This post was originally published on this site
With a new year freshly underway, many of us have adopted resolutions to reform certain aspects of our personal, professional, or spiritual lives. Quite often, these admirable commitments to improvement surpass our actual ability or willingness to see them through. Indeed, more than half of the resolutions made this past week will be abandoned by the end of the month; perhaps 10% of them will survive the year.
While the Orthodox Church has no specific tradition that calls for the making of resolutions in the new civil year (the Church’s liturgical year, on the other hand, begins at Vespers on the evening of August 31st), the month of January is nevertheless an excellent opportunity for pondering the prospect of new beginnings and renewing the hope of “change for the better” in our lives as Orthodox Christians.
January opens with the popular feast of St. Basil the Great (Jan 1st), the first of many significant saints whose memories are celebrated throughout the month. January 1st is also the “8th Day of Christmas,” or the Day of the Lord’s Circumcision, on which He was given “the name which is above every name” (Phil 2:9), Jesus, the “Savior” of the world.
Immediately following the twelve-day Christmas season comes the Feast of Epiphany (Jan 6th). A richly symbolic celebration of the Incarnation, the Holy Trinity, and the sanctification of creation at Christ’s baptism, Epiphany invites us to reflect upon “the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit” we received at our own baptism, which was “poured out on us abundantly through Christ Jesus our Savior, that having been justified by his grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5-7).
The day after Epiphany is fittingly dedicated to the Synaxis of St. John the Baptist (Jan 7th). Sorely overlooked in the practical theology of the Church, John the Baptist is an enduring preacher of repentance and perennial prophet of renewal. He is the “angelic” model of monastic life, a paragon for later ascetic masters of the wilderness like St. Anthony the Great (Jan 17th), Sts. Macarius the Egyptian and Macarius the Alexandrian (Jan 19th), St. Isaac the Syrian (Jan 28th), and St. Seraphim of Sarov (Jan 2nd).
January 10th sees the commemoration of St. Gregory of Nyssa, the younger brother of St. Basil the Great and a “Cappadocian Father” in his own right alongside their mutual friend and collaborator, St. Gregory the Theologian (Jan 25th). Joining the three Cappadocians are the Alexandrian Fathers, Sts. Athanasius and Cyril the Great (Jan 18th), as well as the Syriac Father, St. Ephrem (Jan 28th). These luminaries of the 4th and 5th Centuries were instrumental to formulating the faith of the first four Ecumenical Councils, vigorously and vociferously defended later by the likes of St. Maximus the Confessor (Jan 21st) and St. Mark of Ephesus (Jan 19th).
Finally, January 25th of this year marks the one-year memorial of the falling asleep of Archbishop Anastasios of Tirana, Durrës, and All Albania (1929-2025). A beloved hierarch, respected scholar of world religions, and pioneering missionary whose zeal for the Gospel first took him to East Africa as a young priest in the mid 1960’s, and later to post-Communist Albania in the early 1990’s, Archbishop Anastasios’ long and fruitful life stands as a testament to the dynamism of Orthodoxy in the modern world.
As the month of January draws to a close with the Synaxis of the Three Holy Hierarchs (Sts. Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom) on the 30th, by way of conclusion, I offer here an excerpt from Archbishop Anastasios’s address to the University of Athens delivered on January 30th, 1982, under the title, “The Testimony of the Three Hierarchs on ‘Change for the Better,’ or The Dynamic of Universal and Continuous Change.”
According to the late archbishop, these “ecumenical teachers” of the Church are “contemporary and timeless” models for Orthodox Christians, whose “sacramental presence and inspiration ceaselessly contribute” to the necessary renewal of human hearts, minds, and societies. As we embark upon a new year and resolve to realize “change for the better” in our own lives, let us turn first to the life of the Church—to hear the words of Scripture, the Liturgy, and the saints—and to recall, above all, the evergreen counsel of St. Paul:
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God
(Romans 12:1-2).
Archbishop Anastasios’s address
“The testimony of the three ecumenical teachers on ‘change for the better’ reveals a dynamic understanding of humanity’s abilities and prospects that is incomparably bolder and more splendid than any other vision of humanity. One could call it a religious vision, but it is not that alone. It is also personal and social, as I hope has become apparent in the various parts of the preceding discussion. Religion’s contribution lies in its ability to break through the supposed limits of the human mind, to strengthen our will, and to fuel our struggle, through the prospect and hope of overcoming what at first glance seems to be the impossible.
The Three Hierarchs played an important role in bringing about profound and revitalizing social change, and today their ideas on radical reform still remain daring and relevant. They lived outside time, free from the conventions of their age, with an intimate understanding of the past and prophetic insight into the future. They reconciled social involvement with creative solitude, the ‘divine darkness’ of dogma with the clarity of moral standards, and worldly wisdom with its transcendence, harmoniously combining all through acceptance of the cross and the joy of Easter. They had originality and drive. They labored for their own, personal sanctification, yet remained closely linked with humanity as a whole and all of human nature. They encompassed everything within themselves, enveloping all with the light of the resurrection.
They remain highly relevant to the here and now. With the rigor of their thought and the genuineness of their lives, they steadfastly point to the fact that humanity has been called upon to proceed toward radical transformation and change. This is not merely an external or superficial change, but a change in the nature of our very existence, one that can transform all of creation. It is a change that takes place with a profound awareness of the unity in the cosmos. It is a change whose end lies in deification.
The Three Hierarchs do not belong to the past but continue to participate in the life of the Church. They are a contemporary and timeless reality, steadfastly giving voice to the thought of the Church. Together with all the other saints, they constitute a living limb of the Church. For the saints continue to live and act through the Church’s sacramental life, in liturgical time. Their sacramental presence and inspiration ceaselessly contribute, if I may be allowed so bold a comparison, to a biological cleansing of the refuse produced by human frailty and meanness, which accumulates through all our mistakes, inadequacies, and inconsistencies.
Orthodoxy has always lived by and continues to live by the testimony of the Three Hierarchs regarding dynamic and continuous renewal. Orthodoxy experiences this journey toward ‘change for the better’ not as legalistic coercion, full of moralistic rigidity, but as a feast, as the celebration of a resplendent exodus from the ‘oppressive and gloomy’ Egypt of our lives, with Christ, crucified and resurrected, as our guide.
‘If you think and act in this way,’ Gregory the Theologian would say, even today, to each one of us, to our Church, and to people everywhere, ‘and if you comprehend the reason for these things, heaven and earth and everything else will become new for you.’ [Orations 44.9]
This light of the Resurrection penetrates the mind, the senses, and the consciousness of the Orthodox. This paean to the Resurrection heightens our sense of commitment. This vision of the Resurrection fills our dreams and our imaginations with the vastness of what we have been called upon to accomplish.”¹
¹ Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos), “The Dynamic of Universal and Continuous Change: The Testimony of the Three Hierarchs on ‘Change for the Better,’” in Facing the World: Orthodox Christian Essays on Global Concerns, trans. Pavlos Gottfried (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003), 155-177; 176-177.
The post Reflections on ‘change for the better’ in the New Year appeared first on Orthodox Observer.
