Why Orthodox Christian Easter Is Later than the Catholic/Protestant One? (Orthodox Holy Week 1-8 April, 2018)

 

Photo from here (Uganda)

By Fr. Jon Magoulias* – Greek USA Reporter
Orthodox Mission
 
As Greek-Orthodox Christians prepare to celebrate Easter on Sunday,April 8th 2018, we would like to shed some light on the reasons why the Orthodox Christian Church celebrates the Resurrection of Jesus Christ later than the Catholic one. While the issue is somewhat complicated, it may be summarized in the two factors at work that cause this conflict in dates: 1) The issue of the calendar; and 2) the adherence by the Orthodox to the early practices of the Christian Church.
The first factor, the calendar, has to do with the fact that the Christian Orthodox Church continues to follow the Julian calendar when calculating the date of Pascha (Easter). The rest of Christianity uses the Gregorian calendar. There is a thirteen-day difference between the two calendars, the Julian calendar being thirteen (13) days behind the Gregorian.
The other factor at work is that the Orthodox Church continues to adhere to the rule set forth by the First Ecumenical Council, held in Nicea in 325 AD, that requires that Pascha must take place after the Jewish Passover in order to maintain the Biblical sequence of Christ’s Passion. The rest of Christianity ignores this requirement, which means that on occasion Western Easter takes place either before or during the Jewish Passover.
As a consequence of these two factors, the Orthodox Church usually celebrates Pascha later than the Western Churches – anywhere from one to five weeks later. While this year Catholic Easter is today the Orthodox Church will celebrate it next Sunday, April 8, 2018 (in 2016 Orthodox Easter is on May 1st). Occasionally we do celebrate Pascha on the same day. The last time that occurred was in 2011.
The two dates coincide when the full moon following the equinox comes so late that it counts as the first full moon after 21 March in the Julian calendar as well as the Gregorian. This is not a regular occurrence, but it has happened more frequently in recent years – in 2010, 2011, 2014 and 2017, but, after that, not again until 2034. For many people this is a confusing and frustrating issue. Especially those of us who have families that are not Orthodox wonder why we have to celebrate this important holiday at different times. In order to better understand why we do, we will take a closer look at how the date of Pascha is calculated and also examine the issue of the calendar.

Frescoes by Theophanes the Cretan, in the Stavronikita monastery, Holy Mount Athos (from here)

How the Date of Pascha (Easter) is Determined

During the first three centuries of Christianity, there was no universal date for celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Churches in various parts of the world followed different traditions. Some Christians celebrated Pascha on the first Sunday after Jewish Passover and others celebrated the feast at the same time as Passover. In order to come up with one unified date for celebrating Pascha, the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council in 325 AD took up the issue. They devised a uniform formula for calculating the date of Pascha that was in line with the early traditions of the Church and the Biblical sequence of events. The formula is this: Pascha is to be celebrated on the first Sunday, after the first full moon, following the vernal equinox, but always after Jewish Passover. In order to ensure that there was no confusion as to when the vernal equinox occurred the date of the vernal equinox was set to be March 21 (April 3 on the Julian Calendar). 
This formula was universally accepted by all of Christianity, ensuring that Pascha was celebrated on the same day throughout the world. The Orthodox Church continues to follow this formula exactly as prescribed by the Council of Nicea.
However, in modern times, the Western Church has rejected the part of the Nicene formula that requires that Pascha “always follow the Jewish Passover.”
Western theologians (and, unfortunately, a few misguided Orthodox Theologians as well) now claim that this provision was never a part of the council’s intention, saying that it is not necessary for Pascha to follow the Jewish Passover. This is hard to understand since, by rejecting this provision of the council, they ignore that the celebration of Jesus’ Resurrection was celebrated at the same time from 325-1582, as well as the written witness of early Church historians and even earlier canons such as Canon VII of the Apostolic Canons which reads: “If any Bishop, or Presbyter, or Deacon celebrate the holy day of Pascha before the vernal equinox with the Jews, let him be deposed.”

 

The Icon of Resurrection or The descent into Hades (see here)

The Calendar Issue

In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII instituted a reform of the traditional Julian calendar. This new calendar, called the Gregorian calendar, was more astronomically correct and is the calendar used by most of the world today. As mentioned above, there is a difference of 13 days between the Gregorian and the Julian calendars. Eventually, all of the Western Churches adopted this “New” calendar. The Orthodox Church, however, vigorously opposed the use of the Gregorian calendar. This resulted in the West and East celebrating all Church feast days on different dates, the Orthodox celebrations always falling thirteen days behind the Western.
In 1923, an inter-Orthodox congress was held in Constantinople attended by representatives of some, but not all, Orthodox churches. This congress made the very controversial decision to follow a revised calendar that was essentially the same as the Gregorian calendar, for all things except the celebration of Pascha, which continued to be calculated according to the original Julian calendar.
The result being that today we celebrate most feast days, like Christmas, Epiphany and the rest, at the same time as Western Christians and only Pascha and the feast days that are connected with it like Pentecost and the Ascension, are dated according to the Julian calendar and celebrated on different dates. For Orthodox, it is important to maintain the teachings and traditions of the Church intact and pure.

*Fr. Jon Magoulias is a Greek-Orthodox priest at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Modesto, CA

***

 

Orthodox Easter 2017 in Kenya (photo from here)

by Fr. Basil Biberdorf - Preachers Institute

Sigh. It’s time for that annual round of ABSOLUTELY WRONG “Why Orthodox Pascha [Easter] doesn’t line up with Western Easter every year” articles.
It’s very simple. The basic principle is: Pascha happens the first Sunday following the first full moon following the vernal (spring) equinox, which is assumed as the invariant date of March 21. This was established by the First Ecumenical Council, held in Nicaea in AD 325.
The differences arise because:
1. The Orthodox use March 21 on the Julian (Old) Calendar, which differs by some 13 days from the Gregorian (New) Calendar. If a full moon occurs in this interval, the Paschal dates will be off by quite a bit.
2. The full moon is determined not by observation, but according to tables that say when it is according to the year in a cycle. The Orthodox have a different table than the Roman Catholics (and, consequently, the Western Protestants).
The differences have nothing to do with observing Pascha after Passover. The first Nicaean Council explicitly de-linked Pascha from Passover, which, due to Jewish rabbinical decisions could move from year to year. The Council wanted to free the Christian Church from this variability.

See also

The Orthodox Holy Week & Holy Easter (Pascha)

The Death of Christ and the Life of Man

Holy Light (Holy Fire) in Jerusalem (video) 

Early testimonies about miracle of Holy Fire

 
Three popes and a patriarch
Basic Points of Difference between the Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic Church

The Road to Rome? Why Orthodoxy Deserves a Look 

I love the Pope & the Roman Catholic faithful, but...

Roman Catholics met Orthodoxy (blog)  

KANANGA, ταινία του Παύλου Τριποδάκη (πρεμιέρα 29 Μαρτίου 2018)

(Διάρκεια 69 λεπτά)

Στην Κανάνγκα, την τρίτη μεγαλύτερη πόλη της Λαϊκής Δημοκρατίας του Κονγκό, ο πόλεμος και η πείνα κρέμονται σαν δαμόκλειος σπάθη πάνω από τα κεφάλια των κατοίκων. Τα χαμόγελα όμως, το γέλιο και η ελπίδα δεν σβήνουν ποτέ. Το μήνυμα που μετέφεραν οι Έλληνες Ορθόδοξοι ιερείς τη δεκαετία του 60 συνεχίζει να τους δίνει τη δύναμη και το κουράγιο που χρειάζονται για να αντιμετωπίσουν τη σκληρή καθημερινότητα.

TRAILER:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nllZNnSrxAQ



Στο δρόμο του "χρυσού".

Ένα ντοκιμαντέρ γυρισμένο στην Ορθόδοξη Ιεραποστολή, στη Λαϊκή Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό.
Εκεί που οι άνθρωποι γονατίζουν μόνο μπροστά στο Θεό.

Από την ΠΕΜΠΤΗ 29 ΜΑΡΤΙΟΥ 2018 ΣΤΙΣ 19:30 στον ιστορικό κινηματογράφο ΑΛΚΥΟΝΙΣ.

Η πρεμιέρα της ταινίας θα γίνει παρουσία του σκηνοθέτη Παύλου Τριποδάκη, ο οποίος και θα κάνει μια σύντομη εισαγωγή πριν την προβολή της.

Πληροφορίες / Κρατήσεις: 2108220008
Διεύθυνση: Ιουλιανού 42, Αθήνα 104 33 Τηλ. 2108220008
Τιμή εισιτηρίου: 5 Ευρώ.

ΤΑ ΕΣΟΔΑ ΘΑ ΔΟΘΟΥΝ ΣΤΗΝ ΙΕΡΑ ΜΗΤΡΟΠΟΛΗ ΚΙΝΣΑΣΑΣ 



Για τη Λαϊκή Δημοκρατία του Κονγκό εδώ.
Για την Ορθοδοξία στη χώρα, εδώ.
Για την Ιερά Μητρόπολη Κινσάσας εδώ (ελληνικά).

Annunciation of Mother of God, Greek Rebelion (1821), St Mary of Egypt

 

Click:

 

Ambassadors of the Faith: Sharing the Light and the Love of Christ / About the Feast of the Annunciation of Ever-Virgin Mary (March 25)

 

Greek War of Independence 

 

St. Mary of Egypt القديسة مريم المصرية

(5th Sunday of Great Lent)

 

Synaxis of the Holy Archangel Gabriel (March 26)

The Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete, a dialog between a man and his soul!

Please, click here!

 

Photo from here (Kenya)

Lent (tag)

"I Am Not Your Immigrant"

 
Whispers of a Womanist - A Black Female Perspective

My last name is Saunders.
I am a descendant of Africans kidnapped from the continent centuries ago. My last name is a visible reminder of the chains that bound my ancestor’s limbs as they sat, cramped on the ship that literally and figuratively severed them from their motherland. I do not know my original last name, or the faces of my ancestors seized from our indigenous land. America stole that from me, and told me George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were my forefathers.
I don’t know the songs they sang before their abduction. Instead, America made me memorize “The Star Spangled Banner.” America prompted me to sing this song with my hand over my heart,  the heart that pumps the very blood pumped into the ground by enslaved ancestors. Blood, long forgotten if ever acknowledged, by white settlers.
My ancestors sat on dirty boats, bore children from rape, picked cotton for the American economy, then endured poverty for centuries while whites sent their children to college and lived in fancy houses. Fancy houses that blacks would clean for money that would allow them the luxury of poverty. Then we endured segregation, giving us an inferior lifestyle masked with the lie “separate but equal.”
I write to address the term immigrant that dominates so much of contemporary conversation. Namely, this post is a product of a comment I’m hearing more and more: “Unless your native American we are all immigrants.”
As a descendant of an abducted Africans, this statement is not only insulting but untrue. The myth of America being a land of liberty and freedom, seduces migrants to adopt America as their home. The abducted African was not afforded this choice. As writer James Baldwin stated decades ago,  the abducted African is America’s creation– encompassing the “nigger” essential to establish western superiority.
In labeling the ancestors of the abducted African immigrants, whites evoke the social amnesia necessary to alleviate them from their past sins. Dr. Amos Wilson evaluated the affects of social amnesia in The Falsification of African Consciousness. Dr. Wilson states:

“The psychology of individuals and groups may also, in part, be constructed from ‘historical and experimental amnesia.’ That is, when an individual or a group is compelled by various circumstances to repress important segments of his or its formative history he or it sometimes loses access to crucially important social, intellectual and technical skills associated with that history which could be used to resolve current problems” (1).

To label the bodies bred from the abducted Africans immigrants, their fate became a matter of choice, not a product of pure evil. Suddenly, both the settlers and slaves encompass the immigrant labeling, thus appear equal in the plight to belong. This dynamic is as troubling as it is false. Furthermore,  this implied equal footing operates in a manner similar to blackness as a construct—a lie treated as truth to foment a targeted result. For blacks to believe the lie embedded in the “immigrant” label, America becomes the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” not those who raped your ancestors, and lived comfortably for generations on money collected from stolen labor.
The black migrant, or those who came to America from the West Indies, The Caribbean, South America, Central America or the continent itself are in fact immigrants. Although the African Diaspora exhibits a shared white influence in seeing America as a place for opportunity–not the land that stole from their brethren, it was not their direct blood cast into the soil to build America.  To some,  their presence suggests that African abduction could not have been that bad if those with a shared lineage choose to be here. Moreover, the migrant choice to come to America fosters the same ideology that validated our abduction, rape and torture—although they too lost their language and indigenous culture.
Unlike those of the African diaspora, non-black migrants from the Caribbean, Central and South America Asia and the allusive “middle east” have a language and culture  The abducted African lost their language and culture during the process that transformed them into America’s nigger.
To the migrant,  America was, at least at one point, “heaven like.” Namely, many journeyed to America unaware that America the beautiful burned the non-migrant black body alive and hung them from trees for crimes they did not commit. Instead they were shown pictures of wealth and civility. For the non-migrant black, America has always personified hell on earth, where their body is subject to various modes of maltreatment–legally permitted by the American government.
Now, the contemporary world hands the descendants of abducted Africans immigrant labeling. Labeling descendants of the abducted African immigrants works as yet another means to oppress the black mind. For if blacks forget their story, or become convinced that their is no story to tell, “his” story prevails and  blacks eventually ignore the magnitude of their oppression. As Neely Fuller profoundly stated:

“If you do not understand what racism and white supremacy are, and how they are implanted by the white race against the colored people of the world, you are lost, and everything else you know about white people will only confuse you.”

The label “immigrant” cast along the bodies of those descended from enslaved Africans oversimplifies the immensity the transatlantic slave trade had on the black diaspora. This labeling affords the western world another means to dodge any responsibility for their wrong doings, something that the conscious black body must confront every time they open their mouth to speak English.
I would say that whites should be ashamed of themselves, but to do so would reflect a disassociation from American trajectory. A large component of what enables whites to carry on as they have for centuries is the Racial Psychopathic Personality Dr. Bobby Wright outlines in his studies. This personality  results from an absence of conscious, or the inability to feel anything but entitlement.
My assertions are in no way to suggest that America is home to the abducted African. I do mean to declare the label immigrant as cast onto the black body to foment escapism, implemented to bury our story in favor of a story that paints America as “land of the immigrants.” Our kidnapping afforded America its riches. We bred America the liberties white migrants enjoyed in traditional and contemporary settings.  We made America enviable. We provided its fruits yet were never allowed to eat them.
Isn’t it enough that you stole our crowns and handed us chains instead? Isn’t it enough that you stole our language and gave us your own? Isn’t it enough that in spite of taking our language you ridicule us for not speaking yours properly?
Well, you may have stolen our ancestor’s bodies from Africa, but you cannot steal our legacy.
I am not your immigrant, just as you, are not my political leader, representative, sister, brother, fellow American or slave-master. You are however my chief abuser, persecutor and oppressor, a skilled magician that finds new ways to do what you have always done—oppress.
Nevertheless, I don’t hate you, but don’t belong to you either…

See also

Orthodox Mission in Tropical Africa (& the Decolonization of Africa)
African Initiated Churches in Search of Orthodoxy...
How “White” is the Orthodox Church? 

The Church as the Liberated Zone: "All we Christians are terrorists..."  

Ancient Christian faith (Orthodox Church) in Africa
African-American Orthodoxy — Eight principal areas of convergence between African spirituality and Ancient Christianity
Fr. Moses Berry, a descendant of African slaves, Orthodox priest and teacher in USA   

Alternative Christianity: Orthodoxy and the Mainstream Church

Ferguson, MO vs. Malcolm X: Are We Chasing Our Tails? - It is time for us all to come home...
The Least of These
The Desert Fathers: A Sad Omission of the Black Church - A Beacon for Evangelism

 

Native American Pathways to Orthodoxy
The Kingdom of Heaven, where racial discrimination has no place  
Brotherhood of St. Moses the Black
St Mary of Egypt, a multi-cultural orthodox community in Kansas City
St Nicholas of Japan, a multi-ethnic orthodox parish in Johannesburg
 
African Women
Orthodox Women Saints
Womens' Orthodox Blogs
Male and Female Created He Them...

"THE WAY" - An Introduction to the Orthodox Faith
Theosis (deification): The True Purpose of Human Life
LIVE, BEYOND THE LIMITS!
«African needs to be helped, to find his divine roots, for his soul to be at peace, to become united with God...»

The Holy "Black" Fathers who martyred at the Monastery of St. Sabbas (March 20)

 

Note of our blog: I do not know why these holy Fathers are called "Blacks". In the story of their martyrdom I do not see any information about it. You can see this name here (in Greek).

 

Orthodox Church in America

Troparion & Kontakion

Saints John, Sergius, Patrick and others were slain in the Monastery of Saint Sabbas (St Sava's Lavra). During the eighth century the area around Jerusalem was subjected to frequent incursions of the Saracens. The monastery of Saint Chariton was devastated and fell into ruin. Twice the Saracens tried to plunder the Lavra of Saint Sava the Sanctified, but God’s Providence protected the monastery. The monks would have been able to escape the barbarians by going to Jerusalem, but they decided not to forsake the place where they had sought salvation for so many years.
On March 13, the Saracens broke into the monastery and demanded all the valuables. The monks told them that there was nothing in the monastery but a meager supply of food and old clothing. Then the Saracens began to shoot arrows at the monks.
Thirteen men were killed and many wounded, and monastery cells were set afire. The Saracens intended also to torch the monastery church, but seeing a throng of people in the distance, they mistook this for an army sent from Jerusalem. The Saracens managed to get away, carrying off the little they were able to plunder. After the enemy fled, Father Thomas, an experienced physician, began to help those who remained alive.

Photo from here

On Great Thursday, March 20, the Saracens again descended upon the Lavra with a larger force and began to beat up the monks. The survivors were driven into the church, where they were tortured in order to force them to reveal where any treasure might be hidden. The monastery was surrounded, so no one could save himself by fleeing. The barbarians seized Saint John, a young monk, who had cared for vagrants. They beat him fiercely, then they cut the sinews of his hands and feet and dragged him over stones by his feet, which tore the skin from the martyr’s back.
The keeper of the church vessels, Saint Sergius, hid the church vessels and attempted to flee, but he was captured and beheaded. Several of the monks nevertheless managed to hide themselves outside the monastery in a cave, but they were spotted by a sentry on a hill, and they ordered everyone to come out. Inside the cave Saint Patrick whispered to the brethren huddled with him, “Fear not, I will go alone and meet my death. Meanwhile, sit and pray.”
The Saracens asked whether there was anyone else in the cave, and Patrick said that he was alone. They led him to the Lavra, where the captives awaited their fate. The Saracens demanded of them a ransom of 4,000 gold pieces and the sacred vessels. The monks were not able to give such a ransom. Then they led them into the cave of Saint Sava inside the monastery walls. They lit a fire on which they piled up dung in front of the entrance to the cave, hoping to suffocate the monks with the poisonous fumes. Eighteen men perished in the cave, among whom were Saints John and Patrick. The Saracens continued to torture those who were still alive, but got nothing out of them. Finally, they left the monastery.
Later, on the night of Great Friday, the monks hidden in the hills returned to the Lavra, they took up the bodies of the murdered Fathers to the church and buried them there.
The barbarians who plundered the monastery were punished by God. They were stricken with a sudden illness, and they all perished. Their bodies were devoured by wild beasts.
The martyrs of Saint Sava’s Lavra commemorated on May 16 suffered in the seventh century, during the reign of Heraclius (610-641).
Commemorated on March 20.

 

About the Saint Sava's Lavra

The guards of the heart (and St John of Climacus)

Impulsivity, Addiction, and the Passions

By Hieromonk Alexis Trader
Ancient Christian Wisdom 
Death to the World (about)
 
It should come as no surprise to those familiar with individuals struggling with addiction that impulsivity is a core issue. In technical terms, there is a certain fundamental correlation between addiction and impulsivity. People who are impulsive are more vulnerable to developing addictive behavior, because they give little regard to adverse consequences (Impulse Control Disorders and Co-Occurring Disorders, Potenza, p. 51) or to be more precise, they prefer immediate reinforcers to delayed ones, instant gratification to long-term satisfaction. Being impulsive means acting without forethought. And although those struggling to be free of an addiction know full well that not acting on impulse is in the long run more beneficial than giving in, when temptation arises, forethought that motivates becomes a nigh impossible task and impulsivity takes over, impulsivity that in its pathological form can be defined as “a failure to regulate, monitor, or control behavior and emotional expression” (Impulsivity in Neurobehavioral Disorders, Holmes, Johnson, Roedel, p. 309).
The first step in all the many 12 step-groups begins with “we admitted that we were powerless over _______ that our lives had become unmanageable.” This certainly fits the above definition for pathological impulsivity and clearly expresses the strong link between addiction and impulsivity. And the impulsive life can certainly become unmanageable. In fact, left unchecked, impulsive behavior will eventually take on the characteristics of infantile behavior without any of the innocence of childhood (Gratifying Impulses, Toch & Adams, p. 145) becoming increasingly destructive and even potentially violent. Toch and Adams note the danger in gratifying the impulses: “Gratifying impulses is by definition a destructive enterprise, because other people become objects of need satisfaction. Less obviously, impulse gratification can be self-destructive, because the reactions the person invites compound his or her problems and can escalate into ugly, no-win confrontations.”

In the ascetic literature, the closest notions to that of impulses are provocations (προσβολή) and momentary disturbances (παραρριπισμός). These particular thoughts or λογισμοί assail human beings from the outside and call forth, if not demand, a response. They are temptations, which if repeatedly acted on, become passions that automatically direct hapless souls down crooked paths away from God. The ascetic struggles of the Church fathers have been directed at recognizing and rooting out the passions in all of their manifestations. And though provocations or impulses still come, the soul remains steadfast in cleaving to God and fulfilling His holy will. Whether the problem be addiction, impulsivity, the passions or some combination of the three, the starting point for healing is always rigorous honesty, “a searching and fearless moral inventory.” Thus, Saint Mark the Ascetic writes, “Do not say, ‘I don’t want it, but it happens.’ For even though you may not want the thing itself, you welcome what causes it” (On the Spiritual law, 142). The welcoming of impulses is the real problem that needs to be addressed.
Whether the problem be impulses, addiction, or the passions, real change requires a new way of life, a new way of engaging with the world, of relating to others, and of relying on God. The Fathers, in their ascetic works, describe in detail this life in which one need not be at the mercy of impulses. Early on in his The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Saint John Climacus writes, “At the gate of your heart place strict unsleeping guards. Restrain actions and movements of your limbs, practice noetic (intellectual) stillness. And, most paradoxical of all, in the midst of commotion, be unmoved in soul. Curb your tongue which rages to leap into arguments (4:37).” 

Guards are aware that burglars may try to enter and know precisely what to do if they appear. This kind of awareness then is the first treatment for impulsivity. The second is paying strict attention to your hands and legs and not allowing them to move according to the dictates of impulses. Though difficult this is certainly possible. If this battle is won, one can find stillness by turning again and again to Christ. Finally, what applies to the limbs can apply also to one’s tongue. Saint John of Climacus continues, “Stillness of the body is knowledge and composure of the habits and feelings. And stillness of soul is the knowledge of one’s thoughts and an inviolable mind. (27:2); Bring out the staff of patience, and the dogs will soon stop their insolence” (27:70). Again watchfulness over what one does and how one feels as well as watchfulness over the thoughts, with patience, can make us less impulsive.
In combating the manifestation of impulsivity in a particular destructive behavior or passion as the fathers call it, the holy fathers have a specific strategy to combat each behavior/passion. For example, Saint John Climacus counsels those who have a problem with anger by first describing it, “An angry person is a willing epileptic, who due to an involuntary tendency keeps convulsing and falling down.” (8:11) and then offering a healing strategy, “The beginning of freedom from anger is silence of the lips when the heart is agitated; the middle is silence of the thoughts when there is a mere disturbance of the soul; and the end is an imperturbable calm under the breath of unclean winds” (8:4). The description is meant to wake the reader up to the reality of the negative consequences of the passion. The healing strategy is meant to offer tools that can be used at the time of the struggle.
Rather than focusing on the passion, the fathers often counsel their spiritual children to focus on the corresponding virtue to the passion that assails them. In the case of anger, Saint John counsels the cultivation of meekness by keeping the tongue silent, the mind undisturbed (by not focusing on the object of the anger), and finally calm in spite of the circumstances. Of course, no virtue is achieved on one’s own but only through synergy with the grace of God, which is something 12 Step Groups struggling for recovery from addiction acknowledge when they say “we turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.” With God’s help, with wise watchfulness, with control over our limbs, and with much patience, the addicted, the impulsive, and the passionate can all hope to say, as once did Saint Paul: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phillipians 4:13).

See also
 
St John of Climacus (4th Sunday of the Great Lent) 

The Sins of a Nation

Glory to God for all Things // Fr. Stephen Freeman

Can a nation ever sin? If so, how can it be forgiven?

The stories and prophetic writings of the Old Testament are replete with examples of national sin. There are certainly stories of God dealing with individuals, but, on the whole, His attention seems to be directed to Israel and other nations as a whole. The promises and pledges are made to a collective people and the chastisement falls on the whole nation as well. Our modern sensibilities, rooted in a fundamental commitment to individualism, recoil from this collective treatment. And we are not the first to complain.

In Genesis 18, Abraham argues with God about the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. The Lord has threatened to destroy the cities on account of their sins. Abraham raises the troubling question:

“Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it? Far be it from You to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be as the wicked; far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen 18:23-25)

Thus, this question has had a prominent place in the thoughts of the faithful since the very beginning. In Abraham’s conversation with God, he asks if God would spare those cities even if only fifty righteous were found. God agrees. With continued pleading, Abraham takes the the number down to 10 righteous (and stops). And the Lord says that He would spare the cities for the sake of just 10. Alas, less than ten were found. But we do not upbraid God that He was willing to spare the unrighteous for the sake of a mere handful.

There is a mystery contained within the entire exercise of that conversation. For the truth is, none of us stands alone. No one stands free of the actions of others. Our lives are deeply connected. We are ourselves the offspring of many generations, and we carry within us ever so much that was not of our own choosing. Our inheritance is tainted – both for good and for ill. 

Fr. Thomas Hopko describes some of this as “generational” sin. To understand this requires that we remember that sin is not a legal problem. It is not about what is fair or unfair. It is about a mystical burden that we experience as debt, hindrance, oppositional weight, weakness, brokenness and corruption, or just the starting place of our lives. Virtually everything in our lives is gifted to us, and there are many “gifts” that we would prefer never to have received. It is part of our incarnational existence. We are the offspring of others. To have an embodied existence in space and time is to have a body burdened with the DNA of eons and a family and culture that is both the product and carrier of history. Our own existence is a consequence of everything that has come before us. We cannot rightly suggest that such a contingent existence comes free.

Of course, many historical burdens become the targets of political attention. No human being, no ethnic or national group is without sin. Some sins are more recent and obvious than others. But our accusers can never plead innocence. Acknowledging this does nothing to remove our burdens.

In the 20th century, there have been some notable national crimes that have, in some way, been acknowledged. Japan renounced its military in response to the atrocities and errors of the Second World War. Germany paid reparations to Israel and enacted numerous laws renouncing and restricting the scourge of Nazism. Many war criminals were punished. The Russian government, with no outside political pressure, not only acknowledged many of the crimes of its Communist past, but also built memorials and rebuilt churches (often returning properties that had been taken away) in an effort of public repentance. 

Photo from here

 

It has rightly been noted that “history is written by the victors.” It is therefore the case that we more easily repent for the sins of history’s vanquished and leave the writing to the victorious. But the burden of sin as historical reality remains. Unaddressed, the sins of the past become the problems of the present. Many of the most enduring conflicts in the modern world represent centuries of unresolved issues and the inherited burden of our ancestral legacy.

Often the legacy of history is carried on in competing narratives. We do not always know or rightly remember the details of what happened, but we know all too well the emotional burden of its trauma. Hatred can be a very ancient thing.

And it is to trauma that I want to direct our attention. Trauma is a word for the damage we suffer in extreme circumstances. It can occur as a result of natural disaster, or war – any time and place in which we are endangered, injured, or exposed to terrible actions. People do not experience war and then walk away as though nothing had happened. The war stops outwardly, but it continues inwardly. This experience is as old as mankind itself. Trauma sometimes leaves people emotionally and even physically crippled.

Among ancient peoples, the trauma of life was met with liturgy – rituals, both public and private that sought to restore them to their right minds, to appease the wrath of the gods or the spirits of their enemies. The collective psyche of a whole people was set right through various actions and beliefs that worked to make peace and re-establish righteousness.

Modernity has very few such rituals. The secular state, presiding over competing and disparate groups has almost nothing to which it can appeal that serves as catharsis or repentance, or even thanksgiving. Sport (such as the Super Bowl) comes closest to public liturgy in modern America, but it serves nothing transcendent, nothing permanent. It cannot heal or speak to the needs of a nation.

The outcome of this lack is an inability for nations and often individuals to be healed of their trauma. The wounds of lost wars or historical sins remain unaddressed, erupting from time to time as renewed trauma in the national psyche.

Studying parish ministry in seminary, I was introduced to the phrase, “recurrent latent cycling.” It was meant to describe a struggle within the life of a parish that erupts periodically, that is, in fact, the same struggle. It might be around a new presenting issue – but it was still the same struggle. Healing the parish required a discernment of what was actually going on – to bring something that was latent into the light of day.

Nations (and individuals) who ignore their wounds and griefs do not leave them behind – they bring them forward and repeat their battles endlessly. Subsequent generations who never knew the first cause, become the unwitting bearers of the latent violence and destruction that they have inherited.

 Icon from here

Though Orthodoxy does not generally use the term “original sin,” it doesn’t thereby deny the reality of the inherited burden of sin. The growing study of epigenetics would suggest that we may even inherit such burdens genetically.

The medicine we have received from Holy Tradition for this on-going sickness is repentance. Of course, it is very difficult for nations to repent, though there would easily be services for such in the Orthodox tradition. However, the shame associated with national or collective sin is often denied or retold in other ways. Without repentance, nations are doomed to relive, repeat or act out the bitterness of their trauma.

There is, of course, another way. It was first expressed in the prophetic words of the High Priest Caiaphas as he contemplated the Jesus problem:

“You know nothing at all, nor do you consider that it is expedient for us that one man should die for the people, and not that the whole nation should perish.” (Joh 11:49-50)

The death of Christ on the Cross becomes the public liturgy for the sin burden of Israel. Of course, He was the public liturgy for the sin burden of the whole world. But there was a principle articulated in His sacrifice – that one man could die for the whole. This is not a substitutionary legal event. Rather, it is the mystery of coinherence and koinonia. “He became what we are that we might become what He is,” the Fathers said. It has also been the knowledge of the Church that we are invited into that selfsame sacrifice. Buried into His death in Baptism, we are united to His very crucifixion. United with Him in the grave, we journey with Him into Hades, and there, brave souls make intercession for the sins of the whole world, and with Him set souls free. The Elder Sophrony describes such brave souls as Christ’s “friends.”

For at least as long as the days of Abraham, we have had intercessors who saved the cities and nations of the wicked. Their prayers were effective because they prayed in union with the one mediator and true advocate, Christ our God.

Abraham was God’s friend. As God visited with him, He said:

“Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?” (Gen 18:17-18)

This is God’s inauguration of Abraham as an intercessor for the nations. The greatest friends of God have always taken up this same intercessory role. Through Christ and the prayers of our holy fathers, God preserves the world and saves the nations from the full brunt and weight of their history.

There are thus two kinds of people: those who are the weight of history, and those who join themselves to Christ in their repentance and bear the weight of history. This latter role is the true life of the Church and the heart of her who prays, “On behalf of all, and for all.”

About sin

Justice and mercy  

Christian life means forgiveness  Love the sinner, hate the sin

The Sunday of the Prodigal Son, 2nd Sunday of Triodion in the Orthodox Church 

Herod’s best friend!

"We are embittered, for we have succumbed to the serpent! We are embittered, for we are fettered in chains!" 

LIVE, BEYOND THE LIMITS!
An Atonement of Shame – Orthodoxy and the Cross
Heaven & Hell in the Afterlife Acc. To The Bible
Salvation and atonement (& The significance of the “Antilytron”)
 

The Holy Martyrs Nicander & Sabinus of Egypt (March 15 & 16)

Martyr Nicander of Egypt 

 

Commemorated on March 15

The Holy Martyr Nicander suffered in Egypt under the emperor Diocletian (284-305). He was a physician and during a time of persecution he visited Christians in prison. He assisted them, brought them food, and buried the dead.
Once, he came to the place where the bodies of the martyrs were thrown to be eaten by wild beasts. Fearing to bury them by day, he waited for night and buried the bodies under cover of darkness. They discovered Saint Nicander and subjected him to terrible tortures: they skinned him alive and then beheaded him in 302.

 

Martyr Sabinus of Egypt (icon)

 

Commemorated on March 16

Troparion & Kontakion

The Holy Martyr Sabinus was administrator of the Egyptian city of Hermopolis. During a persecution of Christians under the emperor Diocletian (284-305), Saint Sabinus and some like-minded companions hid in a remote village.
His hiding place was revealed by a certain ungrateful beggar who had brought him food. The saint used to feed him and help him with money, but the man betrayed him for two pieces of gold. Sabinus was seized with six other Christians, and after torture they were all drowned in the Nile in 287. 

From here & here.

See also
 
The Orthodox Church of Alexandria & the Patriarchate of Alexandria 
The holy anarchists... in the Egyptian Desert

Ancient Christian faith (Orthodox Church) in Africa  

Orthodox Egypt (tag)