Elderism as the Trojan Horse of Ecumenism

Adamantios Tsakiroglou | March 3, 2017

 

There are two domains of spiritual journey and living the life in Christ for Christians: the parish, the local expression of the Church, and the monastery. The parish is the fundamental cell of the sacramental body of the Church, and the monastery is the sacrificial place and, above all, a choice and proof of the exclusive love of people for Christ and His Kingdom. A person becomes a Christian by loving and confessing Christ. This love and confession are experienced only in a spirit of absolute and true freedom. Christ is truth and freedom. Whoever loves and seeks truth and freedom belongs to Christ, even if they are not consciously aware of it.

At some point, this search for truth will lead a person to Christ Himself and to the experience of true truth and freedom, the life in Christ. For the secure preservation of the experience of life in Christ, for the battle against sins and passions, and for the avoidance of delusion and falling away, the monk is aided by the elder, and the layperson by the spiritual father.

The spiritual father/elder, as a type of Christ and himself practicing obedience to Christ, freely, willingly, and responsibly accepts the duty to watch over and guide his spiritual child with respect on the path to their salvation. He offers everything—always guided by the teaching of the Church and the commandment of God to give even their lives for His flock—in order to help them attain salvation. The spiritual father/elder takes care and strives so that the souls of his spiritual children, despite their weaknesses, may be filled with the grace and word of Christ. The burden and responsibility of the spiritual father/elder are immense, and for this reason, many, wisely and out of humility, hesitate to undertake such a tremendous task.

In the ecclesiastical life of recent decades, however, a phenomenon has emerged that causes tragic errors and delusions: the phenomenon of elderism. When we speak of elderism, we mean the distortion, exploitation, and simultaneously the denial of the blessed, sacramental character of the spiritual relationship between father and child, as found in the Orthodox ecclesiastical tradition, which is based on the virtue of obedience. Just as the distortion and exploitation of even a single word of the Gospel automatically constitutes a denial of the word of God, so too elderism, as a distortion of spiritual fatherhood, constitutes a denial of the healthy relationship between spiritual father and spiritual child, aiming at the abolition of the God-given freedom of the person, the greatest expression of which is obedience.

Obedience, of course, is a supreme virtue because it abolishes the ego-driven will and elevates the person. However, it is offered freely and voluntarily. Christ is the ultimate example of this, saying, "Nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will... Your will be done" (Matthew 26:39).  Obedience does subjugate our will, but it does not shatter it, precisely because it is voluntary. It is a gift and a sacrifice, not a coercion or a violation of free will. When the Apostle teaches and exhorts us, "Brethren, obey your leaders and submit to them" (Hebrews 13:17), he sets a condition: "for they keep watch over your souls as those who must give an account." Therefore, when I obey my spiritual father/elder, it means that, just as he accepts me freely, voluntarily, and responsibly, so too do I freely, voluntarily, and responsibly trust and obey the person I have chosen to counsel and guide me on the path of salvation. This is because he watches over and adheres to the teaching of God, respects the free will of the person as a gift from God to humanity, and knows that he will give an account to God for the soul of his spiritual child.

Elderism, however, abolishes all of the above in their entirety and in both aspects. Regarding the first aspect, this abolition occurs when clerics, filled with narcissism, arrogance, and delusion, present themselves as the new charismatic figures of our times and create relationships of absolute dependence that nullify the freedom in Christ, violate human nature, disregard the work of God, and establish tyrannical relationships, producing personal subjects rather than servants of God. At the same time, they exclude other spiritual fathers/elders from God's work, isolate themselves and their spiritual children to elevate themselves as authorities of the Church. They see themselves not as servants of God or as companions guiding the faithful toward Christ, but as Christ Himself. In doing so, they introduce a form of guruism into Orthodoxy, hindering not only the salvation of their spiritual children but also the work of the Church. They do not give everything for the flock but instead take everything from them.

The second aspect concerns the laity and is familiar to all of us, modern Orthodox Christians. It often appears with the well-known phrase, "I am a spiritual child of so-and-so" or "I follow Elder so-and-so," etc. This statement, if we think about it deeply, is tragic because it elevates the spiritual father/elder from a "guide" to a "path." It imposes a recognition from the listener, a validation, a sense of superiority. Even worse, it indicates submission not to Christ through the spiritual father/elder but to the spiritual father/elder through Christ. People who speak this way are merely searching for well-known, often charismatic—whether genuinely or not—spiritual fathers/elders to elevate themselves. They even reach the point of believing that they no longer need to strive for their personal salvation, nor to read the Scriptures and the Holy Fathers, as they have a spiritual father/elder. They consider their salvation assured and reject any teaching contrary to the teaching of their spiritual father/elder, even that of the Fathers of the Church, as heresy, without realizing that they themselves are in delusion. They promote and advertise their spiritual father/elder everywhere, rejecting others as unfit for the work of salvation and harboring hatred for those they perceive as competitors. They constantly cling to him and surround him suffocatingly, lest they lose their "privileged" position. They are terrified of contradicting or angering the spiritual father/elder, experiencing a state of fear and anxiety. They even go so far as to sanctify everything the spiritual father/elder touches or possesses, transforming faith into something akin to magical practices.

For this reason, elderism is rightly considered one of the pillars upon which Ecumenism was established. Obedience to the spiritual father/elder prohibited obedience to the patristic teaching and the defense of doctrine. It elevated the spiritual father/elder to a "First" and the spiritual children to followers. It overturned the unity of the Church, rejecting others and exalting the personal spiritual father/elder to the status of a "Church," while allowing the formation of factions centered around specific spiritual fathers/elders rather than preserving the one flock of the Church. Elderism abolished the rightful scrutiny concerning faith, both of the spiritual father/elder and of every believer, and, like another Trojan Horse, introduced false shepherds and false teachings within the walls. Elderism enabled the erasure and forgetting of the words of Paul:

^"Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, that each of you says, 'I am of Paul,' or 'I am of Apollos,' or 'I am of Cephas,' or 'I am of Christ.' Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?" (1 Corinthians 1:10-17).

 

Original Greek source: https://paterikiparadosi.blogspot.com/2017/03/blog-post_3.html