Orthodoxy and the Salvation of Protestants

“Sam Torode writes near the end of his essay: “Instead of “evangelizing” my evangelical friends, I now hope to learn from them. Discussing differences is worthwhile, but it’s more important to encourage each other as we grow in Christ.” Sam sees this as being a question of “humility” rather than of truth.

This reflects a serious misunderstanding of what it means to be Orthodox… as well as what it means to be heterodox. Being Orthodox does not mean that we are better than anyone else. I have known many pious Protestants who I am sure will have an easier time of it on the day of judgment than I will. Being Orthodox gives us a greater responsibility because we have the fullness of the truth and all the grace that is only available through the Church. To whom much is given, much is required.

We do not judge Protestants, because that is a matter for God. However, we do have an obligation to speak the truth in love to those who are not Orthodox.

We can learn a lot from Protestants. Here’s something I learned from one years ago. I was in a discussion between several college students and a Nazarene Missionary to Korea. We had just heard a lecture that spoke of the light and grace that God has made available to those who have never heard the Gospel. One student asked why we would bother sending missionaries to non-Christian countries, because they have their own culture, and if they hear the Gospel that will only increase their responsibility on the day of judgment. Why not just leave them be, and let them be judged based on the light that they already have? The Missionary responded roughly thus: “You tell me that people can be saved without hearing the Gospel, and I accept that as a possibility… and likewise I can believe that a man might be able to sail a kayak across the Pacific Ocean… but if I am in an Ocean liner, I am going to encourage the guy in the kayak to get on board the Ocean liner.

Likewise, I personally am convinced that many Protestants will be saved, but I know that the boats that they have crafted for themselves are not as sure as the Ark of Salvation that is the Church. And so, it is not due to a lack of humility that I encourage them to get on board the Ark… because I didn’t build the Ark, and have nothing to boast about it in any case. I entered the Ark the same way that I am now encouraging my Protestant friends to enter. It would only be due to a supreme lack of love and gratitude to God that I would fail to do so.” Fr. John Whiteford’s News Comments and Reflections

The Descent of Christ into Hades in Eastern and Western Theological Traditions

The following is a part of the lecture delivered by Bp. Hilarion Alfeyev at St Mary’s Cathedral, Minneapolis, USA, on 5 November 2002.

According to Thomistic teaching, Christ delivered from hell not only the Old Testament righteous who were imprisoned in hell because of original sin[55]. As far as sinners are concerned, those who were detained in ‘the hell of the lost’, since they either had no faith or had faith but no conformity with the virtue of the suffering Christ, could not be cleansed from their sins, and Christ’s descent brought them no deliverance from the pains of hell[56]. Nor were children who had died in the state of original sin delivered from hell, since only ‘by baptism children are delivered from original sin and from hell, but not by Christ’s descent into hell’, since baptism can be received only in earthly life, not after death[57]. Finally, Christ did not deliver those who were in purgatory, for their suffering was caused by personal defects (defectus personali), whereas ‘exclusion from glory’ was a common defect (defectus generalis) of all human nature after the fall. The descent of Christ into Hades recovered the glory of God to those who were excluded from it by virtue of the common defect of nature, but did not deliver anybody from the pains of purgatory caused by people’s personal defects[58].

This scholastic understanding of the descent of Christ into Hades, formulated by Thomas Aquinas, was the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church for many centuries. During the Reformation, this understanding was severely criticised by Protestant theologians. Many of today’s Catholic theologians are also very sceptical about this teaching[59]. There is no need to discuss how far the teaching of Thomas Aquinas on the descent of Christ into Hades is from that of Eastern Christianity. No Father of the Eastern Church ever permitted himself to clarify who was left in hell after Christ descent; no Eastern Father ever spoke of unbaptized infants left in hell[60]. The division of hell into four parts and the teaching on purgatory are alien to Eastern patristics. Finally, this very scholastic approach whereby the most mysterious events of history are subjected to detailed analysis and rational interpretation is unacceptable for Eastern Christian theology. For the theologians, poets and mystics of the Eastern Church, the descent of Christ into Hades remained first of all a mystery which could be praised in hymns, and about which various assumptions could be made, but of which nothing definite and final could be said.

The general conclusion can now be drawn from a comparative analysis of Eastern and Western understandings of the descent into Hades. In the first three centuries of the Christian Church, there was considerable similarity between the interpretation of this doctrine by theologians in East and West. However, already by the 4th—5th centuries, substantial differences can be identified. In the West, a juridical understanding of the doctrine prevailed. It gave increasingly more weight to notions of predestination (Christ delivered from hell those who were predestined for salvation from the beginning) and original sin (salvation given by Christ was deliverance from the general original sin, not from the ‘personal’ sins of individuals). The range of those to whom the saving action of the descent into hell is extended becomes ever more narrow. First, it excludes sinners doomed to eternal torment, then those in purgatory and finally unbaptized infants. This kind of legalism was alien to the Orthodox East, where the descent into Hades continued to be perceived in the spirit in which it is expressed in the liturgical texts of Great Friday and Easter, i.e. as an event significant not only for all people, but also for the entire cosmos, for all created life.

At the same time, both Eastern and Western traditions suggest that Christ delivered from hell the Old Testament righteous led by Adam. Yet if in the West this is perceived restrictively (Christ delivered only the Old Testament righteous, while leaving all the rest in hell to eternal torment), in the East, Adam is viewed as a symbol of the entire human race leading humanity redeemed by Christ (those who followed Christ were first the Old Testament righteous led by Adam and then the rest who responded to the preaching of Christ in hell).

Read the entire lecture here .

Democracy or Aristocracy of the Dead

“Tradition means giving a vote to most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead.”-Orthodoxy, Ch.4, “The Ethics of Elfland”, G.K. Chesterton

I deeply appreciate much of what G.K. Chesterton has written. I have quoted the above by Chesterton concerning Tradition and Democracy and for many years I agreed with it until one day I was listening to a lecture, Tradition and Culture*, by Fr. Patrick Reardon and my mind, with some hesitation, was changed. Fr. Patrick pointed out that if Chesterton’s statement were true, then we could one day out vote our ancestors. Fr. Patrick then went on to say that he believed in the aristocracy of the dead, which I think expresses a more Orthodox approach to Tradition. Every generation is not simply rediscovering what our ancestors believed and voting for it again. If this were the case then we might just discover something different and vote for that instead. We might even say we share something with our ancestors, but decide to add to what they have given to us in the name of progress. No, we receive the Truth (Jesus Christ) from our ancestors, our Fathers, and preserve and pass it along unchanged to our own children.

In this same lecture Fr. Patrick pointed out that our culture is the generation of Esau who sold his birthright for one bowl of porridge. Our culture has sold out for the temporary pleasures and passions of our fallenness.

*I have heard Fr. Patrick give this lecture twice. I think the first lecture given for Touchstone Magazine’s Evening Lecture series was better than the second lecture given for the Anglican Colloquium which can be heard on Ancient Faith Radio, linked above. The first lecture can be purchased from Orthodox Tapes by calling (479) 750-3808 evenings before 9:00 Central Time.

No Room for Compromise Concerning the Filioque

Monk Patrick posted a paper well worth your time considering a possible solution to the filioque question. You can read the paper on his blog Sacred Traditions.

Ecumenicism and the Ravenna Statement

What is amazing to me is that ecumenical documents are signed by persons who have not taken council with their own bishops or fellow bishops concerning what the document says. Then the media reports and assumes that the Serbian Church must agree with the Ravenna Statement because it is signed by some representative of the Serbian Church. Unbelievable!

An interview of Bishop Artemije of Raska and Prizren to daily Danas (translated from serbian policy site).

Q: It is well-known you aren’t an ecumenist. What is your opinion about the Ravenna statement adopted by members of joint theological commission of Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Church.

A: Why wouldn’t we say the other way – I’m against ecumenism because I think such a fashion of ecumenism is damaging the purity of Orthodox Faith and will not lead to the healthy union of Christians, than to dilution of the Orthodox Faith and weakening the piousness of the Orthodox Christians. Though Ravenna Document is available, the hierarchy of the Serbian Orthodox Church have not been officially informed by those present in Ravenna what happened there, what was signed, what the paper actually means and what competencies and to whom it offers. In any case, I think that the fashion that some representatives of Serbian Orthodox Church, regardless empowered or not, signed on our behalf something without the authorization of the Council or Synod, is not binding to anyone in Serbian Orthodox Church, as long as it didn’t pass through the meeting of the Holy Council. - Read more of this interview at Orthodixie.

Ecumenism and Tradition according to the Elder Paisios

I’ve had people come to me too, who suggested: “All of us who believe in Christ should form one religion”.

I said to them: Now what you’re telling me is to take gold and copper – gold of so many carats quality – which they took so much trouble to purify, and then gather the metals and melt them into one mass. Is it right to mix them together again? Ask any goldsmith: “Should we mix inferior elements with gold?”

Well, the same trouble was taken to filter-clean the dogma. The Holy Fathers must have known something, when they forbade every association with a heretic. Nowadays they say: “We should all pray together – not only with a heretic, but also with a Buddhist and a fire-worshipper and a demon-worshipper. The Orthodox should also participate in these common prayers and conventions. It is a matter of presence.”

What do they mean by “presence”? They strive to solve everything with logic, in order to justify the unjustifiable. The “European spirit” is convinced that spiritual matters can also be made a part of the Common Market.

Some of the rather shallow Orthodox want to project “Missionary work”, so they convene meetings with the heterodox for the sake of being heard, and they think that this is the way to advertise Orthodoxy – by mingling in the same pot with cacodoxies. Then we have the hyper-zealots at the other extreme: they even blaspheme the Sacraments of the New-Calendarists etc., and they excessively scandalize those souls who are pious and have an orthodox sensitivity. The heterodox on the other hand usually attend meetings, they pose as know-it-alls, they take any good spiritual material that they find with the Orthodox, they take it to their own workshop, add their own colours and brand names and they present it as something original.

Today’s strange world is actually moved by such strange things, and it is eventually destroyed spiritually. But the Lord – when the time is right – will bring forth new Marks of Ephesus and the Gregories of Palamas, who will muster all of our scandalized brethren, who will confess the Orthodox faith, consolidate the Orthodox Tradition and give great joy to our Mother the Church.

If we were living Patristically, we would all be enjoying a spiritual health that would have been the envy of all the heterodox; it would have made them abandon their sick fallacies and render them saved, without any sermons. At present, they are not moved by our holy Patristic tradition, because they are waiting to see our Patristic continuation – our true kinship with our Saints.” -Elder Paisios

There was Never a Bible in the Orthodox Church?

“Strictly speaking, there never was a Bible in the Orthodox Church, at least not as we commonly think of the Bible as a single volume book we can hold in our hand. Since the beginning of the Church, from the start of our liturgical tradition, there has never been a single book in an Orthodox church we could point to as the Bible. Instead, the various Books of the Bible are found scattered throughout several service books located either on the Holy Altar itself, or at the chanter’s stand. The Gospels (or their pericopes) are complied into a single volume — usually bound in precious metal and richly decorated — placed on the Holy Altar.

The Epistles (or, again, their pericopes) are bound together in another book, called the Apostolos, which is normally found at the chanter’s stand. Usually located next to the Apostolos on the chanter’s shelf are the twelve volumes of the Menaion, as well as the books called the Triodion and Pentekostarion, containing various segments of the Old and the New Testaments.

The fact that there is no Bible in the church should not surprise us, since our liturgical tradition is a continuation of the practices of the early Church, when the Gospels and the letters from the Apostles (the Epistles) had been freshly written and copied for distribution to the Christian communities. The Hebrew Scriptures (what we now call the Old Testament, comprising the Law (the first five books) and the Prophets, were likewise written on various scrolls, just as they were found in the Jewish synagogues.

The Church is not based on the Bible. Rather, the Bible is a product of the Church. For the first few centuries of the Christian era, no one could have put his hands on a single volume called The Bible. In fact, there was no one put his hands on a single volume called The Bible. In fact, there was no agreement regarding which books of Scripture were to be considered accurate and correct, or canonical. Looking back over history, there were various lists of the canonical books comprising the Bible:

The Muratorian Canon (130 AD) cities all the books we considered as parts of the Bible today, except for Hebrews, Jude, 2 Peter, 2 John, 3 John, and Revelation/Apocalypse
Canon 60 of the local Council of Laodicea (364 AD) cited Revelation/Apocalypse
A festal Epistle by Saint Athanasius (369 AD) lists all of them.
Even so, there was no official, authoritative canon listing all the books until the Sixth Ecumenical Council, at Constantinople in AD 680. Canon II of that Council ratifies the First through the Fifth Ecumenical Councils, as well as the local councils at Carthage (AD 255), Ancyra (AD 315), Neocaesaria (AD 315), Gangra (AD 340), Antioch (AD 341), Laodicea (AD 364), Sardica (AD 347), Constantinople (AD 394), and Carthage (AD 419). When the Council at Laodicea specified the content of the bible as we know it — 39 years after the First Ecumenical Council (AD 325) and 17 years before the second Ecumenical Council (AD 381) — the Liturgy was pretty much well-defined and established and had been canonized by common usage — the reading from these books. It was not until the invention of the printing press in Western Europe, coinciding with the period of the Protestant Reformation of Western Christianity that The Bible was widely disseminated as a single volume.”

Source: Greek Orthodox Diocese of Denver Bulletin: March 1995, Volume 3, Number 3., pp. 14-17.

Contours of Conversion and the Ecumenical Movement

“Saint John Chrysostom advises each of us how to help those outside of the Church, “thou canst not work miracles, and so convert him. By the means which are in thy power, convert him; by showing him brotherly love, by offering him shelter, by being gentle with him, by dealing kindly him, and by all other means.” In other words, we need to reach out to those heterodox Christians outside the Church with that hospitality and love so characteristic of Orthodoxy. This means being able to see whatever virtue is present among those in error even as Saint Peter, not to mention an angel of God, saw virtue in Cornelius prior to his Baptism. The path to conversion is not an easy one, and those struggling along it need our love, concern, and support. At the same time, however, we must proclaim the “hard saying” of the Truth, even if it is painful. The truth that the Orthodox Church is the “One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church” as well as the unique ark of salvation is “our chief cornerstone, elect and precious,” that has always been and will always be “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.”

It should not be surprising that those formerly heterodox Christians who have converted to the Church are the fiercest opponents of ecumenism. For ecumenists, converts to Orthodoxy are clearly an embarrassment, since conversion denies the existence of some middle ground between the Church and heterodox confessions. For converts, their involvement in ecumenism would be the fulfillment of the proverb “as a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.” Converts are intimately familiar with the spiritual sickness and suffering caused by infidelity to the teachings of Christ and His Church in heterodox communities. They cannot be duped by soothing words about love that sacrifice the Truth or empty words about a unity that in reality does not and cannot possibly exist. Their repentance over what is wrong in those communities was by the grace of God a fount of knowledge leading to salvation. They will not let ecumenism deny this knowledge to themselves or to others.

And this position of theirs is not a negative position. On the contrary, it springs from love for Christ, love for the Church, love for the Truth, love for those within the Church, and love for those outside of Her bosom. In love, we reject ecumenism, because we want to offer those in heterodoxy precisely what the Lord has graciously given to all of us in the Holy Orthodox Church, the opportunity to become members of the Most Pure Body of Christ, “children of light” and “heirs of the kingdom which He hath promised to them that love him.”-Contours of Conversion and the Ecumenical Movement by Hieromonk Alexios Karakallinos.

Owen (The Ochlophobist) has a long but very good post concerning Ecumenicism here.

The Protestant Presuppositions and Origins of the Modern Ecumenical Movement

“Among many Orthodox Christians today it is generally accepted that the
contemporary Ecumenical Movement began with the Patriarchal Encyclical of 1920 “Unto the Churches of Christ Everywhere.” Furthermore, it is generally believed that the movement for Christian unity arose out of a search for “unity in truth” and doctrinal agreement. It will, thus, come as a surprise to many to discover that the historical record disproves both of these assertions beyond a shadow of a doubt.

History shows that the contemporary Ecumenical Movement has its roots in the Protestant missionary movement of the 19th century and its inspiration in the desire of Evangelical Protestants to achieve a “unity in fellowship” amongst themselves for greater success in the mission field. Willem Saayman, a Protestant scholar of missiology, begins his study on mission and unity with the following words: “The ecumenical movement does not derive simply from a passion for unity; it sprang from a passion for unity that is completely fused in mission.” The union of mission and ecumenism, however, was not something arrived at quickly or painlessly for the Protestant world. It grew slowly in the soil of global confessional alliances and community agreements among the Protestants in the second half of the 19th century, and continued in the international student movements and missionary conferences, becoming a new paradigm of ecclesiastical unity – for the conversion of the world. It became, from 1910 onwards, the basis upon which the Ecumenical Movement was built.

It is, thus, apparent that, long before the 1920 encyclical was sent out and the Orthodox entered into the discussion, the presuppositions and parameters of encounter were set and they did not, even in the slightest, reflect or even acknowledge Orthodox ecclesiological principles. The ecclesiological framework in which the ecumenical movement was forged, formed, developed and exists to this day is, with slight adjustments, the product of 19th century Evangelicalism.”- Fr. Peter Alban Heers

-Fr. Peter works out the details of this history in his paper The Missionary Origins of Modern Ecumenicism: Milestones leading up to 1920.

St. Basil Says No to Scripture Alone

“Of the dogmas and messages preserved in the Church, some we possess from written teaching and others we receive from the tradition of the apostles, handed on to us in mystery. In respect to piety both are of the same force. No one will contradict any of these, no one, at any rate, who is even moderately versed in matters ecclesiastical. Indeed, were we to try to reject unwritten customs as having no great authority, we would unwittingly injure the gospel in its vitals; or rather, we would reduce [Christian] message to a mere term.”
- St Basil the Great