ORLAPUBS P. R149: DIVERGENT PRESENTATIONS OF ORTHODOXY

ALTERNATIVE PRESENTATIONS OF
ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY
ROUTINE ANSWERS TO FREQUENTLY ASKED
QUESTIONS FROM A NON-ORTHODOX POINT
OF VIEW vs. PENETRATING, PREËMPTIVE
ACCOUNTS SETTING OUT FROM THE
ORIGINAL GREEK-LANGUAGE
FRAMEWORK OF APOSTOLIC
CHRISTIANITY

One can hardly have failed to note in the accounts of Orthodoxy, those found in encyclopedias, popular shows and publications, parish bulletins, and so on:

. . . and so on--maybe including the subject of divorce and the like. One can end up still believing that the Orthodox broke off from the "Vatican." So does this pallid list or inventory--of what are essentially answers to FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS couched in some otherdox point of view--inspire you, make your heart palpitate, stimulate your curiosity to look deeper, or convert you?
It's not that the information is not literally correct; but it is usually misleading in starting out from an otherdox framework--one of the frameworks invented over a dozen centuries after the Apostles in the later Middle Ages (in regard to the form, if not content--forms derived from an Islamic interpretation of Aristotle, a third-hand Aristotelian based on Latin translations of Arabic translations of the original Greek). Do the FAQs constitute a systematic approach to Orthodoxy, beginning with its basic assumptions and proceeding to interpretations that follow from those? Or does it rather fail to make clear HOW Orthodoxy is not just a sort of truncated Western Catholicism--a bit more mystical and less rationalistic, a bit more rigorous and less accommodating, a bit more monastically influenced but less up-to-date?

. . . and so on. Does this prick your interest and leave you thinking that Orthodoxy is not just a palid Papal Christianity without a short list of twenty or so divergences like Filioque, purgatory, etc.? Or do you think the Apostolic succession, undemocratic polity, and the beauty of the Liturgy are the points? Is truth not relevant?

Note that both approaches properly begin with the Trinity, Creation, and Incarnation. So how are we to characterize the difference between the first and prevailing approach--employed even by revered, learnëd, and pious scholars--and the second . . . beyond just speaking of readers' reactions? The first approach is not definitive in that it doesn't get to the root of the superficial list of differences and in that it fails to draw the essential line between Orthodoxy and Western Christianity--which, after all, has a formal-factual Apostolic succession in at least the most formidable of its forms as well as a list of "sacraments" or other practices made to look like those of the Orthodox (even though Chrismation and Confirmation are so different in meaning, in the age of the person undergoing the ceremony, in the essential ministrant) and even liturgical services (though without a sanctuary defined by an iconostasis--which some radical Orthodox have proposed reducing). As a result of this approach, Orthodoxy doesn't come across as being all that unique--older, yes; more conservative, yes; more rigorous in fasting, etc., yes; not very much preaching, and very, very little competent preaching, yes; its quasi-Protestant organizational fissiparity (if not fissiparity in belief and practice), yes; being not so out-going or missionary-minded (this, like Church-state relations, is usually passed over in silence), yes--despite Russian Orthodoxy's missionizing the northerly sectors of half of the time zones of the world.
This contrasts with the intent and method of the alternative approach--in which each belief is integrated with the others and both are related to their common basis. It is retiform rather than enumerative--list-like. Each item is not just an item in a list, unaffected by the others. This approach stands in stark contrast to the ecumenical approach--compromising by agreeing on words (if not their import) and by adding or subtracting a few items in the list to reach agreement--as though an item could be added or subtracted without affecting the others left standing . . . as though such a list of topics were not differently understood in different ideological frameworks?

The editor of this site would welcome (and, with permission, would publish) the results of a carefully conducted polling of Orthodox, otherdox Christians, and non-Christians--all answering a request to provide a short definition of Christianity. (The editor will go out on a limb and guess: Non-Christians would mention Christ, otherdox Christians would mention a sort of Pelagian behavior or piety along with perhaps other characteristics, and the Orthodox would mention either Worship or piety--with behavior constituting a large majority--or possibly adherence to the seven Synods.) The poll would have to be carried out with reasonable rigor and a right proportioning of respondents according to age, sex, education, etc.; the results would have to be classified according to Orthodox Christians, non-Orthodox Christians, and non-Christians. The results would have more value if answers were NOT suggested in the questionnaire in a multi-choice manner, but left to be invented by those being polled--and then subsequently classified into four overall categories: Worship, the God Who is worshiped, faith, piety--with perhaps a few subcategories in some of the main categories (e.g. temple-attending vs. non-temple-attending Orthodox, etc.).

Why can't writers as holy, revered, learnëd, and prominent as those who describe us to outsiders tell readers WHY Orthodoxy is UNIQUE in its ESSENCE--in more than its history and piety--shared in various ways with other forms of Christianity? In their own books, addressed to Orthodox readers or others interested in the conceptual side of Orthodoxy, highly revered and truly great thinkers like Florovsky, Lossky, and Meyendorff (memory everlasting all!) frequently speak of the uncreated Energies, the Icon and Assimilation (mistranslated into English as "Likeness"), théosis, etc.--thus adhering to a realistic presentation of Orthodoxy. So why are the popular articles so lacking in basic notions like energy, so central to St. Paul's thinking and to so many Fathers (CLICK HERE)? Even in the meatier writings of Orthodox theologians, we find problems due to mistranslations with conventional Western terminology; thus, we read of the divine LOGOS as a "Word," of théosis as "Deification" (in Greek apothéosis), of omoíosis as "Likeness" (in Greek: omoíoma), of ktísis as "creature" (in Greek: ktísma), and of "original sin" with no disavowal of the notion of inherited guilt. Or if they write in English, it is not their native tongue; so it is natural to adopt Western conventions. Poor liturgical English examples are "Bright Week" (for "Radiant Week" or "Week of Renewal") and the meaningless "unto ages of ages"--instead of "for ages and ages" or "both now and ever and throughout the ages. Ameen." (Translators of Orthodox prayer books seem wholly unaware of the cursus or final cadence of a prayer, as found in the original Book of Common Prayer. SEE ALSO HERE & HERE.) Very few are like Protopresvyter John Romanides in not backing off from Orthodox terminology (for the most part), even when one speaks of the connections of ideas or of the root of differences.

The short descriptions of Orthodoxy one often runs across (in books on religions of the world or on forms of Christianity) often conform entirely to the Western template--how the Church is governed, if not by a pope or else democratically ( as in Reformation Christianity). One reads that the Orthodox are governed by an episcopate in a "conciliar"─synodical is what is meant--polity. If anything else is mentioned, it is that Orthodoxy is the Faith of the seven Synods (usually misnamed Councils)--as though the whole period down (at least) to the Palamite synods had not been formative.

SEE ALSO THE TABLE ON R148

What is being put forward here is the view that the Orthodox should never engage in any statements with the heterodox when the heterodox lay down the parameters and templates of the questions and answers. We should, one is saying, absolutely refuse to describe ourselves on anything other than a level playing field. If the heterodox cannot invent such a field, we should say, "No; we will not engage in discussions whose parameters and ideology are those of a late Mediæval system (Thomism for the Latins; via moderna for the Denominationists) derived from Islamic Aristotelianism as set forth in Mediæval Cordova--and certainly not in the parameters of contemporary Liberal relativism. The Very Revd. Alexander Schmemann certainly got it right in noting the consequences of the "rupture in theological understanding, the theological alienation of the West from the East":
"Therefore, in the ecumenical encounter, the Orthodox Church had to face a Christian world with several centuries of autonomous theological and spiritual development behind it, with a mind and thought forms radically different from those of the East. The questions asked of the Orthodox were formulated in Western terms . . . The Orthodox answers were classified according to Western patterns, reduced to categories familiar to the West, but hardly adequate to Orthodoxy."

     The challenge to heterodox Christians wanting an exchange between the Orthodox and them is to work out a level playing field─if such is thinkable, given the almost total incompatibility between Orthodoxy and frameworks invented over twelve centuries later, which, qua frameworks, lacked any direct linked with early Greek-language Christianity.   It is better to show tolerance for others' right to disagree than to cover up intolerance by pretending differences are really more than saying things different ways--however much in conflict those "different ways" of saying it may be!   The Orthodox should not oppose inter-faith talks in such a manner that comes across as not wishing to help forward Christian unity; it should be clear on the Orthodox side that we want hold exchanges on a playing field that is slanted uphill to our goal line and down hill to the otherdox goal line.
     Such a playing field would not be dictated by either side. The template, parameters, and premises of an inter-faith dialogue should not favor late-Mediæval Western (Latin or Denominationist) assumptions over Orthodox premises. If no common set of assumptions can be found, then no talks should be help--other than to discuss the Greek-language (energetic) paradigm of early (and later Orthodox) Christianity and the two or three Denominationist paradigms--their content, origins, etc. (SEE HERE). Merely agreeing on words that mean different things in different frameworks (the usual method) is a total waste of time, as history shows.
     It should be obvious that one cannot deduce a proof from premises not accepted by the other side that will prove a point in a convincing manner to the other side; quoting popes, reformers, bible verses anachronistically interpreted or interpreted in any manner than in the Greek-language culture of Apostolic and Patristic times, quoting isolated Fathers' statements not embraced as part of the Patristic consensus, etc. . . . all of this should be excluded if the Orthodox are to participate.
      Sources from the united Church before the Latins split off might be acceptable to all, but each would have his own paradigm to interpret them with, so how could progress be made without first agreeing on a single paradigm?   This is the great impossibility of ecumenics. Certainly, the heretical idea that the one Church hasn't yet existed but lies in the future is intolerable to the Orthodox in view of the applicability of John 16:13 from the time of John's Gospel till Popes Adrian I and Leo III and on till Luther and Calvin and up to now. This includes the idea of "sister Churches" and all of that sort of alien talk that succeeds only in wasting the participant's time and in wasting the funds expended to hold such a discussion.

A preliminary (and to be in time revised and perhaps augmented) set of reasonable conditions for inter-faith discussions with the Orthodox ought, it seems clear to fairness and commonsense, to ensure:

--No relativism regarding the truth; truth based on being, not on will.   No analogia entis between finite being and uncreated Being beyond being. Etc.
--No authority should be cited whose conformity with the Patristic consensus is not accepted by us--no pope, no Reformer. The Greek Bible, not mistranslated (e.g. eneryeia) but as understood in Greek by the consensus of the Orthodox Fathers, is the authority we accept--and it does not end with the seven Synods, but certainly includes the Palamite Synods.
--Eastern terms must be included with Western terms; e.g. Penthekt/Quinisex Synod/Council, Lordsday/Sunday, Great Fast/Lent, Mysteries/sacraments, etc. The Orthodox should tolerate no favoritism toward Western (Latinoid) terminology, given that God selected Greek to enshrine and propagate the Gospel in.
--Let's leave ecclesiology and polity aside till other, more basic, matters of belief have been dealt with--Grace, validity, apostolic succession, and the other things that don't mean to us what they mean to a Latin or Anglican or other heterodox Christian. Such items should not be included before the parameters of discussion have been accepted by each side.
--Right order means discussing paradigms of interpretation before taking up detailed items. Discussing Mysteries (sacraments) across frameworks--the Incarnational/Resurrectional framework of the Apostles, the intellectual-vision framework of the Thomists, and the will-based virtual-reality framework of the Franciscan-Augustinian via moderna--seems pointless and is pointless.
--Let's rather begin with basics like the rôle of matter (Incarnation, resurrection of the body and the Resurrection of Christ, Mysteries, icons, relics, prostration in Worship, etc.) and time (tradition's rôle of sifting out error from truth).   The Orthodox should insist on including the rôle of the dynamis-energy framework of Biblical Greek for understanding reality and in solving otherwise insoluble dilemmas. If participants cannot agree to discuss basic reality as understood by Greek-speaking early Christians, it is pointless to proceed further. If ecumenists can discuss the virtual reality of Grace and justification in Reformation theology, the virtual reality of Christ's bodily presence (and eating it by faith!), then surely they should be willing to discuss reality the way the Apostolic writers understood it! If not, the Orthodox should go home.
--The Orthodox ought not to allow putting human Salvation (and the pulpit--preaching words of Salvation) above divine Worship (the Altar on which Christ in His members bloodlessly (it is an Oblation, not a repeated Anaphora or Immolation) offers His Body and Blood. The Orthodox ought not to engage in attempts to understand the divine Majesty only in soterial terms; nor should the Orthodox permit Salvation to be templated in non-latreutic--i.e. juridical--terms like satisfaction, atonement, justification, redemption/ransoming, adoption, and so on. We must insist on putting on the table the idea of Salvation as ontological (not merely intentional/covenantal/will-based/virtual) theosis "energetic Divinization"; and we should not allow that to be confused with apotheosis "essential Deification." No otherdox views should be allowed to be treated as axiomatic.

     If any Latin or Denominationist can carry on a discussion on such a playing field, fine; if the others think it is not level or whatever, fine--we can abstain until they come up with what in our view is a level playing field--if they can and are willing. If they are not able and willing, the burden lies with them. If no level playing field can be found, then Christian unity is, humanly speaking, a mirage.
     It seems self-evident that the Orthodox should never submit themselves to ecumenists or online discutants who wish to template the discussion in terms of their late-invented heterodox parameters, authorities, etc.   We have always (from Lyons and Ferrara to Balamand) lost under such circumstances.  We always will.

IS THE GREAT DIVIDE IN CHRISTIANITY REALLY THE ONE BETWEEN TRADITIONALISTS AND THE DENOMINATIONS? ISN'T THE GREATER DIVIDE (in terms of thinking and behaving) BETWEEN EASTERN AND WESTERN CHRISTIANITY? Well, if one think in the usual western juridicalism in terms of authority, Orthodoxy stands between Rome and the Reformers; but the juridicalism itself (see HERE) is Western rather than Eastern. But in terms of the rôle in which energy solves so MANY theological dilemmas vs. the way a lack of this concept (in its Eastern form) creates, or leaves unsolved, so many matters (see HERE), the divide is between East and West. (One non-Orthodox theologian sees the great divide to be between East and West, rather than between Protestants and others; CLICK HERE.) The matter could be backed up with other ways, but the point just made goes to the heart of the systems. Just as cogently, it brings to a head the incompatibility between the Greek-language way of thinking in early Christianity and the two late-Mediaeval frameworks (of the Latins and the Nominalists/Reformers) invented over a dozen centuries later on the basis of Latin translations of Cordovan Islamic (and Jewish) interpretations (based on translations of the original Greek into Arabic, filtered through Semitic juridicalism). However similar our words sound, how different what they mean--and how little compatible crucial terms like Grace are in the frameworks so many centuries apart!

CLICK HERE FOR PREVAILING MISTRANSLATIONS OF ORTHODOX TERMINOLOGY INTO ENGLISH. These mistranslations have an enormously deleterious effect on the presentation of Orthodoxy to its own adherents and especially to such non-Orthodox as may be interested in finding out more about holy Orthodoxy.

As an example of the pitiful descriptions that the Orthodox allow to be perpetrated—even in encyclopedia articles by Orthodox academics, note how one source book describes “basic information” about Orthodoxy: A line observes that the Roman Church broke with Orthodoxy—although the exiguous contact of Rome with Eastern Church after 476 was limited to hostile embassies and a few other contacts, including on imperial marriage. Two lines tell how the Church is governed, not mentioning but at least avoiding a harping on the Apostolic succession that many other bodies at least lay claim to. But why does organization top the list of details? A line on authority lists Scripture, tradition, and the first seven church “councils” (i.e. Ecumenical Synods). A bit over a line lists seven (!) “sacraments” without noting that some of our Mysteries don’t parallel Latin sacraments even when carrying a similar name. Without fail, two lines on praxis mention the elaborate liturgy as being of the “essence of Orthodoxy,” often in the vernacular and the veneration of icons. But the line and a half on ethics says: “Tolerant; little stress on social action [in Orthodox countries?]; divorce, remarriage permitted in some cases; bishops are celibate; priests need not be.” A line and a quarter on “doctrine” inform the reader of an “emphasis on Christ's resurrection, rather than crucifixion; the Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father only.” Finally, the statistics: Orthodoxy is “the second-largest church”; in North America, there are 6.3 million.

Does any Orthodox person recognize Orthodoxy here? No line is absolutely false--and the description avoids harping on how “mystical” Orthodoxy is; but the picture is false in being uninformative and misleading. True, one cannot expect much in twelve or thirteen lines. (See what can be done when a lot more space is allowed.) But, aside from the omission of the rôle of monasticism in Orthodoxy, almost nothing is mentioned about Orthodox belief (“emphasis on Christ's resurrection, rather than crucifixion; the Holy Spirit proceeds from God the Father only”) or piety--where negatives are highlighted: “Tolerant; little stress on social action [in Orthodox countries?]; divorce, remarriage permitted in some cases”—and clerical celibacy’s being required only for bishops. It is difficult to mention what Orthodox or Orthodox informant might have this—attributed to “World Book.” Yet, it is a step or better than those descriptions that tell what Orthodoxy is not (mainly papal); one knows of descriptions that claim we are similar to the Latins--despite two dozen basic differences, not to mention the difference in some of our Mysteries and festivals like Theophany and Pentecost, a popeless Catholicism. (See also on Orthodox-Latin differences.)

Let me go out on a limb and say that there are vital and essential aspects of Orthodoxy that receive no mention in more than a few presentations, which consequently fail in their purpose. (But a few encyclopedias may be changing; keep watching!) Let me add that, aside from the few who repudiate reason, one could cite evidence that there are more than a few people who get excited, e.g., by the Biblical and Orthodox fundamental idea of energy--by the way it resolves so many dilemmas, the way its sets Orthodoxy off from others in its fidelity to the beginnings of Christianity when these have been properly characterized in the Greek-language context of the Apostles and early Fathers, its having so little conflict with science--not to mention its clear-cut contrast with the Cordova-derived frameworks of Papalism and Protestantism built up in the latter Middle Ages. Many get excited by the pure doctrine of the all-holy Trinity, uncontaminated by the cacodox Western Filioque, and of the Incarnation and its sublime ontological effects in the Christian religion, especially on human nature in the Hesychast vision. Orthodox piety has emphasized the role of the kardía "heart"; so why shouldn't it have something to say about the heart of belief--the connection of that concept with the dogma of the all-holy Trinity, unknowable and imparticipable in essence, the ontological implications of Incarnation and corporeal Resurrection for matter and time in religion, the sifting role of the holy tradition, etc.? When you read in Aquinas all of those pages by human happiness as our end, etc., the Orthodox vision of being--being in unity with the eternal, uncreated Energies of God, but not (contradictorily) with His imparticipable Essence in the Thomist manner. It's hardly worth contrasting Orthodoxy with Protestant emphasis derived from Islam--predestination, anti-iconism, focus on "the book" or "the word," etc.--and Luther's virtual reality. In comparison with all of those who have broken off from the holy tradition and from all of the patriarchates that have remained loyal to the Patristic inheritance, what can a formal (unenergized) Apostolic succession mean; at best, the succession is a means to something greater. To emphasize the means over the end is fatuous. Not that means are anything but important--the rôle of the bishop, the solemn beauty of Orthodox Worship is a means, etc.; but they remain conditions, necessary conditions, yet nonetheless conditions--whereas the priority of the Trinitarian Faith and the ontological results of the Incarnation and Resurrection as well as of the Altar (addressed to God) over the pulpit (addressed to humans) are all much more than simple means or conditions.
I offer these comments--subject to correction--after having looked at both approaches in some detail.

WHAT THE ORTHODOX BELIEVE PRESENTED GLOBALLY AS A SYSTEM, NOT AS A LIST	BEING AS ENERGY IN THE NEW TESTAMENT AND IN THE ORTHODOX FATHERS		NECESSARY DISTINCTIONS WHICH, NOT BEING MADE, COMPROMISE INTERFAITH DISCUSSIONS
A PROPER APPROACH TO APOLOGETICS		A LETTER RESPONDING TO QUERY ABOUT PARADIGMS
HOW LATIN & REFORMATION THEOLOGIES GOT TO BE THE WAY THEY GOT TO BE	BALANCING BELIEF AND PRACTICE (PIETY) IN ORTHODOX LIVING		NINE THINGS THAT ONE MUST BE AWARE OF IF ONE iS TO UNDER- STAND ORTHODOX THINKING
A GREEK FRAMEWORK IN ENGLISH? LITURGICAL ENGLISH
On TERMINOLOGY, SEE R297 & R62