The Catalog of Good Deeds

1. St James, called the “Brother of the Lord”, was one of 4 sons of Joseph from a previous marriage, all of which are named in scripture. He is given this title because, as the Prologue explains:

“When Joseph was dying, he shared out his goods among his sons and wanted to leave a share to the Lord Jesus, the Son of the most holy Virgin Mary, but his sons opposed this, not reckoning Jesus to be a brother of theirs. James, though, loved Jesus greatly and announced that he would include Him in his share, counting himself to be indeed brother to the Lord.”

2. The Holy Apostle accompanied his family when they fled to Egypt, to escape the wrath of Herod, shortly after Jesus was born. (St James is behind the Theotokos in the icon.)

3. The Holy James was counted among the Seventy disciples of the Lord. No doubt he was always near Jesus but the two Apostles among the twelve named James are different men.

4. Although James was not one of the Twelve, he was so highly respected by his peers that he became the first bishop of Jerusalem, even with some of the Apostles living there at the time. From this it is clear that he was respected as a holy and righteous man. He governed Jerusalem for thirty years, before his martyrdom.

5. St James was so respected by all, including even unbelieving Jews, that he was nicknamed “the Just”.

6. St James remained a virgin all of his life, and is said to have never eaten fat or oil.

7. He was also a great lover of long prayer vigils at night, and is said to have “knees like a camel”, from kneeling in prayer often.

8. He composed the first Liturgy, on the instruction of the Lord. It proved to be too long for later Christians to use everyday, and was later shortened by St Basil and St John Chrysostom. We still serve the “Liturgy of St James” to this day, in some places.

9. St James wrote the Epistle of James. It is remarkable in the NT for bluntly and plainly stressing the moral life that a Christian must lead.

10. St James was martyred in Jerusalem. From The Prologue from Ohrid:

“When Ananias became High Priest, he decided, along with other of the Jewish elders, to kill James as a preacher of Christ. One day, at Pascha, when many people were gathered in Jerusalem, the elders told him to climb up onto a roof and speak against Christ. St James climbed up there, and began to speak to the people about Christ as the Son of God and the true Messiah, and of His Resurrection and eternal glory in heaven. The infuriated priests and elders cast him down from the roof, and he was badly injured though still alive. A man then ran up and gave him such a vicious blow on the head that his brains spilled out. Thus this glorious apostle of Christ died a martyr's death and entered into the Kingdom of his Lord. James was sixty-three years old when he suffered for Christ.”

Source: http://www.orthodox.net/10things/james-brother-of-the-lord.html

Though liturgical prayers on behalf of the departed are reserved for baptized Orthodox Christians only in the Orthodox Church, private prayer made on behalf of those that reposed without holy Baptism or repentance may be seen in the lives of several saints.

In the life of St. Thecla, the first century martyr and follower of the Apostle Paul, we read of her arrest in Antioch during which time she was kept in the custody of Tryphina, a rich noblewoman who although now a Christian, her daughter Falconilla reposed while they were pagans. One night Tryphina beheld her daughter in a dream, who said: "My mother, love the stranger, Thecla. Take her as your daughter in my place, for she is the handmaid of God. She can entreat the Lord to place me with the righteous." When she awoke she related the matter to Thecla and asked her to pray for her daughter. Straightway, Thecla raised her hands in prayer, and uttered with tears: "My Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the true and living God, hearken unto Your handmaiden and grant rest to the soul of Falconilla in life eternal, according to Your holy will."

St. John of Damascus, in his "Homily for Meat-Fare Saturday", testifies concerning this act of Thecla, saying: "Did not the Protomartyr save Falconilla after the latter had reposed? Perhaps you may say that her prayer was heard because she was a martyr. To this I reply that it was indeed fitting that her prayer was heard since she was a martyr. But consider also on whose behalf the supplication was made. Was it not for a pagan, an idolater, altogether profane and estranged from the Lord?"

In this same homily, St. John of Damascus goes on to bring up the example of St. Gregory the Dialogist, Pope of Rome, of whom he writes: "One day, as Gregory the Dialogist, Bishop of Old Rome (a man known to all for his holiness and wisdom, of whom it is said that an angel from heaven served with him when he celebrated the Divine Liturgy), was traveling along a paved stone road, he halted and prayed to God, who loves the souls of men, to forgive the Emperor Trajan his sins. The Saint straightway heard the voice of the most heavenly God, which said to him, 'I have heard your supplication and shall grant Trajan forgiveness, but I command you to cease your entreaties to Me on behalf of the impure.' To the veracity of this account East and West alike bear witness."

Following this, the Damascene mentions Falconilla once more, saying: "The same is true of Falconilla, of whom we spoke before. She was guilty only of worshipping idols, but Trajan sent numerous martyrs to cruel death. You are wonderful, O Master, and marvelous are Your works, and Your inexpressible compassions do we glorify!" Thus we know from the trustworthy testimony of the Damascene that Falconilla was granted salvation after her repose by the prayers of the holy Protomartyr Thecla, and Trajan was granted salvation after his repose by the prayers of the holy Gregory, Pope of Rome.

Other examples from the lives of the saints where private prayer made on behalf of those reposed outside the Church are St. Perpetua who prayed for her unbaptized brother Dinocrates, and St. Theodora the Empress who prayed for her iconoclast husband Theophilos the Emperor.

In each of the above instances, through the fervent entreaty of the saint, Christ granted them a vision where their request for the relief of the reposed was granted. It is not possible to make a formal Church doctrine out of these saint's expressions of love and affection for those that reposed in such precarious spiritual states, but love transcends every barrier.

The following is a model of a private prayer which might be said for a reposed non-Orthodox person as suggested by the Elder Leonid of Optina, one who was experienced in the spiritual life:

Have mercy, O Lord, if it is possible, on the soul of Your servant (name), departed to eternal life in separation from Your Holy Orthodox Church! Unsearchable are Your judgments. Account not this my prayer as sin, but may Your holy will be done!

By John Sanidopoulos

Source: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/2015/09/praying-for-reposed-non-christians-and.html

…Thus, the Church baptizes children not to "remit" their yet nonexistent sins, but in order to give them a new and immortal life, which their mortal parents are unable to communicate to them…

In order to understand many major theological problems, which arose between East and West both before and after the schism, the extraordinary impact upon Western thought of Augustine’s polemics against Pelagius and Julian of Eclanum must be fully taken into account. In the Byzantine world where Augustinian thought exercised practically no influence, the significance of the sin of Adam and of its consequences for mankind was understood along quite different lines.

We have seen that in the East man’s relationship with God was understood as a communion of the human person with that, which is above nature. "Nature" therefore designates that, which is, in virtue of creation, distinct from God. But nature can and must be transcended; this is the privilege and the function of the free mind made "according to God’s image."

Now, in Greek patristic thought, only this free, personal mind can commit sin and incur the concomitant "guilt" — a point made particularly clear by Maximos the Confessor in his distinction between "natural will" and "gnomic will." Human nature as God’s creature always exercises its dynamic properties (which together constitute the "natural will" — a created dynamism) in accordance with the divine will, which creates it. But when the human person, or hypostasis, by rebelling against both God and nature misuses its freedom, it can distort the "natural will" and thus corrupt nature itself. It is able to do so because it possesses freedom, or "gnomic will," which is capable of orienting man toward the good and of "imitating God" ("God alone is good by nature," writes Maximos, "and only God’s imitator is good by his gnome"); it is also capable of sin because "our salvation depends on our will." But sin is always a personal act and never an act of nature. Patriarch Photios even goes so far as to say, referring to Western doctrines, that the belief in a "sin of nature" is a heresy.

From these basic ideas about the personal character of sin, it is evident that the rebellion of Adam and Eve against God could be conceived only as their personal sin; there would be no place, then, in such an anthropology for the concept of inherited guilt, or for a "sin of nature," although it admits that human nature incurs the consequences of Adam’s sin.

The Greek patristic understanding of man never denies the unity of mankind or replaces it with a radical individualism. The Pauline doctrine of the two Adams ("As in Adam all men die, so also in Christ all are brought to life" [1 Co 15:22]) as well as the Platonic concept of the ideal man leads Gregory of Nyssa to understand Genesis 1:27 — "God created man in His own image" — to refer to the creation of mankind as a whole. It is obvious therefore that the sin of Adam must also be related to all men, just as salvation brought by Christ is salvation for all mankind; but neither original sin nor salvation can be realized in an individual’s life without involving his personal and free responsibility.

The scriptural text, which played a decisive role in the polemics between Augustine and the Pelagians, is found in Romans 5:12 where Paul speaking of Adam writes, "As sin came into the world through one man and through sin, death, so death spread to all men because all men have sinned [eph ho pantes hemarton]." In this passage there is a major issue of translation. The last four Greek words were translated in Latin as in quo omnes peccaverunt ("in whom [i.e., in Adam] all men have sinned"), and this translation was used in the West to justify the doctrine of guilt inherited from Adam and spread to his descendants. But such a meaning cannot be drawn from the original Greek — the text read, of course, by the Byzantines. The form eph ho — a contraction of epi with the relative pronoun ho — can be translated as "because," a meaning accepted by most modern scholars of all confessional backgrounds. Such a translation renders Paul’s thought to mean that death, which is "the wages of sin" (Romans 6:23) for Adam, is also the punishment applied to those who like him sin. It presupposed a cosmic significance of the sin of Adam, but did not say that his descendants are "guilty" as he was unless they also sinned as he did.

A number of Byzantine authors, including Photios, understood the eph ho to mean "because" and saw nothing in the Pauline text beyond a moral similarity between Adam and other sinners in death being the normal retribution for sin. But there is also the consensus of the majority of Eastern Fathers, who interpret Romans 5:12 in close connection with 1 Corinthians 15:22 — between Adam and his descendants there is a solidarity in death just as there is a solidarity in life between the risen Lord and the baptized. This interpretation comes, obviously, from the literal, grammatical meaning of Romans 5:12. Eph ho, if it means "because," is a neuter pronoun; but it can also be masculine referring to the immediately preceding substantive thanatos ("death"). The sentence then may have a meaning, which seems improbable to a reader trained in Augustine, but which is indeed the meaning which most Greek Fathers accepted: "As sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all men; and because of death, all men have sinned..."

Mortality, or "corruption," or simply death (understood in a personalized sense), has indeed been viewed since Christian antiquity as a cosmic disease, which holds humanity under its sway, both spiritually and physically, and is controlled by the one who is "the murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44). It is this death, which makes sin inevitable and in this sense "corrupts" nature.

For Cyril of Alexandria, humanity after the sin of Adam "fell sick of corruption." Cyril’s opponents, the theologians of the School of Antioch, agreed with him on the consequence of Adam’s sin. For Theodore of Mopsuestia, "by becoming mortal, we acquired greater urge to sin." The necessity of satisfying the needs of the body — food, drink, and other bodily needs — are absent in immortal beings; but among mortals, they lead to "passions," for they present unavoidable means of temporary survival. Theodoret of Cyrus repeats almost literally the arguments of Theodore in his own commentary on Romans; elsewhere, he argues against the sinfulness of marriage by affirming that transmission of mortal life is not sinful in itself, in spite of Psalm 51:7 ("my mother conceived me in sin"). This verse, according to Theodoret, refers not to the sexual act but to the general sinful condition of mortal humanity: "Having become mortal, [Adam and Eve] conceived mortal children, and mortal beings are a necessarily subject to passions and fears, to pleasures and sorrows, to anger and hatred."

There is indeed a consensus in Greek patristic and Byzantine traditions in identifying the inheritance of the Fall as an inheritance essentially of mortality rather than of sinfulness, sinfulness being merely a consequence of mortality. The idea appears in Chrysostom, who specifically denies the imputation of sin to the descendants of Adam; in the eleventh-century commentator Theophylact of Ohrida; and in later Byzantine authors, particularly in Gregory Palamas. The always-more-sophisticated Maximos the Confessor, when he speaks of the consequences of the sin of Adam, identifies them mainly with the mind’s submission to the flesh and finds in sexual procreation the most obvious expression of man’s acquiescence in animal instincts; but as we have seen, sin remains, for Maximos, a personal act, and inherited guilt is impossible. For him, as for the others, "the wrong choice made by Adam brought in passion, corruption, and mortality," but not inherited guilt.

The contrast with Western tradition on this point is brought into sharp focus when Eastern authors discuss the meaning of baptism. Augustine’s arguments in favor of infant baptism were taken from the text of the creeds (baptism for "the remission of sins") and from his understanding of Romans 5:12. Children are born sinful, not because they have sinned personally, but because they have sinned "in Adam"; their baptism is therefore also a baptism "for the remission of sins." At the same time, an Eastern contemporary of Augustine’s, Theodoret of Cyrus, flatly denies that the creedal formula "for the remission of sins" is applicable to infant baptism. For Theodoret, in fact, the "remission of sins" is only a side effect of baptism, fully real in cases of adult baptism, which is the norm, of course, in the early Church and which indeed "remits sins." But the principal meaning of baptism is wider and more positive: "If the only meaning of baptism is the remission of sins," writes Theodoret, "why would we baptize the newborn children who have not yet tasted of sin? But the mystery [of baptism] is not limited to this; it is a promise of greater and more perfect gifts. In it, there are the promises of future delights; it is a type of the future resurrection, a communion with the master’s passion, a participation in His resurrection, a mantle of salvation, a tunic of gladness, a garment of light, or rather it is light itself."

Thus, the Church baptizes children not to "remit" their yet nonexistent sins, but in order to give them a new and immortal life, which their mortal parents are unable to communicate to them. The opposition between the two Adams is seen in terms not of guilt and forgiveness but of death and life. "The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven; as was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven" (1 Corinthians 15:47-48). Baptism is the paschal mystery, the "passage." All its ancient forms, especially the Byzantine, include a renunciation of Satan, a triple immersion as type of death and resurrection, and the positive gift of new life through anointing and Eucharistic communion.

In this perspective, death and mortality are viewed, not so much as retribution for sin (although they are also a just retribution for personal sins) but as means through which the fundamentally unjust "tyranny" of the devil is exercised over mankind after Adam’s sin. From this, baptism is liberation, because it gives access to the new immortal life brought into the world by Christ’s Resurrection. The Resurrection delivers men from the fear of death and, therefore, also from the necessity of struggling for existence. Only in the light of the risen Lord does the Sermon on the Mount acquire its full realism: "Do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" (Matthew 6:25).

Communion in the risen body of Christ, participation in divine life, sanctification through the energy of God, which penetrates true humanity and restores it to its "natural" state rather than justification, or remission of inherited guilt, — these are at the center of Byzantine understanding of the Christian Gospel.

By Fr. John Meyendorff

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/thetaboriclight/original_sin

It’s unfortunate when we become so focused on the symptoms of a problem that we ignore its underlying causes. Some Christian rhetoric on same-sex marriage has done precisely that and has failed as a result to transcend the dynamics of conventional partisan politics. Instead of illuminating the unique glory of the life-giving union of husband and wife as an icon of the Holy Trinity and of the salvation of the world, the defenders of traditional marriage often merely skim the surface of public morality. The fundamental problem isn’t that increasing numbers of Americans approve of same-sex marriage; it’s that many Christians and others have forgotten the holiness and unique vocation of the man-woman relationship. Once we lose that key link, the possibility of thinking coherently—and faithfully– about human sexuality is gone.

In order to speak with integrity on marriage and family issues, we need first to take a sober look at the failure of the churches to equip our members to embody chastity and sexual purity, and thus to be a witness of holiness in stark contrast to the moral corruption so pervasive in our culture and world.

Especially since the dawn of the sexual revolution, Christians have too often turned a blind eye to promiscuity, pre-marital sex, serial divorce and remarriage, and a hedonistic culture that excuses all things in the name of an individual’s pleasure and self-defined happiness. No wonder so many Americans seem to dismiss opposition to same-sex marriage as self-righteous hypocrisy and arbitrary discrimination. Those who tolerate—and at times even seem to condone—sex and cohabitation for unmarried men and women have little standing to criticize the prospect of legal sanction for gay unions. If there is no visible difference between how Christians and others handle these crucial life-shaping matters, why should anyone take seriously what we have to say? If we do not call heterosexuals to holiness, why all the bother about the much smaller population of homosexuals?

Likewise, we misdirect our energies when we speak of civil marriage in contemporary America as though it were identical to Christian marriage.

Something accomplished before a justice of the peace and recorded at the court house impacts taxes, inheritance, and other legal matters, but cannot turn water into wine as a sign of the Kingdom of God. Holy matrimony does not simply grant civil sanction to the broken union of Adam and Eve, but heals and blesses their common life as a sign of the relationship between Christ and the Church. It is a calling, not a right, for anyone. Man and woman wear the crowns of the Kingdom as their love for one another finds its true fulfillment in the Lord. God created us male and female in the divine image and likeness, giving opposite-sex couples the unique ability to bring forth new life from their own bodies out of love for one another. Through this blessed union, parents and children become an image of the Holy Trinity, sharing a union of love that binds them together and enables them to learn to love Christ in one another. By the restoration of the primal unity of male and female in God, Christian marriage becomes a sign of the salvation not merely of two individuals, but of all humanity and of the creation itself. Perhaps that is why our Savior so often used the image of a wedding feast for the Kingdom of God.

Eastern Orthodox Christianity believes that man and woman are not interchangeable bundles of individual rights; instead, the two sexes play complementary roles in our common salvation. Jesus Christ and the Theotokos, the apostles and the myrrh bearing women, St. Macrina with her brothers Sts. Basil and Gregory, and so many other examples from Scripture, hymnody, icons, and the saints demonstrate the abiding mystery of the male-female distinction and relationship in our pursuit of theosis. The same God who creates us as male and female saves us in relationship to one another. Instead of abandoning biological distinctions as though our bodies were irrelevant and the two sexes identical, we look to the Lord, His Mother, and ongoing generations of holy men and women to teach us how to live faithfully in relation to one another as male and female. We deal here with a great mystery, as the Logos who spoke the world into existence also made us man and woman in the divine image. The male Son rose from the dead and ascended into heaven; and the female Mother who bore Him followed into the Kingdom at her Dormition. Even in the world to come, the distinction of man and woman will remain.

No, God does not call everyone to marriage, not even all heterosexuals. Yes, He invites everyone to holiness; preserving sexual intimacy for the blessed state of marriage between a man and a woman is part of that calling, as the Church has taught consistently for two thousand years. Nonetheless, holy people have—and continue to—struggle with temptations of all kinds. Through fasting and other forms of self-denial, nourishment by the Holy Mysteries of the Church, participation in healthy friendships and communities, and sincere confession and repentance when we stumble, all of us– regardless of sexual inclinations—find strength and healing to press forward to the high calling that is ours in Christ Jesus. The nature of one’s particular temptations is irrelevant; the point is to turn away from them and live faithfully.

Christian witness on these matters faces serious cultural challenges today. One hears that the growing support for same-sex marriage reflects positive portraits of homosexuals on both the small and the large screen, as well as the experience of knowing friends and family members who are gay. Straight people are apparently marrying at declining rates, while many gay couples enthusiastically seek legal recognition of their unions. Some people seem to be more impressed by the commitment of same-sex partners to one another than by that of the married couples they know. Appeals to the equal rights of individuals to the benefits of marriage, however defined, clinch the argument for many.

Until very recently, of course, no culture or world religion recognized same-sex relationships as holy, or even legal, matrimony. From the perspective of Orthodox Christianity the revisionist claims distort the truth about what it means to be man and a woman in God’s image and likeness. They endorse sexual expression apart from the loving, covenanted unity of male-female difference that alone is blessed to bring forth new life. They respond to the desires of individuals in terms of the categories of the corrupt world, not of the struggle of disciplining oneself in order to respond more fully to the divine eros. Though Christian and civil marriage are not identical, Orthodoxy will not embrace society’s official redefinition of the fundamental nature of marriage contrary to what God has established from the origins of the human race. The Church cannot bless same-sex unions as marriages, for that is not what they are. Sacraments restore persons and their relationships according to God’s original intention for us to be like Him; and He created us male and female in His image toward the end of our salvation.

Contrary to popular assumptions, this stance on marriage does not entail that we should condemn, judge, or shun people who are in intimate relationships with members of the same sex. Orthodox priests concern themselves only with the sexual and other sins named in confession or with the very rare scandalous situation that has to be addressed in the parish. And confession is not about condemnation, but forgiveness, healing, and growth, regardless of the sin confessed. Like the rest of us, those who struggle with same-sex attraction need guidance and support throughout their lives as they progress in holiness. Yes, all really are called to enter into the holiness of God, to become saints. A Church that honors King David, Photini, Moses the Black, and Mary of Egypt can ask no less. Like the Samaritan woman, all who suffer disordered sexual passions are more likely to respond to genuine expressions of compassion and respect that point them toward the living water that satisfies at a level deeper than physical desire. Yes, the Church must speak the truth about sexuality, but also about pride, self-righteous judgment, hatred, and gossip. And given the Lord’s definition of adultery in the Sermon on the Mount, none of us is in the position to look down upon others for sexual sin. After all, who doesn’t have disordered desires? And the vast majority of sexual sin is surely between people of opposite sex. We must be very careful with our words.

In our current cultural context, the witness of true Christian marriage simply must become visible, vibrant, and robust, if it is to be taken seriously by mainstream culture. All the more is our need to be vigilant in our parishes and families, in our friendships and neighborhoods and schools, in our choices of entertainment and attire, to form ourselves in chastity both in our bodily actions and the thoughts of our hearts. Of course, we never do that alone, but in communion with the Church and with the support of fellow strugglers who want to participate more fully in the divine nature.

The early Christians impressed even the pagan Romans with their care for the dying and their rescue of exposed infants. It’s time for the current generation of Christians to impress our society with the chaste love of man and woman as a sign of God’s covenantal fidelity in Jesus Christ. There is no better response to the challenges posed by the ongoing sexual revolution than the living icon of Christian marriage—of Adam and Eve healed and blessed as they wear the crowns of the Kingdom and bring new persons into the world out of their love for one another. That’s how God intends life to go on in His good creation. It’s precisely the differences between male and female that make the union of marriage life-giving, complementary, and a path to salvation. True marriage manifests the healing of our humanity in the image of God as man and woman. Our challenge is not only to say words about marriage, but to live them out in ways that draw others to Christ and His Church. That’s the most fundamental political action of the Christian community: to embody a life that conquers death, that heals our broken, corrupt humanity—body and soul, male and female. If we do that, we will address not just the symptoms of the moral decay of our society, but also its underlying causes.

By Fr. Philip LeMasters

Source: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/easternchristianinsights/2012/06/02/male-and-female-in-gods-image/

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