The World's Christians. Douglas Jacobsen

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СКАЧАТЬ but no one experiences the fullness of salvation in this lifetime.

The word theosis – deification – is jarring to many people who are not themselves Orthodox Christians. The image of deification is meant to be jarring; it is meant to be stunning in its claim. The claim is that the unfathomable God of the universe, maker of all that is and ever will be, has chosen to enter into a special relationship of unity with humankind. In Christ, God became human so that humanity could become divine. The goal of salvation is to move toward unifying fellowship with the Trinitarian God who is the great lover of the world and everyone in it. The eighth‐century Orthodox theologian Manşūr ibn Sarjūn (also known as John of Damascus) explained it this way: “Those who, through their own choice and the indwelling and cooperation of God, have become assimilated to God as much as possible … are truly called gods, not by nature, but by adoption, as iron heated in the fire is called fire, not by nature, but by its condition and participation in fire.”²

      The image in this description is one of God as fire and of the deified person as a piece of iron that has become bright red through contact with the fire of God. The iron remains iron just as the human being remains a human being, but what is visible is not the person, but the fiery glow of God’s presence. This image communicates the fact that Orthodox theology has a genuinely positive view of human nature – significantly more positive than either Catholicism or Protestantism. Rather than seeing people as totally lost and overcome by sin, Orthodoxy sees humanity as weakened by sin in much the same way that sickness weakens people. Salvation is less like a total transformation and more like regaining one’s strength after being sick. In fact, the consecrated bread and wine of Orthodox worship are sometimes described as “the medicine of immortality,” the means through which God strengthens people for the spiritual journey that will take them back to God.

      God’s presence in anyone’s life is an expression of God’s love not just for that individual, but for everyone in the world and indeed for the entire universe. To be truly aglow with God’s presence is to be filled with God’s love for everyone and everything, so that focusing on one’s own individual salvation becomes unthinkable. Salvation reverses the human propensity to see the world in terms of self versus others. The Orthodox tradition insistently proclaims that no one can ever be saved alone, but only in the company of others.

      The breadth of Orthodoxy’s vision of salvation raises the question of universal salvation: Will everyone without exception eventually be “saved”? The technical term for this kind of universal salvation in the Orthodox tradition is apokatastasis. Some church leaders and synods have condemned apokatastasis, arguing that evil humans who reject God’s grace will, like the demons, be damned forever. But others, including some of the most respected theologians in the history of the Orthodox tradition, like Gregory of Nyssa (fourth century) and Maximus the Confessor (seventh century), argue that everyone, even the demons, will eventually be restored to fellowship and unity with God in Christ.

      Such debates have little to do with the personal journeys toward salvation of most Orthodox Christians. Their journeys begin with baptism, when a baby is welcomed into fellowship with God and others in the church. In the act of baptism an infant receives a new kind of life beyond the merely physical. Baptism marks the beginning of a new spiritual relationship with parents, with the godparents who are part of the ceremony, with everyone who is already in the church, with the child’s newly assigned guardian angel, and with God in Christ. As children grow up they slowly own their baptism for themselves, but they are not beginning from scratch. Even adult converts start in the middle, because others have helped them get going. No one comes to God alone.

Assisted by others in entering the path of salvation – a pathway that is itself a free gift from God – Orthodox Christians believe their own effort is necessary in order for progress to continue. There are two parts to that effort: first, sorrowing for the willful sin one discovers in one’s own life (which can take many different forms) and, second, persisting in the practice of prayer (learning to push all earthly thoughts and cares of life aside and simply be in the presence of God). But these efforts are never individualistic. It is in worship with others that a person learns how to pray, and it is by feeding together on the bread and wine of the Eucharist – which is given even to children – that a person receives the spiritual sustenance for continuing the journey toward salvation in the company of others.

Structure

      Sometimes references are made to the “Eastern Orthodox Church” in the singular. While it is true that all Orthodox Christians see themselves as spiritual members of one church, there is no single institutional entity called “the Eastern Orthodox Church.” The Orthodox tradition is not housed in one organization, but instead is a family of related churches living in fellowship with each other.

      The familial sense of relatedness that exists among the Orthodox churches is different from the way Christians in other traditions understand their connections with each other. The Orthodox view is much less institutional than the way most Catholics think of church, and it is much more mystical and organic than the way most Protestants think of church. The Orthodox tradition is so unique on this point that it has developed its own vocabulary to describe its distinctive sense of connectedness, using words like synodality, conciliarity, and sobornost (fellowship) to define that relationship. All of these terms communicate essentially the same thing: Orthodoxy exists as a united family of churches defined by their mutuality of respect, concern, compassion, and spiritual kinship and by their common involvement in the work of God in the world.

      At present, the Eastern Orthodox family includes about thirty separate churches, possessing different degrees of independence. Either fourteen or sixteen churches (the status of two churches is currently disputed) are now designated autocephalous, meaning that other Orthodox churches consider them to be fully self‐governing and independent. These would include, for example, the Russian Orthodox Church and the Antiochian Orthodox Church. Another seven Eastern Orthodox churches are considered autonomous, meaning they exercise full control over their own affairs and are on the way to autocephaly, but their independence has not yet been universally recognized within the Orthodox world. The Orthodox Church of Finland is an autonomous church, for example. Finally, six churches (including the Macedonian and Montenegrin Orthodox Churches) have claimed independence for themselves but have not yet been recognized as independent by other Orthodox churches. Theologically, these six churches are said to be “schismatic,” separated and cut off from fellowship with the other Orthodox churches until their independent status is properly approved by those other churches.

      All of these churches acknowledge the authority of the seven great councils of the early church and follow the same basic format for worship, but total uniformity is not their aim. It is assumed that each independent Orthodox church has the right to its own locally adapted, national style of faith. It is also assumed that new churches will constantly be forming as Orthodox Christianity moves into new cultures. When these younger churches have matured they may eventually request independence. Like parents and children in ordinary families, tensions sometimes arise when a younger church seeks its independence and its older “mother church” may not yet be ready to grant autonomy. The situation can become even more complex and tense when several different Orthodox traditions are represented in one nation (as is the case, for example, in the United States and in Ukraine) and lines of jurisdiction overlap.

Most Orthodox churches in the world today are organized along national lines, a relatively recent development fueled by two longstanding religious convictions. One assumption is that each linguistically and culturally defined human community should have its own church so it can worship God in its own words and ways. A second assumption is that states and nations are to be respected because they exist by God’s will – they are ordained by God – and, in light of that conviction, Orthodox Christians have rarely engaged in overt political protest. Even during times of government persecution, Orthodox Christians have typically been respectful СКАЧАТЬ