Dear Father Alexey,<\/p>\n
Christ is in our midst!<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve had a bad cold this week and have kept to my cell, and therefore have had time for a few reflections on our mission, church life, etc.<\/p>\n
First of all, I’ve looked at some of the recent Orthodox periodicals\u2014and on the whole, what a dreary collection of texts. There is very little life anywhere, and so much emphasis on externals, bishops, splendid services, etc. The OCA\u2019s Orthodox Church, it is true, talks a lot about mission, stewardship, responsibility, etc., and I began to wonder why I didn\u2019t like it (maybe I\u2019m just prejudiced or jealous?). But then I looked at the latest Orthodox America\u2014and what a difference! Every page has something for the soul, something to learn and be inspired by; but the Orth. Church only talks about things that might be inspiring (if they were genuine), while giving nothing whatever for the soul. It\u2019s like a two-dimensional facade with nothing at all behind it.<\/p>\n
Therefore, not to be proud, but to see things the way they are\u2014what you and we all are trying to do is extremely important in the real missionary sense, no matter how little support some may give it.<\/p>\n
I say this having also in mind Fr. Panagiotes\u2019 letter. Perhaps it is uncharitable of me, but my first thought on hearing of it was: if they wish to think that way, I would rather have them as enemies than as \u201cfriends\u201d who speak well but are ready to stab you in the back. The whole course of the last years\u2019 events with our Greeks has been positive, I think, in that it has brought concealed attitudes to light and removed the sugary \u201cfriendship\u201d which is so frustrating. Recently Fr. Isaac wrote from Boston that we send them \u201ctoo many\u201d Orthodox Words\u2014five is plenty, and they sent back most of the Calendars we sent them. The year before Fr. Ephraim had already said they didn\u2019t need any of our books (although we sent some since then to individual monks), and now they can give us Psalters and Ladders only with 20% discount. The message is clear: They have their view of Orthodoxy and don\u2019t want anything to do with ours.<\/p>\n
But they, it is now obvious, are a small minority. Our subscriptions constantly increase, and almost no one has cancelled over our \u201ccontroversial\u201d articles. (One person in Boston threatened to do so over our seeming \u201cattacks\u201d on Boston, but after my letter did renew.) Most people in the Church who read English publications are either with us or at least are not against us; only a small, narrow group is opposed. We\u2019ll just have to leave this group to itself and speak to everyone else. We have already broken the ice on \u201cforbidden\u201d topics, and should continue to pay no heed to what the Greeks think about the Shroud, evolution, etc. Public opinion in our Church was almost paralyzed for a while by these \u201cforbidden\u201d subjects, but I think if we lead the way the air will be made healthier for everyone.<\/p>\n
Thinking about my Genesis course this summer, I was rereading part of Dr. Kalomiros\u2019 letters. How discouraging! One loses all inspiration to get tangled up in this subject, seeing how he handles it. And really, the tone is just like Deacon Lev\u2019s. I wondered why, and Fr. Herman answered me: They\u2019re trying to keep up with the \u201cadvanced\u201d fashions of the universities; and I think that\u2019s probably the answer. Especially Kalomiros\u2019 repeated insistence (Deacon Lev says the same thing) over how many have \u201clost their souls\u201d because of literal interpretations of Genesis\u2014that is, we have to give them Genesis on their level, changing the truth if need be so as not to offend them or give them more than they can chew. But anyone who is really converted to Christianity will surely begin to rethink this whole intellectual outlook, won\u2019t he? Isn\u2019t the real problem that Dr. Kalomiros, Deacon Lev, and others are intellectuals who haven\u2019t been fully converted, or have brought their intellectual baggage with them into Orthodoxy\u2014the same thing they accuse others of? This was the disease of the Russian intellectual converts earlier in this century, and I think our Greeks fall into the same category.<\/p>\n
Therefore, I am plowing ahead with Genesis according to the Holy Fathers, realizing that it may cause more waves among the Greeks (and name-calling\u2014but I\u2019m already a \u201ctheosophist\u201d and can\u2019t get much worse than that!), especially since it will be \u201ccompetition\u201d to Dr. Kalomiros\u2019 talk in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n
Speaking of Genesis, I see no reason why this course on Genesis couldn\u2019t be turned into the main portion of our long-lost \u201cevolution\u201d book. The whole outline of it now becomes clear to me. It should be called something positive (no evolution in the title), such as \u201cGenesis, Creation and Early Man: An Orthodox View,\u201d and the first and main part should be simply an Orthodox interpretation (according to St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephraim, etc) of the first chapters of Genesis, discussing \u201cproblems\u201d raised by modern men in the course of the discussion. Then, as the secondary thought (less than half the book), a discussion of the whole question of evolution, something like this:<\/p>\n
1. Evolution as a scientific theory: the \u201cproofs\u201d of evolution. This would be a brief discussion of everything people think proves evolution\u2014just enough to show that these aren\u2019t really proofs at all, and evolution can neither be proved nor disproved. The chapter you\u2019ve already written should take care of most of this already, perhaps even shortened to make our contact with the scientific side of the question as brief as possible, since this is the most debatable part of it.<\/p>\n
2. Evolution as popular science\u2014basically your chapter on \u201cEarly Man\u201d to show how textbooks fill in the \u201cgaps\u201d of scientific knowledge and present a picture much more solid than any facts warrant. Eugene Zavarin will be satisfied to see we aren\u2019t using a highschool textbook as a scientific treatise, but only showing how evolution filters down to this level.<\/p>\n
3. Evolution as mythology and cosmic speculation, \u2014some remarks on Carl Sagan\u2019s \u201cCosmos\u201d television series and book. I add this here because one of our subscribers just sent a dipping about this, which seems to be much in the air now, and it seems typical of the way evolution is preached today as dogma and almost religion. What do yo think of this? Are you familiar with this series?<\/p>\n
4. Where did the idea of evolution come from?\u2014to explain how it got in the air. I\u2019ve written about half of this already.<\/p>\n
5. \u201cChristian\u201d evolution and T. de Chardin\u2014your article. (Or maybe ch.s 4 and 5 should be reversed.)<\/p>\n
6. The new reaction against evolution: towards a Christian-inspired scientific approach to origins, with citations from the Creationist literature.<\/p>\n
I think this basically takes in the work we\u2019ve done over the past eight years. If we can carry it through, it should be a pioneering work which will make this question at least discussable among Orthodox Christians, many of whom are concerned but just don\u2019t know where to begin to think it through. What do you think? Any ideas or discussions? I will be working on the whole first part for the summer course, and maybe you and I could look over and organize the rest of it sometime this summer. Then it will be timely to print it, especially since the subject will be somewhat in the air with my and Kalomiros\u2019 talks.<\/p>\n
Rereading Kalomiros\u2019 letters, I see that there is something quite basic at stake in our differences with the Greeks. In this particular case, it is obvious that Kalomiros has no intention whatever to humble himself before the mind of the Fathers. He \u201cknows better\u201d than they, and therefore he easily categorizes as \u201cabsurd\u201d opinions which they held because he himself has thought it out better, with the aid of modern science. In this case he is broader than the Fathers; in most cases, perhaps, our Greeks are narrower\u2014but it is their own wisdom that they trust and which they wish to impose on others. Our key is\u2014sticking to the wisdom of the Church, trusting our own Fathers and the Holy Fathers who lived before. People are ready to hear this.<\/p>\n
Please pray for Catechumen Genevieve (Timothy Shell\u2019s Mimi), whom, God willing, we will baptize this Pascha, and Catechumen Andrew (Robert Kencis), who will probably be baptized sooner. Before Lent begins, please forgive me and us all for our sins against you in thought, word, and deed. May God forgive and have mercy on us all, and grant us all a profitable Lent!<\/p>\n
With love in Christ,
\nUnworthy Hieromonk Seraphim<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dear Father Alexey, Christ is in our midst! I\u2019ve had a bad cold this week and have kept to my cell, and therefore have had time for a few reflections on our mission, church life, etc. First of all, I’ve looked at some of the recent Orthodox periodicals\u2014and on the whole, what a dreary collection […]<\/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-1484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484","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=1484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/orthodoxaustralia.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}