Liturgy and cyberspace

My readers in Finland may not be aware that last year in the United States there was discussion in one denomination (the United Methodist Church) about the practice of "online communion," which a congregation in North Carolina had proposed as part of its online ministry. The United Methodist Council of Bishops placed a moratorium on the practice, at the recommendation of an informal task force convened to discuss the issue last October. One of the arguments against the practice was the effect it would have on the ecumenical relations between the UMC and other churches.

I was happy to see that the United Methodist bishops reached the conclusion they did. At the same time, though, the larger issue of liturgical practices and cyberspace remains and will not be going away. Agree or not with the question of the possibility of receiving the eucharistic gifts online, you have to give credit to the United Methodist congregation in question for attempting to wrestle with how to reach people whose lives are increasingly spent in "augmented reality," in which life is no longer either exclusively offline or virtual, but is an increasingly interwoven combination of the two.

In the course of reading some of the debate on the issue I ran across a reference to an article by the liturgical scholar Theresa Berger published in Worship last year entitled

"Participatio Actuosa in Cyberspace? Vatican II’s Liturgical Vision in a Digital World." Berger basically makes the point that the emergence of cyberspace has changed the Christian liturgical landscape, and that liturgical scholars and theologians are going to have to acknowledge and address the phenomena of liturgical practices in cyberspace rather than simply ignoring or dismissing them. Whether one agrees or  not with every point in the article, there is plenty there to learn from in it and plenty in it to get one thinking.

Interestingly, one of the examples she cites is that involving Syrian Orthodox in Syria who participate in a celebration of the Eucharist of a Syrian Orthodox parish in the United States. Have we Orthodox been contributing to the theological discussion of this issue? I genuinely don't know. If you know of any sources, I'd be grateful if you'd send them my way.

Fewer words, more Word

I'm not downplaying the importance of words in ecumenical dialogue. But I also think a deep, unmet need exists for something more than words in the journey to our reconciliation. Fewer words, more Word: where do we embody the reconciliation we seek? Yes, the mere fact of dialogue is itself an embodiment of the process of healing. But we need more.

Homily of the Ecumenical Patriarch at the Holy Sepulchre

If you haven't yet read the Ecumenical Patriarch's homily at the Holy Sepulchre, here's a link to it as reported by the Catholic news service Zenit.

In my view, the article got it exactly right in highlighting this quote from the homily:

Lastly, this sacred Tomb invites us to shed another fear that is perhaps the most prevalent in our modern age: namely, fear of the other, fear of the different, fear of the adherent of another faith, another religion, or another confession. 

Here in Finland we see these fears every day. The just-completed European parliamentary elections have shown us the power of fear of the other and the different. The Ecumenical Patriarch's homily speaks directly to us here in Finland. He challenges us as Orthodox Christians to give our society clear, courageous examples of  freedom from these fears and freedom for living courageously in love towards all in our society.

Acting with boldness

The conclusion of yesterday's post may have been a little opaque. ;-) What I mean is that I don't think that we must wait until God brings down the curtain on human history for the reconciliation of the churches to happen. I am convinced that God wants our reconciliation to happen now, not later. At the same time, that healing of divisions, hurts, and hatreds also has a larger meaning beyond the church. It would be a sign of God's loving work of reconciling the world to Godself in Christ.

But we must hear and act with boldness. Are we Orthodox able to do this on the macro level, so to speak? I don't think so. The local Orthodox churches, in their identity as public institutions in the world, are at this time incapable of such action. I would love to be wrong about this.

As you know, dear readers, there is more to the church's life than its functions as a public institution. I'm not talking here about some kind of ecclesiological dualism that divides the church into "visible" and "invisible." I mean simply that each of us who belong to Christ has the obligation to act for reconciliation boldly and with courage, in our own person. If it doesn't happen there, it won't happen anywhere else.

Ecumenical Patriarch and Pope Francis in the Holy Land

From the very beginning of his papacy, Pope Francis has demonstrated a fundamental openness to Orthodoxy.  This openness has come in the form of large public gestures such as his insistence on the title "Bishop of Rome," the presence of the Ecumenical Patriarch at his investiture, and now in his meeting the Ecumenical Patriarch in the Holy Land and issuing with him a joint statement declaring their commitment to the reconciliation of Catholics and Orthodox begun by their predecessors fifty years ago.

As many observers have noted, Pope Francis can be seen simply as continuing the commitment to the reconciliation of the churches in the pontificates of St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI. At the same time, such things as the presence of the Ecumenical Patriarch at Francis's investiture could also indicate a desire to deepen the Catholic-Orthodox relationship in new ways.

When St. John Paul II died I wondered if the moment for Orthodox-Catholic reconciliation had passed. He had done more to address the "healing of memories" between the two churches than any pope since the Great Schism. I think it's fair to say that Orthodox responses to his reaching out to them were lukewarm. Yes, there were isolated exceptions. However, St. John Paul II died with his vision for Catholic-Orthodox reconciliation unrealized.

Although his papacy is still relatively young, I think it is already possible to say that with Francis we Orthodox have another chance to respond boldly, courageously, and creatively to God's call to reconciliation. Yes, there is the ongoing theological dialogue between Orthodox and Catholics, to which both Bartolomeos and Francis recommitted their churches in a joint communique issued on 25 May.

But reconciliation involves so much more than dogmatic agreement. Is there scope for a groundbreaking gesture by either side on, say, the fraught question of papal primacy? Yes: God is capable of surprises! However, sometimes when I look at the contemporary theological dialogues between Catholics and Orthodox, I find it hard not to side with Soloviev and say that the unity of the churches will not happen until the end of the world is at hand.

In the end, though, I can't embrace Soloviev's view that the unity of the church has to do with apocalyptic eschatology. Instead, I would say it has to do the kind of eschatology we find in the Gospel according to John, the gospel in which we find Christ's prayer that his disciples be one. That is, the unity of the church is something Christ intends for us now, as the fruit of his Resurrection. At the same time, the unity of the church also has profoundly to do with the end of the world. It points to the reconciliation of all the world with God in Christ, and it gives the world a sign of the defeat of  hatred and separation. It is both realized and apocalyptic.

Common flesh

Christian faith can so easily slide into a head-only existence. Christianity lives in a tension between flesh and ascesis. When it loses that balance, Christianity often slides into a disregard of the flesh. Sometimes this disregard takes the form of benign neglect, sometimes an active hostility towards the material world.

The celebration of Christ's birth continually pulls us back to the material world, to the flesh we have in common with everyone else, and now with God as well.

fascism

Anyone familiar with the history of Orthodox Christianity knows that one of its besetting temptations is to embrace nationalism. The nineteenth century saw the condemnation (1872) of phyletism: making nationality (in particular, ethnic identity) a condition of church membership. Although nowadays we talk a good game about the embrace of people of all nationalities in the Body of Christ, in general we do a poor job of making that claim a reality at the parish level. This is one reason why in the past I have criticized the distinction Afanasiev makes between a so-called "Ignatian" catholicity-in-depth and a Cyprianic "catholicity-in-breadth." Orthodox theologians since Afanasiev have tended to claim that the "Ignatian" vision of catholicity is somehow  more Orthodox. In my view, what this conversation about catholicity reflects more than anything else is the history of Orthodox-Catholic relations. "Ignatian" catholicity all too easily can become a convenient excuse for a narrow localism, bringing phyletism in through the back door.

I think about this theological debate when I read about the rise of Golden Dawn in Greece. Yes, there have been courageous bishops and other clergy in Greece who have spoken out against the resurgent fascism of Golden Dawn. Why have there not been more Orthodox voices outside Greece condemning Golden Dawn and what it represents as un-Christian, and contrary to the Gospel? A quick search yesterday revealed an October 2012 communique of the Holy Eparchial Synod of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. But where are the voices from Finland, from Russia, from France, from the UK, from the rest of Orthodoxy in the United States? Readers, if you know of any such statements from here in Finland or anywhere else in the world, please tell me!

The age we live in cries out for Orthodox to proclaim with the loudest voice possible that the stranger is not an enemy to be purged but a beloved sister or brother, the object of our love and hospitality in a world marked by forced migration, violence, alienation, suffering, and death. For my part, I would rather that we Orthodox set aside our beloved "catholicity in depth" and open our arms wide to the stranger who enters the doors of our churches, to the foreigner, to the asylum seeker, to the person who looks or acts or speaks somehow different from us. We must not forget that our own salvation as well is at stake: "I was a stranger and you welcomed me," the Lord will say to those on his right side at the great day of judgment (Matthew 25:35).

 

Golden Dawn and groups like it are the antithesis to the Gospel. The Gospel is life. Golden Dawn and what it represents is death.