THE OLD TESTAMENT IS ABOUT YOU

PREFACE

There are many facets to the Hebrew Scripture or, as we call it, the "Old Testament."
Perhaps one of the more important, though neglected, aspects is the personal one, the fact that it speaks to each one of us as an individual.
    It is important to see the Hebrew Scripture as more than a history of the short-lived Kingdom of Israel and the remnant of Judea. The Old Testament is a chronicle of humanity, but it is also the story of each one of us, of our own spiritual, emotional, psychological and physical struggles.
    As we navigate the narratives of this great book, if we pay attention, we constantly find ourselves in familiar surroundings; the depths of love and hate, the corrosive effects of egoism, bitterness, malice, envy and self-focus, but also the heroic struggle of mankind, the presence of hope and joy. There, we find the same constant tensions between constraint, self-discipline and self-control, and the chaos and destructive energy of unconstrained desires and passions. All these are present in the daily lives of each one of us, and in the society and culture around us. Join me in examining the ways in which the Hebrew Scripture tells the story of each one of us, of our parishes, our families and our communities, as it unfolds the history of Israel.
    There is a notable detail in the creation narrative. Light exists before those heavenly bodies that we usually associate with the source of light. This is something that has to be the case, whether one is speaking in strict scientific terms or in spiritual understandings. The energy of creation, formless, void and in chaos, gradually formed into the stars, including our sun, as form and order began to permeate the universe.
    The separation of light from darkness is the result of the rotation of the earth on its axis, but there is spiritual revelation here. We are told that God-the-Word separated the light from the darkness. Let us begin then, with God, our Lord Jesus Christ, separating light from darkness in the universe. This should be the most profound image that we carry with us, for on the Cross, God-the-Word once more separated light from darkness in the hearts of mankind



   1
IN THE BEGINNING

In the Symbol of Faith when we confess, ‟One Lord Jesus Christ .... without Whom nothing was made that has been made,” we are referring to God the Word as the One Who made all things. In the creation narrative, when we talk about the separation of light from darkness, this has a very profound meaning that will echo down throughout the whole period of human existence, up until the end of human history. Christ Jesus separates light from darkness. The light is necessary for life, and the darkness is also present in life. Our Lord Jesus Christ is always striving to separate the light from the darkness within mankind. While both light and darkness have their proper place in our lives, they are also used symbolically. In the light, we can see clearly, while in the darkness we can only grope our way along, we cannot see the realities of life, and there is always a certain danger in the darkness. Within each one of us our hearts have to be recreated by the presence of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Our Lord stands without, desiring to enter into our hearts to separate light from darkness within each one of us. We must see both the light and the darkness so that we can make a clear choice. Much later we will hear that men desired darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil, but that the light was in the world and the world could neither comprehend nor overpower it. That light was present, calling upon everyone to let it shine in their hearts, to separate the light from the darkness within them and having separated it, to make it clear what is darkness and what is light. The more filled with the Divine Light that our heart becomes, the more it becomes the Kingdom of God (Paradise) within us, as Christ promised. When Our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, two thieves were on crosses together with Him. The two trees in the Garden of Eden are in fact a prophecy and type about the Cross, because one thief looked upon Christ on the Cross and saw in Him "the good" and then recognized for the first time his own wickedness. So the Cross of Jesus Christ became, at that moment, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil for this brigand. When the man said, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom,” the Cross of Jesus Christ became the Tree of Life for him, because Jesus Christ is the fruit of the Tree of Life, the One Who can bestow upon us everlasting life. On the other side of Christ’s Cross was a man of equal guilt as the first thief; but he does not repent, in fact he reviles Christ. In this we see that the Cross of Jesus Christ becomes a dividing line between light and darkness, between the heart that has become illumined through repentance and the heart that remains in darkness because it will not repent and open itself to the grace of the Holy Sprit. Here on the Cross, Christ separates light and darkness visibly before us, and the two thieves are a type of the light and the darkness that constitutes the inner struggle of everyone
    We see this struggle flowing throughout human history and throughout our own personal history, because the Cross of Christ still stands within and before each one of us as the dividing line between light and darkness. This dividing line was present when Christ created the earth and made it habitable. The grace of the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters bringing forth life, and there the light of God's grace shone in the Garden of Eden. St John Damascene tells us that the Garden was Paradise because it was filled with light, the Uncreated Light of God’s Glory. Unfortunately,  mankind chose darkness rather than that light and departed into the outer darkness, away from the light of God's love and glory. Jesus Christ will use that formula sometimes in His parables, “Cast them forth into the outer darkness, where there be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” We see this in the prophecies, we see this reflected in the New Testament, and we see above all that there stands before each of us the choice between light and darkness, life and spiritual death. We see the Ark as a dividing line also, between those who laughed at Noah and those who were on board the ark with him.
    We are all called upon daily to open ourselves to the light and try to root out the darkness that is within us. Our Lord Jesus Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit are there to help us, because the light of Christ’s love and glory shines into the heart that opens itself toward Him and the Grace of the Holy Spirit fills the heart with the illumination of that glory the more we struggle to acquire the Grace of the Holy Spirit and to unite ourselves with Jesus Christ and to live a life in Christ.
    A person can be very religious and still be filled with darkness, because being religious does not necessarily mean that you have faith. We can be religious to such a degree that we become cruel, destructive, full of hatred for others, full of malice and convinced that we are absolutely right and the rest of the world is absolutely wrong. Yet it is never we who are right; it is the Church that is right, not us. We have to choose even within the life of the Church our position – whether in light or in darkness, whether to be simply religious or whether to have a living and vital faith and struggle for a life in Jesus Christ. The light and the darkness both stand together until the end. This is the Mystery of Paradise in the end, that the light fills everything, all in all. That it illumines and gives life to the faithful and to those who rejected Christ and those who are brutal toward their fellow human beings or are indifferent toward their fellow human beings, that light of Christ’s love and glory will burn them like an everlasting fire. Therefore, let us, as we proceed through the Old Testament, consider its meaning and consider the meaning of the separation of light from darkness,  and of the meaning of the knowledge of good and evil. Let our lives be consecrated to the struggle to acquire light and cast out the darkness from our own hearts and our own minds. This means not only our egoism and self-centredness but those things that are created because of them:  all of our prejudices, our ill will, our evil feelings toward others and all of those things that constitute this spiritual darkness. This is what the creation narrative begins with: the separation of light from darkness and the begetting of life, and this is how our lives have also to begin anew in order to become authentic lives; the separation of light from darkness within us, the choosing of light, the struggle to drive out the darkness by increasing the light of the grace of the Holy Spirit and Christ’s Presence within us. We cannot do this just through religion; we can do it through a living and vital faith in Our Lord God and Saviour Christ.

2
THE "GARDEN OF EDEN" NARRATIVE
The ego as the root of evil
Fall into an unauthentic life

    As we understand the creation narrative, God created humanity from perfect love. This means that He also created us with freedom. Love demanded without freedom is a psychosis, it is not love. Love given without freedom is an obsession, it is not love.
    With authentic love, there is also trust. God demonstrated His authentic love, with its freedom of will and trust, by placing before mankind a choice. Why? Because without choice, there is no freedom. Even in marriage and friendships, love unfeigned requires freedom and trust, as any successful marriage demonstrates.
    The "two trees" in the garden are certainly a metaphor and prophecy, not something to be taken literally, as if one could eat an apple and suddenly know the mysteries of good and evil, or a pomegranate and live forever. Are the trees not rather a fore-image of the Cross, upon which God-the-Word would once more separate light from darkness? Had not God already planned for our redemption even before we fell?
    In Eden humans lived in an atmosphere of unselfish love. God had created them in His own likeness and image, so they had freedom of will, unselfish love and virtue, and humility.
       The "tree" that Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat from is a metaphor, a symbol, and also a prophecy about the Cross of Christ, so we will not discuss it here. The important thing is what the temptation was about and what its results are.
      Satan tempted the humans by offering them a counterfeit of something that God had  already given them. "Don't trust God, He's just being selfish and does not want you to have knowledge. If you have this knowledge you will be like God."
    The humans forgot that they were already "in the image and likeness" of God. Satan painted a false image of God as being vain and egoistic so he created a counterfeit; a false image of God and of what it meant to be "like God."
    Satan had set the fire of egoism, self-love and self-centredness in the heart of mankind. Once Adam and Eve had accepted this temptation, they fell into this egoism and self focus  –  they accepted the counterfeit instead of the Grace which God had given them.
    This is the root and base of all human tragedies, murders, robberies and deception. It does not matter whether you take the entire "Eden narrative" literally, as allegory or as a mixture of both. The story is about each one of us both as individuals and collectively.
    The temptations we fall to are almost always counterfeits for what is real, and we yield to them because of our own ego and self focus. This is the greatest spiritual struggle for each one of us, and this is the ultimate meaning of the story. As with Adam and Eve, so often what we accept is a counterfeit of something that God has already given us. We choose the counterfeit and lose the gift of Grace. The "Garden of Eden" narrative is about you.

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COMMENT ON THE ADVENT OF DEATH
   
    "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
            "Yet here too man makes a gain, namely death, and the cutting off of sin that evil may not be immortal."
                   
    Man was never immortal by nature. Neither his body nor his soul were ever immortal by nature. Man is a created being and only God can be immortal by nature. It is, therefore, necessary for us to understand that there is a difference between death and mortality.  The late Greek theologian, Fr John Romanides remarks:

    "It would be highly illogical to try to interpret Pauline thought with the presupposition [1] that death is normal or, [2] that at most, it is the outcome of a juridical decision of God to punish the whole human race for one sin, [3] that happiness is the ultimate destiny of man, and [4] that the soul is immaterial, naturally immortal and as directly created by God at conception, normal and pure of defects."

    Man was created for communion with God. He found his complete fulfilment in a life of communion, praise and giving glory to the Creator, living in a unison of love with God, by love drawing nearer to Him toward sharing in His immortality, in His deity. Man was not created for death even though, as a created being he is mortal. Man was created to live, through unity with the Creator.
    Why, then, does God warn Adam and Eve that if they turn from Him in disobedience and learn the conflict between good and evil, they will "surely die;" for this is just what He means by, "For on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die." This was no threat of punishment, for death is by no means a contrived punishment, rather it was a simple statement of reality. Immortality is a property of God alone. Man cannot possess it. He can only share in it by grace. We said that man was created for communion with God, and thus, he was created for life. Evil, which causes death, was not in his nature. By disobedience, man turned away from God and thus from life and the Source of Life, and so death became his destiny, for his nature became corrupted and he was no longer in direct communion with life.
    By accepting sin into his nature, man fell, not from the high state of perfection ascribed to him by Augustine, but from a state of harmonious existence in which he was growing and maturing toward perfection in God. The fall resulted in a change in man's nature. It now became disharmonious, full of internal conflict, and dissonance. Death is in itself the arch-manifestation of this disharmony and dissonance; death is the “sin of this world,” the means by which the world and man fall short or “miss the mark” for which they were created.  Death is an automatic result of separation from God, and sin is the cause of this separation. Death and sin are interacting and co-supportive, for "death is the wages of sin," while "sin is the sting of death." In order for one to be conquered, the other must be overcome. Thus, the "Only Sinless One," Jesus Christ alone was able to conquer death and liberate man from its bondage, making the struggle for "perfection" once more possible. For, sin sets up a complete internal disharmony, and death completely shatters the natural organism, the psychophysical organism that is man. The soul does not depart the body lightly, nor into a new world of purification and experience. Rather, the soul tears itself away from the body unwillingly, with anguish over the apparent destruction of its organism by the unnatural division of its components. It is not the body which holds man in bondage, but death itself and "him who has the power of death."
    Death is the "last enemy" of both God and man. It is the direct result of man's separation from God, and man is separated from God by sin. Satan increases and perpetuates this separation, and thus he has the power of death in his hands. To be in the hands of death means to be out of the hands of God. How great this enemy is, the Saviour Himself reveals to us. He wished us to know how great a gulf He was bridging for us, and yet how completely, how absolutely He was willing to suffer for us, and so on the Cross, He cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" This means that the Human Christ truly tasted death __ He placed Himself, as a man, in the hands of death: and to be in the hands of death is to be separated from God. Thus, the human body of Christ tasted death for us. Christ, as God, entered the realm of death and truly conquered it. He returned from death, removed His human nature and body from the hands of death and restored it once more to the hands of God. Thus, the dominion of death and, consequently, the effective power of Satan, has been shattered. (All that is left to him is the power of deceit and delusion). There is now one resurrected Body, the Body of Christ __ that fully human body which is united fully with God. In it, the power of death is shattered once and for all. One participates in that victory over death by uniting oneself with that one resurrected Body in which the victory is complete and certain: by uniting oneself to the Body of Christ. For this reason, in the Divine Liturgy, we partake of that one Resurrected Body and unite ourselves to it. For this reason, too, the Orthodox Dogma of the Church is, for us, central and vital to our lives and salvation. The Church is the Body of Christ, as the Apostle clearly says. We unite ourselves to that Body of Christ, the Church, in the rebirth of Baptism, which in itself is a living manifestation of the victory over death, and within the Church, we receive the very Body and Blood of the risen and ascended Saviour, and in faith unite ourselves to Him, and participate in the liberation from the fear of death with which Satan has held mankind in bondage all his lifetime. Being truly liberated from that bondage, one can take up where Adam and Eve left off, in the struggle to mature in perfection: only now, it is a very great struggle indeed. Thus, salvation consists in the union of the faithful with the life of God in the Body of Christ (the Holy Church), where the evil-one is being progressively and really destroyed in the life of co-suffering love. This union is effected by baptism (the grace of regeneration) and fulfilled in the Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, and in the mutual, cooperative struggle of Orthodox Christians against the power and influence of the evil-one. This is precisely why the last words of the "Lord's Prayer" are, "deliver us from the evil-one," and not "deliver us from evil."



ENDNOTES:


4
CAIN AND ABEL

The story of Cain and Abel amplifies what we are taught about the fall of mankind and our own condition. Egoism and self-focus are at the root of the violence in our world. Every war, every murder, every act of violence begins in the heart of man. Those who lead in creating such violence and wars, pogroms, attempts to destroy those who are “not like us” are people without empathy, people who cannot or will not identify with the sufferings and struggle of others. Murders arise from greed, from envy and pride.
    This narrative portrays the first such crime amongst humans, and a crime made worse because it was the murder of one’s own family member.
    We are told that the two brothers brought their thanksgiving offerings in due season, to offer to God. Abel, who offered from the heart, had his offering accepted. Cain’s offering was not accepted because it was not offered from the heart, from love, but rather because of a law, a rule, a regulation, and he offered it, not in heartfelt thanksgiving, but from obligation. The difference in the “first fruits” being offered was not the issue. God tells Cain, “If you had rightly offered, your sacrifice would have been acceptable.” He did not say “If you had offered the right thing...”
    Cain lost nothing from the fact that his offering was not accepted this time. Had he struggled to correct himself, all would have been well but, alas, ego and self-centredness received the upper hand. God will later remind him that he, as the firstborn, was the leader and head of the tribe, that because of this he had dominion over his brother. This was not enough. Cain’s ego and pride were offended. Moreover, the righteousness of Abel was a censure to his conscience.
    The solution to the situation should have been repentance and a striving to correct himself. Instead, his pride and ego overcome him and he does the unthinkable: he murders his brother. Remember that the Ten Commandments begins with a reference to murder and end with forbidding us to be envious. Envy is born of ego and self-focus, and it unleashes great fires and great tragedies. We are all subject to this deception, and none of us should think that we are immune to its excesses.
    This story is about us; about us as individuals and as societies, and perhaps this is why we are told that Cain built the first society, the first village (hardly a city by today’s standards, but a complex human society).
    This is also a story of God’s mercy and forgiveness. Notice that after murder has been committed, God does not come down in a fury of vengeance and outrage. Rather, He comes to Cain with love and attempts to lead him to repentance. In the Garden, although God certainly knows where Adam and Eve are, He nevertheless calls to them to come into the open and repent. Now, He asks Cain, “Where is your brother...” Does God not know all that has taken place? Certainly He does, but He calls upon Cain to confess his horrible deed and repent. Indeed, following the narrative, one can almost hear God speaking with tears of sorrow and compassion as He makes every effort to lead Cain to “turn from his sinfulness and live.” God even goes so far as to prevent Cain from being killed by others, because so long as he is alive, he can repent and return to God.
    Cain, the story tells us, went yet farther away from God, just as we ourselves do when we do not repent of our sins and falls. The story is about us, and it is also about God’s infinite love and mercy.

5  
Commentary on Cain and Abel

    We should not think that any of us are completely exempt from such a possibility. We are all human beings, we are all capable of great wickedness; and we are all capable, with God’s grace and our struggle, to also become people of genuine holiness and sanctity.
    Think about how this applies to you in your daily life and even in the practice of religion. Remember that religion is not what the Orthodox faith is about, it is about a living faith in God, not a "system." Faith does not consist in coming into accord with a system of facts; faith is an orientation of the soul toward the will of God.
    This is how the second story of Cain and Abel plays out in our own personal lives. God’s heart is always open to us. as it was to Cain. Note that God’s heart was open to him even  though he did not repent, but this is not going to do Cain any good, because he himself will not return to God’s heart. In fact he departs further from God. The designation "he land of Nod" evidently comes from a Chaldean word that signifies “to wander.” So he wanders farther away from God, and now he has greater alienation, greater separation, and this alienation is going to be the great story of the Hebrew Scripture, our "Old Testament."
     Alienation and the great struggle against idolatry and above all, the idolatry of ourselves and the idolatry of religion; because religion can become a very destructive idolatry. One can be intensely religious and worship his religion without ever having genuine faith and without ever having a real relationship with our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ, with the community of the faithful. This is one of our great tragedies. It comes about from that venom of Eden, the fall into egotism, self-centredness and self-love. The real result of the fall then, and what we call sin, is an inclination to habitually misuse our energies, a proclivity for the misuse of our energies. Religion without a living, transforming faith, is a form of idolatry. This misuse of our energies is what sin really consists of.
    My mentor, Father John Romanides, once said that “religion is a neurobiological illness, and” Orthodoxy is its cure” (I did hear him say once that “faith is its cure”). This is a very telling statement, because here we have two brothers who were obviously religious. They offered the thanksgiving sacrifices that, according to religion, they were supposed to offer. That was the religious thing to do, a religious act. One of them, however, had love and faith and the other one did not. They both believed of course, but belief is not the same as having faith. Faith in God means to have love and trust in God, to desire a relationship of love with Him, to express that love in ways that we, even in our weakness, are able to; knowing that despite the insignificance of the offerings that we make, God receives them lovingly when we offer them from the heart in love.
    Here, then, we have this problem of religion without faith, and we will see it again in Christ’s parable about the Publican and the Pharisee, and the failure of the elder brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son.
    Let us pause now and look at ourselves. How often are we fulfilling things in externally because we are "supposed to," because it is expected, because it is the Law (or Canon)? Even in our religious life, we can be observant of rules and codes, but still not have faith. We can be quite diligent in the external practice of our religion, and never have a relationship with God. This is a great tragedy for us, and this is what the story of Cain and Abel is telling us first of all. Do you see what your ego can bring you to. Your ego and self-love can so corrupt you that you can murder your brother, and then try to hide from it and cover it up. You may not actually murder your brother in the strict sense, but you may try to destroy him with gossip and slander, or in some other way, but all the same, you are guilty. Ah, foul envy, foul jealousy, and all are a product of our ego and our self-focus, which is sometimes self-love and sometimes self-hatred.

6
    FROM CAIN TO LAMECH

Cain has introduced murder into the life of mankind. That is where egotism, self-centredness and self-love can lead us to. When we add self-righteousness, which is a form of narcissism, it is even worse.
    Do not think that anyone  of us is completely exempt from the possibility of committing such a crime. We sometimes do it in our minds, even if we do not do it literally. We are all human beings, we are all capable of great wickedness; and we are all capable with God’s grace and our struggle to also become people of genuine holiness and sanctity. People tend to think that one becomes "holy" by means of externally correct behaviour, some even realise that there must be some sort of inner change also. However, the greater part of becoming sanctified is to rid ourselves of our self-delusions about ourselves.
    Think about how this applies to each one of us in our daily lives and even in the practice of religion. Remember that religion is not what the Orthodox faith is about; it is about a living faith in Christ Jesus and His Gospel, not a system of law or a moral code. Faith does not consist in coming into accord with a system of facts or doctrines; faith is an orientation of the soul toward the will of God. Think about how the story of Cain and Abel plays out in our own personal lives. We may not commit actual murder, but the egoism, envy, self-justification that we saw already with Adam and Eve, frequently recurs in our own lives. Moreover, in our idolatry, we see God as a harsh, brutal dictator who creates earthquakes, tornados, floods and other disasters which destroy the faithful and the good together with the unbeliever and the evil. Yet,  after Cain killed Abel, the amazing thing is, you do not see God come thundering down for juridical justice. “I am going to punish Cain, I am going to make him pay! I am going to give him a death penalty, I am going to kill him with anger and fury!” No! God comes down with great gentleness. “Cain, where is your brother?” “Ah! I should know? I mean, am I my brother’s keeper?” And then you can almost see the tears in the eyes of God: “Oh Cain, what is it that you have done? You were the eldest, the inheritance was yours. Why have you done such a thing?” In all of this, God is hoping that Cain will open his heart, hoping that Cain will repent, and God’s heart is open to him should he repent. God’s heart is open to him even if he does not repent, but it is not going to do Cain any good, because he will not return to God’s heart. And in fact he does not; he goes away further from God, and the designation is to the land of Nod, and evidently Nod is a Chaldean word indicating “to wander.”
    Perhaps this does not even mean that Cain went away to a different geographical location, but only that he alienated himself further from God. In any case, he wanders away from God, and now he has greater alienation, greater separation, and this alienation is going to be the great story of the Old Testament. Alienation and the great struggle against idolatry and above all, the idolatry of ourselves and the idolatry of religion; because believe me, religion can become a very destructive idolatry. One can be intensely religious and worship his religion without ever having genuine faith and without ever having a real relationship with our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ, with the community of the faithful. This is one of our great tragedies. But it comes about from that venom of Eden, the fall into egotism, self-centredness and self-love. The real result of the fall then, and what we call sin, is an inclination to habitually misuse our energies, a proclivity for the misuse of our energies. This is what sin really consists of.
    We can reflect on the great Canon of St Andrew of Crete; he does not go into a great deal of detail, but he certainly calls upon us to liken ourselves to the sinners and the disobedient and unbelieving people of the Old Testament. Having examined ourselves, it gives us an opportunity to cleanse the idolatry out of our hearts and to follow God in truth and in spirit, knowing that we can only know God through Jesus Christ, because in the Old Testament we often see God through the lens of the passions of a humanity which, in its idolatry, so often transfers its own passions onto God, because Satan is tempting them to recreate God in their own image, or at least to recreate their concept of God. This idolatry is also part of the great story in the "Old Testament," this is part of the great struggle.
    Now we talked about Cain and Abel and we see that Cain has become the first murderer and that this murderer rose from his own ego. The next such crime we will see is not explained to us: Lamech, who was the seventh after Adam, had killed both a man and a youth. In the Hebrew Scripture it tells us that he beat the young man to death and that he just killed the other man. He has committed these two murders, and he is evidently lamenting that he had done it. We are not sure if he repented, but he is lamenting to his two wives, both of whom appear to have been barren in the beginning. Now we come to this rather confusing part of the Scripture, which we are not going to be discussing at this point, but we are told that mankind has somehow become more and more wicked. This is not surprising, because mankind’s history starts with falling into ego, then with murder, then with the murder of two people and then with whatever kind of wickedness they had fallen into which was so destructive. History informs us of the cruelty and savage massacres of this ancient era, and little is left to the imagination when we read of it in secular history.

6
LAMECH
(Gn.4:23-24)

Lamech said to his wives Ada and Zila, "Listen to me, O wives of Lamech, and pay attention to my words. I have killed a man, wounding myself, and a youth, harming myself. If Cain was to suffer sevenfold then I, Lamek, seventy and sevenfold."
    One evil piles upon another, and we become imitators of the sins and crimes of our fathers. Cain has initiated mankind into murder, and as seeds sown in a field produce an increase, so the seeds of murder begin to bring forth their crops.
    After the Flood, God warns the children of Noah, "Whoever sheds a man's blood will have his own blood shed by man: For [I have] made man in the image of God." (9:6) And again, in the incarnation, He says, "whoever lives by the sword will die by the sword."
    It is the image of God in man that Satan hates; and it is because of this image that he incites us to commit murder. His target is really the image and likeness of God that is within us — a murder of God by proxy. It is for this reason, also, that Satan strives to corrupt mankind. He desires to replace the image of God within us with his own image, to remake man in the image of the Evil-One.

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PREFACE TO THE STORY OF
NOAH AND THE ARK
(Genesis)

There are many aspects to the stories in the Hebrew Scripture, the “Old Testament.” For the sake of our discussions here,  there are two things that the Old Testament continuously reminds us of and these are things about ourselves. One of them is why we human beings have an inner conflict between good, bad, holiness and wickedness; why we so often fall and the source of our the inner contradictions that torment us so often. The other  is the tendency of humankind toward an idolatry. These facts have much to say about corruption in our societies and the strife and bloodshed in our world.
    Reading about these things will reveal to us why our Lord Jesus Christ instructed us to pray, “...and deliver us from the evil-one” rather than “deliver us from evil.”  God has created mankind in His own “likeness and image,” that is, with freedom, intellect and a will toward virtue. Satan, trying to become more glorious than God, fell and came into an enmity toward God. Now he lures mankind into the idolatry of trying to recreate God after his own image.
    One aspect of the Old Testament is that it tells us about how mankind transfers his own passions, his own cruelties and his own aggressiveness onto his understanding of God. This idea flows throughout the Old Testament. Gnostic teachers such as Marcion and Mani carried this so far that they actually thought there were two Gods: an evil one in the Old Testament and a good one in the New Testament. What is really happening here is that Satan is trying to distort the understanding of God. Satan promised mankind that he could become like God, but instead, led man to think that God is like man. Mankind’s concept of God becomes an idolatry, a kind of self-worship, because he thinks of God as being just a “giant human” or a projection of fallen humanity. If people are cruel and murderous, then they re-image God as being cruel and murderous; if mankind is aggressive and vulgar then they recreate (in their own minds) God as being aggressive and vulgar. So what Satan has done now is to trick people or lead them into a counterfeit of God Himself. God has revealed Himself as being perfect, unselfish love, and being trusting of mankind, so Satan wants to offer a counterfeit. And that counterfeit is a god who is mentally created by man, in man’s own image and likeness, with man’s own passions.
    We should keep this in mind as we continue to look at the way each one of us finds himself in the Old Testament, and we find a picture of mankind itself in the stories we read.

8
THE STORY OF NOAH

1. Betrayal and Loyalty
   
    We could refer to Noah as an “apostle.” He preached the truth of God and salvation by obeying God even though people thought that he was foolish for doing so.
    We are told in the story of Noah that the path of wickedness which began with Cain's murder of Abel, followed by Lamech's murder of two men, continued to expand. This is the next narrative that we will look at in order to try to find ourselves within it and to try to discover within our own hearts whether we would have been on board that ark or not. There was a choice to be made then, just as there is a daily choice for us in our relationship with God and our neighbour.
    From the beginning of the creation, we see that God is constantly blessing all of His creation. When mankind began to defile the earth and rob the earth of its blessing, disregarding both God and fellow humans as well the living things and the world around them, we are told the story of Noah’s ark.
    In the story, Noah is told to build a large ship called an "ark" and to bring on board  representatives of every known species of animal, along with several plants. Noah was told that a great flood would occur that would destroy mankind, except for those who were repentant and became faithful to God.  The building of the ark took a very long time, and Noah used the process as a way of warning people and calling them to repentance. Orthodox Christians understand that the Ark is type of the Church. The holy apostles called people into the Church, and away from the sinful and destructive attitudes of the world around them. This is just what Noah was doing in his own time. The flood took place just as Noah had warned, and the earth was cleansed.
    Noah really becomes an apostle of the Living God because he is preaching to these people as he builds the ark. Hearing Noah's words and seeing his actions, the people had to make a free choice. The choice is between God and the corruption of the world, between life and death. Noah is calling them to something else also. He is calling them to struggle to have self-control and self-discipline in order to lead decent lives.
    In the same way, we are called upon to make such choices. We do not need forty days and forty nights of rain in order to sweep us away. We can be swept away from an authentic life and from a life of contentment and a life of inner joy by the passions and corruption of the world around us. We can, on the other hand, pay attention to the actual meaning of the story of Noah and choose the kind of struggle that Noah calls us to, and have an authentic life, a life filled with meaning, hope and love.


2. Our Role in Creation

God  bound man together with the created universe; man was intended to be a point of unity for all creation. Mankind is material, intellectual, spiritual – made up of everything that the universe is made up of, a combination of all the things that occur within creation. By accepting the counterfeits of Satan we began to be more a point of disunity, and all of these wounds and divisions that occur in our human nature developed amongst us.
We must often make a choice between spiritual life and spiritual death. Let us look at the story of Noah’s ark from this point of view, because the ark is a type of the Church, and true spiritual life is to be found within the Church because it is there that the Tree of Life still grows. The altar of the Church is a type of Paradise, where we receive from the chalice the fruit of the Tree of Life, which is Jesus Christ Himself. In the description of the building of the Ark, and the command about what to bring into the ark, we see that all of creation was symbolically represented and encompassed in the ark. A type of everything that exists was there, for God did not just command various clean animals, but clean and unclean animals alike, and plants, particularly those that could be used for food, and birds and creeping things – all of creation was encompassed in the ark and they were all redeemed together with mankind, represented by Noah and his family.
This is similar to what Apostle Paul says:  “All creation is being redeemed together with mankind, because all creation will be set free into the glorious freedom of God’s children” (Rm.8) There is a very close bond between us and the created universe and the ecosystem in which we live. We suggest that this story tells us that we are encompassed together with the rest of creation. We have a role to play as the centre of unity in creation and we have a responsibility to the ecosystem in which we live; a responsibility to humanity and to all life on earth, to preserve our biosphere.
3. Egoism: the Son Betrays the Father
                       
When the ark landed, we find a rather disturbing story of a son’s betrayal of his father. One of Noah’s sons, Ham, found his father passed out drunk and naked. He humiliated and degraded his father. When he mockingly told his brothers about their father’s condition, the other sons of Noah showed their love and respect for their father by entering the room holding a blanket. The entered backward, with their faces away from their father, and covered him with the blanket in order not to shame him.
No matter what family we have, when we begin to raise children, not all of them really follow our teachings and follow our path. Some are led into disrespect, and not just disrespect, but even into a kind of revilement of everything that their parents have stood for. Sometimes a child is right not to accept everything that the parents teach, because they come to realize that some of these teachings are just prejudices or they come to realize that some of us are just too Pharisaical or too full of judgment or condemnation, lacking in compassion and love. But there is this rejection of the whole concept, the whole idea, the whole system of values that the previous generation had,  the complete disrespect for the parent, and therefore the disrespect for the values and the things that were passed on to the children. This always leads to some kind of sorrow and grief, because we do not realize that thousands of years of human experience has formed many of these basic values. Sometimes when a child comes to this point of being completely rebellious against the parents and against what they have taught and passed on, they are not just rejecting what the parents have taught them, but rejecting also thousands of years of human experience which has taught us that certain things are necessary for survival, for the survival of societies, for the survival of communities, for the survival of civilisation.
How does this story  apply to us? We also have to make choices. Each one of us has to make a choice about how to deal with the values, teachings, and the instruction that have been given to us by our parents, our grandparents. To totally reject everything and all the standards that have been taught by the parents leads to a degeneracy in society. From the beginning of the story of Noah’s ark we see the majority of the  people rejecting the revelation and the proper relationship with God and neighbours. It was not just the flood that caused them to be swept away, rather they allowed themselves to be swept away and spiritually drowned by their own passions.Meanwhile,  those who were listening and heeding their conscience, the voice of God, were lifted up in the ark which is a type of the Church carried above this flood. They had the self-control and self-discipline necessary in order to reject what was wrong and struggle for what is good.
When we read in this story about  Ham’s betrayal of his father Noah, and the great respect and reverence with which the other brothers approached their father, we also see something about self-control and self-discipline. The other brothers might have been tempted to look upon their father’s nakedness just out of curiosity, but they did not because they had self-control and self-discipline as well as reverence for their father. This is the problem with Ham; he had no self-discipline, no self-control and therefore no respect and no reverence. Because without self-control and self-discipline, we also cannot have self-respect or respect for others.
There is something yet more pointed about this story, however, and that is our relationship with our neighbours, with other people in our own lives. Rather than expose our brother’s or sister’s sins, we ought rather to cover them. We are here to help lift each other up, not to push others down; to help our brother heal, not to cut his wounds deeper. We, as followers of Christ, must learn to respect our neighbours, our brothers and sisters in the faith and others in the same way that the righteous sons of Noah loved him and covered his nakedness. Too often we behave like the unrighteous Ham and mock and revile our neighbours for their weaknesses and failings rather than entering backward to cover the sins of others. Even when our own weaknesses, failings and sins stand glaring before us, we find opportunity to uncover our brother’s or sister’s sins, mocking them and trying to put them to shame, as if we ourselves were sinless and perfect. Such actions separate us from God, from the love of Christ and from the grace of the Holy Spirit. This is, perhaps, the central lesson for us in the story of Noah, this is where we find ourselves in the story and the point at which the story becomes about us, each one of us personally.
9
COMMENTARY ON NOAH AND THE ARK

    This is the story of Ham and his brothers and the choices made by them, and a story about each one of us and the choices made by us. The ones who had self-discipline and self-control and some reverence and respect. We respect things that we do not necessarily agree with. We should respect elders because they have survived so long, and because at least within the pool of older citizens, not everyone is wise but there is wisdom and experience among them.
    What happens to Ham when he has to face the reality of what he has done? He becomes an outcast. But why is it that he has to serve his brethren? What kind of bondage or slavery does he fall into? Does God make him the slave to his brethren as punishment? Or is there rather something else being said to us? People without self-discipline and without self-control inevitably fall into bondage. Indeed, they fall into many different kinds of bondage. We are not supposed to have a weak will, we are supposed to have a strong will, but a will directed toward the will of God and submissive to the will of God. We need enough self-discipline and self-control to resist peer pressure, to resist the desire to find an artificial way to have some kind of temporary happiness, which could include drugs or alcohol, or to do evil because of our egotism and self love. The Church has given us the path and the means toward proper and effective self-discipline and self-control. We need to have a certain amount of proper self-esteem also, and this self-esteem comes primarily from the knowledge that Christ loved us enough to die for each one of us and to rise again for the sake of our salvation. He took our sins and burdens upon himself and carried them to the Cross for each one of us, and this is the proper self-esteem. This means that we have self-respect which is manifested in respect for others. Having no respect for others, Ham clearly also had no self-respect, but in a kind of self-loathing, he tried to make himself look better by shaming his father and darkening his own heart.

10
    ON THE TOWER OF BAB’EL


    Let’s reflect that the flood at the time of Noah was generated by the flood of human passions, which had built up to such an enormous volume, that it was able to drown man spiritually, to crush his life and rob humanity of an authentic life except for those who chose to orient their will toward God and toward God’s will. After the Flood and after Ham’s betrayal of his father, we see that the descendants of Noah went into the plain of Shinar and there they decided to build another city. In this city they are going to exalt themselves.
    We know that in the time frame of history, this story is not literal. If that was the case, if these things had taken place according to the chronology of Scripture, the Flood would have occurred at the time when the Egyptians were building the pyramids, and certainly all of mankind did not speak the same language at that time. There is, however, something here that is rather important for us to understand, an that is that it does matter how we use the skills, abilities and talents  we have. It is not appropriate for Orthodox Christians to use them for aggrandizement, simply to give oneself a name, only for our own interest and to exalt ourselves. This happens with people who have a lust for power and who desire, not a peaceful and harmonious life, but who desire to rise up above others and to dominate them or to get ahead at all costs. We see this in the society around us, and can be tempted to follow such a path. We must, however, discover another path.
    The story of the building of the city possibly refers to ancient Urok (Arak) in Mesopotamia. The ruins of this city have been uncovered, together with a ritual tower called a ziggurat. It is important to understand that the theme of this story is a conflict between ego and virtue. This is a conflict that takes place within our own hearts when we follow with our own passions and self-centred desires.
    We are going to talk a bit about what the word virtue actually means and see how it is pitted against ego, then we will see how this story about the building of the city and the tower of Bab’el is about us. Bab’el means “Gate of God.” The tower was going to be built right up to the Gate of God – right up to the heavens, an assault on Heaven itself as it were. The word virtue (Gk. “arête”) actually means to use our skills and abilities to create something beautiful and useful. A sculptor who takes a piece of stone and sculpts a beautiful statue from it because he wants to create beauty – this is virtue. He has used his skill to the best of his ability, to create something of quality, something of beauty. If a sculptor uses his talents and abilities to carve a statue only to make money or to make a name for himself, it is not virtue, it is simply business. This is the difference between virtue and ego. In the building of the city and the tower, we see that skills and abilities were used for the sake of ego, self-centredness and self-love, whereas the skills could have been used to build a home or a shelter, or something of elegance and beauty for the sake of beauty and usefulness. We will not speculate on alternate interpretations of the motives of the builders because this is a story with a moral to it, and the moral point is made by the way the story is told in the Scripture. We must take the story as we have received it in order to understand its meaning. This story is an analysis of passions of pride and ego and a lack of humility. These are things that can drive a community apart and create deep divisions and enmities.
    Let us continue discussing virtue and the concept of virtue and ego. We are all given some kind of ability and skill, even if that ability is something that does not fit into the marketplace well. Love, for example: the ability to have an open heart toward people and to be loving and kind and gentle can be manifested in many ways. Those people who go out of their way to be kind to street people, to give comfort and consolation to somebody in sorrow, to visit someone in a nursing home; all these things are acts of virtue because we are using the skill or ability that we have within us for something positive, something useful, something good, and not something that focuses on our own ego, lust for money or self-centredness. Every one of us has to face the challenge of whether or not we will examine ourselves and try to see what kind of skills and abilities or talents that we have. Our calling is to do this not in terms of being competitive in the world, and not in terms of seeking a proper job position, or seeking what kind of an education we will get so that we will have marketable and commercial skills of some kind. Those things must be done by everyone in our society, but that is not a path to virtue or to an expression of our Orthodox Christian faith. In this context, we should see what skills and abilities we have which can be put to a good creative and positive use. If a person is very skilled at fishing, then find someone who is lonely, who has no one and would love to have companionship and company and take them fishing with you, share that moment with them. We can use any of our skills and abilities in a virtuous way. Virtue and a virtuous way does not mean  being ultra moral, praying and being in Church regularly. It also is manifested in the use of our energies in a manner which is compassionate, caring and creative, and which reflects the idea that we understand that our energies are a gift from God to be used for the good of others. It may be easier for us to use the same abilities and gifts solely for self-serving reasons and ego.
    It is understood that we have to take care to prepare ourselves for the future, choosing how we will educate ourselves so that we earn our own living and support our families, but we can also plan how to use these skills only for selfish goals. This is the struggle that faced the people who came out of the ark, multiplied and came into the land of Shinar. They were presented with an opportunity for a new beginning; the possibility of faithfulness and virtue was set before them. The story of the tower of Bab’el is reflected so often in man’s repeated failure to follow through on such opportunities. It is the story of our own personal failures also, for the story is about each one of us.    This is the point we wanted to make in this discussion of the Tower of Bab’el and the building of the first city after the settling of the ark. A new society is formed, but formed on the same basis on which Cain built his city –  the a drive toward  egotism and self-centredness. We should not assert that everybody who was there, present and taking part in the building up of culture, society and civilization in that area of Chaldea (Babylon) were disposed in that kind of negative manner. The story is there, however, to emphasize our own struggle, the struggle of humanity in general. War, murder and all manner of wicked ness flow from ego and self-love, and this is the great story, the great warning to us from all these narratives in the Scripture. This is the struggle we must all undertake in choosing the path of our own lives.
    This story is about you, it is about us, it is about us as individuals and us as societies. To use our skills and abilities in a virtuous manner, to create something beautiful, creative, useful to mankind to others, whether it is in a great or small way, it is nevertheless a virtue which helps us in the struggle for our salvation and draws us closer to God, Who created the universe in beauty and made a fit place for man to live creating something that was shared by all humanity and all living things.
Hopefully when we read or hear the story of the Tower of Bab’el, the story of Chaldea (Babylon), we will remember that the story is about universal meaning, about our choices between virtue and ego, unselfish love and self-centredness. Hopefully, we will come to understand that  our great struggle to return to Paradise is the struggle to return to unselfish love, and in that unselfish love, to use all of the gifts that we have in a virtuous manner; that is, to create beauty, harmony, peace, love,  something that will make mankind a little better and the life of the world a little more peaceful. This is what the story is really all about and what it is actually trying to reveal to us, so that we will know that this very struggle is taking place within each one of us, in our hearts every day of our lives.

          CONCERNING THE HERETICAL DOCTRINE OF ATONEMENT
                                           byArchbishop Lazar Puhalo

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While Anselm of Canterbury, basing himself on one of Augustine of Hippo’s heresies, developed the “atonement” doctrine of redemption, this idea is alien to Orthodoxy. The doctrine of Atonement suggests that Christ saved us from God. The doctrine teaches that the purpose of the incarnation (“Cur deus homo” – why God became man) is this: God is infinite, so sins against Him are infinite. All the suffering of all of humanity throughout the ages could not satisfy God so that He would be able to save us. God has established a just death penalty over all mankind, and man has also inherited a personal guilt for the sin of Adam. It was necessary for someone equal to God to suffer to that God would be able to forgive those who accept the sacrifice as a vicarial death to pay off our debts and atone for our sins. This heresy is based in the dialectic of the Roman law courts and the rationalism of Aristotle. More directly, regarding Anselm, it mirrors the medieval law of the duel.
St Gregory the Theologian, on the other hand, sums up the purpose of the Incarnation as God, by overcoming the tyrant, set us free and reconciled us with Himself through His Son. It is clear that the Father received the sacrifice of Christ, not because He Himself demanded or needed it, but on account of His divine Plan...that He Himself might deliver us from the devil and his power, and by the mediation of His Son bring us back to Himself (Oration 45).
Despite faulty translations, the word “atonement” is nowhere found in the Scriptures or the Fathers. At Romans 5:11, for example, we read: “And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received reconciliation (kattalagyn).” In many translation this word (kattalagynJ) is erroneously translated as “atonement, “ and given a purely juridical connotation.
St Irenae says of this, “ Truly, He Who is the Almighty Word, and true man, in redeeming us reasonably by His Blood, gave Himself as a ransom for those who had been carried into captivity” (Against the Heresies , 5, 1, 1). He affirms the words of the Scripture, “The Son of man is come...to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mk. 10:45) (i.e., for all). Evangelist Mark is making a direct reference to the prophecy of Hosea 13:14, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death.”1 St Basil the Great repeats this in his Great Eucharistic Prayer in the Divine Liturgy “He gave Himself a ransom to the grave.”. Hosea's prophecy sums up the Orthodox doctrine of the ransom quite well, though we add to it the revelation of “Theosis.”

MORAL EDUCATION IN THE POST-MORAL ERA

       EDUCATION OF OUR YOUNG PEOPLE

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1 
ROLE AND CHARACTER MODELS
FOR OUR CHILDREN

     "By the time we are six, our future may already be set," reads the first line of a recent study carried ouit by McMaster University's Oxford Centre for Child Studies.
     This study is but one of many which have reached similar conclusions. Educators and psychologists were somewhat late in discovering what the Church had always known. It is in their earliest years that a persons basic character, core beliefs and dispositions are formed. This fact was emphasized recently by the completion of an intense study of early childhood development, followed through until the children in the study were in secondary school. This study ended with the United Way Charities of Canada creating a special programme to help with the development of children by age six. It is called the Success by Six programme. The conclusions of these and many other such studies reinforces the understanding that the first six years of a child's life are critical in the development of their character and personality, and that little will be changed in these areas after their sixth or seventh year.
     We cannot view the teaching of young children as only talking, telling stories or verbally conveying ideas. Teaching has another dimension which is less tangible. Character formation, which is also an aspect of teaching, depends as much on what we do as what we say.
     We know that the primary and most critical years of character formation are from birth to age six or seven. This is part of the premise upon which the Orthodox Church bases the baptism of infants. We do not want our children to pass through those most critical formational years without the grace given to them in holy baptism and the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Baptism and the frequent Communion of infants and children is only part of the picture, however. Infants and young children are learners by nature, and learning is easier and more rapid in this age range that at any other time. It is of the greatest importance, therefore, for us to focus on our position as role models for children. Children learn by observing, and they miss very little, even when the appear not to be paying attention.
    It is easy to repeat facts and information to students. But what they see in the person who is teaching them is often much more important than what that person is telling them. What children see in you, in your lifestyle and personality, will often determine whether they will accept what you are telling them. If you talk to them about Christian living, but they see you living or behaving in an un-Christian manner, why should they take you seriously? If you teach them of love, kindness, forgiveness, etc., and later they hear you gossiping, slandering or fighting with someone, they really have no reason to take you or what you are teaching them seriously.
    You, as their teacher, must also be their example — what psychologists call a "role model." We could also call this position a "character model." The terms "role model," or "character-model" are very meaningful, especially for parents, priests and church school teachers. You are not just setting an example for your children, you should also be one of the models from which they form their attitudes or on which they pattern their lives. Your children will end up imitating your religious attitudes and, more significantly, they will take what you teach them only as seriously as you do, and they will tend to apply what you teach them in the same way they see you apply it to your life.
    Using someone else as a model for our lives is not always a conscious process. It is more often subconscious and its mechanism is based on the way we feel in the presence of a person, what we sense as their attitude toward us, how we perceive the quality of their lives in relation to the content of their words. Ultimately, the model or example set by our lives has a greater effect in forming the lives of young people than what facts, ideas or concepts we teach them verbally in the form of lessons or instructions
    Whatever attitudes, concepts and ideals we either encourage or discourage in our children by word and example are going to be either reinforced or undermined by social and peer groups. The strength with which we implant and ingrain standards and moral ideals will greatly affect the power social groups have over this process. What we instill in them by the age of six (the year they begin to attend public school) can be a very powerful influence. The way children are treated in our churches also has a strong influence on them in either a positive or a negative way. If children learn from infancy that they have value in the church community, value in God's household, then this will reinforce the spiritual and moral concepts that they learn when we teach them about the faith. We do not often think about it, but the fact that infants and children receive Holy Communion by name, hearing their own name said as they are given Communion, helps to make them feel a part of the community, and feel that they have value in the community.
     Repeated professional experiments and studies have shown that behaviour can be altered or new forms of behaviour acquired by observing people whom one admires, loves, fears, dislikes or distrusts. Such behaviour pattern changes can be affirmative (by imitating the example) or rejective (by deciding not to imitate the example) or reactive (by forming behaviour patterns or traits in reaction to observed or experienced behaviour). Any of these character and personality moulding developments can be positive or negative. As a parent, priest or church school teacher you may smoke cigarettes in front of children and they may take that as an affirmation that it is all right and healthy to smoke. Others may see you and, having accepted that smoking is an unhealthy and bad habit, reject you as a life example. They may even reject what you are teaching them.
     The most positive influence that parents, teachers and priests can have on the lives of children, as life examples or character models, is to strive to live what they teach; make Christ the life example and role model for your own life. Teach with love, kindness, compassion and joy. Your failings and shortcomings will matter little to the children if they see these qualities. They will realize that you are doing your best to live your teachings.
    There are many scientific or technical terms for these causes and effects of life example and character models, but I am certain that you all understand what has been said without them.
    One of the most important things for anyone who is raising or teaching children is to realize that the strength of what you teach and how well it will penetrate your children will depend to a great deal on what kind of life example or character model you are to them. You should consciously work on this and try to develop and strengthen your "exampleship" or "role modelship". Remember that as a parent, teacher or priest, you are steward of the children's souls and your conscious development and improvement of your own spiritual life and your efforts to make yourself a better life example and role model, is part of that stewardship.


2
PARENTS, PRIESTS, TEACHERS AND PEERS

Children learn the basic functions of life, as well as speech and expression, primarily from parents. This process gives us a good example of what it means to be a "life example" or "role and character model". The vocabulary that small children develop directly reflects their environment and says a great deal about the parents, regular babysitters and others to whom the child is regularly exposed.
Some infants, as soon as they can walk and speak will kiss an ikon or cross or at least show recognition of them as soon as they see them. Others will have curses and swear words among their earliest vocabulary. The effects of life examples and character models are profound in such cases. It is easy to understand how deeply parents influence the character development of a child, and how certain behaviour patterns are picked up from regular visitors to the home, particularly those with whom a child feels comfortable. The degree to which a church school teacher can be a character model might not be so readily evident. To what degree can a church school teacher act as a counter-balance to undesirable peer pressure?
We know from numerous professional studies that young people are far more apt to succumb to "anti-social" peer pressures if they have a real or imagined reason to doubt the affection, wisdom, reasonableness or justice of parents and other adult character models. Very often young people become disillusioned because they tend to think of parents and sometimes church school teachers (less often secondary school teachers) as "completed packages", that is, they often see parents as living more perfect, more "in control" and more totally developed lives than they really are or could. As the child gets older, he or she begins to see weakness and flaws in the parent or respected church school teacher.
If these weaknesses and flaws are not balanced, the young person might loose faith in the adult character models, and seek the security of conforming to group peer pressures.
The problem here is often that the adults involved think of themselves as being more complete, more "put together" wise and "in control" than they really are. In fact, no truly wise adult thinks of himself or herself as being fully developed or complete. We must be constantly developing ourselves, growing spiritually, mentally and emotionally, we must be constantly learning, increasing, gaining new experience and greater understanding. Particularly as church school teachers, we must be learning even as we teach. We should be honest and open about this fact also.
A church school teacher can have a profound effect on young people. This effect can be positive if the teacher is loving, caring and open. It can be equally negative if the teacher is narrow, highly opinionated, grouchy and over zealous about discipline.
The most profound area in which a church school teacher has influence on the student is this: the student will tend to identify the Church, God and Orthodoxy with you — as well as with the priest. We cannot over emphasize the influence you, as a church school teacher can have in forming the values and character of your children — even the ones you may think you are missing.
You have either chosen or agreed to become a church school teacher, and therefore, have accepted a great responsibility before God, which you must be ever conscious of. You are helping to mould and shape young minds, emotions, hearts and souls and what you are and how you conduct your life is a very important part of that. You are a "life example" and a "character model" and as such, you will really have to give an account to God on judgment day. We read in the Holy Gospel, "The pupil is not above his teacher, but anyone who is perfectly instructed will be like his teacher" (Luke 6:40).
The pupil will be like his teacher: that is you — your pupils are going to leave your class with something of you in their spiritual makeup and characters. That is both frightening and rewarding. Above all, it is a challenge to you to strive for constant self-improvement, character development and growth.
What guide do we have to help us become the kind of people we should be in order to help form the spiritual/moral lives of Orthodox Christian young people? The guidelines come from our "principle source", from the Holy Bible.
Apostle Paul was the father of many church congregations and, after Christ Himself, the first great church school teacher. He clearly understood the words of Christ, that "everyone who is perfectly instructed will be as his teacher", when he told the Corinthians, "Be imitators of me as I am of Christ (1Cor.11:1).
Did Paul consider himself to be perfect, so that his children should imitate him? Do we have to wait till we are perfect before we can teach and expect our children to imitate our life example? No, of course not, because Apostle Paul says of himself, "Not that I have already achieved all, or am perfect, but I follow diligently so that I may take hold of that for which Jesus Christ took hold of me. Brethren, I do not consider myself to have achieved it, but this one thing I do: forgetting those things which are behind and reaching out for those things which are ahead, I press forward toward the goal, for the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ...Brethren, be imitators of me, and take note of others who teach, so that you have us as an example (Phillipians 3:13-17).
We, imitating the Great Apostle, who was the best imitator of Christ, should bear in mind and always keep this before us: our church school children are going to be imitators of us, therefore who we imitate is of the greatest importance. None of us is so unwise as to consider ourselves perfect, so, like Saint Paul, we must be constantly striving to grow, develop and improve ourselves — right up to the last moment of our lives.
Apostle Paul does not ask us, his children, to learn only from what he said and wrote, but from how he lived his life, for he says, "Do those things which you have learned, received and heard, and seen in me..." (Phillipians 4:9).
And this he says to all of us who are teachers in the Church: "We have not behaved ourselves in an unseemly manner among you...but have made ourselves an example for you to follow" (2 Thessalonians 3:9).
When Saint Paul said that he was striving to attain the life Christ called him to, he tells us that he had not yet grown and acquired all the things he was teaching us about, but that even as he was teaching about them, he was struggling to grow and to develop into them. The same must apply to us. We must always be striving to grow into the things we are teaching our children — we are children even while we are teachers.
Actually the Holy Bible gives us a fairly complete definition of what we should be, what we should strive to become, as church school teachers and moulders of young people's characters and spirits. Let us take a brief survey of what Holy Scripture tells us we ought to work to become like.
When Apostle Paul said, "I have made myself an example for you to follow," he is telling us that being a worthy teacher and character model is not just a single act, but an ongoing process of steady personal development and growth in our life with Christ and His Holy Church.

1 Thessalonians 2:7,8:
"But we were gentle among you, like a nursemaid cherishes her children. We were so affectionate toward you that we were willing to impart not only the Gospel to you, but even our own souls".

2 Thessalonians 3:7:
"As for yourselves, understand how you should follow our example: for we have not behaved ourselves disorderly in your presence".
1 Timothy 1:5:
"The fulfilment of the commandments is love which comes from a pure heart, and a good conscience and unfeigned faith".

2 Timothy 2:15:
"Study in order to become approved unto God, a worker who does not have to be ashamed".

2 Timothy 2:16:
"Avoid profane and vain babblings: for they will grow into more ungodliness".

2 Timothy 2:22:
"Follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace with those who call on the Lord from pure hearts".

2 Timothy 2:23:
"Avoid foolish and ignorant conversations, knowing that they create strife".

2 Timothy 2:24, 25:
"A servant of the Lord must not be involved in strife; but be gentle to all people, willing to teach and; and patient, instructing with meekness...".

Titus 2:2:
"Be sober, serious minded, temperate, firm in faith, love and patience".

Titus 2:6-7:
"Prove yourself to be a model of good works, uncorrupted, serious and sincere in doctrines".

Titus 2:12-13:
"Renouncing worldly passions, we should live soberly, righteously and piously in this present world; looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearance of our Great God and Saviour Jesus Christ".
With faith, prayer, fasting, sincerity of heart and God's help, each of us can fulfil this and become, in the words of Apostle Paul, "Co-workers with God" in the process of salvation for ourselves and our children.
 

A GUIDE FOR
CHURCH SCHOOL TEACHERS
AT EACH LEVEL
by Archbishop Lazar Puhalo

1
THE PRIMARY LEVEL

Educators and psychologists have begun to discover what the Church has known for centuries: it is in their early years that children learn the most. Basic personality traits and habits are set before they go to kindergarten. It is in the preschool years that the foundations are laid for much of a child's future life. One prominent authority on early childhood education has said that the most important teaching is done before a child reaches age three.
What is taught during these formative years is attitudes, both emotional and intellectual. How a child will react and learn in later years is determined in large measure by what he learns as a small child. Basic concepts like love, forgiveness, trust, security, honesty, are all rooted in the experiences and learning of early childhood.
No one is more important to children in these first years of life than their families. The family's attitudes and values will lay the foundations for the young child's future. As Orthodox Christians we have a unique set of values and attitudes to impart to our little ones. The most crucial and important of these is love. It is our responsibility to show that our love as parents is like the love of God. In the eyes of small children, parents are like God. They see their parents as the source of security and protection in a mysterious world. They learn that they have value when they are loved by their parents.
The first quality of our love as parents and families has to be consistency. It has to be dependable. Children need to be able to count on the approval and support of their families. Touching, hugging, constant reassurances — these are the simple little things that tell children that they are loved and secure. These are the parental gifts which far exceed material security in importance to a young child. Compliments, "good works" and physical expressions of love begin to teach a child how it is that God loves him. Parents must be dependable, just as God is.
Second, an Orthodox home needs to exhibit the presence of God. Having ikons, religious articles, books, crosses and saying family prayers at meals and bedtime are all reminders that God is part of our family life. Praying for each family member by name and saying the Church's own prayers of praise (such as the Lord's Prayer, the Trisagion prayers, etc) with our children is one of the best things we can do for them. Even very young children can memorize prayers and learn to make the sign of the cross. Church attendance is another vital sign of our commitment to Christ and His Orthodox Church: it tells the child what we think is really important.
Third, we need to show our little ones that God is a Father. There is no better way of doing this than to have the head of the house exercise his proper priestly authority in leading prayers and attending church with the family. As the one whom God has put in charge of our families, human fathers are living "stand-ins" for God Himself. It is an awesome responsibility to represent God in a child's life. Our parish priests know what this feels like: the fathers of our families need to learn how to fulfil this role, in cooperation with the mothers of our families.
What we are talking about here is good beginnings: "Train a child in the way he should go, and he will not depart from it," the Scripture tells us (Proverbs 22:6). Children who come from strong Orthodox families where they are loved and shown what God really is like, will bring something precious to the church-school and the parish. And what they bring will also be the foundation of tomorrow's church.

2
THE PRESCHOOL YEARS

Parents and teachers of children aged three to five have a unique opportunity. The learning capacity of these preschool age children is remarkable. With their young minds uncluttered by useless — or wrong — ideas, they offer an ideal opportunity to Orthodox Christian parents and teachers. It is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.
As any preschooler's parents already know, children of this age are inquisitive, always asking questions and wanting to know "Why?" As Orthodox Christians, we have a wealth of things to teach them. Since their way of seeing the world is very physical, we can teach them about the Church through the senses: sight, sound, touch and even taste. Our Orthodox Faith is rooted in a worship which appeals to the senses. Candles, incense, bells, vestments and a host of other things waiting to be seen, heard, touched: the taste of the Holy Communion, which is exactly what the Bible means when it says, "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Psalm 34:8), and the taste of the antidoron is a favourite of most children. We actually have many things we can help our preschoolers experience and learn about.
The Montessori Method of teaching young children has a great deal to recommend it to Orthodox parents and teachers (and parents are teachers). Maria Montessori had discovered that young children love to find out about things by touching and handling them, by feeling their textures and shapes. A grain of incense, a piece of "holy bread" (antidoron), a part of the priest's vestments — all have a fascination for preschool children. To be sure, there are some things that only the clergy can touch, but they can show them to the children and miniatures can be made in classes or at home. What is on the Preparation Table (Proskomedia)? What is on the Holy Table? How exciting it is when children realize what these things are for, what they mean, and how they are used in the services. It helps them feel that it is their church.
We sometimes make the mistake of assuming that Orthodox services are intended only for adults. Actually, our services are perfect for children — if they have an idea of what is happening to them. They also need to participate in the services. Simple prayers, the Sign of the Cross, the right times to bow, the proper way to receive Holy Communion — all these have to be taught. Even the poorest church school can have crayons and paper. Copying pictures of the holy things, memorizing prayers, hymns and physical gestures of devotion, and learning their significance is crucial if our children are to learn to love the services of the Orthodox Church.
Children love to do projects in church school; to make things to take home or to display in the church hall or entrance. Pictures of the church building, the cross, the ikonostas, holy objects — all can be drawn and displayed. Prosphora replicas pressed from play-dough with a prosphora seal can be a whole lesson and a fine display. Cut-outs of the articles on the Holy Table can be coloured and pasted on construction paper as children learn about our Orthodox worship.
How wonderful it is when the church school teachers share their plans and projects with the children's parents! A monthly note sent home can build bridges of support, especially with parents of younger children. Suggestions of how parents can help, of activities that they can easily do at home, and just the courtesy of letting them know what is going on in church school, can build better attendance and learning.
We need to ask parents to contribute: time, interest, home activities or perhaps just bits and pieces of things that can be useful in class projects. Good preschool teachers are always looking for articles that they can use in craft projects in church school. Ask the parents to collect or save various items for you; it will get them involved in their children's religious education. Encourage parents to send treats for their child's church school class on her or his nameday. This not only involves the parents in the class, but also helps reinforce the importance of the nameday for the children (avoid birthdays, this detracts from the importance of the nameday or slava, which is the spiritual birthday).
These precious preschool years are too important to waste — and teachers working together with parents can make them count in their children's spiritual development.

3
THE EARLY SCHOOL YEARS

When our children first go to school, both their parents and the Orthodox Church face a serious challenge. Whatever their other failings, our public school systems have spent a great deal of time training teachers and developing curriculum. Compared to the many hours each week that our children spend in their public school classes, the Church has them for barely an hour a week. Our challenge is to teach in such a way that our children will realize that Orthodoxy is important.
In most places, Orthodox people have to face the fact that the public schools are not and cannot be "Christian." The kinds of moral and intellectual attitudes that our children are taught in their schools may be the very opposite of Orthodox values. At best, they will make our children question their parents and church school teachers about the church's teachings. The only way we can respond to this challenge is to see that our parents and teachers understand their Orthodox Faith. Adult classes in Scripture and Orthodox life, church school seminars, making available reading materials on Orthodoxy — these are ways to arm ourselves and help our children grow in their religious faith.
Our message is that the Orthodox Church has something precious to give to the Western world. Our Orthodoxy does not need to be a defensive faith. Instead, it is a glorious and holy gift. The world needs Orthodoxy in these days; the only way it will find it is by meeting devoted and informed Orthodox Christians. The world's need for Orthodoxy is our real challenge. Raising our children in the Orthodox Faith is the best way to respond to it.
In the early school years, our Orthodox Faith needs to be presented as a joyous faith. This includes our teaching about fasting. The holy scripture says, "Let the four fast periods of the year be joy and gladness and cheerful:therefore, love peace and truth" (Zach.8:19). Although it is absolutely necessary for our spiritual lives, fasting should not be presented solely as something we have to do, but as something we get to do. Church school and learning about the Church should be fun. We need to plan our lessons around creative activities that are entertaining and teach through games and happy events. We need to give recognition to our children for their willingness to learn and their accomplishments in the church school. We should celebrate being Orthodox Christians. How lucky we are! God has called us into this beautiful and rich faith so that He could give us His love in a special way. Our children can celebrate by learning our hymns, making art projects and craft items, having parties on feast days, and by being recognized in the parish as important people in the life of the Church. Without our children, the parish has no future. Our adult members should encourage our children — especially at the young and eager ages — and let them know that they are important.
Our Lord Jesus Christ promised that He would be with His Church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. We know from Church history that Jesus did not make this promise to any local congregation; too many have ceased to exist! Each adult Orthodox Christian needs to realize how important our parish children are to the continued existence and growth of what they have given so much to build. We need to see that our teachers and church schools have the books and other things they need to do their jobs. This is our responsibility to the future of Orthodoxy.
These first school years of our children give us the chance to make a positive impression on them. They see, hear and remember far more than we can imagine. By making the church school an important and recognized part of our parish life, we are saying to our children that they are important to the Church. And, we need to mean it. The church school has to be a primary activity of the parish or in time the parish will wither away and disappear. Jesus wants us all to come to Him as children in our faith, but one can safely say that He has a special place in His heart for the little ones.

4
THE YEARS OF RAPID GROWTH

The public school system is a formidable competitor for the Church. It offers a wide variety of activities, its teachers are trained and educated in their specialties, and children spend many hours in its programs. Indeed, teachers may see more of some children than their parents do! It is during these years of public education that our Orthodox children are secularized and drawn away from the Faith. Too many parents simply turn over all educational responsibility for their offspring to the schools and later are horrified at the result. In many parts of Canada there is a renewed controversy over sex education in the schools, generated by the AIDS epidemic crisis. What the controversy brings home to the Church is that the school has taken over even the most basic physical and moral education of our children. Neither parents nor the Church are doing their jobs as educators of our young. The schools are operating in a void of ignorance and misinformation caused by parental neglect. And when the schools teach sexuality and morality, Christianity can not be a consideration for them; they can give consideration only to broad concepts of public hygiene and epidemic control..
Church School efforts are often perceived by children as boring and amateurish. They sometimes think of the church school as something parents send children to because they don't want to take the responsibility of learning and teaching themselves. There is no better teacher than a parent. Parents are teachers whether they want to be or not: their children see their behaviour and values and imitate or reject them. Unless parents are part of the Church's teaching plan, the plan will fail. The Church and parents need to become allies to save their children. Church school planning needs to include parents and families in its activities. A Church community that supports its religious education of the young is one that will grow. If Church committees are looking for no-cost, little-effort ways to teach children, they will probably fail.
To rate our parish and its church school activities, we might ask ourselves some basic questions to see how serious we are about getting the job of teaching our children done effectively:

1. What does the parish spend on the education of its children?
2. What recognition are children given in church?
3. What does the parish know about its church school? Does it help with the church school? What do you know about your church school's program?
4. Does the parish have a playground? Playground equipment?
5. What does the church school do for fun? Does it take field trips or go camping? Are parents involved?
6. Does the church school keep the parents advised about what it is teaching? Are parents encouraged to talk with their children about their physical and spiritual development?
7. If you were a child, would you want to be in your parish church school?

We are not professional educators in most church schools, but we are Orthodox Christian believers who want to serve God through His children. What we lack, God can teach us. We live in an era when religious, Orthodox religious literature, is abundant (although some of it is highly questionable). Every month brings new books. Does your parish have a library for its members? Or does it have a small selection of books and literature for sale? It should.
In our competition for the hearts and minds of its school age children, the Church has some very real advantages, for all that we have said about its failures. As the Body of Christ, we can offer:

1. Participation in a spiritual world: children of primary school age are naturally drawn to that which is holy and mystical. This is the age to form the spiritual habits of frequent Confession and Holy Communion so that they become a part of their life.
2. Christian love and understanding: adults should avoid playing the part of judges with children. We can persuade by loving example and a forgiving spirit. Playing the role of policeman in our children's moral and spiritual development is not the way to help them understand that God loves them and so do we.
3. A sense of belonging: we need to impart the realization that we are all the Children of God. Some of us are just older and more experienced. In God's family, the Church, we are all learners and valuable members. We are always at home in our Father's house.

Above all else, the Church needs to impart to its children two vital pieces of knowledge:

1. That they are important, that God loves them and created them, and that they have real worth.
2. That nowhere are they so important or loved as in the Church. Our adult attitudes toward the Church and our love for the things of God can be communicated only if they are real. Our parish must be a loving, interactive community if it is to be successful with its children.
Children of primary school age have to be included in parish activities and their programs given time and financial support by the church community. What we do speaks much louder than what we say. No amount of talk will persuade the young that we care about them: they deal in the concrete and the tangible. Our rhetoric is judged by our actions.
Responsibility is also something our children need to learn in the home and the church school. And responsibility comes only when you are given something to be responsible for. Whatever duties or tasks we give children need to be important ones — for the whole Church or for themselves. Whether it be serving, singing, helping out with adult projects, learning the Faith, or practising the life of prayer, there should be emphasis on responsibility and accountability — to the Church, to ourselves, to our families, to God. The message given should be that we need their love and support just as they need ours. Only then will the children be able to glimpse the reality of their importance in the Church and before God.
The battle for the souls of children is fought before they go to the upper grades. If we lose them in the early years of primary school, there will be no use fighting to win them back in their teenage years. It is in these primary years that we must realize that mere "cultural Orthodoxy" is practically meaninless in our society; nor is "head knowledge" of the faith sufficient. We need at this time to begin to form in our children Orthodoxy of the heart. During these formative years we can build for children a special "homeland in the heart," so that if they drift away during their teenage years, they will be able to return to that "Orthodox homeland in the heart" when the need or desire calls them to it.

5
THE MIDDLE SCHOOL YEARS:
A Time of Transition

As our children move from the primary to secondary school years, they pass through a crucial period variously called junior secondary or middle school years. Usually eleven to fourteen years old during this time of transition, the Church's children are most often lost at these ages. The devout and enthusiastic church school boys and girls of earlier years begin to lose interest and, perhaps just after this middle school period, drift or drop out of Church life. If there are church school classes for these ages, they usually shrink in attendance and mark the end of our formal catechetical effort for our children.
One of the reasons for this religious drop-out phenomena is the rapid increase in the competition for children's interest and time during this period of development. At school there are sports and extra-curricular activities: in the community there are many clubs and special interest groups seeking to recruit young members. Church life is eclipsed by a myriad of attractive opportunities to have new experiences and do new things.
Another reason for children being lost to the Church at this time of development is the rapid physical and mental changes that usually take place at the middle school years. Physical and emotional changes occur rapidly. Often the Church is seen by the youth of these beginning teenage years as unsympathetic and unresponsive to their needs. They either feel that the Church is for "little kids" or an adult order that they want to avoid. In either case, it is not for them.
At worst, the Church loses children almost entirely by the time they reach their secondary school years. At best, there is usually an estrangement of sorts that retards spiritual participation and growth during these middle school years. Youth attend services unwillingly or not at all. They may drift off, never to return, or come back during college years or young adulthood
This picture is not very comforting, but in order to respond to a problem one must first face it. We need to assess what we can do to keep our Orthodox Faith a living experience for children in this difficult time of transition from childhood to maturity. What can be built on? What is that special void that the Church can fill? How can we help families to remain one in their faith and Orthodox life?
The middle school years are a time for honesty and openness. Parents and clergy cannot hide from the physical changes and sexual development of the Church's children. If our children don't get answers to their questions in the Church, they will get them somewhere else. The Church needs to equip its parents — by reading materials, classes led by informed Orthodox medical and psychological resource people, and by communicating with its young people. We need to spend less time on rarefied ecclesiastical subjects and more on the real needs and questions of our developing young adolescents. We can draw on the successful efforts of some of the other educational institutions as we begin to move in this direction.
The Church needs to support the role of parents in the family. Parents are, and will always be, the best teachers of their own children, but they need the training and tools to do the job. The crisis of our adolescents in their Church life may be a sign pointing to a revival of catechises in our parishes. Not just children need Christian education: parents and other adults need it, too. The sad and abysmal ignorance of our adult Orthodox laypeople is already legend in many places. Perhaps we are coming to a time when each parish needs a catechist — a man or woman who gives full or part-time effort to the teaching and counselling of the whole Orthodox family — parents as well as children. The priest might be this person: he might also not be. The task needs the dedication of time and the gift of a special talent. New Orthodox communities should seriously consider the importance of teaching at a simpler and perhaps more immediately achievable level, the middle school years are often a time when youth need to be encouraged and made to feel they are making a worthwhile contribution. They should be given new responsibilities — in teaching younger children, in assisting in Services, in being a needed segment of parish life. Priests, parish councils, church school leaders — all need to focus on making opportunities for Church young people to begin to enter into "adult" tasks in our parish life. We need to share our whole range of Church life with our young people.
As we devise and delegate responsibilities to our young adolescents, we need to stress how they are examples and role models for the younger children — how they are looked up to and imitated by the little ones. In a very real sense, they do matter. How they act and how they lead can have a profound effect on their younger brothers and sisters — in the family and in the parish.
None of these things can happen overnight or in an instant, but they are priorities and directions we need to identify and pursue. If we don't, we will have to pay a fearful price — the loss of our children at a time when they need the love of Jesus Christ and His Church, to grow and develop into mature and healthy Orthodox Christians.

6
THE TEENAGE YEARS

This last period of youthful transition is perhaps the most critical, for it is at this age that our Church has been losing its children at a frightening rate. Peer pressures, the "foreignness" of many of our parishes, a lack of a sense of the importance of belonging — all have contributed to this exodus from the Orthodox Church. There are some common causes of all teenage disillusionment with religion. The pervasive Western secularism and materialism, rejection of the "adult" world and of customs, and an almost generic rebelliousness have all contributed to the secondary school and college age children' antipathy for their spiritual heritages.
It must be said that a great deal of the problem of the teenage years takes root in those earlier years of "boring religious education" and the neglect of parents in building useful, meaningful spiritual foundations. The lack of commitment in our parishes to teaching the faith (and paying the cost in time and money) has born bitter fruit. If our children see that they are not important in their parish life, they can hardly be expected to see why they should continue in the Church. A stubborn, often selfish, pre-occupation with foreigh liturgical languages is a flashing neon sign that says "The younger generation is not important to us." A great deal of the problems we have with our adolescent youngsters can be traced back to a lack of basic Orthodox education when they were young. The absence of family prayer, a lack of grounding in the teachings of the Church, and an attitude of "optionalism" toward the things of God are roots of the "youth problem." Families and parishes abandoned our youth long before the youth abandoned them.
Orthodox parents and educators might profit by looking at two crucial areas addressed by other successful programmes for teenagers:

1. Peer Relationships: Sometimes scorned as "too social", many religious bodies have found youth groups to be a useful vehicle for keeping young people identified with their religious heritage. Such groups are usually most successful when they have advisors who relate well to the adolescent age group and when the group is active in the church program. Often middle (junior secondary) school youth groups are even more successful, bridging the gap in public school and community activities for that age group. In any case, young people have found a church identity and fellowship through both junior and senior secondary school groups. There is no reason why such groups couldn't be spiritually active — in retreats, workshops, and discussion groups. Again, adult guidance and counselling is essential to the spiritual content of such groups.

2. Adult roles in the Church: Those parishes that have made a real effort to involve their young people in parish activities and responsible roles in parish life have experienced a new resurgence in teenage interest and participation. Certainly our Orthodox Church has a wealth of opportunities for its young people to serve the Church. Not just as altar servers, choir members, or helpers — but also as Council members, teachers, and youth leaders of the younger children in the parish. Recognizing that there are some limitations and the need for adult support and counsel, there are still many ways that Orthodox youth can enter into important service to the Church.
There is no point in dwelling on our failures: what we must do is take a new look at the activities and the leadership that young people can bring to our parishes. Their enthusiasm and attitudes can be a breath of fresh air in our church life. Orthodoxy is a living experience and Her people are in transition: our secondary school-age young people will be its leaders in the future. Less ethnic, more a part of their countries and communities, more open to change and progress, they must feel that they are a real part of the Church and its work. Instead of losing a generation, the Church might win one!
What the Church — and you and I — must do is begin to see our young people as a valuable resource and as the leaders of tomorrow. Just as all parents want their children to be better than they are, so Orthodox adults should see this as the calling of our young people. We need to share responsibilities and spiritual life with them and treat them as co-workers in the Church. If we do this sincerely, we will see a generation for the future, not another lost generation. It is too late for the old "adult superiority" games: it is time to share our burdens with our young people and work together with them for the future of the Orthodox Church. The best may be yet to come!

SPIRITUALITY: AN ERRONEOUS PERCEPTION 

(Igumen Petr Meshcherinov) 

In December, 1998, the Patriarch of Moscow and the Holy Synod accepted a very important resolution concerning spiritual relationships, errors existing in this sphere of church life, and the necessity of overcoming them. This resolution is important not only in and of itself, but also because it testifies that our church is a living organism and, as it always has throughout its history, reacts in a reasoned and sensible manner to each distortion in the life of the Church.

Six years have now gone by and it is time to assess whether positive changes have taken place [as a result of the resolution]. Regrettably, the answer is “no.” The Synodal resolution, despite the fact that it clearly expresses will of the Patriarch and the Hierarchy, has not been implemented.  It should have been widely published in every diocese and its contents explained to the faithful from every ambon. It should have been made known to every faithful Orthodox Christian. This has not happened. To the contrary, the grinding wheel of "pseudo mystical guruism" gathers ever more force. People are lured into thinking that only what is spoken by or done by “elders” is actually Orthodox. Thus the spiritual life is reduced to the searching for these "elders" and to giving attention only to that which proceeds from their mouths. Often, however, what comes from them has no relationship at all to Christianity.

What is the matter here? Why has the most sound and timely resolution of the church authority not been received and implemented? Why have so few shared the concern of the hierarchy? Let us investigate all this in the light of the aforementioned document.

What is the norm of pastorship in the Church? Let us turn to Holy Scripture. The Lord gave His Apostles and their successors, the bishops, the authority to build and preserve the Church. This authority is not secular, not implemented with compulsive power. It is a grace-filled gift of service, to celebrate the Holy Mysteries, to maintain the faith and to indicate the true path of piety. This grace-filled gift is preserved in the Church and is transmitted in the Mystery of the Consecration of Bishops. Salvation is impossible without the Church, consequently, as Saint Theophan the Recluse says, it is necessary to be in union with it, and this means that it is necessary to have communion with its ministers, bishos of the Church. 

“He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me” (Luke 10:16) says the Lord. “He who receives any one whom I send receives me” (John 13:20). “As Thou (the Father)  sent me into the world, so I have sent them (the Apostles) into the world” (John 17:18). “Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as men who well have to give account. Let them do this joyfully, and not sadly, for that would be of no advantage to you” (Hebrews 13:17), the Apostle writes. And so, through obedience to the pastors, we are in communion with the God-established order of Church life. 

This does not in any way mean, however, that the Church is divided into supervisors and subordinates (in the worldly sense). Before God we are all equal and we differ only in the degree of Church ministry, as Saint Silouan of Athos says, “There is not a church divided into teachers and pupils,” that is, a caste of teachers and a mass of silent listeners. All of us are the one Body of Christ, each one of us has a place in the Church, and all of us are co-workers with each other, together helping one another. When we thus come to Christ, in Him we discover salvation and the Heavenly Kingdom. Well does Apostle Peter speak of this, “So I exhort the presbyters  among you, as a fellow presbyter and a witness of the sufferings of Christ as well as a partaker in the glory that is to be revealed: Tend to the flock of God that is your charge, not by constraint but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly, not as domineering over those in your charge but being examples to the flock. And where the chief shepherd is manifested, you will obtain the unfading crown of glory. Likewise you that are younger be subject to those who are older.  Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble....Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another. As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God's varied degree grace....that in everything God may be glorified through Christ Jesus. To Him belong glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.” (1Peter 5:1-5; 4:8-11).

This is the norm for the relationship of pastors and flocks. Everything has been said. I consider that every father-confessor must copy out these words in large print and read them daily. There is yet another place in the New Testament that all should harken to: "But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brethren. And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. Neither be called masters, for you have one master, the Christ. He who is greatest among you shall be your servant; whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted," says the Lord (Matthew 23:8-12). These words of the Lord in no way contradict the church pastorship established by Him, but rather indicate that spirit in which it must be realized. Here are its characteristic indications, as the Holy Scripture speaks about it:

(1). A pastor is not a supervisor to a person, not a ruler, but a servant.
(2). Relationships of the pastor and flock are built exclusively on the basis of love and mutual respect.

(3). Finally, and this is the main point, the pastor cannot manifest pastorship from himself.

It is not his, it is Christ's (in this, we find the meaning of the Saviour's words cited above). Consequently, the pastor is obliged – and here we find the virtue of the pastor revealed – to help every soul, to teach about Christ and His Church, to help a Christian to come to the full measure of growth in Christ. These necessary virtues or skills recognise  that individuals are different, and that the Lord opens a way for each soul. The relationship of man and God is a great mystery, and a pastor, with God's help, must fit a key to the heart of each person in order that he may minister precisely to the persons  concrete external and internal situation –  giving what the Lord Himself wishes to give to that soul. One must not attempt to place any person into a common mold, and thrust upon him what is, perhaps, theoretically good and correct, but in the given situation moment, not appropriate.

Such is the pastoral norm. The distortions of it are instantly visible in the light. Let us note the most characteristic of these distortions. On the part of the pastor, there can be two main distortions:

(1). Incomprehension, insensitivity, ignorance and the circumstance indicated above – the pastor is not someone who is self-sufficient and self-dependent. He is a servant of Christ, a flexible and tactful instrument to His grace. Consequently, he must only and solely guide people  to the teaching of Christ and the Church. Unfortunately, pastors frequently teach people not Christianity, but what they understand as Christianity, that is, they substitute the servant [themselves] in place of God and the Church.

(2). The second error is the notion that the grace of the priesthood acts automatically, merely on the strength of the ordination. Yesterday he was a plain person, but today after ordination, the attitude that everything coming from the lips of the newly-beginning pastor is from the Holy Spirit. This is a most widely spread delusion (and not simply a delusion, but a distorted  behaviour emanating from it).

We must elucidate this. In the Church there is nothing automatic. Any mystery surmises a co-working of God and man, and is manifested according to its moral strengths. The Mystery of the Priesthood is no exception. We had stated that the task of the pastor is to teach people the teachings of the Church, and never his own notions about it, and a bringing together of the people with Christ. This is possible only in one case, when the pastor compels himself to mastering the Church teaching, not only in knowledge, but also in life when he himself has an experienced notion of the spiritual, Christian, Church life. Then the grace of the priesthood is revealed in him and brings forth an abundant result. Without moral toil grace, by itself, will do nothing. It will not "automatically" make an ignoramus into a wise man, a vainglorious man into a humble one, one who is greedy into a generous man. Yes, the Mystery will happen according to the strength of the empowerment of the Church, but in order to morally lead people, one must work very hard on the moral organization of one's life, in order to teach the Church's teaching one must master it as is proper. Unfortunately, the objective conditions of our times were the reason for the ordination of many people not fully ready for this, perhaps, not mature enough to understand what the service is that has been entrusted to them, and what it demands of them.

On the part of the flock, the following are the errors:

(1). In response to the notion of an "automatically acting" grace of the priesthood, there is born the notion of an "automatic" and "blind" obedience. It is reasoned in this manner: it is of no importance that the priest says one thing but lives in another way. What is important is that my faith in the strength of the grace of the priest's priesthood ushers God's will to me. This is a widely spread ideology and it is entirely not of the Gospel. The Lord did not say -- if of the two blind men the second one believes that the first one is not blind, then the first one will fall into the pit but the second one, through his faith, will not fall. No, the Lord said that both will fall into the pit. This in no manner means that one must judge the priests or go into an examination of their lives, and one has only to soberly respond to life and to remember that there is nothing "blind" in the Church. In particular, obedience naturally is born from normal relationships between pastor and flock, when they -- the relationships of mutual love and respect, when the pastor does not teach about himself and his opinion about the Church, the spiritual life, etc, but strives to bring people to Christ. Then, obedience brings its grace-filled fruit, then it is natural, and there can be no other talk about it. When the relationship of the older and the younger in the Church is not of the Gospel, then obedience becomes an object of speculation, it loses its spiritual meaning, and instead of a means to salvation, it becomes a slavish submission which only drives a person from the Lord.

2). But what is most important is what begets the abnormalcy of spiritual relationships -- the fear of freedom and responsibility. Where there is the Lord's Spirit, there freedom is, says Apostle Paul. Christianity granted people a great gift -- freedom. But, since freedom is impossible without a personal responsibility for one's own life, then it becomes heavy for many people. It is easier to shed it from oneself so that someone else could decide about it, it is easier to hide behind traditions, corporatism, rules, plans, etc, than to responsibly and consciously build one's own Christian life. Thus all the life of the flock is foisted upon the confessors. People, in place of freedom, want to receive a "guarantee of salvation." But a refusal of freedom is a refusal of Christianity, since it can be accomplished only personally, "under one's own responsibility." The demand begets a notion -- and here the immediate confessors cease to be co-sojourners, co-workers, advisors of Christians, but become their undivided rulers. Thereby, spiritual relationships go beyond the borders of Church order. Being even important, but still a part of the spiritual side of life, they illegally spread entirely upon it. Then, not only the entire Christian order becomes skewed, but life in general. This can be observed, for example, in "Orthodox" families when, frequently enough, the husband does not become the head of his wife, but the confessor, or when, let us say, in order to fulfil service obligations, it is necessary "to receive the confessor's blessing." And now, the husband or the supervisor at work depend upon completely extraneous and outrageous factors, while being puzzled: what sort of "orthodoxy" is this? Conflicts arise on this soil and families even fall apart, and the spiritual relationships become manipulations.

How is one not to allow any of this? How are these relationships nevertheless to be normally built? What is the place of a confessor in a Christian's life?

      First of all, something general must be said. The task of a confessor is not to work a person over, not to make of him his own copy, a "clone," but with greater love and respect to the individuality to give Christ a place in his life so that a person, having defeated, by the Holy Spirit, the sin living in him, becomes himself, such as Christ wants to see him -- unique, free, responsible, conscientious, a developed individual. The confessor must teach him to discern where the grace of the Holy Spirit is, where the natural course of things is, where passion and sin are, so that all this might not become jumbled in a person's head, mangling his life. This is an entire educative process.

In particular, a confessor is needed most of all at the beginning when a person just enters the Church and perceives the rudiments of spiritual life. Here, the confessor is a thoughtful guardian and teacher. The aim of this teaching is singular, to give the beginning Christian the correct direction of growth so that he becomes precisely churchly, not deviating to "near" and "pseudo" church substitutions, not to false ascetic rigorism, not to relativism, etc. Then, after the beginning, the relationship changes somewhat: they become as if more "equal", not in the sense of familiarity or revocation of the priestly rank, but internally. The person will be mature, he will have more freedom, more trust, and less tutelage, a smaller quantity of rules, advice, exhortations, etc.

     Perhaps here is revealed our main trouble. I observe spiritual relationships of people in our Church and am amazed at how immature they are! No one wishes to mature. Neither the flock which seems to be satisfactorily "stuck" in Church infancy, looking at the world through the eyes of its confessor, at that time when the Lord wants us to become precisely ourselves, to grow in the measure of Christ. Neither the confessors for whom it is uncomfortable to see next to them people who have matured. They somehow do not know how to treat them. It seems that many pastors have to see their flock exclusively in the form of unreasonable children with whom one can speak "condescendingly," in a language of commands, admonitions, lectures. In all of this I see some sort of mutual disrespect and a forgetting of what is the main thing -- that the Church is not a kindergarten where there are authoritarian educators and deliberately foolish children, but is the Body of Christ, that is, the spiritual organic union in Christ of mature people who have come in their own measure, each one having his own church serving from God. It seems to me that it is indispensable to begin to realize this.

      Also, let us touch upon another question about "elders." Young eldership remains one of the most painful problems of today's Church life. There is an ideological basis for this. Many with full seriousness affirm that "Orthodox is true only because it has elders." To find an "elder" is the main "spiritual" task of many Orthodox. For them the opinion of the "elders" is the highest authority, much greater than the authority of Holy Scripture, not even speaking of "some sort of opinions" of the hierarchy. One might as well sound a serious alarm concerning this epidemic of "gerontology." What is the reason for this phenomenon? 

We saw that in the Church there is a God-established hierarchy, in whom the grace of the Holy Spirit is entrusted to illumine people with the Mysteries, to teach them the truths of the faith and morality. This teaching comes from the person and by the authorization of the Church; it does not bind or crush freedom, and is accomplished in a spirit of love. Pastorship is advice, example, a mutual movement of the elderly and the youth in the Church toward Christ. And, it would seem, that this is very much, but people find this little. Simply pastors of the Church and pastoral guidance is not enough for them. They want something greater and higher -- elders. Some Orthodox feel some sort of actual loss and incompleteness in their spiritual life without elders. Some strive to "verify" in the elder the advice of their confessor. All this is nourished by a sizeable number of corresponding "near Orthodox" literature.

Who are these elders in actual fact? An elder simply speaking is a person who has attained holiness and is worthy from God the gifts of discernment and perspicaciousness. There always were few real elders (and now, judging by everything, there are none), but many books about them have remained. In reading these books and seeing the salutariness and abundant results of eldership, people naturally strive to acquire something similar in their lives. Searchings begin, according to external signs: a large white beard, or an emphasized ascetic (seen by everyone) model of life, or a great crowd of women or apocalyptic predictions with a certain opposition to the Hierarchy, etc. A demand begets a notion and "elders" of such a type are found without difficulty.

      Why are they necessary? Firstly, as I have already said, to remove from oneself responsibility for oneself, to find an elder, to believe wholeheartedly in him and to think about or care about nothing. Entry into paradise is guaranteed. Secondly, simply put, to know the future. As a rule no one goes to an elder with the question of how to be saved, because this is completely clear in the Gospel, and any parish priest can in one way or another answer this question satisfactorily. An elder is not asked: to get married or to go to a monastery? To change one's living quarters or to sell them? To undergo an operation? To start a business or, to the contrary, to get rid of it quickly, etc, etc.? Of course they ask the elders if the end of the world is soon and what are the signs of antichrist. And here, by the way, there is a complete manifestation of the most real ecumenism. In other religions, for the deciding of these very questions, there exist gurus, sheikhs, shamans, lamas, tsadikim, druids, etc. An unbelieving person will go to a fortuneteller and telepathist. Of course, I am far from depriving these vital questions their significance, but when they appear as the main thing in life, then the Church becomes magic for people, and the vector of spiritual life is directed so that "at the expense of God" it would be good "here and now."

      Moreover it is necessary to note one essential difference of an elder from a simple priest of the Church. If the latter ideally does nothing other than only bringing the Church's teaching to a person in his concrete situation, the elder acts on the basis of some sort of personal charisma, and caution is necessary here. Saint Seraphim of Sarov said that when he spoke from himself and not from the Holy Spirit, there were errors. Saint Silouan of Athos, in citing this phrase of Saint Seraphim, wrote that the errors can be small, but there can also be large ones. Thus the Church commands, in general, to have great sobriety in any contact with something personal. But in our times there is no sobriety. As if that were not enough, there is completely evident a reverse process of mythologising everything that is connected with "elders." As an example, in the biography of one of them we read that he wallowed in vice, drank vodka, behaved like a hooligan, etc. Instead of explaining this as being the upbringing and, let us say, a "simpleton's" organization of this person, all those qualities "are elevated" and almost ascribed to the Holy Spirit.

It would seem as if -- let's think, there is nothing special. Such a "childlike" perception (but, I will note, in no way in a Gospel sense) of the spiritual life. But in Actual fact there are far more serious things behind this than simply childishness, immaturity. At the basis of "gerontophilia" lies an incorrect notion of God, of God's will and the relationship of man and God. I point this out to your attention because it is extremely important.

      Gerontophiles consider that God's will in relationship to the concrete person is, on the one hand, something predestined, earlier "programmed," and, on the other hand, something completely mysterious and that is necessary "to foresee." And so, in order to guess this "computerized" will, to get it right, an elder is needed, who is an elder precisely he possesses a certain secret knowledge of this most mysterious "will." We have guessed it and everything is going "swimmingly;" the children are not ill, and business is prospering. And if it has not been guessed, there everything is bad. And, worse still, to doubt the "mysterious knowledge" of the elder is total ruin. This is a completely non-Christian, magical, pagan attitude. It reduces our religion from the "good tidings" about God about the loving Father, about Christ the Saviour into "ill tidings", that Christianity is a minefield which cannot be crossed without a field engineer. The elder is the field engineer. The Orthodox Church does not teach this. God's will is not something programmed, automatic, what has to be "calculated." It is also not some kind of esoteric mystery. "I have spoken openly to the world...I have said nothing secretly" (John 18:20) said the Lord. On the contrary, God revealed to us His own will in Christ, in Holy Scripture, in the Church. The earthly life of a person is defined by a personal relationship of the heart, the soul toward God. God's will is recognized from the sum of the circumstances, from the commands of the conscience, from the disposition of the heart, from choices with sin. Undoubtedly, pastoral advice is appropriate here -- but advice precisely, in the spirit of the Gospel, the Church, but not at all some sort of false-mystical guru-like "guessing." If we do not take this into account, then our inner life ceases to be strictly spiritual, Christian but acquires a certain even occult colouration.

And so, let us sum it up. Spiritual relationships must be an expression of the following church principles: we are the Church, the Body of Christ; together we mature in God. The older in the Church help the younger both by the giving of God's grace, and the examples of life and lesson. But spiritual relationships, if they are correct, never hide the One for Whose sake they exist. Like everything in the Church, they are one of the means of Christian life, and they cannot substitute by themselves its aim which is Christ.

In conclusion, I return the reader's attention to the Synodal resolution about pastorship and confessorship with the wish that it be read and accepted in the way the Church wishes it.

How do the 10 Commandments help us in daily life

QUESTION: How do the Then Commandments help us to deal with life's unexpected encounters:

REPLY:

It is true that life is unpredictable, and that in the 21^st century, we are bound to encounter the unexpected more often than would be the case in earlier centuries. New knowledge, new ideas and new technologies are the order of the day. Nevertheless, a proper understanding of the Ten Commandments does help prepare us for all this, because its precepts are constant.

The first thing to remember is that love is greater than law. Apostle Paul reminds us that no one can become righteous by means of law but by the quality of our lives aided by God’s grace.

How then do we actually understand the Ten Commandments? We should see them as a law of love. One could fulfil most of the Commandments because of a fear of punishment, but that is really self-serving and self-centred. One could fulfil the Commandments as an obligation, and that is good for society, but has no real spiritual value, and does not actually prepare us for the unexpected.

Let us look at the most difficult of these Commandments, the one that is hardest to fulfil: the Tenth. This is the longest and most revealing of the Commandments. Do not covet (i.e., be jealous and envious of) anything that your neighbour has. This Commandment can only be truly fulfilled by those who follow Christ’s commandment, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” If we truly fulfilled this, instead of feeling envy, we would rejoice that our neighbour has these things. But then, we would not even think of stealing, committing murder, or any of those other things which would cause pain or suffering to anyone else. And if we were to fulfil the other part of Christ’s commandment to “Love the Lord our God with our whole being,” we also would not violate those commandments which tell us not to betray God. Then, the Ten Commandments would become a recipe for growing in love, compassion and care for not only our neighbours, but for the world which God has created and gifted to us. Taking care of the environment would then also be an act of love for neighbours and for God, and for future generations not yet born.

The main direction of the Ten Commandments is to guide us away from egoism, self-love and self-indulgence. It is to help us resist the counterfeits that Satan and the advertising industry try to offer us in place of an authentic life and the real gifts that God has given us. Among those gifts are our neighbours.

In every encounter we have, if we are guided by the Ten Commandments, we are called upon to resolve our reaction by the measure of the Ten Commandments. Will my reaction cause pain and suffering to others? Will my reaction in someway betray love for God? If my reaction will hurt others, then it IS a betrayal of God. What is true justice? It is certainly not expressed in “punishment.” It is expressed in accepting the reality that other people are different from us, but that they still deserve to be recognized as equal human beings who suffer the same as we and who rejoice the same as we. We can love our neighbour as ourselves only when we come fully to grips with the reality that what makes us hurt also makes them hurt, that what causes us suffering also causes them suffering, that what gives us peace and joy also gives them peace and joy; when we learn that our reaction to every new challenge of humanity carries with it consequences not only for us, but for others as well. We learn that violence breeds violence, that our greed and self-centred consuming may deprive future generations of the basic necessities of life, that everyone has a right to life, peace and the enjoyment of life, no matter that they are different from us and that we do not understand them. By this measure, we should assess all new technologies, and every unexpected event or thing that we encounter in life.

These measures drawn from the proper understanding of the Ten Commandments do give us a guide and preparation to encounter and face the unfamiliar, the unexpected and the inexplicable. As a rule of thumb, we can say that if our action is selfish and egoistic it is sin, but if it is unselfish and caring, it likely is not.

In Christ, Vladiko Lazar.

Archbishop Lazar Puhalo A WORD ABOUT SUPPLEMENTARY EDUCATION

There is a certain moral content to beauty. We do not mean the kind of moralism which is purely religious. The appreciation of and love for beauty is a quality which enhances our humanity and softens our perspectives. Perhaps this is what Dostoevsky had in mind when he said that "beauty will save the world." When we speak about supplementary education we are generally referring to art, art appreciation, music, dance and culture. All of these things have to do with the true meaning of virtue. Virtue (arete in Greek) does not refer to an ascetic mode of life but rather to an aesthetic perspective on life. If a sculptor creates a beautiful sculpture in order to make money from it, then it is business. However, if he is seeking to use his skills to create a thing of beauty then it is virtue. Just as the sharpness of a knife is its virtue so the development and use of our natural gifts and abilities in a creative way is the true meaning of virtue. In all the forms of supplementary education which we mentioned above, the eyes, ears and mind are being trained to see what is not always obvious and to hear subtleties, and to allow them to enhance the mind. Education in these higher forms of culture has an impact on our entire lives, and also can impact on our relationships with other human beings. From a spiritual point of view, the asceticism (training) of the eye begins with the surface appearance of things but takes us deeper into their inner beauty and meaning. This can be seen in the appreciation of canonical iconography, for example, and understanding its deeper meaning and revelation as opposed to the westernized paintings that are often called icons. Training ourselves to see and hear beauty expands our lives and if it is approached properly can also help us to see the inner beauty in other human beings. This is, perhaps, one of the greatest deficits in modern societies. We become so utilitarian and so used to technology that the enrichment that comes from having a deep sense of the beautiful is often lost to us. When we cannot see the beauty in other human beings it becomes more difficult for us to have compassion. Utilitarian education does not always prepare us to grasp the greatness of the ecological catastrophe that is transforming our earth. I would like to submit that a major part of the problem is precisely that we have become utilitarian and technologically minded and we do not really comprehend the beauty in the very life support system that we call "our environment." It is largely through supplementary education that we gain a richer and deeper appreciation for the ecosystem that makes our lives possible. So long as the earth is seen primarily as a source of wealth, material possessions and resources to be exploited for our enjoyment, we cannot respond in a rational manner to its destruction. In addition to enhancing our culture and our humanity, supplementary education in those things which we refer to as the arts can also deepen our appreciation of other human beings and the rest of the creation with which we must share this earth. The person who has accomplished this may come to realise the oneness of mankind, and his unity with the rest of creation. When one has sincerely encountered the energy and the beauty that encompass us he may have an increased capacity to love both creation and mankind and, to minister to them in a compassionate love. He may be able to help heal the wounds of perception, the broken images of life which skew our regard for our world and for humanity itself. If supplementary education in the understanding and appreciation of the beauty of the higher forms is to have its most complete impact upon us, it should not neglect the perception of spiritual beauty. We are not speaking here only about religion, but the sharpening of our virtues and the enhancement of our capacity to love, to cherish, and to nourish the beauty of the created world and of mankind. When we learn through the study of art to see beauty beyond the surface, then we can perhaps also see beyond the surface of our human tragedies, of the reborn nihilism which spawns today’s terrorism and war. We must learn to see beyond these phenomena into the true beauty that lies at the heart of mankind. The capacity to do this is greatly enhanced by a supplementary education in the higher art forms. One is reminded of the words of Paul of Tarsus, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. " In the early 1960s, when I was a student at the University, we had much unrest amongst the students. Part of what concerned us was the direction of the education we were receiving. The teaching of Humanities had a low priority, and we were being taught what we described as a "materialist curriculum." It had occurred to us that the building of a culture and a solid society depended on more than professional training and equipping ourselves for higher income levels. When people speak about "a standard of living" far too often they are speaking about the kind of house and automobile one can afford to purchase. The concept of a "standard of living" is so often limited to the measure of material possessions and does not include the important matter of "the quality of life." The quality of life cannot be measured only in material possessions. It is true that when people do not have sufficient food, adequate shelter and clothing, this impacts on the quality of their lives. However, the quality of life is also dependent upon things that are more abstract. When we speak about supplementary education, we have in mind art, music, poetry, classical dance and other forms of culture which are classified as "the arts." All of these things add to the fullness and quality of life, enrich our culture and strengthen our society. There are other subjects which occupy supplementary education, however I suggest that there is a need for more education in the appreciation and understanding of those things which add a higher dimension to life and society. There can be little doubt that a nation is enriched by a sense of higher culture, but our personal lives, the quality of our interhuman relations and our regard for creation itself are expanded and elevated by our education in the beauty of all the arts, and also of the sciences all of which measure for growth and a maturity as sentient human beings gifted by our Creator with a capacity for the love of beauty and for compassion. Sincere compassion is surest mark of true humanity, and it arises in us especially when we have sharpened our spiritual vision sufficiently to see the beauty in every human person. Archbishop Lazar.