M.C. Steenberg
13-09-2008, 12:28 AM
Dear all,
I was recently given a copy of Archbishop John Shahovskoy's The Orthodox Pastor: A Guide to Pastoral Theology, by St Vladimir's Seminary Press, which this year has re-published the volume originally written in 1966.
There is a brief chapter in this text, entitled simply 'Education', which is such a beautiful description of the relationship of theological academic study to Orthodox life, that I could not help but bring it up in this forum. The book is written specifically with pastoral (priestly) ministry in mind; but its lessons are applicable to everyone.
I type up here the chapter in its entirety. It is remarkable for its nuance, perceptiveness, and balance of vision.
'Education' - Chapter 6 of The Orthodox Pastor: A Guide to Pastoral Theology by Archbishop John Shahovskoy (SVS Press 2008 edition, pp. 38-40):
The more spiritual the pastor is, the less important becomes his education, his formal knowledge. The pastor must be ‘educated’ from above, by the Spirit given him at ordination. The power of the Cross is a result of an inner self-crucifixion. The true spirituality is universality. And the saints are truly universal men, for they know the essential and, therefore, everything else. The question from which school St John of the Ladder or St Seraphim of Sarov graduated, or what thesis Fr John of Kronstadt wrote is obviously a secondary one. In the history of the Church there are men of great learning—St Cyprian of Carthage, St Athanasius the Great, and also simple and uneducated men—St Nicholas and St Spyridon. The learned Apostle Paul stands together with the simple Apostle Peter, the well-educated Prophet Daniel—with a shepherd, the Prophet Amos. All this reveals the simple truth that worldly learning must neither be depreciated nor considered the criterion of wisdom and spirituality.
Theological education is extremely valuable and has a great importance but only if through the entire structure of the theological school genuine faith shines through. Seminaries must not only educate but also form the pastor. After each lecture the seminarian must know more and also love the truth more, believe more in its Source and Fullness, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Alpha and the Omega of life and knowledge.
In the existing pluralism and complexity of philosophical, religious and pseudo-religious teachings, the Orthodox pastor must be like a ‘many-eyed Cherubim’, seeing all aspects and the spiritual weight of each doctrine. The true theological education supplies us with genuine criteria of Truth, with the possibility to discern the good and the evil; it widens the intellectual and emotional horizons of man, as if some spiritual x-rays were piercing through both wisdom and pseudo-wisdom of this world, giving each of them their real place.
The inevitably abstract character of all knowledge, even spiritual knowledge, must be overcome by the personal spiritual life of the pastor. Many have truly closed the door of the Kingdom to themselves and to others by abstract truth. For the one having faith and knowing the ways to increase it, abstract knowledge as well as the knowledge of anti-Christian doctrines are not dangerous. The Saviour spoke of this problem in Mark 17-18. The first aim of theological schools is to supply weapons against anti-Christian and pseudo-Christian ideas, which have two horns, like the Lamb (see Revelation 13.2). Of special value for the pastor is the ‘liberal arts’ secular education, which prepares for the organic appropriation of the Truth in a theological school. The pastor must know the Truth not only intellectually, in the abstract manner, but with his ‘whole heart’, ‘whole soul’, ‘whole strength’ and ‘whole understanding’ (Luke 10.27). Only such a Truth may be the generation of man’s life and his first joy.
Truth is joyful. And its knowledge cannot but be joyful. This is an important aspect of Christian education. The pastor who has learned in the seminary chapel and classroom this joyful approach to Truth will certainly bring reverent joy into his pastoral ministry and into the hearts of men. Only the possessor of such living faith, the practitioner of the ‘internal peace’ will—upon completion of his academic preparation—be full of it forever. And even if he becomes a bishop, the bearer of the Church’s truth, or a learned theologian, he will never consider himself a ‘specialist’, but ‘forgetting what is behind’, he will ‘tend towards the goal, the honour of the high calling,’ in a never-ceasing desire to reach it, as it was reached by Christ Jesus (see Philippians 3.13-14).
A self-satisfied knowledge is pseudo-knowledge. And even Orthodox teaching in a self-satisfied mind will be pseudo-gnosis.
The graduates of a theological school know that they have laid only a first foundation. It is indeed a great achievement to know one’s limitations and one’s spiritual poverty. Knowledge about God is but a way to the knowledge of God.
INXC, Dcn Matthew
I was recently given a copy of Archbishop John Shahovskoy's The Orthodox Pastor: A Guide to Pastoral Theology, by St Vladimir's Seminary Press, which this year has re-published the volume originally written in 1966.
There is a brief chapter in this text, entitled simply 'Education', which is such a beautiful description of the relationship of theological academic study to Orthodox life, that I could not help but bring it up in this forum. The book is written specifically with pastoral (priestly) ministry in mind; but its lessons are applicable to everyone.
I type up here the chapter in its entirety. It is remarkable for its nuance, perceptiveness, and balance of vision.
'Education' - Chapter 6 of The Orthodox Pastor: A Guide to Pastoral Theology by Archbishop John Shahovskoy (SVS Press 2008 edition, pp. 38-40):
The more spiritual the pastor is, the less important becomes his education, his formal knowledge. The pastor must be ‘educated’ from above, by the Spirit given him at ordination. The power of the Cross is a result of an inner self-crucifixion. The true spirituality is universality. And the saints are truly universal men, for they know the essential and, therefore, everything else. The question from which school St John of the Ladder or St Seraphim of Sarov graduated, or what thesis Fr John of Kronstadt wrote is obviously a secondary one. In the history of the Church there are men of great learning—St Cyprian of Carthage, St Athanasius the Great, and also simple and uneducated men—St Nicholas and St Spyridon. The learned Apostle Paul stands together with the simple Apostle Peter, the well-educated Prophet Daniel—with a shepherd, the Prophet Amos. All this reveals the simple truth that worldly learning must neither be depreciated nor considered the criterion of wisdom and spirituality.
Theological education is extremely valuable and has a great importance but only if through the entire structure of the theological school genuine faith shines through. Seminaries must not only educate but also form the pastor. After each lecture the seminarian must know more and also love the truth more, believe more in its Source and Fullness, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Alpha and the Omega of life and knowledge.
In the existing pluralism and complexity of philosophical, religious and pseudo-religious teachings, the Orthodox pastor must be like a ‘many-eyed Cherubim’, seeing all aspects and the spiritual weight of each doctrine. The true theological education supplies us with genuine criteria of Truth, with the possibility to discern the good and the evil; it widens the intellectual and emotional horizons of man, as if some spiritual x-rays were piercing through both wisdom and pseudo-wisdom of this world, giving each of them their real place.
The inevitably abstract character of all knowledge, even spiritual knowledge, must be overcome by the personal spiritual life of the pastor. Many have truly closed the door of the Kingdom to themselves and to others by abstract truth. For the one having faith and knowing the ways to increase it, abstract knowledge as well as the knowledge of anti-Christian doctrines are not dangerous. The Saviour spoke of this problem in Mark 17-18. The first aim of theological schools is to supply weapons against anti-Christian and pseudo-Christian ideas, which have two horns, like the Lamb (see Revelation 13.2). Of special value for the pastor is the ‘liberal arts’ secular education, which prepares for the organic appropriation of the Truth in a theological school. The pastor must know the Truth not only intellectually, in the abstract manner, but with his ‘whole heart’, ‘whole soul’, ‘whole strength’ and ‘whole understanding’ (Luke 10.27). Only such a Truth may be the generation of man’s life and his first joy.
Truth is joyful. And its knowledge cannot but be joyful. This is an important aspect of Christian education. The pastor who has learned in the seminary chapel and classroom this joyful approach to Truth will certainly bring reverent joy into his pastoral ministry and into the hearts of men. Only the possessor of such living faith, the practitioner of the ‘internal peace’ will—upon completion of his academic preparation—be full of it forever. And even if he becomes a bishop, the bearer of the Church’s truth, or a learned theologian, he will never consider himself a ‘specialist’, but ‘forgetting what is behind’, he will ‘tend towards the goal, the honour of the high calling,’ in a never-ceasing desire to reach it, as it was reached by Christ Jesus (see Philippians 3.13-14).
A self-satisfied knowledge is pseudo-knowledge. And even Orthodox teaching in a self-satisfied mind will be pseudo-gnosis.
The graduates of a theological school know that they have laid only a first foundation. It is indeed a great achievement to know one’s limitations and one’s spiritual poverty. Knowledge about God is but a way to the knowledge of God.
INXC, Dcn Matthew