the wisest of rulers, and by the apostolic teaching of the Orthodox Church. Christianity spread not only by martyrdom but also by monasticism and ascetical literature, and the piety of good people. The term laity is from French, Latin laicus, ultimately Greek laos (people) to refer to an uneducated person. Since that carries baggage from a certain period of history in western Europe when almost no one was educated, not even the majority of priests, and because most people are educated, it’s probably more accurate to call the people in the Church the royal priesthood or just the people. The eucharistic liturgy develops in the 2nd – 3rd c. Monastic hymnographers also have a great influence on the liturgical services in the 8th – 10th c. Fine arts and church architecture and iconography all develop, and along with that church singing grows. How else could the majority of the inhabitants of the known world be captured by Christianity? Wisdom through the Holy Spirit is stronger than the brute force of power. Wisdom is Christ Himself. He is given to us for our benefit in the liturgy, the eucharist, the feasts, the hours, the songs and cyclical services. These aspects of the Church are not just “developments of doctrine,” as if we have to be apologetic by the richness adorned in our worship, but the natural outgrowth of discernment, perception, astuteness, self-control, and the cultivation of holy wisdom in the apostolic teachings. Monasticism gained momentum in the 4th c. because they desired to pursue wisdom with a determination that could only be sought by dedicating oneself alone by tonsure and the bishops of the Church. They understood that truth appears like folly to the world. But earthily understanding is the true foolishness to be grieved. How else is it possible to make emperors and empresses bow down and kiss the holy icons? The Church vanquished iconoclasm and the basilicas rebounded with an abundance of icons to keep us from evil images and doctrines during the 7th – 9th c. The Holy Spirit instructs the Church and guides it by hierarchy (the bishops and priests and deacons) and also through the liturgical worship of the church as it is evident in history. These rules or canons teach us discernment, righteousness, glory of the virtues by hymns, scriptures, iconography, and ascetical literature or the lives of the saints. The end of the first millennium includes some setbacks in history. The social and political fabric of a unified Christianity begins to crumble. But wisdom is never perturbed by the tides and folly of human decisions, whether among monks, clergy, the people, or in councils and imperial courts. With that holy confidence and very brief summary we can proceed into the next chapter called Late Byzantium and into the second millennium of Christianity.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 4: Baptism of the Slavic Peoples

From the 4th to 7th c. monastic communities and ascetical literature developed in Egypt, Syria, Palestine as well as in Constantinople. Some belonged to the Greco-Roman culture in the Roman empire, others came from the Assyrian tradition in the Persian empire. The iconoclasm of the 7th c. had been vanquished by Orthodoxy with a large part of the brunt being taken, as it seems, by monastics in Constantinople and the royalty who at times supported or persecuted iconodules. Symphony was the idea developed in Constantinople, probably a very Roman concept, that the Church and the government should and must coexist harmoniously as much as it is possible, provided that the ruler is Orthodox as well as the majority of the people. The Old Testament is filled with examples of kings and empires. A holy nation and people will come out victorious whatever the politics because “good people always triumph” says the wisdom books of Scripture. The nobles, princes, or oligarchs (the rich masses) should also equally support the monarch and should not oppress the other classes – a point often neglected in discussion around Church-state relations. Alexander Schmemann and Metr. Hilarion admit that this symphony principle may have been an ideal more sought than practiced because there were certainly a lot of arbitrariness in the history of Byzantium. Monarchies tend to be hereditary whereas the hierarchy was not except in the Old Testament period and in certain cases in Syria. Europe had its own dilemma later than Byzantium with the Investiture Controversy that focused on the problem of how to order a good society, and how land was to be used either by the Church or the state. In the 9th and 10th c., Byzantine monks were sent and were requested to come and teach Christianity to various Slavic peoples of Europe, since they didn’t know whether to follow the Latin or Greek ritual that usually indicated different practices, and even beliefs. It was a time that also coincided with many other tumultuous events around the jurisdiction of the Greek Church in Constantinople and the Latin Church in Rome as well as competitive bishops from the Germanic lands of Bavaria bordering on Czechia and Slovakia, neighbors of the Slavs. The Franks, Normans, Bavarians, all more or less Romanized in one way or another, had already been Christians before the baptism of the Slavic nations and their respective unification.

There are a handful of large topics embedded in this short chapter surrounding the baptism of the Slavs. The Photian-Ignatian Schism, Prince Vladimir’s baptism of his nation, the deterioration of relations between Constantinople and Rome, the Filioque controversy, and the mission of Sts. Cyril and Methodius.

Many scholars and prominent Roman Catholic theologians have exculpated Photius. In fact, Photius never really desired or sought to be a bishop of Constantinople. He was content with his ascetical life. A faction of monks from the Stoudios Monastery favored bishop Ignatius who was the son of emperor Michael I (9th c.). Empress Theodora ruled instead of the young Michael III. After that, Ignatius was deposed for the first time and Photius was put on the patriarchal throne. One swift action by the monarchical power of this empress set off a long series of events that caused a schism, the second one after the Akakian schism, between Rome and Constantinople. But it may seem strange that Rome would be involved in a controversy involving another church’s bishop. As expected, the Stoudios monks didn’t accept Photius as bishop. In 863 Pope Nicholas I deposed Patriarch Photius. This action was unacceptable by the Church in Constantinople as a breach of canon law and Orthodox ecclesiology. Both the intervention of the empress and the Pope into the church affairs of an already complex city such as Constantinople caused further intensity and disruptions.

What soured the relationship more between Rome and Constantinople was the missionary activities of Sts. Cyril and Methodius as well as the often overlooked issue of the Normans eventually coercing the Latin rite on Greek Orthodox Christians populating southern Italy when they began to arrive in a vibrantly multi-ethnic and open society of trade and a high degree of religious tolerance in Italy during the 9th – 10th c. The Norman mercenaries just couldn’t stomach all of that, especially the Arab presence and occasional Saracen pirates. Most probably the latter issue had a lot to do with the 1054 schism. In the end, the Church of Constantinople canonized Ignatius and Photius post mortem. Patriarch Photius was a leading voice in criticizing the filioque teaching and raising it nearly to the level of heresy for introducing a fourth source into the Trinity by saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds (derives from, comes from - post classical meaning) from the Father and the Son, rather than from the Father alone, which was originally rejected by Pope Leo III himself when it was first brought to his attention in earlier centuries. The filioque was pushed mostly by Charlemagne’s newly founded kingdom in rivalry to the Byzantium empire in order to find fault and heresy with the Greek Church in Constantinople. Rome’s position among the pentarchy (all the Orthodox patriarchates) seems to be best described historically and theologically as the authoritative mediator not only between churches, bishops, and missions but also between outside forces like the Franks and Byzantium. But all of that changed with the advent of the Carolingian dynasty and the coronation of Charlemagne ca. 800 who had little in common with any real restoration of the Roman empire compared to the hereditary and cultural legacy of the Byzantines. In fact, more strange than to think that the capitol of the Roman Empire could be in the Greek city of Constantinople was that Charlemagne’s new Holy Roman Empire, the forerunner of modern Europe’s values and customs, was located not in the old city of Rome but headquartered in Aachen, Germany. From there all major European royalty emerges with also input from the Russian royal family as well. The term Roman pontiff is somewhat of an important word to use for the Bishop of Rome because it refers to the old Latin term that means a high official who acted as a bridge-maker. Just as the holy apostles Peter and Paul mediated between the Jews and Gentiles, so too Rome acted in this way, which precludes any idea of supremacy, jurisdictional authority, or notions of absolute monarchy that the pagans admired and worshipped. The Popes in Rome supported and mediated on behalf of Sts. Cyril and Methodius to enable them to teach the Byzantine faith to the Slavs of the Moravian kingdom in modern day Czecha and Slovakia. The Roman Popes approved of their efforts to translate the Bible and other works in the Slavonic language for the people despite the protests by the Bavarians and others who wrongly thought that only Latin, Greek, and Hebrew could be used for liturgical purposes. Their mission ultimately failed to take deeper root due to the tensions between their Germanic neighbors, and probably rightly so. But Bulgaria, Russia, Serbia and other Balkan nations accepted the Byzantine Christianity, and Greek bishops were sent there. Our grass-roots ideal of how politics, unity, and religious missions should work just wasn’t that simple according to the majority of the history of the Orthodox Church.

Prince Oleg in 911 experienced some missionary activity but it wasn’t well established, as Photius records. After a treaty was reached between the Rus’ (Russians) under Prince Igor and the Byzantine empire, Christianity flowed more freely between them. There was already a cathedral in Kiev of the Prophet Elias in 944. The traditional date of the “baptism of the Slavs” that the Church of Russia accepts is 988 when Prince Vladimir married Anna from Byzantium. The Tale of Bygone Years is a great example of ancient Russian literature mixed with Biblical themes and historical sources, which begins from Adam and Eve to Vladimir’s baptism that brings Christianity to the “peoples of the Rus’.” The next few chapters will cover Late Byzantium, its fall, and how Orthodoxy developed in Rus’ that became modern Russia. Metr. Hilarion and Alexander Schemann view the fallout of Rome and Constantinople and the subsequent fall of Constantinople as leaving Russian Orthodoxy as the leading light of Orthodoxy until the Revolution of 1918. In Russian culture, as well as most European cultures, the royals have set the best examples for us. St. King Aethelbert of East Anglia, Sts. Boris and Gleb, and St. Elizabeth the New Royal in the 20th c. are excellent models of good rulers lighting a candle in the midst of chaos rather than cursing the darkness. What can happen in a thousand years? Most of the inhabited world became Orthodox Christian. The next few chapters recount the first millennium and proceed into a time where monarchies fell and Christianity was broken up politically and socially.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 3: The Rise of Monasticism and Ascetic Literature

Some say monasticism in the Church originated from a negative reaction to the Christianization of the Roman Empire. It’s believable that some people responded this way, and many Egyptians avoided conscription in the Roman army by force who had moved to the desert regions. But the one-minded spirit to serve God alone, outside of married life, has been represented by the Old Testament prophets, St. John the Forerunner, and late Jewish groups such as the Essenes and Nazarenes who “labored for virtue” like Christians. Any person who desires to seek wisdom and its ultimate source is like a monk in heart. Just as there is the royal priesthood of holy believers, there are many who, whether married or not, understand that Wisdom, the Logos, the Incarnate Son of God has always been with mankind as a guide toward the Truth that alone can “set us free.” Our nature is made good and still is good in each of us; but our gnomic will constantly wanders off, and confuses various goods in the world with the Good.To gain a higher degree of self-control in an environment best suited for achieving that goal, monks in Egypt and Palestine flourished and spread different types of monasticism to Italy, Britain, France, Syria, Constantinople, Russia and many other places. Monasticism seeks to live the straight path in a way that relies on the source of all good, Goodness Itself. Although we belong to each other in sharing one human nature, we don’t seem to be a one-size fits all situation when we discuss each person’s individual spiritual pursuit of righteousness and wisdom. Some may need more solitary time like in the sketes of the Egyptian desert and the forests of northern Russia, others more communal situations like the cenobitic monasteries or in a city accompanied by many books. Other topics mentioned is the development of the scriptorium and monastic eldership.

The sapiential literature of the Old Testament can be understood as fulfilled in the pursuit of discernment and perception and wisdom among the monastic communities of the Church as well as among the married Christians representing wisdom in the royal priesthood, because holiness and wisdom are one – upheld by the glory of the virtues produced in the Church and as a wonderful work of Christ. For this reason, Syrian monks called themselves “the sons of the covenant” because the Old Testament wasn’t separate, but continuous with the life of Christ. With the same inclination of our gnomic or knowledgeable will to miss the mark, lacking discernment in thought and action, Christians living in the world can become too worldly just as monks can become too rigidly monkish. Some groups of monks began to develop “extreme individualism.” The Council of Gangra declared that monks who disdained marriage along with other very strict standards of living, as if imposed on all Christians, were condemned. Examples of extreme austerity can be seen in the monasticism of Cappadocia at times. But a Cappadocian father, St. Basil the Great taught the more “ecclesiastic” understanding of monasticism situated in and originating from the Church, not an outside force imposed on or added as an appendage to the ecclesial structure. Desert monasticism was characteristic of Syria-Palestine, Egypt while urban monasticism developed in Rome, Constantinople, Cappadocia. And the real jewel of knowledge that monastics have given us is that distractions follow us everywhere we go. There are sheep and goats in the pastures of our heart. Theodore the Studite from the well-known and influential Stoudios monastery of Byzantium speaks to monks saying, “I believe God will accept you and your good intention [will] if you remain the same even after moving from the most silent places to noisy and populous ones, from desert to city.” The changeable man is tossed by vices and lack of discernment, but the wise are calm even in the midst of storms, as our scriptures teach in the Wisdom of Solomon and Proverbs.

Canonical structure or the framework of rules is important for regulating the life of any Christian, especially monastic communities. Basil’s Rules, although having no word “monk” mentioned, outlines how Christians who dedicate themselves to attaining perfection can live best. It was mentioned in the chapter that monasticism isn’t an authority or standard set above the Church. The life free of many distractions was very much supported by the Roman government and culture, and so the Byzantines allowed for monasteries to become epicenters of classical and theological learning and libraries. The hot pursuit of virtue, wisdom, and righteousness, the union with God combined with the preservation of wisdom literature and theological and liturgical texts – an immense gift from God. Because Constantinople’s government supported monasticism for the most part of its history, around 100,000 monks at one time lived in Byzantium, and 76 monasteries in the city of Constantinople. And contrary to the opinion of some Roman Catholic friends who argue that the eastern Christians had a penchant for heresy deep in their psychology, which requires that the doctrine of papal supremacy is true, it is no coincidence that heresies had to come out of the Hellenistic East. The Greek Bible, the Septuagint, compiled by Hellenistic Jews, is the oldest, most authoritative version of the Bible still used by the Orthodox Church. The Greek language along with the Greek and Jewish communities, often intermarrying and exchanging ideas, are closest to the apostolic teaching and writing, and so they are best able to handle such difficulties and nuances in interpreting the scriptures. If these heresies had spread from any other area of the inhabited world, who could have resolved them with such authority and power and clarity? Most of the patriarchates are located in the eastern Mediterranean and Asian side of the world; so, that also makes it logistically and culturally easier to convene and discuss theological and ecclesial issues so much so that even the Pope had the custom of sending his legates across the sea to Constantinople. Out of the good providence of God the ecumenical councils and monasticism with rich abundant literary resources grew out of a larger Mediterranean world that was once very integrated compared to today.

Ascetical and monastic literature wasn’t always Roman. St. Isaac the Syrian (7th c.) lived in the Persian Empire. Also Jacob Aphrahat (4th c.) and St. Ephraim the Syrian (4th c.) were not Greek or Roman but belonged to the Assyrian or Syriac tradition of Christianity.

So, the next few chapters discuss the Baptism of the Slavs and Late Byzantium and the Great Schism that broke up a widespread common culture and tradition, that may have been more an idealization than a reality. Rome and Constantinople with the other patriarchates of the East finally parted ways, and new idea of “East and West” would rise in the popular minds of later thinkers and nations.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 2: The Age of the Ecumenical Councils

The age of ecumenical councils covers three major controversies that hit the Church: the Trinitarian heresies, the heresies about Christ, and the persecution of Christians who venerated iconography. Many people gave up their life for these doctrines. The councils didn’t always reach the right verdict the first time but there were victories that were at very crucial times supported by the state or the prevailing cultural tide at the time. What is important about each of these theological successes is that it involves the Orthodox teaching of personalism. The Trinity is one God in three persons, not the same person. Christ is a person who is perfect in his humanity and perfect in his divinity. Icons reflect holy persons who have been deified and who are praying ceaselessly for us all to be saved individually. In Holy Orthodoxy personal theology doesn’t sacrifice technical, abstract, or philosophical understanding. They are integrated. A faith that isn’t rational isn’t really faith in anything but ignorance. Rationalism shouldn’t be confused with rationality that has been given to us as a part of every human creature. Our mind can grasp through the senses what is beyond our sensate world. That is a gift of God’s wisdom to us that we are free to pursue or not to help us practice and seek wisdom and the glory of the virtues, which is how we can participate in Christ. A large part of the debates in the ecumenical councils revolve around trying to articulate and maintain the teaching about Christ’s personhood and the one Godhead. Those debates had to include Christ’s incarnation and its connection to physical bodies, matter – the stuff that is used to paint icons. The “restoration of all” of humanity and the individual choice of each person doesn’t seem to negate each other in Orthodoxy.

There seems to be a very widespread misunderstanding about the goodness of humanity and the Holy Trinity in the western world that seems to go unnoticed. Many Christians think and behave as if we are "self-enclosed individual substances” and an independently, “metaphysically simple” creature like the Holy Trinity. Especially related to this idea of every soul for himself is that evil and sin, by extension death, are inherently part of us. That is impossible in Holy Orthodoxy and it’s contrary to Orthodox teaching. Passions are foreign growths in humanity that are not consubstantial with human nature. Our human relationships and web of interconnectedness, our history of associations, cultural learning, our memories and attachments to friendships are so subtly treated nowadays as all some kind of “defiling entanglement.” This is not to contradict ascetical and monastic Christian literature, because they too struggle to be truly free in relationship to other people. By analogy, we are reflections of the Holy Trinity’s love in our relationship to other persons. Persons require other persons to exist. Solus Christianus nullus Christianus, Metropolitan Hilarion has explained in these volumes.

There are summaries of the characters, conclusions, contradictions of each of the major ecumenical councils that will bring us to a fuller and more mature understanding of how canonical structure and history of the Church unfolds.

The fathers used a Greek term, hypostasis, to indicate person while “essence” meant the unknowable and “inscrutable” nature of God to human beings. We are required to “honor and accept” the ecumenical councils that were later integrated by “consensus” after much reflection by holy fathers of the Church. But not all of them were honorable or acceptable. For example, one of the councils of Chalcedon was later considered a “robber council.” All of these councils were convoked by the Roman emperor in Constantinople with the participation of the Pope in “the West,” actually on the Italian peninsula, with his legates. But it often didn’t include the whole inhabited world. These ecclesial convocations and decisions didn’t always reach the Christians of Persia, India, Ethiopia, or Armenia until fifty, sixty, seventy or more years later. Monarchies, not necessarily identical to empires, since democracies can also be imperial like classical Athens, tend to be conservative, long-term strategizing, future oriented in behavior; resources tend to be preserved as privately owned land. St. John of Damascus reminds us that the Church and state have separate roles. He teaches, “It is not for emperors to legislate for the Church … Political good order is the concern of emperors, the ecclesiastical constitution that of pastors and teachers … We submit to you, O Emperor, in the matters of this life, taxes, revenues, commercial dues, in which our concerns are entrusted to you. For the ecclesiastical constitution we have pastors who speak to us the word and represent the ecclesiastical ordinance” (80). It’s one thing to discuss the issues of power, and it’s another to view culture and Christian practice together. There hasn’t been very strong voices that argue for a separation of culture and religion. That would seem unnatural. Social relationships and historical experiences makes us who we are, and our cultural identity doesn’t have to be uniform or singular. Often monarchies incorporated many diverse peoples and languages and religions, even if they existed in the minority. State really implies questions of power, military, human justice, and economy. The Church has always recognized a higher, divine kingdom without disparaging or escaping this current life, and our particular circumstances.

Metropolitan Hilarion reminds us that many of the theological and dogmatic victories of the Church didn’t happen without the direct intervention and help of the Christian emperor and the Pope of Rome. In fact, the Popes of Rome often stood up against the emperors who weren’t Orthodox in faith and especially the iconoclastic emperors. Metr. Hilarion, then, concludes that the highest authority in the Church isn’t a council or conciliarism as many Orthodox might think, nor is it papal supremacy and infallibility of the Pope of Rome, as Roman Catholicism teaches today. But ultimate authority is the local Church who is in communion with other local Churches headed by one bishop who can call councils and make decisions that must be reconciled with the history of the Church in its liturgical life. Christ is the Head of the Church and it is guided by the Holy Spirit. Ironically, the best example of Orthodox Church authority is the Church in Rome when it was unified with the rest of the eastern patriarchates during the age of the ecumenical councils. The Roman bishop convened its own local councils, declared its own teachings, it stood up to heretical emperors, it defended iconography and tempered the interference of the emperor into ecclesial affairs and doctrines. Rome was a bulwark of the Orthodox faith in the age of the ecumenical councils. The next chapter deals with the rise of monasticism and ascetical literature, which have made one of the biggest impacts on Orthodox theology.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 1: Early Christianity

Metr. Hilarion has three major sections of this volume that provide guidance into discovering the continuity between the early and the contemporary Church. In the first millennium, Roman civilization and the widespread Greco-Roman culture in the Mediterranean world forms a foundation for understanding Church history. In the second millennium, Russia’s church history is covered with the introduction of Byzantine missionaries to the Slavs in the 9th and 10th c in Kiev, and then the development of the Moscow Patriarchate. Finally, the third millennium is covered and the canonical structure of “world Orthodoxy” as it is known today. The editor of these volumes purposely kept these Russian chapters for English speaking audiences with the intent that it would serve as case studies for our generation of Orthodox Christians in a different culture.

God is the “creator of the ages.” Like the holy scriptures, the history of the Church comes in ages. There is the age of Christ when He founded the Church before His Ascension. There is the following apostolic age after the Holy Spirit descended on the apostles in fire at Pentecost, which “caught the whole world with a net.” There is the age of the beginning of the great martyrs during the Roman Empire after the apostles departed. They deserve their own age partly because they took the known world away from Roman and other forms of paganism. They performed an unprecedented feat without using violence or coercion. They were inspired by the Holy Spirit to act and speak. The apostolic community and martyrs were defined by their love, which took on many different forms and uniformly a resolute and controlled attitude against coercion, manipulation, insults, and temptations to change their mind and behave contrary to Christ. Then, ascetical and Christian literature blossomed in all parts of the Christian and the Roman world, which has continued to this day. The age of the ecumenical councils was a period when Christians questioned heresies. Dogmas were defended either indirectly by hymnography of liturgical worship. The technical terms of the Greek language, which was the common language of the world at the time of Christ, should be appreciated for its ability to clearly teach the right faith then and now.

In imperial Rome the Greek language became the elite language of exchange between the educated, nobles, and government officials. It became a marker of culture and status. The earliest liturgies in Rome were conducted in Greek as well as many Popes being of Greek descent. The transition from a primarily Latin speaking to a Greek speaking empire located in Asia Minor, what would become Constantinople, wasn’t a stretch administratively or culturally for the Romans. The so-called “Byzantines,” who considered themselves Romans, always considered Rome in the western half as part of the empire. They did all that they could to keep it integrated despite the barbarian invasions from the north and east, and rival claimants from primarily the Franks to the world empire called the ecumene or the inhabited part of the earth. The word Hellene or Greek meant that one was a pagan and non-Christian. It is used in St. John Chrysostom’s homilies to indicate the same meaning. So, to be Roman was to be civilized, following an order and ruler ordained by God, and practicing Orthodoxy. For this reason, Charlemagne and the Franks called the Romans or “Byzantines” Greeks to demean and remove a Roman continuity and identity in Constantinople, and to undermine its connection to Rome in Italy, and to insinuate that its religion isn’t the “right glory.” The caesars and imperial rulers had considered themselves the descendants of the Trojans in Asia Minor – Aeneas being the legendary progenitor of Rome itself according to political propaganda and Latin literature. Roman citizenship and rule once covered many lands before they were nations such as parts of modern Britain, Switzerland, Gaul, Spain and Portugal, Italy, Greece, Pannonia and Romania, the Balkans, North Africa, Egypt, and Asia Minor – largely a Mediterranean territory and its periphery. After the 4th c., being Roman meant you were a citizen of the empire with legal rights, you dipped bread in olive oil, reclined, kissed icons, and worshipped according to the Byzantine styled Orthodox faith. The difficulty for Christians today in modern democratic republics and nations is to understand that monarchies tend to be by design more conservative, traditional, and the people are less inclined to view themselves as identical to the state or secular government. While Protestants have mostly developed a negative interpretation of Roman civilization as the corruption of Christianity and Roman Catholicism have taken the name by self-identification, the Orthodox Christians of the East have largely kept that same idea of “Roman” identity from ancient times up to the 20th c. even though they may speak Greek or Syrian. Greeks in the 20th c. and maybe even some Russians would identify as “Romaioi” because of how they defined themselves according to culture, ethos, and religious practice, not necessarily in strict categories of language or geography as do modern nation states in Europe. After the Renaissance, being Roman meant something else to many western Europeans as they redefined it. It meant accepting “progress,” republican values, “tension” between man and nature, and an individual spirit of government, enterprise, and one’s freedom of choice. This difference of how we relate to Roman civilization has left some residue of influence into our modern times between Western Christianity and the Orthodox world. After Constantine accepted Christianity into the Roman empire, to be Roman began to mean that someone was a part of the empire, a civilized person, and someone who practiced the Orthodox faith. No one would deny that some emperors were bad and heretical. But overall this transformation of the empire was largely a good outcome starting with Constantine. To be Roman meant to be under the rule of one empire in the world and one Christian faith, which they called ecumenical because it represented all peoples regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, and political party. It was an unprecedented event in the history of the world, and it deserves our close attention as we discuss the history and the canonical structure of the Orthodox Church. But Metr. Hilarion reminds in the first chapter that “Christ is the Founder of the Church.” That is the starting point of our history, our perfection, and our salvation. So, the focus of the first millennium in the following chapters focuses on the New Testament, early Christian literature, and the holy fathers of the Church who participated and formed our practices, traditions and councils.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol V, Ch 13: Orders for the Blessing of Various Objects. Molebens and Akathists

The Book of Needs varies depending on the culture, time, government, and who has compiled it. Metr. Hilarion focuses on a few of the orders of service in it and molebens, which has become a popular Russian practice. The versions of the Book of Needs can change in volume and number of service orders offered by the priest. This book has its own category of ritual and sacramental blessing. It’s practical for many different situations because it doesn’t require extemporaneous prayers for each event that happens in a Christian’s life. What objects and situations are used for is an important consideration when learning about how the Orthodox Church blesses objects, endeavors, and events. The most important idea is that Christians develop an awareness of the holiness of ritual and sacramental services and the blessed objects that we own. Not that we become more attached to things in the world because they are blessed, but that we have a different relationship and forethought about what we own and how we use them for ourselves and others. The rites and sacraments of the Church don’t happen in a vacuum. Historical experience informs our judgments, values, and our religious habits.

We know that matter is ordinary. Orthodox theology is aware of the difference between the worldly cities and the heavenly Jerusalem, the secular places and the holy places. In Holy Orthodoxy, the veneration of relics is practiced. They often bring healing and sanctification and blessing to Christians. The inner perfection in Christ through awareness that the saints and martyrs have attained to has also spread to physical objects and places in the world. We do not venerate just any object in nature like the pagans of old. But we see, smell and taste holiness in the air of people who have been purified in Christ and become holy vessels who attract us to them. Just as sin and the bad behaviors of others spread through a person, through Christ’s Victory and the intercession to the Holy Spirit, holiness spreads through the saints and martyrs back into others’ lives and surroundings, whether seen or unseen by people. Orthodox Christians do not seem to be advocating for a kind of utopian society on earth like many other religions have preached and modeled. But we can see it at times hopefully and we can experience it now that will continue in the future age. For this reason, icons have their own service order for blessing and sanctification.

Naturally, culture and government become major influences on how devotion, akathists, molebens, and the Book of Needs are formed and used, or not used at all. In 2017, the Moscow Patriarchate mandated that all parishes in the Russian Orthodox Church must serve a moleben for those members who attended the 1917-1918 council. A moleben is the equivalent of the Greek paraklesis service. It is a prayer service done with supplication or thanksgiving. Supplication is to ask for something humbly. It’s an awareness of one’s place and who God is. It’s tied to body language and words and thoughts. Education, weather, healthcare, warfare all have molebens that humbly ask for help for all those involved. These can change drastically from generation to generation. Some may not have access to education, others may not have access to safety because of wars. Some may live under peaceful governments, others under highly divisive political atmospheres. Some are able to travel, others not. The needs can change in an instant. Traditionally, Christians focused on the eucharistic service and daily cycle of services as the center of a person’s worship practice. Over time some Christians have turned molebens and akathists into a more focused and private devotional life almost in place of the eucharist and the Typicon, which is a book that orders and gives this daily cycle of prayers a rhythm for Christians. Also in 2017, a moleben was offered on Kiev’s Vladimir Hill in honor of Orthodox Christianity’s history among the Russian peoples, and it was broadcasted publicly. While the U.S. has had Orthodox immigrants and missionaries in Alaska, one might wonder if we will have an Orthodox history for ourselves given how important it is in Metr. Hilarion’s five volume series and given how deeply rooted the identity of America is in Protestantism. If the numerous and warring Slavic and Finnic tribes didn’t organize themselves under the Scandinavian Rurik dynasty, there wouldn’t be a Russian Orthodox Church as we know it today, and not a Russian culture as we recognize it. No molebens either. The next volume covers the history and canonical structure of the Orthodox Church in its cultural context.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol V, Ch 12: The Preparation and Consecration of Chrism

Dionysius the Areopagite in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy spoke of “the sacrament of the consecration of chrism,.” It was ordered by chanting the psalms, reading the Gospel, prayers, and censing the church. He called the aim of consecrating and using chrism “the perfection of every religious function.” A theme that could be discussed further in this volume is how the sacraments and rituals help to perfect us in Christ. Human perfection was a major topic in Byzantine theology among many church fathers who discussed various terms such as epektasis, theosis, ever-moving rest, dynamic salvation, divine energy as relating to Christian perfection. It’s difficult to capture what these words mean in the literature. These ideas are worth understanding for our own benefit and salvation, and to order our general desire for perfecting ourselves in the right way. The holy fathers connected them generally to the sacraments and rituals of the church that are further connected to immaterial fruits such as love, joy, peace, and goodness – inexhaustible gifts. These spiritual fruits are Paradise, and Paradise is human nature, which is the perfection that Christ brings to us in the holy gifts, mysteries, and all of the sacraments that come from Christ the center of the cosmos. These are not just linked to biological life, but also zoetic life that is given by God to all creatures as a gift. The paschal troparion speaks of Christ the Conqueror of Hell as bestowing zoe (life) not bios in Greek to those prisoners of the afterlife. Zoetic relationships are beyond the biological ties of genetics, political and animalistic behaviors, and physical processes, but of marriage, adoption, friendship – things of an eternal nature not subject to change or corruption because they are based on love. That might be an important distinction made by the holy fathers. Chrisma or holy oil that is made up of about 40 different elements is used in baptism, unction, tonsure and other blessings. Oil in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament has symbolic meaning: salvation, medicine, healing, cleansing, joy. These symbols become real and actual experiences, as long as we participate in them, in our bodies and in our lives through the Holy Spirit in the One, Holy, Apostolic and Catholic Church that we call in shorthand – Orthodox Christianity or Holy Orthodoxy. Oil is called the “gift of the Divine Spirit.” Holy oil or chrism is prepared in the third week of Lent and ends during Holy Week. The patriarchal prayer teaches that the anointing with chrism means entering the royal priesthood, not the liturgical priesthood, of all believers, which is more recent than the royal, ancient priesthood. It’s also an apostolic blessing. The prayer of consecration teaches that, “… we may receive sanctification, like the chrism which is poured out upon our heads, since the chrism which is poured out is the Name of of Thine only-begotten Son, Christ our God, through whom the whole world, visible and invisible, is sweetly scented.” The Jesus Prayer also helps perfect us, since the holy scriptures teach, “Thy name is as ointment poured forth.” Healing and perfection go hand in hand in Holy Orthodoxy. Repentance and healing seem to be necessary before the experience of enlightenment and interpretationm, unlike the tradition of “Frankish asceticism” characterized by Metr. Hierotheos of Napfpakos as a later western understanding of Christian perfection that relies heavily on outward method over inner transformation in order to “see” God. To be perfect isn’t a neurotic, obsessive, or anxious goal in Orthodox Christianity as it might be asssociated in other traditions. It’s the natural aim we have by participating the sacraments to become a sacer homo (sacred man). But all people, sinners and righteous, will see God at the end of time. It isn’t something we have to earn. It’s just given to us out of love. The Name of Christ is poured out in the world, Origen teaches correctly. St. John Chrysostom teaches on Song of Solomon that “wheresoever the Name of God is, all is auspicious. For if the names of consuls make writings sure, much more does the Name of Christ.” He also says that we are perfected by His Name. All objects can be used for our perfection, and the Orthodox Church has various orders for blessing Christians in many situations in daily life or major events. The next chapter focuses on molebens and akathists, and the Book of Needs.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol V, Ch 11: The Consecration of a Church

The cross is used by the priest in all the rites, orders, and services of consecration. The holy fathers taught that Christ consecrated the air by being lifted up; Christ consecrated the earth by being planted into it and descending. There are several orders involving different aspects of a church. Putting a cross on the cupola of it has its own order as well as one for the bell tower or campanile, and the consecration itself. Metr. Hilarion calls the act of consecrating a dedication. It’s where, among other liturgical services, the eucharist is offered and celebrated, and where we dedicate our whole life to Christ. The Barberini Euchologion is a manuscript of a prayer book from about the 8th c. It gives us a description of how an Orthodox church is established, and little has changed since then. Every founding of a church is a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies about Christ. A church is the antitype, the reality, that the kingdom of God is here now. There is really no other religion that has spread and become more influential in the world than Christianity. In 1794, less than 20 years after American Independence, the first Orthodox mission was set up in Alaska’s Kodiak Islands by the Orthodox Church in Russia. Obviously their primary audience wasn’t yet going to be the French, Spanish, or English colonists but the Inuit and Athabaskan people. Where the holy altar will be a cross is placed into the ground, and the service order censes the trenches dug out for the building. The first stone used in the construction is censed and prayers to a saint are offered whose name will be given to the church. The church is founded on holy people and dedicated women, men, and youth, not issues or causes. This interpersonal aspect of founding a church is considerably important to remember.

The order of dedication, as it’s called, of a church happens after the construction is finished. During this phase, the antimension is consecrated and given by the bishop. It’s a cloth or plank of wood with a relic inside of it and without it the eucharist cannot be offered. It’s the bishop’s apostolic signature and permission; a safeguard for the eucharistic community. This altar cloth is personal because it contains parts of the body of an Orthodox martyr. We are given this image and example to make our own hearts a foundation for the altar to God. The antimension is used in the liturgy right after the consecration of the church. Holy water and many other sacramental elements are used to bless the building. Chrism is an important mixture of ointment for maintaining connections to the bishop and receiving apostolic blessings. The blessed oil that comes from the bishop is distributed to the churches so that our spiritual needs are met.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol V, Ch 10: The Blessing of Water

The rites for blessing of water belongs to several important blessings and liturgical functions. It’s part of preparation for baptism, the washing of the hands of the bishop at an hierarchical liturgy, and the consecration of a church building. The spiritual and liturgical meaning of water is worth our attention. This chapter is short. But it’s typological content is long and enriching to understand.

Metropolitan Hilarion discusses the great blessing of water the lesser blessing – two rites. The first is done before Theophany at least since the 6th c. during the Roman empire in the capitol city of Constantinople and Jerusalem, and the famous Barberini Euchologion gives witness to the blessing of water in the Orthodox Church as early as the 8th – 10th c. This rite of blessing water twice is from the Jerusalem Typicon. Some of the prayers read as follows. “The voice of the Lord upon the waters cries out, saying: Come, receive all of you the Spirit of wisdom …of Christ who is made manifest.” When Christ was baptized in the Jordan as a model for us, the prayers also teach us, “Today the nature of the waters is sanctified, and the Jordan is divided, and turns back the streams of its own waters, beholding the Master baptized.” The Son does what He sees His Father doing. “The waters saw Thee and were afraid.” Not only does creation seem to be rid of evil creatures in the waters, but it is the way in which God willed to be manifested as the Holy Trinity. The waters were used by the Holy Trinity from the inception of the world, the flood came as a cleansing of mankind, and the seas have been inhabited by Leviathan since the Fall of Adam. We know from these rites that the cross put in the waters is what makes it holy. Blessed water is a sacrament that Christians drink to heal the soul and body. What was meant for evil is turned into our sanctification.

The lesser blessing of water was done in Constantinople on the feast of the Procession of the Tree of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross of the Lord. Christ was submerged into the earth, and He came out alive and a conqueror of the waters that bring death. The adamant Egyptians died by the rivers collapsing onto them while the Hebrews escaped through the waters and lived. The Theotokos of Blachernae is a Church in Constantinople that contained a hagiasma or healing spring. Because of these powerful fountains there are early manuscripts that record the blessings for waters with beautiful troparia that speak of not only Christ but also the Theotokos giving us water for our purification. The great litany teaches that “the waves of sensual desires” are as dangerous as hurricanes. The blessed waters are meant for blessing homes, icons, and cars. It’s used for baptism and the recurring cleansing of “the defilement of passions.” We can see that Orthodox Christians are trying to consecrate the world around us. The next two chapters are about the Consecration of a Church and the Preparation and Consecration of Chrism.