Monastic Tonsure (Vol V, Ch 8)

To be taught Jan 25, 2020

From Michael Ruse:

Some writers of the Church, like Dionysius the Areopagite, considered taking monastic vows and living as a monk to be a sacrament. Monastic tonsure is much like baptism. Accepting death to gain life. It is done once in your life, like baptism, and that submersion into death begins a new path in life that requires bearing one’s cross. It represents a spiritual death and joy in resurrection of one’s spirit. The monastic clothing and accessories symbolize the meaning of monasticism, which primarily focuses on contemplation. That contemplative life is, in fact, a battle done with prayer. For this reason, when the abbot gives a monk a prayer rope, it is called a sword.  

How can you become more dead? You could choose to become a monk. There are many similarities between monasticism and marriage. Just as with marriage, becoming a monk requires the participation and agreement of the community, the priest presides, the Eucharist is celebrated, and most of all, a requirement of a willing heart without compulsion. Marriage and monasticism must be freely chosen. Just as in a marriage, there is a paradoxical mixture of mourning and joy that reminds us that spiritual joyfulness comes from mourning over a realization of our own woundedness. Just as a monk leaves family and familiar life behind, so too does a man leave his father and mother to be joined to his wife. There is a leaving and union that happens in both types of spiritual yokes. 

Another important aspect of monastic tonsure is found in the story of the Prodigal Son. It is a passage that is contained in the liturgy for the tonsuring a monk into the small schema. It is a story that reflects a free decision to repent from a realization of powerlessness and a wounded life but also from a recognition that we are not completely helpless if we go to our Father’s house. It’s a father-son relationship that is restored. Becoming a monk is also a husband and wife story that reflects how Jesus Christ loves His Church and he gives everything for us. The order of services contains wedding terminology. The word to describe a decision to be a monk is “betrothal.” This wording indicates that a lay person enters into a monastic community as if by marital vows. Join us all Saturday, Jan 25, 2020, at 4:00 p.m. to learn more of this beautiful, encouraging yoke that Christ has given us another way to unite ourselves to the Holy Trinity. 

Marriage (Vol V, Ch 7)

To be taught on Jan 18, 2020.

From Michael Ruse:

Metropolitan Hilarion discusses marriage not from the starting point of morality, law, customs, not even from its liturgical formation, because it is a mystery or sacrament. Like the Eucharist and other sacraments, we are changed by them. The liturgical hymns, psalms, and rites of marriage come from its mystical nature. Later sections on Formation, Betrothal, and Crowning can only follow from this essential reality. 

Our modern understanding of marriage doesn’t seem to distinguish itself essentially from how pagans or Greco-Roman culture tended to view marriage as primarily a contract for benefiting society, a pretext for leveraging oneself economically or a just a “voluntary cohabitation.” 

Against those secular kinds of views, this chapter hits at the core. Metropolitan Hilarion in agreement with the saints of East and West explains that marriage is a matter of how we are created. Mankind is made up of two in one, male and female. That idea comes from the book of Genesis. The mystical importance of the marital union comes not from its ability to produce children, neither its legal, nor any other specific earthily aspect of it. The image of marriage comes from the union of Christ and the Church, shown most mystically in the Eucharist. The Holy Trinity, as St. John Chrysostom says, is the living image of marriage. Join us Saturday, Jan 18, 2020, to get a picture of the Orthodox understanding of marriage.

Unction (Vol V, Ch 6)

To be taught Dec 14.

From Michael Ruse:

The holy oil of the Church heals our pain. In our modern age, just as in the age of paganism and classical antiquity, we still strive to find remedies for our body and mind. The world seems to be thrown in a crisis of mental health and there is also a fascination with books that teach us how to achieve wholeness on our own. There is a genuine yearning for bodily health through education, diet, exercise, pills and food products. These ideas assume that the physical world can help us heal entirely. So too, in the Orthodox Church, we also use matter like oil to find not only physical cures but spiritual rejuvenation. 

The sacrament of unction heals the sickness of the body and the soul. That isn’t a superstition or a throwback to pagan worship of nature. In fact, the Old Testament and the Gospels tell us about the use and symbolism of oil in Jewish religious contexts. Oil was also a common product with various uses in many Mediterranean and Near Eastern cultures, and oil was as familiar as bread and wine. Oil represents almost everything we need and want out of life: health, love, beauty, happiness, friendship, joyfulness, and harmony with God and mankind. That may all sound “new-agey” but it is actually Orthodoxy. 

In the Greek language there is a wordplay between eleos (mercy) and elaion (oil). In the New Testament, oil and healing are brought together in the sacrament of unction. The Apostle James in Jerusalem records this sacrament and it influences the practice and meaning of unction thereafter. But Metropolitan Hilarion reminds us that the “spiritual healing” comes to us not from mere molecules of oil, but it comes from faith in the prayers that are said in giving the oil. 

He also discusses who is meant to receive the sacrament of unction. It was intended for the healing of soul and body. The restriction of the service to the dying only, as in Roman Catholicism, or to the general public without specific need of physical healing, sometimes the Byzantines or Russians, are both a little out of step in keeping with the original meaning of unction, which was to find outer and internal wholeness through the forgiveness of sins with faith that the bodily healing would follow.  When we reflect on all the sacraments discussed so far, which are baptism, chrismation, eucharist, confession, ordination, then we start to see that the Church’s purpose is to bring healing to body and soul, and even today the whole world seeks these in various ways. Metropolitan Hilarion explains that although modern physicians are a most highly regarded profession in the Church, we shouldn’t forget to also consult our priests, spiritual fathers, and the sacraments of the Church, which can be said to be the most proven and trustworthy therapy we can receive for our spiritual well-being on earth. Join us this Saturday at 4:00 p.m. to discuss these topics more in detail. 

The Sacrament of Holy Orders (Ordination) (Vol V, Ch 5)

To be taught Dec 7.

From Michael Ruse:

Why do we need priests or church hierarchy to be Orthodox Christians? The hierarchical structure of the Orthodox Church is built by the apostles on Jesus Christ. The whole hierarchical structure continues the apostolic mission. The Holy Spirit is given to each generation of Christians through hands out-stretched in prayer because God gave the apostles this power. The cheirotonia (laying on or stretching out of hands in Greek) is a well-known Old Testament gesture that guided the blessings of generations of righteous before the incarnation and it continues. Three holy orders have always been recognized: bishops, priests, deacons. They all serve at the altar and they all help us heal in various ways and to learn about God. By serving and offering the eucharist during liturgy they all help us in an essential way for our spiritual growth. The orders of the Church are holy because they bestow what’s holy to us from God. 

Like ordinary water and oil, so too the laying on of hands and the spoken word in services can be taken as mere words or gestures. But they are not just empty words or objects. It’s not just earthily hands that, though we know our hands have no power in themselves, bestow graces since only through the Holy Spirit all things can be given life, and all dead material substances can become a sacrament for us. Baptismal water, the blessed oil, the bread and wine, and also the laying on of hands continue to give us the grace of the Holy Spirit in the Church. 

When the purpose of the Church is approached in this way with Jesus Christ as the healer and our medicine, which is the Eucharist, we can understand why the three holy orders are so essential and beneficial for our salvation. Metropolitan Hilarion has selected many important prayers and liturgical texts for ordaining readers, deacons, priests (presbyters), and bishops. Those prayers boldly proclaim that Jesus Christ is “the physician” of the people and ruler over the Church, that Jesus Christ completes the work, that the Holy Spirit is the giver of all grace coming from the laying on of hands from bishops and priests. That grace from the Holy Spirit strengthens us with healing and blessings. We also need to live in communion with other Christians as we’ve already learned in previous volumes. This chapter shows us that nothing can be done without other Christians and the Holy Trinity. Becoming a reader, a deacon or deaconess, a priest, or a bishop involve the working of the Holy Spirit to bless what the holy orders set out to do in the Church. Join us this Saturday at 4:00 p.m. for a discussion on holy orders.