Jacob's Well - Fall 2019 - Trust

Jacob’s Well Orthodox Church in America Diocese of New York and New Jersey / Fall 2019

trust

Jacob’s Well FALL 2019: “TRUST”

Published with the blessing of His Eminence, the Most Reverend Michael, Archbishop of New York and the Diocese of New York & New Jersey EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Presbyter Matthew Brown EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Nick Tabor

COPY EDITOR

Deacon David Maliniak ART DIRECTION & DESIGN

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FRONT AND REAR COVERS

Liviu Vasu, 2019. Parishioner of Holy Virgin Protection Cathedral. Artist and Owner of Dacia Gallery in Manhattan, NY.

Contents

Diocesan Life 4

Faith as Trust

by Archbishop Michael

6

Letter from the Editor

8

Toward an Immersive Church-School Experience

by Susan Lukianov

11

Orthodoxy on Tap

by Spyridoula Fotinis

12

Remembering Archbishop Basil (Rodzianko)

by Archpriest Thomas Edwards

15

Notes from last issue

16

Letter from Coxsackie

by Brian Hodges

Daily Bread 34

18 22 24

28

32

Trust as Action

by Jim Forest Trust in the Church

by Presbyter Joshua Frigerio

The Working Out of God's Love

by Archpriest John Shimchick

Heresy and the Scriptural Canon

by Presvytera Jeanne Constantinou

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40

Aragorn's Archetype

by Matthew Franklin Cooper | FA MILY LIF E |

43

And Then You Came for Me

by Matushka Lauren Huggins | LI T U R G Y & LIF E |

45

The Manna, the Tablets, and the Rod

by Hieromonk Herman (Majkrzak)

Trusting the Pastoral Call

by Jeremiah McKemy | FR O M MY YO U T H |

49

An IOCC Conference in Minneapolis

by Josh Brad

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Holy Land Pilgrimage Q&A with Daniel Rogozenski

| HIST O R Y |

Restoring Trust In the Global Orthodox Communion

by Deacon Nicholas Denysenko Our Scandalous Emperor-Saint

by Presbyter Justin Patterson

The Myth of the Flat-Earth Myth

by Noah Beck | S C R IP T U R E |

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Feature Essays

| NOTES FROM SE MINARY |

| S C IE N C E|

| R E V IE W S |

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On Modern Psychology and Ancient Wisdom

by Ben Keaster

54

The Cost of Lies

by Presbyter Matthew Brown | PO ETR Y |

57

After Holy Communion

by Nick Skiles | CHIL DR E N 'S PA G E S |

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Nativity coloring page

59

Nativity word mix-up

Faith as Trust

by Archbishop Michael Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths.

(Proverbs 3:5–6)

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believe; help my unbelief !” (Mark 9:24) For most of us this will remain our constant prayer, right up to the very moment we close our eyes to this world. Yet, in itself, this doubt does not signify a lack of faith. In fact, it may actually mean the opposite— that our faith is alive and striving and growing! For faith implies not complacency or apathy, but taking risks. Faith implies not shutting ourselves off from the unknown, but rather advancing boldly to meet the unknown, having God with us.

here is a huge difference between declaring one’s belief that something exists or happened and declaring belief in something or someone. In the Nicene Creed, we do not say, “I believe that there is a God,” but rather we affirm, “I believe in One God.” It is possible for me to believe that someone or something exists without that belief An Example from the Old Testament having any practical effect upon my life.

The pages of the Bible provide us with two incrediSo, for instance, I can open up a telephone direc- ble examples of such a personal, living, and trusting tory and find the names and phone numbers of many faith. From the Old Testament, there is an account of a city’s residents. Thus, I am prepared to believe of unimaginable sacrifice that required incredible that these people (or at least most of them) actually faith—the story of Abraham and Isaac (Gen. 22). For do exist. But I don’t know any of them personally; I parents, this is perhaps the most gut-wrenching story have never visited them, and my belief that they exist in all of Scripture. It is difficult to comprehend the has no effect whatsoever in my life. faith it would take to offer the life of our own child On the other hand, when I say to a much-beloved to God. And yet, this is precisely what Abraham was family member or friend, “I believe in you,” I am ex- prepared to do, in obedience, with his own son Isaac. pressing far more than the notion that this person The tension in this passage is excruciating—especially exists. “I believe in you” means that I turn to that when Isaac realizes that something is wrong, and he person, I rely upon that individual, I put my full trust asks his father: “The fire and the wood are here, but in that person, I hope in that individual. This is pre- where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” cisely what we are saying to God when we recite the Abraham, having nothing other than real trust in Creed. the character and goodness of God, replied: “God Faith in God is not the conclusion of our reason- Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, ing or the certainty of our logic. To believe in God is my son.” After journeying to the top of Mount Moriah, not to accept the possibility of His existence, because Abraham placed his bound son upon the altar and it has been “proven” to us by some argument, but it is raised his knife. Suddenly, an angel of the Lord cried to put our trust in the One Whom we know and love. out from Heaven, “Abraham! Abraham! Do not lay a Faith is not the reasoned conclusion that something hand on the boy!” Abraham looked up to see a ram might be true; it is the assurance that Someone is caught in a thicket. God had indeed provided the there. sacrifice, and Isaac was set free to new life.

Abraham’s trust in God is the greatest example of A Personal Relationship faith in the Old Testament, one which came at the This means that faith is not a logical certainty but a cost of unimaginable emotional pain and suffering. personal relationship. Because this personal relation- But it is also one of the clearest pictures we have of ship is as yet incomplete in each of us and needs to the Gospel message from the pages of the Covenant continually develop further, it is very possible for our of old: A loving father who was willing to sacrifice faith to co-exist with our doubt. There are some of us his one and only son… only to have this son returned who, by God’s grace, retain throughout their lifetime to him alive! the faith of a child. As such, they are able to accept all that they have been taught without question. My The Example from the New Testament dear grandmother was like that. But for most of us Along with this stirring story, there are other accounts who live in our western, technological world, such an from the Old Testament that reflect faith as trust in attitude is hardly possible. We have to make our own God, such as the parting of the Red Sea, the collapse the cry of the father in the Gospel account: “Lord, I of the walls of Jericho, and the three youths in the

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fiery furnace. But none of these is “more impossible” than the Virgin bearing within her womb the Incarnate Son of God! Yet this is exactly what we read in the first chapter of Matthew’s Gospel account— that the angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin named Mary and told her: “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. You will conceive and bear a Son, and you shall call his name Jesus.”

The choice placed before the Theotokos would forever change her life. To embrace God’s plan would result in a cloud of suspicion and shame hanging over her and her family. It would cause her heart to suffer untold pain and grief, as her Son would suffer a brutal and unjust death on the Cross. It would place her on the front lines of the eternal struggle between the forces of Heaven and hell.

Yet, in spite of all these things, Mary said to Gabriel, “I am the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.” What a powerful statement of faith! And, in response, the prophecy of Isaiah 7:14 was fulfilled: “The Virgin will conceive and bear a Son, and will call Him ‘Emmanuel’ (which means ‘God is with us’).” The Theotokos’ words are an example to all who would follow the Lord in faith. No matter what the obstacle, no matter what the cost or the danger, we all would do well to make the words of the Virgin Mary our own personal declaration of faith: “I am the handmaid (or the servant) of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word.”

Trusting the God Who Is Love Faith, then, as we see from the examples of Abraham and the Theotokos, signifies a personal relationship with God—a relationship that is incomplete and faltering, but nonetheless real. It is to know God not as a theory or an abstract principle, but as a person. To know a person is essentially to love him or her; there can be no true awareness of other persons without mutual love. We don’t have any genuine knowledge of those whom we hate or those who are strangers.

So, we have two simple and clear ways of speaking about the God Who surpasses all understanding—He is personal, and He is love. And these are really two ways of saying the same thing. One way of entering into the mystery of God is through personal love. And we do that with a faith that is trust. As we read in The Cloud of Unknowing, “He may well be loved, but not thought. By love He can be caught and held, but by thinking never.”

Seek Him with Your Whole Heart In the 11th century, Saint Symeon the New Theologian described how Christ revealed Himself in a vision of light to the monastic:

The Sacrifice of Isaac Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn.

(Oil on canvas, 1635)

“You shone upon me with brilliant radiance and, so it seemed, You appeared to me in Your wholeness, as with my whole self I gazed openly upon You. And when I said, ‘Master, who are You?’, then You were pleased to speak for the first time with me, the prodigal. With what gentleness did You talk to me, as I stood astonished and trembling, as I reflected a little within myself and said: ‘What does this glory and this dazzling brightness mean?

How is it that I am chosen to receive such great blessings?’ … ‘I am God,’ You replied, ‘Who became man for Your sake; and because you have sought Me with your whole heart, see from this time onwards you shall be My brother, My fellow-heir, and My friend.’”

Solomon the wise tells us, across the cavalcade of three thousand years: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6). For He is the One Who loves us more than we love ourselves!

The Most Rev. Michael (Dahulich) is the Archbishop of the Diocese of New York and New Jersey (OCA). He is also the Rector of Saint Tikhon's Orthodox Theological Seminary.

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From the Editor

by Presbyter Matthew Brown

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rust: It’s precisely because it is ordinary and ubiquitous that it is profound. We scarcely realize how important a role it plays in our society and our relationships. Almost all our knowledge is based on trust.

Ask yourself this question: Where did your knowledge of history or literature come from? Did you dig up the artifacts yourself or personally visit the archaeological excavation? Did you read the original manuscripts of Shakespeare or the Gospel of Matthew? No, you didn’t. You’ve only read copies of copies of copies.

Almost everything you know about the world, including the existence of Antarctica, is mediated through other people whom you trusted.

Even if we could experience everything firsthand, it wouldn’t obviate the need for trust. A vast body of evidence, from psychological studies to courtroom eyewitness testimonies, has shown that our senses aren’t always as reliable as they seem. Approximately 71% of all wrongful convictions in the United States have involved mistaken eyewitness identification.

Since the 1960s, social scientists have pointed out the problematic nature of eyewitness reliability. Among the most comprehensive reviews of this problem can be found in the 2014 report by the National Academy of Sciences titled: “Identifying the Culprit: Assessing Eyewitness Identification.”

Furthermore, the more our experiences are filtered through digital screens, the more our perceptions become suspect. Take the example of “the dress,” which swept the internet in 2015. Over a period of several days, millions of social-media users debated whether a garment depicted in a photo was blue and black or white and gold. Scientific experiments later showed their perceptions were affected by ambient

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lighting and the quality of their display screens.

We often complain about living in a “post-fact” culture. As a society, the ease with which we dispense with facts underscores the importance of trust for the human mind. We are wired, it seems, not to be factual, but to be trusting—because, over the long course of time, facts have been hard to access and confirm. Trust has been necessary for survival. Evolutionary psychology tells us that perception is not in the business of truth—it’s in the business of useful adaptive behavior. It is far more efficient to function by trust and supplement with facts later.

Trust always involves undertaking a risk. It requires us to assume some degree of danger: of being deceived, of losing time or money or dignity. We try to minimize that risk by basing our trust on evidence, such as past experiences, probability, and empirical data. People who have already earned our trust can also be helpful guides. This is important in our faith as in every other part of our lives. At the same time, skepticism can sour into cynicism and pervasive doubt, and this is an untenable way to live. It is incompatible with any kind of true happiness; it leads to isolation and despair. Blind trust and cynicism are both attempts to escape from the responsibility, risk, and hard work required for trust.

By and large, modern industrialized societies tend toward the second mistake. Trust in institutions, from governments to nonprofits to universities, is at an alltime low. The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer report recorded a 14-point decline in global trust compared to last year. Conspiracy theories are rampant. Millions mistrust journalists and scientists. Lay people mistrust clergy. The clergy mistrust the people. Many people outside the Church think religion is a scam.

The consequences of this systemic mistrust are no small matter. On the most basic level, a lack of trust makes everything work more slowly and with greater difficulty. Business deals are more difficult and costly. Law enforcement is less effective and therefore more expensive. Mercy and forgiveness are more often withheld. And the likelihood of violence greatly increased. Misunderstandings are numerous. This lack of trust even eats away at our prosperity and wealth. I recall a recent conversation I had with the father of a boy in my son’s Scout troop. The father, an exporter-importer, was talking about the challenges posed by the ongoing tariff wars between the U.S. and China. “It’s much more expensive to do business with someone you haven’t established a trusting business relationship with,” he lamented. In the absence of trust, even if it is merely that the person or company hasn’t had a chance to demonstrate its reliability yet, various financial and risk-management instruments are needed to mitigate potential losses and to create financial mechanisms to hold the other party accountable. These instruments are costly and eat into the profits of any given transaction. But with mutual trust established, such instruments can be forgone and profits increased.

Money, for example, is a symbol of trust. It symbolizes the possibility of engaging in an honest transaction. And money only has as much value as people believe that it has. The value of money is not a fact. It is a belief. Our whole economic system is based on trust. When cheating becomes rampant, commerce doesn’t work, markets don’t work, and the legal system doesn’t work, because when people believe the game is rigged, they stop playing by the rules. Recent events such as the regime change in the Ukraine or the Arab Spring occurred (in part) because of, and in response to, massive systemic corruption. There is a strong link between the level of corruption and social instability, if only for the reason that corruption (the breaking of social trust) causes economic inefficiencies. This explains why less developed countries are far less resilient to corruption (and also more susceptible to it) given their smaller pool of resources. One 2005 study estimated that the global cost of bribery—not to mention all the other forms of corruption—is as high as $1.5 trillion per year (or 2% of global GDP).

The same goes for religious institutions. The erosion of trust in the Roman Catholic Church, due largely to the clergy sex-abuse scandals, has had devastating consequences: declining membership, nationwide closing of parishes, and depleted finances. Deep mistrust for social institutions and the isolation and violence which eventually emerge from that mistrust

can collapse an entire society, or church. Trust is the life-blood of all human relationships from the simplest interpersonal ones to the most complex societies.

We don’t have a fact problem or a reason problem, but rather, we have a trust problem. It’s ruining our politics, our churches, our communities, and our families. Perhaps part of the cause for the opioid crisis and escalating suicide rates in our country is the breakdown of trust and the ensuing isolation and state of anxiety it creates. When we are alone, on edge, and never feel “at home” in a place and with a people we feel we can trust, we are fearful, anxious, and depressed.

Granted, some of our mistrust is understandable and even rational. Many of our institutions have failed us repeatedly of late. Yet, we cannot wait until every person or institution has attained the pinnacle of virtue or until every belief has amassed a perfect amount of evidence and passed all scrutiny before we extend our hand in trust. For no such day is ever likely to arrive, save that eternal day.

As Christians, the fragility of trust is something we must wrestle with in our spiritual lives and not merely in its societal breakdown. We are like Peter, beckoned to join Christ out on water, amidst the storm. When that trust breaks down and fear seizes us, we sink.

The fact is that our whole present life is one lived in the midst of a storm. We are always in that precarious circumstance of needing to summon the courage to trust God and one another. But what other choice do we have? What life can be lived without trust?

Getting over our fear of trust can be an exercise in humility and self-awareness. It’s a matter of recognizing how limited our knowledge and control of the world actually are, and of acknowledging that we’re not as rational as we think. How can the Gospel help guide us in this endeavor? How can our Church be part of the solution? The essays contained in this edition of Jacob’s Well approach this problem from various perspectives, some very personal and others more global. This issue hopes to offer a small contribution to addressing this problem. Being honest about our broken trust and not being afraid to confront the weakness of our faith is the first step. Denying or ignoring it is a sure way to make things worse.

The Rev. Matthew Brown is the Secretary of the Diocese of New York and New Jersey (OCA) and the Editor-in-Chief of Jacob’s Well. He is the rector of Holy Apostles Orthodox Church in Saddle Brook, New Jersey.

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Toward an Immersive Church-School Experience

by Susan Lukianov

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s your church empty? Sometimes mine is. We know attendance figures are down across most Orthodox jurisdictions in America, and I believe one reason is that our children do not feel engaged— and so parents aren’t coming to services either. Kids often get bored in church; it’s obvious when you see them wandering in and out of the nave or entertaining themselves with books and toys. Even when they are attentive and want to participate, many don’t know how. On top of this, there are constant demands on young families’ time: soccer games, ballet classes, homework assignments, sleepovers, and pool parties. Our parishes have competition and it feels like we lose more than we win.

As a longtime elementary educator, I think the most promising solution is a more robust churchschool experience. Too often, educating our children relies on lectures: a passive format in which adults talk at the kids. Instead, our childrens’ classes should resemble the cycle of services in the Orthodox Church, which are designed to immerse us.

Our children deserve learning experiences that excite them and encourage them to ask questions.

I propose a model for church school that is engaging, active, tactile, informative, and stimulates growth.

If you build it, they will come!

During my career of more than 25 years, I have taught elementary students of all grades. I have also taught at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City, and I’ve served as a church school teacher and a summer church-camp leader and instructor. I am now the math and science specialist for an elementary school in Connecticut. Following the church’s example of immersive worship, I have developed a series of learning experiences called “Teaching Our Children About Prayer and Faith,” which center on the physical elements of liturgical life: water, incense, church bread, bells, candles, icons, and church buildings. When I teach children about bells, for instance, they learn about the significance of bells in the church. But they also get opportunities to listen to different tolls, ring bells, strike talantons, and make bells of their own. They become actively involved in their own learning, and they learn how to behave toward these elements in the course of it all. jacob's well

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I’d like to share some of my experiences, in case others would like to replicate these classes or build upon them.

A month of Sundays The lessons I’ve created are easily adaptable for various settings. I’ve delivered them to large multiaged groups (20+ children at once) and to a smaller single-aged group (four students). Most recently, I was asked to facilitate these sessions with a small group of multi-aged, multilingual children (aged 3–10) at Saints Peter and Paul Orthodox Church in Jersey City. Although adaptable, the one non-negotiable element is the length of time required for each session: each one takes at least two hours to allow ample time for the tactile experiences. At Ss. Peter and Paul, we held these one Saturday a month, from 3–5 p.m., followed by Great Vespers. These were held in lieu of the regular Sunday School sessions, but students and parents were asked to share their learning the next day (Sunday) at coffee hour.

Many hands make light work Planning and preparation are key. I had to be certain of my content knowledge of the Church and her teachings, as well as how to make each element. I kept in mind the words of Saint John of Kronstadt: “If you teach children—your own or other people’s children—let this work become a service to God; teach with zeal; study beforehand to make your teaching clear, intelligible, as complete as possible, fruitful.” On average, each session required about 5–6 hours of planning/research, and some required an additional hour or two for the physical prep of materials. For example, as part of our study of candles, I researched the history and use of candles in the Orthodox Church, how bees make beeswax, how to harvest it, and how to make beeswax candles.

While this program was designed for children, their parents and church-school teachers were invited to attend and volunteer. Something very interesting happened during our first session at Ss. Peter and Paul. In our original plan, I was to work with the children, and Father Joseph Lickwar, the parish priest, was to meet with the parents. After the opening prayer, we went to opposite sides of the hall.

Slowly the parent group began to migrate towards

Tomorrow's Church Sophie Maliniak (2019)

my group, and after about 30 minutes we were one large group. The parents were interested in having the same tactile experiences as the children. This was a turning point. We had hooked both children and parents.

Although I was responsible for the majority of the preparation and delivery of instruction, this work can easily be shared among volunteers. For example, one person can prepare the tactile component, another can research the church teachings, and yet another can organize and prepare the videos and other visual aids.

Go the extra mile This series elicited great enthusiasm from children and parents alike. The children were eager to share their knowledge and to take home products, such as bells or incense. Many adults said they had learned things about the Church as well—in fact, they expressed surprise at the amount they learned. But I also know that we all learned from the children.

The purity of their hearts, their curiosity, and their ability to see Christ where we do not remind us we need to be more like them.

As Orthodox Christians, we want our children to love God and become adults who are active participants in the Church (tithing and giving freely of time and talents); yet we do not always give them what they need to maintain their unconditional love of God and His Church. If we can provide them with learning experiences that mirror the richness of our services and give them a purpose/role in the church, then they just may choose church!

For additional information about this series or to obtain a digital copy of the lessons, please contact Susan Lukianov at slukianov10@gmail.com.

— The following is a brief outline of a session I’ve taught on incense:

◉ Opening Prayer ◉ Transition ◗ Have students move to different areas of the available space. This provides them with a movement break and reinforces that each area has a specific goal/function ◉ Introduction of the church element (water, candles, bells, incense, prosphora) ◗ Explore students’ prior knowledge ◗ Introduce new learning; set goals for the day ◗ Context setting: “Today we are going to make incense. But first, we need to learn the role, significance, and history of incense in the Church.” ◉ Activity 1 ◗ Concrete experience: Incense ▲ Provide samples of different types of incense for students to touch and smell ▲ Students share their thoughts and observations ◉ Activity 2 ◗ Concrete experience: The censer ◗ Provide at least one censer that students can look at and touch ▲ Explain the structure and symbolism of the parts of the censer ◉ Activity 3 ◗ Multimedia and Discussion ▲ Show digital images of frankincense and Boswellia sacra trees ▲ Show video of frankincense sap being harvested and discuss ◉ Activity 4 ◗ Concrete experience: Making incense ▲ Guides children through the process of making incense ◉ Wrap-up/Summary of learning (done by students)

Almonroth, License CC-BY-SA-3.0.

Susan Lukianov is the math and science specialist at The Peck Place School in Orange, Connecticut.

She is a parishioner at Presentation of Christ into the Temple Orthodox Church in Stratford, Connecticut.

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Orthodoxy on Tap

by Spyridoula Fotinis

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am 22 years old, and I am told there are not At another event, called “Orthodoxy off the Vine,” many people like me. I care about my faith, and I we pressed grapes with our feet to make wine for try, however imperfectly, to have it permeate every Holy Communion. (Don’t worry — we washed our part of my life. Many of my childhood friends are feet and wore single-use gloves!) We gifted our first no longer part of the Church and many of my peers bottle to His Eminence, Archbishop Michael, as a finding meaning in activities and ideas outside of thank-you for his talk at our last OOT in May before churches and other places of worship. However, the summer break. We also held “Orthodoxy on the with the growth of Orthodoxy on Tap in New York Rise,” where the women’s group from Saint Spyridon City over the last two years, I’ve met numerous Greek Orthodox Church, in Washington Heights, people my age who share my love for the Church taught us how to make the offering bread (prosand the desire to be part of a community. phora). And during Great Lent this year, we held I grew up in a Greek Orthodox parish in New “Orthodoxy on the Mind,” where one of our clergy Jersey, where my grandfather was the priest. After members hosted a trivia night with his Pani, ending high school, I attended the local community college, in an Easter egg hunt in anticipation of Pascha. where my experience in the Orthodox Christian Orthodoxy on Tap is entirely grassroots. It’s not Fellowship chapter strengthened my faith. I joined attached to any specific jurisdiction, so everyone the Student Leadership Board, and I felt empowered feels welcome, whether they’re Eastern Orthodox to serve the Church as a young woman, in a way I or Oriental Orthodox. Now when I church-hop, I never had before. After two years, I transferred to always run into someone I met at one of the events. the City University of New York in Manhattan, a It’s evolved into a beautiful community. We invite school without an OCF chapter, but slowly grew to one another to our parishes and to Bible studies. love the many Orthodox parishes around the city.

For many of us, including me personally, it provides I attended church close to school, and the parish critical support during this period between college priest and I spoke about growing an OCF presence graduation and possible marriage or aging out of on campus. But this idea evolved into a larger idea young adult groups. It is only one ministry, but it has for fellowship. We added another priest I knew well, begun to spark interest and motivation for young who had previously tried to begin Orthodoxy on adults to begin their own grassroots ministries to Tap in NYC, and we slowly began to discuss the create spaces to be together and continue to grow possibility of trying once more. as Orthodox Christian young adults.

A model for this already existed: Orthodoxy on The organization is supported by prayers, parish Tap, which started in Boston and later spread to donations, and contributions from our members.

Philadelphia and California. Once a month, each All donations support the renting of the restaurant chapter meets at a restaurant and has a guest speaker space and light appetizers or funding for food and give a presentation about some aspect of the Ortho- supplies for the unique events during fasting seasons. dox faith, followed by informal fellowship.

For questions, or to lend us a hand, please contact We planned our first event for January 2018 at us at orthodoxyontapnyc@gmail.com. the Olive Garden in Times Square. We invited Dr. Christos Durante to give a presentation on “OrthoSpyridoula Fotinis works for the Greek Orthodoxy and Multiculturalism,” and we advertised it on dox Archdiocese in the Department of Inter-OrthoFacebook and by word of mouth. To our amazement, dox, Ecumenical, and Interfaith Relations. She is more than 50 young adults showed up. Since then, a YES (Youth Equipped to Serve) Leader through we’ve expanded our leadership team and our online FOCUS North America and a member of the board presence. We’ve held most of our events at Pier A of Axia, an Orthodox women’s ministry. She is a Harbor House, a wonderful seafood restaurant in parishioner at Saint Spyridon Orthodox Church in Battery Park.

Washington Heights, New York City.

Some of our events have distinct themes. Our first event during last year’s Nativity fast was called “Orthodoxy in a Pinch,” and we learned how to pinch pierogies and then enjoyed them as a group.

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Portrait of a saint Jessica Ward, 2019.

Parishioner of Holy Apostles, Saddle Brook, New Jersey and Art Teacher for Jersey City Public Schools.

Remembering Bishop Basil (Rodzianko)

by Archpriest Thomas Edwards

The better I got to know him, the more I realized that Bishop Basil had one foot in our world and the other in the Kingdom of God.

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n Friday, September 17, 1999, Bishop Basil fell asleep in the Lord and passed all the way into the heavenly kingdom. It is not without irony that Vladyka fell asleep the day before he was to receive his U.S. citizenship. His beloved wife, Matushka Mary, was called by God the day before she was to have received her British citizenship.

In the previous 12 years, this imposing man, with his kind face, gleaming white beard, and captivating British accent, had profoundly touched many people in New York and New Jersey. Though he lived in Washington, D.C., Vladyka often visited our area, giving retreats, talks, and wise counsel to many of his spiritual children.

Vladimir Rodzianko was born May 22, 1915, on a family estate in Ekaterinoslav, in what is now Ukraine. His grandfather, Michael Rodzianko, was president of the Imperial Duma during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II. As an adult, Vladimir remembered being under his grandfather's dining-room table, listening to the grown-ups mulling over what to do after the Royal Family had been murdered. “Surely this will be over shortly,” he heard his grandfather say, “and we can then return to Russia. In the meantime we will go to our Orthodox brothers in Serbia.”

He recalled his ordinarily clean-shaven grandfather later disguised behind a long beard, escaping Russia by train.

The young man spent the rest of his childhood in Serbia. After he received his theological degree from the University of Belgrade, he married Mary Kolubayev in 1941 and was ordained to the Priesthood the same year. He served several parishes in northern Serbia during the Nazi occupation. Then, after World War II ended, he later recalled, “the Nazis marched out one door, and the Communists marched in another.” He was arrested by the Communists and charged with the high crime of preaching religious propaganda. He was sentenced to eight years imprisonment and hard labor. By this time, he had two young sons, Vladimir and Michael.

Upon entering prison, his beard was shorn and his cassock and cross were ripped off. “Now you're like all the other comrades!” his captors taunted. When asked, nearly half a century later, about his worst memories of imprisonment, Vladyka stated without hesitation, “The fleas!” The fleas were so bad that he felt he was being eaten alive.

Years later, over dinner at our house, he spoke about being deprived of the right to celebrate the divine services. “Well, not quite all,” he added.

Every day, the prisoners were taken outside into a quadrangle for an exercise period, which consisted of marching around the four walls in concentric

circles. On Theophany each year, Father Vladimir was able to bless water. Even the non-Orthodox and non-believers did their part, taking to the outer circle to give the Orthodox prisoners cover. Since it snowed every day, there was a ready water source.

As instructed by Father Vladimir, the inner circle of Orthodox sang the troparion of the feast in muffled tones: “When Thou, O Lord, wast baptized in the Jordan…” Father Vladimir blessed the snowflakes that fell on each and every prisoner, as well as every guard—though the guards were none the wiser.

Through the efforts of the Archbishop of Canterbury and a change in Tito’s policies, Father Vladimir was eventually released from prison and reunited with his family. They first went to France, where they were the guests of Archbishop John Shahovskoy, and later settled in England. In London, Father Vladimir, in addition to serving as a priest, took up a second passion that he’d harbored since childhood, when he was offered a position on BBC Radio. For the next 40 years, he produced religious radio programs that were broadcast into the Soviet Union through the BBC, the Slavic Gospel Association, Radio Vatican, and the Paris-based Voice of Orthodoxy, following in the footsteps of Father Alexander Schmemann.

Then tragedy hit his family. In 1978, his teenage grandson was killed in an assassination attempt intended for Father Vladimir himself. Because of his religious broadcasts into the Soviet Union, he had long been a target of the KGB. Later that same year, his wife reposed.

In 1979, Father Vladimir took monastic vows in England, adopting the name Basil. He was received into the Orthodox Church in America and was consecrated Bishop of Washington, D.C. on January 12, 1980. By then, Archbishop John Shahovskoy, the priest who had given Father Vladimir’s family shelter in France, was overseeing the Diocese of the West—but he was gravely ill. During the Archbishop’s final days, Bishop Basil stayed with him and served as his nurse. Afterward he himself was transferred to the See of San Francisco, a position he held until his retirement in 1984.

Bishop Basil returned to Washington, D.C. and for the rest of his years he continued religious broadcasts to Russia. My family and I visited his apartment in D.C. once, when he invited us over for lunch after Divine Liturgy. The place was akin to a monastic cell. In one corner was his chapel, complete with altar and iconostasis. Here he would serve weekday Liturgies for a small congregation who would easily fill the one room. When not in use, the chapel was closed off by a floor-to-ceiling 13

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curtain. In another corner was the Bishop's broad- Moscow had not seen such a religious procession casting studio, where he recorded tapes for subse- in 70 years. All the church bells in Moscow were quent broadcasts. There were floor-to-ceiling book- ringing, and above our heads the blue sky was filled cases along the walls, with icons and family portraits with giant hot-air balloons arrayed with huge icons. interspersed among the books.

On the same trip, I was approached after a sepaOne of the most spectacular memories I have rate service by one of the young choir singers. Upon of Vladyka occurred in Moscow in May of 1991. learning that I was from America, he asked, “Do you Bishop Basil had been asked by Patriarch Aleksi know Vladyka Basil Rodzianko?” To which I replied, to lead a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and back to “I know him quite well! In fact, he recently stayed Russia. The purpose was to bring back the Holy at our home for several days.” The young man said, Fire, which miraculously proceeds from the Tomb “In Russia we consider him a saint!” of Christ in Jerusalem each year on Holy Saturday.

For only the second time since the fall of Communism, the Patriarch would celebrate the Divine V. Rev. Thomas Edwards was the rector of Holy Liturgy in the Dormition Cathedral in Moscow's Apostles Church in Saddle Brook, New Jersey, for 30 Kremlin. The church was filled to capacity, and the years until his retirement in 2001. He now resides service was televised and seen all over Russia. When in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. the tremendous side doors of the cathedral were swung open, there standing with the sacred Holy Fire from Christ's Tomb raised for all was Bishop Basil. Vladyka entered the ancient church, proceeded through the royal doors with the Patriarch, and above: The New Jerusalem (Tapestry, c. 14th century) placed the Holy Fire on the altar.

St John the Theologian sees the new At the end of the Liturgy, the Patriarch, led by Jerusalem desecending from the heavens.

Bishop Basil, all the clergy, and thousands of worshippers, exited the great doors of the cathedral for a mile-long procession through the streets of Moscow. jacob's well

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NOTES FROM LAST ISSUE

Last Issue's Cover Art: "The Hospitality of Sinners, and the Pride of Presumption" In this piece we have two opposing figures, one man on the city wall, and a man below travelling on a path.

To show their difference of place figuratively, we have one above, one below; one to the left, one to the right; one in the foreground, one in the background. They are also contrasted by one clothed in fine purple garments, one in tattered ascetical hair shirt, one within and above, one outside and beneath.

They each want to claim a portion of the scripture, but they do not share it. They want try to claim their stake at being correct. But blinded by their desire to be right, they do not see the mercy that is required of them.

The man in purple shows his wealth and belonging to a place, but his position is in a place of pride and dominance. Rather than using his wealth and place as a source of refuge and healing, he is fearful and protective, hoarding his wealth which was given to him by God. The man on the path is wearing a hair shirt, showing that he is trying to live an ascetical life, but

there is a tell that reveals him as shifty in character.

Rather than the typical red shoes that we see an ascetic wearing in iconography, we see him wearing bright yellow, which is the color of danger and misfortune. His fault is his pride in thinking he knows better than others, and is therefore justified. He is, after all—to his thinking—a man of God. If the title of this piece had been The Hospitality of the Godly, and a Humble Guest, we would have seen the man in purple at the gates ready to welcome a stranger on the road, and the body language of the man on the road would have suggested humility and trustworthiness. Perhaps each holding a gift for the other, rather than wounding each other, and themselves, with swords and brazen coldness.

Impaling themselves in their attempt to harm the stranger illustrates that a lack of love toward our neighbor always comes at the price the well-being of our own soul. —Abraham Fillar Missing Credit Children's Coloring Icon of the Resurrection, Anna Souvorov, 2019. Parishioner of Holy Virgin Protection Cathedral, Manhattan, NY.

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Letter from Coxsackie Correctional Facility

by Brian Hodges

Editor’s note: The author of this piece contacted Jacob’s Well after reading the Spring 2019 issue. With our encouragement, he later submitted this letter by mail. It has been lightly edited.

M

y name is Brian Hodges and I am incarcerated at Coxsackie Correctional Facility, a state prison just south of Albany, and I have been here more than 12 1/2 years. I would like to describe the struggles I go through as the only Orthodox Christian in the facility.

Coming to prison with 20 years to serve was a wake-up call. It’s very easy to go down the wrong path in prison. From day one, my mother said, "Take it a day at a time," and I have done that for more than 4,500 days. I have asked for forgiveness countless times and have often questioned why prison life was in God's plan for me. I certainly didn't see this in my future growing up. I have made the best of it, holding good jobs in the facilities and helping others when I can. I continue to make myself a better person than I was when I arrived. Now, with 7 1/2 years left, I will be 47 years old upon my release. I have intentions of moving forward and starting a family of my own.

Here, religious services are offered in a variety of traditions: Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Islam, Nation of Islam, and Nation of Gods and Earths, to name a few—but there are no Orthodox Christian services. Given the small number of registered Orthodox inmates, the Department of Corrections (DoC) isn’t obligated to offer any services. Therefore, I am on my own.

But on two occasions, a Greek Orthodox priest who works part time for the DoC has visited me. He heard my confession, gave me Communion, and anointed me. On those days I could not wait to tell my family, “Father Manny came to see me!” It really brightened my day. Someone who does not know me came to ask me how I was and answered any questions I had.

Before my incarceration, I wasn't active in my parish the way I should have been. However, I plan to get involved upon my release. These past few years, I have been reeducating myself about the Orthodox Faith. I wrote to a few churches and

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monasteries seeking information or someone to correspond with, perhaps even to ask a question.

Two people replied! One was Father Benedict, from Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline, MA. Father Benedict has stayed in touch, has answered my questions, and has sent me reading materials.

Another monastery referred me to Orthodox Christian Prison Ministry, which is based in Minnesota. I can proudly say I have completed three of OCPM’s Bible study classes, and I'm waiting for the next book to arrive.

In addition, the priest from my home parish, Saint Nicholas Orthodox Church, in Cohoes, near Albany has come to visit me—not for confession, but just to sit and talk. I am also lucky enough to have a family that visits me often. Not everyone in prison has that luxury. Visits remind me that people do care about me and that I am not alone.

Maybe you hear about fellow parishioners who are sick or in the hospital, but do you hear about the incarcerated church member? Once someone is handed a prison sentence, they can be quickly forgotten about. I am asking the Orthodox community to reach out to those of us who are in prisons. There are simple ways you could brighten an incarcerated person’s day: writing a letter, coming on a visit, or becoming a volunteer. I realize many people feel skittish and have negative perceptions of people in prison. I'm asking you to give this a chance. Contact a local correctional facility and ask the chaplain if anyone there is registered as Orthodox. If so, they could probably use guidance, or just a friend who will listen to them.

The holiday season, which is coming upon us, is a very tough time for people who are incarcerated.

Who knows? Maybe you can put someone on the path of redemption!

Brian Hodges is an Orthodox Christian incarcerated at the state prison in Coxsackie, New York.

The Ninth Wave (Девятый вал) Ivan Aivazovsky (Oil on canvas, 1850)

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Trust as Action

by Jim Forest

“I

n God we Trust; all others pay cash,” read a sign over the cash register of a delicatessen I often frequented in Manhattan’s Lower East Side half a century ago. It was a humorous way for a shopkeeper to communicate his determination to keep his small business from being buried in a cemetery of IOUs. Like that merchant, most of us are cautious when it comes to money. We are well advised not to be gullible about the claims of advertisers, the guarantees of salesmen, and the crowd-pleasing assurances of politicians. We have learned, often the hard way, to be careful about whom we trust, including those who court our applause and demand our obedience.

“Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no help,” the 146th Psalm reminds us. These cautionary verses are so important that they are read or sung every Sunday in Orthodox churches: “When his breath departs he returns to his earth; on that very day his plans perish.”

Yet even though prudent watchfulness serves many areas of life, trust is at the core of our social existence. Every morning, parents entrust their young children to the care of others. We trust our doctors and nurses to do their best in keeping us healthy. We trust the local supermarket not to sell us salmonella-laden eggs.

Yet there is always an undercurrent of caution.

When we get right down to it, it’s hard to trust ourselves. Even what we have witnessed with our own eyes and ears and have vivid memories of is not 100% trustworthy. Recollections are notoriously unreliable. Innocent people have been executed due to the faulty memories of sincere and honest witnesses.

The Gospels remind us that the Apostles sometimes had a hard time trusting Jesus. His assurances

that He would be raised from the dead fell on incredulous ears. One Sunday of the Paschal season is given over to recalling a saint who personifies skepticism. The Apostle Thomas was unwilling to believe his friends’ testimony that Jesus had returned to life until he had not only seen the risen Lord with his own eyes but put his fingers into the wounds left by the nails and the spear.

For the skeptic, belief in such things is a bridge too far; for the hard-core skeptic, the only things that can be trusted are the things we can weigh, measure, count, and photograph.

Ultimately faith, another word for trust, is a life-defining decision. It’s not just an idea or an opinion—a cognitive state—but rather something we do. While it’s natural for us to be skeptical, it’s also natural to be pulled with tidal force toward Christian belief as summarized in the Creed. As Orthodox Christians, one of the main ways we respond to the tension of doubt challenging faith is by participating in the liturgical life of the Church. Here we are strengthened not only by our own deepest longings but by the faith of the community that surrounds us as well as the ever-present but unseen cloud of witnesses represented by the icons that encircle us.

Taking a leap of trust in the Gospels can be a hard struggle. Unless you’ve grown up deeply rooted in Christianity and slipped through adolescence and early adulthood without passing through hurricanes of doubt, following Christ is equivalent to walking on water.

A Christian is someone who has decided to trust the Gospels—to trust this particular unique and demanding narrative. It’s a decision to try to shape our lives around the words and actions and para19

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bles of Jesus, and thus to meditate on those sayings of His as if the truth and wisdom they contain were a matter of life and death—because, in fact, they are.

In the Orthodox liturgy there are two processions, one of the Book and one of the bread and wine. In the first, the Book is held aloft and the entire congregation bows toward it. What Book? It’s not the Bible or even the New Testament.

It’s a volume containing only the four Gospels. In it we hear Christ’s guiding voice. The procession culminates in placing the book on the altar table.

In the second procession we bow again, this time toward the bread and wine which, once blessed and consecrated, bring Christ’s Body and Blood into our own body and blood. We trust in the living presence of Christ and its efficacy to make us whole and save us.

Belief is an action of trust, and so is communion: Christ trusting in us and we in Him. We choose in trust to unite ourselves with Him who is love itself, Him who is pure mercy, with Him who equips us to become people of love and mercy, Him who trusts us to reveal the Gospel to others not by argument but by witness. This makes trust the very tissue that holds the Church together, and maintaining that trust is the challenge we face as Christians every day of our lives. Like the father of the boy with the evil spirit in the Gospel of Mark, we struggle with unbelief even as we believe: “I believe; help my unbelief !”

Jim Forest has authored numerous books, including Praying with Icons, The Ladder of the Beatitudes, Confession: Doorway to Forgiveness, Saint Nicholas and the Nine Gold Coins, and a forthcoming memoir, Writing Straight with Crooked Lines. He is the international secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship.

Nancy Forest, his wife, is a literary translator. Their writings are collected on their website, jimandnancyforest.com. They are parishioners at Saint Nicholas of Myra Orthodox Church in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The Miracle of Christ Healing the Blind El Greco (oil on canvas, 1570)

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Trust in the Church

Unexpected Visitors Ilya Repin (oil on canvas, 1884)

by presbyter joshua frigerio

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fter his transfer to a new parish, a all, that’s where the truly pure and holy people are. certain priest was graciously received by his Forever seeking the perfect church makes it easier new flock. Following his first Sunday Liturgy, to overlook one’s own failures. he formally introduced himself to the parish, adding, If we are not willing to take responsibility for “Some of you may like me and some probably don’t. our choices, then we’ll end up handing over our But rest assured: Sooner or later, I will certainly discernment process to anyone who offers to take it disappoint each and every one of you.” from us—and there is no shortage of people offering.

The Church, being the Body of Christ, is divine Taken too far, the result is something more cult-like and lacks nothing. But in another sense, because than Christ-like. the Church is also human, it is often sorely lacking.

But this is a temptation for all of us, albeit in Those who are entrusted with its earthly steward- subtler ways. Even those in a healthy, balanced reship will inevitably and regularly disappoint and lationship with their clergy and the Church can be scandalize. It doesn’t take much study of Church severely shaken when those individuals, whom they history, or indeed of current events, to know this trusted with their souls, betray that trust, whether to be the case. Since Saint Paul wrote his letters to out of malice or weakness. A common response is Timothy, we’ve tried to weed out wayward clergy- to seek, at the very least, a new parish, if not to step men. Many ancient canons and modern guidelines back from the Church altogether for a time. This for ordination have that as their goal. happens to clergy too, perhaps even more profoundWe know representatives of the Church will fail ly, as they have given so much of their lives and trust us from time to time despite our precautionary mea- over to people whose decisions sometimes seem, at sures. But what effect does it have on us personally? best, arbitrary. Sacrifices made deeply leave tender Can we inoculate ourselves such that when they spots. do, our faith will not be mortally wounded? And The temperament of the American Orthodox moreover, if we do inoculate ourselves, how do we population, however, predisposes us more to the avoid becoming numb? Are some of us already so inverse problem. Having too little trust, or even proficient at being disconnected from the Church being completely jaded to Church matters, is at that a scandal that should affect us deeply does not? least as serious a challenge. Many of us never even Is there a spiritually healthy, moderate approach to think to check with the Church or our clergy about this issue? anything we do, even large life decisions. We live It’s easy to observe how our lack—or abun- parallel lives: one secular and one spiritual, with a dance—of trust can fail us at either end of the spec- nice, neat separation between them—a consequence trum. Those overly susceptible to a personal faith of accepting the “two-storey universe” paradigm crisis in the wake of some kind of Church infidelity that Father Stephen Freeman writes about. Father are typically those for whom trust in the Church Alexander Schmemann addressed this eloquently in plays an exaggerated and immature role in even the third part of his essay, “Problems of Orthodoxy the most trivial aspect of their lives. Such persons in America”: might consult the holy canons before choosing a It is in good faith that they see in the Church living-room paint color, and then perhaps show an institution that should satisfy their needs, it to their nearest holy elder to make sure. There’s reflect their interests, “serve” their desires and a story told on Mt. Athos of a man who traveled above everything else, “fit” into their “way of all the way from America to his spiritual father on life.” And it is, therefore, in good faith that they the Holy Mountain simply to ask if he should quit reject as “impossible” everything in the Church smoking (uh, yes!). Not only are such people more which does not “fit” or seems to contradict their disposed to despair of faith when pressed, but they basic philosophy of life. also tend to take it in strange directions, like following the latest schismatic spinoff because, after jacob's well

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This unconscious capitulation to secularism makes us safe from scandal, because we cease to be invested enough, and vulnerable enough, to care. Realistic expectations are well and good—who among us hasn’t indulged in a bit of cynicism about Church administration? But when this is pushed to include all the pastoral guidance that the Church offers, we are left with the most foolish of all spiritual guides—ourselves. The Greek word scandalon refers to a stumbling block in our path. It’s certainly safer to stay off the path altogether rather than risk the openness and vulnerability of walking the path, lest that rock trip us up. But what do we give up by staying safe?

How do we become malleable enough to be changed by our participation in the Church, while also remaining immune enough to the inescapable disillusionment that will tempt us to despair and gossip in the face of scandal? Recalling that the Church is the Body of Christ, that is, a person, it stands to reason that Saint Paul’s identification of Christ’s relationship to His Church as marriage might serve as our guide.

The crowns of the wedding service remind us that a successful marriage requires martyrdom: an inhuman amount of vulnerability and sacrifice, even a kind of death to oneself, so as to live to the other. But this is not a naïve trust; it’s not simply submitting blindly for the sake of peace, which often brings calamity instead. It is a long string of fully conscious decisions to surrender one’s will for the sake of the union of the two in Christ, being well aware of the hazards involved, and being willing to endure them. Indeed, this is not a “bug” in marriage,

it is a feature! It is often exactly the fallibility, the humanity, of our spouses, that teaches us to love, to forgive, to endure. Surely the Church is the same: it has nothing less than union with God as its goal for us, yet accomplishes it, not in spite of her imperfections, but exactly because of them.

As we have seen, first with Israel and now with the Church, God allows exile and tribulation to happen from time to time so that we might repeatedly repent and be cleansed for our return from wherever we have strayed. Likewise, in marriage, God allows us to experience our failures as opportunities to learn humility and repentance. In fact, many couples have found that it was precisely a serious breach in trust of some kind that forced them, through the long and arduous process of finding trust again, to finally learn the openness and vulnerability that they believed they had been practicing all along. A naïve picture of marriage as some kind of continual bliss must give way to the better reality that Christ has provided for us: that deep relationships are born of a steady diet of contrition and renewal. Similarly, if we expect all those entrusted with any kind of Church authority to only ever behave benignly, it will take a struggle to regain a healthy perspective. Grueling as it may be, it is the way we learn to be “as shrewd as snakes, yet as innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16) Few indeed are those people who learn this by any means other than experience.

The Rev. Joshua Frigerio is the rector of Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in Albion, Michigan.

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Saints Peter and Paul Abraham Fillar (2019)

Restoring Trust in the Global Orthodox Communion by deacon nicholas Denysenko

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n the last 30 years, the Churches belonging to the global Orthodox communion have suffered from internal strife. Insiders are aware of disagreements between the Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch, a series of disputes involving the patriarchates of Moscow and Constantinople, and the schism afflicting the Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

The pressure to deliver instant analysis in the age of social media feeds the unfortunate tendency to hastily declare the causes of strife. Most analyses identify a single event or blame one person for the divisions in an otherwise peaceful Church. The most-frequently invoked guilty parties include the Patriarch of Constantinople (for papism, or neo-papism); the Patriarch of Moscow (for subordinating the Church to the state); Uniates, schismatics, and nationalists in Ukraine; and the Pope, the West, and secularists in general.

Primacy, the role of ethnicity, church-state relations, and secularism in the Church are all serious issues warranting academic and pastoral attention.

They are not, however, solely responsible for the current divisions in the Church. In fact, these popular theories are unhelpful because they conceal a much more complicated cause. Our divisions tend to start with events outside the church—specifically, with ruptures in geopolitics. Borders shift; languages migrate; alliances are made and broken. Church leaders must adjust quickly to these new realities, and misunderstandings often arise in this context.

Once the Church recognizes this pattern, however, it can initiate a process of lasting reconciliation and restoration of trust. Our liturgical tradition already gives us the resources.

New World Orders and the Struggle to Adjust Geopolitics have spurred church divisions for many centuries. Two of the most decisive examples in the Orthodox world are the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the collapse of the Tsarist regime in 1917.

First, consider the events of the 15th century. At the Council of Florence, during the late 1430s, Constantinople advocated reuniting with the Church in Rome—in part because the Byzantine Empire, and the city of Constantinople itself, were under imminent threat from the Ottomans, and the Greeks needed Rome’s military assistance. After the rejec-

tion by the Russian Orthodox Church of the Florentine union, Moscow declared autocephaly in 1448.

Constantinople did not recognize this autocephaly until it granted Moscow patriarchal status in 1589.

The events surrounding these changes contributed significantly to the erosion of trust between the leaders of the Churches. Russian historians immediately began developing the narrative of Moscow as the “Third Rome,” a myth dependent upon Constantinople’s violation of trust within the Orthodox commonwealth. Moscow’s relations with Constantinople were often tense, particularly during the Ecumenical Patriarch’s journey to Russia in 1589, when his hosts treated him gruffly, gave him subpar accommodations, and appointed imperial officials, instead of church leaders to negotiate with him. It was meant to remind him of the Russian Church’s strong position in the reconfiguration of the global Orthodox communion in the post-Byzantine era.

The collapse of the Tsarist regime in 1917 also caused friction among Church leaders and led to a loss of trust. Before the political revolution in February of that year, bishops, theologians, and pastors in imperial Russia had been preparing for an all-Church council. They planned to discuss a broad set of reforms, including the translation of liturgical texts into modern Russian and Ukrainian, to permit the people to comprehend and participate in the Church’s liturgy. The proposed reforms were evangelical in nature, a response to the Church’s struggle to reach people in an era of modernization.

When the Tsarist regime collapsed, the possibility for Ukrainian autocephaly surfaced, especially with Ukraine poised to become an independent national republic in the pattern of the modern, post-imperial nation-state. Some Church leaders in Ukraine pursued both objectives: autocephaly and modern Ukrainian language for the liturgy.

In 1917, supporters of Ukrainian autocephaly persuaded Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow to bless the convocation of an all-Ukrainian council to determine the fate of the Ukrainian Church. Surprisingly, the 1918 Council adopted autonomy instead of autocephaly, meaning Kyiv had more control over its internal affairs but remained under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. It also voted against introducing modern Ukrainian to the liturgy.

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Pro-autocephaly advocates accused the leaders of removing delegates who they knew would not support their agenda. Supporters of autocephaly, unable to resolve their differences with the ruling bishops, decided to establish Ukrainian-language parishes in Kyiv, and ultimately established an autocephalous Church during a council in Kyiv in October of 1921, despite multiple warnings from the Patriarchal Synod in Ukraine to cancel the council.

The documents from the October 1921 council are saturated with complaints against the presiding bishops and claims that the event had been hijacked. Ukrainian autocephalists described themselves as orphans abandoned by the ruling bishops and forced to determine their own fate. In other words, the Ukrainian Orthodox clergy and faithful who took autocephaly despite the resistance of their bishops did so because they no longer trusted their leaders.

These two examples—the aftermath of the fall of Constantinople and the all-Ukrainian council following the resignation of the Tsar—illustrate how the breaking of trust begins in the Church. In both situations, Church leaders were forced to adjust to changes in the geopolitical order within which the Church lived. Because they were in wartime situations, Church leaders had to act quickly and decisively, having neither the time nor the freedom to deliberate at length. Later, the decisions were reversed: Constantinople eventually withdrew from the Florentine union with Rome, and the Ukrainians finally received autocephaly in 2019. But bitterness remains. For the Church in Russia, Constantinople remains suspect because it tried to lead Orthodoxy into union with Rome nearly seven centuries ago.

For the Ukrainian autocephalists, bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate could not be trusted because they dismissed requests for using modern Ukrainian and restoring native customs to the liturgy. For the Ukrainians who wished to remain in the Moscow Patriarchate, the autocephalists were not trustworthy because their agenda seemed to intersect with the ideologies of nationalist parties and leaders.

In these instances, distrust became traditional.

Stories about the supposed betrayals were passed down through the generations, fostering the notion that anyone from the ‘other’ community was not trustworthy. The same pattern holds in many other parts of the Church. Current leaders have inherited the suspicion that shadowed their predecessors, even when they are historically and genetically removed.

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partners of spouses abused in a previous relationship. The only path to creating trust with the new prospective partner or authority figure is through learning to differentiate the new person from the abuser.

Rebooting Reconciliation: the Rite of Mutual Forgiveness In the Church, the way to rebuild trust is to learn a new way of perceiving, seeing, and engaging with the people who belong to the community of dubious trust. Here we can turn to the Church’s liturgical tradition for resources—beginning with the Rite of Mutual Forgiveness appointed to Forgiveness Vespers at the beginning of Lent. This celebration ritualizes acknowledgement of one’s own sin, asking forgiveness for that sin, and asking for forgiveness from the other. In a relationship of broken trust, this Rite enables both parties to begin the healing process by inviting them to encounter one another.

However, reconciliation is a process that cannot depend on a single ritual. It must include several more encounters in which the alienated parties attempt to establish a new pattern of trust. Such encounters are akin to couples’ therapy, in which both parties are called to the hard work of confronting their fears, anxieties, and misperceptions; of naming the injustices committed and repenting of them; and of adopting new behaviors that are transparent and helpful.

All actions required by a process of honesty and openness make the parties participating in reconciliation vulnerable, because it demands honesty in the presence of the other whom one does not trust. For decades, if not centuries, the Orthodox Churches have allowed fear to dissuade them from engaging in the hard work that reconciliation demands. Disputes are not resolved by withdrawal into mutual exclusion and a refusal to dialogue. This only perpetuates a distortion of the other on the basis of historical memory. Just as Forgiveness Vespers introduces participants into a process of repentance that continues for the entire season and is marked by a series of daily ritual practices, so too must the Orthodox Churches commit to a long process of reconciliation, painful as it may be.

Conclusion Let us conclude this reflection by identifying the most crucial step to be taken by the Orthodox Churches after the initial exchanging of mutual forgiveness: a commitment to revising our shared ethic of historical memory. In the current crisis afflicting the Church, the memory of past injustices

By the Rivers of Babylon Gebhard Fugel (oil on canvas, c. 1920)

sows the seeds of discord in the Body of Christ, just as a virus sickens people who involuntarily share it with one another. The flaw in our shared ethic of historical memory is the commitment to sustaining negative perceptions of the representatives of other communities with whom we have disagreed.

The examples presented earlier in this essay expose this flaw. In the current situation, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is not only blamed for his actual decisions and actions, but he also bears the entire history of the Ecumenical throne, just as Patriarch Kirill of Moscow is tied to the legacies of his predecessors, many of whom lived in the Soviet era. Some Orthodox have dismissed Metropolitan Epifaniy of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine as illegitimate because of his history in the Kyivan Patriarchate, labeling him as a nationalist schismatic because he is perceived to be the servant of the former metropolitan of Kyiv, Filaret.

These perceptions are flawed because the cases presented against the alleged perpetrators are shaped predominantly by the entire histories of the Churches they happen to govern. Each leader

should be responsible for his own actions, not those of his predecessors. We cannot simply fuse the negative narratives associated with the communities producing these figures with the people themselves.

The only road to rebuilding trust is to meet and encounter people as they truly are.

Rebuilding trust and reconciling is possible through the outpouring of God’s grace, but it requires courage, commitment, and adopting a new way of thinking on our part. This process requires strenuous effort and we will want to abandon it. But seeing it through can help us to arrive at the peace in our midst promised us by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Rev. Dr. Nicholas Denysenko is the Emil & Elfrieda Jochum University Chair and associate professor of theology at Valparaiso University. He is a deacon in the Diocese of the Midwest.

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Our Scandalous Emperor-Saint by presbyter Justin Patterson

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hen I was a student at Saint Vladimir’s Seminary back in the mid-2000s, a literary phenomenon swept the United States. The author Dan Brown captivated believers and non-believers alike with his bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. At the request of panicked parishioners in my first parish, whose trust in the Church seemed to be teetering after reading Brown’s novel, I decided to read it myself.

To my surprise, I found it to be a thoroughly riveting read—at least in the same way that I enjoy a good romp through biblical archaeology with Indiana Jones. At the same time, I recognized at once that Brown’s grasp of history was slipshod at best. He parroted as established facts “pop-history” claims about Christianity in general, and about the legacy of Emperor Constantine in particular. At one point in The Da Vinci Code, a crafty English archaeologist gives Sophie, the main character, a brief synopsis of the "history" of Christianity. In it, he makes the following points about Constantine: ◗ He was a lifelong pagan who was unwillingly baptized on his deathbed. ◗ He made Christianity the official Roman religion solely for political gain. ◗ Christianity is a hybrid religion, the result of Constantine's fusing of the pagan cult of Sol Invictus with Christian beliefs. ◗ Under pagan influence, he moved the primary day of Christian worship from Saturday to Sunday. ◗ He inspired the unsuspecting bishops at the Council of Nicea to turn a mortal prophet into the divine Son of God. ◗ He ordered a redaction of the Bible that would reinforce his own pagan-inspired view that Jesus was the divine Son of God. ◗ He tried to erase the documentary evidence that showed an alternate and more pristine version of Christianity.

Each of these absurd claims can, of course, be refuted point-by-point (though such detailed refutation is not the purpose of this reflection). And yet, the fact remains that Orthodox Christians celebrate and venerate a Roman emperor who was, by all accounts, a shrewd political animal and steely-eyed soldier. Many of our fellow Orthodox—particularly in the West—have understandably wondered: What does it mean that this man is a canonized saint? Ought I to trust the Church? Might the “cult of Constantine” among Orthodox prove the Enlightenment jacob's well

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charge that Eastern Christians have been fundamentally sycophantic and even “Caesaro-papal” in relation to the state? Might not the whole “Constantine thing” be a blemish on our tradition that ought to embarrass us?

Before tackling such broad questions, it might be more helpful to frame them with another one: “Why would a man like Constantine be drawn to the Christian faith in the first place?”

It might be strange to begin by answering, “because of his mom,” but the example of our parents is often crucial in our lives. The historical record shows clearly that Constantine deeply loved and admired his mother Helena.

As the pious Christian wife of Constantius Chlorus, one of four co-rulers under Emperor Diocletian, Helena profoundly influenced her son. His devotion to her was so pronounced, in fact, that when Constantine became master in the West, he proclaimed her “Augusta,” the highest title in the empire. For the remainder of her life, Helena’s faith and piety remained a fixation for Constantine, who zealously funded her (quite costly) faith-based works.

Second, while Constantine was indeed a product of his time in terms of being part of a violent imperial system, we can see his gradual embrace of Christianity as an expression of his deep reservations about this very system. As a young man, Constantine couldn’t help but note that the Christian population, under the cruel hand of Emperor Diocletian, was bled of a tenth of its faithful.

It is now supposed that 1% of the Roman Empire’s entire population was exterminated in an orgy of persecution that would not be surpassed until the 20th century. As the 4th-century church historian Eusebius later noted, such a situation horrified young Constantine personally—perhaps in part because he was keenly aware that his own mother could be accused as a Christian. Though Constantine became a soldier, and, at key moments, did not hesitate to use violence to achieve his ends, he himself made clear on more than one occasion that there were absolute limits to his capacity to shed blood. Most notably, on the eve of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, it is reported that his pagan generals advised him to resort to a sacrificial bath in the blood of children—an especially powerful invocation for victory, according to Roman military custom. In horror, Constantine declined. By the same token, Constantine’s most odious act as emperor, the brutal suppression of his wife and son who were in rebellion, was ordered so that civil war and chaos might be averted. Even so, the emperor would reportedly be

Constantine and Helen with the True Cross (Egg tempera, 14th century)

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Diego Delso, delso.photo, License CC-BY-SA.

haunted by this bloody deed for the remainder of his life.

In determining why Constantine would be drawn—sincerely—to the Christian faith, we might look at a third response. Throughout his life, Constantine was surrounded by people who cared about what Plato called “the Good.” Not least among the people who pursued the Good was the emperor’s own father, Caesar Constantius Chlorus of Gaul and Brittania. Though not a Christian, Constantius Chlorus was reputed to rule justly and wisely, a devotee of the monotheistic cult of the sun, which shared much with Christianity. At the same time, Constantine himself was also generally impressed with the lives and commitment of Christians he met.

They cared not only about their God, but about their society and the poor. They prayed for those who hated them. When he saw the Christians and their manner of life, Constantine discerned something approaching The Good. For the emperor, moreover, the claims made by the Christians to have “seen the True Light,” and to hold a universal truth, suggested that this “Way” of the Christians might unite his warring and fractious people. The Christian proclamation of all being one in Christ filled the emperor with hope that the divisions among the people of the empire could in fact be surmounted.

For Constantine, a truth that could be both benign and universal was a sign that it was approaching the elusive Good. Latter-day commentators sometimes point out that such a calculation on the part of the emperor demonstrates his “using” of Christianity.

I would submit, however, that this calculation is actually a sign of sincere and rational striving for the Good!

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So what did Constantine accomplish in his life?

First, he granted Christians freedom of worship (via the Edict of Milan) in AD 313. Second, he generously gave the Church lands and buildings to further its mission. To this day, in both the East and West, important Christian churches and centers are anchored by the emperor’s 4th-century gifts. Third, Constantine asked to be enrolled as a catechumen and ruled for decades as such, accepting baptism prior to his death when he knew he could lay aside the burden of imperial rule for good. Fourth, he abolished a number of practices Christians deemed dehumanizing and evil, such as state crucifixion, the exposure of infants (the widespread Roman practice of selective murdering of female and deformed children), and the gladiatorial games. Fifth, as a sign of his seriousness about Christianity, Constantine outlawed public offerings to idols on behalf of the Roman state (though he wisely allowed freedom of conscience for pagans who wished to worship privately). Sixth, in response to the Arian crisis and other pressing concerns for the Church, Constantine convened the First Ecumenical Council in AD 325, subsidizing the travel expenses for over 300 bishops and their entourages.

Most moving, perhaps, of all of Constantine’s recorded acts was his behavior at the Council of Nicea. He had just completed his final campaign to reunite the Roman Empire. In the aftermath of that effort, Constantine found it particularly tragic that the Christians, who had recently been delivered from the grave oppression of Licinius and his lieutenants, would now be quarreling among themselves.

The 4th-century church historian Eusebius writes:

The most distinguished of God’s ministers from all the churches which abounded in Europe, Africa, and Asia assembled here. The one sacred building, as if stretched by God, contained people from [a very long list of nations]. There were more than 300 bishops, while the number of elders, deacons, and the like was almost incalculable. Some of these ministers of God were eminent for their wisdom, some for their strict living, some for their patient endurance of persecution, and others for all three. Some were venerable because of their age, others were conspicuous for their youth and mental vigor, and still others were only just appointed. The Emperor provided them all with plenty of food [and paid their travel].

When the day came for all to gather, it was an incredible sight. This cloud of bishops, many of whom were visibly wounded from the recent persecution, stood as the Emperor of Rome—the “deified” head of the very state that had killed the Lord himself 300 years before—entered the room. He came neither as an enemy nor a pagan, but as one who had himself submitted to the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. On seeing the wounded and confessing bishops, Constantine set aside his state garments and refused to sit until they all had been seated—something he likely would have done only for his own mother (perhaps he had already begun to see the Church as his Mother)! As the council began, Constantine exhorted the bishops to maintain their faithfulness to Christ as they sought to bring the Church to unity.

In addition, the emperor affirmed publicly that the decisions were theirs to make—and, as emperor, he would abide by their rulings in council. The shock to these poor bishops must have been considerable.

Capping off the scene at Nicea, as the council began, the emperor went around the room greeting the various bishops. It is said that as he offered them the ancient Christian greeting, the holy kiss, he would also venerate their wounds, the stumps where their hands had been cut off, and the marks on their faces. At one point, he made his way to one Bishop Thomas, who was, the accounts agree, frightful to look at. Apparently, some local governor hated the Christians and had held Thomas in prison for 22 years. Each year he had cut off part of Bishop Thomas’s body: one year, his right leg; the next, his left. One year, his right arm and then the left. The same fate befell his lips, eyes, and ears. When the emperor saw him, it is said that Constantine wept, fell down in prostration before the maimed saint, and kissed his wounds.

A trend of our times is to glibly categorize people and to see them forever locked into the category the culture bestows upon them. Sometimes, even we Orthodox Christians find ourselves tempted to see everyone, from bishops to heretics and historical figures in the Church, either as flawless heroes or as über-villains. When we hear the word “saint,” many of us imagine some infallible, immaculate figure.

One of the great gifts of Orthodoxy, however, is that we don’t need to imagine that our saints were perfect. So often, in our reading of the Scriptures or of the lives of the saints, we see that the holy and the broken coexist. For instance, in Holy Saturday’s Old Testament readings, we celebrate the life of scheming Jacob and relish the prophecy of reluctant Jonah. We honor Peter’s tears of repentance by reflecting on his three-fold denial of Christ. We commemorate Saint Paul being mindful, not only of his dramatic conversion and bold actions as an apostle, but also of his occasional, yet undeniable, crankiness (it seems that the Church routinely pushes us to consider the unique personal qualities of each saint: the maternal love of an abbot, the strength of a female ascetic, the determination of a child martyr, and so on). We claim to follow a Savior who surrounded himself with redeemed, yet flawed, sinners. And we come to recognize that the Christian life is nothing if not a journey in God—a journey that transforms, renews, and covers the “multitude of our transgressions.”

As we who were brought up on ideas such as those in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code reflect on the mixed legacy of the man whom Orthodox Christians venerate as Saint Constantine, we have an opportunity to break free from easy categories. Indeed, we can see in Constantine a man of blood who (re-) forged an empire. And yet, the Church suggests to us that Emperor Constantine is far more than just a clever ruler who legalized Christianity. In presenting him as a saint, the Church invites us to consider the context of Emperor Constantine’s life and to see in him a flawed yet heroic figure who stretched himself, tried to do good as far as he could see it, and came—almost miraculously—to put his whole faith in Christ.

The Rev. Justin Patterson is the rector of Saint Athanasius Orthodox Church in Nicholasville, Kentucky.

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The Working Out of God’s Love

On the Road to Emmaus Iconographer Seraphim O'Keefe paints above the main entrance of Holy Cross Church in Medford, New Jersey.

by archpriest John Shimchick

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few weeks before he died in August, I was able to visit Father Steven Belonick and his wife, Deborah, at their home in Stratford, Connecticut.

Father Steven was an old friend and a veteran of our diocese: He served for two decades in Pearl River and Binghamton, New York—the period when he and Deborah helped launch Jacob’s Well—and then for another 13 years at Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary. At the time of our summer visit, he was nearing the end of his long bout with leukemia. We talked for several hours that day about his life, family, ministry, and sickness. “When I was young and trying to figure out what to do with my life,” he recalled, “I said to God: ‘Either abandon or love me.’ ” He knew, all the way up to his time in hospice, that God had never abandoned him. Yet, the working out of this love had required him to trust God in ways that forced him to face a number of risks along the way. For Father Steven, these meant confronting important life and career decisions that might have disappointed the expectations of his family or culture. They meant entrusting his ministry and his immediate family’s wellbeing to the administrative decisions of the Church. And at the end, he had to trust God to take care of his wife, children, and grandchildren. Both of his sons’ wives were pregnant at the time of his death. Convinced of God’s love, he was able to say: “In the end, I did not lose a thing.”

Father Steven accepted the challenge that faces everyone desiring a relationship with another person: If I trust you, do my best to love you, and open myself to you and potentially let you hurt or leave me, what will you do? What will I do?

This question, and its answer, runs through the Scriptures and every Divine Liturgy: ◗ In You, O Lord, I put my trust; let me never be put to shame. (Psalm 71:1) ◗ Uphold me according to Your word, that I may live; and do not let me be ashamed of my hope. (Psalm 119:116) ◗ “Do not forsake us who hope in you” (Divine Liturgy, Prayer after the First Antiphon)

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The answer to these questions can be heard in the conversation between Jesus and two disciples on the way to Emmaus following His Resurrection. Not immediately recognizing Him, Luke and Cleopas explained to their unknown travelling companion their dismay in the events that led to the death of Jesus: “ We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). Jesus responded to them, “‘O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?’

And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself ” (24:25–27). Then while staying overnight and joining them for supper, “He took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished out of their sight. They said to each other, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the scriptures?’ And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem and they found the eleven… [and] they told what happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of the bread” (24:30–35).

Recently, my parish in Medford, New Jersey, completed a multi-year iconographic project. We began its design by asking: What image would best represent what we, as an Orthodox Christian community, have to offer ourselves and our guests?

The conclusion was: the story of what happened on the disciples’ to Emmaus—where a model for trust in Jesus was revealed in the breaking of the bread.

The working out of these themes is featured in the beautiful effort of iconographer Seraphim O’Keefe.

This icon, of course, provides a visual summary of the movement that takes place within every Divine Liturgy—communion with God’s Word and with his Body and Blood. The Liturgy is the continual affirmation of God’s love and His pledge to never let those who trust in him be put to shame.

Luke, Cleopas, and Father Steven Belonick understood this and told others. We are encouraged as well at the end of the Liturgy to “depart in peace”

and to share that same message with those we encounter—or at least to live in such a way that bears witness to that message.

In each of us, this witness begins with the desire to encounter Jesus somewhere along the way in our own lives. It continues when we desire to develop and integrate this relationship within the risks of community life. When we individually partake of Holy Communion, we ask that God would “unite all of us to one another who become partakers of the one bread and cup in the communion of the Holy Spirit” (Prayer after the Consecration, Liturgy of Saint Basil). Being united with God and others allows us to be members of a different kind of community, one that can still experience difficulties but is empowered by God through his Word, Body, and Blood with the means for healing and reconciliation.

Believing that God will not put us to shame is one thing, but what happens when that trust is challenged or is broken within community life? What can be done? Can it be restored?

If difficulties have emerged out of anger or misunderstanding, and if there is good will on both sides, then healing is always possible. One must begin in prayer by interceding for the person(s) involved. It’s often said that while we do not always know how intercessory prayer to God works in

someone else’s life, he can at least work in changing our own hearts. Then there is Christ’s recommended approach to conflict resolution: Begin by speaking to the person privately; if that fails, then try again with one or more witnesses. The last resort is to “tell it to the church” (Mt 15:17). If nothing else, we always approach one another at the beginning of Great Lent and sincerely apologize at the Vespers of Forgiveness.

Trust, hope, risks, and peace—as witnessed to in the life of Father Steven Belonick, the story of Luke and Cleopas, and within the dynamics of community life—can be the means for a life-long encounter with God’s love.

The V. Rev. John Shimchick is the rector of the Orthodox Church of the Holy Cross in Medford, New Jersey, and the former Editor-in-Chief of Jacob's Well.

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science

The Myth of the Flat-Earth Myth

by Noah Beck

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f, like me, you grew up in the 1980s and ’90s, Some 300 years hence, Petrarch’s influence was you learned from your teachers, your textbooks, obvious in the pseudo-historical writings of Washand perhaps a TV/VCR combo that rolled into the ington Irving. Irving, one of America’s most popular classroom on a giant cart that Christopher Colum- writers in the early 19th century, is best remembered bus set sail in 1492 for the east by heading west, today for his short stories “Rip Van Winkle” and proving once and for all that the earth was round. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” It’s less widely reThe scene might be emblazoned in your mind as membered that while he was traveling in Europe in it is in mine: a young and brave Columbus stand- the 1820s, Irving gained access to a massive archive ing before a dark and brooding council of hooded of Spanish history, and set out to write a multi-voltheologians, each of whom believed the earth was ume biography of Columbus. But finding the real some kind of cosmic pancake, endeavoring to prove story of Columbus a tad dry, Irving fabricated the to them through logic and reason that they live on flat-earth myth and promoted the reason-versus-rea sphere. ligion narrative that accompanied it. The semi-ficThere is one problem with that scene: It’s a myth. tional account was passed off as a faithful biography, Humanity had never held the idea that the earth was and it was the most popular biography of Columbus flat. No educated person, no scholar, no university, for the next 100 years. Drama sells. no sailor, in Columbus’s day or before, believed in What is perhaps more interesting than the a flat earth. In fact, the Greek mathematician Era- genesis of this myth is its persistence. Why do so tosthenes not only knew the earth was spherical, he many people still believe it? It is because we humans calculated its circumference by measuring a stick’s seek patterns and order in this world. Facts, ideas, shadow in Alexandria on the summer solstice and and experiences bombard our brains every hour knowing the distance south to Syene, where the sun of every day. Unless we are consciously curious was directly overhead. His calculation was within and open to conflicting narratives, our default is 10% of the value we know today. He even went on to to accept the ideas that fit our predetermined worlmeasure the tilt of earth’s axis within a degree and dview and to discard the rest. In the case of the the length of the year as precisely 365 ¼ days. As you flat-earth myth, by the turn of the 20th century the can tell by his name, Eratosthenes was no modern conventional worldview in Europe and America was thinker or even a contemporary of Columbus. This one of ongoing war between science and religion. was in 240 B.C. For much of the population, religion had been releSurely, then, it must be that the ancient Greeks gated to mere superstition that belonged in the past were enlightened, and Columbus and his Renais- and science promoted to the only source of truth. sance contemporaries were ushering in a rebirth From such a lopsided epistemological framework, out of what must have been dark ages in between, a rational and scientific Columbus confronting no? Actually, the phrase “Dark Ages” was coined unenlightened medieval Christians fits the boxes by the Italian writer Petrarch in the 14th century. already present in one’s own mind and is readily Petrarch, among other humanists of his day, denied accepted as truth. As this myth became more widethe scientific, artistic, and philosophical advance- spread during the 20th century, medieval historians ments of the previous 1,000 years. From his vantage and historians of science presented ever-increasing point in Italy, he yearned for the glory of the Roman empirical evidence of its falsehood, but to no avail.

Empire before its division and the subsequent fall In an ironic twist, our desire for such stories that of the west. In his book, Inventing the Flat Earth, fit our worldview won out over evidence and logic. historian Jeffery Burton Russell writes, “The Hu- This is an all-too-common story in human history: manists perceived themselves as restoring ancient tidy convenient narratives winning out over facts. letters, arts, and philosophy. The more they presentLest we arrogantly sit in judgment against the ed themselves as heroic restorers of a glorious past, champions of progress or religion’s supposed scithe more they had to argue that what had preceded entific enemies for peddling false narratives, we them was a time of darkness.” Petrarch loved trav- ought to remind ourselves of how easily susceptible eling to Europe to rediscover and republish classic religious communities are as well to such dubious Latin and Greek texts. But whom did he think had storytelling. The lesson is that everyone is vulneramaintained and meticulously transcribed them for ble to warping the truth to fit a story that promotes the past 1,000 years? In reality, the “Dark Ages” (a them, their tribe, and its values. Religion is the usual concept we also learned in elementary school) were suspect in this offense, but the Columbus flat-earth not so dark after all. myth demonstrates that science can succumb to the same. Perhaps it is harder to be objective, neutral, and scientific than we imagine.

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The real story of Columbus is much less exciting. medieval “dark age” is slowly following. UnfortuThe debate over his travels was not about the shape nately, some of the other myths that go along with of the earth, but rather about its size and the relative these—the notion that social progress is clean, linear, positions of the continents. The best estimates of and always easy to recognize, or that science and his day (dating back to Ptolemy in the 2nd century) religion are diametrically opposed—have so far were that the known world of Europe, Asia, and proven more durable. But while we hope for the Africa measured 180° in longitude. The other half day when those, too, are discredited, we can also of the planet was ocean to be traversed. Eager to take away some lessons here for our own lives. The get on his way with the crown’s support, Colum- historical arc of the flat-earth myth might remind bus used a more generous (and generally rejected) us to be more humble and to hold our own assump225° across. He added 28° more based on Marco tions a little more lightly. It may remind us to look Polo’s travels, fudged Japan out another 30°, and for wisdom in both ancient and modern sources. gave himself another 9° for leaving from the Canary And it should certainly alert to be skeptical about Islands. On top of spacing out the known world, he simplistic stories—especially when they tell us what made some unit errors in his assumptions of the we want to hear. curvature of the earth, making the planet about 25% too small. At the end of the day, Columbus estimated a voyage of just 2,400 miles to reach Japan—less than a quarter of the actual distance of 10,600 miles.

Noah Beck is vice president of active equities at With his crew on the verge of starvation when they the investment-management firm Research Affilihappened upon the New World, Columbus turned ates. He previously worked as a rocket scientist at out to be very wrong, but very lucky.

Boeing and studied science and religion at Fuller The modern flat-earth myth, which held that Theological Seminary. He lives with his wife and ancient and backward societies thought the earth three children in Laguna Nigel, California. was flat until Columbus proved otherwise is, after thriving for hundreds of years, at last finding its way to the scrap bin of human ideas. The idea of a jacob's well

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Scripture

Heresy and the Scriptural Canon

by Presbytera Jeanne Constantinou

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eresy has played an important role in Orthodox history. Whatever threats various heretical movements have posed in the short term, the Holy Spirit has used them, again and again, to bring about the refinement of true Christian doctrine. Had Arius not preached in the 4th century that Christ wasn’t fully God, there would have been no reason to convene the Council of Nicea, and the Church’s fundamental teachings would not have been set down in the Nicene Creed. Saint Athanasius might never have written his brilliant tract On the Incarnation, which remains the best articulation of basic Christology. And if Nestorius hadn’t preached, a century later, that Mary should not be called the “Mother of God,” there would have been no Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, where her title “Theotokos” was affirmed as an accurate expression of the Incarnation of the Son of God. But this trend has not been limited to the formation of doctrine. Within the first two centuries of Church history, two heretical movements also played a pivotal role in the selection of the Scriptural canon: Gnosticism and Marcionism. By tracing how this happened, we can better understand how the early Christians thought about Scripture and canonicity, and we can also catch a glimpse of how the Holy Spirit works through history—in all its messiness.

Gnosticism Gnosticism may have been the single greatest threat to the early Church. It was a religious movement that combined elements of Greek philosophy, Christianity, and eastern “mystery” religions. The name “Gnosticism” comes from the Greek word gnosis, which means “knowledge.” Gnostics taught that Jesus was not really human: that is, he seemed to be human, but he didn’t actually have a physical body.

Rather, Jesus was one of many “aeons,” or divine spirit beings, who had been produced by the highest divinity, called the “Unknown Father.” Together, the Unknown Father, his wife “Silence,” and the aeons formed the “fullness of divinity” (the Pleroma). The Unknown Father did not create the physical world, because matter was evil and the Pleroma was pure

spirit. The creation of the world was a mistake, the action of an inferior divinity who was not part of the Pleroma.

Also, according to Gnostic teaching, human souls were actually divine, but humans were trapped inside their corrupt physical bodies. Gnostics believed Jesus was sent to earth to reveal the secret and heavenly knowledge which souls needed to return to the Unknown Father. When a person died, according to the Gnostics, his soul would be questioned on its path to the afterlife. If the person knew the answers, the soul could rise upward and return to the Unknown Father and the rest of the Pleroma. In this paradigm, salvation had nothing to do with the death and resurrection of Christ, living a moral Christian life, faith in Christ, and so on.

Salvation was achieved only by acquiring this secret knowledge, something akin to knowing the “secret passwords” or other mysteries of a secret society.

Gnosticism was popular because it incorporated many beliefs and concepts from Greek philosophy which many people assumed were absolute truths. It also appealed to the vanity and elitism of the Gnostics, who believed they were better than ordinary Christians who did not know the “secrets” and therefore had no hope of salvation. But Gnostic teachings were not supported by the Christian tradition or the Gospels. The Apostolic writings, all of which dated back to the first century, describe Jesus teaching that forgiveness, love, mercy, faith, humility, and following Him to the Cross were necessary for salvation, not “secret knowledge.” The Jesus of the Gospels was fully human: he had a mother, he was born, grew up, and at times was tired, hungry, and thirsty. He suffered, bled, and died, and rose from the dead in the flesh.

Gnostics knew their doctrines could not be defended by citing the Apostolic writings, so what could they do to promote their ideas? They wrote their own gospels and falsely attributed them to Apostles to try to lend Gnostic teachings legitimacy.

Gnostics wrote false gospels attributed to Thomas, Peter, and Judas as well as false Pauline Epistles and a false Book of Acts. The Gnostics claimed these writings had always existed and had only been 37

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Slavonic Gospel (c. 14th century)

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“hidden” (apocrypha, in fact, means “hidden” in Greek). But the earliest of these phony gospels was composed in the mid-second century, long after the Apostles were dead, and most were composed in the third century and later.

The fake Gnostic gospels never fooled the Church, which knew which writings were from the first century and which had only “suddenly” appeared. The Church also knew which writings were genuine by their content, since Gnostic gospels were drastically different from the true Apostolic writings. The fake gospels emphasized knowledge and secrets rather than purity of heart, faith, and other virtues. But Church leaders began to realize they would need to officially separate the genuine Apostolic scriptures from the counterfeits.

Marcion The second factor to catalyze the creation of the Christian canon was the preaching of Marcion, a presbyter from Asia who began preaching around the year AD 150. He taught that the God of the Old Testament was not the same God whom Jesus preached. This was a problem, of course, because there is only one God, not two. Marcion also taught that Judaism was a failed religion and argued the Church should reject everything Jewish, including the Jewish Scriptures. Beside the fact that the Savior himself was Jewish, as were all the Apostles, Marcion’s idea posed a practical problem: the Jewish Scriptures were the only official Scriptures the Church had at the time! Marcion also disapproved of most of the Apostolic writings. He only accepted the epistles of Saint Paul and his own edited version of Luke’s Gospel, which left out the portions that did not suit him. Gospel from Dečani Monastery, Serbia.

Marcion’s teachings shocked the Church. Most of the Apos- (c. 14th century) tles had been dead for over 100 years. All that remained was their teaching in the form of the oral tradition and the few Apostolic books in the same manner that previously had been writings which they had left behind. Now Marcion was re- used only to cite the Jewish Scriptures. The terms “Old Tesjecting those writings or deliberately corrupting them. How tament” and “New Testament” originated in this period, an could he even think of doing such a thing? Possibly because indication that Christians had begun regarding the Apostolic in the mid-second century, only the Jewish Scriptures (what writings as not only equal to Jewish Scriptures but as superwe call the “Old Testament”) were considered Scripture by seding them. Although the Church was challenged by these the Christians. If Apostolic writings were not “Scripture,” why heretical movements, the Holy Spirit ultimately used them for couldn’t they be altered? But ironically, Marcion’s threat to the benefit of the Church and for the glory of God. reject or alter Apostolic writings is what prompted Christians to change their perception of those very writings: Christians realized that the Gospels were not simply the “memoirs” of the Dr. Jeannie Constantinou teaches Biblical Studies and Apostles, but “Scripture” inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Early Christianity as a teaching professor at the University of Canonization The selection of a specifically Christian canon would not begin until around 200 and the discussion would last for roughly two centuries before a consensus was reached. But the rise of Gnosticism and Marcion marked a turning point. For approximately 170 years, Christians had considered only the Jewish Bible to be “Scripture,” but in this period they began to think differently about Apostolic writings, to cherish them, seek to protect them, and to recognize those writings as also inspired by the Holy Spirit. Christian writers began to quote from the

San Diego. She hosts the podcast Search the Scriptures and the call-in show Search the Scriptures LIVE! on Ancient Faith Radio.

She is a parishioner at Saint Spyridon Greek Orthodox Church in San Diego, California. Her husband, Rev. Costas Constantinou, is a retired Greek Orthodox priest.

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Illuminated manuscript Uther Pendragon, Aethelbert, King Arthur, and Oswald of Northumbria, from Epitome of Chronicles of Matthew Paris. (c. 13th century)

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H i s to r y

Aragorn’s Archetype: Portrait of a Western Orthodox Saint

by Matthew Franklin Cooper

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here is a particul ar ch allenge to being—or rather, becoming—Orthodox in a Western country. One of the largest hurdles that I’ve heard described when people first enter an Orthodox church is how ethnic and foreign it feels; this is a feeling I can sympathize with. The first two Orthodox churches I visited personally (Saint Mary’s Antiochian in Pawtucket, Rhode Island and Saint Aleksandr Nevsky Church in Saimasai, Kazakhstan) certainly left this impression on me, and yet they also filled me with a sense of otherworldly beauty.

It was only when I read the History of the English Church and People by the great English clerical historian Saint Bede the Venerable, and his descriptions of the first Christians to arrive in Kent, England, that I understood that Orthodox Christianity does not have to be foreign to us (The Roman monks who converted the English did so in a procession, with images of the face of Christ painted on wooden boards!). The Orthodox Christian saints of the British Isles in late antiquity can, and should, speak to us converts who arrive from a Western culture. The Church herself assures us in her doctrines that it is not necessary for us to become ersatz Greeks or Russians to be fully Orthodox, but sometimes we may need reminders that are more tangible, indeed more iconic. These can be found in the examples of pre-Schismatic saints such as Óswald, the saintly seventh-century Martyr-King of Northumbria. The man looms large in the Christian imagination of the British Isles, having served not only as Holy Bede’s model of the ideal king, but also—to speak to a ready pop-culture reference—the model for Aragorn in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Óswald was born in 604 and raised in exile, his family having met with misfortune before any of the English nobility of the north were ever baptized.

His father, Æþelfríð, King of Bernicia (the northern sub-kingdom of Northumbria—the counterpart of York-based Deira in the south), was killed in 616 in

battle against the inhabitants of East Anglia (around Norfolk and Suffolk nowadays) when Óswald was probably only 11 or 12 years of age. The boy was forced to flee with his brothers into the Scottish kingdom of Dál Riata (in the far west, nowadays encompassing Argyll and parts of Ulster in Northern Ireland). He became aware of Christianity through the Scottish monks on the isle of Iona, and it was there that he received Christ.

Several of Óswald’s relatives were killed during his absence, and around age 30, he returned to beat back the invaders, mustering an army of about 700 Scots and exiled Angles. On the eve of the battle, he planted a crucifix in the ground and prayed for God’s favor. At the break of dawn, the Angles attacked, setting the Britons to flight and cutting them down as they ran. The crucifix which Óswald had stood there later worked many wonders and was known for healing the sick. For a hundred years after, English folk would still soak wood slivers from this cross in water, such that sick men or beasts might be cured by drinking it. Óswald carried on the missionary work his deceased uncle had started in the province. He completed the construction of a cathedral in York, and brought back with him several Scottish monks, including the gentle, mild, and moderate Saint Aidan, to whom he gave the isle of Lindisfarne, which would later grow to be hallowed and many-storied through the fruits of Saint Aidan’s ascetic labors.

Saint Aidan at first did not speak English, so Óswald himself —who spoke fluent Scottish and English— served as Aidan’s interpreter as he traveled on foot throughout his kingdom. Óswald also gave great sums of money for the establishment of churches and monasteries and invited more holy men and brothers from Scotland to teach the new English monks how to live a regular and disciplined life of prayer. In this way, Óswald became a great benefactor to the Christian tradition of the Celts.

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TROPAR TO SAINT OSWALD Mighty works did the holy Óswald King Accomplish for the Faith: For in his great and surpassing love , He willingly laid down his life for the people of God. Wherefore, Christ God filled his sacred relics With mighty power, to heal the sick And move men’s souls to compunction. Óswald became famed for his humility, and for his love for the poor. As Holy Bede recounts in his above-mentioned History, on one Pascha, Óswald and Saint Aidan were about to feast on a silver tray loaded down with many fine delicacies and rich meats. Just then one of Óswald’s retainers, whose job it was to stand out in the street and give to the needy, came telling King Óswald that a great throng of poor and homeless folk had gathered to beg alms. Óswald at once ordered the Paschal feast to be given to them, and the silver tray broken up and distributed amongst the needy. When this was done, Saint Aidan prophetically grabbed the king’s hand and exclaimed: “May this hand never perish!”

Not only was Óswald a generous proponent of the poor, but he also was a remarkably effective prince in political terms. He managed to unify, without bloodshed, the kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira into a single Northumbrian kingdom. He kept up friendly relations with the newly-christened West Saxons, who had been baptized by Saint Berin. He served as godfather to Cynegils, King of Wessex, and married his daughter Cyneburg—they had one son together, Œðilwald, who would rule the sub-kingdom of Deira after his father’s death. His kingdom and his influence indeed extended so far that Óswald was called “Brytenwealda”: “Wide-Ruler”, the equivalent of the Irish title of High King.

Bede recounts that Óswald was steadfast in prayer and often rose early in the morning to keep the service of Lauds. The king would also pray constantly throughout the day, and whenever he sat to eat or rest, he would do so with his palms up as his mind was constantly on the Lord. He ruled Northumbria for eight years. Óswald fell in battle against Penda of Mercia at the Battle of Maserfield in 642, at the age of 38. He is said to have been praying for the souls of his soldiers when he was killed. Penda had Óswald’s body beheaded, and his head and right arm mounted on stakes for display. Óswald’s successor Óswíu would later visit the place and remove the holy king’s relics: the head and body were translated to Lindisfarne, while the arm that Saint Aidan had blessed was sent jacob's well

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to Bamburgh, where it proved to be incorrupt as the saint had prophesied. Some years later Óswíu’s daughter Saint Ósþrýð—a fast friend both to the Church and to Óswald’s widow Cyneburg—would have her uncle’s relics translated to Bardney Abbey in Lincolnshire (the arm is now in the care of Peterborough Cathedral).

Bede waxes at length about the number of miracles later attributed to Óswald’s cross, Óswald’s relics, and the spot where Óswald fell at Maserfield.

When one of his arms touched the ground there, a holy well was said to have sprung up. A little boy in a monastery was cured of the ague when he went to pray at Saint Óswald’s tomb. A sack of earth from Maserfield, hallowed by the saint’s blood, was hung from a rafter in a thatch-and-wattle house which caught fire; only the beam on which the sack had been hung was spared from the flames. Later, many poor folk would take a pinch of this earth with some water to be cured of various maladies.

Saint Óswald remained highly popular throughout the Old English period, and his name graces 70 churches throughout England. His good name even spread to the Continent—particularly France and Germany—but seems to have fallen into obscurity after the Norman Conquest of England in the 11th century. Still, the literary figure of Aragorn seems to prove that King Óswald’s hold on the English imagination was fairly indelible. Holy and righteous martyr-king Óswald, friend to the poor and bringer of the Gospel to Northumbria, we beseech you to intercede with Christ our God to save our souls!

Matthew Franklin Cooper is an elementary schoolteacher. He maintains the website The Heavy Anglo Orthodox (heavyangloorthodox.blogspot. com), where he writes regularly about Orthodox Christian history (including saints in the pre-Schismatic West), books, geopolitics, and post-Soviet film. He is a father of two and a parishioner at Saint Herman's Orthodox Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

parenting & Family life

And Then You Came for Me: A Story of Adoption and Faith

by Matushka Lauren Huggins

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ne morning in the fall of 2008, as the sun rose over our home in Colorado Springs, my two-year-old adopted son and I were sitting at our breakfast table. He was born in Ethiopia and had been living with us for about a year. Between bites of cereal, he said something that took me aback: “Mommy, when I was in the orphanage, I was looking all around for you.” His eyes became as big as saucers, and he turned his head from side to side. “I was waiting and waiting for you and wondering when you would come... and then you came for me!”

Since our engagement, my husband and I had known we would like to adopt. We had been inspired by a family in our church who had adopted five brothers and sisters from Mexico, though they already had several birth children in high school.

They were not wealthy, but it didn’t seem to matter, as they always had joyful smiles on their faces. After I gave birth to a son and daughter, our desire to adopt only grew stronger. I was working as a nurse and my husband taught special education. We knew the love that parents have for children firsthand and we wanted this love to multiply. For us, as a young family, it was a way of striving to fulfill Christ’s commandments.

Why did we decide to adopt children from Ethiopia? In part, it was because we had family living in Africa whom we had visited previously. Another factor was that Ethiopia has a large Orthodox population with deep historical roots. We wanted to help our children connect with this piece of their heritage.

The paperwork was overwhelming! The adoption agency put us through an extensive home study, delving into personal issues from our past. We went through background checks and psychological testing, and we had to prove we could provide financially for the new children and give them health insurance. We were also surprised by the up-front cost: the fees, we learned, would amount to at least

$25,000, and might run as high as $50,000. However, we applied for several grants and thankfully received one. We sold a car. Our extended families chipped in, and the Ethiopian ladies of the church cooked a feast to help us raise money. The hardest part of the process was, was… WAITING. I would check my email several times a day, hoping for any piece of news. We had to remind ourselves that our child had suffered much more to be in the position to be adopted.

After 12 months, the time came for us to travel to Ethiopia and finally hold our new baby in our arms. We went to a large, well-organized orphanage in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. From our guest house, we were awakened each morning by the sounds of roosters crowing and the Orthodox morning prayers being chanted in Ge’ez (an ancient Ethiopian language) over the loudspeaker throughout the town. After that, the Muslim prayers would start over the loudspeaker as well. It was a joy to walk into the room where our new little one was being cared for by attentive nannies. A year after we brought him home, we returned to Ethiopia and adopted a second child, a 7-month-old girl.

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Our life together is a joy, but it certainly required adjustments. When we brought our son home, he spent months screaming louder than any child I have ever heard. He woke up crying, hourly, every night. I knew he had been through a traumatic infancy, and I assumed it was a natural result of his experience. It was also a coping mechanism. In the orphanage, he would do that and immediately get a bottle. He’d been so well fed that he was the biggest baby there.

Our adopted children have asked questions about their skin color, their birth parents, and other details about their backgrounds. We have a good bit of family information for our son, but now that he’s 13, it is difficult for him to talk about it. Meanwhile, we have very little background information about our 10-year-old daughter, but she talks about it several times a week. We’ve realized it is important to let them be where they are in that process. At the same time, we have tried to incorporate food, clothing, history, art, music, and a little language from their birth country into our home.

We moved to Saint Tikhon’s Seminary in 2010, and then to the small town of Durango, Colorado, where my husband is now assigned as a priest. Our children do stand out here. They are not white, but they don’t feel fully Ethiopian, because they were not raised there, nor are they part of typical African-American culture. This certainly may lead to questions of identity. It is our job to provide them with a safe, loving, nourishing haven while they continue to struggle and grow through these crosses.

Because they were so young when we began the process, adoption has seemed natural for our birth children. In fact, when our birth son was 5 years old, he said, “Let’s have another baby! Let’s go to the airport!” He was used to greeting my husband and me at the terminal to meet his new siblings. Even now as teenagers, they feel that our family situation is normal. They see no difference between adopted or birth siblings. All of them have said that they will consider adoption for their own families when they are parents.

I want to encourage more Orthodox families to consider adoption—and not only as a fallback when giving birth doesn’t work out. We can allow Christ to manifest His love through us by opening our homes, lives, and hearts to children in need. Some of the laws and procedures have changed since my husband and I went through the process—for instance, Ethiopia no longer allows overseas adoptions—but the need is still tremendous. According to UNICEF, there are globally 153 million orphaned children. In the United States in 2017, there were jacob's well

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690,000 children in the foster-care system. It is hard to truly comprehend these numbers.

There is a beautiful line in a hymn to the Theotokos that my husband often sings to our children at bedtime, praising her as the one “Who rescuest the perishing and receivest the orphaned and intercedest for the stranger.” It may be that the Lord has adoption in his plans for you, or maybe you can support families who are adopting or fostering. For example, respite care is needed to give foster parents some personal time as they can only let certified caretakers babysit the foster children.

Our infant adopted son had never set foot in an Orthodox church before we brought him into our home parish in Colorado Springs. He had a long birth name, which included Michael, as it was a family name. As I held him in my arms during services, he would often reach for a large icon of Archangel Michael, as if he knew him. He would also venerate the icons the way it is traditionally done in Ethiopia, by laying his forehead down on them and then kissing them. To me, this was a reminder that though these children had experienced hardship very early on, God and His angels were always with them; even in loneliness, even in darkness. I cannot endorse any particular adoption website, but see the resource links below if you’re interested in learning more. ◉ adoptuskids.com ◉ showhope.org ◉ zoeforlifeonline.org ◉ goarch.org/-/service-of-the-adoptionof-a-child

Lauren Huggins is a nurse and the mother of four children. She is also the wife of Father Benjamin Huggins, priest of Saint Andrew’s Orthodox Church (OCA) in Delta, Colorado. She lives with her family in Durango, Colorado.

Liturgy and Life

The Manna, the Tablets, and the Rod: On the Feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God

by Hieromonk Herman (Majkrzak)

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very ye ar at the end of November , we celebrate the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, the day when her parents brought her to live in the Temple at Jerusalem until she would become betrothed to Saint Joseph. This feast honors in particular the girlhood of the Mother of God. The surpassingly holy childhood of Our Lady was unique, just as unique as her surpassingly holy adulthood. She is, as the poet William Wordsworth wrote, “Our tainted nature’s solitary boast.” However, we all share the same human nature as the Mother of God. We are, all of us, sons or daughters of our common first-parents, Adam and Eve. And this means the life of the Holy Virgin is not only an exalted inspiration for us, but also a model. And she is a model for us not only in her motherhood, but also in her childhood.

The feast day’s reading from the Epistle to the Hebrews is instructive here: Behind the second curtain stood the tabernacle called the Holy of Holies, having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, which contained a golden jar holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant.

(Hebrews 9:3–4)

This passage gives us a list of the sacred objects that were treasured up within that golden chest, called the Ark of the Covenant. All these objects bore some connection to the Exodus from Egypt, when Israel was delivered from slavery and crossed the Red Sea. But for the Church of the New Israel— that’s us—all of these objects are also understood in one way or another as prefiguring the Mother of God. They are foreshadowings—or, to use the technical term, types—of the Holy Virgin, each of them revealing something special about her. Thus the Church sings during the vesting of the bishop at a hierarchical Liturgy: “The prophets proclaimed thee from on high, O Virgin: the jar, the staff, the tables of the law…”

The jar containing the manna shows that the Virgin contained in her womb the Bread of Life, our Lord Jesus Christ. The tablets of the Law are a figure of Our Lady who bore the eternal Word of God, not engraved on stone, but formed from her very flesh and blood. And the rod—Aaron’s rod that miraculously blossomed and produced almonds—is, as the Canon for the feast explains, a prefiguring of the divine childbirth of the Holy Virgin (cf. Num. 17:8; Canon 2, ode 4, trop. 6, see Festal Menaion, p. 180).

But the Entrance of the Theotokos gives occasion to consider these three types or figures of the Virgin from a somewhat different vantage point.

The manna, the tablets, the rod: each of them shows us an indispensable characteristic of true and godly childhood, and, therefore, of true and godly parenthood.

First, manna, of course, was the miraculous bread that God sent down every day on His quite ungrateful people as He led them through the desert.

He nourished them despite their frequent complaining and grumbling. He lavished His love on them.

He fed them with the finest wheat (Ps. 80:16). Our holy Lady, sojourning during the years of her girlhood in the Holy of Holies, was fed every day by an angel, who brought her heavenly bread.

O Virgin, fed in faith by heavenly bread in the temple of the Lord, thou hast brought forth unto the world the Bread of life. (Praises of the feast, third sticheron. Festal Menaion, page 194)

The icon of the feast depicts this angel and this bread in the top-right corner. God nourished this holy girl, He lavished His love on her, and she received with gratitude and joy that which the old Israel received with grumbling. There are lessons here for parents and children both. It’s critical to show children affection, support, and warmth—and, of course, to feed them (every day!) whether they’re grateful or not. And kids ought to take it as a reminder to thank their parents for everything. Every day, and for every meal, parents deserve gratitude.

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The food on the family table does not come down miraculously from heaven. No, it is provided and prepared by parents’ hard work.

Second, the tablets—the stone tablets on which the Commandments of God were inscribed by His finger (Exodus 31:18). Here we see an image of the duty of parents to instruct their children: to teach them, to raise them in the fear of God. From the depths of the sanctuary, Our Lady, throughout her childhood, listened attentively to the words of sacred Scripture being read to the people in the forecourt of the temple. God was instructing her; He was forming her. And when she heard these words, she kept them (cf. Luke 11:28). Saint Luke tells us, “she kept all these things, pondering them in her heart” (cf. Luke 2:19, 51). Indeed, the Church hails the Mother of God as the “living book of Christ” (Canon of the Akathist, ode 1; see Lenten Triodion, page 427).

As all parents know, they are their children’s first and most important teachers. But many of the curriculums our kids are likely to encounter later in life, perhaps especially in high school and college, may serve to undermine the intellectual and moral foundations necessary for a lifelong commitment to Christ. So as teachers, parents must make the Christian foundation laid at home as firm and stable as possible. Parents in the Church must make that foundation as firm and stable as they can. And let the children in our parishes remember to listen to their parents’ lessons and, like the Mother of God, carefully treasure their parents’ words in their memories and hearts.

Thirdly, there is the rod—the rod of Aaron that budded. A rod is used to guide and to correct. Now Our Lady, as a girl just as an adult woman, was sinless. She never once wavered from the will of God, and so Saints Joachim and Ann never had occasion to correct her. But they did guide her.

There’s a touching detail in the events we remember on the feast: having arrived at the Temple to fulfill their vow to dedicate their daughter to God, Joachim and Ann are concerned that Mary, after taking her first steps toward the priest, might turn around and run back to her parents. After all, she was only three! So, as we sing at Vespers of the feast, they arrange for her friends, young girls her age, to go before her, carrying lit candles and torches, in order to attract her by the beauty of the lights toward her new home in the temple (cf. Aposticha, 3rd sticheron, Festal Menaion, page 171). In other words, Joachim and Ann deliberately plan a way to encourage their daughter to walk toward God—and away from them!

Above: The Theotokos and Christ Apse at Hagia Sophia (Mosaic, c. 867) opposite: Entry of the Theotkos Manuel Penselinos (Fresco, c. 14th century)

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This is the kind of guidance that all parents are called on to give their children. Not that children should leave their parents by walking toward the world, not that they should show any dishonor to their parents and, by so doing, breaking one of the Ten Commandments, but that they should walk toward God—toward the God to Whom we owe the first place in our lives, Whom we must love more than parents or children or friends (cf. Mark 10:29–30).

And whenever parents give such guidance, it always involves self-denial. This is even more the case when it comes to offering correction or even punishment. We live in a culture characterized by overindulgence in every area of life, so it can be easy to feel guilty whenever we take steps to check the indulgence, the whims and desires, of our children, or indeed of anyone for whom we bear responsibility. Correction is almost always unpleasant for the one receiving it, certainly, but also for the one dispensing it. Yet, like that rod of Aaron that budded, correction can blossom forth and bear the peaceful fruits of human maturity, discipline, and flourishing (cf. Hebrews 12:11). And that is certainly a more worthwhile and lasting gift for our children than letting them be blown about their entire lives by every wind of passion, emotion, and instability (cf.

Ephesians 4:14).

Of course, accepting chastisement with humility isn’t just for kids. After all, our God, as a true Father, chastens all of us, throughout our whole

lives, because He loves us and desires that each of us will come to share His holiness (Heb. 12:10). This process can be difficult and painful. But we can take comfort in the fact that Our Lady, the most pure Mother of God, is praying for us all. She’s praying that when God corrects and disciplines us, we will not despise it but will take courage, accepting it with humility and even (if we can manage it) with gratitude (cf. Hebrews. 12:5; Proverbs 3:11). And the Holy Virgin is praying for us also that when God, as our true teacher, gives us a word of instruction, we will “hold it fast in an honest and good heart,” not being distracted by “the cares and riches and pleasures of this life” (Luke 8:15, 14). And, above all, she’s praying for us that when God lavishes upon us the great gifts of His love, His nourishment, and the delights of His grace, we will receive them with an open and soft heart, so that we too, like Saint Mary, may bear abundant fruit: the fruit of Christ in our lives. the rev. Herman (Majkrzak) is a member of the monastic brotherhood at Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, where he teaches liturgics and edits liturgical publications for the monastery press. He previously taught liturgical music at Saint Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York and Saint Herman’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Alaska.

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Trusting the Pastoral Call

by Jeremiah McKemy

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arly in 2018, I knew the time had come. The small business that I’d been building for six years was bringing in peak profits. My wife and I were living in Asheville, North Carolina, and we loved everything about it. But we decided to give it all up and move to Pennsylvania, where I was ready to enroll as a seminarian at Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary.

I have felt a pastoral call since childhood. When I was a business major in college, my spiritual mentor advised me to work hard on my career, so that when the time came to answer that call, I would have something to sacrifice to God. I followed his advice and became a home inspector. I spent a year and a half studying for three different state licenses. After my licensing was completed, I handled inspections for two local insurance companies. By the end of 2017, I was contracting with many national companies and my services were in demand. I had more work than I could handle. I finally had something to sacrifice.

Sacrifice is inherently difficult, and it’s especially foreign to us in the consumerist culture of 21st-century America. But in the Scriptures, we find that God turns sacrifice upside down—rather than resulting in loss or death, it brings life. Abraham waited until the age of 100 before God granted him his first-born son, Isaac. Shortly thereafter, God commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac upon an altar. As Abraham lifted the knife to slay Isaac, God stopped him, seeing that he had proven his faith. God then revealed the life-giving beauty of sacrifice, stating, “Because you have done this thing, and have not withheld your son, your only son—blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven… in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice” (Genesis 22:16–18). Through Abraham and Isaac’s descendants came the nation of Israel, and through them eventually came the Virgin Mary and our Lord Jesus Christ, Who indeed has blessed innumerable people from “all the nations of the earth” with eternal life.

My wife, whom I met in college and married in 2007, would have been content to stay in Asheville.

We had many friends and a wonderful church family there, and we loved being surrounded by the mountains. But I could no longer ignore my calling, and she

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strongly agreed that I am called to the ministry. So, in the spring of 2018, I closed down my business, laying it upon the altar and trusting God to take care of us.

I made numerous repairs to our home so it would sell quickly, and in the meantime I was accepted into Saint Tikhon’s.

With our house under contract and our move to Saint Tikhon’s quickly approaching, I began to panic.

I could find neither public nor private student loans for my studies. Knowing I would not be able to work while attending the rigorous program at STOTS, I called the seminary to ask for guidance and was assured by the administration that there were scholarships available—without which few students would be able to attend the school. All that was required of us was that we make the leap of faith and trust that God would catch us if we acted in obedience to Him. The experience has been difficult at times for both my wife and me. We still don’t know where we’ll end up after we leave the seminary; the Diocese of the South, which we belong to, runs all the way from New Mexico to Virginia. However, how can we say that we trust God if we are unwilling to make sacrifices? I have seen the fruit of trust and obedience blossoming forth in our lives and our marriage. As we “commend ourselves, each other, and all our life unto Christ our God” (the Divine Liturgy), He has blessed us with a deepening inner life and the joy that comes with following the path that He lays before us.

With one year of seminary behind me, my trust in God is deepening and my appreciation for numerous unsung heroes is growing. I am referring to those who have answered God’s call to generosity—these faithful stewards who work hard to provide for their families, support their local churches, and make donations to our seminary. Without their sacrifices and obedience, we would have no beautiful churches and no seminarians. Their sacrifice, combined with the men and women leaving their homelands like Abraham to answer the call to seminary, ensures the future of our life-giving Orthodox Faith in this American land.

Jeremiah McKemy is a seminarian at Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox Theological Seminary.

Bobak Ha'eri, Bobak, License CC-BY-SA-3.0.

n ot e s f r o m s e m i n a r y

from my youth

An IOCC Conference in Minneapolis

by Josh Brad

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his summer I attended a conference with the International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) in Minneapolis. There, along with two dozen other high-school seniors from all over the country and from various Orthodox jurisdictions, we spent a week helping the poor and learning about leadership.

A most memorable experience stemmed from serving dinner at a soup kitchen. I ate with a man who had moved to Minneapolis from Washington, D.C., where his dad worked for the Department of Agriculture. He had originally come to the Midwest for college, but he dropped out and then his life fell apart. As I listened, I realized he just wanted someone to talk to, to see him as another person, and to hear his story. The encounter impressed on me the importance of being present and meeting people where they are.

During the trip, we also worked with Habitat for Humanity to build a home for someone in need.

I contributed by helping to paint the exterior. Although we didn’t get to meet the person who was to live there, the experience made me think of the blessings I have. I have a comfortable home to live in, and I never need worry about having clothing or

food. It is all too easy to go about my daily routine without thinking of those in need. Our work in service to others brought awareness that I should do more to share God’s blessings.

Throughout the conference, we regularly celebrated the different services of the Church: Matins, Vespers, and Divine Liturgy. Worshiping with my fellow American Orthodox Christians reminded me that while we may be divided by jurisdictions, we are still one Church—the holy Orthodox Church.

The conference also highlighted the close connection between service and our worship and prayer lives. Christ meets us in worship and prayer and equips us with His grace to go out and serve a broken world.

All told, the conference was a great opportunity to put my faith into action. I think the conference is a wonderful experience and would be great for other teens to experience too.

Josh Brad is a high-school senior and a parishioner at the Orthodox Church of the Holy Cross in Medford, New Jersey.

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Gary Bembridge, License CC-BY-GA-2.0.

from my youth

Holy Land Pilgrimage Daniel Rogozenski, a senior studying at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, spent his spring break touring the Holy Land on a trip organized by the Orthodox Christian Fellowship, the national association of Orthodox student groups on college campuses. We asked him to describe what he witnessed in Jerusalem and his broader experiences as an Orthodox young adult.

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You’re a college student?

Yeah, I go to Rutgers University in New Brunswick. I’m studying computer science.

Were all the students on the trip from New Jersey?

No, they were from OCF chapters all across the country. I went with two friends from my home parish. The rest of the students, maybe a dozen, were of similar faith and background.

What was your itinerary like?

We flew into Tel Aviv and then boarded a bus to Jerusalem. Definitely the highlight of the trip was visiting the Holy Sepulcher. We were accompanied by a bishop, and he let us go behind the scenes to a room where we venerated an actual piece of the Cross. It's not a place that tourists are allowed to go. That was probably the closest I've ever felt to Christ in my faith.

But the most beautiful places we visited were the Monastery of the Holy Apostles and the Monastery of Saint Mary Magdalene. We also visited Jacob's Well Monastery and drank from the well. There's a staircase that takes you down beneath the monastery to a small room where the well is. So, we got to pull water up and drop it back down.

Did you spend nights at the monasteries or attend services there?

Well, we visited about a dozen churches and monasteries a day, so no. We went to about a hundred different places in a single week. But we did have one Sunday service.

Any other highlights?

We also got to see the Monastery of the Dormition, which was the burial spot of Joachim and Anna. You're not allowed to take pictures, but there were chandeliers or lights hanging from the ceiling, and you went inside this little place. You had to crawl in, and that's where they actually were. And then you said a prayer and you'd crawl out.

Also, our guide on the trip was a priest. Not only did he tell us the stories of what happened and where, but he also spoke about the differences between our religion and what some other religions believe. That's not typically something you hear about all the time.

Did the trip have an effect on your spiritual life?

It definitely brought me closer to Christ. It's interesting to actually see and visit the places that we've learned about and heard about our whole lives.

There’s a lot of fretting these days about young people leaving the faith—and with good reason. Could you talk about your own decision to stick with it?

I've always been a strong member of the faith. I grew up in a pretty religious town— East Brunswick. It’s not just Orthodox people; the town is also very Jewish. But in my experience, not many people in my church have dropped off. When you go to college, it's harder to find time to practice your faith, but it’s still doable.

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b oo k R e v i e w

On Modern Psychology and Ancient Wisdom

by Ben Keaster

T

here is a mental health crisis playing out on America’s college campuses. Over the last decade, college students’ rates of depression, anxiety, self-injury, and suicide attempts have all risen sharply.

Why is this? Are America’s young people facing more pressure to succeed than in previous generations?

Are they too glued to their screens to get proper exercise or sleep? Are they worried about finding a stable career or establishing stable romantic relationships?

Are they terrified of rising global temperatures and the future of the planet?

In The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist, and Greg Lukianoff, an attorney who litigates for free speech on college campuses, argue that the primary cause is a culture of “safetyism” that has come to dominate parenting and the academy in the last 10 years. Drawing insight from such varied sources as the stoic philosopher Epictetus and the Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, they make the case that well-intentioned adults have inculcated the youth with what they call the “three Great Untruths”: ◗ The Untruth of Fragility: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker. ◗ The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always trust your feelings. ◗ The Untruth of Us vs. Them: Life is a battle between good people and evil people.

To understand the authors’ perspective, it helps to start with Lukianoff ’s personal story, which he relates in the book’s opening chapter. Lukianoff has been involved with the non-profit organization FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), which has focused on protecting free-speech rights on college campuses since 2001. He has had a frontrow seat during the last 18 years to see where threats to free speech have come from, and more important, the justifications used to limit speech. Up until 2014, he says, the people pushing for disinviting campus speakers and limiting hate speech (mostly administrators) used as a justification the curtailment of racist or sexist speech. In 2014, the justifications for these events became medicalized. The typical argument jacob's well

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was that certain ideas from speakers, or even in literature or coursework, could interfere with students’ ability to function. Lukianoff was surprised because it was, in many ways, the opposite of what he’d been taught in therapy in 2008, after he was hospitalized with depression. His own journey from being suicidal and depressed to regaining the ability to function was facilitated by Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) was formalized in the 1960s by psychiatrist Aaron Beck. It is a short-term, goal-oriented method that is widely held to be the gold standard in psychotherapy. One of its key insights is that thoughts, emotions, and behavior are causally linked and proceed from one to the next.

Put as simply as possible, if you are experiencing “bad” emotions (such as depression or anxiety), it could be the result of “bad” thoughts (I am unlovable, I am fragile, I am in danger). CBT teaches patients to look critically at their thoughts and to change the ones that aren’t true, as a way to break a dysfunctional cycle of thoughts-emotions-behavior-repeat.

As Lukianoff began to get well, he noticed that campus administrators often modeled cognitive distortions for students. One of the “bad” thoughts they perpetuated was that students were in constant danger and in need of protection (whether from hateful words, challenging ideas, or discussions related to specific traumas). It was this new insistence that censorship was needed for psychological wellbeing that led Lukianoff to seek out social psychologist Johnathan Haidt, who confirmed his understanding that there was indeed a contradiction. Haidt and Lukianoff are convinced that many of the discussions about the need for safe spaces, trigger warnings, and, most alarmingly, treating speech as literal violence, contain and promote what CBT would identify as cognitive distortions.

The argument is at its strongest in relation to anxiety. There is wide agreement amongst the diverse schools of psychological thought about how to help someone overcome anxiety. It’s firmly established in psychology that the best way to overcome fear and anxiety is from voluntary exposure, in small but increasing doses, to what frightens the patient. The idea

Fibonacci Blue, License CC-BY-GA-2.0. Changes made.

of encouraging students to stay away, in safe spaces, from words or ideas that they are afraid of is akin to upgrading the home-security system for an agoraphobic. The very short-term reduction in anxiety comes at the expense of personal development. The agoraphobic not only will not get better but will become even less likely to leave home than before getting the security system. This way the agoraphobic, and the students, are robbed of the long-term recovery that comes not from learning that the world is safer than you thought, but from learning that you are stronger than you realized. This analysis alone, which is not heavy-handed or particularly ideological, makes this book a valuable resource for anyone interested trying to make sense of the past decade.

What may be of even more interest for Orthodox readers, though, is the foundation on which this criticism is leveled. Lukianoff and Haidt lay out a grounding ethic for public discourse that not only has the potential to cut through the morass of red/blue electoral politics, but also leaves room for historically-minded Christians to contribute. You see this quite clearly in the standards they set for what constitutes a “Great Untruth.” For something to qualify as a “Great Untruth” it must meet three criteria: ◗ It contradicts ancient wisdom (Yes!) ◗ It harms individuals and communities that embrace it (Yes!) ◗ It contradicts modern psychological research (hmm)

Public discourse centered on these first two principles is certainly a welcome respite from the tribal fear and outrage generators that dominate much of our current landscape. But what about the third principle?

Given that the field of modern psychological research is in pretty poor shape, it would be understandable to greet criteria #3 with more skepticism. However, even here Haidt and Lukianoff have a valid critique, mostly because when they talk about modern psychological research, they’re talking about CBT—which overlaps substantially (although certainly not totally) with the views of the Eastern fathers of the Church.

To name but one example, Cognitive Behavioral Therapists typically urge patients to step back and observe their thoughts dispassionately. Interestingly, it was the stoic philosopher Epictetus who wrote in his Encheiridion, “It is not things themselves that disturb men, but their judgments about these things.

For example, death is nothing dreadful, or else Socrates too would have thought so, but the judgment that death is dreadful is the dreadful thing. When, therefore, we are hindered or disturbed, or grieved, let us never blame anyone but ourselves, which means

our own judgments.” This quotation was cited often by the CBT pioneer Aaron Beck. But Epictetus was equally popular in certain Christian circles during late antiquity. A Christianized version of the Encheiridion, supposedly adapted by the monk Saint Neilos the Ascetic, was circulated widely in the 5th century— and it kept the above quotation intact.

Haidt and Lukianoff have produced a profoundly insightful book, one that covers such broad topics as safe spaces, administrative bureaucracy, student protests, social media use, parenting practices, political polarization, and cognitive distortions. The real genius of the book is its use of basic and proven cognitive behavioral psychological principles as the starting point for the cultural analysis of these issues. Let this approach be an inspiration that it is still possible, albeit difficult, to have a genuine discussion of important cultural issues without resorting to name-calling tribalism. Let it also remind us that a great rubric for generating solutions is to notice where there is agreement among ancient wisdom, modern psychological research, and considerations of practical utility.

For an excellent review of the various ways a classical Christian anthropology interfaces with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a better book cannot be found than Father Alexis Trader’s Ancient Christian Wisdom and Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Therapy.

Benjamin Keaster is a social worker of 15 years.

He is a father of four and a reader at Holy Ascension Orthodox Church in Albion, Michigan.

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JoĂŤl van der Loo, License CC-BY-SA-4.0.

television review

The Cost of Lies

by Presbyter Matthew Brown

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I

n April of 1986, in a small industrial town in the dosimeters—devices for measuring radiation— north of Ukraine, a test on a nuclear reactor went read only 3 roentgen, a relatively low amount. But haywire, leading to an explosion and a fire that re- Legasov points out—as he did earlier at an importleased massive amounts of radiation into the air. It is ant meeting with the USSR’s president, Mikhail Gorstill considered the worst nuclear disaster in history. bachev, and other high-ranking party officials—that But Chernobyl isn’t history, it’s legend. For people 3 roentgen is the upper limit of those dosimeters. around the globe, Chernobyl is the story of tech- Legasov fights repeatedly and hard, eventually nological catastrophe. It functions as an archetype with the help of Boris Shcherbina, to get a highof human error and man’s inability to control his range dosimeter. And ultimately—unsurprisingly own technology. But the error of Chernobyl was not to viewers—the new device reads 15,000 roentgen! technical in nature; rather, it was rooted in a fatal “What does that mean?” asks Shcherbina. Legasov flaw. Machines didn’t fail, people did. This series replies, “That means it is giving off nearly twice the reminds us of the lesson of Chernobyl: that man radiation of the bomb at Hiroshima and that’s every has a very precarious relationship with the truth. single hour, hour after hour.”

This year’s five-episode mini-series by HBO, As the story’s hero, Legasov is the lone voice titled “Chernobyl,” attracted more than 7 million speaking truth in a society gone mad from telling viewers and received massive critical acclaim, too many lies. His is a story of courage. In the final earning a 9.4 rating on Internet Movie Database— episode, “Vichnaya Pamyat”, which is set in a Soviet tied for second place as the highest-rated TV show courtroom, he is faced with the moral task of telling of all time. What makes this shocking is that the truth even when doing so will mean suicide. He show’s writer, Craig Mazin, is better known for his knows the disaster at Chernobyl would have ended work on less well-received films such as Scary Movie far worse had it not been for his efforts.

4 and The Hangover Part III. Yet, Chernobyl delivers Boris Shcherbina, sent by the Party to oversee excellent writing, acting, and cinematography. It is the disaster’s containment, is transformed over the a beautiful production, based partly on the book course of the series. At the outset, he epitomizes the Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear self-delusion of Soviet society. But between LegasDisaster by the Nobel Prize-winner Svetlana Alex- ov’s efforts and the horrific experiences of Cherievich. nobyl, he comes to realize not only the magnitude The first episode introduces us to the life of ordi- of the disaster, but also the deep sickness of lies nary workers in Pripyat. The town is presented as an which pervades his country. Slowly, he understands idyllic image of Soviet life as children play, mothers how the system he’d believed in has betrayed him. smile, and men head off to work. At the same time, Profound character transformation is difficult to the drab Soviet architecture, the blocky and cold portray convincingly, and it is a sign of good writing apartment complexes, and the washed-out cadaver when it is executed well. tones of the show’s cinematography communicate The climax of Shcherbina’s transformation comes the falseness of this utopia. Everything seems fine when a robot, borrowed from the West Germans to but there is a sickness in which all the characters perform a critical task in the cleanup, fails in its task. are colored. Long before we are presented with this Shcherbina realizes the robot has failed because falsehood in the story line, it is hinted at by the Chernobyl’s administrators were not truthful with cinematography. the West Germans about the amount of radiation The acting—particularly of Jared Harris as the the robot would be exposed to. Had they been, scientist Valery Legasov and of Stellan Skarsgard as perhaps modifications could have been made or the senior Communist Party official Boris Shcher- another robot used. But protecting the Soviet image bina—is superb. These two characters shoulder of superiority was more important than the lives of the load of mitigating the disaster and potential- millions across Europe. The scene ends with Shcherly saving millions of lives. Legasov realizes, long bina having a meltdown of his own, screaming on before anyone else, the magnitude of the disaster, the phone to his superiors—an almost unthinkable and finds himself fighting against those who refuse action for a Soviet bureaucrat. For him, that’s when to acknowledge the evidence. The degree of incom- the lies stopped. petency and group lying in the first episode is as”Chernobyl” focuses not only on the leadership, tounding. And the persistence of lies throughout but also ventures into the lives of ordinary people afthe series, even in the face of the real possibility of fected by the fallout. It shows just how many people repeating the disaster of Chernobyl, is unbelievable. suffered as a result of the denial and cover up. We In one instance, the administrators of the Cher- get an impressive cross-section of all the lives and nobyl plant dismiss Valery’s warnings because the different lots intertwined in this disaster. In each 55

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case, these ordinary people simply accept the official can hope to fix them. Denial is a sure way to remain story line, even though it obviously didn’t add up. stuck in the morass you find yourself in.

They don’t question or object even in the face of the I am reminded of a quote from Metropolitan surreal and absurd.

Anthony Bloom that can help us see the spiritual One story line that wends its way through most dimension of this series: “God can save the sinner of the series is that of a young mother-to-be. Her you are, but not the saint you pretend to be.” Telling husband, a firefighter and first responder to the di- the truth, in every facet of our lives but especially saster, suffers from radiation poisoning. Her love in our spiritual life, is a matter of life and death. and care for him is inspiring, and the fate of her “Chernobyl” makes this plain to see. When we lie unborn child, tragic. But throughout her arduous long enough and large enough, we risk a disaster journey, she too fails to admit to herself the obvious like Chernobyl. But when we are honest with our truth: that her husband is dying and that the story sins and problems, we have hope. This is a lesson given her by the doctors is a lie. as relevant to our individual lives as it is to our own There is a moving story of miners conscripted contemporary society. to dig beneath the power plant, knowing full well To Mikhail Gorbachev, the Chernobyl explosion their own fate for doing so and yet knowing the fate was “perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the of millions if they do not. The interaction between Soviet Union.” He saw it as a turning point that the party official who must coerce them to do this “opened the possibility of much greater freedom of job is humorous, if you find the awkward funny. The expression, to the point that the system as we knew official’s discomfort also speaks to the persistence it could no longer continue.” In his book Private of class differences, despite our best efforts to dispel Truths, Public Lies: The Social Consequences of them. For all their rough edges and impropriety, the Preference Falsification, the Turkish-American miners possess an authenticity and self-confidence economist Timur Kuran explores the consequencthat is often lacking among the well to-do. es of the lies that make disasters like Chernobyl A tangential story is that of a young military man possible. Preference falsification is when, because who, along with two older and experience-hardened of social pressure, threats of violence, or to gain men, is ordered to sweep through the abandoned social favor, people pretend to agree with the previllages and cities of the region to kill pets and farm vailing opinion or order. Kuran argues this is why animals, preventing them from infecting humans the Soviet Union fell so precipitously. Nearly everywith radiation. The scene is surreal and gruesome; one had stopped believing in the Soviet project, but by the end, their pickup truck is piled high with everyone was still pretending they did. It just took animal corpses. It makes for a most odd and un- the right circumstances, and brave souls, to get the fortunate coming-of-age story. dominos falling.

If there is criticism surrounding this series, it This ought to serve as a warning for us. Religious concerns inaccuracies of technical and biographical communities are acutely susceptible to preference details as well as the role the series plays in refuel- falsification. We ought to be aware of our use of ing anti-nuclear hysteria. Fair enough. There are an pressure, especially guilt, in producing falsified inordinate amount of uninformed and overly emo- beliefs rather than adherence. It is a reminder of tional opinions regarding the future role of nuclear the impossibility of making anyone do or believe power in solving energy and environmental prob- anything. It reminds us that creating a culture of lems. We can blame Chernobyl for that hysteria to honesty and openness in our parishes and in our a large extent. But these criticisms miss the point homes is crucial to living authentic spiritual lives. of this series. It is not to scare us about the dangers We must be sensitive to the dangers of judging of nuclear energy, but rather it is to warn us of the others and pressures toward conformity, which can dangers of telling lies. have the exact opposite effect of what we desire. We It’s the moral of the story of “Chernobyl” that can end up just like the Soviet society portrayed in makes the series great. It was not incompetence, or this mini-series. And everything could come crasheven inferior technology, that caused the disaster. It ing down around us in a moment. was moral failure, and, specifically, the failure to tell The series concludes with this haunting line from the truth. Chernobyl is what happens when a whole Valery Legasov: “And this at last is the gift of Chersociety stops being honest with itself. When we tell nobyl: That I, who once would fear the cost of truth, lies, repeat them, and pretend we believe them, our now only ask, what is the cost of lies?” The specter grip on reality grows weak. It is only when we are of lies that is Chernobyl should always haunt our honest and truthful about our problems that we dreams. Some nightmares are gifts. jacob's well

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After Holy Communion

by Nick Skiles It is possible to ring with crystalline purity like a wineglass traced by fingertips.

Each of us bearing Fingerprints, evidence in clay.

Whether we be muddiest earth or turned perfectly transparent, Our heart of hearts remains Hidden even to us.

Whether it be holy of holies or den of demons‌.Well, How does it resonate?

Do its walls reverberate with that lone immutable Note?

Consume the Word and hear His name sung on your palate.

Taste and see that the Lord is good Make your heart His palace.

Clench your lips tight; dare not Speak His mysteries to enemies.

Careful not to purse those lips in a Pose of betrayal.

Nicholas Skiles’s essays have been published in Front Porch Republic and The House Blog at Solidarity Hall. He is the author of a self-published, digital chapbook of poetry titled Unseasonable Poems. He is a father of three and a parishioner at Holy Assumption Church in Canton, Ohio. This poem originally appeared on Conciliar Post.

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Color Me!

Nativity Word Mix-up

This issue was sponsored by the clergy and faithful of the Cathedral of the Holy Virign Protection.