AJournq to theAncient

Christian Faith
 2-

"BECOMING ORTHODOX"
I highly recowaend this book to all — both to

Orthodox Christians and to those not yet so, and

especially to baptized Orthodox Christians who
have fallen away, This work is a aost compelling
testament to the truths preserved in the saving
body of Christ's One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic
Church,

Although the Bass ordinations lentioned here (pgs,

174-175) are of certain concern to all Orthodox, I

ai sure that in the true desire to bring their

coniunity to coaplete parity with the pleroiia of
the Church, this issue will eventually be faced
and correctly resolved,

ARCHPRIEST STEFAN PAVLENKO

AJournq to theAncient
ChristianFaith

Peter E. Gillquist

Wolgemuth
m
& Hyatt, Publishers, Inc.
Brentwood, Tennessee
© 1989 by Peter E. Gillquist

All rights reserved. Published August, 1989. First Edition.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval

system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechani-
cal, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written per-
mission of the publisher, except for brief quotations in critical reviews
or articles.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from the New
King James Version of the Bible, © 1979, 1980, 1982, 1984 by Thomas
Nelson, Inc., Nashville, Tennessee and are used by permission.

Quotations noted NASB are from the New American Standard Bible,

copyrighted by the Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968,

1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, and used by permission.

Wolgemuth &. Hyatt, Publishers, Inc.

1749 Mallory Lane, Suite 110, Brentwood, Tennessee 37027.
Printed in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gillquist, Peter E.
Becoming Orthodox : a journey to the ancient Christian faith /

Peter E. Gillquist.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-943497-67-1: $9.95
1 . Antiochian Evangelical Orthodox Mission — History.
2. Orthodox Church — History.3. Antiochian Orthodox
Evangelical
Christian Archdiocese of North America — History.4. Orthodox
Eastern Church — United States — History.5. Orthodox Eastern
Church —
Doctrines. I. Title.
BX738.A743 1989
281.973 -dc20 89-35752
CIP
 To His Eminence,
Metropolitan PHILIP Saliba

You said in Detroit in 1987

that you had to receive
if

the Evangelical Orthodox into

the Archdiocese again, you would
do it a million times.

On behalf of us all, we'd

say Yes again, a million times!
God grant you many years.

ARCHPRIEST STEFAN PAVLENKO

1136 PALM DRIVE
BURLINGAME, CA 94010
(415)344-4355
 1

CONTENTS

Foreword / ix

Introduction / J

PART ONE: FROM ARROWHEAD SPRINGS

TO ANTIOCH
1. Never Say Never / 5
2. The Phantom Search for the Perfect Church / 1

3. A Week We Will Not Forget / 33

4. Finding the New Testament Church / 49

PART TWO: ORTHODOXY AND THE BIBLE

5. The "T" Word / 65
6. Why We Worship the Way We Do / 79
7. CallNo Man Father / 97
8. Facing Up to Mary / 107
9. A Sign for All Christians / 123

PART THREE: THE GREAT ENTRANCE

10. A Decade of Decision / 135

11. Welcome Home! / 153

12. On to the Third Millennium / 173

About the Author / J 85

vu
 FOREWORD

How welcomeThis is
is this book!
the story of a group of evangelical Christi-
ans—mostly North American Protestants — who engaged
in the search for the Church of the New Testament and
found it in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition.
Obviously this volume is intended for Protestants
and Roman Catholics alike who would take this same
risk of engaging in such a search. The paradox, however,
is that its impact beautifully touches those of us born
and raised in the Orthodox Christian Faith.
I am a witness of this. I loved reading this book. It

flows like a novel. It is which captures

a "piece of life"

the humor and disappointment, the irony and failure,

that is always found in the fabric of life.
I believe this book should be read by those who are

searching, but also by those of us already in the Orthodox

Church. Peter Gillquist has done an excellent job!

Professor Joseph Allen, Th.D.

St. Vladimir's Seminary
Crestwood, N.Y.

IX
 INTRODUCTION

What on earth would motivate a body of two thou-

sand North American Christians to move from a
very upbeat form of evangelical Protestantism to arguably
the oldest form of apostolic faith — in just over a decade?
How could people with backgrounds in Campus Cru-
sade,Youth for Christ, and Young Life buy into the Or-
thodox Church? Why would Christians with alma maters
including Wheaton College, Dallas Seminary, Fuller
Seminary, Southwestern Baptist Seminary, Seattle Pa-
cific University, Oral Roberts University, Lincoln Chris-
tian College, and Biola University come together in the
first place — and
then end up embracing historic ecclesiol-
ogy, liturgical worship, and sacrament?
From February to April, 1987, this entire body of the
Evangelical Orthodox Church, clergy and laity, were
brought parish by parish into full communion with the
Orthodox Church by Metropolitan Philip Saliba, Arch-
bishop of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdio-
cese of North America. (The term metropolitan refers to
a bishop who oversees a province or nation, not a dio-
cese. Archbishop is a bishop who generally presides over a
body of bishops. The terms are often used interchangeably.)
2 Introduction

This book is a step-by-step chronicle of that journey,

tackling one-by-one the difficult and sometimes wrench-
ing biblical and theological matters which were faced in
the process.
Besides our own story, we will look at the beginning
of the Christian Church in the New Testament and
travel on through the centuries to the Church in our
time. It is my personal story, yet an account that tries its

best to record the pilgrimage of everyone involved.

I wish to acknowledge the work of Jon Braun in
Fr.

chapter 4, "Finding the New Testament Church;" Fr.

Richard Ballew in chapter 7, "Call No Man Father;" and
Fr. Weldon Hardenbrook in chapter 9, "A Sign for All
Christians." My thanks also to Mrs. Shirley Dillon for her
tireless typing of the manuscript through several drafts.
Finally, my sincere appreciation to Frs. Joseph Allen,
Gordon Walker, Jack Sparks, Gregory Rogers, Deacon
Michael Hyatt, and to Tom and JoAnn Webster for re-
viewing the final manuscript.

Peter E. Gillquist
Santa Barbara, California
 PART ONE
FROM
ARROWHEAD
SPRINGS TO
ANTIOCH
 1
NEVER SAY NEVER

Notever witnessed
your in
such
lifetime, not in
a
my lifetime, have we
mass conversion to holy Or-
thodoxy," announced Metropolitan Philip Saliba as he
began his sermon at St. Nicholas Cathedral in Los Ange-
les that February morning in 1987.
In truth, was afternoon. With the ordination of
it

sixty of us to the deaconate and the priesthood, plus the

receiving of nearly two hundred lay people, the service
had already taken up over four hours!
Priests and lay leaders had come from all over North
America to witness the event. Friends and family came
to take part. Bishop Maximos of the Pittsburgh diocese
of the Greek Orthodox Church was present and spoke at
the banquet which followed.
had been an entire week of festivity. The receiving
It

of new members and ordinations had begun the week

before, February 8, at St. Michael's church in the Los
Angeles suburb of Van Nuys. Those to be ordained
priests this day, February 15, had been ordained deacons
a week earlier. In the Orthodox Church, you do not go
from lay status to the priesthood in a single step.
6 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

"Last week I said to the evangelicals, Welcome

home!'" the Archbishop continued. "Today I am saying,
'Come home, America. Come home to the faith of Peter
and Paul."'
I looked across the large expanse of the altar area at
the cathedral and into the eyes of the threescore others
who had, with me, just received the grace of ordination
to holy orders. The smell of incense lingered from the
celebration of the Divine Liturgy, and the candles on the
huge marble altar were still aglow.
Many of the Orthodox priests who had come such a
great distance to participate had tears in their eyes, as
did many of us newcomers to the Church. "Our fathers
brought Orthodoxy to America," whispered the veteran
priest James Meena of his Arabic Christian forbearers.
Then he smiled and added, "Now it's your turn to bring
America to Orthodoxy."
Why would America need Orthodox Christianity —
or even be remotely interested in it? It's so old, so for-
eign, so "catholic," so complicated. Could it ever, as we
say, play in Peoria?

But second, and of even more immediate concern,

whatever would so possess two thousand Bible-believing,
blood-bought, Gospel-preaching, Christ-centered, life-

long evangelical Protestants to come to embrace this Or-

todox faith so enthusiastically? Is this a new form of reli-

gious rebellion? Have vital Spirit-filled Christian people

somehow jumped the track to a staid and lifeless, crusty,
gloom? Worse yet, is this one of those subtle de-
sacral
ceptions of the enemy?
Those of us who led this particular journey met in
Campus Crusade for Christ. Though we were products of
the Fifties, we must have been something of a tip-off to
 Never Say Never 7

the turbulent Sixties just ahead: dissatisfied — or better

to say, unsatisfied — with the status quo of what we per-
ceived as dull, denominational American Christianity.
Gutsy, outspoken, radical, hopefully maximal — we
didn't like the institutional Church and we didn't like the
world system, and we were out to change them both.
What great days they were! We wouldn't trade them
for anything. And we would not trade where we are now
for anything. The one certainly led us to the other.

"There's one campus in America you guys can never

crack," an evangelical businessman friend told me over
lunch in Chicago one day in late 1965.
"Which one?" I shot back, already having deter-
mined in my mind that I would go there next.
"Notre Dame," he smirked.
"Bet we can," I said. We finished eating over small
talk and said goodbye.
I hurried home and telephoned the chaplain's office
in South Bend. "I'd like to see him just as soon as possi-
ble," I told the secretary after identifying myself.
"I have an appointment for you to see Father at nine
tomorrow morning," she said after checking his schedule.
"Good. I'll be there."
That's the way we were. The greater the challenge,
the higher themark on the wall, the better we liked it.
And the better we performed. I threw some clothes in a
suitcase, said goodbye to my
and children, pulled wife
out of our snow-packed driveway in Evanston and
headed down Outer Drive toward South Bend. I
8 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

checked into a motel adjacent to the campus with a

prayer that the doors to the Irish would somehow be open.
A few months later we had probably twenty-five
hundred students from Notre Dame and the adjacent
St. Mary's College packed into the brand new Convo-

cation Center on campus, for two nights in a row, to

hear Jon Braun and the New Folk, our preaching/sing-
ing team. I had promised the chaplain, "We're not
coming to make Protestants out of them, but to call
them to a deeper commitment to Jesus Christ." And I
meant every word of it.
The response was incredible. In those days, we
passed out 3 "x 5 "cards and asked kids to put a check
mark by their names if they had prayed with us to open
up their lives to Christ. Over two hundred had checked.
We had cracked Notre Dame.
Then came Cal Berkeley. "The Berkeley Blitz," we
called it. That was the winter of the 1966-67 school
year. We decided we had had enough of the free speech
movement and Betina Apthecker. "Let's hit the campus
and shake it to the core," we told each other. Hundreds
of students — Berkeley students! —gave up their lunch
hour to hear Billy Graham speak in the Greek Theater
on campus, following his earlier breakfast meeting with
scores of facultymembers. Jon Braun spoke on the steps
of Sproul Hall the next morning and actually shut down
a heckler from the crowd. Nobody else would challenge
him, and we won.
Though there were not the on-going results we had
hoped for at Berkeley, at least we had engaged the radi-
cals on their own turf and had succeeded in doing what
we had set out to do.
 Never Say Never 9

At once, we loved it and we hated it. A shock-troop

mentality is thrilling fun, but it can also bring deep dis-

appointment. Though we exhibited some of the same

boldness we saw in the early Christians in the book of
Acts, we found nowhere near the long-term staying
power in those we reached. Most of the decisions for
Christ honestly did not stick.
Our slogan was "Win the Campus for Christ
Today — Win the World for Christ Tomorrow." As much
as we loathed to admit it, while we were busy winning
the campus, the world was getting worse. We had estab-
lished a Campus Crusade chapter on many of the major
campuses in America during the decade of the Sixties,

but it was precisely same Sixties that our

in those
nation's campuses came unglued. They unraveled mor-
ally, politically, and culturally. We had done our job,

and things got worse, not better. The campus world of

1970 was far, far less culturally Christian than the cam-
pus world of 1960.
"What we are doing is not working," we admitted to

each other. "We get the decisions, we get the commit-

ments to Christ, we are building the organization and
recruiting the staff, but we are not affecting a change.
We are a failure in the midst of our own success."
Dr. Jack Sparks couldn't get his mind off Berkeley. He
had been a professor teaching statistics and research de-
sign at Penn State and at the University of Northern Col-
orado before he joined the Campus Crusade staff to direct

a systematic follow-up program of literature through com-

puterized distribution. Now, after the blitz, he asked for
and got a few hard-core Campus Crusade staff people to
join him, and he took off for the Berkeley campus.
10 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

He out-radicalized all of the rest of us. He swapped

out his business suits for denim overalls and work shirts,

grew a beard, and hit the campus with a higher commit-

ment to Christ than the radicals had ever had to their
causes. He even
baptized some of his converts in the fa-
mous fountain on the Berkeley campus mall!
The he used, the literature he produced, and
style

the life he and his wife Esther lived crossed over the new
counter-culture barriers and began to produce something
that gave promise of permanence. It bordered on some-
thing you would see in the Book of Acts. It looked less
and less like Campus Crusade, and more and more like
the beginnings of a Christian community — or dare I say,
a church.
 2
THE PHANTOM
SEARCH FOR THE
PERFECT CHURCH

had been raised in a mainline denominational church

I in Minneapolis. Among my earliest desires as a child
was the desire to follow God. Sunday school and church
were a given on Sunday morning. Even the nonserious
kids rarely cut. I never disbelieved in God that I recall. I

just gotbored somewhere along the way.

Through grade school, we sat with our parents. By
junior high, the "precious young people," as the older
adults often called us, sat together. And as we grew
older, we moved farther and farther back.
In high school, was elected president of the youth
I

group. That meant I had to lead devotions on Sunday

night, and I felt empty. "I'm not sure I'm even a Chris-
tian anymore," I told my friend, who was president the
year ahead of me.

n
12 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

"You're miles ahead of me," he responded. "I don't

believe there's a God." And he had been one of the most
vigorous and active kids in the whole congregation!
In 1956, after high school, I enrolled across town at

the University of Minnesota. The following year, I joined

a fraternityand moved on campus. The fraternity house
was right next door to our denominational student cen-
ter, and I can remember vowing I would never set foot

in the place, and I never did. It was not that I hated

God or even the Church. Simply, the Church no longer
did anything for me. It scratched a place that didn't itch.
So I quit going. And nobody ever came after me.
Except Campus Crusade for Christ.
The local "Crusade" man was systematically speaking
in all the fraternities on campus, and ours was on the
list. By now it was 1959, and our chapter president, a

Roman Catholic, had invited a different religious speaker

in every Monday night during Lent to help straighten up
the level of life in the fraternity. The Crusade team was
a part of that series.
When I heard these people stand up and unasham-
edly tellwhat Jesus Christ meant to them, the message
rang a resonant chord somewhere down inside me. My
girlfriend, Marilyn, had already made a firm commitment

of her life to Christ a month earlier, and I knew I would

have to do the same thing. I helped the Crusade leader
start a weekly Bible study in the fraternity. And after
about three or four weeks,I committed myself to Christ

in prayerone night after the evening Bible study when

everyone else had gone to bed. I knew I meant business
in my decision to follow Him, no matter what the cost.
Shortly afterwards — and I don't recall which hap-
pened first — I took the Crusade leader to a Lutheran
 The Phantom Search for the Perfect Church 1 3

church, and he took me to his independent Baptist

church. He had me tell the story of my recent conver-
sion before a large Sunday school group. But even more
memorable was the morning I persuaded him to go with
me. We went to a Lutheran church in downtown Min-
neapolis and listened to what I felt was an excellent ser-
mon on living for Christ.
On the way out the door, he turned and said to me.
"Well, I'm going to have to go home and eat."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"The Bible is the sincere milk of the Word, and I'm
starving to death," he said.
"You mean you didn't like the service?" I asked.
"There just was no solid content to it, no verse-by-
verse Bible teaching," he said with a frown.
"But you heard what he said about Christ," I said. "I

felt he did a good job."

"Well, your discernment will grow as you get to
know the Lord better," he said. "We have got to have
in-depth Bible teaching in order to grow in our faith."
How could argue I with that? I started devouring the
New Testament.
In the months that followed, I came to love Christ
more and the organized Church less. Though not every-
one in Campus Crusade believed as our staff leader did,
through his influence I came to reject communion and
baptism as sacraments through which the grace of God
comes to us, and I embraced a more privatized faith in
God. In fact, a year later I was rebaptized at my own
request by a Baptist minister in Dallas. I was sure my
had not "taken."
infant baptism
warmth and intimacy and enthusiasm
Preferring the
of Campus Crusade meetings to the rigidity of Sunday
14 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

worship, I found myself moving from my past experience

of Church without Christ to the very opposite: Christ

without Church. Only later was I to discover that nei-
ther will carry you for the long haul.
That summer I attended a Campus Crusade confer-
ence on the outskirts of the Twin Cities. It was there I

met a number of the men with whom I would serve God

for the rest of my life. Dick Ballew and his wife Sylvia

had pulled in a day late because their car had broken

down somewhere between Texas and Minneapolis. He
stood and told how he was able to introduce the garage
mechanic to Christ — right on the spot. Boy, that's it! I

thought to myself. That's what I want to be able to do.

By my senior year in college I had set as my goal to
devote my life to the ministry, perhaps even in the insti-

tutional church. One morning I drove across the river to

St. Paul and visited the campus of a nearby denomina-
tional seminary. There was an older professor on the fac-
ulty who was known as a very godly man. I went to see
him and told him my story of growing up in the Church,
straying away, and then coming back to faith in Christ at
the University. "I feel God is calling me to the ministry
and wonder about coming here for my seminary work," I

volunteered as I ended my saga.

Tears came into his eyes. "I pray for young men like

you to come here to seminary," he said. "But don't come.

Go somewhere else. Here they'll talk you out of every-
thing you have come to believe." I was unaware then that
what I would come to know as "Protestant liberalism" was
in its heyday at many of the major denominational semi-
naries. I enrolled at Dallas Theological Seminary in Dal-
las, Texas, and I promise you, it wasn't liberal!
 5

The Phantom Search for the Perfect Church 1

My time at Dallas absolutely settled for me the issue

of whether or not the Bible was inspired. Though I had
not experienced any real personal crisis over the ques-
tion, at Dallas we learned why it was inspired, what the
Scriptures claim about themselves, and the importance
of reading and believing the Scriptures. During that first
year in seminary, Marilyn, my new bride, and I lived
across the street from Southern Methodist University
where she took her junior year of college. I started the
Campus Crusade program at SMU.
The following year, I was asked to consider moving
to Chicago to begin Campus Crusade at Northwestern
University in Evanston, to develop a Chicago-area
board, and to recruit staff at Wheaton College. I asked
the registrar at Dallas, now its president, Donald Camp-
bell, for support in leaving seminary after one year to
transfer to Wheaton Graduate School. He gave me his
blessing, and we moved to the Windy City in the sum-
mer of 1961 to begin our work.
It was at Wheaton that I resumed the process of dis-

enchantment with Church. I had now been educated

against anything with sacramental and liturgical over-

tones both in Campus Crusade and at Dallas Seminary.

There were a few "weirdoes" or "rebels" at Wheaton
who wore wire-rimmed glasses and tweed sport coats and
opted for the Episcopal church. Most of the rest of us
leaned toward what had become a growing American
phenomenon: the Bible Church. I was drawn to the
preaching and biblical exposition. And the singing —
though sometimes glitzy — was at least energetic and
There were times both Marilyn and I wanted a bit
alive.

more dignity, or maybe majesty, in the Sunday morning

16 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

services, but giving up more meaningful worship was the

trade-off for the preaching of the Bible.
One fraternity brother had, before I left college, ac-
cused me of buying into "bargain basement Christianity."
I cringed when he said it because I suspected he could
be right. But what was the alternative? The more I stud-
ied about liberalism in the mainline churches, the more
fearful I became of ever swapping Bible preaching for

beauty in worship.
Occasionally Marilyn and I would visit a denomina-
tional church, such as an evangelical Lutheran or Pres-
byterian, and be drawn back toward more serious wor-
ship. But we would balk at joining because eight or ten
blocksdown the street would be another church of that
same denomination where the pastor would call into
question the resurrection of Christ or His virgin birth or
other basics of the Christian faith. We had experienced
too much of the reality of a personal walk with Christ,
the joy of believing, and love for the Scriptures to ever
want to be part of something disbelieving, dead, or dull.

It was exciting to be a committed Christian, and I deter-

mined that nothing was going to interfere.

After a year at Wheaton, we moved up to Evanston
to devote ourselves full time for the next six years to
campus outreach at Northwestern University. We en-
countered fierce resistance from the campus religious
community, who saw us as a threat to the established
denominational student groups. Neither our evangelical
beliefs nor our parachurch identity was welcomed.
Nonetheless in the mid-Sixties, we succeeded in finally
establishing Campus Crusade as a recognized campus
group at Northwestern.
 7

The Phantom Search for the Perfect Church 1

Our teams of staff and students spent their hours

speaking in the various campus living groups and talking
with students about Christ, individually over Cokes or
coffee. We became the fastest-growing Christian group
on campus. Some tolerance for us began to emerge be-
cause we were determined to play by the rules, but
heated theological disagreements still remained. We
were seen as sheep stealers and fundamentalists. But
evangelism was getting into my blood; bringing people to
Christ brought incredible fulfillment and inner reward.

Each summer, all the U.S. Campus Crusade staff

would come together for staff training at Arrowhead
Springs: our headquarters near San Bernardino, Cal-
ifornia. We who were area and regional directors grew to

be inseparable. After having fought the wars alone on

the campus all year long, we would count the days until
we could take a respite together at Arrowhead Springs
for the summer program. We ate together, played hand-
ball together, preached together, swam and steam-
bathed together, and studied the Scriptures together.
It came seemed as we
to be called, "the pipe." It

would open the Scriptures together, the Holy Spirit

would speak to us as one man, constantly drawing us to
the mercy of God — and back to the Church. "Why aren't
we Church?" we would ask. "Here in the New Testa-
ment, the only thing Jesus ever started was the Church."
We loved what we were doing, but in the Book of Acts
it was Church, not parachurch.
18 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

The summer of 1966 came to be the turning point.

Jon Braun was our new National Field Coordinator; Dick

Ballew was the Eastern Regional Director; Jim Craddock

had the South; Robert Andrews the West; and I had the
North — the Big Ten Region. Out of our zeal to discover

New Testament we decided to meet at 6:00

Christianity,

for breakfast every morning that summer at Sages Restau-

rant in downtown San Bernardino. Often Gordon Walker,

our African Director, and Ken Berven, our Canadian
Director, would join us. We would expect "the pipe" to

open, for God to speak to us through the Scriptures, most

often the New Testament Epistles.

We poured through the New Testament, watching

for passages on the grace of God and on the Church.
That summer we became convinced that whatever form
it would take, ultimately we would have to be Church.

We viewed the Church as the place where God's grace

and mercy would be manifest. We saw that each believer
had gifts to bring, that the entire body of Christ could
function, not just one or two paid professionals. The
Church was to be a community.
We were taken with the fact that in the New Testa-
ment the Church began in homes, that church buildings
themselves did not seem to come until the third century.
Though we were never obsessed with miracles as such,
all of us yearned for a place where true healing could
take place and legitimate prophetic words could be ut-
tered, where each member could "do his own thing."
And we wanted a home where those who hurt could
receive care and where the "un-cool" of society were
every bit as important as the star running backs, the
homecoming queens, and the student body presidents.
 9

The Phantom Search for the Perfect Church 1

The more we immersed ourselves in the New Testa-

ment, the more concerned we were becoming about the
incompleteness of our being a disconnected arm of the
Church.
At first, we saw an instant and simple solution to our
dilemma. We would turn Campus Crusade into a
church. We knew before we started that it wouldn't fly,

but we went ahead and tried anyway. It didn't fly.

In the fall of 1966, we began to build "student mobil-

ization" groups on the campuses, groups patterned as
closely as possible after our vision of the New Testament
Church. We taught community, commitment, and team-
work but stopped short of practicing baptism and com-
munion. These groups received everything from bitter
criticism fromsome establishment Christians to ceaseless
praise from those more radical and visionary. Without
meaning to be, we were on a collision course with the
Campus Crusade philosophy. We could not continue
this way indefinitely.

Ultimately, there were a number of things that

caused scores of us to leave the Campus Crusade organi-
zation in 1968. As for me, I felt I had done all I could
accomplish there. The parachurch wind had gone out of
my sails. I wanted something more. But let me say that
even to this day, I would rather present the Gospel of
Jesus Christ in a college fraternity or sorority house than
anywhere else on earth.
We sensed a lack of freedom. We wanted to pull out

all the stops and do "everything they did in the First

Century" — baptize our converts, serve communion, take
more vocal stands against evil. In short, we wanted
above all else to be the New Testament Church.
20 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

That was it — the New Testament Church! Through

the years, largely through reading the Scriptures and
Church history, the passion for the New Testament
Church had absolutely captured us. I'm embarrassed to
recount one incident because it sounds messianic and
arrogant, and in a measure it probably was. But we
were sincere.
Jon Braun and I were riding from Evanston to down-
town Chicago on the elevated train one day in 1967,
and I said to him, "You know what we are? We're re-
formers. Just like Luther and Calvin, we want to get the
Church back to what it should be."
He nodded yes.
"I'm not saying we're in their league," I backtracked.
"And I don't want to sound preposterous. But what we
really want to do is to reform the Church."
"You're right," he agreed, and it was as though we

had finally admitted it out loud to each other.

Another reason we left was that we simply believed
God wanted us to. And that is what carried us through
the most difficult days of our exodus. We were faced
with the challenge of leaving something that was
economically secure, and by now even a bit admired, to
simply strike out in faith and start all over again.
It was February of 1968, and I was speaking on one
of the satellite campuses of the University of Wisconsin,
in La Crosse. Walking from the student union back to
the dorm room where I was staying that evening, I

sensed a specific nudge, a still small voice saying, "I want

you to leave." When I reached the dorm, I telephoned
Jon at his home in California. "I'm through," I an-
nounced, not sure what else to say.
 1

The Phantom Search for the Perfect Church 2

There was a long silence on the other end. He finally

said, "So am I." I mailed in my resignation letter later in
the week. The exodus had begun.

;*«*

That summer, we called as many of the growing

numbers of the ex-staff together as we could and began
preaching and teaching the New Testament Church — at
least our view of it. A Lutheran church in La Jolla, Cali-
fornia, had allowed us use of their facilities. We didn't

know how to pull off what we were calling for, but wild
horses could not have slowed down our enthusiasm.
"The name of the game is Church," we announced.
"That's why most modern evangelism isn't changing the
world. It's self-appointed, not Church-directed. People
are not being reached in the context of the body of
Christ — they're like newborn babies being left on a door-
step somewhere to feed and care for themselves."
One morning during the conference, I stepped out-
side the meeting room and spotted a young man with a
button on his shirt that read, "God isn't dead — Church
is." Amen, I said to myself. Not only are the converts falling

by the wayside, but the churches are so pathetic they cant

handle the ones who do come. The Church is in captivity to

an invisible, present-day Babylon!

it. The Church was the answer,
So there you have
but not any church we had ever seen. It was the New
Testament Church that we sought. And we were soon to
find that countless others were looking for the same
things. We were beginning what we soon began to call,
The Phantom Search for the Perfect Church!
22 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

The easiest thing to do would have been to start a

rival organization and "do it right" this time. We even
had come up with a name: FOCUS, Fellowship of Chris-
tian University Students. We would out-witness, out-
preach, and for sure out-church anything Campus Cru-
sade would ever do.
But fortunately "the pipe" was still open. None of us
had any peace at all with enacting such a plan. One
thing was certain: we had families to feed, and there was
no legitimate way to raise money to keep ourselves going
as we had in the past. So most of us decided to take
secular jobs.
The public relations of it all was the most difficult
thing we had to face. For all the world, it looked to for-
mer cohorts as though we had left the ministry and suc-
cumbed to the pleasures and security of the world. Dick
Ballew started selling coffee in Atlanta. Jon Braun briefly
took a job directing a youth camp in Washington and
then turned to painting houses. I stayed in Evanston for
a year and began writing, then moved the following year
to Memphisto work for Memphis State University.
All of us tried our hand at starting and building
house churches — with varying success and failure. We
kept in touch by letter and phone.

«*w

By the time Marilyn and I arrived in Memphis in the

fall of 1969, we had four children. We purchased a large,

older home in the midtown area of Memphis, specifically

to have a living room big enough to hold people for
Christian gatherings. I was hired as director of develop-
ment at the University and executive vice president of
 The Pliantom Search for the Perfect Church 23

the University foundation. Essentially a fund -raising

post, the job would put me in daily touch both with Uni-
versity and civic leaders. Most importantly, the position
kept me in first-hand contact with the student body.
When we arrived, we found a group of fifteen or
twenty non-aligned Christian students on campus who
ran around together and who, for a variety of reasons,
did not fit within the established religious groups on the
campus. These students shared that same elusive vision
for the New
Testament Church and desired that some-
thing be launched in that direction. Sunday evening be-
came the appointed time, and our house the appointed
place. About our only ground rule was that we would
not invite new people to come. Far from being exclusive,
we all felt the need to grow in our own understanding of
the Church first, before we invited others to take part.
Marilyn and I made an agreement. We would not

consciously seek out student leaders as we had in Cam-

pus Crusade. In an effort to see the body of Christ com-
posed of all who would come, we simply tried to make
ourselves available to any and all who showed an inter-

est in the Christian message. It was ironic that at the

end of our three years in Memphis, among those who
had committed their lives to Christ were the student
body president, the vice president, the AWS president, a
fraternity president — along with some very average peo-
ple, some drug dealers, prostitutes, runaways, hippies,

and a broad cross section of none of the above. What-

ever mistakes we made along the way, we were clear on
one thing: there could be fellowship in Christ across the
entire spectrum of humanity. The variety of gifts, the va-
riety of ministries, and the variety of effects could most
certainly be experienced in Christian community.
24 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

Despite our plans not to go public in Memphis, we

did. One of the girlsSunday night
in the group had
talked with her hairdresser about Christ, and the hair-
dresser asked to be baptized. She began coming Sunday
nights. As bare-bones as we were, she was thrilled to be
a part of a close-knit group of Christians who loved and
cared for one another, and she began inviting everyone
she could. We doubled in size, then tripled, and on some
nights had to move out into the backyard to accommo-
date everyone.
The larger we grew, the less and less "Church" we
were becoming. For all our desires to be otherwise, Sun-
day night turned into a front-lines outreach meeting
which included energetic singing, an expository teaching
from the Scriptures, and time in spontaneous interces-
sory prayerand thanksgiving. At the end of the meeting,
I would often issue a call to "pray and give your life to

Christ wherever you are in the room." We had served

communion most every week when we were small, but
as the crowd grew, those times became more infrequent.
We were never sure who would be there and in what
spiritual condition.
In other parts of the country, my colleagues were also
pursuing the ideas of house churches with varying forms
and varying results. Gordon and Mary Sue Walker had
moved to Mansfield, Ohio, from Columbus, and were
given use of a large working farm. For no apparent rea-
son, runaways, hitchhikers, and other adventurers began
appearing at their doorstep. Soon a small community of
young men and women had grown up around them, and
they began a church in their finished basement. Gordon
would baptize each of those he brought to Christ (at one
retreat he baptized 26 people in an icy farm pond during
 The Phantom Search for the Perfect Church 25

a snowstorm), and weekly communion became the norm

on Sunday mornings.
Harold and Barbara Dunaway were stationed with
Campus Crusade in Anchorage and left the staff shortly
after we did. Harold formed a board of men to under-
write his buying a former Catholic retreat house where
he developed a community similar to the Mansfield
group but with no connection as such. They called
themselves Maranatha North. In the early seventies, this
group moved from a Christian fellowship gathering to
the beginning stages of a church.
Jack and Esther Sparks continued their work to im-
pact the counter-culture in Berkeley with the message of
Christ. And out of this, a house church was emerging.
The Ballews had begun a living-room church in At-
lanta which finally ground to a halt. They and the
Brauns both moved to the Santa Barbara area to join
with the former Campus Crusade group from the Uni-
versity of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) who were
also chasing this dream of the True Church. This
brought about a closer geographical proximity to the
Sparks family who, as the hippie era died down, also
moved to the community near UCSB in 1977.

By the early Seventies, with most of us in different

places and largely on our own, we sensed an increased
desire to work more closely together. After three years at
the University, I had resigned my post and moved to the
country an hour outside Memphis to restore a pre-Civil
War house we had purchased. This move also allowed
me to spend a bit more time as husband and father to
26 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

what shortly would become six children. For upkeep, I

returned to the free-lance writing I had done my last

year in Evanston.
In the summer of 1973, a number of us were sched-
uled to be in Dallas for a week-long Christian publishers'
convention. The suggestion was made that we try to pull

as many of the old troops together as possible to see if

we could establish at least some informal kind of net-

work among those of us who were in the process of
building New Testament house churches. About seventy
men showed up.
We shared, argued, taught, and fought over new in-

sights from Scripture and ate our meals together for the
better part of a week. Everyone, it seemed, was leery of
starting another new "deal" as we called it. But on the
other hand, we were tired — extremely tired — of laboring
alone. As the dust settled, a few of us decided we would
at least relate together somewhat informally.
A few months later a group of us met at the Sparks'
home in Berkeley. Without much more commonality
than our desire to see the emergence of a true New Tes-
tament expression of Christianity, we decided that six of
us who were forty or older would serve as "elders" of
whatever it was we were going to do. I was later added
as a seventh. This core group would meet together for a
week once a quarter to give some oversight to this small
network of churches that we were bringing together.
Crucial also to our group was a felt need on the part
of each man to be accountable to the others and under
at least some measure of visible, workable authority.
During the weeks and months ahead, it dawned on us
how little we knew about that which we were calling
with increased frequency "the New Testament Church."
 The Phantom Search for the Perfect Church 27

"Everybody claims to be the New Testament Church,"

Jack Sparks complained at one of our next gatherings.
"The Catholics say they are; the Baptists say they are; the
Church of Christ says it is — and nobody else is. We need
to find out 'who's right?' " Sparks was such a valuable
addition to us precisely because he had not had the back-
ground in evangelical higher education most of the rest of

us shared. He was evangelical to the core but came in

with a fresh voice and more creative questions as to what
the Church was — and could be. He was not from the
Bible belt and knew little of the shoptalk.
"What do you mean, 'Who's right. " someone in the 7 '

back of the room challenged. "We've got the Bible,

haven't we? The way you learn about the New Testa-
ment Church is by reading the New Testament."
"Look, you're missing what I'm after," Jack replied
in his compassionate way of dealing with touchy issues.
"As Protestants, we know our way back to A.D.1517 and
the Reformation. As evangelicals — Bible people — we
know our way up to A.D. 95 or so, when the Apostle
John finished writing the Revelation. It's time we fill

the gap in between."

"He's right," Gordon Walker agreed. "For the life of
me, I cannot tell you the details of where that New Tes-
1'

tament Church went.

"I'm the same way," Jon Braun added. "What I want
to know is, how long did the Church remain true to
Christ? In all honesty, I was taught that the minute the
Apostle John drew his last breath, the Church began to

head downhill. Is that really right? And if it isn't, then

where and when did the Church go wrong? How could
the Reformation have been avoided, anyway?"
28 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

"The way to do this, it seems to me, is to divide up

areas for study," Sparks said. "For me, I'd like to take
worship. I can lead a Bible study and keep the singing
going, but I really struggle with leading worship. As a
matter of fact, I'm not even sure what true worship re-
ally Are the charismatics right? Should we grab onto
is.

spontaneity and go for it? Or is there another way that

Christians were called to worship?"
"Then let me do Church history," said Braun. "I
want to get hold of the historic continuity of the
Church — who the right Church is, who the wrong
church is, how she stayed on track or went off track."
"It's important that we get to the primary sources,"

Sparks exhorted. "It won't get it for us simply to read the

comments of modern We've got to get right to
scholars.
the root documents and read through what the earliest
writers had to say — the good ones and even the heretics."
"I'll take doctrine," offered Dick Ballew. "I'm sick and
tired of chasing after every new spiritual emphasis that
blows through town. What I want to know is what did the
Church believe from the start — and what didn't it be-
lieve? I also want to look for balance. For example, what
about all the weight we give to the details surrounding the
second coming of Christ? Is that healthy? Did early be-
lievers do that? Sometimes I get the feeling we know more
about the second coming than God does!"
"But most important," Ballew continued, "I want to
find out what the early Christians believed about Jesus
Christ. What are the things that made them so willing
to die for Him?"
Gordon Walker stayed silent through most of the
meeting. A former Southern Baptist minister, he had
been educated at the seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas and
 The Phantom Search for the Perfect Church 29

had pastored a number of Southern Baptist churches be-

fore coming on the staff of Campus Crusade. Til tell you
what I'm going to take," he said with a somewhat skepti-
cal tone of voice. "I'm taking the Bible. My plan is to
check out everything the rest of you brothers find out
against the Bible. Because if we can't find it there, I'm
not buying it."

"That's fair enough," Jon Braun said, just as things

could have gotten a bit heated. "After all, that's got to

be the yardstick for whatever we believe."

Ken Berven took the pre-reformation years, Ray Neth-
ery, who resigned in 1978, the post-reformation period,

and shortly afterward I was selected as our administrator.

It would have all been academic, of course, if we had

ended our discussions right there. But we weren't out

just for more facts. Two things confronted us.
First, we were now all responsible for congregations

however small. We had promised our people we would

bring them into the historic mainstream of the New Tes-
tament faith. In doing so, we were not out to become
one more "brand" of Christianity. Nor was our goal to
stay Protestant, to become Catholic, to be Pentecostal,
or to be dispensational. Our motivation was to be the
best Christian people we could be, to be a twentieth
century expression of the first century Church.
Secondly — and I stress enough the impor-
cannot
tance of this decision — we
had agreed on the front end
to do and be whatever we found that the New Testa-
ment Church did and was, as we followed her through
history. If we found we were wrong, we would change. We

were committed to believe her doctrine, to enter into her

worship, and to reflect her government as best we could
discern it. Or to put it another way, if we found that all
30 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

Christians everywhere believed a certain truth or held to

a certain practice, if it was done by all and it squared
with the Holy Scriptures, we would alter our course ac-
cordingly and follow the faith of our fathers.
A hermeneutic, a way of interpreting the Scriptures,
was beginning to develop here. For years we had tended
to view the Church in its trek through history as a sort
of ranch-style structure, twenty centuries long, the foun-
dations being re-laid in each century to reflect the cul-
ture at hand. Now, it seems, we were starting to look at
the Church as a vertical structure twenty centuries high,
built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets
with Christ as the cornerstone.
Instead of having to build new foundations in each
generation or each century, we were struggling to see if

it were possible to stay with the original apostolic foun-

dation, with that faith once for all delivered to the saints
and, in turn, to build a new floor on it for our time, to
house the people of our day. We grew less and less com-
fortable asking, "Are the Christians in the second and
third century in our church?" The issue was more the
reverse: Are we in theirs?
Few men America or even the world, I suppose,
in
were in a position to do the sort of work we were pro-
posing. We were beholden to no one but the Lord and
each other. We were small, free to move, and free to
change. Available to adjust to what we would find, we
were committed to uphold nobody's party line. We were
unattached to any established church and represented a
peoplewho had already dropped out of the structures
and who were also willing to change. We had no board,
no support group to tighten the purse strings if they did
not like what we uncovered in Church history. All we
 1

The Phantom Search for the Perfect Church 3

wanted was Christ and His Church. Instead of judging

history, we were inviting history to judge us.
Our basic question was, whatever happened to that
Church we read about on the pages of the New Testa-
ment? Was it still around? If so, where? We wanted to
be a part of it.
 3
A WEEK WE WILL
NOT FORGET

For me the most memorable (translate that: painful)

week of our journey came in February of 1975. Ken
Berven had arranged for us to use a cabin on San Juan
Island in Puget Sound off the coast of Seattle. It was
cold and damp outside, cold and damp inside. The cabin
had what seemed like endless square feet of bare cement
floor and only two beds for seven men. The oldest par-
ticipant and the one with the sorest back, Ken Berven
and myself, were given the beds.
This was the week we would come together and
teach each other the first installment of what we were
learning in the specific areas we chose to study.

The Worship Report

The most difficult area, I believe, for any Christian to
change is how he worships on Sunday morning. The
make-up of the church board can change, the pastor can
be replaced, the building committee can propose alter-

33
34 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

ations. But the way things go Sunday morning — whether

you are Reformed or Roman Catholic, Pentecostal or
premillennial — had better not alter very much. Of the
seven of us, two were brought up in liturgical churches,
the rest in moderate to informal free churches. But all of
us in our adult years had opted for a very informal, al-

most spontaneous style of worship — and we had encour-

aged spontaneous worship in virtually all our churches.
We felt we had an arsenal of Bible verses to back us
up! The day of Pentecost in Acts 2 always began these
discussions, then on to 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, plus
the Eutychus incident in Acts, where Paul preached half
the night. Jack Sparks took the floor to relay to us what
he had learned about worship from the earliest accounts
in the Church's history.
"Christian worship was liturgical from the start," he
began. "The most ancient records tell us. . .
."

"You've got to be kidding," I interrupted. "There's no

way that can be right."
"I'm not asking you to like what I found," Jack con-
tinued, "but the three oldest sources. . .
."

"Wait," I protested again. "Are you sure you've stud-

ied the right material? Is what you have read representa-
tive? Not at seminary and not in my private reading
have I ever heard anyone teach that the Church was
liturgical at the start." I had always assumed that liturgy

was what came into the Church when the power of the
Holy Spirit died down.
Whatever you may say about Jack Sparks, you can
never accuse him of fudging on research. I've come to
discover that he is the best at research I have ever met.
His credits include not only outstanding academic work
through to his Ph.D., but additional years spent working
 A Week We Will Not Forget 35

with doctoral and post-doctoral students at Penn State.

Further, I had to admit to myself that the man had no
axe to grind. It would have been easier for him had
there been no early accounts of liturgical worship be-
cause he — like me — had coached his own church to be
spontaneous in worship.
He introduced us to three early and universally rec-
ognized sources outside the Scriptures that tell us what
early Christian worship was like. The source most always
considered first is the record of St. Justin Martyr (in his

First Apology), written around A.D. 150 , where he put

down on paper, for the emperor, the pattern of Christian
worship. It looked like this:

SYNAXIS:
• Greeting and response
• Hymns, interspersed with
• Readings from Scripture, the "Apostles' Memoirs"
• The Homily
• Dismissal oi those not in the Church

EUCHARIST:
• Intercessory Prayers
• Offertory — of bread and wine
• Consecration of Gifts
• Communion
• Giving of Thanks
• Benediction

The next document was the Apostolic Tradition of

Hypolytus, written about A.D. 200. His writing served to
back up the descriptions of worship given earlier by St.
36 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

Justin, showing these practices to be universal in the

whole of the Church.

The earliest record — perhaps as early as A.D. 70 and
in the heart of the New Testament era — came from the
Didache or "The Teaching of the Twelve." The reference
here was particularly strong concerning the Eucharist,
and was significant because it came so very early. This
three-fold early witness to liturgy and sacrament stood
together with the New Testament and other early refer-
ences to form a unified account of first and second cen-
tury worship.
"What this means," Sparks told us, "is that there
were essentially two orders of worship in the early
Church that went together to form one basic liturgy.
The first part was called the synaxis, which simply means
'meeting.* It was patterned after the synagogue worship
of the Jews in the years that immediately preceded
Christ. It would make sense for the Jewish converts to
Christ to retain their basic forms of prayers, hymn sing-
ing, Scripture reading, and a homily."
"The second part of the early Christian liturgy was
the Eucharist, that is 'the thanksgiving.' It's that part of
the worship that leads up to and includes the taking of
communion. The form of this service is based upon the
liturgy followed by the Old Testament priest in the tem-

ple, with the offering no longer that of bulls and goats,

but now the body and blood of Christ."

"And that's where the biblical record of First Corin-
thians 1 1 comes in?" someone asked.
"Yes — and as a matter of fact, those words of institu-
tion were always repeated in Christian worship from the
very start," Jack responded.
 A Week We Will Not Forget 37

"But, Jack, what do you say to the charge that litur-

gical worship will lead to spiritual death and loss of vital-
ity. "
7
I asked. "I know churches that are up to here with
liturgy, yet seem deader than a doornail."
"I honestly don't know enough yet to answer your
question," he replied. "I'm sure we'll get to that matter as
we move on in our research. But I can tell you this: Israel

was liturgical all its history, and we have the Old

through
Testament to prove Whether they walked with God or
it.

not, they were consistently liturgical. And the Church of

the New Testament was liturgical from its inception ac-
cording to the very earliest sources. That's the given. The
rest we will have to find out later."
The more we looked through the actual pattern of
worship recorded by Justin Martyr, the better we liked it,

and the more sense it made. Then it began to dawn on

us — even
though we called ourselves spontaneous, our
spontaneity had itself become a pattern. We had devel-
oped our own unique liturgy.
I thought back to our house churches. The same
people sat in the same chairs each Sunday morning, the
"spontaneous" prayers were basically the same each time;
everyone had a set of favorite hymns; the sermon came
at the same spot in the service; and we always closed
with communion. In its basic shape, by the way, the pat-
tern of what we were doing on Sunday morning was not

all that much different from the order that St. Justin had

recorded in A.D. 150.

Next we turned to questions of the Eucharist. "What
did you find out about how they viewed the bread and
the wine?" we asked. "Did they see it as symbolic or as
the actual body and blood of Christ?" (In modern terms:
Was it real, or was it Memorex?)
38 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

"Actually, it was seen both as symbol and as sub-

stance," Jack continued. "But you don't find the term

'transubstantiation' until many centuries later. The key
word is mystery. The Fathers of the Church saw the con-
secrated bread and wine as the actual body and blood of
Christ, but they never explained the how. They con-
fessed it as a blessed mystery."
I was relieved that we were not being pressed into
the view of transubstantiation held by the Roman
Church, one that I had often criticized as "better living
through chemistry." And yet as I thought back to the
words of Christ, "This is my body . . . this is my blood,"
it was apparent that we modern evangelicals had done
the words of the Lord a great disservice in the other di-
rection. Besides, you wouldn't have people in first cen-
tury Corinth getting sick and dying over mere symbol.
Something serious, something real, had to be taking
place as they received the body and blood of the Lord.
It would be unfair to omit the unpleasant side of the

story. People did leave us as we began to preach and

practice this real or sacramental view of holy commu-
nion. But that was nothing new. From the Gospel re-
cords, we know wave of people to take
that the first

leave of Christ Himself went away when He taught

them, "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and
drink His blood, you have no life in you" G onn 6:53). A
few lines later, we have verse sixty-six: "From that time
many of His disciples went back and walked with Him
no more."
From the records of the early Church, it was clear to
us that worship was liturgical and that the sacrament of
holy communion was the centerpiece of the entire ser-
vice. Honestly, it took some of us, including myself,
 A Week We Will Not Forget 39

awhile to get emotionally comfortable with liturgy and

sacrament. had become so attached to "winging it."
I

But because of the universal witness and its consistency

with the New Testament, we began to teach and experi-
ment with this basic liturgy in our churches. And it

began, after awhile, to seem more like home.

The Church History Report

After a couple of days in preliminary discussion on

worship, we turned next to Jon Braun's study of Church
history, picking up immediately after the close of the
New Testament.
"The most amazing thing I found in this past three
months of reading is the presence of bishops in the first
century," he began. "It had been my understanding that
bishops came at a later time in the Church, sometime
mid-way through the second century. But here they are
well before a.d. 100."
"YouVe got Poly carp, a man I had certainly known
about. He was Bishop of Smyrna by about A.D. 100. Early

writers like Irenaeus tell us he was the spiritual son of

the Apostle John, and that he was consecrated bishop by
the Apostles themselves."
"Then you've got Clement of Rome, consecrated
bishop in that city in A.D. 90, give or take a few years.
His connection with the Apostles of Christ is made obvi-
ous with his mention by Paul in Philippians 4:3."
"But for me the shocker of them
was Ignatius ofall

Antioch — that's Antioch of Syria, home church of no

less than the Apostles Paul and Barnabas — who was

Bishop of that city from about A.D. 67 until his martyr-

dom in 107. Brethren, a.d. 67 is Bible times! We're talk-
40 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

ing about the very heart of the New Testament years.

And we know of only two of the Twelve who were dead

by that time. Don't you know the other ten would have
put up some kind of fierce objection had not the office
of bishop been known and approved?"
Bishop Ignatius, of course, is known by all Church
historians. He left behind seven letters, written just be-
fore his death, to the churches in the towns he passed
through on the way to his martyrdom. They not only
spell out with marked clarity the role of the office of
bishop, but they tell of the presence of bishops in numer-
ous other churches as well. He emphatically states that
these early bishops were set in office by the Apostles
themselves and represent the continuity of the apostolic
ministry in the Church.
We had barely recovered from the discovery of lit-
urgy and sacrament in the early Church, and here came
bishops! Early bishops — as in first century. We began de-
vouring The Apostolic Fathers, a collection of the writings
of Christianswho knew and were taught by the Apos-
tles—including the works of Ignatius, Polycarp, and
Clement — and here was a whole new vision of Christen-
dom right before our eyes.
But the New Testament itself was clear regarding
bishops, too. Bishopis not just a generic term for the

function of overseer but also a specific office in the

Church. Viewed in that light, the New Testament refer-
ences to bishop became crystal clear.
The earliest New Testament passage comes in Acts

1:20, which deals with the apostasy and replacement of

Judas. In the old King James Version it reads, " His bish-
opric let another take." Some of the newer Protestant
translations fudge on the word, rendering bishopric as
 A Week We Will Not Forget 41

"place of leadership" (niv); "charge" (Moffatt); "posi-

tion" (Goodspeed); or a bit better, "office" (NASB, nkjv).
The fact is, the Greek word in the text is episcopen, and
the literal meaning is bishopric or episcopate: the office
of bishop. By the time the Book of Acts was written, this
word no longer meant anything other than bishop. The
Twelve, by the way, were universally recognized as the
first bishops of the Church.
Then, there is St. Paul's greeting to the Philippians,

written approximately A.D. 65 in which he says, "Paul and

Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in
Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and dea-
cons:" (Philippians 1:1, 2). Taken at face value, this pas-

sage shows the office of bishop clearly in place in the

church at Philippi by the middle of the first century.
The question often comes — as it did with us — about
the interchangeability of presbyter and bishop in Acts and
the Epistles. Aren't there places, like Acts 20 (Paul and
the Ephesian elders at Miletus) and Titus 1:5 ("appoint
elders in every city") where the terms could refer to either

bishop or presbyter? Without question, the possibility of

such cross-over does exist in certain passages. By the same
token, three specific offices of pastoral service do occur
both in the New Testament and in the earliest records of

Christian history: bishop, presbyter, and deacon.

For us, the most interesting passage we came across
was Acts 15, the Council of Jerusalem. Trouble over
keeping Jewish laws had arisen in Antioch, and the
church there, unable to solve the problem locally, re-

ferred it to the Apostles and brethren in Jerusalem. The

date is A.D. 48 or 49. A council was called to determine
God's will and settle the matter.
42 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

Note what happens. With the presence of the "apos-

tles and the elders" (v. 4) at the meeting, including the

Apostle Peter, when everyone had finished speaking, it

was James, the brother of the Lord, and not one of the
Twelve, who spoke up and said, "Men and brethren, lis-
ten to me" (v. 13). And James rendered the final judg-
ment as to what would be done to solve the dispute.
Why James? Why not Peter or one of the other Apos-
tles? Because according to all the early writers who ad-
dress the subject, James was Bishop of Jerusalem by the
time that Council was held. And by the record in Acts
15, he certainly functioned accordingly!
A couple of observations have been very helpful per-
sonally in my own move from congregational to episcopal
church polity. First, just as in the New Testament, any
bishop worth his salt in today's world is careful to call for
the "Amen" of the people. The truth is, a church headed
by a bishop is in reality episcopal, presbyterial, and con-
gregational, all The people have a voice, along with
three.
the deacons and presbyters. The difference is that in con-
gregational polity, it's one man one vote, and the sheep

usually end up shepherding the shepherd. In episcopal

polity, everyone has a voice, but the proverbial buck stops
with the Bishop. As with James in Acts 15, the Bishop
makes the final determination.

A second observation is best told by recounting a con-

versation over breakfast with the president of an evangeli-
cal denomination. We
had come as far as discovering
bishops in the early Church and had committed ourselves
to episcopal government. My friend, whose denomination
is one of congregational churches, was somewhat surprised

at our shift in direction. He was convinced the New Tes-

tament taught only congregational polity.
 A Week We Will Mot Forget 43

As the conversation went on, the subject of a new

movement among some of his churches came up. "A
lot of our pastors have become enamored with the mul-
tiple eldership teaching of men like Ray Stedman," he
said. "It's difficult when you're committed to congrega-
tional rule, and a more presbyterial emphasis like this
comes in. Some of our churches have already moved in
that direction."
"What would you do if the congregation voted to go
to multiple eldership?" I asked.
"We wouldn't be crazy about it, but we'd go along
with it as long as it wasn't permanent," he answered.
"That would be presbyterial."
"But what if the people chose as a congregation to
make permanent?" I asked.
it

"Then I'd have to go in and put a stop to it," he said.

"That would be episcopal," I offered.

In reality, someone always ends up being in charge.
We can talk about the rule of the people, egalitarian-
ism, Congregationalism, and all the rest, but ultimately
one person will march at the head of the column. Doth
not nature teach us so? In the Trinity Itself, with three
Persons sharing fully the Divine Nature, the Father is

the Fountainhead and the Source of the unity. Be it in

heaven or on earth, there are orders of armies, men,
and angels.
There is one thing more I wish to say about bishops, a
very comforting thing. After years of attempting to live
under less leadership, at last I know who is in charge. It is

an honor to bend down and kiss the hand of our Arch-

bishop, Philip, with whom am equal as to our brother-
I

hood in Christ, yet the one to whom willingly submit as

I

the hierarch who keeps watch over my soul.

44 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

Not many years ago I would have vehemently ob-

jected to what I just said: "Well that's fine, but what if
you get a bad bishop!" First, Orthodox Christians help
select their own bishop. Secondly, each bishop is ac-
countable to a synod of bishops and ultimately the Patri-
arch. For that reason when we've had some bad ones,
they have been removed. (The heretic Nestorius held
the highest office in the Eastern Church, and even he
was replaced.) Thirdly, a weak leader is better than no
leader at all. Anarchy is the worst kind of government.
I believe that old Baptist premise that authority can

corrupt, and that absolute authority corrupts abso-

lutely—though no Orthodox bishop has absolute author-
ity. But the opposite is also true: Independence corrupts,

and absolute independence corrupts absolutely. For such

independence promotes absolute authority — absolute au-
thority in the hands of each individual.
There were hierarchs in Israel, hierarchs in the New
Testament, and hierarchs throughout Church history.
Biblically, they come with the territory.

The Doctrine Report

We
were reeling over liturgy, sacrament, and bishops
when Richard Ballew brought us his findings on early
Church doctrine. We needed a break, and we got one.
For as men committed to the Apostles' doctrine, our
hearts and minds were both comforted and challenged as
we heard how tirelessly the ancient Christians preached
and defended our Lord Jesus Christ as fully God and
fully man.

"We're going to discover that every major contro-

versy in an Ecumenical Council begins with an all-out
 A Week We Will Not Forget 45

attack on Christ Himself," Dick Ballew began. "The first

of these came to a head in the summer of A.D. 325, when
a Church-wide council was called in Nicea to deal with
a heresy called Arianism."
Arius was a presbyter in the church of Alexandria.
He had caused great unrest among the flock by teaching
that Jesus Christ was a created being, something less
than fully God. His existence began at a point in time,
according to Arius. And typical of virtually all false

teachers in history, Arius had an arsenal of Bible verses

with his own novel interpretations to back him up. He
had gained a following among both the clergy and the
laity, and his number of devotees was growing. His

bishop, the godly Alexander, was deeply concerned and

called councils which rejected Arius' view. When the
heresy spread, the whole Church and even the Emperor
became involved.
To address and settle the matter, hundreds of repre-
sentatives from all over Christendom gathered in Nicea
in the memorable summer of A.D. 325 to debate and de-
cide. For Jesus Christ had promised His Church the gift

of the Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth. Here was
the first major acid test after the Apostolic era.
As the delegates gathered, including Arius and his
followers, another young man came to the fore.
Athanasius was a brilliant student of the Scriptures and
a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. Seven years earlier at

the age of twenty-one, he had already penned a book

that was destined to become one of the great Christian
classics of all time: On the Incarnation. In the introduc-

tion to the English translation of this work, C.S. Lewis

wrote that when he opened this book, he soon discov-
46 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

ered he "was reading a masterpiece" (New York: Mac-

millan Company, 1946).
At the Council, this admirable young man became
one of the chief defenders of the apostolic faith. Arius
proved to be no match for the saintly Athanasius. As
the weeks of the summer wore on, a strong Orthodox
consensus was emerging at Nicea amidst great debate.
After three months, a brief document was drafted and
presented which contained a summation of Christian
teaching on the Person of Jesus Christ. In all, 318 bislv
ops of the Church stepped forward to affirm and to sign
what we know today as the first and longest part of the
Nicene Creed.
The Orthodoxy of Athanasius had prevailed at the
Council. Concerning Christ, there never was a time
when He was not! That truth became a war cry as the
Church would take nearly a century to secure the
ground that was gained at Nicea. Arius, though de-
feated, did not quit. In fact, after Nicea his movement
grew. At some points in the years that followed, it ap-
peared that Arianism might prevail — so much so that
someone later coined the slogan: "Athanasius against
the world."
But the truth of Christ prevailed. He who was
"begotten of the Father before all time" was preached
and worshipped one holy Church.
in the
The study of Nicea did several things for us in our
journey to Orthodoxy. First and foremost, it gained for
us the settled definition of what the New
Testament
teaches about Jesus Christ.Our preoccupation had been
with the work of Christ — what He did for us — without
the needed concern for who He is: the eternal Son of
the Father who assumed humanity for our salvation, at
 A Week We Will Not Forget 47

once God and man. We had certainly believed in the

deity of Christ, but the impact of the incarnation of the
Son of God had not hit us with full force. The Nicene
Creed became for us, as it always has been for Orthodox
Christendom, that fence outside of which we dare not
wander in our understanding of Christ.
Secondly, Nicea brought to life how Councils in the
Church are to work: when godly bishops, priests, dea-
cons, and people gather to discern the truth of God, the
Holy Spirit will speak to them. The Council of Jerusalem
in Acts 15 was not a one-time phenomenon. The whole
idea of discerning God's will in consensus made new
sense for us.
Thirdly, Nicea introduced us to the other major
Councils in Church history. For Nicea was the first of
the Seven Ecumenical Councils that met between A.D.
325 and A.D. 787, each to confront an error, and each
emerging with the truth. These seven Councils to-
gether complete the foundation of the Church's under-
standing of the apostolic deposit of the faith and serve
as a safeguard of it.

As our week drew to a close, we realized our work

had just begun. Had our exercise been merely academic,
there would have been little to be concerned with. But
our commitment was to change, to adjust. If what we
found in our study of the Church was believed and prac-
ticed by all Christians everywhere, and if it differed from
what we believed and practiced, we would bend. We
were tired of novelty and innovation; we yearned for the
fullness of the truth.
We left the island to learn to live in liturgy and sac-
rament and to re-focus our lives around the worship of
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We left understanding and
48 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

desiring the oversight of bishops and the reality of visible

authority in the Church. And we left with a renewed

gratitude and love for our Lord Jesus Christ — the Word
of God had indeed become flesh and dwelt among us!
 4
FINDING THE NEW
TESTAMENT CHURCH

mid- 1975, we had been able to make several deci-

By sions concerning the Church from our study of early
Christian history.
There was a specific shape or pattern to her worship.
It was liturgical, coming off the foundation of the worship
revealed by God in the Old Testament and fulfilled in

Christ, our great High Priest, in the New Testament.

Further, and much to our surprise, the post-apostolic
writers told us this basic order of worship was essentially
the same in the churches throughout the world.
The early Church was sacramental She confessed
with one voice the sacraments (or "mysteries" as they
were usually called) as reality, and she practiced them.
God gave grace to His people in them. Baptism really

was for the remission of sins and the giving of the Holy
Spirit, exactly as the Apostle Peter had promised his lis-

teners on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:38). The Eucha-

were the body and blood of Christ as the
ristic gifts really

Lord Himself assured His disciples before His death

49
 .

50 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

(Luke 22:19-20). In the sacrament of marriage, the

husband and wife really did become one flesh (Ephe-
sians 5:31).
The government or polity of the Church was hierar-
chical from the beginning, a structure which included
bishops, presbyters, deacons and the laity. Our response
to that polity was to form the New Covenant Apostolic
Order (NCAO) in 1975, hoping to organize something
workable yet trying to avoid beginning a new denomina-
tion. We were committed to the establishment of
churches bearing these twelve characteristics:

1. Grace
2. True community
3. Vision
4. Authoritative, serving leadership
5. Care
6. Seeing and hearing from God
7. Good works
8. Godliness
9. Orthodox theology
10. Worship
1 1 The blessed hope
12. Catholicity

By early 1979, the NCAO became the Evangelical

Orthodox Church. The promise to our people and to
each other that we would one day become a part of the
historic Church as we found her in our day still remained.
Our understanding of how to discern God's truth and
His will for His people was conciliar. The early Church
addressed the various problems and challenges that faced
her in council — be it on the local, regional, or ecumeni-
 Finding the New Testament Church 51

cal level. The sense of the early Christians was to be

able to confess together what direction they believed
God was giving to the Church.
The very heart of the Apostle's doctrine was the
Holy Trinity and the Incarnation of the Son of God.
These truths were on the front lines of defense in vir-
tually everything the early Church believed, taught, and
fought for.

Let me stress again that, for us, embracing certain of

these realities — liturgy, sacrament, episcopal govern-
ment — did not necessarily come easily. With liturgy and
sacrament especially, some of us were "swinging from the
floor." That they were true and everywhere in the an-
cient Church was for us regrettably obvious. We had no
argument there. The tough thing about early Christian-
ity for us came in doing it.

But isn't way it is in conversion?

that usually the
The worship of the Church at the close of its first
one thousand years had substantially the same shape
from place to place. The doctrine was the same. The
whole Church confessed one creed, the same in every
place, and had weathered many attacks. The govern-
ment of the Church was recognizably one everywhere.
And this one Church was Orthodox.

1054: How the West Was Lost

Tensions began to mount in the latter part of the

first millennium. They were reaching the breaking point

as the second one thousand years began (see the dia-

gram on the next two pages). While various doctrinal,

political, economic, and cultural factors were at work to

separate the Church in a division that would be the East

and the West, two giant issues ultimately emerged above
 A Time Line of Church History

New
Testament
Era Seven Ecumenical Councils
lllllllllllllllll K£5j%2^^
ONE HOLY CATHOLIC AND APOSTOLIC CHURCH
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

33 69 150 325 397 451 589 787 880 998

Pentecost Bishop Justin First Synod Council Filioque Icons The Conver-
Ignatii is Martyr Ecumen- of of addedto approved Photian sionof
conse- describes ical Carthage Chalcedon Nicene at Schism Russia
crated liturgy Council ratifies Creed Seventh begins
in and the biblical Ecumeni-
Antioch Nicene canon cal

Creed Council

•33 Pentacost (A.D. 29 is •325 The Council of Nicea settles

thought to be more the major heretical

accurate). challenge to the Christian

.49
faith when the heretic Arius
Council at Jerusalem (Acts
asserts Christ was created
15) establishes precedent for
by the Father. St. Athanasius
addressing church disputes
defends the eternality of the
in Council James presides
Son of God. The Arians
as bishop.
continue their assault on
•69 Bishop Ignatius consecrated true Christianity for years.
in Antioch in heart of New Nicea is the first of Seven
Testament era — St. Peter Ecumenical (Churchwide)
had been the first bishop Councils.
there. Other early bishops
45 1 Council of Chalcedon
include James, Polycarp,
affirms apostolic doctrine of
and Clement.
two natures in Christ.
95 Book of Revelation written,
589 In a synod in Toledo, Spain,
probably the last of the New
the filioque, asserting that
Testament books.
the Holy Spirit proceeds
1 50 St. Justin Martyr describes from the Father and the Son
the liturgical worship of the is added to the Nicene
Church, centered in the Creed. This error is later
Eucharist. Liturgical adopted by Rome.
worship is rooted in both the
Old and New 787 The era of Ecumenical
Testament.
Councils ends at Nicea, with
the Seventh Council
bringing the centuries-old
use of icons back into the
Church.
T^ 1 1 1 r
1054 1204 1333 1453 1782 1794 1871 1988
Great Sack of Gregory Turks First Mission- St 1000
Schism Constan- Palamas overrun publishing aries Nicholas years of
tinople defends Constan- of the arrive estab- Ortho-
Orthodox tinople Philokalia Kodiak lishes doxy in

spirituality Island, Japanese Russia

Alaska Mission

• 988 Conversion of Russia •1517 Martin Luther nails his 95

begins. Theses to the door of the
Roman Church in
1054 The Great Schism occurs.
Wittenberg, starting the
Two major issues include
Protestant Reformation.
Rome's claim to a universal
papal supremacy and her • 1529 Church of England begins
addition of the filioque pulling away from Rome.
clause to the Nicene Creed.
• 1794 Missionaries arrive on
The Photian schism (880)
Kodiak Island in Alaska;
further complicated the
Orthodoxy introduced to
debate.
North America.
1095 The Crusades begun by the
•1854 Rome establishes the
Roman Church. The Sack of Immaculate Conception
Constantinople by Rome dogma.
(1204) adds to the
estrangement between East •1870 Papal Infallibility becomes
and West. Roman dogma.

1333 St. Gregory Palamas • 1988 One thousand years of

defends the Orthodox Orthodoxy in Russia, as

practice of hesychast Orthodox Church world-

spirituality and the use of wide maintains fullness of
the Jesus prayer. the Apostolic faith.

Second Edition 198'

1453 Turks overrun ©Copyright 1988 Conciliar Press;

Constantinople; Byzantine
Empire ends.
54 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

others: (1) should one man, the Pope of Rome, be consid-

ered the universal Bishop of the Church? and (2) the ad-
dition of the novel phrase filioque to the Church's creed.

The Papacy
Among the Twelve, Saint Peter was early acknow-
ledged as the leader. He was spokesman for the Twelve
before and after Pentecost. He was recorded as the first
Bishop of Antioch and later the first Bishop of Rome.
No one challenged his role.

After the death of the Apostles, as leadership in the

Church developed, the Bishop of Rome came to be rec-
ognized as first in honor, even though all bishops were
equal. But after nearly three hundred years, the Bishops
of Rome slowly began to assume to themselves a role of
superiority over the others. And without consensus,
they ultimately claimed to be the only true successors
to Saint Peter.
The vast majority of the other Bishops of the Church
never questioned Rome's primacy of honor, but even in
Italy they patently rejected its papal claim to be the uni-
versal head of the Church on earth. This change from
ancient practice was brought about by two factors: the
location of four of the five Patriarchs in the East — only
Rome was in the West — and the decline of the power of
the Roman Empire in the West. The upgraded power of
the Roman Pope became one major factor in rending the
Roman Church, and all those it could gather with it,
from the historic Orthodox Church.

The Addition to the Creed

Adisagreement about the Holy Spirit also began to
develop in the Church. Did the Holy Spirit proceed
 Finding the New Testament Church 55

from the Father? Or, did He proceed from the Father

and the Son?
In John 15:26, our Lord Jesus Christ asserted, "But
when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from
the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Fa-
ther, He will testify of Me" (emphasis added). This is the
basic statement in all of the New Testament about the
Holy Spirit "proceeding," and it is clear: He "proceeds
from the Father."
Thus when the ancient council at Constantinople in
A.D. 381, during the course of its conclave, reaffirmed
the Creed of Nicea (a.d. 325), it expanded that Creed to
proclaim these familiar words: "And in the Holy Spirit,
the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Fa-
ther, who with the Father and the Son is worshipped
and glorified."

But some two hundred years later, at a local council

in Toledo, Spain (a.d. 589), King Reccared declared that
the Holy Spirit should be confessed and taught to pro-
ceed from the Father and the Son. (The phrase "and the
Son" in Latin is the word filioque; thus the reference to
the problem is often called the "filioque debate.") The
King may have meant well, but he was contradicting the
apostolic teaching about the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately
the local Spanish council agreed with his error, and it

gradually spread in the West — though at first it was re-

jected by the papacy.

Because of the teaching of the Holy Scriptures as

confessed by the entire Church at Nicea and at Con-

stantinople and for centuries beyond, there was no rea-

son to believe anything other than that the Holy Spirit

proceeded from the Father. Period!

56 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

But centuries later, in a move that to a large extent

was motivated by highly intertwined political factors,
the Pope of Rome unilaterally changed the universal
creed of the Church without an ecumenical council.
Though the change was initially rejected in both East
and West, even by some of her closest neighboring
bishops, Rome managed to eventually get the West to
capitulate.
The consequence Western Church, of course,
in the
has been the tendency to relegate the Holy Spirit to a
lesser place than God the Father and God the Son. The
change may appear small, but the consequences have
proven disastrously immense. This issue, with the Pope
departing from the Orthodox doctrine of the Church,
became another instrumental cause in perpetuating the
separation of the Roman Church from the historic Or-
thodox Church, the New Testament Church.

The Great Schism

Conflict between the Roman Pope and the East
mounted — especially in the Pope's dealings with the
Bishop or Patriarch of Constantinople. The Pope even
went so far as to claim the authority to decide who should
be the Bishop of Constantinople, something violating his-
torical precedent and which he had no business doing.
The Pope, no longer operating within the government of
the New Testament Church, was seeking by political
means to bring the whole Church under his domination.
Weird and bizarre intrigues followed one upon the
other as a series of Roman Popes pursued their unswerv-
ing policy of attempting to control
all Christendom. Per-

haps the most incredible incident among these political,

 Finding the New Testament Church 57

religious, and even military shenanigans, as far as the

East was concerned, occurred in the year A.D. 1054. A
document on the
cardinal, sent by the Pope, slapped a
altar of theChurch of Holy Wisdom in Constantinople
during the Sunday worship, excommunicating the Patri-
arch of Constantinople from the Church!
The Pope, of course, had no legitimate right to do
this. And the repercussions have been staggering. Some
not very pretty chapters of Church history were written
during the next decades. The ultimate consequence of
the Pope's schemes was that the whole Roman Church
ended up dividing from the New Testament
itself
Church. And that schism has never been healed.
As the centuries passed, conflict continued. All at-
tempts at reunion failed, and the Roman Church drifted
farther and farther from its historic roots. There are in-
evitable consequences to deviation from the Church.
The breaking away of the Roman Church from the his-
toric Church would prove no exception.

Our Fork in the Road

So there we were. In our journey through history we
had carefully followed over one thousand years of unbro-
ken continuity in the Church.
It goes without saying that we affirmed the Church

as found in the pages of the New Testament. We found

that same Church in the second and the third century,
faced with bitter persecution, celebrating her liturgy in
homes, caves, and even graveyards; and guided by de-
voted bishops who often finished the race as martyrs.
We found her in the fourth century, defending the faith

at Nicea, and in the fifth century at Chalcedon.

58 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

We followed her through to the eighth century, stud-

ied her Great Councils, fell in love with her stalwarts,
saints, and fathers as they preached the Gospel, warred
against the heretics, and established holy imagery in
their worship of God. It amazed us how moral and doc-
trinal corruption in the Church would be boldly faced,
and how potential destruction was repeatedly avoided.
God was with her in the ninth and tenth centuries, and
the mission work of Cyril and Methodius laid the foun-
dations for the conversion of Russia to Christ which
began in a.d. 988.
But then came a.d. 1054, and we were faced with a
choice. A split had come. I can still somehow recall the
physical feeling that I had as I said to my cohorts, "The
East is right in resisting the papacy, and they're right in
rejecting the filioque clause." And then I drew a deep,
new breath. "I guess that makes us . . . Orthodox."
It once a feeling of isolation, restlessness,
was at
homelessness. Where was this Church today? Was it still
around? Or had it quietly died away sometime in the
late Middle Ages?
The truth is, none of us had ever to our knowledge
been inside an Orthodox Church. Most of us did not
know it existed. For that reason, I am chagrined to re-
port that we decided to try to start it over again!

The West: Reformation and

Counter^Reformation
During the centuries following A.D. 1054, the growing
distinction between East and West was indelibly marked
in history. The East continued in the fullness of New
Testament faith, worship, and practice, maintaining the
 Finding the New Testament Church 59

apostolic foundations. The Western or Roman Church

began the Crusades from which would come the deepest
and most painful wounds ever inflicted by the West
upon the East— and perhaps the most difficult to heal.
Rome also headed toward a more rational or scholastic
faith. And she became a political superpower in the
Western world. Then, less than five centuries after
Rome committed herself to her course of unilateral ac-
tion in doctrine and practice, another upheaval was fes-

tering—this time not next door to the East but inside

the Western gates themselves.
Though many in the West, including some of the
Popes, had spoken out against many of the growing
changes in Roman doctrine and practice, the tide of de-

cline had not been stemmed. Now, a little-known Ger-

man monk named Martin Luther inadvertently launched
an attack against certain Roman Catholic practices that
ended up affecting world history. His famous "Ninety-
Five Theses," simply calling for debate on certain issues,
were nailed to the church door at Wittenburg in A.D.

1517. In a short time those theses were signalling the

start of what came to be called in the West the Protes-
tant Reformation. Luther twice sought an audience with
the Pope but was denied, and in A.D. 1521 he was ex-
communicated from the Roman Church. He had in-
tended no break with Rome: only reformation of the
Church. Rome's position was not to bend; Luther's was
"Here I Stand." The door to unity in the West slammed
shut with a resounding crash.
The protests of Luther spread like wildfire fanned by
a raging wind. The reforms he sought in Germany were
soon accompanied by demands from Ulrich Zwingli in
Zurich, John Calvin in Geneva, and hundreds of others
60 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

all over Western Europe. Fueled by numerous political,

social, and economic factors, in addition to religious

problems, the Reformation penetrated into virtually
every nook and cranny of the Roman Church. Its West-
ern ecclesiastical influence was significantly diminished
as this massive division erupted and grew. The ripple ef-
fect of that division continues even to our day.
If on the European continent were not
trouble
enough, the Church of England was in the process of
going its own way as well. Henry VIII, amidst his marital
problems, replaced the Pope of Rome with himself as
head of the Church of England. For only a few short
years would the Pope ever again have ascendancy in En-
gland. And the English Church herself would come to be
shattered by great division that would impact the destiny
of the United States and Canada.
As decade followed decade in the West, the many
branches of Protestantism took increasingly diverse
forms. There were even divisions that insisted they were
neither Protestant nor Roman Catholic. All seemed to
share a mutual dislike for the Bishop of Rome and the
practice of his Church, and most wanted far less central-
ized forms of leadership. While some, such as the Lu-
therans and Anglicans, held on to a basic form of liturgy
and sacrament, others, such as the Reformed Churches
and the more radical Anabaptists and their descendants,
questioned and rejected many biblical realities including
hierarchy, sacrament, and historic tradition (no matter
when and where they appeared in history), thinking they
were freeing themselves of Roman Catholicism.
To this day, many sincere, professing Christians will
reject even the biblical data which speaks to the practice
of the Christian Church, simply because they think such
 1

Finding the New Testament Church 6

historic practices are "too Catholic." In their zeal to re-

gain purity, the Protestant movement pursued an agenda
of overreaction without even being aware of it.

Thus, while retaining in varying degrees portions of

foundational Christianity, neither Protestantism nor Ca-
tholicism can lay historic claim to being the fullness of
the New Testament Church. In dividing from the Or-
thodox Church, Rome forfeited its place as the genuine
historic expression of the Church of the New Testament.
In the divisions of the Reformation, the Protestants — as
well-meaning, zealous, and correct as they might have
been — failed to return to the New Testament Church.

The Orthodox Church Today

We spent a decade, from 1977 to 1987, getting to
know the Orthodox Church — her clergy and her people.
It was an incredible experience to find the exact faith in
Christ we had come to hold, but we found it embedded
securely in a cultural setting we knew almost nothing
about. At we feared we could not possibly relate to
times
the Orthodox Church in the late twentieth century. The
highs and the lows, the joys and the disappointments of
that decade are chronicled in Part III of this book.
In Part "Orthodoxy and the Bible," we will look
II,

at specific biblical problems we faced as evangelical

Christians who were serious about becoming Orthodox.
I will deal with them as clearly, fairly, and honestly as I

know how.
As I close Part I, concluding our pilgrimage through
the history of Christendom, let me offer a brief word of
encouragement. The Church of the New Testament, the
Church of Peter and Paul and the Apostles, the Orthodox
62 From Arrowhead Springs to Antioch

Church — despite persecution, political oppression, and

desertion on certain of its flanks — miraculously carries
on today the same faith and life of the Church of the
New Testament. Admittedly, the style of Orthodoxy
looks complicated to the modern Protestant eye, and un-
derstandably so. But given the historical record as to
how the Church has progressed, the simple Christ-cen-
tered faith of the Apostles is clearly preserved in her
practices, services,and even her architecture.
In Orthodoxy today, as in years gone by, the basics of
Christian doctrine, worship, and government are never
up for renegotiation. One cannot be an Orthodox priest,
for example, and reject the Divinity of Christ, His Virgin
Birth, Resurrection, Ascension into heaven, and Second
Coming. The Church simply has not left her course in
nearly two thousand years. It is One, Holy, Catholic,
and Apostolic. She is the New Testament Church. The
gates of hell have tried repeatedly, but they have not
prevailed against her.
Though there are more than 225 Orthodox
million
Christians in the world today, many Americans are not
familiar with the Church. In North America, the Ortho-
dox Church until recently has been largely limited to
ethnic boundaries, not spreading much beyond the par-
ishes of the committed immigrants who brought the
Church to the shores of this continent. Orthodox Chris-
tianity has been, in the words of Metropolitan Philip,
"the best kept secret in America."
 PART TWO
ORTHODOXY
AND THE BIBLE
 5
THE T" WORD

's no anyone that a study of Church history

secret to
It
immediately bumps one up against one of the great
no-no words for many of us from evangelical Protestant
backgrounds. To lighten up the discussion a bit, let's call
it the "T" word: Tradition.

It could be fairly said that there has developed within

today's evangelicalism a tradition of being opposed to
tradition. And with some good reason. It goes back to
the Reformation itself. Much of what men like Luther
and Calvin disdained in the Roman Church was that
which came under the heading of tradition.
And people like ourselves on a journey to Orthodox
Christianity saw the arguments of the Reformation cen-
tering quite clearly on the polarity of "the Bible versus
tradition." It was therefore troubling to us that the word
tradition was used so very early in Church history. And
everyone who wrote of it seemed so for it. Our opposi-
tion was not to handing things down or passing things
on: the literal meaning of the word. It was the idea of
incrustation that appeared to us to go along with those
things handed down, the man-made inventions and the

65
66 Orthodoxy and the Bible

fear of a traditionalism with the inability to adapt to

needed change.
G. K. Chesterton defined tradition as "giving your
ancestors a vote." That helped me breathe easier. But
the nagging fear remained. What if I get outvoted? I
reached for my Bible concordance.

The Two Sides of Tradition

Nobody was tougher on tradition than Jesus Christ.

One of the most scathing denouncements in the New
Testament was our Lord's condemnation of tradition in
Matthew 15:3-9. Look how He so boldly denounced the
Pharisees over their appeal to tradition:

"Why do you also transgress the commandment of God

because of your tradition? For God commanded, saying,
'Honor your father and your mother '; and, 'He who curses

father or mother, let him he put to death.' But you say,

'Whoever says to his father or mother, "Whatever profit

you might have received from me has been dedicated to

the temple" — is released from honoring his father or

mother.' Thus you have made the commandment of God
of no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah
prophesy about you, saying:

These people draw near to Me

with their mouth,
And honor Me with their lips,

But their heart is far from Me,

And in vain they worship Me
Teaching as doctrines
the commandments of men.'"
 The T" Word 67

This plus warning to the Colossians, "Be-

St. Paul's

ware lest anyone take you captive through philosophy

and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, ac-
cording to the basic principles of the world, and not ac-
cording to Christ" (Colossians 2:8) sum up the strongest
biblical exhortations to beware of tradition.
But the New Testament has more to say on the sub-
ject. In one of the earliest books in the New Testament,
St. Paul, spoke out for tradition. He wrote, "Therefore,
brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you
were taught, whether by word or our epistle" (2 Thessalo-

nians 2:15). You can't find a more strongly-worded en-

dorsement of tradition than that! Then a few verses later,

"But we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord

Jesus Christ, that you withdraw from every brother who
walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which
he received from us" (2 Thessalonians 3:6).
Do we have a contradiction here?
A careful look at the texts tells us that two very dif-

ferent kinds of tradition are being addressed. In the Gos-

pel account and in the Colossians passage we are dealing
with the tradition of men. In other words, this is tradition

that men invent and pass down to others as though it

were from God.

Jesus said in the Matthew passage that the tradition
of men produced hypocrisy and even vain worship. St.
Paul said man-made tradition would plunder us and take
us captive to the world. Such things as the ceremonial
washings the Pharisees conducted, which Jesus opposed
in Matthew and man-made dietary laws and festivals
15,
warned against in Colossians were biblical examples of
men's traditions.
68 Orthodoxy and the Bible

And how do we come against such things? Believe it

or not, with the other kind of tradition, the tradition of

God. It is this kind of tradition which the Apostle Paul
commanded that we keep in his second letter to the

Thessalonians, quoted a moment ago. Let's take an-

other look.
"Therefore, brethren," he wrote, "stand fast and hold
the traditions which you were taught, whether by word
or our epistle." Paul was speaking here of the tradi-
tions—the things passed on — which the Church re-

ceived from himself and the other Apostles. This was

the "apostles' doctrine" referred to in Acts 2:42. It was
that Christ-centered body of truth which Paul and the
other Apostles taught and preached.
Note this apostolic tradition took two forms: it came
"by word" and by "our epistle." The Scriptures teach us,
then, that the holy tradition passed on by the Apostles
of Christ included both what they said, as they visited
the churches, and what they wrote, which we know
today as the New Testament Epistles. According to the
Bible, Scripture itself is a part of holy tradition — the in-
spired, written part.
The Holy Spirit is the One who brings truth to the
Church; He is called the Spirit of Truth. The Twelve
were chosen by Jesus Christ to be the foundation-build-
ers of His Church. He promised the Holy Spirit would

speak through them. Some of what Christ and His Apos-

tles did and said was recorded in the New Testament,

and some was not. St. Paul tells us to hold fast to both
what was taught, and what was written.
You say, "How on earth can we do what these men
did and teach what they said when we weren't there to
hear it?" Enter: holy tradition! That which the Apostles
 The "T" Word 69

and their hand-picked successors planted in the

churches has been passed on, down to this day.
You ask, "But how can I trust it?" Let me suggest
two reasons that persuaded me to trust it. First, the Lord
did say the Holy Spirit would lead His Church into all

truth. Either that's true or it isn't. But it is His promise.

That does not mean everything an individual Christian
has ever said is true. Even Apostles can err. For exam-
ple, Paul had to correct Peter for his unwillingness to
associate with Gentile Christians, as recorded in
Galatians, chapter 2. St. John, no doubt innocently,
twice worshipped angels as noted in the Book of Revela-
tion and was corrected by the angels! This was precisely
why Church has held councils — to discern and judge
the
under the superintendence of the Holy Spirit what was
done and said. Thank God, His promise to lead this
Church through her history has been kept — and there
have been some trying years.
The second reason I trust the Holy Spirit to lead the
Church and preserve her traditions is because of the way
He gave us the Holy Scriptures. Not only were the
Scriptures written under the inspiration of the Holy
Spirit, the books were gathered together under the inspi-
ration of the Spirit.
The Old Testament was written over several centu-
ries by numerous authors who completed their writing

about 400 B.C. The New Testament was written from

about A.D. 55 to 95. The notion that the New Testament
books just came together apart from the decision of the
Church is fiction. Though a visible consensus on the
New Testament books existed for years beforehand, it

was when the Church recognized the decision of the

70 Orthodoxy and the Bible

Synod of Carthage, which met in A.D. 397, that the final

biblical canon was settled.
This is the point. If we can trust the Holy Spirit to
guide the Church in discerning the books to be included
in the Canon of Scripture, then we can trust that He
has led the Church in her other councils as well! And
remember — how did the Church know which books
were doctrinally sound and thus to be included in the
Canon? On the basis of the doctrines passed down
through holy tradition!
There is no way and trash tradi-
to take the Scriptures
tion. They come to us as a package. To and separate
try

the Bible from tradition is to divide the work of the Holy

Spirit into approved and disapproved — and that sails dan-

gerously close to the winds of unforgivable sin.

Late Traditions

One of the groans which we uttered in the course of

our journey was over the matter of late traditions. We
knew that up until the eleventh century the Church was
one. Until that time, Christians looked to the great Ecu-
menical Councils as the guideposts for the interpretation
of Scripture and for the formulation of what was to be
believed.
But with the departure of Rome from Orthodox
Christianity, something dramatic changed. Because she
was no longer accountable to the whole of the historic
Church, Rome was now free to teach the universality of
the Pope and the altered Nicean Creed with the novel
filioque clause. She was likewise on her own to introduce

other new dogmas and practices as well. And introduce

them she did — and likely she will again.
 The T M
Word 71

The Protestant Reformers were not reacting against a

"straw man" when they attacked such innovations as a
burning purgatory, the papacy, and indulgences. These
were all three late additions to the faith, with no roots at
all in apostolic tradition.
For example, in 1854 Rome established the dogma of
the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. Accord-
ing to this teaching, not only was Christ born on earth
without sin, but now you have Mary entering the world
without original Why not, then, back up to her par-
sin.

ents, their parents,and on through the countless geneal-

ogies all the way back to Eden?
In 1870, scarcely more than a century ago, Rome
added yet another dogma to her growing collection of
new traditions. This time, it was the Pope again. Now he
was not only universal, he was infallible.
No wonder Protestants are scared to death of tradition!
It's a hard saying. My Roman Catholic friends don't
like it when I say it, but I'm saying it anyway. Rome
stepped away from apostolic tradition in 1054. She left
one thousand years of unity in the Church behind. No,
she's not all wrong — not for a moment. But she is sad-
dled with a papacy and a collection of dogmas that sim-
ply do not square with holy tradition. And my opinion is
that she is moving further away from Orthodox Christi-
anity, not closer. A growing proportion of her priests,

nuns, and laity seem to possess a spirit of rebellion and

even anarchy — liberation theology in South America,

feminism and theological liberalism in North America,
and in Europe the gamut goes from no-show apathy to
brittle arch-conservatism.
It's time for Rome to come back home to the unity
of the Church and the faith of the Apostles and holy
72 Orthodoxy and the Bible

fathers which she once held so dear. It's time to come

back to the fullness of holy tradition!
Saddled even more with late tradition is the Protes-
tant movement. Whereas Rome generally has added to
the faith, Protestantism has subtracted from it. In an ef-
fort to shake loose from Roman excesses, modern Protes-
tants have sorely over-corrected their course. The reduc-
tionism that resulted has crippled Protestant Christians
in their quest for full maturity in Christ and in steering a
steady course.
Mary has become a no-name; holy communion, a
quarterly memorial; authority and discipline in the
church, a memory; doctrine, a matter of personal inter-
pretation, constantly up for renegotiation. Name one es-
tablished Protestant denomination that has held on fully
to the faith of even its own founders — to say nothing of
its adherence to the apostolic faith.

Finding the Family

We were searching for our spiritual family. And many

of the emotions we felt and situations we encountered
were similar to those of adopted children looking for their
biological parents.
We have some good friends in Santa Barbara, let's
call them Don and Polly Browner. Polly is adopted.
When she was born in 1948, her mother was separated
from her father and could not afford to keep her and
raise her. So even before the day of her birth arrived,
arrangements were made for the baby to be adopted by
an eager Christian family who had one daughter but
were unable to have more children.
 The "T" Word 73

was adopted when she was four years

Polly learned she
old. She was playing one day, when for no apparent rea-
son she asked, "Mommy, are you my real mommy?"
Taken off guard, her mother told her that she was not,
but that she couldn't love her any more if she were.
From that time on, Polly began an invisible search.
And it was intensive. At the age of thirteen, she became
obsessed with her adoption. It wasn't because she was
unhappy or thought her parents weren't doing a good
job raising her; she became preoccupied with the idea
that somewhere in this world there were people who
were related to her and who might look like her.
A rummaging through her
short time later, Polly was
father's file box and found her adoption papers. She
skimmed through the documents and at the bottom
found the signatures of her two natural parents. The last
name was easy to remember — too easy, for who knows
how many Americans share that same last name: Smith.
Polly's desire to find her natural parents grew dramatic
cally during her teenage years.
Whenever she walked outside, she looked at faces —
faces she hoped would look like hers. And if she found
anyone she thought resembled her, she stopped the per-
son and asked questions. If she was in a strange town,
she looked up Smith in phone books.
met Don who eventually would be her
In 1968, Polly
husband. Don became as interested in solving the mys-
tery as Polly. On their first date, they visited the Hall of
Records in Los Angeles, the where she was born.
city

But she discovered that her records were stored and

sealed in Sacramento. They stopped by the hospital that
had delivered her into the world but found nothing.
74 Orthodoxy and the Bible

In mid- December, 1975, knowing that at one time

her natural father had held a California driver's license,
she and Don ran his name through the Department of
Motor Vehicles' computer. The data that surfaced gave
them an address in a small California town. They headed

for the nearest pay phone, but they discovered no one

with her father's first name under Smith. After about
two days of studying the data, they figured out Polly's

fatherhad financed a car through the Bank of America.

Now, an entire paper chase episode was opening up.
The bank told Polly that Mr. Smith had indeed taken
out a loan but had since moved to a large Midwestern
city. A call to information in that city yielded no listing.

However, the tax same city indi-

assessor's office in the
cated a family by the name of Walker had bought a
home from Mr. Smith, Polly's father, a year earlier. And
the assessor just happened to have Mrs. Walker's phone
number. By now it was New Year's Eve afternoon, 1975.
Bright and early New Year's day, when the Browners
thought it was late enough in the Midwest, they called
Mrs. Walker. Don, now Polly's husband, did the talking.
When Don asked her if she knew Mr. Smith, she said
indeed she did — he was her nephew! Don began asking
questions, so many in fact that he finally had to tell her
why he was calling. In response, she said she knew the
Smiths had had three children but didn't know anything
about a fourth. That was the first Polly learned she had
a brother and two sisters.
Finally, Mrs. Walker suggested that Don call Polly's
father's sister, who also lived in town, to get further in-
formation. She volunteered Polly's aunt's number.
Polly's aunt was very evasive. She didn't believe a
word Don was saying, and would not tell them where
 The "T" Word 75

Polly's father was or anything about him. Don pleaded

but she hung up. Polly was up against a brick wall again.
Two hours went by. Polly finally convinced Don to
let her call the aunt. Even after Polly repeated the whole
story, her aunt was still suspicious. Finally Polly asked
her aunt to at least relay the information to her father
and to let him be the judge as to whether he wanted to
get in touch.
About an hour and a half later, the phone rang. It
was a collect call from Mr. Smith. Polly swallowed hard
and accepted the call. During the forty-five minute con-
versation, Polly found out that after her adoption, her
mother and her dad had gotten back together for a time
and had had two more children. Her mother had been
living alone in Southern California for the past ten years.
Later, the phone rang again. It was her natural sister,
Betty. They talked about twenty-five minutes. Polly
couldn't get over how much
they sounded alike.
Twenty minutes and the phone rang a third
passed,
time. It was Polly's natural mother. By the end of that
conversation, Polly was a basket case! Even though
drained emotionally, Polly was ecstatic. Two days later the
first pictures arrived. There were resemblances, but none

of them looked even vaguely like she thought they might.

Happy New Year, 1976! In the months and weeks
that followed, Polly was able to personally meet her nat-
ural parents, her brother and her sisters. She had found
her natural family.
you are anything like me, or anything like Polly
If

Browner, you, too, are on a search for your spiritual

family. Oh, it won't be the first century Church when
you find her, because here we are on the doorstep of the
twenty-first century. Now, as we say, she's a little older
and perhaps even a little wiser. But she's the same
76 Orthodoxy and the Bible

Church. For she has kept the traditions of her Founder

and His Apostles intact.

Family Tradition

What is our holy tradition? It is the "one Lord, one

faith,one baptism; one God and Father of all" (Ephesians
4:5-6). It is that precious faith, "once for all delivered
to the saints" (Jude 3). It is Orthodox Christianity.
At this point you might be saying, "Okay — I under-
stand there's good tradition and bad tradition, the tradition
of God and the tradition of men. But rather than using the
T word, why can't we just say we believe the Bible?"
We can. We do. But we must say more. Why? Be-
cause the Jehovah's Witness at your door also carries a
Bible and says he believes it. Tradition is there not just
to preserve the Bible but to interpret it. Without the

Church being there to interpret, to shed the light of holy

tradition on those chapters and verses, you and the
Jehovah's Witness are in a dead heat: his interpretation
versus yours.
The Church is thus our guardian of the truth. In the
words of St. Paul himself, she is "the pillar and ground of
the truth" (1 Timothy 3:15).
Let's say you're driving down the street going fifty

in a thirty-five miles per hour zone. The city statutes

have designated thirty-five as the maximum speed on
But who is it that pulls you over, the book
city streets.
of city statutes? No, it's a traffic officer. For the same
civil laws that set the speed limit also provide the city
with a police force. The officer is there to enforce the
laws and statutes.
 The T M
Word 77

So it is with the Bible, the Church, and tradition.

The Scriptures are true — holy,
and good. But they
just,

were never meant to stand alone. Their enforcer and

interpreter — indeed, their writer — is the Church. The
Church is also the doer of the Word. And the way
things are done and have been done, is preserved for us
in holy tradition. But even the Church did not origi-
nate her tradition.
The one source: God Himself. To begin
tradition has
with, the Apostles received it from Jesus Christ and
passed it on unchanged and undiminished to the
churches which they formed. Jesus had told the Twelve
that they still had truth to learn, that the Holy Spirit
would lead them into it.
On the Day of Pentecost, God's Old Covenant peo-
ple became His New Covenant people as they were bap-
tized into Christ. As
Church developed, guided by
the
the Spirit, the people brought with them their worship,
given to them hundreds of years earlier, "patterned after
things in heaven" (see Hebrews 9:23) but now centered
in Christ Himself. The tradition of Christian worship was
born as the old gave way to the new.
And with the help of the Holy Spirit, the Church
learned early on to be self-correcting. If error crept in,
the Apostles moved at once to put things back in
order — sometimes through personal visits, sometimes
through letters, sometimes by both. This became
itself

tradition, and the letters, inspired by the Holy Spirit,

were read, re-read, copied, and passed on. We know
them today as the New Testament Epistles.
About the same time, the Holy Spirit prompted Mat-
thew, Mark, Luke, and John to set down in writing for the
Church the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What they wrote
78 Orthodoxy and the Bible

matched what they preached, for the source was the

same. The written word was received by the people
who had believed the spoken word. For it was all one
message, one body of truth, one tradition. They took
care to pass it on to faithful men, who in turn would
teach others also.

Thus, out of the Church and under the guidance of

the Holy Spirit came the Bible — the absolutely unique
part of her tradition — which she carefully guarded, inter-
preted, defended,and preached. But also out of the
Church and guided by the same Holy Spirit came the
apostolic traditions not in the Scripture, but consistent with
Scripture — to which the Scripture tells us to adhere.
I was speaking not long ago to a group of students at
a large, independent, Protestant seminary, which is

known for its firm stand on the inspiration of the Bible

but holds to numerous doctrinal tenets foreign even to
the rest of Protestantism. It seemed they were so intent
on safeguarding the inspiration of Scripture that they
had ignored the interpretation of Scripture and had
fallen prey to their novel dogmas. They had sidestepped,
even despised, holy tradition.
Finally I said, "Look, you brothers have the right
Bible. No argument there. And you serve the right Sav-
ior. Jesus Christ is our Lord. What you need is the right
Church, that Family of undivided Christendom which
has preserved the faith and worship of the Apostles and
their followers."
It is to this Orthodox Church, which has paid with
her lifeblood for twenty centuries to keep safe her holy
we have finally come. It took a decade,
tradition, that
but thank God, we checked around, and everything is
still in place.
 6
WHY WE WORSHIP
THE WAY WE DO

was one of those late-night-early-mornings when I

It
woke up and could not go back to sleep. Usually I
would either watch Charlie Rose on Channel 12 or get
up and read the Bible. I had been pondering something
or other in the Book of Acts, so on this particular night

I chose to read the Bible.

When I do specific Bible study or prepare for ser-
mons, I use the New King James Version (nkjv) as my
text. But for times like these late night sessions, I'll usu-
ally select another version for a fresh look at a more fa-

miliar text. On this night, I chose the New American

somewhat chatty and engaging translation
Bible (nab), a
done under the auspices of the Roman Catholic Church.

Liturgical Worship in Scripture

I was moving through Acts and got to chapter 13,

which opens with the church in Antioch when they

were sending out Paul and Barnabas. And then I came

79
80 Orthodoxy and the Bible

to verse two: "On one occasion, while they were en-

gaged in the liturgy of the Lord and were fasting, the

Holy Spirit spoke to them" (NAB). Hold it! I thought to

myself. Everybody knows the text says that they were "minis-
tering to the Lord and fasting." There cant be liturgy as

early as Acts 13.

So I grabbed my Greek New Testament from the

bookshelf next to my desk. Right there, in Acts 13:2, for
all to see: leitourgounton was the Greek word. You don't
even need to know Greek to figure out the meaning!
There is liturgy in Acts 13! It was the Protestants who
had altered the translation.
According to the New Testament, we've got Chris-
tian liturgy in Antioch, Paul's home church, before A.D.
50. So much for the theory that liturgy was what crept
into the Church when people forget to rely on the Holy
Spirit for spontaneity in worship. In fact, here in Acts
13:2 you not only have a liturgical setting for worship,
but you have the Holy Spirit speaking to the Church
during the liturgy! I thought about my homilies of the
past. Many would need to be retooled before the next
time out of the mothballs.
This passage gives great hope to those of us who
wrestle with the fear of "dead liturgy." In reality, there is

no such thing as liturgy being dead. Liturgy is either true

or false. It's people who are dead or alive. I'll tell you my
dream of Orthodox Christianity at its best: live, spiritual
people worshipping God in true liturgy! There's no
match for it. And that is precisely what Jesus envisioned
when He told the woman at the well that the Father
was looking for people who would worship Him "in spirit
and truth" Oohn 4:24).
 Why We Worship the Way We Do 81

That night started me off on a whole new study of

worship in the Bible. By this point in our journey, it was
no secret to me or to any of my colleagues that all the
early records — the Didache, Justin Martyr, Hippolytus —
talked about the Church from the New Testament as
being liturgical in her worship. But now the verb form of
the old Greek noun leitourgia was showing up in the
New Testament itself. What were the roots of this phe-
nomenon?
My mind jumped ahead to the place in Hebrews
where it says that God told His people in the Old Testa-
ment to worship according to His directives in ways pat-
terned after things in heaven (Hebrews 8:5 and 9:23). In
other words, Israel didn't worship just any way she
pleased. God told her how, and it was done that way, so
that it would look like what was done in heaven.

A Vision of Worship in Heaven

That triggered the next question: How was worship

done in heaven? The first passage to come to mind was
Revelation 4, where the Apostle John sees heavenly wor-
ship in his vision of the emerald throne, the twenty-four
elders in vestments of white and crowns of gold, the
seven flaming candles, and all the rest. "Doesn't seem
much like Protestant Evangelicalism," I muttered quietly
must be somewhere earlier, like in
to myself. "But there
the Old Testament, where there's a record of somebody
seeing heaven, like Ezekiel or Elijah or Isaiah. That's it!

Isaiah. Isaiah, chapter 6. If the Old Testament liturgy

was patterned after heavenly worship, Isaiah 6 certainly

qualifies as a prototype."
82 Orthodoxy and the Bible

For me, the easiest way to lay hold of the message of

Isaiah 6 was to underscore the sensory verbs, and that is

how I will pass it on to you. The event took place in

"the year that King Uzziah died," about 700 B.C. Isaiah's

description was remarkably detailed as to exactly what it

was that he experienced. And what he recorded was not
only understandably similar to worship in the tabernacle
of old, was incredibly like the historic worship of the
it

Christian Church! Take an extra moment or two and

read this brief account slowly and thoughtfully.

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting

on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe

filled the temple. Above it stood seraphim; each one

had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he
covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to
another and said:

"Holy, Holy, Holy is

the Lord of hosts;

The whole earth is full

of His glory!"

And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of

him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.
Then I said:

"Woe is me, for I am undone!

Because I am a man of unclean lips,

And I dwell in the midst of a people

of unclean lips;

For my eyes have seen the King,

The Lord of hosts."
 Why We Worship the Way We Do 83

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand

a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the
altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said:

"Behold, this has touched your lips;

Your iniquity is taken away,

And your sin purged."

Also, I heard the voice of the Lord, saying:

"Whom shall I send,

And who will go for Us?"

Then I said, "Here am I! Send me." (Isaiah 6:1-8)

How would you like worship on Sunday to be that

powerful? The fact is, you can come close! Let us look at
the elements, the details, of Isaiah's eye-witness account
of heaven's liturgy and see how it impacted him specific-

ally via his five senses and his understanding of mission.

Worship as Seeing
Isaiah saw something. To begin with, he saw the
Lord high and lifted up with the train of His robe filling
the temple. "The Lord" in this passage, was the eternal
Son of God. The Apostle John in his Gospel was quoting
Isaiah's prophecies concerning Christ and was referring
to Isaiah's vision of heaven when he wrote: "These
things Isaiah said when he saw His glory and spoke of
Him" Qohn 12:41).
Let me ask: Have you ever wished you could see

Jesus Christ? I mean, see Him as you would see other

people? I going through a special stage as a child,
recall
and then later as a young adult, where I thought having
84 Orthodoxy and the Bible

faith would be so much easier if I could, just for once,

see the Lord.
Ultimately the faithful will see Him, face to face.
And we are called to walk by faith and not by sight. But
Isaiah got to see Him, and so did all the people in the
Gospels who knew Him, and so did Stephen and Paul
and John who got to see Him even after the ascension.
So how about people like you and me?
Clearly, the Church from antiquity has provided her
people a means of seeing the Lord, visual aids if you will.

In his classic book, The Shape of the Liturgy, Gregory Dix

tells how in the primitive house-churches in Rome when
believers gathered for worship, the grim old pictures of
ancestors were taken down from the walls. They were
"replaced by mosaics of Old Testament worthies and the
Christian saints" (p. 27).
Then, when the persecutions died down, and
church buildings were no longer just homes of volun-

teers but permanent, symbols and images became more

bold. For behind the altar in most every church there
came to be, according to Dix, a "representation con-
centrated on the figure of the Son, who is 'the express
image' of the Father" (p. 32). In the churches of the
East was the image or icon of Christ Pantocrator, or
it

Ruler over all. In the West, it was Christ as the Lamb

of God, our Redeemer.
So you did see Christ in worship. Rather than set
before her people a mere blank wall or wood panel or
floral display, the Church in her wisdom has historically
displayed the icons of the Lord Jesus Christ and His he-
roic saints. These images, these windows to heaven, pro-
vide for those who worship Him the opportunity to see,
 Why We Worship the Way We Do 85

with the eyes of faith, through the medium of paint and

canvas to the Original.
The objection sometimes comes, "But does not the
Second Commandment in Exodus 20 forbid imagery?"
It forbids false images — idols — but not imagery as such.
For if proper imagery were forbidden, why, just six

chapters later in Exodus 26:1, would God command,

"Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten cur-
tains woven of fine linen thread, and blue and purple
and scarlet yarn; with artistic designs of cherubim you
shall weave them.". 7

Thomas Howard has said that the divine liturgy is

the grandest multi-media event of all time. And it's even

more than multi-media, for we participate in it. We expe-
rience worship with all five senses, plus the sense of

faith. According to Dorothy Sayers we have no way to

think, except in pictures.
It's time we capture our imaginations for Christ
again, and historically the Church has done this through
the use of icons in her worship.
Isaiah saw more than the Son of God, however. There
was a throne, there were seraphim, there were doors in

the heavenly sanctuary. And there was an altar.

Frankly, I had for years dismissed altars as "old cove-

nant" and unnecessary because of the once for all sacri-

fice of Christ. But again, the entire ancient Church had

them. Did early Christians know something we do not?
Often, when the place of worship was in the catacombs,
the tomb of a departed brother or sister in Christ would
serve as the altar. In the house churches, the altar was
generally in the place which during the week would be
the dining room.
86 Orthodoxy and the Bible

The book of Hebrews says plainly: "We have an

altar" (Hebrews 13:10). Certainly the sacrifice of Christ
is complete; we can add nothing to it. For the early
Christians the altar represented the Cross. No longer
was it the altar of sacrifice for the blood of bulls and
goats, but now it was the reality of the Cross of Christ,
where He gave for us eternally His broken body and
shed blood. And so it is from His holy
to this day. It is

altar that we are given to receive His sacred Gifts: His

body and blood in the great Thanksgiving feast!

Worship as Hearing
On this day in heaven, Isaiah saw but he also heard.
The hymn he heard the angels sing, "Holy, Holy, Holy is
the Lord of hosts," became the biblical basis for the
Sanctus and for the Trisagion as it is called in the East,
the thrice-holy hymn. It has been sung on the earth for
centuries just as it has been sung in heaven presumably
from all eternity.
When was small, Guy Lombardo was one of the
I

great swing band leaders in America. His slogan was as

famous as he was: "The Sweetest Music This Side of
Heaven." I do not presume to know Lombardo's religious
convictions, but it is certainly safe to say that in the
world of his day, somehow people knew that the ulti-
mate in music had to come from heaven. And heaven's
music was what Isaiah heard.
While we perhaps may prove earthly choirs from the
singers in the temple, we can clearly substantiate angelic
ones in heaven. The angelic chorus becomes the basis
for our choirs in worship. They are not there to replace
the singing of the people but to buttress it with the high-
est level of choral beauty. And so, as the priest moves
through the doors and out among the worshipers carry-
Photo by Harley & Dianne Cranor.

Seven former Campus Crusade for Christ leaders of the sixties meet in
1974 to form the New Covenant Apostolic Order, the core group that
pursued Orthodox Christianity. Left to right: Richard Ballew, Gordon
Walker, Jon Braun, Ray Nethery, Jack Sparks, Ken Berven and Peter
Gillquist.

Photo by Conciliar Press.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann, right, visits with ¥r. Weldon Hardenbrook in

Santa Barbara in the early 1980s.
 Bishop MAXZMOS,
left, and Fr. Peter
Gillquist go over plans
for the trip to
Constantinople.

Photo by Conciliar Press.

Photo by Harley & Dianne Cranor.

Fr. Richard Ballew conducts a baptismal service for the St. Athanasius
parish of the Evangelical Orthodox Church, Santa Barbara, in the mid
1980s.
Photo by Conciiiar Press.

In September, 1986, The Synod of the Evangelical Orthodox Church

made its decision to enter the canonical Orthodox Church under Metro-

politan PHILIP of the Antiochian Archdiocese in North America. Fr.

Jon Braun and the Metropolitan exchange a joyful embrace as Fr. Peter
Gillquist looks on.
Photo by Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese.

Metropolitan PHILIP Saliba

Primate
The Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.
Photo by Fr. George Corey.

The Patriarch of Antioch

IGNATIUS IV
Metropolitan
THEODOSIUS, left,
Primate of the Ortho*
dox Church in Amer-
ica,exchanges
greetings with Metro
politan PHILIP.

Photo by Antiochian Orthodox Chris-

tianArchdiocese.

Orthodox scholar and

author, Bishop KAL-
LISTOS (Timothy
Ware) visits with Fr.
Peter Gillquist at the
West Coast Clergy-
Laity Conference of
the Greek Orthodox
Church in 1987.
Photo by Conciliar Press.
 Patriarch IGNATIUS IV
at work at his desk. The
Patriarchal headquarters
u
in Damascus is on the
street called straight"
where St. Paul was sent
just after his conversion.

Photo by Fr. George Corey.

Photo by Concihar Kress.

Fr. Gordon Walker teaches the Scriptures at a Conference of Orthodox

priests, flanked by Fr. Kurt Speier, left and Fr. Richard Ballew.
 CHRISMATIONS AND ORDINATIONS

Photo by Conciliar Press.

Chrismations and Ordinations began February 8, 1987 at St. Michaels

Church, Van Nuys and continued the next Sunday at St. Nicholas Cathe*
dral, Los Angeles. Here, Metropolitan PHILIP chrismates one of the
young faithful.
 ON TO SS. PETER AND PAUL PARISH, SANTA CRUZ

Photo by Conciliar Press.

Metropolitan PHILIP begins the Divine Liturgy at SS Peter and Paul in

Santa Cruz-

Photo by Conciliar Press. Photo by Conciliar Press.

Fr. Jack Sparks chrismates a child. Fr. Weldon Hardenbrook holds

the Cross for Veneration.
Photo by Harley & Dianne Cranor.

"I wish I could go beyond words to describe to you the joy which I experi'
enced as 1 was chrismating the little children of the Evangelical Ortho'
dox faithful," Saidna PHILIP told the delegates at the Antiochian
Archdiocesan Convention in July, 1987.
 HOLY TRINITY PARISH, NASHVILLE

Photo by Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese.

The Ordination of the Deacons at Holy Trinity Church, Nashville.

Photo by Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese. Photo by Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese.

"Do Thou, Lord of all men, pre' Metropolitan PHILIP and Fr.
serve in pureness of life and un> Gordon Walker talk with Fr.
swerving faith this man upon Donald Berge at the reception for
whom, through me, you have gra> new clergy in Nashville following
ciously been pleased to lay hands'* the Divine Liturgy.
 AT ST. JOHN'S CATHEDRAL, EAGLE RIVER, ALASKA

Photo by Harley & Dianne Cranor.

The faithful of St. John's, Eagle River, designed and built the church with
their own labor.

Photo by Harley & Dianne Cranor. Photo by Harley & Dianne Cranor.

Left to right, Deacon Hans, Fr. Jack Fr. Harold Dunaway, dean, St.
Sparks, Metropolitan PHILIP and John's Cathedral is elevated to
Fr. Harold Dunaway in Alaska. Archpriest by the Metropolitan.
 I!

1 MM
If* 11

Photo by Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese.

Fr.John Bartke, left, and His Grace, Bishop ANTOUN, outside Antio-
chian Headquarters in Englewood, NJ.

Photo by Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese.

Bishop Antoun discussing liturgical matters with Fr. Peter Gillquist and
other AEOM clergy.
 The Procession of the
Left:
Cross outside St. John's
Orthodox Cathedral, Eagle
River, Alaska.

Photo by Harley & Dianne Cranor.

Top: Fr. Richard Ballew

reads the Gospel at a ser>
vice following his
ordination.

Photo by Conciliar Press.

Bottom: The Antiochian

Evangelical Orthodox Mis>
sion Council of Pastors at
its meeting in Santa Cruz-

Photo by Conciliar Press.

Photo by Harley & Dianne Cranor.

Brothers and Sisters in Christy

Welcome Home!"
 Why We Worship the Way We Do 87

ing the soon-to-be-consecrated bread and wine in what

is called the Great Entrance, the choir sings:

Let us who mystically represent the cherubim

And sing to the life -giving Trinity

The thrice -Holy Hymn,

Let us now lay aside all earthly cares
that we may receive the King of all,
Who comes invisibly upborne by the angelic hosts.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

One of the things that has comforted me most in the

worship of God through the time-proven liturgy of the
Church is that so many of the passages of the Bible that
I never underlined have come to life. It is as though
heaven's drama of worship is playing live, right in my
home town and in the very Christian community to
which I belong. Since the liturgy is a procession of the
people of God to His heavenly throne, not only is Christ
really present with us, we are really present with Him as
the Scriptures say "in the heavenlies."
Truth is, there is just one Divine Liturgy, one Holy
Communion, in all the universe — the one in heaven.
We who gather as the Church here on earth are called
to join in and participate with heaven's hosts. And to do
so,we take great pains in our worship to make it consis-
tent—and not to clash — with the worship before the
throne of God. Or, to use the words of the Lord's Prayer,
we want to be sure that in our worship we are carrying
out God's will "on earth as it is in heaven."
Why have most modern Protestant bodies — tradi-
tional, evangelical, and charismatic — left this historic
shape of Christian worship? To answer, let me coin a
88 Orthodoxy and the Bible

word, Romophobia. How many times have you heard peo-

ple resist liturgy with the excuse, "It's too Catholic"?
Well, 50 what! Is the issue whether or not Rome does it?
It's time we all come back to the Bible. And the Bible
teaches that worship is liturgical — both in heaven and
on earth.
My friend, an Orthodox priest, had never in his life
been to a service in an evangelical church. Since he was
busy on Sunday mornings, he decided to visit a local
evangelical church one Sunday evening. "How did you
respond?" I asked him. "What did you think?"
"Well, the preaching was really good," he answered.
"The pastor stayed carefully with the text, and I felt he
communicated the Gospel quite clearly. I was impressed."
He paused for a moment, trying to put the rest of his
reactions into words. After a couple of false starts, he
finally blurted out, "But the rest of the service was
like . . . well, I guess you could call it a Christian Law-
rence Welk Show."
He went on to describe all the special musical num-
bers, the choral arrangements, and the words to those
songs that centered on the me whose needs are met,
rather than on our Triune God before whom we bow in
worship. We have lost true worship in modern Christian-
ity, and we must by the grace of God get it back!

Worship as Touch and Taste

"And he touched my mouth with it," Isaiah said of
the seraph who brought him the coal from off the altar.
He had seen something, heard something, and now the
prophet felt something. A burning coal had been taken
from heaven's altar with tongs and carried by the seraph
to meet Isaiah's lips. What is the meaning of this act?
 Why We Worship the Way We Do 89

After Isaiah had seen the Lord and heard the hymn
of the angels crying holiness to Him, the prophet gave a
most predictable response, "Woe is me, for I am un-
done." It was what a child psychologist called on a re-
cent TV program "the Oh-oh feeling," which he de-
scribed as the feeling when a child is caught red-handed
in an act of disobedience and goes Oh-oh to himself as
he sees his father approaching him.
You and I would have felt the same as Isaiah did.
Here he was, a citizen of Israel at a time when God was
greatly disappointed with His chosen nation because of
their disobedience and lack of faith. We read just one
chapter earlier in Isaiah 5 that God had looked for good
grapes in His vineyard and gotten wild ones. "I will lay it
waste," He warned in the sixth verse. Isaiah knew he
was part of all this.

Now, all of a sudden, he found himself swept up to

heaven facing the Lord of Glory! His train filled the
temple. The angels were singing, so much so that the
doorposts shook. Look at his response:

"Woe is me, for Iam undone!

Because I am a man of unclean lips,

And I dwell in the midst of a people

of unclean lips;

For my eyes have seen the King,

The Lord of hosts." (Isaiah 6:5)

He was standing before the mighty Son of God, con-

fessing the uncleanness of his own lips and that he lived
in the midst of unclean people. What brought this con-
viction of sin? "My eyes have seen the King." When any
of us really see Christ, we come unglued or undone to use
90 Orthodoxy and the Bible

the Bible word, because then we see our sin most vividly.
It's "Oh-oh feeling" raised to the highest power.
the
So then what happened? The same thing that always
happens when our sins are laid before the Son of God.
The angel took the coal, the symbol of the sacrament,
off the altar, touched the lips of Isaiah with it and pro-
claimed for all of heaven to hear: "Behold, this has
touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your
sin is purged."
Isn't that just like the Son of God, to not only take
away sin but to purge or separate from us, as we read
it

in another place, "as far as the east is from the west"

(Psalm 103:12). "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday,
today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). He do the same
will
for us as we confess our sins and receive His gift today
from off the altar. Can you see how the coal teaches us
the power of the sacrament? This is why, from centuries
ago until this day, when a priest of the Orthodox
Church receives the body and blood of Christ at the
altar, his confession is precisely that of godly Isaiah as he
repeats,"Behold this has touched my lips, my iniquity is
taken away and my sins are purged!"
We who have lived apart from the worship and the
sacrament of Christ need His holy touch. You may go to
this church or that, seek the teaching of this preacher or
that, this spiritual experience or that, but the truth is
you will never find real worship, heavenly worship, any-
where — anyw here — apart from the life-giving grace of
Christ at His holy Eucharist. I, and thousands of others,
know. We tried. And we consistently came up short.
The Psalmist said, "Taste and see that the Lord is

good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him" (Psalm 34:8).

At His Holy Table, it is given us to taste, see, and trust.

Isaiah was touched by the flaming coal of God's forgive-

 Why We Worship the Way We Do 91

ness, tasting personally His goodness. And from the altar

of God comes that very same provision for us and for our
sins to this day. Let us come boldly therefore, with faith
and love, and draw near to His throne of mercy.

Worship as Smell
When Isaiah came to the heavenly temple, another
of his senses went to work. He smelled something for
"the house was filled with smoke."
I recall as vividly as if it had taken place yesterday
walking into the sanctuary of St. Innocent Orthodox

Church, Tarzana, California, and experiencing for the

first time the lingering fragrance of incense used a few
hours earlier in a morning service. I was offended. "I'll

buy Orthodox doctrine," I said to myself (I already had

bought it), "but they'll never catch me using incense."
A couple of months later I was back at St. Innocent
for a worship service and, naturally, a re-experience of
the odor of incense. This time it was rather pleasant be-
cause it brought back memories of liking other things
about my previous visit.

That next week I began to think my way back

through the Scriptures. Israel used incense in her wor-
ship. We read repeatedly of the altar of incense with the
rising smoke signifying the prayers of the saints. Isaiah in
his heavenly vision of Christ and His angelic hosts saw
the Lord high and lifted up "and the house was filled

with smoke" (Isaiah 6:4). Incense was one of the three

gifts brought to the infant Jesus by the wise men. Revela-

tion 8 tells us of incense in the eternal heavens. Why not

now? I recall thinking to myself, realizing that it was gen-
erally modern Protestants who were the exception not
92 Orthodoxy and the Bible

the rule. The rest of Christendom has used incense in

worship for two thousand years!

But then the thought came, Is it all that big a deal?
Should we make incense an issue? Is it worth pressing for?
Some years ago, I was planning a trip to Minneapolis
to move my wife's mother, Olga Grinder, to the West
Coast to live near us in Santa Barbara. She was seventy-
nine, and family consensus — including hers — was that
she did not need another Minnesota winter, especially
living by herself. I would go back, help her pack, put the
house up for sale, and accompany her back West.
Peter Jon, my youngest of six, who was then eleven,
asked to go along. "P.J., you're right in the middle of the
school year," Marilyn reasoned. "Besides, it's a pretty ex-
pensive trip."

"I can make up the schoolwork — I'll even take

homework assignments along," P.J. rejoined, "And I'll

help buy my ticket from my savings account."

We were both unconvinced and nodded our heads
"no" until the next sentence, the corker. "Dad, Mom, all

the other kids were older the last time we visited

Grandma. They remember, and I don't. She'll sell the
house, and I'll go through life and not remember what
Grandma's house was like."
I phoned the travel agent the following morning to
reserve two seats instead of one.
It was the end of October when we journeyed to
Grandma's. We were right at the end of the colorful
fall season. Our first night there, we were sitting to-
gether, the three of us, in the den, eating take-out Chi-
nese food. P.J. was on the couch with a TV tray in
front of him.
 Why We Worship the Way We Do 93

"Do you remember anything about Grandma's

house?" I asked.
"Yeah, two things," he answered immediately as
though he were prepared for the question. "I remember
the den wallpaper. The last time I was here the little
girl across the alley pushed me off her swing, and I cut
my knee. Grandpa brought me in and laid me here on
the couch, and I remember looking at this wallpaper all
afternoon."
"What's the other thing?" I asked.
"The smell," he said. Then he giggled at what he had
heard himself say. "I don't want to be weird, but
Grandmas' houses always smell a certain way."
Olga and I both blinked back the tears.
Of course Grandmas' houses all have a certain smell.
And so do God's houses. The tabernacle had a smell,
the temple had a smell, heaven has a smell, and the
Church has a smell. It's the smell of incense, and it in-
volves our sense of smell in worship.
me keep my mind from
Personally, incense helps
wandering during worship. And now, the minute I walk
inside the church, my sense of smell notifies my brain of
what I am there to do: bow down to Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit and pray. Is incense worth scrapping for?
Let the prophet Malachi give God's answer to that
question:

"For from the rising of the sun,

even to its going down,
My name shall be great among the
Gentiles;

In every place incense shall be

offered to My name,
 .

94 Orthodoxy and the Bible

And a pure offering;

For My name shall be great among

the nations/
Says the LORD of hosts." (Malachi 1:11)

The Scriptures tell us that as the Gospel would

spread to the Gentile world, in the age of the Church,
incense would be offered in every place. In the worship
of the Christian Church, incense is supposed to come
with the territory, and something that God revealed is

missing in worship when we fail to have it there.

Worship as Mission
There was a final step in the events of what hap-
pened the day Isaiah saw and heard and tasted, touched
and smelled the worship of heaven. That was, he did
something. When his sins had been purged, Isaiah was
questioned by the Lord. Given the discouraging state of
affairs in Israel, the Lord was looking for a prophetic

spokesman to call them back to center. "Whom shall I

send, And who will go for Us?" (the "Us" there being a
wonderful Old Testament reference to the Holy Trinity)
Isaiah replied without delay, "Here am I! Send me."
We're not all called to be prophets of God ("all are
not prophets, are they?"), and surely the liturgy, though
the same, is rarely as dramatic as this. But this is sure: All
of us who worship God are called to freely and firmly say
yes to Jesus Christ in whatever He asks us to do.
This is why in the Divine Liturgy at the end of sev-
eral litanies, the priest or deacon leads us in saying, "We
commit ourselves, each other, and all our lives unto
Christ our God." How much of ourselves do we give
 Why We Worship the Way We Do 95

over to the Lord? Every thing — all our lives. That is our
yes to Him.
Let us never leave the liturgy without laying down
our lives afresh to Jesus Christ to be His servants, His
ambassadors, in the world to which we go.
 7
CALL NO MAN FATHER
Several decades have passed since Bing Crosby
donned clerical garb and portrayed a role on the sil-
ver screen for which he would be endeared even to this
day — Father O'Malley. At our house, over the years,
Marilyn and I grab the kids and stay up late to watch
the Christmas reruns on T.V.
Somewhat earlier in our century, one of the great hu-
manitarians of our time, Father Flanagan, founded Boys'
Town in Nebraska. The home became a nationally-known
refuge for homeless young men. In many ways, Mother
Teresa of India is his contemporary female counterpart,
caring for the poor and downtrodden of her land.
But what are we to make of these titles? We admire
the work and character of these people, but does not the
Bible issue thecommand to call no man father?
In my more radical Protestant days I would only call

a priest father if I absolutely had to — sometimes offering

a silent prayer for the Lord to forgive me. And now that
I'm a priest, I see the same hesitancy in others. It was
one of the issues we struggled with as we made our way
to Orthodoxy.

97
98 Orthodoxy and the Bible

Certain statements made by Jesus have often been the

basis of great controversy, both inside and outside the
Church. His saying in Matthew 23:9, "Do not call anyone
on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in
heaven," has proven to be no exception. I must confess it

was a major issue for us as evangelical Christians to call

the pastors of Orthodox parishes father.

At Issue Is Interpretation

Some interpreters inside Protestantism are sure Jesus

was warning against addressing church leaders as father.
They, of course, are interpreting "father" in this Scrip-
ture to mean spiritual father. Therefore, they refuse to

call their clergymen father, preferring instead such titles

as pastor, reverend, or perhaps even brother.

At the outset, therefore, let me point out that "spiri-
tual father" an interpretation of the Lord's statement
is

rather than what He actually said. Mind you, I am not

denying the need for interpretation of Scripture. Instead,
I am pointing out that the Lord said "father," not "spiri-
tual father."
What is at issue here? Simply this: taken at face
value, Jesus' warning against calling any man father
would not only seem to rule out calling a clergyman fa-
ther, it would also keep us from using that title for
earthly fathers and grandfathers, ancient Church fathers,
or even city fathers, would it not? For in reality, the
Lord's statement, as it appears in the text, is that only
one Person is ever to be called father, namely, our Fa-
ther who is in heaven.
But was Christ's saying to be taken at face value as
we had generally done? Were we not to call Orthodox
 Call Mo Man Father 99

pastors father? If so, several other passages in the Bible

were immediately in trouble, including some statements
by the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. To the
church at Corinth the Apostle wrote, "For if you were to
have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have
many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I became your father
through the gospel." (1 Corinthians 4:15, NASB, emphasis
added). Does not Paul claim to be the spiritual father of
the Corinthians — "Father Paul," if you please?
Furthermore, he boldly refers to his spiritual ancestry
as "our fathers." And he did address earthly fathers in
Colossae in this way: "Fathers, do not provoke your chil-
dren, lest they become discouraged" (Colossians 3:21). It

would appear the Apostle Paul certainly did not inter-

pret the Lord Jesus Christ to say only One was to be
called father, that is, the heavenly Father.
In addition to this, when the rich man saw Abraham
in heaven with Lazarus in his bosom and addressed him
as "Father Abraham," Abraham's response was not, "Do
you not realize that only God the Father is to be called
Father?" Rather, he replied, "Son, remember" (Luke
16:20-31).

Other Titles

But let us not stop here. For in addition to saying

"only One your Father," Jesus also declared, "Do not
is

be called 'Rabbi'; for One is your Teacher, the Christ"

(Matthew 23:8). Yet Jesus Christ Himself acknowledged
Nicodemus to be the "teacher of Israel" G onn 3:10).
And in the church at Antioch certain men were called
"prophets and teachers" (Acts 13:1).
100 Orthodoxy and the Bible

The Apostle Paul not only recognized teachers as

gifts of God to the Church, but he also did not hesitate

to call himself "a teacher of the Gentiles" (1 Timothy

2:7). Furthermore, in this present day, almost all of us
have at one time or another called certain people Sun-
day School teachers. In seminary, one of the highest in-
troductions a chapel speaker could receive was to be sin-
gled out as a gifted Bible teacher. The discussion thus
goes far beyond any Protestant-Catholic lines.

Therefore, in saying we should

no one father
call

and teacher, except God the Father and Christ Him-

the Lord Jesus appears not
self, to be taking issue with
the use of these particular titles in and of themselves.
The context of the passage gives us the interpretive key
we are looking for.
In this "call no man father" passage, our Lord is con-
tending with certain rabbis of His day who were using
these specific titles to accomplish their own ends. And
had these same apostate rabbis been using other titles like

reverend and pastor, Jesus, it seems to me, would have said

of these as well, "Call no one reverend or pastor."

What Did the Rabbis Mean?

To what ends, therefore, were the rabbis using the
titles father and teacher! The answer revolves around at
least two critical areas of leadership: teaching and per-
sonal character.
Consider first the teaching of these particular rabbis.
They had begun their teaching at the right place, the
Law of Moses. Said Jesus, "The scribes and the Pharisees
sit in Moses' seat" (Matthew 23:2). Moses' Law was the
true tradition. God had given it to Israel through Moses.
 Call No Man Father 1 01

The rabbis' responsibility was to preserve that tradition

and faithfully pass it on to the next generation.
All too often, however, a rabbi would add his own
grain of wisdom to the true tradition, thereby clouding
it. Instead of passing down the sacred deposit along with
the true interpretations of that deposit, he would add his
own private interpretation. In turn his disciples, like
their teacher, would, after becoming rabbis, also do the
same thing. It was the tradition of men all over again.
(Some things never change, do they!)
The final outcome of all this was a tradition of men
that made the true Mosaic tradition of no effect. To these
very rabbis Jesus had said, "For laying aside the command-
ment of God, you hold the tradition of men" (Mark 7:8).
And again, "All too well you reject the commandment of
God, that you may keep your tradition . . . making the
word of God of no effect through your tradition which
you have handed down" (Mark 7:9, 13).

In order to cut through all this tradition of men that

had made the Mosaic tradition of no effect and to bring
people back to the truth, Jesus told His disciples, "But
you, do not be called 'Rabbi.'" In other words, He was
telling them not to use their positions as fathers and
teachers as an opportunity to build disciples around their
own private opinions. For to do so would only serve to

"shut up the kingdom of heaven against men."

Instead, with the coming of Christ, these rabbis — in-
deed who would teach God's Word — were to faith-
all

fully hand down the true tradition of only one Rabbi:

Christ Himself. The Bible calls this particular tradition,

through the pen of the Apostle John, "the doctrine of
Christ." In fact, as we noted earlier, this is why the spe-
102 Orthodoxy and the Bible

cific teaching of the Twelve became known as "the

Apostles' doctrine."
Since their time, successive generations of fathers
and teachers in the Church have handed down and
guarded the apostolic doctrine concerning Christ very
carefully, for it represents the true interpretation of Holy
Scripture.
This faithfulness to true Christian doctrine, by the
way, can be especially seen in the Seven Ecumenical
Councils of the Church, held between the fourth and
eighth centuries. It behooves anyone who claims to be a
teacher of Christ's doctrine to be faithful to the
Apostles' doctrine handed down through those Councils.
Otherwise he runs the risk of inserting his own "private
interpretation."
While it is true that all teachers of Christ's doctrine
must begin at the right place, namely, the Holy Scrip-
tures, it is also true that they should give the correct and
true interpretation of Holy Scripture as passed down by
holy and godly teachers and fathers of the Church, espe-
cially in the Seven Councils.
Why are the Seven Ecumenical Councils so impor-
tant? Because they point out what the Church univer-
sally held to be the true teaching concerning the Person
of the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity. They are
faithful to what the Holy Scriptures teach concerning
the one true Rabbi and Teacher, Jesus Christ. Teachers
and fathers who teach private interpretations contrary to
the doctrine of Christ as taught in the Seven Ecumeni-
cal Councils should, I believe, not be recognized as true
teachers and fathers.
 Call No Man Father 103

The Rabbis and Personal Character

A second critical area of rabbinic leadership with
which Jesus was concerned was personal character. He
had detected a major flaw in the character of the scribes
and Pharisees, a sin that might be called self-exaltation.
They were using their position as fathers and teachers
among God's people to exalt themselves. They wanted
to be sure they received appropriate recognition —a car-
peted office with adjoining half-bath, engraved personal
stationery, and a silver four-door Buick. In light of this
lack of character, Jesus said, "But he who is greatest
among you shall And whoever exalts
be your servant.
himself will be abased, and he who humbles himself will
be exalted" (Matthew 23:11-12).
Their self-exalting spirit had manifested itself in sev-
eral ways. First, in hypocrisy. "For they say," said Jesus,
"and do not do" (Matthew 23:3). All talk and no walk.
Their talk was cheap because
it was totally contradicted

by their behavior. In pretense they would make long

prayers, but in behavior devour widows' houses.
They would make oaths, swearing by the gold of the
temple rather than by the temple that sanctified the
gold, thereby revealing their secret love of money. Al-
though they paid tithes of mint, anise, and cumin, which
they should have done gladly, they neglected the weight-
ier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith.

Because they were hypocrites in these and numerous

other ways, the Lord summed up His critique by saying,
"Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men,
but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness"
(Matthew 23:28). Plainly, their "insides" did not match
their "outsides" because they were filled up with a self-
exalting and self-serving spirit.
1 04 Orthodoxy and the Bible

Another manifestation of their self-exalting spirit was

the noticeable lack of actual service on their part. "For,"

said Jesus, "they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay
them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not
move them with one of their fingers" (Matthew 23:4).
No dirt was to be found under their fingernails, no
mud on their uniforms. They were simply a group of lazy
leaders who wanted to be served rather than to serve.
No wonder, then, Jesus said not to be like them, for
from God's standpoint, "he who is greatest among you
shall be your servant" (Matthew 23:11).
A third manifestation of their self-exalting spirit was
self-love, demonstrated by a desire to be seen by men. It
was also shown by their love for the center seat at the
head table at the feasts and in the synagogues and by
their love of greetings in the marketplaces as people
would call out, "Rabbi, Rabbi."
This self-love was a clear transgression of the Mosaic
Law, which they professed to be keeping. For Moses' en-
tire law could be summed up in the two great command-

ments, the greatest of which is, "You shall love the Lord
your God with all your heart, withall your soul, and

with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37). The second

greatest is, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself
(Matthew 22:39).
Thus, these fathers and teachers were not leading
their people into the love of God and neighbor. Quite to
the contrary, they were exhibiting a self-exalting, self-
serving spirit, filled up with a love for self.

The Verdict of Christ

It is in the face of the stench and shame of the apos-

tasy of these religious leaders, therefore, that Jesus com-
 Call No Man Father 105

manded them, "Do not call anyone on earth your father;

for One is your Father, He who is in heaven." While
Father Abraham by his faithfulness deserved the title, as
did others of Israel's greats in history, these men had for-
feited their role as fathers. They were to cease and desist
in their use of the term and in turn bow to God Himself
as the fountainhead of all fatherhood.
And in issuing His warning, Jesus addressed us today
with the greatest of all commandments. He pointed the
fathers and teachers in His Church and those they lead
to a love for God and to a love for one's neighbor.

And What Are We to Do?

From the beginning of Church history, as was true
throughout Israel, those anointed by God for service
were called by certain names: prophet, teacher, rabbi (in

Israel), and father. In that same spirit, other titles have

emerged, like reverend, pastor, professor, or brother (for

some evangelical pastors and Catholic monks). These

designations speak both of warmth and dignity.

Just as in our family units there is one who with love

is called father, so in God's household we have and will
continue to honor those who have brought us to the
new Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, what
birth through our
better term for them than father 7 .

Jesus warned against calling unworthy men father or

teacher in order that the leadership of His holy nation
would remain pure. Whether they be bishop, father,
teacher, deacon, or pastor, they all must remain faithful
to the true doctrine of Christ and manifest a personal
character befitting godly humility that leads the Church
into the love of God the Holy Trinity and one's neighbor.
1 06 Orthodoxy and the Bible

As a priest myself, I find a personal zone of comfort

in calling an older fellow-priest father, for I really view

him as such. In the parish itself the title is a warm and
intimate line of demarcation that distinguishes (not sep-
arates) those in the body of Christ called to lead and
give care.
In our journey, when we agreed to use the term fa-
ther as a proper designation for the priest, we told the
people they were certainly free to continue to use the
term pastor if they were more at ease doing so. Soon, the
more natural term came to be father, and that is what is

used today.
Two things have resulted. The people know there is

a spiritual "head of the house" who is there to image the

headship of Jesus Christ and pass on His mercy and love.
In addition, being called father keeps the clergy re-
minded of who they are: not just good speakers or ad-
ministrators or rulers or exhorters — but primarily fathers,
daddies, papas to the people of God. If they are that,
then the rest of what they are is in far better perspective.
 8
FACING UP TO MARY

is safe to say that no woman in history is more

Itmisunderstood
by modern Christendom than the
Virgin Mary.
And it is also probable that in a disagreement con-
cerning Mary between two Christians, if their differences
remain unresolved, it will be due to stubborn refusal to
deal with the biblical data.
If I have heard him say it once, I have heard Billy
Graham say it dozen times over the
at least a half
years: "We evangelical Christians do not give Mary her
proper due."
His statement raises the crucial question about Mary.
What is her proper due? Before we look to the Scrip-
tures for some answers, let us acknowledge right up front
a problem which makes our task much more difficult
than it should be.
The highly-charged emotional atmosphere which sur-
rounds this subject serves to blunt our objectivity in fac-
ing up to Mary. Many of us were brought up to question
or reject honor paid to Mary in Christian worship and
art. Therefore, we often have our minds made up in ad-

107
108 Orthodoxy and the Bible

vance. We
have allowed our preconceptions to color our
understanding even of the Scriptural passages concern-
ing her. We have not let the facts speak for themselves.
As we attempted to face up to Mary honestly and
openly — and it was not easy for us — we turned first to
the Bible and specifically to the New Testament. Then
we went Old Testament. As we studied we also
to the
considered what the early Church fathers had to say on
the subject. We looked at the whole of Church history
to try to understand both how she had been properly
honored, and how incorrect dogmas concerning her
crept into the picture.

The New Testament Record

What is it, then, that the New Testament teaches
concerning the Virgin Mary? We can find at least four
crucial answers.

Mary Is the Greatest Woman Who Ever Lived

Whereas our Lord
Jesus Christ told us there was no
greater man
walk the earth than John the Baptist,
to
both the Archangel Gabriel and the saintly Elizabeth
confessed to Mary, "Blessed are you among women"
(Luke 1:28,42).
She is the most blessed of women for several reasons,
the greatest of which is that she conceived, carried, gave
birth to, and nurtured the very Savior of our souls. The
One who today occupies the heavenly throne of David
and is seated regally at the right hand of God the Father,
entered the human race and became our Savior through
her womb. She was chosen by the Father to bear His
only-begotten Son.
 Facing Up to Mary 1 09

In that role, Mary was the first person in all history to

receive and accept Christ as her Savior. You and I are
called to enthrone the Lord in our hearts and lives — to
follow Mary's example in doing so. Early in Christian his-
tory she is called "the first of the redeemed."
remember entering a church in suburban Chicago
I

some years ago and seeing a painting or icon of Mary

with open arms front and center on the wall (the apse)
just behind the altar. My first impulse was to wonder
why Christ alone was not featured at that particular
place in the church, though He was shown in a large
circle that was super-imposed over her heart.
When I asked why she was so prominently featured,

the Christian scholar with me explained: "This is one of

the greatest evangelistic icons in the entire Church.
What you see is Christ living as Lord in Mary's life, and
her outstretched arms are an invitation to you and me to
let Him live in our lives as He has in hers." The power
of that icon stays in my mind to this day. For she has set

the example for all of us to personally give our lives over

fully to Jesus Christ.

Mary is also blessed because she found favor in the

sight of God. Gabriel's words of encouragement to her
were, "Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you"
(Luke 1:28). Then he comforted her by saying, "Do not
1

be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God' (Luke
1:30, emphasis added).
What does one do to become one of God's favorites,
to be rewarded by Him? Remember Cornelius in Acts
10? He was the first Gentile to convert to Christ, "a de-
vout man and one . . .who gave alms generously to the
people, and prayed to God always" (Acts 10:2). Two
verses later he was told in a vision, "Your prayers and
I w Orthodoxy and the Bible

your alms have come up for a memorial before God." The

Lord took notice of his deeds of devotion and brought
him salvation. In a similar way, Mary's purity found favor
with God, and she was chosen to bear His Son.
Am I suggesting human merit earns salvation? Not at

all! As commendable as it is for us to live in purity, a

devout life never merits salvation. Else why would Mary

be called first of the redeemed, or why would Cornelius
need to be baptized into Christ by Saint Peter? Prayer
and devotion, however, do gain God's attention. When
we seek Him with all our hearts, we do find Him! When
we give Him everything we have, our very life, we will

be favored of God. This is precisely what Mary did, and

why she is to be considered the greatest woman who
ever lived.

Mary Is Our Model for the Christian Life

The Orthodox Church has taught from the very be-
ginning that Mary is the supreme example, or prototype,
of what happens to a person who fully places trust and
faith in God. Everything we aspire to become in Christ,
she already is. We are all to "receive" Christ (John
1:12). And as we noted previously, Mary was the first
human who did
being receive Christ. Out of the millions
of "decisions" made for Christ, Mary's was the first.

Therefore, whatever promises the Holy Scriptures hold

for us, Mary already possesses.

Our model While God certainly knew Mary

of obedience.
Him, He did not take her servitude for
desired to please
granted. The angel explained how she would bear
Christ. "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the
power of the Highest [God the Father] will overshadow
 1

Facing Up to Mary 1 1

you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born

will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35).
Now Mary had a decision to make. Was she willing?
Hear her answer, for it is the doorway to the life of spiri-

tual service for all of us. "Behold the maidservant of the

Lord!" she said. "Let it be to me according to your word"
(Luke 1:38).
Even if we are totally sincere about wanting to follow
God, He will never conscript us apart from our consent!
Like Mary, we are to choose freely to obey Him and do
His will.

Some thirty years later, by the way, Mary again had

opportunity to exalt her Lord. She was with Jesus at a
wedding in Cana of Galilee. The servants who were in
charge of the celebration discovered they were out of
wine. Mary had no doubt as to who could solve their
problem. Referring to her Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, she
advised them, "Whatever He says to you, do it" (John
2:5). In all her Mary practiced this advice she gave
life

to the servants. That is why she stands as our example of

Christian obedience.

Our model of purity and holiness. We who are called holy

brethren (Hebrews 3:1) are commanded to be holy as
God is holy (1 Peter 1:15-16). We are to present our bod-
ies as (Romans 12:1). Is it so unthinkable
a living sacrifice
that she whose holy body was the recipient of God Incar-
nate should be called "most holy" by the Church?
If we as the Church are called to be without "spot or
wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and
without blemish" (Ephesians 5:27), does it not follow
that she who is the progenitor of the Lord of that
Church should be of that same holy character? Certainly
1 12 Orthodoxy and the Bible

we should be able to look to Mary as our example of

holiness and purity.

Our model of royalty and intercession. If the sacred Scrip-

tures declare that we are all kings (Revelation 1:6), is it

so strange that the Church refers to Mary as Queen? If

the Holy Bible promises that you and I shall judge an-
gels (1 odd that the Church
Corinthians 6:3), is it so
should sing that Mary is "More honorable than the
cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the
seraphim"?
Not only has Mary by the mercy and power of God
conquered both sin and death, the Psalmist sees a
glimpse of her in heaven through prophetic eyes. For in
Psalm 45:9, Christ is King and Mary is at His side as
Queen — and rightly so. If God can make us "kings and
priests" (Revelation 1:6) for all eternity, certainly He has
the prerogative to crown her with higher honor in
heaven's royal procession.
If Saint Paul instructs us as a holy priesthood to
"pray always ... for all the saints" (Ephesians 6:18), is it

so outrageous to confess with the Church that holy Mary

(along with all the saints who have passed from death to
life and continually stand in the presence of Christ) in-
tercedes before her Son on behalf of all men? For Mary
is the prototype of what we are all to be.

Mary Is the Mother of God

Now things get a bit more touchy for some of us.
Here is one of those emotional trouble spots I mentioned
earlier. Whether we like to face it or not, the Bible
teaches Mary is the mother of God. First let's look at the
 1 a

Facing Up to Mary 1 3

text, then we will discuss why this title is so important to

our lives as Christians in the Church.
After Christ had been conceived in her womb, Mary
paid a visit to the home of relatives Zacharias and Eliza-
beth, soon to be parents of John the Baptist. When Mary
greeted her cousin, Elizabeth called her blessed and said,
"Why isgranted to me, that the mother of my Lord
this

should come to me?" (Luke 1:43, emphasis added). Eliz-

abeth knew that her Lord, the Messiah of Israel, was
God. She knew from childhood, "Hear, O Israel: the
Lord our God, the Lord is one!" (Deuteronomy 6:4).
And she knew that her Lord was in the womb of Mary.
This title, Mother of God, took on great importance in
the fourth century, when a heretic named Nestorius —
man who held high office in the Church — claimed that
the one in Mary's womb was certainly man, but that He
was not God. Orthodox Christians, with one accord, said,

"Wrong!" To see Jesus Christ as something less than God

in the flesh is sub-Christian. For unless the one in Mary's
womb was and is God, we are dead in our sins. To safe-

guard the full Deity of Christ, the Church has always in-
sisted that Mary be rightly called — as Elizabeth discerned
her to be — the Mother of God.
This title, of course, does not mean mother of the
Holy Trinity, for the Holy Trinity has no mother. Nei-
ther does it mean she originated the Person who is God
the Son. It refers instead to Mary being the God-bearer
(Theotokos in Greek), the Mother of the Son of God,
who assumed full humanity in her womb.
When a man buys a large plot of land and turns cat-
tle out to graze on it,he fences in his acreage. He does
so to protect his cattle, to keep them from wandering
off, and to discourage rustlers. Similarly, the Church sets
1 14 Orthodoxy and the Bible

doctrinal fences around its foundational truths. And

nothing is more and important to us than the
basic
Deity of Christ. Because Christ is God, we set a firm and
non-negotiable fence around His Divinity by our unmov-
able confession that Mary is the Mother of God.
Just as we insist on the Virgin Birth of Christ, we also
insist that for the nine months she carried Him in His

humanity, He was at every moment fully God as well.

Thus we say boldly and with great insistence that Mary is

the Mother of God, Theotokos, God-bearer. To say any-
thing less is to side with those who deny His Deity.

We Are to Honor Mary and Call Her Blessed

Now comes the toughest test of all. Not only is Mary
the most blessed of women, our model for the Christian
life, and the Mother of God, but we are also called to

honor her and to bless her. How do we know? The Bible

tells us so.
During her three-month stay at Elizabeth's house,
Mary offered one of the most beautiful prayers of praise
to the Lord in all the Scriptures. It begins, "My soul
magnifies the Lord," and it has become known as "The
Magnificat."
In that prayer, inspired by the Holy Spirit, Mary
prophesied, "henceforth, all generations will call me
blessed" (Luke 1:48). Essentially, all generations in
Church history have done so; only those of the last two
centuries have faltered. Our generation of American
Christians is filled with those who refuse to bless her,
and we must change our ways.
From the beginning of recorded Christian worship,
Orthodox Christians have taken special care to venerate
or honor Mary in the Liturgy. There is an ancient hymn
 Facing Up to Mary 1 15

which begins, "It is truly right to bless you, O Theotokos

[Mother of God]." She is also called in this hymn "Ever-
blessed and most pure." The biblical injunction to honor
Mary is followed and taken seriously.
We do not, of course, worship Mary, for worship is
reserved for the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
But she ismost certainly to be honored and venerated.
And because Christ is our elder brother, the firstborn of
many brethren, we honor the Virgin Mary as our
Mother, our Lady, as well. Just as Eve was mother of the
old Adamic race, so Mary is the true Mother of the new
race, the Body of Christ, the Church.
Perhaps in part because we refuse to honor Mary, our
generation seems to struggle with honoring anyone. For
example, next time a presidential news conference
comes on T.V., watch closely how some in the press
corps behave! Far from merely trying to get the story,
many are out for intimidation and willful dishonor.
While God's Word tells us to honor the king (1
Peter 2:17) and to give preference to each other (Ro-
mans 12:10), our generation seems to delight in chal-
lenging and humiliating other people, especially those in
authority. Not only are we who are Bible-believing
Christians urged to give honor to whom honor is due
(see Romans 13:7), we are called by God in no uncertain
terms to bless the Mother of our God. We cannot get
around that point in Scripture.

The Old Testament and the Virgin

We know that the Old Testament is more than just

an inspired account of the history of mankind, or of Is-

— indeed central to its mes-
rael in particular. In its pages
1 i 6 Orthodoxy and the Bible

sage — is also the prophetic record concerning our Lord

Jesus Christ. He is typified throughout. Moses was a
type of Christ, in that he led the people out of bondage
into the land of promise. David typified Christ asKing
of Israel. Adam was a type of Christ as head of the
human race.
Often overlooked, however, is the fact that the Virgin
Mary is also seen in the prophetic pages of the Old Testa-
ment. Most Christians are aware that the Prophet Isaiah
predicts Mary's virgin conception of Christ when he
writes: "Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign:
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and
shall call His name Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14). But there
are numerous other passages which speak of Mary as well.

Ever-Virgin
From the very early years of the Church, Mary was
called not only Virgin, but Ever-Virgin. She was seen as
never having had a sexual union with Joseph, before or
after the birth of Christ. Ezekiel 44:1-2 is a passage
often referred to by the early fathers in this regard. It

states: "Then He brought me back to the outer gate of

the sanctuary which faces toward the east, but it was
shut. And the Lord said to me, This gate shall be shut;
it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter by it,

because the Lord God of Israel has entered by it; there-

fore it shall be shut.'"
In traditional interpretation of this passage, Mary is
the temple and Christ is the Prince of Peace. The gate
mentioned is seen as a picture of the door of Mary's
womb through which Christ entered our world. You
might not find that interpretation in some of today's
commentaries, but it was held by the great majority of
 1

Facing Up to Mary 1 7

early Church fathers, as well as many of the Reformation

leaders — notably Martin Luther and John Calvin.

Virgin Until
At this point, however, a very valid question can be
raised. If she remained a why does the Gospel of
virgin,

Matthew tell us that Joseph knew not his wife until after
Christ was born (see Matthew 1:25)?
From a Scriptural standpoint, the presence of the
phrase "until she had brought forth her firstborn Son,"
does not automatically mean that Joseph must have had
a sexual union with her afterward. In both Greek and
Hebrew the word until or to can have several meanings.
We find it in 2 Samuel 6:23: "Michal the daughter of
Saul had no children to (until) the day of her death." It

is used again in Matthew 28:20 where the risen Christ

says, "Lo, I am with you always, even to (until) the end
of the age." And in Deuteronomy 34:6 we read, "[Moses
was buried] in a valley in the land of Moab, but no one
knows his grave to (until) this day."

Obviously the use of the word in these passages

does not imply that Michal had a child after her death,
that Christ will no longer be with us at the end of the
world, or that Moses' burial place was discovered the
day Deuteronomy 34:6 was written. By the same token,
the word until in Matthew 1:25 does not mean that

Joseph and Mary began a sexual union after Christ was

born. Such a teaching is found nowhere in Scripture

and is contrary to the consistent voice of the entire

early Church.
1 18 Orthodoxy and the Bible

Christ's Brothers and Sisters

But doesn't the Bible also mention the brothers and

sisters of Christ? Who were they and where did they

come from?
For one thing, the Scriptures never call them the
sons and daughters of Mary and Joseph. In several pas-
sages the Bible speaks of near relatives as "brothers."
Abraham and Lot were called brothers, although Lot
was actually Abraham's nephew. And Jacob and Laban
were called brothers, even though Jacob was the son of
Rebecca, Laban's sister.

Scripture is therefore silent concerning the nature of

this relationship between Christ and these brothers and
sisters. Early fathers differed slightly in their understand-
ing of what the terms meant. Some, such as Saint Am-
brose, believed that they were children of a former mar-
riage between Joseph and a wife who died prior to
Matthew, chapter 1. Others taught that they were cous-
ins. But on one point, almost everyone is in agreement:

Mary and Joseph had no sexual union whatsoever, be-

fore or after the birth of Christ.
must say in all candor that had my betrothed been
I

the woman chosen by the Father to bear His eternal Son

in the flesh, my view of her would have been utterly
transformed, and my honor for her infinitely heightened.
Imagine being engaged to the Mother of God. It was so
with Joseph. His betrothed was ever-virgin.

Other Traditions — True and False

There are two other beliefs concerning Mary that
must be briefly mentioned and addressed. The first is her
 9

Facing Up to Mary 1 1

bodily assumption into heaven, the other her immacu-

late conception.

The Assumption of the Virgin

It was widely reported in the early Church that
shortly after her death, Mary's body was assumed into
heaven. In later centuries, the Roman Church ratified

this belief as dogma, while the Eastern Church withheld

such an official imprimatur. Most Christians agree that
such a miracle is within the realm of firm biblical prece-
dent, Enoch and Elijah being two examples. Further,
there is no known record of any relics of the Holy Vir-
gin. The assumption of the Virgin can be safely seen and
honored as an historic Christian tradition, though not
recorded in the Scriptures.

The Immaculate Conception of Mary

However, the Immaculate Conception of Mary is a

doctrine unknown in the ancient Church and unique to

the modern Roman Church. In an effort to distance
Mary (and protect Christ) from the stain of sin, the Im-
maculate Conception holds Mary was conceived and
born without original sin. This teaching has no basis ei-
ther in Scripture or in the Creeds of the Church.
Whatever other excesses may have cropped up in
history, even the Roman Church has never officially be-

lieved or taught that Mary was in any way coequal with

the Trinity or was to be worshipped with the Trinity.
Such allegations are sometimes set forth by critics of the
Roman Church, but without basis in fact.
120 Orthodoxy and the Bible

Mary and Salvation

Near the end of the Vespers service in the Orthodox

Church, the officiant says, "O holy Mother of God, save
us." Can Mary really save us? Yes, and here is why.
we believe that Mary is pure and holy,
Certainly, that
she rules with Christ, that she even prays for us. We
know that Mary relinquished her will to the will of God,
thus cooperating fully with the purpose of God. And we
know that it is the express purpose of God to save those
who have faith in Christ. At the very least we can say
that Mary is concerned about our salvation and that she
desires it. That should be true of all believers.
So the original question, "Can Mary save us?" leads
to another question: "Can we save others?" Again, the
Holy Scriptures speak with resounding clarity. Here are
some examples:

Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; per-

severe in these things; for as you do this, you will save
both yourself and those who hear you. (1 Timothy 4:16)

Let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error
of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multi-
tude of sins. Qames 5:20)

And on some have compassion, making a distinction;

but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire.

(Jude 22-23)

Fire saves (1 Corinthians 3.T5); prayer saves (James

5:15); angels save (Isaiah 63:9); baptism saves (1 Peter
3:21), preaching saves (1 Corinthians 1:21); the Apostle
Paul saves (Romans 11:14).
 Facing Up to Mary 121

New life in Christ, or salvation, is both personal

union with Him and an incorporation into the whole-
ness of the Body, the Church. Salvation is a Church af-

fair, a Church concern, because we are all affected by it.

Therefore, in Christ we all have a part to play in the

corporate nature of His saving act.
We do not save alone; Mary does not save alone.
Jesus Christ is our wellspring of salvation. He said, "With-
out Me you can do nothing" Qohn 15:5). And "If you
abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask
what you desire, and it shall be done for you" (John 15:7).
Mary has a unique role in our salvation because she
provided the body of Christ and thereby became the
"mother" of all those who would be saved. That why is

Jesus, while on the Cross, said to His mother, "Woman,

behold your son!" and then said to Saint John, "Behold,
your mother!" (John 19:26, 27). Understood in this way,
does the Mother of God save us? Thank God, yes!

Changing Our Mind About Mary

Many Christians have been grossly misinformed in
the last 150 years concerning the historical Church's
view of Mary. We
have forgotten she is favored by the
Father, and is the model for you and me — indeed, the
flagship of all humanity. She was the only one who gave
her flesh to the Son of God, and she is uniquely to be
"blessed throughout all generations" (Luke 1:48).
What we do about Mary is connected directly to
what we do about the Church. The community of
Christ's followers is called to act together. Taking action
with regard to Mary is not simply personal or private; it

has to do with responding as the Church.

122 Orthodoxy and the Bible

And where in Christendom has the fullness of truth

concerning Mary been preserved? Even most Protes-

tants—both liberal and conservative — know she is
slighted in their circles. The answer for Protestants who
take the biblical and historical evidence seriously lies

neither within the Protestant churches nor in the

Roman Church with its questionable late dogmatic addi-
tions concerning Mary.
The answer lies in the historic Orthodox Church
which has maintained the biblical fidelity concerning
Mary. The hour is at hand for all of us who love Christ
and take seriously the Holy Scriptures to set our hearts
and minds to giving Holy Mary her proper due in the
proper Church. We do so because God has done great
things for and through her (Luke 1:49).
As Christians we do not live by feelings, we live by
faith. Let us once for all rise above those things the

devil has sown in our hearts to neutralize us against

this precious woman who gave birth to our Savior.
Bless her in the midst of God's people. Follow her ex-
ample in exalting Christ. Confess her as the Mother of
God. Come home to the Church that has kept intact
our holy faith. And may we help turn our generation
back to the honoring and blessing of Mary which God
has commanded.
 9
A SIGN FOR ALL
CHRISTIANS

Years ago on an Easter Sunday — I must have been

seven or eight years of age — we went out for dinner
after church to a hotel restaurant. About the time we
placed our order, I recall looking up and seeing the fam-
ily at a table across from us bow in prayer before eating
and make the sign of the cross. My response was bewil-
derment. What does that mean? I thought to myself.
Not many years later, at the Minneapolis Audito-
rium, I attended one of my first Lakers' games. (Yes, the
L.A. Lakers used to be the Minneapolis Lakers. Who-
ever has heard of lakes in L.A.?) At one point in the
game, Center George Mikan stepped up to the free-
throw line for a foul shot and crossed himself before at-
tempting the free throw. What is this? I thought as he
went two for two. Is this some sort of rabbit's foot gesture?
What is this sign of the cross anyway?
Or let's ask the question another way. What is the
most well-known symbol of all time? Anyone we ask —
philosopher, historian, or artist — each would most likely

123
124 Orthodoxy and the Bible

respond, "the cross." This familiar symbol is found in all

aspects of the life of each person, from birth to grave.

Besides the impact of the Crucifixion itself, history
was also dramatically changed by a visual manifestation
of the cross to the Roman Emperor, Constantine.
Granted a vision of the sign of the cross in the heavens,
he was converted, and in A.D. 312 he brought to an end
a long, tortuous period of persecution of Christians.
How could two simple lines that even a child could
draw, one horizontal, the other vertical, cause kings to
change the course of history, yet give relatives such hope
and comfort at the death of their loved ones as they bid
farewell? Is it just a symbol? Or is something more pow-
erful and effective to be found within the Christian ap-
plication of this symbol? There is much more in the
cross than most twentieth century Christians were led to
understand. I believe a rediscovery of this biblical truth
is essential to the spiritual health of each Christian.

A Sign of Triumph
It is the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ that makes
the cross so powerful, so meaningful, and so essential to
our salvation. Our Lord, who took upon Himself our
complete humanity, also, in that flesh, took upon Him-
self a common form of Roman crucifixion and made
the cross once and for all the glory and victory for all

believers.
The Scriptures say that Christ, in His death, "wiped
out the handwriting of requirements that was against us,
which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of
the way, having nailed it to the cross" (Colossians 2:14).
 A Sign for All Christians 125

Imagine what incredible power stands between us

and death, between us and the clutches of the kingdom
of darkness, between us and everlasting hell. Yes, the
cross is more than a symbol for earthly decor: It is the
weapon of peace that sets us free from being slaves to
sin, death, and the devil.
No wonder the Apostle Paul shouted out in faith,
"But God forbid that I should glory except in the cross
of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been
crucified to me, and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14).
The reality of the cross was sealed on the breast of Paul,
who was able to stand against the schemes of the evil
one and run the race to the finish, "For the message of
the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to
us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corin-
thians 1:18).

A Sign for All Centuries

Let's step back for a moment from any prejudice or

preconceived ideas we might have about uses of the sign
of the cross. Let's go back to the centuries when the
Church was not divided and see if those early Christians
felt as strongly as the Apostle Paul about the cross.
In Christianity's second century we find Tertullian
(a.d. 145-220) saying, "In all travels and movements, in
all our coming in and going out, in putting on our shoes,
at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying
down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupies
us, we mark our forehead with the sign of the cross" (On
the Soldier's Crown, chapter 3).

About a century later, the great Saint Athanasius re-

corded, "by the sign of the cross ... all magic is stayed,
126 Orthodoxy and the Bible

all sorcery confounded, all the idols are abandoned and

deserted, and all senseless pleasure ceases, as the eye of
faith looks up to heaven from the earth" (On the Incar-

nation, IV, 31).

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (a.d. 315-386) was even
more insistent on the use of the sign of the cross:

Let us not be ashamed to confess the crucified. Let the

cross as our seal be boldly made with our fingers upon
our brow, and on all occasions; over the bread we eat,

over the cups we drink; in our comings and in our

goings; before sleep; on lying down and rising up; when
we are on the way and when we are still. It is a powerful
safeguard; it is without price, for the sake of the poor;
without toil, because of the sick; for it is a grace from
God, a badge of the faithful, and a terror to devils; for

He displayed them openly, leading them away in tri-

umph by the force of it [Colossians 2:15]. For when they
see the cross, they are reminded oi the Crucified; they
fear Him who had smashed the heads of dragons [Psalm
73:13]. Despise not the seal as a free gift, but rather for
this reason honor your Lord all the more. (Catechesis,
XIII, chapter 36)

Even Martin Luther, who is called the Father of the

Protestant Reformation, called on his flock to use the
sign of the cross. For example, in his instructions on
morning prayers he wrote, "In the morning, when you
rise, make the sign of the cross and say, 'In the name of

God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen'"
(Martin Luther, Small Catechism, VII, 1).
 7

A Sign for All Christians 1 2

A Sign Neglected

Astonishingly it was not until the seventeenth cen-

tury, at the time of King James, that a small group of

Puritans began writing and speaking against the use of
the sign of the cross. Reacting to the ills of the medi-
eval Roman Church, they believed it to be a human
invention which catered to superstition. These same
English Puritans, who significantly influenced the
North American continent, deserted one of the most
powerful and cherished weapons of the entire history of
the Church. Romophobia was their mentor.
Today, many American Christians have been de-
ceived by the actions of a vocal minority and have be-
come ashamed of the glory of the cross signed upon their
breasts. But hungry for a way to physically express their
allegiance to Christ, many of those who reject making
the sign of the cross have ended up creating their own
Christian hand signs.
I remember so well the "Jesus Movement" days when

many of us were trying to come up with a common sign

to use to set us apart from the student movement which
powerfully used the peace sign. One
day in 1970, a close
friend got the idea of the "one way" sign, which was in-
spired by the doctrine of Jesus Christ being the only way
to God. Thousands of posters were printed and distrib-
uted and soon this "one way sign" was employed by
Christians all over the world. Even Billy Graham was
portrayed in a national magazine demonstrating the sign
in Greenwich Village.
The "one-way" sign did help Christians to identify
with each other. But it didn't last. I still see it used by a
few die-hards, but it will soon be gone. Why? It wasn't
Orthodox; it wasn't the Church's sign. It wasn't the sign
128 Orthodoxy and the Bible

of the cross. The insignia of Jesus is not a raised index

finger, but the cross: the true sign of every Christian.
Making signs on one's person is not a distinctly
Christian activity. The American government adopted a
ceremony from a patriotic magazine called Youth's Com-
panion in 1892 and soon after required by law that every
student in the public education system salute the Ameri-
can flag. Until just recently students were expelled from
their classrooms if they refused to honor their country in
this way. Even today, most Christians in America would
suspect the loyalty of anyone who rejected the patriotic
demonstration of placing the hand over the heart as the
salute to the flag. Yet many of these same Christian peo-
ple are bothered and ashamed to use the sign of the
cross on their breasts. They refuse to use it, writing it off
as some Roman or pagan holdover. How great the loss
they suffer!

A Sign with Power

Although some may say signs have no real power,

signs have always been significant to the people of God.
Remember the occasion of the first Passover as recorded
in the Old Testament? God instructed the Israelites to
"take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts
and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it" (Exo-
dus 12:7). He promised, "For I will pass through the land
of Egypt on that night, and will strike all the firstborn in
the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all

the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the

Lord. Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the
houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will
pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to
 A Sign for All Christians 129

destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt." (Exodus

12:12-13).
What is remarkable in this is that the sign of the
blood on the doorposts was no mere symbol. It was a
symbol with power — so much so that it kept the death
angel from destroying the firstborn children of Israel.

Imagine, then, the power of the living cross which bore

our Saviour's death as We apply it to our hearts.
Recall the time in the wilderness when the children
of Israel were perishing from the bite of poisonous snakes
because of their rebellion. God told Moses, "Make a fiery
serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone
who bitten, when he looks at it, shall live" (Numbers
is

21:8).As incredible as that sounds to modern man, the

people who looked lived. That is what Jesus was teach-
ing the Pharisee, Nicodemus, when He said, "And as
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so
must the Son of Man be lifted up" (John 3:14).
Lifted up on what? The cross! Physicians still use the
symbol of Moses' staff and serpent as their sign for heal-
ing. How much more healing will come to those who

bear the Christian sign of the cross? That's why the

Apostle Paul glories in the cross.

A Sign on Ourselves

By the cross of Christ, Satan was defeated, our sins

were canceled out, our debt was paid in full. By identify-
ing ourselves with the cross, we flash our new identifica-

tion cards, as it were, before sin, death, and the evil one.
And when temptation comes, or when our bodies want
to take control with their passions, physically making a
130 Orthodoxy and the Bible

cross on our bodies brings the power of the cross into

action like an arrow released from a bow.
Let's face it! We Christians put the cross on our
steeples, Bibles, neck chains, tombstones, and everything
else. How about using this sign on ourselves?
And how is the sign of the cross traditionally made by
Orthodox Christians? We hold our thumb and first two
fingers of our right hand together. This speaks of the
three persons in the Holy Trinity. Then, the last two fin-
gers are held against the heel of our hand. These speak of
the two natures of Jesus Christ: His full Divinityand full
humanity. With our hand held in this manner we touch it

in succession to our forehead, middle chest, right shoul-

der, and finally to our left shoulder. We thus apply the
cross to our mind, our heart,and our strength.
On our journey to Orthodoxy, Jack Sparks wrote an
article entitled "The Sign of the Cross." He summarized
the centrality of the sign of the cross as follows:

1. It has been, and still is the practice of the overwhelm-

ing majority of your fellow Christians — many of whom
died for the faith to help preserve the Gospel of Jesus
Christ for you to believe. If we truly believe our Lord's

words in John 17 that the Church is to be one, then

why should we not utilize the sign of the cross as our
forefathers have done?

2. We freely use the symbol of the cross atop our church

buildings, on our lecterns, altars, bulletins, and im-
printed on our Bibles. Why not use it on ourselves — the
people for whom Christ died — as well?

3. Using the sign of the cross gives us a personal, physi-

cal, and visible means to glory in the cross. Apart from
 1

A Sign for All Christians 1 3

actually doing something specific, one is hard-pressed to

glory in the cross of Christ mentally. We use our voices
and lips to tell others of the cross. Why should we

withhold our hands and arms, which God has also given
us, from doing the same? This is all part of glorifying
God in our bodies. (Jack Sparks, "The Sign of the
Cross," New Oxford Review, January-February, 1982)

If we will but use the sign to express reverence for

the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — to
remind ourselves of
God's presence — this will go a long way toward helping
us both to do good and to avoid sin. For the cross is our
weapon of peace and our power to live holier lives.
Satan and his demons fear the cross. Its sign, therefore,
can be a means of protection for the children of God.
The fourth century saint, John Chrysostom, said,
"When therefore you sign yourself, think of the purpose
of the cross, and quench any anger and all other pas-
sions. Consider the price that has been paid for you"
(Commentary on Matthew, Homily 54).
The sign of the cross is for all Christians!
PART THREE
THE GREAT
ENTRANCE
 10
A DECADE OF
DECISION

Unlike almost everyone else who has discovered her,

we found the Orthodox Church in history books.
We had studied the New Testament, the early fathers
and councils, and the Great Schism. We made our
choice. The East had kept the fullness of apostolic
Christianity.
But we had not yet met the Orthodox Church as she
existed in our time. What was she like? Would she be
receptive to us? Most importantly, was she vital, commit-
ted, spiritually alive — in short, was she still Orthodox?

First Contacts

John Bartke grew up in a conservative Presbyterian

congregation, and his family later transferred to the
Evangelical Free Church. When he was a junior in high
school in 1969, he wandered into a Bible study group led
by Jack Sparks in Berkeley, California. For two years, be-
fore leaving for college, John was a frequent participant

135
136 The Great Entrance

in the study group. He ended up on the mailing list of

the Christian World Liberation Front (CWLF), the orga-
nization Jack Sparks had founded as an outreach to the
Berkeley counter-culture.
Through a personal search for a deeper experience of
the Church, Bartke became an Orthodox Christian just
before his senior year in college. He went straight from
undergraduate school to St. Vladimir's Seminary in sub-
urban New York City, a school operated by the Ortho-
dox Church in America (OCA), the American out-
growth of the Russian Orthodox Church. He remained
on the CWLF mailing list.
By 1976, the CWLF mail began to look more Ortho-
dox. There was talk of sacrament, councils, and creeds.
Bartke wrote his old Bible teacher for more information.
Jack Sparks sent some preliminary study papers in early
1977 with specific instruction not to pass them around:
they were unedited first drafts. John read them through
and immediately brought them to Fr. Alexander
Schmemann, dean of the seminary. "These things are
Orthodox!" he announced to Fr. Schmemann after filling
him in on his friendship with Jack Sparks.
Fr. Schmemann placed a call to Bishop Dmitri, who
as a teenager had converted to Orthodoxy from a South-
ern Baptist background back in Texas. He was then
overseeing the Diocese of the West for the OCA. "Sev-
eral of these men are living near Santa Barbara. They're
a group of evangelical Christians who appear to be dis-

covering the Orthodox Church. Could I suggest you go

see them?" Fr. Schmemann asked.
phoned Fr. Ted
Later that spring, Bishop Dmitri
Wojcik, pastor ofSt. Innocent Orthodox Church in the

Los Angeles suburb of Tarzana, and asked him to pay a

 A Decade of Decision 137

call to Santa Barbara. With Lent, followed by gradua-

tions and summer vacation, it was not until early fall
that Fr. Ted was able to make the trip.
When he arrived in Santa Barbara in the fall of
1977, Fr. Ted stopped at a phone booth, telephoned the
Sparks home and discovered that Jack was at the newly-
formed Academy of Orthodox Theology conducting
classes. Fr. Richard Ballew recalls that he was in the
middle of his lecture on the Arian controversy when "in
walked this priest, unknown to any of us, who calmly sat
down and listened to the lecture along with the stu-
dents. After class, introductions were made and we took
Fr. Ted out for lunch."
This was our first contact with an Orthodox Chris-
tian and the beginning of a strong, lasting friendship. I

discovered later that Fr. Ted grew up in the Twin Cit-

ies, attended the University of Minnesota at the same
time I did, and lived in a fraternity house just down the
street from mine.
We had started the Academy of Orthodox Theology
in Santa Barbara (later named for St. Athanasius) for
the purpose of grouping together a community of schol-
ars to research the Orthodox Faith, to do translation
work and to train our young people. We invited Bishop
Dmitri to speak to our students during his visit to Santa
Barbara in 1978.
group of us had driven down to St.
Earlier in 1978, a
Innocent Orthodox Church in Tarzana for a Holy Week
service. We
saw in action at St. Innocent's everything
we had read about. But culturally the service seemed
worlds removed from us. By the time the Bishop arrived
we were overflowing with more questions.
"Why do they pray, 'Lord, have mercy' so often?"
138 The Great Entrance

"Tell us about the priest's vestments."

"What do all the candles on that stand mean?"
"Is there incense at every service?"
Being familiar with evangelical Protestantism himself,
the Bishop understood our culture shock. We believed
the basic doctrines of this ancient faith, but the rubrics of
the worship simply were not in the history books.
"Let's start with our faith in Christ," advised Bishop
Dmitri. "We must be sure we're in agreement on the
question asked by the Lord Himself: 'Who do men say
that I am?' If we're together on Him as begotten of the
Father from all eternity, incarnate in the womb of Mary,
and as the Savior of our souls, everything else in Ortho-
dox Christianity will fall into place. Because everything
we do relates specifically to Christ — vestments, prayers,
icons, all of it."

We talked through the doctrine of Christ, and we

did agree. Emphatically! From the doctrine of the Incar-
nation, we worked our way out to other things surround-
ing it. And piece by piece, truth by truth, a picture of
the whole began taking shape.
In 1978, several of us had the opportunity to visit St.

Vladimir's Seminary in New York. Still brimming with

questions and learning the protocol (my, are they patient
out there!), we were warmly welcomed by Metropolitan
Theodosius, the head of the OCA,
and Professors Alex-
ander Schmemann, John Meyendorff, Thomas Hopko,
Paul Lazar, and Veselin Kesich. Many of these men also
came to teach periodically at St. Athanasius, Santa Bar-
bara. Wonderful conversations full of inspiration, in-
struction,and laughter could be recounted with each of
these brethren. But let me single out just one of them:
that champion for Christ, Fr. Alexander Schmemann.
 A Decade of Decision 1 39

He was a statesman in the Kingdom of God (really,

the was could be he went to be with the Lord in 1983).

is;

A lump forms in my throat as I write about this man of

such blessed memory. Speaking humanly, if you could say

a person "led us to the Church" (as one would say so-and-

so "led me to Christ"), Fr. Alexander was pivotal in lead-
ing us into the twentieth century Orthodox Church.
On three occasions he travelled west to be with us in
Santa Barbara. By the time he came for his first visit

later in 1978, we were at the point in our tracing of the

Church where we sided with the East in 1054. We were
doctrinally on our way to being Orthodox. We had it in
our heads, somewhat in our hearts, but we practiced
very little of it liturgically. Our sanctuary, for example,
was little more than four bare walls and a pulpit.
Somehow, Fr. Alexander was not put off by our non-
externals and was able to see through to our heads and
hearts. It was, mutually, love at first sight. He told his
wife, Julianna, after the trip, "They're Orthodox, but
they don't really know it yet."
While he was here, of course, we asked for his guid-
ance. As we look back, he was very careful not to give
us too much to do or teach us more than we could han-
dle. "It would help if you were to construct an altar and

put up a few icons," he advised.

By his next visit, in early 1981, we had built an altar,
and beside it on the wall, one on each side, were two
small icons — a bit larger than postcard sized — one of
Christ, the other of the Virgin Mary. With great pride in
our astounding progress, I took Father into the sanctuary
and up toward the altar. He finally got close enough to
squint and see our iconic adornments. He smiled, "Well, I
can go home and finally report that you people are no
140 The Great Entrance

longer in active opposition to icons!" On some days, he

absolutely kidded us into being Orthodox.
It was on this second visit that he gave us another
point of direction which turned out to be pivotal to the
rest of our journey. Speaking to our synod concerning
the various Orthodox jurisdictions in North America, he
advised us, "Don't get to know just the OCA. When it

comes time for you to enter Orthodoxy, you will be join-

ing the whole Church. So get to know the Greeks, the
Antiochians, the Serbians."

Enlarging the Circle of Friendship

About this same time, one of our presbyters in the

Midwest met a Greek Orthodox priest, Fr. James Car-
rellas who, he reported, "preaches just like an evangeli-

cal." On my next trip to that area, a meeting was ar-

ranged with Fr. Jim. I know it's not the only indicator,
but when you talk with a fellow pastor about Jesus
Christ and tears well up in his eyes, you suspect you've
found a true soul-brother.
"One man you've got to meet is Bishop Maximos of
Pittsburgh," Fr. Jim told me after he had heard our story.
"This man has a real vision for Orthodoxy in America
and loves converts who come in from the outside." I was
to be in Pittsburgh in two months, so I made a mental
note and later phoned ahead for an appointment.
The phrase I always use to describe Bishop Maximos
is "Christ-centered," a term he often uses himself. I tell

people he's half human and half angel. As we talked in

his beautiful turn-of-the-century residence on Ellsworth
Avenue in Pittsburgh, he asked if I could return to the
 1

A Decade of Decision 1 4

city and speak to the college students in his diocese

about my commitment to Christ and the Church.
That college meeting several months later was one of
the spiritual highlights of my life. Some two hundred
life-long Orthodox students came to hear of our journey.

A number of students told me afterwards that they had

committed themselves to the Lord in a new way that
evening. One young man who had just returned to town
after trekking around the country for two months re-

marked, "Father, you gave me the kick in the butt I

needed tonight!"
Two other memories of that same trip stand out in my
mind. The next evening I spoke to a group of laypeople at
St. Nicholas Cathedral. After my remarks, there were
questions and answers. One lady said, "I can't believe you
think we should worship and receive communion each
week. My grandmother taught me we're not worthy to do
that more than once or twice a year."
"If it were a matter of our own worthiness, we could
never come to Christ," I answered. "Because of our
union with Him, He has set us on the road to being
made new. Therefore, we are by His grace and His
mercy called to an entire life of communion with Him."
Just as I said, "Perhaps His Grace would like to com-
ment on this," I could see out of the corner of my eye
that the Bishop was already on the way to the podium.
As he exhorted his flock to deeper commitment to
Christ, I could see that besides loving God he also hated
minimalism. I actually checked the lectern when the
meeting adjourned to see if it had cracked when his
clenched fist struck it twice during his exhortation. (I'd

like to think I saw at least a little hairline separation in

the grain of the wood!)
142 The Great Entrance

The following day, I was back at his residence teach-

ing a portion of the Book of Romans to a group of lay

leaders and clergy. Someone interrupted during the ses-
sion to say that as Orthodox, everything we needed to
hear was in the Liturgy, and we didn't need to know the
Bible. This time I didn't have a chance to respond. The
Bishop was on his feet to set the matter straight, starting
out in English and finishing up in Greek! I don't know
all of what he said, but as in New Testament times, the

inquisitor "durst ask no more questions!"

The fact is that in any group, political or primeval,
Baptist or Byzantine, you've got those who are hot and
those who are lukewarm. Under the leadership of
"Bishop Max," the diocese of Pittsburgh has experienced
wonderful renewal. I've learned from him how to en-
courage people toward love and good works.
Our next contact with the Greek Orthodox Archdio-
cese came the following year at Holy Cross Seminary in
Boston. A group of us had been invited to dialog with
the faculty. Fr. Alkiviadis Calivas, dean, hosted the
meetings which included Frs. Stanley Harakas, Ted
Stylianopoulos, Tom Fitzgerald (there's a convert!),
George Papademitriou, and Michael Vaporis — as well as
a number of Boston-area priests. Before our second visit
to Holy Cross, I met and visited with Archbishop
Iakovos in New York and his gracious assistant, the late
Fr. Alexander Doumouros.
During this same period of time, I was doing my best
to arrange an appointment with a man so many spoke of
so highly, Metropolitan Philip Saliba, head of the Anti-
ochian Orthodox Church in North America. In fact,

someone at Holy Cross had made a prediction that after

all was said and done, the door through which we would
 A Decade of Decision 1 43

enter Orthodoxy would be that of Antioch. On at least

three occasions, when I was in New York, Metropolitan
Philip was somewhere else. We could not get our sched-
ules to mesh.

Byzantine Intrigue

Our courtship with the Orthodox Church was well

on its way. But in any courtship, there are two ways for
things to go wrong. One, you can plan the wedding too
soon, without giving the couple adequate time to get to
know each other. We were sure that if we were to err, it
would not be in that direction. The other mistake, of
course, is waiting too long. In this second scenario, the
courtship drags out so long you risk falling out of love.
In January of 1985, we met as the Synod of the
Evangelical Orthodox Church. Father Gordon Walker
felt that to wait much longer to make a specific move
toward entrance into the Orthodox Church would be
to risk falling away. "Let me make
he a proposal,"
began. "I believe we should call Bishop Maximos from
right here at this conference center and ask him to ar-
range to take us to Constantinople. With so many Or-
thodox jurisdictions in America, I believe we need to
present ourselves directly to the Ecumenical Patriarch
and seek his guidance as to how we should enter the
Church. Surely as Ecumenical Patriarch, he can give us
specific instructions instead of us trying to decide on
our own what to do."
After a fairly brief discussion, everyone agreed this

was the course to take. I looked at my watch. We were

in California, and Pittsburgh was three hours later. "It's
too late to call," I said. Til phone Bishop Max in the
144 The Great Entrance

morning." Just then Tom Webster walked in the room

and handed me a note: Marilyn called. Bishop Maximos is

trying to reach Fr. Gordon. Please have him return the call

"Thank you, Lord," I whispered under my breath.

"Good morning, Your Grace," Fr. Gordon said the
next morning at 7:00, with me on the extension. "I un-
derstand you called. And I think we have some news
you'll want to hear." Bishop Max had called to invite Fr.
Gordon to speak to a renewal conference and was over-
joyed with our decision concerning Constantinople. He
set out to begin making arrangements through the Arch-
diocesan offices in New York.
"Those dates are perfect. If we go in early June, we
can spend the afternoon of Pentecost on the Island of
Halki where I went to seminary. That day will be the
seventh anniversary of my elevation to the Episcopacy,"
said Bishop Maximos. "There is no place I would rather
be in all the world on Pentecost Sunday."
The nineteen of us who served as bishops in the
EOC returned home from the synod meeting to begin at
once getting passports and passing the hat for airfare,
lodging expenses, and for a cash gift to the Patriarch.
Further, each man would bring a particular gift that was
representative of his part of North America — an Eskimo
craft from Alaska, a box of fruit from the Northwest, a
coffee-table picture-book from Nashville.
In April, 1985, we had a visit from John Bartke, now
a priest, who was assigned as pastor to St. Michael Anti-
ochian Orthodox Church in Van Nuys, California. "We
just got word that the Patriarch of Antioch, Ignatius IV,
will be here in L.A. in late June or early July. Metropoli-
tan Philip will be with him. I'd like to set up an appoint-
ment for you men to see them," he informed us.
 A Decade of Decision 145

I wasn't sure just how to respond. On the one hand,

I had tried repeatedly to see Metropolitan Philip, and
here was an opportunity to meet the Patriarch as well.
But on the other hand, we were committed to go to
Constantinople, andI didn't want it to appear we were

playing both ends against the middle, looking for "the

best deal."
As I was weighing my words, Fr. John interrupted.
"Look, I know you're on the way to see the Ecumenical
Patriarch, and it may well be he will give you the direc-
tion you seek in entering the Church. If nothing else,

bring a few of the men with you and come meet our
Patriarch and the Metropolitan out of honor. After all, it

will still be important for you to meet the leaders of the

Antiochian Church."
"You're absolutely right," I said. "Schedule us in and
let me know the date and place."
In May, Marilyn and I planned a four-day, twenty-
fifth anniversary trip to New York. "I've got one busi-
ness call' I'd like to make," I told her. "But I won't
schedule it unless you tell me I can."
"What is it?" she asked, knowing our time there
was brief.

"I'd like us to stop by and see Archbishop Iakovos to

ask his blessing on our trip to Constantinople."
"I'd love to meet him," she said.
I called his appointment secretary, and he was
booked. But a call came back the next day saying he had

moved an appointment and would see us at noon on the

Friday we were there. He had already given his approval
for Bishop Maximos to lead our delegation to the Patri-
archate, but somehow I wanted to let him know person-
ally of our sincerity in going.
146 The Great Entrance

On the appointed Friday in May we arrived at the

Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan Headquarters in New
York, only to learn that the Archbishop had gone home
that morning with the flu. We had a cordial visit with
some of the other hierarchs and left a gift for Arch-
bishop Iakovos and a note wishing his speedy recovery.
We took the train to Crestwood for Friday evening Ves-
pers at St. Vladimir's and spent the rest of the weekend
celebrating twenty-five great years of marriage.
I was at home on the morning before the day of de-
parture for Constantinople, helping feed our children
breakfast. The phone rang. It was Bishop Maximos. His
voice was that of a deeply disappointed man. "I don't
know what has happened," he said, "but the Archbishop
does not want me
recommending that Father
to go. I'm
Gregory Wingenbach accompany you in my place."
When Orthodox people joke about such sudden
changes, they call it Byzantine Intrigue. This is when un-
expected things happen at the highest levels of the
Church, and nobody seems to know the reason why. It

was all new to us. And the joke was not funny.
Iphoned Fr. Gregory, who had been a close friend
for years, and he was puzzled as well. "The Lord's hand
is still in this thing," he assured me. "The Bishop is sick

about missing his anniversary at Halki with us, but he

promised to call us on Sunday night at the hotel. I'll

meet those of you who are flying through New York at

JFK tomorrow night."
I reminded myself that when you're an Archbishop,

you do get to change your mind.

The next day all of us who were making the trip to-
gether from Santa Barbara hopped in a rental car and
headed down the 101 and the 405 toward Los Angeles
 A Decade of Decision 147

I
International Airport (LAX). We
would meet the other
EOC bishops from the Eastern U.S. and Fr. Wingenbach
in London, spend the night, and fly together to Constan-
tinople the next day.
What I didn't know until returning home two weeks

later was that Archbishop Iakovos had sent me a last

minute telegram, notifying me we "should not go at this
time." The telegram arrived after we were already in the
air flying across the pole from LAX to London.

We have since been told that a few Greek Orthodox

clergy along with a Greek government official were ada-
mantly opposed to our going to Constantinople and to
entering the Church.They reportedly felt we would
somehow "water down" Orthodoxy in America to a pop
version of the ancient faith and not be supportive of re-
taining a commitment to hellenistic culture in the par-
ishes. One report suggested we were out to "take over
the Church."
Most of our delegation learned en route to New York
or London that Bishop Maximos was not on the trip and
that it was possible we would not be received by the Pa-
triarch. My feeling was, if we fail in our mission, at least
let's do it boldly. We simply kept on hoping that things

would work out.

Then, there was one more surprise. We were arriving
in Constantinople during Ramadan, a time when many
Muslims fast all day and stay up all night to eat, drink,
and make noise! Then, somewhere around 3:00 A.M.
they pray and make even more noise. In June it is so hot
you keep the windows open all night long unless your
hotel has air conditioning. Since we were in one of the
oldest hotels in the "historic" section of that ancient
city, and since the toilets emitted foul odors, we had lit-
148 The Great Entrance

tie choice. In Constantinople you can either close the

windows and not sleep because of the heat and odor, or
open them and not sleep due to the noise. Some nights
it is so hot you can have it both ways!

Joining us in Constantinople was one other key per-

son, our neighbor, Dr. Apostolos Athanassakis, chairman
of the Department of Classics at the University of Cali-
fornia, Santa Barbara. He was spending a year at the
University of Crete and flew up to Istanbul to meet us.
He had close personal friends in both the government of
Turkey and at the Patriarchate. In addition he was a
brilliant and diplomatically sensitive interpreter for us.

His help was incalculable.

The Sunday of Pentecost arrived two days after we
did. We arose early and took a chartered bus to the Pa-

triarchate and worshipped on this great feastday in the

church of St. George. The Ecumenical Patriarch, Deme-
trios, was there with his synod of Metropolitans on each

side of him. The twenty or so of us stood across from

him either in hand-carved wooden stalls, on the stone
or
floor. The normally lengthy liturgy was made even
longer by the beautiful Pentecostal Prayers of Kneeling.
Fr. Gregory Wingenbach had an English translation of
the service and kept passing it around to us as we knelt
together on the stone floor of the church.
After the Liturgy, we received the antidoran — the
blessed bread — from the Patriarch. Fr. Gregory quickly
explained in Greek who we were. By now the Patriarch
had already been fully informed about us. Though we
knew that it was highly unlikely that our whole group
could have the dialog with him that we had come for,
we expected at the least a brief courtesy visit. But no
such visit materialized.
 A Decade of Decision 1 49

Instead the Patriarch and his synod of Metropoli-

tans exited the church, leaving us standing alone. Fr.
Gordon Walker exploded. "Where are they going?" he
asked Fr. Gregory. "Do you mean we have spent fifty
thousand dollars and traveled thousands of miles to
have them turn and walk away? If we were Muslims
they would treat us with greater dignity than this! Fr.
Gregory, ask them to come back and at least speak
with us!"
Fr. Gregory immediately started after them and en-
gaged some of the Metropolitans in a lively discussion. A
few moments later Metropolitans Chrysostomos and
Bartholomeou graciously came back to speak with us.
They greeted us in the name of the Patriarch but stated
that no dialog or any sort of meeting could be held with
him. They admonished us to return home and continue
our dialog there.
After a brief picture-taking session before the iconos-
tasis of St. George Church we headed back to the bus.
On board we erupted in heated debate and discussion.
Fr. Gregory bravely attempted to remain loyal to his hi-

erarchs while trying to understand and console us in our

disappointment and frustration.
That afternoon the tour company that had arranged
our trip had engaged a private ferry to take us up the
Bosphorus River to the Black Sea and back. Hardly any-
one wanted to go. We were too downcast to enjoy the
trip. But our refusal would offend the local people who

had planned the trip, so we went on with it. It was a

good time to soothe our injured feelings.
That Sunday night at the hotel we held a meeting in
the penthouse room which had been provided for our
synod sessions. The room was spacious and had glass
150 The Great Entrance

walls on four sides which allowed a 360 degree pan-

orama of old Constantinople. Our memories are etched
with the sad but beautiful sight of innumerable domes of
churches long ago closed by the Turks. What a city and
culture it once must have been.
In our synod meeting that night we decided to make
a last ditch effort to see the Patriarch or at least his rep-
resentatives in an official meeting. We asked Dr.
Athanassakis (his last name means "little Athanasius")
to write an appeal to the Patriarch on our behalf and to
personally deliver it to him. Some of us worked for hours
with him as he first composed a beautiful letter in En-
glishand then translated it into polished Greek.
On Monday morning he went to the Patriarchate
only to be told the two Metropolitans, Chrysostomos and
Bartholomeou, were serving the Pentecost Liturgy in
suburbs some distance away. He spent all day taking
cabs to the churches and personally appealing to these
men. In response, they invited us to send representatives
to the Patriarchate the next day, Tuesday, for a meeting.
In the meantime the rest of us took a huge ferry to
the island of Halki to visit the seminary which Bishop
Maximos attended and which had been closed by the
Turks years before. We rode in horse-drawn carriages
from the sea landing to the school and I'll always re-
member the beautiful view of the bay from the seminary
at the top of the hill. But we will remember even more
the loving reception given us by the late Metropolitan
Maximos, a godly man who lived out his days there, ba-
sically alone. This incredibly beautiful facility, with its

incomparable library containing ancient volumes in un-

cial Greek, is under Turkish domination and no longer
available for use by the Church.
 1

A Decade of Decision 1 5

On Tuesday morning I selected Richard Ballew who

at that time was serving as the Western Archdiocesan
Bishop of the EOC and Gordon Walker who was serving
as EasternArchdiocesan Bishop to go with me to the
We took along Tom Webster and Marc
Patriarchate.
Dunaway to help carry the many heavy suitcases of gifts
and to take pictures. As interpreter and liaison, Dr.
Athanassakis and Fr. Gregory Wingenbach accompanied
us as well.
Dr. Athanassakis had done his work thoroughly. The
one hour meeting with Metropolitans Chrysostomos and
Bartholomeou was cordial and warm. We
showed them
pictures of our people and presented our gifts which in-
eluded a $3,000 check. The Metropolitans said the
money would be used for an orphanage near Istanbul.
But the end result was the same as Sunday. No substan-
tial direction or help for entering the Orthodox Church

was given to us.

All that was left to do was to make some sight-
seeing trips around that beautiful and venerable city —
which included stops at the awe-inspiring Hagia Sophia
and the Blue Mosque. At the close of our visit we flew
to Thessalonica, Greece and from there to Athens
before flying back.
We landed in Boston, instead of New York, by de-
sign. At the gracious invitation of the faculty, we had
decided to return to Holy Cross Seminary for the meet-
ing of our synod — supposedly to discuss the direction re-
ceived from Constantinople and to decide together what
to do But there was nothing to respond to.
in response.
We gathered in the board room at the Seminary the
morning after our arrival in Boston. I have never been
more grateful in my life that a meeting was not pre-
served by tape recording. It was the closest we ever came
152 The Great Entrance

back from the Orthodox Church.

to collectively turning
But to forsake the Church, you must also forsake the
faith, and we could not do that. We knew too much.

Besides, there was no place else to go.

As we left the administration building later that day
in varying degrees of despair, we looked up and there
was Bishop Maximos! Like Christ Himself, he would not
leave us or forsake us. He joined us for dinner that night
and reminded us to keep on seeking to do God's will.
God grant you many years, Your Grace!
The flight from Boston's Logan Field to our various
cities of destination was very quiet for all of us. I can per-

sonally testify that it was extremely sullen for those of us

flying into L.A. Here was the end to the most spectacular
trip any of us had ever taken. The ancient churches were

magnificent. At Thessalonica we gathered and prayed,

each one of us, at the place St. Paul stood and preached
when he first came to that city. I rededicated my life to
Christ and to the preaching of His Gospel that day, with a
wonderful sense of God's presence.
On another day we sang the Trisagion hymn to-
gether, crying our eyes out with joy, before the altar area
of the oldest known existing church building in
Christendom, just outside Constantinople. Christians
had sung that hymn there for hundreds and hundreds of
years. Some of the other tourists wept, too, and I'm not
even sure they understood why.
The whole trip was like that, one spiritual high after
another. But it was still a colossal loser. We had
knocked on the door of Orthodoxy so hard our knuckles
were red. There were discussions, nods, and pleasantries,
but not one invitation to enter the fold. Or as they say
in the West, there was no cigar.
Back home, even sunny Santa Barbara looked gray.
 11
WELCOME HOME

Wait a minute!" I said. Jon Braun, Richard Ballew,

and I were sitting with Jack Sparks on the patio
behind his house on Sunday afternoon, two days after
the Constantinople-Boston trip still recovering from jet

lag. "Do you remember that in three days we've got an

appointment to see the Patriarch of Antioch?"
"At least we won't have to go halfway across the
world to keep somebody muttered.
it,"

"I'd forgotten all about that," one of the others said.

The anticipation gave us just enough encouragement
to let us drag ourselves through the remainder of that
day. And the next, and the next.
was Wednesday when Bishops Braun, Ballew, and
It

myself were on our way in the morning sun to Los Ange-

les. Jack Sparks had stayed home with his now persistent

bad back.
"You know what I think we should do today?" Jon
Braun asked. "I think we should have fun!"
"What on earth are you talking about?" I asked. The
two of us, Bishop Richard and I, waited for the worst
philosophical discussion we would hear all week.

153
154 The Great Entrance

"We went to Constantinople all serious, worried

about how to greet everybody, when to stand, when to
sit down. Today, let's just be ourselves and enjoy it."

Neither Bishop Richard nor I could bring ourselves to

say anything. "Let him drone on," I thought to myself.
He did.
mean, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to
"I

say to Metropolitan Philip, Tour Eminence, it's great to

meet you,' and I'm really going to mean it. I'm not going
to act religious, or pompous, or pious." ("If that were
even possible," I whispered inaudibly.) "I'm just going to
walk in there and be enthusiastic, and if the Patriarch
and the Metropolitan like our program, fine. And if they
don't, well that's just fine, too. Then we'll find ourselves
another Patriarch and another Metropolitan somewhere
else. But you what. I'm tired of all the pressure.
I'll tell

I'm just going to enjoy myself and have some fun."

By now, the two of us were beginning to catch his
spirit. We knew we had to shake the gloom cloud of

Constantinople. It would be an insult both to these hier-

archs and to those we represented in the EOC to simply
walk in hat in hand. It was time to shake the blues and
go for it. And one more thing. We agreed to avoid get-
ting into a dump session if asked about Constantinople.
After all, we still did not know why things fell apart. We
would report what we knew: it did not work out. We
would avoid speculation or assigning blame.
Just inside the big glass front door of the Sheraton
we met Dr. Fred Milkie who had been
Universal Hotel
assigned to watch for us and take us up to the
Patriarch's quarters on the seventh floor. Dr. Milkie is a
tall, engaging man with a warm smile — exactly what we
needed to set our appointment on the joyful note we
 Welcome Home! 155

were after. Through the on the elevator, off on

lobby,
the seventh floor, down the hall, and to the end we
went. Fred knocked on the door.
One of the deacons answered and invited us in. Met-
ropolitan Philip stepped up to greet us. "What a pleasure
after so long a time," he said with a firm handshake and
wonderful eye contact. He seemed so very genuine;
there was no air at all of his being professionally hierar-
chical. It was as though I was meeting an extremely dis-

tinguished Christian executive. He had a warm and very

caring presence about him. "Come, let me introduce you
to our Patriarch, Ignatius."
At the opposite end of the large central room, just
next to the window, sat the Patriarch of Antioch. Every
now and then you meet a who immediately
person
strikes you as looking like a Christian. This was my dis-
tinct impression of him. His face was saintly — and joyful.

As we approached him, he extended his arms to us and

smiled. "Brothers, welcome," he said.
Could it be possible that these three prodigals had
just found home?
We talked for close to an hour, the five of us — the
Patriarch, the Metropolitan, Jon Braun, Richard Ballew
and I. We were asked to tell about the process of our
coming to embrace Orthodox Christianity, about our
and about our recent journey overseas. We re-
families,

viewed for them something about each of the parishes

within the Evangelical Orthodox Church and described
our service agencies — St. Athanasius College, Conciliar
Press and our campus outreach.
After three-quarters of an hour, Metropolitan Philip

turned to Patriarch Ignatius for his assessment. "Let us

156 The Great Entrance

do everything we can to help them," the Patriarch re-

sponded.
"Alright," the Metropolitan said turning back to us.
"You will find out something about this Archdiocese.
We make and we make them quickly."
decisions,
This was the best news I had heard in months!

"I would like you to supply me with two things.

First, I would like a brief history of the Evangelical Or-

thodox Church, going through your journey to Ortho-

doxy step by step. Then, secondly, prepare for me a
profile of each parish — who the pastor is, his education,
the number of people, the facilities — not more than a
page for each one."
"I'd like to volunteer to do that," Jon Braun said.
"When can you have it to me?"
"Let's see, it's the end of June," said Bishop Jon.
"What about Labor Day?"
"That will be fine. Mail it to my office in Englewood.
And send with it copies of your Again Magazine, the
books and other literature that the EOC has produced,
and things that have been written about you. We will
review this thoroughly and get back to you."
We stood up to say goodbye. The Metropolitan
shook my hand firmly and once again looked me straight
in the eye. "We will not keep you waiting long," he said.
I think all three of us made the same silent wish that

nobody else would be on the elevator so we could press

the "Lobby" button, watch the door slide to a close and
shout! "Where have these men been all our lives?" I
yelled with glee.
We were too excited to get in the car and drive
home. We were too lightheaded to go anywhere. So we
walked down a flight of stairs to the coffee shop and
 Welcome Home! 157

ordered lunch. I remember nothing else at all that was

said the rest of the day.
The report and two boxes of literature were mailed
just prior to Labor Day, and in late fall I was again in
touch with the Metropolitan's office. The EOC
Synod of
Bishops was to meet in mid -January, 1986, and Metro-
we draft a proposal as to
politan Philip requested that
how we would foresee being made a part of the Church:
a suggested time frame, how we would see the integra-
tion of our parishes and agencies into the Archdiocese,
and problems we might anticipate. Our January Synod
deliberations produced a very specific two and one-half
page proposal. We set a date in early March 1986 for me
to come to Englewood and discuss that proposal.

Defining the Specifics

As March approached, I was asked to attend a meet-

ing of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE)
in Kansas City. It worked out for me to schedule that
meeting and then directly on to Newark for my dis-
fly

cussions with Metropolitan Philip.

On the second day of the NAE
was given
meeting I

a message to call my secretary at our church office in

Santa Barbara. "Metropolitan Philip's secretary, Kathy
Meyer, called you this morning," Linda Wallace said.
"He and have completed the final reading of all
his staff
those materials we sent, and he wants to meet with you
the whole day tomorrow, not just an hour or two. They
want you to fly in tonight."
"I can do it," I said, "but I'll need you to re-schedule

the flight, get me a hotel room, and call back. We're in

meetings all day here."
158 The Great Entrance

"You won't need a hotel reservation," Linda said.

"He has asked that you stay at his residence."

When Linda phoned back with the flight information
she had already called Kathy Meyer with the 10:00 P.M.

arrival time. "The Metropolitan's assistant is Deacon Hans,

and he will meet you at the gate. Kathy said you will spot

him easily because he looks just like Omar Sharif!"

Deacon Hans is one of the most gracious men I have
ever met, and everyone else who knows him says the
same thing. He is an icon of Christian servanthood, a
celibate in his middle years, a native of Lebanon, and a
graduate of St. Vladimir's Seminary. And he does look
just like Omar Sharif.

It was after 11:00 P.M. by the time we reached Engle-

wood. The residence which serves as both the Metropoli-
tan's home and his archdiocesan headquarters is a large,

traditional Tudor structure in a suburban community of

New York City. The house was quiet when we tip-toed

through the front door and headed upstairs with the lug-
gage tomy room. The deacon followed me into the room
with my suitcase. I laid my briefcase on a chair and
hooked my hanging bag on the back of the bathroom
door. I said thank you and good night to Deacon Hans as

I walked him to the door, and here, down the hall, came
Metropolitan Philip in his robe. He had gotten up to wel-
come me to his home.
"Bishop Peter, it's an honor to have you here," he
said as he ignored my outstretched hand and opened his
arms for an embrace. "The Lord has given you a safe

trip. You get some rest, and we will meet downstairs at

10:00 in the morning."

 Welcome Home! 159

Fr. Paul Schneirla, pastor of St. Mary's Orthodox

Church in Brooklyn, would join us for the morning
meeting. He arrived early and the two of us had break-
fast together. Fr. Paul is a former Lutheran pastor who
converted to Orthodoxy over forty-five years ago and
has brought many others into the Orthodox Church.
Just before 10:00, Metropolitan Philip came down-
stairs with a paper in his hand. "Good morning," he said.

"I'm ready to meet. I asked you to bring a proposal, and

I have one, too." He handed me a copy of his, and I

gave him ours. We stood in the front hall outside his

office, each scanning the other's paper.
"I see we're on the same track," he said. His single-
paged proposal had nine points which in content
matched very closely what we had written. "Let's go into

the dining room where we can sit and talk around the
table. Kathy will bring us some coffee."

The dining room at the back of the house was a re-

cent addition and the size of a small banquet room
(numerous dinners and meetings are hosted there each
year). The back wall had glass panels and a sliding glass

door which opened out on a spacious slate patio. This

was surrounded by a large lawn area and countless trees.

The long table on the left-hand side of the room had

three note pads and pencils set out at the far end.
The day was spent in conversation, primarily over
our proposals. Since Metropolitan Philip's was the briefer

of the two, we used it as the working paper and incor-

porated a few of our points into it. We finished the day

with the following document, with which the three of us

stood in full agreement:
16C The Great Entrance

PRELIMINARY AGREEMENT BETWEEN

METROPOLITAN PHILIP AND
BISHOP PETER GILLQUI5T

1. Expression of hope for full union in the near future.

2. The union will require some modifications oi attitudes

on both sides. It will be necessary for us to solve the

problem ot a married episcopate. This will be worked
through at a future meeting between the Metropolitan
and the Synod of the Evangelical Orthodox Church.

3. Upon the chrismation and or ordination of those who

are willing and meet the requirements, a relationship

can be set up bringing the Evangelical Orthodox

Church into the Antiochian Archdiocese.

4. The structure that is now the Evangelical Orthodox

Church will continue its mission of preaching Or-
thodoxy to the American public.

5. Under the Metropolitan, the new body will be headed

by a Council under its president.

6. The Metropolitan will appoint an acceptable liaison

officer to work with the headquarters ot what is now the
Evangelical Orthodox Church. The officer will advise

and answer questions that the Council may have and

after a given period, his office will be closed.

7. A committee of theologians to whom the Council can

refer theological and liturgical problems will be ap-
pointed by the Metropolitan.

8. The new structure will follow the financial system

now enforced in the Archdiocese and will report quar-
 Welcome Home! 161

terly to the Archdiocese on its financial status and

growth or decline.

9. The new structure in the Archdiocese will establish

internal liturgical uniformity acceptable to all in consult-

ation with the Committee of Theologians.

would present this paper to the EOC Synod in June

I

for discussion and response. We broke for lunch and ad-

journed after the meal to the living room to finish up.
"I would like to make an important request of you,

Your Eminence," I said as we sat down. "Our men

should be able to agree to what we have written this
morning. But if we are talking about entrance into the
Antiochian Archdiocese, it will be crucial that all nine-
teen of us have an opportunity to meet you soon to hear
your vision for bringing Orthodoxy to North America
and to interact with you face to face on some of these
items. Is it possible that after our June Synod, say at the

end of the summer, we could come here and spend a day

with you?"
"Absolutely," he said without hesitation. "Let's look
at early September."
Our Synod in June was not nineteen, but fifteen. Four
of our bishops elected to step away from the EOC. Their
desire was to cease in any effort to be received into the
Orthodox Church and to get on with building the EOC.
We urged them to wait with their decision until Septem-
ber, 1986, when at least they would have the opportunity
to converse with the Metropolitan, whom they had never
met. But that was not to be. Had the Constantinople dis-

appointment helped to take this toll? No one could tell,

but we could not convince them to come.

162 The Great Entrance

September arrived and here we were, the Synod of

the EOC, on the plane again, this time to New York.
We came into town on a Thursday night with fifteen
bishops and another fifteen observers. We rented cars
and drove to amotel just outside Englewood. The
schedule called for us to meet all day Friday with Metro-
politan Philip. On Saturday morning we would gather at
St. Anthony's Church in nearby Bergenfield, New Jersey,
to celebrate the Divine Liturgy before the Metropolitan
for his evaluation and assessment. On Sunday we would
worship together at St. Anthony's and then drive across
the George Washington Bridge to Crestwood. There the
Synod would meet in the afternoon at St. Vladimir's
Seminary. We would stay there for several days to reach
a decision on entering the Church.

Meeting the Metropolitan

The mood as we entered the Friday morning meeting
with Metropolitan Philip was sober. A number of the men
were ready to be Orthodox. Others were still somewhat

hesitant, expressing the concern of being "swallowed

up" — the same fear which had kept the other men out.
Friday morning we met around the same long table
where the three of us had sat together back in March.
Note pads and pencils were again in place, this time two
dozen of them. With the Metropolitan at his end of the
table was His Eminence, Metropolitan Constantine of
Bagdad who had been visiting that week, His Grace
Bishop Antoun, auxiliary to the Metropolitan, and Fr.
Joseph Allen, vicar-general of the Antiochian Archdio-
cese in North America. The observers sat just behind us.
Kathy Meyer and Deacon Hans kept us all in coffee.
 Welcome Home! 163

Metropolitan Philip opened the meeting with prayer

and a prepared statement, which included these remarks:

We are aware to a certain extent of your background

and your quest to fully embrace the Holy Orthodox
faith. We are also aware that your journey toward Or-
thodoxy has not been an easy one, due to the multiplic-
ity of Orthodox jurisdictions on this continent. I am
sure, however, that the Holy Spirit which is always pre-
sent in the Church shall, in the words of the Pentecost

service, "lead you into the right land." Orthodoxy,

despite its jurisdictional situation in North America, is

still Christ's eternal truth yesterday, today, and forever.

I would like to caution you not to make hasty decisions;

at the same time, my brotherly advice to you is not to

procrastinate for the rest of your days. Whatever deci-

sion you make, now or in the future, make it together in

one mind, one heart, and one spirit. Do not permit

Satan, who is the master of deceit and dissension, to

enter into your midst and destroy your unity. God knows
we have enough splinter religious groups in this country,

and we have enough spiritual blindness.

We do admire your evangelical zeal and we are deeply

convinced that our Lord did not die on the cross and
was resurrected from the dead to establish his Church
for Slavs, Greeks and Arabs, but for all mankind. In
Him east and west, north and south, do not exist. "Go
ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing

them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of

the Holy Spirit."
164 The Great Entrance

It is in this spirit that we welcome you again to your

home. May the All-Holy Spirit lead all of us to do what

is pleasing to His holy Church.

By end we had quite thoroughly gone through

day's
the proposal paper, with the Metropolitan and the others
graciously and patiently answering our questions. Most of
the observers took part in the exchange. The Liturgy and
discussion Saturday was beneficial as well, for we had
learned Orthodox worship "out of the books," and several
adjustments were needed. The people at St. Anthony's
welcomed us Sunday with a delicious and massive spread
of food after the Divine Liturgy.
Now our courtship had reached a new The ball
level.

was clearly in our court. We had studied Orthodox

Christianity for fifteen years and interacted with its peo-
ple for a decade. The Metropolitan had given us more
time than we had asked for, answered every question we
put forth, and offered to be our father in Christ. He
would bring us into the Church within a year if we were
ready to make the commitment. We drove back to St.

Vladimir's and settled in for the night. The most impor-

tant meeting of our lives was set for Monday morning at
9:00 A.M. I remember it distinctly.
After an opening prayer I said, "Brethren, I have
never run a meeting like this in my life, nor have I ever
attended one. Therefore, I am simply going to sit down,
and you may speak as you wish."
Harold Dunaway was the first man to speak. From
the Constantinople trip on, he had developed a growing
hesitance over entering the Church. I predicted he
would be negative. "Gentlemen, we have no choice," he
 Welcome Home! 165

said. "I say yes. I'm ready to go in." He is a man of few

words, and this may have been one of his longer speeches!
Next, Weldon Hardenbrook spoke up. He, too had
been negative in the last year, in much the same frame
of mind as Harold. "I'm in," he said. "I liked what I saw
this weekend."
With these two men affirmative, that was it. Every-
one knew it. In five minutes, or less, the meeting was
over, except for the formality of the others saying yes.
There was one "maybe" who wanted more time, and in
the weeks ahead he evolved to a "no." But even he felt

we should enter the Church. We were fourteen strong

on the Synod, with seventeen parishes and nearly two
thousand people from Alaska to Atlanta.
I want to say it was the happiest day of my life, but
that day was yet to come. I was happy to be sure. But
that part of me which manufactures feelings had been on
overload all weekend, and the magnitude of what had
just happened was blunted. We adjourned the morning
session before noon, and I meant to go to the phone to
call Metropolitan Philip. But I ran into a friend on the
St. Vladimir's faculty and never made the call. By the
time we was time to reconvene.
finished lunch, it

We recessed for the day just before 4:00 and I left

the room quickly to call Englewood. Kathy Meyer an-
swered. "I have some good news for the Metropolitan if

he's in," I said.

"Bishop Peter, thank you for calling," he said as he

picked up the phone.
"I am thrilled to report to you that our answer is

yes," I said, "but we would like to tell you in person. If

we showed up at 3:00 Wednesday afternoon, would you

166 The Great Entrance

come out on the steps of the house and give us a bless-

ing? I have in mind five minutes at the most."

"Kathy, am I here at three on Wednesday?" I heard

him ask away from the phone. Something was mumbled
from the other room about having to leave a meeting.
"I'll be here and will be happy to see you. Come at

three."
The next morning I told the men as we began the
meeting that we had to promise each other to make it
brief on Wednesday. "He's interrupting something to see
us," I said. "Let's show up right on time, I'll say yes on
behalf of all of us, we'll ask for his blessing, and take off."

Wemet together over EOC business all day Tuesday

and again on Wednesday morning. After lunch Wednes-
day we jumped in our cars and drove the 40 minutes to
Englewood. At 2:55 the last car pulled up to the curb.
We met for a moment in the driveway. "Let's go to-
gether down the walk to the front steps. Deacon How-
ard Shannon will knock on the door and I'll take it from
there. Remember, five minutes max."
Down the walk we went, and we stood together at
the foot of the steps. Deacon Howard knocked and Dea-
con Hans came to the door, followed by the Metropoli-
tan. "Come in," motioned Metropolitan Philip.
"Your Eminence, thank you, but you're busy and all
we want is to tell you our decision and ask for your. ..."
"I said come in," he interrupted, maybe just a bit per-

turbed. "Hans, bring them in here. Come on, come on."

He headed for the banquet room at the back, and we
reluctantly followed. I looked up and could not believe
my eyes. The tables were arranged in a U shape across
the front of the room and down both sides. They were
covered with linen, china, silver, crystal, and countless
 Welcome Home! 167

trays of every imaginable Middle Eastern pastry. Tears

came into my eyes as he motioned us to find a place and

be seated. Metropolitan Philip remained standing at his
place in the center.
"Brothers," he said with a broad smile, "Welcome
Home!"
My happiness button finally got pressed!
After the blessing, everyone started in on the coffee,
the pastry and the conversation. But somehow it still

wasn't enough. It was like you wanted to run out into

the streets to dance and celebrate. But thirty-plus men
in clerical collars don't dance with each other (at least

not in the Orthodox Church they don't). Could we sing,

could we crown a king, or hire a brass band?

"What's the problem, Bishop Peter?" asked the Met-
ropolitan. I was sitting immediately across the table from
him and obviously wearing my feelings of exuberance on
my sleeve.
"I'm so charged up, I want to do something to cele-

brate. This is magnificent, all of this that you've done.

But there must be something we can do> something to
let loose all this sense of joy. ..."

"Hans," he called out, motioning the deacon to the

table. "Bring out the cigars!"
The place roared with laughter. It was exactly what
the moment called for. Deacon Hans came back into the
room with two boxes of huge imported cigars. Men who
had never ever smoked took one and lit up. It was like a

giant release valvehad been activated. A minute or so

later, Kathy came back into the room with a new pot of
coffee. "Your Eminence!" she said, "It's like an opium

den in here."
168 The Great Entrance

We howled again. It was as though we had fallen out

of character for a few precious moments, and we loved

every second of it.

As emotions mellowed over the coffee, dessert, and

now cigars, Father Gordon Walker made a request.
"Your Eminence," he began, "many of us come from
backgrounds that have been very pro-Israel. Here we are
coming into a Church that has been brought to America
by Arab Christians. Take a minute as these depraved
men are finishing their cigars [he had one, too, and he
hates them], and tell us how you view the regathering of
the nation of Israel."
It was tragic the message wasn't taped. For thirty
minutes, starting with Abraham in the Old Testament,
Metropolitan Philip gave us the most profoundly moving
Bible lesson on Israel and the Arab nations that I have
ever heard. He was careful to clarify the difference be-
tween Zionism as a political movement, often ex-
clusivisticand apartheid, and Judaism as a respected na-
tion and faith. I cannot think of an evangelical Christian
who would not have waited in line and paid at the door
to get in. I came away with a greater desire for peace
and justice in the Middle East — both for Israel and the
Palestinians — than I had ever known before.
"The Lord be with all of you," the Metropolitan said
as he concluded his remarks, "and please give my love to
all your people. Let us take the year ahead to get to
know each other. We will look at next summer or, at

the latest, next fall, to begin the chrismations and ordi-

nations to bring you into the Church."
There is a song which Orthodox Christians sing at
weddings, anniversaries, and most especially during the
Divine Liturgy when the Bisop comes to celebrate. We
 Welcome Home! 1 69

had learned the song years earlier, and it had already

become a part of our tradition. As we stood to leave the
table, without a cue, we turned to our paternal friend,
and with one voice sang out "God grant you many years,
God grant you many years, God grant you many, many
years!" We sang at the top of our voices. The whole
place dissolved into tears and embraces. I had never
meant the words of a song so much in my entire life!
On the way to the front door, Fr. Joe Allen, who had
come in during the celebration, grabbed my arm and
pulled me aside.
"I want to ask you something. In December we will

be celebrating the Metropolitan's 20th Anniversary in

the Episcopate. There will be a Hierarchical Liturgy on
Sunday morning, December 9, at the Cathedral in
Brooklyn, followed by a banquet on Staten Island.
Would you and your wife come as our guests and repre-
sent the EOC?"

The New York Weekend

We decided to come New
York a couple of days
to
early to Christmas shop in Manhattan. A month or so
before we left, I was on the phone firming up the plane
tickets, and something told me to call our friends, Tom
and Lovelace Howard, in Boston to see if they would
want to come down for a day of shopping on Saturday
and dinner in the evening. "Is this the Lord trying to
get through to me?" I thought to myself. "Naw. The
Howards have more going than they can handle any-
way that time of year." I ordered the tickets and made
hotel reservations.
] 70 The Great Entrance

The flight into La Guardia landed after dinner, and

Marilyn and I took a bus into Manhattan. It was 9:00
when we checked into the hotel, and it was too early to
stay put. So we bundled up and walked every where — to
Rockefeller Center to see the skaters and the tree, to
Saks to see the animated Christmas windows, to St.

Patrick's Cathedral, up Fifth Avenue to Trump tower —

and on back to the hotel.
Saturday was set aside to shop. We decided to start
at Saks Fifth Avenue. As we stepped outside our hotel
and headed down the street we came upon the Waldorf
Astoria. "Let's cut through the lobby and see the Christ-
mas decorations," I said to Marilyn, sensing we were sup-
posed to cut through the lobby. We walked through the
door, up the escalator and down the hall to the lobby
area. The decorations were all up,and they were beauti-
ful. We took our time, drifting through one end of the
lobby to the other and out the door to the street. The
crowd outside was shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow.
I looked ahead down toward the corner and here, mak-

ing their way down the sidewalk together, were Tom and
Lovelace Howard and son Charles!
It was like still another signpost on the journey. "As

for me, being on the way," Isaac's servant said, "the

Lord led me ." (Genesis 24:27). We all stepped back
. .

inside the Waldorf in disbelief, caught up on several

years of not seeing each other and made a date for din-
ner that evening.
Sunday morning came very early. We hailed a cab to
the Cathedral and were there just after nine. Orthodox
Christians had come from and
across the country, laity
clergy, including Metropolitan Theodosious and Arch-
bishop Iakavos. Fr. Paul Schneirla was homilist at the
 Welcome Home! 171

Divine Liturgy. After the service, Fr.Antony Gabriel of

Montreal drove us to the celebration banquet on
Staten Island. For several hours, we
and fellow-
feasted
shipped together, honoring the man we would soon call
Saidna (Say-ed-na), the intimate Arabic word for mas-
ter. Monday was spent with friends at St. Vladimir's

and Tuesday, Marilyn and I kept an appointment with

Metropolitan Philip to brief him on our progress over
the past three months.
Tuesday held a two-fold agenda: lunch and "The
Surprise." For in addition to a lovely brass metal tray
from the Middle East, Saidna Philip had another Christ-
mas gift for us as well.
"How are the EOC people doing?" he asked as we
adjourned to the living room after lunch. "Are they
ready to be brought into the Church?"
"They are ready," I assured him, assuming he would
suggest the chrismations and ordinations begin at the
North American Archdiocesan Convention in Detroit the
following summer.
"Good! I will be in California in early February, and
we'll begin chrismationsand ordinations February 8 at St.
Michael's, Van Nuys," he responded without hesitation.
February 8/ That was two months away. One year
had been reduced to five months. "That's spectacular," I
think I said. Or it was something like that. In two
months, some two thousand evangelical pilgrims would
complete their journey into Orthodox Christianity.
"Kathy, come in here with the calendar. We're start-

ing the chrismations of the Evangelical Orthodox in Feb-

ruary," he called to his secretary in the adjacent room.
The remainder of the afternoon, we planned out the
schedule. In the Los Angeles area, most of the EOC
I 72 The Great Entrance

members would be chrismated and the clergy ordained

as deacons on February 8. The next Sunday at St. Nich-
olas Cathedral, the rest of the L.A. area laity would be
chrismated and the deacons would be ordained priests.
From there, Metropolitan Philip would go up the coast
and repeat the process in Santa Cruz, and then onto
Nashville for chrismations and ordinations the next
weekend.
Bishop Antoun would step in during March to bring
our parishes in Jackson, Memphis, Gary, Indiana and our
three in Canada into the Church. Finally, the Metropolis
tan would fly to Anchorage and Seattle to complete the
process by early April.
"This way, the entire EOC will be in the bosom of
Holy Orthodoxy by Easter," Metropolitan Philip smiled.
"My friend, Peter, your journey is almost over — or
should I say, your journey is ready to begin."
As we said goodbye, we wished each other a blessed
Christmas. There was so much to be grateful for this
year. And 1987 would be even better.
On the flight home the following day, I made a list of
the people I Seventeen parishes had two
needed to call.

months to make final plans for hosting one of our new

bishops. The courtship was nearly over; the marriage was
at hand.
 12
ON TO THE THIRD
MILLENNIUM

Deacon Hans said it best. "Each of these chrismation

and ordination services is like a little Pentecost,"
he remarked during the Divine Liturgy in Nashville as
the people came forward to receive their first commu-
nion as Orthodox Christians.
The service at St. Michael's, Van Nuys, two weeks
earlier had lasted nearly four hours, as over two hundred
people were chrismated and numerous men ordained to
the diaconate. In fact, the crowd was so large, they re-
moved all the glass panels on the west side of the sanc-
tuary and set up a huge rented tent to handle the over-
flow. "This looks like a Pentecostal revival," I said to
Father John Bartke before the service. In the classical

sense of the term, it was.

The first I met as we walked into the church
person
that February morning was Julianna Schmemann, wife
of the late Fr. Alexander Schmemann. She had come
all the way from New York to Los Angeles to witness

the event. Her presence was a highlight for everyone,

173
I 74 The Great Entrance

and I could scarcely express my appreciation to her

for coming.
All of us, EOC clergy and laity, were chrismated at

the beginning of the service. Then, during the Liturgy

itself, the deacons were ordained — each one personally
receiving the laying on of hands by the Metropolitan.
The new California parishes represented were St.
Barnabas, Huntington Beach, Fr. Wayne Wilson; St.

Athanasius, Santa Barbara, Fr. Richard Ballew; St. Tim-

othy, Lompoc, Fr. David Ogan; St. Athanasius, Sacra-
mento, Fr. Thomas Renfree; and from Nevada, St.

James, Reno, Fr. Timothy McCoy.

Though in the New Testament and for much of
Church history there were multiple ordinations, the more
recent common custom in Orthodoxy has been to ordain

only one deacon or presbyter at a service. But there were

so many of us, custom gave way to tradition and, as with

the Apostle Paul, Metropolitan Philip "laid hands on

them" (Acts 19:6) for the grace of the Holy Spirit.
The prayer the Bishop prays for each new deacon in-

cludes these words:

Grant that he may love the beauty of Your house, stand

before the doors of Your holy Temple, and kindle the

lamps in the tabernacle of Your glory. And plant him in

Your holy Church like a fruitful olive tree, which brings

forth the fruits of righteousness. And make him Your
perfect servant at the time of Your Coming, that he may
receive the recompense of those who are well-pleasing

in Your sight.
 On to the Third Millennium 1 75

We were entering together into the holy order of

deacons begun with seven men, including St. Stephen,
the first martyr for Jesus Christ in the new-born Church.
There was one person missing at St. Michael's that

morning. Peggy Thomas was home in Santa Barbara

fighting a battle with terminal cancer and was too ill to
come. Her family was chrismated, and her husband,
Steve, ordained that morning without her. "She's got to
make it next week," he said as we left the sanctuary.
"Pray for her."
After the service, the people at St. Michael's served
us an absolute feast. It's one of several times I admitted
part of the reason I turned Orthodox was for the food!
The next Sunday brought more chrismations and the
ordination of the deacons to the priesthood at St. Nicho-
las Cathedral in Los Angeles where Fr. Paul Romley is

pastor. Dear Bishop Maximos of Pittsburgh was with us, as

was Bishop Seraphim of Japan who years earlier as an

evangelical Protestant had graduated from Nyack Bible

College. In addition some twenty Orthodox priests had

come in from across North America. Besides the faithful

of the Cathedral, scores of friends and parents, including

my own, were on hand to witness the glorious event.
It was another Pentecost. The joy of the Lord filled

His Temple. As the priests were ordained one by one,

Metropolitan Philip prayed:

The Divine Grace, which always heals that which is in-

firm, and completes that which is lacking, elevates

through the laying on of hands this most devout deacon

to be priest.
1 76 The Great Entrance

I knew the moment the words were said, I would be

called to rely upon the grace which completes what is

lacking for the rest of my life and ministry. The Lord

surely does take the baser things of the world to con-
found the wise.
At the banquet which followed, Bishop Maximos
stood to speak. He praised God for His faithfulness to
us as pilgrims, and for the Metropolitan and his

courage and decisiveness in opening to us the door of

the Church. It was my joy that afternoon to introduce
my parents to these two men of God who had received
us all so graciously.
As I stepped outside the back door of the Cathedral
to go to my car, I noticed a van had backed up to the
curb area nearby. The sliding door on the side was still

open and I looked in as I passed. There, resting and

smiling ear to ear was Peggy Thomas. "I made it!" she
said. "This was my goal, to be Orthodox."
Just over amonth later, Metropolitan Philip wrote
Fr. Steve Thomas this letter:

We have just learned with much sorrow of the falling

asleep in Christ of your beloved wife, Peggy. May the
Almighty God receive her in His holy mansions, where
the faces of the saints shine like the stars of heaven.

Beyond this world of suffering and tears, Christ has pro-

mised us another world where there is no sickness, sor-

row or pain. Our consolation is that sooner or later, we

will join those whom we love beyond the veils of this

temporal existence.
 On to the Third Millennium 1 77

On to the Other Parishes

Each parish, though sharing the same Lord, same
faith, and same hope, still has its own personality. At St.

Peter and Paul Orthodox Church just outside Santa

Cruz, pastored by Fr. Weldon Hardenbrook, the person-
ality trait is enthusiasm. It shows up in how the priests

pray in the services and how the people sing. Over five
hundred people were chrismated there by Metropolitan
Philip just three days after the Sunday at St. Nicholas. I
honestly thought heaven might open up and receive us
all as the congregation stood to sing "God Grant You

Many Years" to the Metropolitan.

The next day we boarded the plane for Nashville to
bring in the people and clergy of Holy Trinity, Franklin,
served by Fr. Gordon Walker, and St. Stephen's, At-
lanta, pastored by Fr. Andrew Moore.
In the following month, March of 1987, our parishes
including St. Peter's, Jackson, Mississippi; St. John's,
Memphis; and Holy Resurrection, Gary, Indiana wel-
comed Bishop Antoun on two successive weekends, and
experienced the same Spirit-filled joy and gladness as the
others. Three more EOC bishops — Clark Henderson,
Dale Autrey, and Gregory Rogers, the pastors of these
parishes — were made priests. Later in the month, the
Bishop flew to Saskatoon in central Canada to chrismate
the faithful and ordain the clergy there. By month's end
Fr. Daniel Matheson's parish in Ottawa, Holy Epiphany;
St. Vincent's in Saskatoon under Fr. Bernard Funk; and
St. Andrew's in nearby Borden under Fr. Larry Reinhei-
mer were Orthodox.
The last two stops were in early April: Anchorage,
Alaska to bring in St. John's of suburban Eagle River
pastored by Fr. Harold Dunaway and finally Seattle,
] 78 The Great Entrance

Washington to bring in Fr. Joseph Copeland's parish,

Holy Cross of Yakima, and St. Paul's of Seattle which
had been pastored by Frs. Kenneth Berven and Melvin
Gimmaka, and now by Fr. David Anderson.
I was to meet Metropolitan Philip on the first Wed-

nesday in April in Anchorage. Kathy Meyer called a few

days beforehand with word that the airline had to sched-
ule him in on Tuesday. Fr. Harold met him and Deacon
Hans at the airport and drove them out to the commu-
nity in Eagle River.
"When Saidna Philip stepped inside the church," Fr.

Harold told me the next day, "he said, This is a Cathe-

dral.'" The congregation was called together that night
at the Metropolitan's request, and the church was conse-
crated as St. John the Evangelist Cathedral. The people
were speechless. They had designed and built the church
three years earlier with their own hands. The building
preceded them into Orthodoxy by one day!
There was a sidelight to the services in Alaska. On
the second day, just after lunch, eight of us including the
Metropolitan had been invited to take a two hour sight-
seeing flight over Mt. McKinley and several glacial areas.
We arrived on time at the nearby airport to board the
flight but it never arrived. The plane went down that
morning, tragically killing the two pilots. We decided to
make the trip the following day, knowing that our times
are in God's hands. "This is the most beautiful flight I've
ever taken," Metropolitan Philip remarked as we ap-
proached majestic Mt. McKinley.
Friday came, and it was on to Seattle. The same joy
was present there, and though we were tired, it was sad
to see the festive process end. "I'm going to miss seeing
 On to the Third Millennium 1 79

you so often," I told Deacon Hans as we left for the

airport.
The next summer in Detroit, Metropolitan Philip
welcomed us home publicly at the National Convention:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are celebrating this year an
event which did not happen in the remote past, but
rather a few months ago," he began.
He told about our initial meeting with the Patriarch
in Los Angeles and then turned to the meeting with the
EOC synod on September 5, 1986:

After four hours of intensive theological discussion,

something happened which I will never forget. Bishop
Gordon Walker of Tennessee broke down and, with tears

in his eyes, said to us, "Brothers, we have been knocking

on Orthodox doors for ten years, but to no avail. Now,
we have come to your doorsteps, seeking the Holy
Catholic and Apostolic Faith. If you do not accept us,

where do we go from here?"

I was deeply touched and moved by the sincerity of Bi-

shop Walker and, from that moment on, I had no doubt

whatsoever that such a dialogue, baptized with tears,

would be crowned with heavenly joy.

Later in his remarks, the Metropolitan told of his

response to the chrismation services through North
America:

I wish I could go beyond words to describe to you the

joy which I experienced as I was chrismating these little

children of the Evangelical Orthodox faithful. Every ex-

perience I had was like a chapter from the Book of Acts.
I felt as if the Church was recapturing her Apostolic
180 The Great Entrance

spirit and rediscovering, once again, her missionary di-

mension.

There is a misconception among some of us Orthodox

that the Orthodox Church does not proselytize. This is

the furthest thing from the truth. Can you imagine

where the Church would be if Peter and Paul, Philip and
Andrew, and the rest of the Apostles did not proselytize?
What America needs today, especially after the collapse

of the electronic pulpit, is an Orthodox evangelism

based on the true interpretation of the Scripture, the
apostolic and patristic teachings, and the liturgical and
sacramental life of the Church.

Once again, from the depth of my heart, I say to the

Evangelical Orthodox, 'Welcome Home!"

The Beginning
The Order of St. Ignatius is an eight-hundred-mem-
ber support group within the Antiochian Archdiocese
which underwrites special projects — one of them is a
twenty-two-minute video presentation called "Welcome
Home" which captures on film the entrance of the
EOC into the Orthodox Church. At the end of the
film, when you would expect to see The end on the
screen, it says, instead, The beginning. I believe those

words are prophetic.

Within a few months of our reception into the Or-
thodox Church, hundreds more have come home to Or-
thodoxy. New missions have begun in several American
cities — places like Fargo, North Dakota; Salt Lake City,
Utah; East Lansing, Michigan; Bloomington, Indiana;
Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania; and Wheaton, Illinois. In ad-
 On to the Third Millennium 181

dition, inquiries have come in, sometimes several in one

day, from pastors who love Christ and His Church and
are seeking the fullness of Orthodox worship and faith.
Many of these are evangelical Protestants who have
considered Orthodox Christianity for years, but who
were afraid it was too ethnic for them. Others are Epis-
copalian, mainline Protestant, or Roman Catholic, godly
men who are frustrated because every time they turn
around, the doctrinal ground under their feet has
shifted. They all are seeking doctrinal, liturgical, and ec-
clesiastical roots.
Another visible center of interest has been Christian
college and seminary campuses. Invitations have come,
and presentations have been given at a number of such
institutions, often with the support of the administration.
Schools that would have instantly rejected an Orthodox
priest twenty years ago — and I would have been part of
the rejection process — are today taking a serious, second
look at this ancient faith. Why?
In the last book of the Old Testament — in fact, it's
the last verse in the Old Testament — an inspired predic-
tion was set down. God promised that He would turn
"the hearts of the children to their fathers" (Malachi
4:6). The people of God share a common hunger to find
the founders of their faith, the Church that Jesus Christ
established through His Apostles and the Fathers of the
Church. Malachi tells us this will occur before the "great
and dreadful day of the Lord" (Malachi 4:5).
When the Incarnate God, our Lord Jesus Christ,

came to earth the first time, it was the people who took
the Law and Prophets seriously who recognized Him and
followed Him. What about His second coming — will we
182 The Great Entrance

know Him? Will we be prepared? Jesus warns that some,

who say they are, will not be.
Today, much of Christendom is shattered. Large
numbers of confessing Christians have left the faith in
one degree or other. Believers are orphaned and isolated
from their roots. As tragic as this remember that God
is,

uses even the wrath of men to praise Him. For out of

this apostasy comes a hunger for the fullness of the New
Testament faith, for new life in Christ, for the worship of
the Holy Trinity, for the Church herself.
What is it that we who are Orthodox Christians
want? What is our vision, our desire? Simply this: We
want to be the Church for all seriously committed Chris-
tian people in the English speaking world. Christians in
North America, for example, have had the opportunity
to decide if they want to be Roman Catholic, Baptist,
Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist or even Independent.
Very few have been given the chance to decide if they
would like to be Orthodox. We wish to make that
choice available and to urge people to become part of
Church of Jesus Christ.
this original
Repeatedly, in the Book of Revelation, Jesus says, "He
who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the
churches." I believe that in these days, the Holy Spirit is

issuing a clarion call to the people of God: Children come

home to the faith of your fathers, to your roots in Chris-
tendom, to the green pastures and still waters of the
Church that has stood the test of time.
As pre-Orthodox Christians we had the right Savior,
though we've come to know Him better, together with
God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. We had the
and have come to know it better.
right Bible But we had
overlooked that enormous missing factor — the right
 On to the Third Millennium 183

Church. The and the Bride have beckoned us, and

Spirit

we have gladly come.

This is the Treasure we have found. And we dare
not hide it.

Fr. James Meena was right that day at St. Nicholas

Cathedral. Our fathers embraced this Orthodox Chris-
tian faith and brought it to America. Now it's our turn
to bring America — and the West — to Orthodox Christi-
anity. On to the Third Millennium!
 .

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter E. Gillquist is an archpriest in the Antiochian

Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America
and is chairman of the Department of Missions and
Evangelism for the archdiocese. He also serves as presi-
dent of the Council of Coordinators of the Antiochian
Evangelical Orthodox Mission (AEOM) and publisher of
Conciliar Press/Again Magazine. He serves on the Wor-
ship and Evangelism Commission of the National Coun-
cil of Churches.
Fr. Peter was educated at the University of Minne-
sota, Dallas Theological Seminary and Wheaton College
Graduate School. In the 1960's, he was a regional direc-
tor of Campus Crusade for Christ, followed by eleven
years as senior book editor at Thomas Nelson Publishers.
He has authored numerous books including Love is Now
(Zondervan), The Physical Side of Being Spiritual (Zon-
dervan) and Designed for Holiness (Servant)
,

185
The typeface for the text of this book is Goudy Old Style. Its creator,

W. Goudy, was commissioned

Frederic by American Type Founders
Company to design a new Roman type face. Completed in 1915 and
named Goudy Old Style, it was an instant bestseller. However, its de-
signer had sold the design outright to the foundry, so when it became
evident that additional versions would be needed to complete the fam-
ily, the work was done by the foundry's own designer, Morris Benton.

From the original design came seven additional weights and variants,
all of which sold in great quantity. However, Goudy himself received

no additional compensation for them. He later recounted a visit to the

foundry with a group of printers, during which the guide stopped at
one of the busy casting machines and stated, "Here's where Goudy
goes down to posterity, while American Type Founders Company goes
down to prosperity."

Substantive Editing:
Michael S. Hyatt

Copy Editing:
Russell A. Sorensen

Cover Design:
Kent Puckett Associates,
Atlanta, Georgia

Page Composition:
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Printing and Binding:

W. A. Krueger Company
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Dust Jacket Printing:

Weber Graphics, Chicago, Illinois
 After a long and difficult journey,
2000 weary Evangelical Protestants
finally found their way home.

This is the story of a handful of courageous men and

their congregations who risked stable occupations,
security, and the approval of life-long friends to be
obedient to God's call.

It is also the story of every believer who is searching for

the Church. Where Christ is Lord. Where holiness,
human responsibility and the Sovereignty of God are
preached. Where fellowship is more than a covered-dish
supper in the church basement. And where fads and
fashion take a back seat to apostolic worship and
doctrine.

This is a book for Christians, looking for ways to bring

new life to their own churches. It's also a book for those
completely dissatisfied — those on their own search. And
it's a book for Orthodox Christians, looking for renewal.

WOLGEMUTH & HYATT, PUBLISHERS. INC

9 780943"497679'