Articles

You Call My Words Immodest

by Dr. George Gabriel

The on-going revelations of sexual perversions by some in the Roman Catholic priesthood requires that we, as Orthodox Christians who hold the truths of the Holy Faith, explain the proper teachings of Holy Scriptures, and the commentaries of our fathers in the Faith in the apostolic tradition. Dr. Gabriel gives profound and useful insights into their teachings: [pages 16ff]: "[M]onastic life is called the angelic life because it imitates the bodiless nature of the angels. Nevertheless, God gave to all men the single path to salvation called Chastity, a path traveled by the married AND the unmarried, by virgins and monastics. Virginity and chastity in marriage does not mean marriage without marital relations, although such [may] exist. And it is not the virginity of periodic abstinence from marital sex..It is the virginity of fidelity in marriage, fidelity in the heart and mind, as well as in the body. It is chastity and purity of two who have become one and are chaste as one...

Anyone can commit adultery or fornication spiritually, even if not bodily, with similar but silent results of the sin inwardly. "Fornication is possible without intercourse with another..." (St. John Climicas: The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 15). "The true...chastity is that which is kept first in the heart and mind (St.John Chrysostom's 19th Homily: 1st Corinthians).

Understandably, theological issues can seem theoretical and academic to most people and, therefore, irrelevant to the 'practical" Christian life. But the fact is that theological issues DO exert an enormous force on the lives of Christians. See, for example, the devastating effects of Latin (Roman Catholic) theology on marital relations and the entire relationship in marriage?[With the Church's experiential knowledge of Christ as Savior,] She rejected efforts...to deny marriage to the clergy. She knew that those efforts proceeded from an extreme zeal for asceticism, a zeal without understanding, and from the influences of pagan philosophy... [As the Apostolic Canon #5 states - from the earliest Council of Apostles in Jerusalem]:

"If any Bishop, or Presbyter, or Deacon, or anyone in the clerical rank abstains from marriage, or meat, or wine out of ABHORRENCE thereof, forgetting that all things are exceedingly good and that God made man, Male and Female,...let him either mend his ways or be deposed from office and expelled from the Church..." (See "Pedalion" for "Apostolic Canons" from earliest church documents)

[The 6th Ecumenical Council warns]: "Since we have learned that in the Church of the Romans it is regarded as tantamount to a canon [not yet a formal teaching until 11th c.] that candidates for ordination to the... presbytery must solemnly promise to have no further intercourse with their wives, we, however continuing in conformity with the ancient canon of Apostolic...orderliness, desire henceforth that the lawful marriages of ordained men BE MADE STRONGER. And we are in no way dissolving their [marital relationships] with their wives, nor depriving them of their mutual relationship and companionship...If any [cleric] expel his wife on the pretext of reverence, let him be excommunicated." [Ed: caps added]