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AGAINST
FALSE UNION
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from chapter one
CHAPTER TWO
And now let us see who are those Europeans with whom they want us to be united as a state and as a Church?
A frightening antinomy characterizes, the Europeans: it is the antithesis between the inward and outward man. The European appears to be one thing, but is really something else. He lives and moves in the falsehood of compromises. His entire culture is a collection of conventional lies to which he has adapted himself. He is extremely egocentric, but he conducts himself with absolute and almost exaggerated courtesy.
In the “underdeveloped” countries where the people still lack the finesse of European culture, everyone more or less expresses his inner world with some freedom and simplicity which you cannot find in Europe. Their manners are coarse, but the people are more genuine. In Europe this is considered a lack of culture and spiritual development.
In this way, the constant game of hypocrisy has come to be regarded as culture, where the white-washed tombs are full of stench, and the outside of the cup always cleaned for the sake of the appearance to the people.
But as it happens with Pharisees, that constant lie in which they live does not humble them. On the contrary, their outward perfection makes them certain of their superiority. The most characteristic mark of the Europeans is their conceit. They look down upon all the people whom they consider uncultured or underdeveloped.
A few of them might have a great concern for the needs of others, of persons, of groups, or even of nations, and especially the underdeveloped ones, towards whom they nurture compassionate sentiments, but deep down they are concerned for others the way an entomologist is concerned for insects. The sentiments they nurture for people are inferior to the love they have for their dogs.
They have the same high idea of their civilization as they have of themselves. Having critical minds, they do not accept anything unquestioned, and are proud of it. They consider all values relative, even those which they accept; and they discuss with apparent profundity all that humanity has ever believed.
Their customary position is that of well-disposed agnostics who are willing to agree with whatever you tell them, but let you understand that, of course, there is no way of proving anything you say, and therefore, it leaves them neither hot nor cold.
One thing, though, which these agnostics never think of doubting is the value of their own civilization. For them there never arose a higher civilization than their own. There might be sharp criticism about particular cultural problems and great disagreements over details, but the soundness of their culture’s general direction has never been questioned.
The civilization of Europe is based upon a religion, but upon a religion which no one wishes to name as such, because this religion is not the worship of one or many gods, but the worship of man.
The religion of the ancient Greeks and their civilization was nothing else than the worship of man. If the civilization of ancient Greece found such a good reception in the hearts of Europeans, one can attribute it exactly to this inward kinship.
Like the ancient Greeks, the Europeans deified man’s reason, his passions, the powers and weaknesses of his soul; in a word, they made man the center, measure, and purpose or all things. The culture of Europe proceeds from man; it exists for man; and it receives its justification from man.
There might be disagreements about the ways in which the improvement of man’s life may be attained; there might be differences in the manner of worshipping man; there might be different conclusions drawn from man’s measurement; but for all and always, man is the center around which they revolve, the source of their inspiration and purpose of their actions.
This is the European. Whatever religion he thinks he might have, deep down his religion is the worship of the idol “man”. The European has ceased to see the image of God in man: he sees only the image of himself.
In other words, the religion of Europe is the old religion of humanity, the one which separated man from God. God’s purpose is to deify man. But man, deceived by the devil, thought that he could become god without the grace of his Creator, on his own initiative and with only his own powers. He rushed to eat of the tree of knowledge before he was mature enough for such food.
The result was that his eyes were opened to know good and evil, to see his bodily and spiritual nakeness, and he was shocked. He could no longer bear to face his Lord and God, and he ran to hide from His face. He realized that a great chasm had been opened between him and his Creator. Then his mereiful Father cursed the first cause of his destruction, the devil - “that old serpent” - and in His infinite love even promised salvation: “And I will put enmity between thee [the serpent] and the woman [the all-holly Virgin], and between thy seed and her seed [Christ]; and he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3;15). And in order that man should not live eternally in that condition of spiritual death. He cast him out of Paradise, “that he should not extend his hand and take from the tree of life and eat and live unto the ages” (Gen. 3; 22). Thus out of His compassion and love, God permitted bodily death and corruption, which, like spiritual death, was the result of the broken communion with the Source of life, so that man would not carry about through the ages his spiritual death, misfortune, and nakedness. And man, being separated from God and living in the constant reality of death, became a slave to the devil.
It was, therefore, as a reaction to the experience of his own nothingness that man worshipped man, proclaiming him god. In fact, the ancients taught that the human soul is a part of the divine nature, in other words, that it is divine in essence and therefore has no need of God.
This inward will of man to believe in his own divinity, together with the fact of his submission to the demonic powers, is the basis of every form of idolatry.
The religion of Europe, then, is none other than that primordial idolatry in modern form. Papacy, Protestantism, humanism, atheism, democracy, fascism, capitalism, communism, and anything else European, are expressions of the same humanistic spirit.
The civilization of Europe is nothing but the result of man’s agonized and persistent effort to place his throne above the throne of God. It is nothing but the erection of a new tower of Babel; confusion about the method of erection may prevail, but the goal remains common for all concerned.
The ideal of the European is identical with the ideal of Lucifer. Deep down, it is the same contempt for the goodness of God, the same insult against His love, the same revolt and estrangement from His providence, the same ingratitude, the same desolate path which, instead of leading upward as man thinks he is going, leads to the abyss of death.
But the real religion of Europe is concealed and appears formally with a Christian mask.
For all the world, Europe is a Christian land. The devil is truly the clever one par excellence, and his jests have the most tragic consequences for humanity.
The greatest evil which ever befell the world had the Cross as a banner. The Aristotelianism of Western theologians and their discipleship to the idolatrous rationalistic thought of ancient Greece, the transformation of theology into philosophy, the adulteration of the Faith, the Papacy, the thirst for power and worldly authority, the Crusades, the mixing of religion with politics, the Inquisition, the missions which proved to be advance guards for colonizing powers, conquests, wars, the systematic blood-sucking of nations, orgies, frauds, humiliations, and tyranny took place in the name of the Crucified One.
In the face of this tragic deterioration of religion, it was natural that atheism and Protestantism should spring up as an aspiration for deliverance and health.
One should note that the atheism which appeared in Europe was not just an indifference, or agnosticism, or a simple epicurean disposition. The atheism of Europe was not an academic denial. It was a strong hate for the God of the Christians as they had come to know Him in Europe; it was a strong passion, a blasphemy, an indignation of the human soul.
In the Orthodox Christian East, from the time of Constantine the Great until the Greek Revolution, such epidemics never appeared. The people of the East had come to know a God completely different from the god which the people of the West had known; that is why they never came to deny Him, no matter how sinful they were. The first atheists in Greece came from Europe. Their denial, without their even knowing it, was against the religion which they had come to know in Europe. Their atheism was nourished by the faults of the Christians and the adulteration of the Christian truth which had taken place in the West.
Similarly, Protestantism might appear to be a separate heresy. But in actuality, it originated as a rejection of Catholicism. Protestantism never had a religious position. On the contrary, it was and is a religious denial. What justifies it is the presence of Catholicism. If Catholicism would disappear, then Protestantism would have no reason for existence.
Today, atheism as well as Protestantism might be turned against Orthodoxy. But this assault is based on a deception. They detest Orthodoxy because they see her with their own criteria, with their own mentality. They see her as a variant of Catholicism. This is not due to an ill disposition on their part, but to a total inability to judge by other standards and to think with another mentality.
Catholicism, Protestantism, and atheism are on the same level. They are offsprings of the same mentality. All three are philosophical systems, offsprings of rationalism, that is, of the notion that human reason is the foundation of certainty, the measure of truth, and the way of knowledge.
Orthodoxy is on a completely different level. The Orthodox have a different mentality. They regard philosophy as a dead end which never led man to certainty, truth, and knowledge. They respect human reason as no one else, and they never violate it. They regard it as one of the useful factors in detecting falsehood and uncovering error. But they do not accept it as capable of giving man certainty, of enlightening him to see the truth, or guiding him to knowledge.
Knowledge is the vision of God and of His creation in a heart purified by divine grace and the struggles and prayers of man. “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God”.
Truth is not a series of definitions, but God Himself, “Who appeared concretely in the person of Christ, Who said: “I am the Truth”.
Certainty is not a matter of intellectual harmony; it is a deep assurance of the heart. It comes to man after inner vision and is accompanied by the warmth of divine grace. Intellectual harmony, which is the outcome of a logical ordering of things, is never accompanied by this assurance.
Philosophy is characterized by conceptualization. The human intellect cannot accept reality as it is. It transposes it first into symbols and then elaborates upon the symbols. But the symbols are counterfeit figures of reality. The concepts are as distant from reality as a picture of a fish from a live fish.
The truth of the philosopher is a series of figures and images. These symbols present one great advantage; they are comprehensible. They are cut to man’s measurements and satisfy the intellect. But they also present a great disadvantage; they have no relation to living reality.
Living reality does not fit into the categories of the human intellect. It is a condition above reason. Philosophy is an attempt to transpore the suprarational into rational. But this is counterfeit and fraudulent. That is why Orthodoxy rejects philosophy and does not accept it as a way to knowledge.
The only way to knowledge is purity of heart. It alone permits the indwelling of the Holy Trinity in man. In this way alone is God and His whole creation known, without being conceptualized. He is known as He really is without becoming comprehensible and without being diminished in order to fit into the stiffing limits of the human intellect. Thus the mind (nous) of man, living and uncomprehending, comes into union with the living and incomprehensible God. Knowledge is the living contact of man with the Creator and His creation, in mutual love.
The experience of knowledge is something which cannot be expressed in human words. When the Apostle Paul came to know, he said that he had heard unspeakable words - something which is impossible for man to express.
Such is the deeper Christian theology - inexpressible. Dogmas are helpful formulations. But they are not actual knowledge; they simply guide and protect from error. A man can have knowledge without knowing the dogmas, and he can know all the dogmas and accept them without having knowledge. This is why, beyond the affirmative theology of dogmas, the Fathers placed the deep mystery of negative theology where no definition is acceptable, where the mind is silent and ceases to move, where the heart opens its door to receive the Great Visitor “Who stands at the door and knocks”, where the mind sees Him Who Is.
And let no one think that these things are true only in regard to the suprarational knowledge which is a movement of God towards man. Man can know nothing with his reason, and he can be certain of nothing - neither of himself, of the world, nor even of the most ordinary and common things.
Who honestly waited to hear Descartes’ syllogism “I think, therefore I am” to be certain that he truly exists? And who waited for the philosophers to prove that the world around him is real in order to believe that it is? Besides, such a proof has never existed and will never exist, and they who are engaged in philosophy well know it. No one has ever been able to actually prove by his reason that our thoughts and our own selves, as well as the world around us, are not fantasies. But even if someone were to prove it logically, which is impossible, that logical proof would not be able to assure anyone.
If we are certain that we exist and that our friends are not figments of our imagination, this is not due to the proofs of the philosophers, but to an inward knowledge and an inward consciousness which gives us certainty of everything without syllogisms and proofs.
This is natural knowledge. It is the knowledge of the heart and not of the brain. It is the sure foundation for every thought. Reason can build upon it without fear of toppling. But without it, reason builds upon sand.
It is this natural knowledge which guides man in the way of the Gospel and enables him to separate truth from falsehood, good from evil. It is the first step which raises man to the throne of God. When man his free will ascends the first steps of natural knowledge, then God Himself leans over and covers him with that heavenly knowledge of the mysteries “which are not permitted for man to utter”.
The preaching of the Apostles and Fathers, the Prophets, and the Gospel, the words of Christ Himself, are directed to man’s natural knowledge. This is the province of dogmas and affirmative theology. It is the manger where faith is born.
The beginning of faith is the heart’s ability to grasp that the truth speaks in the small book called the Gospel, that in that commonplace church of poor and faithful people, God descends and dwells. When fear takes hold of one because he steps on the earth which the hand of God laid out, because he gazes at the great and broad sea, because he walks and breathes, then his eyes will begin to shed tears - tears of repentance, tears of love, tears of joy - and he will feel the first caresses of unspeakable mysteries.
Natural knowledge exists in all men, but it is not of the same purity in all. Love of pleasure has the power to darken it. The passions are like a fog, and that is why few men find the road to truth. How many people have been lost in the maze of philosophy, seeking a little light which they shall never see?
In this maze it is not important if one is a Christian of atheist, Protestant or Catholic, Platonist or Aristotelian. There is one common identifying mark on them all - darkness. Whoever enters the cave of rationalism ceases to see. And whatever garments he is wearing, they take on the same dark color. In their discussions they understand each other very well because they have the same presuppositions, the presuppositions of darkness. But it is impossible for them to understand those who are not in the maze and who see the light. And no matter what those on the outside tell them, they understand everything with their own presuppositions and cannot see in what way the others might be superior.
The debate which started centuries ago in the West takes place with amazing ease, and that is because the participants, although having different views, belong to the same school.
It is very difficult for Europeans, especially for Protestants, atheists, and the religiously indifferent, to realize how deeply their mentality has been marked by the seal of the Papacy and to understand that their negative views have been determined by the corresponding positions of the Papists.
The Papacy was the great pedagogue of the West. It taught the Europeans their first letters and initiated them into the rationalism which it had inherited from ancient Greece via Rome.
Rationalism was the soul of all heresies which warred against Christianity. All the theological battles of Christianity were fought against it. Heresy is the denial of the suprarational and the attempt to change it into something rational. It is the denial of the living reality and the acceptance of a concept, only because a concept is something comprehensible, whereas the living reality is not.
The Western Church began to be permeated with rationalism long before the schism. The Papacy and the various heresies which now embellish the “Church” of Rome had rationalism for a father. They were born and grew little by little through the centuries.
The remoteness of Rome and the difficulties in communications contributed to the fact that the first deviations were not detected in the beginning. Students of history will observe that for Christianity the West was always spiritually provincial. Nearly all of the spiritual and theological issues were born in the East, and their solutions were found there also. In the East the Christians were under constant spiritual tension. All the currents of heresy passed through there, and the spiritual battles took place there. The Westerners lived in a kind of bliss; they were the chocolate soldiers of Christianity.
The illnesses of the East were acute - the kind which create antibodies and immunity. However at the same time, in the West a chronic illness started - the kind that assuredly leads to death.
Rationalism brings with it self-conceit; self- conceit brings estrangement; and estrangement grows with worldly power. Thus, at the time when more than ever the West needed the spiritual assistance and guidance of the East, the chasm appeared, terrifying to the eyes of all.
In the meantime, in its effort to Christianize the peoples of Europe who were still barbarian, the Latin Church, instead of trying to raise them to the difficult heights of Christian Faith and life, tried to present Christianity as something easy and pleasurable, hoping in that way to bring the barbarians more quickly to Christ. Thus instead of raising the barbarian it lowered the Church. It made its teaching more comprehensible, more categorized, more systematic, more academic. In this way began the spread of rationalism and the adulteration of the Christian Faith. From a mystery and life in the Holy Spirit, Christianity became an ethical-philosophical system, which later found its best expression in the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas.
Those who later rejected Catholicism received their culture from it. They grew up in it, and it had taught them how to think and philosophize. Protestants, humanists, atheists - the whole series of European philosophers - all graduated from the school of Catholicism. That is why they all speak the same language, the language of rationalism, and this is why, in spite of all their variances, they understand each other so famously.
A discussion between atheism and Catholicism is possible. They speak on the same philosophical level, with arguments of the same order.
But a discussion between atheism and Orthodoxy is impossible, because Orthodoxy speaks a language which is completely incomprehensible to atheism. She understands atheism’s language amazingly well, but if she speaks the same language, she will stop being Orthodox.
As an example, let us take the discussion concerning the nature of man.
Catholicism believes that man is composed of a body and a soul. Atheism does not accept the existence of the soul and teaches that man consists solely of the body. This denial was a response to Catholicism’s view of man.
In an attempt to express the deep mystery of human nature in a simple form, the Catholics borrowed the Greek ideas about the soul and body, which were wonderfully comprehensible. They gave a definition of the body and a definition of the soul, which were both absolutely comprehensible. Like the ancients, they described the soul as an independent, self-existent entity, which man is primarily; they lowered the body to the level of an unnecessary burden which, as the Greeks believed, imprisons the soul and prevents it from developing freely.
In this way, the mystery of human existence fell to the naive level of a philosophical definition. That is where atheism found it and began to discourse about it, since atheism also moves on the level of philosophical definitions. Thus an endless exchange of philosophical-scientific arguments began, which will continue until the end of the world without proving anything, because the proof is sought in the sphere of pure reason and not in that which transcends it. Reason has only an auxiliary value; alone, it leads neither to knowledge nor certainty.
How could Orthodoxy, therefore, take part in such a childishly naive discussion without descending to the same level of naivete? Orthodoxy refuses to give philosophical definitions of what man is, what the body is, or the soul. She knows that man is more than what is apparent, but she also knows well that she can neither describe nor define the soul, nor is she able to regard the body of matter as something which is comprehensible to the human mind. As much as the human mind might analyze things, it can only comprehend the symbols which it creates itself, but not the essence.
Here is what’ St. Gregory of Nyssa says about man: “For as it seems to me, the make-up of man is awesome and inexplicable, portraying many hidden mysteries of God in itself.”
Orthodoxy uses the words “soul”, “flesh”, “matter”, “spirit”, without always meaning the same things with the same words. She uses words which are taken from human vocabulary because she must express herself. But she never consents to enclosing within the narrow limitations of a human concept a whole mystery which even the angels cannot grasp. Neither does she consent to the dividing of man into air-tight compartments of body and soul, or, like some modern heretics, into body, soul, and spirit. Nor does she account little value to the flesh; rather, she often speaks of it as of the whole human nature: “And the Word became flesh”.
But this is not our present theme. Orthodoxy is a spiritual experience, a life in God, a series of ontological contacts, and not a system of human syllogisms. Her syllogisms do exist, and they are most logical, but they are only aids. Her foundations are not of syllogisms and philosophical speculations, but living experiences of the divine energy in the pure hearts of the Saints, How, then, can atheism carry on a discussion with her?
Yet, there have been Orthodox in name who have entered into discussion with atheism and with philosophy generally. From various religious organizations of our land, scholars have been trying to prove for years that science also accepts the existence of God, but in spite of all their discussions, they have only managed to show how great is their own regard for science and philosophy and their ignorance of Orthodoxy. Being living examples of the Europeanization which we have undergone in oure land [i.e., Greece], they did not wish nor were they capable of drawing strenght from Orthodoxy to confound any and every philosophy. For all their theoretical Orthodoxy, they remain true Westerners.
The Orthodox has the power to prove logically to the philosophers that philosophy, if it wishes to remain rational, can only end in agnosticism, the denial of every knowledge. Every other claim it makes is unreasonable, and even though it appears to proceed from reason, it is founded upon imagination.
There is only road to knowledge, the one which God has marked through the centuries. It is not a way of syllogisms but a way of life, because truth is not a system of philosophical theories but a personal existence: “I am the Way, the Truth, the Life”.
But in order for one to walk this road, it is not sufficient to say and believe that one is a Christian. “Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord”, shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven”. Something else is necessary: the lifelong struggle of the Christian, and that is purity of heart, which renders man worthy to receive the illumination of the Holy Spirit. All the moral and ascetical struggles of Christianity are aimed at this purity of the heart, with the purpose of the indwelling of the Holy Trinity in man. “Whoever loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him”.
This direct communion with the Holy Trinity, this contact with divinity, the revelation of God, is knowledge. It alone enlightens man. It gives him to understand what God is and His creation. It enables man to penetrate into the reason of things and see what he himself is, beyond the phenomena and philosophical definitions.
In the face of this knowledge, what do the philosophers and atheists have to say? Will they deny it? They can. A blind man who has never seen light, of course, can deny that light exists. But this denial cannot carry any weight for anyone who does see.
One cannot prove the existence of light to the blind man. But if the blind man is well disposed, he will believe him and hasten to fall on his knees before Christ, beseeching Him to grant him eyesight. If he does not believe him, he will remain forever blind, and no one will ever be able to make him understand the greatness of his lack.
This is the relation of an Orthodox to the philosopher, the relation of one who sees to one who is blind. And just as it is not possible for the one with sight to carry on a discussion with the blind about the beauty of the earth, about colors and light, so is it impossible for the Orthodox to discuss the magnificence of knowledge with the philosopher.
Knowledge is something which you must taste in order to understand. No one can speak or understand what you tell him without the proper prerequisites.
Should, then, every dialogue of the Orthodox with the rationalists be cut off? Certainly not. The dialogue will continue as long as the blind and those who see live together. The blind will always talk as blind men. But the only thing is that those who see should not talk as blind men, since how then will the blind be made aware of their blindness? Those who see must continue to speak as men who see, even though it is not likely that they will be understood. At least in this way they shall be able to understand each other, and who knows, perhaps in hearing, some of the blind might come to see that without eyes one cannot come to know the light.
Many so-called Orthodox take great pleasure in participating in the discussions between Catholics and Protestants. And the blind would lead the blind.
For example, let us take the question of justification: that is, if it is faith of good works which save man.
The Catholics teach that man is saved by the number and the quality of good works he shall show at the end of his life. For a period of time the Popes even declared that the good works of the saints were much more than were necessary for their own salvation and that the merits which remained over could be disposed to the sinners if the latter could pay the appropriate price.
Rejecting the position of the Catholics, the Protestants taught that good works have no merit, that “man is not justified by works of the Law”, and that faith alone saves man.
The debate has continued for centuries now with an uninterrupted exchange of an increasing number of arguments which convince no one, but turn around in the vicious circle of anthropocentric concepts which are so characteristic of rationalism.
What is the position of the “Orthodox” when they are confronted by this debate of the West? A feeling of inferiority and disorientation grips our theologians who stand ecstatic with admiration before the complexity of their Western colleagues’ arguments. They do not know what to say. Inwardly they reproach Orthodoxy, which did not take a clear position in this problem. Some ally themselves with the Catholics with a few reservations; others try to reconcile the two views. The Apostles and Fathers do not help them at all; they seem to contradict each other and even themselves.
What darkness, truly, into which rationalism leads man! How can the rationalists understand the Apostles and Fathers, since the Apostles and Fathers, who were not rationalists, speak a language unknown to all rationalists?
For the rationalists, Holy Scripture, the simplest book in the world, is full of contradictions. For them every word and every expression has only one pre-defined meaning. Either the Apostle Paul is correct who teaches that justification is by faith or the Apostle James, who writes: “What is the profit, brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but has not works? Can faith save him?... Even the demons believe and tremble”. That is why many Protestant theologians have characterized the Epistle of James as “chaff” and unworthy of being numbered among the books of the New Testament. But even the Apostle Paul seems to contradict himself in speaking one time about justification by faith and another about recompense “to each according to his works”. That is why some Protestants have begun speaking of “two justifications”.
The thought of the Apostles and Fathers is so clear, so simple, yet in the hands of rationalist theologians it has been filled with mist and darkness. They want Christianity to be a system. A system does not admit of antitheses. Everything must be in its place, properly classified. In their restricted thought, every antithesis is a contradiction. But reality is full of antitheses. Only when man accepts the antitheses as they are without trying to smooth them out does he approach the truth.
The Orthodox should glorify God because such a problem as this never arose in the Orthodox Church. The debate over justification which has continued for so many centuries in the West is void of any content. Salvation is not given as a reward for something good which man has accomplished, either faith or works. Salvation is not a reward, nor damnation a punishment. Such a concept, like all rationalistic concepts, is anthropocentric. It is a projection into the spiritual world of what happens in the daily life of men in society, where a good word or work is rewarded and a bad word or a bad work is punished by the laws which men have decreed.
Like the ancient Greeks, the West likewise made God according to the likeness of men. They see Him as a judge who judges and punishes on the basis of the existing laws. But the justice of God does not have a vindictive or legalistic significance. God does not punish to satisfy His own justice. Such a concept is out-and-out un-Christian. God never punishes anyone; He only chastises as a father chastises his son in order to raise him. Even Gehenna is not a place of torment but of self-exile, far from the presence of God. It is a condition of willful blindness, a place which never receives the rays of the sun. God is just, that is, good: for this reason He has no place or communion with the unjust, that is, the wicked. And this is not because God does not want to come near to the sinners, but because evil men turn away from the righteousness of God and do not want to have any communion with Him. “It is not He Who is hostile, but we; God is never hostile” (St. John Chrystostom, Homily XI on II Cor. 3).
Salvation, like knowledge, is a matter of communion with God. Works and faith, virtues and efforts are those things which open the door of our heart to the Lord. But that which gives salvation is not works, nor faith, nor virtues, nor efforts, nor all these together. A man might have all these and not enjoy the betrothal of the Spirit, not become an abode of the Holy Trinity. Salvation, like knowledge, is the vivifying of man by the grace of God and the vision of God, of which pure hearts are deemed worthy in this life according to the measure of their purity. It is not a reward forced from God by toils and labors, which might not have purified the heart at all, neither is it a reward for an intellectual faith, which might not have changed man’s life at all.
Catholicism, Protestantism, and atheism, like all other philosophies, speak the same language. One understands the arguments of the other, and in spite of all their controversies they can communicate with each other. But a great chasm separates Orthodoxy from all these systems, because it is something essentially different.
All the erroneous beliefs of the West and the drying up of its spirituality have rationalism as a basic cause. Europeans judge heavenly things with earthly standards and live their religion with the criteria and perspective of this life. One can cite such a multitude of examples that he could fill many books. But the two examples we have mentioned (i.e., the mystery of man and of salvation) are sufficient for one to realize the difference between the Eastern Church and those of the West is not one of various characteristics, but a difference of essence.
Even if we were to presume that there was the best disposition on the part of the West to draw near and to live Orthodoxy - something which does not occur except, perhaps, in the case of the Old Catholics - this disposition would not render them able to understand and to live Orthodoxy. So many centuries of apostasy have not passed without leaving their seal on the souls of these people. And this seal is so indelible that it cannot be erased except by the grace of God, and then only from humble hearts.
In recent years, many in Europe have taken the name Orthodox and have been chrismated with the Chrism of the Orthodox Church, but very few of them have really become Orthodox. Most of them have embraced Orthodoxy intellectually, enchanted by the wealth of knowledge it offered them and fascinated by a new acquaintance with Christianity which bridged the gaps left in their minds by the mutilated Christianity of the West. But before they even received Communion for the first time and before they even shed a tear for their sins, before they sought the grace of Christ in silence and struggle, they considered it their imperative duty to preach Orthodoxy to the Orthodox. Scandalized by the ignorance of the Orthodox in theoretical matters in which they themselves shone, they scorned the Orthodox people who, although in ignorance, lived the Orthodoxy of their fathers and were ready to die for it. But God does not dwell in proud minds. Their theoretical preparation did not save them from error, and as blind leading the blind, they fell into the ditch of heresies leading others astray also, or they returned “as a dog to its own vomit” to their former worldly ways.
In order for one to understand the Saints and the Fathers of the Church, it is not sufficient merely to read them. The Saints spoke and wrote after having lived the mysteries of God. They personally experienced the mysteries. In order for one to understand them, he too must have progressed to a certain degree of initiation into the mysteries of God by personally tasting, smelling, and seeing. You can read the books of the Saints and become very well versed in them with a “cerebral” knowledge without even minutely tasting that which the Saints tasted who wrote these books through their personal experience. In order to understand the Saints essentially, not intellectually, you must have the proper experiences for all that they say; you must have tasted, at least in part, of the same things as they. You must have lived in the fervent environment of Orthodoxy; you must have grown in it. You must have tasted of training, effort, and struggle for Christian perfection. You must have bent very low to pass through the narrow door that leads to the Kingdom of Heaven. You must have been humbled; you must have been freed from the vain burden of human values and have detached the heart from that which men consider great and worthy of respect. You must have shed tears of repentance for the vanity in which you lived, tears of fervent supplication to the Lord to deliver you from darkness and to send down a ray of the Holy Spirit into your heart.
A whole new world must be born in a Westerner’s heart in order for him to understand something of Orthodoxy. How can someone who has breathed the dry air of rationalism from the cradle and learned to worship human cleverness as an idol be humbled and become simple as a child? How can one who has learned to pursue those things esteemed “high by men” and “abominations before God” and has been taught to regard the turn to the inner man as “navel gazing” be saved from the thorns of worldly cares? How can he who has been taught to regard vanity as a value shed tears over the vanity of life?
What has Catholicism or Protestantism honestly done to protect the world from the relentless whirlpool into which it has fallen? But was it not the religion of the West that sent man running and panting to gain whatever Christ declared vain? Monasticism, the heart of religion, it either abolished or changed to utilitarian orders which either through their activity or though their thought had as their mission to serve the earthly well-being of men and the worldly wisdom which “God has mad foolish”. It made politics the province of Christian activity, swaying kingdoms and spilling blood in order to acquire power and money. It used missions as a decoy to subject colored peoples to the inhuman sovereignty of Europe. It pursued leisure and comfort, teaching that wealth is a gift of God. It gave Christianity a utilitarian, social purpose, causing men to believe that Christ was a moral teacher who is concerned above all with the orderly functioning of society, and the Church is the guardian par excellence of human laws and the overseer of law enforcement. It created the model for the pharisaic Christian, the good citizen, who thinks he has approached perfection because he has never harmed anyone, or because he has given money to philanthropic organizations.
How can men emerge humble, seeking the light from above with pain and tears, from a civilization ruled by the pursuit of human comfort and characterized by a satanic pride in the triumphs of its science?
How can a man who searches the depths of his heart to find in the silence and motionlessness of his “treasury” the “pearl of great price” emerge from a civilization which is characterized by unceasing motion and concern for externals?
Such a thing would be equal to a miracle of the rarest kind.
But if the savor of Orthodoxy is such a difficult thing for one individual, how is it possible for the entire Roman Catholic “Church” as a whole or all the Protestant “churches” together to savor her? Most of the millions of people of the West do not even know that Orthodoxy exists. How is it possible after one or more conferences of representatives of the various “churches” for a return to the truth to be accomplished collectively for souls walking in darkness for centuries now?
Do those who speak of the union of churches possibly think they are dealing with political affairs where the rulers of nations lead their subjects as a whole to either war or peace? People do not come to Christ and His Church in great masses. They come as free persons.
Let us suppose that a Pope suddenly decides to become Orthodox and to bring all the Catholics to Orthodoxy. With that outward change would even one of the millions of Catholics really become Orthodox? And even if they all had the best disposition to memorize and believe all the doctrines of Orthodoxy, they would not be able to take even one step towards her, because Orthodoxy is not only a system of doctrines or a series of customs, but something much deeper and substantial. It is a whole orientation of life and thought. Orthodoxy is a spirit, the spirit of Tradition, which cannot be acquired from books but is transmitted from the living to the living, from father to son, mother to daughter, brother to brother, friend to friend, priest to priest, monk to monk, from spiritual father to spiritual child, “not by means of ink and paper, but from mouth to mouth”, from soul to soul. And all this within the life of the Holy Mysteries of the Church, within the atmosphere of the Holy Spirit, with the passing of time, little by little, with the slow development of an organism.
But those who speak of union are not naive. They know very well that the Catholics as well as the Protestants will never become Orthodox as a body. But that does not interest them. They are not interested in the return of lost sheep to the fold of Christ. They reckon on a compromise and content with a superficial agreement. Besides, for some time now they have ceased being Orthodox. They are not concerned for truth or the life in Christ. Already the mystery of the Antichrist is working in them, and they are distressed until it be accomplished.
O unhappy Greek race! You who gave so many Fathers and so many Saints to the Church of Christ, you who enlightened so many barbarians and made them children of God, you who watered these rocks with tears of humility and contrition and made the garden of Orthodoxy blossom on them, you who brought God to walk on this soil through your prayers, why do you now turn your eyes ecstatically to where the sun never rose? And you who of old were God’s servant, why do you fall upon your knees with servility to worship the servants of Lucifer?
Are you so overwhelmed by the signs and wonders of progress that you are ready to fall down and worship that glittering but empty idol? Do you not see the darkness behind the fireworks? Do you not see the despair of death behind the artificial smile? Do you not see the poverty hiding beneath the royal appearance?
What have you envied? The power of the Pope? But have you forgotten the power of your God which has enabled you to preserve your Faith intact to this day?
What have you desired? Knowledge? Yes, you should desire knowledge, because you are beginning to lack it, lack it dangerously. But there where you seek it, knowledge does not exist: only substitutes for knowledge are found there - the academic philosophies and academic theologies. But these will only fill your stomach without nourishing you, for they do not have life in them; they are dead letters. They are the study of the shadow of things. They are not the study of God and His creation, but the study of the idea we have of God and His creation, the study of the concepts of our brain.
But if you desire an easy life, if Europe enchants you because it promises comfort and carnal pleasures, well then, go there. It will certainly give you that comfort and pleasure. But along with these, it will give you emptiness and death, the spiritual and eternal death it is tasting today.
Let us not fool ourselves. The Greek race like all others will continue its way. And its way is the way of the masses. The way of the many is always the easiest. The way of the masses is always the way that leads to comfort and pleasure. And in spite of all we might say and all we might do, we would accomplish nothing because of the state the world has reached. The evil is irrevocable.
The most tragic thing is that evil appears to men’s eyes as something good. The condemnation, which is not imposed by God but into which man falls by himself, will not be a destruction or some nuclear annihilation as people imagine. Actually the death of the body would be a very small evil for humanity. But that which is about to come will be something unimaginably more harsh and inhuman. It will be the masterpiece of diabolic imagination, the greatest hoax that ever has happened. The destruction towards which humanity is headed will have the appearance of its greatest success. It will be the summit of the tower of Babel, the peak of human vainglory, the crown of human self-conceit.
the destruction will be the fulfillment of the desires of the masses, in which every passion and every evil will swim about freely and unhindered. It will be a complete emptying of the heart, a void, a tedium, a boredom, in other words, spiritual and eternal death.
There will no longer be a place for God in the hearts of men. “In the abounding of iniquity, the love of the many shall grow cold” (Mat. 24:12). The Source of life will no longer have a place among the great majority of people. The Gospel will have been preached to the whole of humanity, “unto a witness to men”. All will know it, and almost all will have essentially rejected it.
In the luxury of the cities, amidst the creations of the human brain and the signs and wonders of the Antichrist, there will circulate human creatures without life, dead men who think they are living the most intense life that ever was, but who in truth will be biting with mania their own flesh.
They say the Pope is optimistic about the future of mankind. And he certainly should be! Humanity has become what for centuries he has been dreaming it to be. Let him marvel, therefore, at the work of his own hands.
All these learned, clever, and respectable people are his pupils. He first taught them arithmetic and letters. He introduced them to Aristotle. He taught them philosophy when they were still barbarians. To him they owe their civilization.
The Papacy did not preach Christianity. It had neither in appearance nor in thought anything in common with the fishermen of Galilee. The Papacy brought civilization to the Europeans. If anyone has the right to speak of a Greco-Christian civilization, it is the Papacy.
But what relation has Christianity to civilization? What relation can a religion which says “for here we have no abiding city, but seek the one to come” have with civilization, that is, with man’s efforts to establish himself as comfortably as possible in the earthly city?
Yet if one carefully observes the sermons and pursuits of most “Christians”, he will see that what they seek and hope for is not so much the glory of the Church as the gory of civilization.
Such “Christians” the world wants and accepts, because basically they have the same goals. But the others who do not speak of a Hellenic-Christian civilization but of monasticism, struggles, prayer, who have as their daily bread the continuous striving for the future city, these the world hates, for it does not recognize them as its own. It characterizes the former as truly religious people, and the latter as overzealous, religious fanatics, deniers of life.
The kinship that exists between those Orthodox who speak of Greco-Christian civilization and the views of the Papists is astonishing. They have the same mentality, the same goals, the same indifference for the truth and the mystical life. Their “Christianity” is a cover, a world-view to fill the gaps in their mind and to make their earthly life even more comfortable.
Such “Christians” who are ever ready to make compromises in order to have the majority on their side will never disappear.
They too, like the Pope, are optimistic about the future of mankind, and they are justified. For both are struggling to build civilization, and civilization is being and will be built better every day, to their great joy. It will be a civilization which will respect values, since a civilization without values is impossible, and the values are values because they are useful for society. But values will not prevent death from filling men’s hearts. For values will not prevent death from filling men’s hearts. For values are sacrifices offered to the idol Man; they are not worship offered to God.
All that is written here is directed neither to the world nor to those “Christians”. It is directed to the chosen few who themselves will be in danger of being deceived in the last times.
Within Christian organizations and within Papism and Protestantism, there are souls who truly desire God and seek the future city. But their environment and their teachers do not let them find the way which their hearts desire.
Those chosen few must be careful, very careful. The devil does not always act as devil; most of the time he appears as an angel of light. He preaches a Christianity just a little different from the real one, and with this trap many more are caught in his net than he would have gained by sending forth an entire army of atheists or Diocletians.
He stigmatizes the faithful, characterizing them as intolerant, narrow-minded, fanatics, letter-worshippers. In this way he has aroused against the Church of Christ the most frightful persecution ever. People are often more afraid of characterizations which diminish their honor and reputation than of the persecutor’s sword. Very few are those who can accept the sacrifice of being considered stupid. But in today’s world it is inevitable that every true Christian will be characterized as a fool, or at least narrow-minded. Very few have the courage to advance with such a prospect which approaches martyrdom. That is why most people prefer the easy way of compromises, and they preach it with fanaticism.
The pagan never hated the Christian as much as the “Christian” world does today. Formal tolerance is deceptive. The world tolerates only those so-called Christians who walk in step with it, those who try to apply a social Christianity and attempt to be always up-to-date. The others who do not agree to adulterate their Faith it hates. But the world’s hate is a criterion for us to know if we are true Christians. “If they have hated Me, they shall hate you too”.
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