HOLY CROSS ORTHODOX CHURCH Through the Cross Joy Has Come Into All the World

HOLY CROSS ORTHODOX CHURCH Through the Cross joy has come into all the world

Rev. Fr. Christopher Foley 645 Greensboro Rd., High Point, NC www.holycrossoca.org [email protected] 336-688-9820

December, 2017 Volume 12, Number 4 ONE OF US! Our Christmas hymns, the witness of the apostles and martyrs and saints, by contrast, speak boldly of “what we Praising Christ have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we ob- with the Hymns of the Nativity served and touched with our own hands” (1 John 1:1): a God great and good precisely because he came to be “just By Bogdan Gabriel Bucur a slob like one of us.” Here is what we sing at the Great In case the title startled you Hours of the Nativity: a bit, you can relax: I’ve Today is born of a virgin He who holds the whole cre- taken the liberty to quote ation in His hand. He whose essence none can touch is from Joan Osbourne’s bound in swaddling clothes as a mortal man. God, who 1995 hit, “One of Us,” in the beginning fashioned the heavens, lies in a manger. but “just a slob like one of He who rained manna on his people in the wilderness is us” is nowhere to be found fed on milk from His mother’s breast. The bridegroom among the hymns chanted of the Church summons the wise men; the Son of the in the Orthodox Church! virgin accepts their gifts. We worship Thy birth, O Christ! Osborne’s song, nonethe- We worship Thy birth, O Christ! We worship Thy birth, less, is a beautiful piece of O Christ! Show us also Thy holy Theophany. (Eve of the music, with intriguing lyr- Nativity, sticheron at the Ninth Royal Hour) ics. If I am allowed to pick and choose, these are the verses I like best: “What if God A Palestinian baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, suck- was one of us? Just like one of us? Just a stranger on the ing milk at his mother’s breast — one of us! The point bus, trying to make his way home? . . . If God had a face, of this hymn, however, is that this baby is also the maker what would it look like? God is great, God is good, yeah, and fashioner of the universe (“who holds creation in the yeah, yeah!” hollow of his hand,” “who established the heavens”); he is also the Lord God of Israel, who freed his people from I am often reminded of this song during the tiresome slavery, led it and fed it miraculously in the desert. He is Christmas bustle at Walmart, with the crowds of compul- also the light of all mankind, who summons the pagan sive shoppers (of whom I am fi rst), and with the jingles stargazers, and, as another hymn (the Nativity troparion) and the commercials repeated ad nauseam. Too much of says, he taught them to worship the sun of righteousness all that and I start feeling lonely and lost, like Osbourne’s rising in Bethlehem. This baby, we are told, is stranger on the bus, wondering how much of God’s face the Bridegroom of the Church, and, as can still be discerned in this merrygo-round of special of- we have promised at Baptism, we fers, reindeer, the obligatory new Christmas movie, “Ho- bow down to him in worship. Ho-Ho” and the Santas at the mall. I also think that, while this song expresses a very deep and pure yearning — The point is this: wrapped, certainly, in the cynicism and disillusionment that Palestinian of our age — it leaves us, at best, with only a trace of an baby is no anonymous and faceless God, who might or might not less than have been there on the bus. God. The

Holy Cross Orthodox Church December, 2017 Newsletter - p. 1. icon of the Nativity – as a matter of fact, any icon of amazement and cried: “There is none holy save Thee,O Christ – teaches the same truth, by showing a halo around Lord!” (Compline Canon of the Forefeast of the Nativity, the baby’s head, inscribed with Greek words declaring “He Ode 3, Eirmos). Who Is.” This is the name that God reveals to Moses on Mount Sinai: ego eimi ho on, “he who is,” “the existing The Virgin Theotokos offers, in the words of the hymnog- one.” Those in the Church more philosophically inclined rapher, the pattern of our worship of the baby: “O, sweet- referred to this God as “the one beyond being” – beyond est child, how shall I feed Thee who give food to all? How any affirmation and negation, beyond the grasp of human shall I hold Thee, who holdest all things in Thy power? language, thought, feeling or imagination. Christianity How shall I wrap Thee in swaddling clothes, who wrap the does not begin, however, with metaphysical speculation, whole earth in clouds?” So cried the all-pure Lady whom but with the amazing news in faith we magnify … (Mat- of the Nativity: “Today the ins Canon of the Forefeast of Virgin gives birth to the one the Nativity, Ode 9, Sticheron beyond being”! Today, “he 5). who is,” who spoke to Moses Indeed, it is Christ who bowed in the burning bush, and who the heavens (Psalm 17:10/ inspired the lofty thought of 18:9), and holds the creation all those who searched for him in the hollow of his hand (Isa- throughout the ages, has come iah 40:12): to us as a baby. Wrapped in swaddling clothes, sucking at Open to me the gates, and the breast – one of us! entering within, I shall see as a child wrapped in swaddling Christ in the Nativity clothes Him who upholds the Hymns creation in the hollow of His In the Orthodox Church, hand, whose praises the angels one becomes familiar with sing with unceasing voice, the “Christology” – what we con- Lord and Giver of Life who fess about Jesus Christ – by saves mankind (Vespers of participating in the Church’s the Forefeast of the Nativity, worship. Explaining who Apostichon). this baby born at Bethlehem Very often the hymns speak is constitutes precisely the of Christ as occupying the liturgical program of Nativ- throne of God. This is common biblical language. Scrip- ity: Bethlehem, make ready; Eden, open thy gates; for ture depicts the God of Israel as the ruler of a heavenly He Who Is [Exodus 3:14 ] becomes that which He was world: seated on a fiery throne of cherubim – a living not, and the Fashioner of all creation is fashioned . . . throne, as it were – in the innermost sanctum of a heav- (Sunday before Nativity, Sticheron at Litya). As another enly temple attended by thousands upon thousands of hymn explains, born in Bethlehem is He who fashioned angels, who perform their celestial liturgies according to all creation, yet reveals Himself in the womb of her that precisely appointed times and rules. This imagery looms He formed (Eve of the Nativity, Sticheron at the Sixth large in the Psalms and in prophetic and apocalyptic lit- Royal Hour). Indeed, to the discerning eye of faith, the erature (e.g., Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1, Daniel 7), as well as in the cave holds far more than a helpless “baby Jesus.” We hymn New Testament and later Christian literature. “Throne” Christ, who comes to save the man He fashioned (Sun- implies divine status: only God is depicted as seated on his day before Nativity Vespers, Apostichon at Lord I have heavenly throne; all others – angels and archangels, patri- cried). This is the very Lord God who separated the waters archs, prophets, and saints – stand before him. To say that and suspended the earth upon the void (Job 26:7): When Jesus Christ is enthroned amounts, therefore, to proclaim- creation beheld Thee born in a cave, who hast hung the ing him as Lord and God. As Christians, we do not wor- whole earth in a void above the waters, it was seized with ship a mere human being, nor have we invented a second

Holy Cross Orthodox Church December, 2017 Newsletter - p. 2. God: rather, in Jesus Christ we have the very image – the Queen. I will joyously attend the celebration and sing to Face, as it were – of God (2 Corinthians 4:4; Colossians her merrily, praising her miracles. 1:15; cf. Matthew 18:10). This is also true of the Nativity hymns, which have a very precise Christological message: But there is a distinction between the Christology of the hymns and that of the councils. The latter were compelled Make merry, O Bethlehem! . . . Christ, the shepherd of to articulate the faith of the Church in the face of hereti- Israel, who rides on the shoulders of the cherubim, has cal distortion, by using definitions of faith to delimit au- come forth from you for all to see . . . (Canon of the Na- thentic Christian faith from false experience and belief. In tivity, Ode 3, Sticheron 4); Before Thy birth, O Lord, doing so, they used the language most apt as instruments the angelic hosts looked with trembling on this mystery to formulate the definitions, borrowing from disciplines and were struck with wonder: for Thou who hast adorned such as philosophy, logic, or medicine. With the hymns, the vault of heaven with stars hast been well pleased to however, the situation is quite different. Leaving aside the be born as a babe; and Thou who holdest all the ends of special of category “dogmatic hymns,” the hymns I have the earth in the hollow of Thy hand art laid in a manger quoted so far are not engaged in demonstration, clarifica- of dumb beasts (Eve of Nativity, Sticheron at the Third tion or, polemics, but in worship. They do not address Royal Hour). the adversaries of faith, but give expression to the spiri- tual intimacy between the Bride and the Bridegroom, the If the manger holds no less than the Lord, who in heaven Church and Christ, constantly recalling their covenant is enthroned on the living cherubic throne, what of the recorded in the Scriptures. This is “doxological language,” Virgin? A strange and most wonderful mystery do I see: the language of praise. In the absence of heresies (which the cave is heaven; the Virgin – the throne of the cheru- forced the Church to express her faith in a more precise bim (Canon of the Nativity, Ode 9, Eirmos). The virgin and technical language), doxology may very well have been mother, truly “Theotokos” (God-bearer), is herself a living the only Christology. Of course, these two types of lan- throne. This “strange and most wonderful mystery,” how- guage – doxological and dogmatic – are often intertwined, ever, is not her exclusive privilege. It is rather the mystery and have always coexisted. One finds a perfect illustration of our call to what theologians call “deification,” that is, in the person of St. John of Damascus, hailed both as the the vocation to an ever-increasing growth in the likeness author of the Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith and to God. We too, as we sing at Liturgy, “represent mys- as an inspired hymnographer. tically the cherubim”; we too, therefore, are called to be God-bearers. Hymns are Theology Doxological Christology In “performing” the hymns in worship, theology comes alive, becomes praise, becomes a dialogue with God. Its The Christology – the teaching about Christ – that is vantage point is no longer outside the event to which it found in the hymns complements that set forth by the refers, but rather the event itself, made present liturgically ecumenical councils, and the Church views both as di- and encompassing worshippers past, present and future: vinely inspired. Beginning with the apostolic council “Today, He who holds the whole creation in the hollow of in Jerusalem, around 45 A.D., councils have His hand is born of the Virgin”; or, at Pascha, “This is the prefaced their decisions with the formula, “it Day of Resurrection.” seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and also to us” (Acts 15:28). The hymns lay claim to the The hymns anchor all of us in the living experience of Is- same inspiration by the Holy Spirit. As rael’s walk with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the we sing in the Canon of the Annun- Law-giver and “God of our fathers” – the same one whom ciation (Ode 1, Eirmos), the hymns proclaim Jesus Christ, the Lord. There is no need to argue for the importance of the hymns in Chris- My mouth shall I open wide, tian devotion – this is quite self-evident. But it is worth re- and it will thus be with peating that, in the Orthodox Church, hymnography can Spirit fi lled. A word never be isolated from doctrinal inquiry: hymns are theol- shall I then pour ogy! They are bearers of an elaborate Christology, which out unto the essentially proclaims the same mystery of Christ that the Mother and ecumenical councils sought to defend, yet in a language

Holy Cross Orthodox Church December, 2017 Newsletter - p. 3. very different from that of conciliar definitions.

Learning theology from the hymns helps reeducate our re- ligious sensibility. It is not enough to ask, “What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us?” and remain suspended between the obligatory cynicism of our time and the hope that Christmas will remain somehow “magical.” And Nativity is certainly about much more than our pious emotions before “sweet baby Jesus” in the crib, just as Holy Week is about much more than our pious emotions aroused by the sufferings of an innocent. The Byzantine hymns invite us rather to approach both crib and cross with the awe that the people Announcements of Israel approached Mount Sinai, where Christ spoke Moleben on our property: We will continue serving a to them in flashing light and rolling thunder: This is the weekly short prayer service on our property in Kerner- “fear of God, faith, and love” with which the Divine Lit- sville. This is a service of supplication (Molieben) that urgy bids us approach the Son of God become son of the Archbishop Dimitri of blessed memory blessed for the use Virgin. of parishes in the diocese. Fr. Christopher will be serving Christ is born, glorify Him! it on Friday mornings at 10 AM except where noted in the calendar. Our property is located at 1320 Masten Drive in Bogdan Gabriel Bucur is a member of the community at Kernersville. St. George Orthodox Cathedral in Pittsburgh. He is also an assistant professor of Theology at Duquesne University, Sisterhood of the Holy Myrrhbearers: The Sisterhood where he teaches Bible and Patristics. will meet on Tuesday, Dec 26th at the Mellow Mushroom in Greensboro at 7:00PM. Source: The Word Magazine, Volume 52, No 10, December, 2008 Men’s Group: There will be no Men’s Group meeting this month.

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Financial Summary Financials for November 2017 Actual Budget Income $7,281.20 $10,630.00 Expense $7,994.72 $9,001.23

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Holy Cross Orthodox Church December, 2017 Newsletter - p. 4. Holy Cross Orthodox Church Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednes- Thursday Friday Saturday day 1 2

Nativity Fast Nativity Fast 10AM Prayers at 6 PM Great the Property Vespers 7 PM OCAT Sr. Social 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Nativity Fast Nativity Fast Nativity Fast Nativity Fast Nativity Fast 1Nativity Fast Nativity Fast 9:40AM Hours 10AM Prayers at 6 PM Great the Property Vespers 10AM Divine Liturgy 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Nativity Fast Nativity Fast Nativity Fast Nativity Fast Nativity Fast Nativity Fast Nativity Fast 9:40AM Hours 7:30 PM Choir 6:30PM Parish 10AM Prayers at 6 PM Vespers Rehearsal Council the Property 10AM Divine Liturgy 11:30 Visit from St. Nicholas 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Nativity Fast Nativity Fast Nativity Fast Nativity Fast Nativity Fast Nativity Fast Nativity Fast 9AM Church School 6:30PM 6:30PM 6:30PM 10AM Prayers at 6 PM Prefeast Prefeast Ves- Prefeast Ves- Prefeast Ves- the Property Vespers 9:40AM Hours pers pers pers 5 PM Open Door 10AM Divine Liturgy 6:30PM Prefeast 1 PM Caroling at Adams Vespers Farm Rehab 7PM OCAT House Meeting

24 25 NATIVITY 26 27 28 29 30 of our Lord Nativity Fast Jesus Christ 7:00PM Sister- 10AM Prayers at 6 PM Vespers 8:30 AM Baptisms & Chris- hood the Property mations 9 AM Divine 10AM Divine Liturgy Liturgy 5:30 PM Holy Supper Lenten Meal 7 PM Nativity Vigil

9:40AM Hours 10AM Divine Liturgy

Holy Cross Orthodox Church December, 2017 Newsletter - p. 5.