Study Guide: We Are the Church of the Early Fathers

Book: Introducing the Orthodox Church: Its Faith and Life by Anthony M. Coniaris
Chapter 7: We Are the Church of the Early Fathers

Summary

• The Church Fathers help us maintain a living connection with the early Church.
• They remind us that we do not stand alone. Even today we are part of a great cloud of witnesses and martyrs extending all the way back to Christ.
• What we believe today is based not on one person's interpretation or experience of God but on that of the whole redeemed community of God's people extending back to the apostles of Christ.
• The Orthodox Church honors the Fathers not as witnesses of antiquity but as preservers of the complete and unaltered truth given us by Christ.
• The Church Fathers have placed in our hands the flaming torch of the apostolic faith which our generation is to preserve and pass on to succeeding generations.
• To have Church Fathers is a permanent dimension of the Church. We are called to be Church Fathers and Mothers today, begetting others and training them in the true faith of Christ.
• The qualities that distinguished the Church Fathers were: their personal knowledge of God in Christ; their personal experience of the power and presence of God through the Holy Spirit; their faith in Jesus as the Pearl of Great Price; their great emphasis on love; their prayer life; their love of books, especially the Bible.
• The inheritance we received from the Fathers cannot be hoarded. In order to be gained, it must be appropriated, developed and shared with the world.

Key Themes and Sections

1. Orthodoxy Is Not One Man's Experience of God

The truth of the Orthodox Christian faith can never be based on one person's experience or thought of God, but on that of the whole of redeemed humanity. Any "special revelation" must agree with and not depart from the collective Christian experience of the Church as a whole from the apostles down to the present.

"...I believe in the existence of objective criteria in Christological matters. The norm of Christology cannot be the new insights that theologians may reach; it must always be the consistent interpretation of Jesus the Christ that has developed in the Church along the lines set by the orthodox Fathers." -- Fr. George Tavard

Key Point: The Church Fathers are not dead. They still speak to us of their vast experience. We still drink from the wells of their inspiration and wisdom.

2. We Owe a Great Debt

Where would we be without the liturgies of St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great? The Kontakia of Romanos the Melodist? The precise definitions of Orthodoxy by St. John of Damascus? The Nicene Creed? The Jesus Prayer? The definitions of Christ and the Trinity as formulated by the Ecumenical Councils? The sublime icons?

Reflection: We are not our own. We were bought with a price none can repay. We are debtors living on great gifts from the past.

3. Witnesses to the True Faith of Christ

The Orthodox Church honors the Fathers not because they are witnesses of antiquity or of a very ancient faith. She honors them because they are witnesses of the true faith, witnesses of the truth of Christ.

"This is the faith the apostles received from Christ and passed on to us" (1 Cor. 11:23)

Behind Basil and Chrysostom, John the Baptist and John the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa and Symeon the New Theologian -- behind them all -- stands Jesus the Christ and His saving truth.

4. The Dangers of a Rich Tradition

Three dangers Coniaris identifies:

• Theology of repetition: Merely quoting the Fathers rather than acquiring their mind and phenomena (Florovsky). "To follow the Fathers does not mean simply to quote their sentences. It means to acquire their mind, their phenomena."
• Complacency: Inheriting riches can make us complacent and prevent us from achieving. "They held in their lifeless hands the riches of their fathers without inheriting the spirit which had created and imparted that sacred patrimony" (Gibbon).
• Living by coupons: Our fathers amassed the capital; we merely clip coupons from the interest without adding to the capital.

Key Warning: The Orthodox Church is not a museum of the first thousand years of Christianity.

5. A Procession of Torch Bearers

The image of the Olympic flame carried by relay runners from Olympia to the games illustrates the transmission of faith. As Christians, we have received the light of life from God. The torch was handed to us by a great line of believers stretching back to Christ -- apostles, martyrs, saints. It is our privilege and duty to pass it on.

"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead." -- Albert Einstein

Key Point: If we fail to pass on the lighted torch they have given us, we fail not only them but we also deprive countless others in the future of the light of Christ.

6. Church Fathers: A Permanent Dimension of the Church

St. Symeon the New Theologian regarded as the most dangerous heresy the notion that the Church no longer possesses the same fullness of the charismata as it did in ancient times. The same gifts are assured to those who today, as yesterday, seek them in humility and self-surrender.

• Father Florovsky reminded us that the notion of "father" is not limited to the period called "Patristic."
• St. Gregory of Palamas was a "Church Father" in the fourteenth century.
• The Fathers beget us in the faith that we in turn might become fathers under the inspiration of the same Holy Spirit.

Challenge: Where are our John Chrysostoms today? Our Basils? Our Gregories? God is always more interested in producing originals than carbon copies.

7. Re-Opening Choked Wells

The Old Testament describes the great watering places which Abraham planned. When the Philistines pillaged the land, these wells were despoiled and filled. Isaac, Abraham's son, made it his business to re-open the well-springs of his father.

Application: We must re-open the wells dug by the Church Fathers -- not only to receive refreshment from them but also to examine what qualities made them great.

What Made the Church Fathers Great

A. The Priority of Knowing God

"As our body cannot live without breathing, so our soul cannot keep alive without knowing the Creator; for the ignorance of God is the death of the soul." -- St. Basil

• "Know" in the Hebrew Bible means personal, intimate relationship -- not mere information about God.
• Scripture: "And this is life eternal, that they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent" (John 17:3).
• We come to know God by spending time with Him in prayer every day, in divine worship every Sunday, and by reading His personal letter to us -- the Holy Bible.

B. They Experienced God

• The Church Fathers not only knew God personally, they also experienced His presence and power in their lives.
• Experience comes before explanation: Man first experienced God as Father, then as Son in Jesus, then as Holy Spirit on Pentecost. After the experience came the explanation we call Holy Trinity.
• Scripture: "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses" (Acts 1:4-5,8).
• St. Seraphim of Sarov: "The true aim of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God."

C. A Rich Heritage of Memories

• The Orthodox Christian faith is made up of memories: memories of Christ, of the apostles, of the Fathers.
• Memories are museum pieces unless they come alive in us today through the love, power, and presence of God.
• The Holy Spirit is the One Who makes these memories come alive -- He is the Great Awakener.
• Scripture: "...the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you" (John 14:26).

D. The Pearl of Great Price

• For the Church Fathers, life with God was the pearl of great price; to possess it they gladly sold all and followed Jesus.
• St. Anthony at age twenty heard Christ's command to the rich young ruler and obeyed -- leaving all to pursue the hermit life for about eighty years.
• Challenge to modern Christians: The one who gives his all for business or profession, neglecting family and church, needs to hear the message of the Fathers.

E. Elders and the Emphasis on Love

• The Monastic tradition emphasized the necessity of having an Elder (starets).
• The foremost requirement: the Elder should be full of love for his disciples, to the extent that he should be ready and willing to die for them.
• St. Augustine on Bishop Ambrose of Milan: "That man of God received me as a father and showed me kindness. I began to love him, at first not as a teacher of truth, but as a person who was kind to me."
• Key Insight: The Christian faith is not only taught -- it is even more so caught from someone who incarnates the love of Christ.

F. The Jesus Prayer

• "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me a sinner."
• St. Chrysostom: "He (the Christian) should always live with the name of the Lord Jesus so that the heart swallows the Lord and the Lord the heart, and the two become one."
• The heart of the prayer is the name "Jesus" -- Who is our salvation. The other part, "have mercy on me a sinner," bridges the gulf between the righteousness of God and fallen man.
• Prayer was the animating life-blood of the Church Fathers.

G. Their Love of Books

• Foremost was the Bible, great parts of which were often memorized.
• St. Isaac of Nineveh: "A true spirituality is drawn from the bottomless treasure of the Scriptures."
• Even during mealtime there were readings for the monks -- the whole man was being fed.
• St. Pachomius laid down rules protecting books and libraries.

Apophegmata (Sayings of the Fathers)

Selected sayings for reflection:

• Abbot Macarius: "If we dwell upon the harms that have been wrought on us by men, we amputate from our mind the power of dwelling upon God."
• Abbot Mathois: "The nearer a man approaches to God, the greater sinner he sees himself to be."
• Abbot Anthony: "With our neighbor there is life and death: for if we do good to our brother, we shall do good to God: but if we scandalize our brother, we sin against Christ."
• On service vs. asceticism: A brother who tends the sick is more acceptable to God than one who fasts for six days.
• On hating evil: "He hates evil who hates his own sins, and who blesseth and loveth every one of his brethren."
• Abba Anthony's absence: When an old man asked God to see the Fathers and saw them all except Abba Anthony, he was told: "In the place where God is, there Anthony would be."
• Abba Anthony's prophecy: "A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him saying, 'You are mad, you are not like us.'"

The Challenge to Orthodoxy Today

Krister Stendahl of Harvard challenged Orthodox Christians:

"Great gifts, indeed, are yours in the Orthodox Church. So great that they may have overwhelmed you and given you the feeling that you can never hope to emulate the greatness of the greats... With fear and trembling, I must remind you of the manna in the wilderness. According to the Bible, we know that the manna could not be stored, not even from day to day..."

"Thus I would love to think that faithfulness to your Orthodox heritage must include a bold recapturing of the fearless and sometimes risky creativity of our great fathers."

Goethe: "What you have received from your fathers as an inheritance, you must now gain and develop in order to win it."

Discussion Questions

• What does it mean to say that Orthodoxy is not one man's experience of God? How does this differ from how some Protestant traditions understand doctrine and authority?
• The Fathers at the First Ecumenical Council (325 AD) came bearing scars of martyrdom -- "some with one eye and some with one arm." What does this tell us about the cost and value of preserving the faith?
• Florovsky warned against merely quoting the Fathers versus acquiring their mind. What is the practical difference? How might we fall into the trap of "theology of repetition"?
• How is the image of the Olympic torch relay an apt metaphor for the transmission of the apostolic faith? What responsibility does this place on each generation?
• St. Symeon the New Theologian considered it the most dangerous heresy to think the Church no longer possesses the fullness of the charismata. Why is this belief so dangerous?
• Of the seven qualities that made the Church Fathers great (A-G), which do you find most challenging for your own spiritual life? Which is most needed in the Church today?
• St. Seraphim of Sarov taught that "the true aim of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God." How does this statement reshape your understanding of the purpose of prayer, fasting, and other spiritual disciplines?
• What is the difference between knowing about God and knowing God personally? How do the Church Fathers exemplify this distinction?
• Abba Anthony's prophecy about a time when madness becomes the norm -- how might this apply to our own age?
• How can we avoid the danger of treating Orthodoxy as "a museum of the first thousand years of Christianity" while still honoring Sacred Tradition?

Key Scripture References

• 1 Cor. 11:23 -- The faith received and passed on
• John 17:3 -- Eternal life is knowing God personally
• John 1:18 -- No one has seen God; the Son has made Him known
• Acts 1:4-5,8 -- The promise of the Holy Spirit and power
• John 14:26 -- The Holy Spirit will bring to remembrance
• 1 John 1:1-3 -- "That which we have heard, seen, touched..."
• Jeremiah 9:23-24 -- Glory in knowing the Lord
• Hebrews 13:8 -- Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever

For Further Reading

• Aspects of Church History -- G. Florovsky
• The Fathers of the Greek Church -- Von Campenhausen
• Paul Tillich and the Christian Message -- George H. Tavard
• The Art of Prayer -- Compiled by Igumen Chariton
• The Way of a Pilgrim (on the Jesus Prayer)
• His Life is Mine -- Archimandrite Sophrony