On the Orthodox Christian Family

 Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Etna (+2019)

 

Subject: The Orthodox Christian Family: God First, the Family as an Adjunct to That Commitment.  

Date: 23 November 2014 20:43:41 GMT

Dear Clergy and Faithful:

May God bless you. My following message may well upset some of you, but so be it. It is an important message that we must all heed as Orthodox Christians. Otherwise, we will follow our modern world into spiritual oblivion and atheism.

A close spiritual son (and brother), and a good Christian family man, wrote to me today about something that he had heard and which he knew was contrary to Christian teaching.  His statement was this:

A certain Priest, as a friend related to me, was told by his Orthodox bishop to take care of his family first and that all else would fall into place with respect to the church. This is contrary to what I have heard you constantly say. I understand that our priorities are above all to love and to serve God.

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If this is what an Orthodox Bishop actually said, God forgive him and enlighten him. He is seriously confused and misled. Such words are in opposition to the words of Christ Himself, Who said in the Gospel of St. Matthew: "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." To preach something different is to distort love, which comes from (and is) God, and thus to introduce a false, selfish, pathological love onto the family. True family love draws on the Mystery of marriage and the love that one first has for God.

A Bishop should teach aright the word of Truth, doing so with words of Christ. Thus he must say (applying this both to married clergy and lay people): "Care for Christ and your flock or fellow Christians first, and all else will fall into place with respect to your family."

Let me quote our Lord's response to making the family a priority and the Church (the Body of Christ) secondary in life. Again from the Gospel of St. Matthew: "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Do we not, in fact, teach that a family rooted in the love of Christ above all else will be a family favored by God, a light to other humans, and a foundation block, not of some social unit, but of the Church Itself?

The families of Martyrs and those who simply dedicate themselves to the Church are benefited spiritually by the sacrifices of such Martyrs and servants. Indeed, many of our most famous Saints were from families that, loving Christ first, became monastics in adulthood: siblings and mothers and fathers both! They represent the true family. And all of these true families were bound together by the priority that they gave to Christ and the Church in this world, as they will be so bound in the next, experiencing genuine love drawn from God.

If one's family is one's God, then one worships flesh and blood and Mammon; one is living a cult-like existence. The result: divorces, hopelessness, depression, and all of the things that we see in families that lack God and things spiritual as their absolute priority. If the basis of one's family is God and the Church, then one's family comes to serve a correct purpose and transforms not only its members, but those around them; i.e., those whom the family serves: the poor, the humble, and all of those who, as Scripture tells us, are especially loved by God. Indeed, it is not only true family success and happiness that are on the line; eternal salvation is on the line.

May God enlighten, as I said, the poor Bishop who uttered such spiritually deadly words! He is harming, whether willfully or not, the souls of those who heed such advice, which is anti-Biblical, anti-Christian, and imperiling to the soul! Creeping agnosticism and atheism manifest themselves in any church that puts forth the family and social units—which must be totally, wholly transformed in Godliness—as a priority. My words are not popular, but no believer who sincerely cares for souls could speak in any other way! Even if his ends are sincere, his method will endorse the destructive love of worldly selfishness and surely bring sadness and despair on families, and especially the wives and children of Priests!