The way to Orthodoxy

“The Orthodox Way” is Bishop Kallistos Ware's sequel to “The Orthodox Church”, published under his lay name Timothy Ware. The term Orthodox refers to Eastern Orthodoxy, i.e. the churches in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. These include the national churches of Russia, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania. Kallistos was British and served the Greek Orthodox Church in Britain. His bishop title was honorific, Kallistos being the bishop of Diokleia in Asia Minor, an ancient town which no longer exists (!).

While “The Orthodox Church” is an easy read and a popular introduction to the history and faith of Eastern Orthodoxy, “The Orthodox Way” is more difficult and theological, albeit not as hard as Vladimir Lossky's “The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church”. Bishop Kallistos' book could perhaps be described as a series of personal reflections on the Orthodox tradition. While the author never strays very far from that tradition, he is irenic and frequently references Catholics, Jews, Anglicans (including C S Lewis) and even Origenes and Jacob Boehme. Hibernating Renaissance Platonists might find some chapters interesting.

People with a “rationalist” approach to faith will not. Ware never attempts to prove the Orthodox faith “rationally”. Instead, he appeals to experience, both our immediate experience of the world as meaningful and beautiful, and more specific experiences such as mystical vision and the transformation of mortal man through a life of prayer. Above all, Ware emphasizes the experience of love: between man and God, between two humans, and within the human community. While Ware calls himself a “panentheist”(pan-en-theist), his Orthodox faith is rather classically theist, with a permanent ontological distinction between man/matter and the divine. It's not clear why he chooses the problematic term “panentheism” to describe it. Perhaps the author wants to emphasize that Christianity believes in the inherent goodness of matter and doesn't want to escape it, but rather to elevate it. Humans aren't reincarnating souls temporarily inhabiting physical bodies, but unique individuals consisting of both body, soul and spirit. Even God, who is pure spirit, took a human body in the incarnation. Matter is therefore a “natural” part of reality. Of course, this celebration of the material is tempered by a strong ascetic streak. The way to elevate matter to heavenly status goes through a struggle against “sinful flesh”. Ware is Orthodox, but evidently not a supporter of Radical Orthodoxy!

An important theme for Ware is criticism of industrialization and environmental destruction. Respect for Nature, which is God's creation, is emphasized. Humans are “above” Nature in the sense that they can communicate directly with God, but they are not some kind of despotic overlords. Rather, humans are a kind of midwives for Nature's elevation to the Divine. When humanity is redeemed, Nature is redeemed with it. Nature worships God through humanity, since humans are self-conscious and have free will. Humans can change Nature and hence perfect it, but Kallistos connects this with God and the sacraments, rather than with scientific attempts to “improve” the Earth: the foremost human sacrifice to God during the liturgy is the bread and the wine, products of Nature perfected by human hands into which God's grace has descended.

Otherwise, I was struck by how “old fashioned” Kallistos Ware sounds. He defends all the traditional Church dogmas which liberal Christians have jettisoned or reinterpreted: creatio ex nihilo, the fall of man, the virgin birth, the incarnation, the general resurrection, the existence of the Devil and demons, etc. While God isn't “male” in the human sense, the symbols under which God wants to be worshipped are male and should not be changed. Jesus was, of course, male. So is the Orthodox priesthood (although Ware says relatively little about the Church itself). A bit like Lewis, he doesn't reject evolution outright, but rather attempts to circumvent the issue. The traditional attitude is what attracts many converts to Eastern Orthodoxy. The mystical streak and the liturgy are others.

“The Orthodox Way” is, to be honest, an extremely tedious book. Unless you are extremely interested in the subject, you will need a lot of patience if you want to read it cover to cover. But yes, if you want to know more about Eastern Orthodoxy, you may want to go through this material. When you do, keep this review of the highlights in mind! ;-)