Dracula is Dead and the Romanian Orthodox Church is Alive

I've just finished Sheilah Kast and Jim Rosapepe's book Dracula is Dead. The subtitle is a nice summary of the general format and tone of the book: How Romanians survived Communism, ended it, and emerged since 1989 as the new Italy. 

Of particular interest to me and readers of this blog will be an outsider's observations on the resurgence of the Romanian Orthodox Church and its vitality among young people today. 

A fascinating part of the book recounts how Patriarch Teoctist describes all the challenges the Romanian Orthodox Church had faced long before, during, and then after the fall of communism. The Church had been impoverished in the period of Monarchy and then marginalized in the period of communism. But what fascinates me is to imagine Teoctist, born in 1915, facing the challenge of leading the Romanian Orthodox Church into what Western Christians sees as the greatest crisis since Roman Persecution--Modernity and Apathy:

"And now we're going through a different type of change--democracy and pluralism, which is very different from what we had before: dictatorship and cult of personality. Now it's this confrontation between ideas. The difference is extraordinary." (p. 39)

I stood in line in 90 degree heat for five hours in 2007 for the chance to kiss the hand of the departed Patriarch Teoctist. He deserved my devotion because no matter what sad compromises the bishops had to make under communism, they managed to preserve something that transcended it. Vocations to the monastic life are thriving in Romania. The Churches are full on Sunday with people of every age. 

In fact, my recent discussion with Father Picioruș, who runs Theology for Today (Teologie Pentru Azi), convinces me that the Romanian Orthodox Church has actually managed to sidestep Western Modernism entirely and emerge in the period of Post-Modernism with a compelling strength.

Do read Dracula is Dead if you want to learn more, not only about modern Romania, but also to get an idea of why Orthodoxy there is experiencing what Newman called the Second Spring.

Mark Twain and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

We've just returned from a week long pilgrimage in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. After our return to the States on Thursday, I'll begin posting here a series of essays based on those experiences, some of which were written in situ. 

But while I was in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I remembered the humorous and moving words of a master of the English language, Mark Twain, on his own visit there. He recounts his experience in his book The Innocents Abroad (Chapter 53):

When one enters the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Sepulchre itself is the first thing he desires to see, and really is almost the first thing he does see. The next thing he has a strong yearning to see is the spot where the Saviour was crucified. But this they exhibit last. It is the crowning glory of the place. 
One is grave and thoughtful when he stands in the little Tomb of the Saviour--he could not well be otherwise in such a place--but he has not the slightest possible belief that ever the Lord lay there, and so the interest he feels in the spot is very, very greatly marred by that reflection. 

Twain has a very different view of the spot of the Crucifixion:

  

But the place of the Crucifixion affects him differently. He fully believes that he is looking upon the very spot where the Savior gave up his life. He remembers that Christ was very celebrated, long before he came to Jerusalem; he knows that his fame was so great that crowds followed him all the time; he is aware that his entry into the city produced a stirring sensation, and that his reception was a kind of ovation; he can not overlook the fact that when he was crucified there were very many in Jerusalem who believed that he was the true Son of God. To publicly execute such a personage was sufficient in itself to make the locality of the execution a memorable place for ages; added to this, the storm, the darkness, the earthquake, the rending of the veil of the Temple, and the untimely waking of the dead, were events calculated to fix the execution and the scene of it in the memory of even the most thoughtless witness. Fathers would tell their sons about the strange affair, and point out the spot; the sons would transmit the story to their children, and thus a period of three hundred years would easily be spanned...

Twain explains why he accepts the one and not the other:

It is not possible that there can be any mistake about the locality of the Crucifixion. Not half a dozen persons knew where they buried the Saviour, perhaps, and a burial is not a startling event, any how; therefore, we can be pardoned for unbelief in the Sepulchre, but not in the place of the Crucifixion. Five hundred years hence there will be no vestige of Bunker Hill Monument left, but America will still know where the battle was fought and where Warren fell. The crucifixion of Christ was too notable an event in Jerusalem, and the Hill of Calvary made too celebrated by it, to be forgotten in the short space of three hundred years.

He concludes his account with a description of his visit to the exact spot of the Crucifixion:

I climbed the stairway in the church which brings one to the top of the small inclosed pinnacle of rock, and looked upon the place where the true cross once stood, with a far more absorbing interest than I had ever felt in any thing earthly before. I could not believe that the three holes in the top of the rock were the actual ones the crosses stood in, but I felt satisfied that those crosses had stood so near the place now occupied by them, that the few feet of possible difference were a matter of no consequence.

He makes a compelling point about the probability that three hundred years time is nothing in terms of preserving a sense of where, with some accuracy, various things happened. And in fact I think he doesn't critically extend that argument to consider that his dismissal of the spot of the burial, as well as the other places he visited, was tainted with his Protestant sensibilities. Indeed, he admits that the trappings of the Roman and Greek Churches make it hard for him to truly reflect on the spot:

When one stands where the Saviour was crucified, he finds it all he can do to keep it strictly before his mind that Christ was not crucified in a Catholic Church. He must remind himself every now and then that the great event transpired in the open air, and not in a gloomy, candle-lighted cell in a little corner of a vast church, up-stairs--a small cell all bejeweled and bespangled with flashy ornamentation, in execrable taste...All about the apartment the gaudy trappings of the Greek Church offend the eye and keep the mind on the rack to remember that this is the Place of the Crucifixion--Golgotha--the Mount of Calvary.

Now, Mark Twain published The Innocents Abroad before Protestants began actively promoting the alternate site of the Garden Tomb. I suspect that Twain would have stuck to his guns and rejected their claim on the basis of the argument he makes here.

May God grant rest to the soul of his servant Samuel in a place of brightness and a place of repose. Requiescat in pace.

Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit - The Unpardonable Sin

WHAT IS THE 'UNPARDONABLE SIN'? 

That's the "Sixty-Four Dollar Question" private investigator Michael Xavier Murphy reads in the newspaper, trying to kill time while he's on a stake-out with his brother and partner Joey.

In Murphy on the Mount, David Justice explores the enigma of the Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit as a subplot within a detective novel. But unlike many subplots you'll find in fiction, it's not just a secondary filler to pad the work.  As the story unfolds, Murphy on the Mount is ultimately more about human redemption than merely cracking the case.

Dr. Justice's anthology of short stories, I Don't Do Divorce Cases, is currently a free download on Kindle. Why would a private investigator not do divorce cases? Murphy has his reasons.

WHAT IS THE 'UNPARDONABLE SIN'? 

The hard boiled PI reflects on the question:

"Never heard of it but it makes my skin crawl, just the same — just the name.  Kind of thing I would’ve learned in catechism if I’d gone parochial instead of first public and then hooky and then reform." (Murphy on the Mount, p. 73)

Now, the "Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit"—aka—the "Unpardonable Sin," is one of those classic exegetical quandaries. Let's look first at the source:

"Therefore I say to you, any sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven people, but blasphemy against the Spirit shall not be forgiven.

 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come."

Matthew 12:31-32

We all know we sin. And so we count on forgiveness. That is why hearing those words from Jesus shakes us to our very core. What is this "Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit?" Because—if I did it, it would seem I'm lost for all time. And the real worry is that you could have done it, wish you could take it back, but it's too late. It's unpardonable. You're lost.

Solace comes from Church teachers who assure us that, as daunting as the passage seems, it's essentially stating the obvious. Namely, that God does not, indeed, cannot forgive unrepentant sin. And so, in the Orthodox tradition, Archbishop Sotirios writes in his Orthodox Catechism that:

"No sin is unforgivable except the sin of unrepentance which is, in essence, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit." (Repentance and Confession)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches the very same:  

"There are no limits to the mercy of God, but anyone who deliberately refuses to accept his mercy by repenting, rejects the forgiveness of his sins and the salvation offered by the Holy Spirit." (paragraph 1864)

But Murphy knows none of that. What is the 'Unpardonable Sin'? He turns to page 54 to learn the answer:

IF YOU ANSWERED 'DESPAIR', GIVE YOURSELF HALF-CREDIT. THE CORRECT ANSWER IS—BLASPHEMY AGAINST THE HOLY SPIRIT

And Michael Murphy, alone in his thoughts, faces a dark night of the soul:

-->

"Uh-oh.

"My blood runs cold.  Could I of done that?  Not real likely — I can sin up a storm but I do watch my tongue.  But even worse, what about Joey?   He’s a sweet guy but he does have a temper sometimes, specially if he misses breakfast.  Hits his thumb with a hammer or loses a Pop-tart behind the sink,  and he blasphemes like nobody’s business, cussing something awful,  mostly yapping on about the First and Second Persons, but who knows, maybe one time he got extra hot under the collar and was running out of G-words and J-words, he might’ve just gone and clipped one to the Ghost.   Mighta done it,  mighta not. — Never did hear him messing over the Virgin, though. 

"Jeez — I mean Jeepers, this looks bad.  My own brother, maybe even me!  Cause it doesn’t say:  Badmouthing the Spirit over sixty times, like a speed-limit, or even ten.  It says:  Just once, Jack, near as I can tell.   And — “unpardonable” — do they really mean that?  can they?  Is that even possible?  A buddy can pardon you anything if he feels like it, or you fork him a fiver or whatnot, so they must mean it’s God who’s doing the  pardoning or not pardoning.  And it sounds like in this case  even He can’t do it,  infinite mercy be blowed. 

 "Joey’s out, and I’m alone, and I start to panic..." (Murphy on the Mount, pp. 74-75)

And thus begins a compelling exploration of that human failing and frailty which longs for redemption and new life. All this, within the genre of detective fiction.

If you read his blog, the World of Dr. Justice, you'll find that David Justice is a mathematician, linguist, and philosopher/theologian. His academic credentials and publications are impressive enough, but he's also created a corpus of detective genre fiction focused on the Murphy Brothers. He's published them in Ellery Queen and Alfred Hitchcock. (Those previously published stories and others are available in his short story collection I Don't Do Divorce Cases. He also has a number of other short stories available on Kindle and Nook through his Murphy Brothers blog.)

And in all his writing, David Justice combines a command of genre fiction, engaging colloquial dialogue, and Christian themes. But he's certainly not writing what could be described as just "Christian Fiction." Michael Murphy is a deeply flawed character, albeit one with a singular virtue which he cannot depart from—he cannot, will not—ever—take a divorce case.

I don't want to give away the outcome of Murphy's angst over the meaning of the "Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit," except to promise that this subplot does have a full resolution. It's a beautiful turn of remarkable events. It's a  journey of smiles and tears with Michael and Joey Murphy on the search for ultimate meaning.

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Theology for Today (Teologie pentru azi)

When I made my first visit to Romania in 2004, I saw two young men wearing black slacks, white shirts, and ties. And I knew immediately what they were. They were Americans, to be sure. Whether they were Adventists, Mormons, or Jehovah's Witnesses was up for grabs and actually unimportant. These people were here to convert Orthodox to whatever it is they were.

I had myself been received into full communion with the Orthodox Church just a year earlier. And as an American myself, I felt a particular responsibility to help galvanize the Orthodox here in Romania against this invasion, as it were.  And so, I made a video in Romanian and I composed articles in Romanian describing the biblical texts most commonly used by Protestants against Orthodox (and Catholics for that matter), as well as biblical proofs for Orthodox teaching on points in dispute.

Looking back, I realize now that my motive in doing all that work actually had in it a touch of the same paternalistic spirit which prompts American Protestants to try to convert Orthodox over here. At that time, I thought they needed my assistance to combat this onslaught. 

Now, I have been told by many Romanian Orthodox that they have found my video and essays helpful. I thank God if they are.

But in the years since I made those materials, I have come to understand that the Romanian Orthodox Church is blessed with strong members using the latest technologies to present Orthodox Faith in a dynamic and engaging way. An example can be found in the website Theology for Today (Teologie pentru azi).

I had the deep pleasure of spending an afternoon with Father Dorin Octavian Picioruş, who runs Theology for Today (Teologie pentru azi). The subtitle of this site is significant--An Orthodox-Christian Platform for a Different Kind of Post-Modernity (O platformă creştin-ortodoxă pentru o altfel de postmodernitate). Father Picioruş is very in tune with the challenges and opportunities in articulating the ancient Christian faith to a generation yet unborn. And a visit to the site is a visually stunning and edifying experience.

Father Picioruş and his wife Preoteasa Gianina Maria-Cristina Picioruş are both sound academics, with doctorates in theology and literature. One thing that impresses me and makes us such kindred spirits, is that they have a desire to access the primary texts in their original language and for that reason have learned them.

But this site is no repository of dusty academic ideas. This is a place where, as the title states, Theology for Today comes alive.

If you would like to help them with a donation, they list their bank information to send a donation: 

Picioruş Gianina Maria Cristina

BCR

RO31RNCB0080079049010001

Even if you don't read Romanian, you'll see that this site is exactly the kind of thing that shows the bright future the Romanian Orthodox Church has, all on its own, with or without the help of Americans like me. But I count it as a blessing if I help in any way.

A Romanian Westminster Abbey

Our Sunday travels included a visit to the delightful Curtea de Arges Cathedral. 

Connected to the building of this impressive building is the legend of Master Builder Manole, which I hope isn't at all true, namely, that the builders, in response to a dream, walled up the pregnant wife of the architect Manole within the building. 

Inside the Church, we found in the atrium, as in Westminster Abbey for Great Britain, the final resting places of several figures from Romanian history.

Among those interred there, whom we were able to reverence and/or pray for:

King Carol (died 1914) and Queen Elisabeth (died 1916)

Voievod (King/War Lord) Radu de Afumati (died 1529)

St. Voievod Neagoe Bassarab (died 1521)

To our surprise and joy, the chapel of the Monastery proper houses the relics of St. Philothea (died 1218).

Romania is a country so rich in faith and history that virtually any random monastery reposes saints. But this monastery was a unique experience, not to be missed if you ever travel in the Arges region.