The Catalog of Good Deeds

The Creed was formed (in part) because of a popular heresy at that time which stated that Jesus was part of God’s creation: that He was just a man. Which part of the Creed speaks of Jesus as truly God?

Shortly after the legalization of Christianity in 312, the Emperor Constantine convened the first ecumenical council. (“Ecumenical” is from the Greek economos, or “household.”) Indeed the entire “household” gathered: over 300 bishops from the Christian world. They came together to combat the heresy of Arianism that declared Jesus to be a “creature” of God, rather than coequal and coeternal.

In the Creed, the Church Fathers stated that Jesus was truly God with the phrases beginning with “Light of Light.” They continued to emphasize the equality of Father and Son with the phrases, “True God of True God, Begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father.” In the Creed, “begotten” has a special meaning assigned to it. Jesus was “begotten,” not created. Everything that exists is created by God. Only God Himself, the Trinity, is not created. Jesus existed from all time with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

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“The Word, that is, the Son, was always with the Father.” (Irenaeus, “Against Heresies, Book IV,” ch. 20, section 3, 180 AD)

“Christ Jesus, the Son of God, because of His surpassing love for His creation, condescended to be born of the virgin.” (Irenaeus, “Against Heresies, Book III,” ch. 4, section 2, 180 AD)

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The divine Son of God was born in human flesh for the salvation of the world. This is the central doctrine of the Orthodox Christian Faith; the entire life of Christians is built upon this fact. They Symbol of Faith stresses that it is “for us men and for our salvation” that the Son of God has come. This is the most critical biblical doctrine, that “God so loved the world that He gave his only-begotten Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (Hopko, “Doctrine,” 66)

Source: https://orthodoxchristianparenting.wordpress.com/2015/09/12/the-creed-light-of-light-very-god-of-very-god/

The Holy Prince Alexander Nevsky (in monastic schema Alexis) died on the return journey from the Horde at Gorodtsa on the Volga, on November 14, 1263, and on November 23, 1263 he was buried in the Cathedral Church of the Nativity Monastery in the city of Vladimir (Where there is a memorial to the holy prince. Another memorial is in the city of Pereslavl-Zalessk).

Veneration of the Prince began right at his burial, where a remarkable miracle took place. The saint extended his hand for the prayer of absolution (a written document placed in the coffin). Great Prince John (1353-1359), in his spiritual testament written in the year 1356, left to his son Demetrius (1363-1389), the future victor of the Battle of Kulikovo, “an icon of Saint Alexander.” The incorrupt relics of the holy Prince were uncovered, because of a vision, before the Battle of Kulikovo in the year 1380, and then they were sent forth for a local celebration.

Russian commanders asked for the intercession of the holy Prince, glorified by his defense of the Fatherland, in the following times: On August 30, 1721 Peter I, after a lengthy and exhausting war with the Swedes, concluded the Nishtad Peace. On this day it was decided to transfer the relics of the holy Prince Alexander Nevsky from Vladimir to the new northern capital, Peterburg, on the banks of the Neva. Removed from Vladimir on August 11, 1723, the holy relics were greeted at Shlisselburg on September 20 of that year and remained there until 1724. On August 30, they were placed in the Trinity Cathedral of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, where they now rest in Saint Petersburg. By an edict on September 2, 1724 a feastday was established on August 30 (in 1727 the feast was discontinued because of secular matters, which involved clique struggles at the imperial court. In 1730 the Feast was again re-established).

Archimandrite Gabriel Buzhinsky (later Bishop of Ryazan, + April 27, 1731) compiled a special service in remembrance of the Nishtad Peace, combining with it a service to Saint Alexander Nevsky.

The name of the Defender of the borders of Russia and the Patron of Soldiers is famous far beyond the borders of Russia. The numerous temples dedicated to Saint Alexander Nevsky bear witness to this. The most famous of them: the Patriarchal Cathedral at Sofia, the Cathedral church in Talinin, and a church in Tbilisi. These churches are a pledge of friendship of the Russian National-Liberator with brother nations.

Source: https://oca.org/saints/lives/2015/08/30/102424-translation-of-the-relics-of-st-alexander-nevsky

It seems much of the world is in for a slow recovery from the economic malaise of the past few years. What Christians aim to see "fixed" are not the fine points of banking laws, executive salaries, mortgage-backed securities regulations, or bankruptcy protections. Certainly, such changes have their place. Yet the Christian perspective must be far more holistic, pushing beyond corporate and governmental structures to the dispositions of individual people towards wealth and towards the financial, environmental, educational, legal, and social needs of the poor.

Should I buy a new, high-definition TV? Is universal healthcare a right? Should I expand my business? From what manufacturers should I buy my clothing? From the Christian perspective, every aspect of stewardship—time, talents, and money—should carry a concern to restore socio-economic injustice. Fortunately, Christians today not only benefit from the voices of current leaders but also may take advantage of the wisdom of those Christians who in earlier times wrestled with many of these same questions. Early Christianity provides us with a wealth of resources to retrain our minds to think Christianly about wealth, poverty, and the desire to resolve economic disparities.

Case in point: In Mark 10:21 (and the parallel text in Luke 18:22), Jesus told a rich young man that he needed to "sell all that he possessed" in order to be one of his followers. This was as jarring to the early Christian readers as it sounds to us today. Was Jesus suggesting that a person can be too rich for heaven? Early Christians were divided about the question before a consensus emerged around a critique of superfluous wealth.

Renunciation vs. detachment

The natural reading of Mark 10:21 is that Jesus called for a lifestyle of renunciation, that is to say, a disavowal both of wealth and of one's access to wealth. During the second century, some Christian writings taught as much. The Epistle of Barnabas, for example, exhorted its readers, "Treat as common all things with your neighbor, and do not say things are 'one's own,' for if you are sharers in incorruptible things, how much more ought you to be sharers in corruptible things!" The command not to call things "one's own" is also found in Didache 4.8, a late first-or second-century document, although it is less clear in Didache that the author held strictly to a renunciation view.

Even in the second century, however, the matter was the subject of some debate. In Against Heresies, Irenaeus of Lyons accepted that property is morally neutral. Property itself is not to blame; rather, one's use of property should be scrutinized. In fact, the possession of property is not a right, since everything one currently has is the result of someone else's earlier labor. Thus, the property one acquires is always to be used for a morally good purpose. Irenaeus recalled how the Israelites took wealth from the Egyptians just prior to their exodus (cf. Ex 12:35), only later redeeming it when they used it to build their temple. "And we are proved to be righteous by whatsoever else we do well, redeeming, as it were, our property from strange hands." The implication of this argument for later Christians was that, just because you labored in a field for a planting and harvesting season, you do not have the right to declare that all that is harvested from the field is your own. All property is the result of someone else's earlier labor. Someone in an earlier time acquired the raw materials. People in earlier times designed the tools used in harvesting or tradecrafts. Land and any rain that falls upon it are a divine gift and not the product of human labor. Thus, property could never really be considered "private" because no one person could ever claim to have produced every part of it!

Irenaeus's arguments resonated in the third century. One of the bishops of Alexandria, Clement, articulated what we now call a detachment view of wealth and property in Who Is the Rich Man that Shall Be Saved? Clement's text specifically addressed Jesus' teaching in Mark 10, and he applied a spiritual style of exegesis that had gained some currency in his day. A spiritual reading of the text was necessary, argued Clement, for Jesus would otherwise be requiring the renunciation of property in one text while requiring that we regularly share our resources with the poor in another text (cf. Matt 25).

"If no one had anything, what room would be left among men for giving? And how can this dogma fail to be found plainly opposed to and conflicting with many other excellent teachings of the Lord? … How could one give food to the hungry, and drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, and shelter the houseless, for not doing which He threatens with fire and the outer darkness, if each man first divested himself of all these things?" (Clement, Who is the Rich Man that Shall be Saved 13)

Clement articulated a vision for wealth and property in which a person may freely possess what he or she needs or is useful to him or her, but must give all that is superfluous to the poor or otherwise needy. Clement therefore opened a more fruitful course of inquiry: how much is enough?

The rich and the merciless

Clement's critique of superfluous wealth became the standard interpretation of Mark 10:21 for later Christian preachers and theologians. Yet the renunciation view never fully disappeared. In the mid-fourth century, Epiphanius condemned adherents to a renunciation view in his Panarion. A fifth-century Pelagian text, "On Riches," insisted that only renunciation of property and wealth would ensure elimination of poverty for others. Even so, more and more of the ecclesiastical elite articulated the detachment view.

One of Clement's early successors in Alexandria, Peter, preached on the need for detachment from property in his sermon On Riches. Peter said two important things that were echoed in many later Christian texts. First, he argued that God makes a distinction between the rich person and the merciless rich person. The former liberally dispenses his superfluous wealth to the poor; the latter is consumed with thoughts of wealth and despises the needs of the poor. Only the merciful rich person has standing before God. Second, Peter argued that there is a direct connection between the giving of alms by a rich person and that person's fate after death. The distribution of alms to the poor is the starting point for those with greater financial means who wish to ensure that their wealth is not a hindrance to their relationship with God.

So Clement and then Peter set the stage for Christian teaching about Mark 10 that continued throughout late antiquity (and, arguably, continues in our own day). The mid-to late-fourth century theologian Gregory of Nazianzus preached a homily encouraging love for the poor, particularly those with serious health problems. He observed in his homily that inordinate affection for property was responsible for the strife between persons and between nations.

"Men squirrel away gold and silver and quantities of soft and superfluous clothes and glittering jewels and similar items that bear the stamp of war and dissension and of the first act of rebellion, and then in their folly arch their brows and refuse to show compassion towards the unfortunate among their kinsmen." (Gregory, Oration 14.25)

Love for the poor begins, in part, with the recognition that wealth and property truly belong only to God. Similarly, in his homily The Unjust Steward, Asterius of Amasea, a near contemporary of Gregory's, balanced a concern for the temporariness of property with each person's responsibility towards God. Everyone will be obliged one day to give an account before God of his or her use of wealth and property.

A test of virtue

Bridging the fourth and fifth centuries was the preaching career of John Chrysostom. In several homilies Chrysostom framed the wealth question this way: Wealth exists to test human virtue, and whether or not we are virtuous depends on the extent to which we willingly give of our possessions to the poor. In his Homilies on Matthew, he argued giving to the poor is, in fact, giving to them what was already theirs in the first place. God has simply entrusted the rich with the responsibility to dispense it. This is echoed in his Homilies on 2 Corinthians, in which he defined superfluous property as all things that go beyond what is needed to live healthfully and respectably.

"I require you to cut off superfluities and to desire a sufficiency alone. Now the boundary of sufficiency is the using those things which it is impossible to live without. No one keeps you from these nor forbids you your daily food. I say food, not feasting; raiment, not ornament …. [T]hat is superfluous which is more than we need." (John Chrysostom, Hom. 2 Cor 19.3-4)

He exhorted his hearers not to spend their money on unnecessary things, which are not really theirs at all—they ultimately belong to God and to his designated heirs, the poor. Furthermore, he taught that a gradual reduction in one's concern for the body will lead to a gradual reduction of one's acquisition of superfluous property and, correspondingly, a gradual increase in one's willingness to give alms.

Can you be too rich for heaven? According to the early Christians, the answer is most certainly yes. When they read Mark 10:21, they understood Jesus to be saying that superfluous wealth is a clear hindrance to a relationship with God. They appreciated the temporariness of wealth and property, which corresponds to the temporariness of human life on earth. They also recognized that God will require of the rich an account of how they managed that wealth for the benefit of the needy. Finally, the early Christians acknowledged that God intended all of creation to be for the benefit of all. They believed God intended for the rich and poor to share with one another—even if that was conceived in so simple terms as the rich sharing their superfluous wealth and the poor sharing their life of prayer and nearness to God.

Source: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2010/01/can-you-be-too-rich-for-heaven.html

I have been posed a question about doubt. People fear doubt. But they fear in vain, because doubt comes into being when we do not know the truth in full and pose a question.

I will give an example. I once occupied myself with science. One of the characteristics of scientific progress is the calling into question of everything of which you had previously been certain.

When a scientist gathers facts, they are at first uncoordinated. Then he gathers them together, and some kind of general picture emerges. It seems integral. At this point, if he is a true scientist, he will pose a question to himself: where are the cracks? I will search for a fact that will dismantle the integrity of my conception, since my conception is limited.

All science in general consists of collecting facts, arranging them into a single whole, and then calling this whole into question – so that it might become deeper, broader, and fuller.

It is the same with our faith. Each one of us has some experience of God. This experience is trustworthy and should not be rejected. It may be imperfect, but it is pure. But it is not the fullness of knowledge of God.

Then a question begins to creep in. I conceive of God in such-and-such a way. Is He such in reality? But what is being doubted here? My conception, not God. It is like a question for the scientist: is this the objective truth or is it his conception thereof?

Therefore, when doubt arises in us it means that I have outgrown my incomplete conception of God and my imperfect knowledge of Him.

God is saying to me: “Yes, now you have come to see all this. But look at Me: I am greater than that. You cannot be satisfied with the picture you have made for yourself, because it is as small as you yourself, as your mind, as your education, as your imagination. Open up, and pose the question: what might others think about this? What other answers might there be? Do not be afraid: I will not be offended if you call Me into question, because you are not questioning Me, as such, but your own conception of Me.”

If one thus lives, doubt will prove to be the greatest force for progress and for advancing in the knowledge of God and the knowledge of Truth.

By metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh

Source: http://www.pravmir.com/doubt-should-not-be-feared/

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The Creed: Light of Light, True God of True God

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Can a Person Be Too Rich for Heaven?

The Meaning of Shapes and Colors of Orthodox Churches

Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh: "Doubt Should not Be Feared"

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