Some Remarks to a Priest Concerning Holy Tradition and Modernism
A Letter from Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna
Dear Father _________:
Evlogeite.
The Holy Ecumenical Synods and the other Councils express a
Faith which Christ established, the Apostles preached, and the
Fathers preserved. They did not define, codify, or create
anything, but protected the Faith given to us in its wholeness by
Christ against innovation and heresy.
It is true that the Faith grows and that Holy Tradition
"changes," but only in the sense that, through the
action of the Holy Spirit, we have come to a more complete
knowledge of the Truth, which is in and of itself whole and full.
Thus, our liturgical practices have "changed" to the
extent that the Church has matured and grown, revealing its power
and fullness through the Christian life. But the Church has not
"changed" in the sense of reversing Herself or
contradicting what has gone before. The Church changes only in
the fuller revelation of her immutable identity.
In spiritual practices, too, history shows us that there has
been a standardization and a growth formed by the practice and
confirmation of the Faith. But this does not mean that we
suddenly reverse course, overturn a practice, and claim that the
Church changes to fit the vicissitudes of history. The Church
changes history, not vice versa. When a new ethos and new
mentality, then, suggest that we should suddenly, after a century
of abuse in certain circles, and adjust our standard to fit that
abuse, this is not a sign of continuity or a sign of a proper
understanding of the Church. It is a perverse distortion of
Orthodoxy.
I might also point out that, aside from the public lie, most
people in the modernist Churches do not keep a strict fast (if
any) on Wednesday and Friday. Nor do all so-called
traditionalists. This abuse can one day also lead to an
innovation based on "established custom." And we might
justify it in a number of ways. Like those who misrepresent the
standard of Baptism by misrepresenting the textual and
archaeological witness, we might come to say that the Wednesday
and Friday fast was not a universal practice in the early Church.
Yet, despite exceptions that we may find in history, we can read
in the Fathers, the canonical collections, and the lives of
Saints that this custom was established by the Apostles
themselves. Here is a perfect case of how supposed
"historical" justifications can take us from the Faith.
For, if our Faith is the same one which was given by Christ,
preached by the Apostles, and preserved by the Fathers, we are
outside this transmission of truth (the true meaning of "paradosis"
or tradition) when we model the Church on what is the exception
and justify the exception by the whims of modern man. In this
vein, Canon XVII of the so-called First-Second Synod is quite
instructive. Speaking of the past practice of the rapid
Consecration to the Episcopacy of laymen and monks—though
out of necessity and resulting in good fruit—, this Canon
states: "[T]hat which is rare [exceptional] should not be
taken as a rule of the Church…." In his interpretation
of this Canon, St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite repeats this warning about generalizing from the
specific to the universal: "...However, what is specific and
rare [exceptional], and comes about in a time of necessity, does
not become a universal rule in the Church (something which is
also stated by St. Gregory the Theologian and in the second Act
of the Council held at the Church of St. Sophia, which says:
'Those things which are good in rare [exceptional] instances must
not be a rule for the many')," Pedalion (The
Rudder), pp. 360-61. And the reference here, we should keep
in mind, is to "good things," not to the innovations of
modernists, which can ultimately lead one down a comfortable path
to perdition!
On the general subject of eating—another subject which
you raise—the Church, not our personal desire, dictates how
we fast and when we avoid certain foods. It is not that fasting
from one kind of food is necessarily more efficacious than
fasting from another, but simply that abstaining from certain
foods has a particular effect on a particular passion. We should
follow the oldest fasting traditions, not those concocted by
modernists, who have not proved that their innovations are
without harm. What has consistently survived over the centuries
has been proved effective; it produced Saints who, in turn,
advocated such traditional fasting rules.
As for what is absolutely necessary to salvation, we are not
fundamentalists. When we make such statements
(about indispensable items of the Faith), we do so
intelligently. The Faith is like a mosaic, one "stone"
of which is fasting. If we take away that stone, we distort the
wholeness of the Faith. And since it is the wholeness of the
Faith that saves us (the very "criterion" of Truth, to
quote one Father), we cannot remove any element passed down to us
by Holy Tradition without jeopardizing our salvation.
(Incidentally, it is actually the modernists who are
fundamentalists, since they want to find certain
basic—fundamental—things in Orthodoxy, and usually the
easier, cerebral ones, that alone constitute fidelity to Holy
Tradition. It is the Gestalt of Orthodoxy, that is, our
grasp of the Faith in its fullness, that is the only real
fundamental.)
Need I add that, following what I have said, we likewise
violate the mind of Christ, when we engage in the kind of
innovation to which I have alluded. And thus we violate the mind
of the Fathers and of the Church. Moreover, the mind of Christ,
like the Lord Himself, does not "change." I need do
nothing more than say, "the same yesterday, today, and
forever." What, then, of theories that the Church can
"change" her mind?
Patriarchates and jurisdictions, not withstanding the same
move towards Papism, in modern times, that separated Rome from
Orthodoxy in ancient times, are not necessary to Orthodoxy. We
need only the Priesthood: Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons in
spiritual succession. Administrative bodies can protect the
Church, but they do not define it.* Local tradition, by the way,
is meant to transform the human by the standard of the Church. If
a local Church falls short of what is the custom of the universal
Church, then that Church suffers from a spiritual deficit that
must be treated with great care and with the final aim of
bringing it into oneness of mind and practice with the universal
Church. No Patriarchate, then, has the right to deviate from the
consensus of the Church. If it does so abusively, it will
eventually fall away from the Church. Indeed, much of what is
called "official" Orthodoxy today is risking such a
fall, since words like "official" are a sign of
worldliness and spiritual self-doubt.
So is the idea that innovation can be covered by a Patriarch,
or that "dispensations" are in the hands of our
Shepherds. Our Shepherds are called to preserve the catholic
Faith. As Fr. Alexander Schmemann has written, in a profoundly
insightful article:
For the purpose and function of the
Hierarchy is precisely to keep pure and undistorted the
Tradition in its fulness, and if and when it sanctions or
even tolerates anything contrary to the truth of the church,
it puts itself under the condemnation of canons.
("Problems of Orthodoxy in America: The Canonical
Problem," St. Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly,
Vol. 8, No. 2, 1964, pp. 68-69, emphasis mine.)
Recapitulating his point,
Father Alexander, in a footnote to this passage, appropriately
quotes Fr. George florovsky: "The duty of obedience ceases when the
Bishop deviates from the Catholic norm, and the people have the
right to accuse and even depose him."
("Sobornost—The Catholicity of the Church" in The
Church of God, London, 1934, p. 72.) This Pauline vision has
always been the source of spiritual authority. Preservers and
Confessors have true authority. Innovators must operate on
contrived, false, administratively-derived notions of authority.
The former save us. The latter people, who seek worldly
recognition, cause us to err.
Your friend asks: "How do you know ‘by
experience’ what saves souls?" Holy Tradition is the
experience of the Church. It is enlivened by Christ. It is sealed
by the Saints. This experience is contained in that "golden
thread" of consensus which holds together the experience of
those transformed and renewed in Christ, who know themselves and
who know one another, who are known of Christ, and whom Christ
knows. This is the subjective criterion of Christianity, which is
found not in the mind and Western legalism, but in the heart and
obedience. It is not found in Patriarchates and jurisdictions.
The path towards it is rigid, but its self-validating quality is
mysterious. The risk of Christianity is that that there are no
external "certainties"; the triumph of Orthodoxy is
that Christ establishes these "certainties" internally,
in the "repository of the Holy Spirit," as St Gregory
Palamas calls it—that is, the human heart.
Your friend then writes: "My Western, legalistic,
accounting mindset showing through, again; but how do you know
the mind of the church? Especially if the church has never set
down what its mind is? Do you admit a distinction between custom
and Tradition? If so, how do you know which is which, if a
practice has never been definitively categorized as one or the
other? The whole thing seems to me both rigid and indistinct at
the same time." The answer is simple. One follows Holy
Tradition in its fullness, accepting every custom with piety and
humility and following those who respect and uphold this
fullness. One can play games all day about who such people are,
but there would be no distinction between modernists and
traditionalists if we did not know the answer to this. Look for
people living their Faith in difficulty, not for Patriarchates
and authorities preaching a Faith of ease. And if some of these
former people have gone astray, look for those who have not. If
obedience on your part is abused once, keep trying until it is no
longer abused. As for how one knows what is true, this takes
Faith in God. Supposedly "logical" Western legalism
(sophistry is what this often becomes) should be avoided in this
spiritual quest.
Your friend writes: "And if someone were to omit the sign
of the cross at a customary place, would it be a sin? Would it be
un-Orthodox? (Or did you mean signings by a priest within the
liturgy? Which I would be more inclined to agree would not be
subject to the whim of an individual—but, still, I’d
wonder how unchangeable they are. The Church must have managed
without the liturgy of St. John Chrysostomos for some centuries;
so when it was adopted, it must have represented a change or an
improvement; so, in principle, it must be possible to improve on
customary practices.)" The power of the Cross is not subject
to human whim or speculation. The Liturgy, which is
"Divine," is like a spiritual formula. We follow in
obedience all that has been passed on to us. That obedience helps
God to manifest the Divine Liturgy in its fullness. Innovation
impedes His work. As for the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostomos,
there is no such thing. The Liturgy which the Church uses was
given to us at the Mystical Supper. It developed from that embryo
into what we have today, undergoing standardization through
practice. The Divine Chrysostomos, enlightened by God, took part
in that process. The Liturgy of St. Basil, for example, was not
"written" by him. It was dictated to him spiritually.
And thus it is almost identical to that of St. John: part of the
wholeness of the Liturgy as it was made manifest through the Holy
Spirit. There were no revolutions in piety in the early Church.
The Holy Spirit simply guided the development of a Divine
Embryo—organically, naturally, and fully. What we have
today, tested by centuries, is an amazingly consistent form of
worship, once one removes the innovators and those of a Western
mentality. That is the proof of the one mind of the Church.
Finally, I would avoid answering "what if"
questions. Holy Baptism and the practice of the Faith in its
fullness give us a knowledge of things spiritual that is foolish
to those who use logic and the brain, instead of the heart, to
approach Orthodoxy. We should speak from that knowledge, which is
most effective in silence, and not from human rationality. You
could go on answering this man’s questions forever. Until he
submits to Holy Tradition, speaks in silence, and subjects the
meanderings of his brain to the spiritual dictates of his heart,
he will come up with endless questions. I call this the
"pi" of spiritual discussion. What is the value of
"pi"? If I recall, 3.141592653589..., and on to
eternity. If your value lies in a final statement, then you will
eventually lose any notion of the usefulness of "3.14"
in the practical applications of this imperfect mathematical
construct. Likewise with the spiritual "pi" that your
friend is pursuing. Looking for a perfect value in what is
spiritual and subjective will lead to nothing but an image which
must ultimately be a lie, if it seeks to be defined.
Westerners think that they create the Truth by finding it
through logic. They think that a perfect logical statement of the
Truth—or systematic theology—is their goal. What
theology is, aside from being something that we live, is an
imperfect attempt to describe in human thought what transcends
human thought. The mental self-abuse of Western rationalism
creates false religions of a consistent kind, at the same time
that it does harm to the apophatic traditions of Orthodoxy. It
defines what God is and thus creates a false god. We True
Orthodox see what God is and is not, humbly admit our inability
to understand Being which encompasses and transcends Non-Being,
and thus experience God within the theological boundaries which
protect us from rational thought and which bestow on us Divine
Wisdom—knowledge that is not knowledge, seeing that is not
seeing, and vision which is beyond vision. We use the cure of
theology to find spiritual health; we do not seek in our cure the
contents of the healing that it effects.
How far from Orthodoxy most of what is called Orthodox, today,
really is!
I bow out, then, preferring to find truth through practice and
error, and in God’s mercy, rather than endless theoretical
speculation that ultimately leads to ungodly contention.
Asking for your blessing, I am
The Least Among Monks,
Archbishop Chrysostomos
* On all of this the section
on ecclesiology in Against False Union, by Dr. Alexander Kalomiros,
is very helpful.
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