Greek Orthodox vs. Roman Catholicism: Part 3

A couple days ago we visited a town called Meteora which is known for its

Monastery on Rocks of Meteora

collection of Greek Orthodox monasteries and nunneries situated on top of towering rocks. If you wanted to call one place in the whole world spiritual, I would call it this place. From atop the rocks there is a beautiful view of the lush Greek country side, small villages and majestic mountains. It is such different scenery from Waco, where flat is an overstatement!

There is nothing like having a good tour guide. I had visited a Roman Catholic Cathedral with a religion/philosophy professor and an Orthodox Church by myself and had gleaned enough information about the differences between these two faith traditions in order to write two blogs, and yet I felt that the information that I had so far gleaned was just one grain among the field of facts that I got from our guide, Athenasia, that day as well as yesterday when we visited the St. Demetrius orthodox church in Thessaloniki.

We learned that the orthodox believe that the Holy Spirit emanates directly from God, the father, rather than from both the Father and the Son as the Catholics believe. In addition, we learned that the Orthodox view the pope as equal to other Christians and even the patriarchs, whereas Catholics view the Pope with more authority than ordinary humans. Finally, another major difference is that the Orthodox believe that the Virgin Mary was born sinful and not conceived without sin as the Catholics believe. Among other things, Orthodox don’t believe in infant baptism by sprinkling, but like the Catholics, they do pray to saints, so that they can pray on behalf of us to God. Some ask, whether these issues are important to distinguish. And I believe that they are. While they might not be primary theological issues like the death and resurrection of Christ which is central to Christianity, I believe that these topics do affect the way that we live as Christians and the way that we view God. So, I will address three of the above topics with my own opinion.

(1) If the Virgin Mary was without sin, that takes away the miraculous nature of Jesus’ birth and the fact that it was God’s work, not her work that conceived Jesus. The Virgin Mary was a sinful, normal human being just like you or me. She was used by God to bring His son into the world, just as God uses us to accomplish His purposes on work now. That doesn’t make us any more special though. It is by grace that God can use imperfect, normal people to accomplish His work, through His omnipotence.

(2) If the HS doesn’t emanate from both God and Jesus, than the three facets of the holy trinity are not equal and it takes away from God’s nature and from the unity of the trinity. The unity of the trinity is foundational I think to our need for relationship and love.

(3) If the saints pray to God for us the relationship between Christ and man weakens. Yes, they may be helping us out, but they have no more clout than we do. We are commanded in the Bible in Matthew 5:6: “when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” We know that “the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God” (Romans 8:26-7). But nowhere in the Bible do we see that we should pray to saints or the Virgin Mary. If we had to pray through a mediator every time we wanted to communicate with God, then our relationship with him wouldn’t be as intimate.

Temple Rituals

At Delphi, there were many religious rituals that were performed in accordance with the cult of Apollo. Before entering the holy area, every person had to be purified. Some people, such as criminals, the dying and pregnant women, were not even allowed into the holy area and instead had to wait outside the wall that separated the sacred from profane space. Because they shared the same religion and gods, even rival city-states wouldn’t violate the sacred spaces and objects of their adversaries. Visitors after purchasing or bringing an offering for Apollo, they could pose a question to be answered by the oracle. Finally, they interpreted the mumble of ambiguous words and phrases of the prophetess in the temple.

In the same way as the ancient Greeks, many other religions, including Islam, Buddhism and Catholicism, require a ritual cleansing or purification before entering holy space. However, Protestant Christians don’t have this. I believe that no matter how much I wash, I cannot be clean and no matter how hard I work, I cannot purify myself. I understand that God welcomes me into his presence and even though I am a filthy sinner, God sees me as clean because of the work of Jesus Christ’s death on the cross and resurrection. However, one commonality between the ancient Greeks and the Jewish tradition is that people that are unclean may not enter the temple area. For example, lepers and other diseased individuals were not allowed in the Jewish temple in the Bible. Another thing that I wondered as we wandered Delphi was whether Christians have exhibited the same amiability toward sacred Christian spaces and objects, as Greek city-states did with other Greek city-states. The only example I can think of is possibly a war between two Christian nations and both countries avoiding the bombing or attack of areas around churches. However, any religious wars between Christians have been fought over opposing Christian doctrine, such as Catholics against Protestants, Lutherans versus Calvinists or Catholics and Orthodox. So, I really can’t think of an example to support or refute this. However, I would like to think that Christians would respect the sacred spaces of one another enough to avoid destroying them during a war.

However, this begs another question. Because Protestants believe in the priesthood of the believers and that the Church is not necessarily a building and is instead inside the believer, what is sacred space to the Protestant Christian? What’s more important? Is it within the walls of a church building or within the Christ-following person? That is a blog for another day…

Assignment #13- Comparing Jesus and Socrates as Teachers

Speaking of religion and philosophy, I am going to briefly examine the portrait of Jesus as a teacher in Matthew with that of Socrates as a teacher in Plato’s Apology and Euthyphro.

Jesus and Socrates had many things in common as teachers. First, both expressed ideas which were ill-received by the societies in which they taught. For Jesus, it was the Roman Empire. This is evidenced immediately when King Herod seeks to kill Jesus because he is prophesied to be the king of the Jews, which would compromise his sovereignty. In addition, Jesus is sometimes forced to leave areas because of his ideas. For Socrates, the Athenians prosecute him for corrupting the youth and for denying the gods recognized by the state. Eventually, both are tried and killed by society for their ideas. One reason for this was that both the societies which they entered misunderstood their missions and purpose. The Jews hoped and the authorities feared that Jesus was coming to be an earthly king and establish a kingdom among the Jews. However, Jesus came to save souls in fulfilling the purposes of God in establishing His heavenly kingdom. Socrates was wrongly accused of having a political agenda. Instead, he examined people and helped them discover truth, not gain followers or start a revolution. Finally, both Jesus and Socrates didn’t have many followers during their lifetime, but later had writings done about them and had philosophies that have survived until present day and have influenced many people worldwide for centuries.

While Socrates and Jesus have a lot in common, they are also very different in their philosophies and their styles of teaching. First, Jesus makes a bold claim that he is God. While Socrates seems to recognize some form of higher being, he concerns himself much more with the earth, than the heavens. In their style of teaching, Jesus assists his listeners in understanding truth and keeps a loving relationship going with his students. He teaches through parables, miracles and through his own example. Sometimes more than reason, he requires faith from his followers. On the other hand, Socrates demands sound reasoning from his students. He uses a form of teaching which involves many questions. While this is a technique that Jesus does use, Socrates is known for this style. Socrates helps his students to retrieve information and arrive at truth themselves, but largely leaves them independent. There is not as much intimacy in the relationships of Socrates as there are with Jesus’. To some extent, both try to arrive at truth through examining seemingly mundane topics like piety, marriage, love and prayer. In his dialogue, Jesus often states these truths outright and lets his followers experience them deductively. Meanwhile Socrates often spurs his followers to examine truths inductively. For example, he encourages Euthyphro to look at different facets of piety in order to make a conclusion about what piety is. Thus, Jesus and Socrates, while they were treated similarly by the cultures and societies which they taught in, they differed in the content of their teachings and their style of teaching.

June 26- Greek Orthodox versus Roman Catholicism: Part 2

Today we took a one-day cruise of three Greek islands, Poros, Hydra and Aegina. As soon as we boarded the boat, we staked out awesome seats on the front deck of the boat facing the open ocean. Although the ride was very windy and often sea-sickening (especially for me), the views were nevertheless spectacular. Once on the islands, there was no set plan, just about an hour to two hours of free time. This was plenty of time to explore!!!

In Poros, I hiked up to a beautiful clock tower on a ridge overlooking the harbor. When I made a wrong turn, I got stopped by a mommy cat who hissed at me as I approached her 7 or 8 kittens hiding in the garden. In Hydra, I found a cute little church that I will explain in more detail later. Finally in Aegina, Ben and I swam out to some rocks about 100 meters from shore (I’m not very good at swimming, so it was a work out, but I was glad that Ben, a certified lifeguard, was with me). To our dismay there were sea urchins on the side of the rock and on the shallower rocks underneath the water. And Ben stepped on one, describing it to be like stepping on a cactus, and getting a half-dozen or so sea urchin spine splinters in his foot…ouch!!! I made it out without any and we headed back to the boat for the ride home.

Now, it was quite coincidental that the church I stepped inside on the island of Hydra was a Greek Orthodox Church, just two days after visiting the Roman Catholic Church in Athens. I noticed some of the differences that Dr. Moore had pointed out such as the Greek Orthodox church having many icons and no pews. I found out from a lady that this small church used to be a monastery, but is now the local church. She informed me that she is Greek orthodox, along with most of Greece, and that she attends this church every Sunday. When she asks what religion I am, I respond that I am Christian, but not Orthodox, to which she says, “Oh we’re the same”. I didn’t respond to her statement, but there are many things that separate Orthodox Christianity from protestant Christianity, much less the Baptist denomination.

The church itself seemed very crowded, even when I was the only one present. Although there were no pews, there were paintings and icons everywhere that one could be situated, extra chairs and podiums jutting into the main aisle, and sacred objects hanging from the ceiling. It was very dark and natural light shown sparingly through the windows. One particular painting stood out to me. I believe it depicted St. Paul in the center, and scenes of the imprisonment and persecution of Paul in the border. What struck me was that in all the border pictures, there were minarets of mosques in the background and the dress of the persecutors included turbans, middle eastern looking robes and darker skin. I believe that this made the painting more authentic to the area that Paul would have been ministering. It is rare that in Western art, one would see these scenes rendered in such a way. Thus, I marveled at this artwork. As people started entering the church (now it was getting really crowded), I noticed that some people would approach each piece of artwork and sacred object in the church and then kiss it. At first, it seemed like these people were simply peering closer at the art to examine a detail and then bumping their heads on the transparent protective screen, not noticing that it was there. However, as time passed, many more people did the same thing and not surprisingly, there were numerous smudge marks on the protective screen around the center.

All in all, I have been most fascinated by the use of art in Christian worship. Catholics have magnificent paintings and stained glass in their cathedrals. The Byzantine churches commissioned great mosaics. And the Greek Orthodox churches had many icons. And finally, most protestant churches don’t seem to have much artwork in their church buildings. This brings up the important questions of (1) how is artwork a medium to connecting with the divine and (2) do these depictions of Jesus and saints and other people add to or detract from worship?

June 25- Corinth

Today, we visited the rich historical, architectural and religious site of Corinth. Besides the wonderful opportunity of visiting this site, we also had the unique pleasure of having Dr. Robin Indiana Jones Rhodes, architecture professor at the University of Notre Dame (and one of Ben’s former professors) and one of the head archaeologists (specializing in ancient Greek architecture) of the site of ancient Corinth.

To repeat all that he said would result in an endless blog, so I will just share with you the highlights of his two hour tour of ancient Corinth and my impressions of him and of the site. He started by describing the difference between Ionic and Doric columns using as an example the Temple of Zeus and Hera (more commonly, but falsely—according to Dr. Rhodes—known as the Temple of Apollo), which is the canonical Doric temple in the world dating back to the 1^st century before Christ. This means that is has all of the basic structures of a typical Doric style temple. Dr. Rhodes said that ancient architecture always reflects the requirements and needs of the religious cult. For example, this particular temple had two rows of center columns, so that one could have a clear view of the cultic image, in this case, the statue of Zeus or Hera from the entrance and walking down the center of the temple. Additionally, Dr. Rhodes posed two questions that he typically asks himself when first examining an archaeological site: (1) What design/aesthetic problem were the builders of the ancient site trying to solve? (2) Based on what you see (what remains), can you determine the character of the building and reconstruct the building? Much of his work employs simple inductive reasoning using observations from the site. It was incredible however, to work through some of these questions with him, see the intricate details that only the eye of an experienced archaeologist would pick up, and hypothesize as to the history of the site and of the people that built it.

These archaeological questions helped me to see the ancient ruins in a whole new light and to see the connection between architecture and piecing together ancient history and culture. I am curious to try to apply these questions to other ancient sites that we visit and to even consider how our own religious buildings are constructed today with the traditions and needs of that religion in mind. In addition to the architectural aspects of ancient Corinth, Dr. Rhodes also presented a brief history of Corinth, asserting that Corinth was perhaps more instrumental in the revival of Greece than even Athens. This was because Corinth was a land and sea crossroads. Anyone passing either direction from central Greece to the Pelaponeses had to pass through Corinth. Additionally, Corinth had two harbors which allowed sailors to avoid the dangerous journey around the peninsula by portaging their ships and supplies across land through Corinth. Because of these, Corinth was a culturally and religiously diverse city which wielded much political, economic and military influence. Corinth is also known as a location where the apostle Paul visited around 52 AD during his missionary journey. He stayed 1 ½ years and preached to the various cultural and religious peoples of Corinth. We saw the wall where Paul might have spoken and walked the main city road that he surely walked upon.

In conclusion, I learned a lot from Dr. Rhodes today. Although I could never be an architect or archaeologist, I nevertheless found the architecture information very interesting. Not only did I learn a lot, but I believe the other students did (even former student Ben), the professors and even our tour guide, who asked lots of questions!!!

June 24- Greek Orthodox versus Roman Catholicism: Part 1

It was actually quite comforting to walk into a Roman Catholic church, after two weeks of mosques and Greek Orthodox churches. With our free morning, Dr. Moore, Ben, Niha and I enjoyed visiting the Temple of Olympian Zeus and one of the largest bookstores in Athens, and eating lunch at a café in Monastiraki Square with a view of the Acropolis Hill and the Parthenon. In the afternoon, we took an hour long drive along the Poseidon Highway, paralleling the coast, to see the Temple of Poseidon, which was a massive temple on the tip of the peninsula at Cape Sounion, surrounded by the Aegean Sea on three sides. I will confidently say that some of the most beautiful pictures of the trip were taken from this hill overlooking islands and sparkling blue water under a clear blue sky filled with late afternoon sunshine.

Backtracking a little…In the midst of our leisurely morning, we found time to stop by the St. Denis Cathedral. Immediately, I was reminded of all the Cathedrals that I had sung in (for choir tours) or just visited in my previous travels in Europe. Again, I felt familiar here. However, a Roman Catholic Church is a scarcity in Greece where the state religion is the Orthodox Church of Greece and the majority of the population is Greek Orthodox. The major differences between the Catholic and Orthodox Church are their liturgies, the role of icons, and cultural differences. While their theologies do differ somewhat, most recently, after the visit of the Orthodox official Delegation to Rome and the official visit of Cardinal Walter Kasper to Greece, the relations of the two churches has been increasing and they have agreed that they have more theological commonalities than differences. A couple minor differences that I noticed: (1) the Orthodox priests have a unique style of dress that includes a hat a robe. (2) Generally, Catholics have pews while Orthodox don’t because Catholics alternate sitting and standing often, while Orthodox tend to stand during most of their services.

Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Denis in Athens

This particular Catholic Church had a beautiful mural in the front of the church and stain glass windows on the side with the Greek names of saints underneath them. We tried to figure out what the Greek saints were that we were looking at. Nevertheless, it was a religious experience that was worth exploring!

June 23- Continuation of Athens: Intersection of Religious and Philosophical History

Today we had a full day of Athens site-seeing. We started with a bus tour. We passed Syntagma Square where rioters were camped out and had strung up signs on every tree and where the Parliament building stood. We also saw the National Garden, Hadrian’s Arch and the Temple of Olympian Zeus, which is the only Corinthian style temple in Athens. We saw the modern Olympic stadium and drove up Likavitos (Hill of Wolves), the highest hill of the city center where there was a magnificent view of the Olympic stadium, Parliament buildings and the Acropolis.

Our final stop was the Acropolis and Acropolis museum. Because Greece’s top industry is tourism, the sites in Greece differ much from the sites in Turkey. Sites are much more formalized, souvenir prices are inflated, the sites are more crowded with visitors, and you can’t touch (much less get within two feet) of any of the ruins or artifacts. Although I had visited the Acropolis once before, the temple of Athena Nike wasn’t completely reconstructed before as it is now and the new Acropolis museum did not exist. There are four main buildings on the Acropolis including the Parthenon (Temple of Athena), Orestion (Temple of Athena and Poseidon), the monumental gateway and the Temple of Athena Nike. From the Acropolis one can not only see surrounding Athens, but also the Herodian theatre and the theatre of Dionysus. The ongoing excavations of the site which the New Acropolis Museum now rests is incorporated into the museum through a transparent glass floor on all levels of the museum that reveals the work being done below. This is not the only cool thing about this new museum. In addition, the New Acropolis museum is laid out in the same form as the actual acropolis. For example, artifacts found either at the museum site or on the side of Acropolis hill are on the first floor, ancient pieces from the acropolis are found on the second floor of the museum and artifacts of the Parthenon pediment is on the 3rd and top level gallery which is parallel to the Parthenon walls and has the same # of columns and same column spacing of the Parthenon!

In the site and the museum, we discovered the religious nature and history of Athens from its role as a Temple of Athena in the 5th century B.C. to its Christianizing by Paul to the Orthodox church dedicated to the virgin Mary to the Catholic church by the crusaders to a mosque and armory by the Ottoman Empire to its destruction and present restoration. In addition, we see in the pediment and the artifacts found, the way in which they worshiped and presented sacrifices and also, especially with the pediment, how the pre-Socratic philosophers used the depictions to explain the world and its natural phenomena. The museum was one of the best that I’ve been to and it was great to visit Athens again on this study abroad trip. I learned much more than I did during my first visit, I spent more time at each site and I had the benefit of a more liberal education and a religious and philosophical perspective.

June 22- Athens Introduction

Today we took a morning flight into Athens. I was surprised and elated to discover that the 2011 Special Olympics were being held in Athens starting Saturday, June 25 and ending July 3. There would be over 7500 athletes from 185 countries competing in 22 sports this upcoming week. The opening ceremonies were scheduled for the 25^th with a variety of traditional Greek performances! According to the official site, this is “The only games in the world, where all participating athletes are Winners. Winners in their struggle for our respect in their diversity. Winners in their struggle for self-esteem. Winners in their struggle to defend their special abilities. What an awesome cultural and diverse event representing unity and bringing together special Olympic athletes with a variety of mental disabilities from all over the world to Athens!

We were tired of tour guides by this time and we sorely miss Cenk. In the last two days alone, we had 4 guides, one for our half day tour of Rhodes Old Town, one to bring us to the Rhodes airport another to take us from the Athens airport to the hotel and finally, one to bring us around Athens. Tomorrow, we will have yet another guide. Nothing against those tour guides, but it is constancy of Cenk, his personality and friendliness, and even his style of guiding that we’ve known for two whole weeks that we sorely miss.

Today we toured Mars Hill and the ancient Agora. Tomorrow we will be visiting the Acropolis Hill, the new Acropolis museum, Hadrian’s Arch, Temple of Olympian Zeus, National Garden, (probably not Syntagma Square because of all the recent political demonstrations), Parliament Building, Athenian Academy and the National Library. I have been to Athens previously, but for a much shorter stay and the information didn’t seem as interesting or relevant to me back then as it does now having a background in BIC and studying abroad here.

Athens is another hub where various cultures have ruled and mixed, and thus also a center of ideas, religions and philosophies. Even before Christianity spread to Greece, it was a mosaic of cultures and beliefs. In Acts 17, Paul observes that Athens is full of idols and declares, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way” (17:22). He speaks to Jews in the synagogue, Athenians in the Agora, Epicurean and Stoic philosophers as well as the people of the Areopagus, judicial or political council. Even after the introduction of Christianity to Athens and the building of the first church in the 5^th or 6^th century after Christ, it was hard to be a Christian minority in the face of opposing and more prevalent religions. According to the guide, it would have been the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who would have given the most ear to Paul’s sayings. Despite oppositions, some members of the Areopagus became Christians and Christianity spread throughout Athens to all of Greece. For the most part, Greece was Roman Catholic, until that empire split and Christianity in Greece converted to Greek Orthodox in falling in with the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantine Empire. When the Ottoman Turks arrived however, just as in Turkey, they converted all the churches into mosques. Now, most Greece is Greek Orthodox. It is amazing to see the intersection of religious and philosophical history in one place, Athens!

June 21- The Knights of St. John and Grand master’s Palace

On our free day in Rhodes, we spent the morning at the Grand Master’s Palace, a magnificent medieval style castle with hints of gothic architecture. The beautiful colored marble floors with detailed mosaics in the middle, the rooms of furniture, traditional clothing and paintings, the statues in the courtyard, and the walls of cannons didn’t quite make sense during our visit. However, I did research afterwards about the Order of St. John of Jerusalem also known as the Knights Hospitallers, who used this palace when they were in Rhodes in the 14^th century.

The Order of St. John of Jerusalem was one of the most powerful political and military organizations during the middle ages. They were formed in the 11^th century in order to provide hospital care for

Christian pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land. Later they offered first aid to casualties of the crusades. After being forced out of Jerusalem by Saladin, they went to Cyprus briefly before settling in Rhodes in 1309. There they established castles and ports and a palace for the Grand Master, who was the leader of this order. They stayed in Rhodes, and ruled from this castle until the Ottoman Turks, under the leadership of Sulyman the Magnificent, ousted them in 1522. However, it was for over 200 years that the Order of St. John established themselves in Rhodes as a political, military and humanitarian power. As Christians, they sought to heal people and offer medical aid to those in need. Now, while there are Knights of St. John scattered all across Europe and even in the United States, there are still many branches of this order, especially those which hold fast to one of the order’s most impactful roles as health care providers for the needy. Many of the orders support or run hospitals. And theystill go by the ever-appropriate motto: PRO FIDE, PRO UTILITATE HOMINUM or “FOR THE FAITH AND IN THE SERVICE OF HUMANITY”. As an aspiring doctor and medical missionary, I want to hold myself to this same motto. I am for Christ and for serving the people He has so wonderfully and beautifully created!

June 20- Class Discussion Questions: Review of Istanbul from the Biblical Heritage Perspective

* I have not posted for the last couple days due to lack of internet access. Thus, the next several blogs that I post will include a date in the title indicated the date that the blog was written or intended to be written for.

1.       Having observed all of these Roman sites, how has your perception of the roman empire itself changed?

It was great just to see the sites up close and to witness the grandeur and extent of the Roman Empire. I was not aware that it spread all the way to Turkey and that it exhibited such a huge influence on Turkish culture that it warranted the building of Roman theatres, temples to Roman gods and goddesses and Roman imperial buildings. I thought that places like Ephesus, Pergamon and Corinth were strong-holds of Christianity because it was in the Bible, but Christians were a minority in these places surrounded by Emperor/pegan worship.

2.       What do you think emperor worship would have been like?

It would have been a little scary. Everyone did it. It’s kind of like the theocracy of the pharaoh in Egypt. The emperor, because he was believed to be divine was also believed to be infallible.

3.       What do you think it would have been like to be a Christian in this context?

It would have been scary as the minority religion. Also, Christianity was fairly new to this region, so it must have been a struggle to remain faithful despite having a diversity of religions and philosophies around. Also, there must have been much persecution because if you didn’t worship the emperor, you would probably be imprisoned or killed.

4.       At least one of you were skeptical about Mary actually living in Mary’s house, you ranged in opinions about whether Homer’s account really occurred at Troy. What mechanisms do you use for sorting out what you believe about past events? One thing that we often do is look to authority. We look to something or someone that we trust to verify the truthfulness of a past event. The other mechanism that we often use is tradition. If a group of people have always done it or many different groups of people verify the event, then we tend to accept the notion of the particular event. We also often look to our own pre-conceived, fundamental morals and ethics and understanding of the world and history. This may be based off of tradition or an authority. As a Christian, I look to the Bible as an authority and the Christian tradition or Biblical heritage.

Based on what you have seen thus far, what do you think is most lacking in your overall education?  pop culture, Basic philosophical history, Education of middle east and Turkey, language skills

6.       What could the BIC do to enhance its regular course offerings so that students were best prepared for this sort of experience? I haven’t appreciated learning about philosophy and art so much until I went on this trip. I would encourage social world I to keep emphasizing basic philosophical history and for world cultures to keep emphasizing art history.