Notes on Arab Orthodoxy: Our Lady of the Wind

“O Virgin, calm the tumult of our passions and quiet the storm of our sins…” (from the Paraklisis to the Theotokos).

This is the message of the icon of the Theotokos, Our Lady of the Wind and what is written underneath it. She is lifting up the prayers of the faithful who are drowning in the sea of sorrows and the tempest of temptations to the Lord Jesus who is always present and watching from heaven, which is represented by the sky-blue circles amidst the golden background. He blesses with both His hands in response to the intercession of His mother the sailors who struggle amidst the waves that toss about the fishing boat (and the boat is a symbol of the Church). He leads them to the shore, the place “below the wind” north of Ras Qal’at Enfeh where the church of Our Lady stands. They seek refuge under her serene protection, far from the storms and whirlwinds coming from the sea (a symbol of death and the world of darkness where the dragon plays (the psalm of vespers). The whirlpool which appears along our coasts in the winter is still called “the dragon” by local fishermen and this is reflected in the icon by depicting the storm in this form), from the southwest across from the cliff, but the Theotokos Our Lady of the Wind is standing next to her church, lifting up her left hand in supplication to her divine Son to preserve her children, while with her right hand she repels from them the storm coming from afar.

From Notes on Arab Orthodoxy: Our Lady of the Wind

From Metaphysics to Life

The roots of the obsession with historicity and empiricism present in western Christianity can be traced back to faulty assumptions. The division rest largely upon the acceptance or rejection of Hellenic categories of thought. For the west acceptance of Hellenic thought meant rejecting the essence and energy distinction as developed by the Church Fathers. God's activity is thus understood to be the same as His being. For God to be, is to act or will. His essence can be known and knowledge then becomes the pivot around which western Christianity has turned since St. Augustine.

The ramifications are huge when God's essence (God as He is to Himself independently of His self manifestation) is confused with His energy (activity).

Highlighting some the practical implications of differences between the eastern and western Christian traditions, David Bradshaw summarizes,

"The East has no concept of God. It views God not as an essence to be grasped intellectually, but as a personal reality known through His acts, and above all by oneself sharing in those acts...this understanding leads to a distinctive view of the role of asceticism and other spiritual practices. For the East these are viewed, not as a way of disciplining the body, but as contributing to an ongoing deification of the whole person, body as well as soul. A similar difference can be observed in regard to religious morality as a whole. For the East morality is not primarily a matter of conformance to law, nor (in a more Aristotelian vein) of achieving human excellence by acquiring the virtues. It is a matter of coming to know God by sharing in His acts and manifesting His Image."

From the Epilogue of Aristotle East and West - Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church there is no such need to "grasp God intellectually", no need to endlessly fret about historicity. (For some further thought on Christianity and history see Fr. Stephen's Time and History)

I will post some further material from David Bradshaw shortly.

Notes on Arab Orthodoxy: Fr. Touma Bitar on Marriage in the Church

Notes on Arab Orthodoxy: Fr. Touma Bitar on Marriage in the Church

The man who does not love his enemies

The Holy Spirit teaches us to love our enemies, so that the soul pities them as if they were her own children. There are people who desire the destruction, the torment in hell-fire of their enemies, or the enemies of the Church. They think like this because they have not learned divine love from the Holy Spirit, for he who has learned the love of God will shed tears for the whole world.

You say that So-and-so is an evil-doer and may he burn in hell fire. But I ask you — supposing God were to give you a fair place in paradise, and you saw burning in the fire the man on whom you had wished the tortures of hell, even then would you really not feel pity for him, whoever he might be, an enemy of the Church even? Or is it that you have a heart of steel? But there is no place for steel in paradise. Paradise has need of humility and the love of Christ, which pities all men. The grace of God is not in the man who does not love his enemies.

O merciful Lord, by Thy Holy Spirit teach us to love our enemies, and to pray for them with tears.
O Lord, send down Thy Holy Spirit on earth that all nations may know Thee, and learn Thy love.

O Lord, as Thou Thyself didst pray for Thine enemies, so teach us, too by Thy Holy Spirit, to love our enemies.
O Lord, all peoples are the work of Thy hands; turn them from enmity and malice to repentance, that all my know Thy love.

O Lord, Thou didst command us to love our enemies, but it is hard for us sinners, if Thy grace be not with us.
O Lord, pour down Thy grace upon the earth. Let all the nations of the earth come to know Thy love; to know that Thou lovest us with a mother’s love,
and more than a mother’s love for even a mother may be forgetful of her children,
but Thou forgettest never, because Thy love for Thy creation is boundless, and love cannot forget.

O merciful Lord, by the riches of Thy mercy
save all peoples.

St. Silouan the Athonite

Still a Valid Admonition for Today?

Wherefore it is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the Church—those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles; those who, together with the succession of the episcopate, have received the certain gift of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father. But [it is also incumbent] to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever, [looking upon them] either as heretics of perverse minds, or as schismatics puffed up and self-pleasing, or again as hypocrites, acting thus for the sake of lucre and vainglory. For all these have fallen from the truth. - St Irenaeus, Against Heresies, IV 26:2

Craftily Decked Out

Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by its outwardform, to make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than the truth itself. - St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Preface

Mormonism comes to mind. Cleverly disguised reinterpretation.

Of Guessing at Things Above.

"It is very shameful, and not only shameful, but very foolish, to take from things below a guess at things above, and from a fluctuating nature at the things that are unchanging, and as Isaiah says, to seek the Living among the dead." - St. Gregrory Nazianzen, Fifth Theological Oration, X

The discontinuity of being. It serves as a reminder to be very careful in looking around about (and at myself) and by analogy or deduction arrive at an understanding of God.