Category: Church History (Page 11 of 19)

Worship in Ancient House Churches

June 28, 2014 / Robert Arakaki / 2 Comments

Folks,

Did you ever wonder how the early Christians worshiped? As a follow up to “Jurassic Park and the Protestant Quest for the Early Church,” I am reposting Gabe Martini’s “The Eucharistic Liturgy in Ancient House Churches.”

Robert Arakaki

The Eucharistic Liturgy in Ancient House Churches

by Gabe Martini

Many evangelical groups today are proposing that we abandon traditional models of doing the Church, instead replacing that presumed stodginess with what is—they claim—a more “New Testament” model: the “house church” or “cell” church models.

Essentially, they are promoting that the local church be a de-centralized assembly, meeting in the homes of various individuals and proportionally scattered throughout a city (or town or region). The presumption is that this is the Biblical model for both fellowship and discipleship, derived from the New Testament itself.

While we certainly read of house Churches in the New Testament (e.g. 1 Cor. 1:11,16;Rom. 16:5; Col. 4:15), usually being the homes of wealthy individuals with enough room for a large assembly of people, the house/cell churches of the modern day do not actually resemble the worship or piety associated with such New Testament prototypes.

Additionally, the house Churches of the New Testament developed into the basilicas of the post-Constantine Roman empire, when the faith was no longer forced underground as a result of both imperial and Judaic persecution. The same elements present in the earlier house Churches found their way into the more established basilicas and temples of the fourth century and beyond—they were just given a newer and freer context within which to thrive.

Dura Church Diagram

Two distinct features of the most ancient house churches—and in fact, of the most ancient churches that archaeology has unveiled—are that of the baptistry and the place of the Eucharistic sacrifice.

When discussing the Eucharistic controversy at Corinth, Jerome Kodell describes a typical, first century Christian house Church:

Archaeology has shown that the typical large home of the period could accomodate about fifty people for a meal, ten in the triclinium (dining room), where the guests reclined on couches, and forty in the atrium(courtyard), where the guests sat around a central pool.
—The Eucharist in the New Testament, p. 75

This description corresponds with that of the two oldest archaeological finds of ancient house churches—those at Megiddo (Palestine) and Dura Europos (Syria), which both date to the third century A.D. (early or mid-200s). Both house churches have a place for baptism (like the central pool mentioned above), an area for the general assembly of laity, and a small area for the Eucharistic celebration (often an elevated platform with a table or altar). A large, mosaic inscription in Greek at the Megiddo house church reads: “The God-loving Aketous has offered this table to the God Jesus Christ, as a memorial,” a seemingly obvious reference to the Eucharist, given both the words “table” and “memorial.”

These substantial structures were not simple homes with simple services, lacking any notion of adornment or beauty. In fact, Hugh Wybrew notes:

Even if worship took place in a domestic setting, it was not necessarily lacking in a certain splendor. Paul, Bishop of Samosata in the sixties of the third century, had a lofty throne erected on a dais in the meeting-hall. Attached to it was an audience chamber. When he entered the room for services he was acclaimed by the congregation like a Roman magistrate . . . The congregation at Cirta, a small town in North Africa, met in an ordinary house. But it possessed a rich collection of gold and silver vessels, and bronze lamps and candlesticks.

Despite occasional persecutions, the Church was growing rapidly in strength throughout the third century, laying the foundation for its remarkable expansion in the next. —The Orthodox Liturgy, p. 22

This church at Cirta, worshipping during the rule of the emperor Diocletian—one of the most ruthless persecutors of the Christians in Roman history—was raided by imperial authorities. In the official records kept by the pagan Roman officials (written by the hand of one Munatius Felix), an inventory of the church is given:

Victor, son of Aufidius, made the following brief record: two gold cups, also six silver cups, six silver jugs, a silver vessel, seven silver lamps, two candlesticks, seven small bronze candelabra with their lamps, also eleven bronze lamps with their chains, eighty-two women’s tunics, thirty-eight cloaks, sixteen men’s tunics, thirteen pairs of men’s shoes, forty-seven pairs of women’s shoes, nineteen rustic belts. —Beard et al., Religions of Rome: Volume 2, A Sourcebook, p. 112

It is even more interesting at Dura Europos, where the extensive discovery has yielded not only abundant examples of iconography throughout the house church structure (e.g. frescoes of Christ as the Good Shepherd, him walking on water, the Samaritan woman at the well, and the myrrh-bearing women at the empty tomb), but also some fragmentary manuscripts in the Hebrew language that show a continuity between the Eucharistic liturgy of the first century Didache and the more developed (fourth century) Apostolic Constitutions. A Greek-language harmony of the Gospels (in fragments), which is distinct from the Diatessaron of Tatian, has also been found at this site.

The Eucharistic anaphora in the Didache (ch. 10), which has been dated as early as AD 50–60, reads:

Thou, O Lord, Almighty, hast created all things for the sake of Thy name, hast given food and drink to the children of men for enjoyment, but to us Thou hast granted spiritual food and drink for eternal life through Jesus, Thy servant.

For all these things we thankfully praise Thee, because Thou art powerful. Thine is the glory forever. Amen.

The Hebraic fragment uncovered at Dura Europos also includes an anaphora, and it has a strikingly similar composition:

Blessed be the Lord, King of the Universe, who created All things, apportioned food, appointed drink for all the children of flesh with which they shall be satisfied; But granted to us, human beings, to partake of the food of the myriads of his angelic bodies. For all this we have to bless with songs in the gatherings of [the] people. —Fragment A, Dura Europos (ca. A.D. 235)

Despite being separated by at least two centuries, the anaphoras of both the apostolic Church in the first century, and that of this Syrian house church in the 3rd century share a number of similarities. They certainly reflect the same tradition of the Eucharist, and, as St. Irenaeus has asserted, the Eucharist is the heart of where our faith and theology both begins and ends. Similarities between these and the Judaic blessings for food and wine should be noted, as well. The Christians of both the Didache and third century were certainly assembling in the large homes of wealthy believers, but the detailed instructions for the rites of Baptism and the Eucharist in both sources indicates a community gathering for a purpose that is quite distinct from a simple Bible study, lecture, and sing-along.

So while evangelical groups in our present day might be attempting to emulate the house churches of the so-called New Testament era, it can be demonstrated with great clarity that these ancient Christian communities were gathered together primarily for the celebration of the sacred mysteries of Christ: Baptism and the Eucharist. I wouldn’t expect to find much in the way of iconography in a present-day house church, either.

If a Christian today wants to assemble in a way that is comparable to these ancient and New Testament-era house churches, the best way to do so is within the apostolic Church itself. A Church within which these venerable traditions have been preserved for centuries. And that church is the Orthodox Church.

Jurassic Park and the Protestant Quest for the Early Church

June 19, 2014 / Robert Arakaki / 13 Comments

In the movie Jurassic Park is an unforgettable scene where a group of humans see living breathing dinosaurs towering over them, munching on leaves on the tree tops. The dinosaurs were the product of careful biological engineering. Scientists extracted DNA from dinosaur fossils, reconstructed the original DNA strand, inserted the reconstructed DNA into egg embryos, and then hatched the eggs.

Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park is an apt metaphor of the recent quest among Protestant for the ancient Church. Examples of this yearning include: Robert Webber’s ancient-future faith network, Peter Leithart’s Reformational catholicism, and the convergence church movement. These recent movements have earlier precedents in the 1800s, e.g., Mercersburg Theology and the Oxford Movement. The Protestant quest for the ancient Church is similar to the paleontologists’ fascination with the lost past of dinosaurs. Having broken away from the corruptions of Roman Catholicism, Protestants asserted they were now in a position to return to the purity and simplicity of ancient Christianity.

The desire to reconnect with the past is a natural one. It is like an adopted child wanting to learn about his or her birth parents. This interest in antiquity is also biblical. The prophet Jeremiah wrote about seeking after the good way, the ancient paths (Jeremiah 6:16). The book of Proverbs talked about respecting the “ancient boundary stone” put in place by the forefathers (Proverbs 22:28).

Reconstructing the Past

Extracting dinosaur DNA

The novel Jurassic Park can be seen as a metaphor of the flaws within Protestant ecclesiology. If one pays close attention to the story line of Jurassic Park one becomes aware that the dinosaurs are not real dinosaurs in the sense of being identical to those that existed in the Mesozoic era. The dinosaurs of Jurassic Park were laboratory creations, the product of careful scientific research. In the same way there is a certain artificiality in the Protestant quest for the early Church. Where the scientists in the laboratories of Jurassic Park worked from DNA extracted from dinosaur fossils, Nevin and Schaff worked in seminary libraries seeking to excavate ancient church texts. More recently, Webber and Leithart used the same methods attempting to renew the church by selectively drawing on the church fathers and early liturgies.

Within Jurassic Park are nuggets of fascinating philosophical questions. One fundamental problem was that the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park were artificial creatures. They are artificial because of modifications made to their bodies. This gave rise to all sorts of problems and made them inherently unstable.

“You don’t know for sure?” Malcolm said, affecting astonishment.

Wu smiled, “I stopped counting,” he said, “after the first dozen. And you have to realize that sometimes we think we have an animal correctly made—from the standpoint of the DNA, which is our basic work—and the animal grows for six months and then something untoward happens. And we realize there is some error. A releaser gene isn’t operating. A hormone not being released. Or some other problem in the developmental sequence. So we have to go back to the drawing board with that animal so to speak.” (Jurassic Park p. 111)

One example of genetic modifications built into the recent ancient-future and reformational-catholic churches is the absence of the episcopacy. This is no mistake. To adopt an episcopal structure would mean surrendering congregational autonomy so precious to so much of Evangelicalism. In this sense they are still genetically Protestant. Their clinging to Protestant church structures fundamentally separates them from the early Church founded by the Apostles. The bishop was integral and fundamental to the early Church. Ignatius of Antioch, a student of John the Apostle and the third bishop of Antioch, stressed the importance of obeying the bishop (see Letter to the Smyrneans VIII, IX).

Where the bishop is present, there let the congregation gather, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. Without the bishop’s supervision, no baptisms or love feasts are permitted.

Yet the libertarian strand in Protestant theology will not allow for bishops in the historic sense. Many Protestants by reading only the Bible and ignoring the early church fathers end up projecting their Protestant bias onto church history. But such an omission would be like a historian writing a book about ancient Rome with no mention of the Caesars! Or a law professor teaching a course on American jurisprudence with hardly a mention of the Supreme Court.

Another quandary in the Protestant quest for the early Church is whether one could actually bring it back or just end up with a caricature. A similar quandary existed for the scientists in Jurassic Park who had never seen a living dinosaur from the Mesozoic era.

Grant said, “How do you know if it’s developing correctly? No one has ever seen these animals before.”

Wu smiled. “I have often thought about that. I suppose it is a bit of a paradox. Eventually, I hope, paleontologists such as yourself will compare our animals with the fossil record to verify the developmental sequence.” (Jurassic Park p. 114).

The paradox here is whether these reconstructed dinosaurs were really dinosaurs or something else. All that the scientists had to go by were fossils, not actual living dinosaurs from the Mesozoic era. Similarly, for Protestants all they had to go by were ancient patristic texts but no living church tradition that goes back to the early Church. This leaves them guessing as to what the early Church must have been like.

Similarly, there is a tension between people who have little patience for the deep questions and just want to get things done.

Hammond sighed. “Now, Henry, are we going to have another one of those abstract discussions? You know I like to keep it simple. The dinosaurs we have now are real and—“

“Well, not exactly,” Wu said. He paced the living room, pointed to the monitors. “I don’t think we should kid ourselves. We haven’t re-created the past here. The past is gone. It can never be re-created. What we’ve done is reconstruct the past—or at least a version of the past.” (Jurassic Park pp. 121-122)

Lacking a living tradition that goes back to the Apostolic Church, Protestants end up having to reconstruct the early Church as they best understood it to have been. The Jesus Movement of the 1970s had house churches where people sat on the floor, played guitars and sang praise songs, and everyone with a Bible in their hands. More recently, Evangelicals have discovered the writings of the early church fathers and are seeking to incorporate these discoveries into their congregations: reciting the Nicene Creed, celebrating the Eucharist weekly, vestments for the clergy, candles and incense. Not being part of a living tradition they end up creating a “version of the past” trusting God to bless their sincere efforts to return to the early Church. It is like lost travelers seeking to find their way home without knowing where home is on the map.

The Lost World

The Lost World Scenario

An alternative scenario can be found in another book written by Michael Crichton, The Lost World.

“No, no,” Levine said earnestly. “I’m quite serious. What if the dinosaurs did not become extinct? What if they still exist? Somewhere in an isolated spot on the planet.” (Lost World p. 5)

The Protestant view of history assumes that there once was an apostolic Church but it no longer exists today. But Protestants and Evangelicals need to ask the question: What if the apostolic Church still exists today? What if there was a church where the errors of the papacy were avoided? What if that church was within driving distance today?

For Evangelicals Eastern Orthodoxy is a Lost World. Many Protestants and Evangelicals drive by these funny looking ethnic churches with strange names unaware of these churches’ connection to the early Church. The estrangement of the Great Schism of 1054 resulted in Western Christians, both Roman Catholics and Protestants, not being aware of Orthodoxy’s existence and its distinctive approach to doctrine and worship. The Protestant Reformers’ bitter struggle against medieval Catholicism gave Protestants a severe astigmatism that skewed their understanding of church history. Protestants came to view the early Church through the prism of Catholicism imagining the Apostolic Church to be part a lost past. But while the Protestants of the 1500s can be excused for having a distorted perspective on church history, the situation is quite different today. Many Protestants in recent years are learning about the early church fathers and are having a firsthand encounter with Orthodoxy.

This is why the first visit to an Orthodox Church is often such a surprise for many Evangelicals. Orthodoxy represents what many Protestants are seeking after, the early Church before Roman Catholicism. The Orthodox Liturgy is part of living tradition that goes back to the days of the Apostles. At first glance many would find this hard to accept especially the icons, the elaborate liturgical ceremonies, and ornate vestments worn by priests. All these are so radically different from the austere minimalism that mark Reformed, and especially, Puritan worship, or the exuberant expressiveness of charismatic worship.

Images in Dura Europos Synagogue 3rd century

But when approached from the standpoint of the Old Testament pattern of worship transformed by the New Covenant of Jesus Christ, the Divine Liturgy makes perfectly good sense. The vestments worn by Orthodox priests are patterned after those worn by the Old Testament priests. If Jesus Christ is the Passover Lamb who takes away the sins of the world then it makes sense to view the Eucharist as the culmination of the Old Testament sacrificial system. A careful reading shows that icons have a biblical basis in the Old Testament (Exodus 26, 2 Chronicles 3). Recent archaeological findings have shown that early Jewish synagogues had images on their walls. All this explains why a conscientious re-reading of Scripture and an open minded study of church history have led thousands of Protestants: pastors, professors, devout laymen to the conclusion that the Orthodox Church is indeed what it claims to be: the very Church founded by Christ himself, not some later knock off imitation. Visit Journey to Orthodoxy.com

Testing the Lost World Hypothesis

Protestant ecclesiology assumes a major discontinuity in history. Protestant church history is based on the idea that there once was a pure and apostolic Church but that early Church fell into spiritual darkness. It was not until the Reformation that Martin Luther recovered the Gospel and spiritual light returned to Europe. Protestants believe that using the principle of the “Bible alone” they will be able to reform (reconstruct) the Church as it was meant to be. These assumptions are foundational to defining Protestant identity. The Protestant view of history is crucial for explaining why Protestants are different from Roman Catholics (they follow the ‘Bible alone’) and why they remain separate from Roman Catholics (they have Gospel in the pure form of justification by ‘faith alone’).

Orthodoxy presents a significant challenge to the Protestant paradigm of church history. It is the Lost World that did not become extinct. Orthodoxy claims a historical continuity that goes back to the first century but it looks so different from what Evangelicals imagine the early Church to have been like. Evangelicals can test Orthodoxy’s claim to historical continuity by studying the church of Antioch.

Many Evangelicals greatly admire the Apostle Paul the great missionary but only a few know the name of his home church. Every missionary has a home church from which they were sent. According to Acts 13:1-3, Paul received his missionary calling at the church of Antioch. In this brief passage we learn during the Liturgy the Holy Spirit directed that Paul and Barnabas be set aside for missionary work. The Church of Antioch – the Apostle Paul’s home church — continues to exist to this day. The current Patriarch of Antioch, John X, can trace his apostolic succession back to the first century. The Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America, which received two thousand Evangelicals into Orthodoxy in 1987, has direct ties with the Apostle Paul’s home church. This is a spiritual lineage that any Evangelical would be proud to have!

Another way an Evangelical can test the Lost World hypothesis is by tracing the form of worship used in the church of Antioch. We learn from that same passage (Acts 13:1-3) that the worship in Antioch was liturgical worship. The Greek word for “worshiping the Lord” (NIV) or “ministered to the Lord” (KJV) is “leitourgounton” from which we get “liturgy.” This is why Orthodox Christians refer to their Sunday worship as “the Liturgy.” The worship of the first Christians in Jerusalem was liturgical. This can be seen in Acts 2:42 which referred to the Liturgy of the Word (the Apostles’ teaching) and the Liturgy of the Eucharist (the breaking of bread). On most Sundays we use the fifth century Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and about ten times a year we use the fourth century Liturgy of St. Basil the Great. These liturgies which were inherited or passed on from the bishops before them are part of the Tradition of the ancient Church. In October we use the first century Liturgy of St. James. The liturgy was named after the Lord’s brother who served as bishop of Jerusalem and in that capacity presided over the first church council recorded in Acts 15. This historical continuity in Orthodox worship stands in stark contrast with the rapidly evolving forms of worship in Protestantism and Evangelicalism. The historic pattern of worship is pretty much lost in much of Evangelicalism. In the more progressive churches the order of worship changes from week to week depending on the decisions made by the praise and worship team. In the more ‘traditional’ Protestant churches the order of worship found in the back of the hymnal is never used by the congregation.

A third way an Evangelical can test the Lost World hypothesis is by tracing the form of church government. The early form of church government was episcopal – rule by bishop. Ignatius of Antioch, the third bishop of Antioch and a disciple of the Apostle John, wrote a series of letters on his way to martyrdom in Rome in 98 or 117 about the importance of obeying the bishop. In his letters he exhorted people not to celebrate the Eucharist (Lord’s Supper) apart from the bishop (Letter to the Smyrneans VIII and IX). All this is so different from Evangelicalism which favors congregational autonomy or the Presbyterian classis. Protestants may be averse to the episcopacy due to their opposition to the Roman Catholic Church but the fact remains that the episcopacy was the norm in the early Church. The notion of a universal papal supremacy was a distortion that Protestants rightly objected to. Orthodoxy also object on the basis that papal supremacy is contrary to Tradition. This supports the Lost World hypothesis that the Orthodox Church is the same church as the early Church.

Jurassic Park

GMO Churches?

Robert Webber’s ancient-future worship movement and Peter Leithart’s reformational-catholicism are examples of a GMO churches. “GMO” refers to “genetically modified organism.” Like the Jurassic Park scientists working to re-create dinosaurs, contemporary theologians and pastors are seeking to re-create the ancient Church based on their research. Their motives may be sincere but the means they used are highly problematic. Sola Scriptura, because it denies Holy Tradition a regulative function in the interpretation of Scripture, has given rise to all sorts of novel doctrines and worship practices resulting in ever multiplying church divisions. As a result there is no integrating center for Protestantism despite their longing for the unity of the ancient Church.

A carefully guarded and transmitted Holy Tradition gives Orthodoxy doctrinal stability and historical continuity that Protestantism never had. The transmission of Holy Tradition is done through apostolic succession, one bishop passing on the Faith to his successor. Another significant factor has been Orthodoxy’s practice of closed communion — only those who are Orthodox and in good standing can partake of the Eucharist. The Eucharist in addition to being the source of unity for Orthodoxy also protects the Orthodox against heterodox innovations. To use an analogy from biology, closed communion prevents unchecked interchange of unwarranted ideas and practices.

All this confronts sincere and serious Evangelicals with a profound question: Is the early Church of the Apostles really gone for good or is it still alive here and now in the Orthodox Church? This in turn presents them with a crucial choice: Do I place myself within the life and communion of the Church that has roots going back to the Apostles – or do I persist in the quest to reconstruct the early Church? In recent years thousands of Protestants and Evangelicals have completed their quest for the ancient Church by taking the bold step of joining the Orthodox Church. Interested readers can learn more about these journeys to Orthodoxy by checking out the titles and links recommended below. The ancient Church founded by the Apostles has never gone away, it is here in the Orthodox Church. By the mercies of God, we bid you: “Come and see.”

Robert Arakaki

Recommendations

Becoming Orthodox by Peter Gillquist

Thirsting for God in a Land of Shallow Wells by Matthew Gallatin

Facing East by Frederica Mathewes-Green

Orthodox Worship: A Living Continuity With the Temple, the Synagogue and the Early Church by Benjamin Williams

The Orthodox Church by Kallistos (Timothy) Ware

The Orthodox Way by Kallistos (Timothy) Ware

Blog: Journey to Orthodoxy

Blog: Letters on Orthodoxy

Blog: Liturgica

Which Path to Church Unity? Recognition vs Reception

April 6, 2014 / Robert Arakaki / 19 Comments

Beauty so ancient and so new

From time to time my friends and I get into a discussion about Christian unity. Anglicans and Roman Catholics seem to be especially eager to reunite with the Orthodox and I have to explain why such efforts are difficult, if not improbable. This position is often met with frustration and perplexity: Why can’t we just be one? What’s the hang up? I began to notice that we seem to be speaking past each other. As I reflected on this impasse I realized that we were operating from different paradigms. One is what I call the recognition paradigm and the other, the reception paradigm.

The recognition paradigm involves the mutual recognition of the validity of the other church’s baptism, their clergy’s ordination, their doctrines, and allowing for inter-communion among their members. The reception paradigm involves one church body accepting the other church’s doctrines and practices as normative, and being received or incorporated into the other church body. Understanding the difference in paradigms can go a long way in helping Christians understand each other.

Invisible or Visible Church?

The question of church unity depends on how we understand the Church. When I was a Protestant Evangelical I was taught that there was the visible local congregation and the invisible universal capital “C” church which consists of all true “born again” Christians. Thus, the ideal Church existed in heaven above all the scandalous divisions among Christians here below.

But when I reflected on the Apostle Paul’s teachings in I Corinthians 12 about the body of Christ I began to see a contradiction between what Paul taught and what modern Evangelicals believed. An invisible body is essentially a ghost, not a genuine body. This notion of an invisible body of Christ also ran contrary to I John 1:1-3 which taught that Jesus’ tangible and visible body was the core of the Gospel. This led me to question whether Evangelicalism’s invisible capital “C” church was theologically sound.

I began to move towards the idea of a visible Church as I started reading about the early Church. I was haunted by Irenaeus of Lyons’ description of the early Church:

Having received this preaching and this faith, as I have said, the Church, although scattered in the whole world, carefully preserves it, as if living in one house. She believes these things [everywhere] alike, as if she had but one heart and one soul, and preaches them harmoniously, teaches them, and hands them down, as if she had but one mouth. (Against Heresies 1.10.2; emphasis added)

The early Church shared the same faith and worship all across the Roman Empire. This was so different from Protestantism’s many denominations. The early Church was remarkably free of denominationalism, why wasn’t the same true of Protestantism?

I was also struck by the early Christians’ emphasis on the importance of belonging to the visible Church. Cyprian of Carthage wrote:

He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. (On the Unity of the Church §6)

My view changed further as I reflected on the Nicene Creed’s line: “I believe in one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.” The word “one” means that there is only one Church, not two churches, nor two halves. Nor does it mean the branch theory Anglicanism proposes or the multitude of denominations as is the case with Protestantism. The problem with the Anglican branch theory is that it substitutes the church catholic with the church comprehensive. Anglican comprehensiveness superimposes liturgical uniformity on doctrinal pluralism. Because there is no precedent for this in the early Church, this approach is highly suspect. Likewise, I began to see that if one took the idea of the visible Church seriously then Protestant denominationalism is like Humpty Dumpty all broken up in pieces waiting for someone to make him whole again.

In Orthodoxy I encountered a different paradigm: the Orthodox Church IS the one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church confessed in the Nicene Creed. Kallistos Ware in The Orthodox Church wrote:

The Orthodox Church in all humility believes itself to be the ‘one, holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church’, of which the Creed speaks: such is the fundamental conviction which guides Orthodox in their relations with other Christians. There are divisions among Christians, but the Church itself is not divided nor can it ever be. (p. 307)

For Orthodoxy there has always been one Church. There may have been people and groups that fell into heresy and schism: they have left the Church but the Church always retained her unity. A leaf may fall from a tree or a branch may break off, but there still remains one tree. Theologically speaking, it is heretical to believe that where there was one Church there is now two or more churches, or that the one Church is now broken into several fragments, or that one Church is now invisible. For Orthodoxy the one Church has never been lost. It has never gone away because it is here in the Orthodox Church.

Many Western Christians are offended by the Orthodox position. They interpret this to mean that Orthodoxy is superior to other religious traditions, or that God’s grace is found only in Orthodoxy and absent outside. The irony of the Orthodox understanding of visible church unity is that it has been regarded as schismatic, especially by Protestants! This can be seen for example in Gordon-Conwell adjunct professor Preston Graham Jr.’s paper on ecumenicism. Of the Orthodox understanding he noted:

This option seeks to express visible unit by limiting the church to what is in reality only one denomination or “tradition” based on one interpretation of the meaning of apostolic order/succession such as to exclude all dissenting views of apostolic order/succession. The sum effect of this option is to seek after visible unity by means of schism! (p. 26)

Protestant Egalitarianism

Prof. Graham’s rejection of Orthodox ecclesiology is rooted in Protestantism’s almost dogmatic insistence upon egalitarianism. There is a certain appeal to Protestantism’s ecclesial egalitarianism; all churches are equal therefore Orthodoxy is just one denomination among many. This insistence on the equality of all church bodies likely stems from the Reformers’ rejection of the Roman papacy. It also conforms to the modern mindset which favors individual liberty and equality for all. If all men have an inherent right to an equal liberty, who’s to say that one Church structure and Tradition should be favored over any other?

Protestant ecclesial egalitarianism can also be found in the Anglican branch theory. An interesting take on the branch theory is the stance that no one branch is the true Church therefore we all need each other. There is a certain humility in this stance but it also opens the door to theological relativism. It is a sad fact that Anglicanism today is theologically incoherent and increasingly fractured.

In addition to Protestant ecclesial egalitarianism, there is corollary epistemological egalitarianism. This takes the form of all Christians being equal with respect to the interpretation of Scripture. This is a consequence of the Reformers’ rejection of the papacy. In light of the supremacy of Scripture (sola scriptura), they feel free to reject or disregard what they call “manmade doctrine.” More recently, Protestant egalitarianism took a postmodern turn with the Emerging Church movement criticizing the traditional church’s “captivity to Enlightenment rationalism.” (see O’Brien 2009) The Protestant disbelief in a supernatural capital “T” Tradition makes discussion of reunion highly problematic. Here we see two disparate paradigms for the source of doctrine. For Protestants it is Scripture Alone; the church plays an auxiliary role but not a determinative role in the making of doctrine. The belief that there is no capital “T” Tradition, only manmade traditions, implies a disbelief in Christ’s promise that he would send the Holy Spirit to guide the Church (John 16:13).

But for Orthodoxy, the Church is the recipient and guardian of Apostolic Tradition. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit she preserves and expounds Scripture for the generations to come (John 14:26, Ephesians 4:11). Theological controversy is best settled through the conciliar method. The Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 provided the precedent for the Ecumenical Councils. Just as the Jerusalem Council was guided by the Holy Spirit, so also the Ecumenical Councils.

Some of my Anglican friends are appreciative of small “t” tradition, but they view certain Orthodox positions, e.g., Mary as the Theotokos or the veneration of icons, as too extreme. They see themselves as a moderating center between Orthodoxy and low church Evangelicalism. But I noticed that like their low church brethren, Anglican Evangelicals reject all supernatural notion of Apostolic Tradition. The presupposition of sola scriptura held by Protestants, whether low church or high church, constitutes a major obstacle to church reunion. If Anglicans desire reunion with Orthodoxy they need to be willing to renounce sola scriptura and embrace the very same Holy Tradition passed on by the Apostles.

Scripture Alone does not exclude other sources like ancient church councils and church fathers. Evangelicals seeking to engage Orthodoxy are often enthusiastic practitioners of ressourcement. They appropriate from the early Church while blithely ignoring its authority. This cherry picking approach is fundamentally flawed. Augustine of Hippo summed up the matter aptly when he wrote:

If you believe what you like in the Gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe but yourself.

Some Evangelical pastors love to pepper their sermons with quotations from early church fathers but they do this selectively. Few Protestants have come to grips with the fact that while they embrace certain church fathers as individuals, they ignore the fathers’ Church. For example, Augustine wrote:

For my part, I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church. (Against the Fundamental Epistle of the Manichees, Chapter 5)

Here Augustine was warning against an individualistic Christianity divorced from the visible Church. This is something that Ancient-Future Evangelicals are reluctant to grapple with. So my question to Protestants seeking church unity is: Are you willing to put sola scriptura on the table? In a Facebook thread I described what this approach would entail:

If you really want to put sola scriptura on the table consider whether you would be willing to accept the Council of Nicea’s Creed as authoritative, binding on all Christians, and an infallible guide for understanding what Scripture teaches. For me this conciliar hermeneutics provides the basis for theological unity. A departure from conciliar hermeneutics will result in doctrinal pluralism and relativism. Accepting this position wouldn’t necessarily make you Orthodox but it would provide for a common basis for discussion with Orthodox Christians.

It is good to see Evangelicals develop an interest in the church fathers and the early liturgies. I would also encourage them to learn from the way the early church fathers read Scripture and to see how the conciliar hermeneutics differ from later Protestant hermeneutics. A patristically informed biblical hermeneutics can help build bridges between Evangelicals and Orthodox. (See Scot McKnight’s posting “Patristics and the Bible.”)

Horizontal and Vertical Unity

There are two critical dimensions to church unity. Horizontal church unity consists of unity among churches across space; vertical church unity consists of unity across time – being united with the ancient churches founded by the Apostles. Key to vertical unity is apostolic succession through the office of the bishop. It is through the local bishop that the local Orthodox parish is linked to the early Church. Reading the writings of the early church fathers or using early liturgical texts do not suffice for vertical unity. The office of the bishop is one key difference between Protestant and Orthodox approaches to unity.

For Orthodoxy horizontal and vertical unity are both critically important. They are found in the Eucharist and in the bishop who presides over the Eucharist. Receiving Communion in Orthodoxy means sharing the same faith as other Orthodox Christians around the world today. And through its bishop the local Orthodox parish can trace a direct historical link to the “breaking of bread” mentioned in Acts 2:46!

Christians interested in church unity need to understand Orthodoxy’s distinctive understanding of Tradition. Apostolic Tradition is key to understanding Orthodox ecclesiology. Bishop Kallistos Ware recounted Father Lev Gillet’s definition of Orthodoxy:

An Orthodox is one who accepts the Apostolic Tradition and who lives in communion with the bishops who are the appointed teachers of this Tradition. (The Inner Kingdom p. 14; italics in original)

The key here is the crucial role played by the bishop in Apostolic Tradition. At the time an Anglican, Ware found this to be an eye opener. He recounted:

Orthodoxy, so I recognized in a sudden flash of insight, is not merely a matter of personal belief; it also presupposes outward and visible communion in the sacraments with the bishops who are the divinely-commissioned witnesses to the truth (The Inner Kingdom p. 15; emphasis added).

So with respect to Orthodoxy’s claim to be the true Church, the question is not superiority versus inferiority, but rather fidelity to and continuity with Apostolic Tradition.

In the early Church the bishop was more than an administrator, as the successor to the Apostles he presided over the Eucharist and guarded the doctrinal purity of the Church. This understanding of the crucial role of the episcopacy to the integrity and unity of the Church is an ancient one. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote:

This is true Gnosis: the teaching of the apostles, and the ancient institution of the church, spread throughout the entire world, and the distinctive mark of the body of Christ in accordance with the succession of bishops, to whom the apostles entrusted each local church, and the unfeigned preservation, coming down to us, of the scriptures, with a complete collection allowing for neither addition nor subtraction, a reading without falsification and, in conformity with the scriptures, so interpretation that is legitimate, careful, without danger of blasphemy. (Against Heresies 4.33.8; emphasis added)

Augustine had a similar high view of the episcopacy. He wrote:

The consent of peoples and nations keeps me in the Church; so does her authority, inaugurated by miracles, nourished by hope, enlarged by love, established by age. The succession of priests keeps me, beginning from the very seat of the Apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after His resurrection, gave it in charge to feed His sheep, down to the present episcopate. (Against the Fundamental Epistle of the Manichees, Chapter 5; emphasis added)

Many Protestant churches do not have bishops or if they do have bishops are unable to trace an unbroken lineage back to the Apostles. The concept of apostolic succession is alien to Protestant theology. Much of the efforts at church unity by Protestants have been focused on horizontal unity with little attention given to vertical unity. This is the greatest flaw in the mutual recognition approach to church unity. In its pursuit of horizontal unity it has sacrificed vertical unity.

A local Orthodox parish cannot modify its liturgy or doctrine unilaterally. If a local Orthodox parish were to do so in order to have unity with their Protestant neighbors they will have severed their connections with the Orthodox Church worldwide not to mention their ties with the early Church. Moreover, no Orthodox bishop would permit a local parish to stray from Apostolic Tradition. The bishop’s job is to preserve the unity and integrity of the Church.

There are two types of church bodies: those whose episcopacy can claim linkage to the original Apostles (Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and the Non-Chalcedonian churches) and those whose leadership cannot make that claim (Protestantism). Recognition to one degree or another is possible with these church bodies that can claim historic ties to the early Church (see Ware The Orthodox Church pp. 311-316). But in the case of Protestants who have broken off from the papacy recognition is ruled out as an option. This means that union with the Orthodox Church is through reception.

Western Ecumenicism

It seems that for Western Christianity church unity is a problem that needs to be solved, that church unity has been lost and needs to be restored. There seems to be a certain eagerness and anxiety in the West’s endeavors to achieve unity with Orthodoxy. When it comes to unity among Christians two important issues need to be addressed: (1) the nature of the unity we seek and (2) and the path we are to take to get there.

For example, my Anglican friends insist that they are part of the “catholic church” confessed in the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed. They note that they use the “same” Nicene Creed as the Orthodox and that they too can claim apostolic succession. In the course of numerous discussions I began to realize that while my Anglican friends don’t hold to Orthodox doctrine or follow Orthodox practices, what they want is for Orthodoxy to recognize the validity of their Anglican doctrines, rites, and clergy. In other words, they are seeking mutual recognition between Anglicans and Orthodox even with the disparity in doctrine, worship, and polity.

Mutual recognition is also the strategy that Roman Catholics are using with Orthodoxy. Pope John Paul II adopted the branch theory when he spoke of Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy as two lungs breathing together. They are not asking any changes in Orthodox doctrine and practice; “all” they are asking for is for Orthodoxy to come under the authority of the Bishop of Rome which for Orthodoxy is a deal breaker.

Related to the mutual recognition paradigm is interfaith dialogue. Many in the ecumenical movement approach interfaith dialogue much in the spirit of labor versus management negotiations: We will give a little on this, if you give a little on that. They believe that doctrine, worship, and polity are all “on the table.” Another ecumenical tactic is to redefine or reframe theological issues so that both sides, once at odds with each other, can now sign a joint statement. Orthodox priest Georges Florovsky called this “doctrinal minimalism.” This approach to ecumenicism is based on an ecclesial pragmatism and theological relativism, or a theological reductionism that seeks to frame doctrine in broadest possible terms.

But for Orthodoxy Holy Tradition is the fullness of the Faith and therefore not negotiable. The Church is not a social construct but a divine creation founded by Christ himself (Matthew 16:18). Thus, one of the major impediments to ecumenical dialogue is that we differ significantly on the goal (the kind of unity we seek) and the means (the path to unity).

Christian Collaboration in a Pluralistic Society

There are two kinds of goals for Christian unity. One goal is Christian unity in the form of one family. The family model of Christian unity is based on the assumption that we are all related to one another and that we live under the same roof. Given the Orthodox understanding of church unity, union with Protestants through the recognition paradigm is unfeasible. The only viable path to unity is through reception.

But what if Protestants are not ready to give up their core Protestant beliefs, what then? I suggest that there is an alternative approach to Christian unity available to Orthodox and non-Orthodox. That is Christian unity in the form of being friendly neighbors. We live next door to each other but we live under separate roofs. We coexist peacefully and work cooperatively on important projects in the name of Christ.

March for Life 2014

We need to encourage and support friendly cooperative relations across the Christian traditions. We can respect each others’ different traditions as we seek to work together for a Christian witness in a pluralistic, post-Christian American society. The annual March for Life in which Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox come together is a good example interfaith cooperation.

In Hawaii I am happy to be part of a monthly get together of “mere Christians” comprised of Protestants, Anglicans, Roman Catholics, and Orthodox Christians. We come together in Christ’s love from our different church traditions for a common meal and a talk on faith and culture.

Unity through Coming Home

Reception of the Evangelical Orthodox (1987)

What is the reception method like? In the 1970s a group of Evangelicals became interested in the early Church. They discovered to their great surprise that early Christian worship was liturgical and sacramental so they became liturgical and sacramental in their worship. They found out that the early Church was creedal so they adopted the Nicene Creed. Along the way they found out the early Church had priests and bishops, so they ordained each other as priests and appointed their own bishops! They even went so far as to make altars and put up tiny postcard size icons behind their altars. They thought of themselves as “orthodox” until they came face to face with Eastern Orthodoxy. Peter Gillquist tells the story how this group of Evangelicals was received into the Antiochian Orthodox Church in his book Becoming Orthodox. But in terms of numbers this paled in comparison with the reception of some twenty thousand Uniates into Orthodoxy in the late 1800s.

There is a great hunger among Protestants today for the early Church and for church unity. This has led to many rediscovering the early church fathers and seeking to bring back liturgical worship. This hunger for ancient Christianity manifested itself in the 1800s in the Mercersburg Theology in the US and in the Oxford movement in England, and more recently in the Federal Vision movement and the Ancient-Future worship movement. This recent enthusiasm for church unity and the ancient faith is very commendable but carries a high price tag. If one wishes to enter into Eucharistic unity with the ancient Church one must be prepared to give up aspects of Protestantism that are at odds with the ancient Christian Faith. Reception should not be viewed as an obstacle but an open door. Thousands of Protestants have already taken this bold step and hopefully many more in the days to come will unite themselves with the one Church confessed in the Nicene Creed.

Robert Arakaki

Other articles:

Former Church of England priest Michael Harper‘s conversion story

“A Calvinist Anglican Converts to Orthodoxy” Interview: Joseph Gleason with Mark Bradshaw — Journey to Orthodoxy (24 October 2013)

“Episcopal congregation embracing Orthodox faith” by Carla Hinton NewsOK (7 July 2007)

“St. Alexis Toth – Confessor of the Orthodox Faith in America”

Service Text: “Service for the Reception of Converts” (denver.goarch.org)

Category: Church History (Page 11 of 19)

Worship in Ancient House Churches

The Eucharistic Liturgy in Ancient House Churches

Jurassic Park and the Protestant Quest for the Early Church

Which Path to Church Unity? Recognition vs Reception

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