An excerpt from the prayer of thanksgiving after Holy Communion to the Theotokos

Grant me compunction, and contrition of heart, and humility in my thoughts–translation from the Prayer Book Published by Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, N.Y.

Our Aim in Prayer

The last two posts dealt with struggling with thoughts.  Although this struggle is ever with us occurs at all times, it manifests itself most at the time of prayer.  And since it is prayer itself that is our greatest weapon in this warfare, it seems natural to continue by touching upon the subject of prayer.  So then, starting with this post I begin to share some things I have learned about the practice of prayer.  Presently, I will give a definition of prayer and express some thoughts about our approach to God.  What follows here is a taken from the foreword of a book, Prayer of Repentance—which I self-published several years ago and is a translation of canons of repentance from the Octoechos (or book of eight tones) of the Orthodox Church.  There have been several small changes to fit the context of this post.    

In the last several decades, in the English speaking world, we have encountered a growing interest in prayer and meditation.  This is not only in our Orthodox Church and in confessions of Christianity outside the Church, but also in the non-Christian world.  An abundance of literature has appeared on this subject, and in the Orthodox World in particular most are translations.  The story of the anonymous Pilgrim(1) was perhaps a forerunner and has a unique and great popularity.  The classic ascetic anthology of the Philokalia (2) has had excerpts for about half a century and now the entire Greek is almost completed.  There is a lively interest in “prayer of the heart,” and indeed, there are also works of contemporary authorship that inspire one to move towards this state of grace.  In short, we could say that deification (3) is a favored topic among ascetics and theologians as the final fruit of prayer and the aim of our whole life in Christ.  For those, however, who lack experienced direction the foundation for all this is often overlooked.  And so, with the help of God, my hope here is to lay the proper foundation for prayer and the Christian life in general. I believe that our Lord Jesus Christ Himself has pointed out this groundwork with the first word of His public preaching: “Repent” (Mat 4:17).

As a starting point, I would like to offer a definition of prayer.  It should be emphasized that “a” definition of prayer is being set forth which is not the only way of defining prayer.  Nor do I claim that our definition is the best, but it is in harmony with my purpose.  So then, how do we define prayer?  Prayer is the expression of the relationship that exists between two reason-endowed personal beings.  By two reason-endowed personal beings, it is God the Creator of all and His creature, man, who are being spoken of.  

Prayer has a connection with theology.  This is because theology speaks to us of this relationship that exists between God and man.  Man was made “in the image and after the likeness of God” (Gen. 1:26), yet this was distorted by the sin of our first-parents, Adam and Eve.  In listening to the serpent, they were deceived and disobeyed the command-ment of God.  So they offended God and fell away from the life that they knew in paradise.  They distorted the original beauty of their resemblance to God and fragmented their relationship with Him.  As time progressed and generations of men have come and gone, sin has multiplied, the distortion of our original beauty has been augmented, and the same is true for our relationship with God.

So, now, several questions can be raised: How should this relationship between God and man be expressed? Who is God? And how do we approach Him? What is God’s attitude towards His fallen creature—man?  And of what should man’s response consist?  St. John the Theologian tells us who God is.  He writes: “God is love” (I John 4:8).  We know that with God there is “no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). He has not changed His attitude towards us, but we have sinned and distorted both our being and our relationship with God.  God continues to be Who He is—Love.  And God’s attitude towards us is probably best expressed in the Eucharistic prayer of St. Basil the Great, which is a short history of the salvation God has wrought for us.  St. Basil prays thus:

When Thou didst create man by taking him from the dust of the earth, and didst honor him with Thine own image, O God, Thou didst set him in a paradise of delight, promising him eternal life and the enjoyment of everlasting blessings in the observance of Thy commandments. But, when man disobeyed Thee, the true God who had created him, and was deceived by the guile of the serpent, becoming subject to death through his own transgressions. Thou, O God, in Thy righteous judgment, didst send him forth from paradise into this world, returning him to the earth from which he was taken, yet providing for him the salvation of regeneration in Thy Christ Himself…He was God before the ages, yet He appeared on earth and lived among men, becoming incarnate of a holy Virgin; He emptied Himself taking the form of a servant, being likened to the body of our lowliness, that he might liken us to the image of His glory…He brought us to the knowledge of Thee the true God and Father.  He obtained us For His own chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.  Having cleansed us in water and sanctified us with the Holy Spirit, He gave Himself as a ransom to death, in which we were held captive, sold under sin. (4)

In St. Basil’s prayer, we see how God continues to deal with us in utter love although we have offended Him.  So now, how do we respond to this? How do we approach God? If it were another human being we had offended we would approach with shame, a humble attitude, a desire for reconciliation, and readiness to make some recompense.  And if someone we may have happened to offend would continue to love us and do good, we would feel all the more embarrassed and humbled.  If we now apply this to our relationship with God Who is not our equal but infinitely transcends our being and has done so much good for us, what can we say?  Is it possible to express in words with what shame and humility, with what longing for reconciliation and readiness to make recompense we should approach Him!  That one word of Christ, the first word of His public preaching, “Repent,” sums up all of this, which was also expressed by our risen Lord in His first appearance to the apostles as follows: “Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day: And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24:46-47).

Therefore, above all else, we should approach God as humble penitents who seek remission of our sins and with an earnest desire to serve Him. And what is the means by which we may put this into practice? The Orthodox Prayer Book gives us an answer.  St. Theophan the Recluse writes: Psalms hymns and Church songs are spiritually inspired outbursts of feeling towards God.  The Spirit of God filled His elect, and they expressed the plentitude of their feelings in songs.  He who sings them as they should be sung enters again into the feelings which the author experienced when he originally wrote them. (5)  It is especially in the Morning and Evening Prayers of our Prayer Book that we see a humble spirit of repentance expressed.  So if we attentively make use of the prayers the Church has to offer us we can acquire this spirit of repentance as the foundation of both our prayer life and life in Christ.

(1)  The book referred to is The Way of a Pilgrim. This is the story of an anonymous wandering Pilgrim in Russia who was called to the practice of the Jesus Prayer as an unceasing prayer.

(2)  The Philokalia is a collection of writings of Holy Fathers from the fourth to the fourteenth centuries. These teachings deal with the ascetic life and center primarily on prayer of the heart.

(3)Deification is a process of union with God whereby a man, as a gift of grace, becomes as God Himself.

(4)  Translation taken from, Service Books of the Orthodox Church, Vol. II, St. Tikhon’s Seminary Press, South Canaan, PA 18459, 1984, pp. 71-73

(5)  The Art of Prayer An Orthodox Anthology, compiled by Igumen Chariton of Valamo, p. 57 

A Hymn to the Theotokos

The shadow of the Law passed with the coming of Grace: For just as the bush burned without being consumed, so the Virgin hath given birth and remained Virgin.  In place of a pillar of fire, the Sun of righteousness hath risen; instead of Moses, Christ the Salvation of our souls. (Dogmatic of Saturday Great Vespers Tone 2)  

Concerning Watchfulness and warfare of the thoughts

These words which follow are excerpts from a talk of an Athonite monk given to a sisterhood.  This father had the same spiritual father as the sisters. Now to his talk:

For a monastic the prayer should never stop verbally or mentally. We must always say, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”  And we should drive all evil thoughts away immediately.  St. Symeon the New Theologian writes that as the soul is connected with the body likewise prayer should be connected with watchfulness. What is watchfulness? Watchfulness is to take heed concerning our thoughts.

We must be awake and watchful as if we were a guard on a watchtower. Like a soldier with his bayonet drawn on his rifle keeping watch on his lookout tower.  When he sees the enemy approaching he fires at 100 meters and kills the enemy. The guard does not allow the enemy to approach any closer. This is watchfulness, this is to be vigilant. Just as a soldier watches we also must watch our mind and thoughts and not allow any bad or evil thoughts to come within.

Demons are spirits and they never rest; from daybreak to nightfall they keep bringing sinful thoughts. They sow bad thoughts in our mind. That is why we must constantly have prayer and watchfulness. St. Symeon the New Theologian specifically says that watchfulness should be slightly before prayer. We should be watchful concerning what temptations the devil may bring and then right away we must follow with the Jesus Prayer.

Therefore watchfulness should be a little ahead of prayer. Let us suppose that the devil brings in your mind a sinful thought, a thought that goes against the evangelical commandments and truth. Now if we have watchfulness we won’t begin to fantasize but we will detect the enemy. We will recognize the evil thought and with two blows, anger and the Jesus Prayer, we shall immediately destroy the evil thought and we shall expel it from our mind and thus we shall escape the other three evolving stages that lead to sin.

Let us examine the different stages that an evil thought goes through before it becomes sin.  The first stage is provocation, a devil’s attack through our imagination or memory, an evil impression that comes to our mind in the form of a daydream or thought about a person or object. Up to this point we have no responsibility, we are not responsible for the devil attacking us with evil thoughts.  These thoughts could be thoughts of hatred, envy, gluttony, jealousy, etc. any thought at all which is contrary to God’s will.  The second stage is coupling, that is, starting a dialogue with the evil thought. We converse or to be more exact, we listen with pleasure to the content of the evil thought, we listen agreeably to the sinful thought and even with pleasure.  The third stage is consent. I consent to what the thought is saying and I agree to go ahead and accept the evil thought. For instance, my Elder does not love me, and I consent to the thought and I agree with the thought of judgment that my Elder does not love me, that he mistreats me. Another example: a thought comes that I have a good voice and I sing wonderfully in church. That is, I put myself above others or I may consent to anger which may result in a fight with a brother.

The fourth stage is the act of sin; to actually commit a sin in deed.  The Holy Fathers say that the devil, in order to make us sin uses our fantasy like a bridge—fantasy is the devil’s bridge. To fantasize is to imagine, to remember, to think about people and things that are contrary to God.   This is the bridge that the devil uses to cross and enter our souls.  Without fantasy it is impossible to be led into sin.

Therefore it is very important to be careful with fantasizing, and to take heed concerning fantasizing we need watchfulness. That is why watchfulness should be ahead of prayer, slightly before prayer. Let us use the same example of the soldier who is a guard.  When he sees the enemy approaching, he aims and fires and kills the approaching enemy thus eliminating potential threat and harm. The weapon and bullets are the prayer, and watchfulness is the guard, it is the awareness, the sobriety. If the guard is asleep the weapon won’t do any good and the enemy will ambush and kill the guard.

So you see we need the Jesus Prayer, of course, but we also must have watchfulness. It is because of watchfulness that we become aware of sinful thoughts. It could happen that without watchfulness I could be praying with the Jesus Prayer and at the same time while saying, “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me,” I can think my Elder always gives me the hardest jobs, he does not love me, he mistreats me.  So I can pray and at the same time pass judgment on my spiritual father.  So we need watchfulness to become aware of the thought and then by using the two blows—anger and the Jesus Prayer—to slay the devil, to destroy the serpent.

So this now leads us also to talk about the positive use of anger in our warfare against evil thoughts.  The devil is involved in constant warfare against us.  One of his prime weapons is evil thoughts, bad thoughts, and especially thoughts of judgment against our Elder.  What the devil wants to accomplish is to place these thoughts within our minds.  There is a difference between the devil’s attack and our consent; if we accept his thoughts, they enter our heart and become a part of us.  

Let us now examine how to fight against evil thoughts.  For example, as soon as a thought of judgment, let’s say against the Elder, comes to our mind you don’t have to run to the Elder for help.  What you must do is immediately try to push it away from your mind in this manner.  First with anger; if you like, with indignation scornfully ridicule the thought.  For example you say, “Get lost devil, you constantly bark like a dog.”  Ridicule the devil and the thoughts he brings.  You may continue by saying, “The Elder is right to ignore me.  The Elder is a saint.  He is absolutely right to discipline me for I am the least among my sisters.  The Elder is like Christ and he has the right to do with me whatever he wishes, and as for you demon: ‘Get lost.’”

Say these kind of words with anger.  As St. Hesychius the priest says first with anger strike out against the thoughts of judgment and second immediately start saying the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”  In that way drive the bad thought away.  If it does go away then this is not a fall which needs redemption through confession.  In other words, for any bad thought that you fight against and overcome there is no need to reveal it to your Elder or Eldress.  But listen carefully, for every evil thought that remains in us there is the need of redemption.  An evil thought that remains in us affects our heart in a bad way, and there is a need of healing that bad effect.  This healing takes place through revelation of such thoughts to the Elder or Eldress.  Expose the devil and he will flee from you.

I want to conclude with one last story in order to illustrate how the devil tries to trip us up in many and varied ways.  Once I was picking olives and the devil launched an attack on me.  Evil thoughts came to my mind that my Elder does not love me, and makes me overwork.  I was fighting back at the evil thought.  I was saying with anger, “Devil, I will shred you to pieces,” and then immediately I was saying the Jesus Prayer.  As long as I was fighting back in that manner I was victorious over the devil.  Then the devil put another thought in my mind: “You know that anger is a sin.  Stop saying with anger, ‘Devil I will shred you to pieces,’ surely you know that anger is a big sin.”

A cold sweat came over me, and I felt cold all over my body.  I thought of running to my Elder but he was away on some business.  Now that I stopped fighting back with anger and was only saying the Jesus Prayer the evil thought of judgment against my Elder was stronger and the devil was winning.  You see, I believed that being angry at the devil was a sin.  The thoughts that my Elder is unfair to me and does not love me began to stay in my mind.  Again I thought of going to my Elder but he was not around.  So I looked and found the Elder of a nearby monastery.  I told him my story and how the devil was winning the battle against me.  And I asked if being angry at the devil was truly a sin.

The Elder embraced me and told me, “The devil wants to put us all in hell for eternity.  You should not say only once, ‘Devil I will shred you to pieces’, but 100 times”.  So I took courage.  At that time I had not yet read how St. Hesychius wrote that when evil thoughts come to you, you must deliver two blows at the devil in order to kill these thoughts.  First, when any kind of evil thoughts approach, thoughts of selfishness, jealousy, hatred, gluttony, despondency or any other evil thought; immediately deliver the first blow.  Outraged and with anger scorn and ridicule the devil; the first blow will halfway kill the devil and the evil thought will be half gone.  Then deliver the second blow without losing time; and that is the little prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.”  In this way you will have delivered a fatal blow to the enemy and you are saved.

Through the teachings and the prayers of our Holy Fathers may our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on us and save us.  Amen.

A Hymn to the Theotokos

Who is able to worthily praise and bless thee, O Maiden Bride of God, since through thee the deliverance of the world hath come to pass?  Therefore with thankfulness we cry out to thee saying: Rejoice, thou who hast joined together those which were separated and art the deification of Adam!  Rejoice, thou who hast illumined our race with the light-bearing Resurrection of thy Son and our God: Therefore, the race of Christians unceasingly bless thee.  (Theotokion of the Aposticha, Saturday Small Vespers Tone 2)  

Spiritual warfare

Here is offered a transcript of a talk originally given in Greek by a monk of the HolyMountain.  This English translation was done spontaneously as the talk was being given, therefore it will not be a word-for-word reproduction of the Elder’s original words.  In a number of places the translator did sum up what the Elder had said, and it is this text that has been transcribed. This text has undergone some editing.  Now to the talk of the Elder:

Tonight Father is speaking to us on the topic of spiritual warfare.  He wants to go over some of the techniques that the devil uses in order to get us to fall into sin, so that he can take away our hearts, minds, and souls from the Lord.  Verily he can soil us with his uncleanness, to make our lives like his, mired in filth. Father quotes the Apostle Paul, who tells us in the book of Ephesians that we are not warring with flesh and blood.  In other words, this is not a physical warfare.  We are not battling body with body, physical body with physical body; it is a war nonetheless, but in a different realm.  It is a spiritual and mental war.  It is a battle of spirit with spirit.  In each one of us we have our own inner spirit which is made in the image of God.  It is this inner spirit which finds its expression in our bodies, and is the part of us—the real part—that fights against the devil.  And obviously the devil wants very much to bring us to a fall.  And of course, Father emphasizes that the devil has a tremendous amount of experience. He knows all the various methods and techniques that he can summon to his aid in order to bring us to some kind of a fall.  He knows how to make us sin. For example, thoughts are one of the primary methods of the devil, putting bad thoughts in our minds.  Also he works very much with fantasies, or shall we call them mental images.  These mental images also pull us in the direction of sin that leads to a darkness, and again to the filth of the devil.

Then Father theorizes a little bit as to why the devil does these things, why is he so hateful and so malevolent?  Why does he wish so much to work against God?  First of all, the devil does this from jealousy.  He is possessed and consumed by jealousy, because he knows of all the good things that the Lord has in store for all of us, the wonderful things.  And because of this, he works even harder, since he knows that he himself has been cut off from these blessings.  This is so because of his own apostasy, his own rebellion against God, of his being in a position of complete opposition to God; so that he can say to the Lord, from this act of hatred, from this jealousy that he possesses:  “Look how many I have taken from you.  You see everything that you did by sending your Son to die on the Cross is of no avail, because look how many I have taken with me”.  In other words he wants to embitter God, he wants to make the Lord feel as though whatever He did, whatever He expended, all those energies that He has expended in order to bring us to salvation, has all been in vain.  In this way, there will be a sort of a pirate’s victory, in which he will in a sense go down with all of us; but if he can get back at God, it will be worth it—that kind of an approach.

Father brings into the discussion the Holy Fathers of the Church, who tell us that the devil and sin are characterized like little lambs in the beginning.  They come as something very small, seemingly insignificant; very little and very subtle, almost unnoticeable movements of the soul.  Even the fantasy, even the little thoughts that we fantasize over, even those little things that seem so unimportant and innocent are potential pitfalls in the spiritual warfare.  For we might say to ourselves, this is an ant; this is something small that will go away.  However in quoting the prophets, Father says that if we don’t change the thought immediately, little by little it becomes stronger, more powerful, and even comes to the point where it actually fools us.  And now, that little lamb which seemed so innocent and insignificant and unimportant before, becomes like a lion. It is the kind of a thing that becomes very dangerous and almost impossible to eradicate.

He quotes St. Isaac the Syrian who says that the devil in the beginning is easy to deal with; but once he gets a foothold, once he gets his foot in the door, so to speak, then it becomes much more difficult to deal with him. So the idea here is to try to totally and immediately erase any fantasies, any subtle movements of the soul, and any thought; to chase them away as soon as we can. The weapon by which we are able to chase away these evil thoughts is the name Jesus. He quotes from the Old Testament: we are to call upon the name of the God of Jacob. Of course that name is Jesus Christ. So when the thought is small, that’s the time to address it.

He particularly emphasizes the importance of spiritual watchfulness. He says, be watchful, be vigilant, and observe things. Watch your eyes, what you see with your eyes; watch your thoughts, monitor the thoughts in your mind.  Make sure your heart doesn’t keep within it anything that could eventually be damaging to your spiritual life.  Monitor it all. Put a filter on it. Be careful of that pollution which is there and can taint us and lead us into sin. He gives us an example of a woman who maybe has a little cyst or a lump on her breast. If she denies its force or power, if she doesn’t go to the doctor, and she pretends that it is something minor that can go away, little by little it could continue to grow, and then become a hazard for her life.  But the moment we sense that there is something which is not the way it should be, we are should immediately and take care of it, so that it does not progress any further.

In this spiritual warfare in which we are engaged, Christ gives us the weapons of light.  These are the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  For example, the gift of love helps us to counteract hate.  With the good thoughts that are generated by the Holy Spirit we can counteract the bad thoughts.  To the doubt that enters our minds, we can present the true document of our faith as a counterbalance to those thoughts when they come into mind.  Father compares this process of counteracting evil with good as cutting a nerve off somewhere.  When you cut the nerve in your body, it seems as if that portion of the body is dead.  And it stops having any life in it. It doesn’t seem to have energy or movement.  Similarly in this case: if one cuts off the energy of sin, then sin dies.

If indeed we do cut these thoughts off before they become sins, they will not lead us to impurity.  So we need to use these means that are given to us: we continue in holy thoughts, and this will stop the circulation of evil, and the energy of the devil.  Therefore we need to watch.  We have two ways by which we can check any of these thoughts that come our way.  One is by the law of God; which is again something that we can use as a reference of knowing what is right and what is wrong.  We also have the Holy Spirit, Who illumines us.  As long as we check ourselves with the Spirit of God Who works through our conscience, and the law of God, these thoughts can all be monitored.  In other words we can put a stop to them before they get a foothold in our lives.

He uses another illustration: If you live in a neighborhood where a lot of people walk by your door, you don’t necessarily open your door for whoever comes by and knocks.  You are discriminating.  You first check to see who is there before you open the door, before you allow this individual to come in. It is the same way with our spiritual lives.  Somebody comes, knocks at the door, so to speak, of our minds—the devil has some thoughts that he wants to send our way, so any thoughts that come our way must be checked out.  We have to stop these things before they get a foothold.  But if we allow these thoughts to come in, if we allow this person to come in before we have a chance to see who he is, he enters and he has a place in our home. Then after a while he becomes bolder, and before you know it he drives us out, he takes over completely.  It becomes something where he was merely just someone knocking at the door without opening it, to the point where he literally takes over the whole house.  So Father’s advice here is, don’t open the door!  When you see who it is, and you see that he is not a reputable character, you close the door and chase him away, with the prayer of Jesus.  You tell him, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me,” and just chase him away. In other words have no dialogue with these thoughts when they come to you.  Don’t give them any place at all.  Because as soon as you do that, as soon as you give them a little room and they get their foot in the door, then that’s all they need.  They start working their way in until finally, little by little, they take over the whole house.

So instead of light, we end up in the darkness.  Instead of paradise, we go to hell.  Instead of being with the Lord, we spend eternity with the demons all around us, all the time, suffocating us, bothering us, tormenting us, having the company and fellowship of them.  So the options are really basically only two: Either you want to be with the Lord in paradise, or we spend the rest of eternity separated from God, having the company of the demons.  So it all begins with the thoughts, the direction you want to go in.  Where do we want to go, with whom do we wish to have fellowship for eternity?  It all begins in the very beginning with those little thoughts coming into the mind.  So the idea here of course is to do everything we can to keep our minds pure.

Father also warns us of having what he calls “parasites” in our prayers.  In order words, we are distracted. Our minds are scattered. Our prayers are done as a formal routine, in a perfunctory way.  They have no substance to them. We pray but we are thinking about other things, and these distracting thoughts lead us away from the focus of the prayer.  Many times we pray and we don’t know what we are saying.  Whether it is the Lord’s Prayer or some other prayer, when we pray we don’t know what we are actually doing.  But if we don’t know what we are saying when we say these prayers, if we are saying the Lord’s Prayer for example, and we don’t realize what we are saying, how will God know what we are saying?  So it is very important that we be very focused on the words of prayer.  There is, of course, one prayer above the others which assists us greatly to focus our attention, and that is the Jesus Prayer.  Although it is very simple, and can be said in one line, nevertheless it is very strong, and very powerful, and through it a great deal of grace can work, because it contains the holy name of Jesus.   Our names, for example, don’t contain the power that the name of Jesus has, because the name of Jesus is one of the names of God; and when we call upon the name of Jesus, we summon to our aid all of that power and spiritual energy and grace that the name itself unlocks for us.

He tells us that as soon as we wake up in the morning we should try to bring into our minds possible the name of Jesus, the thought of God.  When we go about our daily lives, as we enter into our cars, again to bring the name of Jesus to our minds, and to have that protection with us.   To keep our mind on God, it is a kind of insurance that protects us, it covers us, and it leads us to salvation.  Think of how we put the little crosses in our cars, and our icons, all the little things that we put in to ask Christ’s blessings, to seek the help of God.  Think how much help by calling upon the name of Jesus we insure our spiritual lives.  We Christians must realize that prayer is the birth of our lives.  It is our nourishment.  It is our spiritual food. In other words, if we don’t pray, we cannot live, we will die. We will not have the joy of being with Christ in eternity.

When we keep the Lord’s name in our mind, when we remember God, then the readings from the Bible, the sacraments, the teachings of the fathers, begin to take root in our lives.  These develop a certain richness within us, and they lead us closer and closer to the Lord.  Father speaks about the fact that many of us have an unhealthy fear of God.  We are afraid to die; but he says that most of us are afraid of physical death.  He says that physical death is really not the thing to be afraid of, that’s not so important.  The thing we should be afraid of is spiritual death.  And we wouldn’t be afraid to die, he says, if we were reconciled with God.  That fear would not trouble us.  But because our conscience witnesses against us, this is why we are afraid to die. It is sin, and the fact that we have not reconciled ourselves to God, that is why we are afraid to die.  If we were right with the Lord, physical death would be nothing to us, because we would know that we would be ready to go.  It would be just as if someone was arrested by the police, and he knew he had done nothing wrong, it wouldn’t bother him.  They had nothing on him, he’d say, “I’ve done nothing, I know who I am and I know what I’ve done”.  But if you knew that you did something wrong, and the police arrested you, immediately your mind would think, “Oh! They caught me”.

It is the same way with the spiritual life.  When we are with the Lord, if we are in the Lord, if our minds are on Him, we have the confident assurance of knowing that since we have done nothing wrong we have nothing to fear, not even death itself.  If we win this spiritual warfare, if we keep our minds and hearts pure from sin; then we will be prepared to meet the Lord and be with Him throughout all eternity.   Amen.

The Orthodox and Non-Chalcedonians.

A Hymn to the Theotokos

It is truly meet to call thee blessed, the Theotokos, for the Creator of all, having entered into thine immaculate womb, became flesh without changing in nature, nor effecting the dispensation in illusion.  But He was united in hypostasis to the living flesh which He took from thee, and which was endowed with reason, and which received its being in Him. Wherefore, we piously make distinction in the two natures that are made manifest.  Do thou entreat Him, O all-holy and modest one, that He send down unto us peace and great mercy. (Pentecostarion, p.345, Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston , Mass.)  

The Orthodox and Non-Chalcedonians: Do we Share the same beliefs?

“Now they say we have believed the same thing all along and so we should work towards a reunion”.  In the mid 1970’s, a subdeacon spoke these words to me in reference to the Orthodox (or Eastern Orthodox) and Non-Chalcedonians (or Oriental Orthodox).   But are these words true?  Do we Orthodox share the same beliefs as the Non-Chalcedonians?  Or are certain individuals mistaken and so, misleading the faithful?  A brief response will be offered here, although this will not be a comprehensive study or sophisticated theological response to this matter.  Rather several main points will be brought to the attention of the readers which hopefully will be accessible, not only to the theologically trained, but also to the simple layman.  So we shall consider the source of the above quote; a misquotation of St. John of Damascus used in the book, Does Chalcedon Divide or Unite—authored by Nikos K.Nisiotis and published by the World Council of Churches; and finally the Christology expressed by the Non-Chalcedonians which they claim to be in harmony with St. Cyril of Alexandria.

The aforementioned words of the sub-deacon were a brief summary of the result of dialogues between the Orthodox and Non-Chalcedonians.  I believe the first meeting took place in 1970 and periodic dialogues have continued.  Statements have been issued which were termed, “Suggestions of a Committee to the Churches”.  These statements have encouraged a union of Orthodox and Non-Chalcedonians; however, neither the Orthodox Church nor the leaders of the Non-Chalcedonians have officially endorsed these statements.  On the other hand, among the Orthodox, the Monasteries of the Holy Mountain have published a counter-statement titled: Suggestions of a Committee from the Sacred Community of the Holy Mountain Athos Concerning the Dialogue of the Orthodox with the Non-Chalcedonians.  This can be found on the internet at: orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/mono_athos2.aspx.  The unfortunate thing is that—as alluded to above—various individuals in our Church have acted as though a union of Orthodox and Non-Chalcedonians is an accomplished fact.  And in so doing, they are placing the “Suggestions of a Committee to the Churches”, above the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils!            

But what is this misquotation of St. John of Damascus to which reference has been made?  On pages 30-31 of the book, Does Chalcedon Divide or Unite, it reads:

“The classical dogmatician of the Orthodox Church, John of Damascus successfully expressed Orthodoxy’s positive attitude towards the non-Chalcedonian Christians of the East when he said that he considered them, on the basis of the Constitution of Chalcedon, to be separated from the [Orthodox] Church only with regard to their geographical position, while being Orthodox in all other things.

Going back to the original passage we find the translation from the Catholic University Press series reads:

The Egyptians, who are also called Schematics and Monophysites, separated from the Orthodox Church on the pretext that the document [approved] at Chalcedon [and known as] the Tome.  They have been called Egyptians because of the fact that during the reign of Emperors Marcian and Valentian the Egyptians were the first authors of this particular kind of heresy. (The Fathers of the church Vol. 37, St. John of Damascus, Writings CUA p. 138)

In checking the original Greek text we find that at this point the following is added: “while in all other things they are  Orthodox”.  Yet far from showing a positive attitude towards them St. John goes on to censure them saying: “They set many snares, so to speak, and ‘laid stumbling blocks by the wayside’ (Ps.139.6) for those who are lost in their pernicious heresy.  Although they hold the individual substances, they destroy the mystery of the Incarnation”.  (Ibid. p. 139)  

Today the Oriental Orthodox would say that they are not monophysites nor would they say they could be categorized as monothelites.  How do they explain their Christology?  One authoritative Coptic website, http://www.coptic.net/EncyclopediaCoptica, states:    

The Coptic Church has never believed in monophysitism the way it was portrayed in the Council of Chalcedon! In that Council, monophysitism meant believing in one nature. Copts believe that the Lord is perfect in His divinity, and He is perfect in His humanity, but His divinity and His humanity were united in one nature called “the nature of the incarnate word”, which was reiterated by Saint Cyril of Alexandria. Copts, thus, believe in two natures “human” and “divine” that are united in one “without mingling, without confusion, and without alteration” (from the declaration of faith at the end of the Coptic divine liturgy). These two natures “did not separate for a moment or the twinkling of an eye” (also from the declaration of faith at the end of the Coptic divine liturgy).

Other Non-Chalcedonian sourcesstate similar things, such as the Ethiopian Tewahedo website, www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Orthodox_ Tewahedo_Church, which states:

The Oriental Orthodox Churches, which today include the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria, the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Malankara Orthodox Church of India, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, are referred to as “Non-Chalcedonian”, and, sometimes by outsiders as “monophysite” (meaning “One Single Nature”, in reference to Christ). However, these Churches themselves describe their Christology as miaphysite (meaning “One United Nature”, in reference to Christ; the translation of the word “Tewahedo”).

This same website defines in greater detailvthe term “Tewahedo” as follows: 

 A Ge’ez word meaning “being made one” or “unified”. This word refers to the Oriental Orthodox belief in the one single unified Nature of Christ; i.e., a belief that a complete, natural union of the Divine and Human Natures into One is self-evident in order to accomplish the divine salvation of humankind, as opposed to the “two Natures of Christ” belief (unmixed, but unseparated Divine and Human Natures, called the Hypostatic Union) which is held by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.

There are those who actually believe we are confessing the same faith in different terms but it is very deceiving.  On the contrary, St. John of Damascus exposes the error of those who believe “the two natures became one united nature”, when he writes:

The natures were united to each other without change or alteration.  The divine nature did not give up its proper simplicity, and the human nature was certainly not changed into the nature of the divinity, nor did it become non-existent.  Neither was there one compound nature made from two natures.  For the compounded nature can in no wise be consubstantial with either of the natures from which it has been compounded, since from diverse natures it has been made into something else….If Christ had one compound nature after the union, having changed from one simple nature to a compound one, as the heretics say, then He is neither consubstantial with His Father, who has a simple nature, nor with His mother, because she was not composed of divinity and humanity.  Nor, indeed, will He belong to divinity or humanity, nor can he be called God or man, but just Christ alone, and, according to them, ‘Christ’ will not be the name of the person but the name of the one nature….We say that the term ‘Christ’ is the name of the person and that it is not used in a restricted sense, but as signifying what is of two natures. (The Fathers of the church Vol. 37, St. John of Damascus, Writings, CUA, pp. 271-2)

A concluding question for consideration:  If, as the Oriental Orthodox say, there is one united nature in Christ, then were does the Person of God the Son come in to play?  Do they believe the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ is divine or human?  This is one factor of Christology that the “Committees” have not broached.  We Orthodox confess that His Person is Divine. 

Finally, I would like to say something about St. Cyril of Alexandria.  This is a question to ponder:  Is the Christology of St. Cyril in agreement with the Eastern Orthodox teaching of one person in two natures, or is he is harmony with the Oriental Orthodox concept of one compound united nature?  Both would obviously invoke St. Cyril in order to support their own position.

So where do we start to find an answer?  Let us look at the historical background of the aforementioned statement of St. Cyril.  In a paper written anonymously by an Orthodox nun we find a satisfactory answer:

The Christological Controversies of the Fifth Century

At the time of these controversies, there were two main theological schools of thought within the eastern section of the Roman empire: the “Antiochene” and the “Alexandrian” schools.  There were a number of differences between them, such as their methods of interpreting Scripture.  For our purpose, it is most important to consider their different understandings of how our salvation was accomplished.

The Antiochene school was characterized by an insistence of the full humanity of Christ.  Against Apollinaris, who said that the Word of God had assumed only human flesh, the Antiochene theologians were concerned to preserve the entire human nature, including freedom of will, of the incarnate Christ.  For them, it was the union and cooperation of the human with the divine in Christ which brought about our salvation—if Christ were not fully human, we would not be saved.  Their shortcoming was in a weak or poorly expressed understanding of the union between the divine and human natures; taken to its logical extreme (and most or all heresies are an attempt to make the Christian Revelation fit human logic in one way or another), this led to the heresy of  Nestorius*.

The Alexandrian school, on the other hand, was characterized by a deep opposition to the heresy of Arius, who had held that the Logos (or Word) was not God but a created being, although superior to humans. Thus the Alexandrians especially insisted on the divinity of Christ — if the Son of God had not united our humanity to Himself so completely that He made it fully His own, we would not have been saved. The weakness of this school of thought was a tendency to reduce the humanity of Christ to a purely passive element which seems to lose its distinctive humanness and to be absorbed into the divinity; the logical extreme of this is monophysitism.

St. Cyril of Alexandria, although fully Orthodox, he nevertheless stood within the Alexandrian theological tradition.  Because of this, and also because of his intense opposition to the heresy of Nestorius, he was especially concerned to assert the unity of the Incarnate Word.  To do this, he picked up, the phrase, “one nature (physis) of the incarnate Word of God”out of a writing which was being circulated under the name of St. Athanasius the Great.  As it happens, in the 6th century this was discovered to be a fraud — the work had actually been written by Apollinaris.  To the Antiochenes, the phrase used by St. Cyril sounded Apollinarian, and in a way they were right; at the same time, St. Cyril (who believed that this phrase carried the authority of St. Athanasius) was interpreting it in an Orthodox way.  St. Cyril’s shortcoming was simply a certain imprecision in his way of expressing the union of God and man in the Incarnation or rather, in his concern to emphasize the unity of divine and human in Christ, he could find no clear way of expressing the reality of the full humanness of Christ.  His theology was Orthodox but his language was somewhat ambiguous.  He did understand that the Orthodox view of the Incarnation could be expressed in other terms; in his letters he indicated that he also accepted speaking of Christ as having two natures, as long as that is interpreted in an Orthodox way.  His preference, however, remained with the “one nature” formula, because he felt it was a better safeguard against Nestorianism.

We must keep in mind that at this point the word “nature” (physis) still had a rather broad range of meanings. All, both Alexandrians and Antiochenes, usually used physis** and hypostasis*** as equivalent.  The Antiochenes tended to speak of two physis or two hypostasis, in order to show clearly the fully—functioning humanity of Christ, but in this way they only had the weak word prosopon [This had the basic meaning of face or countenance.  It was also used to mean a character in a play, mask, also outward appear or expression.] to indicate the unity of divine and human. The Alexandrians usually spoke of one physis or one hypostasis; St. Cyril used the phrases “one nature (physis) of the Word of God Incarnate” and “one hypostasis of the Word of God Incarnate” interchangeably.

It remained for the Council of Chalcedon to combine the insights of’ both these schools by separating the two terms and using hypostatsis to refer to the one Person of Christ and physis to refer to the full divinity or the full humanity which were united in Him.

*“Nestorianism. The doctrine that there were two separate Persons in the incarnate Christ, the one Divine and the other human, as opposed to the Orthodox doctrine that the incarnate Christ was a single Person at once God and man.  It was characterized by the rejection of the term Theotokos.” (The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, p961)

**Physis could refer to nature as manifest in the physical world; theologically it signified “nature” with the meaning of an essence along with the attributes proper to it.

***Hypostasis is from the Greek upistemi, which is a compound of upo (under) and istemi (stand), thus the basic meaning is a support or foundation that stands under something.  The range of its meanings include the substance out of which something is made.  

The Ecumenical Councils from Chalcedon on did set a seal of approval on the Christology of St. Cyril.  At one point in his life he used terminology which was ambiguous and misleading in defending a phrase which he believed to be authored by St. Athanasius the Great; that is, “the one nature of the incarnate Word of God”.  St. Cyril was never censured for his aforementioned expression because it is neither just nor accurate to judge the writings of the early fathers in the light of ways of expressing the Orthodox Faith which the Church developed later.  Nevertheless at a certain point in time St. Cyril accepted a change in terminology.  After the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431 a conflict arose between St.Cyril and John of Antioch who arrived shortly after it concluded . In their reunion of 433 Cyril accepts: “The change from mian physin tou Logou tou Theou sesarkomenen [one nature of the incarnate Word of God] to mian hypostasin tou Logou tou Theou sesarkomenen [one person of the incarnate Word of God], thereby inaugurating a new era in the formulation of doctrine.” (Taken from the class notes of a former professor of Patristics at St.Tikhon’s Seminary)

In conclusion we could rightly say that we Eastern Orthodox believe that St. Cyril was in harmony with our Christology; nevertheless St. Cyril is not the touchstone of truth for us but rather the consensus of the Holy Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils.  This conciliarity is the way of the Church, since Holy Pentecost.  Relying on one figure alone, taken out of context is the way of heresy. 

Epilogue

One more point needs to be brought to the attention of the reader.  Christology and the concept of salvation go hand-in-hand, so then, we should consider just a few more points.  The Oriental Orthodox do not have a theology of the Uncreated Light.  Why?  Because the experience of  It is not in their ascetic tradition.  What are the repercussions?  What is their view of grace and that of salvation?  What do they teach about the essence and energy of God?  Again I ask:

The Orthodox and the Non-Chalcedonians: Do we share the same beliefs?

A hymn to St. John the Baptist

Elizabeth was freed from barrenness while through the voice of Gabriel the Virgin conceived in her womb and remained a virgin.  John the Forerunner leapt beforehand within his mother, foreseeing in the virginal womb his God and Master Who became incarnate for our salvation.  (from the Octoechos, Tone 5, third kathisma hymn, Tuesday Matins) 

Abortion is murder

Since the March for life will take place this month, I decided to go off on a tangent from my plans for this blog site and devote this post to Pro-Life.  The Orthodox Church teaches that life begins at the moment of conception; therefore, we cannot consider the abortion of a child in its mother’s womb to be anything else than to take a life, to kill. Some people argue: What about rape?  Well, then make it legal only for victims of rape—this I say not because I endorse this statement but only to make a point.  It is better to for such a woman to be counseled, have the child, and—if she chooses not to keep it–then give it up for adoption.        

What about the case where a woman’s life could be in danger?  An answer to this is probably the work of a counsel of bishops.  Still, with faith in God and prayer, the course of nature can be directed.

Yet let us see what we find in the Scriptures concerning this, what do they reveal to us about an unborn babe in the womb?  Does the life of the child begin there?  The hymn to the Forerunner with which this post begins refers to the meeting of the Theotokos and Elizabeth in the Gospel of Luke.  And so we read in the Gospel of St. Luke:     

And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda; and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth.  And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit: And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.  And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?  For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. 

And, speaking to Zachariah, the Archangel Gabriel said of St. John, “He shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb”.

St. John the Baptist experienced joy while yet in his mother’s  womb.  So how can our society condone abortion?  St. John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb.  So how can our society condone abortion?  Is it possible that in this manner saints may have been killed who could have changed the course of the world? 

Again our Lord says to the Prophet Jeremiah: “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations”. (Jer. 1:5)

God Himself says he formed the prophet Jeremiah while yet in the womb.  We are not all prophets but every human being is a unique creation of God, and this begins in the womb.  So how can our society condone abortion and kill a unique creature of God—a human being since every human being born into the world is a new encounter with God?

Let us take one more Scriptural text and quote the Holy Apostle Paul.  He writes to the Galatians: “But when it pleased God, Who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace”. (Gal. 1:15)  God separated him from his mother’s womb.   The word separated is used in the King James and New King James Versions but it is lacking in precisely conveying the Greek.  The Apostle Paul is here telling us that he was set apart, or appointed, or chosen from his mother’s womb.  The translation into Slavonic, for instance, has the meaning “chosen”.  

So with the above comment of the holy Apostle Paul we again see how life begins in the womb and precisely as the Orthodox Church teaches at the moment of conception.  And this latter is seen in our Christology, concerning the incarnation of God the Word.  St. John of Damascus writes:

For the very Word of God was conceived of the Virgin and made flesh, but continued to be God after this assumption of the flesh.  And, simultaneously with its coming into being, the flesh was straightway made divine by Him.  Thus three things took place at the same time: the assuming of the flesh, its coming into being, and its being made divine by the Word.   (Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book 3, Chapter 12)

Later on, in speaking  of the two natures of Christ he writes: “from the first instant of conception there was no divisions whatsoever of either form”.  (Ibid. Book 3, Chapter 15)

So then, in reference to our Lord Jesus Christ, he rightly teaches that from instant of conception there were no divisions in His divine and human natures.   This is why the late Archbishop Dimitri of Dallas and the South, in expressing the Orthodox concept on this matter writes: “The two natures were united in the one Person of the Saviour at the moment of conception in the womb of the Virgin”.  (The Doctrine of Christ, p. 48)

So our society, in legalizing abortion, has to admit that they are taking lives, in legalizing abortion they are killing, in legalizing abortion they are committing murder. 

Something we can do

Among other organized public measures and events, while at home we can pray.  Pray for those who have had abortions: for the healing of those who are repentant and the repentance of those who are hardened.  Pray for those who are considering aborting a child and the doctors who commit this horrifying deed that God will open their minds to understand the evil of this and touch their hearts with compassion for the unborn child.  This can be done in the form of the Jesus Prayer, for example: “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on those who have had abortions: heal the repentant and bring to repentance those who are hardened.”   I would like to add one last word, a word of encouragement for women who have had an abortion. You should pray for the aborted child just as you would for any of your living children.  Pray that God will have mercy on your child and all aborted children.  And then, you have the hope that you will see your aborted child in the kingdom of heaven.  And you will recognize each other, the child will say to you “Mom, I forgive you.  Mom, you helped me with your prayers.  Mom, I love you.” 

May God grant this.  Amen.

A Hymn to the Theotokos

Thou didst conceive without seed and didst give birth ineffably to Him Who doth put down the mighty from their thrones and exalteth the humble; and Who raises up the horn of His faithful who glorify the Cross burial and glorious Resurrection of Christ.  Therefore since thou art the mediatress of so many good things with silent hymns we bless thee as she who ever prayeth for the salvation of our souls.  (The Dogmatic at Lord I Call from Small Vespers, Tone 4)

Experience of Grace

How can we tell if something we experience is from God?  This question has been raised in reaction to the November post.  Perhaps the only safe answer to this is: Go and speak to an experienced spiritual father about what you have undergone.  Nevertheless, having brought up this question, to now continue with an all-around answer is best. 

In the November post, the concept “worship in spirit” was explained to the best of my capacity.  In this, warnings were interwoven to those who come to Orthodoxy from other confessions of faith and consider themselves to “know God” and to be “spiritual” and to have “experiences of the grace of the Holy Spirit”.  As I formerly pointed, out many such people alter some of their beliefs to be compatible to Orthodoxy but remain ignorant of the rich tradition of our teaching on the life in Christ.  So I shall begin by attempting to lay something of a general foundation of our ascetic life and in the next post say something more specific in reply to the above inquiry.

Since the question at hand concerning experiences from God would usually be something that occurs when one is at prayer, we shall deal with stages of prayer and also stages of grace.  In reference to the latter, we can turn to Joseph the Hesychast; thus he writes to a correspondent:

The prayer must be said with the inner voice* But since initially the nous [or mind] is not accustomed to it, it forgets to say the prayer.  This is why you say it at times orally and at other times noetically [or mentally]. This happens until the nous gets its fill and grace begins to act within.

This “action” of grace is the joy and delight you feel within yourself when you say the prayer, and you want to say it continuously. So and when the nous takes over the prayer and this joy that I am writing about occurs, the prayer will be said unceasingly within you, without any effort on your part. This is called perception of the action of grace, because grace acts without man’s volition. He eats, walks, sleeps, awakes, while internally he cries out the prayer continuously. And he has peace and joy. (Monastic Wisdom, The Letters of Joseph the Hesychast, p. 44)

As he continues, he speaks of three stages of grace, and we can see that the above action begins to manifest itself in the first stage.

The spiritual life is divided into three stages, and grace acts in a person accordingly. The first stage is called purification, during which a person is cleansed. What you have now is called the grace of purification. This form of grace leads one to repentance. All the eagerness that you have for spiritual things is due to grace alone. Nothing is your own. It secretly acts upon everything. So when you exert yourself, this grace remains with you for a certain period of time. If a person progresses with noetic [or mental] receives another form of grace which is entirely different.

As we mentioned earlier, this first form of grace is called “perception of the action of grace,” and is the grace of purification. That is, one who prays feels the presence of divine energy within him.

The second form of grace is called the grace of illumination.  During this stage, one receives the light of knowledge and is raised to the vision of God. This does not mean seeing lights, fantasies, and images, but it means clarity of the nous, clearness of thoughts, and depth of cognition. For this to occur, the person praying must have much stillness and an unerring guide.

The third stage—when grace overshadows—is the grace of perfection, truly a great gift. I shall not write to you about this now, since it is unnecessary. (Ibid. pp. 44-45)

Concerning the former of the abovementioned, that is, stages in prayer, Archimandrite Sophrony gives us an outline when, in reference to the Jesus Prayer, he writes:

It is possible to establish a certain sequence in the development of this prayer.  First, it is a verbal matter: we say the prayer with our lips while trying to concentrate our attention on the Name and the words.  Next, we no longer move our lips but pronounce the Name of Jesus Christ, and what follows after, in our minds, mentally.  In the third stage mind and heart combine to act together: the attention of the mind is centered in the heart and the prayer said there.  Fourthly, the prayer becomes self-propelling.  This happens when the prayer is confirmed in the heart and, with no especial effort on our part, continues there, where the mind is concentrated.  Finally, the prayer, so full of blessing, starts to act like a gentle flame within us, as an inspiration from on High, rejoicing the heart with a sensation of divine love and delighting the mind in spiritual contemplation.  This last state is sometimes accompanied by a vision of Light. (His Life is Mine, Archimandrite Sophrony, p. 113 )

Bishop Kallistos Ware gives us a number of definitions of prayer which have some relation to the stages explained above. He first refers to a definition in an English dictionary that describes prayer as “a solemn request to God.”  This can correspond to the first two stages spoken of by Archimandrite Sophrony.  Prayer being described as an act of petition of man to God can be either verbalized or pronounced in one’s mind.  In a second definition, he quotes St. Theophan the Recluse, who says concerning prayer that “the principle thing is to stand before God with the mind in the heart, and to go on standing before Him unceasingly day and night until the end of life.”  Bishop Kallistos points out that to pray “is no longer to ask for things,” but it is “to stand before God, to enter into an immediate and personal relationship with Him.”  This can correspond with the third stage mentioned above, yet this is still predominantly an action initiated by man.  As Bishop Kallistos continues, “stress is laid primarily on what is done by man rather than God.”  The third definition given by Bishop Kallistos relates to the fourth and fifth states spoken of by Archimandrite Sophrony.  He quotes St. Gregory of Sinai who says, “‘Prayer is God, who works all things in all men’– it is not something which I initiate but in which I share; it is not primarily something which I do but which God is doing in me — it is to cease doing things on our own and to enter into the action of God.”  It is this stage of prayer that is a participation in the action or energy or life of God that many of our Holy Fathers reached and brought to a degree of perfection through their asceticism. [The end of this state is a “manifestation of baptism”, for it is a birth from God; therefore it is a new beginning, a new mode of life in which the grace of the Holy Spirit is perceptible and operative.] (All quotes in this paragraph are from The Power of the Name, Bishop Kallistos Ware, pp. 1-2)  

Before a concluding comment, I would like to offer a few more quotes about grace and prayer.  Somewhere St. Peter Damascus says that the beginning of grace is to see one’s sins.  Concerning the acquisition of higher stages of prayer, Archmandrite Sophrony writes: “According to ancient tradition mind unites with heart through Divine action when the monk continues in the ascetic feat of obedience and abstinence; when the mind, the heart and the very body of the ‘old man’ to a sufficient degree are freed from the dominion over them of sin; when the body becomes worthy to be ‘the temple of the Holy Ghost’”.  (His Life is Mine, Archimandrite Sophrony, p. 112)

My hope is that these outlines of the stages of grace and prayer give a bit of a foundation of the knowledge of our ascetic tradition and can act as a measuring device to help give the reader some idea of where he is stands spiritually. 

*In the glossary of the book quoted “inner voice” is defined as such:                          St. Nicodemos the Hagorite explains the “inner voice” or “inner reason” in this manner: Once you have brought your nous into the heart, it should not just stay there, looking and doing nothing, but should find reason, that is, the inner voice of the heart through which we think, compose essays, make judgments, analyze, and read whole books silently, without saying a single word with the mouth.

Kontakion for the Nativity

Today the Virgin giveth birth to Him Who is transcendent in essence, and the earth offereth a cave to the unapproachable.  Angels with shepherds give glory; with a star the Magi do journey; for our sake a young Child is born, Who is pre-eternal God.  (Prayer Book, Holy Trinity Monastery, Jordanville, N. Y. p.  160)

Foreword

In speaking or writing about the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ in the flesh there are several points upon which the Gospel together with commentators and the hymnology of the Church has focused.  They are the humility of Christ, the result of the incarnation which is the deification of man, and then the virgin birth.  The first two have especially been given particular attention

But of the actual event itself, that moment of Christ’s birth, is almost completely passed over.  The Gospels themselves say very little about it.  St. Matthew says nothing.  He speaks of events leading up to the Nativity and what followed, while he says nothing of the Nativity itself. It appears that his prime purpose is to confirm that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior of the world; St. Matthew declares Him as the One Who was foretold by the prophets, and he establishes the virgin birth.

St. Mark begins his gospel by proclaiming Jesus to be the Son of God, then immediately goes on to speak of St. John the Baptist and Forerunner of our Lord, and so he completely passes over this event.  St. Luke is the only evangelist who directly says something about the Nativity, in one sentence he says: “And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn”. (Luke 2:7)   He rather concentrates of the humility of Christ, Who in His life according to the flesh willingly subjected Himself to the Law and His parents.   And he speaks of the revelations of the Christ in the prophecies contemporary to this time, that is, the prophecies of Saints Zachariah and Symeon the God-receiver.

Finally, St. John the Theologian, writes of the consequence of the incarnation which is the deification of man.  For “The Word made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only-begotten of the Father” (John 1:18), and, “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:  Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (John 1:12-13)  It is also this gift of deification that is spoken of by the Holy Apostle Peter when he writes that we are:  “partakers of the divine nature”. (IIPeter 1:4)

But here we shall relate the events surrounding the actual Nativity itself.  In attempting this we shall combine with the Gospels the other historical information found in the early Christian literature which modern scholars have termed as The Protevangelium of James and The Gospel of Psuedo-Matthew.

The Evening of the Nativity

And so, the decree of Caesar Augustus was sent out for the enrollment of his subjects.  Thus it was that Joseph and Mary journeyed to Bethlehem. Although by the purpose of man this was for the enrollment, yet by the providence of God it was for the birth of the Christ, our God.  But what happened on that night that Christ was born?

According to the Protevagelium of St. James when they neared Bethlehem Joseph saw Mary sorrowful and then he saw her laughing.  When he questioned her about this she said, “I see two peoples with my eyes; the one weeping and lamenting, and the other rejoicing and exulting.” (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, W.M. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, p. 365) Shortly afterwards, Mary asked to be taken down from the donkey she rode for she was soon to give birth and he found a cave and leaving her there went to look for a midwife.

In the Gospel called “Pseudo-Matthew” after the above words spoken by Mary it is said that Joseph gave her a slight reprimand saying:

Sit still on thy beast, and do not speak superfluous words.  Then there appeared before them a beautiful boy, clothed in white raiment, who said to Joseph: Why dost thou say that these words which Mary spoke about the two peoples were superfluous?  For she saw the peoples of the Jews weeping, because they have departed from their God; and the people of the Gentiles rejoicing, because they have now been added and made near to the Lord, according to that which he promised to our fathers were the Jews who forsook God and the Gentiles who received salvation according to the promise of God to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: for the time is at hand when in the seed of Abraham all nations shall be blessed.  (Ibid. p. 374)

In continuing, Pseudo-Matthew speaks of the above mentioned young boy.  But now he is called an angel who commands the animal to stop and Mary to go into a cave.  It was a cave where the light of the sun had never reached but from the moment that Mary entered it shone as bright as if it were midday.

And in going to look for the midwives Joseph testifies that there was an unusual, awesome stillness:

And I Joseph was walking, and was not walking; and I looked up into the sky, and saw the sky astonished; and I looked up to the pole of the heavens, and saw it standing, and the birds of the air keeping still. And I looked down upon the earth, and saw a trough lying, and work-people reclining: and their hands were in the trough. And those that were eating did not eat, and those that were rising did not carry it up, and those that were conveying anything to their mouths did not convey it; but the faces of all were looking upwards. And I saw the sheep walking, and the sheep stood still; and the shepherd raised his hand to strike them, and his hand remained up. And I looked upon the current of the river, and I saw the mouths of the kids resting on the water and not drinking, and all things in a moment were driven from their course. (Ibid. p. 374)

As he returned to the place of the cave with the midwives a luminous cloud was seen overshadowing the cave.  As the cloud disappeared a great light shone in the cave.  Joseph entered and found Mary with the Divine Infant to Whom she had given birth.  Joseph the Betrothed then said to our Lady the Birth-Giver of God:

I have brought thee two midwives—Zelomi and Salome; and they are standing outside before the entrance of the cave, not daring to come in hither, because of the exceeding brightness.  And when the blessed Mary heard this, she smiled; and Joseph said to her: Do not smile; but prudently allow them to visit thee in case thou shouldest require from them for thy cure.  Then she ordered them to enter. (Ibid.p. 374)

Mary allowed one of them, Zelomi, to examine her.  And Zelomi cried out:

Lord, Lord Almighty have mercy on us!  It has never been heard or thought of, that anyone should have her breasts full of milk, and that the birth of a son should show his mother to be a virgin.   But there has been no spilling of blood in his birth, no pain in bringing him forth. A virgin has conceived, a virgin has brought forth, and a virgin she remains. (Ibid. p. 374-5)

As St. Luke continues to relate in his Gospel that evening

There were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. And it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us.  And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. (2:8-16)

Moreover, a great star, larger than any that had been seen since the beginning of the world, shone over the cave from the evening till the morning. And the prophets who were in Jerusalem said that this star pointed out the birth of Christ, who should restore the promise not only to Israel, but to all nations. (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 8, p. 375)

So we conclude, as we began, with the kontakion for the feast of the Nativity:

Today the Virgin giveth birth to Him Who is transcendent in essence, and the earth offereth a cave to the unapproachable.  Angels with shepherds give glory; with a star the Magi do journey; for our sake a young Child is born, Who is pre-eternal God.

Hymn to the Theotokos

How shall we not marvel at thy Divine-human Offspring, O most pure One?  For not having received the experience of man, without a Father O immaculate One, thou didst give birth in the flesh to a Son Who before all ages was begotten of the Father without a Mother.  He, in no way, underwent change, intermingling or division; rather He fully preserved the properties of each substance.  Therefore O Mistress, Mother and Virgin, pray to Him to save the souls of those, who, in an Orthodox manner, confess thee to be the Theotokos .  (The Dogmatic in Tone 3 of Saturday Great Vespers)  

Worship in Spirit and Truth 

In its outset, this article shall take excerpts from St. John Chrysostom’s homily on the meeting of our Lord with the Samaritan woman and then continue to develop the idea of worshipping in spirit.  So then, as we read in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of St. John our Lord travels through Samaria and stops at Jacob’s well.  There He asks a woman of Samaria for a drink and then speaks of “living water” which He has to offer.  Then, as making an inquiry, the Samaritan woman comments: “Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship”. (Jonh 4:20)

And then our Lord replies: “Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.  Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews.  But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him.  God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth”. (John 4:21-4)

St. John comments:

So our Lord takes away from both Jerusalem and the mountain in Samaria priority in dignity.  He rouses her soul by showing that neither Jews nor Samaritans possessed anything great in comparison with that which was to be given; and then He introduces the difference.  Yet He still declared that the Jews were more honorable, not preferring one place to another, but giving them the precedence because of their intention. As though He had said, “About the place of worship ye have no need henceforth to dispute, but in the manner the Jews have an advantage over you Samaritans”, for “ye” He said, “worship ye know not what; we know what we worship.'”

How then did the Samaritans “know not” what they worshiped?  Because they thought that God was local and partial; thus, at least they served Him, and therefore they sent to the Persians, and reported that “the God of this place is wroth with us” (2 Kings 26), in this respect forming no higher opinion of Him than of their idols.  Therefore, they continued to serve both Him and devils, joining things which ought not to be joined.  The Jews, on the contrary, were free from this supposition, at least the greater part of them, and knew that He was God of the world.  Therefore He said, “Ye worship ye know not what; we know what we worship.”

Then our Lord continues: “But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.  Since what the Prophets said they said long before the event, to show that here it is not so, He says, “And now is.”  Thus indicating that this is not a prophecy of such a kind as shall be accomplished after a long time, the fulfillment is already at hand and at your very doors, “when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”  In saying true,” He excludes Jews as well as Samaritans; for although the Jews were better off than the Samaritans, yet they are far inferior to those who shall come, as inferior as the type is to the reality.  But He speaks of the Church, that she has the “true” worship, and such as is proper to God.

“For the Father seeketh such to worship Him.”  If then He in times past sought such as these, He allowed those others their way of worship, not willingly, but from condescension, and for this reason, so that little-by-little He might bring them in also. Who then are “the true worshipers”?  Those who do not confine their service by place,  and who serve God in spirit; as Paul says, “Whom I serve in my spirit in the Gospel of His Son”.  But when our Lord says, “God is a Spirit” our Lord declares His incorporeal Nature. Now the service of that which is incorporeal must necessarily be of the same character, and must be offered by that in us which is incorporeal, that is, the soul, and purity of mind. Therefore He says, “they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” For both Samaritans and Jews were careless about the soul, but made great efforts in reference to the body, cleansing it in diverse ways.  It is not by the external purity of body, but by that which is incorporeal in us, namely the mind, that the incorporeal One is served. It is as though the Lord now tells us, ‘Sacrifice not sheep and calves, but dedicate yourself to the Lord; make thyself a holocaust, this is to offer a living sacrifice”. You must worship “in truth”; as former things were types, such as circumcision, and whole burnt offerings, and victims, they now no longer exist, but all is “truth.” For a man must now circumcise not his flesh, but his evil thoughts, and crucify himself, and remove and slay his unreasonable desires.

Thus did St. John Chrysostom speak in his day emphasizing that true worship is to be found in the Church being the fulfillment of the worship of the Law. But we have other challenges to face in our day so let us further comment on what is meant by “worshipping in spirit”. There is a need to offer additional clarification of this because, in the West, the majority of those who call themselves Christians are outside of the Church. They do not necessarily have any ascetic tradition and therefore lack knowledge of the action of the grace of the Holy Spirit and the action of the opposing spirits. Although many such people on coming into the Church change some of their external beliefs to be compatible with Orthodoxy, they remain ignorant of our rich ascetic tradition. They carry the baggage of their former concepts of spiritual life into the Church, and so they remain in their former delusion.  This becomes a stumbling block to them for an ascent in the likeness of God which is the aim of our ascetic practices.  Many such people come into the Church with the idea that they are already spiritual, and believe that experiences of the grace of the Holy Spirit are a normal part of their life. But is it possible that their so-called spiritual experiences are human enthusiasm, human feelings or even the result of the passions?  So then, as has already been stated, there is a need to offer additional clarification on the idea of worship in spirit.

When our Lord says, “the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit” what does He signify?  Does He mean all those who believe in Christ automatically have experiences of the Holy Spirit?  Well, spirit in this text does not mean the Holy Spirit but in a spiritual way, according to the natural human spirit.  This is what is specifically indicated in the translation into Church Slavonic.  When the word “spirit” appears in Slavonic a special abbreviation is used if the Spirit of God is indicated.  On the other hand if it is the human spirit the word is spelled out without any abbreviation, and it is in this latter way that “spirit” is written in the text in question.  St. John Chrysostom also alludes to this in his aforementioned homily when he quotes the Apostle Paul who says concerning our Lord: “Whom I serve in my spirit”.  Elsewhere, Saint John Chrysostom notes that the Jews were more concerned with worshiping with their bodies than with their spirits. Again I emphasize his words “in my spirit”. Saint Cyril of Alexandria also refers to worshipping in spirit meaning to worship as the angelic spirits do.

So what is it to worship “in spirit”? We must first define the human spirit. According to the Holy Fathers of our Church man is two-part consisting of body and soul. The soul has three powers; they are the powers of reason, desire, and incense or zeal. The spirit is the highest function of the reasoning power of the soul. The soul functions mentally in two ways: one is a natural reasoning according to the needs of this life and the other is a natural contemplation when the mind stands before God in the heart. This latter is to pray with the mind in the heart, this is to worship “in spirit”. Yet this is still man’s turning towards God and not a direct action of the Holy Spirit. I specifically said, “not a direct action” because help from God is still necessary to pray as just mentioned. Without God’s help in praying we would be totally overrun by our invisible enemies, dispersed and scattered; but such help from God is still external and, as was stated, “not a direct action of the Holy Spirit.

But what then is a genuine experience of the Holy Spirit? I think this can be illustrated by saying something about the function of the mind. We must remember that the mind is not the brain and the proper place of the mind is in the heart. St. Ignatius Brianchaninov specifically tells us that this place is the upper left part of the heart. I once expressed the following to Elder Ephraim of St. Anthony’s Monastery in Arizona:

The mind, or nous, is the inner essence of the reasoning (logikon) power of the soul. The energies, or actions which proceed forth from the mind, are of two kinds. One is an action of reasoning (dianoia) the other a function of contemplation (theoria). The first (dianoia) is on a natural level where the mind functions as human reasoning. The other (theoria) is on a level above the natural reasoning in which the mind apprehends spiritual knowledge. In this, the movement of the mind can unite with the movement of the Uncreated Divine Energy; the mind is not merely functioning or acting of itself but enters into an experience of Divine Grace.

He answered: “This is in agreement with what the Holy Fathers say in the Philokalia, but to unite with the Uncreated Divine Energy is very rare. St. Isaac of Syria says that there are few in every generation that experience this”.

In conclusion, what can we say?  Let us offer to God what we can on our part in our human capacity.  We need to be humble-minded and acknowledge our spiritual poverty. We need to realize that a direct experience of the grace of the Holy Spirit is rare and something so far beyond our experiences on the natural human level that the Apostle Paul said, “Whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell God knoweth” (IICor. 12:3). But what can we hope for? We can set our hope in the blessing that our Lord Jesus Christ pointed out to the doubting Apostle Thomas. When our Lord appeared to the twelve apostles eight days after His resurrection He said to Thomas: “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed”. (John 20:29)