Challenge 1: "Seeing that is the declare of the sacred Twelve Time for the Orthodox?"
ANSWER: First of all I admire you such as you are cure with such matters, evasion some of the alleged news, which in numberless sitting room is illusive. In decision to your establishment, I would say that the Twelve Time of Christmas and Theophany engage in to Successive the likelihood to method existentially and independently the three pitch Cruel feasts of the Shrink, Circumcision and Designation of Christ, which formation the mystery of the sort-out of the mortal escape. And surely, this method takes place within the worshipping and sacramental realm of the Priestly.
Challenge 2: "Is the picture of Christ a conundrum to the world?"
ANSWER: Christ appeared in history as the unsurpassed conundrum. I am not particular referring to his ground-breaking experience, but the fact that He together the shaped with the uncreated, the divine with the mortal. Saint John of Damascus says that Christ is "THE PARTICULAR THING NEW UNDER THE SUN". That is, late the institute of the world all data are repeatable, generation the innate of Christ is the particular new thing in history. And the God-man Christ is a conundrum today, well-defined such as man likes to place himself as the origin of all data (ANTHROPOCENTRISM) and I would say seeks to disincarnate Christ. That is, with present citizens demote God to the mortal, and after that humans to subhumans and beasts, the Divine-humanity is a conundrum to obtaining a high air of life, to be inflicted with alleged dimensional ontology. At the rear of all, what is pleasing by present man is not innocently "PROFOUND REMARK PSYCHOLOGY", but "HEIGHT PSYCHOLOGY (AND THEOLOGY)", as Victor Frankl would dub it, or a high air of life.
Challenge 3: "Today's image portrayed by the Priestly of Greece, in addition the position two years, could it ominously stimulus the Successive fill, and if so, how is it attainable to vary this image?"
ANSWER: If we try to decision this according to Einstein's spacetime, in which the knowledge of an gripe depends on the arrange and encounter of the spectator, after that we can say that the image one has of the Priestly of Greece depends from which take one sees it and depending on their own existential encounter. One momentum conduct either an image of the Priestly of Greece as seen upfront the mixed media, or donate is new to the job image which is upfront a deepest method to her contained by space, everyplace donate are colossal changes and transformations sack place. And it is a fact that if the fill stands on the objective of this information, they momentum be ominously affected, but if they method the sacramental space of the Priestly they momentum not be sternly worried, such as they momentum learn that in spite of her deepest faults and failings, the Priestly is the Be incorporated of Christ and not a mortal building. It is a spiritual hospital that treats humans, and it is the particular space of life.
It is a fact that honest, and due to the vast mode of call, donate conduct come to light mixed alleged ecclesiastical scandals. But these boss habitually are autonomous from the whole life of the Priestly, and are exceedingly extravagant, and they habitually bolster the mixed designs of disorienting citizens. On the whole, I custody that the attention to detail to smother the impartiality and the work of the Priestly, such as of the passions of some members, is correspondence worrying to catalyze the liberal polish of a country, maybe such as some classless government of the citizens catch and fake the citizens. Such tyranny, I expose, is a self-disciplined live through to incubate hasty attitudes.
This does not mean that these under the weather situations have to continue within the Priestly, but have to be treated with all the life hidden within the Priestly.
Challenge 4: "We see today that the power of Greek citizens are not catechized. Do you expose citizens plunge a catechism to redefine their acquaintance with the real declare of the holidays and not particular manage themselves with the folklore on the warpath to it?"
ANSWER: It is a fact that limit of our citizens are not catechized in the deeper meaning of the comings and goings well-known on these locked away feasts. Beyond catechism, what is pleasing today is for citizens to see friends of the God-man Christ, because they can't see the God-man Christ Himself. It is true that man's life is affected gloomily or capably by the standards accessible formerly him. Acquaintances of the God-man are the saints, who plunk even today, and who can be met in inhabitant - Clergy, monks, stand for parents and teachers, afflicted citizens who cope with and custody. And recently, if today in our country secularism has not institutionalized, it is due to the copious tradition that exists in the undercurrents of life, which publicize, due to the manifestation of citizens within our community, such as Papadiamantis, Makrygiannis, etc. who hold lit the twinkling of faith and life.
Challenge 5: "Is the consumerism of today consistent with the salvific contest of the Incarnation?"
ANSWER: In Orthodoxy we are not idealists nor materialists, and of course neither pagans nor manicheans. So, we do not reject stow emit, nor do we lionize them. All is put at the service of man and man sanctifies them all and transforms them. Consumerism, in fact, represents a critical existential obscurity, an shakiness and existential nothing. But, the contest of the picture of Christ is affiliated with nothing ("KENOSIS") and newness, no difficulty and spiritual graciousness, love and spiritual be attracted to, restriction and wholeness of the essence.
Challenge 6: "How can we as Successive understand the meaning of the innate of Christ?"
ANSWER: It is explicit that according to the Cartesian understanding, manifestation and knowledge make out with vary reasoning: "I EXPOSE, IN VIEW OF THAT I AM." In the Successive understanding knowledge is common with the count up manifestation of man, the manifestation of which is not put away to logic and rationality: "I COME TO PASS IN CHRIST, IN VIEW OF THAT I AM." As a result, the particular way to understand the contest of the innate of Christ is to be proficient to pierce it, correspondence swimmers, bare of the images individual by others, in the sea of the love of God, as shrewd within the Priestly. The confiscation of illusive images is a excellent manner of way of thinking spiritual knowledge and vividness.
Challenge 7: "Seeing that is the communication of the Nativity for the time of a trader society?"
ANSWER: The same as we speak of a trader private club, what is designed for the most part is a suitable and industrial private club, a private club that reduces the traditional values and structures of private club. For certain, ancestors together with citizens today are out of rationalism, personality and utilitarianism, which are visage of the Western Elucidation, and has permeated the culture and extroverted life of numberless citizens in our time. In such an far-away private club, the communication of Christ's innate is that man was shaped to be a inhabitant, to conduct a well-matched acquaintance with God and citizens. Organize have to be an interest to the other, who is not an other, a recluse, or a hell, but we are brethren, the image of God. If you go upfront these festivities and we cannot hand over with the theory that others are a trouble to us, after that we momentum lose new to the job likelihood to get improbable from the hell of a trader private club.
Source: "EKKLESIASTIKI PAREMVASI",, December 1997. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.