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Essays on True Orthodox Christianity

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Essays on True Orthodox Christianity ESSAYS ON TRUE ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY Volume 1 Vladimir Moss © Copyright: Vladimir Moss, 2012. All Rights Reserved. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................3 1. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN AN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN AND A GENUINE SEEKER ON THE ORTHODOX FAITH............................................................................4 2. CATHOLIC AND ORTHODOX ECUMENISM .........................................................14 3. TEN REASONS WHY THE ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE IS NOT ORTHODOX......................................................................................................................29 4. A LETTER TO AN ANGLICAN FRIEND ON HERESY .............................................54 5. ON MYSTERY AND MYSTIFICATION......................................................................60 6. BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIANS .......................................................................................65 7. A REVIEW OF “THE STRUGGLE AGAINST ECUMENISM”..................................70 8. FR. SERAPHIM ROSE: A MODERN ST. AUGUSTINE ............................................73 9. QUO VADIS, SCIENCE? ..............................................................................................79 10. AN ORTHODOX APPROACH TO ART .................................................................113 11. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN AN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN AND A RATIONALIST ON THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST ..................................................................135 12. A REPLY TO DAVID BERCOT ON THE MOTHER OF GOD ..............................142 13. A REPLY TO DAVID BERCOT ON THE HOLY ICONS........................................151 14. A SERMON IN PRAISE OF THE BRITISH SAINTS ..............................................157 15. THE ICON OF THE HOLY TRINITY .......................................................................161 16. ON CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE...................................................................................168 17. DEATH AND THE TOLL-HOUSES.........................................................................178 18. THE DIANA MYTH AND THE ANTICHRIST .......................................................196 20. IS HELL JUST? ...........................................................................................................209 21. GOD AND TSUNAMIS.............................................................................................225 22. USA BEWARE: PUNK-TRUE-ORTHODOXY IS HERE! ......................................233 23. HAS THE REIGN OF THE ANTICHRIST BEGUN?...............................................244 24. “THE RIVER OF FIRE” REVISITED........................................................................252 25. TO JUDGE OR NOT TO JUDGE ..............................................................................264 26. THE SACRIFICE FOR SIN ........................................................................................272 27. ON FREQUENCY OF COMMUNION ....................................................................282 28. TO BIND AND TO LOOSE .......................................................................................295 29. METROPOLITAN EPHRAIM AND ORIGINAL SIN.............................................309 30. METROPOLITAN EPHRAIM, BLOOD-SACRIFICES AND NECESSITY ..........315 2 INTRODUCTION This book consists of a collection of articles and dialogues written in the first decade of this century on various themes relating to Orthodox Christianity. Most of them reflect various controversies that have divided Orthodox Christians in this period. It is hoped that they will show that the Orthodox world-view based on the teaching of the Holy Fathers is consistent and able in principle to answer all the perplexities posed by modern life. Through the prayers of our Holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us! Amen. July 23 / August 5, 2012. East House, Beech Hill, Mayford, Woking, Surrey. United Kingdom. 3 1. A DIALOGUE BETWEEN AN ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN AND A GENUINE SEEKER ON THE ORTHODOX FAITH Seeker. What is Orthodoxy? Orthodox. “Orthodoxy” means “right glory”, giving the right glory to God. For there is also a wrong glorification of God, a glorification in which He takes no pleasure. Orthodoxy is the giving of right glory to God through the right faith and right worship. In common parlance, “Orthodoxy” means simply “the right faith”. Seeker. Why is right faith necessary? Orthodox. We cannot glorify that which we do not know, and right faith is the true knowledge of God. Those who do not have the right faith cannot glorify God rightly. To them the true believers say, not with arrogance but in humble recognition of the treasure they have received: “Ye know not what ye worship: we know what we worship” (John 4.22). Seeker. What is the Orthodox Church? Orthodox. The Orthodox Church is the Church which has Orthodoxy – “the faith once given to the saints” (Jude 9) and the “worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4.23) – that is, the worship of God the Father in the Son, Who is the Truth, and in the Holy Spirit, Who is the Spirit of truth. She is the Body of Christ, the Dwelling-place of the Holy Spirit, the Ark of salvation, the True Vine. By another definition She is the Church that is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic – One in Her unity in faith and worship, Holy in Her sacraments and the multitude of holy men and women she has produced, Catholic in Her wholeness in each of Her constituent parts, Apostolic in Her origin and unbroken succession from the Apostles and in Her fidelity to the Apostolic teaching. St. Germanus of Constantinople defines the Church as “a divine house where the mystical living Sacrifice is celebrated,... and its precious stones are the divine dogmas taught by the Lord to His disciples.” Seeker. What bigotry! What, then, are the other Churches – the Roman Catholic and the Protestant, for example? Orthodox. They are branches that have been cut off from the True Vine in the course of the centuries. The Western Church was Orthodox for the first thousand years of Christian history. But in 1054, after a long period of decline, Rome broke away from the Orthodox East and introduced a whole series of heretical teachings: the infallibility and universal jurisdiction of the Pope, the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son (the Filioque), indulgences, purgatory, created grace, etc. The Protestants broke away from Rome in the sixteenth century, but did not return to Orthodoxy and the True Church. Instead, they introduced still more heresies, rejecting Tradition, the Sacraments, praying for the dead, the veneration of Saints, etc. Seeker. But are there not good people among the other Churches? Orthodox. “There is none good but One, that is, God” (Matthew 19.17). Man in his present fallen state is not, and cannot be, good. “There is none that doeth good, no not one” (Psalm 13.4). Even the Apostles were called evil by the Lord (Luke 11.13). Man can become good only through union with the only Good One, God. And this union is possible only through keeping the commandments, of which the first is the command to repent and be baptized. Unless a man has repented and been baptized 4 through the One Baptism of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, thereby receiving God’s goodness within himself, he cannot be said to be good in any real sense. For the “goodness” of the fallen, unbaptized man is not good in God’s eyes, but “filthy rags”, in the words of the Prophet Isaiah (64.6). Seeker. So the Orthodox are good, and all the rest are bad? A pretty self-righteous religion, I should say, just the kind of Pharisaical faith the Lord condemned! Orthodox. No, we do not say that all the Orthodox are good, because it is a sad fact that many, very many Orthodox Christians do not use the goodness, the grace that is given to them in Holy Baptism to do truly good works. And their condemnation will be greater than those who have never received Baptism. “For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them” (II Peter 2.21). “For if we sin deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful prospect of judgement, and a fury of fire which will consume the adversaries.” (Hebrews 10.26). Seeker. What a bleak picture you paint! The unbaptized cannot do good, and those who sin after baptism are destined for even worse condemnation! Orthodox. Not quite. Although we cannot be baptized again for the remission of sins, we can receive remission of sins in other ways: through prayer and tears, through fasting and almsgiving, above all through the sacraments of Confession and Holy Communion. God does not reject those who repent with all their heart. As David says: “A heart that is broken and humbled God will not despise” (Psalm 50.17). Seeker. But is not such repentance possible for all men? Did not David repent in the Psalm you have cited, and receive forgiveness from God? Orthodox. Yes, but salvation does not consist only in the forgiveness of sins, but also in acquiring holiness, that holiness “without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12.14), that holiness which is given only in the sacraments of the Church and which can be lost unless we conduct an unremitting ascetic struggle against sin. Moreover, original sin can only be remitted in the baptismal font. Seeker. So not even David
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