Patristics at the Heart of Orthodoxy: A look at Father Josiah Trenham

 

After quite a few weeks in which I have been struggling to come up with topics, and after tackling some more controversial issues, I have decided to tackle something a little bit tamer and discuss one of my heroes. Now I could be flowery with my wording and describe him as the epitome of everything that led me to the Orthodox Church. However, as I have stated before, there are several key players that through their work led me to Orthodoxy.  However, if I were to pick a priest that has had the longest influence on my life, outside of my own, it would be Father Josiah Trenham. For me Father Josiah has also left a lasting impression on my protestant family, as he is one of my mother’s favorite teachers of the scriptures.

Father Josiah Trenham, the founder of Patristic Nectar Publications and parish priest at St. Andrew’s Orthodox Church in Riverside, California, has been an ordained member of the clergy since 1993 (geez almost as old as I am) and has been at St. Andrew’s since 1998. He has ten children. Maybe its through all the years of studying Father Josiah has done, maybe it is the ten children he has raised, but something about his demeanor has resonated with me. Ever since discovering The Arena Podcast, I almost exclusively listen to it alone. Then there is his YouTube channel. Patristic Nectar takes daily, or nearly daily reflections and allows Father Josiah to reach a multitude of people with the teachings of the Church Fathers. Father Josiah has interviewed numerous people of various traditions, and has been interviewed himself, for the likes of Fox News. Father Josiah is a staunch supporter and believer in the teachings of the Church Fathers and the elders of the church. He believes in maintaining and keeping true to the Orthodox witness and not deviating from the path that God has outlined through His Church. While the world around us is seeing the destruction of many of the tenants of the faith, Father Josiah has been calling all Orthodox Christians and true believers to remain strong in their faith and to not be dismayed with the goings on of the outside world.

But what does this have to do with the faith? What does this have to do with me? I tend to focus more on their work that they have accomplished than discuss the impact that the person has had on my life.  While Father Josiah has had an impact on my journey in Orthodoxy for many years, it was more recently that he had a bigger impact. And yes, though the story I am going to relay in just a few moments is more recent than that of the others, I cannot tell you how many times before I became Orthodox, or even after I became Orthodox, that I would read about Father Josiah. I still need to pick up a copy of Rock and Sand, but hopefully that will be corrected soon.  Now back to my story of how Father Josiah had a more recent impact on my life.  As I stated before, I love listening to The Arena, and have been listening for quite some time. Up until April of this past year I was a teacher and had to commute for work. Luckily, my mother was right across the street, and worked at the elementary school while I worked at the high school. Seeing this as an opportunity to share my love of Father Josiah with my mother, I asked one morning if we might listen to the podcast. She agreed. Now I knew that my mother is and probably always will be a Southern Baptist. Even though I left that faith tradition and entered the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, I am thankful for the love of God and the desire to seek out the apostolic faith that my mother instilled in me. Though I knew she might disagree with some of the details of Father Josiah’s sermons, I was willing to give it a chance and see where it would take us. To my surprise, after a while Mom would request some mornings when she was feeling good that we listen to Father Josiah. She found him to be a true man of God, as I had discovered myself years earlier. We bonded over our love of the scriptures and our love of the teachings of Father Josiah.  Yes, I have a great relationship with my mother, always have. This bonding that I am discussing is a simple fact that we were able to find common ground in our faith despite the obvious points of disagreement between the southern Baptists and the Orthodox Church.

Whether it’s his constant use of the term “Dear Ones” to refer to his congregation, or whether it’s the quotes of various amounts of writings by the church fathers, Father Josiah Trenham packs full his homily with information and lessons that we can take into our own lives and use on a daily basis. Most recently I was listening to his homily on Cheerful Mercy and how the Book of Acts is still being written today. Most people believe that the time of the apostles has ended, but rather he showed through the scriptures and his teachings that the Book of Acts is still being written today through the Orthodox Church and the sending of missionaries both domestically and internationally. Then there is his homily entitled Be Careful. In his teachings on the gospel for this passage, Father Josiah teaches that carefulness is a sign of maturity. Maintaining the commandments of Jesus and being careful in our practices and our lives is a sign that we are becoming more mature Christians.

Father Josiah also has grown and developed the parish of St. Andrew’s in Riverside, California. I have always believed that the one thing the Orthodox Church has been lacking here in America is an education system. While it is fine to send our kids to public school, and to a private school whether evangelical or catholic, these places will not instill in our children the love of the faith and may often times cause more damage to the salvation of the child than good. Therefore, he has established an Orthodox academy to help raise children within the Orthodox faith and tradition. Then there is the Rubidoux Cross. Where Father Josiah according to my research, wanted to chain himself to the Rubidoux Cross on Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside, after a lawsuit was filed against city by an atheist organization. What a show of faith man! The cross being so important to us as Christians and Father Josiah wanting to defend it, even at the chance of losing his own life, is inspiring. I pray that if something like that comes to my home, that I would be willing to do the same. Then there is the lawsuit that he recently won against Orthodoxy in Dialogue. The heretic website slandered and totally defamed Father Josiah. But through the grace of God, the heretics words were found to be untrue and scandalous, and Father Josiah won the case. Father Josiah, as a defender of the faith, has been repeatedly attacked, but also has willingly gone into battle for the Orthodox Christian faith. In doing so, he has entered the Arena. That same arena that many martyrs have entered into in the early years of Christianity. He does not just lead by words, but also by example. He is my hero in the faith.  He is someone that I wish I could emulate. I’m sure he would tell me that I’ve picked the wrong person. I doubt it. There is very few people that I can say I look up to more than Father Josiah Trenham. If I could be half the Christian that Father Josiah is, then I believe there is a chance for me yet. May God have mercy on us all, and may the Theotokos intercede for us.

Amen.

 

The Heresy of Ken Ham: The Ark Encounter Exposed.

 

Before I begin properly this particular article and the necessity that I believe it has, in that this article is in need of writing to formally combat the heresies and the inerrant fallacies of Ken Ham, I would like to offer my sincerest apology for anyone I might offend. My goal through this article, is not offend, rather it is to instruct and guide. While the methods behind the things I will discuss in this article are sound, the methods and the theology are not. We as Orthodox Christians, having the fullness of the faith handed down to us from the church fathers since the beginning of the church, must stand firm and proclaim the truth to all people, regardless of the consequences. What I am going to discuss may not be contained all in one article, or rather in several. It is up to the reader to do more research and digging into the various topics I am going to present and whether they choose to accept what the church has handed down and proclaimed for 2000 years.

First, Ken Ham is the founder of Answers in Genesis, a ministry devoted to the cause of proclaiming a young earth creationism movement within the church and the world. For many evangelical Christians, and Christians in general, who do not ascribe to the evolutionary explanation for creation, this is a welcomed sight. He has become a champion for the marginalized and forgotten Christian of the world and many people flock to his beliefs in a hope to identify with something that is left missing in their own lives. However, and I say this with the most amount of respect, that leading astray those who are already going astray simply leads people hell. It is not the belief in a young earth, or whether it was by instant creation of the various animals that is the problem. In fact, many Orthodox Christians are not theistic evolutionists and do believe in such a way as to how God created the world. Rather it is the fact that he is adamant that no other way for Creation to have taken place and his addition to the gospel through this belief that is the problem. By openly stating that Christians must and have to conclude that the earth is no more than 6,000 years old, and that we must believe that it was a literal 6 days, 24 hour periods of creation, he has violated the scriptures that he holds dear. Now this might not be clear to some, but let me clarify. The process of creation, rather than the how of the creation is what is most important. The how of creation is important to a rational mind, lacking the history and teachings of the church fathers. By trying to solve every detail about God, we learn that he is unknowable and yet we can know about him through the Church. God gave us the scriptures to point to Christ. He gave us the scriptures not as the end of all authority, but rather as a part of the authority. As one will see later, Ken Ham rejects the teachings of the church fathers, and considers them irrelevant outside the Bible. For an Orthodox Christian, the teachings of the Church Fathers and the Bible go hand in hand. Without one, there is not the other, and vice versa. By his strong belief that a Christian must believe in the literal six days and twenty four hour periods, he has in turn changed the scriptures, which does not give us the details of the how process, but rather that God created the world and that is enough. Therefore I believe that he has violated scriptures, because oth Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:18-19 warn against adding anything to the scriptures.  While great ascetics of the Orthodox Faith, like Father Seraphim Rose, of whom I have written extensively about, also proclaim a young earth, it is not completely accepted by all the Orthodox writers and saints.  For many, including St. Maximus the Confessor and St. Gregory of Nyssa, the process of creation is less important than the result of creation.

 Furthermore I would like to add, that even Charles Darwin the so called “father of evolution” believed in a creator. He stated in his writing, “Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator…” Thus, we understand that God created the world, and how he created the world is not necessary for our salvation. The focal point is that of Jesus Christ and anything outside of Christ is non important to Christianity. Whether or not God created the world in 6, 24 hour periods or whether it was over a period several thousands or millions of years does not matter to us as Christians. We should be focused on growing strong people of faith. Trying to determine the exact methods by which God created the world and each process and each moment leads us down rabbit holes and retracts from the gospel. It defeats the purpose of developing Christians into defenders of the faith and practitioners of the sacraments of the Church. Which leads me to my next point.

            Father Thomas Hopko of blessed memory once said, “Protestantism generally tried to rediscover the ancient faith but it didn’t rediscover the ancient faith, it made a brand new one that was absolutely more unacceptable in many, many ways than what they thought they were fighting against.”  Having recently toured the grounds of both the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum, I can safely say that from an Orthodox perspective, the museum is incompatible with Orthodoxy.  For example, Ken Ham’s lies and blatant disrespect for the church fathers is clear when he makes broad statements regarding the canon of the Bible, which was formulated and established by the church fathers at the ecumenical councils. Proclaiming that only protestants have the true canon because everything can be backed up by the other books of the bible thus removes the Church Fathers and the unbroken line of succession of the bishops out of the teachings of the Church. If Ken Ham violated both Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:18-19 because he added to the scriptures through his own beliefs and teachings, then he has violated them again by removing from the scriptures those books and teachings from Christianity that have been taught and expounded on since the formation of the Church. One of the most blatant lies I found within the Creation Museum was that none of the books of the Bible discuss prayers for the dead. One only must look at the practices of early Christians, and the book of Job (which is accepted by Protestants), to find that prayers for the dead have been a part of the tradition of the Church since the beginning. Luke, Matthew, Hebrews, Psalms, 1 and 2 Timothy, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah, Revelation, Romans, Ezekiel, Mark, 1 John, 2 Corinthians, Acts, the list would be ten pages long if I included every instance where prayers for the dead were mentioned in the Bible. Some are harder to understand than others, but it is there in scripture and was understood by the early church to be a pious practice. Denying the practice is removing from the teachings of the Church. Thus, it is teaching a different Gospel than what has been given to us. St. Paul says, “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.” (Galatians 1:8) So Ken Ham is teaching a different Gospel than what is taught by the established Church of Jesus Christ, and should not be accepted on that alone. If his addition to the Gospel, and his removal of the teachings from the Gospel aren’t already enough his theology on man seals the deal.

            Finally, I would like to point out that his theology is distinctly Calvinistic or at least he preaches a depravity of man. Orthodox view the world in a way that as being the created image of God, we are thus like God in many ways. For people such as a Ken Ham, and his protestant brethren, we lost that image at the Fall. This is contrary to Orthodox teaching in which sin and death are foreign to the nature of humanity, not a part of it. The total depravity of man implies and states that because of the fall our nature was changed. While we accept that sin became a part of us, it is no more than how cold becomes a part of us when we get sick. It is a sickness that has effected the human race, rather than become an inherent part of our very being. Furthermore we do not teach that humans cannot come to God on their own. The Orthodox view on the total depravity of man is this, if because God created man in his image and then instantly changed it after the fall, this makes God the creator and author of sin, and God cannot be anything that he is not. Ken Ham openly promulgates in his Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum that we are totally depraved and completely helpless in the eyes of God. In doing so, he once again teaches a foreign gospel to the one that has been taught and handed down to us from the Church Fathers and the apostles. Violating the own scriptures that he so wishes to protect. One article that I found while doing research to defend the church’s teaching on this puts it this way, “Humans are bound by sin and corruption, but this is like burying a gold bar in a pile of horse manure—it doesn't change the fact that there is gold” It doesn’t mean that anything about us changed, simply the situation. We must live with sin, but it does not become a part of us, unless we let it. Furthermore the same article states, “Early Greek-speaking Christians used the terms hypostasis (ὑπόστασις) for "person" and ousia (οὐσία) for essence (or nature). The word "person" and the Latin concept is part of the problem here, compared to the Greek word and concept of hypostasis, but there isn't time nor space to elaborate on this here. As a notable example of this, the doctrine of the Trinity was formulated in early Christianity stating that God is one in essence (ousia), but with three persons (hypostases). Choice is a function of personhood, not nature. As such, it is incorrect to say that human beings have a corrupt nature that makes us unable to choose anything other than sin.” Thus by using the early church and the teachings of the early church, we see that Ken Ham is no more than a schismatic heretic, who is deceiving the people, whether out of ignorance or out of actual disdain for the church fathers I do not know. I ask all Orthodox Christians to pray for Ken Ham. I do not believe the man is trying to openly deceive. I believe rather that it is out of ignorance and lack of education in the Church as it has been handed down to us from the Church Fathers that he is doing this. I believe that if properly educated on what the Orthodox Church of Jesus Christ teaches he would come to realize that it is the same faith that Jesus established, the apostles taught and the church fathers proclaimed. I have already said too much for one article and hopefully will be able to formulate some other thoughts in a future article. May God have mercy on us, and on Ken Ham.

            Amen.

Set A Part for the Faith: A Refresher Course in Sainthood

 

The Sunday of All Saints was a few days ago, and while I had meant to write this blog sooner, I have not had a chance. I am not going away, as that would be an easy way out from all the controversy I have started with my previous post on Father Ephraim.  I understand that it is a very confrontational topic. I understand that many people still believe he conned an entire monastery for the past several decades, but his soul has been rendered up to God and God is his only judge. Yes, I believe that it is sad that the family of the victim never forgave him. Because they did not seek the peace that forgiveness brings to people. However, I would like today to go in another direction, a direction that reminds us, why men and women of the faith, who have been recognized as saints by the Church are important. Father Ephraim has not been declared a saint, and if he ever will be it will be decades before the Church has enough time to determine that.  However a refresher course on sainthood and saints is very important I believe. So today I think we need to look at Saints in the Orthodox Church and why they are so important to the Church and the history of Christianity.

            Sainthood in the Orthodox Church, as the early church fathers and the early Christians understood it does not mean perfect. Far from it. In fact, I would denote that Sainthood as a concept truly means that one has taken all their faults and shed them off to become holy. Holy means to be set a part, it does not mean perfect. When I refer to something as Holy, I mean that it is set a part for a specific purpose, a liturgical purpose. We have holy icons, holy water, and our holy fathers among the saints. All of these denote that something has changed in them. It means that despite the failings of the flesh, they overcame it through the grace of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. St. Moses the Black was a murderer and thief, St. Olga committed genocide. Despite all that, they found solace in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of the Universe and now dwell with him in heaven. St. Theodore the Commander was a warrior, so was St. George. If we look at purely these actions, one will see that these were regular people with regular dispositions.  St. Xenia of St. Petersburg, was a widow who lost her husband and became a fool for Christ. Elder Ephraim of Arizona left his home to seek Christ in the deserts of America, and in many ways is already a saint in all but title. The world around us, says that saints are people who have extraordinary gifts and personalities that led them to God more strongly than others. I disagree. I believe that these are people, who just like you and me, fought tooth and nail to overcome their passions. They realized that everything in this life was fleeting and unimportant. They sought forgiveness from their sins and forgiveness from others. Nothing stopped them from seeking forgiveness. They knew that forgiveness was the greatest gift of all. Something in them changed…through Jesus Christ.  The workings of Jesus Christ in their lives took precedence over sports, movies, television, video games, and other things people fill their lives with today. They did not care for the food of this world, they fasted and prayed. Longing for a home they had never seen, these men and women of the faith sojourned in a country that was foreign to them, yet had lived their since birth.  They abandoned the cares of the world and simple pleasures to obtain something greater than themselves. They did not let sin overcome them.

            However, that does not mean the Church knows all the saints. That does not mean the little old yiayia from down the street who has been going to church since she was baptized as a baby is not a saint. Again, far from it. She has as much potential as becoming a saint as we all do. Therefore, the Sunday of All Saints was established. It is recognized that the Church does not have the capacity to record every saint that has ever lived. We cannot commemorate every name, because that would be an inexhaustible list of people who have achieved perfection in Christ. The Sunday of All Saints was established to commemorate even the ones we do not know, to allow the church to recognize all the saints as we say in every liturgy.  The Sunday of All Saints reminds us that we too must continue our struggles.  We may not have a day set a part for us on the church liturgical calendar to be commemorated. We may not even been seen as a saint in our lifetime.  The Sunday of All Saints though reminds us that no matter the circumstances of life, we have been called to the exact same purpose that even the great men and women of the faith have been called to. We are their equal on that footing. We have been called to Sainthood.

            We all have the capacity to become saints. Every single one of us, through the grace of Jesus Christ can obtain the ability to perfect our shortcomings and enter into heaven. Those of us who choose not to accept the free divine grace that Jesus gives through his Church have rejected this capacity and instead are overcome by the demons of the world and transformed into mini devils. Those who persevere and forsake the glory of this world for the sake of the glory of heaven instead become Holy. We enter the mystical divine working essence of Christ and thus allow Christ to work through us and with us to achieve sanctification in the world. We become set a part from all the evils that have been allowed to enter into the earthly, mortal realm and can fulfill the divine plan of God, that is to bring order to everything as Adam once did, and was supposed to do. The only requirement for this is that we allow God to enter us. God is not an overbearing overlord who forces himself upon us. Rather he waits patiently until we are ready to be used by Him to begin his work in us.  He waits for us to be willing to become his children and accept the beauty of divine grace. Our call today as every day is to heed the same call that the saints of old did…to bring the Light of Christ to all people.

 

Amen.

Many Are Called, Few Are Chosen: Father Ephraim Atwood

 

The Orthodox Church throughout its existence has been home to many, many people the world would consider undesirable, even corrupt. From St. Moses the Black to St. Mary of Egypt, the church is filled with great men and women of faith who have been changed by the nature of Jesus Christ. They have found solace in the Eucharist, the divine services of the church, and lived out their days repenting of the sins they have committed on earth. None more so than that of the man formerly known as Anthony Atwood, recently tonsured Father Ephraim (Atwood) of Arizona.

Father Ephraim Atwood was born Frank Atwood, and was a notorious child murderer who was convicted of the killing and kidnapping of an eight-year-old girl. Father Ephraim Atwood was accompanied to his execution this morning June 8, 2022, by his spiritual father Elder Paisios of Arizona, an elder at the St. Anthony’s Monastery established by Elder Ephraim of Arizona. Father Ephraim Atwood was sixty six years old at the time of his pronouncement of death at 10:16am local time.

So while this is not going to be a very in depth look at the life of Father Ephraim, as I cannot find much, I would like to offer a few words on the nature of this. According to sources, this was the most peaceful execution in the history of Arizona, and one that was marred in various religious aspects. Father Ephraim was converted to Orthodoxy through the prison ministry if I am not mistaken. Father Paisios, his spiritual father said that he had witnessed a complete transformation in the man that can only be described as Jesus Christ transforming Father Ephraim through the Holy Spirit.

A lot of times people like to write off those who have been convicted of serious crimes as unable to be brought back to the light of Christ because of their heinous actions. The Church does not teach that some are elected, and some are chosen to burn. The Church rather teaches that all are called to salvation, and that few will truly answer the call. Father Ephraim is one of the men who answered the call of Christ to be transformed by His power. We see that he willingly accepted his death, fasting the night before his execution and refusing at first to take his last meal. While reports cannot confirm or deny that he ate his last meal, his resolve to fast before his execution indicates to me that he was in a state of constant prayer, asking the Lord Jesus to forgive all his offenses. From reading some of the published correspondence that he wrote, I gather a man who had great love and respect for the Jesus Prayer, as well as for the Service of the Hours. He was completely at peace with execution.

But what does this mean for us? Well, lets look at the whole situation with Father Ephraim. Being a child murderer, you expect someone who is full of rage and hate. Someone who has spent years in death row stewing and brooding over the conviction that led him to prison. Instead, you find someone completely at peace with themselves. Christ forgives all offenses if we ask. He only asks that we allow him to enter our lives and let him live through us. While in prison, Father Ephraim was introduced to the Orthodox Church and found the peace that had been lacking in his life before his conviction. If it had not been for his entrance into the prison system, Father Ephraim might never have found Christ and been brought to salvation. We see that preaching the gospel no matter the consequences is important in our own lives because we know that we do not know the reach and impact our words might have. Father Ephraim confessed he was the most hated prisoner in Arizona, and I can imagine that is in no small part because he was outspoken about the transformation that Christ had brought about in his life. Being able to live the life of a hermit in many ways away from the world, he was able to focus on Christ in his prison cell and cultivate a spiritual renewal that changed his life for the better. We also see that our past offenses don’t always allow us to receive a positive outcome. Though he maintained his innocence throughout the trial and the various appeals that were made by his legal team, the state of Arizona upheld his conviction and upheld their sentence of death. Accepting those things, we cannot control is a vital part of our acceptance that everything that is placed in our path is for our salvation, even those things that will lead us to the physical death. I cannot confirm or deny the changes in Father Ephraim’s life. I trust the monks and nuns who spoke on his behalf telling of the great miracles that Christ had done through Father Ephraim’s life. I trust their counsel and their words. I trust that those present for the tonsuring ceremony, yesterday were of sound mind and heart when they determined Father Ephraim was worthy of the great schema.

We also see a difference in the lives of those who were his victims. While I cannot imagine what it is like to lose a child, I see hurt and anger in the hearts of the victims. I see their pain and I pray for them. I see that there was never a chance for them to forgive Father Ephraim for what he did to the young lady, and that pains me. Forgiveness is a gift we give ourselves, as much as we give the person who wronged us. Wishing for someone to die because they wronged you is no way to act. Christ did not condemn those who executed him, rather he forgave them for what they did to Him. We see that in Father Ephraim’s final hours he simply went to his death willingly, much as Christ did. We see that the family was excited that “justice” had been done and that Father Ephraim could not hurt anyone any longer. While there is a time and place for justice, the more Christlike response would be to forgive and to pray for those who have harmed us. The taking of a life is not an easy decision. Brooding in your own hatred, while the person who has wronged you is also in a state of hatred of themselves, causes spiritual harm to both souls.  It causes a rift between brothers. Christ says that if we have an issue with someone we should go to them and ask them to forgive us for having issues with them. The family of the victim never asked Father Ephraim to forgive them for their hatred of Him. Often times, this is because of the pain that they are suffering, and I totally understand. Still, asking for forgiveness is a requirement for all of us who have accepted Christ. We must learn to let those who have wronged us go, in the sense that yes they have caused us harm, but this harm is only temporary. Eternity is not something that we should throw away simply because we have a grudge against someone. However now the time for reconciliation is gone for Father Ephraim and the family of his victim. The only hope we have now is to pray for the victim’s family and pray that Christ will transform their lives in the same way that Christ transformed Father Ephraim’s.

I ask today, that you would join me over the next 40 days to pray for the soul of Father Ephraim, as he has entered the tollhouses. May God forgive all his offenses, and forgive all those who have committed atrocities against their brothers. Today we see that the harvest is heavy, but the laborers are few. Father Ephraim answered the call to be a laborer…will you?

Amen.

The Holy Fathers of The 1st Ecumenical Council

 

Well folks, the Sunday of the First Ecumenical Council has once again come and gone for the year, and that means that we are once again discussing the vast amount of wealth that was preserved by the Fathers of the 1^ST Ecumenical Council. All Three Hundred and Eighteen of them, to be exact. These Church Fathers helped pave the way for the faith that was preserved by the Church for the past two thousand years and without their immense faith and courage, the Church would not have remained the way it was. In fact, the church might have agreed to heresy with the Arian controversy and other issues had these brave fathers not met at Nicaea and dealt with the issues at hand. Now today I am not going to discuss Arianism, rather I am going to discuss the 1^st Ecumenical Council and what exactly transpired…and oh yes, St. Nicholas.

Outside of the obvious Arius issue, the 1^st Ecumenical Council had to deal with the Meletian schism, and the formation of the Nicene Creed. You can check out the explanation of the Creed in an earlier article. While the Arian controversy was the focal point of the discussion, we got the formation of twenty canons of the church out of this, and as I am currently going through the canons and explaining a few, it was interesting to note that some of them were written here, especially the organization of the church. So when those who are non-episcopal tell you that the church never had bishops or priests and that each church could decide for themselves, you can direct them to the 1^st Council, where the church formation was solidified, not established, as it was just formality of what the Church already practiced. The Church also determined the date for Pascha, and as was stated in the previous article, that it was not to be celebrated with the Jews.  The formula was established and kept by the Church for centuries until Rome came along and decided they were superior to everyone else. We were given the instructions on reentering the lapsed, the heretics, and the schismatics, and why rebaptism and other practices were put in place.

The Meletian schism was of particular importance outside of the Arian controversy.  . Melitius advocated for the open practice of Christianity in a time of persecution, which seems harmless enough. Peter I of Alexandria, laid down terms for those who were lapsed or had committed sins that would warrant them being labeled heretics and schismatics to return the church. In spectacular “I know better than you” fashion Melitius decided that these terms were too lax for him, and rebelled…which is why a priest should never speak ill of another bishop, nor another bishop speak ill of a fellow bishop. Melitius was then excommunicated and cast out from the Church. He like the protestant reformers who didn’t get their way in 1517, founded his own church because he believed that he had found the true knowledge of the scriptures and was teaching the proper way.  By the time the 1^ST Ecumenical Council rolled around, there were enough issues that the discussion to bring them back into the fold was addressed. The Council of Nicaea agreed that the issues surrounding the schism between the twenty eight Meletian bishops and the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church were not so different as to warrant them any major changes in their theology to be accepted by the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. And while Melitius was accepted back into the fold, as a bishop without a see, he only lasted three more years and died. Thus, the schism was reinstated and was not truly healed.

Of course, though you came for the violence right? We all woke up this morning and chose violence, eh? No of course not, I woke up and chose Christ. And so did St. Nicholas. While I have chosen to leave out the Arian controversy from the gist of this article, because there were certainly other issues at this council besides Arius, I would be amiss if I did not briefly discuss Nicholas and Arius, because it well was the talk of the entire council. Outside of Pacquiao vs Mayweather, or McGregor vs Mayweather, Nicholas vs Arius might be the boxing match of the millennium. Obviously with Arius’ lack of respect for the divinity of Christ and his clear lack of mental fortitude, Nicholas decided that he had heard enough of the ramblings of the heretic. Walking across the floor with three hundred and sixteen other bishops, surrounding him, Nicholas completely and utterly knocked Arius the heck out. While it was illegal to strike another person in the presence of the Emperor, Constantine gave control of the punishment over to the bishops of the Church. The bishops stripped Nicholas of his rights as a bishop and expelled him from the council, and decided that once the council had finished they would finalize his punishment.  In a miracle that only be described as awesome, Nicholas who was locked away from the rest of the world as punishment for his crime of assaulting Arius, was visited by the Lord Jesus Christ and the Theotokos.  After giving Nicholas the gospel book, and revesting him with his vestments, the Bishops came to look for Nicholas. Astonished, the bishops told Constantine of this development, and Nicholas was reinstated to the Bishopric of Myra. Nicholas of course is one of Greece’s most beloved saints, and no Greek home is complete without an icon of St. Nicholas.

The Orthodox Church along with most protestant churches and the Latins recognize the 1^ST Ecumenical Council. Though issues have arisen between the three over the past 2000 years, it is nice to not argue against either for a change. The 1^ST Ecumenical Council determined what the Church had already practiced for the first hundred years of its founding. Placing it right before the Feast of Pentecost reminds us that the Church is Universal, and that it is everlasting. The gates of hell cannot overcome it, as Jesus quotes in Matthew. We pray that these Fathers of the 1^ST Council would intercede on our behalf and that the bishops of today would see the wisdom of coming together and discussing issues when the need arises.  I pray that our leaders will be as wise and courageous as the 1^st Ecumenical Council.

Amen.

Father Peter Heers: The Orthodox Ethos

 

I have probably sat down to write this particular article several times, however current events, and other topics within the church have led me to write about other things. Today, that all changes. Today we are going to highlight one of my favorite orthodox priests (outside of my own, Father Simon Thomas is a great man).

I am of course talking about Father Peter Heers. Father Peter is the head of the Orthodox Ethos, and someone I admire and strive to imitate. From his podcasts and lectures we discover the true Orthodox Ethos, how to obtain and it, and how to apply it to our lives. Father Peter’s insight into everyday life and church knowledge is informative and inspirational as well as educational. If you’ve never listened to him I highly recommend finding him on YouTube or Instagram and delving into the vast amounts of content he has produced over the past few years. For those who don’t know much about Father Peter, let’s discuss him and his life and see what we can gain from an understanding of the man behind some of the most important Orthodox content on the internet.

Father Peter Heers, like most of the west was raised outside of the Orthodox Church. However, he discovered Orthodoxy and of course the rest is history…no wait there’s more. Father Peter was raised Anglican, the son of an Anglican priest. Thus he was associated at birth with the Church of England in at least some capacity, seeing as Anglicans are the Church of England. His father and the parish in which his father served converted to Orthodoxy in 1992, so the year I was born.  Father Peter according to sources, then traveled to Mount Athos in 1996 and again in 1998 when he began seminary. Father Peter was ordained and received a bachelors, masters, and doctorate in theology. He has been very active in the Orthodox Church over the last two decades or so, being a parish priest in Greece for a time, and if my sources are correct now is in Arizona. Father Peter has been a lecturer at Jordanville, a very important place for American Orthodox Christians, and has written or translated several titles. As someone who is also interested in Church History, his knowledge of Church History and his fascination with maintaining the spirit of the Ecumenical Councils is something that has drawn me in.  He has five children and if they are half the person that he is, they will be pillars of orthodoxy. 

Father Peter’s lectures on YouTube is what really led me to discovering his knowledge.  From his Orthodox Survival Course which was written by Father Seraphim Rose, as well as his discussion on the New Russian Martyrs are all things I could watch again and again to glean information I missed the first few times of watching. The Orthodox Ecclesiology series is also a wonderful tool for both those inquiring into Orthodoxy and those who have converted like myself. He also sits down and explains modern problems within the church, as well as things that western people might believe are beneficial to them, only to explain why they go against the Orthodox Faith…see his comments on Yoga for that one. He doesn’t even use his own thoughts on topics, always referring to the Saints of the church to back up any claim that he makes. This therefore gives us the ability to see that without the Saints, we as a church would be nothing but filled with people’s opinions rather than the truth.

Father Peter may have his detractors, and those who disagree with him, but they are few. Every person I have ever came across has applauded Father Peter for standing for the truth in a world that is constantly trying to replace the truth with fallacy. Father Peter has defended the church and tried to maintain that we as Orthodox Christians must not falter in our beliefs. Changing the faith for the sake of change or going against thousands of years of tradition has only led to destruction and heresies. We see his love for orthodoxy in every lecture he gives, and his call for those outside the church to change their ways and return to orthodoxy.  Though he will never reach everyone, he has changed my life.  Just as Father Seraphim Rose’s book Orthodoxy and Religion of the Future gave me a perspective that I was never going to consider without having read the book, Father Peter’s way of approaching Orthodoxy was not something I was considering either. I have stated before that I was comfortable in my own little bubble within Orthodoxy and was not particularly concerned with the outside world or how to approach living in the world as an Orthodox Christian. From his lectures and his podcasts, I have changed once again and carry myself with a knowledge that I must proclaim Orthodoxy to the world as the only truth that matters. Pilate once asked, “What is truth?” I can safely answer that question. Truth is Jesus Christ, and Truth is founded in Orthodoxy.

Amen.

Ordination

 

Ordination. We’ve been discussing a lot on this particular medium about the bishops, priests and deacons lately and I wanted to honestly answer the truth about Orthodox ordination. First Ordination is one of the mysteries of the church, a divine calling. A calling that starts at the local level and eventually must reach the diocesan level and the bishop. So what exactly is Ordination and why is it important?

            Ordination begins in the parish. Obviously, this is because at its basic function, the orders of the church are those that help the priest and assist him every day in services. The Chanter or Cantor is the lowest of these orders and are those who chant the services. The Reader is the next highest rank of the minor orders. The Reader is one who performs a variety of tasks for the services at large, of course reading the epistle is one of them. The Reader is allowed to wear an inner cassock, and must from the time of his ordination, only appear in church wearing his cassock. This is to show, as with all orders granted the right to wear a cassock, that the man who takes upon this role has denied himself his own desires and sought to please God and God alone. He is ordained during the Third Hour service by the Bishop and must refrain from all marital relations and food until after the services are complete. It is tradition that he secludes himself away from all people and take the sacrament of confession (something I would love to discuss in a future post) during this time. He is given the foreshortened version of the phelon and eventually it is removed to be replaced by a Sticharion. After this he is allowed to wear the cassock and cannot remove it while in the church. The last of the minor orders is the Subdeacon. The Subdeacon as the highest ranking of the minor orders has a variety of roles within the service beyond those of both the chanter and the Reader. They are the ones who maintain the altar and are the highest-ranking altar server. They also take upon themselves the duties of the other orders if need be.  They are the ones who vest the bishop when present and can be the catechist in their parish. The Subdeacon is the only of these minor orders that must be married before their ordination or remain celibate. The reason is because the next highest rank, the deacon, must either be married before their ordination, or remain celibate. So let’s talk major orders

            Okay, so for a non-Orthodox reader, the distinction between minor and major orders might seem a little strange. For me as a convert, the entire idea of orders within the church seemed strange, but that was quickly put aside as learned and grew in my knowledge of the church. The major orders are those that people, especially here in the west are most familiar with, deacon, priest and of course, bishop.  The Deacon in the Orthodox Church performs practically the same role as the deacons of old in the early church. Their position is to help assist the priest within the everyday parish life. They are the ones who maintain the decorum of the church and draw attention to people who are not participating in the services. The Deacon’s main function within the liturgy though is to lead the people in prayer.  They do so throughout the service as the priest is concentrating on other prayers in the altar during worship. While now it may seem that most deacons are then hereafter almost immediately ordained to the office of priesthood, some see it as permanent position and will remain in it for life, as they wish to serve the church, but do not wish to take on the responsibility of the priest. The deacon performs all tasks that are set out by the priest and cannot do anything within the church without the blessing of the priest. It is here that I must make my point. Deacons, along with all the other orders that I have named in this article are strictly male.  The Church does not, nor never has ordained women. The role of Deaconess as it was in the early church did not function in the same way as ordination does today, nor was it seen in the same vein. Women have never nor will ever be ordained in the Orthodox Church. It is against church canon, against the spirit of the church, and in violation of the roles that God has placed on each sex. Yes I said sex. There are only two genders get over it. The deacon as a member of the clergy is allowed to wear the rassa and if the tradition allows the collar. But they are still under the authority of the priest. Which leads us to the priest. The priest is the most common of the orders that people are familiar with, as they are the leaders of the parish, the spiritual fathers of the faithful, and the ones who are allowed to consecrate the gifts. Most priests will have studied at seminary, and been taught the proper etiquette in which to conduct themselves. They will be taught how to perform the services, and other duties that they will need to carry out over the course of their ministry. The priest like the subdeacon and deacon before him is allowed to marry, so long as it happens before their ordination, not after. After their ordination they traditionally take monastic vows if they are not married and are referred to as hieromonks. From the hieromonks we get our last of the major orders, the episcopacy, or bishops.

The Bishops are chosen from the monastic class for a variety of reasons. While it is traditional that some of the early church bishops were married, the church determined that for the sake of its mission on earth that bishops were to remain unmarried for life. The reason being is that bishops being the head of the local church needed to be focused solely on the task of guiding their flock. As the spiritual father for the entire diocese, the bishop would need to oversee several parishes not just one, and this would cause him to need to devote time to each. Having a family and overseeing hundreds, sometimes thousands of parishes depending on the location, would not mesh well together, and either the church would be ignored or the family. As a married man, I am definitely aware that my wife needs my undivided attention at times and I would not be able to care for the needs of the people I served if I had both my wife and them to contend with. While there are different classes of bishops, like metropolitan, archbishop, and patriarch, they are all the same. They are the college of bishops. No one bishop is higher than the other, except in the function they serve within the church. There is no supreme head of the Orthodox Church, like the Latins. We do not have a Pope.  We currently have either 16 or 17 churches that are self-governing, depending on whether you count the Orthodox Church in America and the Orthodox Church in Ukraine as self-governing.  With Macedonian recently receiving Autocephaly, that brings us to 17 churches, but again there are some issues with that as well. I do not wish to give opinions on the matter, as that would just cause hard feelings on either side, so whichever side of the fence you’re on the matter then may God have mercy on us all. However, these self-governing churches are governed by either an Archbishop or a Patriarch, and there are currently nine Patriarchs of Orthodoxy, there were ten until the Latins decided they wanted to be the supreme governors of the entire church. The patriarchs are the oldest of the bishops, including Constantinople, Moscow, Sofia, Bucharest, Jerusalem, Antioch, Belgrade/Pec, Tbilisi, and Alexandria. The others are churches that have historical ties to one of the patriarchs listed.  The others are more recent even than that, and have been granted self-governance.  The bishops in turn are in communion with each other and share in the eucharist with each other.  Of course we do not share the eucharist with the Church of Rome, which does not have an orthodox head at the present time. One is not above the other, as stated, but work collectively to push the faith forward. The only difference in their rank is the eldest church is first and the other churches as they were established. Just as the eldest child is selected higher than his younger siblings in the will of their parents.

So while I have definitely laid the ground work of Ordination here, I have also opened the door to many new topics. Not the least of these the ongoing schism of the Church of Rome with the rest of the Christian world, as they have been the source of schisms and more schisms since their fall from the communion of the Church in 1054. While this looked solely at the ranks of Ordination, I would love to do an in depth dive in the ordination of women, and explain more fully why the church condemns the ordination of women as heresy.  May God bless you all and have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend!

Amen.