Church as Department of Social Welfare

From Cyril Mango's Byzantium: The Empire of New Rome

"In the early Byzantine period the Church grew extremely rich, or, to put it another way, huge resources were channelled through it. [...] The Church of Antioch at the end of the fourth century provided for three thousand widows and virgins in addition to invalids, strangers, prisoners and beggars."

"It has been rightly pointed out that the Byzantine Church did not constitute an organization sui juris [Latin: 'one's own law']; in modern terms it may be described as a Department of Social Welfare. The task of providing for the indigent, for strangers, for widows and orphans was an evangelical obligation which the Church took upon itself in the forth century. As municipal councils declined, bishops assumed, more and more, a variety of extra-religious functions. We find them dispensing justice, overseeing the market, regulating weights and measures, repairing bridges, building granaries. Where a provincial governor was in residence the bishop was his equal, while in other cities he became the top man, equivalent to a governor. The bishop was thus an administrator, and he was normally selected from the gentry because he had to be presentable and possess managerial experience. It was perfectly normal for a layman, even if he was not particularly religious, to be directly ordained bishop."

Other Orthodox writers...

...are many, and I intend to find them. My buddy Alex just launched his own Orthodox-thinking blog: here. He copy/pastes the reading from the Prologue (a daily reading about the Saints of the Day) then comments.

Alex and I and Kellie and Erin built CommonLifeSF together - a concept/website/presentation around Orthodox Service Internships at Raphael House. All this was before the new "raphael house" ripped it down.

Cheesefare, Meatfare

The entire Orthodox Church worldwide unites for 40 days of preparation for the FEAST OF FEASTS, also known as Easter, or: Pascha.

Lent, as this preparation time is called in the Church, begins March 6th and lasts until the FEAST on April 24th. Like a doctor who writes a prescription for her patients, the Church prescribes a fast from all meat, dairy, oil, and wine.

This Sunday, February 27, is Meatfare Sunday, which means to the layman, "Time to eat all the meat that's left in your refrigerator, because there's no more for a loooong time after today."

The following Sunday, March 5th, is Cheesefare Sunday, which means to the layman, "Throw a party in which you can serve tons of crackers and all the dairy you have left in your house."

Happy Lenting, everyone.

St. Innocent Orphanage

St. Innocent Orphanage in Mexico is a peaceful and prayerful home for young boys, and part of a larger Orthodox ministry called Project Mexico. Their home-building ministry is an extremely popular topic of conversation, especially among Orthodox youth. God bless these workers of the Lord, who bring Good News and a tangible expression of Christ's love.

Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh

I believe that every Christian child is familiar with the gifts of the three wise men: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Where do we see those gifts today?

The answer in the Orthodox Church is built into every service:

Gold is a predominant tone of Church construction: Icons, the iconostasis, the gold domes of Russian Churches. It is the color of the kingdom of heaven, and justly accorded a place in the Church. I offer as one example the interior of the church only two blocks from where Kellie and I live.

Frankincense is used in every service as a reminder of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Orthodox Church brings, by the bell-clad sensor, the sweet smell of prayer to the nose of all who enter, harkening to the first gift laid before Christ in the manger.

Finally, and most miraculously, myrrh will on occasion stream from icons or holy relics of the Church. Of course, my rational, scientific mind resisted this idea for a long time. By God's grace I finally smelled the sweet fragrance of myrrh taken from an icon of the Mother of God on Mount Athos in Greece. Father Michael, who visited this holy place, said that this sweet-smelling oil (preserved on a cotton ball) remained fragrant for over twenty years, and remains so even to this day. It is a common occurrence in Church history for myrrh to stream from the eyes of icons, as tears; it is a gift of the heavenly realm to us on earth.

Labeling a Saint

St. John Chrysostom, one of the most celebrated saints in the Orthodox Church, received his title "Chrysostom" (which means "golden tongue") from a peasant woman in Antioch. The story goes he was delivering an eloquent sermon to a large group of people right after he was ordained to the priesthood in the 4th century. A woman who, for her lack of education, didn't understand his sermon yelled up from the crowd, "Dear saint, I would fain call you John of the golden tongue, but the well of your holy teaching is deep, and the rope of our minds is too short to reach its depths!" Someone else from the crowd yelled in answer, "God Himself has given John this name through the mouth of this woman. Let him henceforth be called Chrysostom!"

From then on, the Church has referred to John by this title.

Also from then on, St. John simplified his sermons, not "adorning his speech with refined oratory, but with simple and morally edifying words, that even the simplest listener might understand and derive benefit therefrom."

Festal Friday

Today I'm letting go of the need to be "important" or "right" and especially "mysterious." I'm shooting for interesting.

Regarding my newly-illumined blog, I must point out: many of the answers are online already. When my wife suggested that I write about the feasts of the Church on Fridays (Festal Fridays), I promptly consulted the OCA (Orthodox Church in America) website. They tell me it’s Saint Leo the Great, the Pope of Rome's feast day. He was famous for his amazing education and the ways he used his learning to advance the mission of the Church. Apparently he was quite the peace-maker too: "In 452, by the persuasive power of his words, he stopped Attila the Hun from pillaging Italy." Dang.

Every single day of the year is the celebration of the work of a saint (or many saints). Every rising of the sun is a mini-Pascha, and Christ is glorified in his saints.

A New Focus

I'm re-branding my life. Again. Not exactly sure how it'll turn out, but thanks in advance for being along for the ride.

I'm transitioning this blog from "all about Zak" to "let's consider Orthodoxy together." An information-sharing tribe around the ancient Christian faith rather than a billboard of my most recent musings. The content should consistently fly beyond me.

I plan to post a range - basic information, personal accounts, bits of saint stories, and historical information, and hopefully your blog posts too! - but always in bite-sized snippits. No more ten-pagers.

Many of my previous, long-winded posts fell into the "Christian" discussion already (Annunciation, Father Mel, Making the sign of the cross). I'll begin labeling posts, too.

I must get better at getting out of the way of the things that I love.