CANDLESTICK ECCLESIOLOGY: THE ORIGINAL VISION OF THE CHURCH
Introduction
There is a famous parable about blind men and an elephant, which originated in the ancient Indian subcontinent, from where it has been widely diffused in many different religious contexts. In this story, a group of blind men who do not know what an elephant is try to learn what an elephant is by touching it. Each blind man is only allowed to feel one different part of the elephant's body, like a trunk, tusk or tail. They then try to describe the elephant based on their experience, and are shocked to find that the others do not agree with them and have radically different views. In some of the retellings of this tale, they suspect that the others are dishonest and they begin to fight with one another. The moral of the parable is that we humans have a tendency to claim absolute authority based on our limited, subjective experience as we ignore what other people report about their experiences. This is an argument for the Christian understanding of “synodality”, which is receiving only that which has been believed by all, everywhere, at all times, and ratified in a process of Ecumenical Church Council. Orthodox doctrine does not define the Mysteries of the Church, rather it builds a creedal wall around those doctrines and preserves the mystery. Anything else leads to endless disputes that can never be answered, except by more and more forceful opinions and separations in the Body of Christ!
THE BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT
By John Godfrey Saxe
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me!—but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried: "Ho!—what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 't is mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"
The Fourth reached out his eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
"'T'is clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"
The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
The Epistle: Romans 8:18-23
I RECKON that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
The Gospel. St. Luke 6:36-43
BE ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful. Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven: give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch? The disciple is not above his master: but every one that is perfect shall be as his master. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Either how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, let me pull out the mote that is in thine eye, when thou thyself beholdest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye.
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| The Blind Leading the Blind, by Jean Lasbordes, c.1600's, Conservateur du Musée de Castres, |
The Sermon
In the life of the Church, we are presented with the same narrative in every generation. We have strong personalities in the Church, in positions of leadership and power, who conflict with each other and create divisions within a previously united Church. Inevitably, the "my way of the highway" attitude succeeds in alienating those who disagree, and in the end, those in positions of power excommunicate those who are not in positions of power. Such difficulties happen in every age. We hear recent narratives emerge from sister Churches in the Ukraine, in schism over canonical claims that are rooted in political difficulties. Each side claims the other side is “lost” and "excommunicated," deprived of grace and are now in a false Church, never to be redeemed except through complete submission to and annihilation by the other.
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| A Traditional Greek Icon of Sts. Peter and Paul Reconciling, an Episode not Recorded in the Scriptures or the Early Church Fathers, Showing the Dynamic Tension at the Heart of the Early Schism that Wracked the Church Between Hebrew and Gentile Factions |
Is this how excommunication is supposed to work in Scripture? No, it is not. Biblical excommunication occurs because of moral scandal or for teaching doctrine contrary to Apostle Paul’s tradition, not because of conflicts over leadership. In these kinds of conflicts, St. Paul submitted to God and acknowledged the insignificance of the messenger of the Gospel, saying “I have planted, Apollos watered; but the Lord gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither is he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase.” (I Corinthians 3:6-7) The later focus that Churches had upon their particular “Fathers”, whether it be St. Augustine or St. Cyril of Alexandria, breaks with this biblical focus on the work of the Holy Spirit and the insignificance of these individuals in the flow of the redemptive work of the Gospel. This inordinate focus on men naturally leads to confusion, and creates wounds within the Church that fester and refuse to heal, creating alienation and division within the Chruch, not outside of it.
In Galatians 2:9-13, we have a passage that provides us with the backstory to the conflict between the early Jewish and Gentile Churches, which resulted in a painful schism that lasted several hundred years, even into the days of the Post-Nicene Fathers - "...and when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I also was eager to do. Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy."
How did the Apostles deal with such conflicts? They had them. St. Paul withstood St. Peter to the face over St. Peter's hypocrisy and inability to stand up to the Judaizing factions of the Early Church. Scholars have shown that Sts. Peter and Paul did not reconcile, and that their communities continued to have difficulties for many years. In fact, we know that the “Judaizers” that St. Paul rebuked constantly were a part of the original Christian community in Jerusalem and Antioch. Why did St. Paul try to use money to impress the Church in Jerusalem with the good intentions and brotherliness of the Gentile Church? Why were there already such divisions within the Apostolic Church, when many Orthodox today suppose the First Century Church to be perfect? In all of this, we see how the Apostle Paul was anxious to build communion and mutual recognition, and we can also see how this hope was defeated by the prevalence of “Ebionite” or “Hebrew Christians” later on in Christian history.
What we see from this and many other episodes is that conflict and division have always plagued the Church, that we are constantly struggling to “be one, even as Christ and His Father are one.” (John 17:22) We are told earlier in that same verse, so often used as the standard for Christian unity, that true unity is only possible through the “glory” that Christ gave to the Apostles, the “Doxa”, that is the second part of our name as “Ortho Doxa.” “κἀγὼ τὴν δόξαν ἣν δέδωκάς μοι δέδωκα αὐτοῖς, ἵνα ὦσιν ἓν καθὼς ἡμεῖς ἕν ἐσμὲν…” Unity will be found and preserved by keeping the right glory of God in our midst, the right worship of the Holy Trinity, the right worship of Jesus Christ as fully God and fully Man, and continuously glorifying God above our bishops and priests, who are but men and must always be submitted to the Holy Spirit in the Church in order to have any authority.
The Scriptural precedents show a clear pattern for the process of excommunication -
With these past conflicts in mind, we can see how excommunication has sometimes been misused in the Church. It should only be used against individuals who disobey the moral teachings or teach contrary to the Apostolic Deposit. Scripture and the Early Church does not give one local Church free rein to excommunicate another local Church. It does not give one bishop the right to excommunicate another bishop, unless the bishop is immoral or teaching heresy. This position is defended by the regularity of the Apostolic Canons, which show how everything must be accomplished locally, and that excommunication is to be used for moral offenses and teaching contrary to the Gospel.
Matthew 18:15-18 “If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.”
Romans 16:17 “Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them.”
1 Corinthians 5:2 “You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.”
1 Corinthians 5:13 “But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves."
1 Corinthians 5:1-6 “It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst. For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this, as though I were present.”
1 Corinthians 5:9-13 “I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the wicked man from among yourselves.”
2 Corinthians 2:5-11 “But if any has caused sorrow, he has caused sorrow not to me, but in some degree—in order not to say too much—to all of you. Sufficient for such a one is this punishment which was inflicted by the majority, so that on the contrary you should rather forgive and comfort him, otherwise such a one might be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow.”
2 Thessalonians 3:6 “Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us.”
1 Timothy 1:20 “Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme."
Titus 3:9-11 “But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and strife and disputes about the Law, for they are unprofitable and worthless. Reject a factious man after a first and second warning, knowing that such a man is perverted and is sinning, being self-condemned.”
3 John 1:10 “For this reason, if I come, I will call attention to his deeds which he does, unjustly accusing us with wicked words; and not satisfied with this, he himself does not receive the brethren, either, and he forbids those who desire to do so and puts them out of the church."
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| "First remove the beam in thine own eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to remove the splinter in thy brother's eye", Parable of the Mote, by Ottmar Elliger the Younger, c.1700, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York |
Candlestick Ecclesiology
The Scriptural analogies for the Church center around language that describes the Church as a Body, a Bride, or a Structure. These are all helpful analogies to understand what the Church is like, but the Orthodox tend to focus on the “Body” analogy to the detriment of the other images. However, of all the biblical imagery used to understand the nature of the Church, one stands out as being both profoundly explanatory but also dramatically neglected. It is revealed in Revelation Chapter One, where it says -
"And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band. He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength. And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches." (Revelation 1:12B-13, 16-18, 20 NKJV)
The "angels of the lamp stands” have universally been understood to be the bishops of those Churches, and God reveals that he judges these Churches based on their faithfulness to the Gospel, “putting out the candles” of those who do not remain faithful to the Gospel because of heresy or immorality in the Church. This imagery resonates with various other stories in the Scripture, such as the the Twelve Tribes and the Priestly Breastplate, the schism between the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, Christ’s warning about the Wheat and the Tares (Matthew 13:24-43), Christ’s parable about the Vine and the Branches in John 15, and the letter of St. Paul, which addresses local issues of doctrine and discipline in the Gentile Church, not with threatening schism, but by implying that the toleration of sin imperils the whole.
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| Traditional Greek Icon of St. John the Apostle's Vision of the Churches of Christ in the Vision of the Apocalypse, Revelation 1:13 |
Original Ecumenism as Conciliarity
The word “Ecumene” means “household”, and was meant to define one empire, under one Oikos, one “householder”, a Christian Emperor, which would define the confines of true, Apostolic Faith for the whole. The first activity of the first Christian Emperor was to define that faith, which is the Nicene Creed. Therefore, within the Ecumene of the Roman World, the faith that was adopted was that which is in common with all “small o” Orthodox Christians. Ecumenical activity was between the various local churches within that imperial Ecumene, and churches struggled to keep this intercommunion and mutual accountability throughout the whole history of the empire, until the culture’s differentiated enough over time so as to lose their commonalities, language, etc.
As a result of a complicated and long process of various different cultures receiving the Gospel, we ended with separate local, catholic churches at the ends of each of these cultural responses to the different approaches. The Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox, the Byzantine Orthodox and the Roman Catholics all resulted from struggling with issues of Scriptural interpretation through Tradition, informed by the underlying cultures and languages of the people in their different places. The cohesion between them is all astonishing, especially when one considers how different their cultures really were, and goes a long way in supporting the idea that the Apostolic Deposit is both real and transforming. The difference upon which they split also seem extremely small, considering how absolutely diverse and philosophically amorphous contemporary Christianity is.
The implications for this is that Churches are planted, they are local, and they are equal. Churches are not branches off of a common trunk. No church administration system is the trunk. Synodality does not reveal truth. It confirms what was already understood and received. Ecumenical reception of a council insures its veracity from the beginning, not the reception of a new revelation. A local synod can go against the direction of the general deposit and still be considered locally binding, even though it is not universally accepted or experienced, but this does not add to the deposit or change the original teachings. Thus, membership in the church is not reduced through local variation within the boundaries of an Orthodox Nicene Faith.
Monolithic and detailed positions within Churches as a requirement for intercommunion and recognition is an anachronism. The Undivided Church remained so because it required basic subscription to easily received and experienced Creeds, and for pastors and bishops to be committed to a process of mutual conciliarity and love, but never considered a 100% subscription to any particular school of theological thought a necessity for communion. This is attested by over a thousand years of connectivity between East and West, although their different approaches and focuses existed from the beginning.
Churches can cease to recognize other Churches, to their own peril, but they do not immediately cease to be Churches - Imperfection does not destroy the real connection they have with God, except when that disconnection occurs through “ought against thy brother” when Christ commands to “go and be reconciled quickly.” (Matthew 5:23) We can see this in the recent schism between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It is universally recognized by the Orthodox on the ground that the schism doesn't automatically place one of the two churches outside of the grace of God. Defining ecumenism as a willingness to consider other people’s perspectives, and “anti-ecumenism” as the virtue of a hardline attitude that refuses to consider any other perspectives, Orthodoxy paints itself into a corner where internal schisms are inevitable and irreparable. The origin of schism, indeed, is this attitude, mistaking the local for the universal and the “little t” traditions for the “Big T” hermeneutical context of the Church.
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Uncut Mountain's Icon of St. Vincent of Lerins, with his "Canon" - "Quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est" |
The Good Kind of Ecumenism
There is a good kind of ecumenism and a bad kind of ecumenism. The good kind is found in the hard process of submitting to the Apostolic Gospel, the witness of the Undivided Church, full orthodoxy or doctrine and catholicity of faith, found through forgiveness, mutual submission, and godly love. The bad kind tries to minimize differences, protect our pride, and smooth over problems by adherence to the least common denominator, sacrificing truth for a political compromise and outward solidarity.
The second kind of ecumenism has been incredibly hurtful and damning to us and to other churches, focusing on outward unity at the expense of the inner cohesion of doctrine and theological practice. It is a theology of “it doesn’t really matter” and attempts to minimize, rather than harmonize, deny rather than full flesh-out, differing views and experiences within Christian communities. In human relationships we would call this trait “dysfunctional” - because it tries to repair past conflicts by avoiding every mention of them. It is fearful on one side, and disbelieving on the other - because it doesn’t believe that the initial conflicts were valuable or revealed anything of value about us or God, but rather, merely holds history in contempt and downplays its relevance today.
While we want the first kind of ecumenicism in our Church, centered around the Vincentian Canon and the shared life in all Apostolic Churches, we must always be on guard for the second kind of unity. They often appear similar, but their inner motivations are completely different. The first type desires submission to Christ as the “way, truth and life” and seeks His glory above all, realizing that man must humble himself before God and others in the process; the second kind desires that we merely “get along for mutual benefit” and does not require submission or repentance - but the “preservation of human dignity.” One is about Christ. The other is about our selves.
Summary
An acknowledgement of our human weakness and inability to know eternal truths in our finite experience is not an argument for ecumenism or liberalism. It is not based on the acceptance of the "least common denominator." No, it is a radical recommitment to the beliefs of the ancient Church, a rejection of an evolutionary approach to truth, and an insistence that some issues of faith and dogma remain eternally nested in mysteries that must be accepted and experienced to be truly appreciated. We must all agree on what we do not know, and humbly accept the revealed Scriptures and the joint experience of the whole Church. This means that, rather than lifting ourselves up in pride or declaring local experience as universal, we must stay faithful to the Gospel, submit to the whole Church throughout time, and insist that Orthodoxy is not the promulgation of a continually developing doctrines, but fidelity to the mystery that was once and for all revealed, and that sits within different cultures in a slightly different way - for the Jews it was temple worship and acceptance of Christ as Messiah, for the Gentiles it was receiving Christ as the fulfillment of all the best intuitions of the pagan philosophers and abstaining from blood and things offered to idols. Christianization does occur, and once pagan cultures become the locus of a New Jerusalem, and this process happens over and over, never making the culture that received and was transformed by the Gospel the final standard of authority. The Gospel transformed the Mediterranean, moved to Northern Europe, the Americas and Oceania; but many of those places have rejected Christ and have sunk into Apostasy, and now new centers of Christian learning, art and culture are blossoming in Africa and Southeast Asia.
Orthodox fundamentalism becomes an excuse for cultural chauvinism and enthnophylitism, insisting that "once save always saved" for a ecclesial culture is an excuse for bad behavior, the moral equivalent of the Reformed preacher who revels in "smoking, drinking, fist-fights and dirty talk" because he is one of the "Elect." Rather than realizing, just as individuals can fall away from God and sink into apostasy, often veiled with a fastidious religiosity that attempts to justify sin with high sounding reasons, that cultures can lose their bearing and fall away from God, all the while claiming canonical powers that have long since lost their relevancy. In many of these fundamentalistic cultures, canons are used as an excuse for abuse, and pride of place is never laid aside like Christ laid aside His heavenly glory, as a mark of God's true compassion on the world. This is where we see the contemporary Orthodox Church, which expends a huge amount of energy fighting canonical wars with other Orthodox Churches, denounces the Roman Church as schismatic and "graceless", and openly mocks Anglicans and Evangelicals, all the while rejecting Christ's one and only commandment to the Church at His Ascension, to go into all the world and preach the Gospel. Such an oversight shows what really motivates many Orthodox bishops, who are more interested in the height of their Mitra, the jewels on their Panagias, and the financial status of their local Churches than actually doing the work of the ministry, catechizing their people, and reaching the myriad of Post-Christians in Europe, the Middle East, and North and South America. We should not forget that oft-attributed saying - "the pathway to hell is lined with the skulls of unfaithful bishops!"
It is little wonder that the full force of such dysfunctional ecclesiastical culture comes to bare against "the Pan-Heresy of Ecumenism", defining all ecumenism as evil and the work of Satan in the last days. On many points I agree with my Orthodox brethren, that we should not change one jot or tittle of the Apostolic Deposit in order to come together with those who are not submitted to it and committed to propagate it. However, there are many issues in our own history for which we must repent, honestly ask forgiveness from our brothers in other Churches, and re-asses our relationship with them and the canonical tradition that allows excommunication for things other than what St. Paul allowed. We must realize that self-referentiality, pride of the group, and the belief that local churches are institutionally infallible is blindness. Anything that keeps us from being able to obey Christ, love our neighbors, and recognize the Body of Christ with those who hold the same Mystery of Faith, the same Nicene Creed, needs to be systematically questioned and the toxic poison of pride and political advantage needs to be purged from amongst us. If we do not do this, as schism continues to spread throughout the Orthodox world, confusing monetary and temporal advantage for the Grace of God, we not only become a laughingstock to those who hate Christ, but we further alienate those who are seeking the unadulterated Gospel of the Ancient Church. We truly become "the blind leading the blind!"
The Collect
O GOD, the protector of all that trust in thee, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy; Increase and multiply upon us thy mercy; that, thou being our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we finally lose not the things eternal. Grant this, O heavenly Father, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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