A Fuller Understanding of Chastity: Whole-Mindedness

"If one does not reduce this term, as is so often and erroneously done, only to its sexual connotations, it is understood as the postitive counterpart of sloth. The exact and full translation of the Greek sofrosini and the Russian tselomudryie ought to be whole-mindedness. Sloth is, first of all, dissipation, the brokenness of our vision and energy, the inability to see the whole. Its opposite then is precisely wholeness. If we usually mean by chastity the virtue opposed to sexual depravity, it is because the broken character of our existence is nowhere better manifested than in sexual lust—the alienation of the body from the life and control of the spirit."

 

–Fr. Alexander Schmemann in The Winter Pascha, p. 36

Strictness or Laxity in Fasting

The Orthodox Church's guidelines for fasting are based on rules used by monastics and are applied differently from church to church, locale to locale, even person to person. Because of this variability, questions often arise around what is permissible and what is not. One such question about oil in an Orthodox Facebook group recently garnered the usual opposing arguments—1) at the time and place of the canons' composing, olive oil was the only oil available, therefore, one ought to abstain from all oil, and 2) fasting shouldn't be about slavish legalism; don't worry so much about every jot and tittle.

Steve Robinson wrote this wise reply:

Funny how this works: People who tend to be "strict with the canons" will say regarding oil, "The SPIRIT of the canon would mean NO oil at all", but if someone appeals to the "spirit of the canon to RELAX a "rule", they will cry "FOUL!".... The canons are like the scripture: they need interpreting by the Church and "the Church" has not universally declared coconut oil to be forbidden either in reality or in spirit. What it HAS declared universally is that strictness or laxity can both be signs of spiritual disease that needs to be addressed by a spiritual guide. [emphasis mine]

On Prayer

From a thoughtful piece, by Tish Harrison Warren, in favor of praying prewritten prayers:

Evangelicals can pin ‘extemporaneous’ prayer against ‘other people's prayers’ and deem the latter inauthentic. We can see prayer as a means of self-expression — a way of voicing our most raw fears, needs, and joys before God. Formulas and imitation seem like enemies of self-expression. If prayer is primarily self-expression before God, then we figure it should come naturally; it should be our words. But what if prayer is more than simply self-expression? What if prayer is a kind of craft or exercise that shapes us? What if God uses prayer to ‘act back on us,’ to form us? What if set liturgical prayers are an ancient tool that reframe our perspectives and desires so that we might learn to pray in ways that are beyond us? For most of church history, Christians understood prayer not primarily as a means of authentic self-expression, but as a learned way of approaching God ...

When his disciples found Jesus praying alone in a ‘solitary place’ (Mark 1:35 KJV), they asked him to teach them to pray. He did not tell them, ‘it's easy; just say whatever comes to mind’; he taught them the Lord's Prayer, a pattern of prayer to shape their own prayer habits. Christians over the centuries have honed practices of prayer. Beyond the Lord's Prayer and the Psalms, other Christian leaders have written prayers both for gathered worship and for private devotion. My own tradition's prayer book, the Book of Common Prayer, pulls from and simplifies a number of different sources of prayers and liturgies from the Christian tradition — for instance, the Collect for Purity is drawn from an eleventh-century eucharistic liturgy, and the Great Thanksgiving is based on a third-century prayer in Hippolytus's prayer book, The Apostolic Tradition. In our current moment, as we drown in a torrent of words with our near-constant self-expression on social media, inhabiting the ancient, enduring prayers of the church is perhaps more needed than ever.

Click through to read the rest.

On Fasting

From a very astute reflection, by James K.A. Smith, on fasting:

"What are you giving up for Lent?" 

This question tells us a lot about American Christianity. While the question alludes to historic Christian practices of fasting and self-denial associated with the penitential season of Lent, the syntax of the question also points out a crucial shift: even our self-denial is an act of self-expression. Our submission to discipline is converted to act of will power.
.... 

In a more robustly communal practice of the faith, my self-denial is not up to me. The practices of fasting and feasting are not a matter of choice: they are part of the spiritual architecture of the church. It's not so much that I choose to abstain from meat; meat is not going to be served. There are communal commitments embedded in an environment that takes the emphasis off of my choice and will power and instead throws me into the formative power of the practice.  My participation in the formative disciplines of Lent isn't another chance for me to show something to God (or others). It is an invitation to have my hungers retrained.

Read the whole blog post here.

Two Easters??

In 2007 our attendance at the Orthodox Church for Easter did not raise any questions because last year the two Easters happened to occur on the same day. But this year Western Easter (Catholic and Protestant) occurs the earliest it will in 200+ years and thus separates the celebrations by more than a month. My parents recently attended our church with us and were curious about the difference in Church calendars. For me, the difference has never sparked much curiosity because of my belief that all calendars are man's arbitrary attempts to measure time. The event and the way it is prepared for and celebrated is far more significant. But my parent's question made me think that more people might be curious as well, so I did a little research and this is what I found.

Both the West and the East (Orthodox) calculate the date for Easter with the same formula: The first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the vernal (Spring) equinox. But the difference is not created through the formula, but the definition of terms in the formula (e.g. vernal equinox). The Western Church uses the Gregorian calendar, the standard calendar for much of the world, while the East uses the older Julian calendar that was in place during the establishment of the early Church (First Ecumenical Council).

The Catholic Church adopted the Gregorian calendar to fix some of the errors in the Julian calendar, but in the case of the vernal equinox opted for a fixed date of March 21 instead of using the movable astronomical day used in the Julian calendar. While the dates can coincide (like in 2007), they can also be between one and six weeks apart (except three weeks).

The Orthodox Church uses the actual astronomical date when the full moon can be observed in Jerusalem, the place of crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. This method also insures that the date for Easter is also after the Jewish Passover, which coincides with the original event we are celebrating.

For the Orthodox, Easter or Pascha, is the high point of the year. It is preceded by 12 weeks of preparation -- strict fasting and many symbolic services that incite contemplation -- which culminates in one of the biggest celebrations I've ever seen. The children in our church look forward to Pascha with more anticipation than Christmas! Here are some pictures from last Pascha. Yes there is confetti! And in the second picture the candelabra is blurry because it is swinging.

There has been talk between the different branches of coming to a more unified formula or even possibly a fixed date. Either way, Christ is Risen!

http://orthodoxwiki.org/Pascha

http://www.factmonster.com/spot/easter1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter

Orthodox Weddings

Our friend James Moes, who recently joined the Orthodox Church, invited us to his wedding last month. This was Shannon and my first joint experience of an Orthodox wedding and there were some definite differences from a typical Western wedding.

Here is a brief list of some of the main differences between an Orthodox wedding and a Protestant one:

• Matrimony is a sacrament in the Eastern Orthodox Church. A sacrament, or holy mystery, is a physical object or ritual that acts as a vessel for divine grace. Marriage is one of seven officially recognized holy mysteries, although the enumeration of those seven is not meant to exclude other sacraments. Indeed, all of life can be sacramental, that is, a vessel of divine grace. Most Protestants recognize only baptism and communion as "official" sacraments.

• The wedding ceremony is very similar to a Sunday morning liturgy (which, I suppose, is not a very helpful statement if you haven't experienced an Orthodox liturgy). One of the things I love about it is the full, standing participation of the congregation. Through singing/chanting every attendee can actively participate in worshipping God, and in blessing and supporting the couple.

• For most of the ceremony there is little room for the preference of the couple. This, in my opinion, is a good thing. For Shannon and me, who had a very contemporary Western wedding, little choices—like, Should we have a unity candle?, If so, should we extinguish our individual flames? Should we take communion together? What Bible passage(s) should be read aloud?—all these little decisions were part of the fun of planning our Protestant wedding but they were also a source of unnecessary toil and worry. While arguably important, these little details oughtn't be the couple's focus as they prepare for their life together. Orthodox weddings cut out that distraction: the reading is prescribed (The Wedding of Cana), and most of the ceremony is exactly the same as my Orthodox grandparents'.

• The ceremony is actually split into two parts, formerly held as two separate events, but now celebrated together:

The Betrothal: This part takes place either outside or in the narthex, just outside the nave (the main part of the church). Similar to Western tradition, rings are exchanged, but they are worn on the right hand and are exchanged numerous times, with the wife wearing the husband's ring and vice versa. This multiplicity of exchanges symbolizes the mutual enrichment that will constantly transpire between husband and wife for the rest of their lives. The former difference—rings on right hands—is a mere cultural triviality, however, and not a significant departure.

What is a major difference is the absence of vows. The Church is not the granter of married status or a legal entity drawing up a juridical contract. Instead, the ceremony is the Church's way of formally recognizing and blessing the indissoluble spiritual bond of human love that is already a developing reality for the couple.

The Crowning: For this second portion of the matrimonial process, the couple moves into the nave where, amid the typical chantings and blessings, they receive crowns. These, depending on the tradition, can be made of gold and silver, or leaves and flowers. The crowns are crowns of celebration but also of martyrdom, since marriage will demand constant self-sacrifice.

At the end of this portion, the couple drink from the same cup of wine, an act that begins their shared life together and recalls Christ's miraculous blessing at the wedding of Cana.

The priest also doesn't say, "You may now kiss the bride." And I don't remember any official pronouncement of man and wife or Mr. and Mrs.

The Reception: At the Moes' wedding at least, the reception was not markedly different from a Western celebration. In fact, I guess you could say it was a Western celebration as it was just a party to celebrate the new couple, where cultural, familial and personal preferences were given free reign. There was dinner, dancing, toasts, garter and bouquet tosses, beautiful personalized decorations, and all the typical merriment—nothing especially Orthodox about it.

*We will also be posting some pictures and thoughts from the Moes wedding at our family blog Rushcapades.

A Third Alternative?!

It has been difficult trying to figure out where to start this discussion. A few people have asked good questions recently that seemed like good starting points. My friend Scott, for example, whose childhood faith parallels mine (ie. attended the same large Baptist church, lived for the same evangelical summer camp, and got baptized together) asked if the Orthodox church isn't just the same thing in different cultural clothing. That is, don't Protestantism and Orthodoxy have "the same Jesus, same Bible, [just] different styles"?

It's a good question, and one that I hope I can answer adequately. But in order to, eventually, do that I have a lot of ground to cover first. So, I think it will be best, and easiest, if I start by recounting what originally drew me to Orthodoxy. (Hopefully Shannon will post soon too about her side of the story.)

It is slightly ironic that it was not until my time at a thoroughly evangelical university that I started this journey toward Orthodoxy. My mother, I just learned last week, was baptized, as an infant, in the Ukranian Orthodox church, and, while I always knew that my grandma and grandpa, long ago, attended an old fashioned church very different from my familiar Baptist mega-church, I never knew that it was one of the three major branches of Christendom, and I certainly didn't know anything about it. Growing up in North America in the 20th Century, I was aware of several dozen different varieties of Protestantism, but beyond that it was just the Catholics.

And Catholics, I was led to believe, were hopelessly wrong about Christianity. I don't remember very many explicit, systematic denunciations of Catholicism in my church, but even from passing remarks and the occasional half-answered question one quickly learned to smugly recite a few of their fundamental flaws:

-They worship Mary

-They believe that the bread and wine actually turn into the real flesh and blood of Christ

-They think priests can forgive your sins and that you earn forgiveness by saying enough Hail Mary's

-They think the Pope is perfect and doesn't sin

Anti-Catholic sentiments among evangelicals have abated in the last 10 or 15 years, thank God, and in general evangelicals have a more nuanced understanding of the above mentioned issues--which, I hope you see, are grossly oversimplified or distorted. But understand that this was the climate I grew up in. Evangelicals, in my experience, weren't openly hostile toward Catholics but there was always a tacit condemnation of their egregious beliefs and practices.

So it was something of a revelation when, in my Introduction to Theology class at TWU, the professor began speaking of the Eastern Orthodox church. "What!?," I thought, "You mean there's a church that is a) not considered outright heretical and that is b) neither Catholic nor Protestant??" As we learned a little more I became even more intrigued. For I learned that:

- while the Orthodox certainly accord Mary great honor, she does not play the same allegedly essential role of "co-redemptrix" that she does in the Catholic church.
- And while they take seriously Jesus' words that the bread is his body and the wine is his blood they do not seek to explain how exactly this might be the case, as the Catholics do with their theory of Transubstantiation.
-I didn't learn much about the role of the priest in forgiveness and their view of penance at the time, but I was heartened to learn that...
-They have no pope nor corresponding theological difficulties. The church is still governed by council.

Here then was an orthodox (small 'o') church that was emphatically not Protestant and, at least upon first glance, shared none of the qualities of the Catholic church that rubbed my inherited qualms the wrong way.

After that discovery, any time the topic of Orthodoxy was offered as an option for papers or projects in any of my classes I snatched it up. And thus began my current religious peregrination.