Met Ephrem (Kyriakos): Christian Marriage

 Arabic original here.

Christian Marriage

 

In Christian marriage, according to the teaching of the Apostle Paul, the man is an image of Christ and the woman is an image of the Church.

Saint John Chrysostom says, "Christ, the head of the Church has died living for our sake." And in the Epistle reading for the wedding service (Ephesians 5:20-33), the Apostle Paul says: "Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord...  just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything" (Ephesians 5:22 and 24).

The Apostle continues and says: "Husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies" (Ephesians 5:28). Love is death for the sake of the other. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). Love does not wait for reciprocity: "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?" (Luke 6:31). 

This is the sort of love that is expected of the man, just as it is of the woman.

Therefore, as it is said it in the Epistle to the Ephesians: "Husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself" (Ephesians 5:28).

The conclusion in the Epistle to the Ephesians is the following: a man's relationship to his wife is according to the model of Christ's relationship to the Church, so if God's commandment to the Christian believer is to love others as he loves himself (Matthew 22:39), how can we not begin by applying this first in our own homes? All of this "to keep the good wine until the end" (John 2:10).

This is the mystery of Christ and the Church. This is the perfect union of man and woman. Every virtue, and especially the virtue of love, is demanded of believers whom the Lord has redeemed by His precious blood. Amen.

+ Ephrem

Metropolitan of Tripoli, al-Koura and their Dependencies

Jad Ganem: The Picture Speaks

 

 Arab original here.

The Picture Speaks

Recently, the world followed on television and online the celebrations of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul at the Vatican in the presence of His Beatitude John X and an accompanying Antiochian delegation and with the participation of a delegation from the Patriarchate of Constantinople headed by Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon.

Observers of events in the Orthodox Church have commented on a number of images that appeared during this celebration, including:

- That the Patriarch of Antioch was dressed in the clerical robes that he wears outside the liturgy.

- That the Metropolitan of Chalcedon was wearing the robes that bishops wear during the liturgy, with a priest walking behind him holding up the edge of his mantiya. 

- That the delegations from Constantinople and Antioch did not sit in the same place inside Saint Peter's Basilica.

In addition to the images that have appeared on social media, the Phanar's news website and Greek news sites close to the Phanar reported the event in the following manner: "During the Divine Liturgy that took place today, Tuesday, June 29, 2021, at the Basilica of St. Peter of Rome, by Pope Francis, a delegation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate led by Elder Metropolitan Emmanuel of Chalcedon, along with Patriarch John X of Antioch, attended the service."

These observations lead to a number of questions:

- Does ecclesiastical etiquette not require Constantinople's representative, Metropolitan Emmanuel, to follow the example of the Patriarch of Antioch and to be content to wear clerical dress and not liturgical vestments?

- Is it appropriate for there to be two delegations representing the one Orthodox Church taking part, as though they were two churches unconnected to each other?

- What is the sense in giving the impression in news reports that Constantinople's representative has precedence over the Patriarch of Antioch?

Of course, no one either in or outside the Orthodox world is ignorant of the fact that Constantinople wants to give the impression that the Patriarch of Constantinople is "first without equals" and that his position in the Orthodox world is different from that of the other churches. This is something alien to tradition and is a contentious issue within the family of Orthodox Churches. Perhaps this frantic quest to establish this differentiation is causing the Phanariots to become estranged from reality and to live in their own imaginary world.

If it were the case that any one of Constantinople's bishops takes precedence before the patriarchs of the local churches, then does this mean, for example, that any one of the bishops of Alexandria or Antioch takes precedence over the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Romania or Serbia?

The pictures have spoken on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul in Rome and they have revealed the Church of Antioch's fidelity to tradition and the crisis that is sweeping the Orthodox world on account of the deep-seated superiority complex of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and its representatives, manifest in the unparalleled peacockery of its representative, cast into sharp relief by the simplicity of his host, the Pope, and the reserve of the Patriarch of Antioch.

The picture has spoken more and has vindicated what Orthodox have been saying for years about Constantinople's effort to practice an eastern papism. Will the leaders of the Orthodox world rise up before it's too late?

Met Ephrem (Kyriakos) on Almsgiving

Arabic original here.

 

Almsgiving:

The Third Pillar of Orthodox Spirituality

The Orthodox Church views prayer, fasting and almsgiving as the three pillars of Orthodox spirituality. In these difficult days, almsgiving has taken on greater and greater importance throughout the world. We hope that it will be practiced more and more spiritually, maintaining our concern for prayer and fasting.

The world today is in dire need of the living-out of Orthodox spirituality filled with the Holy Spirit. Civilization is thirsty for such a practice in a world that has become more and more secular and materialist.

 

How to Look at Money according to the Teachings of the Lord Jesus

Jesus discussed money in a spiritual way that differs from how we usually look at it. He regarded almsgiving as a fundamental part of God's salvific dispensation. Money is not limited pastorally to fundraising. It is considered in the Bible and the Church from a spiritual perspective.

This view must be incorporated into the training of priests and theology students. The Lord Jesus considered teaching about money to be one of his most profound spiritual teachings. In Matthew 6 He presented the three spiritual pillars and placed a special emphasis on money and almsgiving, or charity, just as He typically emphasizes love, obedience and forgiveness. He says, for example, "No one can serve two masters: God and money" (Matthew 6:24).

With regard to almsgiving, He says, "When you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing," (Matthew 6:3). And also, "
Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal... For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:19 and 21).

Once more, we say: Jesus doesn't just talk about money as we are accustomed to do ourselves, in terms of aiding the poor or supporting the parish's annual budget.

The Lord Jesus had a very different, spiritual view of money. For example, He didn't just ask the rich young man to distribute his wealth to the poor. The goal was to eliminate the material impediment that was preventing him from enjoying eternal life (cf. Matthew 19:21).

The topic of almsgiving not only covers giving to the poor. The word 'almsgiving' or 'charity' in Greek, ἐλεημοσύνη, also indicates works of mercy, which means that almsgiving is merciful giving: "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy."

Saint John Chrysostom says: "The rich exist for the sake of the poor and the poor exist for the salvation of the rich." Saint Gregory of Nyssa says in his homily On Love for the Poor: "Mercy and love of almsgiving are works that God loves. They deify those who practice them and imprint upon them the likeness of the Good so that they become the image of the Divine Being."

The Apostle Paul says of Jesus' giving: "Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich" (2 Corinthians 8:9).

He adds: "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body ^[a]to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing" (1 Corinthians 13:3). So let giving be motivated by love and not for selfish reasons.

+Ephrem

Metropolitan of Tripoli, al-Koura and their Dependencies

Orthodox History: The End of the “Greek Captivity” of Antioch

 Matthew Namee, at the excellent blog Orthodox History, has posted an excellent summary of the process by which the Patriarchate of Antioch rid itself of the Greek xenocracy that had controlled it, much to its detriment, during most of the 18th and 19th centuries. 

 

For most of the 18th and 19th century, the Patriarchate of Antioch was controlled by ethnic Greeks rather than the local Arabic-speaking people. The Patriarch was always a Greek, a member of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, which controlled not only Antioch but also Alexandria and Jerusalem. (Today, Jerusalem remains under the control of the Brotherhood.) As the 19th century wore on, the native Antiochians chafed under the rule of what they viewed as Greek interlopers.

In 1885, the Greek Patriarch Hierotheos of Antioch died at the age of 85. He had served as Patriarch for 34 years, and the historian Derek Hopwood wrote that Hierotheos “continued to reign until he was overtaken by senility, which in Arab opinion saved the Church from ‘utter destruction’.” The local Orthodox population of the Patriarchate clamored for a Patriarch of their own people to succeed Hierotheos, but, according to Hopwood, the ruling Greek minority “argued (and bolstered their argument with considerable sums of money), that there was no Arab fit to assume the office of patriarch and that the Arabs as a whole were under Russian influence.” The Ottoman government duly approved Gerasimos, a Greek member of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre, as the next Patriarch of Antioch.

In 1890, the Brotherhood elected Gerasimos to be the next Patriarch of Jerusalem. although technically lower in the diptychs, Jerusalem was a far wealthier see than Antioch, and Gerasimos agreed to the switch. With the throne of Antioch vacant, the local Orthodox hoped that one of their own might finally become Patriarch. But the Syrians were not themselves unified: a faction of Orthodox elites in Damascus was actually opposed to a native Patriarch, fearing that the election of a Syrian would reduce their own influence. The Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre proposed a Greek candidate, Spyridon, who is said to have offered a large bribe to the elites of Damascus to support his election. Thus Spyridon was elected, and from the beginning, there was discontent. Patriarch Spyridon proved to be a capricious leader, moving clergy around and dispensing discipline arbitrarily, closing schools, and hiding the Patriarchate’s finances from the rest of the Holy Synod. He was so hated that, according to Hopwood, “the Arabs refused to have anything to do with him, holding their services in graveyards and burying their dead unblessed.”

 [...]

 Read the rest here.