Fr. Raphael Morgan

Raphael Morgan
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Source: The Daily Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica). July 22, 1913.This article forms part of the series
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Very Rev. Raphael Morgan (born Robert Josias Morgan, 186x/187x - 19xx) was a Jamaican-American priest of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, designated as "Priest-Apostolic" (Greek: Ιεραποστολος) to America and the West Indies,[note 1][1] later the founder and superior of the Order of the Cross of Golgotha,[note 2] and thought to be the first Black Orthodox clergyman in America.

He spoke broken Greek, and therefore served mostly in English. Having recently been discovered, his life has garnered great interest, but much of his life still remains shrouded in mystery.

Fr. Raphael is said to have resided all over the world, including: "in Palestine, Syria, Joppa, Greece, Cyprus, Mytilene, Chios, Sicily, Crete, Egypt, Russia, Ottoman Turkey, Austria, Germany, England, France, Scandinavia, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, Bermuda, and the United States."[2]

Contents [hide]
1 Early Life
1.1 Period in the Church of England
1.2 Period in the Episcopal Church
2 Orthodoxy
2.1 Trip to Russia
2.2 Study and Trip to Ecumenical Patriarchate
2.3 Baptism and Ordination
2.4 Return to America
2.5 Monastic Tonsure
2.6 Lecture Tour in Jamaica
2.7 Last Known Records
3 Influence
3.1 "Indirect Conversion of Thousands" Theory
3.2 Legacy
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 External Links
8 Sources

Early Life
Robert Josias Morgan was born in Chapelton, Clarence Parish, Jamaica either in the late 1860s or early 1870s to Robert Josias and Mary Ann (née Johnson) Morgan. He was born six months after his father's death, and named in his honour. Robert was raised in the Anglican tradition and was received elementary schooling locally.[2]

In his teenage years he travelled to Colón, Panama, then to British Honduras, back to Jamaica, and then to the United States. He became a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) and left as a missionary to Germany.[2]

Period in the Church of England
He then came to England, where he joined the Church of England and was sent to Sierra Leona to the Church Missionary Society Grammar School at Freetown. He studied Greek, Latin, and other higher-level subjects. Being poor, Robert had to work to support himself, and worked as second master of a public school in Freetown. He took course in the Church Missionary Society College at Fourah Bay in Freetown, and was soon appointed a missionary teacher and lay-reader by the Episcopalian Bishop of Liberia, the Right Reverend Samuel David Ferguson.[2] Robert later said during a trip to Jamaica in 1901 that he served five years in West Africa, of which he spent three years in missionary work.[3]

After this Robert again visited England for private study, and then travelled to America to work amongst the African-American community as a lay-reader. He was accepted as a Postulant and as candidate for the Episcopalian deaconate. During the canonical period of waiting period before ordination, Robert again returned to England to study at Saint Aidan's Theological College in Birkenhead, and finally prosecuted his studies at King's College of the University of London.[2] The colleges however do not contain records of his attendance.[note 3]

Period in the Episcopal Church
He returned to America, and on June 20, 1895 was ordained as deacon[note 4] by the Rt. Rev. Leighton Coleman,[4] Bishop of the Episcopalian Diocese of Delaware, and a well-known opponent of racism. Robert was appointed honorary curate in St Matthews' Church in Wilminton, Delaware, serving there from 1896 to 1897,[5] and procured a job as a teacher for a few public schools in Delaware. From 1897 he served at Charleston, West Virginia.[5]

In 1898, the deacon Robert (Rev. R.J. Morgan) was transferred to the Missionary Jurisdiction of Ashville (now in the Diocese of Western North Carolina). By 1899 he was listed as being assistant minister at St. Stephen's Chapel in Morganton, North Carolina, and St. Cyprian's Church in Lincolnton, North Carolina.[6][note 5]

In 1901-1902 Rev. R. J. Morgan made a visit to his homeland Jamaica. In October 1901 he gave an address to the Jamaica Church Missionary Union, on West Africa and mission work.[3] He also gave a lecture in Port Maria, Jamaica in October 1902, entitled "Africa - lts people, Tribes, Idolatry, Customs."[7]

Between 1900 and 1906, Robert moved around much of the Eastern seaboard. From 1902 to 1905 Deacon Morgan served at Richmond, Virginia; in 1905 at Nashville, Tennessee; and by 1906 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with his address care of the Church of the Crucifixion.[5]

At some point during this period he joined an off-shoot of the Episcopalian Church, known as the "American Catholic Church" (ACC), a sect founded by Joseph René Vilatte.[note 6] He is listed in the records of the Episcopal Church of the USA as late as 1908, when he was suspended from ministry on the allegations of abandoning his post.

Orthodoxy
Trip to Russia
By the turn of the 20th century, Robert seriously began to question his faith, and began intensive study of Anglicanism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy over a three year period, to discover what he felt was the true religion. He concluded that the Orthodox Church was "the pillar and ground of truth", resigned from the Episcopalian Church, and embarked on an extensive trip abroad beginning in the Russian Empire in 1904.[2]

Once there, Robert visited various monasteries and churches, including sites in Odessa, St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev, soon becoming quite the sensation. Sundry periodicals began publishing pictures and articles on him, and soon Robert became the Special Guest of the Tsar. He was allowed to be present for the anniversary celebrations of Nicholas II's coronation, and the memorial service said for the repose of the soul of the late Emperor Alexander III.[8]

Leaving Russia, Robert traveled Turkey, Cyprus, and the Holy Land, returning to America and writing an article to the Russian-American Orthodox Messenger (Vestnik) in 1904 about his experience in Russia. In this open letter, Morgan expressed hope that the Anglican Church could unite with the Orthodox Churches, clearly moved by his experience in Russia.[note 7] People of African descent were generally well-received within the Russian Empire, Morgan believed. Abram Hannibal had served under Emperor Peter the Great, and rose to lieutenant general in the Russian Army. Visiting artists, foreign service officials, and athletes, such as famous horse jockey Jimmy Winkfield, were likewise welcomed. With his experience of Russia and Russian Orthodoxy fresh in his mind, Morgan returned to the United States and continued his spiritual quest.[9]

Study and Trip to Ecumenical Patriarchate
For another three years, Robert studied under Greek priests for his baptism,[2] eventually deciding to seek entry and ordination in the Greek Orthodox Church. In January of 1906, he is documented as assisting in the Christmas liturgy.[note 8] In 1907 the Philadephia Greek community referred Robert to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople armed with two letters of support. One was a recommendation from Fr. Demetrios Petrides, the Greek priest then serving the Philadelphia community, dated 18 June 1907, who described Morgan as a man sincerely coming into Orthodoxy after long and diligent study, and recommending his baptism and ordination into the priesthood. The second letter of support was from the "Ecclesiastical Committee" of the Philadelphia Greek Orthodox Church, stating he could serve as an assistant priest if he failed to form a separate Orthodox parish among his fellow Black Americans.[note 9]

In Constantinople, Robert was interviewed by Metropolitan Joachim (Phoropoulos) of Pelagonia, one of the few bishops of the Ecumenical Patriarchate that could speak English and among the most learned of the Constantinopolitan hierarchs of that time. Metropolitan Joachim examined Robert, noting that he had a "deep knowledge of the teachings of the Orthodox Church", and that he also had a certificate from the President of the Methodist Community, duly notarized, stating that he was a man "of high calling and of a religious life".[10] Citing the Biblical exhortation "...the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out" (John 6:37), the metropolitan concluded that Robert should be baptised, chrismated, ordained, and sent back to America in order to "carry the light of the Orthodox faith among his racial brothers".

Baptism and Ordination
On Friday August 2, 1907 the Holy Synod approved that the Baptism take place the following Sunday in the Church of the Lifegiving Source at the Patriarchal Monastery at Valoukli, in Constantinople.[note 10] Metropolitan Joachim (Phoropoulos) of Pelagonia was to officiate at the sacrament, and the sponsor was to be Bishop Leontios (Liverios) of Theodoroupolis, Abbott of the Monastery at Valoukli. On Sunday August 4, 1907, Robert was baptised "Raphael" before 3000 people;[2] subsequently he was ordained a deacon on August 12, 1907 by Metropolitan Joachim; and finally ordained a priest on the feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, August 15, 1907.[note 11] According to the contemporary Uniate periodical L'Echo d' Orient, which sarcastically described Morgan's Baptism of triple immerson, the Metropolitan conducted the sacraments of Baptism and Ordination in the English language, following which Fr. Raphael chanted the Divine Liturgy in English.[11] Fr. Raphael Morgan's conversion to the Greek Orthodox Church made him the first African American Orthodox priest.

Fr. Raphael was sent back to America with vestments, a cross, and 20 pounds sterling for his traveling expenses. He was allowed to hear confessions, but denied Holy Chrism and an antimension, presumably to attach his missionary ministry to the Philadelphia church. The minutes of the Holy Synod from October 2, 1907, made it clear in fact that Fr. Raphael was to be under the jurisdiction of Rev. Petrides of Philadelphia, until such time as he had been trained in liturgics and was able to establish a separate Orthodox parish.[10]

Return to America
Ellis Island records indicate the arrival in New York from Naples, Italy, of the priest, Raffaele Morgan, in December 1907.[12] Once home, Fr. Raphael baptized his wife and children in the Orthodox Church. This is noted in the minutes of the Holy Synod of February 9, 1908, which acknowledges receipt of a communication from Fr. Raphael.

The last mention of Fr. Raphael in Patriarchal records is in the minutes of the Holy Synod of November 4, 1908, which cite a letter from Fr. Raphael recommending an Anglican priest of Philadelphia, named "A.C.V. Cartier",[note 12] as a candidate for conversion to Orthodoxy and ordination as a priest. Cartier was rector of the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, in Philadelphia, from 1906-12.[note 13] Saint Thomas' served the African American elite of Philadelphia and was one of the most prestigious congregations in African American Christianity, having been started in 1794 by Absalom Jones, one of the founders, together with Richard Allen, of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.[13] According to the letter, Cartier desired as an Orthodox priest to undertake missionary work among his fellow blacks. Due to the fact that the jurisdiction over the Greek Church of the diaspora had been ceded by the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the Church of Greece in 1908, the request was forwarded there. However according to Greek-American historian Paul G. Manolis, a search of the Archives of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece did not turn up any correspondence with Fr. Raphael. His letter about A.C.V. Cartier is the only indication we have from Church records of his missionary efforts among his people.[10]

In 1909, his wife filed for divorce, on the alleged charges of cruelty and failure to support their children. She left with their son Cyril to Delaware County, where she remarried.

Monastic Tonsure
In 1911 Fr. Raphael sailed to Cyprus, presumably to be tonsured a hieromonk. Possibly somewhere around this time, he founded the Order of the Cross of Golgotha (O.C.G.).[note 2] However, Fr. Oliver Herbel (AOC) has suggested that in 1911 Fr. Raphael was tonsured in Athens.[14] As is noted above however, the Archives of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece contain no information about Fr. Raphael.

Lecture Tour in Jamaica
The Jamaica Times article of April 26, 1913, wrote that Fr. Raphael was headquartered at Philadelphia where he wanted to build a chapel for his missionary efforts, that he had recently visited Europe to collect funds to this end, and had the intention of extending his work to the West Indies.[15]

Near the end of 1913, Fr. Raphael visited his homeland of Jamaica, staying for several months until sometime the next year. While there, he met a group of Syrians, who were complaining of a lack of Orthodox churches on the island. Fr. Raphael did his best to contact the Syrian-American diocese of the Russian church, writing to St Raphael of Brooklyn, but as most of their descendants are now communicants in the Episcopal Church, this presumably came to no avail. In December, a Russian warship came to port, and he concelebrated the Divine Liturgy with the sailors, their chaplain, and his new-found Syrians.

The main work of his visit, however, was a lecture circuit that he ran throughout Jamaica. Citing a lack of Orthodox churches, Fr. Raphael would speak at churches of various denomination. The topics would usually cover his travels, the Holy Land, and Holy Orthodoxy. At some point, he even made it to his hometown of Chapelton, to whom he remarked of his name change, "I will always be Robert to you".[16]

According to the Daily Gleaner edition of November 2, 1914, Fr. Raphael had just set sail back for America to start mission work under his Faith.[note 14]

Last Known Records
In 1916 Fr. Raphael was still in Philadelphia, having made the Philadelphia Greek parish his base of operations.[17] The last documentation of Fr. Raphael comes from a letter to the Daily Gleaner on October 4, 1916. Representing a group of about a dozen other like-minded Jamaican-Americans, he wrote in to protest the lectures of Black Nationalist Marcus Garvey.[note 15] Garvey's views on Jamaica, they felt, were damaging to both the reputation of their homeland and its people, enumerating several objections to Garvey's stated preference for the prejudice of the American whites over that of English whites.[9] Garvey's response came ten days later, in which he called the letter a conspiratorial fabrication meant to undermine the success and favour he had gained while in Jamaica and in the United States.

Little is known of Fr. Raphael's life after this point, except from some interviews conducted in the 1970s between Greek-American historian Paul G. Manolis and surviving members of the Greek Community of the Annunciation in Philadelphia, who recalled the black priest who was evidently a part of their community for a period of time. One elderly woman, Grammatike Kritikos Sherwin, remembered that Fr Raphael's daughter left to attend Oxford; another parishioner, Kyriacos Biniaris, recalls that Morgan, whose hand "he kissed many times", spoke broken Greek and served with Fr. Petrides reciting the liturgy mostly in English; whilst another, a George Liacouras, recalled that after serving in Philadelphia for some years, Fr. Raphael left for Jerusalem, never to return.[10] The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America has no record either of Fr. Raphael Morgan, nor of Fr. Demetrios Petrides, as the first records for the Philadelphia community in the archives only began in 1918.

Influence
"Indirect Conversion of Thousands" Theory
During the 16th Annual Ancient Christianity and African-American Conference in 2009, Matthew Namee presented a 23-minute lecture on the heretofore recently discovered life of Fr. Raphael Morgan. He postulates that even if Fr. Raphael's missionary efforts failed outside of his immediate family, he may be indirectly responsible for the conversion of thousands, via contact with Episcopal priest George Alexander McGuire (1866-1934).

Records for St Philip's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virgina indicate that for a short while in 1901 Robert J. Morgan was listed as the Rector. However, being only a deacon, this would mean that Robert's position was only temporary, during an interregnum of sorts. The previous rector was one George Alexander McGuire.


Fr. Raphael and George McGuire
Namee questions whence the idea came for McGuire to form namely an Orthodox church. Fr. Raphael Morgan and George McGuire have some striking similarities, including the facts that both:

served concurrently or consecutively at St Philip's Episcopal Church in Virginia,[note 16]
were ordained in the Episcopal Church around the same time,[note 17] and
both later served in Philadelphia, each having had some contact with Rev. A.C.V. Cartier of the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas.
Namee concludes that with so many coincidences, it is impossible for these two men to not have known one another; and therefore it must be from some influence - either in conversation with Fr. Raphael or through evangelism - that McGuire received his inspiration and came to know the Orthodox Church. An additional point is that Garvey already knew of Fr. Raphael when McGuire joined his organization in 1920 (since Fr. Raphael had written the letter in 1916 protesting Garvey's lectures), which makes it likely that McGuire and Garvey had discussed Morgan at some point.

One deterrent from this theory comes in the familiarity he had with the Orthodox Church by McGuire's consecrator, Joseph René Vilatte.[note 18] At various points, Vilatte come into contact with both the Russian and Syriac Orthodox Churches in a move for Catholic-Orthodox reconciliation, having even been accepted for a while by Bishop Vladimir of Alaska in May of 1891.

African Orthodox Church
George McGuire became an associate of Marcus Garvey and his Black Nationalist UNIA movement, being appointed the first Chaplain-General of the organization at its inaugural international convention in New York in August 1920. On September 28, 1921, he was made a bishop of the American Catholic Church by Joseph René Vilatte, and soon after founded the African Orthodox Church, a non-canonical Black Nationalist church, in the Anglican tradition. Today, it is best known for its canonisation of Jazz legend John Coltrane.

Bishop George McGuire soon spread his African Orthodox Church throughout the United States, and soon even made a presence on the African continent in such countries as Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. Between 1924-1934 McGuire built the AOC into a thriving international church. Branches were eventually established in Canada, Barbados, Cuba, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Miami, Chicago, Harlem, Boston, Cambridge (Massachusetts), and elsewhere. The official organ of AOC, The Negro Churchman, became an effective link for the far-flung organization.[13] However, around the time of the Second World War, the African churches were cut off from the American and in the post-war period had drifted far enough way to request and come under the omophorion of the Church of Alexandria.

Legacy
Scholar Gavin White, writing in the 1970's, states that if Morgan tried to organize an African-American Greek Orthodox church in Philadelphia, its memory has vanished, and nothing whatsoever is known about Morgan in later years. However he hastens to add that:

"...there can be no doubt that McGuire knew all about Morgan and it is very probable that he knew him personally. It is just possible that it was Morgan who first introduced McGuire to the Episcopal Church in Wilmington; it was almost certainly Morgan who introduced McGuire to the idea of Eastern episcopacy.[5]
This concurs with Matthew Namee's conclusion above, that it was Fr. Raphael who was George Alexander McGuire's inspiration to form namely an "Orthodox" church. In time the African-based portion of McGuire's "African Orthodox Church" in Kenya and Uganda, eventually did end up under the canonical jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa in 1946. And although those two churches were already upon their own set path towards full canonical Orthodoxy, McGuire was an important part of that process at one stage, and Fr. Raphael Morgan in turn, was behind McGuire's inspiration to form an "Orthodox" church. In this regard, by planting the seed, it can be said that Fr. Raphael was also in some measure, indirectly or incidentally, part of that process as well.

In the end, while Fr. Raphael Morgan's work among Jamaicans in Philadelphia appears to have been transitory, nevertheless he did serve as an important precedent for current African American interest in Orthodoxy, especially that of Father Moses Berry, director of the Ozarks African American Heritage Museum, who served as the priest to the Theotokos, the “Unexpected Joy,” Orthodox Mission (OCA) in Ash Grove, Missouri.[9]

See also
Joachim (Phoropoulos) of Pelagonia.
George Alexander McGuire.
Brotherhood of St. Moses the Black.
Notes
1.↑ According to Fr. Raphael's biography in the Who's Who of the Colored Race, 1915, after he was ordained to the priesthood:

"...at a special service he was duly commissioned Priest-Apostolic from the Ecumenical and Patriarchal Throne of Constantinople to America and the West Indies."

(Mather, Frank Lincoln. Who's Who of the Colored Race: A General Biographical Dictionary of Men and Women of African Descent. University of Michigan. Gale Research Co., 1915. p.226.)
2.↑ 2.0 2.1 The "Order of...", could be a number of things; it could be 1) an honorarium bestowed upon him for service done in the Church; or 2) an entitling which lets others know of his special mission in the Patriarchate/Diocese etc.; it could also 3) refer to a Society of monastics which transcends, because of rare circumstances, physical location; in addition, it is also possible that this was 4) a monastic brotherhood formed for Black Orthodox Christians, since Morgan was referred to as the “founder and superior” of that religious fraternity, although the formation of formal monastic orders is not traditionally practiced in the Orthodox tradition. The Orthodox Church does not have separate Orders (Franciscan, Carmelite etc.) each with an entirely independent rule/ethos of life. Despite being mentioned on many occasions in association with Morgan, no other material has ever been found on the Order of the Cross of Golgotha.
3.↑ It is possible that he academically audited the courses, attending the classes without receiving a formal grade.
4.↑ Fr. Raphael's name is given on a list of Black Episcopal ordinations as follows: "1895: Robert Josias Morgan, d. June 20, Coleman; deposed; went abroad and was made a priest in Greek Church." (Bragg, Rev. George F. (D.D.). Chapter XXXVI: Negro Ordinations from 1866 to the Present. In: History of the Afro-American group of the Episcopal church (1922). Baltimore, Md.: Church Advocate Press, 1922. p.273.)
5.↑ St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church was established in 1886. The church once stood on West Church in Lincolnton. The property consisted of a church, a parsonage, and a building used as a school. The church was torn down during the 1970's. The church remained primarily black and was not integrated until 1979. (Jason L. Harpe. Lincoln County Revisited. Illustrated. Arcadia Publishing, 2003. pg.18.)
6.↑ The "American Catholic Church" (ACC) included the jurisdictions and groups which had come out of Joseph René Vilatte's Episcopal ministry or were under his oversight. Among them were French and English speaking constituencies, and Polish and Italian ordinariates. The ACC began on August 20, 1894, at a synod held in Cleveland, Ohio, where Polish-speaking parishes joined the jurisdiction of Bishop Vilatte, however the ACC was actually incorporated in July 1915.
7.↑ Upon Morgan's departure from Russia, he wrote a letter, which was reprinted in the October/November 1904 English supplement to the Vestnik (Russian Orthodox American Messenger), the official publication of the Russian Archdiocese in America. Here is the text of that letter:

I, Robert Josias Morgan, a legally consecrated cleric of the American Episcopal Church, find it necessary to make it publicly known, that I am not a Bishop, as it was announced in some magazines and daily papers…

… I am not a Bishop, but a legally consecrated deacon. I came to Russia in no way to represent anything, and I was not sent by anybody. I came as a simple tourist, chiefly with the object to see the churches and the monasteries of this country, to enjoy the ritual and the service of the holy Orthodox Church, about which I heard so much abroad. And I am perfectly satisfied with everything I saw and witnessed.

The piety and the fear of God amongst the Russian clergy, both superior and lower, and of the lay people in general are too great to be spoken of. I like Russia, and as to the people I have simply grown to love them for their gentleness, their politeness, their amiability and kindness. It would seem as if the Christian religion penetrated the whole life of the people. This can be observed both in the private home life and the social life. You have but to go to Church in this country, and you immediately see, that there is nothing too valuable for the people to be offered to God. Note how they pray, how patiently they stand through the long Church services…

Now, having spent here about a month, I leave your country with a feeling of profound gratitude and take back to North America all the good impressions I received here. And when there I shall speak boldly and loudly about the brotherly feelings entertained here in the bosom of the holy Orthodox Church towards its Anglican sister of North America, and about the prayers which are offered here daily for the union of all the Catholic Christendom.

My constant humble prayer is for the union of all Churches, and especially the union of the Anglican faith with the Orthodox Church of Russia. I solicited the Metropolitans and the Bishops to grant me their blessing in regard to this prayer and obtained it. Now I pray daily and eagerly for a better mutual understanding between the character and their union. God grant a blessing to this cause and a hearing to our prayers and supplications. Let us solicit the prayers of the Saints. Let us seek the intercession of the holy Mother of God. Virgin Mary, pray for us!

In conclusion I must say, that my stay in Russia did me personally much good: I feel now firmer and stronger spiritually than I did before I came.

God bless the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of this country! God bless the Emperor and all the reigning family! God grant them a long life, peace and prosperity!

I am sincerely yours in God and in the name of Mary,

Robert Josias Morgan.

(Matthew Namee. "Robert Josias Morgan visits Russia, 1904." OrthodoxHistory.org (The Society for Orthodox Chrisitan History in the Americas). September 15, 2009.)
8.↑ The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on January 8, 1906, that “Rev. R.J. Morgan of the American Catholic Church, an off-shoot of the Protestant Episcopal Church, assisted.”
9.↑ Summaries of the two letters are given in the Synodal Minutes of 19 July, 1907, presided over by Patriarch Joachim III, who introduced the subject of Morgan's baptism and ordination. As is stated in the second letter, Morgan's goal was to establish an Orthodox community of Blacks ( "...να πηξη ιδιαν ορθοδοξον κοινοτητα μεταξυ των εν Αμερικη ομοφυλων αυτου Νιγρητων..." ).
10.↑ The Patriarchal Monastery at Valoukli is where the cemetery with the graves of the Patriarchs is found.
11.↑ In a letter from the Chief Archivist of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, dated April 4, 1973, it was confirmed that the records of the Patriarchate show that Morgan was baptized and renamed "Raphael". (Manolis, Paul G. Raphael (Robert) Morgan: The First Black Orthodox Priest in America. Theologia: Epistēmonikon Periodikon Ekdidomenon Kata Trimēnian. (En Athenais: Vraveion Akadēmias Athēnōn), 1981, vol.52, no.3, pp.467.)
12.↑ |A.C.V. Cartier was ordained to the Episcopal deaconate by Bishop Charles Quintard in 1895, and ordained to the Episcopal priesthood in the same year by Bishop Quintard. (Bragg, Rev. George F. (D.D.). Chapter XXXVI: Negro Ordinations from 1866 to the Present. In: History of the Afro-American group of the Episcopal church (1922). Baltimore, Md.: Church Advocate Press, 1922. p.273.)
13.↑ George Alexander McGuire was rector of The African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas in Philadelphia from 1902-05. He was succeeded as rector by A.C.V. Cartier (1906-12), the man whom Morgan recommended to the Ecumenical Patriarchate for Orthodox ordination.
14.↑ "Father Raphael, Priest of the Greek Orthodox Church, who has been in the island for some time, sailed for America last week. It is understood that he will return shortly to his native land and start mission work under his Faith. As is well known, the seat of the Greek Church to which father Raphael belongs is not far from the theatre of war, so there is no hope of the Father returning to his Mother Church in a hurry. Father Raphael is a native of Clarendon." (The Daily Gleaner. November 2, 1914. p.13.)
15.↑ Fr. Raphael signed the letter as "Father Raphael, O.C.G., Priest-Apostolic, the Greek-Orthodox Catholic Church." The full text of the signed letter is printed in:
Robert A. Hill, Marcus Garvey, Universal Negro Improvement Association. Letter Denouncing Marcus Garvey. In: The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers: 1826-August 1919. University of California Press, 1983. pp.196-197.
16.↑ St. Philip’s Episcopal Church of Richmond, Virginia lists Morgan as having been the rector of their parish for a short time in 1901. He is listed as the rector from “1901-April 1901.” Morgan’s predecessor at St. Philip’s was a certain “Reverend George Alexander McQuire,” who served the parish from April 1898 to November 1900.
17.↑ Rev. Morgan was ordained to the Episcopal deaconate on June 20, 1895, by Bishop Leighton Coleman. George McGuire was ordained to the Episcopal deaconate on June 29, 1896 by Bishop Boyd Vincent, and to the Episcopal priesthood in 1897 by the same. (Bragg, Rev. George F. (D.D.). Chapter XXXVI: Negro Ordinations from 1866 to the Present. In: History of the Afro-American group of the Episcopal church (1922). Baltimore, Md.: Church Advocate Press, 1922. p.273.)
18.↑ In his quest to obtain valid Apostolic Orders, Fr. McGuire had himself re-ordained Bishop in the American Catholic Church, being consecrated on September 28, 1921, in Chicago, Illinois, by Archbishop Joseph René Vilatte, assisted by bishop Carl A. Nybladh who had been consecrated by Vilatte. However the Orthodox Church considers Villate to be an Episcopi vagantes.
References
1.↑ Robert A. Hill, Marcus Garvey, Universal Negro Improvement Association. Letter Denouncing Marcus Garvey. In: The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers: 1826-August 1919. University of California Press, 1983. pg.197.
2.↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Mather, Frank Lincoln. Who's Who of the Colored Race: A General Biographical Dictionary of Men and Women of African Descent. University of Michigan. Gale Research Co., 1915. pp.226-227.
3.↑ 3.0 3.1 The Daily Gleaner. West Africa. October 9, 1901. p.7.
4.↑ The New York Times. Bishop Coleman of Delaware Dies. Sunday December 15, 1907. Page 13. (Obituary)
5.↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 White, Gavin. Patriarch McGuire and the Episcopal Church. In: Randall K. Burkett and Richard Newman (Eds.). Black Apostles: Afro-American Clergy Confront the Twentieth Century. G. K. Hall, 1978. pp.151-180.
6.↑ Lumsden, Joy, MA (Cantab), PhD (UWI). Father Raphael: His Background and Career. September 29, 2007.
7.↑ The Daily Gleaner. Port Maria: A Lecture. October 7, 1902. p.29.
8.↑ The Daily Gleaner. Priest's Visit: Father Raphael of Greek Orthodox Church: His Extensive Travels. July 22, 1913.
9.↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Fr. Oliver Herbel. Morgan, Raphael. The African American National Biography at mywire.com. 1-Jan-2008.
10.↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 Manolis, Paul G. Raphael (Robert) Morgan: The First Black Orthodox Priest in America. Theologia: Epistēmonikon Periodikon Ekdidomenon Kata Trimēnian. (En Athenais: Vraveion Akadēmias Athēnōn), 1981, vol.52, no.3, pp.464-480.
11.↑ Une Conquete du Patriarcat Oecumenique. Echos d'Orient . Vol. XI. No.68, 1908, pp.55-56.
12.↑ Lumsden, Joy. Robert Josias Morgan, aka Father Raphael. Jamaican History Month 2007. February 16, 2007.
13.↑ 13.0 13.1 Tony Martin. McGuire, George Alexander. Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. Volume 2. Cary D. Wintz, Paul Finkelman (Eds.). Taylor & Francis, 2004. p.776.
14.↑ Fr. Oliver Herbel (AOC). Jurisdictional Disunity and the Russian Mission. Orthodox Christians for Accountability. April 22, 2009.
15.↑ The Jamaica Times. Only Negro Who is a Greek Priest. April 26, 1913.
16.↑ The Daily Gleaner. Gives Lecture. Fr. Raphael Talks of His Travels Abroad. August 15, 1913.
17.↑ Namee, Matthew. The First Black Orthodox Priest in America. OrthodoxHistory.org (The Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas). July 15, 2009.
External Links
Evangelismos Greek Orthodox Church, Philadelphia, PA. (Fr. Raphael's home parish, ca.~1904-1916)
Sources
Contemporary Sources

Bragg, Rev. George F. (D.D.). Chapter XXXVI: Negro Ordinations from 1866 to the Present. In: History of the Afro-American group of the Episcopal church (1922). Baltimore, Md.: Church Advocate Press, 1922.
Bragg, Rev. George F. (D.D.). Afro-American Clergy List. Priests. In: Afro-American Church Work and Workers. Baltimore, Md.: Church Advocate Print, 1904.
Hill, Robert A., Marcus Garvey, Universal Negro Improvement Association. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers: 1826-August 1919. University of California Press, 1983. ISBN 9780520044562
Mather, Frank Lincoln. Who's who of the Colored Race: A General Biographical Dictionary of Men and Women of African Descent. University of Michigan. Gale Research Co., 1915.
The Daily Gleaner. West Africa. October 9, 1901. p.7.
The Daily Gleaner. Priest's Visit: Father Raphael of Greek Orthodox Church: His Extensive Travels. July 22, 1913.
The Daily Gleaner. Gives Lecture. Fr. Raphael Talks of His Travels Abroad. August 15, 1913.
The Daily Gleaner. November 2, 1914. p.13.
The Jamaica Times. Only Negro Who is a Greek Priest. April 26, 1913.
Une Conquete du Patriarcat Oecumenique. Echos d'Orient . Vol. XI. No.68, 1908, pp.55-56.
(Publication of the Roman Catholic Uniate Assumptionist Fathers, located in Chalcedon)
Modern Sources

Herbel, Fr. Oliver (AOC). Jurisdictional Disunity and the Russian Mission. Orthodox Christians for Accountability. April 22, 2009.
Herbel, Fr. Oliver (AOC). Morgan, Raphael. The African American National Biography at mywire.com. 1-Jan-2008.
Joseph René Vilatte at Wikipedia.
Lumsden, Joy, MA (Cantab), PhD (UWI). Father Raphael.
Lumsden, Joy. Robert Josias Morgan, aka Father Raphael. Jamaican History Month 2007. February 16, 2007.
Manolis, Paul G. Raphael (Robert) Morgan: The First Black Orthodox Priest in America. Theologia: Epistēmonikon Periodikon Ekdidomenon Kata Trimēnian. (En Athenais: Vraveion Akadēmias Athēnōn), 1981, vol.52, no.3, pp.464-480. ISSN: 1105-154X
Martin, Tony. McGuire, George Alexander. Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. Volume 2. Cary D. Wintz, Paul Finkelman (Eds.). Taylor & Francis, 2004.
Namee, Matthew. The First Black Orthodox Priest in America. OrthodoxHistory.org (The Society for Orthodox Christian History in the Americas). July 15, 2009.
Namee, Matthew. Fr. Raphael Morgan: America's First Black Orthodox Priest. 16th Annual Ancient Christianity & African-American Conference. June 03, 2009.
Namee, Matthew. "Robert Josias Morgan visits Russia, 1904." OrthodoxHistory.org (The Society for Orthodox Chrisitan History in the Americas). September 15, 2009.
White, Gavin. Patriarch McGuire and the Episcopal Church. In: Randall K. Burkett and Richard Newman (Eds.). Black Apostles: Afro-American Clergy Confront the Twentieth Century. G. K. Hall, 1978. pp.151-180.

Former KKK Wizard ordained in COGIC

I know this isnt "Orthodox", but it is orthodox in the sense of love and reconciliation..

A poem written by Archpriest Grigori Petrov (Gregory Petrov) shortly before his death in a Siberian prison camp in 1942.

A poem written by Archpriest Grigori Petrov (Gregory Petrov) shortly before his death in a Siberian prison camp in 1942.

What is my praise before Thee?

I have not heard the cherubim singing,
that is the lot of souls sublime,
but I know how nature praises thee.

In winter I have thought about the whole earth praying quietly to Thee in the
silence of the moon,
wrapped around in a mantle of white,
sparkling with diamonds of snow.

I have seen how the rising sun rejoiced in Thee,
and choirs of birds sang forth glory.

I have heard how secretly the forest noises Thee abroad,
how the winds sing,
the waters gurgle,
how the choirs of stars preach of Thee
in serried motion through unending space.

The Politics of Anti-Christ

The Politics of Anti-Christ

Last week I argued the American religious right had failed in its effort to effect a more moral and Godly America. Precisely because it adopted and taken to its bosom the very materialistic and caliastic assumptions that lie at the heart of the hated and despised left. During the course of that discussion, I stated that the social and political left was fundamentally “anti-christic.” I received a very thoughtful letter from a young man that questioned this, so I thought today I would explain what I mean in a little more detail.

First of all we need to get some vocabulary out of the way. In modern American parlance, the terms liberal and conservative are used in such varied and bizarre ways, that they have lost any real significance. So, it would be helpful at the outset to try and disentangle them. To begin with liberal and conservative are not antonyms. Classically the term liberal simply means free and refers to those who want maximum human freedom. The founders of the United States in the classical sense were liberal par excel lance. The opposite of a liberal is a Statist. Someone who believes in centralized authority. These terms then are fixed upon the tension between the individual liberty and state authority. The terms conservative and progressive on the other hand are not fixed. They are relative to a given culture and a moment in time. Conservatives want to conserve or maintain the status quo, whatever that may be. Or return to the status quo, anti some recent calamity.

Progressives on the other hand want change of some sort. Now even though these terms in and of themselves are content neutral, historically we have come to associate conservativism with the political and social right and progressivism with the left. Of the terms right and left, the later is the easiest to define. Simply put the essence of the political and social left is egalitarianism.

Now some would have simply said equality here, but that is insufficient. There are many different kinds of equality. There is equality under the law or equality in the eyes of God. By egalitarianism, I mean the kind of radical equality that eradicated any meaningful differences between people, including the most fundamental difference of all, gender.

To the extent that the right is rooted in the way things actually are, it is the position of defending order, difference and even hierarchy being necessary to human life.

Now notice that the Statist can be a man of the right or the left. Historically however, absolutism has been a relatively modern reaction to social upheavals in Western Europe. In other words the old monarchial traditions in, for example England were not absolutists. They were governments of the right to be sure, but not necessarily Statist. On the contrary, statism in the modern world is almost always a tool of the political and social left. Why? This brings us back to our main topic. As I pointed out last week, the left because of its radical egalitarianism is utopian in nature. Let’s face it, people are not equal. Some are smarter then others, some are taller then others some can sing, others have athletic prows. Some on the other hand are lazy, some are shiftless, some have psychological and social pathologies that make them a danger to themselves and others. This wondrous diversity among human beings, however inevitably leads to inequalities of all sorts.

The bottom line is this, that man as he is will never be equal. Egalitarianism can only be created by changing man himself. The program of the social and political left as I said last week is precisely to change man, by changing his material circumstances. This requires a strong, no, absolute central authority.

Now here is where Christianity comes into the picture. Christ has promised to change humanity. Christ has promised a kingdom where every tear is wiped away. In a very real way, then what the left holds out as its promise to humanity is essentially the Kingdom of God. Let’s remember what I said last week. The term anti Christ does not mean against Christ, it means instead of Christ. In other words the anti Christ is not going to show up and announce that he is the incarnation of all evil in the world. On the contrary, he is going to announce that he is the incarnation of all good in the world. That he is Christ and that he has come to build the Kingdom of God on earth. That is why I have described the left as being anti christic. Just last week one of the presidential candidates, I wont say which party, not that it matters since we no longer have a real two party system, said to a church audience, “I believe we can build a kingdom.”

Well that is the promise of the left. That is also the promise of the anti Christ. Notice also however, that in offering a substitute for the Kingdom of God, the anti Christ will offer a deformed copy. Not an exact copy. For even in the Kingdom of God there will be difference and diversity. Yes God loves all equally, the sinner as much as the saint, Hitler as much as St Nicholas, but there will be differing degrees of blessedness or damnation according to our individual capacity to receive and respond to that love. Equality in the Kingdom of God does not mean that everyone will be exactly the same. Furthermore, while in Christ there is neither male nor female. And in the resurrection men will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Yet our Lord arose from the grave as what he was, a male human being. And, our Lady, who anticipated the general resurrection, is still “Our Lady”. The bottom line is that union with God our creator fulfills our personal uniqueness. It does not squash it or dilute it into and endless sea of sameness.

The left on the other had does precisely that. It strives to eliminate difference in the name of equality. As a result, the most horrific crimes have been perpetrated in the 20th century, all in the name of equality and humanity. Hitler and Nazism, contrary to what you learned in school, was a movement of the left and not of the right. Stalin and Mao all murdered 10’s and millions of people all for the sake of an idealistic version of humanity.

Dear brothers and sisters, as Orthodox Christians we must constantly be on guard against false Christ’s. There is not one single anti Christ, but many. We must constantly remind ourselves that the Kingdom of God is not of the world, that it will not be realized until the last enemy, death is defeated. And yet, we know that Christ has defeated death and offers us a fore taste of His kingdom here and now in the church. In fact I would argue that the only place on earth where people are truly equal is in front of the chalice. For there the lowliest poorest and least educated is equal of any prince or patriarchs, for all receive the whole Christ. Now, whether we receive Him worthy or not is up to us. Let us therefore implore God to make us worth.

And now may our great God and savior Jesus Christ, who alone has the power to bring about His kingdom, have mercy on us all.

By: Dr. Clark Carlton
Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Tennessee Tech University

Author: The Faith Series
Published by: Regina Orthodox Press

Ancient Faith Radio: Faith and Philosophy; Reflections on Orthodoxy and culture.

How Syriac Christianity Saved the Protestant Reformation

http://stmaryprotectress.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-syriac-christianity-saved.html

by Fr. Dale A. Johnson


In 17th century Europe the protestant reformation began to lose it's fervor. It was weighed down by the intellectual weight of scholasticism, science, and the new socialism created by the wealth and power of nation/states who were discovering new lands and resources. Galileo and Newton were pioneering modern science. Descartes was forging modern philosophy. Hugo Grotius was promoting the idea of international law. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke were forming modern political theory. In the same century strong centralized nation/states entered into worldwide competition for wealth and power by colonizing America and Asia.

The spiritual sons and daughters of Martin Luther were comfortable in their new world. Protestant theologians feared that Protestants had lost their way in theological legalism, secular science, and new social order.

German Pietism

Johnnes Arndt was a German Lutheran theologian born in 1555, the year Widmanstadt and Moses of Mardin published the Syriac New Testament in Vienna. He was attracted to the Syriac theology of Macarius, translated from Greek to Latin in 1559 in Paris. The Homilies of Macarius were available at the Lutheran University of Wittenburg in 1577 when he attended. It was these homilies that did more for the transmission of Syriac theology to Europe than all the Syriac New Testaments printed by Widmanstadt and his successors. Arndt wrote two famous devotional books, the Garden of Paradise and True Christianity. It is said that Arndt memorized all fifty homilies of Macarius. Whole passages of Macarius find their way into his writings and thus Syriac Christian ideas are passed into the revival of the Protestant Reformation.

The book True Christianity was read by Philipp Jacob Spener nearly a century later when he attended the University of Strassburg. The Syriac ideas of Macarius so deeply influenced him that he wrote a book that would become the foundation document of the pietistic movement: Pia desideria (Pious Desires,1675)

The Pia Desideria or “Heartfelt Desire for God-pleasing Reform” is the classic statement of Pietism. First published in 1675 by Philip Jacob Spener of Frankfurt on Main, it is both a devotional work and a textbook on church renewal.
The churches in Germany in the century following the Reformation were weakened by sacramentalism and confessionalism and endless theological disputes. Morality and spirituality among the laity and clergy were at a low ebb. The Protestant Reformation needed to be baptized in the Holy Spirit of revival and personal piety.

Spener took advantage of a Frankfurt publisher’s invitation to write a preface for a new edition of Johann Arndt’s True Christianity. Spener discussed his assignment with his fellow ministers and submitted his manuscript in 1675. His remarks won immediate acclaim and within six months he published the preface separately under its own title, “Pious Desires.” In this seminal work, Spener responded to the spiritual conditions he observed with a sixfold program of church renewal. His principal concern was the “scandalous worldliness” of the churches and his hope for renewal was based on the conversion of Jews to Christianity in the first century churches. Thus Spener became known as the Father of Pietism.

Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century. It became influential among most Protestants and Anabaptists inspiring not only John Wesley and his Methodist Movement in England, but also the Brethren movement founded by Alexander Mack. The Pietist movement had an enormous impact on world history because of the Puritan influence in the development of the United States with its emphasis on individualism and Christian piety.

Spener offered six proposals for reform in Pia Desideria which became a short summary of pietism:

(1) There should be "a more extensive use of the Word of God among us." The Bible, Spener said, must be the chief means for reformation
(2) Spener called also for the priesthood of all believers citing Luther's example in urging all Christians to be active in the general work of Christian ministry.
(3) He appealed for the reality of Christian practice more than a matter of relying on simple knowledge.
(4) Spener then urged restraint and charity asking his readers to love and pray for unbelievers and sinners to adopt a moderate tone in disputes.
(5) Next he called for the need for training clergy in piety and devotion rather than academic subjects.
(6) Last he implored ministers to preach sermons people could understand.

The chief characteristic of Syriac Christianity is reflected in the six basic proposals. This is seen especially in the Homilies of Macarius. One can find the Homilies of Macarius online and by reading the titles of the fifty homilies it is easy to see the direct parallels to the principles of pietism. If there is one phrase to describe both Syriac Christianity and German pietism it is spirituality of the heart.

University of Halle (Germany)

In 1694, after nearly 20 years of fame, Spener helped to found the University of Halle near Wittenburg under the charter of Leopold I and the patronage of Fredrick III, Elector of Brandenburg and Fredrick I of Prussia. He invited August Herman Frankce to become a professor at the new university.T his was no accident or a lightly considered offer. Spener specifically chose Frankce because of his passion for Syriac writers like Ephrem and Macarius. By making Syriac Christianity part of the core curriculum the spiritual principles would pass over to German pietism in the heart of its practice. The University of Halle perhaps did more for the transmission of Syriac theology more than any other institution, person, or event in the history of the West.

Francke lived his faith. He opened his own home as a school for poor children when he moved to Halle in 1692. Within a year he had to buy a building to house 100 orphans. He established a teacher training institute, and later he helped found a publishing house, and later a medical clinic.

Francke had experienced a dramatic conversion from cold theology to warm personal faith in 1687. Seven years later, under his leadership Halle became the center of Protestantism's biggest social enterprises and most ambitious missionary endeavors in 17th and 18th century Europe. The university established a center for Oriental languages including Syriac. The Homilies of Macarius became the core part of the curriculum. The Syriac ideas of Macarius shaped the four main features of Halle Pietism: individual piety, missionary zeal, compassion for the poor, and devotion to prayer and scripture.

Individual Piety

Syriac Christianity is a history of individual piety over legalistic corporate responses. The Syriac monk tended to be more alone, eccentric, and radical in his or her expression of prayer. We need only to picture the image of Simeon the Stylite bowing before his Creator a thousand times a day on top of his column. This is is contrast to the western image of the monk who lives in community and military like obedience to an abbot.

Missionary Zeal

Syriac Christianity is a history of missionary zeal having reached China a thousand years before the Jesuits. Desert monks from the Syriac east reached Gaul when Europe was still asleep. Syriac missionaries arrived in Ireland shortly after Sts Columban and Columba.

Compassion for the Poor

Syriac Christianity is a history of compassion for the poor as Syrianc Christians of every social class were studying in the university School of Nisibis a thousand years before the first university was built in Europe and Ephrem was operating a hospital and refugee centers in Edessa a thousand years before Galen and Hippocates was being read in Europe.

Devotion to the Word of God

Syriac Christianity is a history of devotion to the Word of God is music and prayer. Bar Daisan was composing music based on folk tunes and scripture more than a thousand years before Martin Luther was using the same technique.

All the features of Syriac Christianity mentioned above were made alive in the revival of the pietists in the 17th century through their rediscovery of Ephrem, Macarius, Jacob, and Isaac. The pietistic movement saved the Protestant Reformation.


Note:

Macarius is known to present day scholars as Pseudo Macarius and generally regarded as an anonymous Syriac writer of Mesopotamia, perhaps from the present day area of Tur Abdin. But for purposes of this article and because the pietists believed the Fifty Homilies to be from Macarius we shall refer to him as Macarius.

source: http://www.socdigest.org/articles/01nov09.html

ETHIOPIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH SPRITUAL SONG BY ZEMARI DAGIMAWI DEREBE ABERETAGNE FIKRIHE GETAYE ethiopian orthodox church

I dont know, I just love this song!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKVqV-rQVog

Radical New Monastic

http://www.livestream.com/St_Mary_the_Protectress/ondemand/pla_7640731263267695222?initthumburl=http://mogulus-user-files.s3.amazonaws.com/chst_mary_the_protectress/2008/11/09/f37da792-ff97-49a0-9bf5-e82dff6f2e88_180.jpg&playeraspectwidth=4&playeraspectheight=3

An Orthodox Christian approach to peacemaking

An Orthodox Christian approach to peacemaking


by Jim Forest

“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by men.” This verse from St. Matthew’s Gospel comes immediately after the Beatitudes.


But how many of us want to be become like salt? Perhaps we ought to advise Jesus that it’s time to revise the Sermon on the Mount? “Dear Lord, we revere your every word, but couldn’t you use more attractive metaphors? How about, ‘You are the sugar of the earth, but if the sugar should lose its sweetness, it is tossed out the doors and trodden under foot by men’?”


Living in a sugar-addicted world, surely sugar would be a much more welcome term for modern people. Salt is bitter. Sugar is far more appealing.


But for the time being we are stuck with the Gospel Christ gave us rather than the one we might write ourselves. He tells his followers that we are intended to be like salt, a substance normally used in small amounts.


Salt was more valued by our ancestors. In commentaries on this passage, the Church Fathers stress the value of salt as a preservative and thus a life-saving substance. “Salt preserves meat from decaying into stench and worms,”says Origen. “It makes meat edible for a longer period.”
St. John Chrysostom comments on the salt metaphor in these words:


It is a matter of absolute necessity that he commands all this. Why must you be salt? Jesus says in effect: “You are accountable not only for your own life but also for that of the entire world. I am sending you not to one or two cities, nor to ten or twenty, not even to one nation, as I sent the prophets. Rather I am sending you to the entire earth, across the seas, to the whole world, to a world fallen into an evil state.” For by saying, “You are the salt of the earth,” Jesus signifies that all human nature has “lost its taste,” having become rotten through sin. For this reason, you see, he requires from his disciples those character traits that are most necessary and useful for the benefit of all.



There is a great deal of salt in the Gospel, and not much sugar.


In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ identifies peacemakers as God’s own children, but peacemaking is often a bitter, salt-like undertaking. To stand against hatred and killing in time of war (and when is it not time of war?) is no sweet task. One is likely to be regarded as naive, if not unpatriotic, if not a traitor.


Yet at every service, Orthodox Christians hear the challenge: “In peace let us pray to the Lord.” We begin the Liturgy with an appeal to God not just for a private peace or the peace of our family or the peace of the parish community or the peace of our neighborhood or the peace of our city or the peace of our nation, but “for the peace of the whole world and the union of all.” The Litany of Peace draws our attention to the world-embracing mission of the Church. We are, as St. John Chrysostom said, “accountable not only for [our] own life but also for that of the entire world.”


Prayer is not simply a request that God do something or give something. It is a summons to responsibility. What I ask God to do implies a willingness on my part to participate in God’s answer to my prayer. If I am unwilling to help in doing what I ask God to do, can it even be thought of as prayer? Why would God do at my request what I refuse to do? We are talking then not only about what we ask God to do but what we are asking God to equip us to do. If we ask for peace, the peace of the whole world, then we must be willing to become people actively doing whatever we can that contributes to the peace of the world.


Consider three key words: Orthodox, Christian and peace.


Often the word “orthodox” is used as a synonym for rigidity. Not often is it understood in its real sense: the true way to give praise, and also true belief. Attach it to the word “Christian” and it becomes a term describing a person who is trying to live according to the Gospel. He may have far to go, but this is the direction he is trying to take. “To be an Orthodox Christian,” said Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, “is to attempt to live a Christ-centered life. We should try to live in such a way that if the Gospels were lost, they could be re-written by looking at us.”


To be an Orthodox Christian means belonging to the Orthodox Church. It is not possible to follow Christ and remain alone. I am part of a vast, time-spanning community of people with a collective memory that goes back as far as Adam and Eve. It is a community that includes the Church Fathers, whose words we are encouraged to read.


It is also a Church of Councils. We hold ourselves accountable to the results of those councils even though they met many centuries ago. This means not letting my own opinions or those of my peers take charge of my faith. This requires guarding myself from the various ideologies that dominate the world I live in.


We are also a Church of saints. Day by day we remember them. We bear their names. We call on them for help. We remember what they did and sometimes what they said. We have icons of some of them in our churches and homes.


Attention to the Church Fathers and the saints can be a bewildering experience. For example we discover one Church Father showers the highest praise on marriage while another regards marriage as a barely tolerable compromise for those unable to embrace the real Christian calling: celibate monastic life. It can be disconcerting to discover that on various questions different Church Fathers may have different ideas or different emphases or just plain disagree.


Or we look at the saints and find one who was martyred for refusing to be a soldier, then the next day discover a saint who was a hero on the battlefield. Or we read about a saint who wore the rich clothing of a prince and then find another saint whose only clothing was his uncut beard. Here is a saint who was a great scholar while there is a saint who was a holy fool. Here is a saint who raced to the desert, while over there is a saint who refused to leave the city and was critical of those who did. Each saint poses a challenge and each saint raises certain questions and even certain problems. The puzzle pieces don’t always fit. We discover that neither the Church Fathers nor the saints on the calendar are a marching band, all in step and playing in perfect harmony.


Devotion to the saints solves some problems and raises others. In the details of their lives, they march in a thousand different directions. They also made mistakes. They were not saints every minute of every day. Like us, they had sins to confess. But their virtues overwhelm their faults. In different ways, each saint gives us a window for seeing Christ and his Gospel more clearly.


To be an Orthodox Christian means, as St. Paul says, that we are no longer Greek or Jew. Nationality is secondary. It is not the national flag that is placed on the altar but the Gospel. For us, even though we find ourselves in an Orthodox Church divided on national or jurisdictional lines, it means we are no longer American or Russian or Egyptian or Serbian. Rather we are one people united in baptism and faith whose identity and responsibility includes but goes beyond the land where we were born or the culture and mother tongue that shaped us.


On to the next word: peace. This is a damaged word. It’s like an icon so blackened by candle smoke that the image is completely hidden. “Peace” is a word that has been covered with a lot of smoke from the fires of propaganda, politics, ideologies, war and nationalism. In Soviet Russia there were those omnipresent slogans proclaiming peace while the Church was often obliged to take part in state-organized and state-scripted “peace” events. As a boy growing up in New Jersey, it was almost the same situation. “Peace is our profession” was the slogan of the Strategic Air Command, whose apocalyptic task – fighting nuclear war – was on stage center in the film “Doctor Strangelove.” In more recent years, there was a nuclear missile christened “The Peacemaker.”


Not only governments but peace groups have damaged the word “peace.” Anti-war groups often reveal less about peace than about anger, alienation and even hatred. It’s always a surprise to find a peace group that regards unborn children as being among those whose lives need to be protected.


In wartime talk of peace can put you on thin ice. I recently heard a story that dates back to the first Gulf War. Three clergymen were being interviewed on television. Two of them insisted that the war was a good and just war and had God’s blessing. The third opened his Bible and read aloud the words of Jesus: “Blessed are the peacemakers… Love your enemies…” But he was cut short by a shout from the angry pastor next to him: “That’s not relevant now! We’re at war!”


War does this to us. Parts of the Gospel are simply abandoned. They are seen as temporarily irrelevant, an embarrassment to the patriotic Christian. “Peace” is put in the deep freeze, a word to be thawed out after the war is over. Thus the salt loses it savor and sugar takes its place.


Part of our job is to clean words like “peace.” It’s a work similar to icon restoration. Otherwise it will be hard to understand the Gospel or the Liturgy and impossible to translate the Gospel and the Liturgy into daily life.


Peace is one of the characteristics of the Kingdom of God compressed into a single word. Consider how often and in what significant ways Christ uses the word “peace” in the Gospel: “And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it.” “And he awoke and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’” “And he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’” “And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’” “Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’” “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace!” “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” His greeting after the resurrection is, “Peace be with you.” In Mark’s Gospel, once again we come upon the metaphor of salt: “Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”


In the Slavic liturgical tradition, the custom is to sing the Beatitudes while the Gospel Book is carried in procession through the church. Why? Because the Beatitudes are a short summary of the Gospel. These few verses describe a kind of ladder to heaven, starting with poverty of spirit and ascending to readiness to suffer for Christ and at last to participate in the Paschal joy of Christ. Near the top we come to the words, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”


Christ’s peace is not passive nor has it anything to do with the behavior of a coward or of the person who is polite rather than truthful. Christ says, in Matthew’s Gospel: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” He means the sword metaphorically, as Luke makes clear in his version of the same passage: “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” To live truthfully rather than float with the tide means most of the time to swim against the tide, risking penalties if not punishment for doing so. Christ had, and still has, opponents. Christ’s words and actions often brought his opponents’ blood to a boil. Think of his words of protest about the teachings of the Pharisees who laid burdens on others they would not carry themselves. Think of him chasing the money changers from the Temple. No one was injured, but God’s lightning flashed in the Temple courtyard.


Jesus speaks the truth, no matter how dangerous a task that may be. He gives us an example of spiritual and verbal combat. But his hands are not bloodstained. Think about the fact that Christ killed no one. Neither did he bless any of his followers to kill anyone. There are many ways in which Christ is unique. This is one of them. His final miracle before his crucifixion is to heal the injury of a temple guard whom Peter had wounded. He who preached the love of enemies took a moment to heal an enemy while on his way to the Cross.


In the early centuries, Christians got into a lot of trouble for their attitude toward the state. You get a sense of what that was like in this passage from second-century hieromartyr, St. Justin:


From Jerusalem there went out into the world, men, twelve in number, and these illiterate, of no ability in speaking: but by the power of God they proclaimed to every race of men that they were sent by Christ to teach to all the word of God; and we who formerly used to murder one another do not only now refrain from making war upon our enemies, but also, that we may not lie nor deceive our examiners, willingly die confessing Christ.



The big problem for early Christians, a problem that so often got them into trouble, was their refusal to regard any ruler as a god. This doesn’t mean simply a ruler who claims to be a god, but the persistent tendency of so many rulers down to the present day to behave as gods and expect to be treated that way. Christians were obedient members of society in every way they could be without disobeying God, but were prepared to suffer even the most cruel death rather than place obedience to Caesar before obedience to God.


While eventually the baptismal requirements of the Church were relaxed, it was once the case that those who did not renounce killing, whether as a soldier or judge, could not be baptized. It is still the case that those who have killed another human being, even in self defense or by accident, are excluded from serving at the altar. Presumably this would also bar anyone whose words incite others to kill.


What’s the problem? Killing in war is often awarded with medals. Aren’t soldiers only doing their duty, however horrible it may be? Is there not virtue in their deeds, however bloody? I am reminded of an interview with an American soldier in Iraq that I heard on television recently: “A part of your soul is destroyed in killing someone else.” He might have said, but didn’t, that a part of your soul is wounded when you kill another. The Church looks for ways to heal such wounds.


Christ is not simply an advocate of peace or an example of peace. He is peace. To want to live a Christ-like life means to want to participate in the peace of Christ. Yes, we may fail, as we fail in so many things, but we must not give up trying.


How do we give a witness to Christ’s peace, especially in time of war? There are at least seven aspects of doing this.


The first is love of enemies. Love is another damaged word. It has been sentimentalized. It has come to mean a nice feeling we have toward a person whom we enjoy seeing and being with. The biblical meaning of the word is different. Christ calls on his followers to love their enemies. If you understand love as a euphoric feeling or pleasant sentiment, fulfilling this commandment is impossible. But if you understand love as doing what you can to protect the life and seek the salvation of a person or group whom we fear or despise, that’s very different.


Jesus links love of enemies with prayer for them. Without prayer, love of enemies is impossible. One of the saints who gave special emphasis to this theme was the 20th century monk St. Silouan of the Holy Mountain. Silouan’s stress may have its roots in the fact that, before becoming a monk, he nearly killed another young man. Not long afterward, he went to Mount Athos. Much of his teaching later in life centered on love of enemies. “He who does not love his enemies,” he insisted, “does not have God’s grace.”


The second aspect is doing good to enemies. Jesus teaches his followers, “Do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you.” (Luke 6:28)


Jesus’ teaching about a merciful response to enemies was not new doctrine. We find in the Mosaic Law: “If you meet your enemy’s ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under a burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it.” (Ex 23:4-5)


In his letter to the Church in Rome, St. Paul elaborates:


Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be conceited. Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends upon you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God; for it is written, ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ No, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by doing so you will reap burning coals upon his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.



Christ’s teaching to do good to enemies is often viewed as unrealistic, but in fact it is a teaching full of common sense. Unless we want to turn the world into a cemetery, we must search for opportunities through which we can demonstrate to an opponent our longing for an entirely different kind of relationship. An adversary’s moment of need or crisis can provide that opening.


The third aspect is turning the other cheek. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “If someone strikes you on the cheek, offer him the other also.” (Mt.5:39; Luke 6:29) Contrast this with the advice provided in the average film or novel, where the standard message might be described as “The Gospel According to Hollywood.” This pseudo-gospel’s basic message is: If you are hit, hit back. Let your blow be harder than the one you received. In fact, as we saw in the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2003, you needn’t be hit at all in order to strike others. Provocation, irritation, or the fear of attack is warrant enough.


“Turning the other cheek” is widely seen as an especially suspect Christian doctrine, an ethic that borders on masochism. Many would say it is Jesus at his most unrealistic: “Human beings just aren’t made that way.” For a great many people the problem can be put even more simply: “Turning the other cheek isn’t manly. Only cowards turn the other cheek.”


But what cowards actually do is run and hide. Standing in front of a violent man, refusing to get out of his way, takes enormous courage. It is manly and often proves to be the more sensible response. It’s also a way of giving witness to confidence in the reality and power of the resurrection.


The fourth aspect is forgiveness. Nothing is more fundamental to Jesus’ teaching than his call to forgiveness: giving up debts, letting go of grievances, pardoning those who have harmed us, not despairing of the other. Every time we say the Lord’s Prayer, we are telling God that we ask to be forgiven only insofar as we ourselves have extended forgiveness to others: “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”


How hard it is to forgive! For we are wounded and the wounds often last a lifetime; they even spill across generations. As children, as parents, as husbands or wives, as families, as workers, as jobless people, as church members, as members of certain classes or races, as voters, as citizens of particular states, we have been violated, made a target, lied to, used, abandoned. Sins, often quite serious sins, have been committed against us. We may feel damaged, scarred for life, stunted. Others we love may even have died of evil done to them.


But we are not only victims. In various ways we are linked to injuries others have suffered and are suffering. If I allow myself to see how far the ripples extend from my small life, I will discover that not only in my own home but on the far side of the planet there are people whose sorrows in life are partly due to me. Through what I have done or failed to do, through what my community has done or failed to do, there are others whose lives are more wretched than they might have been. There are those dying while we feast.


But we prefer to condemn the evils we see in others and excuse the evils we practice ourselves. We fail to realize that those who threaten us often feel threatened by us, and may have good reasons for their fears. The problem is not simply a personal issue, for the greatest sins of enmity are committed en masse, with very few people feeling any personal responsibility for the destruction they share in doing or preparing. The words of Holocaust administrator Adolph Eichmann, “I was only following orders,” are among humanity’s most frequently repeated justifications for murder.


The fifth aspect is breaking down the dividing wall of enmity. In Christ enmity is destroyed, St. Paul wrote, “for he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of enmity… that he might create in himself one new person in place of two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing enmity to an end.” (Eph 2:14-16)


Walls would have been on Paul’s mind at the time; in the same letter he mentions that he is “a prisoner for the Lord.” His words of guidance were sent from within the stone walls of a prison.
Consider Christ’s response to the centurion who asked him to heal a sick servant. It must have been hard for his more zealous disciples to see Jesus responding positively to the appeal of an officer in an occupation army and galling to hear him commenting afterward, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” In this brief encounter, the dividing wall of enmity collapsed.


We live in a world of walls. Competition, contempt, repression, racism, nationalism, violence and domination: all these are seen as normal and sane. Enmity is ordinary. Self and self-interest form the centering point in many lives. We tend to be a fear-driven people. Love and the refusal to center one’s life in enmity are dismissed as naive, idealistic, even unpatriotic, especially if one reaches out constructively to hated minorities or national enemies.


Many wars are in progress at the moment. The cost in money, homes destroyed, damaged sanity, in lives and injuries is phenomenal. So many deaths, and mainly non-combatants – children, parents and grandparents, the very young, the very old, the ill, all sorts of people. Countless hideous wounds, visible and hidden. There are also less tangible costs, spiritually, psychologically, for we have become a people who make war and preparations for war a major part of our lives. We hear of many people who expect to die a violent death and who live in a constant state of “low grade” depression. Fear and despair are widespread. Stress-relieving pills are selling better than ever in today’s world.


The sixth aspect is nonviolent resistance to evil. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil.” When Peter used violence to defend Jesus, he was instantly admonished, “Put away your sword, for whoever lives by the sword will perish by the sword.” For several hundred years following the resurrection, the followers of Jesus were renowned for their refusal to perform military service. But for many centuries, Christians have been as likely as any others to take up the sword – and often use it in appalling ways.


The refusal to kill others can be a powerful witness, yet Christian life is far more than the avoidance of evil. It is searching for ways to combat evil without using methods that inevitably will result in the death of the innocent.


Responding to evil with its own weapons, even with the best of motives, often results in actions which mimic those of the enemy, or even outdo the enemy’s use of abhorrent methods. When Nazi forces bombed cities, there was profound revulsion in Britain and the United States, but in the end the greatest acts of city destruction were carried out by Britain and the United States.
Yet what is one to do? Christians cannot be passive about those events and structures which cause innocent suffering and death.


For centuries men and women have been searching for effective ways of both protecting life and combating evil. It is only in the past hundred years, because of movements associated with such people as Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Dorothy Day, that nonviolent struggle has become a recognized alternative to passivity, on the one hand, and violence on the other.


Such acts of nonviolent protest are far from unknown in the Orthodox Church. One powerful example occurred in Constantinople in the year 842 when, opposing the iconoclast Emperor Leo V, a thousand monks took part in an icon-bearing procession in the capital city. They were exhibiting images of Christ and the saints which, had they obeyed the emperor, should have long before been destroyed. Their act of civil disobedience risked severe punishment. Iconographers had been tortured, mutilated and sent into exile. Thousands of icons had been destroyed. The death of the emperor later that year was widely seen as heaven’s judgment. In 843 his widow Theodora convened a Church Council which reaffirmed the place of the icon in Christian life. The first Sunday of Lent was set aside to celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy.


There is one last element of peacemaking: It is aspiring to a life of recognizing Jesus. In his teaching about the Last Judgment, Christ tells us, “Truly, I say to you, what you did it to one of the least of these, you did to me.”


Occasionally the question is raised: “Why are we judged together and not one by one as we die?” It is because our life is far from over when we die. Our acts of love, and failures to love, continue to have consequences until the end of history. What Adam and Eve did, what Moses did, what Plato did, what Pilate did, what the Apostles did, what Caesar did, what Hitler did, what Martin Luther King did, what Mother Maria Skobtsova did, what you and I have done – all these lives, with their life-saving or murderous content, continue to have consequences for the rest of history. What you and I do, and what we fail to do, will matter forever.


It weighs heavily on many people that Jesus preached not only heaven but hell. There are many references to hell in the Gospels, including in the Sermon on the Mount. How can a loving God allow a place devoid of love?


A response to this question that makes sense to me is one I first heard in a church in Prague in the Communist period. God allows us to go wherever we are going. We are not forced to love. Communion is not forced on us. We are not forced to recognize God’s presence. It is all an invitation. We can choose. We can choose life or death. Perhaps we can even make the choice of heaven while in hell. In The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis has a tour bus leaving daily from hell to heaven. But the bus is never full and tends to return with as many passengers as it took on the trip out of hell. Heaven is too painful, its light too intense, its edges too sharp, for those who are used to the dullness of hell. In fact the older we are, the more we live by old choices, and defend those choices, and make ideologies, even theologies, out of our choices, and finally become slaves to them.


We can say, not just once but forever, as Peter once said of Jesus, “I do not know the man.” There are so many people about whom we can say, to our eternal peril, “I do not know the man,” to which we can add that he is worthless and has no one to blame for his troubles but himself, that his problems aren’t our business, that he is an enemy, that he deserves to die – whether of frostbite or violence matters little.


As St. John Chrysostom said, “If you cannot find Christ in the beggar at the church door, you will not find Him in the chalice.” If I cannot find the face of Jesus in the face of those who are my enemies, if I cannot find him in the unbeautiful, if I cannot find him in those who have the wrong ideas, if I cannot find him in the poor and the defeated, how will I find him in bread and wine, or in the life after death? If I do not reach out in this world to those with whom he has identified himself, why do I imagine that I will want to be with him, and them, in heaven? Why would I want to be for all eternity in the company of those whom I despised and avoided every day of my life?


Christ’s Kingdom would be hell for those who avoided peace and devoted their lives to division. But heaven is right in front of us. At the heart of what Jesus says in every act and parable is this: Now, this minute, we can enter the Kingdom of God. This very day we can sing the Paschal hymn: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and to those in the tomb he has given life!”


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Jim Forest, secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, is the author of many books, including The Road to Emmaus: Pilgrimage as a Way of Life and Ladder of the Beatitudes. The text is based on a lecture given at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, Crestwood, New York.


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How St. Telemachus of Rome ended gladiatorial combat


Honorius, who inherited the empire of Europe, put a stop to the gladiatorial combats which had long been held at Rome. The occasion of his doing so arose from the following circumstance. A certain man of the name of Telemachus had embraced the ascetic life. He had set out from the East and for this reason had repaired to Rome. There, when the abominable spectacle was being exhibited, he went himself into the stadium, and stepping down into the arena, endeavored to stop the men who were wielding their weapons against one another. The spectators of the slaughter were indignant, and inspired by the mad fury of the demon who delights in those bloody deeds, stoned the peacemaker to death. When the admirable emperor [Honorius] was informed of this, he recognized Telemachus as a victorious martyr, and put an end to that impious spectacle.


– Theodoret of Cyrus (393-457)
The Ecclesiastical History, book 5, chapter 26


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Fall 2009 issue of In Communion / IC 54

source: http://incommunion.org/?p=1638

Living the Beatitudes

by Fr. John Chryssavgis

The root of the English word “beatitude” is “beau­ty.” The Greek term kalos implies attractiveness — literally, an attraction toward divine beauty.


In the first book of the Bible, beauty is central. We learn how God made the world as a “very good” creation (Gen. 1: 31) — a beautiful cosmos. And in the first Gospel, the protoevange­lion of the Christian scriptural canon, Matthew opens his very first verse by describing the message that he wishes to convey as “a book of genesis.” By so doing, Matthew is being faithful to Genesis as an archetype of God’s message or purpose for the world.


In his gospel account, Matthew is not offering a biography of Jesus, but a way of living for a new Israel, the Christian community, the church; he is presenting an ecclesiol­ogy, not a history. He is addressing a people in community, con­firm­ing a way of life. He is telling us that the beauty for which God created and intended the world must become part of our own life style and worldview.


Matthew is addressing a people in crisis. After the resurrection, an apocalyptic attitude sustained the Christian community. The early Christians believed Jesus would soon return. Yet Matthew believed and proclaimed other­wise: that the kingdom of heaven is already at hand, even now in our hands. God is already present in those who live a life of restoration and resurrection in Christ.


To help you appreciate how it is that Matthew could have an alternative vision, let me take an example from daily life. When we look at buildings, the untamed eye will observe bricks and mortar, wood and glass. An architect, however, will perceive beyond the surface appearance; an architect discerns harmony or pressure points. Yet another person will discern the beauty of the spiritual world, the presence or absence of God.


Matthew too is able to reveal a new understanding of our world, new — and at the same time ever deepening — perceptions of the presence of God in our lives. In the beginning, in the book and the event of Genesis, God saw chaos and darkness, and God cared enough about the world to place things in order, to render things beautiful. He created the cosmos. In Matthew’s Genesis, God once again cared for and loved the world. The phrase “in the beginning” — whether in the first book of the Old Testament or the first book of the New Testament — is a symbol for whenever, signifying always. The term “whenever” implies the phrase “in the beginning.” It also includes “every beginning.” This reality teaches us to respond accordingly. Whenever we see any form of deviation, any deformation in nature, in life, or in the world, we too must care enough to respond; we too must love sufficiently to restore, to heal.


How does Matthew propose that we achieve this? Instead of searching for God in empty places, Matthew asked his community to return to and re-examine its roots. He begins his Gospel with three periods, three series of fourteen generations, in order to show how God’s presence in this world, in history, has both roots and continuity. As Orthodox, we would adopt the term “tradition.”


In the genealogy that is offered, Matthew is in fact very radical, hardly traditional — he includes women, non-Jews and a foreigner. He could quite easily have included each of us.

Blessed are the Poor in Spirit: theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven


God’s kingdom is never reduced simply to a matter of rules and regulations. It is certainly not a reinforcement of worldly positions and secular institutions. God’s kingdom is a reversal of attitudes, a metanoia, a conversion and reordering of values and behavior. It means becoming more and more a person who shares in the holiness, the beauty, and the perfection of God. It implies coming under the authority of God, rather than under the authority of this world. Living the Beatitudes signifies our acceptance of this new authority.


Matthew often uses the word “perfect.” The Greek word for perfect (teleios) signifies reaching for a goal (telos). For Christians, this “end” is the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, Matthew is telling us that perfection is a process, a series of stages of progress. It is less a condition of perfection, than it is a potential or possibility. Think of the emphasis in St. Gregory of Nyssa on “never-ending perfection” (epektasis).


And in order to become perfect, Matthew tells us we must become poor. To become complete, he tells us we must surrender, we must be incomplete. If you want, “go sell all your possessions and give to the poor.”


There is a cost involved here. The question is: How much have we sold? How much have you sold? How much have I sold? And are we in fact willing to give up and to give up everything? Are we prepared to sacrifices our preconceptions, our prestige, our positions, our possessions, our power?


Matthew is not romanticizing poverty. Sharing in the kingdom in fact depends on our effort to alleviate the various forms of poverty in the world. Poverty is not good; it is not blessed; it is not a virtue. Poverty is miserable; poverty is a clear indication that the kingdom of God has not yet come.


However, poverty can be voluntary, as with monastics. Voluntary poverty becomes a way of sharing with the poor, a means of giving up whatever gives us security. Indeed, such poverty is more than merely giving up. It is a way of giving! But so long as we justify our ways and our behavior, we shall not appreciate the need to change. We will not understand that everyone has a right to enough of the earth’s resources: to sufficient water, energy, food, clothing, health, a safe environment, and peace.


If God’s purpose is for us to be more and more, then we must admit that to have more than enough is to be less than human. It is to bear a lighter “footprint” on the world that we inhabit. In the Beatitudes, we learn that we must choose our gods; we cannot serve two masters. Remember, where your treasure is, there your heart is also. And our world offers us numerous temptations to find security in consumer goods.


“Blessed, then, are the poor in spirit.” Blessed are those who submit to God, who put their trust in God, who have confidence in God, who are not controlled by their needs or by the demands of this world.


Blessed are those who
- know that they are poor in spirit:
- recognize the need for healing
- admit the wasting of goods
- work to remove conditions that contribute to world poverty
- are ready to change their lifestyles
- reflect on their ways and their attitudes
- work with others to overcome the fears and controls of society
- recognize they will not change (either themselves or the world) by themselves or indeed overnight
- trust that “our heavenly Father knows all that we need. Therefore, seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be given to [us] besides.”

Blessed are those who mourn: they shall be comforted


When we think of Jesus Christ, we imagine the healer, the one who overcomes brokenness and death, the Lord that assumed the scarred flesh and touched the shattered world. There is a softness of touch, almost a sense of joy, to this Beatitude. When Isaiah speaks of comfort, he says: “Give them oil of gladness in place of mourning” (61: 3). There is an entire literature and theology of tears in early ascetic writers.


Mourning and tears continually touch every level of our life. And Jesus brings healing to all levels of life. Yet comfort is not tantamount to relaxation; it is again a form of restoration. It is in fact a challenge.


How is healing brought to those who suffer, or comfort to those who mourn? First, Jesus notices the brokenness, cares for the broken, and responds to the broken. Second, all the healing miracles of Christ have to do with overcoming individualism, with breaking open the closedness within us and around us: the deaf person is shut off; the dumb person cannot communicate; the paralytic cannot step beyond himself; the leper is isolated, ostracized from the community; the demonized man is possessed, imprisoned.


And how does Jesus heal these people? To the deaf, he says: “effatha” (be opened). To the dumb person, he says: “speak.” To the paralytic, he says: “take up your bed, and walk.” To the leper, he says: “be cleaned.” To the demonized man, he says: “be healed, go to the rest of the community, and show yourself.”


These miracles offer us an insight into the healing and wholeness of the kingdom. Henceforth, if we wish to live by the Beatitudes, we can no longer remain deaf to the cry of those who suffer, or to an environment that groans.


And so we mourn. We mourn because we have betrayed our call to be faithful to God’s plan and authority. We grieve and admit our sins — sins of envy, greed, gluttony, jealousy and aggression — against our neighbor and against the earth. We recognize of course that such external “sins” are only symptoms of our inner disease. However, by recognizing our own brokenness, we are forgiven and comforted. Then, and only then, are we given the power to heal.


It is significant that Matthew’s Gospel shows that Christ’s disciples were given the power to heal as early as in chapter 10. It is not until much later, in the final chapter 28 — and in the very last verse of that chapter — that they were also given the power to teach! The message is simple: when we are in pain, we do not easily receive or give teaching. When our community or our environment is broken, mere words about the beauty of nature will not go a long way in restoring the suffering that we have inflicted upon it.


There is a further dimension to our mourning. Mourning is a condition, not just a singular event. Standing before society’s unwillingness to change, even Jesus is brought to tears. Sometimes even our wrongful ideologies, our mis­guided values are reinforced by established religion and the institutional church. One of the shortest and most powerful verses in the Bible is: “Jesus wept.” Yet this verse is also a symbol of comfort and sweetness to a broken people.


Finally, in relation to the natural environment, the Book of Hosea tells us that even “the land itself mourns, and everything that dwells in it languishes [i.e., sheds tears]” (Hos. 4: 1).


Matthew wrote of birds in the sky; today, oil slicks wash them ashore. Grass in the fields brought joy in the times of Christ’s disciples; today, toxic chemicals and warfare leave the land barren. Jesus assumed that foxes had homes; today, we cannot assume that foxes will survive. Jesus multiplied loaves and fishes; today, 800 million are severely undernourished.


Extending our care and concern to people and to inanimate creation brings good news to the whole world. One teardrop of mourning for our way of life can water the whole world.

Blessed are the meek; they shall inherit the land


As the King of heaven and earth, Christ comes not with violence but in meekness. He will inherit the earth and all its power, all its positions, all its prestige. Matthew reassures us that God is found at the very center of the world, with us in all generations. And this King comes to assume authority over all of creation, to reorder all creation from chaos into cosmos — an allusion to the events recorded in the first Genesis.


The average Jew during the life of Christ, and the average Christian disciple of Christ, had one of two ways of responding to Jesus: either with meekness or violence; either through peace or indignation. The way in which we receive Christ is reflected in the way in which we regard the earth or the land.


God and land, divine Word and created world must be integrated. The spiritual life brings God, the land, and the people together in a balance and integrated order.


This means that the land or the earth must never become an end in itself. God is always the source of all worldly resources. Israel laid aside a weekly day of rest in order to remember this, to reflect on where our treasure is. Worshiping the created land, venerating any false god, is a form of idolatry. Yet on the other hand, Worshiping God without assuming responsibility for the land is a dangerous and misleading form of spiritualism.


We may, for instance, pray for the environment, imploring God to do something about the crisis that we confront, yet never changing our lifestyle, which may well be reinforcing the problem. Matthew’s Christ warns us: “None of those who cry out: ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom but only the one who does the will of my Father” (7: 21).


Or else we may be activists who leave little or no room for prayer. Our lamps should not go out because of our failure to wait for God (25:1-3) in silence. Prayer is not a pretext for the evasion of responsibility. Prayer and action are equal dimensions of spirituality. We must understand how Jesus was as authentic when He healed the sick, as when He withdrew to be alone with God.


Our society, however, promotes a mentality that exalts the acquisition of material possessions. Once we are in “the land,” it is difficult to “seek first the kingdom of God.” It is easy to forget that this earth is inherited — it is received; it is not taken, or snatched. It is never ours to own, but only God’s to give.


Therefore, the land and its wealth must be oriented to others in order to promote God’s kingdom, reordering the priorities of this world. Meekness is the blessed way of dealing justly with the land. The meek person reflects a reversal of attitudes toward power, possessions and positions. Other­wise, the land becomes a territory of violence, a domain of division, a realm of mistrust.


Meekness is a way of caring. It should touch every aspect of our lives. It should teach us that God is God, that we are God’s, and that the land is God’s. Thus, the land is ours only to use and share responsibly. Meekness is a blessed correction, a heavenly contrast to the violence which we have wrought upon the earth, a stark opposition to the desecration of God’s plan for creation.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness [or justice]; they shall be filled


This Beatitude introduces the fundamental theme of justice in relation to the environment and the spiritual life. “The Lord is our justice,” says the Prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 23: 5-6). And when we thirst for justice, we know that we shall be filled. “As the earth brings forth its plants … so will the Lord God make justice” (Is. 61: 3-4, 10-11).


Hunger and thirst lead to dependence on God. And God promises that there will always be enough for all. That is justice; that is fairness; that is righteousness. However, like Israel in the Old Testament, we want more than enough, more than our share, more than what is just and fair. We lose our conviction and confidence that God will “give us our daily bread.” God responds to our need, and asks in return that we do not store up treasure on earth, that we do not live in excess, so that others too may have enough. We are to seek to have only just enough, in order to be more and more.


When Matthew speaks of the kingdom, he speaks of justice (dikaiosyne). Matthew uses this word seven times in his Gospel. The opposite of justice, for Matthew, is not injustice; it is hypocrisy. Justice creates community; hypocrisy destroys commonality. Justice creates cosmos (beauty); hypocrisy creates chaos. Justice means sharing; hypocrisy signifies concealing and keeping. The ultimate test of our justice is to ask ourselves whether we continue our acts of piety when no one is watching.


For the Jew and the early Christians, there were three practical ways of materializing justice:


Almsgiving: Almsgiving is not simply a matter of feeling. Almsgiving means responsibility. And almsgiving is not an optional virtue. Giving all that is in excess is naturally expected of everyone.
Prayer: In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus teaches us that when we pray we must (a) not talk too much; and (b) learn to forgive. Yet when we look honestly at our life of prayer, we have to admit that we do tend to talk too much. Prayer must heal divisions, not harbor anger or resentment. “Forgive us … as we forgive others,” we pray in the Lord’s Prayer. If we are not striving to create heaven on earth, then perhaps we should stop praying the Lord’s Prayer. Our actions and our lifestyle will show whether we mean what we pray (”your kingdom come … on earth as it is in heaven”), or whether we are merely talking too much.
Fasting: We fast in order to remember the kingdom. We fast in order to commit ourselves to the priorities and the ways of the kingdom. We fast in order to practice offering our resources to the poor and sharing our possessions with our neighbor. Fasting helps shape a vision whereby we can view the world with God’s eyes. It clarifies the purpose and sharpens the focus, so that our view and our worldview is larger than ourselves.



“This is the fasting that I desire: releasing those bound unjustly … setting free the oppressed …. sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless, clothing the naked … satisfying the afflicted …. Then the Lord will guide you always and give you plenty …. You will be like a watered garden, like a spring whose water never fails …. ‘Repairer of the breach,’ they shall call you” (Isaiah 58: 6-12).




Fasting reminds us of the hunger in the world. The degree to which we resist fasting may reflect the degree to which we contribute to hunger.

Blessed are the merciful; they shall receive mercy


An essential aspect of justice and righteousness is mercy. Mercy is the personal experience and practical expression of God’s love. To be blessed by God is to show compassion, to have concern, to care for every living person and every living thing. We remember in this regard Abba Isaac the Syrian describing the merciful heart:


[The merciful heart] is a heart that burns out of compassion for birds, beasts, human beings, even demons. … Such a heart cannot bear to hear of the slightest pain suffered anywhere in creation.




Blessedness, then, means showing mercy. Indeed, the perfection of God and the kingdom of God are almost synonymous with the quality of mercy. Mercy is a sign of God’s kingdom. This is why we repeat “Lord, have mercy” in our liturgy. We are asking God to be who He is in spite of who we are. We may think here of the parable of the king who forgave the large debt. When the official refused to show a similar compassion to the servant, the forgiving king was angered. Sadly, while the mercy of the master changes the situation of the official, it does not convert his heart.


A Christian cannot win God’s mercy. But a Christian can lose God’s mercy by not extending it to others and to the environment.


At the same time, God’s mercy is also passionate, full of “pathos” (or pas­sion). If we do not show mercy, if we are a-pathetic, if we do not care, if we are indifferent to the cry of the earth, if we remain neutral in the face of injustice: then we do not reflect God’s image, we are not revealing God’s kingdom.


There are no excuses for our un-involvement. We have the information. Anyway, we are deeply — innately and inevitably — involved in one way or another. We must choose to care. Otherwise, we are not being fair; we are not acting in a just manner. Otherwise, we are being hypocritical, self-righteous, and certainly not righteous.


Let us consider one example of such mercy from the life of Christ. In the miracle of the feeding of the multitudes, the Lord encourages the disciples to act for their environment: “There is no need for them to disperse. Give them something to eat yourselves.” (Mt 14: 16) “Use your own resources” is what He is telling them. The disciples response reflects ours: “We have nothing here.”


What they are saying is that we have only limited resources. Yet it is the willingness to share that transforms what looks like very little in the eyes of the world into what is more than sufficient. We shall never give people enough to eat. But we must give them from our table.


How many people sit at our table? What kind of people do we invite to sit with us at our table? How many issues do we ignore at the table of our life? How significant — or just how subtle — is our attitude of prejudice?

Blessed are the pure in heart; they shall see God


Seeing God’s face depends on purity of heart, a purity requiring total commitment to God’s kingdom, an inner attitude of wholeheartedness. Our external actions indicate our internal priorities. “Where our treasure is, there our heart is also.”


Purity of heart is achieved through purification, through asceticism. By asceticism, I mean learning what really matters, not being controlled by the cares of this world, not remaining on the surface level of life, not seeking instant results, not avoiding painful struggle. Asceticism is learning what to care for, and when not to care; when to be involved, and when not to interfere; it is taking the time and making the space to be still in order to “hear” God. Then our heart becomes pure; then we become better disposed to “see” God.


So purity of heart implies a process of stripping the surface. It is an invitation to greater depth. It is making choices about things, about people, about God. Then we value and desire not what we want, but what we need; and gradually we come to value and desire only what God wants. We begin to understand what blocks our vision of God, what separates us from God. We learn to see the world with new eyes. We hear God’s silent words in creation. The very same things appear renewed, “a new heaven and a new earth.”


At this point, it is very much like being in a guest-room by ourselves only to sense that we are in another person’s presence. There, in our heart, we discover ourselves in relation to God; but there too we discover ourselves in communion with the entire world. Then we see Christ everywhere. And therefore — as Fr. Alexander Schmemann liked to say — we can only rejoice. For we have direct and intimate access to the face of God, to the ear of God, to the word of God.


And because we live — or at least strive, desire to live — in purity of heart, we can actually see God. And our prayer for purity becomes simply: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me and on your world.

Blessed are the peacemakers; they shall be called children of God


To understand how it is that we can work for peace in a way that God will call us His children, it may be helpful to remember what it means for Christ to be called God’s Son. In the Gospel of Matthew, Christ is called “Son” twice, and the call comes from a voice from heaven. The first time was at His baptism; the second was on the mount of transfiguration. On both occasions it is said: “This is my beloved Son; in Him I am well pleas­ed.” (3: 17, and 17: 5)


Christ is the Son of God because He is in full communion with the nature of God; because He is fully committed to the will of God.


Full communion means sharing in all His resources. Full commitment to the Beatitudes signifies a reflection of God’s unity, of divine peace, life, and justice. Even though Christ’s communion and commitment lead Him to the cross and to death, nevertheless He remained surrendered to God’s purpose, irrespective of whether this meant standing in direct contrast, indeed in contradiction to the way society understood peace and justice.


So perhaps it is important to stop measuring progress or success in the way society regards these. The criterion for success cannot be defined in quantitative terms. For Christ, the end was the cross; for John the Baptist, the end was his beheading.


Now, the emphasis on becoming children underlines another point. Peace­making means building community; and community begins by realizing and respecting the dignity of each person. Each member of the community is precious in the eyes of God. Therefore, when Christ was asked about greatness, He called a young child over, stood it in the midst of those who were gathered, and said: “I assure you, unless you change [literally, repent] and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of God” (18: 2-3).


This was a radical, not a sentimental gesture. At the time of Jesus, children were denied human rights. They had no access to necessary resources for basic survival. By their age, as well as by law, they were segregated from the rest of society. In order then to be a “peacemaker,” in order to be called a “child of God,” we are to give way — to defer — to others, out of reverence for the rights of others. We must recognize that all people require the resources of this world.


It is in this light that we are invited to become peacemakers. This also means that making peace is work. It is in fact very difficult work. Yet it is our only hope for the restoration of a broken world. By working for peace, by working to heal the environment, by removing obstacles for peace, by avoiding what harms the environment, we may — at least, this is what we are assured — hear a voice in our heart that says: “This is my beloved. In my beloved — and him, in her, in you — I am well pleased.” What greater joy, what richer blessing, what more abundant grace can there be than this?

Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of justice [or righteousness]; theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you … for great is your reward in heaven


Matthew wished to reassure his community about two things: first, if they lived by the Beatitudes, according to His name, then they should expect rejection; ­and second, if they were persecuted, this would be a sign that they were truly faithful.


This last Beatitude, like the first, is a reassurance that the kingdom of God can be immediately expected.


Christ did not come to spread peace, but the sword, that is division (10:34). Persecution must be expected. Some people will not under­stand the language about justice and healing the environment. Society will not understand; much less will society be “converted.” Even the Church may not understand. What Christ calls a “blessing” is for others a “scandal.” Living the Beatitudes means resisting, sometimes even reversing, the ways of the world. Society will reject both message and messenger, our theology and actions alike. People have too much at stake. As the Prophet Isaiah says: “They look, but they choose not to see; they listen, but they choose not to hear.” (Mt 13:13; Is 6: 9-10)


In response, the Christians become a “remnant” community, a small flock, the leaven. They can begin a new process of hope in a world unwilling to receive the kingdom. Yet they are not afraid; they are not alone. They may rejoice, for He has overcome the world. Fear gives way to faith in God’s promise: “the kingdom of God is theirs.” Indeed, it is ours.


Yet Matthew placed this Beatitude last in order to indicate something more powerful than this. This Beatitude is more than a mere conclusion. It is a clear commission, an explicit command for the disciples to enter the world of their day, to assume the problems of their time, to bring God’s care into the world — no matter what the cost, irrespective of the risk or the pain. That’s why the Lord continues the Beatitude by changing to the second person: “Blessed are those who are persecuted…. Bless­ed are you when … they persecute you …. Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is great in heaven.”


The Beatitude now becomes a direct invitation, a personal blessing, a definite assurance and promise. And Christ later continues: “You are the salt of the earth …. You are the light of the world” (5: 13-15).


We must persist in responding to the poor, in striving to share the resources of the world, in trying to heal our broken community and environment. This is the way in which we shall inherit the heavenly kingdom and this earth. In fact, this is the way that we shall understand how the kingdom relates to this earth. For by living the Beatitudes, we shall hear Christ’s voice: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you from the creation of the world.” (Mt 25: 34)


Matthew’s new Genesis returns to an echo of the creation story, closing with a reminder about the first Genesis when God created the world; “and behold it was good,” indeed “very good.”


Fr. John Chryssavgis studied theology in Athens and Oxford. He has been professor of theology at St. Andrew’s Theological College in Sydney and at Holy Cross School of Theology in Boston. He serves as theological advisor to the Ecumenical Patriarch on environmental issues. His recent books include Soul Mending: The Art of Spiritual Direction, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, and Cosmic Grace, Humble prayer: eco­logical initiatives of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholo­mew. His text on the Beatitudes was the keynote address at the Orthodox Peace Fellowship conference at St. Tikhon’s Monastery in June.


Reprinted from In Communion, Quarterly journal of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship, Spring-Summer 2003 / issue 30. Copyright by the author.

source: http://incommunion.org/articles/issue-30/living-the-beatitudes