The Anastasis Dialogue - Russian Orthodox

The Ikon in the Home

nospam@example.com (Hieromonk Maximos) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 08:22:06 -0600

Recently a friend lent me an old book, published I think around 1912. The author was a man by the name of Stephen Graham, whose brief wikipedia entry tells me he lived from 1884 to 1975 (here's an interesting New York Times article on him from 1913). The title of the book is Undiscovered Russia, and it's absolutely fascinating. It can be read online here. It's a beautifully written and carefully observed travelogue of a journey through northern Russia in the years immediately before the revolution.

The chapter titled, "The Ikon in the Home" is especially worth bringing to the attention of those interested in "spiritual ecumenism." Here it is in full:

The Ikons in the churches, in the cathedrals and monasteries and shrines are the symbols of the saints and of God. The Ikons in the homes are the symbols of the Ikons in the churches; they are the symbols to which authority has been delegated; they are the representatives of the original Ikons, as all crosses may be understood as representatives of the original Cross on Calvary. Every Russian home has its Ikons, and every Russian wears below his shirt his baptismal cross. The Ikon claims the home and the man for God, it indicates God's ownership, God's original right. It is in religion what the trade mark is in commerce. So the Russian world, "is every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God."

The candle before the Ikon is man's finite life shining against the background of the Infinite.

. . .

In every Russian room there is an Ikon, even in railway waiting-rooms, banyas, public houses, doss-houses, prison cells and houses of ill-fame. It occupies what is known as the front corner of every room, that is, the corner towards the rising sun; it is not strictly proper to sit with one's back to it, indeed peasants' tables are often so arranged that it is impossible to sit with one's back to it, the table is-jammed up into the Ikon corner so that it appears as if the Ikons themselves are sitting down to the meals. Before eating, one bows to the Ikon and crosses oneself three times and one repeats the ritual after the meal and then adds " Thank you " addressing the master of the house.

If you sleep in a Russian home, the Ikon with its little lamp before it looks down upon you all night and guards you from evil. It teaches little children not to be afraid of the dark, and even nihilistic students come to regard the Ikon and its little night-lamp with tenderness, for they look back to so many occasions when they wakened on dark nights and felt frightened because of some dream, and then looked at the lamp and the Ikon and were quieted and fell asleep again.

In reverence to the Ikon you remove your hat upon entering a room it is the sign that God is in the room amongst you and about you. The reverence accorded to it by the Russians is the reverence of one who asks himself no questions, and who accepts without doubt the emblems of religion set before him. Certainly the Ikon is a power, it gives an atmosphere to its room. It owns the room, or rather it is a Presence in the room. It reminds, it restrains. Outside are the sun and moon and stars, the beautiful creation to remind; inside, the Ikon takes their place. The value of the Ikon to the Russian is inestimable, in innumerable ways it is of service to him in the consecration of time and place and deed. Is it his birthday; he burns an extra candle before it, and holds a prayer-meeting under its auspices.

Is his daughter to be married: he gives an Ikon to guard the future home. It is perhaps because its service is so often invoked that no thought of its necessity ever occurs; it is because all day long occasion is found to appeal to it that its power is so great.

The whole use of the thing flashed upon me one day when I was in Little Russia staying at the deacon's house. I was whistling a London tune, and a man said sternly to me "Remember God." Someone pointed to the Ikon. I had been committing sacrilege, or invoking the devil, or something of the sort. Let me note in passing that the Russians, though the most musical people in the world, cannot whistles-it is probably because it has been counted irreligious.

I inquired what other restrictions on my behaviour there might be, and was answered that all the homes were as private ante-chambers of the village church, that in passing from the church to the home one's reverence remains unaltered, and that all lived in the remembrance of the immanence and nearness of God. If it appeared that God was forgotten in a song, in angry words or actions, or in anything contrary to the law, the master of the house should .in the name of the Ikon, reprove the forgetful person.

So the Ikon is the " God in the midst " with eyes for highest and for lowest things it is a more live, religious symbol than the Roman Catholic crucifix or rosary, but withal it is something beyond these, something unique. It is so powerful that it suggests itself as the spirit of the room; take away the sacred picture, and you leave the dead body of what was once a living, breathing room. It might be asked " Is then the unconsecrated English room relatively dead?" Certainly the Russian gets much by his Ikon that is wanting in a foreign room. Likewise by his hundred and seventeen holy days in the year he gains something similarly unique. In England to a week, are one holy-day and six week-days; the Russian calls his Sunday "Resurrection Day" and has probably two fast days in his week.

The peasant rejects the secular calendar, even in the arrangement of his agricultural year. He reckons the day before or after a festival or a fast: There is, moreover, scarcely a day in the year that has not its popular name. Ancient customs of bygone Nature worship are also interwoven with Christian chronology, such as the welcoming of Spring in the second week after Easter, and the blessing of the beer in the middle of August. All children are named after one of the saints, and most of them receive in addition some earthly nickname.

Visitors to Russia, if they are observant, will see an unvarnished wooden cross set up wherever a house is in course of building. This also is an Ikon, and it will not be removed till the house is built and the priest comes and performs an opening service.

Then the ritual of the sign of the Cross is most potent in Russian life. It is prayer without words, the assigning of implicit faith. The only words the moujik adds are sentences of supplication or of praise, as "Oh Lord have mercy!" or "Glory be to Thee, O Lord!"

"Nothing is within our powers ; everything is beyond our powers " says a character of Gogol. " Nothing is possible without aid from on high. Prayer concentrates the faculties. A man crosses himself and says 'Oh Lord have mercy,' " then he rows on and reaches the shore." Pereplotchikof told me a story of a peasant servant who had taken a place at Moscow, and his master kept two pet wolves. The servant was called by his mistress, and came suddenly upon these two wolves stretched in the passage like sleeping dogs. He was quite familiar with the physiognomy of wolves, and so was struck with terror. He had to pass them to get to his mistress' room. He hesitated a moment, crossed himself, and then ran for it.

I have seen engine drivers come down the platform at railway stations to bow to the Ikons before proceeding on their way. Cab-drivers, even with fares, will stop before monasteries or churches, and cross themselves. Indeed it is not proper to pass a church without crossing oneself, and even in degenerate Moscow one is struck by the people crossing themselves in the electric trams as the latter shoot past the sacred places.

If a peasant yawns, he makes the sign of the cross over his mouth to prevent the devil getting in which is in itself a little sermon on the dangers of boredom. The good old peasant-wife puts cross-sticks over all empty dishes or jars in her pantry, and these too are Ikons. And if her husband is out, and his plate of soup is left for him, she makes the sign of the cross over it before going to bed.

So by a thousand little gleams of ritual, we see how the Russian has interwoven Christian religion with life. He truly lives as "ever in his great Task-master's eye," only he would not call God a task-master. The Russian people are one in their unanimous loyalty to one idea and thereby they have become all brothers. With far more justice can it be said of the Russian people than of the English, they are a church unless commerce is Our church.

In England are churches and houses; in Russia, churches and consecrated homes! And though God is everywhere, we feel He is absent from unconsecrated places. It has been the consecration of things already holy, that has insinuated the subtle error of distinguishing between the things of God and the things of man. The giving of a tenth of our goods to God has led us to regard nine-tenths as our little own; "the dedicating to. God of the lives of priests has left the laity undedicated; the consecration of churches has placed our houses outside the church.

Was it not vain then, to consecrate at all? Will not all things in time have to be consecrated, and in our thoughts brought up to one level of holiness just because of these initial consecrations? Our days each be given its special holiness; our homes, whether in slum or park, be consecrated to be known as ante-chambers of the church? If so, the Ikon is much already gained: it consecrates the home, the first of those unconsecrated things to be remembered as holy; it reminds the Russian that God is not locked up in the church, that He is even in his own parlour. In all finite and material things it reminds him of the Infinite and the Spiritual.

I, for my part now, wherever I may have an abiding place and a home would always have some Ikon in my room. The Russian says that the Ikon face should have little beauty or interest; he thinks the rude axe-hewn cross the best symbol of all. But in all my wanderings except those that were merely tramping expeditions, I have taken with me my Ikon not a Russian picture, but a copy of Millet's "Angelus". It has been in Little Russia, in Moscow, and the Caucasus, and back to England, and has looked out on all rooms and superintended my writing and reading. It is looking over me now. In its grey depths one can lose oneself, can forget words and thought - words, and kneel in the great grey temple of the Innermost. It may not be in the "front corner," but he who looks to it looks into Infinity. It ever calms and puts into their places noisy thoughts, it is ever a reminder and a restrainer a giver of peace, and of those "still-creation-days" that give strength for combats new.

Patriarch Alexei reposes

nospam@example.com (Hieromonk Maximos) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:44:24 -0600

Well, how would you have gone about pastoring a Church to recovery after 70 years of the most profound persecution since Diocletian?

Yes, he was deeply flawed. Yes, his politics (secular and ecclesial) were, well at times words simply fail.

But on the ecumenical front, the refusal of Patriarch Alexei to deal with Catholics on any terms but those favorable to his own Church may in the end be the best thing to happen to the ecumenical movement since its inception in the 1920s. Russian intransigence may well save us from the catastrophe of a mere ecumenical politeness. True, Communion may be postponed for generations, but when it arrives it will be real, far more real for its being hammered out on the anvil of history.

The Lord will judge. And in that judgement may He give mercy and peace to his servant Alexei and to all whose lives he touched, whether softly or harshly. The Lord will judge. Memory eternal.

Why Moscow Balks

nospam@example.com (Hieromonk Maximos) — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:48:36 -0600

An article by Phil Lawler on Catholic World News has this headline: Why Moscow Balks at Ecumenical Talks." The answer is, as is typically the case, expressed in terms of power politics:

The Russian Orthodox Church cannot claim authority on the basis of historical privileges. But Moscow is determined to hold onto-- and perhaps augment-- the considerable authority that the Russian patriarch already enjoys. Since the days of the tsars the Russian patriarch has held sway over the Orthodox churches of eastern Europe-- particularly, in recent decades, in the lands that once formed the Soviet empire. Moscow is terribly reluctant to cede that authority. Thus the Russian Orthodox complaints about Constantinople's recognition of the Estonian Orthodox Church (which was once a ward of Moscow) and the fierce battle to put down a movement toward independence among the Orthodox churches of Ukraine. Thus, too, Moscow's incessant complaints about Catholic "proselytism" in Russia itself.

In one dramatic bid to spur ecumenical progress, Pope John Paul II asked the Orthodox churches to consider different models of the papacy, and how the Bishop of Rome could carry out his role as a focus of unity in a reunited Church. To advance that discussion still further, the late Pontiff said (and Pope Benedict has reaffirmed) that the Holy See is ready to return to a model of the papacy based on the first millennium of Christianity.

But to roll back the clock by 1,000 years means returning to a time when the Moscow patriarchate did not exist-- or at best, was in its infancy.It means returning to a time when the Russian Orthodox Church had no special influence and no special privileges. Moscow seems very reluctant to take that step.

Well, up to a point. What is missing from this kind of analysis is the idea that what divides the Churches is more than just who gets to be boss. There are vast differences in world-view. Perhaps Catholics would do better to really factor that uncomfortable truth into these merely political triangulations! "Rolling back the clock" a 1,000 years will be just as painful for Catholics as anyone else. Painful to the point of impossible. And probably undesirable. History matters, including recent history. There's no quick fix here, and it may be that an excessively politicised hermeneutic just obscures the truth without which no real progress can take place.

Canonical territory, conclusion

nospam@example.com (Hieromonk Maximos) — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 13:01:59 -0500

In the interview with Bishop Hilarion with which I began these reflections, there is the following very interesting exchange:

Stephen Crittenden: Indeed, under Pope John Paul, Moscow was very upset when he established a Catholic diocese in Moscow. But on the other hand you yourself are the Russian Orthodox Bishop of Vienna, right in the heart of what we might describe as Rome's canonical territory. Perhaps the very idea of separate canonical territory for the separate Churches may be no longer makes sense; is that what you're suggesting?

Hilarion Alfeyev: Well it does make sense of course, but I think what we need is a kind of code of conduct of a minority on the territory which belongs to a majority. If there is for example a predominantly Orthodox country and there is a Catholic minority, there should be some kind of mechanism of consultations between the Catholics and the Orthodox and the same should be applied to an Orthodox Church which would be existent on a Catholic territory. It's a delicate matter, there are no easy solutions. But I believe this code of conduct, this mechanism of mutual consultations, is absolutely necessary in order to avoid misunderstandings, and also mutual accusations in proselytism.

Here is an important acknowledgment that canonical territory is not an absolute value. It must be weighed against the ecclesial and cultural needs of individual communitiesÂ existing in relationship to one another.

I wonder what, in principle, might prevent Moscow from accepting the need to make roomÂ for otherÂ Orthodox jurisdictions on what it regards as its territory?

That's one issue. The deeper point at issue here is how to accomodate the inescapable tendency toward national churches within an orthodox ecclesial polity. The "code of conduct" is, it seems to me, might be translated into a call for a canonical solution to the problem. In other words, the problem is too big for individual churches to solve; we need to find an approach that can be accepted by all, or at least most, churches and which is, in effect,Â a reapplication ofÂ the apostolic faith and practice to the new circumstances of today's "household of faith."

We actually find one version of this solution in the Catholic Communion. The Catholic Churches (there are 22 or so of us) in many cases occupy overlapping geography.Â Language and ethnicity remain the major reasons for the continuing attachment of Catholics to their particular Church: Ukrainians for the Ukrainian Church, Chaldeans for their's, Armenians for theirs, etc.Â (I do not say that this is all as it should be, but facts are facts.). How can these various Churches live together in relative harmony? The Catholic solution is two-fold. First, communion with a common Head, namely the Pope of Rome. Second, a highly detailed "code of conduct" in the form of the two codes of canon law, one for the Latin Church and the other for the so-called "Eastern" Churches.

Now there is much in the Catholic solution that is open to criticism (I especially dislike the reduction of the "canonical" to the idea of a legal "code"). But generally I think the substance of the solution is at least something that makes sense to apostolic Christians for whom the "parochial" principle must always be held in some tension with the "congregational." One might well quibble with the details, but the basic answer is pretty darn good: personal communion fleshed out in canonical forms.

The challenge for the Catholic Church is, I think, to continue to refine this fairly rough and ready solution to bring it ever more in harmony with the entire apostolic tradition. But Orthodoxy, too, faces a challenge. Will it insist on a purist, almost fundamentalist, adherence to the territorial principle of one bishop, one city? If so, when?? If not, how will it prevent a complete capitulation to the congregational form of ecclesial organization? Surely this is simply another way of asking Orthodoxy to articulate its own vision for different levels of ecclesial structure. In what ways can regional and universal levels of ecclesial authority act, not merely as symbols of unity, but as real guarantors of it?

This is not, in fact, a new problem. The idea of a single, public altar around which the entire local community gathers as the ekklesia has rarely been perfectly realized in the Christian East. The history of the Byzantine Church, in particular, is one of a constant tension between the public Church and private religious foundations: monasteries, oratories, hospitals etc. Part of this story can be read in Dr. John P. Thomas' excellent study, Private Religious Foundations in the Byzantine Empire. There is plenty of precedent for finding economical solutions to this perennial problem.

Canonical territory, part 3

nospam@example.com (Hieromonk Maximos) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:09:28 -0500

OK, it's not "tomorrow" and what follows is not a solution, but a complexifying. I find myself yoked to a line of reasoning that is a little more involved than I thought at the start! I guess that's what blogs are for....

One thing is clear to me. We should be grateful to Moscow for reminding us of the central place of the territorial principle in the canonical tradition of the universal Church. The problem is, however, that the principle is too important to be used simply as a political tool. We really have to come to terms with it at a deeper level than that.

How should the territorial principle be applied in a situation as complex as that of the modern world? The polis of the early Church has become the megapolis. The movement of peoples proceeds at a level unprecedented in human history. With globalization this great movement affects populations even when they stay physically in one place. Global media transforms local cultures. Global agriculture and manufacturing transform the tastes, comforts and expectations of even the most sedentary groups. Billions of human beings find themselves thrown onto a shifting modernity in which the only certainty is change.

The globalized systems of our economic revolution are fueled by consuming and breaking down human relationships as surely as, in an earlier revolution, the steam engine burned up coal. As consumers we find our physical needs met through a loose economic association with multinational corporations and their scattered, faceless, workforces. We can sit staring for days at a time into any number of screens opening up into a world without neighbors to love, only objects of curiosity and passion.

It is little wonder, then, that people tend to invest their hopes in the things that seem, if not impervious to change, then at least resistant to it. One of these is undoubtedly the continuity of ethnic identities that emerge from common histories, languages and perceived values. Christians should be wary of dismissing this urge to grasp at certainty and stability. It was not for nothing that the Lord told us to build upon the rock and not the shifting sand. The hand that reaches for the wreckage of ethnicity floating by on the floods of modernity is responding to an instinct for survival that is, in the final analysis, the religious instinct itself.

Perhaps the Church should support anything that moves us beyond these vitiated relationships. Perhaps the great advantage of ethnic churches is that they can at least provide some antidote to the globalized, atomized "me." An ethnic church is, at least, a Church. It is a place for the mystical Event of communion and the training-ground forÂ disciples of that Mystery. If the globalized world makes our neighbor a Nobody, the ethnic church proves that he is actually a Someone, and that this Someone stands in need of a relationship of love. True, Someone is not Everyone. But how can we move to universal love if we are not practiced in particular charity?

More anon. And no, I'm not arguing that we should ditch the territorial principle in favor of churches based on ethnicity! I'm just saying that the solution has to involve great sensitvity to contemporary realities.Â Oikonomia.

Canonical territory, part 2

nospam@example.com (Hieromonk Maximos) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:15:41 -0500

The awkward thing about Moscow's insistence on the notion of "canonical territory" is that is, well, canonical. I don't just mean that the Russians can trawl though the canons to find proof texts for their position. I mean that their argument respects an important and abiding theological principle enshrined in a number of canonical traditions. This principle is really nothing less than love of neighbor, in the service of which the ancient Church insisted on structuring herself on the basis of geography rather than ethnography. This is what C.S. Lewis talks about in The Screwtape Letters as the "parochial" as opposed to the "congregational" basis for church order. It's a big deal.

The Lord enjoins us to love our neighbor as ourselves. In the parable of the Good Samaritan He makes it clear that one's neighbor is whoever one finds oneself near to. Neighborliness does not consist in any kind of natural attraction, as might be provided by a common bloodline, language or any other basis for friendship. My neighbor might even be my enemy defined by any of these other relationship categories. Tough. We have to love them too.

Few principles are better attested to in the New Testament. Not only do we have the Lord Himself laying the light yoke of this New Commandment upon us. The main reason for the Corinthian epistles was St. Paul's desire to combat the tendency for that community to split up along natural fault lines. St. James condemns any ekklesia that honors the wealthy above the poor. In Acts we learn that the whole practical basis for appointment of the first deacons lay in the need to preserve ecclesial unity between different social and linguistic groups (the Greek and Hebrew widows).

The post-apostolic Church maintained this concern to prevent ecclesial order becoming subverted by worldly, carnal thinking. Eucharistic assemblies were supposed to be formed from believers who happened to live near one another, not merely who were drawn to one another by natural bonds. We are supposed to love those whom God has given us, those who we happen upon in the course of life, not just those with whom we have a natural affinity.

So for this reason the ecclesial solution so far offered to anti-Russian sentiment in Estonia, Ukraine, Moldova and elsewhere is deeply flawed. The creation of a separate Church organization based on linguistic and national commonalities does indeed seem to violate both the theological principle of love of neighbor as well as the numerous canons that have developed to support this principle, from the earliest legislation insisting on one Bishop per city right up to the condemnation of "phyletism" (an unchristian love of nationality) by the synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1872.

So, I've done the "one the one hand x, on the other hand, y" thing now. Is there a solution? I'm not quite so arrogant as to pretend I have one. But I guess I am arrogant enough to offer some thoughts. Tomorrow.

Canonical territory, part 1

nospam@example.com (Hieromonk Maximos) — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:35:54 -0500

Things that make you go, hmm...

I was listening to a podcast of Bishop Hilarion (Alfeyev) being interviewed by the Religion Report on Australia's Radio National. I learned from this that 70% of Russians claim membership in the Russian Orthodox Church. And 60% of Russians claim to believe in God.

Think about it.

Ok, so several million Russians clearly regard their Church as a purely cultural institution. Add to this another several million who, while nominally accepting that the Church might have something vaguely to do with God, regard it as primarily a cultural institution. What for these millions must be the practical purpose of the Russian Orthodox Church? Surely it is to safeguard and promote Russian culture and identity.

Now, put this reality against the insistence by the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church on the need to respect its "canonical territory." (This was most recently re-asserted as the basis for walking out of the Ravenna meeting of the Catholic-Orthodox theological dialogue: Constantinople has no right to recognize an independent Estonian Orthodox Church on the canonical territory of the Moscow Patriarchate.)

Is it any wonder that non-Russians who live within that territory are suspicious (to put it mildly) of Moscow's claim to an absolute right to shepherd their churches? Where, they might ask, will the Muscovite shepherd lead us? To the Kingdom of Heaven which millions of Russian Orthodox claim does not exist? If membership of this flock does not require belief in God, then what is the sine qua non? Can we blame Christians in places like Estonia, Ukraine and Moldova if they assume that to be Russianness and, having made that assumption, demand an alternative?

I am not claiming, of course, that the Russian Church is at all happy about the immense numbers of non-believers that claim membership of it. All churches have a crowd of lukewarm and nominal members, and none of them can be content with the fact. But the statistical absurdity in Russia would seem to call its dominant Church to a particular degree of soul-searching. This is especially so given the historical fact that this Church has frequently allowed itself to be used by Russian secular interests, both imperial and soviet, as an agent for the russification of ethnic minorities. Looking today at the relationship between the Russian Church and the post-soviet state, it's not too hard to understand how Christians in, say Estonia, might have a hard time distinguishing between Russian secular and ecclesiastical interests.

Yet for all this, I cannot help but be troubled by the idea that the solution to Russian nationalism masquerading as Christianity is to create churches whose main reason for existence is the exaltation of a different form of nationalism. The notion of "canonical territory" is actually a very respectable, maybe even a much needed, ecclesiological principle. Although it probably exploits the notion for its own ends, I am glad that Moscow continues to raise the issue. It needs to be taken seriously for reasons I'll go into in future posts.

Gosh darn Uniates

nospam@example.com (Hieromonk Maximos) — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 10:14:12 -0500

More from Interfax. This time it is the Patriarch of Moscow reminding us that he doesn't like "uniates."

The complaint about Greek Catholics establishing churches in areas "where the unia never existed in history" is more than a little irksome. The reason the Ukrainians are setting up parish structures in places like Siberia is because large numbers of their faithful were forcibly moved there during the Soviet era! And not just the Ukrainians. We were visited last week by a couple of seminarians from Presov; even the Slovak Greek Catholics are sending priests to Siberia to serve displaced communities. Of course, the Patriarch believes they should be forced into his churches. But that just won't happen. Language, culture and memories cannot just be set aside to suit Moscow's agenda.

That said, I wish the we could move beyond this tired old rhetorical game in Europe. Moscow insists that the mere existence of Eastern Catholics constitutes "proselytism." The Greek Catholics insist they never proselytise. Neither position is convincing. If the two sides could actually talk to each other, instead of past each other, perhaps they could engage in a much more interesting conversation about why people might prefer one church over the other.

Dangerous ground, of course. That might force both sides to a degree of introspection--and even perhaps self-criciticism--that might actually force them to change....