Does the Blessing of Icons Agree with or Contradict the Tradition of the Orthodox Church?

An interesting article by Fr. Steven Bigham posted at Orthodox Arts Journal:

Does the Blessing of Icons Agree with or Contradict the Tradition of the Orthodox Church?
by Fr. Steven Bigham
http://www.orthodoxartsjournal.org/does-the-blessing-of-icons-agree-with-or-contradict-the-tradition-of-the-orthodox-church/

What we can learn from Orthodoxy in India?

"...The church must stress the need to go back to a simple, frugal life as against the flamboyant exhibitionism wealth tempts. The church’s mission should include propaganda against consumerism. Jesus Christ went in search of the oppressed and marginalized, and the church’s mission should also include the empowerment of the powerless and the marginalized. Tribals, women and children all need the special attention of the church, and mission today has a calling to concentrate on programmes for the benefit of these groups.

The churches while pursuing mission work had, on many occasions, gone away from God’s mission. The conquest, colonizing and destroying of other cultures were all done with a view to do mission in a militant manner. But God’s mission must achieved by respecting each individual’s intrinsic worth, the right to freedom and independence, and respecting differences among peoples. Seeing the divine in the midst of a plurality of experiences is the need of the hour. God’s mission has to be sought in new and varied ways by the churches in the rapidly changing life situations we see in our own time. Rather than the militant missions of yester years, it will be the peace-building, soothing, sustaining activities of Christian mission that will be welcomed as the work of God in the present communally torn Indian situation, and indeed throughout the world."

+ Fr. Thomas Varghese Chavadyel, On Orthodox Mission in India, http://malankaraorthodoxchurch.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=234

The Comforter

THE COMFORTER: OUR SUPPORT AND STRENGTH FOR MISSION

by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, http://masarchive.org/Sites/texts/1999-05-29-1-E-E-T-EM04-027ConferenceTheComforter.html

I feel more than slightly apprehensive, giving this talk in the background of a very theological theme. And so, you will forgive me, if my theological statements are untheological and if the rest is very different from what you may expect.

To See the Face of Christ

"Christ is risen. (Congregation Responds: Indeed He is risen.) Christ is risen. (Congregation: Indeed He is risen.) Christ is risen. (Congregation: Indeed He is risen.)

You will forgive me for saying this so many times, but you've got to take advantage.... You never know you won't be able to say it. Today is the last Sunday of Pascha. Christ is risen. (Congregation: Indeed He is risen.)

On Wednesday we celebrate the Leavetaking. Christ is risen. (Congregation: Indeed He is risen.)

And then on Thursday we will enter the feast of the Ascension. It's gone so fast. I'm sure you all must feel that. It just was the other day when we began the paschal vigil. I ask you, has it been a blessed time for you? Have you grown in faith? In hope? In love? Have you paid attention to the Resurrection? Have you seen the Resurrection?

The Seduction of Revolutions

“Every revolution carries within it the seeds of its own destruction” 

+ Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965

"The spirit of revolution is not about a struggle for a glorious future. Revolution is about the destruction of the present and the will to power" 

+Fr Stephen Freeman, http://glory2godforallthings.com/2013/12/30/the-demons-of-our-time/

"Do not let the enemy – the devil – overwhelm us with excessive hope, but alert our minds and awaken our hearts from the sleep of inattention and wasting our lifetime in vain." 

+ Prayers of the Priest's Absolution, Coptic Orthodox Rite, http://sayingsoftheorthodoxfathers.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/a-prayer-for-all-the-absolution-of-the-midnight-prayer-coptic-orthodox-church/

"Take me not away in the midst of my days, nor while my mind is still blind." 

+ Prayer at Daybreak, Archimandrite Sophrony of Essex

We hear about political revolutions and the euphoria behind them can be tempting and filled with the promise of change. This past year we have see the "Arab Spring" marketed as a hallmark of promise, of change and of progress in the Levant and the surrounding region. Yet we have seen these revolutions cost lives as a necessary 'sacrifice' and cycle towards more oppressive movements.

One need to only look at the news...persecutions in Egypt, the condition of Syria, the Westgate mall in Kenya, the conflict in South Sudan, fighting in Mali, bombings in Russia, politics in Lebanon, attacks within China, riots in France, the various Nationalist movements around the globe...

And yet what is the Christian response?

Mission and Worship

Does adopting ideas from Evangelical mega-church ethos and presuppositions have any bearing on Orthodox parishes? Can Protestant "Worship" music introduce a possible misdirection in Orthodox Lex Orandi or Lex Credendi? Is Worship the same as Worshiping in Spirit and in Truth? Does it really matter?

As the Church celebrates the Holy Feast of Pentecost we might consider the powerful account of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles and consider our mission to the Americas as requiring enculturation of the 'religion' of America and perhaps also adopting her musical traditions in order to speak in the apparent modern American cultural milleu. It is a provocative and tempting argument, for the Apostles were seen speaking in the tongues of all those around them and St Paul speaks of being all things to all people.

However, in his article "Mission and Worship - America and the Orthodox," Father Stephen Freeman gives a compelling critique of the reductionist and consumerist ethos of Evangelical mega-church "Worship" and "Christian Contemporary Music" or "CCM" that is presented as the defacto expression of the American Christian 'Culture'. This article has been referenced briefly here and relates thematically to another article on missiology and American culture that Fr Stephen has written entitled "America and the perversion of Christianity."

It's a fascinating article on enculturation and suggests that Orthodox Churches need to at least be conscious of the presuppositions of what is presented as American culture and evaluate our liturgical embrace and recapitulation of such culture in accordance with the ethos of Christ, the ethos of His Body the Church and her Orthodox Tradition in the ethos and witness of the Fathers, both modern and ancient. 

The article, I would argue, also hints that Orthodox Churches have much to learn from other Orthodox Churches. That if beauty, depth and theology has somehow become absent in one rite, it would be wiser to humbly seek the assistance and encouragement from another Orthodox rite or jurisdiction rather than appeal to reductionist and pop-Christian methods, presuppositions, books, teachings and ethos. This is not to decry the possibility of truth or value in these pop-Christian methods, but rather to suggest that as Orthodox we have a treasure, a pearl of great price and an encounter of beauty from within the Orthodox Life that is much deeper and comprehensive which we as sinners can offer to the fallen world. As liturgical beings offering Truth, Love and indeed even the world itself to God, for the life of the World and encounter of the Kingdom, to the Glory of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Here is the article reblogged below in its entirety. Please pray for the Church and all the world.

Mission and Worship - America and the Orthodox
By Fr Stephen Freeman

http://glory2godforallthings.com/2007/11/26/mission-and-worship-america-and-the-orthodox/

What matters in a Church?

Below is a transcription of a sermon that was given at St Silouan Orthodox Mission Parish in Downtown Toronto on June 10, 2012. Though it was given for the Feast of All Saints (in the Byzantine Orthodox Liturgical Cycle), it is also very applicable to the Holy Feast of Pentecost.

Transcription of June 10, 2012 All Saints Feast Sermon
Fr Roberto Ubertino

---

The Constant Pentecost

The Constant Pentecost
by Fr Georges Massouh
Source: http://araborthodoxy.blogspot.com/2013/06/fr-georges-massouh-constant-pentecost.html

This coming Sunday, the Orthodox Church celebrates the Feast of Pentecost, the commemoration of the resting of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples fifty days after Christ’s resurrection from the dead, when “there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:3-4). The Holy Church regarded the day of Pentecost as the commencement of her mission to evangelize the entire inhabited world.

When the Church celebrates feasts, she is not celebrating events that occurred in the distant past and have ended. Rather, she makes the events present to our present time and lives them as though they are occurring here and now. In this context, we can say that the effects of these events are not limited to those who were granted to participate in them, but rather they extend to all believers in every place and time.

Thus, Pentecost is not just an event that happened about two thousand years ago. It continues every time the Church gathers in a circle around her Lord and head Jesus Christ. The prayer of calling down the Holy Spirit is not absent from the sanctifying prayers that the Church performs when she gathers, especially in the services of baptism and the Divine Liturgy. The Holy Spirit is the one who accompanies the Church along her earthly walk toward perfection in eternal life. Pentecost, then, is not an isolated event in history whose remembrance Christians celebrate. It is the constant life of the Church. It is a foretaste of the kingdom to come.

The Rubrics of the Service of Prostrations (el-Sagda) for Pentecost (Coptic Orthodox Rite)

"It is the custom to pray the Prostration (Sagda) prayers on the ninth hour (3pm) of Pentecost Sunday although the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles on the third hour (Acts 2:15).

In the Old Testament, God had commanded His people to celebrate the Passover annually at sunset, the same time they had left Egypt (Deut 16:6). Also fifty days after the Passover, on the feast of Pentecost, God gave Moses the Law. Therefore, the Church has arranged to pray the Prostration prayers at the ninth hour to point to the Lord Jesus Christ our Passover who was slain at this same time (Mt 27:50). 

The Church fathers arranged these prayers into three parts based on the name of the Holy Trinity. The first and second prostration prayers take place in the second section of the church. The third prostration prayer is prayed in the first section close to the altar for when the believers use the trisagion they resemble the heavenly saying "Holy, Holy, Holy..."  (Isa 6:3; Rev 4:8).

This manner of prayers is biblically based. For just like when Jacob sought his brother Esau's mercy as he was coming back from his uncle Laban; he prepared great gifts of goats, rams, camels and donkeys; and arranged his people into three groups to get the acceptance of Esau. "And he commanded the first one, saying, 'When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, saying, 'To whom do you belong, and where are you going? Whose are these in front of you?' "then you shall say, 'They are your servant Jacob's. It is a present sent to my lord Esau; and behold, he also is behind us.'' So he commanded the second, the third, and all who followed the droves, saying, "In this manner you shall speak to Esau when you find him; "and also say, 'Behold, your servant Jacob is behind us.' For he said, 'I will appease him with the present that goes before me, and afterward I will see his face; perhaps he will accept me.' So the present went on over before him, but he himself lodged that night in the camp" (Gen 32:17-21).

Thus the church has followed the path of those men of God in doing repeated offerings of many prayers, litanies and incense on behalf of her children; asking for His goodness and mercy in order to find favor before God."

+ HG Bishop Youssef, SUS Diocese, http://www.suscopts.org/q&a/index.php?qid=894&catid=309

The Crusader and the Saint

"The saint prays and receives the creation of God with hospitality. The [crusading] missionary preaches and offers, often aggressively, in order to give...The world, however, is healed and transfigured more by the praying saint than by the thundering preachers. It is the saint, who manifesting God's tender love and receiving all creatures in divine hospitality, is genuinely sensitive to the riches of other religions, to different cultures, to 'all sentient beings'. The crusading missionary is afire with the message he proclaims, but can be totally lacking in receptivity and sensitivity... Today we need to combine in our experience of our church the true saint and the genuine missionary whose sole concern is manifesting the kingdom and not annexing new territories."

+ Fr. K.M. George, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in India

O Heavenly King

"O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, who is present in all places and fills all, the treasury of good things and the Life‑Giver, graciously come, and dwell in us and purify us from all defilement, O Good One, and save our souls."

+ From The Third Hour Litany, Prayer of the Canonical Hours (Coptic Rite)

The Descent of the Holy Spirit
Icon at St George Coptic Orthodox Parish, Toledo

The Holy Spirit is very meek. He answers the call of man at once – provided that the person calls in sincerity, faith and simplicity. It would be enough to call Him as one calls a pure and simple child, and he would listen and respond right away. The book of the Coptic canonical hours teaches us to address Him in these words:  “kindly come and abide in us.”

So it is that the Holy Spirit rests in one’s heart, by means of a simple but firm faith in God’s mercy. Now the abiding of the Holy Sprit is not accompanied by any sensational sign. He finds no rest in cries and discords, or in a heart which is cruel, malicious, wrathful or proud; or in a worldly man, or in a lover of earthly things; or in a man disposed to fleeting beauty; or in one aspiring to the glories of this world.

The Holy Spirit is a friend and partner of a poor but grateful man, as well as of a rich man who loves the poor. He is the comforter of persecuted subordinates and merciful bosses, a light to the wretched and a life to those who dedicate themselves to the service of the Gospel and to charity among the  poor. Therefore, to safeguard the power of the Holy Spirit that  sanctions prayer and lifts it to God, we should first  learn to satisfy Him by shunning all faults inconsistent with His meekness, holiness and love.

Moreover, he or she who prays before God should also have full trust aided by the Holy Spirit, who gave birth to us at the baptismal font. One should repeatedly cry our from the depths of one’s heart, calling upon Him to qualify him for prayer and grant us power to fulfill it in accordance with the wish of the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Prayer concerns the Holy Spirit more than it concerns us. For through prayer the new man begotten by the Holy Sprit within us grows up till he attains enlightenment, accepts the will of God, and learns how to implement it by grace.

Fr Matta el-Meskeen (Fr Matthew the Poor), Guidelines on Prayer