Transcript

Fr. Steven Tsichlis: Well, this isn’t exactly Fr. Evan. Fr. Evan Armatas tonight is in Birmingham, Alabama, and this is Fr. Steve Tsichlis. I am from St. Paul’s Greek Orthodox Church in Irvine, California, and I’m coming from you live, actually, from Orange County, California. Fr. Evan was kind enough to ask me to fill in for him tonight, and I’m sure that the retreat he’s leading in Birmingham has probably been fantastic.

Let me just mention to you that the call-in number is 1-855-AF-RADIO; that’s 1-855-237-2346. You can also email questions at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), and also there is a chat room tonight, which is being handled by Fr. John, so ancientfaith.com/orthodoxylive. We’re looking forward to taking your calls tonight, and I hope that there will be plenty of people out there who have questions. In the meantime, while we’re waiting for our first calls, I wanted to mention that knowing I would come on this program, I did ask people in my congregation if there were any questions that they had hoped to ask me but for some reason over the years just simply hadn’t had the chance.

So one of the questions that they came up with was actually: What does our Church believe about organ donation? That is something that, really, we’re being asked to do many, many times, whenever we go and we get our driver’s license renewed. What I wanted to talk about briefly is that this question has actually been considered, and it was considered by the Church in Greece, and in October 1999, the holy synod of the Church of Greece declared that organ donation for transplants—and this is their word—it’s a “God-loved act of love and sacrifice,” provided that this donation is the result of a conscious and free decision on the part of the donor and that that decision serves no commercial purpose.

And actually after that decision coming out of the holy synod, registration for all those who wish to become organ donors actually began later that month in all the parishes of the Church of Greece. In 2005, the then-Archbishop of Athens and All Greece, whose name was Christodoulos, actually announced that he and the bishops who constitute the holy synod had all signed organ donor forms, which really was quite remarkable.

Now if you go to America here and you read the Yearbook, the official Yearbook of the Archdiocese of America, it actually states there that the practice of organ donation is encouraged. Actually in 2003, there was a Greek Orthodox priest here in the United States, the dean of the cathedral in Hartford, Connecticut, who actually donated one of his kidneys to a 16-year-old boy in West Nyack, New York. And in a July 2003 Newsday article, this priest was interviewed, at that time Fr. John Heropoulos served that community, and he said that he needed no thanks, that he never hesitated in making his decision, and that he didn’t regret it at all, even during the difficult recovery period, which he called, according to the article, “the most intense pain I’ve ever felt in my life.” And Heropoulos said, “Any time that it hurt at all, all I had to do was to say to myself: eight weeks of pain in exchange for a lifetime of good health for a young man—it’s a no-brainer.”

So let me encourage all of you, if you are not organ donors, certainly to consider that possibility. It is a gift of life beyond our own life, and something where we can donate organs that grant healing to people and give them a second chance, give them time to repent, give them time to know Jesus Christ if they don’t know him already. So, by all means, that’s something I would ask you all to consider.

Another question that people did ask me had to do with icons. The word “icon,” of course, is a Greek word. I’m sure you all know that. Being a Greek Orthodox priest, I have to constantly remind you that many of these words are Greek. But a lot of people don’t know that that word is actually found all over the New Testament. When Protestant Christians ask you about icons, most Protestant Christians are familiar with the idea of Jesus Christ as the word of God, the word of God made flesh, and of course that’s a very powerful theme all throughout John’s gospel. But they’re not as familiar with Jesus as the icon, the eikon of God, and that’s a theme that’s found throughout the letters of St. Paul. But, again, you have to read—you have to be able to read the New Testament in the original Greek.

So, for example, the word “icon” is applied to the Lord Jesus in St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians. In the very first chapter, about verse 15, he says that Jesus is the—and I’m just going to leave the word “icon” in there—Jesus is the eikon, the icon, of the invisible God. Now, that word is normally translated by the two English words, “image” or “likeness,” depending on the translation that you’re using, whether it be the Revised Standard Version, the New Revised Standard Version, or the New International Version, or even the New King James Version. But the original word is, in fact, “icon,” so the Lord Jesus, for us, is not simply the word of God that we hear; he is also the icon of God whom we see.

Of course, St. Paul will mention this in other letters as well. For example, in his 2 Corinthians 4:4, St. Paul will write about the Gentiles: “In their case, the god of this world”—in other words, the devil—“has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ who is the icon of God.” So again, Paul is calling Jesus Christ “the icon, the image of God.”

Now, we also believe, of course, that in addition to honoring the icons in our churches, we also believe that the most perfect icons are really not even the icons that we see in our churches, but the people who stand next to us in church. So for us, because human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, as it says in the book of Genesis, really the most perfect icon is always the human being standing next to you.

So we’re waiting for your calls. This is Fr. Steve Tsichlis, and I’m here, sitting in tonight for Fr. Evan Armatas. The number here that you can reach us at is 1-855-237-2346; that’s 1-855-AF-RADIO. You can email questions in at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), and you can go into our chat room at ancientfaith.com/orthodoxylive. So again, we’re waiting for your calls, and hopefully you’ll be calling in any time.

In the meantime, let me just mention that a couple of people actually left messages for, questions for Fr. Evan. Actually, one of those callers is the son of a Greek Orthodox priest that I know, whose name is Nick Tsagalakis. Nick asked the question…

Mr. Nick Tsagalakis: Hi, Fr. Evan! My name is Nick Tsagalakis from Seattle, Washington, and I would like to hear your thoughts about how to address a broad but important question throughout my college life, and that is: What is Orthodox Christianity, and how does it differ from Catholic and Protestant Christian beliefs?

Fr. Steven: Boy, that is a really good question, and that’s something a lot of our kids and a lot of adults have been asking, even though we might have been raised in the Church. What is Orthodox Christianity? What does it mean for us to be Orthodox Christians in this culture today? And how do we differ from Roman Catholics and Protestants?

Probably the most visible differences between us and Roman Catholics, really, they are two-fold. One is that for most people they recognize we have no person in our Church who would be the equivalent to the Pope in the Roman Catholic Church. For us as Orthodox Christians, there is no single person who possesses… well, what Roman Catholics would call the charisma of infallibility. We have no person in our Church around whom the Church is centralized in the same way as the Roman Catholic Church does. We have no one in our Church that could be called the Vicar of Christ in the same way the Pope is called the Vicar of Christ. For us as Orthodox Christians, the Church is not so much a centralized organization as it is an organism. It’s not so much—how do I say? We’re the body of believers, we’re the body of Christ, we’re the bride of Christ—those are all things Roman Catholics would agree with, but, again, we’re not focused on any one, single, particular bishop as the source of the unity of our Church.

The other thing I think that’s really obvious for most people is that Orthodox clergy can be married. In fact, one of the things that does actually in some ways divide us is the fact that Roman Catholic clergy are required to be celibate, whereas for us as Orthodox Christians, married men can in fact serve the Church as both priests and deacons.

Those are really the two most visible differences, but there are other differences as well. There are emphases on the Roman Catholic Church that we might not necessarily share. For example, there’s a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which we as Orthodox Christians don’t necessarily share. That’s something that’s a later medieval development. People notice, of course, that Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians make the sign of the cross differently. That’s not really a big issue; it’s simply important that we make the sign of the cross, that we bless ourselves, that we remember Jesus Christ, that we remember that he was crucified for us.

But at any rate, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians… In December of 1965, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras lifted the anathemas of 1054, and Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christians have spoken more in the last 50 years than they had in the previous 500. And really, that’s a good thing; that’s a healthy thing. So for us as Orthodox Christians, we need to be willing to engage our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters, to talk about the things that we have in common, and to talk about the things where we differ. That dialogue is going on. It’s going on right now at the international level, between popes and patriarchs; it’s going on at the national level, here in the United States, for example, between all the different bishops of our churches; and it’s even going on locally here in Orange County, where, for example, in my parish, we have a book club with St. John Neumann, the Roman Catholic church down the street from us that’s been going on for the last twelve years, where we read eight books in the course of a year; well, eight books from, say, October through May. Four of those books would be Orthodox books, and four of those books would be Roman Catholic books. So what we learn are the commonalities of our tradition, but also where some of the differences lie.

I hope that’s answered your question, Nick, about Roman Catholics. Again, if you’d like to call in, it’s 1-855-237-2346.

Now, as far as Protestants go, that’s actually a little bit more difficult, because there’s not just simply one Protestant Church; there are in fact many, many, many thousands of Protestant churches, many of them believing very, very different things among themselves. But, generally speaking, what we can say about Protestant churches, where there are huge differences between us and them, we have a real sense of sacramental life in ways that virtually no Protestant church has. We speak about the sacraments, about the Eucharist, about Communion, about being able to receive the body and blood of Jesus. We take very seriously John 6, where the Lord Jesus talks about eating his flesh and drinking his blood. In fact, he even goes so far as to say, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” So for us as Orthodox Christians, that’s really really a key passage.

Just to give you an example of how maybe Protestant and Orthodox Christians would understand that passage differently, Nick, you’re from Seattle, and so I should mention to you that once, when I was a priest in Seattle, years and years ago, I went to bless someone’s home. And what I discovered was that the woman, the wife, the woman in this home, was actually going to a non-denominational Bible study near her house, and she was studying the Gospel of John, and I asked, “Is there a book that they’re actually using for this? I’d really like to see that. I’d really like to see how they discuss John 6.” And so she got the book out. I asked her to look up those passages, like John 6:52, 53, 54, where Christ is very explicit about all this. And I asked her, “What does it say there? How are those passages interpreted?” And it was very interesting, because she said to me that “you know, Father, they’re saying here that those passages mean you have to read your Bible more.” And I said to her, “Does that really…? Do you really think that’s what that means?” And she said, “No. Isn’t that about Communion?” I said, “Oh, thank God! Thank God you’ve got that. That’s wonderful.”

We do understand the Scriptures differently; we do. The other thing I’d say about the Scriptures is that—perhaps you know this; perhaps you don’t know this, Nick—Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians have pretty much the same canon of the Bible, but Protestant and Orthodox Christians do not. In other words, there are ten books in the Old Testament that we as Orthodox Christians have in our Bibles, that are part of our Bibles, that are not in any Protestant Bible; they are not considered to be part of the Old Testament. In fact, in some Protestant Bibles that would include those books, they actually kind of take them out of the Old Testament, and they stick them in the center of the Bible between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and they call them “the apocrypha.” Now, we would not call them apocrypha; we would just simply call them part of the Bible. In fact, St. Athanasius, in referring to these books, talked about them as being the Anaginoskomena, the books that are worthy to be read. So we have a different biblical canon; that’s an important difference between Orthodox Christians and all other Protestant Christians.

So sacramental life, how we understand the Scriptures, all of those things are very, very different. Another thing that you need to understand about most Protestant churches is that they really do not go back any longer, any more in history than about 500 years. In other words, we as an Orthodox Church, we go back to the beginning. We go all the way back to the New Testament; we go back to the apostles. And, quite frankly, Protestant churches emerge out of the 16th century Reformation in reaction to the Roman Catholic Church at that time, which at that time was riddled by scandals and theological controversies. So Protestant—and actually this is an important thing for you to remember, too—the word “Protestant,” the root of that word is “protest,” and Protestant folks were protesting what they felt were abuses in the Roman Catholic Church of their day in the 16th century. But that’s not really part of our history.

Now, when you look at the divisions between Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox, a lot of the things that divided Protestants and Catholics from each other were really not issues for us. For example, when we as Orthodox Christians in the 16th centuries were first confronted by Roman Catholics and Protestants about the great theological debates of their day, we were asked, “Whose side are you on?” In other words: Are we on the Roman Catholic side of the Reformation, or are we on the Protestant side of the Reformation. Of course, we felt very uncomfortable with that question, because we really weren’t on anybody’s side in those debates.

So, for example, when I am serving at St. Paul’s, I am addressed as “Father”; I am considered to be a priest. So in that sense I could stand on the Roman Catholic side of things. On the other hand, I’m married and I’ve got four kids, so I could stand on the Protestant side of things. On the other hand, we, as I mentioned earlier, have no person in our Church who would be the equivalent to the Pope in the Roman Catholic Church, so could stand on the Protestant side of things with regards to that, but you know we have liturgy, we have structured worship, we have veneration of the saints. So I could actually go and stand on the Catholic side of things with regards to that. We use incense in our worship and so forth. But, you know, in terms of baptism, when I baptize somebody—you know, “baptism” is a Greek word as well; baptizo means to be immersed—I actually take an adult and I hold them underwater just to see how long they can hold their breath, just like a good Southern Baptist would, so we could stand on the Protestant side of things with regards to that.

So again, a lot of the issues, a lot of the questions, a lot of the debates that took place in the 16th century were based on theological positions and premises that we really did not share with the churches in the West. So Orthodoxy is not Roman Catholic and it is not Protestant. Roman Catholics are—I’m sorry; let me back up. Orthodox Christians are, the Orthodox Church is, we would say catholic but not Roman Catholic. “Catholic” is a Greek word that means not just simply “universal,” but that we hold the fullness of the faith. So we are catholic but not Roman Catholic. We would say that we are evangelical—“evangelical” is a Greek word; it means to be Gospel-centered and Gospel-sharing, and we would say that we are—but we are not Protestants; that is to say, we are not part of the Reformation, of the protest of Christians in the 16th century of the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church of that time.

We would say of course that we are not non-denominational, because that’s kind of a new category of Christian churches that’s emerged in the last 40 or 50 years; we would say we are not non-denominational. We’d say we’re pre-denominational, that we existed long before any of these other churches existed, and in fact that we do go back to the beginning.

You know, one time when I was doing a church tour at St. Paul’s during the Greek festival, there was a Roman Catholic nun who was visiting, and after I gave the church tour and talked a little bit about the origins of our Church and our relationship with all the other churches, she asked me, “Well, Father, I don’t think I understand. When was it that you broke away from us?” And of course I had to say, “Sister, I think you have it all wrong. We actually think you broke away from us.” And she said, “Well, I’m not sure I understand then.” I asked her, “Sister, in the life of the Church, which language came first? Was it Greek or Latin?” She said, “Greek.” I said, “I rest my case.”

So, hopefully, Nick, that is maybe a small answer to a very, very large question. Please feel free to call in. It’s 1-855-237-2346. We actually have a call from Brian from Jerusalem. Brian, are you there?

Brian: Yes, hello.

Fr. Steven: Hello, Brian! This is Fr. Steve Tsichlis. Can I…? What question do you have tonight?

Brian: I guess it’s a two-part question. Thanks for taking my call, first of all.

Fr. Steven: Oh, you’re welcome. I’m glad you called!

Brian: Oh, thanks. So I’ve been in Jerusalem for about a week now, and I hear a lot about the holy fire here in Jerusalem and as a miracle. Also I’m curious. So many times these days you hear about miracles, and they’re seen as or spoken about and explained away as just, you know, science, using science, or as mere coincidence. People don’t see the action of the Holy Spirit in today, in today’s society as it should be seen. People are still raised from the dead, their sight is restored, and they’re healed of sicknesses, yet they’re seen as just scientific and medicine rather than the action of the Holy Spirit. I’m just wondering how the Church might see these things and how this has evolved over the centuries.

Fr. Steven: Well, the Church does believe in miracles, and we think that miracles are taking place all the time. We in fact think, just the simple fact that you can look out your window and see a tree is a huge miracle. Just the fact that we exist at all is a huge miracle. So we actually believe that the Holy Spirit is alive and active in the world, in the life of the Church; that the Eucharist itself is a miracle, that Communion is a miracle. And we certainly believe that the holy fire is a miracle. So for us as a Church, we would not want to try to explain these things away; we just simply accept them as gifts of God.

And there are healings that take place. For example, St. Nektarios in Greece, he is a very well-known saint, known for his intercessions and the healing of many, many hundreds and even thousands of people of cancer. So we do believe in miracles.

Brian, let me ask you a question. What are you doing in Jerusalem?

Brian: Oh, I’m just visiting. I’m on a little tour.

Fr. Steven: You’re on a tour? What are you doing there?

Brian: Oh, I’m just visiting the churches, seeing the holy places.

Fr. Steven: Wonderful! Wonderful! Have you been to see the Church of the Resurrection?

Brian: I have, yeah; I’ve been there many times. Not in the past week.

Fr. Steven: Is it not amazing?

Brian: It is amazing, yes.

Fr. Steven: To be able to stand on Golgotha, to be able to reach down and touch the rock on which Christ was crucified?

Brian: Yes, it’s very… How do you say? It’s hard to… when you haven’t seen these things and you just read about them in stories in the Bible, and then to actually be there, it’s quite a unique experience.

Fr. Steven: It is. It is. It makes our faith come alive, does it not?

Brian: It does certainly, yeah.

Fr. Steven: I mean, to me, when I’ve been to Jerusalem, when I’ve been to the holy places, it kind of puts, well, I’d say, flesh and blood, bone and stone on my faith, in ways, really, that… I don’t know, I don’t experience that the same way here in America.

Brian: Yeah, I think that’s definitely the case. It’s oftentimes hard to believe, too.

Fr. Steven: How long will you be in Jerusalem?

Brian: About another few days.

Fr. Steven: Will you be going anywhere else? Will you be going to the Sea of Galilee?

Brian: No, I don’t think I’m going to make it up there. I’m actually on my way to Mount Sinai today, here in a few hours. It’s actually pretty early here; it’s about 3:30 in the morning.

Fr. Steven: Yeah. Boy, a big time difference. You know, I’ve been to Mt. Sinai and to St. Catherine’s Monastery myself, and it is an amazing place. You will love it. You will absolutely love it.

Brian: Yeah, I’m looking forward to going. Wonderful.

Fr. Steven: Is there anything else?

Brian: No. Yeah, that was just it. So many times I just get disappointed that a miracle is simply just a coincidence or something else rather than attributing to the fact of what it really is.

Fr. Steven: Well, secular people don’t want to admit that there are miracles, because if they did they’d have to start believing in God. Does that make sense?

Brian: It’s not only that, but often I even see Christians, and modern-day Evangelicals. They might say that miracles don’t really happen. And if you pointed them at the miracle of the holy fire, they’d be like: Ehh, it’s not real.

Fr. Steven: Well, then, how do those Evangelicals explain the resurrection?

Brian: No, certainly. Yeah, I agree. It’s just sometimes a contradiction that you see.

Fr. Steven: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, it has been great talking to you. Please, enjoy, enjoy, drink in St. Catherine’s Monastery. It is an amazing place, and they have a wonderful museum there, with amazing icons, some of the most ancient icons in the world. And also, by all means, speak with Fr. Justin; he’s the librarian there. He’s actually the former—

Brian: Ah, yes.

Fr. Steven: Do you know him?

Brian: Well, no, but when you’re an American going to St. Catherine’s, everybody speaks about Fr. Justin. [Laughter]

Fr. Steven: Yeah, you should get to know Fr. Justin. He’s a former Baptist who’s now an Orthodox monk. That’s quite remarkable.

Brian: Ah, wonderful.

Fr. Steven: So, please, have a safe journey. God bless you, dear.

Brian: Yes, thank you, Father.

Fr. Steven: Thank you for calling.

Again, please feel free to call in. That was wonderful! A call from Jerusalem! That’s amazing to me; that’s just amazing. Please feel free to call in. It’s 1-855-AF-RADIO; 1-855-237-2346. Let me read to you from a few of our emails. Let’s see. Let’s start with: “Why is Easter celebrated on different dates, East and West?” And that’s from Ivan. I don’t know if we know where Ivan is from; maybe we don’t. I don’t know. But why is Easter celebrated on different dates? First of all, because we use different calendars. East and West actually use different calendars to calculate the date of Easter. So for us as Orthodox Christians, all Orthodox Christians use the old Julian calendar to calculate the date of Easter, whereas all other Christians, Roman Catholic and Protestant, use the Gregorian calendar of the 16th century and early 17th century to calculate the date of Easter.

Now, the date of Easter will vary, obviously, year to year, and you may recall, Ivan, that for the last two years the date of Easter has actually been the same for Roman Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox. This year, the date of Easter is actually five weeks apart, Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians celebrating Easter on March 31, and we as Orthodox Christians celebrating on May 5, Sunday, May 5. That means all those sales on Easter candy, we can really take advantage of them this year.

Now, next year, actually, once again our Easters will all be celebrated on the same day, but then after that, for the next 20 years, our Easters, our celebrations of Pascha, will be different. So again, one of the reasons is just simply that we use a different calendar in order to calculate the date of Easter. Another reason would be that for us as Orthodox Christians we, generally speaking, celebrate Easter after the Passover. Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians are not bound by that in the same way that we are.

The way that we determine the date of Easter as Orthodox Christians was actually set forth at the First Ecumenical Council in the year 325, because it was a simple fact that in the early Church Christians in East and West even then celebrated Easter on different dates. There was a group of people who traced their heritage all the way back to John the Apostle, who celebrated Easter on a fixed date of every year, the 14th of Nisan, which is just simply from the old Jewish calendar, and they would celebrate the 14th of Nisan even if it fell on what we today might think of as a Wednesday or a Thursday, whereas Christians in the Rome and in the West celebrated Easter always on a Sunday. And at the First Ecumenical Council, what was decided was to follow the custom of Rome, in other words, that Easter would always be celebrated on a Sunday and not on the specific date of the 14th of Nisan, not on the specific date of the crucifixion and then the resurrection of Christ.

So, again, for us as Orthodox Christians, we still do things the old-fashioned way, I guess I’d want to say. We’re still determining the date of Easter in accordance with the canons of the First Ecumenical Council, and we are still actually using the calendar of the ancient Roman Empire to determine the date of Easter, even to the present day.

Well, I see that it is time for us to take a break, so we’ll be back in just a moment. In the meantime, please feel free to call in. It’s 1-855-237-2346. God bless! Thank you!

Fr. Steven: Well, here once again is not Fr. Evan; here once again is Fr. Steve Tsichlis. You know, Fr. Evan Armatas tonight is in Birmingham, Alabama, where he is wrapping up a retreat there. So he asked that I fill in for him. We have a phone call from Jim from Coldwater, Florida. Jim, are you there?

Jim: Oh, yes.

Fr. Steven: Jim, how are you tonight?

Jim: I’m fine, thank you very much.

Fr. Steven: What’s your question?

Jim: I’m very grateful to Ancient Faith Radio and its program.

Fr. Steven: Well, Ancient Faith Radio does a great job at bringing the faith to everybody. We should all be grateful for that. God bless them! So what’s your question tonight, Jim?

Jim: My question is: I noticed many people have icons in their homes, and some do and some don’t. I’m just wondering what the guidelines are for icons, where to put them and how we are to use them, and just what the nature of the icon is in the home.

Fr. Steven: Oh, those are really, really good questions. You know, Orthodox Christians traditionally have had a place in their home, hopefully on an east wall, but not necessarily, but hopefully on an east wall, where we place all of our icons, where we set up, in essence, a prayer corner, a sacred space within our home. And usually in addition to our icons we’ll have some candles there or perhaps an oil lamp, a vigil lamp. We’ll have our Scriptures, our copies of the Bible. We’ll have some prayer books. And it will be the place we go to pray; it’ll be the place that is marked off as sacred space in our home.

Now, in addition to that place, there are many, many Orthodox Christians who have icons in other places in their home. So, for example, above our dining room table in my home we actually have an icon of the Holy Trinity. It’s actually a copy of St. Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trinity from the 14th century. So for us, we have icons also in other places throughout the house. I would say that probably the first thing that you would need to do in terms of taking your icons is to set a space aside in your home specifically for prayer, where you can pray and where you can stand in front of your icon of Christ and pray the book of psalms, for example. Does that make sense?

Jim: Yes, it does. That’s helpful.

Fr. Steven: So, Jim, let me ask you a question. Have you been Orthodox all your life?

Jim: Yes, yes.

Fr. Steven: You have! That’s wonderful. Do you have lots of icons in your home?

Jim: Actually, I do, but I just wanted a little clarification and something, when I get a question, I can tell them with some surety, without just my own opinion.

Fr. Steven: Well, I’m really glad that you called in tonight. So if you can find a nice eastern wall in your house, hang up your icons, but of course you don’t have to limit them just to one room. If you can, put them in your children’s rooms. You can put them anywhere in the house as a reminder to you that God is real and that we as Orthodox Christians need to constantly be aware of God’s presence in our lives. God bless you, Jim. Thank you for calling in.

Jim: Thank you very much.

Fr. Steven: So, if I can, we have an email follow-up question on organ donations. It’s from Allison, who is from Riverside, California, and she says that she wants to donate her cornea to someone who needs them desperately. She wants to do this right after she dies. Is this okay?

Well, honestly, Allison, I hope you’re not planning to die any time soon, but actually that is okay. That is okay. We will not be needing our cornea after we died. In fact, if we can leave those to someone and give them the gift of sight, what a wonderful gift that is! What an amazing gift that is. I was asked one time, in order to understand what blind people suffer, to spend a day blindfolded. I could hardly… I just couldn’t even imagine being blind. I just… I was at a complete loss all day long. You don’t realize how powerful the sense of sight is until you don’t have it. So that would be an amazing gift. It would be a gift of sight beyond your own life. What an amazing thing, what an amazing gift. So, yes, you certainly can give the gift of sight to someone after you die. That’s a wonderful thing.

Other questions? Let’s see. Oh, I’m going to read a few of our emails. Let’s start with… Here’s something from Jennifer in Orange County. “When an Orthodox Christian crosses themselves, why do they end with the left shoulder, and the Catholics end at the right shoulder?” Well, that’s a really good question. You know, the sign of the cross has been made many, many different ways in history. The first time that we have a mention of the sign of the cross in a Christian document actually is from the ancient African Latin-speaking writer, Tertullian. He talks about making the sign of the cross on one’s forehead, that Christians, before they do anything, when they wake up in the morning, they make the sign of the cross on their foreheads; before they eat, they make the sign of the cross; before they take any journey, before they do any work, they make the sign of the cross. But he’s very specific that Christians made the sign of the cross on their foreheads.

Now, later on in history, for example, when Greek Orthodox Christians went up into Slavic countries in order to introduce Christianity, the sign of the cross was made not with three fingers, as we Orthodox Christians do today, but with two fingers. It’s interesting, because in that more ancient symbolism, the two fingers symbolized the two natures of Christ, and of course we made the sign of the cross with two fingers, with, in a sense, Christ, because he was the one crucified for us. Later on, it came to be that we use three fingers, because we wanted to say that, not only are we Christians who believe in the two natures of Christ, but we also believe in the Holy Trinity, that we believe that the one God has been revealed to us in the Son, and that he is the Son of the Father, who sent us the Holy Spirit: so we are Trinitarian Christians. So we make the sign of the cross today with three fingers as a reminder of the fact that we are Trinitarian Christians.

At one time, Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians made the sign of the cross in the same way. So, for example, in the 13th century we have a letter from Pope Innocent III, in which he actually describes the sign of the cross. It’s amazing, because he basically describes the sign of the cross in such a way that it’s very clear. Roman Catholics made the sign of the cross as we once—as we still do. They once made the sign of the cross as we still do.

So why do they go from left shoulder? [We] end with the left shoulder and Catholics end with the right shoulder. You know what? I don’t remember off the top of my head. That’s embarrassing for me to say, but I will look that up, and I will email that, actually, to Fr. Evan. And I will say to him that in this game of stump the priest tonight, Jennifer, you stumped me, and I’ll have to look that up. There is, by the way, a wonderful book on the sign of the cross by a man named Andreas Andreopoulos, obviously a Greek name, but he traces the history of the cross and the sign of the cross. It’s really a quite remarkable book, and actually he does discuss in there why Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians make the sign of the cross in different directions; I just can’t remember the answer he came up with.

So, again, please feel free to give us a call. It’s 1-855-AF-RADIO, 1-855-237-2346. We have a caller, Andrew from New Mexico. Andrew, are you there?

Andrew: I am, Father. How are you this evening?

Fr. Steven: Thank God, I’m okay. Andrew, it’s good that you called in. What’s your question tonight?

Andrew: Well, Father, as a life-long Orthodox Christian, I was really touched this week by the resignation of Pope Benedict in Rome, and I was looking through all the news reports and watching all the cardinals gather together, and the question that popped into mind was: Often we Orthodox talk about the fact that we’re a conciliar Church, and yet I see all these cardinals easily gathering throughout the world to conduct Church business and elect the new head of the Church, and yet it’s so hard for Orthodox bishops to get together and have a great council. Why do you think this is the case?

Fr. Steven: Oh, boy. Now you’re going to get me in trouble!

Andrew: I hope not.

Fr. Steven: I think that’s the case because of our sinfulness, to be honest. [Laughter] I think too often we as Orthodox Christians don’t do the things that we need to do in order to promote the unity of the Church. I do think that Roman Catholics, because they have a centralized organization, it is easier for them in some ways to get together. The other thing I’d just simply say is that you know for the last century, certainly throughout most of the 20th century, Orthodox Christians were persecuted. There were persecutions under Communism. There have been and continue to be persecutions under Islam. It was very difficult for Orthodox Christian bishops to get together, quite frankly. I know that Patriarch Bartholomew has been now, for many years, proposing a great and holy synod, and there are debates within Orthodoxy, for example, as to who should comprise that meeting. Should it be all the bishops of the Orthodox world, or should it be simply representative bishops of each Orthodox synod, each Orthodox country? That’s a disagreement among us that we need to work out.

If you notice with all the cardinals getting together, that’s not all the Roman Catholic bishops in the world. It’s only the cardinals. It is only the cardinals who are getting together to elect the pope. So that’s something that is easier, I think, for them to do in some ways. You know, Pope Benedict was really a friend of the Orthodox Church; that’s very clear.

Andrew: Oh, I thought he had a great Hellenic mind when you look at all his reflections on the Church Fathers. They’re a real gift.

Fr. Steven: They are a real gift, and just the fact that he chose to reflect on the Church Fathers, that in itself is amazing, because that shows the commonalities that we might share in our Tradition.

Andrew: Well, I hope we can see a great council in our lifetime. It’s been way too long.

Fr. Steven: I agree.

Andrew: Like I said, I just think, more than ever, with all the technological changes, it’s never been easier for all the bishops to get together. You look at times when there were… When they all got together and there was no technology, and they traveled by horse and cart, and they made it work.

Fr. Steven: Absolutely.

Andrew: And I’m hoping it can happen again.

Fr. Steven: I am hoping and praying it will happen again, too. And actually I think there are many, many Orthodox priests and bishops around the world, as well as lay people, who want this to happen. And I hope our bishops and patriarchs are listening. God bless you. God bless you so much.

Andrew: Thank you very much for my question. Bye-bye.

Fr. Steven: Again, if you’d like to call in, it’s 1-855-AF-RADIO, 1-855-237-2346. Now we have another caller, Eric from Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. Eric, are you there?

Eric: I am, Fr. Evan.

Fr. Steven: Oh! I’m sorry, this isn’t Fr. Evan; this is Fr. Steve Tsichlis. Fr. Evan is in Birmingham, Alabama, tonight, so he asked me to take his place.

Eric: I see.

Fr. Steven: So I guess you’re stuck with me.

Eric: That’s fine. I just want to thank you for this program. I was thinking a while back that this would be an ideal program to have. I really appreciate it. So thank you very much.

Fr. Steven: Well, I’m going to pass this along to Fr. Evan for sure, because I think this is a great program, too.

Eric: Great.

Fr. Steven: So what’s your question tonight?

Eric: I have a question about the fall and the effect of the fall on creation. As I understand it—and you can correct me if I am wrong—all of creation was affected by the fall in ways perhaps you can elaborate, but my question pertains to… It’s kind of an evolution question. If Adam and Eve didn’t come on the scene for millions and millions of years after these, presumably the effects of the fall had taken place, how is it that there is a causal relationship between Adam and Eve’s fall and the effect of the fall on creation?

Fr. Steven: Wow. Now that is a difficult question to answer. You know, again, we would say just simply that Adam and Eve—first of all, you have to understand that they represent humanity; they represent us, and they represent us really as fallen at this point. So in terms of evolution, you know, that’s not a discussion that I feel I’m even capable of getting into. But what I do want to point out is that, if you just simply look at the world around us, we as human beings have had a very terrible effect in many ways on the world around us. We pollute the earth; we do all kinds of things that are destructive of the environment, and that’s really been one of the messages of Patriarch Bartholomew in Constantinople, in modern Istanbul, that we as human beings have a responsibility towards the world around us, towards the environment, and that the environment, the world itself, is meant to be a reminder that God is real. It’s been given to us as a gift. It’s a sacramental… It conveys God’s presence.

So even apart from the idea of evolution and Adam and Eve, even apart from that I think it’s very clear that we can look just simply at the world around us and see all the devastating effects that human beings have done with regards to nature. If you live in southern California, you know that there’s a lot of smog in the air. Of course, those folks here who are native Californians will tell you that it’s much better now than it was in the ‘70s. But as a matter of pure and simple fact, for someone coming from another part of the US, the smog is still very, very visible, and in Orange County and in LA County, for example, it’s my understanding that the rates of asthma here are about 18%, whereas the national average for asthma is only 8%. So just the idea that we have all this pollution has affected everyone and everything. Does that make sense at all?

Eric: Oh, absolutely.

Fr. Steven: So I don’t know if I can answer your question about evolution and Adam and Eve, but I do think it’s very clear that we can make a connection between us as human beings, our fall, and the pollution of the world around us.

Eric: All right. Thank you very much.

Fr. Steven: So at least I answered part of your question. [Laughter] I think tonight I’m going to refer all the serious questions I don’t have an answer for to Fr. Evan. I’m just going to write them down and tell him to answer those questions next week. Thank you.

Eric: All right.

Fr. Steven: Take care.

Eric: All right, you, too. Bye-bye.

Fr. Steven: So, again, if you’d like to call in, it’s 1-855-237-2346. We have another recorded question from Colorado, so let’s take that.

Kathy: Hi, Fr. Evan. This is Kathy from Westminster, Colorado I wanted to tell you I’m glad to see this program in place for those of us who have so many questions. So, thank you for saying yes to doing this radio podcast.

I have two questions, Father. First, I have Roman Catholic friends who say that Catholicism is the main trunk of the Church’s historical “tree,” that all other churches broke away from Catholicism, and Orthodoxy makes the same claim to being the original Church. Is this an issue that can be decisively answered?

And also, we read in the epistle of 1 John that the things that he has written are so that we can know we have eternal life, yet in Orthodoxy there seems to be almost a reluctance to accept the knowability of life after death, that it somehow is presumptuous to think it, let alone to say it. I was wondering, please could you give some insight into this thought? Thanks!

Fr. Steven: Thank you, Kathy. That’s a wonderful series of questions. Again, some of that I think we’ve tried to answer earlier tonight, certainly about the Roman Catholic Church. Again, I would personally say—but of course I’m an Orthodox priest, so I’m a little biased, as you know—I would personally say that we as Orthodox Christians go back to the beginning in ways that perhaps Roman Catholics do not do so in the same way. But, again, it’s very clear for us as Orthodox Christians, and as Roman Catholics, we were one Church for a thousand years, so we have a shared history for that first thousand years. So it’s difficult to disentangle all of that history, to say that one beats out the other, in terms of going back to the beginning.

What a lot of Orthodox Christians don’t realize is how much continuity with the early Church the Roman Catholic Church still has. For example, many people don’t know that the first St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome—not the present building, which was designed, at least the dome was designed by Michelangelo, and it was built in the 16th, 17th centuries, but the St. Peter’s Basilica before that, it was actually built by the Emperor Constantine, and that church stood for a thousand years. That kind of continuity is important to Roman Catholics, and it’s important to us as well.

Again, I don’t think it’s a question of beating one another out; I do think it’s a question of us recovering a common heritage in that first thousand years. That’s really the goal of any kind of ecumenical dialogue that we have with the Roman Catholic Church.

Now, in terms of life after death, I’m a little puzzled by your question, because you mention that Orthodox Christians don’t really like to say that they know that, and I’m wondering if perhaps the real question is about being saved, because very clearly we as Orthodox Christians believe in life after death. And, in face, we believe to a certain extent in life after death virtually for everyone, because all of us, the entire human race, will stand before what in our liturgy is called the dread judgment seat of Christ. Actually, that’s a quote from one of St. Paul’s letters. People need to understand that our liturgy is just simply a string of Bible quotes, one quote after another, all strung together, so that when we enter into the liturgy, we’re actually praying the Bible.

So I’m wondering if really the question is for you more about salvation, that we as Orthodox Christians don’t stand up and say, “I’m saved!” And we don’t, that’s absolutely correct; we don’t. If that is the question, we don’t. We would want to say, of course, that we have been saved by the cross of Jesus Christ. We would definitely want to say that. We would also want to say, though, that we are working out our salvation in fear and trembling, as St. Paul says, that God is at work in us, and that he’s at work in us for our salvation and in order to do good works. So we as Orthodox Christians would say that we have been saved, hopefully we are being saved, and on the day of judgment, we hope to sit on Christ’s right hand with all the saints and be with him for eternity. But I don’t think we would ever be quite so presumptuous as to say that we’re saved.

Actually, you know, Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) was once asked that question. He always dresses as a bishop, and he was taking a train one day, from Oxford to London, I believe, and some very erstwhile gentleman, a young man, came up to him and asked him, “Are you saved?” And he mentions the fact that, you know, I almost said yes, but I was wondering whether that would be a little presumptuous, knowing how sinful I am.” But on the other hand he said that to say no would be somehow to discredit Christ’s grace to us, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the work of the cross, the power of the resurrection. So really what he came up with was this idea of saying that he was saved, that is being saved, that he’s working out his salvation in fear and trembling, and that he hopes to be saved, that all of this will carry through into the next life.

So hopefully that answers your question, but certainly we Orthodox Christians do believe in life after death.

Our next call is from Mary in Los Angeles. Mary, are you there?

Mary: I’m here!

Fr. Steven: Mary! I’m so glad you called.

Mary: Hi there. Thank you so much. This is the first time I’ve listened to the show, and it’s very interesting.

Fr. Steven: Oh, thank you.

Mary: I am an Evangelical Christian convert, and I found Orthodoxy by a total and complete fluke.

Fr. Steven: You know, that’s how many people find us! Thank God! It probably wasn’t a fluke; it’s probably God’s providence.

Mary: Well, yeah, yeah, that whole thing. But I came here because somebody I knew hadn’t gone to church in 40 years, and I was so happy that he went. I was going to any church that I went, just so I would have something to talk to him about. I’ll never forget it. I walked into the nave, and I felt like I was in a different world. I can’t explain it, but I really… I still feel that way when I do. It’s been quite a journey. I’ve been chrismated and everything, but it’s been quite a learning experience during the whole thing, because it’s very, very different than Evangelical Protestant. It’s almost not the same religion.

Fr. Steven: You know, I would agree with that in some ways.

Mary: You know, I’m finding especially in Orthodoxy people that have been cradle Orthodox have no idea and they don’t really know how different it is. I’m not going to ask you the question that would be on my mind, and that’s whether or [not] Evangelical Christians are “saved,” because nobody knows, but they are… they do preach…

Fr. Steven: Well, in fact, that something very important. That’s something that maybe is a difference between us and Evangelical Christians. We honestly don’t believe that we can pronounce on the judgment of anyone else. We believe that that’s entirely up to God.

Mary: Yes, well, they do, and I’ve heard—

Fr. Steven: I know they do, but again that’s maybe a difference. We just cannot… I mean, that’s… Judgment is God’s. No human being can judge another human being.

Mary: But they’re very… I’ve heard it. Some factions of… not all of it, because you never know what you’re going to get when you walk into an Evangelical Protestant church, or any Protestant church, for that matter. You could have one that’s completely something different, theologically, than another one, which is one of the reasons that I left. My priest said, “I don’t know anything about Evangelical Protestantism, but here, read this book,” and he gave me a book by a former pastor that was in the same denomination—or non-denomination, I should say—that I was, and why he converted. And when I read it, I got it.

Fr. Steven: Oh wow! What was the name of that book? Maybe you should be recommending it to people.

Mary: Thirsting for God in the Land of Shallow Wells by Matthew Gallatin.

Fr. Steven: Oh, there you go! That’s a book published by Conciliar Press, I believe.

Mary: Oh, it’s a fabulous book.

Fr. Steven: Wonderful.

Mary: And I got it. I was as devoted as you can… I mean, I was one of those people who was out on the street from nine to one in the morning, street preaching, and trying to get people “saved.” But that was… He said it so perfectly as to what the problem is, and I got it.

Fr. Steven: That’s wonderful. When were you chrismated? How long have you been Orthodox?

Mary: About a year and a half.

Fr. Steven: Congratulations!

Mary: And I’m old, too!

Fr. Steven: You’re old!? Should I ask how old you are?

Mary: Sure. I am 57. [Laughter]

Fr. Steven: Oh, just a kid! I’m way older than you are, baby! I’m 60.

Mary: [Laughter] Oh, well, yeah, anyway, better late than never, right?

Fr. Steven: Absolutely.

Mary: But I listened to the ranting and the raving, the anti-Catholic… As I was telling the guy that I was on the phone with earlier, they don’t even know what Orthodox is.

Fr. Steven: Right. They don’t.

Mary: When I converted, all these people said that I was going to a church where they were worshiping idols, idols at the altar, and we worship Mary and blah blah blah blah blah—and none of that is true, of course.

Fr. Steven: No, it’s not.

Mary: Now that I know. But I guess the question that I have, and you kind of answered it with your previous caller is that, from what I understand, the born-again, we don’t see it the same way. I mean, we are born again—

Fr. Steven: We are.

Mary: [Inaudible]—experience, we are, but not the same way. We don’t have any real assurance. I mean, we are saved, we’re being saved, and we will be saved. Is that correct? Is that the way that you would…?

Fr. Steven: That’s correct. Yeah, that’s one way to put it. I would think that I would probably prefer Metropolitan Ware’s words the best. He would say that we have been saved, we were saved, actually at the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. So that that’s the first thing we need to say. The second thing we need to say is that we are working out our salvation, in fear and trembling, as St. Paul says, and that we’re engaged in the life of the Church, we’re engaged in the Christian life; we want to live out the Christian life, totally committed to Christ in such a way that we can say with the Apostle Paul, “It’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” We think that’s the height and the breadth and the depth of the whole Christian life, the whole mystical life of the Church.

So we want to say that we are working out our salvation in that sense, but we also would want to say, in fact, that we as Christians hope to be saved, and that when we stand before the dread judgment seat of Christ—in fact, at every liturgy, this is said—we are actually praying for “a good defense, kalin apologian,” in the original Greek, when we stand before the dread judgment seat of Christ. And of course, next Sunday, the Sunday of Judgment, we’re going to read from the Gospel of Matthew, and we’re going to read what our judgment will be based on. If you recall that passage of Scripture, where the Lord Jesus himself is describing the day of judgment when he talks about the Son of Man coming in his glory, surrounded by the holy angels, what he says there is that those who are saved are those who have fed the hungry, clothed the naked, visited those who were sick, visited those who were in prison—who really cared for people, who really loved people, who were actively compassionate towards other people. There is a certain sense in which, even though we are not saved by our works, we’re judged by our works. Does that make sense?

Mary: Yep, it does. And it’s funny that that brings to mind something that…. It brings to mind that there’s an Orthodox Christian, and I’m not going to say his name, who’s relatively famous, I think, and I don’t know what’s happened to him lately, but he’s gone on there, and he rants and rants and raves about a certain group, a type of people. And I thought to myself after hearing this, “Have you lost your faith?” because in my opinion, nobody who talks that way about people has a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. You just can’t.

Fr. Steven: Yes.

Mary: I don’t know. It’s hard! I felt like saying, “Don’t tell anybody you’re Orthodox! Because you’re kind of mean!”

Fr. Steven: [Laughter] Oh my! Well, I don’t know whom you’re talking about, but—

Mary: Oh, you’d recognize the name, but I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to—

Fr. Steven: Well, the first thing I guess I’d say is that you mentioned that this person is kind of famous. Orthodoxy does not have celebrities; we only have saints.

Mary: Well, he’s on CNN. That’s what I mean. He’s on the news, is what I’m saying. So people, even secular people, might recognize his name from that, is what I’m saying.

Fr. Steven: I see. I see what you’re saying. Okay. Well, you know, no single Orthodox Christian can ever wholly, completely, and fully represent the life of the Church. That’s why we look at all of the saints, not just simply this or that saint. I have a friend who’s a Lutheran pastor, and I love him to death, but I say to him, “You know, the problem with you guys is you’ve got only one father, Martin Luther. You need many fathers in your church. You need St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Augustine, St. Gregory Palamas. You need many fathers, many saints, because we often talk about the consensus of the Fathers in a way that’s not spoken of, at least in the Lutheran Church, to my knowledge.”

So, what else, dear?

Mary: You’re nicer than I would say. I mean, the Lutherans… I don’t know that much about mainstream Protestantism, but I know a lot about Evangelical Protestantism, and I will say this. They’ve got their own church fathers; they’ve rebooted the whole thing. They’ve got their own church fathers; they’ve got their own patriarch, their own pope, which was kind of like Martin Luther.

Fr. Steven: Sort of, kind of, maybe.

Mary: Sort of, and then they’ve got their own group. They’ve made up their own traditions, and they’ve got their own fathers that they quote all the time, people that they think… So it’s kind of like they’ve rebooted the whole thing. That’s the only way I can look at it.

Fr. Steven: Well, and that really is part of the 16th century and the Reformation. They were looking at the Roman Catholic Church, and they said, “There has to be something more than this,” and of course they didn’t know that there was more, not really. That’s one of the issues. Even today, even as you said yourself, you stumbled into Orthodoxy. It’s not like we stood up and proclaimed, “Here’s the Orthodox Church. Here’s the faith of the saints. Here’s the faith of the apostles.” You had to actually come and seek us out, right?

Mary: I did, yes.

Fr. Steven: So maybe that’s our sinfulness as Orthodox Christians. We’re not willing to proclaim who we are and what we have to offer, which of course: all we have to offer is Jesus Christ. That’s all we really have to offer.

Mary: Well, but you have… but you’re able to do it in a very—what’s the word I want to say? You’re able to do it in a much more full way. With Evangelical Protestantism is the Bible. If it ain’t in there, they ain’t doing it! And think of how limiting that is! It was!

Fr. Steven: Well, it is limiting and—

Mary: No icons, no praying for the dead, no incense. It’s not engaging all the senses like Orthodoxy does. It’s so limiting.

Fr. Steven: Well, you know what? I would say that incense is found all over the Bible. I would say the word “icon” is found all over the Bible. I’d say there’s a lot of things in the Bible those poor Evangelical folks just haven’t picked up on.

You know what? I am getting the signal that the show is over.

Mary: All right.

Fr. Steven: Holy mackerel, this really went quickly.

Mary: Thank you for taking my call.

Fr. Steven: No, thank you for calling in. God bless you, dear.

Mary: I could go on forever. Okay, take care. Bye-bye. God bless.

Fr. Steven: Take care. Bye-bye.

So, thank you for calling in, and thank you for your questions and for listening tonight. This program, as you know, is going to be available on an audio podcast on Ancient Faith Radio later tonight.

Now, join us next week, same time, same station, for Ancient Faith Today with Kevin Allen. And, of course, Fr. Evan, he will return; he will not stay in Birmingham forever. He will be back! And, by all means, tune in on the first and third Sunday evenings here on Ancient Faith Radio to hear another edition of Orthodoxy Live. God bless you. Bye-bye.