Met Antonios el-Souri: The Cross in the Life of the Believer

Arabic original here.

The Cross in the Life of the Believer

The Lord said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me" (Luke 9:23). In the original text, the verb "deny" is "ἀρνησάσθω" which literally means to renounce ownership of something, to disown something, or to give up a claim to ownership of something. In this sense, someone who wants to follow Christ must renounce himself completely and choose, with the fullness of his will, to surrender himself to Christ in order to be able to follow Him faithfully. Someone who wants to walk behind the Lord does not claim that his life belongs to him, but rather realizes that he owns nothing in itself and admits this. Following Christ is a constant, daily choice. It is the path of the cross, whose endpoint is the resurrection...

Why does the Lord say that whoever desires to follow Him must take up "his cross", in the sense that each person has his own cross? What do you think is the connection between our own cross and Christ's cross?

"If a man has committed a sin deserving of death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain overnight on the tree, but you shall surely bury him that day, so that you do not defile the land which the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance; for he who is hanged is accursed of God" (Deuteronomy 21:22-23).

In Jewish thinking, the cross or the tree is the cruelest punishment because someone who is sentenced to hang on the tree is "accursed" and "impure". That is, he is cast out and expelled from the Jewish people. The cross is the greatest shame for them. Christ knew His fate among His people "for Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God" (1 Corinthians 1:22-24).

The cross that Christ calls on us to bear is not connected to our sin and its impurity and shame. Rather, it is connected to bearing on our backs in love the impurity and shame of others. The Apostle Paul says, "God forbid that I should boast 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 cross that I am called to bear is  the one upon which I am crucified for the world just as Jesus was crucified for me. But in order for this cross of mine be for the love of Jesus Christ in man and creation, the world must be crucified within me first, through the cross of Christ. If the world has not died within me through the love of Christ, which He revealed to me on His cross-- that is, if the love of Jesus has not triumphed within me over every other love-- and thus if I have not arrived at the point of renouncing myself in complete obedience to the Lord, then I will not be able to be crucified for the world, because the crucified is one, the cross of salvation is one, and the Lord is one, "who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed" (1 Peter 2:24).

Alone with the crucified God-man, I enter into the crucifixion of my passion, the death of the old man, and my rebirth in the divine love that is in Christ Jesus, in His image, because "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" (Galatians 2:22). Faith in the resurrection is the foundation of salvation through bearing my cross which is in Christ. Because if the cross that I bear is not connected to Christ, it is a cross of shame and impurity on account of my sins and evil deeds and so it is not a cross of salvation since it is connected to my ego and not to my faith in Christ Jesus and my struggle for purification, my striving for enlightenment, and my longing for the vision of God.

My cross is my death to myself in my struggle for repentance so that I may become pure of heart and know my true self in the light of the divine grace that is in the Holy Spirit, through the Son from the Father. My cross is the struggle of prayer, fasting, charity, training to empty myself and position my soul, so that, when the Lord looks at my seriousness, perseverance, and sincerity, He will grant me new birth in Him through His cross. So my cross will become His cross and His cross my cross, because then I will say with the Apostle Paul, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Let him who is able to endure, endure.

+Antonios
Metropolitan of Zahleh, Baalbek and their Dependencies

Fr Georges Massouh: Love is Stronger than Death

Arabic original here.

Love is Stronger than Death

He who loves God sacrifices his entire life, consecrating it to Him. He who loves God strives to constantly abide with Him. He who loves God loves life and does not seek his own death or attempt to hasten it. But he must accept death one day because man cannot live forever. Death becomes for him a transition from life to life. Life on earth becomes a passage to where there is true life. Life on earth becomes a short time in which one is prepared at every moment to face his inevitable destiny. The best preparation is repentance and love for one's neighbor, without which one cannot love God.

It is true that death entered human nature as a punishment from God because of man's fall into sin, but it still contradicts this nature that inclines toward life. So God gave man a covenant and a promise that man would live forever, if he so desired for himself. This human will, whose possessor must refine it so that it will draw closer to God's will, is what made this possible. This correspondence between the two wills, resulting from man's free will, is what makes the encounter between God and man an encounter between lovers who cannot bear to wait for each other.

In this context, we will cite the words of Simeon when he the forty-day old child Jesus in his arms, when Joseph and Mary brought Him to the temple and the Holy Spirit inspired him that he would not taste death before seeing the Lord's Messiah. Simeon said, "Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation which You have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel" (Luke 2:29-30).

When Simeon saw Jesus, the Savior, the Messiah he had been promised, he became ready to depart for the next life with great joy. He who loves Jesus does not fear death. In the holy martyrs, we have the best examples of this. Their love for Him made them brave enough to face death with great steadfastness and hope. Their love for Him caused them to not betray His Gospel and His teachings. They did not abandon their principles for the sake of this fleeting life, but rather accepted to abandon this fleeting life even if it cost them their life.

The Islamic tradition also takes this approach. There is a story of the Prophet Ibrahim al-Khalil not mentioned in the Torah that is given by al-Ghazali in his Ihya Ulum al-Din in the chapter "On the Servant's Love for God" which goes as follows: 

Ibrahim (peace be upon him) said to the Angel of Death when he came to him to take his soul, "Have you seen a friend kill his friend?"

God (may He be exalted) inspired [the angel] to say, "Have you seen a lover hate his beloved?"

So Ibrahim said, "O Angel of Death, take me now."

We find a similar saying from the famous sufi Sufyan al-Thawri: "Only the doubter hates death, because in no case does the beloved hate to meet his lover."

The struggle between life and death continues and it will go on so long as this world exists. But life is stronger than death because love is stronger than it. Let us love man and sacrifice ourselves for his sake because whether we are believers, atheists or agnostics, in this way, knowing or unknowing, we are loving God.

Met Ephrem Kyriakos on Weddings

Arabic original here.

Weddings

The crown in the Christian marriage service is the one that the holy martyrs receive after having committed to Christ to the point of death during their entire life. Thus we have in the wedding service the hymn "O Holy Martyrs..."

In the past, the crowning took place in the divine liturgy.

If, today, it is sometimes held during the liturgy, it can be very much abbreviated from the usual unnecessary social spectacles.

The Church forbade it from being held on Saturday evenings because marital relations are not proper the night before receiving the Eucharist.

This is in addition to the fact that for the most part the people taking part in the wedding would not come to the divine liturgy on Sunday.

Today, the Church does not prevent the wedding ceremony from being held on Saturday, given the currently predominant social customs known to all. However, she strongly advises the faithful not to get married on Saturday evenings.

*   *   *

On a practical level, there is a harmful confusion regarding the sacrament of marriage and the accompanying preparations and activities that damage the understanding and sanctity of the sacrament.

This includes immodest clothing and wasteful and extravagant spending on dinners, cocktail parties and their accoutrements.

 All these displays have come to overpower the atmosphere of the prayers and the sanctity of the wedding.

The Holy Bible commands women to constantly guard their modesty when it says, "Women should adorn themselves in modest apparel, with propriety and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly clothing" (1 Timothy 2:9).

In this context, we must remind priests and parishes of the necessity of holding the service of the holy sacrament of marriage in churches, insofar as it is possible in their parishes, and not in resorts or public gardens...

Moreover, they must heed the times when the sacrament cannot be performed, I mean in particular the periods of Advent, Great Lent and the Dormition Fast...

*   *   *
Beloved, these ecclesiastical and paternal recommendations are not intended to overwhelm members of the Church with strict canons. Rather, they are intended to guide our children toward the necessity of keeping our holy Christian traditions and keeping them from being swept away by damaging, worldly social customs.

We must remain the good leaven in this world that is drowning in materialism and harmful lusts.

Try these sound Christian ways, even if they seem narrow in today's world, and you will taste true joy in Christ God, who will never be taken away from you.

+Ephrem
Metropolitan of Tripoli, al-Koura and their Dependencies

A Report on Hate Speech against Christians in Erdoğan's Turkey

See here for the full synopsis. For a pdf of the 60-page report, see here. The Stockholm Center for Freedom, who produced the report, is a group founded by Turkish journalists exiled because of the the crackdown on freedoms in that country that began in July of last year.


[...]

The hatred towards Christian minority groups in Turkey and xenophobic euphoria against Christians in general are being fueled in an unprecedented campaign led by Turkey’s rulers, especially the country’s authoritarian leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a new case study by Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) has revealed.

Turkish president Erdoğan who often spews hate speech against Christians, particularly Vatican, continues to stigmatize millions of people in Turkey and around the world with his systematic and deliberate campaign of churning hostility against Christians. His propaganda machinery amplifies this hateful narrative and the mass media under Erdoğan’s control spread it further to a larger audience.

“Erdoğan has weaponized hate speech against Christians in Turkey and this has been quite worrisome development for some time now,” said Abdullah Bozkurt, the President of Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF).

“He resorts ugly slurs, floats false claims about Vatican, associates his Muslim opponents with fabricated Crusader stories and fan the hostility against Christians,” he added.

SCF has reviewed Erdoğan’s public speeches delivered in recent years to uncover the pattern as well as campaigns run by his associates in politics and media. Turkish president openly ruled out an interfaith dialogue between Islam and Christianity, branded the European Union as group of infidels led by the Pope, and even accused the United Nation Security Council as representing only Christian nations.

[...]

Another report on hate speech in Turkey, prepared this year by the Hrant Dink Foundation, can be read here. Excerpt:

[...]

In the four-month period covering January-February-March-April 2017, 1806 columns and articles targeting national, ethnic and religious groups have been found. And 2335 hate speech items have been identified in these texts.

In January-April 2017 period, the central issue in print media was the constitutional referendum held on April 16. Along with the referendum, topics like ‘Operation Euphrates Shield’ carried out by Turkish Armed Forces in Al-Bab region of Syria, developments concerning the coup attempt on July 15, practices of State of Emergency and emergency decrees having the force of law, Cyprus talks held in Geneva in January, crises between Turkey and Greece over Kardak islets and Aegean islands, anniversary of Khojaly Massacre (February 26), Greek Cypriot parliament’s approval of the resolution that enables the commemoration of ‘Enosis’ (the referendum held in 1950 for annexing Cyprus to Greece), April 24 Armenian Genocide Commemoration Day, Syrian refugees who fled from their country because of the war and came to Turkey had a role in the rise of hate speech.

When a distribution per targeted groups is made, it is seen that Armenians have the largest number of hate speech items against them with 439 items. Syrians follow them with 433 items and Jews has the third place with 298 items. Christians with 210 items and Greeks with 198 items follow them as the groups that are subjected to hate speech.

[...]

Fr Georges Massouh: Eid al-Adha and the Cross

Arabic original here.

Eid al-Adha and the Cross

Eid al-Adha contains numerous symbols that our peoples continue to live. When Ibrahim al-Khalil intended to sacrifice his son-- Isaac for Jews and Christians and Ismail for Muslims-- God stayed his hand and substituted a ram for the sacrificial son. God redeemed the boy, making the point through this religious event that people should no longer make human sacrifices and that they should substitute animal sacrifices for them. Then Christ came and ended animal sacrifice, offering Himself as a sacrifice once and for all for the salvation of humankind.

But bloodthirsty human sacrifices are still practiced here and there. God's intervention with Abraham was of no use because humankind did not want to learn the lesson from it. It is enough for us to observe what is going on around us in order to realize the enormity of what is happening. Sacrifices and human victims are offered on the altar of the ruler or the leader of a group who has taken the place of God for people. They are convinced that they are nothing but sheep prepared for slaughter for the sake of the ruler's life and continued preservation. It is no wonder, then, that we are witnessing a return to the barbarism of sacrifice and useless killing. Those performing the slaughter are the results of our societies overburdened with prejudice and hatred, the results of the religious backwardness that has led us away from the weightiest thing to which God has called us: mercy.

The problem lies at root in religious education that makes children into followers of a god manufactured by the lusts and hatreds of their fathers. So we can say that children have not been liberated from the perversions of their fathers, but rather have become overjoyed at being prisoners and slaves to them. The fathers feast on their thrones, fashioning from their followers the plans of butchers and suicide-bombers.

Solely with regard to Christianity, the symbolism is not limited to violent bloodshed, after having been so over the course of history. Rather, it includes every sort of spiritual, moral and verbal violence. This spiritual violence, even if it does not include bloodshed, perhaps has a result similar to murder, murder of the spirit, which Christ said is more serious than the death of the body. What can we call a spiritual son who has done away with his freedom and his intellect, handing himself over to a father who has not attained, nor will attain, perfect immunity from sin. "For no man lives and does not sin." He receives all his directions from him without discussion, as though they were the orders of Christ Himself.

If the relationships stays between the father and his son, then the situation is better than if the son wields over society and people his father's absolute authority over him. I once heard, when I was a theology student, a heated debate between two of my colleagues over whose spiritual father was better. Belonging to a spiritual father, then, becomes an affiliation with a party that promotes its president into the image of God. The father does not hesitate to sacrifice his children in order to defend himself, even at the expense of the Gospel's teachings. True spiritual fatherhood is for the father to sacrifice himself for his children even to the point of death, not for him to sacrifice his children.

The Lord said, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me." The cross, for Christians, is the most sublime sacrifice [Arabic: adha], and Christ Himself is the sacrificial victim. For someone to deny himself means that he does not believe that he is indispensable and that he imitates Christ, satisfied to be crucified like his Teacher. So if someone wants to follow Christ, he must sacrifice himself in order to become another Christ.

Bishop Constantine Kayyal on Joy and the Sanctification of Time

Arabic original here.

How do we Relate to the Joy of Christ?

The word 'joy' (in Greek, χαρά) is derived from the verb χαίρω and various philosophers have attempted to define it. Some of them completely distinguished it from what is known as pleasure (ἡδονή) and others regarded it at a type of pleasure. There is, however, a consensus, if one can say that, among the philosophical definitions that joy is merely a phenomenon.

In both testaments of the Holy Bible, the word 'joy (χαρά) is connected to the word 'grace' (χάρις).

This connection becomes clear through the use of the word 'grace' (χάρις) to indicate the Hebrew word hesed (חֶסֶד). This connection is made manifest in the angel's good tidings to the Mother of God, "Rejoice O full of grace!" (Luke 1:28).

Starting from this simple linguistic description, we see that in our Orthodox Church joy is not a mere phenomenon with this emotional and affective dimension. Our true joy is that which comes from God. It is the result of the work of divine, uncreated grace within us.

The work of divine grace within us occurs in the Church and through the holy mysteries which are, in other words, the channels of uncreated grace which sanctifies us and sanctifies our time. For this reason we find in our Church what is known as the liturgical new year, which is a wonderful expression of the purpose of our creation. That is, the sanctification of our time.

On September first, this liturgical year begins in order to transport us within the vastness of the holy liturgy to the first object our desire, which we lost as the result of our selfishness, leading to our fall from the world of grace to the world of chaos and corruption.

God, however, in His love for humankind, desired to send His only Son, the eternal Word, into the midst of this chaos in which we live, to prepare a way for us that would bring us back to what is loftier and more sublime, that would bring us back to the state of grace from which we had expelled ourselves.

We follow this way sacramentally in our liturgical life, which is nothing other than that path arranged for giving praise to God.

Through the incarnation of God the Son on earth, He restored holiness to our time. He sanctified it simply by dwelling within it. The Creator unites with creation to prepare it, sanctifying it. We came to know the Lord Jesus as perfect man and perfect God. He lived among us and interacted with us, all of this out of love for us, seeking our salvation. So how do we relate to that love? Do we interact with it?

Or does it remain for us merely the commemoration of something that has passed? Our life with Christ is a life renewed by grace, a life whose foundation is prayer and whose goal is ascent and joy at beholding the glory of the Trinity.

Wherever Christ is found, there is true joy and true consolation. If we want to enjoy this joy, then let us seek Him and know that He is present, springing forth from the holy mysteries to permeate our depths. So let us enjoy God's richness and let us become constantly joyful, so long as we seek to be close to Him. "Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full" (John 16:24). Our refraining from participation in the mysteries of the Church is a separation from grace and an abandonment of Christ. It is a rejection of true happiness. Every joy ends after a few moments. Material happiness is for what is material and the material has no life within it. But our joy with Christ remains as long as Christ remains within us. Our God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

It is not enough for us to have superficial, intellectual knowledge of Christ in order to obtain true grace. If we do not strive in our effort for purification and the support of uncreated divine grace, our joy will not be perfect. When Christ is firmly fixed within us and in our minds, we will hear His voice saying, "Come, blessed ones of My Father, inherit the eternal kingdom." Then the Good News of the kingdom will spring forth from us because through baptism we have been made worthy to be called children of the Most High and temples of the Holy Spirit. This intimate bond between us and the Lord Jesus becomes manifest and grows within the prayer that we lift up like incense before the throne of the eternal God and which Christ personally offered us. So let us walk with Him toward His great and holy Pascha which is the perfection of the liturgical year, the perfection of the feasts, and the perfection of joy.

Bishop Constantine Kayyal
Abbot of the Patriarchal Monastery of Mar Elias, Shwayya

Met Georges Khodr: Christ the Cornerstone

Arabic original here.

Christ the Cornerstone

"The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone." After the Savior told the parable of the lord of the vineyard who sent his servants to take the fruit of the vineyard but were killed by the workers, who then sent his son to them and they killed him as well, He mentions this verse (Psalm 117:22 LXX). When the Prophet David said this of old, he meant by "the cornerstone" God Himself, so Christ took these words associated with God and applied them to Himself and made Himself the cornerstone, that stone that the Jews rejected and cast aside.

We know that traditional construction involved setting stones in rows, meaning that the stones were placed next to each other without cement. Instead, the stone was supported with wood until it reached the top of the roof, where there would be a hole that had to be filled with a stone called a cornerstone. In old times in villages there would be a master builder who alone knew how to choose the right stone and he would cut it in the shape of a cross and place it in the hole, so if it fit correctly with the stones around it, it would make a "lock" for the entire building. Thus all the building's stones would be held together by one stone at the top of the roof. Jesus took this image and called Himself the cornerstone. And as for us, as the Apostle Peter says, "you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house" (1 Peter 2:5). We who believe in Christ have been called the temple of God. This means that we come from Christ and hold fast to Him. And each of us holds fast to his brother if he holds fast to Christ. That is, if each of us is united to Christ, he is at the same time connected to his brother and serves him.

We members of the Church do not have the support of group feeling [Arabic: 'asabiya]. We are not brought together by partisanship or family of flesh and blood. We belong to different races and colors and to different cities. Each of us has his own education, friendships and temperament. Each of us has his own interests on earth, but we transcend them all in order to become God's one family, according to the words of the Apostle Paul: "one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all" (Ephesians 4:5-6).

Therefore in our Church let us not look at what divides one individual from another, but rather let us look at what brings people together. We were all bought for a price, the divine blood that flows in our veins, the blood of Christ that we receive from the holy chalice brings us together as one family. The Apostle Paul says in today's epistle, "If anyone does not love the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema." That is, let him be cut off from membership in the Church. The Apostle Paul did not say that anyone who belongs to Christianity by identity is a Christian. He did not say that is content merely with being baptized is a Christian. A Christian is someone who loves Jesus Christ with supreme sincerity, applies His teachings, and walks according to His commandments.

Then Paul adds an Aramaic expression, "Maran atha", which means "come, Lord." The Lord comes among us in the divine sacrifice, with His body and blood, with love that has been poured out. So long as the Lord comes to us and comes bringing certain love, we cannot but love our Lord Jesus Christ and lean on Him because He is the cornerstone. In Him we become brothers in one family. If the Lord Jesus is life, we cannot think of anything else. Food, drink and sustenance are all nice things that we need, but they are marginal when compared to Jesus Christ. He is our life.