[Gregorian] (No classes)

 (No classes, all students on campus)

 (All students on campus)

 (All programs)

(MDiv / MA/ ThM)

This essay, by Dn. Evan J. Freeman, seminary alumnus (M.Div. ’09, Th.M. ’12), reminds us of the recent Gospel admonition heard on the “Sunday of the Last Judgment”: “I was a stranger and you took me in.” (Matt 25:35). Deacon Evan, who is a Ph.D. candidate at Yale University and also the lecturer in Liturgical Arts at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, explains how the sacred arts—at times through powerful imagery—can proclaim God’s Word in every age.

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ (Gospel of Matthew, chapter 25)

I recently visited Cologne Cathedral, a towering Gothic edifice and UNESCO World Heritage Site overlooking the Rhine in western Germany. Begun in 1248 but not completed until 1880, it was the tallest building in the world from 1880-1884 and remains one of the world’s largest churches to this day. Pilgrims and tourists flock to the cathedral daily, both to pray but also to admire its impressive architecture and numerous other masterpieces of sacred art contained within. On my recent visit, two artworks in particular struck me—one medieval and the other postmodern—that each highlight the vital role of artistic creativity in Christianity’s perennial quest to understand and proclaim God’s eternal Word in every age

The renowned Gero Cross was at the top of my list of things to see in Cologne Cathedral (recently discussed by Annika Elisabeth Fisher in “Cross Altar and Crucifix in Ottonian Cologne—Past Narrative, Present Ritual, Future Resurrection”). Probably commissioned by Archbishop Gero around 970 to stand above an altar dedicated to the Crucifixion, the Gero Cross is now set in a Baroque frame and situated north of the high altar. Carved in oak then painted and gilded, the life-size sculpture renders the dead Christ with striking naturalism. Christ’s distended stomach projects outward toward the viewer, while His taught arm muscles strain to support the weight of His lifeless body. Eyes closed, His head slumps in death.

To the modern tourist walking through Cologne Cathedral, the Gero Cross might seem like just another medieval crucifix, a traditional Christian image from a time long past. But it would be wrong to dismiss the Gero Cross as a conservative work, since it was remarkably innovative in its own time. Before the Ottonian period (919-1024), sculpture in the round had been virtually absent from Christian art, still carrying connotations of pagan idolatry. The Gero Cross marks a period of revival of freestanding statuary in the Christian artistic tradition.

Depicting a dead Christ was also a relatively recent innovation. Images of the dead Christ on the cross emerged in Byzantium in the post-Iconoclastic period as a means of emphasizing Christ’s human nature. They also appeared in the west in the ninth century in conjunction with theological writings like Paschasius Radbertus’s ninth-century De Corpore et Sanguine Domini that emphasized the real presence of Christ’s body in the Eucharist. What’s more, an eleventh-century text called the Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg (written between 1012 and 1018, just a few decades before the Eucharistic debates erupted between Berengar of Tours and Lanfranc in the mid-eleventh century) suggests that the Gero Cross once contained a relic of the True Cross and some of the consecrated bread of the Eucharist. This inclusion of relic and Eucharist made the Gero Cross more than a mere depiction of Christ, and instead transformed it into a kind of reliquary and proto-monstrance (anticipating the appearance of monstrances in the fourteenth century that displayed the Eucharistic bread for veneration).

We can only imagine how surprising and compelling the Gero Cross, with its triple presentation of Christ in image, relic, and Eucharist, must have been to its original medieval audience. Today, crowds of tourists dutifully stop beneath it to consult their guidebooks (or smartphones) for a moment or two before moving on to the next attraction.

But on my recent visit to Cologne, a much newer artwork also attracted crowds of visitors, and it caught my attention too. Installed in 2016 and located just north of the church’s west entrance, the title of the installation is projected on the floor in multiple languages beginning with German: Christus sitzt im Flüchtlingsboot, “Christ sits in the refugee boat.” Drawing close to the installation, the viewer encounters a small, wooden boat resting on the stone floor of the Gothic church like a Duchamp readymade. The boat is entirely unremarkable, except for its curious presence within the Gothic cathedral.

A caption beside the boat reads:

This fishing boat was confiscated by the Maltese Army in the Mediterranean Ocean. Smugglers were using it on the route from Libya to Italy. The boat is seven meters long and carried up to 100 people. The refugees had no protection from sun, storm or cold. They were not allowed to bring anything, not even food or water. So many people were packed on the boat on the trip over that some suffocated and many survivors collapsed from being unable to breathe.

Some visitors peer into the boat. Despite the title, Christ is nowhere to be found. Flüchtlingsboot is an image of Christ without a Christ. Or rather, Flüchtlingsboot is a kind of mirror, revealing Christ in the twenty-first century viewer’s own time and place. A projector shines photographs of refugees onto the wall behind the boat, evoking Christ’s words in Matthew’s Gospel: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger [xenos] and you welcomed me… as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:35-40). Through these projected images, Flüchtlingsboot invites the viewer to acknowledge Christ in the stranger and to practice hospitality (philoxenia), or “love of the stranger,” as commanded by God in the Hebrew Scriptures (e.g. Gen. 18; Exod. 22:21; Lev. 19:33-34, 23:22, 25.35; Deut. 10:19, 14:19, 23:7, 24:14-22, 27:19; Job 31:32; Ps. 94:1-6, 146:9; Wis. 19:13-14; Isa. 58:7; Ezek. 22:7-22; Zech. 7:9-10; and Mal. 3:5), as well as in the New Testament (e.g. Luk. 10:25-37; Rom. 12:13; 1 Tim. 3:2, 5:10; Tit. 1:8; Heb. 13:2; 1 Pet. 4:9; and 3 Jn. 1:5).

Combining a found object with projected words and images, the multimedia Flüchtlingsboot is unapologetically postmodern in format. Its power lies precisely in its poignant combination of otherwise disparate elements. The work’s caption transforms a seemingly ordinary fishing boat into a tangible illustration of the migrant’s suffering. Even more than an illustration, the boat is an actual artifact of human suffering, a kind of contact relic akin to the piece of the True Cross inside the Gero Cross. But whereas Gero’s life-size scale and illusionistic carving thrusts an emphatically kataphatic image of the suffering Christ into the physical space of the viewer, Flüchtlingsboot answers with an apophatic vision of Christ, an absence that urges the viewer to look beyond the artwork and into the faces of his or her fellow human beings represented by the projected photographs of refugees. On my recent visit to Cologne, Flüchtlingsboot’s effectiveness was manifest in the constant stream of pilgrims and tourists who gathered around the boat to contemplate the refugee’s plight, offer prayers, and place alms in the nearby collection box for Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS).

Although they both claim to represent Christ, the Gero Cross and Christus sitzt im Flüchtlingsboot are two very different works, serving distinct liturgical functions and aimed at unique historical audiences. The Gero Cross employs medieval materials and techniques to create an illusionistic cult image originally intended for a cross altar in Cologne’s Ottonian cathedral. It combines image, relic, and Eucharist to offer the viewer an embodied encounter with the crucified Christ that evokes medieval descriptions of Christ’s physical presence in the Eucharist.

In contrast, Flüchtlingsboot is a postmodern, multimedia installation that greets tourists and pilgrims alike at the entrance of the cathedral and challenges them to recognize Christ in the suffering refugee before they seek Him in iconic works like the Gero Cross or in the Eucharistic bread. Recalling Last Judgment scenes that decorate the entrance portals of Romanesque churches like St. Foy at Conques in France, Flüchtlingsboot confronts those entering Cologne Cathedral with Christ’s stark description of the Last Judgment in Matthew’s Gospel, paraphrased and contextualized by Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, archbishop of Cologne: “Whoever lets people drown in the Mediterranean lets God drown.”

But despite their differences, the Gero Cross and Flüchtlingsboot are both exemplars of the same dynamic Christian artistic tradition that has embraced creativity in every era as a means of communicating the timeless message of the Gospel to contemporary audiences. As the Greek Orthodox iconographer George Kordis recently told me in an interview for the Sacred Arts Initiative, “Tradition is creativity. If there is a tradition with no creativity it is no tradition anymore, it is something dead… Creativity is a basic characteristic of tradition.” In the tenth century, the Gero Cross daringly innovated by employing a novel naturalistic style and three-dimensional format to promote a new theological insight about Eucharistic realism. Through its postmodern combination of found object and projected words and images, Flüchtlingsboot compellingly reveals the crucified Christ in suffering refugees to its twenty-first century audience.

And as we witness the dark tides of nationalism and xenophobia rising across Europe and North America today, Flüchtlingsboot’s powerful call for hospitality—the Biblical mandate to the love the stranger—couldn’t be more timely or more potent.

We are pleased to share a Homily on Luke 18.10–14 by Priest Paul Coats, Alumnus (M.Div. ’08), Assistant Priest at St. Anthony the Great Orthodox Mission, Rock Hill, SC. As we anticipate our Lenten journey, his thoughtful words on “The Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee” offer us a lodestar to understand how to “fulfill all righteousness,” as the Gospel commands.

[9] He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others: [10] “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. [11] The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, `God, I thank thee that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. [12] I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I get.’ [13] But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, `God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ [14] I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted. (Luke 18.10–14)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

In today’s Gospel, Christ tells what must be a shocking parable to many who were doing their best to obey God, as good Jews, and be obedient to the law to the best of their ability. In this parable, it seems that all the best efforts of those trying extra hard to follow God, the Pharisees, are said to be of little value.

With this parable and others like it, for some Christ shattered their whole belief system. He takes someone despised as a lawless sinner, a tax collector, and says that this man can be justified simply by a sincere acknowledgment of his sin, and a request for mercy. This must have been outrageous to those who were convinced that strict obedience to God’s law was the only way to please God and have salvation. After all, isn’t this what all the prophets, beginning with Moses, had said? Isn’t this what God had been communicating with his people all along?

In regard to zealously following the Law and trying to obey the commandments, Christ was on the side of the Pharisee! We must remember that at the very beginning of his teaching ministry, Christ said, Do not think I have come to abolish the Law and the Prophets, I have come to fulfill them. And further, whoever relaxes the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven; he who does them and teaches others to do so, will be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ was pleased with the Pharisee’s good works.

But listen to his next words: For unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. And Christ goes on to talk about the kind of righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees: not only do not kill, but do not even be angry with another. Not only stay chaste in marriage, but do not lust—you must be chaste in your mind, too. Instead of being fair (an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth), suffer injustice. Instead of loving those who love you, love those who hate you. And lest we think the bar is set too high, he simply confirms it: You must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

This is the radical inner righteousness that Christ requires of us.

Christ does not condemn the Pharisee for being honest, just, and moral as the Pharisee claimed himself to be. But the Pharisee’s righteousness was incomplete. His pursuit of righteousness did not lead to love for God or men. He had started down the path of righteousness, toward God, but on the way he took a wrong turn! He had probably started honestly, as many of the Pharisees, such as St. Paul, had started out honestly in pursuit of God. But it had taken such a wrong turn that even someone who had not even started on the path—the tax collector in the story—was ahead of him.

What was the problem here?

One of the things I learned very early growing up in rural northern Illinois was how to find the North Star in the night sky. We would sometimes be out camping or even hiking in the woods at night, and we needed a way to orient ourselves and find our way back home, back to the road, or back to the camp. If we tried to get a sense of direction from things on earth, things around us, the landscape, some lights in the distance, or trees, we were very likely to get lost in the dark. . . things didn’t seem as they really were at night, and so forth. But if we could find the North Star, we could find our way. In other words, it took a permanent, unchanging reference point to find our way; the moon didn’t work, it changed locations constantly . . . the other stars didn’t work, they also changed directions. But the North Star is always in the same location, directly north, and never moves.

How had the Pharisee gotten so far off track? I think it was this: the Pharisee had as his reference point other people, instead of God. He didn’t have his eyes on God’s righteousness and holiness, he had his eyes on other people.

And this was disastrous, because in his sinfulness and pride, this led to exalting himself above others, inwardly condemning others, and despising them. And so therefore he really blew it. Because of this wrong turn, all his good works were useless, because they strayed from the ultimate goal. Not only that, but he had turned 180 degrees and was using his works of righteousness as a weapon against others, to condemn them, and to despise them.

The tax collector, on the other hand, saw no one but God. He wasn’t looking at the Pharisee . . . he didn’t even physically look up to God, out of shame. But this was because God was too present in his vision. It’s safe to say the only thing in his mind, the only thing in his inner vision, was God and his righteousness. And making God his reference point, he was able to honestly pray the prayer, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. And here, we have what is essentially the Jesus Prayer, one more time. In recent Sundays we heard it from the blind beggar, we heard it from the Canaanite woman, and today we have it from Christ’s own words, which he put in the mouth of the tax collector as he tells this story.

This story that Christ tells should never be used to somehow try to promote “having faith” over and against good works. This is a false opposition. Christ commanded good works. Good works are meant to be a means to learn true love of God and others, just as the Law was also meant as a means to learn to love God, for the Jews. Orthodox spirituality teaches that we cannot cultivate love for God in our hearts without overt acts of mercy and service to others. In two weeks, we will hear the parable of the Last Judgment to drive this home.

But this parable is a strong warning from Christ that our good works can become a curse if we turn from our true reference point; that good works are meant to lead us to repentance, not self-justification; that our good works are a necessary beginning, and paradoxically the end fruit, of a heart turned toward God, a heart that recognizes its own need for God, a heart that truly loves God with everything it has, and other people as well.

So today Christ warns us strongly about comparing ourselves to others. . . using others, instead of God, as our reference point. I have found this to be very subtle. Do you find yourself subtly judging others? This is an inward disposition that leaves no room for true love. It’s destructive to others because it is not loving them; it’s destructive to ourselves, because it breeds a confidence in oneself, a trusting in ourselves for our own salvation.

Not everyone struggles with this. There are those who have been given the grace of compassion and full acceptance of others. But for those of us who do struggle with it, it is one of the hardest things to stop. When we see someone who bothers us, or who is so different from us in personality and interests and approach, we may almost involuntarily and automatically judge that person. But we become the Pharisee in the parable when we do that.

I have one suggestion in this regard: one of the quickest cures for this is to pray for people we are tempted to judge, and ask God to bless them with all the same things that we ask God to bless us with. Inwardly, then, we’re giving to that person, serving them, and not judging and condemning them. It’s a double blessing—we are released from the sin of comparison, judgment, condemnation and pride, and they are the recipients of a prayer heard by God, and God will honor that prayer in the way best for both the one who prays and the one prayed for.

Brothers and sisters, we are in the preparatory Sundays leading up to Great Lent. We will soon be saying the prayer of St. Ephraim, which ends with “grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother.” Let us begin to prepare, then, by trying to set aside the comparing of ourselves to others, completely. Let us set our eyes on the true reference point, our Lord Jesus Christ. The more we do this, the more we will be able to pray the prayer of the tax collector with sincerity, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. We will not inwardly exalt ourselves over others, and our good works will be a blessing to us and to others and will lead to the love of God. May Christ strengthen us all for this. AMEN.