“We censure, condemn, and declare
contrary to the teachings of the Gospel and the sacred canons of the
holy Fathers the doctrine of phyletism, or the difference of races
and national diversity in the bosom of the Church of Christ.”
(Article I of the Decree of the 1872 Council of Constantinople)
Lately some folks have been complaining
about our parish Church School instructing in English and Russian,
rather than in Russian only. Before we discuss this more fully, let
me include here our Church School Mission Statement:
“The mission of the St. Vladimir
Church School is to gather Orthodox Christians of all nationalities
and backgrounds, as well as all those desiring to embrace the
Orthodox Christian Faith, as a parish family for mutual spiritual
support and the salvation of our souls. The Church School, as an
integral part of the parish family, exists to train the future saints
of the Church in their formative years. We strive to emulate in our
lives, and to actively model in our Church School, the relationship
between the persons of the Holy Trinity as the highest and most
profound example of love.”
Now, on to the conversation. There is
not a special place in Heaven for those who are of a certainly
nationality. See Article I quoted above. There may be a special place
in Hell for those who think that their nationality will save them,
but that is just speculation on my part – the Church does not have
such a teaching. And further, nothing could do more to HURT the
Church’s efforts to sanctify the post-Soviet societies in which is
works than for people to somehow think that their Russianess or
Ukrainianess, or Kazakhstaniness, or Americaness, or Canadianess or
whatever nationality they are will save them. In other words, those
that promote phyletism work actively against the Church and its
efforts to bring souls to salvation in Christ.
Orthodox Christians should be patriots.
That is, we should love our countries. Many of us were born in one
country and now live in another. Or were born here but of patriotic
parents who were born in another country. This presents a problem.
How can one be a patriot of two countries? Especially countries like
the United States and Russia, who seem to have such opposing world
views?
More importantly, how can we be
patriots but avoid phyletism? For the purposes of our conversation
here, let us use racism as a synonym for phyletism. I like to say
phyletism, and I think everyone else does too. It is a funny/pleasant
sounding word. And makes one sound like they know something that
someone else doesn’t. Still, it isn’t something most of us say
every day, but as people who live in America we hear and use the word
racism a lot. And this can help us to unpack this issue, that all
parishes with multiple nationalities struggle with from time to time.
Let me be clear here too: it is OK to
have this discussion. It is GOOD that we have people of multiple
nationalities in our parish. This is the image of the Church with a
capital “C”. The Church is diverse, and our parish is diverse.
That diversity brings lots of good things, and the struggle against
phyletism is a GOOD thing. If we were fully homogeneous as a parish
we would not have an opportunity to have this conversation. And that
would be bad, because people might begin to hold heretical views
(phyletism is a HERESY after all) and we probably wouldn’t even
know that. So thank God that we get to work this out together as a
parish family!
I think as mature Christians we could
not accept the following sentence as expressing Orthodox theology
appropriately: “White people are superior to Asian people.” Or
superior to African Americans. Or Native Americans. That just rubs us
the wrong way. We know that can’t be true and thus we cannot accept
that. But let’s switch things up a little bit and see if we can
accept this sentence: “Russian people are superior to American
people.” Hmmm. That is a little more tempting. Or how about this:
“Russian language is a hallowed language and thus superior to
Spanish.” Or Vietnamese. Or English. Or Swahili. Sts. Kyrill and
Methodius understood this and this is why they taught the Slavs Greek
language and culture before they catechized them. St. Innocent too,
in his work in Alaska, Russified all the natives and only then taught
them about Christ. But where did St. Innocent learn Russian if Sts.
Kyrill and Methodius Hellenized the Slavs? Wait – something is
wrong here. In fact Sts. Kyrill and Methodius sanctified the pagan
Slavic culture they found when they came to bring Christ to our
ancestors. And St. Innocent and St. Herman and the rest of the
missionaries in Alaska sanctified the native pagan cultures they
found there. They did not force the people to learn Russian. On the
contrary, Orthodox Christian missionaries have ALWAYS learned the
local language and preached in it, rather than trying to turn the
local people they were preaching to into Hellenes or Russians or
whatever the missionaries were.
This is not to say that there is not
some benefit to knowing a language and culture that has been
“sanctified” by centuries of Orthodox influence and guidance. Of
course there is. But the Church preaches to the “natives” in the
language they know. Period. There is no other authentic Orthodox
approach to mission. And this is why we use both Russian and English
in our Church School. If children come from a Russian speaking home
and have not been to American schools for very long of course – it
makes good sense to teach them in Russian. But it also makes good
sense to teach them in English too, since honestly, very few of our
children are heading back to Russia, Ukraine, or Belarus anytime
soon. Some may be – we do have a somewhat transitory population in
our parish given that we are in a university town. Again – this is
why we offer instruction in both languages. But it will always be
both. Because even those who are heading back to the motherland will
be benefited by knowing important things like Holy Trinity, Jesus
Christ, Old Testament, New Testament, etc., in English too. Like it
or not, English is the lingua franca of our times. Our Church School
exists to make saints. The child in the school might be a saint. But
so too might the child he or she teaches when he or she is a Church
School teacher in the next generation. The point is to make saints
that can make more saints! We aim to make saints that can train the
next generation of saints, and so on and so forth, until the Lord
comes again.
I would like to make one other point
here, that folks often are confused about. That is this: we often get
very concerned that young people go to college and leave their faith
due to challenges to their faith they encounter there. But the latest
research in this regard seems to points to the fact that those young
people who leave their faith in college do so not because of
something they have found in college. On the contrary, by the time
they go to college they are, by and large, confirmed in their faith.
Or confirmed NOT in their faith. That is, college provides the
opportunity - the freedom - for young people to live a life away from
God if they have already decided to do so in their early to mid teen
years. Thus, it seems college is not the problem – it just provides
the freedom to actualize a decision that has already been made in
High School. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that the Church
School and the Youth Group are really quite crucial to establishing
our young people in their faith. This is not to say that the average
American college is a bastion of support for Christian values. But
the challenges to Christian values found in the academy are met in an
Orthodox way, by and large, by the students that have already
established themselves in the faith, and in a secular way by those
who have already decided to live a life separate from God. The moral
of this story: we need to put more resources into our children’s
formative years. We need to model a Christian life for them from
their earliest years. We need to have our kids in Church School, in
Youth Group, and most importantly: at the Divine Services (in a way
that is moderate and appropriate for their age) to the greatest
extent possible. And we need to pray that the Lord strengthen them in
their faith and guide them to salvation. This is what matters in the
end. Not phyletism. Phyletism is a heresy. Let’s concentrate on
what matters as a parish family so that we can save our souls and the
souls of our children, and listen to the wisdom of the Holy Church:
no phyletism at St. Vladimir’s.
Fr. Gregory
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