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Wednesday, October 5, 2011

A Quick Note...

....inspired by Paul Evdokimov's book The Art of the Icon: A Theology of Beauty and Andreas Mar Cassian's homily on Sunday at the annual Convocation liturgy. The Gospel reading was Luke 17:20-37, which includes the statement, "The Kingdom of God is within [or "among"] you".

In his homily, Mar Cassian noted that "antichrist" means not only "against Christ" but also, "in place of Christ".

Here is the note:

The language of Orthodox Christianity is not that of substitution and re-presentation. It is, rather, the language of participation and communion. The former is opaque, solipsistic, iconoclastic, and nominalistic. The latter is transparent and iconic. The latter is the language of interpenetration and perichoresis. It is the language of Trinitarianism and therefore, of human community and sobernost, the language of counciliarity.

Thus, as priest, I am not "another Christ". If I am, I am in fact "antiChrist". However, my priesthood, by participation, is that of Christ Himself.

1 comment:

FrGregACCA said...

The following is also part of the background here:

http://fatherstephen.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/icons-and-truth-2/