ROMANTICIZING HOLY ORTHODOXY

© 2003 by Orchid Land Publications

[20030621] 

     It is very easy to fall into over-romanticizing the Orthodox Christian religion.  Her antiquity, a dozen to fifteen centuries older than current forms of Western Christianity, the beauty of her customs, her music, and (when properly served) her services, her sufferings under Islam and Communism and her vast and glorious array of Neo-Martyrs in the Twentieth Century, the steadfastness and ascetic holiness of her Fathers and Mothers, and the great learning and piety of her ancient teachers all promote a tendency to being romanticized in an age in which individualistic, minimalizing, and relativistic (or even syncretistic) views as well as a lot of hustle and bustle characterize religion, along with attempts to theologize along the lines of temporarily fashionable contemporary philosophies, have largely replaced the teachings of the Eastern (or any other) Fathers and Mothers of other forms of Christianity and indeed invaded quarters of holy Orthodoxy.  (Greed will ever be will some leaders of any religion; probably none are free of it except perhaps some Quakers.)  It hardly bothers most people to realize that a set of slogans not backed up by reason are really superstitions.  People that could not afford to allow sloppy thinking in their professions or occupations, who nevertheless claim that religion is "the most important thing" there is belie their protestations.  For what the mind views as important is not something that the mind side-steps and backs off from.
     In an age emphasizing "what EGO gets out it" and  in which human-directed activities (sermons, prayers for the people, music appealing to the congregation, collections to keep things going, etc.) replace God-addressed Worship, an age in which real Worship in any mind-body and exclusively doxological sense has withered on most of the religious vines outside of Asia and Africa, Orthodoxy is out of place.  That lends it some appeal in some quarters.  There is nothing wrong to being drawn to icons, candles, incense, prostrations, female headdress in the temple, and colored vestments and ornaments--which have nothing to offer the post-Puritan or Gnostic æsthetic that has invaded even Latin Christianity.  But if one stops there and does not seek to understand Orthodox belief and practise Orthodox piety, it is all in vain.  The beauty of Orthodoxy is not "romantic"; you only have to look at the austere art of the icon to see that--and compare it with Western (or Indic) religious art--whose greatest examples are romantic.  (Gothic cathedrals were built before romanticism set it; like many Orthodox temples, they utilize the principle of the arch.)   Being exotic can be good or bad; in the pluralistic cultures of Europe, Americas, Australian, and New Zealand, our kind of religion can seem sterile or attractive, though the Puritanical/Gnostic view of religious art in the West leans toward the sterility judgment.   Orthodox austerity in thought, art, and piety is in no way romantic!  Romanticizing Orthodoxy distorts it, even to the extent of romanticizing the strictness of Orthodox piety!
     Aside from all of that is another consideration.  When an idealized and romanticized view of Orthodoxy runs up against reality, it falls apart as one sees how much ignorance, striving for pre-eminence, mismanagement, laxity, and even relativism in belief (even without the hangover of the centuries of the Latin captivity of Orthodox thinking)" is tolerated in Orthodoxy.  The West has--let me dare say it--things to contribute to Orthodoxy as it exists in some quarters:  Freedom of religion from state control and forced heterodox prayers in our schools, concern for right rule, an eagerness and zeal in missionary work that responds to Christ's final injunction in St. Matthew's Gospel, etc.  These can be overdone of course.  That one can sacrifice higher things for "efficiency," "good financing," and the like does not mean that such things are necessarily at war with higher things when they are not overdone.

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     *During the centuries when the Turks ruled the Balkan nations, they did not allow the printing of Orthodox liturgical books.  Hence, they were sent to Venice to be printed.  But the Latins there censored out things they did not like, e.g. the Eighth Orthodox Ecumenical Synod and St. Mark Evyenikos as well as the Ninth Ecumenical Synod and  St. Gregory Palamãs.  Latin notes were interpolated into St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain's collection of the Canons--The Pedalion "Rudder."  (These interpolations remain in the English translation!)  The invasion of Jesuit educators into Russia, Ukraïne, etc. so undermined pure Orthodoxy that, to take the most prominent of many examples, Bishop Mogila of Kiyev wrote a Latinizing confession of faith (still published by the Uniates) with "seven sacraments" and "seven" Orthodox ecumenical Synods.  (Mogila died just before his planned submission to the Roman papacy.)  Many have mistaken such bowdlerized works to represent Orthodox teaching; Mogila's Confession has even been edited to make it more Orthodox!    Examples of doctrinal confusion are found in teachings about "the original sin" of Eve and Adam (whose guilt we do not believe to be inherited by or imputed to subsequent newborns); in juridicalized soteriological teachings about satisfaction, etc.;  in teachings, despite our prayers (though partly because our rites and our doctrinal writings in English have been so grossly mistranslated) about the "Assumption" (there are even parishes named "Assumption") that differ radically from the Orthodox Dormition; in teachings about the Theophany (there are even Orthodox parishes named "Epiphany"); etc.