The Quality of Our Faith

The following is reprinted from a very edifying encyclical sent to our [Holy Synod in Resistance] Exarchate churches and missions by His Grace, Bishop Chrysostomos [of Etna] in June 1990.

 

 

"Come, give us a taste of your quality." (Shakespeare, Hamlet)

 

Shakespeare's exhortation to a manifestation of worldly quality has a counterpart in the Apostle Paul's call to Christian excellence. In his letter to his spiritual son, St. Timothy, he writes: "...shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed."

In all things, whether in the proclamation of the Word of God, the explication of the writings of the Fathers, or simple spiritual instruction, we must strive to please God by the excellence of our work— to be spiritual laborers who take pride in the quality of their work. For this quality is the very substance of our witness.

Here in America, Orthodoxy has suffered, as perhaps in no other place, from the spirit of the modern world: from a desire for worldly power, for numbers, and for recognition. It is true that this spirit was born in the national Orthodox Churches. The Patriarch of Constantinople, first only in honor among all of the Orthodox Bishops, has for decades worked to make himself a kind of Eastern Pope. Other ancient Patriarchates have followed in his footsteps. And local Churches clamor for recognition from the powerful heterodox Churches of the West, showing wild enthusiasm for various ecumenical notions that at times stand at odds with the very definition of the Orthodox Church Herself. But the national Churches have in their ranks—largely because of Old Calendarist resistance to the adoption of the Papal calendar by some Orthodox Churches beginning in 1924—mature Churchmen and pious laity who serve to check this ferocious spirit of anti-traditional innovation.

In America, sadly enough, a mature foundation for the Faith has yet to be built. Thus Orthodox hunger unchecked for "officialdom," for recognition as a "major Faith," and for the numbers that so often help what is inauthentic take on an air of haughty, but pathetic, ascendency. There being so few spiritual guides to control this frantic ride toward popular recognition, it has gone off in wild directions, making "Orthodox" that which is not only foreign to the Faith, but often even hostile to it. In a "you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-yours" sort of deal, Orthodox "evangelicals," who seek from Orthodoxy an historical stamp of approval on their innovative, self-serving, and demonic deviations from Apostolic Christianity, are scooped up into Orthodox circles as "warm bodies" to fill the ranks and bolster numbers. Thus, the quality of faith among Orthodox believers in America has become a secondary issue. The primary issue has become that of keeping the Churches filled and the Orthodox population large and visible.

True Orthodox, those who take their lifeblood from the Faith, know themselves to be part of the historical Church established by Christ. Herein alone lies their officialdom. They seek with their whole hearts to fulfill the commandments of Christ, to observe the rules of the Church, to live up to the expectations of the Fathers, and to measure all things by the eternal canon of spiritual truth. A Church is evaluated not by the number of its members or by the heftiness of its coffers, but by the fidelity of its members to the teachings of Christ and the Church which he established on earth. True Orthodox Christians do not strive for worldly recognition or for praise from the heterodox—more often than not, earned by a willingness to betray the Faith in the name of human notions of love and unity—, but to please God and to draw on and be united to the love which flows from the Church joined here on earth to that above in heaven. Bound outside time and space in a oneness of belief and a unity of spirit with the multitudes who have filled the Christian Church since the beginning of time, they live beyond the earthly concern for numbers and power.

The man who stands with the masses, whose mind is fixed on the worldly ideas of peace, justice, and unity, stands alone with those millions who share his empty belief in what can never be more than a futile dream in a fallen world. The pious man who stands alone in Church with a handful of fellow believers, whose mind is fixed on the righteousness of God and on a peace which passes human understanding, awaiting justice in another life—this man stands amidst the countless forefathers in the Faith, sharing with them a glory that has transformed the universe and which reaches across the chasm that separates the worldly from the heavenly. One person alone whose efforts are concentrated on the quality of his Faith outshines a whole world of would-be believers who seek a faith immersed in worldly power and recognition.

Among the larger, modernist Orthodox Churches in this country there is often found an institutional indifference, bred by the priorities of officialdom and money. There the Evil One need not work. His work is being done for him by all that draws these poor believers away from Orthodox spirituality to evangelical piety or from community and fellowship to mere institutionalism. In our small churches and monastic communities, however, the Evil One is particularly active. The quality of our Faith is a threat to his ends and machinations. We must, therefore, be cautious not to succumb to the love of power and numbers, and thus lose the essence of our Faith. If we learn to love and appreciate the few and the little that God has given us, we will increase in the quality of our Faith, showing it forth to others. And as the quality of our Faith increases, we come nearer to the great throngs of Christians who fill the Heavenly Church and who swell our ranks beyond any number that the earthly powers might hope to have.

Our intimate and small missions—the kinds which the first Christians knew—contain the seed of a great faith. If we look to spiritual excellence, rather than worldly eminence, this seed will blossom. The water with which we must constantly irrigate this seed is humility. We must be like the Brother of the Lord who, when he was being led away to his martyrdom, encountered the person who had betrayed him to his persecutors. Looking at him, this blessed Hieromartyr bowed down before his betrayer, begging his forgiveness. (And, incidentally, the betrayer, moved to his inner being by this act of humility, confessed Christ and followed the brother of the Lord to martyrdom.) In a Faith which demands that we love our enemies, indeed those who would kill us, how easy it is to ask forgiveness even when we are not at fault. And where such humility exists, the Evil One is destroyed. His only power among those who are few in number (save tempting them with worldly recognition), that is his ability to spread disunity, is thereby destroyed by the quality of their Faith, made rich by the virtue of humility.

The quality of our Faith will lead us to spiritual victory. Those who follow the world and its desires for numbers—tainted, as that desire often is, by a love of the money which follows numbers!—will come to naught. We, the small flock, will endure even to the end, preserving the excellence of our Faith in the excellence and quality of the deeds which we render to Christ. Rejoice for every two or three who live the Orthodox Faith, for Christ is with them. Mourn for the many who, creating a new Faith and deviating from Holy Tradition, have thus removed themselves from Christ and His Church.

I ask for your worthy prayers for me, for those with me, for our Metropolitan Cyprian and his God-pleasing work, and for all of our Orthodox brothers and sisters in Christ. I am

The Least Among Monks,

t Bishop Chrysostomos

Synodal Exarch in America

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VII (1990), No. 4, p. 4.