Orthodoxy And Other Faith Traditions (Discovering Orthodox Christianity)

[Music] hello and welcome to discovering Orthodox Christianity I'm Stacy Spanos your host for this series of programs designed to explain the basic teachings of Orthodox Christianity we're honored to be filming at the beautiful Holy Cross Chapel on the campus of Hellenic College Holy Cross Greek Orthodox school of theology in Boston today's program we'll discuss orthodoxy and other faith traditions were honored to have with us today His Eminence Metropolitan methodius of Boston co-chair of the Orthodox Catholic consultation in the United States and also Reverend dr. Demetria stone yes he is pastor of taxi at he Greek Orthodox Church in Watertown Massachusetts and also ecumenical officer for the metropolis of Boston metropolitan Methodius and father Tanya's serve on interfaith organizations within the Boston area thank you both for being here with us today your eminence let's begin with you and ask you the question how does the Orthodox Church view the other Christian churches do they have truth as well well we believe that the Orthodox Church has the fullness of truth but we cannot say that the Holy Spirit we cannot confine the Holy Spirit to the Orthodox Church we believe that the there is truth to be found in every human heart and that's why the clinical movement is important for the Orthodox Church because we reach out to everyone a lot of people question father don't yes whether people of other faiths not necessarily those of Christian faith go to heaven what is the Orthodox view on that well the Orthodox Church use the church as the Ark of salvation and that that is the straight path to salvation but however as His Eminence mentioned orthodoxy is always very careful not to confine the activity of God and so you know sometimes you hear the the church as is compared to the Ark of salvation that we find salvation by being in that that boat but that's not to preclude God from saving others that's up to to him to decide and so how the eschaton how the end times plays out is decision of God and God is the one who renders that judgment the Last Judgment not man before that event your eminence the Orthodox Church appears to have a pretty good inroads with other faiths very open dialog in fact you're very instrumental in that tell us how well personally I'm involved with the Orthodox Roman Catholic dialog in the United States here in Boston I've always developed since I came in 1984 a very close relationship especially with the Roman Catholic Church and that relationship has developed both with Cardinal law and now with Cardinal O'Malley we I consider them brothers in Christ we meet several times a year I attend the Catholic ceremonies at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Holy Week I invite the Cardinal to the Cathedral of the Annunciation on Easter night we exchange visits on the feast of Saint Andrew and the feast of Saint Peter and Paul and that relationship has as I said developed over the years to a very very tight relationship why is that relationship important your eminence because we like both of us want to manifest the the love of God in the community the fact that the Orthodox Church in the Catholic Church were one for the first tenth centuries in our history and I believe if that the Catholic Orthodox dialog is really the one that that brings those two major churches together the other dialogues with the other Protestant churches are not as fruitful because of the obvious theological differences that that exists how about reaching out to people of other faiths some of the same benefits are realized as in our inner Christian dialogue I'm involved quite a bit with the Jewish Christian dialogue and there we find very many cognate points especially in terms of spirituality some of the common social ethical concerns that both of our faiths share and so there's much fruit to be garnered from those those relationships especially speaking within the Jewish context we have to in terms of Orthodox Christianity which represents the early Christian expression of of the faith and rabbinic Judaism both of which emerged out of the ruins of the Second Temple into the first centuries of the first millennium and so we find so many commonalities in points so many points of commonality between the two faiths in terms of our shared inheritance and shared history that there's great fruit for discussion there in terms of the broader inter-religious dialogue especially in terms of as I mentioned before spirituality the role of religion in an increasingly secular world these are areas where we have great common interests and it would be responsible for us not to have discussion since we're sharing the same planet your eminence have there been any significant breakthroughs because of such dialogue well this year for example we had dialogue with the Jewish community in the Muslim community and we were able to cooperate on issues of definition of marriage for example the physician assisted suicide issue here in Massachusetts and the Christian community and the Jewish community and the Muslim community came together and manifested our beliefs of the three major faiths to the to the governor and to the legislature and that is quite an accomplishment considering that many of the Orthodox churches can't agree amongst themselves on many issues yes but on these major issues as Father mentioned before we come together as an Orthodox Church as well let's talk about something that's quite personal to the both of you and that is what happened in Boston in 2013 just a few short months to go from when we're taping here your eminence do you find that people of other faiths sought out comfort from you because I know that you made yourself available well I participated in the kaminnikov service at the Cathedral of the whole cross but the president also appeared following that service and for several weeks after many people would stop me on the street and seek my my advice and my spiritual advice it was a terrible time for Boston and for Watertown where father is the pastor people were wounded not only physically we had hundreds of people were wounded lost legs and arms and we didn't want them to lose hope in life and they approached the Roman Catholics there they approached Protestants and they approached the orthodox bishop who was available and a pardon me for interrupting that is appropriate for us to offer blessings to people who may not be of our faith of course you're conveying the love of God to people and I think you do that to everyone everyone is created in God's image and likeness and you know whether he's a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim who is a victim of a tragedy like this you embrace them with God's love father Watertown was the scene of the tragic shootout between the the suspects and police your parishioners live in that area you live and work in that area what was that like for you in many cases it was surreal it's a it's a difficult thing to see your church in many of the shots because all the activity took place in that area but you really saw a bond between you know if we're within the context of this discussion of inter Christian interfaith dialogue outreach from all the different religious groups that were there all the different churches that were expressing their support their sympathy I know all of the colleagues that I have in the ecumenical dialogue I mean my phone was going off the hook not from you know my brother Orthodox priests alone although they did call as well to see how things were going but from from the Jewish communities from the Catholic community and it shows how how these relationships can really begin to bring us together in a way that we're called to be brought together I when his Eminence came we were blessed to have his Eminence come the the Sunday right afterwards and he came to to be with the community because you know many of our our parishioners were were caught in the crossfire though thank God no one was hurt but their their homes and their cars some of their cars their windows were blown out they had bullet holes through their bedroom windows and his eminence was there too just to reach out to them but as he mentioned as we were taking a tour of the scene random people are coming up and asking asking for a blessing and they were they were they were drawn to the presence of His Eminence and that's I think that's a beautiful thing because as he mentioned we were called to pray for all of creation we do that in the Divine Liturgy you know I'm reminded of that poignant picture showing Archbishop Demetrios at the site of the Twin Towers days later giving blessings to the firefighters there and I don't know if there are any photographs of your eminence doing the same for the police officers it doesn't matter the other two weeks ago we had the blessing of having Archbishop of Athens here Aronian was and we took him to the to the Boylston Street where this tragedy took place and we they were about six or eight of us with robes and Orthodox garments and the people gathered around us and we offered a prayer at that time and people were interested in the Orthodox Church this is what we do we we try to manifest orthodoxy in the community in which we live father some people might say well why should the Orthodox faith reach out to Muslims or Jews what would you say to them um you know we're always called to put the lamp on the lamp stand not not under the bushel I can give you a personal example I gave a paper in constantinople at a World Council of Churches event which was understanding Christianity with the context of Judaism and there was a particular scholar there who I met a year later and she was offering a presentation and I can tell you that she she reproduced almost verbatim parts of my paper in which I talked about the references to the the Old Testament that are in Orthodox liturgy especially in the sacrament of matrimony which was something that she was talking about and so that's a witness that I don't think this this particular theologian scholar have had outside of our presence in the dialog now it's a very small example but unfortunately because of his historical circumstances either through occupation during the Ottoman years or through communist rule where many of the Orthodox countries were subjugated it's been difficult for many people to access the fruits of Orthodoxy which are the fruits of the early church and so it's not simply an opportunity for us but I think a responsibility for us to to give the joy that is the historic church to to a world that sometimes is very unfamiliar with it and that includes those of other religions your eminence is it okay for an Orthodox to marry an Orthodox Christian to marry somebody who is not Christian we do not permit those weddings to take place in the Orthodox Church because the Orthodox partner believes in Jesus Christ and it's difficult in a marriage to to be married to someone that has no such belief in Christ when you're called but day by day to grow in God's image and like this so out of pastoral concern for that couple we don't allow that that marriage to take place in the Orthodox Church what if a child was to result from that Union and one of the parents wanted the child baptized if if both parents agree the non-christian partner agrees we baptize the child we don't we don't pass on any issues with of the parents to their child the child is baptized father I think the Orthodox faith has been accused of being xenophobic Santo phobia as they say in Greek afraid of those who are different from us in the past do you think that's changing over the years I don't know whether that's a particularly fair assertion again there's sometimes there's some historical reasons for that I think the Orthodox Church has historically if we look especially from the patristic period onward our tradition has been to engage the world are not simply to withdraw within if we if we take seriously our position as the historic church this is the church that Christ gave that the Apostles preached and the Fathers preserve and took that faith out into the world this is the church that brought the beauty of Orthodoxy to the slavic people that the emissaries of Prince Vladimir came into Sofia and saw the glory that was the the liturgy there so I don't know if that's really historically a fair assertion sometimes that perception has been because you know in the United States in particular we have been an immigrant church and so I mean all those trappings come along not only with orthodoxy but with in the Catholic churches we see you had Irish churches and in Spanish churches and an Italian churches that had their own that ministered to their own people like that but I don't think that's so much historically Sunna phobia within orthodoxy and certainly is not part and parcel of our tradition and certainly the good medical patriarch aid has always reached out to encyclicals in the early nineteen hundred's encouraging the creation of the what is now the World Council of Churches and we followed that example of the patriarch and I here on the campus of the school we have patriarch athenagoras and statue or he says come let us look into each other's eyes this is what orthodoxy this is the message of Orthodoxy come let us look into each other's eyes and it's with each other souls so we're not so homophobic your eminence with all due respect we say this from the comfort of America here where things are relatively peaceful but even my mother's generation is mistrustful of because of the Ottoman Empire that overwhelmed Greece and many of the countries in that region for for many years what do you say to people who still bring up that argument because you you ever know snows there are many against the Muslims what happened at the hands of the Muslims well you know we times hopefully are changing hopefully through dialogue we we are able to come together as a God's people fanatic Islamists don't represent that the Muslim faith necessarily yes Greek people suffered quite a lot during those years but again it was the chimerical Patriarchate during the Turkish occupation for many years always reached out to other Christian groups and to the Muslim groups even today there's dialogue that the Patriarchate with the Turkish government to open the theological school of ecology and hopefully the patriarchs dream and prayer that God will come true I'm just reminded of Archbishop iakovos as well walking with Martin Luther King during the civil rights era that was a major event in the history of the archdiocese when the archbishop walked in Selma Alabama that took a lot of courage not only not only to go to that Selma at that time but also he faced quite a lot of criticism from our own Orthodox people for doing that especially the Orthodox that lived in the south but I think that that particular decision of the archbishop brought him to the to the the foreground of of America father how do other faith groups view the Orthodox Church and what it has offered historically and even in the modern age sure well within the Roman Catholic community certainly there's identification that we are a sacramental Church there's an identification with our liturgy with our center our Eucharistic center of our services and so there's a great deal of affinity there within the Protestant world there is a desire since because there's such an affinity for the text for the biblical scriptural text that they want to get as close to that text as possible and so the early church fathers are very attractive to them and helping to understand how early Christians understood the Bible which is so central to their aspect so it depends within the Christian world of how they view orthodoxy within prism of their own lens but unfortunately for many it's it's it's ignorance in the sense that they're unaware really of orthodoxy beyond maybe the Greek festivals that they attend to or understanding as an ethnic church and sometimes miss placing it either as a type of Roman Catholic Church I mean sometimes were identified with Roman Catholics and put into that part of that same Communion and sometimes maybe as an Anglican Church that you know someone who's just separated in left Rome at some historical time so I think there there there is from those affinity those points of affinity and also through a misunderstanding or being unaware of who we are in the first place and so part of the dialogue part of the benefits of the dialogue and of our ecumenical movement is to make them too aware to provide them with the opportunities to understand who the Orthodox churches and in that way come in contact with the historic aspects of their own churches do you find you have to educate other pastors preachers when they come into contact with you certainly certainly and I think that happens at a variety of levels it happens at an academic level you know I know one professor was commenting to me that he says you have to understand for us the early church begins in the 16th century and and certainly that's that's a focus of their own faith tradition the origins of their faith tradition and that's where you're going to do your your your your studying and so there are plenty of opportunities for that you know hack down at the parish level we can even look just you know we're having our Grecian festival right now and we'll be conducting church tours and anyone's been to a Greek Festival you see the church tours are there you can just see in the eyes of the people that they're really in many instances experience something new for the the first time and I'm sure you get plenty of questions have you had any converts absolutely you know absolutely and we know you know here in the the seminary quite a few I mean this was a phenomenon of my time at the seminary that many of the the the incoming priests are our converts to the faith and if you ask them to to a person almost what enamoured you with orthodoxy almost to a person it's the early church fathers it's the early church I had and when I was at the funeral of my aunt and in in California the man driving the limousine was a tall Midwestern type yet at was asking all these very pointed questions and he confessed confessed that he was a catechumen in the Orthodox Church he was converting to orthodoxy what had led him to orthodoxy was the da vinci code now that makes no sense it makes no sense but he knew it didn't make sense but it didn't he didn't know why so he went online he one day dinner and he started reading the early church fathers now reading the early church fathers used to have to go to a library you had to dust these things off now you can just do in Google and you find you can go to Gorch org and find out a lot in fact he had gone quite a bit to our our archdiocese and website and he became Orthodox because of that because so we have the da Vinci Code to thank the building is out there and through our churches being in through engaging the world of being in this dialogue that's what brings the light of Orthodoxy to to a world that really is thirsting for it you mentioned converse there many of the students that are studying here at the seminary now are converts tore that up and you know the embrace I always say the embrace of Orthodoxy is opened wide for anyone that wants to dialogue with Christ at the Jacob's Well of Orthodoxy which is our local parish which is the seminary back when I was a student 99.9 percent were american-born or students from Greece that came here at 17 years of age and matured over seven years now the great majority of students come after they receive a BA from another school many of them are married with children many of them have become North adducts and are experiencing orthodoxy here at the seminary and one day we'll become priests of the church and how you make a convert truly a north knocks bye priest is a long process but we find that many of our if not most of our converts are more zealous Orthodox Christians than those of us that were born into the church your eminence what do they tell you about what causes them to convert what makes them desire to convert I think what what father said after studying the fathers of the church after studying the history of the first thousand years many of them come quite frankly because they're disappointed in their own churches many Protestants come to us because for Anglicans especially Miska palin's because they find that the Episcopal Church in their opinion has strayed away from the original Christian message so they want to come back to Christianity the pure Christianity of the first tenth centuries so they come to us and again we open our embrace to them many years ago I had a priest in Lubbock Texas who was a convert and those were the same reasons he told me is because the more he delved into the Bible and going back to the time of Jesus he found that he felt the Orthodox faith was the one that adhered to those traditions the most we have not changed our basic tenants of Worth theology have not changed after the which was formulated during the seven acre medical councils and through the writings of the of the Fathers of the Church that that faith has not wavered and when you belong to another by Protestant if you will denomination were things change on a weekly basis that they're about 600 different Protestant denominations or you have 600 different views on the Bible you views a holy tradition so many of those converts come to us because they find a stability in the Orthodox position father can we as Orthodox attend other Christian churches can we participate in their sacraments for example can we take communion in the ethic church the answer to that question is no and the reason why you can attend well this is a two-part question the first question would be yes certainly I mean our hyrax is all Holiness patriarch bartholomew is that the enthronement of Pope Francis recently so certainly attendance and respectful attendance is has been part of the tradition forever however participation in the sacraments implies that we are in communion and communion for the Orthodox means that we share the same faith so it would be disrespectful both of our own and for the other the other faiths to imply that we share that same faith when there are serious substantive theological differences that separate us and the fact that we are not in communion with our Christian with many Christian brethren is a signal of the work that needs to be done still to restore that common faith and that is the marker for communities not simply an organizational thing that we're in the same administrative structure but rather that we all believe the same things and all of us Orthodox included are always striving for authentic Christianity and so in that way we know we use the term you know previously about converts it's it's it's appropriate but we can almost say that rather than converting from the Orthodox perspective they're completing who they are by filling in that missing gap of those first centuries those first thousand years if you will plus for many of the of the church and so that's why unfortunately the sacramental life is not something to be shared because it is wit bears witness to the differences in belief and therefore I assume other Christians cannot partake in our sacraments in our church thinking out may ask remanence about baptism because I know some people who want to be confirmed in the faith of the Orthodox tradition if they have already been baptized in their denomination they do not need to be rebaptised is that correct it is the strict policy of the chimerical Patriarchate not to rebaptised anyone that was about in the name of the Father the Son the Holy Spirit now you have to check that there are some denominations that that will give you a baptismal certificate that you're baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity but we have we found that the definition of Holy Trinity for us is it's different sometimes than the definition given by that Protestant sect somewhere in the middle of Kansas but if you're baptized the name of the Holy Trinity you are you you're confirmed into the Orthodox Church you are not rebaptised and we don't rebaptised Swee feel that they don't need to be rebaptised or would it negate the first baptism or we believe in one baptism you're baptized once in your life father you I want to hearken back to something you had just said about mending the rifts between the Orthodox what do we need to work on in order to become one technically we are one well that's that's an ambitious goal and and and certainly if there's divisions and separations at least if we use that that figure of 1054 for example where which means many people mark the Great Schism historically we can bracket that a little bit between orthodoxy Orthodox Roman Catholicism you're talking about a thousand years plus of division and so it would be I think I think irresponsible to think that within a couple decades it's all going to get ironed out because you're dealing and then within the Protestant churches which are a product of the Reformation in the 16th century you're speaking and then many of them come at points after that so you're talking about reclaiming a piece of history that's quite broad reclaiming theological principles that are they're quite divergent now I know you know at a superficial level for many of us we see icon screens and incense and sensors but it goes much deeper than that as his Eminence mentioned what is our basic and fundamental understanding of the Trinity when you're speaking in an ecumenical inter Christian dialogue with faiths that that offer communion but don't find the real presence in the elements of the bread and the wine that it's really not the body Christ that's really not the blood of Christ these are substantive theological differences and to move towards when we speak of communion towards that sharing the same faith you know certainly as as Emmons mentioned earlier within the Catholic churches there's much more commonality but then again there are still serious theological issues that present us not simply ecclesiological issues that pertain to the role of the papacy but you know the Immaculate Conception the Sacred Heart of Jesus I mean all these things that are near and dear to the heart of Roman Catholics that are part of their tradition part of the theology and faith that just simply can't be washed away you know even if the hierarchs the heads of those church even the Pope with his authority so desired he's carrying behind him you know at the back of the Train thousands of years of tradition that need to be reconciled and so to enter the dialogue with the goal that we're going to be an inter communion it really does a disservice to the dialogue because it prohibits us from really focusing on the things that are achievable in tangible your eminence has your work in the ecumenical movements led you to get a better understanding of who you are and your Orthodox faith it has because it is it has encouraged me to study my faith my tradition the patristic tradition and it has also led me to study the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church in the Protestant churches when you're in dialog you have to pretty much know what what you're talking about and be able to answer to the best of your abilities your own tradition so I remember when I went to Boston University after I finished seminary here I think I did more reading the first semester at BU than I did let the last two years that I was here at seminary because I didn't want to be confronted with questions about orthodoxy that I could not answer so it really forced me to to study even more and this is the case with with the in the dialogues father same with you or different experience no no absolutely I think you know the apologetic edition of the church starts from day one um when you say apologetically that means defending the church in terms of articulating your faith to people don't share that faith and so Justin Martyr for example did that in terms of the predominant Roman religious cult that existed at the time he also did it with with the Jewish community at his time st. John Chrysostom for example existed in a religiously pluralistic society that was not uh not too different from our own you had people who were fathered there was a vibrant Jewish community they're followers of the Roman religious cult different types of other faiths that were there and and so it you know a lot of our patristic traditions involved in articulating our faith visa vie the other not so much in an effort to put the other down but to help us better understand the differences that exist and why it is that we believe that what we believe and have you been strengthened in your faith through this dialogue absolutely I mean something that always has appealed to me is the inner harmer and harmony of Orthodoxy it really there it is a very consistent faith there are no inherent inconsistencies within it and that exists you know historically that exists at a spiritual level that exists theologically and so whenever we engage in this dialogue whenever as is Zemin's mentioned we're forced to articulate our dialogue it I think it can only help to serve strengthen our own faith and better help us better understand it again their fathers are engaged in the same enterprise your eminence I'd like to give you the final word wrapping this up about our faith and other faith traditions what would you say to somebody watching this clip here today about seeking out the truth about themselves in a pluralistic world well I think I would advise them to really study the Fathers of the Church and our church history and our traditions and by doing so you you you search within your own soul to find out where you are Lisa V Almighty God and and your own personal struggles in the faith one of the things that I wanted to mention before about the dialog and what what we see as the result of the dialog I think father will agree that the Roman Catholic tradition over the last 25 30 years has looked they have studied their own tradition and it found you mentioned the Sacred Heart of Jesus the Immaculate Conception even the place of the Pope in administration of the universal church that many of their theologians now have really begun to change their outlook and to come back to Orthodox roots where these these dogmas of the Catholic Church are beginning to change your eminence we thank you for your time today father Demetrios thank you as well and I invite our guests to log on to youtube.com slash Greek Orthodox Church for more programs in the series called discovering Orthodox Christianity I'm Stacy Spanos thanks so much for watching [Music] [Applause] [Music] you you

Channel: GreekOrthodoxChurch

Views: 54,240

Rating: 4.7657933 out of 5

Keywords: Greek, Orthodox, Christian, America, Faith (Activism Issue), Orthodox Christianity (Religion)

Id: wUsHxpTEhaA

Length: 35min 34sec (2134 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 03 2013