www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West restrictions on starting fellowship/Bible Study group

Believe it or not, the problem of free-wheeling Bible Study groups led by laity also exists within Protestantism.

At their best, such groups can deepen the faith of the participants and lead them to a richer undertanding and appreciation of the liturgy of the Church.

At their worst, such groups can operate in open competition with the liturgy, denigrate the historic ritual as being "dead", and, ultimately, lead participants into sects.

Throughout history there have even been civil laws (obviously in nations other than the USA with its First Ammendment non-establishment) to ban or severely restrict the formation of "conventicles". The Norwegian Anti-Conventical Act, for example, led to a great 19th century emigration of Haugean Lutherans to the US.

The issue has been correctly identified as that of authority: Do such groups undermine the Pastoral Office and its responsibility to safeguard "the faith once delivered to the saints"?

One should always be on guard against prelest', but at the same time, one must also recognize the limits of episcopal competence. The vicar of the WRV has a continental-size territory and a very small staff. He may wish to exercise oversight of everything, but there is no practical way he can. That he would want to ratify something as mundane as a bible study group, instead of leaving it to the pastor of the parish, is indicative either of a lack of confidence in his priests, or an obsessive desire to micro-manage. Neither is a good sign.

My advice, therefore, is not to erect a fancy, formal bible study program, but to begin with informal meetings of friends in their own homes, where fellowship and Scripture intermingle. The people doing this, if they are wise, will certainly invite their priest and/or deacon to come to these meetings (and what clergyman can resist free food?). And if he can't make it himself, the priest could certainly recommend someone of sound theological background to be his representative at these meetings. By interjecting himself into this lay activity, the priest is exercising his oversight responsibility, which obviates the need for the bishop to trouble himself at this point.

If, at some later date, this initiative is fruitful and grows, then the time may come to put it on a formal basis, which would be the proper time to ask for episcopal blessing. On the whole, however, I am leery of the proliferation of formal organizations and ministries, which invariably result in "empire building" within parishes. Better to rely on the zeal and initiative of ad hoc groups of the willing, than to create a parish that consists entirely of chiefs without Indians, or big fish in very small ponds.

I thought this was the heart of your concern-- not the need to get approval but what seems to be a double standard. It's possible there is a totally different issue behind the difference in how the men's and women's groups have been handled, perhaps related to something in the history of the parish etc. Hopefully the Matushka you were going to consult will be able to help you with understanding the situation.

likethethief .... I think this centers on several issues in all honesty .... you are right about the sense of our having to "jump through hoops" which does seem contradictory to the men's group. Now I need to make one thing clear .... I am not, and never have been a feminist .... I'm 65 and way too old for that, but to me a level playing field only seems fair. Our church is small, only being in existence for 1-1/2 years, and there is a definite lack of fellowship between Sundays. Everyone is widely scattered, location-wise, and it can hardly be called a family. You need to spend time together to get to know one another. Something else I notice (and admittedly this comes from a "Read through the Bible in a Year" former evangelical-type), but folks don't really seem interested in studying God's Word beyond what they hear Sunday morning and of course the morning and evening prayers. I find this sad. These are part of the reasons why another woman and I were investigating beginning a Sat. AM fellowship/prayer/study group, to facilitate some of these things.
The Khoria that we are going to contact is Frederica Matthews-Green, whose husband is a Priest at a church only about 25 miles from us. Hopefully, she will be able to provide us with some guidance.
abby

Rybak:

Chrsit is Risen!!

How about sharing a half dozen you think are toward the top of the list of "best"?

Bob

Dear Amber,

Reading and studying Scripture is always profitable, but you have to remember that personal Bible study is a relatively recent phenomenon that only begins in the Renaissance with the invention of moveable type printing that made books affordable (at least for the middle classes). The Reformers gave a lot of lip service to the necessity of individuals reading the Bible, but the reality was few people could afford to own one until the 19th century (which is why family Bibles were prized possessions passed down through generations), and fewer still could read it. Even though the Reformation stressed the necessity of education as a concomitant of personal interpretation of Scripture, until the 20th century less than half of all people could read, and fewer still could read closely a difficult text like the Bible. Most of the lower class were either functionally or absolutely illiterate (go look at tax rolls, deeds, wills, etc.--amazing the high percentage signed "X ___His Mark").

So, for most of Christian history, how did people learn scripture? Through the liturgy--the readings, the homilies, and even through the liturgical texts themselves, which are rich in Scriptural quotations, allusions and commentary.

Remember that Scripture is fundamentally oral--though it was written down, much of it was compiled from an oral tradition, and in any case, until the invention of Carolingian Miniscule script (which put spaces between the words and invented punctuation marks) almost everybody who could read had to read aloud, sounding out the words because the word breaks were not intuitive.

This was remarkably effective, because in sub-literate cultures aural retention and the ability to memorize long passages is much more highly developed than in literate ones (we write things down so we don't have to memorize them). The singing of the Liturgy was in itself a mnemonic device, which is why Athanasius and the other Fathers were so big on hymnody--what better way to transmit doctrine in a form people would remember.

Writing in the 1920s, a Russian musicologist, Johan (Ivan) Gardner studied the music and worship of the Subcarpathian Rusyn, most of whom were illiterate peasants. In their churches, the Liturgy was sung congregationally from memory, led by trained cantors who, together with the priests, were the only people who had access to and could read the liturgical books. Despite their illiteracy, Gardner observed of the Rusyn,

"During my stay with the Subcarpathian Rus', I was amazed at the theological information of the simple peasants. It was genuine dogma, quoted by heart, from any place in the sung verse".

I am not denigrating Bible study--as I said, it is always profitable (as a Jew, how could I forget that "When two study Torah together, the Shekinah sits between them"?). But do not denigrate the value of the liturgical readings and the homily, to say nothing of the Liturgy itself, for that is the medium by which the true faith has been transmitted for two millennia.

When the Communists took over in Russia and Eastern Europe, they seized all of the Church's books, closed its schools and seminaries, and punished Bible study of the kind that you propose (it really is subversive, you know). But they left the Church the one thing it would have chosen if it was allowed to keep just one of its possessions--the Liturgy. Through the Liturgy, often celebrated covertly, often by priests, deacons and cantors who had to memorize the entire text by heart, the true faith was preserved and passed down from generation to generation, until the oppressors passed away and the Church rose again from the ashes.

Bible study is profitable, but the liturgical worship of the Church is central and essential, the origin and touchstone of theology.

Well said, and a point upon which the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic can wholly agree upon!

Stuart's post is excellent.

I frequently get into discussions with friends who are Evangelical Protestants about things like Scripture Study. One explanation that I have found to explain the importance of liturgical worship in formation is that, as important as the study of Scripture is, we do not gain our primary knowledge of Jesus by studying the Scriptures. We learn about and form our relationship with Jesus primarily through prayer. In the case of the Church, this is liturgical prayer. The texts are important (which is why we must carefully guard the Liturgy) because they are the vehicle into the liturgical prayer that forms us and forms the Church.

Wow, I've never heard this approach before. If we are ignorant of what God's Word teaches us, how do we "test the spirits" ..... or test what is shared with us, either via friends, Deacons, or Priests? Does it line up with God's Word? How are we to know that if we don't know what God's Word says?
abby

Amber,

In the Orthodox mind, which has maintained the mind of the Fathers better than other Christian confessions, there is no division between Scripture and Tradition. Such a distinction did not exist before the Reformation, when Luther posited Scripture over Tradition, and the Latin Church came back with Scripture and Tradition. To the Patristic mind, Scripture is an integral element of Tradition, together with the Liturgy, the writings of the Fathers, the canons of the Councils and myriad other things.

Tradition is nothing less than the voice of the Holy Spirit moving through the entire Body of Christ (as Jaroslav Pelikan put it, "the living faith of the dead"). Tradition is the Word of God, and since the Word of God never contradicts itself, neither do any of the elements of Tradition. The Liturgy provided the matrix in which the canon of Scripture was compiled. The Liturgy also provides us with the matrix in which Scripture is interpreted.

Those who go regularly to the Divine Liturgy--and even more those who also regularly attend the Liturgy of the Hours--will in the fullness of time hear the entire canon of Scripture read to them (with the exception of the Apocalypse, in the case of the Byzantine lectionary). Moreover, they will hear it placed in the context of the life of the Church, through the festal cycles through which we participate in the events of salvation history.

It is, to some extent, a process of "holy osmosis" through which the Tradition is absorbed, for, as the old Latin aphorism has it, "Lex orandi, lex credendi"--the rule of prayer is the rule of belief.

When the Orthodox Church uses the term "catechesis", it has a very specific meaning--the formation of a Christian through initiation into the Holy Mysteries or Sacraments (mystagogy)--and this is done almost exclusively through the liturgy of the Church. The Greeks used another word--padeia--to describe what most Western Christians would call "catechesis"; i.e., religious education, "faith in search of understanding". The latter enriches and deepens the faith that is formed through catechesis, and catechesis is the necessary foundation for padeia.

If you go regularly to Liturgy, you will hear and know God's word. And then you will be able to have discussions with friends, colleagues and the clergy regarding more detailed points. Questions about Scripture generally arise from hearing the Liturgy--"What did that mean?" and "Why do we do that?", for which discussion groups properly led are an ideal means for illumination.

Hi Stuart .... thank you for taking the time to explain this. It's an example to me, yet once again, that I have so much to understand and quite honestly, be able to truly believe. It is all so foreign to my way of thinking at this point. It can become quite discouraging and make one wonder if I should have stayed where I was. Thanks again .....
abby

Just go with it, Amber. Over time, understanding will come.

Yes it is the Bishop's business! He is the spiritual authority in the Church. St Ingnatius of Antioch says this, Let NOTHING" be done without the Bishop.
I seems Stuart that you have been influenced by the opinions of the protestant sects of the Bible belt.
Stephanos I

And Canon 34 of the Holy Apostles qualifies that as "let nothing extraordinary" be done.

When St. Ignatios wrote, the office of the bishop was roughly what the office of the presbyter is today: ordinary minister of the Eucharist for a single church. It was easy for the bishop to involved in everything because the Church was so small. In 1st/2nd century Antioch, a city of some 100,000 people, there were probably no more than 1000 or so Christians. The concept of the diocese did not exist, because the Church lacked the density and numbers needed to make that form of organization viable. The Church, to St. Ignatios, was basically a local institution--the bishop celebrating the Eucharist, surrounded by his presbyters, deacons and the people. Presbyters did not even celebrate unless the bishop was away or incapacitated.

Now, you are trying to say that the same flat organization applies to the Church today, which effectively makes the presbyter--what? You are saying that a bishop with a continental territory can actually know the people in each of his parishes across the country well enough to make a decision of this sort, which means he doesn't need presbyters at all, except to be his deputed minister of the sacraments.

That is, Stephanos, just plain silly. A good bishop, like any good leader, knows how to delegate responsibility and is confident in doing so because he knows how to pick good subordinates. A micromanager--whether in business, government, the military or the Church--either doesn't know how to delegate or doesn't trust his subordinates, or both. The results are the same in every case: the micromanager is eventually buried by the myriad details he assumes to his person, cannot give adequate attention to any of them, and either collapses under the weight or makes some very bad decisions that lead to his removal.

Seen it many, many times. Which is why the Catholic Church at least gives lip service to the principle of subsidiarity--that problems are best addressed by those closest to the source. In this case, the priest knows the parish and its people, knows what they need, and knows of the potential problems. He is the right person to make this decision and to oversee the results. The bishop ought to trust the priest's judgment, or remove him from his ministry. The priest answers to the bishop for his decision, which ought to be enough to ensure that the priest does his job properly.

Bob,

I'm not sure I can suggest/recommend any of these specifically Orthodox Bible Studies that I have seen (simply because I have not used them) but I personally have used one particular book - "The New Testament: An Orthodox Perspective" by Prof. Theodore Stylianopoulos and published by Holy Cross Orthodox Press. This solid text is used in the Introduction to Sacred Scripture class at the Metropolitan Sheptytsky Institute. Fr. Thomas Hopko called the book "a masterpiece."

Conciliar Press publishes a series of Orthodox Bible Study guides which are very similar in look and format (not content, of course) to the Catholic Study Bible series from Ignatius Press.

Light and Life, an Orthodox publisher and book distributor, has several Orthodox Bible study guides and commentaries available.

Perhaps better than all these, I do recommend the Ancient Christian Commentary on Sacred Scripture - a monumental multi-volume series which provides commentary from the Church Fathers - no modern commentary at all. It is an effort of many years of scholarship involving Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant scholars. It is available in digital format also. I regularly use mine and while reading the Fathers commentaries I have experienced many "wow!" moments.

Aside from all this, I do think that informal Bible study groups can be potentially very dangerous. One person can get a thought, heretical perhaps, and share with the rest of the group, influencing them to accept his idea. Confusion ensues, etc.

I do think it is best to read the Sacred Scriptures under the guidance of one's spiritual father, presuming one has one. Some Orthodox priests I have known have recommended to their parishioners that they read the Bible regularly on their own, with an Orthodox commentary, and come to their priest with any questions they might have. Seems like good advice to me.

Thanks.

Mike