With Solzhenytsin and Titov(?), 1960's
Posted on 02/14/2010 4:40:46 PM PST by annalex
Father Alexander Men (1935-1990) was a great leader, and one may say architect, of religious renewal in Russia at the end of the Soviet period. He was a pastor, who found the time to write a great number of books including a seven volume study of world religions, ranging in style from the academic to the popular, he lectured widely, at the end gaining access to radio and television and becoming a nationally known figure. He founded the first Sunday school after the communist persecution, established a university, made a film strip, started volunteer work at a children's hospital. He baptized thousands into the faith, was at home with simple people but was also called “the apostle to the intellectuals.”
His life and person and writings speak powerfully to a wide range of people, not only in Russia and not only Eastern Orthodox. It seems that he is one of the very few who can touch and speak to and for all Christians and indeed, through his broadness of learning and heart, not only to Christians.
He was assassinated in 1990 but through his writings and through his memory and his spiritual heritage he still speaks and it may be is an increasing presence in the world and his work becomes better known.
ping.
Who got the Eastern Orthodox ping?
It is a caucus thread, as I don’t want it to lose focus, but your questions are welcome.
Forest Keeper, you asked me once to ping you to whatever Orthodox writings I translate, and this is the first time I undertook such a task since then.
This is posted in Russian as a part of Fr. Men’s “talks”. The writing at times looks a bit unfinished. The translation is mine.
Thanks. Absorbing read.
That works for me.
bump on the rest of it.
I don’t have it Alex. Used to. There are hardly any Orthodox participants left here after being told in no uncertain terms they are not really Catholic.
A breathing exercise for you. I don’t know how to say that in dialect.
He is a martyr?
Anyway. Lovely. Thanks.
One thing I do not have a handle on about the Eucharist is where the line is between the literal and the symbolic. My initial reaction to the above is that it is NOT intended to be a direct comparison to the Eucharist because it sounds much more symbolic. I base that on:
Let us now imagine the moment when the sacrament of the Eucharist is taking place. Again, this is incarnation! Again, the power of God – not invisibly, not purely spiritually, but in full reality – enters the feast of the offering, which in a short while will become a part of our own substance. The power feeds us, we commune with the flesh and blood, bread and wine, wheat and the vine. Christ Himself enters our flesh and blood. When He said “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth”, He became – everywhere.
And:
...... This is not a spiritual, symbolic, or, far worse, ideological communion. He said that the sacred feast will be He Himself and in the end it turns out that He incarnates into us! The summit and center of the Eucharist is incarnation of Christ in us.
So am I on the right line? Is the correct interpretation of this last passage that the communion is all literal? (I know he said earlier not to worry about the bread being actual flesh, etc.) Further, what is the difference between a spiritual communion and this kind? I don't understand why a spiritual communion would be "bad", as the author seems to imply.
Why is there a line? The Passover has both elements. Perhaps comparatively to the Eucharist it is relatively more symbolic because the Passover food remains food, and eternal life is taken in the sense of national, not individual life, but as Fr. Men points out, a Jew, too, applies the Passover to his own liberation as he, himself escapes from Egypt.
The Orthodox like the lines even less than Western Catholics. Fr. Men here went farther in blurring the line than anyone, starting his discourse with a bird singing. Is that literal or symbolic? Is his singing a sign (of territorial boundary)? Yes. Is it literally effective in enforcing the border? Yes. So is our taking the body of Christ a sign (of union with Him)? Yes. Is it literal interpenetration of bodies, as in eating? Yes.
Somewhere in between there is the Passover. Is there a sign (of national God-directed life)? Yes. Is it literal? The escape was surely literal. The eating of strange, rather tasteless, less-than-filling meal is literal. A Jew today, -- had he reflected on the Passover event at all, -- would apply it to his character and perhaps bring about his personal liberation, so often in Jewish life connected to migration.
It is safe to say that Passover is a type, a prefigurement of the Eucharist. It is perhaps less universally accepted fact, outside of the two Churches, that the Eucharist is the fulfillment of the Passover. Remember that Christ in John 6 did not deny that He is giving us a sign. He did liken it to the Passover. But He pointed out a difference: "I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead".
The Eucharist does not abandon the Passover symbolism in favor of pure mystical literalism. It strengthens both. The symbol of sacrifice -- a household animal grown for food, eaten, -- becomes actual sacrifice of innocent human life. A historical liberation of a small nation becomes an actual liberated from sin life for all eternity. Christ abides in us both intellectually, through the knowledge of Him and physically, though eating His Body.
he said earlier not to worry about the bread being actual flesh
He said not to worry about the exact moment and mechanism. That was a dig at the Scholastic Catholicism that the Orthodox don't like. Transubstantiation is an attempt to make philosophical sense of the Christ being actually eaten by pointing out that things have appearances and substances, which in principle may go out of synch. Fr. Men, in fact, misunderstood Transubstantiation if he thought that the Latins think that Christ can be detected in the Eucharistic bread in a chemical lab. Transubstantiation in fact says the opposite: that every outward appearance of bread, including appearance augmented through scientific means, will remain bread.
His large point is that the central meaning of both revelation of nature, revelation to the Jews, the passion of Christ, adn the Eucharist today is the Incarnation: God's intention to give us Himself in a carnal form.
OK, thanks for your answer. I figured there was some of each, but much more pronounced (towards one side) than you are saying here.
The Eucharist does not abandon the Passover symbolism in favor of pure mystical literalism. It strengthens both.
Yes, this is exactly where I was going. Thanks again for clarifying, and for the additional info.
“Eight years later, Orthodox Russians would burn Men’s works and forbid their reading; among their complaints: “(Men had spoken favorably of Savonarola and Hus)”
The implication here appear to be that Men himself wrote books. Do you know if any of his works are available in the US, translated or not?
Just noticed some of his writings listed at the bottom of the website. Sorry for not seeing that. Still curious about his books, though.
I remember hearing people talking about him, when I lived in Russia between 95-96, but I wasn’t Orthodox at the time, and didn’t pick up on it. Sorry I missed out on that part! Sounds like an extraordinary man!
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