INTRODUCTION
DGK :
When people set out to find the historic Church of Christ established at Pentecost, they end up discovering the Orthodox Church. We thank God for those people who have found the Orthodox Faith, the true Faith that once and for all was delivered to the saints. This Orthodox Faith has remained the best-kept secret in Canada and North America. It is time that we let this light shine. Canada needs the Orthodox Faith. To those who have found the Orthodox Faith, we say : “Welcome home”. To Canadians, who are wondering where they could find a solid moral foundation that has not changed with popular opinion, we say : “Come home to the Faith of Peter and Paul ; come home to a Faith which has remained unchanged for close to 2,000 years. Christ is in our midst. He is, and ever shall be”.
What is the Orthodox Church ? Where did it come from ? Why hasn’t anyone heard of it even though it is the second largest Christian Faith in the world ? In the weeks to come we will explore what the Orthodox Faith is : its historic roots, and what it stands for. We will talk to many people who have entered into the journey and have come home to the Orthodox Faith.
My name is Deacon Gregory Kopchuk, the host of “Welcome Home”, sponsored by the Archdiocese of Canada of The Orthodox Church in America, an English- language Orthodox Church for North Americans.
Today, we have a very special guest – His Eminence, Archbishop Seraphim of the Archdiocese of Canada, of The Orthodox Church in America, and we welcome him to the programme. Your Eminence, today we are going to discuss the vision of the Archdiocese of Canada (OCA). We would like you to talk about the vision as you see it.
AS :
The vision as I understand it ? I am not sure that there is only one vision. Our Orthodox Church in Canada is comprised of many different people from different places with different languages, different experiences and different formations. Do we mean, therefore, their vision ? If so, there are very many indeed. Even if we refer to the Archdiocesan Council’s vision of the Archdiocese, we would have to say the same thing. If we mean the vision of the bishop or the archbishop, he would answer : “Who am I to have my own vision of anything ?” Our vision for the Church has to be the same as our Lord’s vision for the Church. He, after all, is the Head of the Church, and we are His servants. To know what is the vision we have to ask Him, hear Him, and do what He says. When we are speaking about the Orthodox Church in Canada (which is a simpler way to refer to us), everything still has to be measured by the Gospel and the Orthodox Tradition. How that is lived out in each different place depends on the people, and so forth. Canada is not some sort of monolith, for instance. How we are going to live the Orthodox life in Québec, for instance, is not exactly how we would live it in Alberta, or in Newfoundland or Yukon.
DGK :
Your Eminence, would it be possible for you to sum up in a few sentences what is the vision of the Archdiocese of Canada for the Orthodox Church ?
AS :
I think we had better start by talking about what is the vision (if we must use this word) for the Orthodox in any culture. Our vision here cannot be different from that. The principal vision has to be connected with knowing authentically Who is Jesus Christ, and knowing Him personally, and living in response to that personal relationship with Christ. Therefore, “vision” can be translated as “comprehension”. We know from the Scriptures that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). God reveals Himself as love in everything – in the Divine Liturgy, in the Scriptures, in liturgical texts, and in everything in our life. He reveals Himself as love and everything that exists is the product of His love. We are living out our lives in response to this love. Because we are responding to God who is Love, we respond just as any person who loves someone else. We want to be pleasing to the one whom we love. That is how it generally is supposed to be in any loving relationship. We try to be pleasing to the person we love, and who more than Christ do we try to be pleasing to ? At the same time, we very often emulate the person whom we love and respect. Who more than Christ should we emulate and imitate ? Therefore, the Orthodox Christian way and life in any culture and at any time is all focussed on knowing Who is Jesus Christ. We respond to His love ; we live out His love, and we imitate Him in our daily life in acts of love. Everything else comes afterwards, I think.
DGK :
Your Eminence, if we start out on this process, what does that mean for the Archdiocese of Canada ? Are you saying that we are not doing that now ?
AS :
No, I did not say that. I think that we are making an attempt, but we do not want to treat the Church as though it were some sort of social club or a political process. People often speak about the Christian Church as being a “religion”. People dare to speak about the Orthodox Church as though it were a religion. We have never thought of ourselves as a religion because a religion is a system. Anyone who knows anything about the Orthodox Church knows that there is nothing very systematic about us. In the Scriptures, the Christian way was called “The Way” at first. Even before we were called Christians, we were called “The Way” because of how we live our life and because of Jesus Christ who said : “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6). Therefore, the Orthodox Faith is not a system ; it is not a philosophy. It is simply a loving relationship with Christ. Yes, there is a certain amount of system because life has to be systematic to a certain extent. Human beings have to have some basic structure and order to life. Nevertheless, it is not the system that governs us but rather it is the relationship with Christ and our trying to be true to Him who is the Truth. If we, in love, are trying to be true to Him who is the Truth, then we will try to live responsibly ; we will try to be good citizens and we will do more or less what is right in most situations (even though we make mistakes) because we want to do what is right.
DGK :
That is an interesting idea that we are not a religion or a system but that it is more about our relationship with Christ. I am sure that a lot of people who come into the Church would say things like : “We have to cross ourselves at this point ; we have to bow here ; we have to kiss the Cross there. We have to fast for forty days at this time and also on Wednesdays and Fridays. We have to do this thing or that thing. We have to go to Vespers on Saturday and to church on Sunday. It sounds like system to me, Your Eminence.
AS :
It seems like that because you are using the words “have to”.
DGK :
It’s not an option ?
AS :
It is not that we “have to”. That is not the right way to look at it. For instance, do you have to do things just because your wife says so ? The fact is that if you are doing things that she says need to be done, fundamentally it is not because you “have to”. Really, it is because you love her and you want to be pleasing to her. You offer to do what needs to be done because of the necessities of life. Wives are there to remind men of the things that have to be done, because men are very often busy with other things or they are thinking of something else. Nevertheless, there are things that have to be done and the relationship between human beings is such that we help and support each other. We do things for each other that have to be done. Why would we do these things : go to church, make the sign of the Cross or make a prostration ? Why would we fast ? It is all part of this response of love to Christ. We imitate Him. He fasted ; He prayed. Because He is the Way, He shows us by Who He is and by His life what is the way. The way is not a “what” as Pilate was asking, regarding truth. The way is a “Who”. There are some “whats” associated with the “Who”, but the “whats” are not what is essential. It is the “Who” that is essential. If we are going to church, this is the way more or less that Orthodox Christians have worshipped for more than 2,000 years in continuity with the Jewish Temple that went before it. This is how we, as Orthodox Christians, are honouring Christ : we worship Christ ; we show our love for Him ; and we live out our love for Him. It is not because it is a rule and that we must do this or that. It is because I love Jesus Christ. I like to be in church and worship Him. Out of respect for Him I make the sign of the Cross ; I kiss icons ; I make a prostration ; I offer to Him my abstinence from types of food for periods of time. Orthodox people are not usually so pious as all that, that we do not eat at all.
DGK :
Are you saying that if someone comes into the Orthodox way, he or she can pick and choose what to do in the church or how to participate ?
AS :
Not exactly. As I said, there is a way that Orthodox Christians have always done things. If it has always been like this, it is not just because of it being a matter of rules. We always have to watch out for the rules. There are ways of doing things, but they are not absolutely universal. Besides this, we ask those who are our spiritual leaders what is the best way to observe the rules in our case.
DGK :
You said that we do these things out of love for Christ, but does that mean that a new person automatically has to be participating and doing all these things at once, or is it a question of growing into it ?
AS :
We have to grow into it. Everyone has to grow into it because we cannot do everything at once. We would choke. It is the same thing that the Apostle Paul is speaking about in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Apostle says : “Everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil” (Hebrews 5:13-14). In effect, he is saying : “By this time you should be eating meat, but you still have to drink milk. Come on !” As it is with children, we cannot give them rich, hard to digest foods when they are two months old. When I was growing up myself, I had to grow into everything. We all have to grow into everything. I still am growing, geezer that I am getting to be.
DGK :
In one of our previous programmes, Your Eminence, you talked to us about your journey into Orthodoxy. You were actually an Anglican minister for quite a while, and before that Lutheranism was your first big influence. You are saying that we are not a religion. Nevertheless, a lot of people out there are saying : “I don’t need an organised religion. I can be “spiritual” at home”. Can we say to them : “We are not an organised religion, so come along” ?
AS :
Yes. We are not organised in the way that people think we are organised.
DGK :
We look like a Church.
AS :
We are the Church, but the Church is not merely an organised society. The Church is the Body of Christ. The Church is The Way. I could say that even as well-organised as the Roman Catholics are, that does not make them a system or a religion either.
DGK :
What do we say about those who say : “I can be spiritual at home”?
AS :
I will say that the earliest Fathers of the Church said : “A single Christian is no Christian”. We cannot be by ourselves. The apostles (and the Scriptures, too) say : “Do not forsake gathering together”. Worshipping the Lord is a corporate thing. We can pray by ourselves, but worshipping is a different thing.
DGK :
Is there a difference between being spiritual and being a Christian ?
AS :
Yes, there can be, but it depends on what you mean by “being spiritual”.
DGK :
I mean, for instance, when the average person says : “I can be spiritual at home”.
AS :
I do not know what that really means either, because “spiritual” is a very vague sort of term. It can apply to various sorts of philosophies, meditations. “Spiritual” can mean anything. To some people, being spiritual can mean the idea of being detached from the body, something which is abhorrent to us. Some people are thinking that being spiritual means feeling some sort of warmth towards the Lord and in a vague way communicating with Him. People used to call this “warm fuzzies”. However, from the Orthodox point of view, body and soul are not detached or detachable from each other. They are not separable from each other. When we die, for instance, we do not become an angel (as in the crazy North American myth). There is nothing in the Scriptures that says that such a thing ever happens. The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 says very clearly that when we die, we have a spiritual body. Human beings are different from angels. We have a body always. We are a different order of creation (see 1 Corinthians 15:35-44). Angels are angels, and human beings are human beings. When the time comes for us to die, our body dies. Our Lord is speaking about our receiving a spiritual body that does not die and that is still recognisably ourselves, following the pattern of Christ Himself in the Resurrection, who was recognisable. Spirituality does not have anything to do with being detached from this body ; it has to do with the perfecting of this body and this life.
If we are going to speak about spirituality, it has to do with living out in a concrete way our Christian life. The Apostle James wrote in his Epistle : “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26). If we believe in Jesus Christ and if we say that we are a follower of the way, then we have to do things in imitation of Him. He Himself at the Last Supper, when He was washing the apostles’ feet said (as it were) : “Do this, too” (see John 13:14-15). We do not only drink the wine and eat the bread which are His Body and His Blood, but we wash feet, too. “Do this”, He said. This is where the spirituality of Orthodox Christians is truly demonstrated. Yes, we pray ; yes, we have a loving relationship with the Lord ; and yes, all sorts of miracles can happen. However, there is no airy-fairy ethereal detachment. Rather, there is a unified living out of our life : body, soul and spirit are all one. Again, that is going back to why it is important for us to gather together, to worship together. Cripples as we are (we are all crippled by sin), by being in the Temple of the Lord together and worshipping Him together, we are supporting each other. We all know that we are in the same boat together. We hold each other up. We support each other. We glorify the Lord together. However, we are also recognising that we are all cripples together.
DGK :
There are a lot of people who do not recognise the fact that they are cripples, that is, in sin. They say : “What ? I don’t sin. I’m OK. I’m a decent human being”. If they do not recognise that first, is there any point in going farther ? Define what sin is in the Orthodox in the context of the way.
AS :
The Greek word for sin means “to miss the mark”. It is not to break the law. It is falling short, being out of focus. We may break a law, but if we break a law, it is because we are out of focus. If we were to say that we are without sin, does that then make us like Christ Himself who alone is without sin ?
DGK :
Firstly, people have to recognise that Christ is the example that we are striving for.
AS :
That is right.
DGK :
If they do not even recognise that Christ is the Son of God and one of the Holy Trinity, then is there no basis to start anything ?
AS :
It is not that there is no basis, but it is difficult. We always have the basis of loving the person who does not understand anything or does not care to understand anything, or who is rejecting everything. If we are Christians, then as Christ, we still love that person. Therefore, if we cannot talk about Christ (because some people just cannot hear anything about Him and reject everything about Him), that does not inhibit us from loving him or her. Our first responsibility is simply to love whomever the Lord has sent to us, whether this person is ready to hear anything about Christ Himself, or not. Eventually, perhaps (there is no guarantee ) this person, who is being loved by me and being served by me, might see Christ in me. Then this person might be ready to talk about, to ask about Christ and to get to know Christ.
DGK :
I guess our first goal in this whole process or vision is that each one of us has to come to believe in Christ, know Christ, respond to His love, live a life according to Christ, and imitate Christ.
AS :
Yes.
Until we do that, or if we can’t do that, then we can’t go any farther ?
AS :
Well, “can’t” is a strong word. I would say that it is more difficult. In the end, though, even if we may not be able to go any farther ourselves in one way or another, that does not stop the Lord from giving us a nudge and helping us to go farther. We always have to keep in mind that it is the Lord Himself who is always accomplishing everything in us.
DGK :
Given that The Orthodox Church in America has been in North America starting in Alaska in 1794, where would you say we are in all these areas of believing, knowing, responding, living and imitating ? Are we well along the way ? Do we have still more to learn ? Are we almost there ?
AS :
It seems to me that we are still beginning.
DGK :
After 200 years ?
AS :
Yes.
DGK :
Even given the fact that Christianity has been around for 2,000 years ?
AS :
Yes. Christians in general, even after 2,000 years, are still beginning.
DGK :
What is the next step after that, Your Eminence ?
AS :
Well, the next step is to look at the word, “repentance”, which is also very much misused and misinterpreted. Repentance means “turning around”. We turn around (or better said, turn about), away from darkness to light ; away from death to life ; away from selfishness to selflessness. If this lesson of being ready to turn about to Christ (and, in fact, we must understand that we cannot even do any turning about without asking for His help) is accepted as being the essence of where we have to be and where we are going, then we can be a little bit beyond the very beginning.
DGK :
So we have to go through believing Christ, responding to His love, living it, imitating Him ; and the next step is our own repentance.
AS :
Repentance comes farther up the line. This is just the order in which we have been talking about things.
DGK :
These are all steps towards the eventual vision of the Orthodox Church in Canada. Thank you, Your Eminence, for being on the programme, and we will continue this discussion in Part 2.