Jim Forest

As someone who made his way to the Orthodox Church from a Roman Catholic background, I am often asked why I became Orthodox and how I would compare the two Churches.

In the 29 years since my Orthodox chrismation, my answers to both questions have evolved. One of the constants has been to stress that, in crossing the Great Schism’s border in an eastward direction, I neither slammed nor locked any doors, and that my transition has not involved a conversion. There has been but one conversion in my life, and that occurred before I was either Catholic or Orthodox—my becoming a Christian, that is, an apprentice follower of Jesus. Finding a church came next.

“But after so many years a Catholic,” friends have asked, “why your turn to Orthodox Christianity?”

In the early years, I tended to stress what I didn’t like about Catholicism: its monarchical papacy, a fast-food liturgy that too often could be described as a McMass, a legalistic approach to pastoral issues such as failed marriages, its insistence that priests be celibate, its obsession with sexual sins, its insertion of the filioque into the ancient creed. (As Hilaire Belloc wrote, “The moral is / it is indeed / you must not monkey / with the Creed.”)

Taking a slightly different tack, I sometimes said that the two Churches were like parallel highways which, at first glance, looked nearly identical; but then, on closer inspection, you notice the traffic moves more slowly on the Orthodox highway, and there are no police cars. With such slow-moving vehicles, cops aren’t needed. Read More

Leaders of the current political scene in Australia deemed it expedient for Federal Parliament to decide the question of changing the Marriage Act (1961) to allow for same-sex marriage by considering the results of a voluntary plebiscite. Citizens of Australia over the age of 18 years could receive a voting paper in the mail and return it having answered “Yes” or “No” to the question: “Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?”  The voluntary plebiscite would run over eight weeks, with a non-binding result on lawmakers—the outcome would merely inform a debate on a Bill to enable same-sex marriage. 

On November 15 the Australian Bureau of Statistics announced a comfortable win for the “Yes” vote: 61.6% as against 38.4% for the “No” vote. 79.7% of eligible Australians participated, a surprisingly high rate for what amounted to little more than an opt-in survey. On the same day, Senator Dean Smith introduced a bill to legalise same-sex marriage. It is expected to be enacted by mid-December.

Of interest to Orthodoxy in Dialogue’s readers will be the nature of the involvement of various expressions of the Church in Australia as the debate that accompanied the survey unfolded.

The very nature of the plebiscite was controversial. It had never been done before. Various referenda requiring compulsory participation were the nearest comparison, with only 8 out of 44 carried since Federation in 1901. Advocates for the “Yes” campaign were reluctant participants, believing that the conservative referendum pattern was to their disadvantage. Opponents to marriage change, aware of such an advantage, championed the right for democratic participation in such an important question, seemingly forgetting that democracy in Australia is exercised primarily through parliamentary representation.

Once the plebiscite was announced, however, the opposing campaigns got under way without the usual regulatory restraints that constrain referendum debates. Both sides poured in as much energy, resources, and chicanery as they could muster. Read More

Maximus the Confessor as a European Philosopher
Sotiris Mitralexis, Georgios Steiris, Marcin Podbielski, Sebastian Lalla, Eds.
Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2017

Ever-Moving Repose: A Contemporary Reading of Maximus the Confessor’s Theory of Time
Sotiris Mitralexis
Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2017

In the English speaking world, three fields of study have grown tremendously in the last few decades: the study of “Byzantine philosophy,” scholarship on Maximus the Confessor, and research in “Continental Philosophy of Religion.” Maximus the Confessor as a European Philosopher is a critical and timely book for bridging these three areas of emerging scholarship. Byzantine philosophy in particular is a new area of research (often thought of as a supplement to the much better researched medieval Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic traditions), with no introductory text or handbook on the subject as of yet. Maximus is sometimes excluded from Byzantine philosophy (which is sometimes viewed as beginning either with Photios or John Damascene). This text takes up precisely this question of how Maximus should be placed within the history of philosophy. As Dionysios Skliris puts it, the questions of this volume are as follows (p. 3): “Is Maximus ‘European’?” “Is Maximus a ‘philosopher’?” “What is Maximus’ contribution to Europe?” “What is his contribution to philosophy?” Likewise, is Maximus more than just a Byzantine or just a theologian? Similarly, Sotiris Mitralexis asks in the introduction (p. xxi), “Should towering figures of Byzantine philosophy like Maximus the Confessor be included in an overview of European philosophy?” These questions connect Maximus scholarship both to the larger attempt to include Byzantine philosophers in the narrative of the history of philosophy, and to the dialogue between contemporary European philosophy and patristic texts, construing Maximus as a predecessor to continental philosophy.

In its attempt to make these connections, this volume is an important one. Maximus is among the most philosophically rich of patristic or Byzantine authors, and this text is an important first step in a much needed area of scholarship. In taking up this topic, the volume brings together several of the most important scholars on Maximus and Byzantine philosophy. Nonetheless, this volume is only a first step. Perhaps the most important question is, How is Maximus a European philosopher? The various contributors all answer the question in their own way, sometimes with divergent results, by either 1). examining how Maximus takes up philosophical themes and questions, 2). treating Maximus as a source for European philosophy, or 3). arguing that Maximus stands as an equal/dialogue partner/alternative to contemporary philosophers. Read More

This marks the first appearance of this article in English, translated exclusively for Orthodoxy in Dialogue. The original Arabic version appeared on June 22, 2002 in An-Nahar, one of Lebanon’s leading daily newspapers.  

Metropolitan George (Khodr) of Mount Lebanon

The humility of knowledge demands that no one appoint himself as judge, for only God judges hearts. However, many believe that they are the sole agents of this mystery, instead of focusing on the salvation of their souls. Many sects claim to know who is to be saved and who will perish. This has occupied a good margin of thinking in more than one religion. The large confusion in the Christian milieu is caused by the great Saint Augustine, who said: “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” In his defense, though, he said what he said against heretics in Africa who appeared in his time. His dream was to return them to the correct faith. We can positively deduce from his negative quote that “salvation is in the Church,” in the sense that it is the grace of God.

What confuses this research is that most Christians who pose the question pose it as follows: “Do non-Christians go to heaven?” The answer to this question is another question: “What is heaven?” In the popular belief heaven is the space above, manifested after the destruction of this world. But there is nothing in our Scriptures that confirms that this world will be destroyed and that we will occupy a margin in space beyond which there is no other space. God does not dwell in space, and if you’re with Him there will be no space that could limit you. He is neither above nor below; He is not in a location. The heart of the matter is a mode of existence in which your resurrected face will be in front of the face of God, who does not have a material existence. Read More