Building a new monastery in the isles of Celtic giants

Father Seraphim Aldea is so committed to building the first Orthodox monastery in the Scottish isles in more than a millennium that he did something no monk searching for solitude would ever, ever do. "I learned how to use that dreadful Facebook thing," he said.

The Romanian monk has already been handed an abandoned Church of Scotland sanctuary on Mull Island. While Kilninian was built in 1755, it appears in 1561 records as a site associated with the great Monastery of St. Columba on Iona. Thus, this property may have been linked to monasticism as early as the 7th century.

But there is a problem. The Atlantic coast of Scotland, including the 150 main Hebrides islands, is now a "Designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty" -- which means major restrictions for anyone wanting to build or restore anything.

Normally, starting a monastery means obtaining land and then gathering some monks to move there, noted Father Seraphim, during a fundraising swing through the Baltimore area. The monks build their facility and then it's dedicated. But that isn't how things work in Great Britain these days. Before the 34-year-old monk can build a single monastic cell he has to buy land that can provide running water and a sewage system.

"I need your help ... to build that toilet," he said, drawing laughter from his audience. "It sounds stupid, but that's all there is. We can build the first monastery in the Hebrides in over a millennium if I can build a toilet."

Scotland and Ireland have for centuries -- well before the 1054 schism between Rome and the Orthodox East -- been famous for the work of St. Columba, St. Brigid, St. Brendan and other great Celtic monastics. Pilgrims continue to flock to these lands to visit ruins on these sacred sites.

It is customary for the boatloads of pilgrims headed to Iona to stop on Mull Island, noted Father Seraphim. Thus, the goal is to build a new monastery (mullmonastery.com) out of local stone for those who want to stop, rest and pray, or even to spend several days as visitors. The chapel will remain dedicated to Saints Ninian and Cuthbert, while the monastery will house a community of nuns, since it is "likely that a pack of bearded foreign men" would be harder for "the locals to trust," he said.

A group of Catholics has already made a similar attempt, but eventually gave up and donated the sanctuary to the Orthodox -- under the condition that Kilninian would become part of a monastic community.

Father Seraphim, who is 34, noted that he knew nothing about the great Celtic monastics when he began doing graduate work in England, concluding with a doctorate in history at the University of Durham. Then his bishop asked him to consider working near London or, perhaps to continue his scholarly research in Paris.

However, Father Seraphim told his superior that he "felt called to solitude." When told about the abandoned sanctuary in the Hebrides, the young monk asked: "Do you know someone mad enough to be willing to go and live there?"

If he is able to purchase five acres providing clean water and a septic system, Father Seraphim plans to move to Kilninian this coming fall. He said he is convinced, after preliminary research, that there are still believers in England who feel called to monasticism. In addition to several "semi-monastic houses," there appear to be a number of hermits in various parts of the land who are dedicated to prayer and worship.

"This vocation is there, it still pulsates in these islands," he said. "What people are lacking is tradition. They need examples -- not one, not two, but several real monasteries -- so that they may have somewhere to learn from without having to leave their country."

Meanwhile, if Americans are concerned about the faith's future in their own land, then they need to be concerned about this kind of renewal project in postmodern England and elsewhere in Europe, said Father Seraphim.

"England and Scotland and Ireland are the lands of your ancestors," he said. "It sounds strange to say it, but the truth is that whatever happens in Western Europe today will take place everywhere in the world in about 50 years. If we let those countries go completely ... it is going to affect us all."

The death of an Orthodox visionary -- in America

When major religious leaders die, it's traditional that public figures -- secular and sacred -- release letters expressing sorrow and sending their condolences to the spiritual sheep who have suddenly found themselves without a shepherd. This is precisely what Greek Orthodox Archbishop Demetrios Trakatellis did, acting as chairman of the assembly of America's Eastern Orthodox bishops, after he heard about the death of Metropolitan Philip Saliba -- the leader of the Antiochian Orthodox Christians in North America for a half century. His letter was kind and gracious, but contained a hint of candor that spoke volumes.

"For more than 15 years I have had the opportunity and privilege to work closely with Metropolitan Philip," wrote Archbishop Demetrios, noting that the Antiochian leader served as vice-chairman of the assembly of bishops. Metropolitan Philip was a pastor to his people, but he also "passionately supported a common witness to our Orthodox faith in the world. It is well known that he spoke his mind openly on a number of important issues and would often challenge inactivity surrounding serious issues, which he felt Orthodoxy could address in unique and important ways."

That's one way to put it.

Metropolitan Philip -- who died March 19th -- was more than an advocate for Orthodox life and faith. He was more than a pragmatic strategist who helped his flock grow from 66 parishes to 275, while opening youth camps and a missions and evangelism office.

The Lebanese-born archbishop was also a fierce advocate of Orthodox unity in the United States, to whatever degree possible among Greeks, Arabs, Russians, Ukrainians, Romanians, Serbians and others. After living his adult life in this land, he made the controversial decision in the mid-1980s to embrace waves of evangelical converts (I am one of them). These converts affected all levels of his church including, as much as anywhere else, in seminaries and, thus, at Orthodox altars.

That was the backdrop to the symbolic moment when Archbishop Demetrios surprised Metropolitan Philip by asking him to make some off-the-cuff remarks at the 2004 Clergy-Laity Congress of the Greek Orthodox Church in New York City.

"I reminded him that when I speak, I tell it like it is," said Philip, when I interviewed him for an "On Religion" column soon after that event.

Rather than speaking in Byzantine code, Metropolitan Philip bluntly addressed the delegates as Americans, not Greeks. He said he thought it was time to challenge ecclesiastical ties that continued to bind their churches in the new world to those in the old. Then he marched straight into a minefield, bringing greetings from the Antiochian Orthodox delegates who, a few days earlier, had unanimously approved what many Greeks have long desired -- a constitution granting them more control of their church in North America.

"I told them that if I could sum up this new constitution, I would begin with the words, 'We the people,' " he told me. "We cannot ignore this truth -- Americans are infested with freedom. We cannot ignore that our churches are in America and we are here to stay."

A press aide for the Greek archdiocese noted: "It would be accurate to say that he received an enthusiastic response."

Part of the problem was that Philip was intentionally calling to mind the 1994 gathering in Ligonier, Pa., when America's Orthodox bishops boldly declared: "We commit ourselves to avoiding the creation of parallel and competitive Orthodox parishes, missions, and mission programs. We commit ourselves to common efforts and programs to do mission, leaving behind piecemeal, independent, and spontaneous efforts … moving forward towards a concerted, formal, and united mission program in order to make a real impact on North America through Orthodox mission and evangelism."

That effort failed. Two decades later, Metropolitan Philip left instructions that he was to be buried at the Antiochian Village camp near Ligonier, where young people will visit his grave for generations to come.

"This faith was to remain the best kept secret in America because of our laziness, we Orthodox, because we have been busy taking care of our little ethnic ghettos," said Philip, during one of the first rites ushering an entire evangelical congregation into his archdiocese.

"It is time that we let this light shine. American needs the Orthodox faith. I said to the Evangelical Orthodox in these past Sundays, I said, 'Welcome home.'"

Duck! Elderly patriarchs discussing doctrine!

This elderly patriarch's image is certainly striking, with his stern face and a gray beard that flows over his chest, contrasting with the colorful clothing typical of his flock and his unique line of work. Just before Christmas, he raised eyebrows with a blunt statement on one of today's most controversial issues.

No, this wasn't the Duck Commander in Louisiana. This patriarch resides in the city his followers formally refer to as Constantinople-New Rome.

"The Lord appointed the marriage of male and female in the blessed family," proclaimed Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, while discussing Mary, Joseph and the newborn Jesus. He is the first among equals of the patriarchs who lead the world's 250 million Eastern Orthodox Christians (the church in which I am a member).

Patriarch Bartholomew claimed the "manifold support of the institution of the family comprises the obligation of the Church and responsibility of leadership in every country." Thus, he argued that "in order for a child to be raised in a healthy and natural way, there needs to be a family where man and woman live in harmony as one body, one flesh, and one soul, submitting to one another. ...

"We must all encourage the creation and function of natural families, which can produce citizens that are spiritually healthy and joyful."

Soon after that, a Catholic bishop delivered a Christmas sermon in which he addressed a related topic -- the adoption of children by same-sex couples. Then, to make matters even more newsworthy, he claimed that he spoke with the encouragement of his own patriarch, the pope of Rome.

Auxiliary Bishop Charles J. Scicluna told journalists in Malta, a Mediterranean island, that Pope Francis was shocked to learn, in a Dec. 12 meeting, that a civil unions bill would allow gay couples to adopt children in that predominately Catholic country.

The pope, he claimed, urged him to speak out boldly. The bishop also said that Pope Francis -- declared 2013 Person of the Year by The Advocate, a major gay magazine -- had repeated the views he expressed in 2010 as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, when he called same-sex marriage an "anti-value and an anthropological regression" for humanity. In 2009, Bergoglio had written to Catholic leaders in Buenos Aires stressing: "We are not talking about a mere bill, but rather a machination of the Father of Lies that seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God."

However, Pope Francis also -- in November remarks to the Catholic Union of Superiors General -- suggested that church leaders must find new ways to show mercy and understanding to the children of same-sex couples and divorced parents, so as not to be guilty of "administering a vaccine against faith" among the young.

Clearly, it is becoming more difficult for traditional religious believers to publicly voice, let alone to boldly defend, the doctrines of their faith. That is certainly what "Duck Dynasty" patriarch Phil Robertson learned when he spoke his mind in an infamous GQ magazine interview, which briefly got him exiled from his family's popular series on the A&E Television Network.

"Everything is blurred on what's right and what's wrong. Sin becomes fine," he said. "Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men. Don't be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers -- they won't inherit the kingdom of God."

Anyone familiar with scripture knew that this was a near verbatim quotation from St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, noted Janet E. Smith, who teaches Catholic moral theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit. It also helped that, while he used some swamp-level language that offended millions of Americans, Robertson stressed that he was just a repentant sinner who, when it came to sex, booze and the nasty ways of the flesh, had been there and done that -- many times.

This is what church leaders must carefully communicate, said Smith, in an online commentary. They must demonstrate that they realize many ordinary people spend their lives engaged in a "very wrenching struggle with powerful appetites, deep wounds and habits that at least to some extent balm those wounds. We must realize what we are asking of people and help them with our prayers, sacrifices, understanding and friendship."

Guess the winner: Woodstock vs. religious liberty

Blame it on Woodstock.

Cultural changes unleashed by the sexual revolution are affecting how millions of Americans understand religious liberty, according to University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock, speaking at a recent Newseum symposium marking the 20th anniversary of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It doesn't help that disputes about the free exercise of religion have increasingly turned into bitter partisan battles pitting Republicans against the majority of mainstream Democrats.

What is happening? It helps to remember that churches were on the winning side of the American Revolution, he stressed, and that fact has shaped America ever since.

"What if we had a new revolution in our time? The sexual revolution that began in earnest in the '60s carries on with the current front about same-sex marriage" and contraception, said Laycock.

Religious groups have consistently "been on the losing side of this revolution. … In each of the remaining sexual issues -- abortion, same-sex marriage, contraception, sterilization, emergency contraception -- every one of those issues has this fundamental structure: What one side views as a grave evil, the other side views as a fundamental human right. ... And for tens of millions of Americans, what religious liberty now does is empower their enemies."

Only 20 years ago, it was possible for left and right to find common ground on key religious liberty issues. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act passed unanimously in the House and by a 97-3 vote in the Senate, backed by a coalition that ranged from the American Civil Liberties Union to the Christian Legal Society.

Only five years later, another similar effort failed.

"We had gone from 97-3 to partisan gridlock ... and disagreement over religious liberty has only gotten worse since that time," Laycock told the Newseum audience. He was speaking the day after addressing the U.S. Supreme Court on yet another tense case about public prayer.

The key change, he said, is that there has been a violent legal and political clash between gay rights and the rights of religious conscientious objectors. At this point, it may be too late to find a compromise that would protect citizens on both sides of this constitutional firefight.

One crucial problem, he explained, is that conservative religious leaders have been "so focused on entirely defeating" same-sex marriage bills that they have paid little attention to religious-liberty exemptions "until they have been totally defeated and then, of course, it is too late. They have no leverage. They have nothing to bargain with."

Meanwhile, as the gay-rights cause has gained momentum, its leaders have grown increasingly bold. More than a few liberals, said Laycock, not only want to seize sexual freedoms, but to force religious objectors to affirm their choices and even to pay for them. Some on the left, he said, are now "making arguments calculated to destroy religious liberty."

Consider, Laycock said, language used by state Sen. Pat Steadman of Denver, as he fought for a civil unions bill in the Colorado Senate last February. What should liberals say to those who claim that their religious liberties are being violated?

"I'll tell you what I'd say -- get thee to a nunnery," he said, in debate recorded on the Senate floor. "Go live a monastic life, away from modern society, away from the people you can't see as equals to yourself. Away from the stream of commerce where you might have to serve them, or employ them, or rent banquet halls to them. Go someplace and be as judgmental as you like. Go inside your church, establish separate water fountains, if you want."

This was provocative language, but this gay leader was using arguments now common in American politics, said Laycock. "No living in peace and equality and diversity for him. If you are a religious dissenter you have to conform or withdraw. For many people this hostility to religious liberty is a growing and intuitive reaction."

It's too soon to predict the death of religious liberty in America, as it has been known and defended for generations, he said. But the current trends are sobering.

"Maybe compromise will prevail yet," he concluded. "Maybe the judges will do their jobs and protect the liberty of both sides. But the tendency of both sides to insist on a total win -- liberty for them and not liberty for the other side -- is a very bad thing for religious liberty."

Unusual challenge from a Greek Orthodox bishop

It happens all the time: Church leaders stand at podiums and urge members of their flocks to go and share their faith, striving to win new converts. These speeches rarely make news, because they are not unusual. But something very unusual happened earlier this month in Brookline, Mass.

"You will surely agree that our mission ... is to lead our brothers and sisters -- both inside and outside the church -- to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," said the featured speaker.

"This is becoming more and more difficult because many hesitate to share their faith, fearing they will be considered quaint and bothersome. This is especially the case in America's colleges and universities where atheism and indifference on matters of faith and religion reign supreme."

This would be ordinary, if not tame language in a gathering held by Campus Crusade for Christ, the Southern Baptist Convention or any Bible Belt megachurch. But this speaker was Metropolitan Methodios, the white-haired leader of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Boston, addressing clergy and laity in a conference center dedicated to Greek culture.

The spiritual leader of Greek Orthodox believers in New England didn't stop with this call to evangelize people inside and outside his flock's sanctuaries. Instead, he directly challenged the lukewarm or even compromised version of the faith that may result from the media "bombardment of materialistic and hedonistic philosophies" that shape the public square.

All too often, he said, the result is neither orthodox nor Orthodox.

"People today fashion their personal beliefs by integrating Orthodox and non-Orthodox elements," he explained, in the speech text posted online (.pdf). "Without realizing it, they become 'cafeteria Christians.' Just as they do not partake of every food item in a cafeteria line -- but only those foods which they like -- in the same way they feel they can pick and choose from what Orthodoxy teaches. ...

"Let me be clear: Core teachings of our faith are not subject to popularity polls or political correctness."

Metropolitan Methodios even, without mentioning a specific name, criticized a New England legislator who "claims to be an Orthodox Christian" and who "champions Greek political causes" because of his public advocacy of same-sex marriage.

It's important to note that, through the years, Eastern Orthodox bishops have released occasional public statements in which they affirmed basic tenets of their ancient faith. In some cases they have applied these doctrines to public issues in American life.

For example, the Eastern Orthodox bishops of North and Central America recently released a document that expressed "deep concern over recent actions on the part of our respective governments and certain societal trends concerning the status of marriage in our countries, in particular the legalization of same-sex unions."

Also, the symbolic leader of the world's 250 million Orthodox Christians (including me) recently addressed challenges to church teachings on marriage. Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew of Istanbul stressed that the "partnering of the same sex is unknown and condemned" in church teachings, along with the "contemporary invention of 'mutual cohabitation,' which is the result of sin and not the law of joy."

These kids of documents are good, but only carry so much weight, noted Father Johannes Jacobse, head of the American Orthodox Institute in Naples, Fla. It is one thing for bishops to affirm two millennia of church teachings. It is something else for a bishop to openly challenge his people to life by them.

"This is the first time I have heard a Greek Orthodox bishop speak publicly with this kind of clarity and certainty on some of the pressing moral issues of our day," said Jacobse, who served as a Greek Orthodox priest from 1991 to 2009 and currently leads an Antiochian Orthodox parish. In this case, a veteran bishop "just stood up there and SAID IT. There seemed to be no sense of hesitation or fear that someone might think that he sounded like -- heaven forbid -- an evangelical or a moral conservative or something."

The bottom line, concluded Metropolitan Methodios, is that clergy and lay leaders must recognize that they need to "re-evangelize, to re-catechize, to re-teach the faith" to their own people, especially those on the margins of church life.

"The truth," he stressed, "is that many brethren sitting in the pews of our parishes are not knowledgeable of even the basic teachings of Orthodoxy."

Hellish flashbacks on the Christian persecution front

Churches were burning in Pakistan, while African Christians died and radical forms of Islam threatened monasteries, sanctuaries and villages in Egypt, Syria and Iraq. That was 1997. Human-rights scholar Paul Marshall kept hearing one question over and over when he addressed this rising tide of persecution: Why didn't more American Christians protest as their sisters and brothers in the faith were jailed, raped, tortured and killed?

Some Christians, he said, were distracted by apocalyptic talk in which persecution was a good thing, a sign that the end of the world was near. Others weren't that interested in violence on the other side of the world that threatened believers in ancient churches that looked nothing like their own suburban megachurches.

"The result is a stunning passivity that calmly accepts such suffering," said Marshall, in an interview for an earlier column for the Scripps Howard News Service. "Perhaps this ... could be justified if we were dealing with our own suffering. But to do this with the suffering of another amounts to theological sadism."

That was 1997. Marshall had just co-written the groundbreaking book "Their Blood Cries Out," with journalist Lela Gilbert. Since then, I have worked with both of these writers in global projects about religion-news coverage.

Now it's 2013 and the news about the persecution of Christians has only gotten worse. Marshall, Gilbert and Catholic lawyer Nina Shea recently completed a new volume entitled "Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians."

The bottom line: This topic is more relevant than ever.

A year ago, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, "Christianity is the most persecuted religion in the world." While some mocked her words, a Pew Research Center study in 2011 found that Christians were harassed, to one degree of violence or another, in 130 countries -- more than any other world religion. British historian Tom Holland told a recent London gathering that the world is witnessing the "effective extinction of Christianity from its birthplace" in the Middle East.

Recent losses endured in Egypt have been staggering, with more than 100 Christian sites attacked by well-organized mobs in mid-August, including the destruction of 42 churches -- the worst assault on the Coptic Orthodox Church in 700 years. In Syria, rebels linked to al-Qaeda overran Maaloula -- famous for being one of three remaining villages in which locals speak ancient Aramaic, the language of Jesus -- damaging the priceless St. Thekla monastery and trashing two churches.

Then the headlines got worse, with Islamist gunmen killing 67 or more people in the Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya. While Muslims were freed, hostages who would not recite the Shahada -- an Islamic confession of faith -- were tortured and killed, before their bodies were mutilated. Days later, the Taliban claimed credit for an attack by two suicide bombers on the historic All Saints Church in Peshawar, Pakistan, in which at least 85 worshipers died.

Pope Francis addressed these issues during remarks on Sept. 25, noted John L. Allen, Jr., of the National Catholic Reporter, when reached by email. He is the author of a new book entitled "The Global War on Christians: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Anti-Christian Persecution."

In Allen's translation of the event, the pope asked the crowd: "When I think or hear it said that many Christians are persecuted and give their lives for their faith, does this touch my heart or does it not reach me? Am I open to that brother or that sister in my family who's giving his or her life for Jesus Christ? ... How many of you pray for Christians who are persecuted? How many? ...

"It's important to look beyond one's own fence, to feel oneself part of the Church, of one family of God!"

While the truth is painful, said Marshall, it's important to asking questions about all those silent believers and their silent churches. If anything, it appears that many American Christians are even less interested in global persecution trends than they were in the past, while their churches are even more independent and focused on a therapeutic, individualistic approach to faith.

"It's like all of these horrible events are just blips on the screen. They are there, then they are gone and forgotten," said Marshall. "Sometimes, it's easy to think that Christians in America don't even know what is happening to their brothers and sisters around the world."