Metropolis day Missive 2007
Thanksgiving
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our national cultural feast of Thanksgiving presents us with a good opportunity to thank God for the earthly gifts that He has provided for us. It is always good to count our blessings. When we look at this planet and all that God provides for our earthly sojourn, we can only thankfully marvel at His wisdom.
But, on this day we should also thank God for providing eternal salvation for us through the staggering historical event of the Incarnation of the God-Man Christ. All things have become new in Christ Jesus. In giving thanks, we must also understand and ponder deeply what exactly this gift of salvation is.
"That is saved which is united to God" (Epist. 101, to Cledonius), as Saint Gregory the Theologian explained. We are united to God through the mysteries of Baptism and the Eucharist granted to us from our Christ through priesthood of the Church. This union through the Eucharist is a mystical reality that we experience in time, but it is “outside of time.” It is a foretaste of the life in the timeless presence of God. We carry the burden of our earthly bodies and “see through the glass darkly” (1Cor 13:12), as Saint Paul wrote, so our perception is limited during our earthly sojourn, but the union is real.
The Eucharist is the Blood of Christ, the “Blood of the New Testament” (Matt 26:28), the Blood of true doctrine. Any willful alteration of the word of truth given to us by our Savior can sever our union with Christ. Holy Tradition preserves the word of truth and guides us on the path of salvation. We live in an age of confusion that has been brought upon us by bishops of local Churches who have chosen to follow a different path. In the confused new model of world Orthodoxy bishops have become “Christian executives” who work out deals and mergers with other religions. This new model permeates the world and is a threat to any local Church that does not vigilantly guard the “faith once given unto the saints” (Jude 1:3). The guiding principle of the Church is not politics and business mergers, but it is the free acceptance of the word of truth. Without the truth, there is no union with God. Obedience to the word of truth prepares us for Baptism and the Eucharist and union with God. For this reason every generation of Christians has required “faithful men who [are]… able to teach others” (2 Tim 2:2). These “faithful men” are recognized, not by their connections to worldly power or wealth, but by their honesty, by their refusal to cooperate with falsehood. An honest desire to preserve that which was given to us from the time of the Apostles is all that is required.
The model of the Church given to us by our Christ is very simple: Eucharist, Bishop, Church. Our Christ gave us the Eucharist. From generation to generation this has been entrusted to faithful bishops that they might oversee their local Eucharistic communities. The local diocese should manifest the presence and ministry of a Spiritual Shepherd and his rational flock, each in their respective ministry. A Holy Synod should function as brother bishops who work together to guard the word of truth through adherence to the Holy Canons and not as business administrators and middle management. A local Church that attempts to diminish the significance of doctrine or becomes cynical towards the Holy Canons is at risk. There are many examples from the past 100 years of local Church jurisdictions that slowly began to conform to the principles of human organizations and, over time, compromised the truth.
All that could have been done by our Savior was done for us. The two thousand year history of the Church is a witness to the fact that He has provided the very structure of the Church for our salvation.
We need to clearly understand what salvation is and what the authentic structure of the Church is and what the proper relationships are between the different members of the Church and their ministry. The great heresy of our day is about the essential character of the Church. The spirit of Anti-Christ permeates the anti-church of ecumenism. There are many who do not believe in ecumenism, but are swept up into this heresy because they do not understand the relationship of the Eucharist, the bishop and Church. The preachers of falsehood use terminology to lead innocent and unknowing Christians astray into thinking that the role of a bishop is merely a “Church administrator” of some sort. There are many cases where the believer senses that something is wrong and celebrity “elders” in Greece and North America put their consciences to sleep through cunning words. We must be on our guard. A spiritual pedigree is no guarantee that a person will not fall away from the truth. Nicolas, one of the seven deacons chosen by the Apostles (Acts 6:5) afterward fell into heresy and Evagrius of Pontus was a disciple of Saint Basil the Great and later became a heretic. In his own day, Saint Paul warned the flock concerning false apostles and deceitful workers adding, “…and no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14).
I exhort Christians of every age and rank to study the early documents of the Saints and Church history regarding the Eucharist, the bishop and the Church in order to inoculate yourselves from this spiritual disease. The Holy Fathers of the Church (especially Saint Ignatius of Antioch) clearly teach that every Christian in a given diocese has a direct relationship with their bishop through the Eucharist that is served in his name. The doctrine a bishop preaches has a direct impact on this Eucharist and on his flock.
Christ came to call a rational, not an irrational flock. Vigilance is required of all members of the Church. You are all called to become informed laymen and women, bearers of the light of the knowledge of Holy Tradition. As it is written in the Apostolic Constitutions:
I shall judge the bishop and the layperson. The sheep are rational and not irrational, so that no layman may ever say that, "I am a sheep, and not a shepherd, and I give no account of myself, but the shepherd shall see to it, and he alone shall pay the penalty for me." For even as the sheep that follows not the good shepherd shall fall to the wolves unto its own destruction, so too it is evident that the sheep that follows the evil shepherd shall acquire death; for he shall utterly devour it. Therefore, it is required that we flee from destructive shepherds.
Apostolic Constitutions
PG 1,633
Always expect, from us your bishops, clear answers concerning doctrine and ecclesiology. It has been the legacy of our older clergy to always respectfully seek clarification from their bishops in time of doubt. Out of respect for them and for our own salvation we must preserve this legacy.
Let each one of us give thanks by worshipping God in spirit and in truth and by partaking of the Holy Eucharist, that by thus so doing we fulfill God’s design for us, even our union with Christ Jesus our Salvation. Amen.
May our Savior bless you and your families with peace and concord.
Your fervent suppliant unto the Lord,
+Metropolitan Moses
Bibliography
Epistles of Saint Ignatius of Antioch http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.html
The Unity of the Catholic Church By Saint Cyprian of Carthage http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iv.v.i.html
EUCHARIST, BISHOP, CHURCH: The Unity of the Church in the Divine Eucharist and The Bishop During the First Three Centuries by John D. Zizoulas, Metropolitan of Pergamon. A historical and theological study exploring the origins and development of Church. A classic work on ecclesiology translated from the Greek. 280pp.
The Eucharist, the Word and the Bishop (A Patristic reflection upon Intercommunion) Fr. Michael Azkoul emphasizes that “the Eucharist, the Word and the Bishop are threee dimensions of the same reality, the sin qua non of the Church, that without which there can be no Church (A pamphlet of the Holy Orthodox Metropolis of Boston
A Clergyman’s Handbook, the Holy Orthodox Metropolis of Boston
Love is long-suffering, is kind; love doth not envy; love doth not vaunt itself, is not puffed up, it doth not behave itself unseemingly, seeketh not its own, is not provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in falsehood, but rejoiceth in the truth; it beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things, love never faileth. ---Saint Paul