Dialogue with Non-Christian

ORTHODOX ISSUES OF THE DAY

CAN THE ORTHODOX CHURCH ENTER A "Dialogue" with Non-Christian Religions?

Fr. Seraphim of Platina

INTRODUCTION

OURS IS A spiritually unbalanced age, when even many Orthodox Christians find themselves tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive (Eph. 4:14). The time, indeed, seems to have come when men will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be inclined unto fables (II Tim. 4:3-4). One reads in bewilderment of the latest acts and pronouncements of the "ecumenical" madness. On the most sophisticated level, Orthodox theologians representing the American Standing Conference of Orthodox Bishops conduct a learned "dialogue" with Papists and issue a joint statement on the Eucharist (Diakonia, 1970, no. 1, p. 72), setting forth six points of "remarkable and fundamental agreement," noting at the end some "serious differences... which now prevent us from communicating in one another's churches," without even raising the one "difference" that is substantial and that renders such "dialogues" utterly futile: that the Eucharist within the Orthodox Church is a sacrament and grace-giving, and outside the Orthodox Church it is an empty ritual without grace, a blasphemy. Or again, Orthodox representatives gather with Papists and Protestants at St. Vladimir's Seminary for an annual "Ecumenical Institute on Spirituality" without the slightest inkling of a realization that what can be "discussed" with heretics is most certainly not Orthodox spirituality, of which they can have had no experience, but only an academic caricature of it (St. Vladimir's Theological Quarterly, 1969, no. 4, p. 225). Yet again, the third unofficial consultation of theologians of the Orthodox and Monophysite ("non-Chalcedonian") Churches, meeting in Geneva in August, 1970, concludes that "on the essence of the Christological dogma our two traditions, despite 15 centuries of separation, continue to find themselves in full and profound agreement with the universal tradition of the one and indivisible Church," the heresy which the Holy Fathers anathematized being a matter of "different terminology," and it points the way for a "declaration of reconciliation" between the two bodies which will involve, for example, the abrogation of all Orthodox statements against the Monophysite heretics (this would entail the rewriting of the Orthodox service books), although the Orthodox need not go so far as to recognize these heretics as saints, while allowing the Monophysites, however, to do so (Episkepsis, Sept. 29, 1970).

On the level of action, ecumenical activists take advantage of the fact that the intellectuals and theologians are irresolute and unrooted in Orthodox tradition, and use their very words concerning "fundamental agreement" on sacramental and dogmatic points as an excuse for flamboyant ecumenical acts, not excluding the giving of Holy Communion to heretics. And this state of confusion in turn gives an opportunity for ecumenical ideologists on the most popular level to issue empty if not idiotic pronouncements that reduce basic theological issues to the level of cheap comedy, as when Patriarch Athenagoras allows himself to say: "Does your wife ever ask you how much salt she should put in the food? Certainly not. She has the infallibility. Let the Pope have it too, if he wishes" (Hellenic Chronicle, April 9, 1970).

The informed and conscious Orthodox Christian may well ask: where will it all end? Is there no limit to the betrayal, the denaturement, the selfliquidation of Orthodoxy?

It has not yet been too carefully observed where all this is leading, but logically the path is clear. The ideology behind ecumenism, which has inspired such ecumenistic acts and pronouncements as the above, is an already welldefined heresy: the Church of Christ does not exist, no one has the Truth, the Church is only now being built. But it takes little reflection to see that the self-liquidation of Orthodoxy, of the Church of Christ, is simultaneously the self-liquidation of Christianity itself; that if no one church is the Church of Christ, then the combination of all sects will not be the Church either, not in the sense in which Christ founded it. And if all "Christian" bodies are relative to each other, then all of them together are relative to other "religious" bodies, and "Christian" ecumenism can only end in a syncretic world religion.

This is indeed the undisguised aim of the masonic ideology which has inspired the Ecumenical Movement, and this ideology has now taken such possession of those who participate in the Ecumenical Movement, taking the place of Christianity in them, that "dialogue" and eventual union with the non-Christian religions have come to be the logical next step for today's denatured Christianity. The following are a few of the many recent examples that could be given that point the way to an "ecumenical" future outside of Christianity.

1. On June 27, 1965, a "Convocation of Religion for World Peace" was held in San Francisco in connection with the 20th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations in that city. Before 10,000 spectators there were addresses on the "religious" foundations of world peace by Hindu, Buddhist, Moslem, Jewish, Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox representatives, and hymns of all faiths were sung by a 2000-voice "interfaith" choir.

2. The Greek Archdiocese of North and South America, in the official statement of its 19th Clergy-Laity Congress (Athens, July, 1968), declared: "We believe that the ecumenical movement, even though it is of Christian origin, must become a movement of all religions reaching towards each other."

3. The "Temple of Understanding, Inc.," an American foundation established in 1960 as a kind of "Association of United Religions" with the aim of "building the symbolic Temple in various parts of the world" (precisely in accord with the doctrine of Freemasonry), has held two "Summit Conferences." At the first, in Calcutta in 1968, the Latin Trappist Thomas Merton (who died suddenly in Bangkok on the way back from this Conference) declared: "We are already a new unity. What we must regain is our original unity." At the second, at Geneva in April, 1970, eighty representatives of ten world religions met to discuss such topics as "The Project of the Creation of a World Community of Religions"; the General Secretary of the World Council of Churches, Dr. Eugene Carson Blake, delivered an address calling on the heads of all religions to unite; and on April 2 an "unprecedented" supra-confessional prayer service took place in St. Peter's Cathedral, described by the Protestant Pastor Babel as "a very great date in the history of religions," at which "everyone prayed in his own language and according to the customs of the religion which he represented" and at which "the faithful of all religions were invited to coexist in the cult of the same God," the service ending with the "Our Father" (La Suisse, April 3, 1970). No Orthodox delegates were apparently present at this convocation, but Orthodox ecumenists were represented by Dr. Blake, with whom they pray at WCC meetings.

4. Early in 1970 the WCC sponsored a conference in Ajaltoun, Lebanon, between Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, and Moslems, and a follow-up conference of 23 WCC "theologians" in Zurich in June declared the need for "dialogue" with the non-Christian religions. At the meeting of the Central Committee of the WCC at Addis Ababa in January of this year, Metropolitan Georges Khodre of Beirut (Orthodox Church of Antioch) shocked even many Protestant delegates when he not merely called for "dialogue" with these religions, but left the Church of Christ far behind and trampled on 19 centuries of Christian tradition when he called on Christians to "investigate the authentically spiritual life of the unbaptized" and enrich their own experience with the "riches of a universal religious community" (Religious News Service), for "it is Christ alone who is received as light when grace visits a Brahman, a Buddhist, or a Moslem reading his own scriptures" (Christian Century, Feb. 10, 1971).

It is thus clear that the notion of a "dialogue" with non-Christian religions is "in the air," has become a part of the intellectual fashion of the day; it seems to be indeed the next step for ecumenism in its progress toward a universal religious syncretism. What is the ineaning of this "dialogue" for those who wish to remain Orthodox Christians? What is the Orthodox answer to it? The following three articles are offered as an approach to these questions. The first, on the Near Eastern religions with which Christian ecumenists hope to unite on the basis of "monotheism," approaches the subject theologically, inasmuch as the most fundamental divergence of these religions from Orthodox Christianity occurs precisely in their doctrine of God. The second and longest article, on the most powerful of the Eastern religions, Hinduism, approaches the subject both theologically and on the basis of a long personal experience which ended in the author's conversion from Hinduism to Orthodox Christianity; it gives also an interesting appraisal of the meaning for Hinduism of the "dialogue with Christianity." The third article is a personal account of the meeting of an Orthodox priest-monk with an Eastern "miracle-worker" – a direct confrontation of Christian and non-Christian "spirituality." From these articles an answer will emerge to what should be the central concern of the ecumenists' "dialogue" with the non-Christian religions: who is the "father," the "god," that attracts and promises to unite you to those who do not accept Christ, our God and Saviour?

I. DO WE HAVE THE SAME GOD THAT NON-CHRISTIANS HAVE?

By Father Basile Sakkas

Swiss Orthodox Mission of St. Nectarios, Geneva

"The Hebrew and Islamic peoples, and Christians... these three expressions of an identical monotheism, speak with the most authentic and ancient, and even the boldest and most confident voices. Why should it not be possible that the name of the same God, instead of engendering irreconcilable opposition, should lead rather to mutual respect, understanding and peaceful coexistence? Should the reference to the same God, the same Father, without prejudice to theological discussion, not lead us rather one day to discover what is so evident, yet so difficult that we are all sons of the same Father, and that, therefore, we are all brothers?"

Pope Paul VI, La Croix, Aug. 11, 1970

ON THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 1970, a great religious manifestation took place in Geneva. Within the framework of the Second Conference of the "Association of United Religions," the representatives of ten great religions were invited to gather in the Cathedral of Saint Peter. This "common prayer" was based on the following motivation: "The faithful of all these religions were invited to coexist in the cult of the same God"! Let us then see if this assertion is valid in the light of the Holy Scriptures.

In order better to explain the matter, we shall limit ourselves to the three religions that have historically followed each other in this order: Judaism, Christianity, Islam. These three religions lay claim, in fact, to a common origin: as worshippers of the God of Abraham. Thus it is a very widespread opinion that since we all lay claim to the posterity of Abraham (the Jews and Moslems according to the flesh, and Christians spiritually), we all have as God the God of Abraham and all three of us worship (each in his own way, naturally) the same God! And this same God constitutes in some fashion our point of unity and of "mutual understanding," and this invites us to a "fraternal relation," as the Grand Rabbi Dr. Safran emphasized, paraphrasing the Psalm: "Oh, how good it is to see brethren seated together..."

In this perspective it is evident that Jesus Christ, God and Man, the Son Co-eternal with the Father without Beginning, His Incarnation, His Cross, His Glorious Resurrection and His Second and Terrible Coming – become secondary details which cannot prevent us from "fraternizing" with those who consider Him as "a simple prophet" (according to the Koran) or as "the son of a prostitute" (according to certain Talmudic traditions)! Thus we would place Jesus of Nazareth and Mohammed on the same level. I do not know what Christian worthy of the name could admit this in his conscience.

One might say that in these three religions, passing over the past, one could agree that Jesus Christ is an extraordinary and exceptional being and that He was sent by God. But for us Christians, if Jesus Christ is not God, we cannot consider Him either as a "prophet" or as one "sent by God," but only as a great imposter without compare, having proclaimed Himself "Son of God," making Himself thus equal to God! (St. Mark 14:61, 62.) Асcording to this ecumenical solution on the supra-confessional level, the Trinitarian God of Christians would be the same thing as the monotheism of Judaism, of Islam, of the ancient heretic Sabellius, of the modern anti-Trinitarians, and of certain Illuminist sects. There would not be Three Persons in a Single Divinity, but a single Person, unchanging for some, or successively changing "masks" (Father-Son-Spirit) for others! And nonetheless one would pretend that this was the "same God"!

Here some might naively propose: "Yet for the three religions there is a common point: all three confess God the Father! But according to the Holy Orthodox Faith, this is an absurdity. We confess always: "Glory to the Holy, Consubstantial, Life-giving and Indivisible Trinity." How could we separate the Father from the Son when Jesus Christ affirms I am in the Father, and the Father in Me (St. John 14:11), and I and the Father are One (St. John 10:30); and St. John the Apostle, Evangelist, and Theologian, the Apostle of Love, clearly affirms: Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father (I John 2:23).

But even if all three of us call God Father: of whom is He really the Father? For the Jews and the Moslems He is the Father of men in the plane of creation; while for us Christians He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ (II Cor. 1:3, etc.), and we become His sons in Jesus Christ by adoption (Eph. 1:4, 5) in the plane of redemption. What resemblance is there, then, between the Divine Paternity in Christianity and in the other religions?

Others might say: "But all the same, Abraham worshipped the true God; and the Jews through Isaac and the Moslems through Hagar are the descendents of this true worshipper of God." Here one will have to make several things clear: Abraham worshipped God not at all in the form of the unipersonal monotheism of the others, but in the form of the Holy Trinity. We read in the Holy Scripture: And the Lord appeared unto him at the Oaks of Mamre... and he bowed himself toward the ground (Gen. 18: 1, 2). Under what form did Abraham worship God? Under the unipersonal form, or under the form of the Divine Tri-unity? We Orthodox Christians venerate this Old Testament manifestation of the Holy Trinity on the Day of Pentecost, when we adorn our churches with boughs representing the ancient oaks, and when we venerate in their midst the icon of the Three Angels, just as our father Abraham venerated it! Carnal descent from Abraham can be of no use to us if we are not regenerated by the waters of Baptism in the Faith of Abraham. And the Faith of Abraham was the Faith in Jesus Christ, as the Lord Himself has said: Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day; and he saw it and was glad (St. John 8:56). Such also was the Faith of the Prophet-King David, who heard the Heavenly Father speaking to His Consubstantial Son: The Lord said unto my Lord (Ps. 109: 1; Acts 2:34). Such was the Faith of the Three Youths in the fiery furnace when they were saved by the Son of God (Dan. 3:25); and of the holy Prophet Daniel, who had the Vision of the two natures of Jesus Christ in the Mystery of the Incarnation when the Son of Man came to the Ancient of Days (Dan. 7:13). This is why the Lord, addressing the (biologically incontestable) posterity of Abraham, said. If ye were the children of Abraham, ye would do the works of Abraham (St. John 8:39), and these "works" are to believe on Him Whom God hath sent (St. John 6:29).

Who then are the posterity of Abraham? The sons of Isaac according to the flesh, or the sons of Hagar the Egyptian? Is Isaac or Ishmael the posterity of Abraham? What does the Holy Scripture teach by the mouth of the divine Apostle? Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed: which is Christ (Gal. 3:16). And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise (Gal. 3:29). It is then in Jesus Christ that Abraham became a father of many nations (Gen. 17:5; Rom. 4:17). After such promises and such certainties, what meaning does carnal descent from Abraham have? According to Holy Scripture, Isaac is considered as the seed or posterity, but only as the image of Jesus Christ. As opposed to Ishmael (the son of Hagar; Gen. 16: 1ff), Isaac was born in the miraculous "freedom" of a sterile mother, in old age and against the laws of nature, similar to our Saviour, Who was miraculously born of a Virgin. He climbed the hill of Moriah just as Jesus climbed Calvary, bearing on his shoulders the wood of sacrifice. An angel delivered Isaac from death, just as an angel rolled away the stone to show us that the tomb was empty, that the Risen One was no longer there. At the hour of prayer, Isaac met Rebecca in the plain and led her into the tent of his mother Sarah, just as Jesus shall meet His Church on the clouds in order to bring Her into the heavenly mansions, the New Jerusalem, the much-desired homeland.

No! We do not in the least have the same God that non-Christians have! The sine qua non for knowing the Father, is the Son: He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father; no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me (St. John 14: 6,9). Our God is a God Incarnate, Whom we have seen with our eyes, and our hands have touched (I John 1:1). The immaterial became material for our salvation, as St. John Damascene says, and He has revealed Himself in us. But when did He reveal Himself among the present-day Jews and Moslems, so that we might suppose that they know God? If they have a knowledge of God outside of Jesus Christ, then Christ was incarnate, died, and rose in vain!

No, they do not know the Father. They have conceptions about the Father; but every conception about God is an idol, because a conception is the product of our imagination, a creation of a god in our own image and likeness. For us Christians God is inconceivable, incomprehensible, indescribable and immaterial, as St. Basil the Great says. For our salvation He became (to the extent that we are united to Him) conceived, described, and material, by revelation in the Mystery of the Incarnation of His Son. To Him be the Glory unto the ages of ages. Amen. And this is why St. Cyprian of Carthage affirms that he who does not have the Church for Mother, does not have God for Father!

May God preserve us from the Apostasy and from the coming of Antichrist, the preliminary signs of which are multiplying from day to day. May He preserve us from the great affliction which even the elect would not be able to bear without the Grace of Him Who will cut short these days. And may He preserve us in the "small flock," the "remainder according to the election of Grace," so that we like Abraham might rejoice at the Light of His Face, by the prayers of the Most Holy Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, of all the heavenly hosts, the cloud of witnesses, prophets, martyrs, hierarchs, evangelists, and confessors who have been faithful unto death, who have shed their blood for Christ, who have begotten us by the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the waters of Baptism. We are their sons – weak, sinful, and unworthy, to be sure; but we will not stretch forth our hands toward a strange god! Amen.

La Foi Transmise, April 5, 1970

Next issue: II. Hinduism's Assault upon Christianity.