20110128 The Sacramental Ontology of Beauty

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Opening Lesson:


“Beauty will save the world.”  
Prince Myshkin (recounted by Hippolyte) in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot.


One of the things that leads truly rational and open-minded people to reject pure materialism and atheism is their superficial and patently absurd explanation of the many blessings that flow into creation from her uncreated Creator.  These blessings include things like beauty, holiness, morality, and love.  Today I would like to begin the podcast by talking about the sacramental ontology of beauty.  The Vol’ya moment will consist of a similar treatment of the ontology of holiness.  Both are set within the context of Theophany.


The Sacramental Ontology of Beauty


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Mail Call!


Question:  [Paraphrase of e-mail]:  what did the UOC-USA do with all the priests that were ordained by His Beatitude Metropolitan John Teodorovich before his own ordination was “corrected”?  The question came about because the writer follows the venerable Indiana listserv on Orthodoxy where the question was originally raised.  It may be worth reading the whole thing and his follow-up.  


Answer:  [Note:  someone from the UOCC pointed out that Metropolitan Ilarion “re-ordained” at least some of the priests Mp. John had previously ordained]. 


It is lamentable that there is so little charity among us; especially among Christians.  We are so quick to stir up trouble over things long gone… as if there were not enough real things destroying our souls here and now.

There was much done over the first hundred years of Orthodoxy here (and during the revolutionary period in Ukraine and Russia) that must be repented of and forgiven.  It was a frontier, and things happen on the frontier that would not (should not!)  be allowed in areas that are properly civilized (America was, of course, civilized, as were Ukraine and Russia – I hope you see the point of the comparison).  Lord willing, the Episcopal Assembly of North America will correct these things (and the coming “Great Council” will take care of the rest); this is, at least, their charter.

There is one point of fact that the writer has wrong: most of the parishes of the UOC-USA from that generation did not come from the Metropolia (I know of none that did, although there may be some), they converted from Ukrainian Catholicism (which is why so many of our parishes are right across the street from a Ukrainian Catholic one, often with the same patron.  Such is the case here).  As you know, many Ukrainian & Byzantine Catholic parishes went to the OCA, many went to the Carpatho-Russians, many went under Bishop John Teodorovich (the UOC-USA), and many stayed under the Pope of Rome.

Getting closer to the point:
I doubt that many Uniate priests or parishioners were re-chrismated, re-ordained, etc. when they converted from Greek Catholicism to Orthodoxy (there was no universally practiced standard then any more than there is now; see * below).  And the Mysteries they celebrated afterwards were certainly valid.  It’s not ideal, but bishops must exercise economia when it is pastoral expedient for people’s sanctification. Having been given some glimpses of the difficult issues involved, I find it best not to judge bishops or any other pastor who is operating within his calling/charisma/ordinaiton.

As the writer points out, Bishop John’s ordination was corrected when the new immigration (of validly ordained clergy, to include Bishop Mystyslav) came over after WWII.  It is worth noting that the situation was not fully resolved in many people’s minds until the 90’s, when the Ukrainian Orthodox outside Ukraine went back under Constantinople (it is also worth noting that the more nationalistic parishes refused this and went instead to the questionable “Kyivan Patriarchate”).  I reckon in some people’s minds, it will never be resolved.  Sigh.

But more to the point of the writer’s complaint:  I seriously doubt that the priests Bp. John had ordained were reordained.  As I said before, such things are generally left to economia / the mercy of God.  They are priests of the Orthodox Church and the Mysteries they celebrated and continue to celebrate are valid (although even this question becomes less relevant over time… it has been quite a while now).

A bit of an aside:  While the “Ukrainian problem” was real (the first bishop of the Ukrainian Autocephalist Orthodox Church really was not canonically ordained), the situation is made worse by quite a bit of anti-Ukrainian propaganda that folks have spread over the years (most notably, the Moscow Patriarchate, the OCA, and the ROCOR).  This is usually based on the absurd assumption that there is no unique Ukrainian expression of Orthodoxy, and (less importantly) that all deviations from the Russian way are the result of Uniate innovation and influence.  This bit of nonsense gets blended in with real history, the interpretation of canon law,  revisionist history, and raw emotion to create quite a nasty bit of wickedness that really polarizes Orthodoxy/Orthodox believers (Ukrainians are not blameless; they often overcompensate with the sort of xenophobia decried int he original letter).

As a pastor, I can tell you that it is hard enough cleaning up the messes made during the “frontier days” of Orthodoxy here and in Ukraine without people coming in and causing more trouble!  At some point it would be nice to just focus on learning to love God and our neighbor.


One more point:
It bothers me when people treat canons in a fundamentalist and black and white manner, refusing to forgive, grant charity, and accept the decisions of the bishops who lead the living Orthodox Church.  I am not speaking here of the original ordination of Metropolitan Wasyl Lipkiwsky, but of the use of economia, especially when it comes to pastoral matters.  The logic of the writer’s case is obvious and compelling: there is no grace outside the Orthodox Church, therefore every Mystery celebrated by clerics who have separated themselves from the Orthodox Church is ephemeral and must be “corrected” at some future point.  So the ordination of priests conducted outside of canonical Orthodoxy would need to be corrected in order for them to serve valid Sacraments.      

But this is where his logic breaks down: the ordinations (and their previous Sacraments) were corrected through the blessing of economia.  When I wrote above that I doubted that “many Uniate priests or parishioners were re-chrismated, re-ordained, etc. when they converted from Greek Catholicism to Orthodoxy”,  I was being deliberately imprecise.  I doubt that many were ordained deacon by the laying on of hands by a bishop and then ordained priest at a later date by the laying on of hands by a bishop.  Rather, their previous ordinations (and Baptisms/Chrismations) were corrected through “vesting” and concelebration with a bishop.  This is still practiced in similar situations in some Orthodox Churches.  As I said before, the normalization of conversion practices is one of the tasks of the Episcopal Assembly and the coming Great Council.  Until then, let’s practice just a wee bit of charity.

This, in part, what the bit about beards was about.  There is a verse from scripture that seems to imply that men should wear their hair short (or go bald!); there is also a canon that discourages Christians from “adorning and arranging their hair … by cunningly devised intertwinings” in such a way that would “bait unstable souls”.  One traditional interpretation (the modal one among most Old World Orthodox) is that priests shouldn’t style or trim their hair and beards.  This is fine, but turning such an interpretation into an opportunity to condemn beardless clergy is silly (forgive me, but this is true even if some saints have done it).  It is as if such people believed that the priests trimmed their hair and beards in order to “bait unstable souls”!  [for Russians, the situation may be different: their “Stoglav” Council (which is NOT authoritative for all Orthodox!) forbid all Orthodox men from shaving or trimming their hair (this was, of course, later changed in Russia by the Petrine and Nikonian reforms; although clergy were still able to wear long hair and beards).  Local Churches can do as they’d like!].

Ours is a serious faith, for serious people, and we sin when we trivialize it by turning something important (modesty, clergy dress and the like) into something dogmatic.  Speaking of a serious faith, let me introduce the newest section of our podcast:

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News from the Onion Dome (News and Commentary that Isn’t and Never Will be)


“Buried and Broken Branches of the One Tree: using orthopraxis to determine the percentage grace of heterodox confessions”, by  


[Summary of an article that appeared in Volume 13, Issue 1 of the peer-reviewed academic journal “Nous: a Journal of the Fifth Rome”]


One of the biggest challenges facing Orthodox Christians living in multi-confessional societies is figuring out how to relate to heterodox Christians and heterodox Christian institutions.  Unfortunately, there are no set guidelines on how to do this.  Part of the problem comes down to determining how “Orthodox” these other confessions are.  We have developed a unique methodology that allows bishops, priests, and laity to quantify the Orthodoxy of various heterodox creeds.  This will give them the information they need to make sense of this difficult gray area… (page 23)


[the article dismisses two approaches: the historical and the dogmatic.  Basically, the historical method uses the years since the group left Orthodoxy as a guide; it is dismissed because some groups – like the Copts – split off early but remain closer than the results of later schisms.  One researcher suggested multiplying this by the number of schisms between Orthodoxy and the confession under consideration.  The dogmatic one is a determination based on the proportion of tenets the groups shared, weighted by the importance of the tenet to the confession.  This was dismissed as unwieldy and subjective.  The authors claim that their method determines the degree of dogmatic convergence objectively and measurably: it looks at how Orthodox bishops and priests treat various confessions across a spectrum of Mysteries/Sacraments.  This creates a matrix from which can be derived specific measures of each confessions “grace”.   Here is a sample of their findings for two Confessions:


Scores are out of a possible 10, with 10 being fully accepted and 0 being not accepted at all.  Note that the numbers are based on the most liberal accepted proactive among canonical clergy.  Future efforts might average based on all Orthodox clergy.  We chose the most liberal practice because it shows the minimal threshold for convergence.


Greek Catholic Church

• Baptism:  10 (the Baptism of converts is not repeated)
• Chrismation:  7 (some clergy chrismate Catholics on the forehead only)
• Eucharist: 0 (although there are rumors that some priests allow them to partake, especially at Pascha)
• Confession: 0 
• Unction with Oil:  0
• Marriage: 1 (a few marriages are accepted as valid by Communion)
• Ordination: 8 (clergy are often accepted through “vesting”)
• Funeral Rites: 5 (some clergy concelebrate at memorial services; some serve Orthodox memorials for Greek Catholics).
• Prayer Services: 5 (some clergy concelebrate at moleban prayer services)
• Liturgical Publications:  8 (some clergy use Greek Catholic materials in worship)

[The paper goes on to describe several other Christian groups in this manner.  It concludes with this interesting observation:]


The simplest way for the Orthodox to deal with the heterodox would be to follow the teaching that heterodox Sacraments have no grace.  Some groups claim to do this, but if practice is the mark of belief, then it is clear that this is not generally accepted.  As our findings show, few groups received a zero in every category.  In practice, Orthodox clergy do believe that there is some sort of grace in heterodox group practices that allows economia to correct them completely.


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And then there is this gem from Russia


“Schism in Nyetakmesto over the Patriarch’s Puppy”
On January 11, Interfax reported that some children visited His All-Holiness Patriarch Kirill in the State Kremlin Palace and gave him a Polish Mountain Sheepdog.  On January 12th, Bishop Tikhon of Nyetakmesto-Suzdal declared that this was proof of Patriarch’s apostasy.  “It is uncanonical for Orthodox clergy to have dogs: they are unclean animals.  The only approved pet for Orthodox clergy is the cat.  This is Orthodox Tradition.”  This is not the first time Bishop Tikhon has accused his Patriarch of such things.  Two years ago, he expressed his outrage over the reunion of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR).  As he said at the time, “There are many so-called ‘converts’ who have joined the ROCOR since the time of the exile.  These are not Russians and thus have no place in the Russian Orthodox Church.  Americans are godless by definition.  They have turned their souls over to Satan.  Moreover, many of them and the convert “clergy” CIA agents seeking to infiltrate into the heart of our sacred Motherland.  Their presence without our Holy Russian Church is an outrage!”


The Onion Dome investigated the bishop’s claim about the canonical prohibition on clergy owning dogs; while there are believers who share this opinion, we could find no support in the canons of the Orthodox Church.  There may be Orthodox priests in the USA who are affiliated with the US Intelligence Community, it does not seem as though any are seeking assignment in Russia or to new immigrant parishes.  They may be really good actors, but converts – especially converts to ROCOR – seem to be pretty genuine in their dedication to Christ’s Church (and, at least among ROCOR converts, often to Russia herself – or at least the golden dream of her).  We will continue to investigate this important issue.

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News from the Real World (and the blogosphere)

Paranormal News

• This is a bit old, but I had to cover it: “Witches threaten Romanian taxman after new labour law“.  Witches, astrologers, fortune tellers, embalmers, car valets, and driving instructors are listed as “self-employed” in the new British labor laws and thus subject to taxation.  Now some of the witches are responding with curses.  Others, however, appreciate the legitimacy that recognition grants; “it means our magic gifts are recognized and I can open my own practice” one witch said.  I reckon the pain of taxation beats the way British regimes of the bygone days dealt with witchcraft!

• I wonder what else was in the shed?! “NJ police: Man seeking ‘portal to hell’ stabbed 2“.  A brave, quick thinking neighbor suffered stab wounds as he rescued the women.  I have not heard yet whether it was Dungeons and Dragons, video games, or talk radio that “made him do it”.

• Not only is the best book on exorcism that I have read (The Rite: The Making of a Modern Exorcist”, by Matt Baglio) being turned into a movie, now the Roman Catholic Church is working with the Discovery Channel for a series on exorcism, called “The Exorcist Files.  It is expected to debut in the spring.

• Apaper describing “strong evidence for extrasensory perception” is set to be published this year in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.  The paper made it through the usual process of peer review, but many researchers are upset that the results used conventional measures of statistical significance as proof of ESP.  Because they know that there is no truth to paranormal research, they use its acceptance as proof that standards are too low.  While I don’t like the idea of people moving the goalposts when the opposing team gets to close to scoring, they do have a point: too much research (and here I include mainstream political science, my old discipline) gets published that describes an effect that is ephimeral at best.

• From the paranormal “self promotion” department: I was the guest on Paul and Ben Eno’s show “Behind the Paranormal” on Monday, 1/24.  They brought me back on because I had addressed the possibility of demons repenting and being saved.  A woman wrote in to say that a demon has been working against her daughter (to include possessing her) for two years, and that it tried to use her prayers about whether she should pray FOR the demon against her.  I was happy because it gave me a chance to clarify something that may not have been clear: we are NOT taught to interact with demons.  The whole spiritual life is designed to limit their influence on us.  This freedom comes by working to become immune to temptation.  Demons are the best of con-men, and we are their marks.  Engaging with them is senseless because it invites them into our lives.  Even if they can, theoretically, be saved (and I hope they can) it is the rare person who has the calling to work with them on this.  Our best witness to them as to all evil is to stay good ourselves. I thank Paul and Bed (and the good folks at WOON 1240 / ON Worldwide) for letting me back on.  I enjoyed it so much that I am going to talk to the owner about the possibility of having my own show.  What do you think?  My wife thinks her husband has enough on his plate, thank you very much (and it is always smart to listen to your Pani!).

• The November/December 2010 edition of Touchstone Magazine had an article, “Dead and Back Again; How Accounts of ‘Near-Death Experiences’ Have Challenged My Faith” by Marilyn Preverthat deals with some interesting issues.  She begins by summarizing the modal NDE: soul released, see the room, tunnel, light, light guide, deep peace and understanding, etc.  Then she brings up the “two kinds of worry” these create for her: she worries that they might be true, and she worries that they might not be true.  
• Are they true?  Neuropathologists are mixed: they point out the kinds of events that can create these kinds of experiences, but wonder how any such thing can take place when there is no visible brain activity (this one isn’t hard for skeptics to deal with, IMO: once you come out, your mind populates your “memories”.  This is common in other areas of brain activity such as dreams and eye-witness accounts).  She is right on when she dismisses the debunkers who point to our ability to generate such experiences “artificially” – this offers no more leverage against NDE’s than does pornography and masturbation against the sanctifying union of flesh in marriage.  I am a skeptic – I think most numinous encounters are “false positives” based on mechanical prelest (ala Graziano) and imagination (ala Archbishop Lazar Puhalo).  Just because we believe in the “power of love” and the ontology of the spiritual, doesn’t mean we need to accept everything that spiritualists say or reject everything that the materialists say.   While private revelations are ALWAYS suspect, there is enough evidence (and we should have enough humility) to admit that there may occasionally be something real going on.  
• So what does that say about our faith?  Marylin rightly says that if all (or even a certain subset) of these are true, then our religion is wrong and the pan-ecuminicists and thereputic deists are right: God loves you just the way you are and favors no particular religion over any other.  How do we deal with this?  Once again, it comes down to the fallibility of any private revelation, even when their are lots of them.  Tradition is more than the modal account of spiritual life: all accounts – even the ones offered by saints – must be rejected, accepted, or re-interepreted in the light of the revealed Truth of Orthodoxy.  People (even saints) may be convinced that their experiences were real (this is the whole point of Graziano’s analysis!), but they could still be completely mistaken.  As Marilyn finishes her article (Corinithians 2:9) “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the hearts of men, what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

• “Mindfullness practice leads to increases in regional brain gray matter density” by James Carmody et al. published in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging.  We told you to expect more of this sort of thing as scientists describe more and more about the process and result of spiritual activity.  [As an aside: when I taught undergrad social statistics and methodology, you could set the teacher’s monitor up so that it could make sure that students were keeping up with the in-class exercise on their own computers (kind of the modern way to make sure that students are paying attention).  Perhaps brain imagine will become so cheap and easy that the priest (who in Orthodoxy cannot look to see if folks are engaged or not) could have a monitor on his HUD that showed how much numenosity each parishioner was experiencing at various points in the service.]  I thought this was interesting because it went beyond simple description to the kind of data that would lead even materialists toward prescription: mindfullness (which can easily be corrected into nepsis) has measurable benefits.  We knew this – and have practiced it for centuries without the need for neuroimaging.  Now we need to make sure that the Orthodoxy – and not just the various spiritualist religions and movements – offers safe and traditional forms of such ascetic training.  The problem is, you can tell people this, but one visit to an Orthodox parish will show them that it is rarely practiced.  I speak surely only of myself, of course; but if inquirers came to your parish, would they see people seeking enlightenment through ascetic discipline?  We must be able to show them how the other things we do – and especially the things that look “ethnic” fit into this pursuit.  Of course they can and historically have – but do they now?  Or has the cart been separated from the horse?  If so, it is time to hitch it back up.  And not just to attract inquirers!

• We’ve talked about oxytocin before; Nicholas Wade of the New York Times a little bit more information on it in his article “Depth of the Kindness Hormone Appears to Know Some Bounds”.  Let me quote from his introduction; “Oxytocin has been described as the hormone of love.  This tiny chemical, released from the hpothalamus region of the brain, gives rat mothers the urge to nurse their pups, keeps male prairie voles monogamous and, even more remarkable, makes people trust each other more.  Yes, you knew there had to be a catch.  As oxytocin comes into sharper focus, its social radius of action turns out to have definite limits.  The love and trust it promots are not toward the world in general, just toward a person’t in-gourp.  Oxytocin turns out to the the hormone of the clan, not of universal brotherhood.  Psychologists trying to specify its role have now concluded it is the agent of ethocentrism.”  The finding is still preliminary, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that it is correct: so many psychological and sociological mechanisms are tainted by the effect of the fall.  Under ideal (Edenic) situations, they encourage our sanctification, but in this world their effect is ambivalent.  As for the effects of oxytocin, the fact that the temptation of ethocentrism grows in correlation with our love of neighbor just underscores the importance of Christ’s parable of the Good Samaritan (“but who is my neighbor?”) and His command that we “love our enemies”.

• It is often quipped when men are found guilty of having perpetrated heinous crimes, that the act alone is proof of their insanity: that, all things being equal, no rational and “sane” person chooses to do terrible things.  And when even a good person gives into the temptation of circumstance, or is forced to do terrible things, or even does something terrible by accident – it does damage to their soul.  This is the basis of Orthodox Psychotherapy: sin does damage to the human person and to his society.  What does it mean when modern medicine and psychiatry ignores this truth?  What happens when it normalizes terrible things?  Here is a difficult example; “Study: No higher mental health risk after abortion“.  What would you say about a society that creates people that do not suffer after making the “difficult decision” to abort a child?  The study is not really as general as the news hyped it to be: the measure of “mental health risk” is how many people sought counseling after an abortion.  It is even more remarkable how this finding is being compared IN THE SAME ARTICLE (NPR did this too) to the high levels of mental health problems found after the birth of live babies.  The implication?  Having babies is worse for you than aborting them.  If this is accurate, then our society is in deep, deep, trouble.  Too many of our people are much more interested in dong what is easy than what is right.

• Then we have this wonderful title from the New York Times; “The Happy Marriage is the ‘Me’ Marriage“.  The article itself isn’t as bad as the title suggests: it notes that healthy marriages are ones in which each of the partner grows into a better person.  We believe this, noting that this happens when each of the couple submits themselves to one another, the health of their relationship, and to God.  Marriage is a Sacrament because it is created for the sanctification and betterment of its participants.  But the article does not admit to the wonderful juxtaposition of selflessness and “self-expansion” (their term).  Here is how the author summarizes things; “The notion that the best marriages are those that bring satisfaction to the individual may seem counter-intuitive.  After all, isn’t marriage supposed to be about putting the relationship first?  Not anymore.  For centuries, marriage was viewed as an economic and social institution, and the emotional and intellectual needs of the spouses were secondary to the survival of the marriage itself.  But in modern relationships, people are looking for a partnership, and they want partners who make their lives more interesting.”  Wow.  So instead of “both – and” we get “either – or”.  I’m afraid that Christians are going to have to start using a different word when we talk about marriage.  There’s no other way to keep my head from blowing up.  It makes me wonder why people get “married” at all anymore, given how little it really means.

• Which brings us to another article that shows how big the problem is; Nicole Hardy’s “Single, Female, Mormon, Alone.”  This is a well-written and engaging story about a woman who never gets married – despite tremendous religious and social pressures to do so – because she just doesn’t need a man.  It ends with her accepting this situation (no problem there – not everyone is called to marriage!) and, having already bought toys from a sex shop, visiting the gentle people at Planned Parenthood so that she could finally “have an IUD instead of children; … intellectual and spiritual freedom;… write poems and finally live inside [her] body; … for the love of God, feel a man’s hands on [her] before [she died].”  Is this what we do to the women in our Church?  Do we give them a loving and viable alternative to marriage?  Is celibacy the equivalent of stunting someone’s development?  A punishment imposed on successful women in a world of functionally ineligible bachelors?  After reading this, I was happy to see that not everything is tragedy and loneliness for unmarried and successful Orthodox women, not just in the witness of dear friends, but also spelled out for everyone at Demetra’s blog; The Quiet Revolution.  Check it out and let her joy, wonder, and gratitude renew you.

•  The news had two culprits behind our weight epidemic.  The first is one we have discussed before (60 Minutes show): poor sleep habits.  Here is what researchers found; “Among the children who got the recommended amount of sleep (9.5-10 hours), the risk of obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular problems was nil… but as the amount of sleep became less organized, the risk for obesity increased… Kids who had the shortest and more disorganized sleep schedule had more than a fourfold increase in the risk of being obese… [they] also had increased risk for cardiovascular problems and pre-diabetes.”  They suggest that the effects can be ameliorated with extra sleep on the weekends, but why not just put them to bed on time?  Mothers and fathers need to stop being so selfish and become parents to their children.

• The second culprit is less convincing, but fits in nicely with the “crunchy” theme: “Central Heating May Be Making Us Fat“.  You see, being cold burns calories; ideally you find that sweet spot (around 60 degrees in light clothing) where you are cool but not shivering.  This burns about 100-200 extra calories a day.  That’s about a pound a month!  If we won’t turn down our heat to “save the planet”, maybe we’ll do it to lose weight!

• Of course if we’re not willing to lose weight because it will improve our quality of life, our longevity, and make us better stewards of creation… maybe we’ll do it if the government pays us!  When the government gets involved in health care, this kind of thing begins to make sense: a pound of prevention beats a ton of cure.  One program in the UK paid people about $700 if they hit their weight loss target and maintained it for up to 24 months (sic).  I reckon we’ll eventually end up taxing extra weight by the pound the way the Russian Tsar, Peter the First taxed beards by the inch!