Unity of The Churches: Ecumenism | Dr Paulos Mar Gregorios

 

Unity of The Churches: Ecumenism 

Dr Paulos Mar Gregorios

Published by MGF, Orthodox Seminary, Kottayam

First Edition: 2023 October

Glory and Burden (Ministry and Sacraments of the Church) | Dr. Paulos Mar Gregorios

Glory and Burden (Ministry and Sacraments of the Church)

by Dr. Paulos Mar Gregorios

Kottayam: MGF / NewDelhi: ISPCK,   2005.

Contents

Foreword Fr. Dr. K. M. George

Introduction Fr. Dr. John Panicker

1. The Meaning of Ordination: A Study of the Faith and Order Commission

2. Study on Ordination: A quick glance at the New Testament

3. Pastors and Priests: A Study on the Priesthood in the Church

4. Royal Priesthood: Priesthood of all Believers in  the Church

5. On being Good Shepherds ourselves

6. Christ’s Ministry to the World: The focus of the Church’s Ministry

7. The Glory and the Burden: The Holy Vestments of Aaron, the Great High Priest

8. Whom are we Training ? Monks, Rabbis, Pastors or Preachers? 

9. Training for the Ministry - Four related problems

10. Reflections on the Training of the Pastor

11. Ministry of the Church: Two Ways of Understanding it

12. Laity Formation - Framework, Aims and Principles

13. Nature of the Layman’s Commission

14. The Ministry of the Laity

15. Purification, Initiation and Illumination in Baptism

16. Relation between Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist in the Syrian Orthodox Church

17. Eucharistic Theology and the Bible

18. Communion - Ecclesial, Spiritual and Eucharistic

19. Not a Question of Hospitality - A comment

20. Marriage as a Christian Sacrament

21. Christian Conception of Marriage

Books by Paulos Mar Gregorios

Cosmic Man: The Divine Presence | Dr Paulos Mar Gregorios

Cosmic Man: The Divine Presence - The Theology of St.Gregory of Nyssa (c.330 to 395 A.D.) 

Dr Paulos Mar Gregorios

This book is the first systematic and comprehensive attempt in understanding St. Gregory of Nyssa (322-398 A.D.), the utmost profound Greek philosopher of the Christian era, an incomparable mystic and poet. The book traces the main tenets of Gregory's understanding of the three fundamental realities in their mutual relationship: God, humanity, and the created order.

INTRODUCTION

a. The Theme and Its Relevance
b. The Man Gregory and His Place in the Tradition of the Church

PART ONE
CHAPTER I SKOPOS - INTENT OF SCRIPTURE AND THE USE OF OUTSIDE PHILOSOPHY
1. The Intent of Scripture
2. Sympnoia
3. Cosmos and Microcosmos

CHAPTER II- AGENNESIA - AGAINST EUNOMIUS
The Eunomian Controversy as Context for the Clarification of Gregory’s thought-structure
1. Eunomius - Theurgic Neoplatonist?
2. Epinoia - Human Creativity

CHAPTER III- AKOLOUTHIA - FOLLOWING THE LOGOS
The epistemological method which synthesizes moral, logical and spiritual aspects in one unified quest for meaning
1. Akolouthia as logical consistency
2. Akolouthia as ontological reality
3. Akolouthia and Scripture
(4) Akolouthia of evil and of good

PART TWO
CHAPTER IV- GOD AND HIS CREATION - I DIASTEMA-DISCONTINUITY BETWEEN CREATOR AND CREATION
1. Diastema - The Concept
2. Diastema - The Transcendence of God
3. Diastema - As extension
4. Diastema - As Gap
5. The Three Aspects of Diastema
6. Conclusion

CHAPTER V - GOD AND HIS CREATION - II METOUSIA - CONTINUITY BETWEEN CREATOR AND CREATION
1. The Nature of Material Creation
2. Participation in Being
3. Ousia and Energeia
4. Koinonia and Metousia Summary

CHAPTER VI- GOD AND MAN - CONTINUITY AND DISCONTINUITY
1. Freedom of God and Man
2. Freedom as Transcendence
3. God’s Freedom in Immanence
4. Freedom as Creativity of the Good

CHAPTER VII - MAN AGAINST GOD - MAN IN HISTORY
1. Sin, Original Sin and Nature
2. Sin and Diastema
3. Freedom and History
4. The Loss of Wings - Splash-down and re-orbiting

CHAPTER VIII- THE FULLNESS OF MAN - MAN BEYOND HISTORY
l. Pleroma - The End of History
2. Being and the Good - Meaning of History
3. The Life of Virtue and the Effort of Man

CONCLUDING POSTSCRIPT
Appendix I
Appendix II
Bibliography

Books written by Dr. Paulos Mar Gregorios

 

BOOKS

1.  The Joy of Freedom: Eastern Worship and Modern Man. London: Lutterworth Press/Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press, 1967; Madras: CLS, 1986.

2.  The Gospel of the Kingdom. Madras: CLS, 1968.

3. Date of Easter and Calendar Revision of the Orthodox Churches: A  Preliminary Study, Addis Ababa: The Standing committee of the Conference of Oriental Orthodox Churches, 1968.

4.  The faith of Our Fathers. Kottayam: MGOCSM, 1969/Kottayam:  Bethel Publications. 1996.

5.  The Freedom of Man. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1972.

6.  Be Still and know. Madras: CLS/Delhi: ISPCK/Lucknow: The Lucknow Publishing House, 1974.

7.  Freedom and Authority. Madras: CLS/Delhi: ISPCK/Lucknow: The  Lucknow Publishing House, 1974.

8.  Quest for Certainty: Philosophical Trends in the West: A Sample Survey of  Later Twentieth Century Western Thought for the Average Indian Reader. Kottayam: Orthodox Seminary, 1976/Kottayam: MGF/ Sophia Books, 2015.

9.  The Human Presence: An Orthodox View of Nature. Geneva: WCC,
1978/Madras CLS, 1980/NewYork: Amity, 1987/Newyork: Element Books, 1992.

10.  Truth Without Tradition?. Tirupati: Sri Venkateswara University, 1978.

11. Science for Sane Societies: Reflections of Faith, Science and the  Future in the  Indian Context. Madras: CLS, 1980/ NewYork:  Paragon, 1987.

12.  Cosmic Man. The Divine Presence: An Analysis of the Place and Role of the  Human Race in the Cosmos, in relation to God and the Historical World, in the thought of St. Gregory of Nyssa (ca 330 to  ca 395 A.D.). New Delhi/Kottayam: Publications, 1982.

13. The Indian Orthodox Church: An Overview. NewDelhi/ Kottayam: Sophia Publications, 1982.

14.  The Meaning and Nature of Diakonia. Geneva: WCC, 1988.

15.  Enlightenment East and West: Pointers in the Quest for India's Secular Identity. Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study/ New Delhi: B. R. Publishing Corporation, 1989.

16.  A Light Too Bright. Albany, New York: State University of NewYork Press, 1992.

17.  A Human God. Kottayam: MGF, 1992.

18.  Healing: A Holistic Approach. Kottayam: Current Books/ MGF, 1995.

19. Love's Freedom The Grand Mystery: A Spiritual Auto-Biography; All Uniting Love with Creative Freedom in the Spirit, As the Grand Mystery at the Heart of Reality - One Man's Vision. Kottayam: MGF, 1997.

20. The Secular Ideology: An Impotent Remedy for India's Communal Problem. Kottaym: MGF/NewDelhi: ISPCK, 1998.

21. Global Peace and Common Security. Kottayam: MGF/NewDelhi: ISPCK, 1998.

22.  Disarmament and Nuclear Weapons. Kottayam: MGF/NewDelhi: ISPCK, 1998.

23.  Introducing The Orthodox Churches. Kottayam: MGF/NewDelhi: ISPCK, 1999.

24. Religion and Dialogue. Kottayam: MGF / NewDelhi: ISPCK, 2000.

25. The Church and Authority. Kottayam: MGF / NewDelhi: ISPCK, 2001.

26. Worship in a Secular Age. Kottayam: MGF / CSS, 2003 / Kottayam:  MGF / Sophia Books, 2013 / Kottayam: MGF / Sophia Books, 2014.

27. Glory & Burden: Ministry and Sacraments of the Church. Kottayam: MGF / NewDelhi: ISPCK,   2005.

28. On Ecumenism. Kottayam: MGF / New Delhi: ISPCK, 2006.

29. Science, Technology and the Future of Humanity. Kottayam: MGF / NewDelhi: ISPCK, 2007.

30. The Mission of the Church. Kottayam: Gregory of India Study Centre, 2009.

31. Inter Religious. Kottayam: MGF / NewDelhi: ISPCK, 2010.

32. Philosophy East & West. Kottayam: MGF, 2013.

33.  On Choosing the Good Portion. Kottayam: MGF/Sophia Books, 2013.

34. The Kingdom of Diakonia: Kottayam: MGF/Sophia Books, 2014.

35.   The Complete Works of Paulos Mar Gregorios Vol. I

36. The Complete Works of Paulos Mar Gregorios Vol. II

37.  വി. കന്യകമറിയം. കോട്ടയം, 1959.

38. സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യദീപ്തി: പൗരസ്ത്യ ക്രൈസ്തവ ദര്‍ശനത്തിന്‍റെ വെളിച്ചത്തില്‍ ആരാധനയെക്കുറിച്ചും സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യത്തെക്കുറിച്ചു മുള്ള പഠനം. തിരുവല്ല: സി. എല്‍. എസ്., 1972, 1982, 1997.

39.  ദര്‍ശനത്തിന്‍റെ പൂക്കള്‍. കോട്ടയം: കറന്‍റ് ബുക്സ്, 1992.

40.  ദര്‍ശനം മതം ശാസ്ത്രം. കോട്ടയം: കറന്‍റ് ബുക്സ്/എം. ജി. എഫ്,  1995.

41.  പാശ്ചാത്യ പ്രബുദ്ധതയും ആധുനികോത്തരതയും. കോട്ടയം: കറന്‍റ് ബുക്സ്/എം. ജി. എഫ്., 1995.

42.  മതനിരപേക്ഷത ഒരു സംവാദം;  ഇ. എം. എസിന്‍റെ പ്രതികരണ ത്തോടു കൂടി. കോട്ടയം: കറന്‍റ് ബുക്സ്/എം. ജി. എഫ്., 1996.

43.  പൗരസ്ത്യ ക്രൈസ്തവദര്‍ശനം, കോട്ടയം: ദിവ്യബോധനം, 1998.

44.  മതം, മാര്‍ക്സിസം, മതനിരപേക്ഷത. കോട്ടയം: സോഫിയാ ബുക്സ്, 1998.

45.  മാര്‍ ഗ്രിഗോറിയോസ് മറുപടി പറയുന്നു. ആലുവാ: ചര്‍ച്ച് വീക്ക്ലി,   1999.

46.  മാര്‍ ഗ്രിഗോറിയോസ് പഠിപ്പിക്കുന്നു. ആലുവാ: ഓംസണ്‍സ് പബ്ലീഷേഴ്സ്, 1999.

47. സ്നേഹത്തിന്‍റെ സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം. കോട്ടയം: മാര്‍ ഗ്രിഗോറിയോസ് ഫൗണ്ടേഷന്‍, 1999.

48. സ്നേഹം സ്വാതന്ത്ര്യം പുതിയ മാനവികത: സമ്പൂര്‍ണ്ണ മലയാള രചനകള്‍, വാല്യം 1. കോട്ടയം: ഗ്രിഗറി ഓഫ് ഇന്ത്യാ സ്റ്റഡി സെന്‍റര്‍, 2006.

49. സ്നേഹം ക്രിസ്തുമതത്തിന്‍റെ അടിസ്ഥാനം. കോട്ടയം: മാര്‍ ഗ്രിഗോറിയോസ് ഫൗണ്ടേഷന്‍/എം. ഒ. സി. പബ്ലിക്കേഷന്‍സ്, 2008.

50. ഈശ്വരന്‍ മനുഷ്യന്‍ പ്രപഞ്ചം: നിസ്സായിലെ വി. ഗ്രീഗോറിയോ സിന്‍റെ ദര്‍ശനത്തില്‍. കോട്ടയം: മാര്‍ ഗ്രിഗോറിയോസ് ഫൗണ്ടേ ഷന്‍/എം. ഒ. സി. പബ്ലിക്കേഷന്‍സ്, 2009.

51. ഡോ. പൗലോസ് മാര്‍ ഗ്രിഗോറിയോസ് സംവദിക്കുന്നു. കോട്ടയം: ഗ്രിഗറി ഓഫ് ഇന്ത്യാ സ്റ്റഡി സെന്‍റര്‍, 2011, 2014.

52. നന്മയുടെ നീര്‍ച്ചാലുകള്‍. കോട്ടയം: ഗ്രിഗറി ഓഫ് ഇന്ത്യാ സ്റ്റഡി സെന്‍റര്‍, 2013, 2014.

53. മതം, ശാസ്ത്രം, മനുഷ്യരാശിയുടെ ഭാവി. കോട്ടയം: സോഫിയാ ബുക്സ്, 2014.

54. മതം, ശാസ്ത്രം, ദര്‍ശനം. കോട്ടയം: സോഫിയാ ബുക്സ്, 2015.

55. രോഗസൗഖ്യം ഒരു സമഗ്ര സമീപനം. കോട്ടയം: സോഫിയാ ബുക്സ്, 2016.

56.   സഭ, വിശ്വാസം, അനുഷ്ഠാനം

57.  വിശ്വാസം, ദര്‍ശനം, പുതിയ മാനവികത

Works Edited by Mar Gregorios 

1.  Curriculum Consultation, Addis Ababa, Conference of the Oriental Orthodox Churches. Kottayam: 1967.

2. Orthodox - Mar Thoma Conversations: Some Papers and Statements from the period 1968-1970. Kottayam: 1971.

3.  Unofficial Consultation Between Theologians of Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches, Papers, Reports and Minutes.  The Greek Orthodox Theological Review. Fall 1968, Vol. 13, No. 2, and  Spring & Fall, 1971, Vol. 16, Nos. 1 & 2.

4.  Koptisches Christentum. Stuttgart, Evangelisches-Ver-lagswerk, 1973.

5.  Die Syrischen Kirchen in Indien. Stuttgart, Evangelisches Verlagaswerk, 1974.

6.  Burning Issues, Kottayam: Sophia Publications, 1977.

7.  Science and Our Future. Madras: CLS, 1978.

8. Does Chalcedon Divide or Unite? Towards convergence in Orthodox Christology. Geneva: WCC, 1981.

9. Neoplatonism and Indian Philosophy, New York: State University  Press, 1998.

10. Prayer Book for Young People / Dr. Paulos Mar Gregorios

BOOKS ON MAR GREGORIOS

1.  Fr. Dr. K. M. George, ed, Freedom, Love, Community, Madras: CLS, 1985.2.  Fr. Dr. K. M. George and Fr. Dr. K. J. Gabriel, eds. Towards A New  Humanity. New Delhi: ISPCK, 1992.
3.  Jose Kurian Puliyeril, ed, Dr. Paulos Mar Gregorios: The Shinig Star  of  the East. Kottayam: Puliyeril Publications, 1997.
4.  തരകന്‍ കെ. എം., പൗലോസ് മാര്‍ ഗ്രിഗോറിയോസ്: മനുഷ്യനും  ചിന്തകനും. കോട്ടയം: ഓര്‍ത്തഡോക്സ് സെമിനാരി, 1982.
5.  ജോയ്സ് തോട്ടയ്ക്കാട്, എഡി., ദാര്‍ശനികന്‍റെ വിചാരലോകം. കോട്ടയം:
കറന്‍റ് ബുക്സ്, 1994.
6.  ഫാ. സി. സി. ചെറിയാന്‍, ഓര്‍മ്മയുടെ തീരങ്ങളില്‍. കോട്ടയം: സി. സി.
ബുക്സ്, 1996.
7. ജോയ്സ് തോട്ടയ്ക്കാട്. പ്രകാശത്തിലേക്ക് ഒരു തീര്‍ത്ഥയാത്ര. കോട്ടയം:  സോഫിയാ  ബുക്സ്, 1997, 2018.  Photo Album

8.  തോമസ് നീലാര്‍മഠം, എഡി., വിശ്വമാനവികതയുടെ വിശുദ്ധ പ്രവാചകന്‍.  മാവേലിക്കര: ധിഷണാ ബുക്സ്, 1997.
9.  മതനിരപേക്ഷതയും വിശ്വനാഗരികതയും. ഇ. എം. എസ്. - മാര്‍ ഗ്രിഗോ
റിയോസ് സംവാദം, തിരുവനന്തപുരം: ചിന്താ പബ്ലീഷേഴ്സ്, 1995.
10.  ധിഷണാ സംഘര്‍ഷം: ഗ്രിഗോറിയോസും നിരൂപകന്മാരും. തിരുവനന്തപുരം: ചിന്താ പബ്ലിഷേഴ്സ്, 1996.
11. ഫാ. സഖറിയാ പനയ്ക്കാമറ്റം. അനശ്വര ദൂതുകള്‍. നിരണം: നിധി
പബ്ലിക്കേഷന്‍സ്, 1997.
12.  ഫാ. ഡോ. കെ. ജെ. ഗബ്രിയേല്‍, ഗുരുമുഖത്തുനിന്നും, ഒന്നാംഭാഗം.
കോട്ടയം: എം. ജി. എഫ്, 1998.
13.  ഫാ. ഡോ. റ്റി. പി. ഏലിയാസ്, എഡി., ജ്ഞാനത്തിന്‍റെ ഗ്രിഗോറിയന്‍
പര്‍വ്വം.  കോട്ടയം: സോഫിയാ ബുക്സ്, 2000.
14.  Fr. Dr. Elias T. P. , ed., New Vision New Humanity. Kottayam: Sophia
Books, 2000.
15. സിദ്ധാര്‍ത്ഥന്‍. കുട്ടികളുടെ തിരുമേനി. കോട്ടയം: സോഫിയാ ബുക്സ്,
2000.
16. Joseph E. Thomas, Paulos Mar Gregorios: A Personal Reminiscence, Kottayam: Roy International Providential Foundation, 2001.

17.  ഫാ. ഡോ. കെ. ജെ. ഗബ്രിയേല്‍, ഗുരുമുഖത്തു നിന്നും, രണ്ടാം ഭാഗം.  കോട്ടയം: സോഫിയാ ബുക്സ്, 2004.
18. ഫാ. എം. എസ്. സഖറിയാ റമ്പാന്‍. സമൂഹവും പരിസ്ഥിതി പ്രശ്ന ങ്ങളും മാര്‍ ഗ്രീഗോറിയോസിന്‍റെ വീക്ഷണത്തില്‍. കോട്ടയം: 2006.

19.  പി. ഗോവിന്ദപ്പിള്ള. മാര്‍ ഗ്രീഗോറിയോസിന്‍റെ മതവും മാര്‍ക്സിസവും.
തിരുവനന്തപുരം: ചിന്താ പബ്ലീഷേഴ്സ്, 2006.
20. ഫാ. വര്‍ഗീസ് ചാക്കോ. ഗുരു സവിധേ. തിരുവല്ല: 2007.
21. അഡ്വ. ഡോ. പി. സി. മാത്യു അഞ്ചേരില്‍. പൗലോസ് മാര്‍ ഗ്രീഗോറിയോസിന്‍റെ നവ മാനവികതയുടെ അന്യഥാ സുവിശേഷം അത്മായ ദൃഷ്ടിയില്‍. കോട്ടയം: അല്‍മായവേദി, 2008.
22. John Kunnathu, Gregorian Vision, Kottayam: Sophia Books, 2012.
23. ഫാ. ഡോ. കെ. എം. ജോര്‍ജ്, ഗുരു ഗ്രിഗോറിയോസ്, കോട്ടയം: സോപാന അക്കാദമി, 2014.

24. ഡോ. ഗബ്രിയേല്‍ മാര്‍ ഗ്രിഗോറിയോസ്, ഗുരുമുഖത്തുനിന്നും, കോട്ടയം: സോഫിയാ ബുക്സ്, 2015.

25. John Kunnathu, In His Master’s Path: Paulos Mar Gregorios as a follower  of Jesus Christ, Kottayam: Sophia Books, 2016.

26. Fr. Dr. K. M. George, Paulos Mar Gregorios: A Reader, Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2017.
27. വര്‍ഗീസ് ദാനിയേല്‍, വിശ്വമാനവന്‍: പ്രപഞ്ചത്തിലെ ദൈവസാന്നിധ്യം, കോട്ടയം: സോഫിയാ ബുക്സ്, 2017.

The Joy of Freedom / Dr. Paulos Mar Gregorios

The Joy of Freedom

Eastern Worship and Modern Man

Dr. Paulos Mar Gregorios

First Edition: 1967

Second Edition: 1986

Foreword

This book is neither by a scholar, nor for scholars. It is meant primarily for intelligent Western Christian readers, but others too may find themselves addressed here.

I am grateful to Professor J. G. Davies for suggesting that I should write such a book. My debt to my many Western Christian teachers can never be repaid.

Five monastic communities gave me their generous hospitality, warm fellowship, and a peaceful atmosphere for the writing of this book: the Jesuit Community in Mont de la Pourviere near Lyons, the Benedictine Abbeys of Bec-Helouin and Hautecombe in France, the Dominican Community in Fribourg, Switzerland, and the Reformed Community of Grandchamp near Neuchatel, Switzerland. To have prayed and lived with these Western brothers and sisters has been a deeply enriching experience. I am grateful.

P. Verghese

Communaute de Grandchamp

Feast of the Presentation (mayeltho), 1966

Preface

The English word Worship seems to have no exact parallels in other modern or Biblical languages. It includes personal prayer as well as the corporate acts of worship of the Church.

Patterns of Christian worship originally emerged from one common form, but they soon developed into diverse liturgical and spiritual traditions in various cultures. All traditions of worship owe something to the pre-Christian cultural milieu in which they took shape. The Eastern tradition is no exception to this. It bears the marks of Egyptian, Jewish and Syrian, Iranian and Greek cultures, to mention only a few. It would be an error to assume however that there is only one Eastern tradition of worship. No such homogeneity of Eastern culture and tradition existed at any time - not even in the days of the “One undivided Church.”

Cultural diversity, even in a small geographical area like the modern Middle East, gave rise from the beginning to a great number of spiritual and liturgical traditions. The Jerusalem tradition was never identical with the Antiochene or Alexandrian traditions. Asia Minor had its own cultural patterns and traces of this can be discovered even in the earliest traditions as reflected in the New Testament. Byzantium, which inherited all these traditions along with the Greek and Roman cultures, developed something peculiarly its own. To what extent then are we justified in speaking of an Eastern tradition in general? Despite the distinctive features of different African, Asian and European cultures, can one justify the effort to delineate a common pattern that underlies the worship of Antioch and Alexandria, Byzantium and Persia, Ethiopia and the Slavonic countries? If we limit ourselves to a study of the texts of the various liturgical anaphoras, the general lines of diversity and similarity between the several traditions can be delineated with comparative ease. That work has been ably attempted by liturgiologists in the past1 and research continues to this day in this field.

The purpose of this slender volume has to be something less ambitious. All that it can hope to achieve is to set Eastern worship in the context of the present world; it is a plea rather than an analysis. It seeks first to clear away certain popular misunderstandings. This effort should not be taken as polemic, or even as apologetic. It is a commendation before everything else, but in the best ecumenical interests. No tradition can fail to benefit from a pattern of worship which has succeeded in holding the Church together for centuries when all else seemed to have been taken away from her.

The first chapter of this study seeks to deal with the objection that, for the educated modern man, not just Eastern worship, but in fact any form of worship is irrelevant and useless. There are certain elements which modern men and women need in worship; but worship is first a duty and only secondarily something useful. Western readers may also too easily associate a vague kind of mysticism with the East, and therefore keep away from trying to come to terms with it. This book seeks to show that the fear is based on assumptions which may not be justified.

A study of Eastern worship is difficult for others either because they think that it ignores historical reality in order to escape into another world, or that it is too fixed in a given historical period. For others, study of Eastern worship is an attempt to find the “true” original form of worship. For the Eastern Church, history is a form of memory which is more than mental; it is the re-living of a past experience in joy. The content of that memory can be illuminated but not supplied by the historical method.

This book attempts simply to point to some general features of Eastern worship, and not to describe it in any detail. Its purpose is to create interest in the average reader rather than to instruct the scholar.

The notion of priesthood is inseparable from worship; but priesthood should first be understood, so the Orthodox believe, as belonging to the whole Church and therefore to every baptized Christian. The ordained bishop or priest fulfils a special function within this common priesthood. The worship of the Church requires both the common and the special priesthood. This Orthodox understanding of priesthood should be acceptable even to many who are anticlerically oriented.

The final chapter deals again with the question of prayer, which has become so difficult for modern man. My thesis is that prayer and worship are the real characteristics of a christian. The free access with confidence into the presence of the Father, through Christ, in the Spirit, is the source of the joy of freedom.  

1. See for example A. Archdale King, The Rites of Eastern Christendom, 2 vols, 1950; Donald Attwater, The Christian Churches of the East, 2 vols, 1948, and Eastern Catholic Worship, 1945; F. E. Brightman, Liturgies Eastern and Western, Vol. I, 1896.

Preface to the Second Edition

This small book, my first major work; was written some 20 years ago, primarily for western readership. I was then living in the West, in Geneva, in a predominantly Protestant Christian milieu, and the allusions in the book are sometimes difficult to follow for an Indian Christian unfamiliar with the western Christian debates of the sixties of our century. There were three concerns central to my mind at that time, and this book reflects those. 

I 

First was my concern with a growing movement of what was called ‘secular Christianity’, derived from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s conception of ‘Religionless Christianity.’ I was basically sympathetic to the reaction against European pietism which condoned or approved Hitler because for too many German Christians religion was primarily a matter of the heart, and the power of the state was a separate realm where the government was supreme. Bonhoeffer wanted this kind of Christianity which put all its weight on personal piety and the worship of God unrelated to the burning issues of politics and economics condemned. He wanted an active Christianity, which did something about an enormous human problem like Hitler’s Third Reich. He was prepared, in the name of Christ, to kill Hitler, and was arrested for plotting to do so. From prison he wrote his now famous letter about ‘Religionless Christianity’, a Christianity which moved away from the cult and the piety of the heart to sober political and economic action in the interests of humanity. This has been the characteristic attitude of liberal European Protestantism - to regard action or mission as primary and worship as ancillary to it. ‘Responsibility’ was the key word. Our responsibility was for prophetic speaking and prophetic action. The Barmen Declaration, which condemned Hitler’s actions and affirmed our basic loyalty to Christ as Lord was true prophetic Christian speaking, and daring plans for action like Bonhoeffer’s plot to kill Hitler were prophetic and responsible Christian actions. Christians were admonished to grow up and recognize the adulthood of humanity. They were asked to assume responsibility for the world, ‘as if God did not exist’ (etsi deus non daretur). Man was now at the centre of reality. For some who repeated Nietzsche’s ‘God is dead’ the new context, the main point was that Humanity had come of age and should accept complete responsibility for society and Its evolution towards justice, democracy and freedom. 

‘As if God did not exist’ - as a slogan it had some meaning. But part of that ‘as if’ would be to live without worship. Church services themselves became occasions primarily for prophetic Christian preaching on social and economic questions. Reading the Bible was also to derive inspiration and orientation for prophetic Christian action. ‘Religionless Christianity’ was also a slogan - to put action before cult or worship. ‘God is dead’ was similarly a prophetic slogan, to make Christians realize their central responsibility for political and economic amelioration of the world. ‘Secular Christianity’ was another slogan, but it went beyond to suggest that this world known to our senses was all that existed, and that Christian concern about the ‘other world’ about God, about the pre-existence of Christ, and about eternal life and so on were standing in the way of Christians accepting full responsibility for changing society here and now, in this temporal world. 

For me, this was the full flowering of the sickness of western Christianity, this desire to put man and his mind and will at the centre of reality, without worshipful acknowledgement of God as real Master and Lord. It was a focus on human reason and human action, of course to make this World a better place, but worship was the first casualty for western man. 

My concern was not just about the haughtiness of industrially advanced western man, but also about his fundamental denial of what is central to Christianity - the unity of God and Humanity in Christ. To separate the humanity and divinity of Christ was for me the central heresy, to be followed by the denial of Christ’s divinity sooner or later. ‘Secular Christianity’ was, for me, true manifestation of western hubris and of liberal protestantism’s basic tendency to ignore the Incarnation of the Second Person the Holy Trinity.

For me as a Christian, God and Humanity are inseparably united in Christ. There is no such thing as Man without God, whether people recognise it or not. Humanity as such is for me, as a result of the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, a divine-human reality. I cannot be enthusiastic about a secularism which denies God in order to affirm humanity. It is a fact that I find secular people committed to justice and peace congenial. I can work with them. But I cannot affirm their doctrine, or replace my faith with a secular faith. And my faith is the faith of the Church, affirmed above all in the worship of the Church, of course also in life and action. Without God, man makes no sense to me, I must confess. Neither does history or the evolution of the universe make sense to me in a context without God. Even physical nature makes sense to me only in God. 

The plea that Modern Man has come of age and that he should, live as if God did not exist, was pure non-sense to me. Having been trained in the so-called modern way of thinking, I found its foundations totally shaky and unreliable. The fact of the matter, for me at least, was that western hubris had led to western humanity’s denial of God and consequent inability to worship Him. Religionless Christianity and Secular Christianity seemed to me high sounding theological justifications of so-called modern man’s desire to overthrow God and take over.

Hence my strong and spirited argument about modern man’s desperate need to worship. The failure and inability to worship God as God ought to be worshipped was the basic human problem for me. He alone truly is, and He alone is truly good. All being and all good come from Him. To refuse to acknowledge this and live in response to His love is to betray our humanity which is a gift from God in Christ. And the whole point of worship is constantly to acknowledge that God alone truly is, that He alone is truly good, and that our being and our good come from Him. To justify our inability to recognise this in the name of a religionless Christianity struck me as simply outrageous. Harvey Cox of Secular City, and Paul Van Buren of The Secular Meaning of the Gospel, appeared to me both uninformed and grossly mistaken. The book which I published in 1967 was an outcry from my sense of outrage.

I wonder even now, how much sense all this makes to the intelligent Christian reader in India. I think that the temptation to follow the western liberal path is very strong in the intellectual elite of India, both Christian and non-Christian. I do not know if what I say here has any relevance for their thought. I leave it to them.

II

My second concern was about the alienation of the Christian person in worship - alienation from the community and from the created order. I was furiously opposed to that peculiarly western form of ‘mysticism’ which sought union of ‘the alone with the alone’ - away from other people, away from things, from smells and sounds and tastes and tangibility. Christian worship was for me communitarian as well as personal, spiritual as well as physical, mediatorial and vicarious. Worship is offered primarily by the community of faith, the universal community with the living and the departed (the departed forming the majority), standing with Christ as the mediating High Priest of all creation, on behalf of all humanity, before God, offering back the creation to God in thanksgiving (eucharistia), through the offering of material things like bread and wine. This is what distinguished Eucharistic mysticism from the one-to-One mysticism of some seers in the west and east. And in this mysticism the mediation of Christ is not only not ignored, but in fact most comprehensively acknowledged and manifested. People like Emil Brunner and the Barthians in general, who saw an opposition between the gospel and mysticism had absolutely no understanding of this eucharistic mysticism of the community through material offerings. Eucharistic mysticism, far from being the enemy of the gospel, was its most adequate manifestation.

I am not sure about my success in making this point clear in my book. For me, it is still the central affirmation of Christianity, that the eucharist is the most adequate and full manifestation of the gospel.

III

My third concern was about freedom - a much misused word in the west. Most western conceptions of freedom were for me basically formed in the context of alienation. The individual should be free to do as he or she pleases, unhindered by anyone else. Only in order to make possible the freedom of all individuals the west had been prepared to concede some limitations to freedom in the form of order. I was revolting against this notion in the fifties and sixties. For me freedom was not primarily for the individual, but for the community, in fact for the whole of humanity as a single entity, and for the created order as a whole. And freedom is not doing what you like. Only God alone is truly free, in that He is always freely creating the good, unimpeded by lack of power or by restraint from others. It is this freedom which expresses itself in creative love which has created us and which has manifested itself in Christ. Freedom was to be able and empowered to create the good effectively, out of a genuine inner impulse, not by law or constraint, not for gain or reward, but simply because the good was good. 

Our unwillingness and inability to identify ourselves fully with God, with other people, and with the created order, is our unfreedom. Our full liberation is inseparable from the liberation of the community in the resurrection, from the liberation of humanity as a whole, and from the liberation of the created order as a whole. The whole creation is groaning for that liberation, and waiting for the full liberation of the children of God (Romans 8:21 ff). This freedom of the children of God in which the whole creation shares is not doing as you please, but rather: (a) negatively being free from the twin enemies of evil and death, and (b) positively to enter the presence of God, there to be united with Him in true loving community and to be empowered to participate freely in the free creativity of God.

This notion of freedom explains the title of the book. True worship brings the joy of true freedom, the freedom from evil and death, the freedom to enter the Presence and there to be united with Him in community and in loving creativity. Access into the presence banishes boredom and brings true joy. 

*         *           *           *

I have always been intrigued by the parallelism between western secularism and current forms of Sankarite Vedanta in India. For some of these pedantic Sankarite Vedantins who seldom reflect the tranquillity and grace that comes from true realisation, salvation is basically an individual’s experience of identity with the whole, unrelated to community and the material world except in terms of that identity - an undifferentiated identity unrelated to the process of temporal reality, and therefore unrelated to socio-economic reality. The main difference between western secularism and some modern forms of academic Vedanta is that the former fully affirms the temporal order while denying everything else, whereas the latter virtually denies the whole temporal order and its significance. But in true Vedanta too, worship is something that belongs to the immature and the unrealised. There is no worship possible, ultimately, because the One to be worshipped is none other than the worshipper himself. If there is none else to be worshipped than one’s own True Self, then does not worship become folly and stupidity? Sankara himself worshipped and encouraged worship. Perhaps it was an unresolved tension in his own life. For me the position of modern academic Sankarism is a far cry from the authentic insights of the Vedic tradition, which are basically centred on cosmic integrity, sacrifice and worship, rather than individual fulfilment.

The indigenisation of worship in India cannot be a matter of adjusting our forms to Hindu symbols and terminology. To restore Hindu forms of a given period in the past will not make Christian worship in India any more authentically Indian. It can only make it Hindu-Christian in a dated way. What is more needed in India is to make worship truly communitarian, truly eucharistic, truly related to the transcending reality of the Body of Christ in time and beyond. That requires more than theoretical knowledge of the principles of Christian worship, which theoretical knowledge is now sadly lacking in many of the indigenisation movements in the Indian churches. It also has to spring from the life of a genuinely worshipping community, so rare in India today. The book may be regarded as an invitation to form such authentic Christian worshipping communities.

I have added as an appendix a short essay on prayer which I wrote some time ago for our young people.

PAULOS GREGORIOS

New Delhi

Easter, 1984

A Light Too Bright / Paulos Mar Gregorios

 

The Enlightenment Today: An Assessment of the Values of the European Enlightenment and a Search for New Foundations for Human Civilization

Summary
"The author has a special talent for bringing together vast amounts of material and summarizing in clear and insightful ways. This critique of the European Enlightenment is most significant in itself. While there have been other books on the Enlightenment, the approach taken here is unique and could only have been offered by a non-European." -- Harold G. Coward, University of Calgary Questioning the very legitimacy of Western liberalism and the modern secular civilization it has given rise to, Dr. Gregorios critically examines the values of the European Enlightenment of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and the corporate drive of European peoples by which they have dominated the external world. He shows that both Capitalism and Marxism, as well as Modern Science and Technology are creations of the same spirit, he argues. The powerful light of Critical Rationality emitted by the European Enlightenment is like the light of the sun. It is bright and helpful for seeing this world in detail, but too bright to let us see the night sky and the vast expanses of the universe. This "light too bright" eclipses the Transcendent. Dr. Gregorios invites us to appropriate the other Enlightenment of the overall-religious-cultural outlook in a new way and to relate it to the valid insights of the European Enlightenment. Paulos Mar Gregorios, currently the Eastern Orthodox Bishop of Delhi, served as President of the World Council of Churches from 1983-1991. He is the author of more than a dozen books, including Enlightenment East and West; The Joy of Freedom; The Freedom of Man; and Science for Sane Societies.
Table of Contents Preface 1. Getting Oriented 2. Religion, Culture, and the Secular: Concepts to be Clarified 3. What is the European Enlightenment? 4. Europe: Adventure and Expansion 5. Ideas: Hegel 6. The Dialectics of the Enlightenment: Knowledge—Its Function and Foundation 7. Theory for Practice, Or the Other Way Around? 8. Justice, Human Rights, and the State in European Civilization 9. Science, Technology, and the Enlightenment: Will They Go On Reinforcing Each Other Indefinitely? 10. Reason's Unreason: Ten Questionable Assumptions of Enlightenment Rationality 11. Turning to the Other Enlightenment: The European Tradition Revisited 12. The Twain Shall Be One: On Bringing the Two Enlightenments in Integral-Dialectical Relation to Each Other Notes Index

The Complete Works of Paulos Mar Gregorios Vol. II / Dr. Paulos Mar Gregorios

The Complete Works of Paulos Mar Gregorios Vol. II / Dr. Paulos Mar Gregorios

First Edition: Nov. 24, 2020

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