Saint James' Kids

Update from Floyd and Ancuta Frantz in Romania

2012-01-27T10:19:00.005-06:00

Greetings!
Greetings, and I hope that this finds you well today, and in good spirits on this most beautiful and blessed of days.
First of all, I would like to thank you for looking over this newsletter for the Protection of the Theotokos Family Center. It is my wife Ancuta's project here in Cluj, which is for the prevention of abandonment of children. Currently she has about 30 families in her program. Many of you already know about it and have asked for her newsletter. I hope that you will not mind having it in your mailbox from time to time.

Andreea, Stefania, and Maria
"The First Steps of a Dream"

Twenty one year old Andreea was only 6 years old when because of the poverty in her village her parents moved from the village into the city to find a better life.

Unfortunately, life in the city became even worse for the family, and eventually the father abandoned the family. The situation became overwhelming for the mother and children. Andreea left the house in her early teens and began life on the streets of Romania. At age 17 she got into a relationship and soon found herself pregnant. When her boyfriend found out, he abandoned her to her fate. Andreea tried renting a place with a group of friends but found that she could not cope financially and asked for help from a maternal center. This was when her case was first brought to our attention, through our caring for little Stefania, her newborn child.

The young mother needed much more than financial help. We quickly saw her need for affection, acceptance, and help in organizing her personal objectives. But we also began to see that she was not taking her role as a mother very seriously, and that she was taking little responsibility for her families' future. When we encouraged her to continue her studies or to get a job, she seemed unmotivated. In her quest to find a healthy nurturing home life she was instead becoming a slave to short term relationships and one night stands. We soon discovered another reason that her attention was not on her little girl. She was hiding the fact that she was pregnant again, and was secretly planning to give the baby up for adoption. But God seemed to have other plans for her. It was only after she gave birth to Maria, her second daughter, that she allowed The Protection of the Theotokos Family Center to become actively involved in helping her to change her life.

Because she was pregnant, they were admitted into a maternity center until Marie was born, and then we took her also into our program. We found a sponsor that paid a few months rent for family, till Andreea could find a job. Then, she went back and finished her high school. Today she is living independently, and taking care of her family. Andreea has finally found the acceptance she craved through our PTFC 'family'. She not only changed her mind about keeping her baby but started to take responsibility to learn how to make a good home life. In a time when Andreea was lacking any resources, the spiritual and material support that she received through the Protection Center was a strong motivation factor in her decision to keep her second baby rather than to abort, or give it up to the state for adoption. Now, little Stefania and Maria have a chance at the real home life that Andreea dreamed of.

Their life is not easy, especially since most of her salary goes toward paying the rent, and she still struggles with the fear that she will not have money for food or for other daily expenses. But she knows she has a real chance thanks to PTFC and people like you who give sacrificially to help her learn how to achieve her dream of a happy, healthy home life.
Adreeana, Stephiana and Marie

I will close for now by wishing you a most blessed day, and with the hope that our most gracious Lord will fill your heart with every good thing from His heavenly treasures.

Thank you for your interest in our work, please do keep us in your prayers, we all need them.

In His Love,
One Day at a Time,
Floyd & Ancuta Frantz, OCMC Missionaries to Romania

As as a final note, please remember that as OCMC missionaries we are 100 % reliant upon your financial support to continue our ministries in Romania and Alaska. Please consider a small gift through OCMC so that we can spend our time doing the Lord's work.

If you can make such a donation, send it to:

OCMC
220 Mason Manatee Way
St. Augustine, Fl. 32086,

Please mark the donation "Frantz/Romania" so that we can have full use the funds.

Online and credit card donations are possible also. Thank you.

And please feel free to pass along our email to others who you believe might be interested in our work here in Romania.

If you would like to contact us through email, please use: Stdimitrie@yahoo.com for myself and the St. Dimitrie Program, or Ancutafrantz@yahoo.com for Anca and the Protection Center.

I am also shedding my dinosaur skin, and Twittering. If you too do Twit, just hit the link and it will put you over to my page.

Twitter Link

Please also go to the Orthodox Christian Mission Center web site at www.ocmc.org to read online about our missionary activities here in Romania.

James Hargrave's Spring Schedule

2012-01-16T14:07:00.003-06:00

Dear friends,

Furaha na amani! Joy and peace!

And happy new year! I pray that you will find yours filled with joy.

I have a doctor's appointment early next week and anticipate a clean bill of health. The past month has been difficult and good. Since mid December I've convalesced and recovered in Bukoba under the good care of my fellow missionaries Felice Stewart, Maria Roeber, and Michael Pagedas. Along with their guests, we had a delightful Christmas and Theophany together. For quite some time I was too weak to work, and the enforced vacation has been restful and refreshing. It was also an opportunity for us four missionaries to deepen our relationships and have great fun together. Now I'm itching to get back to my regular routine in Mwanza.

... For a few weeks, at least. And then, on January 27th, I'm scheduled to arrive in Orlando!

I sure hope to see as many of you as possible. I'll be on the road almost nonstop for three months, catching up with everyone I can. I'll be stopping in at many of your parishes to report on your work with the Orthodox Church in the Holy Archdiocese of Mwanza and Western Tanzania. This is your work, which you are doing through your prayers, friendship, encouragement and support.

At the end of this email you will find an itinerary of my confirmed travel schedule. Most of the dates still open are fairly firmed up but await final confirmation. I'm sure grateful for the many invitations and offers from both friends and total strangers! If I will be in your neck of the woods, get in touch with me and we'll find a way to catch up. My number will be (239) 410-0765. If I won't be in your neck of the woods... wish I could be! But we can try again in 2014 or 2015?

It looks like I will have a vehicle for the bulk of my long-distance road travel in February and March. Thank you very much for your offers and prayers in this regard. When I'm back in Florida during the last few weeks of April I believe I'll be able to rely on my old 1988 Corolla for local travel. But if it's not in good enough shape, then I may need a vehicle at that time.

It's surprising to think that my first term of missionary service in Western Tanzania is nearly complete. I look forward to beginning a second term in May of this year, God willing. My Archbishop +JERONYMOS has warmly welcomed me to return. There is much work ahead.

Visiting North America is part of this work. During this time I hope to fulfill my responsibility to report to you about how your prayers and gifts are being used to God's glory in Western Tanzania. And, I will be appealing for new people to join in this work. I am asking God to raise up about twenty new parishes, families, groups or individuals each able to pledge an average of $50/ month. Some supporters are giving more than this, and many are only able to give quite a bit less. God is using them all. If you would like to make a pledge of financial support, you can do so online at http://jhargrave.ocmc.org (click on "Support Missionary") or by calling 1-877-GO-FORTH. (Ask for the Finance Department.) Much more importantly, I will be asking for your continued prayers which are the source of my sustenance and joy.

Your prayers, emails, facebook posts and well-wishes during my illness were frankly overwhelming. I am awed and humbled. No wonder God's taking such good care of me, with such an army of prayer and love advocating for me. Thank you. May the love that you give be returned a hundredfold. And may you NEVER catch pneumonia!!

By your prayers in Christ,

James Hargrave

PS Here is my confirmed itinerary for my time in North America. At all locations I will be speaking at the end of the service. A calendar will continue to be updated at http://jhargrave.ocmc.org . (Click on "Events.")

Sunday, 29th January - Arrival. Worshiping (but not speaking) at the Orthodox Church of St Stephen the Protomartyr in Longwood, Florida.

Sunday, 5th February - Orthodox Church of St Stephen the Protomartyr in Longwood (Orlando), Florida. 1895 Lake Emma Road. Divine Liturgy begins at 9:30 am.

Sunday, 12th February - St Elizabeth Greek Orthodox Church in Gainesville, Florida. 5129 NW 53rd Ave. Divine Liturgy begins at 10:00 am.

Sunday, 19th February - St Justin the Martyr Orthodox Church in Jacksonville, Florida. 12460 Old Saint Augustine Road. Divine Liturgy begins at 10:00 am.

Saturday, 25th February - Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in Mount Pleasant (Charleston), South Carolina. 265 N Shelmore Blvd. Great Vespers begins at 6:00 pm.

Sunday, 4th March - Carolinas or Appalachians, details not yet confirmed.

Sunday, 11th March - Central Kentucky, details not yet confirmed.

Sunday, 18th March - Christ the Savior ~ Holy Spirit Orthodox Church in Norwood (Cincinnati), Ohio. 4285 Ashland Ave. Divine Liturgy begins at 9:30 am.

Sunday, 25th March (Feast of the Annunciation) - St Matthew Orthodox Church in Torrance (Los Angeles County), California. 2368 Sonoma St. Divine Liturgy begins at 10:00 am.

Sunday, 1st April - British Columbia, details not yet confirmed.

Sunday, 8th April (Palm Sunday) - British Columbia, details not yet confirmed.

Sunday of Pascha (Easter), 15th April - Worshiping (but not speaking) back home at St Elizabeth Greek Orthodox Church in Gainesville, Florida.

Sunday, 22nd April - details not yet confirmed.

Sunday, 29th April - Vacation! Worshiping (but not speaking) back home at St Elizabeth Greek Orthodox Church in Gainesville, Florida.

James Hargrave
Orthodox Church in Tanzania
Holy Archdiocese of Mwanza
PO Box 1113
Mwanza, Tanzania

Blessed Theophany!

2012-01-06T19:21:00.000-06:00

Theophany Celebrations on the Island of Sviyazhsk in Tatarstan

(Photo courtesy of Bishop BASIL)

May you have a blessed celebration of the Baptism our Lord. On this day, "worship of the Trinity was made manifest."

Behind-the-scenes Travelogue to Mt. Athos

2012-01-03T16:55:00.000-06:00

Simonopetra Monastery on Mt. Athos

I recently became aware of a brief video about a Greek Orthodox "60 Minutes" producer's trip to Mt. Athos. It's only seven minutes long and well worth the watch. Enjoy.

Update from Floyd and Ancuta Frantz

2011-12-31T20:47:00.009-06:00

Saturday, December 24th, Eve of the Nativity of Christ

The St. Dimitrie Post

Greetings, and I hope that this finds you well and in good spirits on this most beautiful and blessed of days.
First of all, I would like to ask your forgiveness for being out of touch for such a long time. Today I am in Batavia, just outside Chicago. Next week I return to Romania. During October and November Ancuta and I have been doing some needed fund raising here in the States. She returned to Romania at the end of November, and I headed up to Alaska in order to do some teaching at the St. Herman Seminary. It is this course on addicitons that I would like to address in this newsletter.

At the invitation of Fr. John Dunlop, Dean of St. Herman Seminary, I returned to Kodiak to continue the addictions course that I had begun last year. Joining me and helping with the course was Fr. George Aquaro, Fr. Andrew Harrison, and Dr. Basil Spyropoulos. These three missions specialists had previously taught addictions courses with me in Romania. The first, Fr. George Aquaro, is has been accepted for full time missionary work in Alaska. All three of them have agreed to help in developing an online training course for the seminary, which we will continue with starting in January of 2012. I am most excited about this, and believe that this course can be developed into something useful to the Lords people in Alaska. I am sending along a few pictures in this newsletter in the hopes that they will speak about our work. You can view an album of these photos at "St Herman Course" I do hope that you enjoy looking through them. If you would like to contact me personally about this, please use the address at the bottom of this newsletter.

This first photo is of the seminarians and the teaching team.

This one, (with Fr. Andrew on the left) is of the class in session.

Here we have Fr. Andrew, Fr. John Dunlop (Dean of the seminary), Fr. George Aquaro, myself, and on the right Dr. Basil Spyropoulos. They were a really nice team, and will be involved in future courses.

I will close for now by wishing you a most blessed and Christ filled Christmas season. May our good and loving Lord give you every good thing from His heavenly treasures.

Thank you for your interest in our work, please do keep us in your prayers, we all need them.

In His Love,
One Day at a Time,
Floyd & Ancuta Frantz, OCMC Missionaries to Romania

As as a final note, please remember that as OCMC missionaries we are 100 % reliant upon your financial support to continue our ministries in Romania and Alaska. Please consider a small gift through OCMC so that we can spend our time doing the Lord's work. If you can make such a donation, send it to "OCMC, 220 Mason Manatee Way, St. Augustine, Fl. 32086, and mark the donation "Frantz/Romania so that we can use the funds. Online and credit card donations are possible also. Thank you.

And please feel free to pass along our email to others who you believe might be interested in our work here in Romania.

If you would like to contact us through email, please use: Stdimitrie@yahoo.com for myself and the St. Dimitrie Program, or Ancutafrantz@yahoo.com for Anca and the Protection Center.

I am also shedding my dinosaur skin, and Twittering. If you too do Twit, just hit the link and it will put you over to my page.

https://twitter.com/flimajig

Please also go to the Orthodox Christian Mission Center web site at www.ocmc.org to read online about our missionary activities here in Romania.

We do thank you for your interest in our work, for your support, and most of all for your prayers.

In His Love,
One day at a time,
Floyd & Ancuta Frantz, OCMC Missionaries

Nativity 2011

2011-12-25T16:45:00.000-06:00

Wishing you a blessed Feast of the Nativity from the Early and Hale families. May God bless you richly during these holidays and in the coming year!

New Blog Recommendation

2011-12-21T16:33:00.000-06:00

When you get a moment, please check out the blog Sword in the Fire by Theron Mathis. It's not a new blog, but it's new to me. The blogger is Theron Mathis, author of the recently-published book The Rest of the Bible: A Guide to the Old Testament of the Early Church. This book looks really great; it's on my ever-expanding list of books I want to read.

Also, and this is WAY overdue (sorry, Katrina!), check out regular St. James' Kids reader Katrina Delsante's blog Desert Deliberations. Katrina is a mother of three who lives in Arizona. She's also a sports fan!

I'll add both blogs to the sidebar.

Also, since I doubt I'll post again before Nativity, I wish you and yours a blessed Feast of the Nativity of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh (whenever you celebrate it!).

Welcome News from James Hargrave in Tanzania

2011-12-13T07:36:00.002-06:00

Icon image from here

Dear friends,

Furaha na amani! Joy and peace!

After seven days in the hospital, I have been discharged. I am continuing to recuperate under the watchful care of fellow missionary Maria Roeber.

I'm only just beginning to sift through emails and facebook messages. The well wishes and prayers that have been coming my way are nothing short of overwhelming. Your prayers have been apparent to me all this week.

As you might imagine, I am very happy to be out of the hospital. I am happier still that the hospital was there when I needed it. As soon as I was admitted, I swiftly began receiving excellent care. My recovery has been much slower than I would have liked, but my path to recovery has been straightforward and uncomplicated. Each day is better than the last.

And today I breathe freely with nothing but my own lungs. I have seen the sky, listened to the birds, and watched the sun set on Kirumba Hill. What could be better?

I am grateful for your continued prayers as I work towards full recovery. Please remember the hundreds of sick and suffering still in Bugando Hospital- especially Judith with liver/ kidney failure and Felix with tetanus, who remained in the ICU as I left today. And stay in touch!

By your prayers in Christ,

James Hargrave

More Prayers Needed for James Hargrave

2011-12-10T08:06:00.002-06:00

Friday, 9th December 2011

Dear Friends,

Kila mwenye pumzi namsifu Bwana!
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

Greetings from the Intensive Care Unit of Bugando Medical Centre in
Mwanza. I have asked fellow missionary Maria Roeber to type and send
this for me.

This past Sunday I started having trouble breathing. By Monday morning
it was really bad. My local family took me to the hospital where I was
placed in the ICU, given oxygen, and diagnosed with “acute abnormal
bacterial pneumonia.” I am responding to antibiotics.

Responding slowly. The more I improve, the more I realize how very
sick I am. Through Wednesday I was on maximum oxygen, sitting bolt
upright in bed, fighting hard to breathe. I could barely speak, drink,
or eat—let alone sleep!—because all my consciousness was focused on
getting that next gasp of air..and the next…and the next.

Now I am able to lie down. I need less oxygen support. I have been
sleeping. It’s wonderful!

I feel like I am receiving good treatment. More important, Maria is
satisfied with my care. She is a nurse, and she should know! She and
missionary Michael Pagedas came to Mwanza on Tuesday morning and Maria
has been with me daily, keeping company and being my link to the
outside world. I’m grateful to her, and grateful to her supporters for
sending her.

This is my first hospitalization, so I’m getting familiar with all the
trappings of this life. My clothes are gone. There’s an IV valve in my
left arm, a cuff on my right arm, a little clip on my thumb, and wires
stuck all over my torso and legs. A mask is strapped over my mouth. I
can barely move for fear of coming unplugged. My sheets are changed
under me while I’m in bed, nurses bathe me, and I’m learning to use a
bedpan. I’d always wondered if this stuff was as uncomfortable and
embarrassing as it looks. It is.

Being helpless is no fun. I can’t imagine anyone becoming like this by
choice. But it’s Advent, and I remember how our God came down to us.
By choice He was stripped of His power and glory as I am of my breath
and my clothes, and was confined to this earth as I am to this bed.
The creator of the universe chose to become weak and needy, a child as
tiny as the one in the bed to my left. In time, He cried out in pain
like the man with tetanus on my right.
When I arrived on Monday, the closest I could get to prayer was to
gulp out: “My God”--gasp--“do you know”—gasp—“how awful”—gasp--“this
is?” And the reply comes back: “Yes, James”—gasp—“I sure do.”

Bugando Medical Centre may be one of the best hospitals in Western
Tanzania. It provides good, affordable care to thousands of patients.
But Western Tanzania is bigger than California, and has about eighteen
million people. Most folks in my condition cannot access the care I’m
receiving.

Even so, I am experiencing in a small way the suffering of many who
I’ve been sent to serve among. I am grateful for good care as I learn
to identify with the people around me, and understand in a new way the
radical sacrifice of the Incarnation. Thank you for sending me here.

Thank you for your prayers especially in these tough days. Maria is
keeping OCMC updated on my progress, so if there is news it will be on
ocmc.org. When I am out of the hospital, I will write again.

By your prayers in Christ,
James Hargrave

P.S. This is a note from Maria: James gave me this letter this
morning, which he wrote yesterday. He continues to improve every time
I see him, which is twice a day. He is now free of his BP cuff and
heart monitor, and is on oxygen mostly for comfort measures. He
continues to receive antibiotics both via IV and also by mouth, but he
is breathing much easier and is able to eat and drink. His vital signs
are all normal. James’ phone is not allowed in ICU, but we are hoping
that he will be transferred to another ward on Monday or Tuesday when
he doesn’t need as much oxygen. James is under the care of an American
physician working in Bugando Hospital, and he and I spoke the other
day about James’ treatment plan and progress. His doctor is quite
reassured that James will be just fine and that his body simply needs
time to heal. I am also very impressed by the Tanzanian nurses and
other physicians who have been caring for him, as well as with the
equipment and facility in general. I am grateful to God for his mercy
and compassion on James, and so glad to be able to be here with him in
Mwanza. Thank you for your continued prayers for James. Asante sana!

Prayers for James Hargrave

2011-11-29T13:53:00.003-06:00

Just a quick update and prayer request for our good friend and OCMC Missionary, James Hargrave. James is suffering from a bad case of malaria, which just broke out after he sent his update. It's not life threatening, and he's getting adequate treatment in Nairobi, so he won't have to come home.

Regardless, Malaria is a serious illness and James certainly could use our prayers for his healing.

UPDATE: I just received this via email from James:

Thank you for your prayers. I've recovered well from malaria. It's nasty, but swiftly cured if you have access to medical care. Thanks to your support, I have access to very good medical care!

Continue to pray for James and the work that he does in Africa!

Update from James Hargrave in Tanzania

2011-11-28T14:56:00.002-06:00

Dear friends,

Furaha na amani! Joy and peace!

And greetings from Nairobi, Kenya. I have just spent Thanksgiving with old friends after a prolonged stay in this country. I've been on the road since late October, the bulk of this time with the Orthodox Church of Turkana County in Northern Kenya. I had a good visit and saw much of interest. God is at work there.

And I will be glad to get back home to Mwanza! Plenty of work has been waiting during my absence- translations, proposals, budgets, reports. As I work on these tasks I'll also prepare to visit North America in February through April of 2012.

My first term of service as an OCMC Missionary in the Archdiocese of Mwanza and Western Tanzania will soon be complete. Time flies. These first two years have been good, and as a PS I'd like to provide you with a progress report on my development as a missionary in Western Tanzania.

This role I've been given by God- and by you- is a great job and an ideal apprenticeship. I am learning from good local leaders, and I am thriving.

Thank you for this job. Thank you for your prayers which sustain me, your friendship which encourages me, and for your faithful gifts which allow me to work out my salvation in a good place of joy and peace.

I hope to celebrate the Nativity of Christ in Bukoba together with Missionaries Michael Pagedas, Maria Roeber, Felice Stewart and their guests. In this Advent season as we fast and repent in anticipation of the Lord's coming, I pray that Christ will be born anew in your hearts.

By your prayers in Christ,

James Hargrave

PS Here are the aspects in which I am working to grow as a missionary in the Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of Mwanza and Western Tanzania.

Language

My Kiswahili could be better. But after much effort I find myself using this language almost exclusively as I work in our Archdiocese office, conduct business and negotiations on behalf of the Church, provide interpretation in public settings, deliver talks and presentations, and go about day-to-day affairs. Living with a Tanzanian family has helped, although operating 24/7 in a foreign language can be tiring. It is my hope, next year, to begin learning a local language such as Kisukuma or Kihaya.

Culture

As my Archbishop JERONYMOS has given me increasing responsibilities I've found myself learning to handle the ins and outs of getting things done in this environment. Even simple tasks require nuance, considered indirectness, visible compassion for all involved, careful listening, and a great deal of patience. In Western Tanzania the norms for politeness, for conversation, for food and eating, for travel, for negotiation and transaction, for shopping, for friendship and for many other things are significantly different than they are in North America. And then there are big differences between rural and urban Tanzanian culture. It may take more than a lifetime to become fully fluent in this culture, but these days I am coping without great difficulty and thank God for that.

Church

As a tonsured reader in the Church I am getting a lot of practice chanting the daily services in Kiswahili every morning and evening. The heartbeat of the Christian liturgical life is a source of stability and strength which I've missed while on the road. My admiration and gratitude for the leadership of my Church- our Archbishop, our priests, our catechists and administrators- continues to grow as I grow closer to these faithful Christians. Their love for their God, for one another, for the faithful and for the unreached- as well as their honest and competent management- are all examples worth following.

Teams

My role with short-term OCMC Teams has expanded with every group our Archdiocese has received these past two years. By God's mercy our visitors have consistently had the orientation, food, drink, accommodation, and translation that they've needed. They've had their lost luggage retrieved, their crises averted, their questions answered and their issues resolved, and have made it safely home with money still in the bank and the balance sheet straight. Managing these things is hard work which transforms to pure joy in the presence of worthy people who travel far to share in the life of Christ and offer their talents to their sisters and brothers in Tanzania. Our Archdiocese plans to receive three OCMC Teams next year and I may have a big role in hosting all of them.

Fellow Missionaries

I travel frequently to attend to business in Bukoba, and enjoy the chance to spend time with fellow OCMC Missionaries Felice Stewart, Michael Pagedas, and Maria Roeber. As each of us develops a distinct role in the Archdiocese of Mwanza it's helpful to compare notes, share stories, and bounce ideas off one another. Our separate tasks are unrelated on the surface, but our fellowship and our common purpose is a nourishing bond. Plus, the Bukoba house has a big kitchen and banging pots around is one of my favorite ways to relax. When I was there at the end of October I made a pretty good pumpkin soup, and Maria baked biscuits... mmm.

Projects

Archbishop JERONYMOS has asked me to work on developing a youth program for the Archdiocese, as well as a regular newspaper/ newsletter. These are big tasks that have made little headway as I've worked to become competent in language and culture, and have been busy with the Teams and the Turkana assignment. I look forward to working hard on these projects in the coming year. With 99%+ of our Church offline (clergy as well as faithful) we need a reliable paper-based way of disseminating basic information and itineraries as well as reports on events and Christian teaching. And because the workforce of our Church is made up of youth (In Tanzania "youth" means age 18 to 35), we need to support these folks as they collaborate on a local and regional level to support their communities and their fellows.

Identity

More important than projects and programs (they are important!) is my identity and role. First, of course, is my identity as a member of the Body of Christ, living out our common salvation together in mutual love and worship of the Holy Trinity. And then as a member of the local Church, and as a member of that Church's administrative staff. The more I am immersed in the prayer life of the Church and in the daily life of Tanzanian culture, the more I become fully alive in this place. And the more fully alive I am here, the more I am able to contribute meaningfully to the life, witness and growth of the Body of Christ in Western Tanzania.

The need is great and the resources are limited. So I'm learning to manage money carefully, to make each shilling go far and to report even tiny expenses with transparency and accuracy. I'm learning to negotiate, to do business, to make deals so that we can get the right people to the right places with the right support behind them. And more important by far I'm learning to just be with people, to share in their lives and identify with them. To listen carefully (hard in a foreign language!) and speak sparingly (easy in a foreign language!). To make my dwelling here, as Christ taught us to do.

Plans

From this place arise opportunities to support local faithful and local leaders as they grow in Christ and as they bring the good news of the Resurrection of Christ to their neighbors and beyond. And there arise opportunities to be directly involved in the evangelistic task of the Church, in carrying the Gospel to people who have never heard. As an Archdiocese we are responsible for a large territory, much of which is unreached. I've visited some of these places, and in the coming years I look forward to seeing where God will call us, and what role he may give me.

Church that Held the 7th Ecumenical Council at Nicea to be Turned into Mosque

2011-11-18T10:07:00.001-06:00

Original source here.

Hagia Sophia in Nicea, where the Seventh Ecumenical Council was held in 787, is about to be declared a mosque by the Turkish authorities.

As the Turkish press reports, the call to prayer was sung from the Muezzin last Thursday, for the first time since the founding of the Turkish Republish in 1923. The minaret was added to the church in the city that the Turks called “Iznik” in the Ottoman age. Last year it was restored. With the prayer to be said at the beginning of the Islamic feast of sacrifice on Sunday morning, the former church will be ready for Islamic religious ceremonies.

The decision by the office of the Administrative Council, the competent authority, has sparked fierce debate. Selcuk Mülayim, of the University of Marmara, an art historian, underlined the building’s importance in the history of Christianity and warned that the move would mark the beginning of protests from all over the world.

Iznik’s chamber of commerce criticized the move as lacking any sense, since the small city lives off tourism. Equally controversial is the issue of whether it is the Council’s duty to explain how the former church was changed from a museum into a mosque. The office explained that the building had been marked out by the community “unjustifiably” as a museum, since it had never been used as a museum before. Last year, a sign was posted in front of the restored church building, with “Museum” written on it; a guard made visitors pay for an admission ticket.

In Hagia Sophia, the bishops of the Roman empire gathered in 787 to decide over the Byzantine iconoclastic controversy, and to approve the veneration of icons. Nicea was also the meeting place of the First Ecumenical Council, in the year 325. The palace where the Council took place no longer exists. Hagia Sophia was transformed into a mosque by the Muslims in 1331, when they conquered the city.

After a fire, it was restored by the architect Mimar; it was later destroyed in the battle of Bursa in the Turkish war of independence in 1920. The ruins were restored in 2007 and have attracted Christian religious tourism.

Update from James Hargrave in Tanzania

2011-11-02T11:12:00.001-05:00

Dear friends,

Furaha na amani! Joy and peace!

Greetings from Mwanza. It's good to be home. I've been on the road most of this month and will be so again next month. For the past few days I've been resting and catching up on desk-work from the quiet of my own desk in my own office. It's a gentle pleasure.

As I plan for November, I'm also processing the events of the past several weeks. I'd like to tell you about what's been going on.

On Wednesday, 5th October 2011 the Holy Archdiocese of Mwanza received our very first OCMC Medical Team. This was the culmination of months of preparation and planning by His Eminence Metropolitan Jeronymos, the OCMC Teams Department, the clergy and faithful of Mwanza Region, and all four OCMC Missionaries in Tanzania. It was brand-new for me. Although we'd never seen a short-term medical team in operation before, OCMC Missionary Michael Pagedas and I found ourselves responsible for logistics. The communities we were interfacing with had also never seen a medical team before.

Thank God, we had good counsel. Missionaries Felice Stewart and Maria Roeber provided insight from medical teams in other countries, and I was able to consult with folks who have facilitated medical teams for other groups in Mwanza Region. The team leader, Dr Cheryl Johnson from Nashville, had a good sense of necessary medicines, so we were able to put together a program that looked lovely on paper.

But no matter how pretty the model is you don't know what it will be until you start. It was a whirlwind.

The team was first-rate. Dr Cheryl worked with Dr Michael Datch from Baltimore, Dr David Balyegwera from Bukoba, and Theresa 'Doctor Fupi' Mellas- a physicians' assistant from Buffalo- to provide care for thousands of patients over the course of eight daily clinics, each in a different community. Many patients came with serious and even life-threatening ailments, but even more came with minor complaints such as backaches or poor vision. So the nurses- Meagan Homsey from Oklahoma City, Stephanie Pappas from Cheyenne, and Daphne Cunningham from Vancouver, BC- spent nearly every day doing triage on the "front lines," assessing patients under the guidance of the physicians to provide immediate treatment for those with simple complaints, and identifying the seriously ill to be seen by a physician.

I used to think that a pharmacist was the guy who sold me cough syrup at CVS. Was I wrong. Our pharmacist, Andrew Bersu from St Augustine, quickly proved to be the center of the whole operation. Along with Maria Miller from Austin and Missionary Maria Roeber, Andrew worked diligently to provide each patient with medicines prescribed them by the physicians. Even when crowds started to thin out at triage or in the physicians' waiting areas, the pharmacy was always packed. For several days Andrew worked without any rest or reprieve, but kept a joyful countenance and sincere love for every patient he met.

Sarah Edquist, a nurse's assistant from Milwaukee, managed wound care. We saw patients with major wounds that had been infected sometimes for months. Along with the nurses, Sarah cleaned and dressed these wounds and lovingly taught the patients how to continue cleaning and dressing them on their own. The team had brought funds to rush the worst cases to the nearest hospital. For many people, the cost of transportation to the nearest hospital is more money than a family might see in a month. So this assistance was of critical value, and probably saved a few lives.

Pons Materum from San Francisco and Evan Bernick from Chicago served their teammates by getting them food and water, by managing crowds, and by interfacing with local leadership and assistants to bring order to the clinics. They were always available to do any sort of work that would help the team do their jobs better. Evan's and Pons' hard work, good insight, brilliant ideas, and humble approach were invaluable to Michael Pagedas and me as we four worked together on daily logistical issues.

And then there were the locals. Missionaries Maria Roeber and Felice Stewart organized the daily packing, counted heads on the bus, prepared medicines, and counseled team members as they confronted new and unexpected things about Tanzanian life every day. Translators Alfred, Laurence, Tambua, Sosthenes, Michael Pagedas and myself worked hard to facilitate good interaction between Kiswahili-speaking patients and English-speaking nurses and providers.

Translation was a stretching experience for me, as I'm sure it also was for Michael. On the second day of clinics, I translated outdoors in triage with Meagan. Several times a patient would describe a complaint to me and I'd look at Meagan in terror. "I can't do this. I don't understand him." But there was the need, and there I was. I couldn't just flee. So I'd question the patients carefully in my best Kiswahili, using lots of gestures, until I was confident that I got their meaning. Then I'd jot down the new vocabulary on a note card and use it with the next patient. Meagan needed to know whether each woman was pregnant, so that she could give the correct worm medicine. Again, I panicked. I didn't know the word for pregnant! So I asked these poor mamas, "Do you have a child in your belly?" And they would laugh, and all the women around them would laugh, and then they would say "Yes, I have a child in my belly," or "No, I don't have a child in my belly." That night, I looked up the vocabulary for "pregnant," and now the query "Una mimba?" is burned forever into my brain.

The team was great. They all worked sacrificially, stretching themselves far beyond their limits and depending on God to sustain them. It was a rare treat to just hang out with people from my own culture. Greater still was working together with my fellow long-term missionaries in support of such a good project. But, with apologies to these fourteen amazing folks, my favorite part was the communities.

Many of these were communities from which we had drawn participants for our 2010 youth camp in Geita. So every time we pulled up to a church in a village where I'd never been, I found myself greeted by familiar faces. I got to meet our good priests and see them in their full pastoral roles, guiding their faithful and their neighbors through a strange and unavoidably complicated process. In some communities there was no infrastructure other than the shade provided by a few trees and maybe a tarp. But the faithful gave everything they had and more to ensure the team had as much support and comfort as possible. In moments of downtime, I was able to visit with the priests, to hear their stories of their faithful and of their outreach. Watching our Church's leaders in action, and learning from their words and deeds... nothing cooler than that!

Now I get about ten days at home to work on budgets, reports, proposals, correspondence, paperwork. This will include three days of retreat. Thank God! Then I'm off to Bukoba to spend time with my teammates, and by early November plan to head onwards to Kenya for almost a full month. My leadership at OCMC has asked me to visit our Orthodox Church in Turkana, an immense semi-arid region of northwestern Kenya where the Orthodox Christian faith is expanding rapidly among nomadic and pastoral communities who had previously practiced traditional religion. I grew up in a different part of Northern Kenya (called Marsabit), and have great love for the people, traditions, and landscape of this beautiful but difficult region. I don't know what to expect. But I'm excited. I ask for your prayers.

Thank you for your prayers. Thank you for your love, friendship, correspondence and encouragement. These past days have been straining and exhausting. I am all tuckered out. But I have experienced joy beyond measure, and suspect I have found relationships that may prove to last a lifetime. Thank you also for your faithful, sacrificial and consistent financial gifts which allow me to work out my salvation in this place of joy and peace. I am here because of you.

By your prayers in Christ,

James

James Hargrave
Orthodox Church in Tanzania
Holy Archdiocese of Mwanza
PO Box 1113
Mwanza, Tanzania

+255 782356 817
j.hargrave@ocmc.org

Abortion, Adoption, and Steve Jobs

2011-10-07T22:41:00.005-05:00

With the death of Steve Jobs, many are posting notes about his life, business vision, etc. This article was printed last month, and makes a very salient point. You can see the original article here.

Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, is one of the most powerful figures in our society. In Jobs’ story, we see a man of humble roots starting a company in his garage and transforming it into the world’s most valuable company with a net worth of $337 billion. Frequently described as this generation’s leading visionary, Jobs led the creation of not only the Macintosh computer, but also the iPod, iPad and iTunes.

Apple has played a major role in society. Apple and Microsoft compete for the OS market. Apple and companies like Lenovo, HP, and Toshiba compete for the laptop market. Apple is also involved as the major player in the tablet and mp3 player market. In capitalism, competition creates benefits for everyone. Without Apple, competing companies wouldn’t have had as much incentive to develop the competitive technologically advanced products that we now enjoy. Apple created the first GUI (Graphical User Interface) for a personal computer, which led the way for all operating systems in use today, including major Microsoft products.

The world would truly have been a different place without Apple. The success of Apple stems directly from the successes and failures of Steve Jobs. Yes, failure is a good and necessary thing. If Jobs hadn’t failed as drastically as he did (in his multiple failed ventures), he wouldn’t have succeeded as much as he did with Apple.

This speaks volumes to our culture: We need to allow businesses and people to fail so that they can be resilient and succeed.

Jobs story normally begins with him attending Reed College for a semester before dropping out and subsequently auditing art classes that would later help him create fonts for Apple products. He worked briefly for Hewlett Packard and Atari before founding Apple with two of his friends. A few years later, he was fired from Apple following a disagreement with the CEO. Over the years he founded NeXT Computer, and owned PIXAR working with Disney. NeXT was later acquired by Apple, which brought him back into the company. He then transformed Apple into its present state.

However, his story actually begins before Reed College. In a 2005 Stanford University commencement address Steve Jobs painted a brief picture of his beginnings: “It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife.

Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.”

Jobs’ biological parents were Joanne Simpson and Abdulfattah John Jandali. Although the details of Simpson and Jandali’s relationship have not been made public, we do know a good deal about Mr. Jandali. A Syrian immigrant, he came to the United States to pursue his higher education in 1949. According to The Daily Mail, he is now vice president of a casino in Reno, Nevada. At the time, however, Joanne’s parents would not allow the two to get married.

For that reason, Jobs was given up for adoption to his parents Paul and Clara Jobs.

Eighteen years later saw the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which paved the way for hundreds of millions of legal abortions to take place in the United States over the following years. In 1955, abortion was nowhere near as prevalent as it is today. It was primarily rejected by society as the termination of innocent life.

Instead, adoptions were preferred. Adoptions ensure that children are given life. Jobs’ adoption was very beneficial, creating and shaping him into the leader that he would later become.

What would a world look like in which Steve Jobs had been aborted?

Out of the 52 million abortions in the US in the past 38 years, how many other Jobs’s have we extinguished?

Update from James Hargrave in Tanzania

2011-09-27T07:34:00.001-05:00

Dear friends,

Tupendane.
Let us love one another.
- 1 John 4:7

Greetings from Mwanza on this feast of the Holy Apostle John. It's a sunny September, the trees on my hillside are in blossom, and the lake is very blue.

I recently had business in Kenya, and returned to Mwanza on the seventeenth of September- the very date that I first moved to this city, one year ago. Time does fly.

It's been a good year. The learning curve has been every bit as steep as expected, and of course it will take a lifetime to adjust fully. But I'm happy to be where I am.

In about ten days, we plan to receive a medical team from OCMC. The team will be conducting clinics in rural and urban areas around Mwanza Region. Logistics are every bit as complex as you might imagine, and I'm grateful to be working together with my missionary colleagues Maria Roeber, Felice Stewart and Michael Pagedas as we prepare to care for the visitors.

Time flies indeed. My first term of service as an OCMC missionary will conclude early next year, and so I am working on plans to visit North America- I'd likely be on the continent from the beginning of February until just after Pascha.

And I want to see you! Yes, each of you- or at least as many folks as I can in ten short weeks. My goal in visiting will of course be to spend a little time at home in Gainesville with family and friends, and also to touch base with as many people in my support network as is possible. I'd like to see you in person, catch up on your life, (meet your new babies!!) and talk with you face-to-face about the work that God is doing in Western Tanzania thanks to your prayers, encouragement, and generosity.

So, if you'd like me to visit, please be in touch. When I met many of you in the fall of 2009 and spring of 2010, I was inspired and instructed by the way that you and your communities are bearing witness to the Resurrection and proclaiming the glory of God in your local context. I look forward very much to coming back and getting another glimpse.

It is obvious to me that your prayers are with me, as God sustains me here. The challenges are good and healthy, but they are challenges indeed, and I am borne through them by strength that is not my own. Thank you.

Thank you also for your encouraging communication, and for your consistent generosity. I am here because of you.

By your prayers in Christ,

James Hargrave

James Hargrave
Orthodox Church in Tanzania
Holy Archdiocese of Mwanza
PO Box 1113
Mwanza, Tanzania

+255 782356 817
j.hargrave@ocmc.org

Somtimes there is stuff going on

2011-09-20T18:16:00.002-05:00

Image from here. Not sure what it has to do with learning Korean...

I just realized that it is almost three weeks since Fr. James or I posted anything here. I realize that is too long.

Well....

Tough!

Just kidding. Actually, we have both been extremely busy. Between his job, family, duties as a priest, course work in History, etc.

and

My job, family, St. Stephen's residency, course work in History, etc.

We have both just been swamped and have had little time to make an posts.

I promise that neither of us has dropped from the face of the earth. I am also not quite egotistical enought to think that everyone has just been checking the blog every hour to see if we have finally posted something. Still, many of us have built some sort of online relationship with one another, and I figured it was the nice thing to do to let you know that we will eventually get more stuff posted.

Eventually.

From Texas Baptist to Orthodox saint? - By Terry Mattingly

2011-09-03T11:50:00.002-05:00

Taken from here.

Wherever bishops travel, churches plan lavish banquets and other solemn tributes to honor their hierarchs.

Visitations by Archbishop Dmitri Royster of the Orthodox Church in America were different, since the faithful in the 14-state Diocese of the South knew that one memorable event would take care of itself. All they had to do was take their leader to a children's Sunday-school class and let him answer questions.

During a 1999 visit to Knoxville, Tenn., the lanky Texan folded down onto a kid-sized chair and faced a circle of preschool and elementary children. With his long white hair and flowing white beard, he resembled an icon of St. Nicholas -- as in St. Nicholas, the monk and fourth-century bishop of Myra.

As snacks were served, a child asked if Dmitri liked his doughnuts plain or with sprinkles. With a straight face, the scholarly archbishop explained that he had theological reasons -- based on centuries of church tradition -- for preferring doughnuts with icing and sprinkles.

A parent in the back of the room whispered: "Here we go." Some of the children giggled, amused at the sight of the bemused bishop holding up a colorful pastry as if he were performing a ritual.

"In Orthodoxy, there are seasons in which we fast from many of the foods we love," he said. "When we fast, we should fast. But when we feast, we should truly feast and be thankful." Thus, he reasoned, with a smile, that doughnuts with sprinkles and icing were "more Orthodox" than plain doughnuts.

Dmitri made that Knoxville trip to ordain yet another priest in his diocese, which grew from a dozen parishes to 70 during his three decades. The 87-year-old missionary died last Sunday (Aug. 28) in Dallas, in his simple bungalow -- complete with leaky kitchen roof -- next to Saint Seraphim Cathedral, the parish he founded in 1954.

Parishioners were worried the upstairs floor might buckle under the weight of those praying around his deathbed.

The future archbishop was raised Southern Baptist in the town of Teague, Texas, before moving to Dallas. As teens, Royster and his sister became intrigued with the history of the major Christian holidays and began visiting a variety of churches, including an Orthodox parish. The services were completely in Greek, but they joined anyway -- decades before evangelical-to-Orthodox conversions became common.

During World War II, the young Texan learned Japanese in order to interrogate prisoners of war, while serving on Gen. Douglas MacArthur's staff. A gifted linguist, he later taught Greek and Spanish classes on the campus of Southern Methodist University. While training to serve in the OCA, which has Russian roots, he learned Old Russian and some modern Russian.

Early in his priesthood, the Dallas parish was so small that Dmitri helped his sister operate a restaurant to support the ministry, thus becoming a skilled chef who was become famous for his hospitality and love of cooking for his flocks. During his years as a missionary bishop, driving back and forth from Dallas to Miami, monks in New Orleans saved him packages of his favorite chicory coffee and Hispanic parishioners offered bottles of homemade hot sauce, which he stashed in special compartments in his Byzantine mitre's traveling case.

A pivotal moment in his career came just before the creation of the Diocese of the South. In 1970, then-Bishop Dmitri was elected -- in a landslide -- as the OCA metropolitan, to lead the national hierarchy in Syosset, N.Y. But the ethnic Slavic core in the synod of bishops ignored the clergy vote and appointed one of its own.

Decades later, the Orthodox theologian Father Thomas Hopko described the impact of that election this way: "One could have gone to Syosset and become a metropolitan, or go to Dallas and become a saint."

The priest ordained in Tennessee on that Sunday back in 1999 shared this judgment, when reacting to the death of "Vladika" (in English, "master") Dmitri.

"There are a number of saints within Orthodox history who are given the title 'Equal to the Apostles,' " noted Father J. Stephen Freeman of Oak Ridge. "I cannot rush beyond the church and declare a saint where the church has not done so, but I can think of no better description of the life and ministry of Vladika Dmitri here in the South than 'Equal to the Apostles.' "

(Terry Mattingly directs the Washington Journalism Center at the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Contact him at tmattingly(at)cccu.org or http://www.tmatt.net.)

Ancient Antioch still home to many Christians

2011-09-02T10:10:00.002-05:00

This was taken from here.

High above the modern Turkish city of Antakya (Antioch) lays a relic of a former age. The Church of St Peter, now a pilgrimage site with a clear trail marking the way, was once a hidden centre of early Christian worship.

Composed of just a one-room cave about 13 meters wide, this sanctuary was crucial to developments in the history of Near Eastern Christianity, and is old enough to be mentioned in the Bible itself. It is here, according to legend, that followers of the newly emerging religion first called themselves Christians.

Though the church now serves as a heritage site and museum operated by the Turkish state, a hike down the mountain and into the city below leads visitors to a number of churches that have active congregations and daily services.

Official studies of the population of Turkey estimate the number of non-Muslim citizens to be less than .02%. In this corner of the country, however, the religious and ethnic diversity is much higher and, significantly, religious conflict nearly absent.

"There are no problems here," the head priest of the Catholic Church of Antioch, Domineco Bertogli, explains. "We live openly, we worship openly."

Indeed, the Italian priest's church is located next-door to a large mosque, and prominent plaques point the way.

Adalet, a young woman who works in the church with Bertogli, grew up in Antakya and takes pride in the city's level of tolerance and multiculturalism. She points to a poster hanging on a bulletin board that also displays church announcements and service hours.

"Do you see that?" Adalet asks, smiling. "Antakya was chosen as one of UNESCO's cities of peace."

Also on display are pictures of Bertogli shaking hands with President Abdullah Gul and standing next to the Pope. Sent to Turkey initially in 1966, Bertogli spent years working in a church in Izmir before coming to Antakya. Over the course of the 45 years Bertogli has worked here, the priest has assimilated, learning the language fluently and, he says, being happy to serve the church.

The Catholic community of Antakya is not the largest Christian population in the region. Many more Orthodox Christians, whose traditions separated from those of Catholic Rome during centuries of Byzantine rule, live and worship here. The Orthodox Church of Antakya underscores the presence of this community, with its elaborate iron gates and large courtyard open to the public.

Antakya is the largest city in the province of Hatay, and, like many urban areas, has developed as a centre of diversity. Farther away from the city, however, active Christian communities still prosper.

Near the Syrian border in the Altinozu district, two almost exclusively Christian villages remain, Sarilar and Tokacli. Villagers are nearly all Orthodox, with perhaps a handful of Catholic families.

Emin Mizikacioglu, an Orthodox Christian who runs a small market in Sarilar, expresses a mixture of tolerance and pride regarding religious differences.

"We live together like brothers, all of us," he says, then breaking off his sentence to tease the Muslim bus driver about how slowly the vehicle is moving.

A few minutes later, when Sarilar becomes visible over a ridge in the hilly landscape, he softens his voice and says with some excitement, "This is my village. You won't find a single Muslim family here. Not even one."

This dual perspective -- that Muslims and Christians and Jews are all siblings, but that a Christian village is still something to be treasured -- may be part of what enables these varied communities to maintain their own identities while engaging peacefully and productively with other groups.

Bertogli, perhaps drawing on his experiences while working elsewhere in Turkey, emphasises that while Antakya and its environs may truly be cities of peace, they are not necessarily indicative of the situation elsewhere.

"There isn't just one Turkey," he says. "There are many Turkeys."

Fr. James' Two Cents on Archbishop DMITRI

2011-08-30T12:37:00.000-05:00

Archbishop DMITRI was helpful to me in first gaining an understanding of Orthodox Christianity. When I was going through my missionary training course, preparing to go win the Serbs to Jesus ( :-) ), I naturally read as much as the library at our missionary training center had (which wasn't much). But one thing they did have was a brief "Introduction to Orthodoxy" pamphlet that His Eminence had written. I remember making a copy of the entire pamphlet and marking things I didn't agree with. Later, when I was beginning to move toward Orthodoxy, I reread the pamphlet (with my marks still in it). The second time I read it, I didn't disagree with anything....

+DMITRI's commentaries on the Parables and Miracles of Christ and of the epistle to the Hebrews and the Sermon on the Mount have also been a big help to me in preparing Bible studies over the last few years.

In 2003, when I was still a layman, I traveled to Dallas one weekend with Dn. Meletios Marx (also a layman at the time) to visit St. Seraphim Cathedral in Dallas. Fortunately for us, Archbishop DMITRI was there. It was the first time I had seen a non-Antiochian Hierarchical Divine Liturgy, and only about the second time I had seen any Hierarchical. I was impressed.

After the service, during coffee hour, Vladika was sitting in the fellowship hall, totally surrounded by people who wanted to talk with him (as I'm sure was always the case when he was there). Mel and I waited for the crowd to disperse a bit so that we could have a chance to meet the Archbishop. The crowd did not comply, and it was getting to be time for us go; we had a fairly long trip ahead of us. Mel suggested that we just go, and he started toward the door. But I simply couldn't leave without meeting +DMITRI and receiving his blessing. So I just (probably pretty rudely) marched right up to him and stood in front of him (he was seated with people all around him) until he looked up at me. I introduced myself, told him how much his writings had helped me, and asked for his blessing.

He would have been justified in sending me away, or at least saying "wait a minute"... but he didn't. He interrupted the conversation he was having, thanked me for coming to the church and for introducing myself and gave me his blessing. I went away blessed indeed by this kind and accommodating archpastor of Christ's Church.

This morning, I listened to an interview with Fr. Stephen Freeman on the AFR podcast "Ancient Faith Presents". The interview was about Archbishop DMITRI's life and legacy. I had already known that he was a remarkable man, but as it turned out, I didn't know the half. Did you know that +DMITRI was fluent in Japanese and that he had served in World War 2 as a translator on the staff of Gen. Douglas MacArthur? He was also fluent in Spanish and highly involved in ministry to both Mexican citizens and Latinos in the United States. But you would never have known all this from being around this humble and unassuming man of God.

To listen to the interview yourself, click here.

May his memory be eternal!

Memory Eternal! Archbishop Dmitri (OCA) Has Reposed

2011-08-28T15:29:00.003-05:00

You can read the official notice here on the OCA website.

I don't have too much to add, but I will say that I had the pleasure of meeting Archbishop Dmitri in the Spring of 2008. It was when I was concluding my protestant ministry, preparing to move to Orthodoxy, and his Eminence made a hierarchical visit to Holy Cross in the Greensboro, NC area.

His love of God and the parishioners was evident in all that he did during that visit. He took time to visit with my wife and me and encouraged us in our transition.

Please remember Vladyka in your prayers. May his memory be eternal!

Out of the Mouth of Babes #1 - by Clint

2011-08-22T22:08:00.005-05:00

This was when Becky was almost 2 years old, and our only child

A few years ago, my daughter Becky was taking music lessons from a very distinguished instructor. Now, to be honest, Becky is REALLY good at the piano. I don't mean your regular old "my kid is talented" kind of good, but REALLY good. Honest.

So when we would go to the lessons, I would sit in the other room, reading a book, while she had her lesson. I guess she was about 8 years old when I overheard the following exchange:

TEACHER: So Becky, what do you want to be when you grow up?

BECKY: A mommy.

TEACHER (with some surprise in her voice): No, I mean, what job do you want to have? What career?

BECKY: A mommy.

The instructor was hoping for "composer", as she later told me. She tried to argue with my 8 year old daughter, to convince her that she needed some other type of career in order to be fulfilled. I just set my book down, smiled, and listened to Becky adamantly stick to her guns - she just wanted to be a mommy. After we left that day, I hugged her and told her that she had made a good choice and that I was proud of her.

And I would love to take the credit for her choice (which she still clings to, even today). However, the reason that Becky knew what she wanted to be was because she saw a great mommy (my wife, Debbie) in action every day. She knew how much her mother meant (and means) to her and her brothers. She aspired to be just as important to her own kids some day.

As I look at that conversation, and my daughter's goal, I interpret it to be validation of what a great mother my wife is. She spends the vast majority of her time caring, teaching, healing, praying, and loving her children (and her often childlike husband).

Debbie and all our children on our recent vacation

I am not saying that mothers shouldn't have a "career." Each family has a different situation and circumstances, and I would never presume to judge someone for making a different choice than we have made. I do know that my stay-at-home wife makes our world work. I see it in my kids every day. I see it in my own life, every day.

So while this post is really about what a great mother my wife is, I realized it in a new and more meaningful way by listening to what my young daughter said to someone else, when she didn't realize I was listening. That also caused me to open my ears more often, and listen to what my children say, and try to see if I can learn from them. I realize that they are kids, and the majority of what they say indicates their youth and immaturity. But once in awhile, I hear gold. And I treasure it.

Occasionally, I will post something that my kids have said over the years that has meant a lot to me, and I hope you find it worth reading.

God's Law, Part 3 - by Clint

2011-08-19T16:37:00.005-05:00

This is the third and final installment in this series. You can read part one here, and part two here.

This is further explained in Galatians 5:24-25, where St. Paul points out that “those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Even more clearly, a few verses earlier, he claims that “if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law” (Galatians 5:18). Here he juxtaposes the Old Testament Law, which lead to a curse, and points to the Law of Christ, which is based on love of God and man. Those who are belonging to Christ, walking according to his Law of love, are no longer under the curse of sin. As already mentioned in Galatians 6:2, the point is that we can live the Law of Christ by loving one another, based upon our love of God. This is consistent with the rest of the New Testament message, such as we read in 1 John 1:7, “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” It is when walking in the permanent Law of Christ that we truly have fellowship both with God and man.

Ultimately, we see that the Old Testament Law is holy, yet had a particular purpose – to show what is holy and right, leading to the fulfillment of holiness, Christ Jesus. As St. Paul teaches in Galatians, it served as a tutor, but now that Christ has come, that purpose has been fulfilled. However, the truth inherent in that Old Testament Law is still valid, and is bodily presented in Christ. Those who are baptized into Christ:

…were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. (Romans 6:3-9)

Christians now follow Christ, living according to his eternal Law of the Spirit of Life. The Old Testament law was one manifestation of that greater Law. This final and perfect manifestation, embodied in Christ himself, is the standard that Christians are bound to follow. We do that by loving God and loving our fellow man. We avoid conceit and damaging actions to others, and focus on bearing burdens, caring for one another, and thus fulfill that eternal Law of Christ.

God's Law, Part 2 - by Clint

2011-08-18T09:56:00.002-05:00

This is the second installment. Part one can be read here.

The Old Testament Law had been set in place to guide the Israelites in how to live in God’s will. Yet they had failed to do so. This continued the historical pattern from Adam down through the ages; mankind is sinful. This point is addressed in Romans 2:12-15, where St. Paul states:

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)

As Fr. Tarazi points out, though the Jews had the Law, they continued to fall short of God’s expectations. The Gentiles could live righteously, according to their consciences, but in reality that never happens. Mankind, universally, fails. Therefore, God determined that “the same law would be written this time indelibly on men’s hearts (Jer 31:31-34), with the Isaianic proviso that it would be shared with the nations”. His statements in Romans, Galatians, and 1 Corinthians all highlight this reality. The Jews have the Old Testament Law, yet fall short. The Gentiles may well have a “law toward Christ,” but also fall short.

So we see a shift in the understanding of what the Law is, in the writing of St. Paul. What was originally equated with the written words of the Law of Moses, contained in the Old Testament, would now be understood to be the Law of Christ, written on the hearts of God’s people. To make this clear, rather than having two Laws, physical for Jews and spiritual for Gentiles, St. Paul teaches that the same spiritual understanding is valid for both groups. They are united into one people-group, “bound by the law of the new covenant written on their hearts. This is consistent with the words of Christ: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40). So we see that St. Paul is not being inconsistent, but is truly focusing upon the fact that the Law is one based upon love for God and man, in agreement with the very words and teachings of Christ.

Therein lies the basis of St. Paul’s teaching. In Galatians 6:2, we see the exhortation to bear one another’s burdens, in order to “fulfill the Law of Christ.” The connection with his teachings concerning the internal Law, written on hearts and minds, is evident. Even those who do not know the minutia of the Law of Moses can recognize what loving a neighbor is in any given situation. Furthermore, the commandment to love one another (evidenced by bearing burdens in this passage), is “the only law governing the Messiah’s community. Fr. Tarazi goes on to say that St. Paul most likely created the term “Law of Christ” specifically for the situation he was addressing in this letter. However, that does not mean that it was “new” in any real sense. We have already seen that the Old Testament prophets, and Christ himself, had stated that this internal, spiritual law was what the Mosaic Law “hung on.”

St. Paul elaborates on this further in Romans 8:2, where he shows that “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” The Law of the Old Testament is spiritual, but it is given to carnal men. St. Paul points out that humanity falls victim to its carnal nature. The new manner of writing the law on hearts and minds creates a “new man” via baptism, allowing man the ability to actually keep the law. It is this Law of Christ that truly gives freedom and the opportunity to be in union with God. The Old Testament Law had merely served to show how far one had fallen short. In Galatians 4:3-5, we read: “… we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” In that case, the Law “was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor” (Galatians 3:24-25).

Christ is the focus here. Therein lies the seeming contradiction, as well as the actual resolution of that potential problem. The Old Testament Law is holy and good, though mankind is sinful. The Law’s purpose was to guide God’s people to Jesus Christ, who is the fulfillment of that Law. St. Paul exclaims, “I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25). This statement is in reaction to the question of who can free him (and anyone) from sin and death, the consequence of relying upon perfect adherence to the Old Testament Law. Trying to rely upon the proper keeping of the OT Law will only result in failure, as history has proven. But to rely upon the fulfillment of the OT Law, Jesus Christ, is to know freedom and life. The physical law of the Old Testament is transformed into “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus [which] has made [mankind] free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).

Update from James Hargrave in Tanzania

2011-08-17T14:20:00.000-05:00

Dear friends,

Sisi tuliona utukufu wake kwa macho yetu wenyewe.
We were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
- 2 Peter 1:16

Greetings from Mwanza, where I have returned after several weeks in the hills of rural Muleba District in Kagera Region. In the three weeks leading up to the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor, more than one hundred Orthodox Christian young people from the Muleba countryside gathered at Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church in the hamlet of Ibale for our annual Archdiocesan youth seminar.

It was my joy to participate in preparation for the seminar, as well as to assist in hosting the Finnish Orthodox Mission/ OCMC Team which taught Christian education during the ten days leading up to the Feast of the Transfiguration. The Archdiocese of Mwanza works very hard to integrate foreign visitors into our ongoing projects, and it was a delight for me to be together with this Team as they settled right into sharing their lives with local youth in a fairly rustic and difficult setting. The sacrificial love that they brought with them, and their willingness to lay aside their own cultural baggage and learn to see the world through Tanzanian eyes, was of special encouragement to me. In a future email, I hope to tell you more about the Team Members.

Caring for 100+ young people and a dozen foreigners in rural Tanzania for three weeks is no joke. Our local infrastructure consisted of: one church, one house, one creek, and plenty of rolling hillside. So we chopped down hundreds of eucalyptus trees to make tent poles, constructed huge tents for classrooms and for sleeping, brought in mattresses and water tanks and a towering truckload of firewood. Every day, between or after classes, the young people took turns walking to the creek and hauling water- in buckets on their head- back to camp to refill the water tanks. With no refrigeration, I ended up going grocery shopping almost daily- each day, the market is in a different hamlet, and you never know what you're going to get. Once we found some really amazing catfish (long as your arm), and that was a treat.

God provides, and both the youth and the visitors stayed in good spirits despite various difficulties. Nearly every night we danced for hours to drums, singing songs that had been composed especially for the event. Until the moon got too bright, the Milky Way was visible overhead so clear that it might have been daytime clouds. And now the young people are back in their homes, teaching others the things that they learned about Christ, about themselves, and about their faith.

What's next? Plans. Reports. Budgets. We're starting to prep for something brand-new- a series of rural clinics in Mwanza Region which will be staffed by an OCMC Health Care Team in October. I look forward to receiving the Team, along with fellow OCMC Missionaries here in Western Tanzania, and to caring for them while they are with us.

It is good to be here. It was a special refreshment to be with the youth and our foreign guests up in the hills, to catch a glimpse of the glory of God, and to return to the daily routine of life as an eyewitness of that majesty. May it be borne also in your hearts.

Thank you for your prayers. They are felt, and their effect is plain. Thank you for your friendship, for your encouragement, and for your consistent and generous financial support. I am here because of you.

Stay in touch!

By your prayers in Christ,

James Hargrave

God's Law, Part 1 - by Clint

2011-08-16T21:53:00.003-05:00

This is part 1 of this series.

St. Paul intended to present the Gospel to his Gentile readers, following the footsteps of the Old Testament prophets. In a spirit of fatherly instruction, he equated the Gospel with the “Law of God’s Spirit through his Christ”. According to Fr. Paul Tarazi, it was St. Paul’s intention to have his letters read in conjunction with the Old Testament scriptures. It is evident that he held the Old Testament, including the Law in high regard. In fact, he stated plainly that “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good” (NKJV; Romans 7:12). He further contended that the Gospel was the answer to the Old Testament promise from God. Yet, in the very same scriptural passages where the Law is extolled, we see that “all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse” (Galatians 3:10), and that “The law is not based on faith” (Galatians 3:12). St. Paul goes so far as to say that “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law” (Galatians 3:13). This presents the student of scripture with a seeming conundrum: The law is holy, righteous and good, yet is a curse, not founded on faith. How can these two apparently polar-opposite opinions be reconciled? There is no argument that God gave the Law in the Old Testament, but was it intended to be permanent? Jesus had stated: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished” (Matthew 5: 17-18). Yet we read in Galatians 3 and 4 that the Law “was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come” (Galatians 3:19). The word “until” would appear to indicate that the Law was temporary. In that same chapter, the Apostle tells his readers that they (and all Christians) are the children of promise. So how can we understand and decipher this apparent contradiction?

We must understand that St. Paul was not truly contradicting Christ, though he was accused of doing so. In fact, he goes so far as to say that if he is teaching a “new” gospel, contrary to that which had previously been taught, then he should be accursed. He was accused of trying to be a “man-pleaser,” but he rejected that epithet, and proclaimed that he was truly teaching the Gospel of Christ. These false accusations were most likely based upon St. Paul’s decision to have St. Timothy circumcised, thereby following the written Law, though he had declared it to be a “curse.” However, he provides sufficient reasons to understand why he performed these types of actions, maintaining consistency between his teachings and actions. This is best described in his statement that

I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more; and to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law (not being without law toward God, but under law toward Christ), that I might win those who are without law. (1 Corinthians 9:19-21).

To be continued...

James Hargrave - Unexpected Encounter

2011-08-15T09:27:00.003-05:00

OK, this picture isn't from the actual story in the post, but it DOES come from the Orthodox Church of Tanzania. You can visit their website here.

The following is an excerpt from a recent email from James Hargrave, one of our OCMC missionaries in Tanzania, who is hosting several (read dozens) foreign short-term mission workers this summer. In this excerpt, we read how God works to bring His people together...

Yesterday, we took the Finnish Orthodox Mission/ OCMC Team on their excursion, using a local tour company. The first part of the tour was a hike up a mountain. High up on the mountain the guide took a wrong turning, and we ended up on a small coffee and banana farm. We asked the farmer for directions, and he guided us back onto our path. As we were leaving, he asked who were all these foreigners, traipsing through his orchards. We told him who we were, and he said, "Oh, I'm Orthodox!"

His name is Apolinario, and he has been a catechist for 17 years. Apolinario was baptized in 1977 by Father Sosthenes Kiyonga, one of the early missionary priests who evangelized much of this area. Prior to baptism, Apolinario had not been part of any church- he was brought to Christ by Father Kiyonga. He invited the Team into his house to meet his wife Maria as well as some of their children and grandchildren, and then led us in a short prayer service.

You can't plan a thing like this. You can't organize or buy it with any amount of money. For the Team to share, at this moment, in the life of an African Orthodox Christian peasant family on a footpath high up on a mountain, was a gift from God. It could only have come through your prayers and through the prayers of others.

The Internet is a Tool - by Clint

2011-08-13T17:55:00.003-05:00

image taken from here
I own two regular old hammers. One is a little larger than the other, but both would be considered "normal." I use the bigger one for larger jobs, such as construction. The smaller one gets used for little things like hanging icons or pictures. Both are tools. When used for what they are designed, they are useful. Hopefully, I won't try to use them to cut things (that is what pocketknives are for), nor install glass or anything else for what they are no intended.

I recognize the hammer for what it is. It is useful to bang stuff, especially nails. If I start thinking that a hammer would be a good screwdriver or putty knife, then I am using it incorrectly.

Ultimately, whether a hammer is used properly or not is determined by the user. It is the one who wields the tool that determines if it will be used properly or not.

So what does that have to do with the internet? Well, the internet is a tool, just like the hammer. The internet allows us to communicate with people from all over the world. It allows us to have more knowledge at our fingertips than we could possibly use or digest.

And I think that is where the danger of misusing the internet comes in.

When I first started investigating Orthdoxy, I lived in eastern Europe, where my English-speaking resources were fairly limited. I had a few opportunities to speak with clergy in Estonia, but not very often. I could order books from online retailers, but how could I know which books to order?

In this situation, the internet served me well. I was able to order many good books (along with a few stinkers), because of online reviews. I was able to speak regularly with clergy from the US (especially Fr. Joseph Huneycutt, who ironically is now the pastor at my parish). So I was able to learn about Orthodoxy and make the decision that I needed to be Orthodox.

On the flip side, many use the internet to cause trouble within Orthodoxy (and elsewhere). I will not provide links to such sites, as I don't want to spread their propaganda. But suffice it to say, these people cause heart ache and division within the body of Christ. That is sad, to say the least.

So I have heard some say that we shouldn't trust the internet; we should avoid it. I don't think that is the case. The internet itself isn't bad. It is just a tool, like my hammer. It is the one using the internet that determines if it is being used properly.

So how can we be discerning internet surfers? Admittedly, this can be tricky. There are some sites that served good purposes in the past, but have transformed into more problematic sites. Some have always been poorly conceived. The only real advice that I can give is that we should look at the spirit of the site.

Does the site exist to encourage, uplift, and edify? Does it build up the body of Christ? If so, then it is probably fine, for the most part.

Does it tear people down? Does it cause dissent? If so, then it should probably be avoided.

I realize this is a black and white distinction and most places probably fall somewhere in the gray area. That is one of the reasons that we are given our shepherds in the faith. If we have a question, then we should ask our priest.

I know that there are several sites that I used to enjoy, but now avoid. I no longer visit those pages, because I no longer can do so in good conscience. I feel a sense of loss, because I had come to "know" some of the people from those sites. Yet I know that I am better off avoiding them, as they were not uplifting.

Just remember: a tool is to be used for what it is designed. It is not intrinsically good or bad.

Now, you will have to excuse me. I have another icon to hang.

Book Review: Chosen by God

2011-08-11T22:11:00.001-05:00

“…whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him…”

“I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.”

“…the kingdom of Heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force…”

For nearly two thousand years, serious students of the Bible have struggled with the meaning of these and other difficult sayings of Jesus. Present-day Orthodox Christians who seek to understand such challenging words have traditionally been faced with a dilemma. They can attempt to wade through the teachings of the Church Fathers, which are solidly Orthodox but often hard to read and written for a different time and culture than today. Or, they can read a modern commentary by a Protestant or Roman Catholic scholar, which are often readable but seldom reflect the mind of the Orthodox tradition. Serious, in-depth biblical commentary by modern Orthodox scholars is extremely rare.

Until now, that is.

Orthodox biblical scholar Daniel Fanous has done us a great service by publishing Taught by God: Making Sense of the Difficult Sayings of Jesus (Orthodox Research Institute, 2010). In this work, Fanous tackles fifteen of Jesus’ most difficult sayings. In doing so, he is not afraid to consult the best of Protestant, Roman Catholic, and even Jewish scholarship. But his interpretations are informed primarily by the Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Most importantly, Fanous grounds his understanding of Jesus’ sayings in their Galilean and Aramaic context of Jesus’ words, knowledge of which is critical to arriving at a valid interpretation. His conclusions are solidly Orthodox while at the same time faithful to the original cultural and linguistic setting of the New Testament and also relevant to our own time.

The bibliography of this book is an impressive thirteen pages in length and contains enough titles to fill the library of a fairly large house. But what struck me most about Taught by God is its readability. As someone who has struggled through many a dry, boring biblical commentary, I can assure you that you will not get bored-not even close-reading this one. Fanous’ writing style is crisp and concise, sometimes even eloquent. As a sample, I will leave you with the final sentences on Fanous’ Chrysostomesque reflection on Jesus’ saying “the Father is greater than I”:

It is in this which the disciples are to rejoice. It is only because the Father is greater, that humanity is to break forth in joy. Humanity is to rejoice for One of their own, who is less than the Father, has returned to His glory, and in doing so has glorified humanity. Humanity is to rejoice, for now its King will be enthroned. Humanity is to rejoice, for in seeing the One who is sent, it has seen the Greater who sends Him. Humanity is to rejoice, for it has come face to face with the Living God who previously declared: “no man shall see Me, and live.” Humanity is to rejoice for through Jesus it still lives.

My sincere hope is that Dr. Fanous will produce more volumes like Taught by God, discussing more of Jesus’ difficult sayings, and then those of St. Paul and the other Apostles.

Another Missionary Conversion Story

2011-08-09T09:27:00.002-05:00

Taken from here.

Priest fills church’s void after test of faith

Despite its odd location in a small commercial center next to a bar on Ninth Street, the St. Nicholas of Myra Orthodox Church isn’t out of the ordinary.

On Sundays, 35 to 50 people cram into the makeshift church to worship. Afterward, the congregation shares a meal.

They value community outreach, preparing food once a month for the LINK community kitchen.

It’s a tight-knit community. Many of the adults are close friends, and their children have grown up together.

Perhaps those bonds kept the church together during the last five years, when they did not have a full-time priest.

Out-of-town priests helped fill the void, but members said there was a noticeable difference. The church only held communion twice a month, and the community lacked the structure and leadership their own priest provided.

Nini Negash, a church member, used to drive an hour to Kansas City to attend a different church.

She doesn’t make that trip anymore. Joshua Lollar recently became the parish’s leader, eight years after he almost walked away from Christianity altogether.

Lollar grew up in a devout evangelical Christian home and was an active member of his church’s youth group.

Lollar remained faithful while attending Kansas State University. He described his college years as an “intense spiritual experience.”

“I didn’t really do any of the college rebellion stuff,” he said. “I was a pretty quiet kid.”

Instead of partying, he built a relationship with his future wife. Although he realized he wanted to become a pastor after a brief stint studying premedicine, he said he never honestly evaluated his faith.

“I was probably nervous about what would happen if I pushed too hard,” he said.

A mission trip to Ethiopia after graduation revealed the limitations of his world view, he said.

The poverty shocked him. He described the Sheraton Hotel — with a luxurious swimming pool, swank restaurants and rich tourists — in the midst of the impoverished city of Addis Ababa. He said the religion he was practicing didn’t fully embrace the Gospel’s critique of this inequality, and that bothered him.

He was also disillusioned with the “colonial” feeling of his work. Ethiopia has a rich Orthodox Christian tradition, yet he said many missionaries discounted it as a lesser form of Christianity.

“I just felt kind of ridiculous being the missionary over there,” he said. “I was like, ‘I need to learn from you all, not even about Christianity, but about living and being a human.’”

He left Ethiopia, unsure of Christianity. He came to Kansas University to study religion and philosophy, hoping to find truth in the process.

“Once everything fell apart going to Ethiopia, I think I was ready to be honest, ready to be open and ready to be taught.”

The lessons about Orthodox Christianity he had started in Ethiopia continued in Lawrence. The religion resonated with him, and he converted two years after his trip to Africa.

“I certainly needed discipline, and desired a deeper practice and desired a more serious and reverent way of worshipping,” he said.

He left Lawrence to continue his spiritual journey, attending a seminary in New York and earning a doctorate in theology at Notre Dame. In June, he became ordained and returned to Lawrence with his wife and four children.

Church members said they already have noticed the benefits of a full-time priest, such as having communion three times a week.

Chris Rathnel, a church member and a childhood friend of Lollar, was with him for a large part of Lollar’s journey. They both traveled to Ethiopia, and they became interested in the Orthodox church.

“It’s a gift to be able to see someone develop that way,” he said.

Fellowship, the Forgotten Component - by Clint

2011-08-08T08:39:00.002-05:00

When I was a protestant missionary, we focused on two major things:

1. Present a viable and uplifting worship service each Sunday.

2. Provide multiple opportunities for fellowship, meaning times that people could come together for enjoyable gatherings.

Of course, there were other things that we did that supplemented those two goals, such as language acquisition, cultural studies, etc. But those two things were what we really wanted to do. In my opinion, we were pretty successful with the second goal, but not so successful with the first.

So it is not surprising that one of the first things that drew me to Orthodoxy was the beautiful and meaningful worship at the Divine Liturgy. I had been missing that sort of experience.

I have spent the past few years absorbing worship, yet I think I have sometimes neglected the fellowship that is also an important part of the Christian experience. That is too bad, because, we are all in this together. We shouldn't let our Sunday worship at the liturgy to be the only time we spend time together.

My family was blessed to spend some time with Fr. James, Kh. Jennifer, and their children yesterday. And to make it even better, Bob and Charlene Kinsey were also there. Charlene is a beloved sister in Christ that Debbie and I (and the kids) have gotten to know during our time at St. Joseph's. But it was wonderful to spend some time getting to know her, and her husband, even better.

Like always, I probably talked too much. But we had a fantastic afternoon, eating, talking, laughing, and enjoying one another's company. By the time we all parted ways, ready to head to our own homes (and allowing Fr. James and Kh. Jennifer's home a chance to recover from the visit), I know that Debbie and I were improved in some way. I suppose it was just being able to spend some time in the presence of other Christians.

That is something that many of us, in our busy lives, forget to do. It is a shame. We should all do it more often. As I mentioned before, we are all in this together. We are saved together. We should spend more time with one another, at every opportunity.

So to Fr. James, Kh. Jennifer, Courtney, Beth, Christine, Bob, Charlene (and even the Early's dogs!) - Thank you! I had a wonderful time and I look forward to the next chance to spend time with you. I will try to listen more next time, and talk a little less, but I know that I will enjoy it and be better for it.

Apophatic Theology, Part 3 - by Clint

2011-08-06T22:56:00.002-05:00

This is the final installment of this discussion. You can read part one here and part two here. I have included a Works Cited list at the end.

Ultimately, total intellectual ignorance is necessary for Christians to enter into communion with God, because He is incomprehensible with our mental faculties. It is only by acknowledging this reality that we are able to enter into union with Him and thereby come to truly know Him. Our comprehension ceases and we understand what we cannot understand (ibid 149). Since the true theologian is the one who has purity in prayer, and purity in prayer is only found in a state of silence, and since a state of silence implies an “arrest of thought,” we can conclude that we must be intellectually “thoughtless” in order to achieve this state of silence and finally come to know God (Orthodox Theology 13). Apophatic theology leads us to “total ignorance. All knowledge has as its object that which is. Now God is beyond all that exists. In order to approach Him it is necessary to deny all that is inferior to Him, that is to say, all that is” (Mystical Theology 25). It is only by unknowing that one may come to know that which beyond knowing. By setting aside all that is known, one can finally draw near to that which cannot be known. If this absolute ignorance is missing, then one cannot hope to attain to God (ibid 25). Apophatic theology culminates in “a kind of apprehension by supreme ignorance in Him who cannot be an object of knowledge” (Image and Likeness 13). God is ontologically independent of all creation and is therefore transcendent of all human knowledge. Only in our ignorance can we know Him.

Apophatic theology is not about gaining new information or elaborating upon abstract concepts. Instead, this theology leads to union between God and man. It requires man to set aside his intellectual pursuits and desire to wrestle with mental constructs, and to empty himself of such things. Total ignorance on the part of man is necessary, because God is beyond human knowledge. God is transcendent and beyond any created thing. He is infinite, and therefore nothing finite can truly comprehend Him. Yet, in His love for mankind, he has bestowed grace on those who have faith in Him and look to His revelation of Himself, through His Son in the Holy Spirit to allow them to enter into union and communion with Him, which is theosis, and where one can finally come to know God. Intellectual pursuits are ineffectual, but faithful adherence to His revelation produces the desired result. By genuinely contemplating this revelation, participating in His divine nature, one is inwardly purified, ultimately reaching a deified state, where God is known. In that place, we know as we are known.

Works Cited
Hierotheos, Metropolitan of Nafpaktos. The Illness and Cure of the Soul in the Orthodox Tradition. Levadia, Greece: Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 1993. Print.

Lossky, Vladimir. In the Image and Likeness of God. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974. Print.

---. Orthodox Theology: An Introduction. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1978. Print.

---. The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1976. Print.

Apophatic Theology, part 2 - by Clint

2011-08-05T18:36:00.002-05:00

Metropolitan Hierotheos

This is the second installment. You can read part one here.

The aforementioned contemplation does not imply a mere theology of ecstasy, but a transformation, which is “essentially a communion with the living God” (Mystical Theology 42). Rather than deal with abstracts, it contemplates those realities that are not understandable. The contemplation focuses upon the revelation of God, with the dogma of the Trinity as the high point. To reach the point of true contemplation, in all its fullness, we must reach the goal of divinization, or perfect communion with God, which is achieved only by asceticism: purification, illumination, and finally deification (Hierotheos 160). This contemplation manifests a working faith, where faith adheres “to a presence with confers certitude, in such a way that certitude, here, is first” (Orthodox Theology 14,16). As the Christian is indwelled by the Holy Spirit, he is able to adapt his thought to revelation and to have access to all knowledge, though this knowledge must be actuated by theology, yet outside of contemplative faith, theology makes no sense (ibid 17). This faith, through contemplation, “makes the intelligence bear fruit through an altogether new ontological relationship with God” (ibid 18).

Just as St. James said that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:26), so this contemplative faith bears fruit through inward purification. Apophatic theology requires the involvement of the whole man and leads to a new man. The mystical union with God implies a progress, not in intellectual knowledge, but in that actual union, or communion, with God, as one is deified (Mystical Theology 38-39). This is not a way of agnosticism or total emptiness, for God is personal (ibid 43). “The divine nature is like a sea of essence, indeterminate and without bounds, which spreads far and wide beyond all notion of time or of nature” and Christians are united with that nature and become partakers of it (Mystical Theology 36; 2 Peter 1:4). Thereby we see that some sort of inner transformation must take place in order for us to become partakers of that nature. As Metropolitan Hierotheos stated:

The knowledge of the soul is granted when man ceases giving great importance to reason and is engaged in the implementation of the commandments of Christ. Fasting, prayer, charity, the reading of the holy Scriptures, the acquisition of virtues, the fight and struggle against passions are all a result of this knowledge…Spiritual knowledge is the state of spiritual theoria, when one sees invisibly and hears inaudibly and comprehends incomprehensibly the glory of God. (149)

This inner purification reaches its apex when one is deified by the grace of God. “Man sees God through theosis…[which is] his union and communion with God (ibid 152).

to be continued...

Apophatic Theology - by Clint

2011-08-04T18:04:00.004-05:00

Vladimir Lossky - Great Orthodox Theologian

This is part one of this series. Normally, I leave out in-text citations from these blog posts. However, due to the density of this topic, I am going to leave them in this time. On the final installment, I will include a Works Cited page. This is my first major "struggle" with Lossky, so forgive my limited insight. However, I think it is a great topic, and I hope you learn from, and enjoy, this series.

Orthodox Christians strive to know God, yet in a way vastly different than western theology. Orthodoxy practices apophatic theology, or a theology of ignorance, where intellectual exercise is eschewed and a state of silence, or purity of prayer, is pursued (Lossky, Orthodox Theology, 13). “Human nature must undergo a change; it must be more and more transfigured by grace in the way of sanctification” (Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, 18). This apophatic theology is a way in which the Christian opens his thought to a reality that goes beyond thought, a type of contemplation that is eschatological, utilizing the language of the “world which is coming” (Orthodox Theology 15). This form of theology is a personal relationship with God, a sort of reciprocity or communion. “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible” (NKJV; Hebrews 11:3). It is through faith that we are able to truly “think” about God. Not with our intellect, but by grace through faith, as an “ontological relationship between God and man” (Orthodox Theology 16).

As such, apophatic theology does not lead to human knowledge, based upon mental abilities or scholastic experience. Rather, it is an assimilation of “an unfathomable mystery…[looking] for a profound change, an inner transformation of the spirit, enabling us to experience it mystically” (Mystical Theology 8). This theology actually transcends knowledge, because God is transcendent, and it aspires to union with God, or theosis. That is the ultimate purpose of apophatic theology. Head knowledge is unhelpful, and even counter-productive, as intellectual concepts can become idols, distracting from true worship and union with God (Mystical Theology 33). Instead, one must begin with faith, trusting in God’s revelation of himself, and seek communion with Him. God is revealed through His Son by the Holy Spirit, and we must endeavor to be joined together with Him in contemplative silence. Human understanding is not capable of grasping knowledge of God, so we must move beyond the limits of our understanding and embrace our ignorance of the reality of God (Lossky, In the Image and Likeness of God, 13).

Apophatic theology is an “ascent towards the source of all manifesting energy” of God (ibid 16). This ascent is accomplished through inner contemplation and purification. It “demands the surmounting and arrest of thought” (Orthodox Theology 13), and is founded upon the Incarnation of the Word, since the immanence of the Incarnation reveals the transcendence of God (ibid 21). St. Clement of Alexandria presents an early form of apophatic theology by focusing upon first, a type of analysis, where one strips away all intelligible concepts of God, then moves into a second phase of throwing oneself upon the majesty of Christ, in order to move through holiness into the abyss, where one can know not “what He is, but what He is not.” He calls this final state “Sanctity,” where God is recognized through His revelation through the Son in the Holy Spirit (Image and Likeness 19-21). However, St. Clement’s apophatic theology is not mystical, and was refined by the work of Pseudo-Dionysius the Aeropagite, who taught that Christians must move toward “cessation of speech and all thought, in order to celebrate by silence Him who cannot be known except by unknowing” (ibid 26). God is presented as both Unity and Trinity, yet is wholly unknowable to us as either. Human logic finds this conundrum impossible to solve, yet by faith, in silence, one may truly come to know God and have union with Him, because the “theologian in search of God…[will find that God] transcends the opposition between the transcendent and the immanent, since He is beyond all affirmation and negation” (ibid 29).

To be continued...

Ukrainian Christianity through the ages

2011-08-01T13:59:00.002-05:00

Taken from here.

In the Hall of Paleontology, troops of schoolchildren and toddlers scurry, skitter and squeal among ancient dinosaur bones and Tyrannosaurus rex fossils.

But tucked away in a corner of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, amid hushed tones and an air of veneration, the glory and grandeur of a great cathedral awaits. Here, under arched ceilings and muted lights, are the finely crafted treasures of nine centuries of Ukrainian Orthodox Christianity.

Ornately designed chalices, gospel covers and tabernacles gilded in silver and gold. Intricately embroidered liturgical vestments and altar cloths woven of velvet and golden thread. Icons, painted in deep shades of red, green and blue, and hinting of the rich influences of Byzantine and Western art.

"These are more than paintings. They relate the word of God, so we tried to treat them with reverence," said Dirk Van Tuerenhout, the museum's curator of anthropology, as he walked through the exhibit, The Glory of Ukraine: Sacred Images From the 11th to the 19th Century.

The bulk of the exhibit's 77 pieces comes from the holdings of the oldest monastery in Ukraine, the Kyiv-Pecherskaya Lavra, also known as the Monastery of the Caves. The monastery, whose beginnings can be traced to 1051, is a massive complex that once encompassed cities, towns and villages, and housed an art school that drew students from across Eastern Europe and Russia.

Ravaged during World War II, the monastery was reconstructed and today boasts a collection of more than 70,000 paintings, metalwork, embroidery and icons — religious images depicting saints, angels and holy beings, and sometimes thought to have miraculous powers.

The pieces in the Houston exhibit offer a hint of what might be found in Ukrainian Orthodox churches, which typically contain an iconostasis - or a wall of icons and religious paintings that separates the nave from the sanctuary. Instead of one single painting, an iconostasis would be covered with dozens of icons and religious images, Von Tuerenhout explained.

The baroque quality is also seen in items such as an elaborate tabernacle from 1726, plated in silver and decorated with four scenes from the crucifixion of Christ and the figures of Mary and John the Baptist flanked by angels. Nearby, a 1756 phelonion, or priest's garment, designed with embroidered satin, linen, chenille and silver thread in shades of green and blue, is also a study in baroque workmanship.

The breadth of the exhibit, which runs through Sept. 5, also illustrates the mix of cultural and artistic styles found in Ukrainian iconography. Earlier pieces show the influences of Byzantine artists, and later icons echo the style of Italian Renaissance painters.

In The Annunciation, a mid-18th-century painting depicting the Angel Gabriel's announcement to Mary that she would become the mother of God, Renaissance touches can be found in the style of the figures and in the Italian landscape backdrop.

In a Rococo-influenced icon from the 1760s, a retinue of angels surrounds the archangels Michael and Gabriel, who are clothed in luxuriant shades of red, gold and green. Blinding rays of light emanate from the figure of Christ Emanuel, and a dove above him represents the Holy Spirit. At the top, there is an image of God and a triangular halo symbolizing the Holy Trinity.

Many of the icons, however, are striking in their folk-art simplicity. They don't overwhelm their viewer but instead seem to beckon with open arms.

Two of the most moving items on display are also the oldest: the Mother of God Hodigitri, an icon from 1370, and the Cross of Mark the Cave-Dweller, a bronze encolpion, or reliquary cross, from the 11th century.

Both are damaged by time and turmoil, making their presence all the more remarkable.

The icon, one of the earliest surviving icons in Ukraine, shows the figures of Mary and Jesus, set against a jade background. A gash in the painting, just above Mary's eyes, mars her face. And the cross, which once belonged to a monk charged with burying his fellow monks, is engraved with designs worn away by the passing centuries.
That both icons have been preserved speaks to the larger message of the exhibit: the presence of an abiding faith in the daily life of Ukraine.

"It's one of the elements that make up the identity of Ukraine," Von Tuerenhout said . "These pieces are saying: 'This is us.' "

You can see more here.

Achieving Righteousness: God’s Justification of Sinners - Part 3

2011-07-31T16:58:00.003-05:00

This is the third and final installment of this series. You can read part one here and part two here.

As has been previously stated, man receives justification as a gift from God; righteousness is imputed, based upon faith in God’s promises, manifested by obedient living. This raises an important question: by what right does God impute righteousness to a sinful person? As Fr. Paul Tarazi states: “the verdict of condemnation has been issued not against us, but against someone else for our sake”. It is through Christ’s choice to be incarnated as a man, to live perfectly, to die on a cross, and to be raised that the way for man has been opened to return to God and to live in eternal communion with him. He took on a human body, fully participating in a human life, though he did not sin. When he allowed himself to die on the cross, he entered Hades, conquering death, for he is immortal and sinless, and rose again to life. It is that life, death, and resurrection to which we are joined, as stated in Romans 6:3-4. Since this is an affirmative look at what St. Paul teaches about justification, it is not an appropriate place to delve deeply into false teachings that have arisen in the “Christian” world, however, it is relevant to note that it was not God’s anger that lies behind Christ’s sacrifice, but rather God’s love. St Symeon the Theologian taught that Christ redeemed humanity through his sacrifice and then offered that redeemed humanity to God as a gift, releasing the redeemed from the power of the devil, able to live in eternal communion with God.

Finally, St. Paul elucidates the point that though he used imagery of slavery to make his point about being united with Christ (such as being slaves of righteousness), in fact, those who are justified in Christ are made a part of God’s family, adopted as children. Though we have focused on the Father’s and the Son’s roles in justification to this point, St. Paul indicates that it is the whole Trinity that is involved: “[t]he Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together” (Romans 8:16-17). Furthermore, the Holy Spirit will help the faithful, both in prayer and living the obedient life. In this way, we see that we, as Christians, are justified by the will of God, through the sacrifice of Christ, and helped by the work of the Holy Spirit, who bears witness to our familial relationship. As a part of God’s family, we have security. “Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies” (Romans 8:33). As God’s children, we have Christ as our advocate, interceding for us, and the Holy Spirit affirming our status as God’s children, so we have a secure, eternal relationship with God.

The strength of our justification allows St. Paul to declare that nothing can separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8: 38-39). Our own past sinfulness has been forgiven, as well as any future failures, as long as we remain in Christ. Regardless of what happens to us, even to the point of being killed, nothing can separate us from God. He did not even hold back His own Son, but allowed Him to suffer a criminal’s death in order for us to receive His righteousness. Nothing that the world can throw at us could hinder that faith-based relationship, as long as we maintain our faith and live our obedient lives. For those who follow St. Paul’s instructions in this matter, the eternal relationship is assured, and we can positively say that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

Achieving Righteousness: God’s Justification of Sinners - Part 2

2011-07-30T12:55:00.002-05:00

This is part two of this series. Part one is here.

Since our righteousness, or justification, is accomplished by faith in Christ, the separation between God and man is removed and peace is achieved (Romans 5:1). For people of faith, there is no fear of judgment, because our righteousness has been imputed to us, through grace. St. Paul clearly states this in Ephesians 2:8, “[f]or by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” This is consistent with his message in Romans, as well: “the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Our “old man,” who tried to achieve justification by works of law, has been replaced by a “new man” who lives a life of faith. “[W]e were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). As Fr. Paul Tarazi beautifully states: “this graceful intervention [the gift of rightousness] on God’s part is done through..baptism…(which) functions as an invitation to the believer to trust in God’s power of vindicating the righteous just as he did Jesus Christ.”

It is evident that faith is putting our trust in God, yet it also has a tangible manifestation, seen by our works. This is not an act of work in order to RECEIVE justification, but a work ordained by God for those who are gifted with justification. Justification is an imputed righteousness, requiring a certain manner of living. We can see this from passages such as Roman 6:4, quoted above, where we are called to “walk in newness of life” and in Ephesians 2:10, were we read that “we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” In fact, justification is received when a man performs one of these “prepared” works: baptism (Romans 6:3). Man is presented with the option of serving God or serving sin. To be obedient to God is to receive the promised blessings, but to eschew obedience to God is to be condemned, eternally separated from God.

"Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered. And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness" (Romans 6:16-18). Therefore, God’s gift of righteousness must be acted upon, by placing faith in Christ and then being obedient to Him. This obedience is called “holiness” in Romans 6:19. The fruit of that holiness is eternal life in Christ – the ultimate gift from God (Romans 6:23).

It would appear that justification is both the placement of trust in the promises of God, manifested in the person of Christ, followed by a lifetime commitment to live in obedience. For those that live in Christ, there is no condemnation, but rather a guarantee of eternal life. It requires an eternal perspective, as those who are baptized into Christ will also live in Christ. “[W]e look both behind and ahead [of baptism]: behind toward the death of Christ and ahead toward the life eternal in which he reigns and which shall be bestowed upon us should we follow in a path of righteousness”. Yet this eternal life is not magically transmitted, based upon a one-time event. Rather, baptism serves as the invitation into the life of Christ, which is promised, though the person’s own life continues. St. Paul “makes clear that God’s justification of us in Christ Jesus is not so much a past, and thus consummated, action; rather it is a secure matter should we continue on the path of righteousness until the end”. The evidence of the veracity of the person’s faith is seen in the obedience to God’s will. To solidify this truth, St. Paul reminds his readers that “the wages of sin is death [continued separation from God], but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

To be continued...

Achieving Righteousness: God’s Justification of Sinners - Part 1

2011-07-29T17:45:00.002-05:00

This is part one of this series.

“The aim of the Christian religion is to reach the fullness of communion with God where we become united with him”. This need for reunification of God and man is necessitated because mankind is fallen. This is not to say that people “inherit” the guilt from our predecessors’ sins, but simply that we live in a fallen world, where death and separation from God exist. In order to remove this separation, thereby promoting an eternal communion with God, something had to be done to bridge the gap and restore the God-human relationship. According to Clark Carlton, God Himself came (in the person of the God-man Jesus Christ) to achieve this goal, overcoming man’s self-centeredness and enslavement to death. Jesus Christ encouraged his followers to “be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Yet, as St. Paul pointed out, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). So God intervened into the world, in order to overcome this shortcoming, and “once again [opening] the possibility for our growth into the likeness of God. In St. Paul’s letter to the Romans, this God-ordained path to righteousness is clearly presented and explained.

The Jews of St. Paul’s day sought this justification by observing the works of the Mosaic Law. Yet, this is insufficient, as St. Paul points out in Romans 3:21-22: “the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed… even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe.” Rather, Christians are “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness” (Romans 3:24-25). He goes on to say that it is not works of law that lead to justification, but rather faith in Christ Jesus. In fact, righteousness “shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification” (Romans 4:24-25). St. Paul makes it plain that this is not a new teaching, but receives testimony from the Old Testament Law and Prophets. In the aforementioned verses, St. Paul uses the patriarch, Abraham, as the quintessential example of one who received this imputed justification based on faith. All of the benefits of being a Jew were based upon Abraham’s reception (by faith) of the promises of God. It was always based upon faith. As applied to Christians, both the original recipients of the letter as well as all who came after, St. Paul teaches that the Gospel of Christ is the righteousness granted to people through Christ Jesus and cannot be gained through pious observance of the Law.

Further, St. Paul instructs his Roman readers that the promises made to Abraham are applicable to all Christians, as they are the recipients of the promises. So God’s plan for justification was planned from the beginning of the world and worked out through His interaction with Abraham and other faithful Old Testament characters, and “if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29). If one places his or her faith in Christ, then they are the recipients of the promise of God, which is the promise of righteousness. If one is lacking that faith, then they are obligated to keep perfect observance of the law, which does not happen, bringing a curse upon those who fail to do so. So God’s promises are faith-based, available to anyone who would put his or her trust in Christ. “We are to trust (believe) in the message of God delivered through his prophets and consigned in the scriptures…[and] in the teaching found in the Law…[and thus] the righteousness of God is revealed in scripture…(beginning with trust[as described in the Law] and ending in trust [as required in the Prophets.”

To be continued...

St. Pitirim - commemorated today (July 28)

2011-07-28T18:02:00.002-05:00

I enjoy learning about "new" saints. Not that they are really new, just new to me. It is a privilege to be able to learn about the lives they lived and the deaths the endured. Here is one that I found in my readings today.

Taken from the OCA Lives of the Saints page on their website.

Saint Pitirim, Bishop of Tambov, in the world Procopius, was born 27 February 1645 (or 1644) in the city of Vyazma. From his youth, the Lord prepared Procopius for high spiritual service. While still a child, he learned reading and writing, attended church services, and acquired the habit of prayer. Procopius loved to read the writings of the holy Fathers and the Lives of the Saints. This furthered the future hierarch's spiritual growth. The boy was remarkable for his overall love of work, broad knowledge and mature judgment. He was endowed with artistic talent, and he successfully occupied himself with the painting of icons and church singing. A sublime spiritual disposition led Procopius onto the pathway of monastic life. Having resolved to dedicate himself completely to God, he entered into the Vyazma's monastery of St John the Baptist, known for its strict rule. When he was twenty-one, he was tonsured with the name of Pitirim.

The young monk earned the respect of his brethren by his ascetic life, and was chosen igumen. In 1684 he was raised to the dignity of archimandrite. St Pitirim, following the decree of the Tsar and the Patriarch, was diligent in removing "poorly executed," westernized icons from churches, and from private use. During a procession he confiscated such an icon painted by an unskilled iconographer. Those who had brought the icon grumbled and cursed, and many people were stirred up against the saint. The affair became known to Patriarch Joachim, who praised the courage and zeal of Archimandrite Pitirim and approved of his actions, and summoned him to Moscow for higher service to the Church.

On September 1, 1684 St Pitirim was nominated to be a bishop, and on February 15, 1685 Patriarch Joachim consecrated him Bishop of Tambov. St Pitirim did not leave immediately, but remained in Moscow for a year to prepare himself for his new responsibilities.

organized in 1682, the Tambov diocese suffered from the frontier poverty and the illiteracy of its inhabitants. Pagans comprised the greater part of the settlers: the Mordovians, the Cheremysi, the Mereschi. On the territory of the diocese lived also many Moslem Tatars, bitter opponents of Christianity. Among the Christian settlers of the diocese were many schismatics, fugitives from justice, or banished criminals.

The saint zealously devoted himself to the tasks set before him. On the site of the old wooden church at Tambov he began to build a two-story stone cathedral in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord with a chapel named for St Nicholas. St Pitirim not only supervised the construction of the temple, but even participated in the building work himself. The saint devoted great effort to the spiritual enlightenment of his flock. He built a special school for clergy, where worthy Church pastors were trained under his guidance. In his home the saint had collected a library of spiritual literature (in the inventory of the Moscow's Dormition cathedral there are mentioned "two books of Dionysius the Areopagite, leather bound, one in red, the other in black, with gilt edges," belonging to St Pitirim). The saint continually instructed his flock, preaching the Word of God. He often made trips throughout the diocese, in order to familiarize himself with the needs of the communities.

The holy archpastor was constantly concerned with the return of schismatics and dissenters to the Orthodox Church. His deep piety, active compassion towards neighbor, and wise patience in conversations with the schismatics and dissenters disposed them to trust his word. By the fine example of his holy life and by the power of grace-filled discourse, the saint led many to the true Faith. The saint's sister, Katherine, became the first abbess of the Ascension women's monastery, which he founded in 1690.

Being a bold man of prayer and intercessor before God, St Pitirim never lost his Christian humility. Not relying on his own human strength, the archpastor shielded the city of Tambov entrusted him by God with icons of the Savior and the Kazan Mother of God, placing them at the two chief gates.

St Pitirim prayed much and taught his flock about prayer. He was present at divine services every day and often served them himself. On those days when the saint did not serve, he sang in the kliros (choir), teaching the choir proper church singing and reading. In his cell the saint very often prayed before icons of the Devpeteruv Mother of God (February 29) and St Nicholas.

St Pitirim loved the beauty of nature in his land, which roused in him a feeling of prayerful thanksgiving to the All-Holy Trinity for the visible world. In the forest, near the place where he went for solitary prayer, he built the Tregulaev monastery of St John the Baptist. He founded it together with his spiritual friend, St Metrophanes of Voronezh (November 23 and August 7). There the saint set up a large wooden cross with an image of the Savior.

Like the great ascetics, St Pitirim allotted much time to physical work. The wells he dug with his own hands at the Tregulaev Monastery of St John the Baptist, near the Tambov Cathedral, and in the forest thicket where he withdrew for silence and prayer, are evidence of this.

St Pitirim died in 1698 at age fifty-three. The body of the saint was buried in the lower level of the Tambov Savior-Transfiguration cathedral, at the south wall of the right side chapel dedicated to St Nicholas.

The death of St Pitirim did not dissolve his spiritual ties with his flock. People came to his tomb to seek his intercession, and soon obtained healing from God. With each year the number of pilgrims grew. On July 28, the anniversary of the saint's blessed repose, they would attend services at the Tambov cathedral. Each new sign of God's mercy, obtained by prayers to St Pitirim, inspired assurance for the people that the bishop they venerated was truly a man of God. From the year 1819 a record of miracles and personal testimonies began to be kept, and the veneration of St Pitirim extended far beyond the Tambov diocese. On July 28, 1914 the holy wonderworker Pitirim, Bishop of Tambov, was numbered among the saints.

Update from James Hargrave in Tanzania

2011-07-25T22:02:00.002-05:00

This travel blog photo's source is TravelPod page: Mwanza at Last!

Dear friends,

Furaha na amani! Joy and peace!

And greetings from Tanzanian winter. It's hovering around 18 degrees- 65 Fahrenheit- and although it's the dry season we have had some small rainshowers. I've been reading about the extreme heat waves in North America. If you're pitying me for having to endure Africa's supposedly harsh and unforgiving climate, don't!

Here in Mwanza we are making final preparations for receiving volunteers from the Finnish Orthodox Mission and OCMC who will participate in a rural youth seminar in Muleba District of Kagera Region. This is an annual event, taking place in a different deanery each year, and currently our major ministry with youth at an Archdiocesan level. Event planning in rural Tanzania is a little different from event planning in North America. It's been fun.

In June, I was pleased to welcome two newcomers to the Archdiocese of Mwanza. OCMC Missionary Maria Roeber, a maternity nurse from Georgetown, arrived last month after more than two years of preparation. Maria hopes to help the Archdiocese of Mwanza develop its health care ministry, possibly by working at Resurrection Hospital in Bukoba or through other means. She is also helping OCMC to develop regional long-term health-care strategy elsewhere in East Africa. Maria is currently stationed in Bukoba town for her time of language and culture acquisition, and I have thoroughly enjoyed catching up with her in the past two weeks.

Meg Engelbach, an Intercultural Studies/ Linguistics student at Biola University in Southern California, is serving a summer internship here in the Archdiocese of Mwanza. She is living with a local family in Mwanza city, sharing in their life and learning from them. Meg is also learning Kiswahili and using her experience to help improve language-learning materials to better address East African linguaculture. God willing, Meg's notes and suggestions will be of benefit to future OCMC missionaries as they learn language in this part of the world. I've enjoyed having Meg around, and am very impressed with her dedication and adaptability. It is my hope to continue to play a role in welcoming students and interns to share life with us here in Western Tanzania as they broaden their own experiences and make decisions about possible long-term missionary service in the future.

It's been a good winter, and I'm looking forward to what lies ahead. I am grateful to each of you for your prayers, encouragement, and long-term commitment to financial support. I am here because of you. Stay in touch!

By your prayers in Christ,

James Hargrave

You are what you eat

2011-07-22T22:47:00.003-05:00

A few years ago, when Debbie (my wife) finally decided that I wasn't crazy about this Orthodoxy stuff, we started visiting each Saturday at Holy Cross Mission Parish (OCA) in the Greensboro, NC area, where Fr. Christopher Foley serves as priest. Fr. Christopher took much time and effort to help us in our journey, even driving an hour (one way) to our home to both bless our house, as well as to begin our catechumenate.

While we were blessed in many ways by Fr. Christopher (and still are), one of the best things he did for me was to loan me a copy of Fr. Alexander Schmemann's For the Life of the World. As I began to peruse this little book, my world was rocked!

Of course there are many things in that book worthy of talking about, but the thing that jumped out to me was Fr. Schmemann's comment about people absorbing what they ate and becoming what they ate. No doubt, many of you remember the old saying that "you are what you eat." This is common knowledge. Our grandmothers told us that. If you eat junk, your health becomes junk. If you eat healthy food, your health is improved.

For Orthodox Christians, it is even more important. We are able to consume the Holy Mysteries, which are the true body and blood of Christ. We are what we eat. We become imbued with Christ. He is absorbed into our very selves. How? I don't know - that is why we call it a mystery.

I do know that as we moved closer and closer to Orthodoxy, I was almost beside myself with anxiety. I just almost couldn't wait to receive my first communion. It literally hurt to attend the Divine Liturgy each week and not be able to consume the Eucharist. Talking with a close friend during that time, I mentioned to him that I was so excited that in a few weeks, I would be able to finally eat. I would be able to taste and see. I would become what I ate.

I won't lie and say that my attention doesn't waver on occasion. After hundreds of Divine Liturgies since our being received into Orthodoxy, some Sundays I am more focused than others. But the truth is that I am still excited to receive the body and blood each week.

Some days, I think I see progress in my becoming what I eat. Some days, I realize that I am failing miserably. But regardless, I trust the promise of God that I will become what I eat.

God is the God of the Living, Part 2 - by Clint

2011-07-19T09:38:00.002-05:00

This is the second (and last) installment of this discussion. The first installment can be read here.

Here the main point is brought to the forefront. “But let us who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him” (I Thessalonians 5:8-10). Christians must prepare for the promised return of Christ. Whether we are living at the time, or we depart from this life via death beforehand, we must live our lives in such as way as to be prepared. “Let grace come and let this world pass away…If any man be holy, let him come! If any man be not, let him repent…”. So St. Paul, here in 1 Thessalonians 5, turns his attention to life and doctrine. It is a call to put on the breastplate of faith and love in order to “surround thy soul with faith and love, [so that] none of the fiery darts of the devil can ever be fixed in it” (St. John Chrysostom). The helmet of the hope of salvation is put in place to protect the Christian, keeping his or her attention focused on the ultimate goal – salvation – no matter whether we are asleep in the Lord or remain. Regardless of what the world or the devil throws against us, we should not despair, because we have a “strong security."

Going back to the original concern, regarding those who had died, St. Paul (as echoed by St. John Chrysostom) indicates that it is “a matter of indifference: it is no concern of mine, whether I live or die; for we shall live with Him." Of course, those who have fallen asleep in the Lord will spend eternity with him. What matters is how life is lived. We must do everything we can for that life, with our works indicating our devotion. We must be focused and disciplined, being careful about our “sobriety” in following Christ. In fact, the great fear of the Thessalonians – eternal separation from their deceased brethren – is only a danger for those who are still living. Those who have already “fallen asleep” are present with the Lord. So it is incumbent upon those who remain to continue steadfastly, following the example of those who have gone before, in order for the great reunion to take place.

This is an encouragement. There is no fear for those who are already with the Lord. They have realized their hope, and upon Christ’s return, they will enter into the eternal rest. For those who remain, it is imperative that they avoid vice, and live a Christian lifestyle, in order to participate in that eternal rest, as well. Reunion with loved ones will happen when Christ returns. The dead will be with him at that return. “We who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we [both those who had remained, as well as those who had gone before] shall always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:17). This is another great example of the Orthodox truth that whether living or dead, Christians are in community with one another.

One previously mentioned point bears elaboration. It has been pointed out that some are in danger of wrath, while others are destined for salvation. In the words of St. John Chrysostom, “there is a Judgment, there is a Punishment, there is a Resurrection, there is an Inquisition into what we have done!” This certainty is a prime motivation for living the “sober” and “awake” life. To live with the Christ who conquered death is the very definition of salvation. It is not God’s intention for us to face damnation, but to obtain the “salvation secured for us by Jesus Christ." St. Paul’s exhortation that we shall be with the Lord is further explained by Fr. Tarazi as an emphasis on the reality that the “Lord’s death happened for us all, whether we wake or sleep…so that we all live together with Him." In our creed, we recite that Christ “will come to judge the quick and the dead." The reality is that all men will stand before the judgment seat of Christ. At that judgment, those who are found virtuous will be ushered into the eternal bliss of the Kingdom of Heaven, while those who are not virtuous will be found unworthy to enter the Kingdom. The virtuous will be defined as having lived lives of love, righteousness, gentleness, and humility. The non-virtuous will have lived lives lacking in those characteristics.

Fr. Tarazi presents this as a “party." It is a victory party, celebrating Christ’s ultimate victory over death, with His faithful followers as honored guests. However, Fr. Tarazi’s use of the word “party” is not really being used to signify a joyous gathering, though it is certainly that. Rather, the word is used to describe the two groups of people who are joined with him: those who had previously died, and those who had remained living at his return. This party of the righteous deceased will be with Christ, not only at his return, but throughout eternity. So there is no need to grieve for the Christians who had “fallen asleep in the Lord.”

Ultimately, St. Paul is encouraging his readers to realize that Christ will come again. When he comes, there will be a great judgment of humanity. Some will be welcomed into his Heavenly Kindgom, while others will face his wrath. The status of whether one is alive at his return or has died previously to it is irrelevant. What matters is that while living, one lived a Christian life, wearing the breastplate of faith and love, along with the helmet of the hope of salvation. If one’s life is characterized by those things, then eternity will be spent in the presence of Christ. Those who had previously died will be resurrected, soul rejoining body, to stand together with those who had not tasted death. Both groups will be transformed and transfigured, to share in Christ’s salvation – that for which they were intended. Being alive or dead is irrelevant, as both groups are “in the same position in regard to the coming of the Lord Jesus." Both are alive in Christ, as God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

God is the God of the Living, Part 1 - by Clint

2011-07-18T14:56:00.003-05:00

It was 15 years ago today that my father, Buck Hale, died. I was sitting next to him, speaking with him, and he passed away so quietly that I didn't even realize it for a few moments. I was blessed to have him in my life, on a regular basis, for nearly 27 years. In the past 15, I have learned that I wish he had stayed around for many more. I could use his wisdom on many occasions. However, I do not despair, as one without hope. So, on this 15th anniversary of his death, I offer the first installment of a discussion on death and the Return of the Lord.

“But concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was spoken to you by God, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (Matthew 22:31-32; NKJV). These words of Jesus indicate a fundamental difference in the view of death that Christians are to hold, compared with the view of non-Christians. Just as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had been dead for many years when Moses (and later Jesus) referred to them in the present tense, so all Christians are to be considered “alive” in Christ, as evidenced by his statement that “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29). However, physical death is a reality that is common to all people, including the Christians in Thessalonica. The Apostles’ teaching that death had no power over the Christian seemed contrary to the experience of these Christians, who saw their beloved brethren succumb to physical death. Therefore, doubt entered their thinking, and they were concerned about the Christians who had died. This is understandable, as “the hour of death is terrible for everyone." St. Paul addresses their concern by reminding the Thessalonians that Christians still had the hope promised, regardless of the death that had been experienced. In fact, he chose to refer to physical death as “sleep,” indicating that there would be an “awakening” from that state of sleep. Those who had “fallen asleep” would precede those who were still alive, when the Lord returns! Truly, St. Paul presents God as the God of the living, not the dead, for those who have been joined with Christ can never truly die.

While it is apparent that in this life each person will face death, unless the Lord returns before that death occurs, the ultimate perspective must be focused upon the eschatological reality that Christ will return. This is not to say that Christians can know the exact time of that return, as Elder Cleopa clearly pointed out: “the true Church teaches, equally with the Apostle Paul, that the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night and that no one knows the day or hour…" Yet that return will happen, as promised by both Christ and St. Paul. In fact, St. Paul’s words are based upon the foundation of the words of Christ. The Church has “faithfully awaited the return of her Lord," based upon the promise of the Angels in Acts 1:11. When that day occurs, all will be transformed, transfigured by the holiness of the Trinity. That is the reality that St. Paul encourages the Thessalonians to keep in mind.

Humanity was created for eternity and Christians should not view death as an end, but the beginning of that eternal life. In fact, the Church teaches that though the spirit leaves the body at death, leaving the visible world, it does not depart from the Church. Rather, the person goes to “be with the Lord” (Philippians 1:23), as St. Paul himself desired to do. So St. Paul instructs the Thessalonians to not despair for their departed loved ones, but to focus on the Lord’s Return. The departed would return with the Lord, having already begun their participation in his eternal glory, to share that glory with those who remained. These words were intended as a comfort for those who had lost loved ones, realizing that the separation was only temporary, with the view to an eternal reunion.

St. Paul uses the opportunity provided by the doubt and fear of the Thessalonians to move the discussion to the more detailed topic of that ultimate Return of Christ. He begins this portion of the discussion with the aforementioned description of the unknown quality of the timing of the return. The imagery of a “thief in the night” is used, just as it had been by Christ Himself, and the Apostle John. Carrying the image further, he warns against complacency. After a period of time, some might begin to waver in focus, not keeping the eventual return in mind. It would be easy to think that Christ might never return. Yet St. Paul cautions against this mentality with his reference to “peace and security,” which is an indication that nothing is happening. The truth is that the day will come suddenly, without warning.

Yet for all the terminology referring to a thief and the warning-less appearing, St. Paul reminds his readers that they are not to be caught unaware. That unexpected Return of Christ is only in reference to the heathen, as Christians are prepared, regardless of when that return occurs. They are Children of the Light, and not of darkness, indicating that they can see what is coming (1 Thessalonians 5:4-6). In this, St. Paul makes an interesting and important comparison with the idea of being “asleep”: There are those who are “asleep in the Lord,” who are not truly dead, though their spirits are separated from their bodies. They are present with Christ and participate in his Glory and will return with him when he comes. However, there are many who are still living in the flesh, but who are “asleep,” not recognizing the Glory of Christ, and destined for “wrath” at his return (1 Thessalonians 5: 6-7). Christians are reminded to be of those who are “awake,” destined for salvation. Interestingly, St. Paul says that whether “we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him” (1 Thessalonians 5:10). So the two types of “sleep” are compared and juxtaposed. To be “asleep,” yet alive in the Lord, is a place of honor, while to be spiritually “asleep” is a precursor to wrath.

To be continued...

Fr. James Update

2011-07-17T21:53:00.000-05:00

"On the road again..."

First of all, let me apologize for the fact that other than an occasional video, I have posted almost nothing on the blog for the last two or three months. To say that life has been busy would be a gross understatement. I'm thankful to Clint for keeping the blog going almost single-handedly. Without his posts, this blog would be virtually inactive.

Like Clint, I have felt much like the proverbial hamster in the spinning wheel these past few months. Beginning in early June, my work schedule shifted to four 10-hour days with Fridays off. This is truly a mixed blessing. Yes, it's great to have Fridays off, but the long days on Monday through Thursday leave me with little time or energy to do anything but work, eat, and sleep. And on Fridays and Saturdays, I end up mostly doing a lot of errands that I don't have time to do during the week (or watching kids while Jennifer does some). I also try to spend extra time with the kids, whom I barely see on Monday-Thursday. This is a satisfying and worthwhile endeavor (the kids, not the chores!), but one that leaves little time for blogging.

Another thing I have been busy with is preparing for my karate brown belt test, which will be the week of August 8. To prepare for this test takes a great deal of time. I have to practice and perfect everything I've learned in karate over the last two and a half years. Plus, I have to get to the point where I can do 200 situps (four sets of 50 with only a minute's rest in between sets). This is something that I think I can achieve, but it has taken much work...and time.

Finally, there is the big thing. I'm about to embark on an undertaking that some (including myself) think is a bit insane. At the end of August, I will begin work on a Master of Arts in History. "Why history?" you say. For most of my life, History has been my favorite subject...you might even say my passion. 20 years ago, I actually applied to some Masters' programs in History, with the intention of eventually becoming a college history professor. But I ended up going to seminary instead, and the rest is (if you will pardon the pun) history. But since then, I have read dozens of history books each year for fun. My life has settled down a bit, and I finally decided that if I am going to do all this reading anyway, I might as well get some credit for it! If I finish the program, I may try to teach one or two classes a week at a local community college. And if I REALLY lose it...maybe I'll do PhD work. But one thing at a time...

The MA program is 100% online, so at least I won't have to go anywhere to attend lectures. But it will still take lots of time. I will, of course, continue to work my "day job" with the school district, and I will continue serving as the second priest at St. Joseph. I'll do my work for the MA during the evenings and on weekends. Needless to say, I'm going to be VERY busy...possibly busier than I have ever been before. Fortunately, the professor of one of the classes I will be taking this fall let me see the reading list for the course. I ordered all of the books and have been busting my tail trying to get through most or all of the reading before the semester starts. I figure this will give me a fighting chance to get at least a few hours of sleep a night! All of this reading, of course, takes time. That's another reason I have been so slack about posting on the blog.

I always have grand plans for the blog. I think of idea after idea for not just posts, but series of posts. But then life gets in the way. No offense, but for me at least, church, family, karate and school trump the blog. My family and I are about to go on vacation for a couple of weeks. I hope to share some photos and info about our vacation like I did two years ago when we went to the Smokies. This fall, I hope to share some insights from my reading and from my classes in general. I hope...I hope...I hope...

But realistically speaking...

Clint, do you have anything to post this week?

Please forgive me. May God bless you all.

Coming September 10: Orthodox Christian Parenting in the 21st Century

2011-07-16T19:16:00.003-05:00

Fr. John A. Peck is the priest in charge of St. George Orthodox Church in Prescott, AZ. Fr. John founded the Incarnation Broadcast Network, the first 24 hour Orthodox Christian internet radio broadcast in the world. He is the creator and webmaster of the popular websites "Preachers Institute", "Journeys to Orthodoxy", and "Good Guys Wear Black".

Fr. John has written several workbooks and manuals for instruction: Called To Serve, Student and Leader’s Manuals, Divine Liturgy: A Student Study Text, the Bible Drill/Bible Divas Field Manuals, and S.W.A.T. (Spiritual Warfare And Training). He has written articles for Orthodoxytoday.org, the American Orthodox Institute, The Handmaiden magazine, the Interior Strength blog, the St. Katherine College website, and others. Fr. John and his wife Presvytera Deborah are the parents of three grown children.

For More information, contact St. Joseph Orthodox Church at:
10644 Hammerly Blvd
Houston, TX 77043

Cannes Short Film Winner

2011-07-14T09:57:00.000-05:00

Very short. Worth the watch.

This summer, the renowned director/producer Ridley Scott launched a global filmmaker competition dubbed “Tell It Your Way” following its Cannes Lions award-winning short-film project “Parallel Lines.” The entrants were given freedom of expression and could take up any theme they wanted; still there were two strict rules—there had to be the exact six-line dialogue as it was in the Parallel Lines films, plus the entries could last no longer than three minutes.

Here’s the prize-winning entry in the “Tell It Your Way” competition.

Watch it here:

New Icons - Old Friends

2011-07-11T18:14:00.004-05:00

Our icon corner at home. The two newest icons here are the Righteous Noah and Jonah, found at the far left and right, respectively.

My wife and I have a friend that writes icons. He lives in Pennsylvania, and we have never met in person. However, we have several of his icons in our home. We recently purchased three more to add to our growing collection.

This time, we received these:

1. Christ the Bridegroom.
2. The Righteous Noah.
3. The Prophet Jonah.

Each of them are absolutely beautiful. As we opened the package in which they were shipped and saw them with our own eyes for the first time, we were just overwhelmed by them. We truly are blessed!

They are now hanging in our home, amongst the other icons that we have. Each icon has one or more holy forerunners in the faith. We are "surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses" (See Hebrews 12). It is a wonderful reality that we have in the Orthodox Church, where those saintly people who have lived and died for their faith are remembered not only in name, but in physical representation. I don't want to go into an apology for icons.

Today, I just want to marvel at the beauty that they teach and proclaim. God is good. He is holy and righteous. He makes his people that same way. These icons are a reminder of that.

Yeah... we truly are blessed.

My Life on the Hamster Wheel...

2011-07-08T16:29:00.002-05:00

One of the perks of teaching college is that I get pretty long summer breaks. Honestly, how can I complain about having a long break from mid-May until late August? Starting in March, I begin planning all the things I will get done during the Summer. You know what I mean: all those little tasks that get put off because I am too busy during the school year.

Inevitably, summer rolls around and I find myself busier than I did during the school year. Sometimes it is planned stuff, like vacation or this years Parish Life Conference in Shreveport. But most of the time, it is just the little day to day events that pop up and keep me busy. I look at the clock and realize that although it seems I just rolled out of bed, it is actually time to turn in. I have been doing stuff for 14 or 15 hours and just let time slip away.

One great example is that my latest round of St. Stephen's papers are due on August 1. I have had them for more than two weeks. I have a total of 5 papers to write. I have completed a grand total of one of them. I do have another about 60% done. It seems that I just can't find time to squeeze in these papers, although I really don't have much to do.

I think that it also shows up on the blog recently. Not much has been posted. While Fr. James is toiling away (he has a real job that makes him work in the summer), I am running errands, goofing off, etc. Nothing gets posted. Perhaps my harried life (with the majority of it being of little to no consequence) is keeping me distracted from the important things.

I suppose that is a good lesson to learn. It is easy to be distracted from what needs to get done. There is always SOMETHING to do, if one wants. It takes discipline to do what needs to be done and to put off the unimportant things. I hope that the last half of the summer goes better than the first, as far as focus goes.

I don't know about you, but I just feel like I have been running in circles the past couple of weeks, but not really going anywhere. I think that needs to change. Maybe I need to get back onto the St. Stephen's papers and get that second one finished and get started on #3.

I guess I'll start tomorrow. Today, I have some important things to do like watch TV and surf the 'net...

Another Update from Floyd and Ancuta Frantz in Romania

2011-07-07T10:01:00.001-05:00

Greetings, and I hope that this finds you well today, and in good spirits on this most beautiful and blessed of days.

These past few days have gone past rather quickly, and have been most interesting. I'll share about them quickly, and the continue on with the articles about the St. Dimitrie Programs "Activity Report" for 2010-11.

Remember my last email, about the funeral and the alcoholics? Well, guess who showed up at Casa Alba yesterday? One of the guys I wrote about, Mircea. They don't usually come around the day-center as we won't let them in if they are drinking. We had already served the meal and the AA meeting was over. We were actually closed for the day. I had stayed a little later as I need to go to Moldova on Monday. By chance I had left the gate open. In he came, asking for food. Well, we fixed him up with a couple of sandwiches, and some things to take with him. We also spent a few minutes talking to him, to encourage him to come back on Monday so that we could help him. He hardly has shoes on his feet, he is sleeping rough, no regular food, and drinks any and every thing he can find, including rubbing alcohol. This will eventually fry his brain, as seen on the TV commercials.

This kid is only 29 years old, and is simply a beautiful person. I believe that the Lord sent him to us yesterday. I don't know if he will respond, or even if he can respond to our offer for helping him. It is very hard to evaluate someone if you only see them when they are under the influence of alcohol. Only God knows how much of Mircea's brain is still functioning. But I know about God that he listens to prayers. Please pray for Mircea. We have helped worse cases that his, and I do have hope for him. I tried to share that hope with him yesterday, and a little love along with it.

Related to our "Activity Report" a part of it had to do with funding. The break down was something like 60% of our support came through private donors in the United States via OCMC, 20% coming from grants or the local government, and 20% from our fund raising activities here in Cluj. Our goal is to be 100% funded from inside Romania. I believe that it will be possible, given time and if we avoid another economic downturn. European funds are hard for us to obtain these days as most grants are no longer available. We are looking for new ones daily, with one staff member pretty much dedicated to this activity.

Well, tomorrow I am off to assist a priest in Bacau who wants to start a counseling center. From Bacau I will travel to the Republic of Moldova and do a training with a group of priests. Moldova is a special place, I'll try to write about it in time.

Thank you for reading all this, I really don't mean to be so wordy in my newsletters, but my work in meaningful to me and I believe that it is meaningful to you as well. And please do keep us in your prayers, we all need them.

Speaking of prayers, while I am traveling these next few days I will be stopping to visit a monastery or two. If you send me names of both living and fallen asleep, I'll give them to the monks and they will pray for them. It is a great blessing.

In His Love,

One Day at a Time,

Floyd & Ancuta Frantz, OCMC Missionaries to Romania

And please feel free to pass along our email to others who you believe might be interested in our work here in Romania.

If you would like to contact us through email, please use: Stdimitrie@yahoo.com for myself and the St. Dimitrie Program, or Ancutafrantz@yahoo.com for Anca and the Protection Center.

Please also go to the Orthodox Christian Mission Center web site at www.ocmc.org to read online about our missionary activities here in Romania.

Update on Floyd and Ancuta Frantz in Romania

2011-06-28T15:40:00.003-05:00

Greetings, and I hope that this finds you well today, and in good spirits on this most blessed of days.

First of all, please do forgive me for not sending out the articles as I said. A very nice priest, Fr. Adrian, came to us over the weekend and will be with me for two weeks in order to receive training about addictions. This was scheduled so is no surprise. Next week we will go to Iasi to visit with Fr. Iulian about the National Anti-drug Program of the Orthodox Church (PNA), and then down to Bacau where Fr. Iulian and I are helping the diocese of Bacau start a counseling center. Actually, I spend quite a lot of time these days doing these sorts of trainings through the PNA. When I am not here, my staff keep the fires burning in Cluj. Fr. Adrian's being here has kept me busier than I anticipated. Plus, one of my staff is on vacation so I am having to do some evenings by going after the food for the social cantina. It all adds up, and my days go by very quickly at times.

Also, today I was moved by something that I would like to share with you, and then will finish by putting in a small article about our work in Savadisla.

I went to the funeral of a friend today, a nice fellow, who had been very active in his church. Lots of people came, maybe 200 in all. At the funerals over here they will usually give some cups of wine and some bread after the burial. What happens is that usually there are a few beggars who show up and get in line for the wine and bread. It is nothing unusual, and no one seems to mind.One of them asked me for money for cigarettes. (If he would have asked for any other reason, or even for no reason, I would have given him something.) There were four others there getting the wine, and it was obvious that they were very alcoholic. Their faces, their defeated attitudes, and obvious discomfort at what they were doing was obvious to all. I know them, and have tried to help them more than once. They are very nice, and very addicted to alcohol, refusing any offers of help by coming into our group. The family was of course cordial, and offered them wine and bread as they did everyone else. They came back for seconds, and then went on their way.

What got to me was the attitude of the people there towards them. I mean, the people were very nice and all, but as the beggers left the scene, some of the people standing around were saying how sad it is for the beggars being alcoholic. But it was said as if they were talking about people with no hope, no chance of regaining life again. This is probably the greatest challange to us here in Romania, changing societies attitude about people with alcoholism. In the States, most people would say something like, "Why don't they get help for themselves?"

You really cannot blame the Romanians, as over here, for the most part, there simply is no help for people with alcohol or drug problems. Indeed, those who are lost in the addiction of alcoholism have a difficult struggle if they are to survive in an already very difficult place to live. Even in developed countries like the United States alcoholism cuts 10 or more years off the lifespan of the alcoholic. What really concerns me is the raising rate of drug use over here. The Romanians simply are not ready for the impact it will have on their society. I'll write about this at a future date. In the meantime I'll pick up the thread about our projects.

Occupational Therapy .......In both our day center in Cluj and in our day program in the Tb hospital in Savadisla we try to have our folks involved in occupational activities which will lift up their spirits and give them a sense of community and involvement in the recovery groups. For last Christmas and for this Pascha they have been painting icons, making candles and decorating crosses. These activities help them to explore their hidden potentials and to discovery and develop their spiritual interests. These objects are usually distributed for sale in local parishes to help sustain the programs activities.

This small cross with oil lamp [Ed. note: this is the item pictured above] was made as part of our occupational therapy group. It was actually something that they came up with and designed themselves. Glory to God!!

That's all for now. I'll send another hopefully tomorrow, and hopefully much shorter.

In His Love,

One Day at a Time,

Floyd & Ancuta Frantz, OCMC Missionaries to Romania

Please do feel free to pass along our email to others who you believe might be interested in our work here in Romania.

If you would like to contact us through email, please use: Stdimitrie@yahoo.com for myself and the St. Dimitrie Program, or Ancutafrantz@yahoo.com for Anca and the Protection Center.

Please also go to the Orthodox Christian Mission Center web site at www.ocmc.org to read online about our missionary activities here in Romania.

We do thank you for your interest in our work, for your support, and most of all for your prayers.

In His Love,
One day at a time,
Floyd & Ancuta Frantz, OCMC Missionaries

Another Gaither Vocal Band Video - Search Me Lord

2011-06-26T16:45:00.000-05:00

This is a delightful toe-tapping Gospel song with a little bit of a jazzy feel. Enjoy.

Southernmost Russian Orthodox Church

2011-06-24T09:43:00.000-05:00

It would be natural to imagine that dealing with the fierce climate in Antarctica leaves little time for religion. But as RT found out during a visit to the southernmost continent, that is not the case.

Perched atop a picturesque, rocky hill overlooking the sea, sits a typical and tiny Russian Orthodox church. The scene, which looks like it was taken right out of a Siberian picture-book, is in fact one of the views of Russia’s Bellinsghausen Polar Station.

So far, this is the only Russia’s Antarctic station that has a church. This makes the Trinity Church the southernmost Russian Orthodox church on the planet.

Read more here.

Update on Floyd and Ancuta Frantz in Romania

2011-06-23T17:33:00.001-05:00

A daily meal at the "Casa Alba" day-center for those in need

Greetings, and I hope that this finds you well today, and in good spirits on this most blessed of days.

Well, yesterday I said that I would keep it short today, but it is history day, so not very short. Some of you know the story of our beginning, but as we have a 10 year anniversary this year I wanted to give a brief history of our project.

Beginning in 2001 the St. Dimitrie Program began working with the Orthodox Church in Cluj, Romania to develop specialized services to help people in the Cluj archdiocese who were affected by alcoholism or addiction. The program began in an office at the Policlinic St. Pantelimon, wherewe started a counseling program, and were hosting AA and Al-Anon meetings. I am a counselor by profession, so this was not a great task.

About this same time we were invited to start a counseling group in a local psychiatric hospital, and then were asked by a priest to help him by starting a counseling program in a local Tuberculosis hospital. We also began doing some work with a nun who was operating a soup kitchen. This led us to much of the work that we currently are doing with the homeless. Today we actually have a daily meal at our "Casa Alba" day-center for those in need. Social Cantina

Soon after this we started having requests to do counselor training in the disease model of addictions. Other archdioceses began to hear of our work, and soon we had priests coming from other cities to learn more about our work with alcoholics. Given that Romania is 85% Orthodox and that there are very few resources to help alcoholics in Romania, the priests continue to be interested in our programs. Actually, it was the bishops who would send the priests to our training pro-grams because the priests were asking them about how to help their people who had drinking problems. By God's grace allof our projects have developed through the activities of the Church and we continue to work closely with the Church to further develop our projects and training programs. It is worth noting also that the work that we are doing in Romania is serving our Church also in Alaska, where I am giving a few classes at St. Herman Seminary.

Well, that's the long and the short of it. Tommorow I'll fill in some of the blanks about our current work. Thank you for taking the time to read our postings, and for your interest in our work in Romania.

In His Love,
One Day at a Time,
Floyd & Ancuta Frantz, OCMC Missionaries to Romania

Please do feel free to pass along our email to others who you believe might be interested in our work here in Romania.

If you would like to contact us through email, please use: Stdimitrie@yahoo.com for myself and the St. Dimitrie Program, or Ancutafrantz@yahoo.com for Anca and the Protection Center.

Letting One's Kids Grow Up - by Clint

2011-06-23T09:40:00.004-05:00

My kids in 2007

One thing that I have learned the hard way is that fathers worry about their kids. Now, I am not a "worrying" type of guy, and have always considered myself fairly impervious to circumstances, just rolling with what came. Then my daughter was born in 1997, and things changed.

Suddenly, I worried about diapers, food, bugs, and pretty much anything else that came along. The birth of my first son in 2000 did nothing to slow the worrying down. All of this was highlighted by a trip to Estonia in June, 2001. Our son was 9 months old, our daughter was 4, and Debbie and I went on a "survey trip" to Estonia, scouting the region out, to determine if we would want to move there as missionaries. Plane tickets were pretty pricey, so we decided to let our daughter stay with her grandparents for the 10 days, while we took our son, since he was so small. We were flying out of Dallas, and the grandparents lived in San Antonio, so we dropped her off and began the drive to Dallas. I made it about 5 miles and had to pull over, weeping. I was terrified that something might happen to her and I would be 8000 miles away, helpless.

Of course, I don't normally resort to such breakdowns - that was a fairly abnormal situation. But I do still worry about them all the time. Since our third child, another son, came along, I figure that just gives me another layer of worry.

So what prompts this post? Last year, our daughter went to Camp St. Raphael for the first time. Can you believe that she would be in Oklahoma, while I am still down here in Texas? So far. So many things that could happen, without me nearby to "fix" it. This year, not only is she returning to camp, but our oldest son is going, too! Imagine the fear that has crept into my bones! They will be alone (that is defined as being further than 10 miles from me).

But the reality is that our children grow up. I did it (at least physically). So did you. Our parents had to let us grow up and face the world on our own. I still get shudders thinking of what my parents must have thought when I got a drivers' license. I can not always be there to "fix" everything. In fact, I can't always "fix" everything, even when I am right there with them. They have to learn to be independent and make decisions, without my immediate input. That is life.

My kids, Christmas 2010

I guess my analysis of this is that I have a control issue. I actually think I am in control of my surroundings. Of course, that is hogwash. I once spoke to Father Matthew MacKay (Memory Eternal!) about my fears in this regard. He laughed and told me to get a clue - I am not in control anyway. He was right. My fear has much less to do with my children and much more to do with me. I have to remember that I am no more in control than my children are. I just have more experience at it. The reason I have the experience is because my parents let me. I should do the same.

Ultimately, I have to trust that my wife and I have taught our children well, equipping them to make good decisions and to face life head-on. I must trust that God IS in control and that He loves my children. Plus, they will have a great time at camp, with other Orthodox kids, making life-long friends.

I'll still worry while they are gone, though. I look forward to the day they get back!

Father's Day 2011 - Clint Version

2011-06-20T08:27:00.005-05:00

Charles Buck Hale - He went by "Buck"
OK, this is a day late. My dad would not have minded. I don't think he gave days like this much thought. He liked Christmas and Thanksgiving, and Independence Day was a great time, but stuff like Father's Day or Arbor Day, etc. didn't rank very high.

He has been gone for 15 years now. He died at the age of 54, due to several serious health issues. In many ways, it seems like just yesterday that I was able to pick up the phone and call him. In fact, I did that for a couple of years after his passing - nothing like being 3/4 of the way through the phone number when realizing that he isn't on the other end.

It has been long enough that I think I have a healthy perspective on it all now. Not that I have it all figured out, but I am no longer overwhelmed with emotion, but it hasn't been so long that I have forgotten too much.

So here is what my dad taught me (well, a few of the things that the taught me):

1. Be tough. Dad didn't subscribe to the modern "sensitive man" junk. If there was no blood (and I mean LOTS of blood) or a fever over 103, then you were not hurt nor sick. Get up, go to school, be a man. Tough it out. One of dad's favorite lines, and I heard this a bazillion times (only a slight exaggeration), was: "I have had worse places on my lip and never quit whistling." The funny thing was that he was being honest. He was pretty wild as a young fellow, and got in some scary scrapes. He told me about a few of them. I wouldn't have messed with him, when he was young.

2. Love your family. Yeah, my dad was pretty tough, but he also loved his family. He did things that made him uncomfortable, because WE wanted to do it. I have a younger brother (3 years younger) and my dad, from my 5th grade year, through my brother's senior year of HS, missed exactly ONE event in which we participated. He missed one of my brother's football games, when my brother was in junior high. Of course, the reason he missed it was because the game had been rescheduled to a time when it conflicted with MY game. So dad went to mine, and mom went to my brother's. Dad wasn't a hugger or touchy-feely, but he consistently showed us he loved us with his actions.

3. Love God. My dad was almost illiterate until he was in his late 20s. He was a slacker in school (his own admission) and had fallen through the cracks before dropping out to join the army at 17. But when he was about 28 or so (right after I was born), he decided he wanted to be a minister. He also knew he needed to go to school to do so. He couldn't read nor write better than about a 3rd grade level. So he went to seminary anyway and just worked hard. He didn't graduate with honors, but he did graduate and began a successful ministry that lasted the rest of his life. Everything he did from then was rooted in his love of God. He worked as hard at serving God as he did at learning to read and write to pass his courses.

4. Love people. This past week, my brother and I posted Dad's picture on facebook and did the yearly "I sure miss dad" posts. Every time we do that, the comments come flooding in. People that we have not seen for years post comments, saying how much dad meant to them. His funeral was barely contained in a building designed to hold over 600 people. My dad made a difference in many lives. The impact is still being felt, as evidenced by the continuing comments.

5. Pray. I admit that I wasn't the greatest "Christian" as a young man. In fact, I was at best, a "Christian" in name only. Maybe not that much, to be honest. But my dad never quit praying for me. He didn't tell me that. Other's did. I later heard of the heartbreak that he felt because of my life's choices. His response was to give it to God. Guess what? It worked. I am grateful that dad had the chance to see me "turn it around." I had just finished my first year of seminary when he died. I am convinced that it was his dogged devotion to prayer for me that kept me from going too far in the other direction and eventually coming back to God.

6. Enjoy life. My dad knew how to laugh. He knew how to enjoy himself. Honestly, he was probably the funniest guy I have ever known, though he didn't always show that side to us. He was our dad, and that was serious business for him. But he did tell a great story, and when we were in groups, he could be the life of the party. My mental images of him are full of smiles.

7. Die with dignity. This one is pretty hard to say... but Dad had worst places on his lip....
My dad had a rough last few years. There was little dignity in being early to mid-50s and no longer able to care for yourself. He needed help in the bathroom, taking showers, eating, etc. I admit that he didn't smile as often in those last years. He talked less. But he didn't frown or complain. He endured. I don't think he was ready for awhile, though his body was failing on him. He lived long enough to see me in seminary, both of his boys married, and his first grandchild born (my niece). He spent those last years in pain, but still serving. I saw him roll to the front of the church in his wheel chair, raise himself up, leaning on a table, and preach his sermons. He never whined that life had treated him unfairly. He just continued to live the best life he could, being as godly as he knew how to be. I hope to avoid the health issues, but if I can die with the dignity that my dad did, I will be happy in the end.

So.... 15 years... Shoot. I miss you as much today as I did the day you died. I look forward to a reunion someday (but not too soon). I love you dad.

Father's Day 2011

2011-06-19T16:09:00.000-05:00

Col Cleland E. Early, USMC (Ret.) 1919-2004 (photo taken around the mid 1950's)

You took me to baseball and football games when I was a little boy, giving me a lifelong love for each sport and honoring me with your attention.

You helped me earn my Cub Scout badges.

When I was just too worn out to prepare the papers to throw on my afternoon paper route, you helped me. You even drove me on the route when it was raining or I was just too tired.

You drove me to school every day and helped Mom with transporting me to band concerts and all my other activities.

You let me borrow your pickup when I needed some "wheels."

You drove me to Austin and back when I was in college and wanted to come home and see you.

You wouldn't let me wimp out on getting an engineering degree when I was tired of math and science. (And it has worked out well for me).

You came to visit me at seminary and came to my graduation, even though you had been opposed to me going there.

You loved my children like they were your own.

Even when I made decisions that you didn't approve of, you always in the end said that you were proud of me.

You taught me right from wrong.

You taught me to always do the best I can in everything I do; "pretty good" is not good enough.

You were a great father, and I was blessed to have you in my life for 36 years. I love you and miss you.

I hope to see you again some day.

A Little Summer Baseball Silliness

2011-06-15T19:31:00.000-05:00

My daughter Beth made this video of us (sort of...) on a website called Jib Jab. Enjoy.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

Random Encounters

2011-06-13T15:57:00.004-05:00

Metropolitan Stefanus, of the Estonian Orthodox Church

It often seems that our lives are full of random encounters. For example, my family and I just returned from a nice vacation, where we visited Dodge City, KS; Cawker City, KS (world's largest ball of twine!); Omaha, NE (to see a play); Canton, OH (Pro Football HOF); Mammoth Cave, KY; and Memphis, TN (Graceland). One of our first choices was the trip to Kentucky to see Mammoth Caves. I visited there when I was a youngster, and my wife and I wanted to do something that the kids would really enjoy (turned out they enjoyed it all).

Anyway, as we were driving from Omaha to Canton, we stopped for lunch in some out of the way little town on the interstate. As we entered the fast food joint (we were getting it to go, trying to get to our destination as soon as possible), we found ourselves in line behind a man and his son, both construction workers, taking a lunch break. It turns out that folks in rural Illinois are very talkative and friendly. The line was pretty long, so we struck up a conversation, talking about everything from the cost of fast food franchises to recent remodeling in this particular establishment. He asked if we had recently moved to the area, but I told him we were just on vacation, elaborating about where we had already been and where we were going.

When I mentioned Mammoth Cave, he told me to make sure to call ahead and reserve tickets, as he had been there twice, but was not able to get in, as it was packed and they only sell a limited number of tickets. That was something we did not know. We had assumed that you could just show up and go in. So I got online that evening, and reserved 5 of the last 6 tickets available for the tour we wanted.

Random Encounter. Fortuitous encounter. It would have been quite a shock to drive all the way to KY to find out that we couldn't do what we drove there to do.

Granted, it is a small thing. Had we not seen the longest hole in the ground in the world, I am sure we would have survived. But the reality is that our chance encounter benefited us.

Sometimes the benefit is life-changing. In 2002, as newcomers to Estonia, my wife, our missionary teammates, and I were told that a new person wanted to join our language course. Understand that there are hundreds of language schools in Estonia. It just so happened that this newcomer to our class (which had been designed specifically for us) was Metropolitan Stefanus, of the Estonian Orthodox Church. I have spoken of that encounter elsewhere, but it is another example of how an unplanned connection can affect where we go with our lives and what we do with our time.

Whether it is being able to complete a planned vacation, or finding Orthodoxy, God places people around us every day. Those people have something to offer, as long as we are willing to pay attention and listen.

June Update from Floyd and Ancuta Franz

2011-06-04T13:40:00.000-05:00

OCMC Missionary Ancuta Franz at the Protection of the Theotokos Family Center

Greetings, and I hope that this finds you well today, and in good spirits on this most blessed feast day of the Ascension of our Lord.

In previous newsletters I have promised to write some things about our other OCMC program here in Cluj, the Protection of the Theotokos Family Center (the PTFC). Essentially it is a project devoted to helping very poor mothers to care for their children so that they will be willing to have them if they are pregnant, and to not abandon them after giving birth. These mothers come from some very difficult places, and in this newsletter I would like to share about one of them. Her name is Monica, and her case in unusual only in that she is married to the father of their children. I will speak some about Radu, her husband as well.

I first met Monica in 2001, when some of us were feeding a group of the street kids here in Cluj. She was about 14 at the time and had been living on the streets since running away from the orphanage a couple of years earlier. Monica's mother had abandoned her to the orphanage when she was 6 years old. During these times the institutions over here were very rough, and if a kid over about 12 ran away there was not much concern from the authorities. Her now husband, Radu, was in about the same boat. He was from a Roma family (Gypsy) had ran away from home at age 13 due to abuse and neglect. He had not been required to attend school, and is close to being illterate.

Neither of them has a very good education. Monica was essentialy illiterate at the time that she came into our program in 2005 with her first child. As part of our agreement to accept her and her child at the PTFC, we required that she attend a program called "2nd Chance" to learn basic things like math, and how to read and write. Over the past few years she has remained in school and though it is at a basic level she can now read and write. She actually will graduate from the first level (about the 4th grade) this summer. We do not believe that either of them have "organic" disabilities, but rather that the circumstance of early lives has made learning more difficult for them.

We now have her and her second child in our program. Both of the children are bright, and we are optimistic for their future. Our staff taught her basic parenting skills and Monica is taking very good care to keep them clean and dressed properly. The four of them live in a one room flat, and he is doing some part time labor work. The Protection Center helps them by giving them extra food each month, baby and childrens clothing as we have it available, and by paying part of the fees for the public kindergarten. The children were taken into our day-center when they were too young for the kindergarten.

Her husband Radu can only find part-time day work, which is very low paying, less than $10/day. Romania has been very low since the beginning of the economic crisis but by God's grace times will be better for his people here in Romania.

I'll close for now, thank you for taking the time to read our little newsletter. Our next newsletter will be about the St. Dimitrie Program.

In His Love,

One day at a time,

Floyd

Please note that all of the expenses related to our work through OCMC, and also our personal support must come through your donations. If you have not donated lately, please consider doing so now, it would be of great help to us at this time.

If you send a check, please mark it "Frantz/Romania" and send it to

OCMC
220 Mason Manatee Way
St. Augustine, FL 32086

To set up an online donation, please call the Orthodox Christian Mission Center at 904 829-5132 and they will help you to do this. Even a small monthy donation would be greatly appriciated.

Just for Fun: Satisfied

2011-06-03T12:11:00.000-05:00

I received several positive comments (through Facebook and email) about the Gaither Vocal Band video that I recently posted, so I thought I would post another one. These guys really can sing, both individually and together. This particular song is a lot of fun...so much so that I even sang it with one of the gospel quartets that I was in many years ago. Enjoy.

OCMC Missionary Department Announcement

2011-06-02T08:21:00.004-05:00

The Missionary Department of the Orthodox Christian Mission Center (OCMC) is pleased to announce that six new Missionary Candidates have been approved in the spring of 2011. Michael and Lisa Colburn plan to serve in Kenya, assisting with translation work and serving other OCMC Missionaries and Candidates in linguistic consulting. Kurt Bringerud, Faith Young, and Joseph and Alexandra Sima plan to serve in Albania as part of the Church's ongoing educational efforts. Blake and Pam Dilullo plan to serve in Kodiak, Alaska. Blake will initially work in construction as Pam home schools her own children and helps with other children’s programs. OCMC Missionary Candidates spend several months travelling to churches and meeting with individuals who will partner with them financially and support them in prayer during their time of service. Please pray for these Missionary Candidates as they begin to build their support teams and as they train to help spread the Light of Christ overseas! If you are interested in having a Missionary Candidate speak at your church or organization, please contact the Missionary Department at 1-877-463-6784 or by e-mail at missionaries@ocmc.org.

Abba Macarius Defeats the Devil

2011-06-01T04:17:00.002-05:00

When Abba Macarius was passing one time through the wadi to his cell, carrying some palm branches, the devil met him on the path with a scythe. He tried to strike Abba Macarius but was unable to, and said to him, "You are powerful, Macarius! I can't do anything against you! Look - what you can do, I can do too: you fast and I don't eat anything at all; you keep vigil and I don't sleep at all. There is only one thing at which you're better than me."

Abba Macarius said to him, "What is that?"

The devil said to him, "It's your humility. On account of your humility, there is nothing I can do to you."

And when the saint stretched out his hands, the demon disappeared and Abba Macarius continued on his way, giving glory to God.

from
St Macaraius the Spiritbearer
Coptic Texts Relating to Saint Macarius the Great
Translated by Tim Vivian
SVS Press 2004

Texas theme park for visitors with special needs

2011-05-31T08:38:00.002-05:00

The carousel has chariots for wheelchairs. Braille games decorate side panels on the jungle gym. And table-high sandboxes allow just about any kid to build a castle.

Morgan's Wonderland aims to offer everything a special-needs guest might enjoy at a theme park — while appealing to non-disabled visitors too.

"If it wasn't for searching Google," founder Gordon Hartman said, "it would've taken me a lot longer to put this together."

The result is both inventive and heartwarming: a 25-acre, $34 million park catering every detail to people with physical or mental disabilities, down to jungle gyms wide enough to fit two wheelchairs side-by-side, a "Sensory Village" that's an indoor mall of touch-and-hear activities, and daily attendance limits so the park never gets too loud or lines too long.

Read more here.

We Must Never Forget...

2011-05-30T12:52:00.002-05:00

This was written by Fr. James last year for Memorial Day. It is reposted at his request:

We must never forget to remember and honor those who have given all to preserve our freedom. The above photo of a recent military funeral, which I stole from Byzantine, TX, reminds my of my father's funeral, which occurred almost six years ago. Most of you have read my tribute that I wrote to my father and posted on this blog. If you never have, please click here to read it.

Please also enjoy the following video, which is a tribute to World War 2 veterans like my father. The video, featuring the beautiful WW2 standard We'll Meet Again, brought chills to my spine when I watched it. Enjoy the video, and say a prayer for our fallen heroes.

Update from James Hargrave in Tanzania

2011-05-24T13:59:00.001-05:00

Dear friends,

Kristo amefufuka! Christ is risen!

Greetings from Bukoba in northwest Tanzania, where I have spent the past week visiting with fellow missionaries and Archdiocesan leadership. Bukoba is the headquarters of Kagera Region, a brilliant green area with hills, mountains, and rocky cliffs cascading down into Lake Victoria. As I sit here listening to songbirds, I am only a ten-minute walk from the lakeside. Yesterday was the 15th anniversary of the sinking of the MV Bukoba, a passenger ship that went down nearby to the loss of more than eight hundred lives. It's a time of mourning and remembrance for the town.

Things are going well. On the Sunday of the Paralytic I joined Archdiocesan leadership to survey a community called Ibale, far up in the hills of Muleba District just south of here. Ibale looks essentially like a bare hillside with a church, a clergy home, and a view of ridges and valleys dotted with homesteads and banana plantations. It is central to a number of other communities, and so we have chosen it as the site for this year's youth seminar.

Every year the seminar is conducted in a different region of the Archdiocese of Mwanza, and every year we are joined by volunteers from the Finnish Orthodox Mission and from OCMC in North America, who assist in conducting the Christian education program. This year we hope to host up to two hundred students... yes, on a bare hillside. God willing, by the end of July there will be tents to house the students, staff and Team Members; kitchen and dining facilities; and temporary structures for classrooms. Already many details have come together since my initial visit in January, and it's exciting to see how much can be developed from apparently sparse resources. You can read more about this in the Spring 2011 OCMC Magazine, which should be available soon at http://www.ocmc.org .

On Friday 20th May, I was invited to join Missionary Michael Pagedas on a visit to another rural community- this one called Rubale, about a two-hour drive from town and site of Saint Sosthenes Secondary School. Although the school is only in its third year, already its students have made a big splash in National Examinations. I was impressed by the faculty and by the facilities- which are high-quality by local standards, but still face similar setbacks as other schools here... crowded dormitories, not enough desks for all the students, and equipment shortages.

All secondary, post-secondary and graduate education in Tanzania uses English-language curriculum, so success in school depends heavily on ability to do academic work in English. Imagine if all North American high schools, colleges and universities conducted classes exclusively in Tagalog (after English-only education through seventh grade) and you'll begin to get a sense of how great a challenge this is! So, at Archbishop JERONYMOS' request, the headmaster of St Sosthenes and I are assessing the possibility for me to facilitate the school's English-language education. I am excited about the possibility.

These are only a few of many exciting things going on in our Archdiocese, but I'll mention only one more right now: Maria is coming! OCMC Missionary Maria Roeber hopes to arrive in Tanzania in early June, to begin learning local culture and Kiswahili language. She is a maternity nurse from Georgetown University Hospital and plans to be stationed at Holy Resurrection Hospital here in Bukoba. Complications with birth are among the very biggest health issues locally, so once she has learned the language and culture well, Maria's professional abilities and calling will be of tremendous value. I've known Maria since 2008, and am eager to welcome her to Tanzania.

I miss you guys, and I miss my Florida! It recently hit me that Florida springtime has passed me by and I never saw a single azalea, camellia, phlox, dogwood or magnolia blossom. Lakeside Tanzania has probably the most perfect climate imaginable (Southern California is extreme by comparison), and it'd be hard for me to find anything to complain about here. But that doesn't mean I'm not just a little bit homesick...

Thank you for sending me here. Thank you for your financial support, for your friendship, for your correspondence and encouragement, and especially for your holy prayers. God is keeping and sustaining me because of you.

Amefufuka kweli! Truly he is risen!

By your prayers in Christ,

James Hargrave

PS You can see this and previous updates at http://jhargrave.ocmc.org

Just for Fun: Your First Day In Heaven

2011-05-21T20:55:00.000-05:00

Well, as you may have read, the world was supposed to end today. As of 8 PM, it still hasn't (unless I'm mistaken). I'm sure it will at some point in the next 4 hours...

In honor of the fact that heaven is about to gain some new residents later today, I thought I would post videos of a couple of different versions of my favorite song for a gospel quartet, a song called "Your First Day in Heaven," Yes, the theology is totally off, but nevertheless the song is just plain fun (and fun to sing, too!). The first version is by the Gaither Vocal Band and friends, and was made last year. The second version is from 1966 and is by the legendary gospel quartet The Imperials. Compare the two versions and see what you think.

Incidentally, one man sings in both versions. Can you guess which one?

Is Your Religion Your Financial Destiny? (from NYT)

2011-05-19T09:35:00.003-05:00

Taken from this source.

The economic differences among the country’s various religions are strikingly large, much larger than the differences among states and even larger than those among racial groups.

The most affluent of the major religions — including secularism — is Reform Judaism. Sixty-seven percent of Reform Jewish households made more than $75,000 a year at the time the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life collected the data, compared with only 31 percent of the population as a whole. Hindus were second, at 65 percent, and Conservative Jews were third, at 57 percent.

On the other end are Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Baptists. In each case, 20 percent or fewer of followers made at least $75,000. Remarkably, the share of Baptist households making $40,000 or less is roughly the same as the share of Reform Jews making $100,000 or more. Overall, Protestants, who together are the country’s largest religious group, are poorer than average and poorer than Catholics. That stands in contrast to the long history, made famous by Max Weber, of Protestant nations generally being richer than Catholic nations.

Many factors are behind the discrepancies among religions, but one stands out. The relationship between education and income is so strong that you can almost draw a line through the points on this graph. Social science rarely produces results this clean.

What about the modest outliers — like Unitarians, Buddhists and Orthodox Christians, all of whom are less affluent than they are educated (and are below the imaginary line)? One possible explanation is that some religions are more likely to produce, or to attract, people who voluntarily choose lower-paying jobs, like teaching.

Another potential explanation is discrimination. Scott Keeter of Pew notes that researchers have used more sophisticated versions of this sort of analysis to look for patterns of marketplace discrimination. And a few of the religions that make less than their education would suggest have largely nonwhite followings, including Buddhism and Hinduism. Pew also created a category of traditionally black Protestant congregations, and it was somewhat poorer than could be explained by education levels. These patterns don’t prove discrimination, but they raise questions.

Some of the income differences probably stem from culture. Some faiths place great importance on formal education. But the differences are also self-reinforcing. People who make more money can send their children to better schools, exacerbating the many advantages they have over poorer children. Round and round, the cycle goes. It won’t solve itself.

The Role of Tertullian and Irenaeus in the Christological and Ecclesiological Development of the Early Church - Part 3

2011-05-18T08:46:00.002-05:00

This is the final installment of this series. See part 1 here and part 2 here.

St. Irenaeus rightly claimed that one could know that the Church (as opposed to the Gnostics that he faced) could be relied upon to provide this proper interpretation, according to apostolic tradition, resulting in apostolic faith, because the Church possessed an unbroken line of bishops – Apostolic Succession. To interpret the scriptures outside of this framework was unthinkable. The apostolic sees, guided by the Holy Spirit, could be relied upon to preserve the apostolic witness. This ensures that the message preached in his day (150 years after the crucifixion), or even in modern times, is still interpreted according to the original tradition, producing the identical faith of the Apostles. Gnostics, or anyone else who does not exist within the organization of the Church, are not competent to interpret.

The Church is still viewed as the pillar and support of the truth. Outside of the Church, one does not have the Holy Spirit and cannot receive Christ. Proper interpretation of the apostolic writings can only be gained in the context of the Church, which has maintained an unbroken line of hierarchs, from the Apostles to the present, preserving and maintaining the apostolic traditions, both oral and written, allowing for Christians to practice the true faith. This understanding can be directly traced to Church Fathers, such as St. Irenaeus, who put these ideas down on paper in the later part of the second century. His influence led to a proper understanding of the Church that provided stability and comfort, being the place where sacraments are received.

These two men provided important leadership and development of theology that led to a further understanding of the proper nature of the Godhead, especially Christology, and the true nature and role of the Church. These areas of study define the true nature of Christ and the Church, explaining how Christians can know what is right and true. Without their contributions, the theology of Church would be less than it is. God truly used them to help guide the Church into a proper understanding of what is right. The Church is strengthened because of their work.

The Role of Tertullian and Irenaeus in the Christological and Ecclesiological Development of the Early Church - Part 2

2011-05-17T08:18:00.003-05:00

This is part 2 of this series. See part 1 here.

Ultimately, the major component of Tertullian’s Christology was his understanding of Christ existing in two natures, or substances. Christ was eternal, alongside the Father, united in essence, but a distinct Person. It was required for Christ to become man, in order to accomplish man’s redemption, deriving his humanity from the Theotokos. He was truly born in the flesh, from the virgin womb of Mary, mingling “God and man in Himself." Tertullian was also the first to tackle the difficulty of how the two substances could be found in the same person. His determination was that since God is immutable, he did not change or transform, but simply clothed himself in humanity. Both substances, humanity and divinity, continue to exist “unaltered and unimpaired” in the Person of Christ. In his own words: “We observe a twofold condition, not confused but conjoined, Jesus, in one Person at once God and man." Finally, Jesus, as the “God-man,” continued to have that “twofold condition,” even after his assumption. It is evident that this interpretation was a precursor of the Orthodox viewpoint of Christ being in two natures, but one person – eternally God, yet man.

Just as Tertullian had a major influence on the Christology of the Church, so also did St. Irenaeus have a major impact on its Ecclesiology. He also conducted his expositions in the midst of fighting heresies. A few years older than Tertullian, St. Irenaeus fought against the Montanist and Valentinian heresies. In his desire to stomp out the Gnostic heresies, he focused on rendering “it impossible for anyone to confound Gnosticism with Christianity” and “to make it impossible for such a monstrous system to survive, or ever to rise again." One important way that he addressed these concerns was by identifying and developing the concept of what the Church really was.

In the writings of St. Irenaeus, it is evident that he sees the Church as existing from the foundation of the world in a mysterious sense, so that Old Testament faithful would necessarily be considered members. The Church was to be understood as “the new Israel; it is Christ’s glorious body, the mother of Christians." He defines the church as being the place wherever the Spirit of God can be found. The two share the same space. He further expands that those “who do not participate in the Spirit neither feed at their mother’s breasts nor drink the bright fountain issuing from Christ’s body." Therefore, the Church is not to be considered as a man-made institution, but is a divine institution founded long before Christ came in the flesh.

Taking the words of St. Paul that the Church is the “pillar and ground of the truth” (NKJV; 1 Timothy 3:15), St. Irenaeus taught that the Church was the repository of all truth, because it was the only place to receive the apostolic writings, the apostolic oral tradition, and the apostolic faith. This threefold description is still relevant to Ecclesiology. The Church possesses the writings of the Apostles, or the New Testament, interpreted through the Church Fathers, or the apostolic tradition, which produces the apostolic faith. That these components are all necessary is evident after reviewing the fractured status of Christianity in the world; various denominations have erupted due to improper interpretations of the scriptures, because the faith and tradition of the apostles has been neglected. It is the Orthodox Church that provides the proper lens (faith and tradition) to correctly interpret the apostolic writings.

To be continued...

The Role of Tertullian and Irenaeus in the Christological and Ecclesiological Development of the Early Church - Part 1

2011-05-16T09:50:00.002-05:00

In the mid-second century, two important historical figures came into prominence in the Christian world: Tertullian and Irenaeus. The former, after producing enough important theological teaching that he is still referred to as “the father of Western Christianity,” adhered himself to the Montanists (cf. the title of the third volume of the Ante-Nicene Fathers is “Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian”). The latter is recognized as a true Saint in the Orthodox Church. Both left behind many writings that are helpful to modern Christians, and both helped to shape the theology of the Church. Their effects are still evident in the Church’s Christological and Ecclesiological theology. Both of these men were influential in each of the aforementioned theological areas, but Tertullian was especially influential on the Christological development, while St. Irenaeus had a major impact on the Ecclesiological development. They were contemporaries, addressing heresies that threatened the theology of the Church during the formative years, before the Ecumenical Councils settled these questions. It was partly through their influence and devotion that the Councils had sufficient and proper theology to confront the heresies and to overcome them, leading to a proper understanding of the nature of Christ and the Church.

The influence of Tertullian in the Christological controversies of the late second and early third centuries is evident by the inclusion of his treatise, On the Flesh of Christ, in the aforementioned volume of The Ante-Nicene Fathers. In that text, Tertullian confronted the heresy that Christ had not come in the flesh, as advocated by heretics such as Marcion, Apelles, Basiledes, and Valentinus (footnote in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol 3). In contrast to the heretical notion that the spiritual nature of Christ was the only way that He was manifested, Tertullian maintained that Christ did indeed come in the flesh, and that was of paramount importance. He further stated that “the nature of the two substances displayed Him as man and God, - in one respect born, in the other unborn…the divine and the human – is distinctly asserted with equal truth…[the] power of the Spirit proved Him to be God, His sufferings attested to the flesh of man."

In fact, God is presented in the work of Tertullian as eternally existing, and revealing Himself via creation and redemption. These realities are ultimately fulfilled in the incarnation, which was the ultimate aim of God’s purpose. The working out of this redemptive plan led to the distinction between Father, Son, and Spirit. This was one of the earliest expositions of the distinctive members of the Trinity. As such, it introduced the concept of “persons” as existing within the Godhead. Tertullian went so far as to recognize that “…the Word or Son is a ‘Person’… ‘a second in addition to the Father.’ In the third place, however, there is the Spirit, the ‘representative’…[who] issues from the Father by way of the Son…He, too, is a ‘Person.'" Tertullian was even the first to use the word “Trinity” in reference to the Godhead.

He went on to claim that though three persons, the members of the Trinity were from a single source, hence one God. There was no division between the three persons. They were, in fact, of one substance. Tertullian’s strength in this area lies in his understanding that the three persons of the Godhead existed in Trinitarian form, and yet were of one ultimate substance. This terminology would ultimately be adopted by the whole Church as Orthodox theology. He believed and taught that Father and Son “share the same divine nature or essence, and in fact, since the Godhead is indivisible, are one identical being. On the other hand, [as Persons the Father, Son, and Spirit are] admirably suited to express the otherness, or independent subsistence, of the Three”

To be continued...

Beware Lest You Fall (2 Peter 3:17-18)

2011-05-15T15:52:00.000-05:00

The Martyrdom of Peter by Lionello Spada (early 17th c.)

17 You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.

One final time, St. Peter warns his beloved flock that they already know that he has told them and that they should beware, lest they fall (for all of us, no matter how strong we think we are, are capable of falling and “being led away with the error of the wicked.”

St. Peter also commands his readers to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. In the Christian life, there is no standing still; either we are growing closer to God, or we are growing father from Him. That is why we must work so hard to grow.

I will give FF the final words: “Peter ends his epistle (and his life) on this note of praise, giving glory to Jesus Christ. The apostle’s eyes are on this age, but also on the age to come, and his desire is to glorify his Lord both now and in eternity” (138).

Some Things Are Difficult to Understand (3:14-16)

2011-05-13T21:36:00.000-05:00

14 Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; 15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.

Drawing his epistle to a close with his characteristic form of address (“beloved”), St. Peter once again urges his readers to be diligent to live a holy life. The Greek words he uses for “without spot” and “blameless” (aspiloi and amometoi) are direct opposites of spiloi and momoi (“stains” and “blemishes”) that he had used earlier to describe the false teachers. Note that he also urges them to be in peace, and to be patient (v.15). Patience like that of our Lord leads to salvation.

St. Peter then does something unusual for a biblical writer: he appeals to the message of another biblical writer. Peter knew Paul well, and he had both heard his teaching and read at least some of his epistles. Though some then and now have tried to say that the two apostles had a different gospel, or that they were somehow opposed to each other all their lives, this is not true. As St. Peter affirms here, his message is in essence the same of that of St. Paul, even though they may word the message a little differently at times.

St. Peter makes three statements about St. Paul’s writings. First, he says that St. Paul wrote them “according to the wisdom given to him.” In other words, St. Paul’s epistles were no ordinary epistles. They are a product of wisdom given to him from above.

Second, St. Peter affirms that St. Paul’s epistles contain “some things hard to understand.” How true this is! When we are tempted to get frustrated about our inability to understand some of the things St. Paul wrote, let us take comfort in the fact that even St. Peter, who spent three years with our Lord and received teaching from him after the resurrection, also struggled to understand some of what St. Paul wrote. St. Peter goes on to say that the difficulty of St. Paul’s writing has led to “untaught and unstable” people, i.e., the false teachers he had condemned earlier, to twist them. Listen to what FF has to say about this:

“…these false teachers twist St. Paul’s teaching even as they twist the Old Testament Scriptures. In what way they twist Paul’s writings, we do not know. Perhaps they misuse his words ‘All things are lawful for me’…to support their immoral behavior. Perhaps they misuse his saying about being raised up with Christ…to support their view that the resurrection is already past, and that a physical resurrection oat the Second Coming is not to be expected. Certainly they are adept at twisting his words” (137).

The third thing St. Paul says is that people twist St. Paul's writings. FF elaborates: “The word rendered twist is the Greek strebloo, used for wrenching in torture. The false teachers and Gnostics deal with any authoritative writings as they will, reading their own improbable myths into them, in utter disregard of the apostolic interpretations. Such interpretations lead only to their own destruction” (137).

Finally, note that St. Peter’s use of the phrase “the rest of the Scriptures.” FF denies that St. Peter is asserting that Paul’s epistles are part of the Scriptures, but only that St. Paul’s epistles are being twisted in the same way that the OT Scriptures are. I disagree. If that were what St. Peter was saying, why didn’t he just say people twist “the Scriptures”? Why say “the rest of the Scriptures”? To me, this is clear evidence that St. Peter (at the very least) placed St. Paul’s writings on the same level as the OT writings. To be sure, the Church as a whole would not declare them to be so until much later. But for Peter, St. Paul’s writings are just as authoritative as the OT scriptures.

New Heavens and a New Earth (2 Peter 3:11-13)

2011-05-11T16:55:00.000-05:00

11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? 13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

Again, St. Peter stresses his main point: given that the world as we know it will one day come to an end, and given that we will all one day have our works judged, we must reject sensual temptations, be they from false teachers or from elsewhere, and live in “holy conduct” and “godliness” (the Greek words here are in the plural, implying that we should be involved in many and repeated holy acts; that is we should live a life characterized by such acts.)

Interestingly, St. Peter in verse 12 says that we should not only be looking for the day of the Lord, but also “hastening” it. He makes it sound like we Christians can actually cause Christ to come back sooner. How is this possible? FF explains: “In what sense to the Christians hurry the Second Coming? Here we face an insoluble mystery, for the plans of the eternal God are not open to the puny wisdoms of men. But it does seem as if God in some measure sovereignly hears our prayers, when we pray in the Our Father, “Thy Kingdom come,” and the holiness undergirding those prayers is not forgotten by God who sees the beginning from the end” (136).

The Day of the Lord is something, that “according to God’s promise,” Christians can look forward to. For on that day, we will be given the privilege of living in “new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells” (compare Rev. 21). FF notes that “the word rendered dwell is the Greek katoikeo, used for people dwelling and settling down at home in the land. In this world, righteousness is a stranger, but in the age to come, it will find its true home” (136).

The Day of the Lord (2 Peter 3:8-10)

2011-05-10T21:03:00.000-05:00

"The Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night"

8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

Returning to the scoffers’ question “Where is the promise of his coming?”, St. Peter urges his readers to not forget one very important thing ( the Greek phrase he uses literally says “Do not let this truth escape you.”). Alluding to Psalm 89/90:4 (“A thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past and like a watch in the night”), St. Peter tells his audience that God’s timing is very different from ours. He is not saying that 1000 years of human time is exactly equal to one day of God’s time, as some evangelical teachers have claimed. “1000 years” is a round number that symbolizes “a very long time.” As FF writes, “[God] has an intensity we do not (being able to do in one day the work of a thousand years), and a perspective we do not (so that a thousand years’ passing does not wear out His purposes any more than does that of one day). Thus our human impatience is a poor measure with which to judge god’s designs” (134).

The scoffers of St. Peter’s day claimed that since it had been thirty years since Christ left the earth, and he had still not returned, therefore he would never return. Today, many people say the same thing. But the Lord’s failure to come back on our time schedule does not mean that he is “slack concerning his promise” to come back. Rather, he is delaying his return out of compassion for us; he is “not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.” (Note how St. Peter here is echoing the Lord’s own thoughts in John 3:16-17). He delays to give people time to come to repentance. So the scoffers should actually be thankful that Christ delays his return. As FF states, “Rather than using the time elapsing before the Coming as an argument to blaspheme, the mockers ought to be using it to repent!” (134).

Our reaction to the Lord’s delaying his return should not be to grow slack and lazy (see the Parable of the Ten Virgins in St. Matthew’s Gospel). Rather, we should be ready at all times. For even if the Lord does not come back to earth in our lifetime, one thing is sure: we will all be going back to him, and sooner than we think! And when Christ does return, he will do so like a thief in the night; that is, unexpectedly and with no warning. Certainly, there will be (in our Lord’s words) “signs of the times,” but the exact time of his coming is unknown and will catch many off guard. Don’t let it be you!

When the Lord comes back, the heavens and the earth will pass away in fire. Not only that, but all our works will be judged through fire. In FF’s words, “All of our works will become manifest, and all our secrets known. Let all repent now for His sudden return will allow no time for repentance then” (135).

In The Last Days (2 Peter 3:1-7)

2011-05-09T21:50:00.000-05:00

1 Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder), 2 that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, 3 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

Having spent a good deal of time warning his readers about false teachers, St. Peter now turns to a new topic. As is his custom, he opens this new section of his epistle by again addressing his audience as “beloved.” He then mentions that this is the second epistle that he has written them. Note again in passing that if someone other than St. Peter were composing this letter, the author is lying. This is one reason why (in my opinion, at least) we can accept Petrine authorship of the epistle. Again, too, he mentions that he is writing to “stir up” their minds by reminding them of important truths that they have already learned. There are some things so important that we simply cannot hear them enough!

The specific teachings that he wants them to be reminded of are the words spoken by the prophets of the OT, and the teachings of St. Peter and the other apostles. Note that although the NKJV simply says “the apostles,” the Greek text actually says “your apostles.” Why would St. Peter use this unusual wording? FF explains: “Peter here speaks of the apostles as ‘your apostles,’ referring to the particular apostles who reached his hearers, for different apostles reached different groups. The thought here is that the apostles can be trusted because they are your apostles (unlike the false teachers, who have no claim on your loyalty). Both the prophets (in the Scriptures) and the apostles (passing on Christ’s words) gave the same exhortation to godly living, and so it can be trusted—let them abide by it!” (132).

St. Peter then gets to his main point—that “scoffers” will come in the “last days.” Before we look closely at the scoffers and their message, let’s first talk about the phrase “last days.” The “last days,” in the minds of the NT writers, are not limited to today’s popular notion of the last days. In other words, the last days do not refer only to the time immediately prior to Christ’s second coming to earth. The last days actually began on the Day of Pentecost, and have continued since then to the present. They will, of course, continue on until Christ’s return. Some today argue that 2000 years plus is a long time for there to be “last days,” but God’s timing is very different than ours, as St. Peter will go on to argue.

The “scoffers” that St. Peter mentions are most likely a different group of people than the false teachers about whom he warned in the previous chapter. Whereas the false teachers were actively trying to promote a faith (albeit a warped, twisted one), the scoffers are skeptics, questioning the faith…or at least one very important tenet of it—the second coming. As FF writes, “In their view, nothing has ever changed in history since the beginning of the world—and so it never will. The world continues in unbroken stability and will never end. The thought is in keeping with paganism, which assumes the eternity of the cosmos” (132). [Sounds a little like Carl Sagan!!]

But like the false teachers of chapter two, the scoffers are “walking according to their own lusts;” that is, their main goal in life is to please their carnal appetites. And their message is simple: “Where is the promise of His coming?” In other words, they are in essence saying, “You Christians teach that Jesus will return. Now it’s been more than 30 years since he died. Where is he? If he hasn’t come back in 30 years, he’s not coming back at all!” As one reason for denying that Christ would come back, the scoffers appeal to the supposed eternality and unchangeableness of the creation.

But, as St. Peter points out, the creation is neither eternal nor unchangeable. God created the heavens and the earth, as Genesis 1:1 famously says. It is “by his word” that they came into existence at all. Creation had a definite beginning. And then God destroyed most of the world with the flood; this destruction flies in the face of any ideas of the unchangeability of the creation. Note how St. Peter repeatedly refers to water. Regarding this, FF says “St. Peter stresses this to show that water can only cause the destruction of the world through the intervention of God. Water in itself is not harmful to the world, for it is the agent of is creation. Rather, God intervened to disrupt the stability of the world after it was created, judging with a flood all those who lived on it. Thus, the scoffers cannot maintain that all continues as it has since the beginning of the world or that the world is subject only to natural causes” (133).

And it is not just that the creation has a definite beginning, nor that it has been destroyed and renewed in the past. It will once again be destroyed, or better, transformed, through judgment and fire. Therefore, the creation as we know it is far from eternal and unchanging. It has a definite beginning and an end, and it was undergone many changes (and will continue to do so).

Better Not to Have Known the Way of Righteousness (2 Peter 2:18-22)

2011-05-08T16:42:00.000-05:00

"A dog returns to its own..." Well, read further!

18 For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. 19 While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. 20 For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. 21 For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. 22 But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A dog returns to his own vomit,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”

St. Peter continues his excoriation of the false teachers who were infecting the first century Church. He begins by mentioning that they “speak (this is again the Gk. phtheggomai, literally “expound in a loud way”) great swelling words of emptiness.” And they use these words to lure people who have escaped from pagan lives of sexual immorality right back into their old way of life. FF describes their actions in this way: “Using sex as the bait, they take in those who are scarcely fleeing from those who live in deception. That is, they seduce the vulnerable recent converts, ones who are still in the process of breaking with their immoral pagan past” (130).

The false teachers spent their time promising others “liberty” from sin, but they themselves were “slaves of corruption.” Again, FF elaborates well: “The false teachers have succumbed to sin and so are in no position to grant victory over it to others. The sensuality they practice with their disciples reveals their own helplessness” (130).

For quite some time, St. Peter has been warning his readers to give no heed to the many false teachers trying to lead them astray. In doing so, he has focused primarily on the corruptness of the teachers themselves. But now he gives another important reason not to follow them: because judgment will be more harsh for those who do. He first says that if a person escapes from the world’s corruption through faith in Christ, but then goes right back into their prior lifestyle, they are actually worse than they were before. For, as he says, “ it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.” The Greek word translated “delivered” is paradidomai, which is cognate with the word paradosis, “tradition.”

FF elaborates on this idea: “Joining the false teachers may seem...like a bold new move, an entry into exciting deeper truths. But in reality it is just a tragic return to the old ways of sin from which they only too recently emerged. No great fulfillment awaits them, but only the degradation of vomit and mire.” He adds “The judgment awaiting them as apostates will be worse than if they were merely pagans” (130). (This idea is not unique to St. Peter; it also appears frequently in the Epistle to the Hebrews).

Finally, St. Peter compares those who return to their immoral, pagan lifestyle to dogs returning to their vomit (a quote from Proverbs 26:11), and a sows to the mire (which, according to FF, comes from a story called “The Story of Ahikar”, which was popular in the first century. People who leave a pagan lifestyle and then return to it are acting less than human; they are imitating dumb animals.

Following the Way of Balaam (2 Peter 2:12-17)

2011-05-07T09:22:00.000-05:00

Balaam and the Donkey, by Rembrandt (1626)

12 But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, 13 and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, 14 having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children. 15 They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; 16 but he was rebuked for his iniquity: a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet. 17 These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever.

Although these false teachers saw themselves as better than angels, the reality is that they are barely even men, for St. Peter refers to them as “natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed.” Continuing this strong condemnation, St. Peter says that they will “utterly perish in their own corruption and will receive the wages of unrighteousness.”

Not only do the false teachers teach heresy, but they also love to “carouse in the daytime.” One way that you can tell if someone is a false teacher is by looking at his or her life. Almost without fail, heretical self-proclaimed teachers of truth also live very impure lives (think, for example of the early Mormons, who lived in bigamy, or of David Koresh and his followers).

The problem that the false teachers presented St. Peter and the early Christians with was their participation in Orthodox, apostolic Christian worship and other gatherings. In so doing, they produced “stains and blemishes” in the Body of Christ. Christian worship was supposed to be a pure and holy sacrifice of praise to God, but the false teachers were spoiling it with their unrighteous teaching and lives.

St. Peter goes on to describe the false teachers as “having eyes full of adultery” and not being able to cease from sin. To make matters worse, they even entice others to sin. Using an athletic metaphor, the apostle says that the teachers have hearts that are “trained in covetous practices” (i.e., greed). FF elaborates: “Just as training in the gymnasium makes one strong (the word rendered trained is the Gr. gymnazo, from which the English word ‘gymnasium’ is derived), so these men are strong in getting what they want, cooly efficient experts in acquisition” (128). Even worse, because of their false teaching and their impure lives, they are “accursed children.”

Finally, using an OT allusion (from one of my favorite OT stories, no less!), St. Peter compares the false teachers to Balaam son of Beor. Interestingly, the Greek text actually says “son of Bosor,” not “son of Beor,” as the Hebrew OT text says and the NKJV corrects. FF believes that this is not a mistake on St. Peter’s part, but rather a play on words, as he explains: “...in Hebrew, the word for ‘flesh’ is the word basar. Peter is saying that Balaam was a son of the flesh, not of the Spirit, a false prophet, not a true one” (128).

Balaam, if you remember, was a mercenary prophet whom God used in spite of his folly. And God used a donkey to teach him a lesson. God gave the donkey the ability to speak in a man’s voice and to bring Balaam to humility. As usual, FF brings out an interesting point that gets lost in translation: “The word used to describe the donkey’s sound (translated expound) [or “speaking” in the NKJV] is the Greek phtheggomai, used for loud proclamations; the related word apophtheggomai is used for the utterances of holy men and prophets. The thought here is that Balaam was so irrational in his lust for money that even his own donkey was more of a prophet than he was. In their greed, the false teachers are every bit as deranged as he” (128).

God Did Not Spare the Angels (2 Peter 2:4-11)

2011-05-04T18:07:00.000-05:00

4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; 5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; 6 and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly; 7 and delivered righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked 8 (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)— 9 then the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under punishment for the day of judgment, 10 and especially those who walk according to the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise authority. They are presumptuous, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries, 11 whereas angels, who are greater in power and might, do not bring a reviling accusation against them before the Lord.

St. Peter had just stated that false teachers will be judged, even destroyed. Now he undergirds the truth of this assertion by demonstrating how God has worked with the unrighteous in the past. He gives three specific examples.

First, he speaks of “the angels who sinned.” FF thinks this refers to the “Sons of God” mentioned in Genesis 6:1-4. However, the phrase “Sons of God” in that passage may not refer to angels. Another possible interpretation of “the angels who sinned” is the angels who followed Satan in his rebellion against God.

The second example of the destruction of the wicked that St. Peter gives is the destruction of the world during the Great Flood. Note that Noah is called “a preacher of righteousness,” indicating that he didn’t just build an ark to save himself, his family and some animals. He also tried to get those around him to repent (but was, sadly, unsuccessful). In the original Greek text, Noah is called literally “the eighth”…i.e., the eighth person of eight to be saved from the Flood. Why this unusual reference? FF suggests this: “Peter not only means there were seven others with him in the ark. He probably also alludes to eight as the number of perfection, saying thereby that Noah was blameless in his time (Gen. 6:9)” (125).

St. Peter’s third example of judgment of the unrighteous is the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which God destroyed for the great immorality of their inhabitants. Note St. Peter’s passing remark that Lot was delivered not just because of his own righteousness but also because he was so distressed about the wickedness of his fellow townsmen. Note also how St. Peter tells us that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah’s destruction is “an example to those who afterward would live ungodly.” Those who live selfish, immoral lives, ignoring God, will face similar destruction (although the Orthodox Church understands hell much differently than other Christian traditions. Hell is not a literal place where a literal fire burns the wicked into literal ashes, but rather the torment of being in the glorious presence of God without wanting to be. “Our God is a consuming fire.”

Noah and Lot are examples to us, for both of them lived in times of extreme sexual immorality; in spite of this, they maintained righteousness and love of God. We too live in a time in which (according to the world) “anything goes”, and so we face much the same temptations that Noah and Lot did. Like them, we must do our best to be righteous and blameless before God. For as St. Peter says, “the Lord knows how to deliver the ungodly from temptations.” God will help us to not sin if we will but cry out to him in our time of need.

Note carefully verse 10, in which St. Peter says that strict judgment will fall not only upon those who live lives of sexual immorality (which is no great surprise), but also on those who “despise authority” (which might come as a bit of surprise to some of us!). FF thinks that the word translated “authority” (kyriotes, literally "authorities") applies specifically to the angels. In other words, false teachers and others who despise angelic authorities will be judged. But the apostle could also be speaking about authority or authorities in general.

FF’s interpretation seems quite likely given that St. Peter again mentions the angels in verse 11. He explains: “The false teachers, though men, do not hesitate to slander the angels, but the angels, though greater than men, do not slander them before God, nor bring any reviling condemnation…” (127).

But one might wonder, “What exactly does it mean to despise or speak evil of an angel?” FF explains:

“How do false teachers blaspheme the angels? Probably not by actually cursing them, just as they do not deny their Master by actually saying “I deny Jesus.” In speaking both of their denial and their blaspheming, Peter is giving his interpretation of the significance of their actions. In the first case, Peter says their heretical self-aggrandizing means they are in effect denying Jesus as their true Master. In the case of them reviling the angels, I suggest that Peter is also giving his interpretation of their actions. What they are actually doing, possibly, is asserting that they are superior to the angels, with an intimate knowledge of God’s mysteries superior to theirs, and that even the high celestial orders are inferior to them. That, St. Peter says, is blasphemy against the angels. It is in this sense that the later Gnostic heretic Menander blasphemed, for he claimed a magical power strong enough to overcome the angels (reported by St. Irenaeus in his Against Heresies, 1,23,5)” (127).

Many Will Follow Their Destructive Ways (2 Peter 2:1-3)

2011-05-03T19:24:00.000-05:00

Pastor John Hagee. Why is his picture in an Orthodox blog?

What is his connection to today's post? Read on and see...

1 But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.

St. Peter had spent most of the first chapter discussing the need for growth in godliness. Now he warns his readers about something (rather someone!) that poses a great threat to growth in holiness: false teachers. Just as in the Old Covenant period there were many false prophets, so now under the New Covenant there are false teachers and prophets. And in our day and age, the situation has only become worse. False teachers are dangerous, because they bring in their heresies secretly. In teaching heresy, false teachers deny the Lord, even though they never say they are (and seldom even think they are).

St. Peter warns his audience that “many will follow their destructive ways.” This is because false teaching always packages itself in a very appealing way. It appeals to the basic instincts of people. It usually claims to make things easier for people, downplaying or even totally denying the tough aspects of being a Christian. Most people want to “have their cake and eat it, too.” That is, they want the benefits of being a Christian but are not willing to make the sacrifices that Christ calls us to. False teachers have perfected the art of capitalizing on this desire that so many people have. Many do so out of covetousness, for as P. T. Barnum once said, “There’s a sucker born every minute.” And as the old English proverb (first written down by a writer named Thomas Tusser) says, “A fool and his money are soon parted.”

But, as St. Peter assures his readers, these false teachers will be judged severely for their deeds.

FF provides some interesting historical background to this passage, asking “Who were these false teachers?” It is impossible to speak with certainty. They seem to have been Christian teachers who were now mixing wordly theosophical ideas into their Christian teaching to form a syncretistic Gnostic brand of Christiantiy. With these new ideas, they drew disciples to themselves, functioning as gurus in a cult of personality. Their lifestyles were characterized by sensuality and sexual immorality…” (Fr. James’ note: some things never change, do they?)

FF continues: It is apparent that they denied the Second coming and twisted both the Old Testament Scriptures and the letters of Paul in support of their new ideas and their licentious lifestyle…It is possible they considered their authority as superior to that of the angels, asserting that the angelic hierarchies were inferior to them. They were still calling themselves Christian teachers and mixing with the rank and file believers at the gatherings of the Church, using those gatherings to collect more disciples of their own” (122-23).

How does this apply to us? It is very important that we know who the false teachers of our day are, and that we pay them no heed. Before we buy into anything that any speaker or teacher says about anything related to the Christian faith, we must carefully examine their teaching against the Tradition of the Church. Always consult your priest and/or spiritual father for help in these types of situations.

Update from James Hargrave in Tanzania (Actually, Kenya - this time)

2011-05-02T11:08:00.002-05:00

Dear friends,

Kristo amefufuka! Christ is risen!

I did not expect to find the Risen Christ here in Kenya. I expected to be home in Tanzania for Holy Week and Pascha. But today I write you from Nairobi, Kenya.

Two weeks ago, I was called to Nairobi to assist OCMC Missionary Katie Wilcoxson as she sought diagnosis and treatment at Nairobi Hospital for some ongoing issues. You may have read Michael Pagedas' recent update about this. While in Kenya, I also took the opportunity for some doctors' visits of my own. On Holy Wednesday, Katie was released to the United States for further evaluation and treatment. After accompanying her to the airport on Holy Thursday, I went down to the bus station to get a ticket back to Mwanza. There were none to be had.

Exactly one year ago last week, I was unexpectedly delayed in England on my way to Tanzania. This year, I was unexpectedly delayed in Kenya. Should I expect to be delayed somewhere next year?

I did arrive in Tanzania on 23rd April 2010-- one year ago yesterday. This means that today, the Sunday of the Resurrection, marks the beginning of my second year of missionary service. God willing, I will return to Mwanza on today's overnight bus (the ticket's in my wallet!).

The year has been full of surprises, and none so many as during the past month. Great Lent has been tough. We have had to say goodbye-for-now to two missionary colleagues, Charita Stavrou and Katie Wilcoxson. Both are currently in the United States seeking evaluation and treatment for unrelated medical issues. The team is incomplete without them, and I look forward to welcoming them both back to Tanzania when each is ready to return.

Next month we look forward to welcoming OCMC Missionary Maria Roeber, a maternity nurse who has been preparing for service for some time now. She hopes to serve at Holy Resurrection Hospital in Bukoba along with Katie Wilcoxson, Michael Pagedas and Felice Stewart.

It has been very good to be here in Nairobi for Holy Week and Pascha. I am staying with lifelong friends and have been attending services at the magnificent Ss Cosmas & Damian Cathedral not far from their house. Archbishop Makarios of Kenya has welcomed me kindly, and I have gotten to know some of the seminarians as well as members of the Cathedral. It was an unexpected Pascha, but filled with joy.

This means that I will have been in Tanzania two full years before first experiencing Holy Week and the Resurrection in my adopted home. I am looking forward to the experience.

May your lives be filled with the life of the Risen Lord in every circumstance, expected or unexpected.

Kweli amefufuka! Truly he is risen!

James Hargrave

We Have the Prophetic Word Confirmed (1 Peter 1:19-21)

2011-05-01T16:35:00.000-05:00

Icon of Christ with Adam and the Prophets of the Old Testament

¹⁹ And so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts; ²⁰ knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, ²¹ for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of Godspoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

In the Incarnation, teaching ministry, Transfiguration, suffering, death, burial, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, the “prophetic word” (that is, the prophecies of the Old Testament Scriptures) are confirmed. And not only that, but the prophecies continue to be filled through the ministry of the Apostles. This confirmation of the truth of the prophecies of Scripture makes it all the more important that Christians “heed” them; that is, we should know them, read them, study them and let them build our faith.

For the Scriptures are like light that cuts through darkness, in that they bring God’s truth into our lives. Obedience to their teaching cleanses us and drives the darkness out of us. As the Psalmist writes, “Thy Word is a Lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” (Psalm 119:105). For now, the Scriptures are our main source of hope, but eventually the “morning star” (literally, “light bearer”) will “rise in our hearts.” This is a reference to Jesus and his second coming. When our Lord returns, there will be no more need for Scriptures. But for now, we must have them to keep us on the narrow way that leads to salvation.

But as we know all too well, there are many self-appointed “teachers” who twist the Scriptures for their own purposes. This was true in St. Peter’s day as well as today. For this reason, St. Peter warns his readers that “no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation.” As FF writes, “The nonapostolic interpretations of these [false] teachers are to be soundly rejected, for these men are untaught and unstable, devoid of the Spirit...The Scriptures must be interpreted by men in whom is the Spirit, the apostles and their successors (which interpretations are preserved now in the Tradition of the Church)” (121).

True prophecy is not something that people dream up on their own (like, for example, the “prophecies” of people like Jean Dixon). As St. Peter tells us, prophecy never came by the will of man (think of how many of the OT prophets were unwilling prophets!). Instead, it came by holy men of God (not just any men) who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Again, FF has some good words to say: “The prophecies (such as those declaring the glory of the Lord and His future Coming) were given entirely by the Spirit, and cannot be interpreted by those devoid of the Spirit—such as the false teachers” (121).

Eyewitnesses of His Majesty (2 Peter 1:12-18)

2011-04-29T22:11:00.000-05:00

Why do I have a picture of a tent here? Read on...

12 For this reason I will not be negligent to remind you always of these things, though you know and are established in the present truth. 13 Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, 14 knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me. 15 Moreover I will be careful to ensure that you always have a reminder of these things after my decease. 16 For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. 17 For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” 18 And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.

“For this reason,” i.e. because of the need for Christians to grow in virtue and in personal knowledge of God, St. Peter has reminded them of their need, even though they already know it. There are some things in our Christian lives that we can never hear too many times. For example, even though all Christians know that it is important to pray, we forget, we get lazy, we grow discouraged, and so on. Because of this, we need to read and hear about the importance of prayer over and over again. The same is true for many other things. Examples include the need to show love to others, the need to be humble, the need to give generously to God, the need to be regular in attending divine services, and the need to regularly read the Scriptures (among others). We must, to use St. Peter’s language, constantly be “stirred up” (and also to “stir up” others who need encouragement).

Another reason St. Peter gives for reminding his audience of the basics of the faith is because he knows that his death is imminent. The great Neronian persecution of the Church that followed the great fire in Rome had just begun, and St. Peter knows that it is just a matter of time before he and all the other leaders of the Church would be rounded up and put to death. And not only this, but Christ had personally shown him in some way. Using a picturesque metaphor, the apostle says that he is about to “put off my tent.” Because he must soon leave the earth, St. Peter wants his readers to “always have a reminder of these things after my decease.”

He then goes on to assure them that the Gospel that he and the other Apostles had preached was not a set of “cunningly devised fables” like the Greek and Roman mythologies or the Gnostic teachings. Instead, they were telling what they had seen and heard (compare 1 John 1:1) in the years that they had spent with Christ. For St. Peter and the other apostles were “eyewitnesses of His majesty.” This “majesty” is almost certainly a reference to the Transfiguration of Christ, for then not only did St. Peter see Christ’s majesty and glory, but they also heard the voice of the Father saying “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

FF comments thus: “This, Peter says, proves the reality of the Second Coming, for Christ Himself pointed to the Transfiguration as a foretaste and proof of His future glory at the Coming (Matt. 16:28). The greatness He will manifest at the Second Coming was observed by the apostles at His Transfiguration. The apostles thus can confidently proclaim the reality of His Coming because they themselves have seen its glory already” (120).

Make Your Call and Election Secure (2 Peter 1:5-11)

2011-04-28T18:44:00.001-05:00

5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins.

10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; 11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

“For this reason,” that is, for the reason that we need to escape from the world’s pollution, St. Peter urges us to diligently add to our faith. St. Peter here tells us that having mere faith is not enough; in addition to our faith, we must strive as hard as we can (knowing that it is God who even makes it possible!) to grow in our likeness to him. That is, we must actively work at doing what St. Peter referred to in verse 4 as partaking of the divine nature.

Then St. Peter spells out exactly what qualities we must strive to obtain, listing the quantities as a sort of ladder (St. Paul does something similar in Romans 5). The first quality is “virtue,” which translates the Greek word arête, which St. Peter has just used to refer to Christ’s moral beauty (v. 3). To virtue, we are to add knowledge (gnosis), the ability to discern what is good and true from what is not.

To knowledge, St. Peter urges us to add “self control” (egkratia, literally “ruling oneself”), a fundamental attribute. We must gain control over our flesh if we are to grow into the likeness of God. He adds perseverance, which is also critical; the Christian life is a marathon and not a sprint. We have to refuse to “throw in the towel” and give in to the constant temptations that are thrown our way. To perseverance we are told to add “godliness” (eusebia, which can also mean “piety”), a wholehearted devotion to God.

Next, St. Peter commands us to add “brotherly kindness” (philadelphia), which is warmth and affection and good-heartedness, especially toward other Christians. And, to this, we are told to add “love” (agape), the supreme virtue of all. Agape is, in FF’s words, “a self-sacrificing benevolence to all men” (117).

If we work to add these qualities and gain them, St. Peter says, we will gain the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. This knowledge is not just “head knowledge,” but a personal relationship. If we are not working to grow in faith and virtue, we cannot expect to ever know Christ. This does not mean that we have to be perfect, but rather that we need to be striving to grow. God has promised us that if we strive, he will give the growth. If we lack these things (which means we’re not trying to gain them, we have forgotten that God has cleansed us from our sins through our repentance and baptism. Sadly, this is the case with many Christians, who enthusiastically embrace Christ but gradually fade away. Their faith grows cold, and before long they are Christians only in name and not reality.

This is why St. Peter again urges his audience to diligence, using different words: he urges us to “be even more diligent to make your calling and election secure.” God’s “election” of us is a call to salvation and Christian discipleship, but it is not a guarantee of final salvation. We work together with God to “make it happen” (compare St. Paul’s teaching in Philippians 2:12-13). I’ll note in passing that St. Peter’s command to make our election secure is one of many biblical passages that make the concept of “once saved, always saved” untenable.

For as St. Peter points out in the second part of verse 10, it is only if we do these things (not just if we believe them) that we will never stumble and fall off the path to salvation. It is only if we do these things (i.e., work to add the virtues to our lives) that we will gain an entrance into the “everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” If we persevere in our faith, a faith that is filled with good works, we will not only be granted entrance into our Lord’s kingdom, but the kingdom will be granted abundantly.

Partakers of the Divine Nature (2 Peter 1:1-4)

2011-04-27T18:46:00.000-05:00

The Fathers often used the image of a sword in a flame as an analogy for theosis. The sword takes on the nature of the flame without actually becoming the flame.

1 Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:

2 Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

As the other apostles often do when they begin their epistles, St. Peter identifies himself humbly as simply “a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ.” He uses the Semitic version of his name (Simeon) rather than the more common “Simon.” He identifies his audience as “those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” The Greek word translated as “have obtained” in the NKJV literally means “have been allotted.” The word is used in other parts of the NT to indicate the casting of lots; as FF points out, “the thought here is of the Gentiles receiving their own portion from God.” Whereas before the saving gospel of God was aimed primarily at Jews, now Gentiles have also been allotted a portion.

Note in passing the reference to Christ’s divinity. Christ is not just our Savior but our God and Savior.

As in many other epistles, St. Peter wishes “grace and peace” to his hearers, and he prays that this grace and peace will be multiplied to them in the knowledge (epignosis; literally “deep, personal knowledge”) of both the Father and the Son.

Next, in verses three and four, St. Peter makes some very bold claims, claims that are crucial to the Orthodox understanding of salvation (theosis). First he says that divine power (dynamis) has been given to us. This “power” is none other than the grace of God, or God’s uncreated energy. It is given to us in the person of the Holy Spirit, who comes to dwell in us at our baptism and chrismation. And this power, in turn, has given us everything we need to live a godly life, that is, a life in conformance to the will of God that is pleasing to God. This agrees with St. Paul’s statement that “it is God who works in you both to will and to act according to his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). This grace comes through the knowledge of him, that is through a daily personal relationship with Christ.

God has also given us “exceedingly great and precious promises,” such as the fact that Christ will come again, raise us to life, glorify our bodies, and let us dwell forever with him. And he has also made us “partakers of the divine nature.” That is, as we grow in our faith and in our relationship with Christ, we can become more and more like God. This process, of course, will not be completed while we are still on earth, but that does not mean that we cannot have at least a taste of it now. FF explains:

“The glorified Christ is incorruptible, and we shall be made incorruptible; death now has no dominion over Him, and one day it will have no dominion over us…Thus the incorruptible nature of divinity will then be bestowed upon us by grace. (This does not deny that even now we share a foretaste of that divine nature as we are transformed into His glorious image; 2 Cor. 3:18” (115).

Note, however, as St. Peter writes at the end of verse 4, in order to really partake of the divine nature, however, we must first have “escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

The Second Epistle of St. Peter - Introduction

2011-04-26T19:21:00.000-05:00

Sixth century icon of St. Peter from St. Catherine's Monastery, Mt. Sinai

Author: St. Peter the Apostle. Many modern scholars question St. Peter’s authorship of this epistle, primarily on linguistic grounds. They allege that the style of the Greek in 1 Peter and 2 Peter is so great that they cannot have come from the same hand. But the difference is style can easily be explained by the likely use of a different scribe. Undoubtedly, the two epistles were written down by two different hands, but they could easily be dictated by the same person, especially since the apostles seem to have given their scribes a good deal of freedom in the exact words they used to express the apostles’ ideas.

Those who deny St. Peter’s authorship claim that the epistle was written many years after his death and that it was written by someone else in St. Peter’s name. They claim that writing pseudonymously was a common and accepted practice in the early Church. But as Fr. Lawrence Farley (FF) notes, there are several reasons to hold to Petrine authorship of this epistle:

1. Forgery in the name of an apostle was not a universally accepted practice. According to Tertullian, the early Christian document The Acts of Thekla was written by a presbyter in the name of Paul. When the church hierarchy discovered the forgery, they deposed the presbyter (FF 109, referring to Tertullian, On Baptism 17).

2. The author refers to himself as “Simeon Peter” (the Jewish form of his name) rather than “Simon Peter.” A forger would not likely have done this, since the overwhelming majority of the Church knew Peter as “Simon” Peter,

3. The author claims to have been a witness to the Transfiguration. If this letter was not written by Peter, then the author is lying—hardly a Christian thing to do.

4. The author refers to an earlier epistle that he had written. This earlier epistle was almost certainly 1 Peter.

5. Both 1 and 2 Peter include common themes and linguistic features, such as Peter’s referring to his audience as “beloved,” and the reference to the flood of Genesis 6 and the fact that there were eight souls on the Ark.

(See FF [ Fr. Lawrence Farley’s commentary Universal Truth], pp 109-110 for more information).

Nevertheless, even if St. Peter did not write this epistle, the early Church recognized it as Scripture, and we should too. It is equally as authoritative for us whether or not it came from St. Peter.

Place and Date of Writing: Rome, most likely the Spring of 65. The epistle was probably written right before St. Peter’s martyrdom and is therefore most likely a sort of “Last Will and Testament.”

Major Theme: False teachers and the need to resist them.

Christos Voskrese!

2011-04-25T12:54:00.000-05:00

A parishioner sent me a link to this video. It was filmed at a soccer game in Russia on Pascha. I just had to share it with you.

Christ is Risen!

2011-04-24T18:32:00.000-05:00

Paschal Greetings from the Early family: Fr. James, Kh. Jennifer, Audrey (left), Courtney (right), Beth (bottom center), and Christine (in Mom's arms). Okay, I admit it, this picture is about three years old, but work with me! We forgot to take one yesterday or today.

May the blessings and joy of Christ's resurrection be with you all. And, now, for your listening pleasure, I present this video, which I stole off YouTube, of the beautiful hymn "The Angel Cried."

Today He Who Hung the Earth Upon the Waters

2011-04-22T13:15:00.000-05:00

This beautiful hymn is chanted in the "Twelve Passion Gospels" service for Good Friday in the Orthodox Church. (The service is usually served on Thursday night by anticipation). This video isn't particularly impressive, but the chanter and the hymn certainly are. Close your eyes and enjoy!

Behold the Bridegroom Cometh

2011-04-20T16:34:00.000-05:00

Here is one of the hymns chanted at the Bridegroom Matins service, which is celebrated in the Orthodox Church on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday evenings of Holy Week. This video features the ensemble Archangel Voices. Enjoy.

Rejoice, O Bethany

2011-04-16T14:38:00.000-05:00

This is one of my favorite hymns. It is chanted on Lazarus Saturday and on Palm Sunday in the Orthodox Church. This rendition is by the Boston Byzantine Choir. Enjoy, and may your Lazarus Saturday and Palm Sunday be blessed.

Jesus' Tears

2011-04-15T09:33:00.004-05:00

This is a resposting, but bears repeating (Fr. James is the author):

O Christ God, when Thou didst raise Lazarus from the dead, before Thy Passion, thou didst confirm the universal resurrection. Wherefore, we like babes, carry the insignia of triumph and victory, and cry to Thee, O vanquisher of death, Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord.

-- Troparion of the Saturday of St. Lazarus

My father was a tough-as-nails career Marine officer who fought in the jungles of Southeast Asia during World War II and in the frozen no-man’s-land that was the Korean Conflict. He was hardened by years of horrifying experiences that would have made Chuck Norris, Sylvester Stallone, or Arnold Schwarzenegger run away screaming. In the thirty-six years that I knew him, I never once saw him cry. Except when he gave in to an occasional outburst of anger, he was a model of emotional control. Compared to him, Mr. Spock and his fellow Vulcans were a bunch of emotional basket cases!

Dad always taught me to exhibit the same emotional control that he did, and in this he largely succeeded. As a result, I seldom ever find myself crying, except during an occasional tear-jerking part of a movie such as the “let’s play catch” scene in Field of Dreams. I’m not saying that this stoicism is good or bad; it’s just the way I am. I am without a doubt my father’s son, and weeping is just not part of my modius operandi.

But when my mother unexpectedly died in 2002, I found myself weeping uncontrollably off-and-on for days. The same thing happened two years later when my father finally succumbed to complications caused by the Alzheimer’s Disease that had ravaged him for over eight years. Two years, after then, when my daughter Audrey and I visited his grave in Arlington National Cemetery, I (foolishly, I know) told myself, “Don’t cry. Be tough. Hold it in!” And yet, when I actually laid eyes on his tombstone, I broke into an uncontrollable fit of sobbing that lasted for nearly 15 minutes.

This led me to reflect on the following question: What is it about death that makes even modern-day Vulcans like myself break down and weep? I have often heard death referred to as “The Great Equalizer,” and this is certainly true. All of us, no matter whether we are rich or poor, good or evil, Christian or non-Christian, have an appointment with death. And yet, the facet of death that makes it so hard to deal with is its being what I call “The Great Separator.” Perhaps the worst thing about death is that it separates us from those whom we love. When someone we loves dies, we lose the joy of being in their presence—seeing their face, hearing their voice, and feeling their embrace. And even if they seem to have died in Christ, there always remains that slight inkling of doubt: will I really ever see him or her again?

This brings us to today’s Gospel reading, John 11:1-45, which tells the story of the raising of Lazarus. This passage contains the shortest verse in the Bible, at least in the English version, verse 35: “Jesus wept.” I often used to wonder exactly why Jesus wept. He did not weep for the same reason that I wept when I lost my mother and my father. For the Lord knew that his separation from Lazarus would be very short-lived. He knew even before Lazarus died that He would raise him from the dead. So why, then, did he weep?

Some commentators have suggested that Jesus wept out of compassion for Mary and Martha. There is no question that this is part of why Jesus wept. He deeply loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus, and it was hard for him to see them experience a loss as great as that of their beloved brother, especially at a relatively young age. As the prophet Isaiah wrote of our Lord, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows” (53:4a, NKJV). And yet, I think that there is much more behind Jesus’ tears than merely compassion and empathy, great though they were.

I believe that the clue to Jesus’ tears lies in a verb that St. John uses in verses 33 and 38. The root of this verb is the Greek embrimaomai, which is usually translated here as “groaned in the/his spirit” (KJV, ASV, NKJV) or “was deeply moved in spirit” (NASB, RSV, NIV). Both of these translations give the impression that Jesus was moved by grief. However, as Fr. Lawrence Farley points out in his excellent commentary on St. John’s Gospel,

The Greek word…savors not of grief, but of anger. It is used for the snorting of horses in secularliterature; in March 1:43 and Matthew 9:30, it is translated "sternly warn,” and in Mark 14:5, it is translated “scold.” In all of its uses, the word conveys the idea of indignation. Christ, therefore, was not here moved with grief over His friend; He was moved with anger at the Enemy, and indignation that all the Father’s world could be so ruined.

So more than being moved by mere grief or compassion, our Lord was, in Fr. Farley’s words, “furious at the ancient serpent for wreaking this havoc.” In his thirty-something years of life, Jesus had no doubt seen a great deal of death, but now he had had enough! He was not going to allow death and Hades to claim his beloved friend, at least not now.

Jesus’ anger at death can be seen indirectly in his somewhat testy response to Martha’s objection to his command to roll away the stone from Lazarus’ tomb: “Lord, already he smells, for it is the fourth day.” To this, our Savior replies, “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?”

And so, the Lord Jesus, fed up with the Great Separator, marches to the tomb as a conqueror, intent on denying Death yet another victim. And, as Fr. Farley says, “looking on that blocked-up cave, He beheld not just the buried corpse of His friend, but the corpse of the whole world.” By raising Lazarus, Jesus gives the world a foretaste of the victory that he would win over death through his death, resurrection, and ascension, as well as an anticipation and an image of the final resurrection from the dead.

Holy Father Lazarus, pray to the Lord that our souls may be saved!

Update on Floyd and Ancuta Frantz in Romania

2011-04-09T10:03:00.002-05:00

Archbishop Andrei Andreicut

Greetings, and I hope that this finds you well today, and in good spirits on this most blessed day of Meatfare Tuesday.

It has been a few days since our last newsletter, so I am sending one out to keep those interested up to date. Actually, we have been having some activities, and I have more than once felt the need to write.

A most blessed thing was that one of the babies in Ancuta's program, The Protection of the Theotokos Family Center was baptised recently. What was really nice about this was that the father of the child was there. This is sort of unusual, as usually the mother is abandoned by the father when she gets pregnant. He had been in jail, but is out, and trying to find some real work. We hope for all the best for him, and will try to find him a job. This may be hard to do, as things are pretty slow over here these days. I was able to chat with him a little, and he seems like a nice guy who just needs a good start in life.

We have a new bishop in Cluj, Archbishop Andrei Andreicut. I knew him previously, and we are very much looking forward to working with him. Well, we have in a way, as yesterday we did a training course for a priest and some other folks from Turga Murus, a town 70,000 about 120 km from here. They are wanting to start a counseling center, and so we are helping them by doing some trainings for them.

A nice story, two of them actually. The first guy that came to our treatment program at Polyclinica St. Pantelimon, in 2001, has now celebrated 10 years of sobriety. This was a joy for me, as his life was a disaster before he got into our program. His wife was divorcing him, he could not hold down a joy, his kids were not speaking to him, and it was all down hill. All of that is now in order, and he is back in his Church. Also, he is working with alcoholics in the Greco-Catholic archdioceses program. (We had a hand in starting that one also!! The guys who actually started it up and got the finances for it had both gotten sober in our program!)

Well, there are many churches but only one God. I thank him for his love for each of us. Please do keep us in your prayers, we always need them.

In His Love,
Floyd & Ancuta Frantz
OCMC Missionaries in Romania

If you would like to contact us please use: floydfrantz@gmail.com

You can visit the St. Dimitrie Programs web page at www.stdimitrie.org

If you would like to make an online donation in support of our work in Romania please go to the Orthodox Christian Mission Center web site at www.ocmc.org After finding the Frantz Family page, you will need to log in, but it is a simple process and it is very important to us. You may also call 877-GO-FORTH, and they will assist you with making a donation online or with your card.

Christ’s Work of Salvation in the Third Century Church Fathers - Part 3

2011-04-08T22:12:00.002-05:00

This is the final installment of this discussion. The first installment can be read here. The second can be read here.

Modern Orthodox understanding has elements of each of the four atonement perspectives. Certainly, Christ is seen as conquering Satan and death. As Christians proclaim during Pascha: “Christ is risen from the dead; trampling down Death by death, and upon those in the tombs, bestowing life.” The Healing perspective is also prevalent, as Christ is truly the “Great Physician” and His grace is considered a type of medicine, administered in the spiritual hospital – the Church. Orthodoxy refuses to reduce Christ’s work of salvation to a single metaphor, so therefore the Kaleidoscope theory is relevant. Perhaps more problems have been associated with the Penal Substitution theory than all others, so it deserves a more complete treatment.

After Anselm produced his theory of Satisfaction in the Twelfth Century, Western Christianity adhered to his teaching, both Roman Catholic and Protestant. Christ is shown to pay the penalty of mankind’s sin, which a judgmental God requires. Unfortunately, though there are certainly currents of this understanding found in the New Testament, where Jesus serves as a ransom, and even in the Old Testament, where his followers find healing in his suffering (see Isaiah 53), Anselm’s interpretation puts undue emphasis on this understanding, to the exclusion of the others. Orthodoxy maintains that Christ did offer Himself as a ransom, but in order to take on human form, in order that “the human person is called from non-being into being…and with whom reconciliation has been effected through Christ’s sufferings." The concept of paying a price to a vengeful God – or the Devil – is absent in Orthodox theology. Rather, Christ is seen as bringing life by becoming what we are. The sufferings are not necessarily a penalty to be paid, as much as a participation in the totality of the human condition.

None of this further development of the doctrines concerning Christ’s saving work would have been possible had the early Christian writers not struggled with these questions. It was through their work that later teachers were able to build, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, a proper understanding of salvation and atonement. The theory of recapitulation, which built upon the teachings of the Apologists, led to further understanding of this salvific work, which in turn led teachers, such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Methodius to further developments. The difficult questions of Christ as Ransom, Christ as Conqueror, Christ as Healer, and more were an important part of their thought and teaching. While none of these Third Century writers seemed to formulate a final version of these things, as understood by later Orthodoxy, their work was instrumental in what developed later.