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The Orthodox Church
By Katherine Clark Bravo Ltd
Copyright © 2009 Bravo Ltd
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-85733-640-5
CHAPTER 1
Jesus' Life
The life of Jesus Christ and the events that immediately preceded and followed it are at the root of all Christian worship. Thus our account of the Eastern Orthodox Church is best begun with the Christian 'story'.
What we know of Jesus' life comes from the Gospels (from "godspel" in Old English: the 'good news') of SS Matthew, Mark, Luke and John in the New Testament of the Bible. These texts were written between about AD 60 and 80 – that is, about thirty to fifty years after Jesus died. He was born to a Jewish family in Bethlehem in Judea, just southwest of Jerusalem, during the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus, nominally in the first year of our era. Since our era begins with Christ's birth, dates are preceded by AD, in Latin anno domini, 'in the year of our Lord', or followed by BC for 'before Christ'. Much of what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories was then a kingdom within the Roman Empire, occupied by Roman forces and under the supervision of a Roman governor. At the time of Jesus' birth, the king of Judea was Herod the Great.
Jesus' parents were from Nazareth in what is now northern Israel. His earthly father, Joseph, was a carpenter, a widower who already had children by his first wife. But in fact Jesus had no earthly father: his young mother, Mary, though promised to Joseph, was still a virgin: she conceived her child miraculously, through the Holy Spirit, upon the visit to her of the Archangel Gabriel. This event, the Annunciation, is celebrated each year on 25 March. In religious art, one sees the winged Angel Gabriel addressing the Virgin, robed in blue, a dove representing the Holy Spirit hovering between them, as often depicted on the holy gates at the centre of the iconostasis (see Chapter 7: Visiting an Orthodox Church).
Jesus was born nine months later, on 25 December, in Bethlehem, where his father had taken the family for tax registration purposes. Although the Gospels tell us that the birth took place in a stable, the inn in Bethlehem being full, Orthodox art shows the nativity in a cave, in accord with the events related in the Protoevangelium of James, a non-canonical early Christian account. Three wise men or kings from the East, guided by a star, came to adore the infant Jesus, as did shepherds, to whom an angel had appeared in their fields, announcing the miraculous birth, accompanied by a 'multitude of the heavenly host' singing 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men'. We celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ with the holiday that bears his name: Christmas (Christ's mass).
His parents presented him at the Temple forty days later, on 2 February. This scene, too, is popular in Orthodox iconography: the mother presenting the baby to the aged priest Simeon, to whom God had promised that he would see the world's salvation before he died. Simeon, beholding the child, expressed his joy in the beautiful words that are repeated every evening at the vesper service: 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.' (Luke 2: 29–32.) To this day Orthodox mothers present their babies to the priest at their church forty days after giving birth.
We then lose sight of Jesus until he is about twelve years of age, when he appears in the Temple in Jerusalem, disputing on equal terms with the learned scholars there. After that he drops out of sight again until he is about thirty, when he is baptised in the Jordan river by his cousin John, a popular preacher and hermit living in desert places. John foresaw Jesus' coming, saying to the people who came to hear him preach, 'I indeed baptize you with water, but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.' And indeed, when Jesus presents Himself for baptism, John recognises his divinity and says, 'Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' And 'the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased.' The feast of Theophany (Epiphany in the West) on 6 January celebrates this event. On this occasion the waters are blessed, and in some countries – in Greece, for instance – intrepid local youth dive into the freezing waters to retrieve the cross the priest tosses into them.
Jesus gathered about himself twelve disciples: Peter and his brother Andrew, James and his brother John, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, Matthew, another James, Thaddeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot. A number of women also gathered around him and are mentioned by name: Mary and Martha, sisters, Johanna, Susanna, Mary Magdalene and many others.
Jesus travelled with his disciples from place to place in Israel and Judea, preaching to the people who assembled to hear him. His message can be easily summarised: people should love, first, God, their creator, with all their hearts and all their minds and all their strength, and they should love other people as they love their own selves. He taught them how to pray with a clear and simple prayer, known today as the Lord's Prayer, which is spoken in every Orthodox service:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
He announced a new set of human priorities and principles that expressed God's sympathy with the poor and downtrodden, as revolutionary an idea then as it is now. These 'Beatitudes' or 'blessings' gave a promise of hope to the impoverished and the suffering in a world that did even less to succour them than ours does today. He said:
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye when people shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.
Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.
(Matthew 5: 3–12)
Although Jesus addressed particularly the lower levels of society – the poor, thieves, tax extortionists, prostitutes, etc. – his message appealed to people of all kinds, including the rich and even Roman military officers. His method of teaching often involved parables – little stories with a moral point – which stayed in people's minds and gave them food for thought. The parables of the prodigal son, the wise and foolish virgins with their lamps, the servants and their talents, the house built on sand, the seed falling on fertile or stony ground are some of the ones that are best known.
Jesus also performed many miracles, such as multiplying a few fish and loaves of bread into enough food to feed a huge assembly of people, changing water into wine, walking upon the sea and calming it, driving out of people the demons that possessed them, healing people of leprosy, blindness, menstrual disorders and madness, and even raising the dead. These miracles attested to Jesus' being in truth a man filled with divine power: the son of God – though as he said again and again, it was the people's faith that healed them. And in a great mystical event, celebrated on 6 August as the Transfiguration, He appeared on Mount Tabor near Nazareth in what is now Israel to Peter, James and John, radiant in the light of His glory, the Son of God indeed.
Jesus' activities did not only win him friends, however. As his popularity grew, he was sometimes called 'King of the Jews', a title that did not sit well with the occupying Roman power or with the Jewish establishment, which sought to cooperate with the Romans, preserve Jewish tradition and law, and keep the peace in their occupied country. As matters came to a head, Jesus foresaw what was coming and held a final dinner in Jerusalem with his disciples on the eve of the great Jewish feast of Passover in about the year 33 of our era. This 'last supper' with his twelve disciples is often depicted in art. It was at that dinner that he broke bread and passed pieces to his disciples, saying as he did so that the bread was to be seen as his body, broken on their behalf. He also passed wine to them saying that the wine was his blood. He asked them when they ate bread and drank wine in future to do this in remembrance of him. And Christians do just this every time they participate in the sacrament of communion.
That same evening he went with them to pray in the garden of Gethsemane just outside the walls of Jerusalem, and it was there that Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, betrayed him – ironically identifying him with a kiss to the multitude from the Temple authorities who were searching for him. He was ultimately brought before the Roman governor at the time, Pontius Pilate, who yielded to the pressure of the mob roused by the Jewish leaders, convicted Jesus of sedition, and condemned him to death by crucifixion, a common but particularly cruel, lingering and humiliating form of execution reserved for outlaws and the lowest ranks of society.
Jesus was crucified at about 9.00 in the morning on a Friday, declared dead and removed from the cross at about 3.00 the same afternoon, and given to friends for immediate burial. The Orthodox remember Christ's suffering and crucifixion throughout Great Week, the week before Easter Sunday, and particularly on Great (Good) Friday, the day of Jesus' crucifixion. His mother, disciples and friends, bereft of their beloved leader, were grieved and desperate. They loved him personally, but even more important, he was their rabbi, their teacher – the fount of all their hopes in this world and the next. They had built their lives and futures around him, and they counted on him and the promises he had made to them for eternal life.
On the following Sunday morning – that is, the third day – some of his women followers visited his tomb, where they found to their horror and astonishment that it was wide open and empty. They supposed that the tomb had been desecrated and the body stolen by the Jewish establishment or the Romans, who for their part, would surely believe Jesus' followers had stolen it to stage a miracle. As Mary Magdalene turned aside and wept, Jesus himself appeared to her and called her by name: He had risen from the dead! Like all Christians, the Orthodox celebrate this great miracle at Easter, the foremost festival in the Orthodox Church calendar. The women told the astonished disciples the amazing news, and that same day Jesus appeared to them as they met together, huddled behind closed doors for fear of the wrath of the authorities.
During the ensuing weeks, Jesus appeared on various occasions to a number of persons, speaking and even dining with them and showing the wounds from his crucifixion to St Thomas, who would not believe the miracle until he saw them (thus 'doubting Thomas').
On the fortieth day after His resurrection, Jesus was taken up bodily into heaven. This we celebrate as Ascension Day, forty days after Easter. Again his followers were left alone and desolate – but only for ten days this time. Fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead, the Comforter or Counsellor He had promised to send to abide with them for ever – the Holy Spirit – descended upon them all, conferring on these simple, uneducated persons great faith and powers: eloquence, charisma and the ability to speak foreign languages. And thus the Holy Orthodox Church was founded, imbued with the Holy Spirit, on Pentecost, fifty days after Easter.
CHAPTER 2
The Early Church
In AD 33, after Jesus had lived his life, preached his message, performed his miracles, died, risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, Christianity was still a long way from being an organised 'Church' as we understand the term. How, then, did Christianity actually get started as an institution? Just what happened to the Christians – Jesus' friends, those who had heard him preach, those who heard the new doctrine from others, and all of the generations of Christians that followed them – over the next two hundred and eighty years until Christianity was finally legitimised in AD 313?
We do not know very precisely. The new religion appealed largely to a small minority of the population of the Roman Empire – a predominantly poor, uneducated and powerless minority at that. Whenever Christianity did show signs of rising to greater prominence, it attracted the attention of the authorities, who viewed it as theologically, philosophically, socially and politically suspect and a threat to the status quo. They reacted by firmly and repeatedly quashing it. So Christians kept a very low profile, meeting in secret in people's houses, in out-of-the-way places in the countryside, or underground in catacombs.
What we do know about the first centuries of Christianity is mostly to be found in the New Testament of the Bible, written between AD 50 and 120, the writings of the Apostolic Fathers (the second- and third-generation Christians of the first century and the first half of the second century) and, ironically, through records of the verbal and physical attacks on Christians and Christianity by their detractors. Traces of early Christianity are also to be found in a few catacombs with early Christian art and artefacts – fortunately and wonderfully preserved down through the millennia – where Christians met and worshipped in secret and buried their dead. The most famous and extensive of these are in Rome, but they are also to be found in much more unlikely places, such as the Greek island of Milos.
The Beginnings
The Eastern Orthodox Church traces its founding to Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus' resurrection. On this occasion, as we read in the Bible in the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus' eleven surviving disciples and Matthias – chosen to replace Judas, Jesus' betrayer (who had hanged himself) – had gathered together in Jerusalem. As Jesus had promised, the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit – the Comforter and Spirit of Truth, the well-spring and source of spiritual life, Who is present everywhere and in all things – descended upon them. As we read in Acts 2: 1–4:
'And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as ofa rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.'
The visitation of the Holy Spirit to this assembly transformed them from a collection of individual followers of Christ to a body of worshippers with a shared object: in Greek an ecclesia or assembly of persons 'summoned forth' – in other words, a Church. Word of these wonders quickly spread, '... and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls' (Acts 2: 41). The Christian Church was on its way.
This principle of interaction between the Holy Spirit and an assembly of Christians has defined the decision-making structure of the Eastern Orthodox Church throughout history right down to our own time two thousand years later. It distinguishes the Orthodox Church significantly in both theory and practice from the hierarchically organised Roman Catholic Church. The Eastern Church is entirely decentralised, with no central authority at its head. Its tenets and operations are still determined – as at Pentecost – not by any single individual but by assemblies of Christians under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
The Influence of Greek
The three thousand souls who joined the infant Church at Pentecost were for the most part Jews, primarily poor and simple people like most of Jesus' followers. However, many were 'Hellenised' Jews: Greek-speakers who had adopted the Greek culture that predominated at that time among educated urban citizens of the Roman Empire of whatever nationality, much as the English language and American culture tend to predominate in our world today. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, was one such Hellenised Jew. In the early third century BC, the Egyptian king, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, had commissioned the translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek for his library in Alexandria. This translation, called the Septuagint after the committee of seventy scholars who completed it, was welcomed by Hellenised Jews who had lost their command of Hebrew. Thus it came to be used among early Christians and by the Orthodox Church. Altogether, language was to play a very important role in Christian Church history and in the evolution of the Orthodox Church: the power conferred by the Holy Spirit to those assembled at Pentecost to 'speak with tongues' – that is, to be fluent in a variety of languages – was thus of quite special significance.
Greek was the lingua franca not only of Hellenised Jews but of intellectuals throughout the Roman Empire, who read Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Plato and Aristotle in the original Greek. It remained the dominant language of Athens and Alexandria, whose universities and libraries (400,000 volumes in Alexandria!) made them, together with Rome, the intellectual capitals of the day.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Orthodox Church by Katherine Clark. Copyright © 2009 Bravo Ltd. Excerpted by permission of Bravo Ltd.
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