An homily from St. John’s Russian Orthodox Mission Church in Winfield, PA, by Priest Paul Siewers.

Today we commemorate the Baptism of Rus’ in 988 AD and the First Six Ecumenical Councils that preceded it. The Baptism of Rus’ was the mass Christianization of Kievan-Rus’ the predecessor to Russia. The Six Councils of the Church during the first seven centuries of the Christian era helped defend and further articulate Church teachings and practices. 

What would it take to have a Baptism of America?

Understanding of the Ecumenical Councils, for one thing. The first Six Councils, inspired by the Holy Spirit, provide the antidote to the demonic-inspired delusions and heresies that still afflict us in new and combined forms today, with even greater force.

But each time we have a baptism here in our little country church in Appalachia, each time we renew our catechism, baptismal, and chrismation vows by participating in those of someone new joining our Church, we also participate in the Baptism of America. Sayga, sayga, step by step little by little, as our Greek brothers and sisters like to say.

Take the preparation for an Orthodox baptism at the Muncy State Women’s Prison as part of our prison ministry. In preparing the inmate for baptism, in catechism, I’ve had to consider further a basic question that it is good for all of us to think and pray about, and put forward in our lives, in our missionary work. That question is, what makes Orthodoxy different from the heterodox forms of Christianity familiar in America, namely Catholicism and Protestantism? The question was discussed in our parish Orthodoxy Online class yesterday as well. The Ecumenical Councils help us to prepare an answer to that question,  based in the Church Tradition that we experience in Church throughout the year, and in the lives and prayers of the Saints.

Here are 10 points that occurred to me in answer to the question, What makes Orhtodoxy truly different and worth by comparison to Protestantism, Catholicism, non-biblical faiths, neopaganism, occultism, and pseudo-scientific atheism combined? Here are my ten points, offered by me as the worst of sinners, for we should nor out of pride assume any superior righteousness, But we can and should consider how best ro witness to others for our Lord’s faith out of concern for their salvation too. Think about your “points” of witness, too, remembering that the Apostle Peter says, “sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.” The best answers of course lie in example, love, and prayer.

1) The complete and correct Creed. Orthodoxy preserves the original Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed as formed and proclaimed by the ancient Church. Others changed it. We say it at every Liturgy and at each Compline in original form and hold to it in our hearts and faith.

2) Comes from that first point. We preserve the deepest theology of Christian Trinitarianism. We don’t subordinate the Holy Spirit, which is a full member of the Trinity so to speak in the deepest sense in Orthodox teaching. Not so elsewhere.

3) We preserve that ancient and inspired and living understanding of the Church that Grace is not subordinate or objectified either. Orthodoxy teaches and demonstrates how grace is uncreated, not created. Grace is divine. Grace is not the essence of God but the energy of God, yet that energy is uncreated. It forms a whole different basis for natural law that is not legalistic, or rationalistic and individualistic in the modern senses. It highlights how theosis, or oneness with the divine energies through Christ, is the purpose and salvation of man.

4) The Ecclesiology of Orthodoxy as explained in the Creed, “one holy catholic and apostolic Church,” does not center on any one individual, whether one pope in Catholicism or the idea that everyone is a pope in Protestantism. The Church is the Body of Christ. Orthodoxy shows how it is the Church of the Apostles and has kept true to the Holy Spirit’s inspired Tradition. It doesn’t cop out by saying our Lord’s Church has somehow vanished, like many Protestants do, some of whom even try to replace the biblical Israel realize din the Church with the 1948 state of Israel. Orthodoxy doesn’t identify a human leader as the Tradition, as many other groups do. “Orthodoxy” means simply right teaching and right glorifying both.

5) Orthodoxy emphasizes ascetic synergy in salvation, govenie in Slavonic. Salvation is the synergy of God’s uncreated grace and our free will and struggle. Ascesis or asceticism is our will with God’s grace to be sacrifice self to serve God and each other. That’s why fasting in all senses (including alms-giving and discipline of prayer and desiring) is so much more important, for example, in Orthodoxy as a whole than in Catholicism or Protestantism. It’s not just “in our head” but involves our body, too.

6) Following all the true Ecumenical Councils, Orthodoxy most clearly upholds the true nature of Christ as fully God and fully man, one person with two natures. We don’t water this down by interfaith intellectualism, into Deism or Unitarianism, as many of the old Puritans did, expressed in confusion in the history of American Protestantism.

7) The true teaching of iconography in Orthodoxy is upheld by the Seventh Council growing out of the work of the first six councils, is part of our full-bodied approach to worship, reflecting the Incarnation of Christ as central to His Church as His Body.

8) Related to seven, the beauty of Orthodoxy. That’s why St. Vlaidmir the Great converted to Orthodoxy, and his people as well. They saw the beauty of Orthodox worship and knew not whether they were in heaven or on earth, they said. This beauty of worship is physical and embodied, just as our Incarnational Lord, and a reminder that Logos means also “harmony.”

9) Orthodoxy reads Holy Scripture as both literal and symbolic in light of Church Tradition. No confusion or ignoring or tweaking of the Bible; we don’t leave out books of the historical canonical Bible, and we rely primarily on the Old Testament used by the Apostles. We look to the inspired early Church Fathers for guidance in interpretation in light of Tradition inspired by the Holy Spirit, rather than individual whims of ourselves or any particular popular heterodox preacher.

10) Finally, the biggest: Love. God is love, the Evangelist John tells us. Love is the greatest virtue or gift, writes the Apostle Paul. Jesus Christ showed us how to love. He gave us a New Commandment to love our neighbor as ourself. The mysteries and discipline of the Orthodox Church encourages and guides us into this. 

Those are ten things I, a sinner, could mention about how Orthodoxy is different for me and why I love Orthodoxy. Depending on whom I spoke with, one such point be more effective than others, but, with prayer, pull on any one and in Orthodoxy the thread will connect to many other aspects. There are as many such aspects of Orthodoxy as God is infinite.

What would be your response to the question of why is Orthodoxy different for you and worthwhile by contrast to heterodoxy and/or atheism or neopaganism or the occult or non-biblical religions?

We should, as Scripture says, be prepared to answer for our hope, and defend it. For this is how apologetics help us spread the faith. But most of all this starts in the spiritual dimension of example, practice, prayer, and love.

The Holy Fathers of the First Six Ecumenical Councils, and the Saints of the Baptism of Rus’ all stand with us. We ask them to pray for us in our mission work to the human heart today.

That’s another thing about Orthodoxy, how the saints, led by the Theotokos, are part of our Church family even in this humble little country mission. They are close as family and even closer in how they respond to us for their requests for prayers. There is no preacher or pope in the way. They are with us here in the Lord’s Church, the Body of Christ, the Orthodox Church. Amen.