Illness and Healing in the Orthodox Tradition and in Contemporary Heresies

Fr. Sotirios O. Athanasoulias

Original Greek source: Ὀρθοδοξία καί αἵρεσις [Orthodoxy and Heresy], Holy Metropolis of Mantineia and Kynouria, Issue 85, October–December 2013.

 

 

Human Suffering as an Object of Exploitation

A phenomenon that is assuming enormous proportions in our time with each passing day is the activity of individuals and groups who claim to cure every illness and to be able to eliminate human suffering. An uncontrolled and virtually limitless industry of “alternative” or “holistic” medicine is spreading rapidly throughout the world, promising easy and quick solutions and enjoying the support of the mass media, publishers, newspaper and magazine columnists, and others. As we all know, medical science is responsible for the treatment of diseases. However, despite the fact that this science has made enormous advances in its field, saving millions of human lives every day, its methods are now being challenged by certain groups. For example, groups and individuals associated with occultism and the New Age claim that conventional medicine has failed to heal the human person as a whole. They maintain that it focuses on the disease rather than on the patient himself, administering “poisons” (medications) that ultimately destroy him. The more hospitals, pharmaceutical factories, medications, and doctors increase in number, the more diseases and patients multiply, these groups observe (cf. F. Chalas, Occultism – Theosophy, 1977, p. 60). They put forward various theories concerning the origins and treatment of disease, which they consider far more effective than those of conventional medicine. In other circles, Protestant “healers,” who claim to possess the “gift” of healing, organize performances featuring spectacular “cures” of patients before crowds of their followers. Finally, certain individuals, presenting themselves as supposed scientists or researchers, claim to have discovered the key to healing or a method that eliminates all diseases (which, strangely enough, none of their fellow scientists accepts!). As a result, they create an aura of sensationalism around themselves and mislead others.

These phenomena are multiplying precisely because they are based on the exploitation of human suffering. People afflicted by severe and incurable diseases, desperate and disappointed by other avenues of treatment, seek somewhere to turn, with the result that they become victims of exploitation and certain unscrupulous individuals enrich themselves at their expense, without providing the desired result: a cure! The situation becomes particularly dangerous when patients with serious health problems are persuaded to discontinue conventional medical treatment (e.g., medications essential for maintaining their health) in order to follow the advice of such fraudulent or charlatan “healers.” As might be expected, many of these cases result in death much sooner than would otherwise have occurred! In this regard, the State bears an enormous responsibility, since it is obliged, also by constitutional mandate, to protect health as a legally protected good.

In previous issues of our publication (Nos. 5, 76, 77), we had dealt in detail with one of the “Unorthodox Therapeutic Methods,” as they are characterized by the Athens Medical Association, namely Homeopathy. However, the rapid spread of these methods compels us to return to the subject. For the same reasons, this year’s “Pan-Orthodox Conference of Representatives of Orthodox Churches and Holy Metropolises on Matters of Heresies and Para-Religion,” organized annually by the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece (Volos, November 2013), had as its theme “The Problem of Illness: Heretical and Occultist Approaches,” and issued a very interesting set of Conclusions. In what follows, we shall examine the phenomenon of “healing” (a) within the sphere of Christian heresies and (b) within the sphere of occultism and groups belonging to the New Age movement. Finally, we shall see how the Orthodox Christian Tradition views this subject.

Protestant “Healers”

Among the Christian heresies of the broader Protestant world, evangelists began appearing in America and Europe after the Second World War who organized public gatherings attended by large crowds of believers and proclaimed that they could cure all diseases. The best known among them are William Branham, Oral Roberts, T. L. Osborn, Reinhard Bonnke, and others. Their common characteristic is what is known as “power evangelism,” that is, preaching accompanied by “signs” (supposed miracles) and especially by “healings.” T. L. Osborn, for example, in his book entitled Healing from Christ, claims to have healed hundreds of thousands of sick people suffering from “every kind of disease imaginable” and to have accomplished “even the resurrection of the dead” (Ant. Alevizopoulos, Handbook of Heresies and Para-Christian Groups, 1994, p. 334).

Among these “healers” and their groups, illness is always viewed negatively. Every illness is considered a fruit of sin and is believed to originate exclusively from the devil. The children of God do not fall ill. But even if they do fall ill because of their personal sins, they are healed through faith. Those who do not believe or who do not have sufficient faith are not healed. In many cases, this presupposes the conception of a harsh and punitive God, who punishes sinners with illnesses or abandons them into the hands of the devil. The true Christian never falls ill, because Christ took upon Himself our illnesses vicariously. God does not desire illness, pain, or afflictions of any kind.

Of course, many of the above phenomena of “healing” are simply cases of fraud, which is why groups of Protestant “healers” often accuse one another of deceiving their followers through supposed healings of people pretending to be ill. Nevertheless, it cannot be ruled out that some of these “healings” are works or deceptions of the devil. In most cases, of course, no healing takes place, and then suffering and disappointed people are driven to even greater despair, since they are also held responsible for the failure of the healing: “Your faith is weak. God does not want you to be healed, and that is why you have not recovered!”

In any case, the aforementioned “healers” overlook the fact that the Apostle Paul himself suffered from an infirmity, without this meaning that he ceased to be a “child of God” and became a “child of the devil”! Indeed, he himself wrote: “I will glory in mine infirmities,” “for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:7–10)!

The “Holistic Therapies” of the New Age

The approach to illness and its treatment within the spheres of occultism and the New Age is entirely different. In essence, these are closely related spheres, since New Age groups draw their beliefs and practices from occultism (Magic, Alchemy, Astrology, Theosophy, etc.), just as they also draw from Eastern religions (Hinduism and Buddhism). These spheres presuppose conceptions of God, man, and the world that are entirely different from and incompatible with their Christian counterparts. Consequently, their therapeutic methods, the so-called “alternative” or “holistic therapies” (Homeopathy, Acupuncture, Reflexology, Reiki, Ayurveda, Iridology, Aromatherapy, Crystal Healing, Bioenergetic Therapies, Esoteric Healing, Shiatsu, pseudoscientific psychotherapies, and others), are founded upon a worldview that is opposed to and incompatible with the Orthodox faith. In essence, they constitute the application, in the field of health, of the conceptions of God, man, and the world found in Eastern religions, and together they constitute “New Age Medicine.” Through these methods, unsuspecting Orthodox Christians come into contact with Occultism and end up worshipping idols and deities of ancient pre-Christian civilizations.

According to the teachings of these groups, God is identified with Nature or with the Universe. Everything is God, everything is One (a holistic view of all things), and everything is Energy. This Energy is known by various names among these groups, such as “Universal Energy,” “Superconsciousness,” “Vital Energy,” “Prana,” “Chi,” “Aura,” and others. Health or illness depends on whether or not this Energy flows properly within the human person. “Man draws his energy reserves from the Universe, which is a sea of energies … The Universe, in other words, is the electrical outlet, while the human nervous system is the cable that supplies him with energy. If at some point the energy balance within man is disturbed … disorders arise” (Chr. Tsiakkas, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Religions and Heresies, 2002, pp. 389–390). Healing is identified precisely with the restoration of the normal flow of this Energy within the human person, that is, with its release from blockages (“unblocking”). The various groups in this sphere propose different methods of “unblocking” this Energy. Thus, Homeopathy proposes the potentized homeopathic remedy, while Acupuncture proposes the insertion of needles at appropriate points along what its practitioners regard as the “energy channels” of the human body. Other “therapies,” such as Reiki, propose “unblocking” through “the laying on of hands by a person of a high spiritual level, … who is in reality a channel of universal energies,” and so forth. Here we can clearly discern the role of the “healer” or “physician” in the so-called “alternative therapies.” He usually heals not with medications or medical equipment, but solely with his hands. His role resembles that of a magician or miracle worker, and he is considered a person possessing “charismatic abilities.” He is believed to be able to manipulate cosmic forces and transmit them to others for their healing!

It is evident that these beliefs are based on pre-scientific mythical notions and unproven principles, which, as a rule, are drawn from the realm of fantasy. They are not consistent with modern scientific developments and methods, and for this reason they are characterized as pseudosciences by official Greek and international medical organizations and associations. Nevertheless, for their followers, they constitute the “greatest secret of medicine,” which modern conventional medicine knows nothing about and which was revealed to the world by the hierarchy of the “Great White Brotherhood” through individuals such as Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891), the founder of Theosophy. The methods that possess this secret are called “holistic” because they do not treat merely a single illness, but the human person in his entirety, the human person as a “whole.” The “healing” offered is not limited to diseases of the body, but extends also to the passions of the soul. It delivers man from every vice: ignorance, fear, hatred, anger, pride, envy, and so forth. It is evident that the so-called “alternative therapies” do not merely propose a method of treatment, but a system of salvation, or, more precisely, a system of self-salvation, through which a person acquires divine attributes and himself becomes “God.” They claim that every person can acquire the occult secret of medicine and heal himself by discovering his “God-Self” and activating the occult powers supposedly hidden within him. In other cases, everyone is called upon to identify himself with “Nature” and the “Laws of Nature,” which contain omnipotence within themselves and can help him to heal himself or acquire divine attributes. He is called upon “to unite his soul with the Intelligible Realities, or with the Soul of the Universe or of Nature, whereupon that man, becoming a theurgist, acts in an exemplary manner like Nature, which produces all things” (F. Chalas, op. cit., p. 7). According to the occultists of the New Age, it was precisely by this method that Jesus Christ performed healings, and it is by the same method that the Saints of the Church perform healings. However, the Byzantines have removed the occult elements from their Lives, and these no longer exude the fragrance of Occultism!

However, if the above is true, the question remains unanswered: Why did those who discovered this “greatest secret of medicine,” “the elixir of life or the secret of immortality” (ibid., p. 7), ultimately fall ill and die themselves?

Illness and Healing in the Orthodox Tradition

It is a fact that both the “holistic therapies” of the New Age and the preaching of Protestant “healers” contain elements of truth. The notion that the human person should be healed in his entirety is, generally speaking, correct. “And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it,” observes the Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 12:26), while it is well known that Christ, when performing miracles, also sought the healing of the soul: “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more” (John 5:14).

The gift of healing, which Protestant “healers” claim to possess, is known in Holy Scripture and the Orthodox Tradition. However, the framework within which healing is understood is entirely foreign to Christianity in the first case, and erroneous (heretical) in the second.

According to the Orthodox Tradition, God is not an impersonal energy identified with the universe, but a Person, or, more precisely, three Persons, Who are entirely transcendent to the world in respect of Their essence and “present everywhere” in the world through Their energy, which sustains all things in existence and life. The world is God's creation out of nothing, as is man. Man is superior to the world, as the “king of creation,” and has no need to identify himself with the world or with the “laws of the universe” in order to evolve or be healed.

It is a fact that God created man healthy and does not desire illness, nor is He Himself its source or cause. The ultimate cause of our illnesses is sin. When the first man disobeyed God's commandment and sinned in Paradise, the gates were thrown wide open for death to enter human life, along with the forerunners of death, namely illnesses. From that time onward, “human nature became thoroughly diseased,” according to the characteristic expression of Saint Cyril of Alexandria. However, the fact that the presence of illness in human life generally is due to sin does not mean that its occurrence in every case is attributable exclusively to the personal sins of the sufferer, as certain Protestant “healers” claim. If that were so, the Saints would not fall ill. Yet, in most cases, the opposite is true. Of course, in many cases illnesses are due to personal sins: “Who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” the Disciples ask the Lord before the healing of the man born blind (John 9:2), receiving the answer: “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:3). Thus, there are illnesses that are due to our personal sins and illnesses that occur so that the glory of God may be manifested. There are also, however, illnesses caused by the devil, as in the case of the woman bent over in the Gospel, whom he had kept bound for eighteen years (Luke 13:11–16). If the devil can cause illnesses, he can also free people from those illnesses that he himself has caused, and such an occurrence is usually perceived as a healing or a miracle.

For our salvation and for the life of the world, the Son of God came into the world and became man. Among other things, He came to undo the consequences of the fall of man, which include illnesses. Indeed, Christ is the only true Healer, the “Physician of our souls and bodies,” the only One Who can eliminate every illness. Of course, the complete abolition of death and our illnesses will take place at the End Times, after His Second Coming. Nevertheless, the Incarnation and Christ’s victory over death transformed pain and illness into a “place” and a “means” of our salvation. This means that although God does not positively will (“according to His good pleasure”) illnesses, He often permits them (“by condescension”) when some greater benefit is to result from them.

For the relief of the afflictions caused by illness, Christ, even before His Incarnation, had given man medical science and physicians. Holy Scripture clearly testifies that both medical science and the physician are gifts of God to man: “He hath given men skill” (Wisdom of Sirach 38:6), “Honour a physician ... for the Lord hath created him” (38:1), and “The Lord hath created medicines out of the earth” (38:4). The above means that, ultimately, healing through a physician is healing through Christ! Nevertheless, Christ has not entrusted the entire responsibility for healing to medical scientists. He retains the right either to intervene Himself and heal whenever and wherever He wills, or to heal through the gift of healing, which He bestows upon His Saints. Thus, alongside medical treatments, genuine miracles and genuine miraculous healings also exist and take place. There are, however, also perverse imitations of genuine miracles, false healings, frauds, or deceptions of the devil, such as the “healings” found within the broader sphere of Protestantism.

On the basis of the above, when an Orthodox believer falls ill, he ought first to turn to Jesus Christ, the “Physician of our souls and bodies,” that is, to place his healing within the context of his relationship with God. At the same time, he ought to seek the assistance of appropriately qualified physicians and, in any case, must avoid by every means the so-called “alternative” or “holistic therapies” of the New Age.