Cross and Crown

I really can't stand the pompous nationalistic streak among many Greek Orthodox. Permit me to relate two anecdotes.

On Friday night, an overseas priest came and sang the Akathist hymn (every Friday night during Great Lent the Orthodox have services called Salutations to the Theotokos). He was very obviously a non-Greek. When he first walked out from behind the altar, most of the congregation began to whisper among themselves for an extended period of time (nevermind that we were in church and the service was well underway). You could read their thoughts from their expressions. "Who is this brown-skinned man, and what's he doing in my church?" one could almost hear them say.

It turns out this brown-skinned man converted to Orthodoxy, though raised Catholic in Latin America. He has become very proficient in Greek. He amazed the congregation by introducing himself after the service and praising the Greek language to high Heaven. Greek, you see, was the language chosen by Christ to spread his Gospel throughout the world and the Greeks hold a place of privilege in the world.

Naturally the congregation (who just an hour ago had looked at him with ugly, racist eyes) ate this up.

This priest is doing such good work. He's baptizing tons of people, apparently. That's wonderful news, thanks be to God! He also set up a school to teach Greek. That's fine, if people want to learn Greek. But let's be honest; there's nothing that suggests that Greek is privileged as a language in any way. The Gospel was written in Greek because Greek was the lingua franca of the age. Had Christ been born today, don't you think the Gospel would have been written in English? Also, was it a mistake for Saints Cyril and Methodius to translate the Gospel into Slavonic when they preached, or should they have told the good people of Russia that they needed to learn Greek in order to be proper Christians?

The Greek Independence Day Parade (which I never attend) took place in NYC today. At Mass this morning the priest led the congregation in the Greek national anthem. Can someone please explain why this is at all different from the tables of the money-changers in the Temple? He wasn't turning God's House into a place for merchants, but her sure was turning it into a social club.

What's worse, the priest even said that the Greeks are God's new chosen people. What? Isn't there a line somewhere in the Gospels (Matthew, if memory serves, which it probably doesn't) that one is not guaranteed salvation just because one is a son of Abraham? Christ preached to the Jews, and by and large they rejected. So, as He made clear with several parables, He called for all the beggars in the streets (Gentiles) to enter His Wedding Feast. Christ didn't replace one chosen people with another. Salvation is open to all.

There are so many Greek Orthodox who gladly rail against the pretensions of the popes and the Latins. At least arguments about being the Heir of Peter have some arguable Biblical basis (one I thoroughly reject, though that's a topic for another post). Honestly, can you imagine St. John Chrysostom arguing that the Greeks are God's chosen people and that somehow Greek is God's preferred language?

People didn't even call themselves Greek from about the 2nd century BC to the 19th century AD. Those who were ethnically Greeks considered themselves Romans until some romantics had the idea of rebelling against Ottoman rule and establishing a nation based on classical civilization and the Church.

And it's not like nationality or secular matters really concerned these people all that much; being a member of the Church was infinetely more important than being Roman. The transcendent nature of even Byzantine secular art (though it was hard to find anything secular in Byzantine society) speaks to the unmistakeable importance of the Church in the lives of those Romaioi, and should be an example to all Christians today.

National and ethinic loyalites are, at best, quaint relics of a pagan past. They are to be tolerated and used for good purposes (loyalty to one's nation can teach valuable lessons, for instance) but are certainly not to be indulged in for triumphalist vainglory.

Father, have mercy on Your flock. Send us able shepherds.