11.28.07
The Church as Hospital
I finished reading, if not squeezing out every truth of, The Cosmic Mystery of Jesus Christ, so now I turn back to Orthodox Psychotherapy. It may make me sound like some sort of nut, but as the Orthodox view sinfulness as illness, we also view the cure for the human condition to be found in the Church, though some are more open to secular healers for various types of infirmity than others.
From page 28 of Chapter 1, What Christianity Is:
In St. John Chrysostom’s interpretation of this parable [of The Good Samaritan] it is clearly evident that the Church is a Hospital which heals those sick with sin, while the bishops and priests, like the Apostle Paul, are the healers of the people of God.
These truths also appear in many other places in the New Testament. …(Matt. 9:12, Mat 4:23, 1Cor. 8:12). The Book of Revelation says that John the Evangelist saw a river of the water of life proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. “On either side of the river was the tree of life…and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Rev. 22:1)
So the work of the Church is therapeutic. It seeks to heal men’s sicknesses, mainly those of the soul, which torment them. This is the basic teaching of the New Testament and of the Fathers of the Church. In what follows in this chapter as well as in other chpaters many passages from the Fathers will bring out this truth.
(John Romanides) says: “Having faith in Christ without undergoing healing in Christ is not faith at all. Here is the same contradiction that we find when a sick person who has great confidence in his doctor never carries out the treatment which he recommends. If Judaism and its successor, Christianity, had appeared in the twentieth century for the first time, they would most likely have been characterised not as religions but as medical sciences related to psychiatry. They would have a wide influence on society owing to their considerable successes in healing the ills of the partially functioning personality. In no way can prophetic Judaism and Christianity be construed as religions that use various magical methods and beliefs to promise escape from a supposed world of matter and evil or hypocrisy into a supposed spiritual world of security and success.”
In another work the same professor says: “The patrisitic tradition is neither a social philosphy nor an ethical system, nor is it religious dogmatism: it is a therapeutic treatment… The spiritual energy of the soul that prays unceasingly in the heart is a physiological instrument which everyone has and which requires healing. Neither philosophy nor any of the known positive or social sciences is capable of healing this instrument. That can only be done through the Fathers’ neptic and ascetic teaching. Therefore those who are not healed usually do not even know of the existence of this instrument.”
So in the Church we are divided into the sick, those undergoing therapeutic treatment, and those – saints – who have already been healed. “The Fathers do not categorize people as moral and immoral or good and bad on the basis of moral laws. This division is superficial. At depth humanity is differentiated into the sick in soul, those being healed and those healed. All who are not in a state of illumination are sick in soul… It is not only good will, good resolve, moral practice and devotion to Orthodox Tradition which make an Orthodox, but also purification, illumination and deification. These stages of healing are the purpose of the mystical life of the Church, as the liturgical texts bear witness.”
debd said,
November 28, 2007 at 6:13 pm
This was very beautiful. I had a moment of clarity this past Sunday that was very much along these lines in connection with confession.
thanks for sharing and thanks for commenting on my blog.
Andrea Elizabeth said,
November 28, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Confession really is good for the soul, such a relief.
jacob said,
November 29, 2007 at 8:29 pm
I got my copy a couple weeks ago, but haven’t tackled it yet. Hopefully it will make me more able to handle FREE CHOICE IN ST. MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR and THE DISPUTATION WITH PYRRHUS.
Don said,
December 1, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Truth!
Even though I’ve only been back to the church just under two years, I cannot imagine not being there on Sundays (and feast days, when I can make it). It is a hospital for our souls. I know. I am one of her sickest patients.
Thanks for posting this Andrea. It’s posts like these that keep me forgining ahead in an effort to “get well soon.”
Andrea Elizabeth said,
December 1, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Jacob – I accidentally responded on the wrong thread a few days ago! Don’t know if you saw it, “I haven’t read past the introduction to the Disputation yet, I want to finish it.”
Don – No, I’m the sickest.
David_Bryan said,
December 2, 2007 at 10:18 pm
No, I am!
Excellent excerpt; now Audra wants to read this book! Wouldn’t mind perusing it myself, either…
Glad I got to see y’all this afternoon in my post-Mass swing-through…
David_Bryan said,
December 2, 2007 at 10:19 pm
…didn’t get to finish the comment…
…Hope is feeling better, though still not 100%.
Andrea Elizabeth said,
December 2, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Bryan, Glad you swung by even though you’d gone elsewhere to Mass, I mean Liturgy!
A lot of “Orthodox Psychotherapy” is available online on my sidebar – it’s a little abridged and missing a few chapters. I read pretty slow, especially theology books so I don’t know when it’ll be available to borrow. I have a few books started right now, but I keep gravitating back to this one, I should just focus on it and finish it.
I’m glad the Hopester is doing better.