Pride Masquerades as Humility
by Archimandrite [now Archbishop] Chrysostomos
There is also a strange pride which presents itself as the
standard of humility. This false humility is almost wholly the
product of self-righteous hypocrisy. It is perhaps, indeed, the
most transparent kind of false humility—and yet, it is
probably the most frequent. I saw it in its most spontaneous form
once while visiting the city of San Francisco. In this, the most
Orthodox of American cities (the city where St. Peter the Aleut
was martyred by Jesuits in the nineteenth century and where the
relics of a contemporary saint, Blessed Archbishop John
Maximovitch, rest), I felt less out of place as an Orthodox
clergyman among predominantly non-Orthodox people. Given this, I
was astounded when a passer-by commented, within my hearing, that
I was "nothing more than a Pharisee." It surprised me,
too, that his companion responded with rather unflattering
remarks about my appearance. While this is not an unusual
occurrence among Orthodox clergymen who keep traditional dress, I
had been particularly struck because it had happened in a place
where I did not expect it. And this prompted me to think more
seriously about these hecklers.
Many find, in their desire to "fit into society," a
rather strange basis upon which to accuse others of arrogance.
Walking down the street in the traditional garb of an Orthodox
clergyman almost immediately puts one out of step with the rest
of society. And it is precisely this that identifies a Christian.
If anything could be said about the Pharisees, aside from their
spiritual pride, it would be that they were, indeed, in the
mainstream of the then contemporary religious scene. And it was,
to be sure, not their manner of dress which brought Christ's
condemnation upon them. It was precisely their acceptance in
society, their exploitation of religion as a way of gaining
social respect. And above that, their judgmentalism and wholly
external grasp of the spiritual were the very things which the
Christian message so fundamentally challenged. If there were
modern Pharisees, it would seem to me that one might find them on
the street, condemning Priests in clerical garb as Pharisaical,
all the while imagining themselves humble by adhering to the
social trend.
We see this same false humility in the sometimes fanatic
avoidance of the special dress, beard, and hair prescribed for
Orthodox clergymen in the 102 canons of the Sixth Ecumenical
Council. Especially in the United States, Orthodox clergymen have
proclaimed that they must not separate themselves from the laity
by their dress. They eschew the traditional form of dress with
such great vehemence that a modernist clergyman once told me that
he would commit suicide before he would appear on the street in
Orthodox clerical clothing. It is the vehemence of these
declarations which betrays the ostensible humility of not wishing
to separate oneself from the laity. (In fact, of course, the
laity themselves, in traditional Orthodoxy, are also required to
separate themselves from the prevailing fashions of the times.)
Amidst the historically untenable protestation that Orthodox
clerical dress derives from the "Turks," that it is
Pharisaical, or that it is simply uncomfortable, one discerns
that the actual problem is that the clergy lack two forms of
humility: one which would prompt them to respect the Church
canons (with which they take constant exception); another which
would allow them to walk the streets witnessing their Faith to
the heterodox, standing as reminders of the spiritual in a wholly
materialistic world, and accepting the inevitable ridicule of
those who wish to be rude. They do not, in fact, follow the
modern dress trend out of humility, but out of a fear of
humiliation! Theirs is a clear example of false humility.
This false humility in some Orthodox clergy is not limited to
external dress. Often it manifests itself in a deep internal
misunderstanding of Church tradition and of the role of the
clergy in the Church. Actually from the very Early Church,
Orthodox lay people have continued the habit of kissing a
cleric's hand as a sign of respect for his religious role. Many
contemporary Orthodox clergymen spurn this practice, pointing out
that, as with traditional clerical dress, it elevates the Priest
above the people. In truth, the practice has traditionally been
accepted in the Church as a means by which the people can express
their humility before the holy, the image of which is embodied in
the Priest. When a Priest's hand is kissed, the kiss acknowledges
the fact that he touches the Holy Eucharist, which elevates not
the man, but the holiness with which he interacts in a literal
way. As well, other religious in the Church, such as the Abbess
of a monastery or a particularly holy elder or spiritual advisor
without priestly orders, are afforded this honor by virtue of the
fact that their lives are elevated and touch on the holy.
A cleric who disdains the practice of hand kissing often
shows, by his apparent claim to humility, a certain hidden
arrogance. False humility is that humility which is contrived and
controlled by the human will. The desire to demonstrate to others
that one is unworthy of respect, therefore, is actually an
occasion for taking pride in the appearance of humility. And that
pride lurks in such a cleric is easily demonstrated. Those who
disdain this practice because it elevates them misapprehend, in
the first place, the fact that the kiss is meant to rise up to
the holy, not the individual himself. It is by this same logic
that kissing an icon, for example, is not idolatrous. The Priest
must set himself aside, when he understands his religious role,
and become a mere image. That he thinks the kiss is directed
toward him means that he has usurped the honor due his rank and
the Grace operating within him, somehow fancying himself more
than a Priestly Icon. He denies, therefore, the lay people a
vehicle for expressing their own humility before the holy. If
such clerics were not, indeed, falsely humble, they would not
imagine themselves the objects of respect when their hands are
kissed, but, like my own spiritual Father, who tells me that he
feels as though he is under the feet of those who kiss his hand,
would show true humility.
Another rather disturbing and dangerous example of pride
masquerading as humility has simply devastated the Orthodox
Church in this century. It comes to us in the form of ecumenism.
The Eastern Orthodox Church, with historical foundations for the
claim, has always maintained that it continues the very Church of
the Apostles, the Church established on earth by Christ Himself.
Our Fathers, throughout the centuries, have taken seriously the
burden of preserving the pristine truth of early Christianity.
They have practiced a conscious conservativism, avoiding trendy
involvement in the spirit of any particular age, lest they
tarnish with temporal thinking the eternal witness passed down to
them from the Apostles. In this process of preserving an eternal
truth from the vicissitudes of various ages, they have used
conservativism as a tool, and they have always, if one reads
their words with care, avoided an arrogant view of their role,
even when they were called to severe positions in protecting the
traditions of the Church. They always felt it their first purpose
to proclaim the absolute historical and spiritual primacy of the
Orthodox Church in a humble way, preserving the Church as the
final resort of those who might stray away, over the centuries,
from her authentic witness. In effect, the Orthodox Church is the
mother of true ecumenism. It has been Her role to preserve the
true message of Christ in its purest form, offering it up to the
whole world as the standard and banner of truth.
Many contemporary Orthodox clergymen and lay people have come
to think that the Orthodox Church's claim to primacy is an
arrogant one which is an impediment to the spread of the
Christian message. They often hold up the example of would-be
traditionalist Orthodox, who imagine their Orthodoxy to be some
exclusive right belonging to them alone and who almost happily
condemn all others as heretics. They quite rightly point out that
such "tradition" has its source in personal pride and
violates the missionary conscience of the true Christian. One
might even agree with them, were they to say that such
"traditionalists" suffer from deep, hidden pride. One
cannot, however, countenance the conclusion that, because errant
traditionalists violate the Christian spirit, their understanding
of the primacy of Orthodoxy must be put aside. This is in itself
a form of false humility, for when we proclaim the primacy of
Orthodoxy, if it is not a personal possession or a personal
understanding, we do so without violating our own personal
humility.
One can find a personal witness to divine primacy arrogant
only if he imagines that divine primacy to be a personal belief
and not, as It is, a divine revelation. In fact, there is perhaps
no greater sign of humility than that of dedicating oneself to a
truth which is absolute, which transcends the personal opinion,
of boasting, as it were, of that which is above the individual.
It precisely this humility which St. Paul reveals to us when,
boasting of his sufferings and exploits, he tells us that they
have meaning only in Jesus Christ. One cannot so boast if he
thinks that Orthodoxy rises out of him, not out of God. Such a
thought is horribly prideful and those who think thus,
proclaiming that out of humility they cannot proclaim their
religion to be the true religion, arrogantly deny Orthodox
tradition, sadly deny a strong witness to others, and betray
themselves as falsely humble. Such ecumenism is not really a form
of humble love for others and for their Faith; it is a denial of
the Orthodox Faith. It stands nakedly inadequate before the true
ecumenism of the Fathers.
From Humility, Volume I of the "Themes in Orthodox Patristic Psychology" series, pp.
31-36
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