Sunday of Orthodoxy
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
We have completed the course of the first week of the struggle of the fast on our journey to the Pascha of our Christ.
Those of you that have had the opportunity to struggle in fasting and practicing a little quiet and withdrawal from the din of the media know by experience the many benefits of the Great Lent. Already we are at that great feast of the Church, The Sunday of Orthodoxy. On this Sunday we celebrate the triumph of the holy icons and the recapitulation of the triumphs achieved by all of the Ecumenical Councils that came before. On this day we celebrate the incarnation of the God-Man made manifest as depicted in holy icons. In words, in writings, in deeds, and in our sacred art forms we proclaim the Way of Salvation to the world. Brothers and Sisters in Christ, we celebrate God’s great condescension and love for us, how He has provided that we be sanctified by all of our senses and led up to a knowledge of Him through the sacred rituals of the Holy Church. Our God has done all things well that we be saved. As the proclamation is expressed in the service for the Sunday of Orthodoxy, “What God is as great as our God? Thou art our God, Who alone workest wonders.”
Even in these latter days, these days of spiritual confusion, we have even more reason to be grateful for this feast. This feast more than any other expresses the principle by which we can discover the Truth of Him Who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and this principle is the consensus of the teachings of the Holy Fathers. As the Synodicon proclaims:
As the Prophets have seen, as the Apostles have taught, as the Church has received, as the teachers have set forth in dogmas, as the whole world has understood, as grace has illuminated, as the truth was demonstrated, as falsehood was banished, as wisdom spoke boldly, as Christ has awarded; thus do we believe, thus we speak, thus we preach and honour Christ our true God and His saints, in words, in writings, in thoughts, in sacrifices, in temples, and in icons; we worship and respect the Former as God and Master, and we honour and apportion relative worship to the others, for the sake of our common Master since they are His genuine servants, [Exclamation from Without] This is the Faith of the Apostles, this is the Faith of the Fathers, this is the Faith of the Orthodox, this Faith hath established the world.
The consensus of the Holy God-bearing Fathers is a lighthouse that helps us direct our little boats over the sea of life.
Even if we are only beginning our spiritual journey and it seems like our goal is a long way off, we can see this lighthouse, because it is the light of the Holy Spirit. As long as we keep our eye on the lighthouse of their teaching, we have good hope of arriving in the Land of the Living. Yet, conversely, if a person who seems to have a mighty ship and has made spiritual progress turns away from that light through spiritual presumption or pride, that man becomes lost whether he has the title of Patriarch, Archbishop, Metropolitan, Bishop, Archimandrite, Priest, Elder, renowned ascetic or layman. For this reason the Elder Ieronymos used to say, “Call no man blessed before his end.” The Holy Fathers feared the changeability in man’s nature that was demonstrated by the many men who made an excellent beginning and then went astray.
That is why the great Apostle Paul taught us that even if an angel come from heaven or a man that seems to live the life of an angel teaching an immoral way of life, doctrine or morality that we have not received from the Apostles, we proclaim to them Anathema. Numbers mean nothing, titles mean nothing, many have fallen away even after initially demonstrating what seemed a good life.
We are most blessed in that we have as our guide the clear successor to these Holy Fathers whose incorrupt relics are a clear testimony to his sanctity, that is Saint Philaret Metropolitan of New York. We rejoice in his memory and yet there is sadness on this feast in that there are no true successors of him in that Church. His successor followed evil advice and redirected the entire Russian Church Abroad to a different path. We see Orthodoxy betrayed and our departure from them fully justified by recent events in that ecclesiastical body. Let us pray for the enlightenment of their leaders or at least that some of those that are being deceived into union with the Soviet Church have their eyes opened by God Himself.
Because of the human element found in the Church, heresies and scandals arise from time to time. This does not reflect on the Church, but on the person who has gone astray. If we keep our eye on the lighthouse, no scandal or failing or false teaching can deflect us from arriving at our true homeland, participation in the grace of the Holy Trinity.
In Christ faithfully, your suppliant unto the Lord,
+ Metropolitan Moses
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Our beloved Metropolitan Ephraim gave us an important insight into the relationship between heresy and moral sin in our day in his excellent treatise entitled, “On The Moral Law Of God” (Protocol 2414):
. . . Because theology and morality are intertwined, the legitimizing of immorality ─ that is, moral behavior contrary to the moral law of God ─ by civil powers and by the so-called "mainstream" Christian denominations in the West in general and in North America in particular ─ is the direct consequence and moral expression of the pan-heresy of Ecumenism. Since ─ according to that lie ─ all religions are legitimate, all gods are legitimate, all religious rites and ways are legitimate, then it follows that all "moralities" and no morality are legitimate. The Ten Commandments of the True God are of no greater importance than the pronouncements of Vishnu or Mohammed or Zeus or the Buddha or the Dalai Lama or the Great Spirit in the sky.
If, therefore, one of those religions permits the destruction of deformed infants or suffering and infirm adults because of their purported "poor quality of life", which of those faiths that share in the ecumenist heresy can protest, since all religious ways and views and practices are equally legitimate? Again, if one of those religions permits bigamy or polygamy or incestuous relationships or homosexuality or fornication, which of those faiths that share in the ecumenist heresy can protest since all the religions' ways are equally legitimate?. . . (Metropolitan Ephraim of Boston)
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The Elder Joseph writes concerning those deluded into spiritual error and heresy by demonic visions:
. . . The nous is the purveyor of the soul, for it brings every appearance and perception of a noetic movement to the heart, which in turn filters it and gives it to the intellect. Therefore, the nous can be deceived just as the spring was polluted in the example. That is, the unclean spirit stealthily pollutes the nous, which in turn, as usual, gives whatever it has to the heart. If the heart is not pure, it gives the murk to the mind, and then the soul is darkened and blackened, constantly accepting fantasies henceforth instead of theorias. In this manner, all the delusions arose and all the heresies occurred… …For when someone gripped by delusion obeys someone else, it is possible for him to be delivered from it, and for the evil one to lose control of him. This is why the devil advises and persuades him not to believe anyone anymore and never to obey anyone, but henceforth to accept only his own thoughts and trust only in his own discernment. Lurking within this haughty attitude is that huge ego, the Luciferian pride of the heretics and of all who are deluded and do not want to return to the truth. So may our Christ, Who is the true Light, enlighten and guide the steps of each person who wants to approach Him. (Elder Joseph the Cave Dweller, Monastic Wisdom, 36th Letter)
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Someone asked one of those who could see: “Why does God, Who foresees their falls, adorn some with gifts and wonderworking powers?" And he replied: "In order to make other spiritual men more careful, and to demonstrate the freedom of the human will, and to cause those who fall to be without any excuse at the last judgment." (Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 26:131)
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Read, if you want, the Ecclesiastical History by Meletios of Athens, and see how many teachers – Origen and thousands of others – were at first great luminaries of the Church possessing extensive learning. But since they gave themselves over to the sea of knowledge before receiving in hesychia the purification of their senses and the peace and tranquility of the Spirit, they sank in the ocean of the Holy Scriptures. They thought that their scholarly learning was sufficient. Thousands were lost and anathematized by the Councils, of which they had previously been champions. Read and you will see. (Elder Joseph the Cave Dweller, Monastic Wisdom, 48th Letter, page 240)
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