Heavenly Marriage

11th century Georgian miniature of St. John Chrysostom

          In his earlier letters to Theodore, John Chrysostom mourns for the soul of one who has decided to marry. In his later letter to a young widow, he counsels an end to mourning for the body of a good husband who has died. These situations are opposite in many respects. He addresses his former letter to a young man planning marriage – his latter to a widowed young woman. Each reflects considerably and distinctly on the theme of marriage. He writes the former letters as an ascetic monastic with limited experience – the latter as a cleric with more experience. A comparison of these letters does much to show both the evolution and the consistencies of Chrysostom’s thought and ministerial approach.

Chrysostom’s earlier letter to his friend Theodore is more accusatory and harsher in tone than his more temperate and gentle letter to the young widow. For example, he accuses Theodore of opening his mind, which “the devil has now set on fire… to all manner of soul-destroying and shameful thoughts.” However, he does not write to condemn. In an effort to strengthen Theodore against despair, he gives many examples from scripture of figures that have fallen and repented, returning to their former glory. He then threatens Theodore with a long description of the fires of hell and the torments of the damned, tempered somewhat by an attempt to inspire him with a description of the blessedness of heaven.

Only after thirteen long pages of such bulwarks and admonishments, does Chrysostom get to the point

After the Likeness

God made us in His image and after His likeness (cf. Gen 1:26). Already this confession acknowledges that there is in humanity from the moment of creation both similarity and dissimilarity to God, for we are “in” His image, but we are “after” His likeness. The word “after” can be understood to mean “in pursuit of” or “moving towards” or “following.” God created us in a state of growing in likeness to God – in an eternal ascent of our created nature toward the uncreated Lord. Our likeness to God is not and cannot become an absolute likeness to the essence of the One-Who-Is, but is rather an ongoing process of deepening union with God – of becoming an ever-clearer divine image.

Necessarily, we must understand the likeness of humanity to God in tension with God’s absolute transcendence. Dynamically, mysteriously, “man, this mortal, passible, short-lived being [is] the image of that nature which is immortal, pure, and everlasting,” as St. Gregory of Nyssa writes in his work On the Making of Man. It is difficult to understand how the one could image the other.

11th century mosaic icon of St. Gregory of Nyssa

God is not passible and does not change, but is “the same yesterday, today and forever” (Heb 13: 8). According to Gregory, “Human nature is the mean between” divine nature and animal nature – between a purely spiritual nature and a purely bodily nature. Humanity, precisely in its mutability – which is a characteristic of its flesh, as opposed to a purely spiritual or angelic nature incapable of change – has the opportunity to recover from its separation from God and to unite, with and by grace, itself with God. Passible – i.e. impassioned or subject to the passions – as we know we are, we must change (μετάνοια) and grow toward impassibility or dispassion (ἀπάθεια) to recapitulate our likeness to God.

The Lord is Coming Soon.

In light of the imminent beginning of the end, I thought I would share some recent thoughts about the coming (παρουσία, parousia) of the Lord as it is described in the writings of St. Paul.


A central eschatological event for Paul is the parousia, the coming of the Lord. “Parousia” becomes in the New Testament a technical term for the future coming of the Lord – every non-Pauline use of the term parousia in the New Testament refers to this specifically – but at first, for Paul, its meaning is more fluid.

Clerical Asceticism

This historiated initial contains a bust portrait of a haloed figure, probably intended to be St. Gregory the Great, carrying a cross and a book. It appears in the Saint Petersburg Bede (Saint Petersburg, National Library of Russia, lat. Q. v. I. 18), which is famous for containing the earliest such initial in European illumination.

St. Gregory the Great was first a monk and, in some respects, this remained his ideal, yet he was a monk who willingly submitted to the decision of Pope Pelagius II to pluck him from his monastery so that he could serve in the ordained ministry. His own willing response to this became a model of his ministerial ideal expressed in his Book of Pastoral Rule (PR), in which he sought a life of balance between asceticism and serving others in the world. For Gregory, a cleric, like a monk, must have ascetic experience, must embrace suffering and adversity, must struggle to overcome passions and vice, and must become dispassionate and virtuous. Gregory’s advice in these areas is of enduring value in the present age. “How he may please the Lord,” (1Cor 7:32) must always be the cleric’s first concern and the cleric is one called by the Lord to a balance of withdrawal from the world and service to those in it. It seems that, for Gregory, one of “the things of this world” that should not distract the cleric from his vocation is concern for “how he may please his wife” (1Cor 7:33). One aspect of his balance of asceticism with service is his advocacy of clerical continence. Though not addressed directly in the Book of Pastoral Rule, his opinion on the matter is clear enough. Elsewhere, (Epistles I, 44 and IV, 36) he promotes a rule of clerical continence and within this text he speaks negatively of sexual desire (PR III, 27). Even here he seeks a balance however and refers to the state of marriage as “most honorable” (PR III, 27). Further, he makes much use of bridal imagery in his descriptions of clerical life. This too is in keeping with the monastic tradition, which often makes similar use of this imagery.

Obey your bishop.

Sometimes, that is a joy. Other times, it is painful or even questionable. At all times, it is what St. Ignatius of Antioch would want you to do.

St. Ignatius of Antioch demonstrating how much it meant for him to be a bishop. He is wearing an omophorion, which, being made of wool and worn around the shoulders, symbolizes that he is a shepherd to his flock. He is also being torn apart by lions.

He regards the role of the bishop (επίσκοπος, which means “overseer”) as greatly significant for the unity of the Christian communities to whom he was writing. The unifying, even divinizing, role of the bishop, along with the presbyters and the deacons, is a major theme of six out of the seven epistles of Ignatius. Yet, even as he constantly speaks of the bishops with exultant tones, he admires in them silence and meekness, and as a bishop himself, he gives an example of humility. The great importance of the bishop for Ignatius can scarcely be overstated. Though, even while he points this out, he would have them avoid self-importance.

Mystery of Mysteries

When the earliest Fathers of the Church first considered the means that brought them closer to God – the mysteries of the Church – they did not find it necessary to enumerate or systematize them. They were committed to living, rather than simply explaining, the mystery of the life of the Church, the Body of Christ. Nonetheless, from the sixth century on, it became increasingly necessary to offer some kind of reflection on the nature of the mysteries of the Church. Various members of the Church began to propose lists of sacraments. These lists varied to a surprising degree in number and content. According to Kallistos Ware, in his book The Orthodox Church:

Before [the seventeenth century], Orthodox writers vary considerably as to the number of sacraments: John of Damascus speaks of two; Dionysius the Areopagite of six; Joasaph, Metropolitan of Ephesus (fifteenth century), of ten; and those Byzantine theologians who in fact speak of seven sacraments differ as to the items which they include in their list (275).

Perhaps reflecting the fluidity of the prevalent understanding of sacrament, these lists were not at first intended as exhaustive, but only as informative and spiritually nourishing. Eventually, first in the West, many members of the Church came to believe that there are seven, and only seven, sacraments. Even among those who accepted this number, however, there was not always agreement on which sacraments were included in the list. There are a number of rites that were once frequently included among the mysteries of the Church that few now think of in those terms. There are both uses and limitations of dogmatically enumerating the sacraments.

A Christian Understanding of Earthquakes

In all their anger directed toward Pat Robertson’s comments about the earthquake in Haiti, what many fellow Christians have missed is that he is not simply wrong, but has distorted a truth:

Sin is the cause of death.

What Robertson has done, in declaring a particular sin the cause of a particular disaster, is neglect the communal nature of this causality. What he should realize is that the sin that brings about all the suffering and death in the world is his sin - and it is my sin - and it is your sin. It is Adam’s sin.

“…Sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned...” (Romans 5:12).

Robertson will die too, and his death will not be different from the deaths taking place in Haiti – it too will be the result of sin – his sin, my sin, your sin.

Just as all us sinners bear together the guilt of our Lord’s suffering and death upon the Cross, so do we share the blame for all suffering and death. God did not want us to suffer and die. We humans, as a people, have brought it upon ourselves – the natural consequence of acting against our created nature – a nature created in the image and likeness of God and ultimately directed toward union with Him.

We should not think that their greater misfortune indicates their greater sin. Indeed, the opposite is often the case - it is often the saints who suffer more greatly.

Our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ Himself suffered a torturous death. “And Jesus cried again with a loud voice and yielded up His spirit. And behold… the earth shook, and the rocks were split…” (Matthew 27: 50-51). Those who witnessed this earthquake did not take it as a sign that Jesus was a great sinner. Rather, those who “saw the earthquake and what took place… were filled with awe and said, ‘Truly this is the Son of God!’” (Matthew 27: 54)