How to Discuss the Eastern Church: A Grammatical Primer

"To count the terms used in theology as of primary importance, and to endeavor to trace out the hidden meaning in every phrase and in every syllable, is a characteristic wanting in those who are idle in the pursuit of true religion, but distinguishing all who get knowledge of the mark of our calling...The beginning of teaching is speech."

--St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit I.2

I've often written here of the need to reclaim the Church's bipulmonary nature, that is, the fact that she has two lungs, as Pope Bl. John Paul II loved to say, the West and the East.  I've recently realized that just having people mention the Eastern Church is not enough (though it is certainly a great start): people must also know what they're talking about in regards to Eastern Christianity.  One of the greatest aspects that needs to be cleared up is simply the matter of terminology.  Thus I here attempt to give a quick grammatical primer on terms that are often jumbled up by those sincerely wishing to do justice to the Church's bipulmonary nature.  My goal is not to condemn those who inadvertently misuse language, but to instruct them and call them on to the correct use.  Why does this matter?  Because laziness with language, even if unintentional, feels somewhat like a lack of caring for the Eastern Church.  I might be too sensitive, but I hope this primer will help either way.  Any incorrect information given here is strictly due to my own faults.

The Silence and the Witness: The Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women

 

Acts 6:1-7

Mk 15:43-16:8

Christ is risen!  Christos voskrese!  Χριστός ἀνέστη!

"They said nothing to any one, for they were afraid."  These are the last words we have just heard from the Holy Scriptures: are they not puzzling?  On a day we celebrate those women who loved Our Lord so greatly, those women who were called to proclaim the glorious truth of His Resurrection, why do we end with words that deny their role?  They were called to go and tell the disciples, and yet instead they are mute.  The Apostle to the Apostles does not seem to act so today.  Why is this?  Why does the reading seem to contradict the feast?

Bones, Flesh, and Muscles

A term I have come across when reading Orthodox writers is "ossification."  Literally, the term relates to the process of creating bone or of other parts of the body's becoming hard as bone through disease.  Figuratively, it refers to taking the Church's tradition and hardening it to the point where it is immobile, where the Church becomes a museum frozen in time, a sepulchre of faith.  While I only recall hearing this concept discussed among the Orthodox as a warning among themselves to not take tradition too far, I think it could also apply to many Catholics who attempt to do the same thing.  Ecclesial ossification is thus the hardening of the Church's tradition so that no change or growth can ever occur, a hardening that results in a Church that is no longer even alive.

On the opposite side, there is a tendency which I will call "dermification" (although "epidermification" might be more scientifically accurate).  Literally (as defined in a definition created solely by me), dermification is the process of the creation of skin or of other parts of the body's becoming temporary and becoming a substance that is sloughed off regularly (hence why "epidermification" might be more accurate).  Figuratively, it refers to taking the Church's tradition and making it weak enough that it can be tossed out as old and promptly sloughed off.  It means living only for that which is symbolic of rapidly-changing skin, that is, the latest trend that is being tested in the Church's practice.  All tradition and all new ideas are equated, and the only goal is to keep the Church "updated" and "relevant," thus sloughing off the old ideas like old skin and putting on the new skin until its time to pass.  I think there are many Catholics who do this as well, trying to view all Church practice, traditional or new, as something that should change with the times.  Ecclesial dermification is thus the striving to make the Church's practice always "relevant," always "up with the times," to the point of treating tradition as old skin to be sloughed off, leading to a Church that is ephemeral and transitory, lacking in any roots.

The Paschal Fast

"Beloved, even if the fasting is over, let the piety remain.  Even if the time of the holy quarantine has gone by, let us not put aside the memory of it.  Let no one feel displeasure as this exhortation; for I do not say it to impose on you another period of fasting, but because I wish you both to relax and to display now a more exact kind of fasting—but the true one.  For it is possible for one who is not fasting to fast.  How is this?  I shall tell you. While on the one hand we are taking food, let us, on the other, abstain from sin.  For this is the fasting which helps us, and it is with this fasting in view that we abstain from food, so that we may more easily run in the course of virtue.  Therefore, if we wish both to take proper care of the body and to keep the soul free from sin, let us take heed and act accordingly."

--St. John Chrysostom, Baptismal Instructions V.1 

St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, pray for us!