Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey,
\nGreetings in our Lord Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
We received Fr. Ephraim\u2019s \u201cOpen Letter\u201d today, together with your note. Yes, we found too that he completely missed the point, and all the very nice quotes from the Fathers on the different degrees of knowledge mean nothing when one stops to realize that you are not at all attacking scientific knowledge, but only pseudo-scientific pseudo-religious philosophy masquerading as science, and you are using scientific knowledge not to defend theology but only to destroy the self-contradictory theories of the pseudo-scientists. Are these points really so difficult to understand or impossible to defend?<\/p>\n
Unless we are crazy, Fr. Ephraim has gone off somewhere in the clouds and is not at all in contact with what is going on in the world today, intellectually \u2014 which is very much of concern to Orthodox Christians who live in this world. Fr. Ephraim, in trying to stand so far \u201cabove\u201d the whole question, does not give the impression that he speaks from the heights of the third degree of knowledge (which seems to be what he is trying to hint at?), but rather uses such exalted knowledge for rather rationalistic purposes. We are very disappointed to see such narrowness. And the reply of the mother to the Orthodox \u201chigh school youth\u201d (p. 17 \u2014 this apparently sums up his \u201canswer\u201d to the whole problem of evolution!) \u2014 how naive and spineless! Can Fr. E. really be so unaware of the anti- Christian purposes of such \u201cscientific\u201d education? His reply is an open invitation to the youth to accept whatever the school teaches him \u2014 because we poor Orthodox Christians, alas, having such high knowledge, cant \u201cknow any better.\u201d I\u2019ll tell you frankly (but don\u2019t quote me!) \u2014 this isn\u2019t theology, its hogwash. There\u2019s a real and pressing problem here, and you\u2019ve attacked it honestly, freshly, and well (considering the short space you had); if there are deficiencies or mistakes in what you\u2019ve said, they can be talked about in a friendly manner. But alas, his only aim is to discredit you and put you in your place. This is wrong and sick. Forgive my strong language.<\/p>\n
Our first thought was \u2014 a reply is pointless. However, if you are writing one, we would be glad to read it for an \u201cobjective\u201d (or at least third person) evaluation. However, a point by point answer is really pointless. Despite Fr. E\u2019s avowals, he obviously has no sympathy for you and has no particular desire to find out what you\u2019re trying to say \u2014 he already \u201cknows better,\u201d and everything you say will be interpreted in the light of this \u201cknowledge.\u201d Every good point you can make in reply will be \u201cpicked on\u201d and torn to pieces so as to prove that you are an unreliable convert and theologically unsound. I don\u2019t think this is deliberate on his part \u2014 he just has a preconceived idea and isn\u2019t going to change it.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the overt Catholic references in the \u201cShroud article\u201d give Fr. E. all the ammunition he needs to prove you\u2019re still a \u201cCatholic,\u201d and he\u2019ll interpret everything you say in this light. Your chief other weak point on which he capitalizes is the overemphasis (so it seems to us) on science in the \u201cShroud\u201d article. Apart from these points, we don\u2019t see that he has any legitimate cause for such a hostile and public letter \u2014 in fact, in any case there\u2019s no cause for anything more than a friendly and concerned note.<\/p>\n
It is rather frustrating to get Kalomiros thrown at one again, \u2014 still without knowing what he says about evolution! I strongly suspect that he doesn\u2019t really say anything to which any of us would particularly object and that he doesn\u2019t at all believe in the \u201cevolution\u201d you\u2019re attacking. We get the impression that Fr. E. isn\u2019t aware enough about any kind of evolution to tell the difference, but is only using Kalomiros as a handy weapon against you.<\/p>\n
After reading Fr. E\u2019s epistle, we begin to despair about the \u201cGreek wisdom\u201d of our own day, which seems to have all too much in common with the ancient variety! What will happen when they really begin to find out how simple and unconcerned about all those things that excite them we \u201cRussians\u201d are? One basic element seems lacking in all their \u201cwisdom,\u201d one which the Holy Fathers emphasize is essential for genuine Orthodox life: suffering. The \u201cwisdom\u201d born of leisure and idle disputes is not worth having; but the wisdom born of deep suffering (such as God has given above all to the Russians in our day) is alone truly balanced and sound, even if it can not give a glib answer to every mocking question. Let us try to enter more deeply into this suffering, God giving us His grace to do so!<\/p>\n
A revealing point: the use of \u201croyal jelly\u201d in a supposedly serious theological article is unpardonable levity. A Russian theologian might occasionally bring home some polemical point with humor \u2014 but with a sober humor, not just plain levity.<\/p>\n
Already you are somewhat entering into this suffering through being unjustly mocked. May God give you the strength to endure and not fight back with the same weapons, but rather continue to look freshly (and not abstractly) at the real problems facing those today who wish to be Orthodox in a world gone mad.<\/p>\n
Any reply you make to Fr. E. should be brief and to the point. He has obviously taken unfair advantage of you in order thoroughly to discredit you, based on the reputation of the monastery as against you, a \u201cnobody.\u201d He is riding on a current of intellectual fashion, and this will pass, and it will not be for the good of the monastery that it has allowed itself to do this and not face the real intellectual problems of the day. Pray to Vladika John for guidance. Know that not everything depends on what some people \u201cthink\u201d of you, and also that at the proper time others will speak up for you.<\/p>\n
You are welcome to visit us next weekend, or whenever you can come.<\/p>\n
With love in Christ our Saviour,<\/p>\n
P.S. It would doubtless be best not to tell Fr. Ephraim that you are working on a longer study of evolution \u2014 let it come as a complete surprise, or else he will try his best to undermine it before it ever comes out.<\/p>\n
It will not be easy to get the point of your longer study on evolution across to people who think like Fr. Ephraim, but with God\u2019s help it can be done. There is something deep and important here \u2014 a rather \u201cacademic\u201d approach to theology that does not come to grips with the anti-theology of our day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Brother in Christ, Alexey, Greetings in our Lord Jesus Christ. We received Fr. Ephraim\u2019s \u201cOpen Letter\u201d today, together with your note. Yes, we found too that he completely missed the point, and all the very nice quotes from the Fathers on the different degrees of knowledge mean nothing when one stops to realize that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}