Temporal
Warring with Ourselves,
Ours Is ... a True Apostleship Before God
[The Big Bang and the Witness of the Old-Calendar Church of Bulgaria]
(a sermon delivered on 25 September / 08 October 2006* in Sofia)
Ours Is ... a True Apostleship Before God
[The Big Bang and the Witness of the Old-Calendar Church of Bulgaria]
(a sermon delivered on 25 September / 08 October 2006* in Sofia)
* 330th anniversary of the repose (1776) of Elder Dositheus (actually a woman), recluse of the Kiev Caves who blessed St. Seraphim to go to Sarov
[Bishop Photii of Triaditsa:] Unfortunately, my beloved, the health of His Eminence Archbishop Chrysostomos did not allow him to serve today but we all have together taken communion of the Eucharistic table! I shall now ask His Eminence to address you with an arhipastor’s sermon!
[Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna:] Во имя Отцу и Сыну, и Святому Духу ныне и присно и во веки веков – Амин!
With the blessing of bishop Photii I would like to say a few words to you today about the importance of the witness of the old-calendar Church of Bulgaria. – I would like to begin in a rather curious way – by telling you some recent news. – As some of you may know three of the Nobel prizes for this year have been announced. – The Nobel prizes for chemistry, physics and medicine or physiology. – And these three prizes were shared by five Americans. – And the five of them are [much to our pride] either teaching in. or products of. the University of California and the Stanford University in California. – There is a theory in America that these prizes were given as a consolation prize to the United States. – As consolation for our president. – To give us a little hope beyond him! – At any rate – we’re proud of these prizes. – And two of the prize-winners have particular significance – these are the two prize-winners in physics. – These two prize-winners have demonstrated some of the processes by which the Big Bang may have occurred at the beginning of Creation. –
Now, why would I refer to these two individuals in terms of the witness of your Church in Bulgaria?!? – There’s a very important reason! – We have come to think of our witness as old-calendarists or as traditional Orthodox as in oppositional witness. – And many of us like to think that our position is against modernism, – against trends in society, – – against the official Churches, – against any kind of new thought, – and against the Apocalyptic spirit of Antichrist. – In fact there is nothing oppositional in our position! – Our position is a matter of perspective. – For example, there are many who would say that these two scientists who won the Nobel prize – and who offered support for the physical-and-chemical components of the ‘Big Bang’ theory – and that they are therefore opposed to the Christian concept of Creation. – And therefore we as Christians should be opposed to their science! – Quite the opposite! Our position should be one of perspective! – They say that all life began with the Big Bang because of chemical-and-physical occurrences. – We have a different way of speaking of the Big Bang. – We turn to the narrative of Creation in the Old Testament – and we say, “God said ‘Let there be light!’ – and there was light” – that is our Big Bang! – And it’s perfectly consistent – with the idea that there was a point of Creation – which others may express in chemical-and-physical terms – but which we express in spiritual terms. – And this should be our approach as old-calendarists! – Not to be oppositional, – but always to offer a spiritual perspective. – The new calendar entered into the Orthodox Church – because there were those concerned about astronomical issues. – Our answer is not to argue astronomy with the Church – because astronomy is a secondary issue with the calendar – our answer is to talk about Tradition. – And Tradition is not built on astronomy – and is not changed on the basis of astronomy. – Our position is that Holy Tradition – expresses the inner essence of our Faith. –
