A Brief Introduction to Greek Orthodox Churches
Eastern Orthodox Church Revisited
By Bro. Alex Pak
Prayer Center of
Martyr Suk Bak Nam
1. Introduction to Eastern Orthodox Church:
-It is one of the three major branches of the historical Christianity (Roman Catholic and Protestant Church).
-She has a continuous history and tradition.
-Never had a major schism.
-Some appeal that the church has been faithful to the essence of the Christianity’s original faith
-Anonymity: “We do not wish to embark on a comparative theology: still less to renew confessional dispute. We confine ourselves here to stating the fact of a dogmatic dissimilarity between the Christian East and the Christian West. For, in a words of Karl Barth, ‘the union of the Churches is not made, but we discover it.’”-Vladmir Lossky (Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Daniel B. Clendenin).
-Mystery: Eastern mystic; or Roman Catholicism without Pope; suspicion.
2. Name: Eastern Orthodox Church:
East, it desires to expresses and desire to distinguish between the West (Rome);
Orthodox, Orthos and doxa, which means “right opinion”, and being orthodox;
Churches, expresses that there are many churches composed of being Eastern.
-Eastern Orthodox- In earlier period, the general name of the church was called “Greek Catholic Church”. But later period many Slavic members were not comfortable with the name “Greek”, so they changed it to East.
3. Other Orthodox Churches:
-Oriental Orthodox Churches: It divides into two groups:
1- Church of East: mainly in what are today Iraq and Iran; sometimes called the Assyrian, Nestorian, Chaldean or East Syrian Church;
2- Non- Chalcedonian Churches: (the so-called Jacobite Church), the Syrian church in India, Ethiopian Church.
-Church of East has no more than 500,000 members.
4. Greek Churches:
- It was called before the Eastern Orthodox Church.
- It had no doubt a beginning of the apostolic origin of Christianity in Greece.
- It was introduced by Apostle Paul.
- St. Andrew, St. Thomas and St. Matthew also evangelized the Greek, but there is no accepted historical proof for it.
- I,II Thessalonians, the Philippians and the Corinthians have been directed to these regions.
- Apostle Paul also specifically addressed on “the unknown God” in Athens (Acts 17:16-34).
- Until 4th Century, the Greek church was originally a part of Western church.
- And the Western church was linked with the Eastern church due to political situation.
- There were feudal between Constantinople and Diocletian, who fought over the land.
- Land of Illyricum was divided by both East and West.
- Gratian taking western Illyricum and Theodosius eastern Illyricum, which is most of what is Greece today.
- After coming of Byzantine empire, eastern Illyricum was claimed its jurisdiction by the Patriarch of Constantinople.
5. Russian Orthodox Church:
-3rd Rome
-In 1589, with the consent of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the head of the Russian Church was raised from the rank of Metropolitan to that of Patriarch, receiving the fifth place after Jerusalem.
6. The membership
-Four ancient Patriarchates are:
There are nine Autocephalous Churches
Autonomous( churches):
-Czech Republic and Slovakia 55,000
-Sinai 900
-Finland 56,000
-Japan 25,000
-China ?10,000-20,000 (in 1963)
7. Characteristics of the Eastern Church:
8. Dogmatic Teaching:
-The faith of Orthodox Church is based on primarily upon the dogmatic definitions of the Seven Oecumenical Councils: NiceaI, II, ConstantinopleI,II, III, Ephesus, and Chalcedon.
-Dogma is not about intellect and speculation, but a field of vision that relates the heaven and earth. As Christ said to Andrew, “Come and See”(John 1:39).
9. Theology:
a) Theology as Worship: Beauty in worship and heaven on earth; worship embraces two worlds into one.
-Veneration of icons (not worship, a window to spiritual dimension): John of Damascus (676-749) distinguished between the relative honour of veneration shown to material symbols, and the worship due to God alone. 1) Icons as a part of the Church’s teaching. 2) The doctrinal significance of icons.
-Sacraments: There are seven of them; baptism, chrismation, Holy Eucharist, repentance, ordination, marriage and holy unction.
-First 3 are not repeatable.
-In Holy Eucharist, the faithful truly participate in the real body and blood of Christ. They are mystically united with and incorporated into him, becoming “one body, one blood, Christ-bearer and temple bearers”. (“by partaking of the body and blood of Christ, thou mayest be made of the same body and of the same blood with him. For thus we come to bear Christ in us, because his body and blood are distributed through our members; thus it is that, according to blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature.-Cyril of Jerusalem (313-386)).
-Prayer to “Theotokos” and other saints: The veneration of Mary as “more honorable than Cherubim and beyond compare more glorious than the seraphim. Church sees her, who without being a substitute for the one Mediator, intercede for her Son for all humanity. The perfect union of divine and human in Christ is directly connected with the sanctification and the glorification of human nature; and thus above all, with the Mother of God. Unlike the Catholic dogma of 1854, the dogma of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, in the sense that she was exempt at birth from original sin is not accepted in the Orthodox Church.
-Other saints are not mediators between God and humans, but they are our friends, who pray with us an aid us in our Christian ministry.
-The devotion of the saints is the veneration of their relics. Sometimes even bodily incorruption is revered as a sign of sanctity.
-Each day of the ecclesiastical year is consecrated to the memory of a saint of saints.
-They also believe that angels like saints, pray and intercede for the human race.
-Saints, Monks and Emperors: Byzantium has been called “the image of the heavenly Jerusalem”. Religion entered into every aspect of Byzantine life. Saints were angels in human forms; monks were martyrs in an age when martyrdom of blood no longer existed; they formed the counterbalance to an established Christendom. Monasticism was the best way to penetrate Orthodox spirituality. Emperor played an active part in the affairs of the Church. The life of Byzantium formed a unified whole, and there was no rigid line of separation between the religious and the secular, between Church and State. Two were seen as parts of a single organism. The Byzantium were inspired to establish here on earth a living image of God’s government in heaven.
b) Theology as Tradition: (Councils and Church Fathers)
-“We must hold what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.”-Vincent of Léfrins.
-Tradition encompassed “spirituality, mysteries and communion.”-Vladimir Lossky.
-Tradition was the authentic interpretation of Scripture.
-Tradition was coexistence with Scripture, and it was actually Scripture rightly understood.
-Irenaeus and the “Canon of Truth”: Reacting against Gnostic mishandling of Scripture, Irenaeus looked to canon of faith. For him, “rule of truth” was nothing other than the witness and preaching of the apostles and succession (apostolic succession).
-Athanasius and the “Scope of Faith”: Reacting against Arians quoting selective passage, Athanasius appeal to “the scope of faith” (“Let us who possess the scope of faith restore the correct meaning of what they have wrongly interpreted.”-Athanasius)
-Church was an interpreter of Scripture. The church had the authority to interpret the Scripture. It was the only authentic depository of apostolic kerygma.
-The Ancient Councils were not above the churches.
-Meaning of the Appeal to the Fathers: Fathers were those who transmitted and propagated the right doctrine, the teaching of apostles; they were the guides and masters in Christian instruction and catechesis. They were teachers-doctors. And through consensus of the Fathers, the true and authentic church was reflected.
c) Theology as Encounter:
-Apophatic Tradition: It is a fundamental characteristic of Orthodox theology. It is a negative theology (apophasis, denial) of unknowing or of learned ignorance begin with celebration of divine mystery. Clement of Alexandria and Origen introduced the idea and matured in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (c 500) by distinguishing apophatic and cataphatic theology of affirmation. This led to hesychasts tradition as well.
-Hesychasm : This teaching was endorsed by the Council of Constantinople 1341 and 1351.
-Its teaching is from Greek word for “quietness”. It is inner, mystical prayer associated above all with the monks of Mt. Athos. Its distant origin goes back to the 4-5th century, in particular to St. Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius Ponticus(d. 399) and St. John of Climacus (525-606) and St. Maximus Confessor (580-662), and St. Simeon the New Theologian(949-1022). In 14 century, in Mt. Athos monastery, St. Gregory of Palamas (1296-1359) developed a tradition of mystical prayer along with Jesus prayer. Hesychasts form of prayer involves a particular posture-head bowed, eyes fixed on the place of the heart- and controlling of breathing as to keep time with the recitation of prayer. Its purpose was the union of the mind with the heart. Culmination of prayer was the vision of Divine and Uncreated Light. It is the fire uncreated and invisible, without beginning and immaterial (St. Symeon the New Theologian).
-Theoria: “The vision of the spirit” or “non-sensible relation of the nous (St. Isaac the Syrian) through one attains spiritual knowledge. Through the Holy Spirit, one grants understanding of the mysteries of God and creation which are hidden to the rational human intellect. It is not an intellectual work, but an operation of the Holy Spirit which opens the eyes of the soul to behold mysteries. The Church Fathers contrasted it with praxis which is an indispensable prerequisite of theoria. First, stage is prayer without distraction and sense of presence of God. Next is the nous is proceeds to feel what Adam felt in paradise before the Fall, and sees all nature glories God. Finally, it sees His omnipotence and omniscience, and providence therein.
-Theosis(deification): connected with theoria of uncreated Light, theosis or divinization is a participation in the uncreated grace of God. At his stage of perfection, one has reached dispassion. Through the cooperation of God with man, theosis is attained through the action of ht transfigurative grace of God.
-Trinitarian Theology: The procession of the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Trinitarian Theology.
-Debate over the term filioque: Did the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father “and from the Son (filioque)?” This matter was one of the grounds for the separation of East and West.
-Issue is not about the Holy Spirit’s role to God in creation, but his eternal relations within Godhead.
-West uses “double procession” of the Holy Spirit.
-Both East and West agree that there is certain anonymity characterizes the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.
-The Father and the Son denote very clear distinctions and are not interchangeable, and cannot in any case refer the common nature of two hypostases; the name Holy Spirit has not advantage.
- We say that God is spirit, meaning by that the common nature as much as any one of the persons.
-The triple sanctus of the canon mass alludes to three holy persons having the common holiness of the same Godhead.
-Difficulty in defining and mode of operation of the Holy Spirit.
-Thomas Aquinas notes that “the Third Person of the Trinity has no name of his own and that the name Holy Spirit has been given to him on the basis of scriptural usage (accommodatum ex usu Scripturae Thomas Aquinas Summa theologica 1, q. 36, a. 1).
-Procession and generation of the Holy Spirit
-Procession refers to an indefinite expression whose hypostatic origin is presented to us negatively: It is not generation.
-Generation refers to definite relationship between two persons.
-If we look from generation perspective (positive), we find an image of the economy of the Third Person.
-If we look from procession perspective (negative), we find an image of his hypostatic character as a divine force or spirit, which accomplishes sanctification.
-This leads to a paradoxical conclusion: all that we know of the Holy Spirit refers to his economy; all that we do not know makes us venerate his person, as we venerate the ineffable diversity of the consubstantial three.
-East is willing to go along with a phrase “proceeds from the Father through the Son”(St. Gregory of Nyssa).
-Orthodox Trinitarian theology is based on One essence in three persons. God is one and God is three (not three Gods): the Holy Trinity is a mystery of unity in diversity, and of diversity in unity. Father, Son, and Spirit are ‘one essence’(homoousios), yet each is distinguished from the other two by personal characteristics. The divine is indivisible in its divisions, for the persons are ‘united yet not confused, distinct yet not divided’, both the distinction and the union alike are paradoxical.(John of Damascus, Gregory of Nazianzus).
-Salvation: Unlike in the Western churches, sin, grace and salvation are not a legal term that teaches that God gave humans freedom, they misused it and broke God's commandments, and now deserve punishment. God's grace results in forgiveness of the transgression and freedom from bondage and punishment, but it is a full communion with God in the East. When God became incarnate on Earth, he changed human nature by uniting the human and the Divine; for this Christ is often called "The New Adam." By his participation in human life, death, and resurrection he sanctified the means whereby we could be restored to our original purity and regain our right relationship with the Father. This is what the Orthodox call salvation from consequences of the sickness of sin. Christ’s salvific act worked retroactively back to the beginning of time thus saving all the righteous people from the bonds of sin, including Adam and Eve.
-Salvation is a process not of justification or legal pardon, but reestablishing man’s communion with God. This process of repairing the unity of human and divine is sometimes called “deification.” This term does not mean that human becomes gods but that humans join fully with God’s divine life.
10. Mission: Orthodox and West
-In the West, Eastern Orthodox Church was seen as nonmissionary church.
-Eastern Church needs to be motivated to do mission as well.
-Dialogue is encouraged with the West.
-In relation with WCC, Orthodox Church needs to set her own agenda, rather than merely follow Catholic-Protestant dichotomy. (Alexander Schmemann)
-Search for the original Church.
Works Consulted:
Clendenin, Daniel B. Eastern Orthodox Christianity: Western Perspective. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1994.
_______________ . (Editor). Eastern Orthodox Theology: A Contemporary Readers. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1995.
Joseph, the Hesychast. Monastic Wisdom: The Letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast. Florence, Arizona: St. Anthony Greek Monastery Published, 1998.
Pak, Alexader T. “Restudy of the Schism Between Eastern and Western Church in 1054 and the Eastern Orthodox Churches” M.Div. thesis at Calvin Theological
Seminary, Grand Rapids, 1988.
Palmer, G. E. H., Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware. The Philokalia: The Complete Text.
Compiled by St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St Makarios of Corinth. (Trans. Fm. Greek). Vol. IV. London: Faber and Faber, 1995.
Ware, Timothy (Kallistos). The Orthodox Church. New Edition. London: Penguin Books, 1963.
By Bro. Alex Pak
Prayer Center of
Martyr Suk Bak Nam
1. Introduction to Eastern Orthodox Church:
-It is one of the three major branches of the historical Christianity (Roman Catholic and Protestant Church).
-She has a continuous history and tradition.
-Never had a major schism.
-Some appeal that the church has been faithful to the essence of the Christianity’s original faith
-Anonymity: “We do not wish to embark on a comparative theology: still less to renew confessional dispute. We confine ourselves here to stating the fact of a dogmatic dissimilarity between the Christian East and the Christian West. For, in a words of Karl Barth, ‘the union of the Churches is not made, but we discover it.’”-Vladmir Lossky (Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Daniel B. Clendenin).
-Mystery: Eastern mystic; or Roman Catholicism without Pope; suspicion.
2. Name: Eastern Orthodox Church:
East, it desires to expresses and desire to distinguish between the West (Rome);
Orthodox, Orthos and doxa, which means “right opinion”, and being orthodox;
Churches, expresses that there are many churches composed of being Eastern.
-Eastern Orthodox- In earlier period, the general name of the church was called “Greek Catholic Church”. But later period many Slavic members were not comfortable with the name “Greek”, so they changed it to East.
3. Other Orthodox Churches:
-Oriental Orthodox Churches: It divides into two groups:
1- Church of East: mainly in what are today Iraq and Iran; sometimes called the Assyrian, Nestorian, Chaldean or East Syrian Church;
2- Non- Chalcedonian Churches: (the so-called Jacobite Church), the Syrian church in India, Ethiopian Church.
-Church of East has no more than 500,000 members.
4. Greek Churches:
- It was called before the Eastern Orthodox Church.
- It had no doubt a beginning of the apostolic origin of Christianity in Greece.
- It was introduced by Apostle Paul.
- St. Andrew, St. Thomas and St. Matthew also evangelized the Greek, but there is no accepted historical proof for it.
- I,II Thessalonians, the Philippians and the Corinthians have been directed to these regions.
- Apostle Paul also specifically addressed on “the unknown God” in Athens (Acts 17:16-34).
- Until 4th Century, the Greek church was originally a part of Western church.
- And the Western church was linked with the Eastern church due to political situation.
- There were feudal between Constantinople and Diocletian, who fought over the land.
- Land of Illyricum was divided by both East and West.
- Gratian taking western Illyricum and Theodosius eastern Illyricum, which is most of what is Greece today.
- After coming of Byzantine empire, eastern Illyricum was claimed its jurisdiction by the Patriarch of Constantinople.
5. Russian Orthodox Church:
-3rd Rome
-In 1589, with the consent of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the head of the Russian Church was raised from the rank of Metropolitan to that of Patriarch, receiving the fifth place after Jerusalem.
6. The membership
-Four ancient Patriarchates are:
- Constantinople 6 million (Korean Orthodox Church is part of under Metropolitan)
- Alexandria 350,000
- Antioch 750,000
- Jerusalem 60,000
There are nine Autocephalous Churches
- Russia 100-150 mil
- Serbia 8 mil
- Romania 23 mil
- Bulgaria 8 mil
- Georgia 5 mil
- Cyprus 450,000
- Greece 9 mil
- Poland 750,000
- Albania 160,000
Autonomous( churches):
-Czech Republic and Slovakia 55,000
-Sinai 900
-Finland 56,000
-Japan 25,000
-China ?10,000-20,000 (in 1963)
7. Characteristics of the Eastern Church:
- - It language, liturgy, sacrament and social and nationalistic tendencies.
- - Greek language influenced an idea of democracy and philosophy.
- - It also influenced church and theology.
- - Martyrdom: white, green and red.
- - White: a man’s abandoning everything for love of God.
- - Green: means of fasting and labour he frees himself from his evil desires, or suffer toil in penance and repentance.
- - Red: consists in the endurance of a Cross or death for Christ’s sake.
- - Liturgy and Sacrament.
8. Dogmatic Teaching:
-The faith of Orthodox Church is based on primarily upon the dogmatic definitions of the Seven Oecumenical Councils: NiceaI, II, ConstantinopleI,II, III, Ephesus, and Chalcedon.
-Dogma is not about intellect and speculation, but a field of vision that relates the heaven and earth. As Christ said to Andrew, “Come and See”(John 1:39).
9. Theology:
a) Theology as Worship: Beauty in worship and heaven on earth; worship embraces two worlds into one.
-Veneration of icons (not worship, a window to spiritual dimension): John of Damascus (676-749) distinguished between the relative honour of veneration shown to material symbols, and the worship due to God alone. 1) Icons as a part of the Church’s teaching. 2) The doctrinal significance of icons.
-Sacraments: There are seven of them; baptism, chrismation, Holy Eucharist, repentance, ordination, marriage and holy unction.
-First 3 are not repeatable.
-In Holy Eucharist, the faithful truly participate in the real body and blood of Christ. They are mystically united with and incorporated into him, becoming “one body, one blood, Christ-bearer and temple bearers”. (“by partaking of the body and blood of Christ, thou mayest be made of the same body and of the same blood with him. For thus we come to bear Christ in us, because his body and blood are distributed through our members; thus it is that, according to blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature.-Cyril of Jerusalem (313-386)).
-Prayer to “Theotokos” and other saints: The veneration of Mary as “more honorable than Cherubim and beyond compare more glorious than the seraphim. Church sees her, who without being a substitute for the one Mediator, intercede for her Son for all humanity. The perfect union of divine and human in Christ is directly connected with the sanctification and the glorification of human nature; and thus above all, with the Mother of God. Unlike the Catholic dogma of 1854, the dogma of the immaculate conception of the Virgin, in the sense that she was exempt at birth from original sin is not accepted in the Orthodox Church.
-Other saints are not mediators between God and humans, but they are our friends, who pray with us an aid us in our Christian ministry.
-The devotion of the saints is the veneration of their relics. Sometimes even bodily incorruption is revered as a sign of sanctity.
-Each day of the ecclesiastical year is consecrated to the memory of a saint of saints.
-They also believe that angels like saints, pray and intercede for the human race.
-Saints, Monks and Emperors: Byzantium has been called “the image of the heavenly Jerusalem”. Religion entered into every aspect of Byzantine life. Saints were angels in human forms; monks were martyrs in an age when martyrdom of blood no longer existed; they formed the counterbalance to an established Christendom. Monasticism was the best way to penetrate Orthodox spirituality. Emperor played an active part in the affairs of the Church. The life of Byzantium formed a unified whole, and there was no rigid line of separation between the religious and the secular, between Church and State. Two were seen as parts of a single organism. The Byzantium were inspired to establish here on earth a living image of God’s government in heaven.
b) Theology as Tradition: (Councils and Church Fathers)
-“We must hold what has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.”-Vincent of Léfrins.
-Tradition encompassed “spirituality, mysteries and communion.”-Vladimir Lossky.
-Tradition was the authentic interpretation of Scripture.
-Tradition was coexistence with Scripture, and it was actually Scripture rightly understood.
-Irenaeus and the “Canon of Truth”: Reacting against Gnostic mishandling of Scripture, Irenaeus looked to canon of faith. For him, “rule of truth” was nothing other than the witness and preaching of the apostles and succession (apostolic succession).
-Athanasius and the “Scope of Faith”: Reacting against Arians quoting selective passage, Athanasius appeal to “the scope of faith” (“Let us who possess the scope of faith restore the correct meaning of what they have wrongly interpreted.”-Athanasius)
-Church was an interpreter of Scripture. The church had the authority to interpret the Scripture. It was the only authentic depository of apostolic kerygma.
-The Ancient Councils were not above the churches.
-Meaning of the Appeal to the Fathers: Fathers were those who transmitted and propagated the right doctrine, the teaching of apostles; they were the guides and masters in Christian instruction and catechesis. They were teachers-doctors. And through consensus of the Fathers, the true and authentic church was reflected.
c) Theology as Encounter:
-Apophatic Tradition: It is a fundamental characteristic of Orthodox theology. It is a negative theology (apophasis, denial) of unknowing or of learned ignorance begin with celebration of divine mystery. Clement of Alexandria and Origen introduced the idea and matured in Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (c 500) by distinguishing apophatic and cataphatic theology of affirmation. This led to hesychasts tradition as well.
-Hesychasm : This teaching was endorsed by the Council of Constantinople 1341 and 1351.
-Its teaching is from Greek word for “quietness”. It is inner, mystical prayer associated above all with the monks of Mt. Athos. Its distant origin goes back to the 4-5th century, in particular to St. Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius Ponticus(d. 399) and St. John of Climacus (525-606) and St. Maximus Confessor (580-662), and St. Simeon the New Theologian(949-1022). In 14 century, in Mt. Athos monastery, St. Gregory of Palamas (1296-1359) developed a tradition of mystical prayer along with Jesus prayer. Hesychasts form of prayer involves a particular posture-head bowed, eyes fixed on the place of the heart- and controlling of breathing as to keep time with the recitation of prayer. Its purpose was the union of the mind with the heart. Culmination of prayer was the vision of Divine and Uncreated Light. It is the fire uncreated and invisible, without beginning and immaterial (St. Symeon the New Theologian).
-Theoria: “The vision of the spirit” or “non-sensible relation of the nous (St. Isaac the Syrian) through one attains spiritual knowledge. Through the Holy Spirit, one grants understanding of the mysteries of God and creation which are hidden to the rational human intellect. It is not an intellectual work, but an operation of the Holy Spirit which opens the eyes of the soul to behold mysteries. The Church Fathers contrasted it with praxis which is an indispensable prerequisite of theoria. First, stage is prayer without distraction and sense of presence of God. Next is the nous is proceeds to feel what Adam felt in paradise before the Fall, and sees all nature glories God. Finally, it sees His omnipotence and omniscience, and providence therein.
-Theosis(deification): connected with theoria of uncreated Light, theosis or divinization is a participation in the uncreated grace of God. At his stage of perfection, one has reached dispassion. Through the cooperation of God with man, theosis is attained through the action of ht transfigurative grace of God.
-Trinitarian Theology: The procession of the Holy Spirit in Orthodox Trinitarian Theology.
-Debate over the term filioque: Did the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father “and from the Son (filioque)?” This matter was one of the grounds for the separation of East and West.
-Issue is not about the Holy Spirit’s role to God in creation, but his eternal relations within Godhead.
-West uses “double procession” of the Holy Spirit.
-Both East and West agree that there is certain anonymity characterizes the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.
-The Father and the Son denote very clear distinctions and are not interchangeable, and cannot in any case refer the common nature of two hypostases; the name Holy Spirit has not advantage.
- We say that God is spirit, meaning by that the common nature as much as any one of the persons.
-The triple sanctus of the canon mass alludes to three holy persons having the common holiness of the same Godhead.
-Difficulty in defining and mode of operation of the Holy Spirit.
-Thomas Aquinas notes that “the Third Person of the Trinity has no name of his own and that the name Holy Spirit has been given to him on the basis of scriptural usage (accommodatum ex usu Scripturae Thomas Aquinas Summa theologica 1, q. 36, a. 1).
-Procession and generation of the Holy Spirit
-Procession refers to an indefinite expression whose hypostatic origin is presented to us negatively: It is not generation.
-Generation refers to definite relationship between two persons.
-If we look from generation perspective (positive), we find an image of the economy of the Third Person.
-If we look from procession perspective (negative), we find an image of his hypostatic character as a divine force or spirit, which accomplishes sanctification.
-This leads to a paradoxical conclusion: all that we know of the Holy Spirit refers to his economy; all that we do not know makes us venerate his person, as we venerate the ineffable diversity of the consubstantial three.
-East is willing to go along with a phrase “proceeds from the Father through the Son”(St. Gregory of Nyssa).
-Orthodox Trinitarian theology is based on One essence in three persons. God is one and God is three (not three Gods): the Holy Trinity is a mystery of unity in diversity, and of diversity in unity. Father, Son, and Spirit are ‘one essence’(homoousios), yet each is distinguished from the other two by personal characteristics. The divine is indivisible in its divisions, for the persons are ‘united yet not confused, distinct yet not divided’, both the distinction and the union alike are paradoxical.(John of Damascus, Gregory of Nazianzus).
-Salvation: Unlike in the Western churches, sin, grace and salvation are not a legal term that teaches that God gave humans freedom, they misused it and broke God's commandments, and now deserve punishment. God's grace results in forgiveness of the transgression and freedom from bondage and punishment, but it is a full communion with God in the East. When God became incarnate on Earth, he changed human nature by uniting the human and the Divine; for this Christ is often called "The New Adam." By his participation in human life, death, and resurrection he sanctified the means whereby we could be restored to our original purity and regain our right relationship with the Father. This is what the Orthodox call salvation from consequences of the sickness of sin. Christ’s salvific act worked retroactively back to the beginning of time thus saving all the righteous people from the bonds of sin, including Adam and Eve.
-Salvation is a process not of justification or legal pardon, but reestablishing man’s communion with God. This process of repairing the unity of human and divine is sometimes called “deification.” This term does not mean that human becomes gods but that humans join fully with God’s divine life.
10. Mission: Orthodox and West
-In the West, Eastern Orthodox Church was seen as nonmissionary church.
-Eastern Church needs to be motivated to do mission as well.
-Dialogue is encouraged with the West.
-In relation with WCC, Orthodox Church needs to set her own agenda, rather than merely follow Catholic-Protestant dichotomy. (Alexander Schmemann)
-Search for the original Church.
Works Consulted:
Clendenin, Daniel B. Eastern Orthodox Christianity: Western Perspective. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1994.
_______________ . (Editor). Eastern Orthodox Theology: A Contemporary Readers. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1995.
Joseph, the Hesychast. Monastic Wisdom: The Letters of Elder Joseph the Hesychast. Florence, Arizona: St. Anthony Greek Monastery Published, 1998.
Pak, Alexader T. “Restudy of the Schism Between Eastern and Western Church in 1054 and the Eastern Orthodox Churches” M.Div. thesis at Calvin Theological
Seminary, Grand Rapids, 1988.
Palmer, G. E. H., Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware. The Philokalia: The Complete Text.
Compiled by St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St Makarios of Corinth. (Trans. Fm. Greek). Vol. IV. London: Faber and Faber, 1995.
Ware, Timothy (Kallistos). The Orthodox Church. New Edition. London: Penguin Books, 1963.