Godspeed the Canterbury Pilgrim... by Fr. James

The Providence Journal published an article on the conversion of a local Episcopal priest to the Roman Catholic Church. The following letter sought to put this in a different perspective.

It is difficult to see the drama in the recent going-over-to-Rome of Episcopal priest Fr. S (Providence Journal, 31 July 1999). The interest must lie in the fact that the western world traditionally sees the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Church as being poles apart. Hence any movement of one to another is seen as a dramatic and radical sea-change, as of some previously aquatic creature suddenly discovering life on dry land.

But there are millions of Christians in the world, neither Roman Catholics or Protestants, for whom such a move or conversion appears to be a nearly negligible change. Christians of the Orthodox faith who have studied and come to understand western Christianity (and there are many who do not) find both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism so similar to one another and yet so distant from the Orthodox themselves - indeed poles apart - that there appears to be little real or significant difference between the Roman Church and those other western churches descended from it. For many Orthodox, to use the words of Alexei Khomiakov (a nineteenth-century Russian Orthodox theologian), "the pope was the first Protestant" in so far as papal policy and direction led all of western Christianity into schism and a radical departure from the original and authentic Christian tradition and beliefs.

None of this is meant to call into question anything of (former) Father S's integrity or sincerity in making his change. That step out of the water onto dry land must be an invigorating and exhilarating change. But he clearly has a long journey yet to travel if he is looking for the original Christian faith and church from which the Roman church separated itself some thousand years ago. After the ambivalence of Anglicanism and the manifold varieties of Protestant individualism, the notion of papal infallibility must seem promising. Regrettably, that notion, though not codified until the nineteenth century, was itself the first step toward Protestantism, and away from the conciliar tradition of the early church and the fraternal equality of all bishops as teachers and preservers of doctrine. Once the pope declared his independence from his brethren and assumed to himself authority to make infallible decisions, it was no great step for every believer to assume the infallibility to interpret Christian tradition and doctrine to his own private satisfaction.

One applauds Fr. S for his turning back toward the past, but the true and authentic past of the western Church lies in the era before the notion of papal infallibility and other Roman aberrations appeared - in that first Christian millenium when the Church of the west was one in charity, faith and communion with the Churches of the east. That faith, now compromised and changed in Roman Catholicism, is still alive and well within the Orthodox Churches who patiently await the true homecoming of pilgrims like Father S.

Godspeed the good Canterbury pilgrim - his journey has only just begun.

The following was written to Virtuosity Digest just as the storm was breaking over the election of Canon Gene Robinson to the episcopate.

27 October 2003

I have followed with much interest and deep sympathy the latest struggles within the Anglican communion and the Episcopal Church. I am not an Anglican or Episcopalian, but a priest of the Russian Orthodox Church who serves in the Western Rite. Our western-rite Orthodoxy has over the past four or five decades, provided a haven and a home for many disenchanted and disenfranchised Episcopalians looking for a theologically orthodox home with a familiar liturgical expression. I hope we may continue to provide such a haven in the coming months and years. In the meantime my heart goes out to those traditional Anglicans struggling to maintain the integrity of the gospel.

It is clear to anyone who has been attentive to the issues in the Episcopal Church that, from the time of Bishop James Pike to the present, there have been a steady dilution of the gospel, a slow disintegration of dogma and a constant re-adjustment of belief. The degree of this is now such that I would claim that even if - as seems now unlikely - Canon Robinson were to stand down as bishop-elect of New Hampshire, nothing in fact would have essentially changed in the present situation of the revised Episcopal Church. This becomes ever clearer in the attitudes now being more openly expressed by revisionist bishops and presiding bishop Frank Griswold. They have no intention of maintaining a true communion of belief and order with the world-wide Anglican Church, but believe themselves capable of proclaiming a new and revised gospel of inclusivity to the world.

By coincidence this morning the lesson at Mass was from St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians: "I am astonished to find you turning so quickly away from him who called you by grace, and following a different gospel. Not that is in fact another gospel: only there are persons who unsettle your minds by trying to distort the gospel of Christ. But if anyone, if we ourselves or an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel at variance with the gospel we preached to you, he shall be held outcast. I now repeat what I have said before: if anyone preaches a gospel at variance with the gospel which you received, let him be outcast." (Gal. 1:6-9) Those who have ears to hear, let them hear.

May God continue to bless and guide all faithful Anglicans and Episcopalians into the fullness of gospel truth.
Sincerely in Christ,

V. Rev. James M. Deschene
Abbot of Christminster

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