The Freedom and Joy of Traditional Orthodox Family Life

Presbytera Juliana Cownie and Susannah Brecht

 

 

Even the most pious and devout Orthodox Christian might look at the title of this article with some astonishment. Having all experienced struggles with our weak flesh, criticism, and even persecution for our beliefs, we often forget the freedom and joy present in our struggle for the Faith. "Sacrifice" and "commitment" are words which more readily come to mind. Yet, having been promised freedom by Our Lord when He says, "And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (St. John 8:32), and joy when He tells us, "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full" (St. John 15:11), we cannot deny that the fulfillment of these promises lies within our very Faith.

Most of us know in our hearts the beauty of the Faith which was handed down to us from the Apostles. It is just that the mundane concerns of daily life obscure and distort the glorious image of Christ's beloved Church. Let us rise for a moment above the clouds of confusion and gaze fully on our blessings.

The German philosopher Schopenhauer (d. 1860) said: "We seldom think of what we have but always of what we lack." Thus we come to define religions by what it is that their followers are required to give up. One group is neatly categorized by its abstention from cigarettes and alcohol, while another is known for its prohibition of dancing. When asked to explain the uniqueness of Orthodoxy, many of us fall to this same negative approach in defining our beliefs: "Well, we can't have animal products on Wednesday and Friday or during Lent—in fact, it sometimes seems that we can't have them most of the year. Our services are a lot longer than almost anybody else's, and you have to stand the whole time. And women can't wear pants, either. ...I guess that's about it."

What we leave out of such definitions of the Faith is the fact that the Orthodox Church has the most beautiful liturgical celebrations in Christianity. Centuries of sanctity have passed on to us the tradition of love in which we commemorate the festal and solemn occasions in the life of Our Lord. The liturgical remembrance of the many Saints and Martyrs brings us closer to them in the mystical communion. We who were dead in sin have been resurrected and stand blinking in the light of the glorious Pascha. We who are mere flesh approach with trembling the Cup of Divinity and partake of God with awe. When we fast, therefore, it is not only to learn discipline and self-control, but, more importantly, to prepare ourselves for this true spiritual joy of the Church's liturgical life.

'This sense of resurrection joy...forms the foundation of all the worship of the Orthodox Church.... It is the one and only basis for our Christian life and hope. Yet, in order for us to experience the full power of this Paschal rejoicing, each of us needs to pass through a time of preparation." [1]

Our Wednesday and Friday fasting prepares us for the experience of something of this Paschal rejoicing each Sunday of the year, as we call to mind the Lord's Resurrection in the Divine Liturgy. For "greater" feasts there is more extensive preparation, corresponding to their joyful significance.

It would not be truthful of course, to say that we are never inconvenienced by these fasting periods. Many of us have found ourselves in difficult social situations where we could not make our fasting needs understood. Most of us know the frustration of having to refuse some non-fast food which we would have thoroughly enjoyed, if only it had been offered on another day. But we should be celebrating each feast of the Church with such fervent joy that these inconveniences become nothing more than a reminder of our human frailty.

Indeed, diligent fasting without the joy that comes from keeping the actual festal celebration it accompanies is a pointless asceticism. It is a form of self-punishment inconsistent with the spirit of the Church's teachings. We are not Orthodox by virtue of keeping certain laws and rules and meeting certain obligations. Whether we are fasting or feasting, we are doing so out of a joyous love for God and a desire to draw closer to Him: "The true end of asceticism is the restoration of the human being to full communion with God, to the imago Dei." [2]

It is our joyous love for God and the freedom which He bestows on us that should define us as Orthodox Christians. The small glimmers of divinized humanity should show through our rough vesture of fallen humanity enough that we become, in truth, the light of the world. Though we see nothing glorious in passing up animal products on a fast day, for example, the glory is there. We need but look at the vast number of miserable souls who are literally trapped in prisons of self-indulgence: drug addiction, alcoholism, and immorality—products of a world which worships the "self" as a God. Our worship of God can free us from these things.

Outside of traditionalist Orthodox family life, one hears little among Orthodox Christians about the freedom and joy of self-restraint or how to attain them. The secret is that one must be taught to practice self-restraint in order to attain the freedom it confers. Love of Holy Tradition impels us to follow the various rules of the Church, for they are emblematic of God's concern for us. Spiritual joy results from our efforts, which in turn engender greater efforts. And these efforts begin in the home.

Our goal as Orthodox Christians is to teach the Orthodox path to our children. Love demands that our family concerns be based on the eternal expectations of the Faith. All parents experience the pangs of realization that our children seem to pass from babyhood to maturity in a fleeting embrace of time. Thus, it surely makes no sense to coddle them in this world so that we risk losing them in the next. We must sometimes turn a deaf ear to complaints about fasting, long services, dressing modestly, and so on. Our children will trust that we are acting in the best interests of their immortal souls, if we are consistent in our own behavior. They will damn us as hypocrites, however, if we excuse ourselves from following the traditions of the Church on the basis of worldly concerns.

If we wish to take joy in our children, we must help them, too, to be free of their fallen selfishness. However, again, unless we free ourselves first, we cannot show them the way. The freedom and joy which preside over the traditional Orthodox home should be evident in the parents. Husband and wife, being of one flesh, with one eternal goal, should demonstrate a clarity of purpose and function by adhering to the Church's rules for self-restraint and by maintaining a prayerful, reverent atmosphere in the home—a symbol of spiritual freedom and joy.

Prayer in the home, like fasting, is a useful spiritual practice by which we maintain the spirit of Orthodox worship in daily family life. We leave behind the hectic world at the end of each day and find peace and joy in the haven of our family church. In our Icon corners we are free to lift up our hearts and minds to the Creator of all things, to ask for the intercessions of the Saints, to seek the protection of the Theotokos, to praise God in the company of Angels, and to know that we are heard. We give our cares into God's keeping and we are renewed. Our Faith becomes tedious and a matter of obligation only if we ignore the realities of this interaction with the Divine.

"How is the yoke sweet and the burden light if the ways which are kept in the precepts of God are hard? The way of God is both narrow for beginners and wide for those who are already leading a perfect life. And the spiritual tasks we impose on an unaccustomed spirit are hard, yet the burden of God is light when we have begun to bear it, so that even persecution pleases for love of Him." [3]

We begin to know the lightness of the burden and the sweetness of the yoke only when we have begun to bear that burden out of love for God and faith in His Church. Our spirits, rendered soft by the world, at first rebel at the idea of unaccustomed disciplines and restrictions. Once we have begun to be obedient to the Church, however, we are amazed at the lightness of the burden we are asked to bear. Fasting not only becomes less difficult, but it becomes an essential part of our lives. The services no longer seem so lengthy, since we come to understand them better and to appreciate their divine aspect. We no longer desire the fashions and fads of the world, in that we have seen them come and go, while the Church remains steadfast and unwavering.

We learn to endure criticism for the sake of Christ cheerfully and, should we suffer persecution, we know that we will not break under the strain, for we have been strengthened by our fasting and prayer. These are the freedom and joy experienced in traditional Orthodox family life, a mature Christianity blessed by God to endure until the end of the world. This is the Faith which we must live and which we must pass on to our children.

"Our lives, marriages, and homes remain as the inferior wine that was served first at the wedding feast of Cana, if we do not become active in our pursuit of the goal of mature Christianity. It is only after we work at preparing our lives and our homes for the reception of Christ and the Christian life, that our lives, our marriages and our homes will become like the good wine which Christ miraculously made from water at that joyous wedding. (Jn. 2:1-12)." [4]

 

Notes

[1] The Lenten Triodion, trans. Mother Mary and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1978), 13.

[2] Archimandrite Akakios, Fasting in the Orthodox Church (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1990), 60.

[3] St. Gregory the Dialogist, Homilies on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, trans. Theodosia Gray (Etna, CA: Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1991), Book II, Homily 2, Chap. 14.

[4] Rev. Michael B. Henning, Marriage and the Christian Home (Seattle, WA: St. Nectarios Press, 1987), p. 42.

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VIII (1991), No. 2, p. 15.