← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · madrussian
Thread ID: 11783 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2004-01-08
2004-01-08 00:56 | User Profile
*Excerpts from [url]http://www.stxenia.org/frsrose/ortham.shtml[/url]
Tex, convert now :lol:*
However, even at this time the beginnings of weaknesses could be noted. America is a vast land; the Russians and other Orthodox settlers were widely scattered; priests were thinly spread; and perhaps most important of all, there were no other-worldly saints like St. Herman to plant the seeds of holiness deep in the American soil. Further, the English-speaking American people were not simple like the natives of Alaska, and they already practiced some form of Christian faith.
For all of these reasons we can see the beginning, even before the Russian Revolution, of the terrible disease we see in the Orthodox jurisdictions in America today; the disease of worldliness. Outwardly, the Orthodox clergy began to look like the non-Orthodox clergy around them; inwardly, the concern was mainly to provide priests for the widely-scattered ethnic flock, without deepening their Orthodoxy by providing English texts of the classic Orthodox books or reaching out to tell the non-Orthodox who might listen that there is a true Christianity that is undreamed of in the West, the fullness of Holy Orthodoxy.
The Revolution of 1917 in Russia struck a deadly blow to the Orthodox mission: support from Russia was cut off, the oneness of the Church fell apart into national jurisdictions, and the clergy were left pretty much to themselves. The worldliness of American life was left free to put its stamp on the Orthodox mission, and there was not much strength to oppose it. When Archbishop Vitaly (later of Jordanville) came to America in the 1930's to become ruling bishop, he saw that Orthodoxy in America, if left to itself, would simply turn into an "Eastern-rite Protestantism" - that is, it would retain some of the externals of Orthodoxy, but inwardly would be scarcely different from the worldly Protestantism which is the predominant religion of America.
I'd like to tell you a little about a group of Protestants who live not too far from our monastery in northern California. In some ways I think they are actually an example for us, in other ways a warning, and perhaps most of all an indication of the responsibility and opportunity we Orthodox Christians have because we have been given the true Christianity.
These Protestants have a simple and warm Christian faith without much of the sectarian narrowness that characterizes many Protestant groups. They don't believe, like some Protestants, that they are "saved" and don't need to do any more; they believe in the idea of spiritual struggle and training the soul. They force themselves to forgive each other and not to hold grudges. They take in bums and hippies off the streets and have a special farm for rehabilitating them and teaching them a sense of responsibility. In other words, they take Christianity seriously as the most important thing in life; it's not the fullness of Christianity that we Orthodox have, but it's good as far as it goes, and these people are warm, loving people who obviously love Christ. In this way they are an example of what we should be, only more so.
Whether they attain salvation by their practice of Christianity is for God to judge, for some of their views and actions are far from the true Christianity of Orthodoxy handed down to us from Christ and His Apostles; but at least an awareness of their existence should help us to be aware of what we already have. Some of our Orthodox young people -- for whatever reason, they don't realize what treasure their Orthodox faith contains -- are joining such Protestant groups; and some of our uninformed young people go much farther from Orthodoxy -- one of the 900 victims of Jonestown a year ago was a Greek Orthodox girl, the daughter of an Orthodox priest.
I'm telling you about these Protestants both as a warning of how Orthodox young people can lose the treasure they already have if they haven't been made aware enough of it, and more importantly, as a means of defining a little better the true Christianity we have and these Protestants don't have. Some of our Orthodox young people are converted to groups like this, but it works the other way around also -- some of these Protestants are being converted to Orthodoxy. And why not? If we have the true Christianity, there should be something in our midst that someone who sincerely loves the truth will see and want.
We've baptized several people from this Protestant group in our monastery; they are drawn to Orthodoxy by the grace and the sacraments whose presence they feel in Orthodoxy, but which are absent in their group. And once they become Orthodox, they find their Protestant experience, which seemed so real to them at the time, to be quite shallow and superficial. Their leaders give very practical teachings based on the Gospel, but after a while the teachings are exhausted and they repeat themselves. Coming to Orthodoxy, these converts find a wealth of teaching that is inexhaustible and leads them into a depth of Christian experience that is totally beyond even the best of non-Orthodox Christians. We who are already Orthodox have this treasure and this depth right in front of us, and we must use it more fully than we usually do; it is a matter of spiritual life and death both for ourselves and for those around us who can be awakened to the truth of Orthodoxy.
Just this last week I crossed the whole of America by train -- a vast land, with many different kinds of landscapes and settlements. And I thought of St. Seraphim's vision of the vast Russian land, with the smoke of the prayers of believers going up like incense to God. Perhaps someone will say to me: "Oh, you talk like a convert! America is America. It's full of Protestants and unbelievers, and the Orthodox will always be a little minority of people who stick to themselves and have no influence on the rest of America." Well, I'm not saying that we Orthodox will "convert America" -- that's a little too ambitious for us. However, St. Herman himself did have such a dream. He wrote a letter after participating in the first "missionary conference" on American soil, when that small band of missionaries divided up the vast land of Alaska and argued over who would get the most land to cover. St. Herman, hearing this, says that he was so exalted in soul that he thought he was present when the Apostles themselves were dividing up the world for the preaching of the Gospel.
We don't have to have such exalted ideas in order to see that the prayers of believers could be going up to God in America. What if we who are Orthodox Christians began to realize who we are? -- to take our Christianity seriously, to live as though we actually were in contact with the true Christianity? We would begin to be different, others around us would begin to be interested in why we are different, and we would begin to realize that we have the answers to their spiritual questions.
2004-01-08 01:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=madrussian]*Excerpts from [url]http://www.stxenia.org/frsrose/ortham.shtml[/url]
Tex, convert now :lol:* [/QUOTE]
ROTFLOL!
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2004-01-08 08:47 | User Profile
[QUOTE=madrussian]Tex, convert now :lol: [/QUOTE]
Good stuff and thanks mr, but I'm already in the process of converting and I'm afraid it's not to one of the Orthodox churches.
But I will tell you this, if all this talk here leads you and yours to getting baptized and confirmed into your Russian Orthodox Church mother, then I will consider every dollar and minute I've devoted to this board from its inception as time well spent and money worth investing. I mean that very seriously.
2004-01-08 12:32 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Good stuff and thanks mr, but I'm already in the process of converting and I'm afraid it's not to one of the Orthodox churches.
But I will tell you this, if all this talk here leads you and yours to getting baptized and confirmed into your Russian Orthodox Church mother, then I will consider every dollar and minute I've devoted to this board from its inception as time well spent and money worth investing. I mean that very seriously.[/QUOTE]
If it's not too personal, which denomination will be blessed with your presence?
Walter
2004-01-08 14:16 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]If it's not too personal, which denomination will be blessed with your presence?
Walter[/QUOTE]
The smart money is on TD heading into the AME Church...
2004-01-08 17:55 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Walter Yannis]If it's not too personal, which denomination will be blessed with your presence?
Walter[/QUOTE]
Hello Walter. I thought you were out on vacation?
Anyway, no it's not too personal and I don't know about the 'blessed' part. :) After 34 years as a Southern Baptist's Southern Baptist, I and my family are moving into the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. 'Course it's still not finalized and I keep an escape door open for my own peace of mind. But in all actuality we're pretty close now to it being official.
2004-01-08 18:50 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident] But I will tell you this, if all this talk here leads you and yours to getting baptized and confirmed into your Russian Orthodox Church mother, then I will consider every dollar and minute I've devoted to this board from its inception as time well spent and money worth investing.[/QUOTE] Likewise, Tex.
2004-01-11 17:46 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Texas Dissident]Hello Walter. I thought you were out on vacation?
Anyway, no it's not too personal and I don't know about the 'blessed' part. :) After 34 years as a Southern Baptist's Southern Baptist, I and my family are moving into the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. 'Course it's still not finalized and I keep an escape door open for my own peace of mind. But in all actuality we're pretty close now to it being official.[/QUOTE]
I am on vacation - writing this from an internet cafe.
The weather did not cooperate, to put it mildly.
Congratulations on your move to the Lutheran Church. May you and yours find blessing there.
Walter