Terror Attacks in Belgium, Pakistan, and Around the World*

March 28, 2016

WASHINGTON, DC: The National Council of Churches mourns for those who died in recent terrorist attacks in Brussels, Belgium, and Lahore, Pakistan and prays for those who are recovering from injuries. We condemn all acts of violence that intentionally target innocent people. We view these incidents as attacks on individual human lives, communities, people of faith, and on civilization itself, abhor this cowardly violence, and call for its end.

We are shocked the attack in Lahore was carried out on the holiest day of the Christian calendar. We mourn also for victims of attacks, seemingly too frequent to count, in Turkey, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Syria, and Honduras. Although media attention tends to focus on terrorism in Western European countries, God is the God of all. God cares for all, grieves with all, and desires justice and love above all.

The terrorist organizations that carry out such acts must be brought to justice through a coordinated, international police and intelligence effort. The vast majority of people of faith oppose terrorism carried out in the name of religion, for it is antithetical to the tenets of our faiths. We stand with those of all faiths who seek justice and peace and an end to terrorism and the killing of innocents.

*Statement from National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA

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+ Triumph of Orthodoxy + Торжество Православия

The Sunday of Orthodoxy is the first Sunday of Great Lent according to the Eastern Orthodox (Julian) calendar. The dominant theme of this Sunday since 843 AD has been that of the victory of the icons. In that year the iconoclastic controversy, which had raged on and off since 726, was finally resolved by the Church, and icons and their veneration were restored on the first Sunday in Lent. Ever since, this Sunday has been commemorated as the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

The Council decided on a doctrine by which icons should be venerated but not worshipped. The decree of the Seventh Ecumenical Council of 787 restoring icons to churches added an important clause which still stands at the foundation of the rationale for using and venerating icons in the Orthodox Church to this very day:

“We define that the holy icons, whether in color, mosaic, or some other material, should be exhibited in the holy churches of God, on the sacred vessels and liturgical vestments, on the walls, furnishings, and in houses and along the roads, namely the icons of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, that of Our Lady the Theotokos, those of the venerable angels and those of all saintly people. Whenever these representations are contemplated, they will cause those who look at them to commemorate and love their prototype. We define also that they should be kissed and that they are an object of veneration and honor (προσκύνηση και τιμή), but not of worship (λατρεία), which is reserved for Him Who is the subject of our faith and is proper for the divine nature. The veneration accorded to an icon is in effect transmitted to the prototype; the person who venerates the icon, venerated in it the reality for which it stands.”

The theme of the victory of the icons, by its emphasis on the incarnation, points us to the basic Christian truth that the one whose death and resurrection we celebrate at Pascha (Easter) was none other than the Word of God who became human.

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Sunday of Forgiveness

Brothers and Sisters

Please forgive me

For the sake of Christ!

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+ Forgiveness Sunday + Прощёное Воскресенье

“The Lord has given us two options: to remember or to forget. To forget the bad; to remember the good. Happiness comes only to those who have learned this” – Saint Princess Fevronia Muromskaya.*

This Sunday is known in the Eastern Orthodox Church as Forgiveness Sunday, when we remember the Fall of Adam and Eve and how they lost Paradise by disobeying God by eating ‘the forbidden fruit’ (which is why we fast) and by blaming rather than humbly asking forgiveness (which is why we ask one another’s forgiveness and for God’s forgiveness in confession during Lent).

The cure for Adam and Eve’s disobedience was in doing the opposite of all they had done. Instead of disobedience, they needed obedience; instead of pride, they needed humility. In other words they had to turn back on what they had done in repentance and ask forgiveness. At first they had been unable to do this. When God first spoken to Adam and Eve after their act of disobedience, Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent. Neither had the humility to take responsibility for one’s errors and ask for forgiveness. It was not that God did not know what they had done; it was simply that God wanted to give them the opportunity to ask Him, and to ask each other, for forgiveness. Instead they blamed each other and in the process blamed God their Maker.

To us, as children of Adam and Eve, God also gives opportunities to ask for forgiveness, as Adam and Eve should have done. He gives us the mystery of Confession. Confession does not exist because God wants to know what we have done or left undone. God already knows that. Confession exists because God is giving us an opportunity to own up to our mistakes and failings. Simply said… God does not need our confession, we do; and every confession is a repeat of that opportunity given to Adam and Eve in Eden, to ask God for forgiveness. Unlike human-beings, God always forgives those who sincerely, with repentance, ask for forgiveness. However, before we ask forgiveness of God, we first have to ask forgiveness of each other.

And just at this time, on Forgiveness Sunday, Orthodox Christians make a beginning of our Lenten discipline with the forgiving of everyone for everything. This is expressed in the rite of forgiveness which is part of Vespers. The ritual expression of forgiveness can easily and often be little more than a ritual. It reminds us of the need to forgive, but does not, on its own, achieve what it expresses. This should not be surprising – forgiveness is perhaps the most difficult spiritual undertaking, but necessary for the sake of our own salvation. For if we do not first ask each other for forgiveness, we cannot ask God for forgiveness. And without forgiveness, there is no way back into Paradise for any of us. Please, forgive me, my sisters and brothers, and please pray for me! May God forgive us and grant us the grace and joy of His Holy Resurrection.

*Translated from Russian: “Две способности дал нам Господь: помнить и забывать. Забывать зло. Помнить добро. Счастье даётся только тем, кто научился этому” – Святая княгиня Феврония Муромская.

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NCC: Christian Unity Gathering*

This year’s Christian Unity Gathering will be held from May 4-7. Our theme is “Fear Not: God’s Love in an Anxious Age,” an appropriate choice in the atmosphere of racial injustice, gun violence, economic inequality, and climate change.

Our beginning point is 1 John 4:16-21, in which we are reminded that perfect love casts out fear. I pray this Gathering will strengthen us for the coming months of a fraught presidential campaign in which we are being told we live in the midst of disaster. Interestingly, the NCC’s recent call for candidates to refrain from utilizing speech that reflects hatred of others and results in division of society has now appeared on more than 345,000 Facebook pages.

Good news awaits those of you who join us at the Gathering. Our opening preacher will be His Beatitude Tikhon, Archbishop of Washington and Metropolitan of All America and Canada for the Orthodox Church in America. Last year, I was sitting in an airport lounge in Yerevan, Armenia when the lead singer of System of a Down, a heavy metal band, was introduced to the Metropolitan Tikhon. It turns out Tikhon is a big fan and knew their music well. In other words, the Metropolitan may not be quite you would expect in a senior church leader.

Our Bible study leader will be Rev. Neichelle Guidry, now on the pastoral staff of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago where she provides leadership to the young adult and worship and arts ministries. Rev. Guidry is also the founder of Shepreaches, a network that assists and encourages African American women moving into pulpit ministry. An interesting article about her ministry was recently published in the New York Times.

I’m excited, too, that friends and colleagues of mine, Rev. Dr. Karen Hamilton, General Secretary of the Canadian Council of Churches, and Rev. Joel Dopico, President of the Cuban Council of Churches will join us and speak, as well. Last year, the World Council of Churches, the Canadian Council of Churches, and the US National Council of Churches co-sponsored an important evangelism consultation.

*Source: NCC Weekly News by Jim Winkler, President and General Secretary

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The Mystery of the Repentant Thief

Icon researchers often have unanswered questions about icons; one of these bothersome unanswered mysteries is the origin of the name Rakh. Who is Rakh? Well, in Russian iconography, he is the Repentant Thief, the fellow crucified next to Jesus, as is recorded is in the 23rd chapter of the Gospel of Saint Luke. Saint Luke just calls him a “malefactor” (Greek: κακούργους — kakourgos, meaning one who does bad, a criminal — not specifically a thief):

32 And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him to be put to death.33 And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left…39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. 42 And he said unto Jesus, ‘Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.’ 43 And Jesus said unto him, ‘Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.’

Now interestingly, this account disagrees with that of Saint Matthew. In Matthew 27 we are told that two thieves were crucified with Jesus, but neither is repentant:

43 He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God. 44The thieves (Greek: λῃσταὶ – lestai) also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.

The earliest gospel — that called “of Mark” — also has thieves, but in Mark (chapter 15) they are simply there to fulfill prophecy. They neither scorn Jesus nor does either “repent”:

27 And with him they crucify two thieves (Greek: λῃστάς – listas); the one on his right hand, and the other on his left. 28 And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And he was numbered with the transgressors.

The gospel called “of John” (chapter 19) merely mentions two other people being crucified with Jesus. It tells us nothing whatsoever about them:

17 And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha: 18 Where they crucified him, and two others (Greek: ἄλλους – allous) with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.

So we see that only Saint Luke tells us that one of the two crucified with Jesus was repentant, though he does not specify that the penitent was a thief. And that, combined with calling the two crucified with Jesus “thieves” in Matthew and Mark, along with the following from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, are the sources for icons of the Repentant Thief:

5 Then Pilate commanded the veil to be drawn before the judgement-seat whereon he sat, and saith unto Jesus: Thy nation hath convicted thee (accused thee) as being a king: therefore have I decreed that thou shouldest first be scourged according to the law of the pious emperors, and thereafter hanged upon the cross in the garden wherein thou wast taken: and let Dysmas and Gestas the two malefactors be crucified with thee… 2 And one of the malefactors that were hanged [by name Gestas] spake unto him, saying: If thou be the Christ, save thyself, and us. But Dysmas answering rebuked him, saying: Dost thou not at all fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? and we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus: Remember me, Lord, in thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him: Verily, verily, I say unto thee, that today thou shalt be (art) with me in paradise.

It does not take much thought to realize that we are dealing with hagiography — pious writings written for a purpose other than literal history. But what we should note in these excerpts for our purposes here is that first, only one biblical gospel, that of Luke, tells us that one of the malefactors crucified with Jesus was “repentant” and was promised paradise. Second, we should note that this “repentant thief” is not named. Third, we find a similar, though somewhat elaborated story in the Gospel of Nicodemus, in which the repentant thief is given the name Dysmas, generally spelled Dismas.

Now we might logically expect to find, on Russian icons of the Repentant Thief, an identifying inscription such as “The Holy Repentant Thief Dismas,” or something similar. But this is the mystery. Russian icons do not call him Dismas. They call him Rakh. What makes this name even more puzzling is that the Greeks, from whom the Russians inherited a great many iconographic types, do not call the thief Rakh or even anything remotely similar. How, then, did this name arise?

This mystery seems to have a logical answer. In her book The Rakh Icon: Discovery of its True Identify, Renate Gerstenlauer gives the most reasonable explanation to date. She says it likely arose from a misreading of a title inscription, which was then perpetuated in titles given new icons of the Penitent Thief. Here is how it my have happened.

In Russian the title of the Penitent Thief is generally: БЛАГОРАЗУМНЫЙ РАЗБОЙНИКЪ РАХЪ (BLAGORAZUMNUIY RAZBOINIK RAKH — “THE WISE THIEF RAKH”). Gerstenlauer theorizes that the Russian title may have come from a garbled reading [possibly due to damage of the inscription or unclear writing] of the title of a particular icon type of the Penitent Thief that is called “The Wise/Prudent Thief in Paradise,” written in Cyrillic as: БЛАГОРАЗУМНЫЙ РАЗБОЙНИКЪ ВЪ РАЮ (BLAGORAZUMNUIY RAZBOINIK V RAIU). It is in the last three words that the problem seems to have occurred. Instead of reading them as РАЗБОЙНИКЪ ВЪ РАЮ, they were somehow misread as РАЗБОЙНИКЪ РАХЪ, which could easily have happened if the inscription has been damaged, with the “ВЪ” disappearing and the word “РАЮ” (“paradise”) misread as РАХЪ (“Rakh”).

This suggested solution to the problem of the origin of the mysterious name for the Penitent Thief — a name that appeared to have been pulled out of nowhere by Russian icon painters — seems very likely to be the solution to the mystery.

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The Good Defense Before the Dread Judgment Seat: Hospitality

On the 3rd of the Pre-Lenten Sundays, we read the Gospel lesson of Matthew 25:31-46, the Last Judgment.   It is a surprising description of the Last Judgment – no mention of sins.  The Judgme…

Source: The Good Defense Before the Dread Judgment Seat: Hospitality

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