The Charismatic Movement and Orthodoxy
Question: Would you comment on the so-called "Charismatic Renewal" and
its relation to Orthodoxy? (M.B., TX)
Answer: This subject deserves constant attention, since the charismatic movement is
gaining more and more attention in the media and among Orthodox. We will begin our remarks
by recounting an episode that occurred several years ago. A very dedicated and sincere
clergyman, as best we could gather from speaking with him, visited our monastery during
the Paschal Season. He entered the monastery Church with one of his followers, who had
"converted" to Orthodoxy under the influence of this Priest, who was active in
the charismatic movement among Orthodox, from a Protestant Pentecostal sect. Both the
Priest and his companion were somewhat uneasy on entering the Church, not knowing what to
do in confronting a place of worship free of pews (as all Orthodox Churches should be),
where men and women were standing on opposite sides.
The two visitors began to follow the service in one of the standard Lenten service
books used in the more modernized Orthodox jurisdictions or, of necessity, by
English-speaking Orthodox. It was immediately apparent that they were lost, as they
discovered that their books contained only portions of the prescribed
services—something tremendously unfortunate, since the Lenten services are so
magnificent in their structure. Added to the fact that they expected the service to last
ninety minutes, when it fact it was almost three hours in length, the inadequacy of their
service books obviously frustrated them, since they began to pray aloud and to make loud
exclamations—"Praise the Lord..... Amen."
Finally, one of the Faithful, not knowing that the Priest, who had no beard and wore
western clerical garb, was Orthodox, quietly informed him that Orthodox worship in silence
and solemnity, with great attention to inner prayer. He explained that the clergyman and
his companion were interrupting the service and thus cutting the Faithful off from the
mystical quiet that is so conducive to true worship. The Priest and his friend stood
through the rest of the service quietly and apparently moved by the worshipful atmosphere.
Afterwards, we cordially greeted the clergyman and his young friend. They openly
expressed their pleasure at the service, the chanting, and the solemnity of the Faithful.
We pointed out to them that we preserve many of the external traditions of the Church, if
only because they aid one to lift his mind into the spiritual realm. In the glory of all
of the traditions of the Church, complete and unaltered, we explained to our visitors,
there is a spiritual fullness that has sustained Orthodox throughout the ages—these
traditions reaching down to how a Priest dresses, whether the Faithful stand during
worship, and even how we position ourselves, in terms of posture, during prayer. There was
no response from the clergyman and no attempt to "push" any charismatic theology
on us.
This incident has always struck us. It is precisely because we have—in America,
mostly through modernization and an uncareful attitude toward tradition—, abandoned
the richness and fullness of the Church's services that the charismatic movement has taken
hold in many of our Churches. And it is precisely in the most modernistic Churches, those
with the most innovative services, that the movement is rampant. In a good, traditionalist
Orthodox community, this could not happen. It is only where something is missing in
Orthodox tradition that something like the charismatic movement can move in to fill the
empty spaces. This is a very difficult and wounding thing for most clergymen to accept.
Most, in fact, fight the notion "tooth and nail." Nonetheless, it is true. This
failure, however, is not the fault of the Priest, but convicts the whole of the Orthodox
Church for being less than vigilant in fulfilling St. Paul's injunction that we guard the
traditions handed down to us, challenging us, not to be innovative, but to return to Holy
Tradition.
In Churches where Priests look and act like lay people, where quiet meditation and
spiritual chanting have been replaced by organs and the theatre, where pews dull our
senses and cater to our bodies, where physical preparation for an encounter with the
divine (fasting, prostrations, etc.) is inadequate—is it not exactly here that we
find Pentecostal emotionalism spreading like fire among the simple Faithful and the
unfulfilled believers? We need not even answer the question.
In fact, the Orthodox Church is ever renewed by the Presence of Christ and the Holy
Spirit in its services, their mystical content, when properly and completely performed,
transforming the soul and transcending the senses and emotions. And when we strive, as
true Orthodox Christians, not to babble and throw ourselves into unseemly emotional fits,
but to reach up to Christ through the established methods of the Orthodox Church (quiet
meditation, fasting, standing, proper posture, proper breathing, etc.), we grow in Grace,
finding always within us the subtle, elusive comfort of the Holy Spirit—a quiet
whisper or wind, not a loud, ugly gale. But this true, subtle growth in the Spirit demands
work and sacrifice from us—a true sacrifice of turning from the world, from creature
comforts, from the din of emotional religion, from the realm of man. And it is because
true birth in the Holy Spirit is so profound and such a task that so many turn to the easy
world of evangelical shouting and arrogant affirmations of "re-births",
"gifts," and "renewals," mocking the Holy Spirit in its quiet whispers
to the human heart.
As for those who misinterpret, twist, and rearrange the words of the Fathers
(especially St. Symeon the New Theologian) and thereby try to support their charismatic
goals from within the Orthodox Church, let them think about this: At no time in the
history of Orthodoxy—in a history of almost two thousand years—did the Faithful
or the Fathers ever throw their hands frantically in the air, babbling, interrupting the
chanting, and declaring the Church to have anything but the pleroma, or fullness,
of the Holy Spirit. Never! Never!
Our Fathers raised the dead. They cured the ill. They ascended into the Heavenly Realm
and conversed with angels. They went to speak to those who spoke another tongue and found
that, without having learned that tongue, they could preach to the people. (This
evangelical gift, which allowed the Apostles to spread the message of Christianity, was
present in the Early Church. St. Paul even warns those who have it not to cause confusion,
but, in order to be consistent with the purpose of the gift—that of witnessing to the
Faith—, to use the gift only if interpretation is available.) Our Fathers were so
united with the power of things spiritual, that often their flesh was infused with the
Spirit, their bodies failing to corrupt after death. YET, never once did the Fathers
babble senselessly in tongues, let alone in the midst of the liturgy. Never did they
conduct themselves in the manner of the modern charismatics. We can only conclude, then,
that this movement is a demonic ruse, an attempt to fulfill our Orthodox longing for the
fullness of Church Tradition with the emotional frenzy of Pentecostal sectarian pietism.
There is nothing Orthodox about the charismatic movement. It is incompatible with
Orthodoxy, in that it justifies itself only by perverting the message of the Fathers,
suggesting that the Church of Christ needs renewal, and indulging in the theological
imagery of, Pentecostal cultism. With such things, one cannot be too bold in his language
of condemnation and reprobation.
As for those caught in the web of the charismatic movement, under no circumstances are
we justified if we condemn them. Those who imagine themselves saved by all of this
are victims of a demonic arrogance which blinds them to true evangelical humility, which
often serves certain personality deficits, and which, more often than not, convinces them
inwardly of their own salvation—indeed, a dangerous thing. We must reach out to these
people with charitable words, constantly assuring them that the Orthodox Church has a
fullness which is not yet realized in America. Within that fullness, we must tell them,
rests a true spiritual treasure, not a dull stone glimmering with the polish of deceit and
emotionalism. And then, to be sure, we must set about restoring the fullness of the
Church's traditions, admitting readily that WE, not the Church, have lacked fullness!
From Orthodox Tradition, Vol. I, Nos. 4&5, pp. 29-32.
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