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Dave_in_Dallas
Guest
I’ve heard the phrase about an Eastern or Orthodox Worldview – but I’m not quite sure I know how it differs from a “Western” view – from a daily practical standpoint.
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Wesley7
Guest
I could use a dictionary of Theological terms. What do we mean? The Church on Earth the Divine Liturgy, Chant, Prayers, Praxis etc (There is a Western Rite) 
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Vico
Guest
world view comes from weltanschauung, Merriam Webster: a comprehensive conception or apprehension of the world especially from a specific standpoint
The Orthodox standpoint would be that of living a Christian life according to the true faith.
A western worldview is often taken to be materialism.
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Alexander_Roman
Guest
The Eastern Christian weltanschauung, as our Brother Vico put it, is all about Theosis and how this impacts our daily life.
The Eastern Christian worldview focuses on the Holy Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. There is a Trinitarian perspective to God that is emphasized like no where else. Prayers in the East end in the Name of the Holy Trinity. As Fr. Jungmann once wrote, the East has a “social conception of the Deity.”
Christ’s Divine Incarnation, for the East, is also an emphasis on Divinity. Divinity does not demean our humanity, but transfigures and transforms it. In my Latin Catholic high school, my priest-teachers would often “jab” at the Eastern Churches for their “overemphasis” on Christ’s Divinity.
But this is not an emphasis on His Divinity - but on the Divinization of His Humanity and through Him, our Divinization.
We are meant to be deified by partaking in the Body of Christ through the Holy Spirit. The goal of the Christian life is the “acquisition of the Holy Spirit” the Third Divine Person. We have, in fact, a special relationship to each of the Three Divine Persons who are equally glorified and adored by us.
The deifying role of the Holy Spirit is everywhere prevalent in the Eastern Church. The iconography speak to Theosis/Divinization, indeed, all of the Cosmos is transformed through the Divine Son of God, our Lord, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
And this Theosis is a dynamic process - it never ends, not on earth, not even in heaven.
This is why we are called to ceaseless prayer in the Name of the Holy Trinity and in that of Jesus Christ, to frequent Communion of the Most Precious and Most Holy Body and Blood of OLGS Jesus Christ. Everything in our spiritual life is geared toward our Divinization/Theosis in Christ through the Holy Spirit, toward the transformation of those around us, our society, nation, the world in Christ.
For the East, the emphasis is not that Christ “humbled Himself to share in our humanity,” but that He raised us up through His Cross, Resurrection and His Holy Spirit.
The Most Holy Mother of God and the Angels and Saints are the heavenly, deified Communion of the Saints that are continually deified in the Lord and who pray for us, that we might have an ever-abundance of Communion with Christ and acquire the Holy Spirit more and more.
The focus in the West, even with Vatican II, was to bring the Church “into the modern era” and to assess modern society in more positive terms.
That is completely outside the scope of the Eastern Christian worldview. It is the modern world that needs the divinizing Presence of Christ and His Holy Spirit. Without this, the modern world is limited by its pride in its technological achievements which it imagines makes God somehow irrelevant.
The modern world needs to see the world through spiritual eyes in the first instance - it is not for the Church to adapt itself to a world that is grounded in sense-based realities only.
This is what the Christian East holds out to the entire world. The mission of the Christian East is a universal one.
Alex
The Eastern Christian worldview focuses on the Holy Trinity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. There is a Trinitarian perspective to God that is emphasized like no where else. Prayers in the East end in the Name of the Holy Trinity. As Fr. Jungmann once wrote, the East has a “social conception of the Deity.”
Christ’s Divine Incarnation, for the East, is also an emphasis on Divinity. Divinity does not demean our humanity, but transfigures and transforms it. In my Latin Catholic high school, my priest-teachers would often “jab” at the Eastern Churches for their “overemphasis” on Christ’s Divinity.
But this is not an emphasis on His Divinity - but on the Divinization of His Humanity and through Him, our Divinization.
We are meant to be deified by partaking in the Body of Christ through the Holy Spirit. The goal of the Christian life is the “acquisition of the Holy Spirit” the Third Divine Person. We have, in fact, a special relationship to each of the Three Divine Persons who are equally glorified and adored by us.
The deifying role of the Holy Spirit is everywhere prevalent in the Eastern Church. The iconography speak to Theosis/Divinization, indeed, all of the Cosmos is transformed through the Divine Son of God, our Lord, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
And this Theosis is a dynamic process - it never ends, not on earth, not even in heaven.
This is why we are called to ceaseless prayer in the Name of the Holy Trinity and in that of Jesus Christ, to frequent Communion of the Most Precious and Most Holy Body and Blood of OLGS Jesus Christ. Everything in our spiritual life is geared toward our Divinization/Theosis in Christ through the Holy Spirit, toward the transformation of those around us, our society, nation, the world in Christ.
For the East, the emphasis is not that Christ “humbled Himself to share in our humanity,” but that He raised us up through His Cross, Resurrection and His Holy Spirit.
The Most Holy Mother of God and the Angels and Saints are the heavenly, deified Communion of the Saints that are continually deified in the Lord and who pray for us, that we might have an ever-abundance of Communion with Christ and acquire the Holy Spirit more and more.
The focus in the West, even with Vatican II, was to bring the Church “into the modern era” and to assess modern society in more positive terms.
That is completely outside the scope of the Eastern Christian worldview. It is the modern world that needs the divinizing Presence of Christ and His Holy Spirit. Without this, the modern world is limited by its pride in its technological achievements which it imagines makes God somehow irrelevant.
The modern world needs to see the world through spiritual eyes in the first instance - it is not for the Church to adapt itself to a world that is grounded in sense-based realities only.
This is what the Christian East holds out to the entire world. The mission of the Christian East is a universal one.
Alex
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5Loaves
Guest
The Theosis Alex speaks of is much more integrative and holistic in the Eastern world view than in the Western world view. There is a sacramental. liturgical world view, the union of the secular with the the sacred. Part of the genius of the Orthodox, Eastern, life is our liturgical year, the 12 Great Feasts and the fasting and feasting connected to them as well as the other feast days of the year. By and large the fullness of the rhythm of this life lived through the Feasts is all but lost in the West.
If there is one thing the catecheumens in my Latin parish will get from having a Byzantine catechist on the team, myself, it’s that there is meaning in all we do and say-- the concealed revealed, the invisible made visible through the physical which is so much a part of how we touch and experience the great mystery of the Incarnation, of the Divine, 24/7. The emphasis for Latins in the Mass for example is so often on the rubrics, that there is a sort of order to what we should do and everyone has their role and they should follow the order in exercising their role. It’s kind of a means to an end. For us there isn’t any separation in our praxis, we act in the ways that tradition gives us, that these are our roles because this is our most natural relationship with God, allowing us to participate in His Mysteries more fully.
I haven’t looked at it for a while but I really loved Bread & Water, Wine & Oil: An Orthodox Christian Experience of God by Archimandrite Meletios Webber and went back to reread sections many times when I first got it.
Not to be fooled by the title Great Lent: Journey to Pascha by Father Alexander Schmemann looks simply and profoundly at this great season, by which we can understand much more deeply the rest of the year, I think.
I was blest to attend the Orientale Lumen Conference where the theme of the Conference was the Feast Days of the Eastern Church. Four of the plenary sessions are available to view here. (There are lots of other great lectures on the OLTV site.)
If there is one thing the catecheumens in my Latin parish will get from having a Byzantine catechist on the team, myself, it’s that there is meaning in all we do and say-- the concealed revealed, the invisible made visible through the physical which is so much a part of how we touch and experience the great mystery of the Incarnation, of the Divine, 24/7. The emphasis for Latins in the Mass for example is so often on the rubrics, that there is a sort of order to what we should do and everyone has their role and they should follow the order in exercising their role. It’s kind of a means to an end. For us there isn’t any separation in our praxis, we act in the ways that tradition gives us, that these are our roles because this is our most natural relationship with God, allowing us to participate in His Mysteries more fully.
I haven’t looked at it for a while but I really loved Bread & Water, Wine & Oil: An Orthodox Christian Experience of God by Archimandrite Meletios Webber and went back to reread sections many times when I first got it.
Not to be fooled by the title Great Lent: Journey to Pascha by Father Alexander Schmemann looks simply and profoundly at this great season, by which we can understand much more deeply the rest of the year, I think.
I was blest to attend the Orientale Lumen Conference where the theme of the Conference was the Feast Days of the Eastern Church. Four of the plenary sessions are available to view here. (There are lots of other great lectures on the OLTV site.)
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