Healing Initiative

Submitted May 16, 2005

Healing Initiative Establishes Ongoing Program on Body/Mind Connections

Leading scholars, theologians, and health professionals from throughout the United States examined the interrelation between various perspectives of healing, the psychosomatic tradition of personhood in Orthodox Christianity, and modern holistic healing practices during the second convocation of the Healing Initiative. Sponsored by a Lilly Endowment Grant at Hellenic College, the Metanexus Institute, and the Kambouras Scholarship, the Healing Initiative examines integrative healing practices within the framework of the Byzantine culture as they relate to modern understandings of holistic health.

The first of the series, hosted by the Study of World Religions at Harvard University and Hellenic College, approached the topic from the historical perspective of medical and faith healing systems in Byzantium last spring. The recent conference addressed theological perspectives of healing both in the modern medical and alternative healing modalities. In the spring 2006 seminar, practitioners will share how their integration of faith, training, and theology impacts their healing practices and patients. In response to the growing support and interest in the work of the Healing Initiative, the series will continue beyond the three-year program and was inaugurated as an on-going program at the recent conference.

Topics during the recent theological program included the healing message of Orthodox Christian theology and experiences of spirituality, as well as mystical theology through prayer, iconography, miracles, and sacraments as mediums for healing. Participants discussed life experiences during breakout roundtable topics on “Prayer and Healing the Whole Person,” “The Holy Trinity and Healing”, and “Personal Transformation in Prayer.”

Presenters invited to the conference represented a wide range of experience and life focus. Keynote speakers Metropolitan Maximos Aghiorgoussis, Th.D. and Rev Demetrios Constantelos Ph.D., both theologians, recognized scholars, and steeped in the practical pastoral experience of serving parishes and their diocese are among the first to serve on the newly established Advisory Board of the Healing Initiative.

Dr. John Chirban, Ph.D., Th.D., of Hellenic College and Harvard Medical School, director of the IMPR and conference chairman, opened the conference posing the question, “What is healing?” going on to explain that we can best answer this by first understanding the answer to the question, “What is a human being?” In Byzantium, an empire built on Christian ideology, the human being was seen as a spiritual, psychic, and rational whole. Orthodox Christian theology approaches healing in view of a holistic, psychosomatic understanding of the person. Chirban explained that the Western approach to medicine has historically separated the treatment of the mind, body, and soul into the distinct fields of psychology, medicine, and religion, respectively, consistent with Western theological epistemology.

The Byzantine medical model defined the healthy person as a whole person based on a theological epistemology that accounts for mystical experience. For Dr. Chirban, the Eastern Orthodox consideration of the person must include the rational, moral, affective, experiential, and ontological aspect of our humanness – body, mind, and soul – in healing. Further, he said, “To be a whole person one is connatural, connected to God, self, and others.” Dr. Chirban proposed that it was on the basis of the Orthodox anthropology of human nature that Byzantines drew their ideas of healing and that we would do well to approach healing similarly. This view of humans affects not only the definition of healing but the methodology of healing as well.

Metropolitan Maximos Aghiorgoussis, Th.D., Metropolitan of Pittsburgh, highlighted the Orthodox Church’s firm theological tradition on holistic healing. Metropolitan Maximos explained that this tradition is based on the Holy Scriptures, Old and New Testaments; it is based on the teaching of Christ, His Apostles, and the teaching of the Holy Fathers and Teachers of the Church. This tradition is reflected in the lives and practices of the holy faith healers, theologians and pastors, and the Orthodox Christian physicians, psychologists and psychiatrists. It is generally reflected in the life of the Christian Church, rightly called a “hospital,” which is dedicated to the healing of the entire human person, “spirit, soul, and body” (I Thessalonians 5:23), and cares for the general good health and well-being of a human being as a psycho-physical unity.

Metropolitan Maximos stated, “The illnesses of the human soul, which is the main concern of the Orthodox Church, cannot be cured independently from the illnesses of man’s body and spirit.” As Orthodox Christians, we cannot but rejoice in today’s efforts to bring closer together “medicine, psychology and religion” in an attempt to bring healing to the entire human person, and not to only a part of this person. According to the Church Fathers, humanity’s fall was the darkening of this image, which entails the illness of man’s spirit, soul and body.

According to these same Fathers, the highest aspect of the human soul, the spirit, which uniquely connects humanity to God, and is the “image of God” in this human being, was darkened by the fall. The Church of Christ, being the body of Christ, and the Hospital for the restoration of man to health and cure, exercises its role as the healer of soul and body. The ultimate healing of humanity is the deification of soul and body that takes place in the process of theosis.

Rev. Demetrios Constantelos, Ph.D. distinguished Professor Emeritus of History and Religion at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, sees God as the source of all health. Fr. Constantelos’ account of healing and religious belief draws on his background in religion and especially as a survivor of cancer, having also spent extended periods of time in hospitals for heart-valve failure and tuberculosis. He expressed his personal experience with faith and prayer in healing saying, “Healing depends not only on medical treatment and pharmaceutical means but also on faith in the Source of life, on the cooperation between the physical and the metaphysical.”

Fr. Constantelos spoke about the power of the healing prayers and the significance of the blessed olive oil used for anointing in the sacrament of Holy Unction. Physical illness strains the soul and pains the body. Both are impacted by physical illness and must be restored to health together. The sacraments are an active reality through which we are joined to the healer—Christ.

Rossitza Roussanova, Ph.D. candidate in 14th century iconography in the Department of Classical Studies at the University of Michigan notes the proliferation of icons of physical healings in 14th century Byzantium. The inextricable link between body and soul, sickness and sin, restoration of physical health and spiritual absolution are painted into the icons. For instance, the icon of Christ healing the blind man has the same hand and body position as in the icon of Christ opening the minds of his disciples by Gregory Palamas, where spiritual blindness is healed.

She observed that the icon of the paralytic already restored and holding his mattress also shows a fruitful tree growing out of his head, depicting the soul’s health. The icon of the adulteress being forgiven and rescued by Christ is postured the same as the afflicted woman healed on the Sabbath. Sin is sometimes presented as a physical malady; a bent body represented someone afflicted with spiritual passions that overly attach them to the earth. Roussanova stressed that the body was valued in 14th century Orthodoxy as it is today, as an active part of the salvation process. They remind the viewer of the Orthodox belief that the body is not evil, or Christ would not have recurrently healed its various illnesses. John Cantacuzenus, theologian and emperor was quoted as saying the soul cannot correct itself without the body.

Emily Markides, Ph.D., Founder of the International Eco-Peace Village, passionately described synthesizing her academic and counseling studies with Orthodoxy. In her investigation of 22 women energy healers, she found five major premises to modern holistic energy healing practices. They include that energy and matter are one in the same, the body as a whole is interconnected, each piece contains the whole (in a grain of sand lies the universe), the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and that we crucially need to balance mind, body, and soul. These were prevailing concepts in Byzantium as well.

The alternative energetic modalities studied included acupuncture, therapeutic touch, osteopathic, and allopathic practitioners. Markides said, “the western model of healing wages war against disease: with the doctor as general, the patient as occupied territory, and the weapons as antibiotics and medication.” But, just as peace is not solely the absence of war, health is not only the absence of disease. The alternative energetic model sees the body as a garden in which to cultivate health with doctor and patient working together in close partnership. This was the model of Byzantium.

Markides stated, “We have to improve the soul and the ecological conditions to enhance the immune system. Health is equivalent to integrity, adaptability, and continuity. When we destroy nature, a part of us becomes impoverished. We are not a closed, but an open system, incredibly connected with the world.” Dr. Markides pointed to the book of Revelation, which speaks of the waters of the world being polluted at the end of the world. If our bodies are mostly water, could this also be insightful to our state? Are we internally polluted?

Other presenters included Rev. George D. Dragas, Ph.D.; professor of patristic and dogmatic theology, Holy Cross School of Theology; Timothy Patitsas, Th.D. in-residence scholar, Holy Cross School of Theology; Lily Macrakis, Ph.D., dean of Hellenic College, and roundtable conveners Emmanuel Karavousanos, Panagiotis Papaeconomou, and George Roussos.

The Institute of Medicine, Psychology and Religion invites scholars and practitioners to explore the relevance of Orthodox Christian approaches to healing for modern times. To receive more information regarding the conference, to purchase of book of the proceedings or recordings of the conference, or to join the Institute of Medicine, Psychology and Religion, please see www.inmpr.org.



Volume 7 Number 20 - Tuesday, May 17th, 2005	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY