Published by The National Herald, October 29, 2004 Ignorance Fosters Confusion when it Comes To the Hellenic Nature of Christian Orthodoxy By Theodore Kalmoukos Special to The National Herald

It has been proven that ignorance fosters confusion, especially on serious and sensitive matters such as Hellenism and Orthodoxy.

I often find myself feeling dismayed, and even a little outraged at times, after reading certain responses and correspondences concerning the Hellenic identity of our Orthodox Church.

The terms "ethnic" or "ethnicity" are all too frequently used in a negative context to describe the cultural identity of the Church, which has always strived to help its faithful to honor and preserve their cultural heritage, whether Greek, Serbian, Russian, Ukrainian or any other of Her great and diverse cultural expressions.

It seems to me that the confusion becomes more vivid when some individuals, though not necessarily qualified, attempt to demonstrate expertise outside their fields, especially in Theology, and more specifically in Ecclesiology, even though their theological knowledge probably does not exceed even that of third grade Sunday School. Thus, they dare to write about issues and subjects through which ignorance, along with a measure of perplexing inferiority complex, becomes a jumbled mixture of misunderstandings.

Please allow me to, once again, try to dispel the confusion: Hellenism is the historic cultural flesh of Orthodoxy (or of Christianity, if you prefer).

In more simple terms, Christianity was born into, and as well as cultivated by, the very Hellenic civilization whose elements (i.e., language, philosophy, mindset, terminology, and general sociological and political backdrop) became the means through which the very salvific message of God to humanity was manifested with accuracy, exactness and Grace.

It is certainly not accidental that the books of the New Testament were written in Greek (except for one, the Gospel of Saint Matthew, which was translated to Greek within a generation).

I will refrain from discussing the work of Divine Providence in displaying such preference at this time ( a subject in and of itself).

But our readers can rest assured that Hellenism unquestionably contributed to the formulation of the Christian wording and written manifestation of the teachings of Jesus Christ, the Apostles, the Fathers and the Ecumenical Synods. And the Greek language inarguably provided, and continues to provide, the basis for accuracy and exactness of the actual and precise wording of the Gospel?s message, as well as for the Church?s phronema (i.e., way of thinking).

To a concrete example, the term, Logos, used by Saint John the Divine in the prologue of his gospel to describe the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus, was adopted from the ancient Greeks. More specifically, the first to used the term, Logos, was the ancient Greek Philosopher Erakleitos (Heraclitus), then Plato, then Neo-Platonic philosophers, then Philo of Alexandria, who was a Hellenized Jew, and finally Saint John himself, the beloved disciple of the Lord, adopted it.

Plato had gone as far as to write an entire dialogue, the Timaeus, in which he attributes creating faculties and abilities to Logos. Saint John did exactly the same when he wrote that "everything was done through Him (the Logos) and without Him nothing was done."

Space limitations  do not allow me to expand more on the term, Logos, but I think my basic message should be quite clear that the contribution of Hellenism was enormous to the understanding and formulation of the teachings of Christianity.

I could also easily claim that ancient Greek Philosophy had become the preparation for Christianity and, of course, for Orthodoxy, which is the pure and original expression of Christianity.

By the way, we would be doing ourselves a great favor if we stop translating and transliterating the term, Logos, simply as "Word," and start trying to understand the full depth and use of it in its original form. After all, Logos means something much more than Word, but this also is an issue which requires further analysis.

In any case, I will gladly argue that someone can not be a good student of Theology unless he knows the Greek language, which enables him or her to go to the sources and determine the original meaning and flavor. I am not against translations, but it is one thing to drink water from a pure source, and it is another thing to drink filtered water or, worse, to drink from a polluted river.

Today, instead of feeling proud of our magnificent spiritual and cultural heritage, and try to genuinely learn it ourselves and teach it to our children, and confidently accept that what we possess as Greek Orthodox is unique, we are making every effort to either diminish it, or even to destroy it, simply out of ignoranceabout what Hellenism is, and what it is not.

On the one hand, we incline ourselves to despise all that is or sounds Greek because it is "ethnic," such as the use of Liturgical Greek, which is the most beautiful, most accurate, poetic and musical language of our faith, and on the other hand, we become altogether proudly Greek when we listen to Greek music and songs at parish banquets and festivities.

What a pity.

Yes, our Archdiocese and our communities which, by the way, were established in this country by the blood and sweat of our pioneering ancestors, have a huge obligation to teach the younger generations of Greek Americans, our children and grandchildren, the Greek language because, after all, it is the original language of the Gospel of Christ. Greek was the language of the Ecumenical Synods, whose pronouncements, terms and decisions were not simply religious theories, but "terms of salvation."

Finally, it is a shame for us to distance ourselves from a civilization upon which the values of freedom and democracy of this very country were based.

It is Archbishop Demetrios?s huge omission and mistake to have done nothing of substance, thus far, to cultivate and promote the teaching of the Greek language to the both the younger and the older members of our community, who do no even realize how much they thirst for it.

And it is absolutley hypocritical for some to claim that the Church should only deal with the salvation of its members, and not with "ethnic" matters. I think they should read the works of the late Father Georges Florovsky, the pre-eminent Greek Orthodox theologian of the 20th Century. They will might then begin to understand what the term, "sacred Hellenism," really means.