Volume 51 No. 1 January 2007 VOLUME 51 NO. 1 JANUARY 2007 COVER contents THE HOLY NAPKIN written by Fr. George J. Ellis, Toledo, OH 3 EDITORIAL by Very Rev. John Abdalah 4 COMMUNION OF THE APOSTLES by Philip Tamoush 6 WHEN FACING EAST LOOKS WEST by Fr. Joseph Huneycutt 8 THE SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR: A GUIDE AND MENTOR by Khalil Samara The Most Reverend 14 ARCHDIOCESAN OFFICE Metropolitan PHILIP, D.H.L., D.D. Primate 15 ORATORICAL FESTIVAL The Right Reverend Bishop ANTOUN 24 NAVIGATING THROUGH AFRICA The Right Reverend AND LED BY THE CROSS Bishop JOSEPH by Tom Saba The Right Reverend Bishop BASIL 27 DEPARTMENT OF DEVELOPMENT The Right Reverend Bishop THOMAS 29 COMMUNITIES IN ACTION The Right Reverend Bishop MARK The Right Reverend Bishop ALEXANDER Founded in Arabic as Al Kalimat in 1905 by Saint Raphael (Hawaweeny) Founded in English as The WORD in 1957 by Metropolitan ANTONY (Bashir) Editor in Chief The Very Rev. John P. Abdalah, D.Min. Assistant Editor Joanne M. Abdalah, MSW Editorial Board The Very Rev. Joseph J. Allen, Th.D. Anthony Bashir, Ph.D. The Very Rev. Antony Gabriel, Th.M. The Very Rev. Peter Gillquist Ronald Nicola Letters to the editor are welcome and should include the author’s full Najib E. Saliba, Ph.D. name and parish. Submissions for “Communities in Action” must be The Very Rev. Paul Schneirla, M.Div. approved by the local pastor. Both may be edited for purposes of clar- Design Director Donna Griffin Albert ity and space. All submissions, in hard copy, on disk or e-mailed, should be double-spaced for editing purposes. Member The Associated Church Press ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION: Conciliar Press U.S.A. and Canada, $20.00 Ecumenical News International Foreign Countries, $26.00 Orthodox Press Service Single Copies, $3.00 Editorial Office: THE WORD (USPS626-260), published monthly except July and August, The WORD by the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America at 635 Miranda Drive 358 Mountain Road, PO Box 5238, periodicals postage paid at Pittsburgh, PA 15241 Englewood, New Jersey 07631-5238 and at additional mailing offices. e-mail: [email protected] Postmaster send address changes to: THE WORD, 358 Mountain Road, FAX: 1-412-831-5554 PO Box 5238, Englewood, NJ 07631-5238 Subscription Office: ISSN 0043-7964 www.antiochian.org. 358 Mountain Road PO Box 5238 Englewood, NJ 07631-5238 2 The Word editor’s letter To bring Orthodoxy to America we need more than Rhetoric To fulfill Metropolitan PHILIP’s prophetic call to bring Orthodoxy to America, the Orthodox laity and clergy in America must be genuine Christians, well educated in the ways of God, and fervent in our witness of Jesus Christ. We must be Christians who love God and all those that God Himself loves. We must be servants; obedient to God and willing to do all that God calls us to do, even if He calls us to change or to grow. Anything short of this would make us disingenuous, and if America discerns us to be less than genuine, He will justifi- ably reject us. To be authentic, we must be obedient to God and to each other, modeling relationships that reveal the living God in our midst. We must not live our hierarchical relationships in a secular or business way, but in the way God revealed them. Obedience in the Church is based on respect, service and love. To bring Orthodoxy to America, we need to be American in our embrace of freedom, and Orthodox in our correct apostolic faith and worship. Our worship must be expressive of that which God has revealed though the ages, while palatable to the now indigenous American population. We must be able to distinguish between that which is of the faith and that which belongs to cultures of other countries where Orthodoxy has taken root. America has her own culture, deserving of our study and embrace. If you understand me to say that the Orthodox laity and clergy in the United States have much work to do in order to be really prepared to bring Orthodoxy to America or America to Orthodoxy, you understand me correctly. We have a sacred responsibility that calls us to personal maturity and growth in our faith and spir- ituality. We must embark on a journey that will begin with our loving God and each other, and then calls us to witness to America, changing and transforming this land as leaven in bread dough. While we Orthodox in America have had trouble loving each other, we are called by God to grow past our short sightedness and to love everyone. That love from God will transform us, allowing us to share His love. When America sees our love and how God abides in us, America will notice. Americans are known for wanting the best of everything. Those things that are flashy or don’t last sometimes fool Americans, but when given the opportunity, Americans want and find the best. We need to give America the opportunity to know God as He has revealed Himself and is calling her. After loving one another, we need to learn real obedience. Such obedience cannot be reduced to blind adherences to every whim of authority figures. Christian obedience involves church leaders and faithful alike seeking to understand God, and then in a loving and trusting relationship, relate that which will bring the other into a better understanding of God’s presence and will. All in the Church must be accountable to each other. Spiritual gifts are not reserved for clergy. God works in all who put Christ on and embrace God. We Christians must always be first obedient to God, and then seek God’s direction for each other. This is a sacred responsibility shared by the shepherds and the reason-endowed Christians together. I am not an advocate of reform for the sake of reform. I even oppose reform for the sake of relevancy; how- ever, we must be sure that our worship and preaching make sense to those that we seek to lead to Christ. Our The Word 3 language and delivery of worship and God’s message must be understandable to the ears that we preach it to. Our mes- “Communion of sage must be God’s message, and not one of an institution or group. Our language the apostles” must not only be in English, but in under- standable English, read, spoken and prayed in understandable ways. In America, we who seek to bring Orthodoxy to our neighbors face many obstacles from outside our community. America is rooted in a history rich with her own neurotic fears; including a fear of ritual, foreigners, icons and symbols. She is also proud, thinking that as the greatest nation in this world, she is self- sufficient and without need of anything. If we Orthodox are to have a chance in meeting these real obstacles, we need to get our own house in order. We need to mature to the point of relat- ing to each other, clergy and laity, in sym- phony. We also need to know and recog- nize Orthodox from other jurisdictions as authentic Orthodox with the same mandate from our Savior Jesus Christ to preach the Good News to the entire Monumental Icon of Christ, The High Priest and 12 Apostles at St. Matthew world. We Orthodox worship and honor Orthodox Church, Torrance, California the same God, regardless of ethnic origin (Not the Last Supper, sometimes called the First Supper or Mystical Supper) or preference of typicon. We Orthodox in “Flashing brilliantly with the beams of the Spirit’s enlightenment, ye went America at every level of Church life through the whole world, O Saints supremely wise, and ye enlightened the need to be even better educated, and we faithful, while abating the heavy gloom of the depth of ignorance as Apostles of need to be generous, sharing the abun- God the Word; wherefore, on this day we now joyously celebrate your holy and dance of gifts and grace that our God has illustrious rememberance, while gaining holiness for ourselves.” (Stichera of blessed us. Vespers to the Apostles) by Fr. John Abdalah “Take, eat; this is My body. Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” “‘But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.’ And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives” (Matthew 26:26-30). (the form of the 1st Liturgy) (NOTE: Iconographers will take some “poetic license” by including certain saints in icons that may not be there historically. In our case, the twelve on the icon are not all the original Disciples called by Christ. Our Iconographer, John Kalentzis, of Adelaide, Australia, chose to include Paul, because of his signifi- 4 The Word cance in the early history of the Church, and Luke and Mark, writers, not one of the original twelve Apostles. Included here the Gospel writers. Excluded from the original twelve on our in order to include all four Gospel writers. icon are Bartholemew, James the son of Zebedee, and Mark: April 25. The Evangelist. Not one of the original Matthias. Thus, a Communion of the Apostles icon could twelve Apostles. Founded the Church in Alexandria. Writer of include, for example, only American Saints or Saints of the the earliest Gospel. Church of Antioch, etc.