I’m
finally home from my running around all summer. It feels good to be (mostly) home for the next nine months.
One of my
trips early this summer was to a clergy symposium. The speaker was Metropolitan Hierotheos of
Nafpaktos. I was amazed and blessed by
both his presence and his teaching. It
wasn’t that His Eminence Hierotheos said much that was particularly new or
unknown—certainly not if you have read some of his many books that have been
translated into English (such as “The Mind of the Orthodox Church” or “A Night
In The Desert Of The Holy Mountain” or “Life After Death,” just to name a
few). But he spoke with a kind of
humility and gentleness that gave his words amazing power. Of the many pages of notes that I took, one
of the quotes has particularly stayed with me this summer. The quote is this (at least as I wrote it in
my notes): “The West emphasizes God’s
justice as the highest rule or judgement; but the East emphasizes love: God’s
love as a father.”
Now the
reason this quote has stuck with me has nothing to do with the theological
differences between western and eastern forms of Christianity. Rather, it has to do with the reality that
although Orthodox theology emphasizes God’s Fatherly love, many of the fathers
in the church, the clergy—myself chief among them—emphasize their rights rather
than fatherly love when when it comes to dealing with conflicts with their
parishioners.
Let me
explain. Many Orthodox clergy are quite
isolated. Commonly Orthodox priests live
in communities where there is no other Orthodox priest with whom he can develop
a friendship. There may, indeed, be a
few other Orthodox priests within driving distance, but (as everyone knows)
just because you share the same professional career as someone else, that
doesn’t mean that you will automatically be good friends. And particularly in the case of Orthodox
clergy, just because there may be a few Orthodox priests in a city, that
doesn’t mean that they all speak the same language or share the same culture.
Consequently,
when Orthodox clergy get together in meetings or at camps or for retreats, you
will often find them huddled in small groups or paired off in intense
conversation pouring out their woes, concerns, angers, fears and conundrums to
one another. A theme that came up in
more than a couple of the settings I found myself in this summer was the
“rights” of a priest. Particularly, it
came up in the context of rights of a priest vis-a-vis the parish or the parish
council. For example, according to the
constitution of a parish and the instruction of the bishop, a priest has a
right to expect to be taken care of financially by the parish he is serving.
However,
I also heard the word “right” being used in another context, a context that
disturbed me somewhat, and this is what I would like to look at today. The context that bothers me is when I, or any
priest, speak of a right to be respected as the father of a community. Now, on the one hand, it has been the consistent
teaching of the Church from the earliest days that the grace of the priesthood
is to be respected regardless of the worthiness of the man who bears that
grace. This principle is not that
different, actually, from respecting rank in the military or the office in
politics. Whether or not I respect our
Queen personally, I must respect her office.
On the other hand, it sometimes happens that a man bearing the grace of
the priesthood speaks or behaves in ways that are not worthy of respect. When this happens, it is very difficult for
priests to hear lay people as they try to communicate to him that, although
they respect the grace of the priesthood that he carries, certain of his words
or actions are unworthy of that very same grace. In fact, apart from a miracle, it may be
impossible for a priest to hear this.
Usually,
the best you can hope for on a human level is that the priest’s bishop will be
near enough and attentive enough to hear the bleating of the sheep, to hear
their frustrations and concerns, and then to speak himself to the priest about
the unworthy speech or behaviour. But
even then, although it is much easier for a priest to hear and heed criticism
from his bishop, even then it may be very difficult. It has been my observation that people in
positions of respect and power often cannot hear the valid criticism, not only
of those under their care, but even of those who oversee them. And I am not only talking about priests. I spent about 25 years in academia. If there is any position in modern society
more unassailable then a priest by his parishioners, it is a tenured university
professor by her or his students. I
could tell you stories that would make your ears burn at the hubris and
insensitivity and sometimes just plain cruelty of university professors. No, doctors, police, politicians, teachers,
bureaucrats of all shapes and sizes, basically anyone with authority in society
can be quite deaf when it comes to listening to the legitimate concerns of
those under their authority.
But, you
might say, shouldn’t priests be different?
Shouldn’t priests have a higher standard? Shouldn’t priests be more—well, more
Christian? Yes, I guess so, just,
perhaps, as you would expect doctors to be healthier. But doctors don’t always follow their own
advice either.
So what
should we do? What should lay people do
when they have a priest whose words or actions are unworthy of the grace of the
priesthood? What should priests (or any
person in a position of authority) do to better hear the voice of those under
their care, especially when that voice is critical of them?
When a
lay person is offended by the speech or actions of a priest, he or she should
first and always pray. I can only speak
to someone’s ears, God can speak to a person’s heart. Prayer isn’t our last resort, it is our first
and only really effective response to conflict with others, especially within
the Christian family. In addition to
praying, in any conflict with a priest (or with any person for that matter)
it’s generally a good idea to follow the advice of Matthew 18: 15-17. Respectfully, you should go to the priest
privately and share you concern with him.
If he doesn’t hear you, you should ask to speak to him again with one or
two others. If he still refuses to
listen, talk to your bishop. At this
point, it is out of your hands. You have
done all that you can do—at least all that you can do righteously. Of course if righteousness doesn’t matter to
you, then there are all sorts of political ways to drive a priest out of a
church. But think about it: if righteousness doesn’t matter to you, why
are you expecting it in your priest?
But you
might say, “He will destroy the Church!
I have to do something.” Well, in
case you have forgotten, praying is doing something. Whose Church is it anyway? Do you think you care more about the Church
than God does? Ours is to pray and
maintain righteousness even in difficult circumstances. If we fight fire with fire, if we resort to
unrighteous gossip and back-room political maneuvering to get our way, how are
we acting any differently from the priest we are offended by? Perhaps we receive the priest we deserve, as
I heard Fr. Thomas Hopko once say.
From the
other end, what can a priest do to listen better? Well, as a priest myself I can confidently
say, I don’t know. One piece of advice
that I heard my bishop give at a clergy meeting a long time ago has, however,
been helpful to me over the years. He
told the priests that they had to win the respect of the people through love. He said that it was not the priest’s business
whether or not the people respected him.
It is to the people’s advantage to respect their priest; but if they
don’t, it is their business, not the priest’s.
It is the priest’s calling to earn their respect through love.
These
words remind me of a story I once read (I don’t remember where) about a man who
returned home after ten years in a communist labour camp. When he left home, his wife was pregnant. When he returned, he had a nine and a half
year-old son who perceived him as a stranger and an intruder on the intimate
family relationship the boy had with his mother. There was no doubt that the father was
indeed the father and that he had all of the rights of a father in the
family. The father had a right to be
respected. But even though the boy
neither respected nor trusted the father and saw him only as a stranger, the
father loved the boy. Yet the boy was
incredulous. Even the words of the mother were unhelpful; in fact, her
exhortations to him to respect his father only made matters worse. It only made
the boy more confident that the father was an outside, corrupting influence
destroying his family, and her earnestness even led him to consider running
away. The wise father realized the boy’s
frustration and anger, and very slowly, over a couple of years, worked to earn
the boy’s trust and eventually his respect and love.
I have
come to think that this is how I must learn to relate to my parishioners. On the one hand, I have been ordained and assigned
by the bishop to pastor a certain parish.
The “rights” or respect associated with this ordination and appointment
are not in question. However, on the
other hand, like the nine and a half year-old boy in the story, my parishioners
do not know me. I am a stranger, an
outsider to them. If I insist on my
rights, if I insist on their respect, then there is a good chance that I will
alienate some people in the community giving them an excuse to stay away from
Church (to their own hurt—and perhaps to my condemnation on the day of
judgement). But if, as a loving father,
I can ignore the expressions of disrespect; if I can overlook matters that I
might have a right to insist on; and if I can love, love and listen to the pain
and confusion and cares of my parishioners, maybe over a few years I can earn
their respect, earn their respect, not for my sake, but for the sake of their
salvation and perhaps for my salvation also.
The
theory of living together peacefully as a Christian family within the church is
deceptively simple. To live it, however,
will require all of us to die to ourselves and to trust in God with all of our
hearts.
By Fr. Michael Gillis
Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/prayingintherain/2016/08/a-priests-rights/
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