St. Sophrony taught me how to pray

Speaker 1 0:00

when Father Saffron showed me how he prayed, how to pray, and obviously that came from his own experience. You know, lord, heal my heart. I mean, this is prayer, asking for things. Well, the Lord himself taught us how to ask for things, quote unquote by saying thy will be done. And that covers everything. So we think we want this, we think we need that and so forth, but we can never be entirely sure.

Fr. Romanides: Christian Faith not to satisfy emotional needs

Mtp Hierotheos Vlachos

My experience of Fr. Romanides as a student

Speaker 1 0:38

Sometimes, you know, I'm reminded of situations where someone would go to an elder and ask them to pray for a loved one that they not die from a certain illness, and so on, and sometimes the answer would come back well, you know, I've asked God and I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. And there was one occasion where the elder became, not irritable because they don't become irritable in our sense of the word but a little frustrated and said okay, so this person's going to live another seven years, but we don't know what will happen in those seven years. The Lord was going to take that person at that time because that was the best time for the person. It's rather strange to hear the saints say such things, but you begin to get the idea. The idea is that only God knows the seasons and what is appropriate, and even though it is very desirable for us to have certain people with us and to live a long and healthy life. And so, yes, we don't really know. And I remember father john romanides, god rest his soul, saying that our faith is not a religion and that religion is about satisfying your emotional and psychological needs, but our faith is about becoming Christ-like Therapy. Yes, he would say that if the fathers were writing in the language of today and there are some fathers writing in the language of today they would use chiefly medical terms. Now, so healing, therapy, so on medicine, you know, and this is the approach of Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, for example, because he sat at the feet of Father John Romanides and wrote all those notes which turned into his books. He never had Father John Romanides as a professor, but he and some friends used to gather in Athens and they would have private tutorials with Father John.

The Decline of the School of Theology, University of Thessalonica

Speaker 1 3:17

I was blessed to be a student during Father Romanides' last five years at Thessalonica. We didn't know it was going to be his last five years. I went to as many classes as I could and his classes were always packed and students would come from other schools and there would be standing room only on occasion. But he was not easy to approach. I mean, you can approach your blessing father, but he was um a little distant and a little shy. And I caught up with him later as well, when he came to cambridge cambridge I'm in America, now Cambridge, england to do research which he seemed to enjoy very much. And I should also say that they were his last five years. But after a break, the School of Social and Pastoral Theology persuaded him to come back for a time. How long I don't know, I can't remember, but he did so. They were his last five years.

Panel member of accreditation team (2013)

Speaker 1 4:35

In those days the School of Theology was one school, but you know, greek politics entered into the situation and what they did was they divided the school. They used to have a theology department and a pastoral theology department and basically they were the same school, departments of the same school and represented different tracts. So if you wanted theology, you would opt for theology. If you were preparing for the priesthood, they had introduced this new, relatively new at that time, pastoral theology department. Well, with the politics bad, the professors of Thessalonica separated the two departments and effectively made them two different schools, so that they had different professors for the same subjects and they operated as two different schools, and they still operate as two different schools.

Speaker 1 5:51

And I know about this because in 2013, I was asked by the Greek government, I was asked by the school, through the Ministry of Education, to be a member of an accreditation panel and I traveled to Thessalonica and for nine days we evaluated the School of Theology, my old school, and I discovered what was going on and what these divisions meant, and so on and so forth. So two quite separate schools, each of which has its own proedros president, and there is some administration which pertains to both schools that's in the hands of the dean, the cosmeto of the school and weird stuff. Two separate schools housed in the same building with two different sets of professors, two different sets of students, and anyway. So that's what it became, and I was part of that accreditation team, first time accredited for the European Union. It was quite an honor, but I don't think I would do it again.

Speaker 1 7:22

I lost something doing that. I can tell you. It sounds like a great privilege, but you become everybody's, everyone's enemy. You know they see you as an evaluator. They didn't understand accreditation. You are going to judge us. You know some of these.

Speaker 1 7:45

A number of them were my old professors. You went to evaluate us. There was a professor I think it was one or two but this particular professor was well-known and he said I'm not going. I'm not going to any of these meetings. You know, unfortunately we don't have. I don't know what it is. Individuallyreeks are brilliant. When you put them together, I don't know what happens, but chaos is a greek word. God forgive me for judging harshly, because you know I love my heritage and I'm so grateful to all things greek. You know I love my heritage and I'm grateful to all things greek. You know, but this is what we have.

More on Fr. John Romanides and his influence

St. Sophrony the Athonite is my reference point

Speaker 1 8:35

So, going back to father john romanides, he was a genius who did not have much time for for lesser mortals, coupled with a shyness combined with the reason why he doesn't engage very much with students, I don't know. Tell your story metropolitan erotios went to visit him in intensive care when he was dying by the john roman eating, and as soon as Metropolitan Eurotheos entered the unit where he was, he looked at Father John and said You're not well. You know, you're not well, father John. And Father John's reply was Whether I'm well or not is of no concern to me. What concerns me is theology. I mean to the very end, huh, the very end, and I can say that that man influenced us in his peculiar way, probably more than any other professor there. In my own case, of course, there's St Sophrony, who looms large in my history and is my reference point.

Accreditation

Departure of Florovsky and Romanides

Speaker 1 10:05

John Romanides had so many brilliant insights. Romanides had so many brilliant insights and insights which helped you to discern what is orthodox and what is not, and this is what is so badly needed. I mean, they kicked him out of Holy Cross right In the days when his mentor, father George Florovsky, was a professor there. They kicked Father George Florovsky out as well. And why? Actually? The reason that I heard I'm not entirely sure that it's true. It might have been one of those superficial reasons, you know, but I was told once upon a time that neither father george florovsky nor father john roman edis nor professor cavagnos he was also there, cavagnos they were not in favor of, they were not in favor of accreditation, submitting the school to accreditation by what was, in those days, essentially a Protestant institution. Things have changed a lot since those times and I still see some of the wisdom. If we can maintain our own standards, why do we need accreditation? People will still come to us, and so on. That's a complex issue, but anyway they kicked them out and consequently I'm not sure that we've recovered since that time, because our seminaries are a mess.

Romanides’ theology is ascetic

Background

Speaker 1 11:56

Theology only the Lord knows if Orthodox theology is being taught With certain persons it is. But even those certain persons need to learn a few things about the uniqueness, the distinctiveness of the Orthodox faith, and that's what Father John Romanides gave us on the academic level, but not only, because his theology is also, in the final analysis, ascetic. So his mother was, I mean, his mother. He was raised in the Bronx, I believe, and he was born in Greece. But while he was still a baby they moved to America and indeed to the Bronx, and he was raised in. I mean, they were Cappadocians, they were displaced. Like my father, he was a displaced Anatolian. Well, they were from Cappadocia. My father was from Cilicia. My father was from Cilicia and Metropolitan Eurotheus tells of how his mother was a woman of prayer.

Speaker 1 13:25

Yes, his mother would get up in the mornings, three o'clock in the morning. She was praying, and we met his mother. We received her blessing. She became a nun at Suruti, the monastery of Suruti, which was and is under the guidance of Saint Paisios, and it's interesting, I mean, she was just there, a yaya you know, sitting there, a nun, and she was incapacitated, so it was towards the end of her life.

Speaker 1 14:00

Yeah, there's a lot we can say about Father John Romanides, and we are. Much of what I say is deeply influenced by Father John Romanides and his appreciation of the uniqueness of the Orthodox faith, the Orthodox tradition and particularly, as I said, the ascetic character of Orthodox theology. We've just begun to look at Saint Augustine of Hippo. Romanides was accused by his fellow faculty and I guess this is how it is for people in the Orthodox Church in general Somehow, somewhere along the way, you become a persona non grata, just the way of the world. What he would say would challenge people, what he would say would make others envious, and that had consequences.

Critique of Fr. John Meyendorff & Augustine

Speaker 1 15:08

I'm not saying that he was an angel, but, for example, something that I used to teach every year I would ask my students to read his critique of Father John Meyendorff's presentation of St Gregory Palmas, because his critique was brilliant. Because his critique was brilliant. Unfortunately, his critique was really caustic, it was scathing, and I was told privately that the reason why he did not like Father John Mindo. That's pretty obvious from the two articles that he wrote and published in the Greek Orthodox Theological Review With the blessing, by the way, of Father George Florovsky. The reason why he was so negatively disposed towards Father John Meyendorff was because once upon a time, when he was a relatively young researcher in Paris, spending time in Paris, and I'm not sure if he was there to learn from the Russian professors at Saint Serge, but anyway he was engaged in research and he always had his own unique line of interest. But he heard Father John Mandoff say or refer to him as an illiterate Greek and that didn't sit well and I guess he carried that to some degree thereafter.

Speaker 1 17:04

But you know, actually Father John Meindorf is not very helpful in introducing St Gregory Palamas to us. He has a very Western-influenced methodology. Methodology, yes, and I was going to say that Fr John Romanides was criticized by his colleagues as not recognizing the sanctity of St Augustine of Hippo. This is the level of politics that takes place. So I guess this section what we're doing now, the subject of our clarifying Cappadocian Trinitarian theology, etc. By looking at Saint Augustine of Hippo, whose years are from 354 to 430, is going to address the question of Saint Augustine in the Orthodox tradition. It's going to answer to some degree that criticism that was leveled against Fr John Romanides.

Appeal

Speaker 1 18:23

Back then they actually produced a whole edition of St Gregory Palamas, which was the diocesan periodical in my day. I'm not sure if it still continues, probably it does. Anyway, they devoted the whole edition. I think it came out monthly. They devoted it to St Augustine and they devoted it to St Augustine because they wanted to show how Father John Romanides was wrong and, I'm afraid, not so convincing. But you know, and I say that because to this day in the Orthodox patristic tradition Saint Augustine of Hippo is a marginal figure. Please subscribe to our channel and share with your friends. Click on the join button below our video and become a friend or reader of the Mount Tabor Academy. Support our drive to introduce the theology and spiritual life of the Orthodox Church to the wider community.