The Orthodox Parish of St Aidan & St Chad, Nottingham
ECUMENICAL PATRIARCHATE
EPISCOPAL VICARIATE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
Exarchate of Parishes
of Russian Tradition in Western Europe
Extracts from the Parish Newsletter, January 2007
FATHER DAVID’S LETTER:
Feast of the Nativity, 2006
In his latest novel (‘Ordinary Heroes’), about the end stages of the war in Western Europe, Scott Turow describes the commanding officer’s disdain for those who do not see human beings as we are, do not see how brutal and selfish we are and who think we can do without God. ‘Do you know why we need God?,’ he asks, ‘…why we must have him?... We need God to forgive us. Because when this is over, this war, that’s what we’ll need, all of us who have done what war requires and, worse, what war permits, that’s what we’ll need, in order to be able to live the rest of our lives.’ ( p 96 ).
When men and women are placed in conditions of war or conflict or distress in the various situations which life presents, it brings out in them the best but often the worst. It shocks and horrifies to discover what human beings are made of, what they have have burning in their hearts. It is even more shocking to discover those whose Christian persona is a thin veneer, so thin that their Christian faith, like a cloak, is so easily shed when they are challenged, threatened or their own personal interests come to the fore and override. Once the cloak is off, the unredeemed, unlovely, brute beast that fallen man is, emerges with terrifying proportions. Meaness, hatred, rudeness, vindictiveness, arrogance, revenge and lust for power emerges and mayhem results. We are rightly shocked to find this in ourselves and discover that we are no better than others, even after years of prayer and faithful following of God’s precepts. The General in Scott Turow’s novel, was right; above all, we do need God’s forgiveness.
But we also need something more, and here is the secret and the joy of Christmas. If all had gone well, man and woman created by God in his image, would have grown in stature to move, more and more, into His likeness. They would have achieved the maturity of sons and daughters of their heavenly Father (and Mother). It didn’t turn out this way not only because of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, but because they were as yet incomplete. God had foreseen this and even in the act of creation, He was already planning the next stage, a stage beyond, when God himself would enter into the creation he had so lovingly and expertly planned, becoming Himself a man.
This was God’s great secret hidden from the beginning of time. Saint Nicholas Cabasilas wrote about this. St Paul had said, ‘Christ is the Head of the Body, the Church’ (I Col:18); hence, as long as humanity had not received the fullness of the nature of God (the Hypostasis of the Word), it had no real existence (hypostasis). The Body of humanity was in a certain sense without a Head. This is the reason why believers ‘were born when Christ entered this life and was born into it.’ For ‘the birth of the Head was the birth of the blessed members. For it was the birth of the Head which brought the members into existence.’ This ‘the mystery of Christ’ is the pre-
At Christmas, this secret of the ages is now revealed to all— to the angels, to the shepherds, and to others, but it has been already understood, in her heart, by Mary, the one who had been able to say, ‘Be it unto me according to your Word,’ and so become the Mother of Our Lord.
Now, man who had fallen so far away, was indeed able to be made perfect by the Divine union of God and Man in one child, flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, born of one of us. By our union with that union to which we would eventually be called, we have been made able, by God’s freely given grace, to enter into His likeness; into the divinity to which God had always intended the flower of His creation to become. In that process we are forgiven, restored and made into what God always wanted us to be.
When we kneel before the crib of Bethlehem, portrayed in the icon which stands at the centre of the Church on this Great Feast, it is this for which we give thanks: ‘God became man that we might become God; He became incarnate (clothed in human flesh) so that we might be engodded (caught up into the life of God, deified). And in this, forgiven for all that has been required of us in our war, our conflict, our struggle for survival in life and, worse, all that war and conflict has permitted on the way. We do indeed need God’s forgiveness. We do indeed need all that He has to give.
‘And the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon him’ (Luke 2:40). That will be for us also, but we must remember at all times our need of God, for under that veneer of Christian determination and appearance lurks our as yet unredeemed, untransformed incomplete self. It is this that will urge us to cast off the Christian Gospel and its principles like a cloak once we are challenged by thoughts too hard for us to grasp and situations too hard for us to deal with. Only in God’s peace, God’s patience, God’s protection and His forgiveness is there hope and a way forward.
Rowan Williams has said: the quintessence of Christian integrity is to stand at the foot of Christ’s Cross, in the darkness, and to keep on standing. He might also have said that such integrity is to stand at the crib in Bethlehem, to stand with the Holy Family on the journey into Egypt, to keep on standing in Nazareth, standing with Our Lord to be as He grew in stature. To keep on standing with Him silently and patiently, awaiting God’s promised assistance and His forgiveness, restoration and completion.
May this be our joy and our way this Christmastide.
Father David
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Announcement:
Orthodox Ecological Study Group
We are trying to form a group of Orthodox believers who are interested in and committed to ecological considerations.
There have been many movements involving people who are concerned to halt the desecration of our God-given environment and we also would like to form a Pan-orthodox group in the U.K. to support conservation, etc. We believe that constant vigil and continuous action by all who are able to make a contribution are vital. We would like to involve as many people as possible.
An inaugural meeting is to be held at The House of St Theosevia, 2 Canterbury Road, Oxford OX2 6LU, on the afternoon of Saturday 20 January 2007, starting at 2 pm.
We are delighted to inform you that Bishop Kallistos has agreed to address the meeting.
We hope to arrange for an ad hoc committee to be formed after the meeting. We would suggest the agenda to include the following topics (other suggestions would be welcome):
1. The group should be pan-orthodox.
2. It would define areas of concern, both local and international, and would try to make contact with other Orthodox groups.
3. It would research journals for articles relating to ecology and would review the Orthodox theological perspective.
4. It would provide an infrastructure for ongoing involvement in ecological affairs in the form of an Orthodox Ecological Fellowship.
5. It would bring together interested and concerned parties to meet, initially define aims and objectives, form a steering and action committee for eventual involvement with international forums.
If you are interested in attending the inaugural meeting at Oxford, please notify Frank Johnson, Fordwich House, Hepscott, Morpeth, Northumberland NE61 6LN; telephone 01670 515119; email: carlotta@hepscott02.fsnet.co.uk
Frank Johnson