The Importance of History to the Orthodox Christian

The Orthodox God is the God of story and the God of history. He is the God of genealogies, the Scriptures are full of them, and of apostolic succession. He is not the god of transcendental meditation or personal salvation or connection with the ultimate “one” as the Platonists did. He is the God of the Trinity and the God who sent his only son to become part of human history, to live and die as one of us and thus be included in our genealogy and our apostolic succession. God the Father is unknowable and beyond human reason, if the Word had remained with the Father throughout eternity we never would have been able to know or draw near the divine. As it is, we do know something of divinity through the person of Christ. It is through witness and story that we learn about the second person of the Trinity and God’s nature. From time to time people in the church draw away from Christ through misguided beliefs and/or arrogance. These heretics, when encouraged to return to right belief or shown the error of their thinking can separate themselves from the body of the church and become schismatic. There is nothing worse, for the grace of God is communicated through his church. Although they stood on shaky ground outside the boundaries of the church, they gave the church occasion to delineate her own teachings and become more precise in her language about dogma. There is nothing in history and from the church’s history that cannot be learned from and which cannot inform our modern struggles. Without history there is no tradition, and without tradition there is no Orthodoxy. The modern western mind often looks at its surroundings, temporal and physical, as the sum total of existence while in pursuit of instant gratification and personal identity. The Orthodox person reaches back in time to find a path to the divine.
The importance of knowing church history, for the Orthodox Christian cannot be over-stated. The faith of the church is based on actual historical events and the oral and written record of the same. The Christian faith would not exist without the traditions of the church and these traditions would be without a foundation of the stories of Christ and his Apostles. Jesus of Nazareth was a human male who lived during the reign of Augustus Caesar, during the Roman occupation of Judea. These are historical facts that even the most ardent atheist would concede. However, it is the stories, oral and written, about what Christ did, and what his teachings were that give us the base of Christianity. His life was witnessed and shared with his close followers, disciples, who learned from this greatest of rabbis. After the glorious events surrounding his execution, burial, resurrection and ascension, they spread the stories they had experienced during his life with them. As the disciples aged and spread the Gospel and realized that Christ may not return within their lifetimes, they set their stories to paper so that they would be available to future followers. Because we have no scripture written by Christ himself, eyewitness account, their history, is the basis of our faith.
The earliest church fathers were the disciples of the original twelve apostles. Some of their writings were almost included in the canon of the New Testament (i.e. Clement of Rome). These “disciples of disciples” helped the early church implement the teachings of Christ and carry on the evangelical mission given to them by the Savior. There were many martyrs in the first Century who witnessed to the authenticity of the message they carried. These strengthened the faith and cemented the veracity of it for others who survived. This exemplifies why church history is important for the modern Orthodox Christian. The story of the church is the story of salvation, and participation in that story is essential for participation in Christ’s salvific work. Saint Cyprian of Carthage says, “There is no salvation outside of the church”; there is no church outside of the history of the church. The history of the church tells the faithful and the searcher what it looks like to be a Christian and what it takes to be a member of the church.
As the Church grew and matured, it was important that they canonize the Gospel so as to avoid passing on false teachings. Most of the earliest church fathers wrote mostly in response to problems of heresies which they saw rising in the church. Defense of the truth of the Gospel was their most regular purpose. This is another and secondary reason why knowledge of church history is important to today’s Orthodox Christian: defense of the faith. Many teachings of the church, as well as some of its traditions are difficult to understand and may seem out-of-date or superfluous. A good working knowledge of the history of the church and its teachings provides a defense and an explanation of these. Both the mysterious and paradoxical dogmas of the Trinity and the dual natures of Christ as well as the ornate vestments and liturgy of the church find their explanation and requirements in the history of the church. Why does the church do this, or believe this? It can be found in its history, in its tradition.
According to the Orthodox Church, salvation is achieved by purification, illumination and ultimately, theosis. These are the three steps which bring us into close communion with God and the blueprint of these can be found in the traditions of the Orthodox Church. Although the strength of the faith of some saints was strong enough to carry them through the trial of martyrdom and win them the crown of salvation in that way, others led long lives of asceticism. This asceticism is set up for the Orthodox Christian as a model of the Christian life. The “maximalist” church does not define the smallest amount of effort needed for salvation; it sets forth the paragon of virtue in the lives of the saints and expects the faithful to emulate them. This purification by ascetic effort is recounted in the history of the church and in many books of the lives of the saints. These are the heroes of our faith, they are our fathers, they are our intercessors before the throne of God and they pray for us continually. We, as Orthodox Christians, need to know their stories if we are to know the fullness of our faith or the way of salvation. Allowing our collective memory to reach only as far back as our grandparents leaves us with a paltry and lonely spiritual life. Accepting the presence of innumerable saints, angels, and our personal guardians envelopes us with the great cloud of witnesses mentioned by Paul in his letter to the Hebrews in the12th chapter.
Many modern Christian denominations claim to be a return to the “church of the Apostles” or the “early church”. While all Protestant denominations are based on the supposed reformation of the ills of Roman Catholic Church, few have actually looked back to the early church to inform their belief and worship. Although many of these sects may have retained the seed of the truth of the Gospel, and have a great sense of the community of believers, and are even correct in some of their Scripture interpretations, they are missing something which the Orthodox Church retains in completion. Because Christ is the God of History and his church is an extension of that existence, the continuity of the church and its gradual and organic development cannot be preempted or artificially substituted. Recreating the “early church” as many new denominations attempt to do is not only futile, it is unnecessary. The characteristics of the early church can still be found within the Orthodox fold. Through the process of church councils which were exemplified in the book of Acts, the model of the church and its dogmas were more specifically refined and codified.
The process of doctrinal clarification through the acts of church councils is exemplified in the account of first church council recounted in Acts itself in chapter 15 verses 6-29. This first church council examined doctrine of the church because Christ had already ascended and was no longer available to decide disputes. This council is model for all doctrinal definition. “For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us…” (Acts 15:28)
Beside the first church council, Acts contains, in one book, a model for the church but also a mindset for the continual use of the history of the faithful as a tool in spiritual development. Throughout the entire book the Apostles declare and preach the message of Christ, the person, and his life, death and resurrection. The person of Christ is the primary theme of the Bible. It is personal experience of Christ which drives the Apostles to evangelize the world, and the recounting of these experiences and others which were experienced through life in the Holy Spirit which make up the entirety of the faith. In essence, a Christian is one who knows the story of the Gospel and has experienced it through the Holy Spirit and his church.
The model of the Orthodox Church hierarchy is also found in the book of Acts, although in a slightly more primitive form. The bishop was the head and fullness of the church and nothing could be done in the name of the church without his assent. Presbyters were local ministers who worked in direct conjunction with the bishop and with his implicit approval. Deacons were ordained to serve the church in the form of God’s people, the church laity. All of these roles continue in the modern Orthodox Church. The presbyters, soon became priests; a different name for the same function. They still function properly in direct obedience to a bishop. When a bishop visits a local parish he has the prerogative to step into the role of the priest in any of his local, liturgical duties. Deacons also retain their role as servants of God’s people in the church and offer intercessions on behalf of the people at each service. Without the history of the church there would be no consistent guide for the proper use of clergy within the church and innovation and superfluity would be sure to arise.
With so much division and animosity among Christian denominations in modern times, it is easy to identify with those non-Christians who point to the divisions as a reason not to believe. Along with modern Christian denominations, the Orthodox Church has had its own share of division and uncharitable actions, but there is one distinct difference. There is great leeway in the Orthodox Church for spiritual questioning, searching, and even doubt. However, when an experimental theological evaluation becomes the basis for judgment against the rest of the church and owning the exclusive truth is claimed by a specific group or person, heresies are produced. The Orthodox Church is the mother of all and when a sect or person through action, speech or writing denies the oneness of the church, it is he, the schismatic, who separates himself, not the church. Once one removes himself from the church, it is he who suffers the lack of communion. In modern Christian denominations doctrinal permissiveness is rampant, while moral severity is as rigorist as ever. The true church has always been a hospital and therapy for the sinner, not a congregation of saints. Those who take the latter view inevitably divide themselves from the faithful. Thus was the case of numerous sectarian groups in the first centuries of the church.
In the latter half of the second century a sect of Christianity arose in what is modern-day Turkey. A self-proclaimed prophet named Montanus began to claim direct revelation through him by the Holy Spirit. Through ecstatic visions and trances he and his two female assistants spoke prophecies which he claimed held the same authority as the Scriptures. There were many false prophets at the time that traveled from church to church fleecing the congregations. These, along with the Montanists were written against by several church fathers. The Montanists held extremely strict views on sin and repentance, denying reconciliation for anyone fleeing persecution or apostasy.
Tertullian, who lived in the second and third centuries after Christ was a lawyer and theologian who wrote a book called Prescription Against Heretics. Even though he was a very intelligent and diligent Christian, possibly because of it, he fell into Montanism and their overly rigorist views. There was little room in the philosophy of Tertullian for repentance and recovery from sin. He also divided, philosophically, the faithful into spiritual and worldly believers.
The Novatianists were another rigorist, schismatic group which separated itself from the rest of the church. Although the majority of their theology was correct, they also denied the possibility of forgiveness for the worst sins. Second marriages were also forbidden in opposition to instructions laid out by Saint Paul in his New Testament epistles. Puritanical strains of the church miss the mark of the therapy which the church holds. Only the sick are in need of the medicine of the church. The Donatists in northern Africa also followed these rigorist views but they also tied the efficacy of the sacraments to the spiritual health of the minister who performed it. The danger of this kind of judgment is that it calls into question all of the sacraments, because there is no fool-proof way to make a qualitative measurement of the minister.
The Montanists and Novatianists were very popular groups and had large numbers of adherents. The Donatists were slightly less far-flung, but they seriously damaged the church in Africa permanently. The common strain among these groups is the faulty assumption that baptism never could be, should be, or ever needed to be renewed by a true believer. They denied the necessity of working out one’s faith in fear and trembling, jumping prematurely to expecting perfection from the convert. These tendencies seem to reoccur and different times and in different groups in succeeding generations of Christians. This is never the teaching of the true church. Therapy and healing are the true energies of the church and it should always defend against the rejection of sinners for the comfort of the faithful. It often seems that overly-rigorist sects are often headed by extremely charismatic or intelligent churchmen. Dependence on intellectual innovation in opposition to experiential purification leads to the sin of pride. When personal purification comes through the hard work of ascetic practice and obedience to spiritual authority humility is the cornerstone on which all other virtues are set. If one removes the virtue of humility from an outwardly moral/ethical person, pride sets in and poisons the whole person and those around him. Humility is the key to avoiding and ultimately repairing the schismatic mindset.
The Emperor Constantine holds a special place in Christian history. The church was begun in Judea under the rule of the Roman Empire. As a matter of course the Roman Empire would leave local religions alone as long as the followers were good citizens. The problem quickly arose that Christian would not make the obligatory sacrifices to the emperor as a God. Thus persecution began to be a regular occurrence in the early years of the church. The difficulties faced in these early years contributed to the strength with which Christian convictions were held and the regularity of martyrdom.
The ascension of Constantine to the imperial throne forever changed the Christian religion. With the Edict of Milan, Saint Constantine ended persecution in the eastern part of the empire and when he consolidated his power and the empire, he ended it everywhere. He brought Christianity out of the underground and into established society. Shortly thereafter Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the empire. There are two schools of thought on the role Constantine played in the development of the church. The west, including the Roman Catholic tradition, sees the rule of Constantine as marking the beginning of the corruption of the church by the interference of non-ecclesiastical authority. The east, including the Orthodox Churches, sees Constantine as a saint and equal to the apostles. Saint Constantine called for the first ecumenical council in Nicea to settle the Arian controversy. Without his leadership the different traditions of local churches may have diverged more quickly and with more devastating results. There is no doubt that Constantine, as a secular leader exerted a great influence over the development of the church during his reign, but the Orthodox Church sees this influence in a much different light than does the Roman Catholic Church. Rome sees an emperor who used all of the devious political tools up to and including murder to retain and consolidate power. The Orthodox Church sees Saint Constantine as a ruler who, although flawed and definitely human, ended persecution, funded churches, and gave church doctrine a direction and an impetus for the first ecumenical council at the most opportune time.
A good working knowledge of history and church history is essential for the Orthodox Christian because the Orthodox faith cannot be contained or defined by what is currently present in the church. It is all well and good to know the history of the Orthodox Church in an academic capacity. It is useful knowledge during arguments with non-believers or Christians of other denominations, but knowing the history and being part of it are vastly different. Our services, dogma and tradition are saturated with history. The Church canons written during the ecumenical councils along with the stories of the lives of the saints inform a way of life for the Orthodox Christian which roots them in the past. Ancient things, relics, places, and writings, are revered for their persistence. Saints and wise men are revered for their perseverance. To be Orthodox is to be linked to the past in the creeds and services and personalities of the church, present and past. We live a tradition; we live a history.