There are many others, all those of Turgenev and Gogol for example, not including the poets. I would especially read the poems of Dr Zhivago - they are very Orthodox, quite profound. The stories and plays of Chekhov also reflect the loss of Orthodoxy among the westernised elite.

Tolstoy was a very, very proud man, a real tyrant for his poor wife and family. As a genius, which of course he was, he thought that he was higher than the Christ, the Church and the Bible and so he invented his own religion, 'Tolstoyanism', which was a sect. Sadly, he never came to public repentance (only God knows what happened in private in his heart and conscience on his death-bed) before the end. In this, he is a very tragic figure - like so many geniuses. His novel Anna Karenina shows the loss of Orthdooxy and subsequent decadence among aristocrats (which is what led directly to the Revolution). His War and Peace reflects more of Orthodoxy.

Fr Andrew

The Apostles' Creed is a much shorter version of the Nicene Creed. In the Orthodox Churches we use the more detailed Niceo-Constantinopolitan (Nicene, for short) Creed.

There were many 'Creeds' (that is to say, 'symbols', which is the Greek for 'summaries') of the faith in use before the Councils of the 4th century, The Nicene Creed is more detailed and also definitive, as it has the backing of the Ecumenical Councils. The others had the authority only of local Churches, for example, in Alexandria. Having said that, there is nothing wrong with the Apostles' Creed in itself, it is just short.

The C of E also uses the Nicene Creed but in the Roman Catholic version which was accepted in Rome in the 11th century. This does not have the authority of the Ecumenical Councils, but only of the papacy.

As for unto the ages of ages and not forever and forever, this is more a question of translation and ancient use. 'Unto the ages of ages' was always the form used in the first centuries, and to this day by the Orthodox Churches (in Latin it was in saecula saeculorum). But in any case, it all means the same - unto eternity.

We use King James language in our churches in England, but in the USA some Orthodox groups, composed of immigrants who do not know English so well (OCA/Antioch), use more modern language. It is a choice. You will find King James language in the translations on our website and that is what we all use in all the Russian churches in England. i would use that - as you say the rhythm is easier on the ear.

Fr Andrew

1. It is simply impossible for any actor to take the role of Christ, precisely because He was not only a human being, but also the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. No actor, however talented, can play God.

  The concept of passion plays or mystery plays comes from the Non-Orthodox Middle Ages, which had the humanistic cult of Christ's humanity, divorced from His Divinity (The Five Wounds, the bleeding crucifixes, the man of sorrows, the bleeding heart etc etc).

   Throughout the Gospel, there are cases of Christ showing His Divinity and His humanity. A classic case is the Samaritan Woman, where Christ shows His thirst as a man, but His supernatural/Divine knowledge of the woman's life ('I see that thou art a prophet indeed').

2. Christ died as man and went down to hades. But there He took death captive, because He was sinless. He could not die even as a man, let alone as God. The Holy Saturday service (in the morning, but actually vespers with 15 OT readings) and liturgy (with the Greek tradition of making noise and rattling at the Gospel) represent His victory over hades. This is called the Harrowing of Hell.

The Sunday morning (= the third day) matins and liturgy represent the discovery by the myrrhbearers of His Resurrection. Hence the procession of the myrrhbearers, who we are, and the banging on the doors of the Church, that is, of His tomb, and the opening of the Church/tomb doors.

  Christ went down to hades in His soul, the Resurrection came afterwards, when His soul returned to earth to collect His incorrupt body. In the Gospels, it says that 'He gave up the ghost' on the Cross. He had to endure everything that we do, including separation of body and soul. Hence His cry of 'Eli,Eli, lama sabachthani?' (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?) at the unnaturalness of death.

The priest prays:

  In the tomb bodily, in hell in the soul, in paradise with the thief, Thou, O Christ God, wast on the throne...

Fr Andrew

Spiritual awareness can be defined as simply as belief in the existence of the immortal soul. Amorality can be defined as lack of spiritual awareness, immorality as a spiritual awareness so weak that there is no inner strength to resist wrong.

Of course, there are all sorts of relativistic humanistic moralities ('ethics') - and these are the results of culture and convention, including reading, intellectuality etc, and can be studied. They lead to hypocrisy because these forms of morality do not possess or give the spiritual power which is necessary to live by them. Protestantism, which is based on a lack of spiritual awareness, on mere moralism, always ends up as being hypocritical.

As for Cardinal Newman, as you know, he studied and appreciated the Church Fathers and it is from them that he learned that the conscience is the voice of God in us.

Fr Andrew

It is difficult to answer this question fairly, because you are taking a view of the worst of Catholic monasticism. So we should remember that there are many fine and sincere individuals there. But I think that you refer to the negative, but nonetheless real aspect, of 'Catholic' 'spirituality'. This relies on psychic manipulation through guilt, resulting from an unhealthy introspective self-examination. This is a psychological manipulation which means that some Catholic monastics have the ability to produce the stigmata on their own body. In fact this is not spiritual at all, merely psychic, and is akin to the mind over matter techniques to be found in Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.

Such manipulation of something so delicate as the human psyche can indeed create psychological and psychosomatic trauma. Exactly the same trauma can be found among the adepts of 'Orthodox' false elders (gurus) who suffer from the spiritual illness called in Greek plani, in Latin illusio and in Slavonic prelest, that is to say, spiritual delusion. So what is obviously an illness in Orthodoxy is passed off as normal 'spirituality' in much of pre-Vatican II monasticism - as for example in so many Irish monasteries and convents up until the 1960s, with all their brutality and child abuse.

After Vatican II, by reaction, the prevailing ideology seems to have become 'let it all hang out'. The result, of course, was massive defection from Catholicism and the marriages of so many former Catholic monks and nuns (sometimes with one another). Thus, the old psychic fraud was revealed for what it was. But many middle-aged and old Catholics still suffer from the psychic traumas and guilt complexes (including resulting alcoholism) induced from that time. They deserve our compassion, for they are victims.

Orthodox monasticism is free, voluntary. There is no obligation, no guilt imposed. One of the greatest struggles of many Orthodox monastics is against heterosexual desires, for they are heterosexuals. What strikes me most about most real Orthodox monastics is their total psychic normality and balance.

I think it is to this contrast that you refer.

Fr Andrew

The first question is fairly simple, I think. Christ suffered because we could only be redeemed by His suffering. That's what His Passion is - His lifelong suffering. The culmination of his suffering, death, was known to everyone. In any case, he was buried, so He must have been dead. From the Gospels it was clear that He had died. He died on the cross, his limbs were not broken. Why else bury Him in the Tomb? This is obvious.

I dislike the addition of the word death. The danger here is that modern Anglicanism may be trying to make out that He had a life of sweetness and light until He died. (I once saw part of an American Evangelical film about the Life of Christ, in which He played basketball with His disciples....it goes to show that the Protestants simply do not read or understand the Bible).

Suffering is greater than death. Is there here a touch of humanism? - that the only real suffering is death - whereas we know that death is Resurrection. The worst fate is not death, but death in unbelief, without repentance. As you say, death was the end of Christ's suffering.

As for the second question, it all depends on what the Turin Shroud is. Some Orthodox believe it to be really the Burial Shroud of Christ, others not. I have an open mind on it. The scientific world is divided. Books pour out about it, for and against. Perhaps it is the Shroud, perhaps it is a later forgery taken from the Image not made by hands. The argument goes on. Personally, it makes no difference to my faith, one way or the other. Either it is the Burial Shroud of Christ or else it is a copy from an icon, perhaps the Icon not made by hands.

I am no expert on iconography, but most of these marks, if not all of them, were definitely on Christ's face, notably the forked beard, as can clearly be seen on icons, especially on the Image not made by hands.

Fr Andrew

Question 1: The word sex comes from the Latin cut ('sectus'). There is a clear-cut difference between the sexes ('male and female He made them'). All traditional human cultures have made the differences even greater, stereoptyping them and emphasising them. This emphasis of sex differences is for their own cultural safety, protection and longevity. However, modern 'culture', which is in fact in so many ways an anti-culture, has fused and confused the differences. Male and female are merging. through cultural conditioning, as prophesied in the Epistles at the end of time (2 Tim 3).

Apart from a few very rare genetic accidents (caused by ancestral sin), we are male or female. These genetic accidents seemed to have become more common today, perhaps through pollution and the use of hormones in modern meat production. All other confusions between male and female, the vast majority, are due to cultural conditioning (the Oscar Wilde syndrome). This is now so strong that homosexuality, as in pagan Greece, is not only not seen as the illness that it is, but its representatives are even presented as role models for the young.

In other words, these are all diseases, firstly of the soul, then of the mind, then of the body. We do not encourage disease, we encourage healing.

Question 2: I think that C. S. Lewis is somewhat afflicted with 'ram it down their throats' Protestantism. Frankly, I have a similar reaction to the girl. However, I would say to her, ‘Forget Lewis’ personal views and enjoy it for what it is – as you did before. We all have prejudices, just like him’. And pray for her, that she might get over the pagan conditioning that she has undergone so far in her life.

If she learns to enjoy Lewis’ writing for itself, who knows, perhaps something will rub off on her, which is the way Lewis should have influenced the young, rather than through his unsubtle and heavy-handed recalling of the Gospels in his myths. Tolkien’s sophisticated Christian subtlety would be much better than Lewis’ Bible-thumping for a fourteen year old. She should have outgrown Lewis by now anyway.

Fr Andrew

I had no idea as to the answer to this question. However a friend did finally manage to find the answer:

www.stgeorgecharleston.org/stgeorge.html

In the city of Paphlagonia in Pontus, many churches had been dedicated to Saint George. Many families named their children George or Georgia in honour of this great martyr. The following, miracle concerns one particularly pious couple who had named their son George.

The boy had been raised with great faith. As was the law, when he became twenty years old, he served in the army. During a battle with a barbaric tribe, many Christian soldiers were either murdered, imprisoned or enslaved. George became a personal slave to one of the barbarian officers. His parents, giving him up for dead, had mourned him for a year. They went to one of the churches dedicated to Saint George and asked that he tell them what had happened to their son.

The Feast Day of Saint George was being celebrated on the anniversary of the boy's disappearance. The parents invited their relatives to dinner since they hoped that Saint George would give them a sign concerning their son. That same evening, the barbarian master was preparing for a dinner and ordered George to draw some water with which to wash his master's feet. As he drew the water he cried and prayed to Saint George to reunite him with his family. As he prepared to return to his master, a horseman appeared before him on a white horse. It was Saint George. The Saint put him on the horse and the boy found himself in the house of his parents while they were eating. One may imagine the happiness that filled that house. It is from this miracle that an icon of Saint George is based. It depicts a boy on the back of the horse with Saint George. This icon first appeared in the early centuries of the existence of Constantinople.

Fr Andrew

To refuse to baptise the child because the parents do not take communion or do not know the catechism is a viewpoint now extremely common in Roman Catholicism all over Europe. I believe Episcopalians (and perhaps some Episcopalians who claim to be Orthodox) are following. I come across this viewpoint regularly - people come and complain to me - and I utterly reject it for three reasons. First of all:

It punishes the child. He/she is innocent. To deprive a child of grace because of the parents' negligence is spiritual cruelty to children. The devil triumphs.

Secondly:

It prejudges the parents. I know dozens of couples who did not come to church until I had baptised their child. Then they began coming.

Thirdly:

It reduces the sacraments, in typical heterodox fashion, to a matter of intellectual knowledge, not to spiritual revelation. They make the same mistake with confirmation and communion - not giving it till age 10-12.

(Here I am presuming that there is some spiritual benefit in heterodox sacramental forms. Obviously they cannot be likened to the sacraments of the Church, but even so, surely God has mercy and confers some spiritual benefit on those who make the sacrifices to take them. Although they are only sacramental forms, to deny any gift of God seems astonishingly ungenerous and prejudgemental to me).

Fr Andrew

The origin is in the secular European dress of round about the 16th century. It seems to have been Roman Catholic (hence perhaps the name 'Roman' collar), but the present form definitely evolved from Protestantism in the 19th century (the Lutherans wore a much more elaborate collar originally).

So-called 'Orthodox' who imitate this secular dress are imitating secularism. I can only think that this mentality comes from an inferiority complex - a wish to be the same as the world, in other words - from a lack of faith,

Fr Andrew

This same question has been posed in all Orthodox countries and it has always been divisive. On the one hand, we can see that all this is leading to Antichrist, as is prophesied in the Book of Revelation. On the other hand, can it be resisted? I think that we should try to resist PEACEFULLY and at least try to delay its introduction, but we should know that sooner or later it will be introduced, as prophesied.

At present, at least, these chips will not stop us practising our Faith and saving our souls.

There is a subtle trap of the devil here; some who resist these chips turn to violence and leave the Church, saying that the Synod has been completely corrupted by the Romanian State and EU money. This is a great mistake. We should not let this question take over our lives, making it into an obsession.

Fr Andrew

I am not at all an expert on this question, though many years ago I did meet an Old Catholic priest. They then seemed to be more numerous in Holland and Poland than elsewhere.

They mostly broke away from Catholicism after the promulgation of papal infallibility. At first sight they should be close to Orthodoxy. However, in reality, they are ultimately, like all those who break away from Catholicism, Protestants. Literally they are protesting against it, which is negative, not positive. Sadly, in the 20th century it seems that the Old Catholics began to lose their sacramental sense - like the earlier Protestants - and they are now generally considered by Orthodox much as Anglicans - Protestants with a Roman Catholic facade.

But I am sure that you can get a lot more facts by googling them. As I understand it, the movement is now very much in decline, as it is a 19th century phenomenon.

Fr Andrew

When we were in Paris we knew the Evdokimov family, including Paul’s sister-in-law, very well. We also knew the recently deceased Olivier Clement and his whole family well and my wife was brought up with Sophie Clement, his daughter.

What can I say? Olivier also took communion in the Catholic Church and wrote speeches for the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Pope. He was adored by middle-aged Catholic women and Catholic nuns. But I never met an Orthodox, except converts, who read what he wrote. The same goes for Paul Evdokimov. I think they are both excellent writers for people outside, or on the edges of, or completely new to, the Church. But Church people do not read their writings.

In this way they are the same as the other Paris Russians, including the late Metr Antony Bloom and others of that ilk. They represent what can be called the hors d’ouevre of Orthodoxy. They can be helpful to those new to the Church, but do not dwell on them too long, for if you spend too long on the hors d’oeuvre, you will vomit, and also miss the meaty main course and above all the sweet. The main problem with all these people is their dreaminess, their confusion of the emotional with the spiritual, their lack of focus, their total impracticality, because it is all intellectual, not rooted.

I am not sure if I am answering your question, but I would put an answer very simply: Here we are talking about the Redemption ( I am not keen on the word atonement). Christ redeemed us through all the sufferings of His life, His Incarnation, from conception, birth, the flight into Egypt, childhood, His baptism, the tempting by satan, the three years of public preaching and persecution, his hunger and thirst, Gethsemane, followed by the high point, which was the Crucifixion, the fruit of which was the Resurrection, followed by the Ascension (which took our human natire into paradise) and Pentecost (whoch opened the path of deification – theosis). Why did He do this – out of Love and Compassion for mankind.

All scholastic and feudal theories of satisfaction, and Kalomiros, like other very conservative writers (and conservative by no means signifies traditional) is prone to these Roman Catholic errors, do not explain adequately the Redemption – indeed, they even seem heretical.

Fr Andrew

The Holy Spirit came through (dia) Christ as part of His temporal mission during his 33 years on earth. There is a whole literature on this in the Patristic interpretations of the Scriptures, for example: ‘Receive ye the Holy Spirit’ (Jn 20, 22).

In a broader sense it can be said that the Holy Spirit Who comes to us through the Church (the Body of Christ) comes to us ‘through’ Christ – that is that if it had not been for the Incarnation, the Holy Spirit would not be among us in the sacraments, there would be no Church. Of course, the Holy Spirit was among us in a direct sense even before the Incarnation, for He ‘spake by the Prophets’ and even before this, at the beginning of the world, ‘the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters’ (Genesis 1, 2). But despite these epiphanies of the Spirit, until Christ there was no Resurrection and all went down to hades, for it is Christ Alone Who brings salvation.

In no way can we speak of the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit through, still less from, the Son. Yet this is clearly what Roman Catholicism since Anselm has said. It is a heresy and requires clear and categorical renunciation and denunciation as a heresy by the Roman Catholics (and others issued from them). Until then all theological dialogue is a waste of time.

Now you come to the ecumenical nonsense and X’s fall from grace when he was sucked up into politics – not the first and , alas, not the last.

It is a classic piece of self-flattery to say that one is the dove, that the others are hawks. Notice the purely secular language – this is from politics.

In Church terms there are the saints, St Mark of Ephesus, St Photius etc. They follow the Tradition – we follow them.

To the right of the saints there are secular people, called ‘conservatives’ or ‘traditionalists’. They are indeed tainted with secular isms - moralism, donatism, phariseeism, fanaticism, judgementalism, sectarianism. These could legitimately be called hawks.

To the left of the saints there are secular people who conform themselves to the world, swimming with the tide, wherever politics, fame and money take them. They are also tainted with secular isms – ecumenism, syncretism, relativism, intellectualism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, secularism.

The doves, and the hawks, always shift the centre, the royal path, the golden way from the centre towards themselves.

In the twentieth century the self-appointed ‘doves’ always condemn the Orthodox, making out that the filioque is purely cultural etc. Thus, one who did his doctorate at St Serge on the above subject, relativising the filioque, even served a liturgy nearly 40 years ago in a Catholic convent, inserting the filioque, ‘so that the nuns would not be offended’!!!

A fall is a warning to us all. We could easily go the same way – or alternatively slip the other way into a sort of old calendarism, which is hawkish. The extreme case of this is Arius who was so brilliant (and intellectually proud) that he became a byword for heresy.

We must follow the Tradition, follow the saints. Leave the secularists to their secularism.

Fr Andrew

This icon, with others like it, is, as you say, an icon of the three angels who visited Abraham, merely a prefiguration of the Holy Trinity, Who cannot be represented, since the Father is not Incarnate and the Spirit can only be represented symbolically as fire or a dove. It is an icon, as you rightly say, from the Old Testament, not the New. Not an image of the Holy Trinity (= impossible), but a prefiguration of New Testament understanding.

Gothic architecture grew up outside the Church, after the schism, not before it. It was influenced by Muslim architecture (pointed arches) and the ‘new’ (in fact Godless and ancient pagan Roman) humanistic technological thought which grew up just before the schism and indeed caused it. This man-centred architecture (anthropismos in Greek - and the Greek philosopher Christos Yannaras is one of the best critics of Gothic architecture) pushes God away to a distant heaven (hence spires), so that man can represent his own religious imagination in stone. It is all about the representation in stone of the human philosophical speculations known as Scholasticism, the summit and summa of which is in the religious philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. Gothic is about the human ability to build temples, not the inspiration of God to man to build to His glory. It is not heaven on earth (the Incarnation), but human technology on earth, the inspiration of man to build to his own glory. The ultimate form of Gothic architecture is the sky-scraper, which is but the modern form of the Tower of Babel.

Gothic is also quite ugly to most Orthodox. Little wonder that the Enlightenment called it 'Gothic'. i.e. barbarian.

As for the layout of Western churches, these vary enormously today. However, traditionally they tend to be long and thin, Orthodox churches are squarer, indicating that we are together in our common goal of salvation. The elongation of Western churches in the Middle Ages can be related to medieval clericalism, pushing the people back to second-class status.

Fr Andrew

First of all I am not an Orthodox theologian or a theologian of any sort (in the Orthodox understanding), because I am not a saint. Theologians are all saints and St John the Theologian is the greatest of them.

There is no such thing as 'an act of wrath by God'. It has never existed. God is Love.The Old and New Testaments are, however, unanimous in describing cases where people punished themselves (that is, suffered through their own devil-inspired actions) as a result of their sins. There are no contradictions between the two Testaments, for God is One. Of course, it is true that the level of understanding of God in the NT is much higher than in the OT,

Fr Andrew

The so-called 'Jesus' Prayer (a non-traditional name - in Orthodoxy it is called noetic prayer or the prayer of the heart) should be practised wthin the context of Church life, with the discipline of morning and evening prayers, fasting, regular confession and communion, a certain level of humility and obedience.

This prayer is carried out outside public services, as part of personal and domestic life, part of our 'cell-rule'. In other words, prayer-knots or beads should not be seen by anyone else and should certainly not be tied around the wrist decoratively. The prayer is not practised at public Church services. We do not put private prayer above public prayer.

During the prayer, as any prayer, certain forgotten sins may be recalled to the memory. These should be confessed - but do not dwell on them, because they can become diabolical distractions.

All prayer is easier if we can find calm conditions, 'stillness', in other words, a quiet corner, to practise it.

Ignore all emotions that may come as a result of practising the prayer. The greatest danger here is a feeling of self-satisfaction, self-indulgent, narcissistic feelings. These come from pride: 'Look at me, I am praying'. In this way we can become a plaything of the devil who provides us with all sorts of self-delusions and so mocks us.

Fr Andrew

I don't think that much can come from such syllogistic arguments, because they try to restrict God to fallen human logic, limiting the Creator to the fallen creation. Such sayings preclude the right answer by their very formulation.

I would say: God is the source of Good. Without Him there is no good.

Fr Andrew

All primitive peoples, (both ancient and modern) have a cult of a father figure (god) and that of a mother figure (goddess). This is an instinctive, racial memory from Eden, of the perfection and primal beauty of the first created Adam and then Eve.

The more primitive the people the more primitive their understanding of the god and the goddess. For example, the god may be Thor the sky-god, the goddess Freia, Mother-Earth. These primitive understandings of the real god may be so deformed that they involve blood sacrifices.

In this way, the more primitive ancient (and modern) Hindus have an understanding of the Trinity, but it is a destructive trinity. The slightly more sophisticated ancient (and modern) Greeks had an understanding of the Trinity, but as Goodness, Beauty and Truth.

Isis is a typically primitive understanding of the mother-goddess figure, like hundreds of others.

All these understandings are primitive, because the created mind can never understand the Creator. Therefore, the need for revelation, which alone does away with primitiveness.

If your student had not come from a Protestant background, she would have read the Bible and, for instance, understood the magnificat ('All generations shall call me blessed...'). Because she comes from a Protestant background, she is full of 16th century cultural prejudice and therefore cannot understand the Scriptures.

In the Church, we do not have statues, because they invite idolatry. For we know that the Mother of God is not a goddess, but she is the Mother of the Incarnate God and therefore worthy of veneration (though not worship, which is due to God alone).

Fr Andrew

There are three understandings of the Holy Spirit in human life.

In the Orthodox understanding, the Holy Spirit comes to us from God the Father (as a free gift following repentance, prayer and the seeking of God – ‘the Spirit bloweth where it listeth’) and then comes to us through the Body of Christ (the Orthodox Church) in the sacraments and the disciplines of Church life, prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The coming of the Spirit from the Father can be seen among those who, though outside the Church, are freely drawn towards Her. The coming of the Spirit through the Church can be seen among those who keep the Faith and remain within the Church despite the temptations of this world. The history of the coming of the Spirit through the Church is known as 'The Tradition'.

In the Roman Catholic institutional understanding, the Holy Spirit comes to us from Christ, but since Christ is absent, in their reality the Spirit comes to us from His Vicars (the Popes). This is the filioque, which makes the double procession of the Spirit from the Father and from the Son as from one principle, thus confusing the Persons of the Holy Trinity. To some limited extent the Pope delegates this granting of the Spirit to clergy who are loyal to him. Therefore, grace is locked up in the depository of merits, controlled by the papacy (hence indulgences).

In the Protestant understanding, where they have no understanding at all of what the Church is (whereas the Roman Catholics do have a deformed understanding of it) the Holy Spirit comes to anyone who confesses that his personal Saviour is Christ. (They have little understanding of the Holy Trinity, of the Father and the Spirit, since they inherited the confused quasi-monistic understanding of the Trinity from Roman Catholicism, and only have some understanding of the revealed human nature of Christ ('Jesus')). Obviously, in such a case, which lacks all sense of spiritual sobriety, grace is confused with human emotions. This leads directly to emotionalist revivalism ('charismatics') and spiritual impurity (worldiness/secularism). Thus your friend's 'praise of secular artists/philosophers', instead of saints, whom the Protestants do not have - by their own admission. This is because they do not have the concept of holiness - one of the four signs of the Church.

It is man who confines God (through his lack of repentance), not God. God freely gives to those who seek the Church and then wish to live within Her. But He does not give to those who are unrepentant and even justify their lack of repentance.

Fr Andrew

A good but simple question deserves a simple answer!

Heaven and hell most certainly exist.

Heaven means closeness to God. Hell is distance from God.

We get to them by being close or far from God. When we are there we feel either comfort or else torment.

Therefore heaven and hell already begin on earth, it is only their intensity that increases after we lose our earthly bodies.

In earthly terms to try and understand this we use images. For hell it may be the image of fire or else darkness. For heaven we use the image of a garden, or pleasant warmth or softness etc

Images of reward and punishment are not very helpful because people interpret them literally. However, it is true that when we distance ourselves from God, we can say that we punish ourselves, in that we suffer from our passions, pride, selfishness, jealousy, despair, depression. When we are near God, we can also say that we 'reward ourselves' through having faith, consolation, the warmth of His presence etc.

Fr Andrew

It is very simple. Follow the prayer book. That belongs to the Church, not to individuals, who set themselves up as 'spiritual fathers'. Morning and evening prayers, and force yourselves to do them day in, day out.

If in a hurry in the morning, read them on the way to work or substitute with the Jesus Prayer, said secretly and without any display of prayer knots (which are to be kept in the pocket), not showily wound around wrists as decoration). Alternatively get up earlier!

Prayer rules are for monasteries. Folow the Church. It is simple, do not invent things that the Church has not appointed.

Fr Andrew

The New Testament was written by the Holy Spirit. To understand it, we need the Holy Spirit, that is the help of those who lived by the Spirit, that is, the saints. We try to read their writings as much as possible in order to understand the Scriptures.

As for the Old Testament, we can only understand it in the light of the New Testament.

In the New Testament Christ replaced the (Jewish/Mosaic) Law by Grace (the Holy Spirit), Who in the Old Testament 'spoke by the Prophets'. That is why we value above all the writings of the Prophets in the Old Testament, such as those of the Prophet David in the Psalms.

There is much else in the Old Testament, not of the Prophets, which is purely human. For example, the prohibition about not eating pork made good sense in the Middle East before the days of refrigeration, for it is well known how pork goes bad very quickly in the heat and can cause serious food poisoning.

The Law became a curse fand wrath for those very many who were not able to fulfil the ritualistic complexities of its presciptions as interpreted by the pharisees, who looked at the shallow ritual externals and forgot all about the much more important internals (See Psalm 50 - God does not want burnt sacrifices, but a contrite heart).. As Galatians 3, 23-25 explains, the Law was simply to help us reach Christ and His faith, like a schoolmaster. Now we have Christ we no longer need the schoolmaster of the Jewish Law. Once we were like babies and needed our food mashed and spoonfed. With the revelation of Christ, this is no longer necessary.

The purpose of the law was to bring people from barbarism to become hired servants of God. The purpose of Christ was to make us free and loving sons and daughters of God, heirs of the Kingdom.

Romans 3 is all about how none is justified by the law, but only by grace. See Romans 3, 20-24

Fr Andrew

The Old Testament is not a Christian text in the strict sense of the word. It was written before Christ became Incarnate and so is full of 'anthropomorphisms', that is, with an all too human (=fallen) understanding of God. This means that God is understood to be angry, jealous, violent, bloodthirsty imbued with all sorts of unworthy human emotions and thoughts. It means that human evil and violence (wars, vengeance etc) is attrributed in self-justification to God, because of a very crude and unworthy understanding of God. It was only in the NT that God was revealed to be Love - an extraordinary revelation at that time. No person in his right (spiritual) mind would interpret such expressions about 'God smiting' others literally. We can only understand the OT in the light of the New Testament. The NT is like a key which opens the door to the OT. Without the NT, the OT is a very strange book indeed. The problem with Mr Dawkins etc is that he interprets without understanding (understanding only comes with faith - and he lost his long ago).

Fr Andrew

Thank you for the message. As I understand it, you have been in Colchester. I have not myself seen the new garrison church. What is it like? At present we are waiting for the solicitors, so we can sign the contracts, get the keys and start work. The Church will not belong to us until about 30 June. Updates on progress are appearing on the site. When I contacted our solicitor, he said: 'That's a lot of church for 50 grand'. That's a secular way of saying that this is a Godsend and that all Orthodox should rejoice because it makes Orthodoxy more visible here. We have no doubt that this is St John's work - it is a clear miracle. How can anyone be against a miracle?

As for disestablishment, I am 100% against anywhere, in Greece or England. The Church is Incarnate and only becomes disincarnate when the State rejects it (as in Soviet Russia). The Church is either Incarnate or else persecuted. Disestablishment, operated by Christians themselves, is a temptation of disincarnate intellectuals. The devil says: Look, the Church is established and so politically compromised. You must disestablish it so it is pure again'. In fact, what the devil wants is for the Church to be weakened and lose influence in any way possible. A good way is for the Church to become a ghetto for the private few, the pure, the sect, like the old calendarists in Greece, who, in the illusion that they are 'guarding the truth', in fact fall into becoming a tool to further the aims of secularism.

Of course, this does not excuse compromises (State-appointed bishops, political statements by them, as happens in the Church of England), but Established Churches do not have to make compromises, we do not have to sin. It is the same with the State paying the clergy. In itself, there is nothing wrong with it. Of course, if then the State corrupts its clergy as its paymaster and the clergy agree to become corrupt, that is another story. The problem is not in what we do, it is in how we do it.

The real tragedy of the Church of England is that it was founded as a branch of the (Tudor) State. This is different from the Russian Church, which the Russian State began to persecute in the late seventeenth century, creating a weakening schism in her, and then tried to turn into a Department of State, which led to the Revolution. The 'Stateness' of the Church of England is integral to it, inherent. The Stateness of the pre-Revolutionary Church was a result of persecution of mainly foreign monarchs and German and Dutch Protestant ideologies. In that sense the C of E is not even a Church, but just part of an ephemeral political settlement.

I particularly find it strange that some Anglican male clergy feel that cannot stay in a Church which allows female clergy. Apart from the fact that other branches of the Anglican Communion have had female clergy for 60 years and many female bishops for at least 15 years, their Church was founded by a woman, Elizabeth I, and its head is a woman, Elizabeth II! This is the result of burying you head in the sand for 450 years. Similarly, recently an Anglican layman told me that he saw no problem with homosexual clergy, it was just that they should not talk about it openly! How hypocritical can you get!

On the other hand, as a Christian inhabitant of this country, with English blood in my veins, I can in no way say that the fate of the Church of England is indifferent to me. The active membership of the C of E is 2% of the population of England. That may sound pathetically few to some, but the active membership of all the Orthodox Churches in England is 100 times less. Orthodox should be careful. When the Church of England is attacked, it may actually be an attack on all Christian faith, Orthodoxy too.

Fr Andrew

This is correct, though of course if it is Pentecost, the Sunday of the Cross or the Feast of the Exaltation falls on a Sunday, then we do make prostrations. The same applies to home as to Church - we should only make bows. This is inn honour of the Resurrection, at which we stand.

However, we should not fall into the sin of proudly judging those many Orthodox who, through simple piety, do make prostrations and kneel on the fifty days after Easter or on Sundays. This is very, very common. Since the intention of those who do so is pious, we should rather admire their piety and prostrate ourselves in oiur souls together with them.

Fr Andrew

If you read Fr Seraphim Rose's work on Blessed Augustine (see the review in the latest number of Orthodox England), you will find a review of the term. Blessed is used by Orthodox, but in a small number of cases. The understanding is more 'minor saint' rather than St itself. (This is still different from the Catholic usage, as the person you spoke to meant).

Fr Andrew

The recent posting is the translation of an article by a journalist of the Russian Church. It is unofficial. I think breaking communion would be totally wrong and lead to sectarianism.

Everybody knows that these present erroneous and political policies are the result of one person. When that person dies, the policies may change completely, back to Orthodoxy. For example every priest I know under Antioch refuses to give communion to Non-Chalcedonians. In other words these heretical policies are all personal opinion, not something promulgated in a whole Church Council.

Such articles are useful because they serve as warnings - also to individuals inside the Russian Church who may tend to such errors also.

Fr Andrew

Clearly the Church is not Calvinist, because that was an invention of Calvin's age, pre-dated by the Church.

Christ has proved that human nature can be redeemed, which was the purpose of His Incarnation. The saints are living proof of this. (Of course, the Protestants have no saints, which is proof of the Orthodox teaching that there can be no holiness outside Holy Church).

Forgive me for saying this, but the this question illustrates the problem of taking a large number of Scriptural quotations out of context. For example, it is clear that the condemnatory tone of the OT, true in its time, is irrelevant in the light of Christ's Redemption. In the OT, all were condemned to hades (hell), which is why after His soul left His body, Christ went there first to preach to the captive Adam and Eve and all others. The quotes from the NT, especially from the Epistles, also have to be put into their context.

Fr Andrew

Old chestnuts all! Read the book on 'The Primacy of Peter in the Orthodox Church' for explanations and there are things in q and as in the past. But just a few points:

There is no such thing as 'an Eastern Schism', only a Western Schism.

St Paul founded the Church in Rome - the epistle to the Romans was written by him, not St Peter. Peter founded Antioch.

St Peter was asked to 'feed my lambs' three times, because he alone had denied Christ three times, having lost his faith.

On this rock (petra), of course is the rock of faith, as all the Fathers universally interpreted it. Why else does Christ tell him after; 'Get thee behind me, satan'.

St Peter's misison is a mission of Faith, as St Gregory the Great clearly explained, prophetically calling all medieval and modern Popes antichrists for their claims. If Popes lose the faith, then they lose St Peter's charisma. The weirdest thing of all is the concept that St Peter's spiritual authority (charisma) can be inherited automatically by any fallible bishop of Rome, from Borgia to all the others.

If Orthodox followed this worldly nonsense, we should have a 'Pope' in Antioch. But we don't, because it is the Church (= the Body of Christ) that is infallible, not the worldly human institution, which depends on the capital of a long vanished pagan Empire. Roman Catholicism is by definition Christianity + inbuilt secularism. That is why it is called 'Roman' and 'Catholicism'.

Fr Andrew

The book which was written between 74 and 95 (you must have one of the last copies of the 2nd edition) was called English Tradition, because that is what the English called (and call) ourselves. 'Anglo-Saxon' was a term coined by academics in the 17th century. I believe in calling people by the names that they call themselves, not those invented by academics 1,000 years afterwards. Of course, ‘Anglo-Saxon’ has a modern sense, the English-speaking peoples of the ‘Anglosphere’, but that is not what the book is about.

I have heard of Millbank etc. They are simply one of the last gasps of liberal Anglicanism. This is intellectualism (hence the jargon in it), in other words gnosticism (the disease of Bulgakov's heresies, for which he was condemned). They are radical, only inasmuch as they are at the very end of the degeneration and disintegration of this particular brand of Protestantism. They have little interest in real Orthodoxy (though lots in fantasy Orthodoxy a la Bulgakov), though they can be very inspiring to those who are on their way to Orthodoxy, trying to find a way out of the maze of Anglican disintegration. They have little concept of the Church, because they are outside the Church, in a Protestant sect. And anyone outside the Church cannot have a real concept of the Incarnation, since the Church is the Body of Christ. These are just intellectual constructs, however fascinating intellectually. The Church is a way of life, not a philosophy.

In fairness to Anglicanism, if it has abandoned its mission to the English race, it is because most of the English race are in a situation of apostasy. Nothing would bring the majority back to any form of practising Christianity. Therefore they turn to Africans, who actually have faith. The English world lost its faith in the 1960s. The process of loss of faith ('the death of God' - Who was killed by the faithless in their hearts, obviously not in reality) has gone too far and the 16th century Anglican Compromise is all but dead. This is spiritual (and therefore moral and cultural) suicide. A race that is spiritually living does not allow its own extinction by mass immigration. It is not a case of 'rivers of blood', but one of 'rivers of spiritual suicide'. Blame not the immigrants, blame the people who stopped believing in themselves. This is a spiritual disease, not a racial one.

Christianity is incarnate, therefore we have Orthodox Russia, Orthodox Australia, Orthodox England. I would not call this 'ethno-theology' (I have never heard this term), but incarnational theology.

Fr Andrew

The reason why women are not allowed is the same as why men are not allowed in strict convents - of course priests are male, but their contact with the nuns is minimal and then they prefer elderly priests. (See the life of St Cuthbert for the same attitude towards contact between the sexes).

Female animals are not allowed because then the animals would breed and they would have large numbers of animals (especially cats and dogs), that would create problems.

The reasons are indeed pragmatic, but of course pragmatic for Orthodox also means spiritual. These two things are not exclusive, as they are in heterodox thought. That is why we do not distinguish between active and contemplative. We need both together.

Fr Andrew

It is remarkable how the world wants to depress us. There was a time when the world 'reassured' us that nuclear war was inevitable and people foolishly built bunkers (foolishly, because if there was a nuclear war, you would not want to survive. What is so bad about dying? – if, that is, you are an Orthodox Christian). Then they took to threatening us with Islamic terrorism and 'dirty' bombs, then they started 'global warming'. In between they assured us that asteroids were about to hit the earth, a new ice age or tsunamis were coming etc etc. In other words, the media, and they are controlled by devilish forces, want us to despair, which is what the devil wants.

But if the media had an ounce of faith, they would be saying, 'Yes, there are many threats and we must do what we can to ensure peace and justice, but, at the end, God alone is Supreme and Almighty. If people want to stop the 'inevitable' consequences of global warming, then all they have to do is pray and repent. In other words, there is nothing inevitable about any of this. If the world had faith, then the world would know better!

Let us declare war on terror – on the only terror that is real, the terror of not having faith in the mercy, providence and love for mankind of Almighty God!

Fr Andrew

The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord is celebrated 12 days after Christmas and has been since at least the fourth century. In the Orthodox Church it is known as Theophany (= the Appearance of God) and the service often uses the word 'epiphany' (= the ultimate revelation) to describe the events of the Feast. It is this Greek word that was very early taken on in the West for the name of the feast.

As regards Lent, its beginning is purely dependent on the Paschalia (the dating of Easter). The Orthodox Church (and the heterodox denominations until relatively recently) uses the dating system developed by the First Universal Council in Nicea (325) to date this. It falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, as dated according to the Church or Julian calendar. However, if this should coincide with the Jewish Passover, the Church delays Easter by one week. This is in order to follow the events in the Gospel (that year the Passover fell on Saturday, which is why Christ's body was removed from the cross before sunset on Friday, the Resurrection of course fell on Sunday), and to clearly mark the difference between the Jews and the Christians regarding the Resurrection.

This year, the Roman Catholic Easter (followed by the whole Protestant world - they always follow Rome) - falls nearly one month before the full moon of the Julian spring equinox and before the Jewish Passover. In other words, it is very early and come not long after their Epiphany. All of this si strictly forbidden by the canons of the Church. However, the Roman Catholics consider the Pope of Rome to be higher in authority than the Universal Church Councils, so they do whatever they want.

Fr Andrew

I am not really qualified to answer your question, because this is not in the received text of the Psalms and that is all I can go by. The issue is that there are several textual variants in the Scriptures (New and Old Testaments, and well before the Massoretes), which were not received by the catholic consciousness of the Church. Blessed Jerome was a very good scholar - and above all a holy man through repentance - and I think his text, as far as I know, is a very good one, but ultimately it is not the work of individuals that counts in the Scriptures, it is the text received by the whole Church that counts.

I am not aware of any Patristic commentary on this variant, but I am sure that there are clever people and Professors of the Old Testament or of Patristics somewhere in the Orthodox world, who could tell you much more. Having said that, it is true that many of these textual variants are of interest (for instance, some apocryphal sayings of Christ in apocryphal texts), but we do have to be careful with them - some of these are directly and obviously heretical!

'Apo tou xylou' means 'away from the wood', as you say, not 'ek tou xylou', that would sound like a prophecy. 'Apo' makes it sound like an interpolation, but I am no expert.

As regards the old chestnut about St John Chrysostom being anti-semitic (!!!), that is typical of the PC lobby. The people who say such things are those who also censor the texts of the Gospels because they denounce the Jews very clearly and are therefore 'anti-semitic' ('Woe unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites...'). These people are so ill-informed that they do not even know what anti-semitic means - sometimes these people say that Arabs are 'anti-semitic!' , not knowing that the Arabs are themselves Semites.

Of course, St John, like Christ, opposed those who were against the Good News and had Him killed. If that is what anti-semitic means, that is anti-Christian, then we are all 'anti-semitic'. But if 'anti-semitic' means against the Semites, then no Christian is anti-semitic, because our Lord Himself was a Semite! This is all secular PC nonsense and unworthy of Christians. I know many Jews who have received the Gospel and become Orthodox - are we supposed to think therefore that they are anti-semitic too?! This is just secularism.

Yes, of course, St John denounces Jews in his sermons, but only those who persecute Christians. He does not denounce the Jews who have been baptised or the Jews who have not been baptised, but at least do not spend their time persecuting Christians, but live their lives as pious Jews, honestly waiting for the Messiah, having been deceived by rabbis who say that He has not already come. Your chaplain confuses the evil Nazi persecution of the Jews with the fourth century history of persecution by Jews.

Fr Andrew

The fast before communion begins at about age 7 or at the first confession. Some may need a drink of water in the morning even after a little this age. Children should be prepared for this fast from about 5 on, gradually eating less, so that the fast is not a shock to them and they do not give up taking communion very regularly. This works well. It is important to understand that these are not rigid rules. Flexibility is vital in all these matters. It is called pastoral discretion.

We do not have evening liturgies, but only after midnight (Easter and sometimes Christmas). Then the fast should begin at 6.00 pm.

Older couples who feel able, abstain, but ONLY BY MUTUAL CONSENT (NEVER, NEVER WITH ONE IMPOSING IT ON THE OTHER) on fast days, midnight to midnight. This is a very delicate matter and again rigidity is very dangerous. Couples should do what they can and not feel guilt if they cannot manage this. We are not saints!

Of course we should show charity to members of our family and attend family occasions (masses, weddings etc). We should try and say the Jesus Prayer while we are present at these occasions, so that we do not participate in errors.

Fr Andrew

Seven years is completely unknown. Always three and a half (see Daniel 7.25).

These are not dogmas (those are on the Holy Trinity and the two natures of Christ), but they are revealed truths, found in the Tradition, including in the Holy Scriptures and the works of many Church Fathers.

Many Fathers have commented on all this, for example:

St John Chrysostom - Fourth Homily on 2 Thess
St Hippolytus of Rome (On Christ and Antichrist)
Blessed Theodoret (Works, Part 4)
Blesed Jerome (Commentary on Daniel)
St Ephraim the Syrian (Homily on the Coming of Antichrist)
St Cyril of Jerusalem (Fifteenth Catechitical Homily)
St Andrew of Caesarea (Commentary on Revelation)

All of this has been affirmed by near-contemporary Fathers like St Theophan the Recluse, St Ignatius of the Caucasus, St John of Kronstadt.

Fr Andrew

There are many confusions here, hence the apparent contradiction. (In the Church as the Body of Christ there are no contradictions; contradictions only happen in the Fall, that is, in our fallen nature and therefore in the human aspects of Church life).

First of all, the gift of knowledge and understanding depends on our cultivation of the gift. That gift can easily remain no more than a mere potential, depending on our repentance, or lack of repentance.

In answer to your question: As our Lord said in the Gospels, nobody but His Heavenly Father knows when the end will come. So even He did not know. This knowledge is therefore part of the prerogative of the Person (Hypostasis) of the Father.

True, we are told that Antichrist will make his appearance three and a half years (not seven) before the end. Of course, the question is will we recognise who Antichrist is? For if we do not recognise him, it will be the end before we realise it. Similarly, in the Gospel, our Lord gives us signs of the end. The trouble is we are not sufficiently wise to recognise them. The history is full of false alarms in this respect, for only the Father knows this mystery, we can only know the signs surrounding it.

Fr Andrew

On the one hand, the Non-Chalcedonians are very close to Orthodoxy. But on the other, they refuse the Church. The real problem is their nationalism; their error is part of their national identity. That was the basic reason for their schism and that is the basic reason why they cannot renounce that schism now and return. (Although some Armenians are now returning, but only a small number so far).

The Holy Spirit never guides the Church into confusion. Human-beings are very good at that already!

Fr Andrew

The readings from the Old Testament were dropped as the New Testament developed. The readings were replaced with hymns to the new saints, the martyrs and others who were the seed of the Church. This runs parallel to the gradual dropping of circumcision and other Jewish rituals, including animal sacrifices (though the Ethiopians never got to the stage of dropping circumcision - they fell away before that). As the Holy Spirit has been revealed, so the Church (the Tradition of the Church) has evolved. The Law and the Prophets have been fulfilled (Characteristically, the ancient Jerusalem Liturgy of St James does keep an Old Testament reading)

As for the kiss of peace, it was originally carried out only in the tiny communities of the Catacomb Church and disappeared as the Church became a mass phenomenon. As the Church grew, so it was dropped, because it caused chaos among the crowds. It became impractical. (Other abuses also occurred - like men deleibratetly standing next to young girls, so they could give them a not so innocent kiss, when the moment came!). Now only the clergy in the altar give each other the kiss of peace.

Anglicans have told me that the one thing they resent most in their new rite is the obligatory kiss of peace/handshake, which they have to give to total strangers! It is an empty ritual.

Fr Andrew

I have written about this before. Somewhere you will find something already.

Basically, 'the Celtic Church' was the nonsensical invention of 19th century Protestants, with historic help from the Calvinist John Knox and the Lutheran Elizabethan divines in England.

The 'Celtic Church' had the wrong dating of Easter, (this was Rome's old and also wrong dating), which had been dropped in Rome in about 450. The Celts, including Iona, only adhered to it because of their isolation. Rome took the correct date from the astronomical centre in Alexandria (and the rest of the East). Unfortunately, the wrong dating became a kind of nationalist flag for many Celts, including some contemporary ones (and an anti-English flag for the Welsh).

St John has of course nothing to do with it. The Celts were in fact more Roman than the Romans, in keeping the old Roman date (so much for Victorian Protestant nonsense). A 'Greco-Celtic' Church never existed. Your RC colleague has simply never heard of the Primacy of Christ over everyone else, Apostles and popes included.

The Synod of Whitby came to an Orthodox decision and simply tied the Celts down to the pactices of the rest of the Orthodox world, of which Rome was then a small and actually rather insignificant part. In other words, Whitby was just another provinical council integrating the practices of the local Church into the universal Orthodox ecumene of the age. Its decisions would certainly have been approved of in the Imperial Capital, Constantinople, at the time, being seen as the local Western Patriarchate at last putting its house in order.

Could I again include this q and a on the site? As you say, it might be of interest to others.

I suspect that Ruth Gledhill, and I have spoken to her in the past, has written 'A Protestant History of the Church' rather than 'A History of the Christian Church',

Fr Andrew

I did not know that frequency of confession varies. In all the Orthodox Churches, it should be the same. Confesson is when you need it. Confession is also before communion, or if communion is frequent (with the blessing of an experienced confessor), then confession every month or six weeks. Anything else is simply laxity.

You can go to any priest of any diocese (jurisdiction) for confession. No priest has the right to forbid this.

The seal of secrecy is absolute. A priest who reveals this (to his wife or anyone else) should be defrocked.

The question about children depends on the children. Above all, they should know how to behave in relation to others and lead a virtuous life. They should go to communion as often as possible. They should know Our Father and Mother of God, Rejoice at about aged 7. The Ten Commandments and the Creed they should learn by heart later, at about 12 or 13. But children are all different. These are only general guidelines.

Orthodox do not have retreats. I know of no pilgrimages at present. What is useful is to visit other parishes and see the wider picture. Every such visit can be made into a 'retreat' or pilgrimage.

The liturgy is worldwide very similar, Russian, Romanian or whatever. Russia was spared freemasonry etc through Communism. Orthodox outside 1917 Communism have not been spared freemasonry and modernism. Such is Providence. There are many blessings in disguise.

Fr Andrew

I wrote an article on this in Orthodox England some years back.

Nous is translated variously. I think the translation of 'intellect' in the Philoklaia is by far the most misleading.

The nous is the eye of the heart. Noetic is the adjective. The nous is then the divine spark, that part that links us to God and communicates with him. Noetic prayer is therefore pure prayer. The heart (in the Biblical and Patristic sense) is not the seat of the emotions (that is the soul), but the centre of man and the centre of that centre is the nous.

The 'prayer of the heart' (a very poor translation) is actually noetic prayer ('noera evkhi' in Greek; 'umnaya molitva' in Slavonic). It is achieved by the prayer of the Incarnation, that is noetic prayer (known in the West - another misleading translation) as 'the Jesus Prayer' (This term is not found in the Fathers).

We think consciously with our heads. Therefore all prayer begins in our heads. It can only descend to our hearts when the heads (minds) are purified. This can take a lifetime. Few achieve it nowadays.

Noetic prayer (to use the correct term) has nothing at all to do with mediation, which is by its nature disincarnate and encourages speculation and imagination, leading to illusio (in Latin), plani (in Greek) or prelest (in Slavonic), in other words, to spiritual delusions, with emotional swings, exaltation and levitation or else 'dark nights of the soul' and feelings of abandonment.

Saying words like Peace, Love or even Christ has no meaning, they are disincarnate. The important thing is the confession of the dogma (and in Orthodoxy 'dogma' means spiritual revelation) that Christ is the Son of God and that we need His mercy, which alone saves us.

Aridity of prayer is the surest sign that we are progressing. Distrust any feeling of warmth or sweetness. That is highly dangerous. Many have fallen in this way. Remain vigilant and sober. Expect no reward until the end of your life. Remember what St Symeon said: 'Theology without love is the theology of demons'.

Fr Andrew

The simple answer to your question is that 'God is merciful and loves mankind'. Only those who consciously reject God can fall away from His Love completely.

If you have doubts for your own salvation or that of others, pray silently every day for a while, until this prayer becomes a reflex.

For those who have discovered Orthodoxy in this world, there is a greater responsibility not to fall away.

Feelings of worry, anxiety and guilt about such things are always negative, always put there by the demon. Simply pray, with the knowledge that God is Love.

If you wish for a more detailed answer, contact me again,

Fr Andrew

Just as in Roman Catholicism, there are orders and tertiary groups - Opus Dei, for exampe, so too in the Orthodox Church there is a lot of variety.

Just as you can find all sorts of vagantes who call themselves Catholics, so on the margins of the Orthodox Church, you will find uncanonical groups who use the word Orthodox.

Very simply, Canonical Orthodox Churches in the UK are listed in the Annual Directory of the Fellowship of St John the Baptist. See also our website under Resources for Directory.

As regards Metr Kallistos' words about Constantinople, they are at the present moment true, but in history, and recently, that Patriarchate has often fallen into schism and heresy. it could happen again, as I have written on the orthodoxengland website recently.

Fr Andrew

No.

None of this surprises me. This spirit is even stronger in Constantinople. We have to know that since the 1930s and Patriarch Myron, there has been the same worldly, new calendarist tendency at a certain level in the Romanian Church as in the Greek Churches, especually in Constantinople, and since the 1960s, in the Bulgarian Church. It all began with Patr Meliton Metaksakis - see our site.

This is why we must ally ourselves with the many healthy forces, the startsy and others, in Romania, Greece and Bulgaria. We must fight against this Balkanization. Pray especially that the right Patriarch will be chosen in Romania on 12 September. This is all the more difficult now with the EU.

Fr Andrew

Here are some points to consider:

1) In general I think there is little point in talking about religion with people whose convictions are based either on psychological complexes or else sociological needs, and not spiritual experience or knowledge of the 2,000 year history of the Christian Church, - people like Jehovah's Witnesses.

2) Jehovah's Witnesses (Russellites, to give them their real name) do not believe that Christ is the Son of God - they are Arians. This is the essence of the trap your friend has set you. He wants to try and prove to you that Christ is not the Son of God

3) Faith in the Resurrection is also very defective among them. Again, this is a trap for you.

4) They also inherit the medieval papist theory of the Redemption, which makes out that a cruel God the Father slaughtered Christ in order to obtain satisfaction for human sin. This is of course nonsense.

5) Why did God send His Son?

a) Out of love for His suffering creation.

b) Because only if God became man, could man come to know God and so find the way to salvation, because that way had been trodden by Christ. The prophets could not do this, because they died also.

c) Because only the sinless God-man could defeat death, because death could not contain the sinlessness of the divino-human nature.

d) Only so, through following Christ and asking for forgiveness, could humanity be redeemed, saved, from sin and the wages of sin, death.

6) We do not regard the Hebrew Scriptures. They were written down by anti-Christian rabbis in the tenth century. We regard the Greek Scriptures, written down in the second century BC, and which alone were quoted by Christ in the first century.

7) As regards the prophets, Christ himself describes in the Scriptures how they were killed by the Jews. He knew perfectly well how they were treated. It was clear therefore that He also knew that He could do something they could not do, i.e. overcome death through the Crucifixion and the Resurrection.

I hope this is of help to you,

Fr Andrew

I wonder if you will make it to Felixstowe; the church is only 40 minutes further from Bury St Edmunds? Vigil is at 5.30, Hours and Liturgy at 10.00. This is the Sunday of the Saints of the Isles.

Before you leave, read the Gospel and the Epistle of the day, together with morning prayers.

Print off the service to St Edmund and read it through in a low voice or silently while you stand in the ruins of the church there.

There are three places to visit, preferably in this order: the ruins of the monastery known as 'the Abbey Gardens', where you can read the service.

The second place is the Catholic church nearby, where there is a tiny relic of St Edmund.

The third place is Moyse's Hall museum in the town centre, which tells you of the history of St Edmund's town.

Before you go you should do a little reading and explain to the family a little about St Edmund and sing the troparion and kontakion of the saint. Again, when you get home afterwards, do the same.

Perhaps the most moving site for a pilgrimage to St Edmund is the place of his martyrdom in Hoxne. I was there last week. It is about forty minutes to the north of Bury St Edmunds. You could read through the service to him there again.

Fr Andrew

For the New Testament, the liturgical form is the King James. If you wish for study purposes, especially of the Epistles, something a little clearer, then the Revised Version is good.

As for the Old Testament, most Orthodox actually use the King James, or Revised Version, but we know that that is the corrupt Hebrew text, written by rabbis about 1200 years after the Septuagint. Some Orthodox therefore use the pre-Protestant Roman Catholic translation of the OT, which is much, much closer to the Septuagint. However, in the next year or so, there will be appearing an Orthodox OT in English. The Psalter appeared on our website two years ago and is downloadable, but it will be published in about six months time. 23 other OT books have been translated so far.

Fr Andrew

There is only one. Fr Paul Florensky was a religious philosopher. Many of his thoughts were not Orthodox. However, since the Communists killed him and he may have repented for his earlier thoughts, he may have become a martyr for Orthodoxy. We simply lack information about what happened to him later.

Yes, that text is well-known. I also attach the akathist in Russian.

Many of the Church Fathers did not have this experience in their childhoods. But they were baptized in their 20s and then became saints. Think of the Apostle Paul.

Metr Antony was a great patristic figure, not at all a modernist. He simply wanted to restore the Patristic understanding of the Redemption in Russia, where at that time they had completely adopted the Roman Catholic satisfaction theory. Metr Antony wrote his book in prison and did not always express himself so clearly. It is also true that he exaggerated the importance of Gethsemane in the Redemption, in order to cure the then Russian obsession with the Roman Catholic approach. When some ten-fifteen years later, some objected to his views on the Redemption, he withdrew them, seeing that they upset some people, who were attached to the old satisfaction theory. His intentions were completely Orthodox and a careful reading of his Redemption proves that his thoughts were also completely Orthodox..

Metr Antony's views have been very well defended, above all by Fr Justin Popovich. Anyone who reads his views with goodwill, will see this. The only reservation one can have is that Metr Antony sometimes expressed himself in ways that can be misinterpreted by people of ill-will.

Metr Antony never denied this. He merely pointed out that the whole of Christ's life, His Incarnation, as an act of mercy, was redemptive. The high point of it was of course the Cross.

St Ignatius was fully Orthodox, though of course he too expressed himself in the language of the time - as we all do.

And what about the children who were killed in the wombs of their "mothers". They can't enter Paradise because they are not born again in Baptism, but neither do they go to a place of eternal punishment.

In the Life of St Basil the New, I think, his disciple, St Gregory had a vision where, at the end, Christ looked at one side and said to one group of souls that they were spiritually blind and had not lived as the Law of God commanded. On them there was no evil and they were almost like righteous souls. The Lord looked at them and then at their parents and He was angry with the parents, because they did not enlighten their children with Baptism. The Lord gave them the last place in the west, and gave them some small part of eternal life, but without looking at the Face of God. I have read that St Gregory the Theologian in his sermon on Baptism (Sermon II, I think) says something similar, but to be honest, I have not read this sermon. And that St Athanasius the Great and St Cyril of Alexandria have the same opinion.

Many great saints of the Church were not baptized - all the prophets of the Old Testament. The Mother of God was not baptized when she conceived Christ. We have to look at things in their context. Many martyrs of the Church were not baptized in water, but in blood, think of the thief on the cross. Others were baptized in their tears (of repentance).

Thinking back to your last e-mail, were you asking about Florovsky or Florensky? Florensky was definitively one of the heretics, whereas Florovsky was really quite Orthodox, although, as I said, only an academic.

We rejoice because by the Providence (=Love) of God, even from bad, good can come. Thus, illness is allowed by God so that we can repent. For example, many AIDS victims have repented and died in a state of repentance - but the media never speak about them. If they had not caught AIDS, they would never have repented. The Fathers said: 'Man proposes, but God disposes'.

As regards paradise, we do not know who will enter there. The thief on the cross was the first to get into paradise, and he repented only minutes or hours before his death. We must not judge because we cannot judge, because we have no idea of how rich God's mercy is.

Can you read Russian? if so I will send you an akathist of thanksgiving, written by one of the most persecuted men in the twentieth century. If not, I will send it to you in English.

The biometric cards are not the end, though they may be the beginning of the end. But have faith in God. He loves you in ways that you and I cannot even begin to understand,

Fr Andrew

Fr Alexander Schmemann and Metr John Zizioulas are modernists. The former was very Protestant, anti-Tradition and anti-monastic in his thinking. He wanted to 'reform' the Church! The latter is more influenced by the Catholics and is much more of a politician and ecumenist in the pro-Unia way of Constantinople, ever since the Council of Florence. In that way he is more dangerous. He has a very high opinion of himself.

I met them both. Fr Alexander was a nice man, just very confused by his mind.

Fr George Florovsky was much more Orthodox, but he was still only an academic theologian. In other words, he was an intellectual, not someone who lived theology. But his books can be read with interest.

The problem with all such people is that they live in their heads, they do not live Orthodoxy in their hearts, or at least the faith in their hearts is not reflected in their theology. So it is just another intellectual game for them. In Russian we say gore ot uma - sorrow comes from the mind.

If you would like more specific details, please contact me again,

Fr Andrew

We must compare like with like! The division between the MP and ROCOR was never a schism. In other words, it was never doctrinal, but purely administrative, caused by government persecution inside Russia. We all knew that one day unity would come, the only question was when. The answer to that we more or less know now.

The Monophysite (and Nestorian) question was a mixture of doctrine together with anti-Greek nationalism, both grave. Indeed, I think in the case of the Nestorians it was far more about nationalism than anything else. A new article about secualrism and nationalism will shortly be appearing on the site under The Orthodox Life, which will make this clear.

Basically, the Monophysites (I think they are semi-Monophysites in fact) still refuse to accept Chalcedon in its fullness. Until they do, there can be no unity. In practical life this would mean their stopping venerating their Monophysite heroes like Shenuda, whom they consider a saint. I don't think 'organization' is a guarantee of Orthodoxy, though their piety is definitely impressive.

Fr Andrew

There are many different icons of Christ. Some show Him crucified, showing his wounds, which of course His human nature had after His Resurrection, as the Gospel says. Other icons show Him as the Almighty (Pantokrator), or as the Eternal Logos. These latter icons emphasize His Divine nature or show Him as the Eternal Son that He is. So it all depends on which icons you are thinking of.

Of course, it is possible to pray and worship without icons. It is possible to pray anywhere at any time. But icons make it easier. And it is also important dogmatically, for there are those 'spiritualists', who deny the Incarnation of Christ and they would destroy all icons. Not only do they destroy holy images (icons) on wood, but also the image of God in man. Cromwell, Napoleon, Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and all the others were all iconoclasts.

Our Lord created the first icon by sending His image on a cloth to Abgar of Edessa. The first icon-painter was St Luke. We still have some of his icons of the Mother of God, though they have been overpainted down the centuries. There are only a few icons left from before the iconoclastic heresy in the 8th and 9th centuries, some are on Mt Sinai. But any text-book on Christian art history will show you pictures of other early icons, still in the catacombs in Rome etc. Of course their style is not very evolved and they still have strong 'classical overtones'. Icon-painting only developed in full after the brutal attacks of the iconoclasts. At that point it became fixed, just as all the dogmas of the Church only became fixed after the attacks of heretics on Church Truth.

Fr Andrew

The practice of not coming to church refers to a time when there were not the possibilities of feminine hygiene which exist today. Although there are still some women, especially in the Balkan countries, who do not come to church during menstruation, this is their personal decision, and this is not something imposed on them by the Church. Nowadays, with modern feminine hygiene, there is no longer any reason for this. Indeed, a few years ago. Patriarch Pavle of Serbia wrote an article on this question and urged women to come to church, including when they are menstruating.

On the other hand, it is also true that women's menstruation is the result of the Fall (Genesis 3, 16), therefore women do not take communion during menstruation. For them it seems a natural reflex to refrain at these moments. In the same way, men can suffer the problem of loss of semen during the night (nocturnal emissions), in which case they too should refrain from communion. Although both problems are involuntary, part of our fallen nature, nevertheless they are the results of ancestral sin, that is, the fact that sin is in the world causes these problems. Adam was not created to suffer in this way, nor was Eve. Sin came into the world, and so also did these problems. Had the Fall not happened, men and women would not suffer these problems.

However, we must also understand that in extreme cases, a priest will make exceptions. Thus a man who had been in a car crash and was about to die would not be refused communion because the night before he had suffered a loss of semen. Obviously, a woman in the same situation and menstruating would not be refused communion either. We have to use discernment, always asking what is the best thing for salvation.

Fr Andrew

As you probably realize, Roman Catholicism is the Orthodox Church, as seen through a distorting mirror, like you can find in fairgrounds. If therefore you start off from the distorting mirror perspective, obviously you will be confused, you will only see a fuzzy blur of the original. The image is so distorted that you can no longer see the purity and clarity of the original.

Thus, Orthodox, like Roman Catholics, use words like Trinity, Christ, dogma, priest, angel, incense, Pope, Mother of God, marriage, Easter, Christmas, saints, sacrament, heaven, hell, bishop, canon, Church etc etc, but we mean quite different things. (This is some Orthodox like to use other words like Pascha, the Nativity, the mysteries etc etc for these things).

The early Orthodox Church in the West had the same theology as the early Orthodox Church in the East. Purgatory is simply the twelfth century (i.e. post-Schism) Roman distortion of the Orthodox Church's teaching on the after-life. From that distortion there grew up indulgences and all the rest which led directly to the Protestant schisms from the Roman schism.

In Orthodox (i.e. Christian) teaching, after death comes the particular judgement and at the end of the world the Last Judgement. The particular judgement comes forty days after the separation of the soul from the body. During those forty days, the soul is examined for its faults (if they have not been repented for).

The symbolic illustration of this is the 'toll-houses'. Obviously, this has to be understood as an illustration or symbol. Just as at the Last Judgement, although there is a 'Judgement', there is no court-room, no attorneys etc etc, so there are no physical toll-houses either. The toll-houses illustrate the examination of the soul, after it has lost its body.

After the particular judgement, the soul is allocated a place, where it 'sleeps' or 'rests'. From then on until the Last Judgement, the soul can move upwards, or heavenwards, thanks to the prayers of those on earth, who do not sleep or rest, but are active in the Church Militant on earth. These prayers are the fruit of love - not of legalism, papal power or money paid for bits of paper called indulgences.

This is quite different from purgatory ('cleansing fire') and the payment of indulgences. However, one can still just see in indulgences the medieval distortion of the original Orthodox Church's teaching on prayer for the departed - that is the distorting mirror created by the filioque, which is why the Protestants, as usual, ended up throwing out the baby with the bath-water.

Those who are saints go straight to heaven. That is why we no longer sing the words of memorial services for them: 'Give rest, O Lord...'. Theirs is not the rest or sleep of us others between the particular judgement and the Last Judgement, but the active life of the Church Triumphant (in heaven) interceding for the Church Militant.

'Sleep' is the rest or repose of the souls that await the prayers of the Church Militant and then the Last Judgement. 'Disembodied' is a good term for this, but consciousness perhaps less so. Their souls rise heavenwards as the prayer of love of the Church Militant raises them up. I would not call this state 'bliss' or otherwise, and neither the prisons of hell. Hell is the absolute self-exclusion from God, and that can only come to pass after the Last Judgement. Simply 'sleep' is the best word for this state. Only the saints do not experience this and go straight to heaven. As regards those who commit great evil, perhaps we could say that their sleep is 'disturbed', like that of ghosts, 'unquiet spirits'.

We pass through the toll-houses, i.e, we all have our sins weighed up. We cannot atone for them at that point, as we are bodiless. Only the love of those on earth for us and later the Mercy of God at the Last Judgement can save us from here on. We are never 'confident' of the Mercy of Christ, because our sins are so heavy. But the Mercy of Christ does keep us from despair.

I don't think anyone of us can 'understand' this in a rationalistic sense. It is all in images - 'seen in a glass darkly'.

Fr Andrew

The fast is clear: it is from midnight (and not before) on Saturday and it is total abstinence from food, water, cigarettes etc.

As regards the customs of the Local Churches, for example a three-day fast or fasting on the Saturday before communion, these are customs, not canons, and they were introduced because of infrequent communion. For example, if someone only takes communion two or three times a year, it is not a bad thing for them to observe such a fast. But it is not the norm. As you say, the canons forbid fasting on Saturdays. However, we should remember that the canons are guides to piety and that the Church is higher than the canons.

Personally, as a priest, I avoid eating much on Saturday evenings and avoid eating meat. However, this is purely personal and not a canonical requirement. The key is: moderation in all things.

Fr Andrew

In the eternal mind of God there is no time, so He knows past, present and future. But since He gives us complete freedom, He forces nothing on us, although He does know all things. Therefore there is no such thing as predestination, but there is God's foreknowledge. The prophets and the clairvoyant are allowed to see some small parts of the past, present or future through God's grace, but no more.

There is therefore no such thing as destiny or fate in the deterministic sense, they are pagan ideas. We are completely free. (Though, of course, we can talk in the loose sense from a future perspective that someone's 'destiny was to...', when talking about their life story). We are free to live our lives, that is to do God's will or not to do it.

When something happens because we have prayed about it, we can say that it is God's will (even though the result may not at all be what we would have wished) through the prayers of such and such a person. If we do not pray for God's will to be done, then of course we cannot say that something is necessarily God's will, only that God has allowed it through our sins (= lack of prayers). If we do not pray, then all sorts of things can happen to us which are not God's will, though God allows them to happen. For example, sometimes God allows us to be tempted by the devil in order to show us that we need to pray. Some people call this being tested by God.

The term 'God will punish you' is a common expression used by people on the fringes of the Church (and also therefore in the Old Testament). God as a God of love never punishes us, we punish ourselves. But God does allow such things to happen and work out paradoxically for our benefit (we can learn, grow and mature through suffering). Thus teh negative can become good.

All this is known as the Providence (= foresight) of God (The Greek word 'economy' or the Latin word 'dispensation' are also used in this sense of Providence).

I hope this is of help to you,

Fr Andrew

I have never heard of any patron saint for these countries, according to any tradition. As far as I know, these countries have never produced a saint - so far.

My suggestion is that, with the blessing of Archbishop Hilarion, a group of people who feel strongly about this, have a large (say three feet by five feet) icon painted of the Mother of God (perhaps have it done on Mt Athos, if possible). She is a universal emblem to unite all Orthodox. In her icons she wears three stars, and in her Akathist she is called 'the star that gave birth to the Sun' (zvezda rozhdshaya Solntse). There are also stars on the Australian flag.

Since you live in the New World, the feast day of this Icon could be fixed on one of the Australian national holidays. (Is there a joint Australian and New Zealand holiday??). This would give sense to that holiday. This would also avoid problems of calendar among Orthodox. All Orthodox would feast this Icon on that day. The Icon could be called 'The Mother of God of the South', for example. She would be the Patroness of all Australasia. Someone could write an Akathist especially to this Icon, expressing the hope for salvation for all your countries and peoples through her prayers. Maybe even if some notion of this could appear on the Icon, with different peoples bowing before her in the forground of the Icon?

All these are thoughts. I am sure if you showed this to Archbp Hilarion, he could improve on them,

Fr Andrew