I’m really grateful for the opportunity to speak on this topic, because what I will do as shortly, simply, clearly as I can is to share with you my convictions on this topic, about teaching doctrine today, in the world that we live in, and about teaching doctrine generally, and about Christian doctrine. I relish this opportunity because it allows me to share with you my convictions on this subject, which at this point in my life are rather strong, as you may well see. Because all my life—I’ve been a priest for 45 years; I taught theology formally for 34 in theological school. I was—you heard there what my duties were, and I can tell you that I’m still struggling with this issue, and I can tell you that if I had to do it all over again, I would do it very differently than I did. And I think that we who teach, whether it’s children in parishes, communities, families, whether it’s students of undergraduate level, and whether it’s seminarians preparing for ministry, for men and women for Church ministry, or even graduate work, doctoral work—I think there are certain things over this last 50 years since I entered the seminary myself that I have become convinced about, and I’m just going to share them with you.

So what can I tell you? Before I tell you what I think about teaching doctrine and Church doctrine, I would like to just give you a list of twelve points—quickly, I’ll just state them—which I think are absolutely essentially for those who are teaching and for those who are learning Christian faith and Christian doctrine, and for those who would want to know and who would want to test, who would want to do an experiment, so to speak, trying to find out for themselves whether or not the Christian faith is the truth, whether indeed Jesus is, as he says on the pages of the canonical Scripture, the truth: “I am the truth.” If this would be the truth, if this would be real, what is necessary for a person to come to know that for herself or for himself?

And of course, what we want to say from the very beginning is: You have to come to know it for yourself if you’re serious. You can’t be repeating other people’s words, you can’t be using, as Nietzsche said, a great criticism of Christians: they’re always bragging about someone else’s blood. We have to come to know it for our self, and if we do believe that the very Gospel of God in Jesus is that we can know the truth and the truth will free us, and we can know God, and that, knowing God—not knowing about God; there’s a difference: to know about something is one thing; to know it is another—but we are allegedly able and blessed by grace, by faith, by all the things we have to do, we can come to know God.

And according to St. John’s gospel, this is life. This is life, according to the gospels and the saints. If you don’t know God, you’re not alive. You may be existing, maybe acting, you may be like we say nowadays computing and consuming and calculating and copulating, but you’re not living—you’re not living. So this is eternal life: to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, and therefore to know what everything is all about, because the claim would be that unless you do know God—this would be the Christian claim—then you’re in delusion generally. You don’t know who you yourself are—and to come to know one’s self is, according to St. Isaac of Syria, a greater miracle than raising the dead—and to know what everything is about, to have the insight into the significance, the logos of things. This is what we claim that we are called to, and that’s what we’re going to be thinking about and talking about these days.

But I would like to begin just by making this list because I think it’s important, and I could tell you that, as Fr. John said, I get questions from people. I’m an old man by now, know a lot of people, have a lot of students and been around, so I get questions, and nowadays email—you get a lot of questions! [Laughter] And the questions come and they’ll ask, “You know, I work with Mary and I have a question on why you guys believe that unbaptized babies burn in hell. Could you answer me, and I’m also worried why you worship Mary, and I’d like to also know why…” whatever, whatever, “and Mary says you could answer my questions, you’re a nice guy,” or whatever, you know. So I get a lot of those things, and they come sometimes from people who claim to be Christians themselves, Orthodox people, some Catholics perhaps, and others. So there are—sometimes questions are coming from people who have some kind of connection with Christian faith, but they also have confusion about it; they have questions about it. Then sometimes they just come from people who maybe were in Christian churches and left them, or sometimes they’ll come from people who are, you know, they read the Philokalia and they were out meditating in India somewhere, and they want to know what we do and why we do it, because they have some type of nostalgia for Christianity in their gut or something.

So I get all these kind of questions, and I would just like to tell you, since this is going to be a very personal talk today—I hope you forgive me, but it’ll be a very personal talk; it’s what I’m convinced of personally—I just want to tell you, what I do now when I get those kind of questions, I send them back a piece of email or I tell them on the phone or whatever that I would gladly, if God and time permit, this gospel can be discussed, or give some recommendation about someone where you live to talk to or whatever. But I tell them this; I say: However, I would like to ask you to do this, and I’d like to tell you that at this point that I believe that unless you do these things that I’m going to tell you right now, I don’t want to talk to you, because it’s a waste of time. It’s a waste of my time; it’s a waste of your time. We’re going to get nowhere in my conviction, my opinion, unless you do these things, and do them seriously, because this is serious business that we’re into. It’s a matter of life and death! It’s not like winning the gold medal at the Olympics or something, which people sacrifice incredibly for, but then they want an answer in four lines on email what it has to do with God Almighty and life and death.

So I tell them that this is what I’d like you to do, and if you’re willing to do it, and you do do it, then perhaps we can talk; perhaps if you do it, we won’t need to talk, but in any case, I would ask you to do this. And this is what I asked them to do, and therefore, obviously, by extension, it’s what I would ask you to do! And I think that—forgive me, but the prayer said we’re supposed to be straightforward? [Laughter] I was recently at a meeting of the St. John Chrysostom Society, which is Eastern Rite Catholics and Latin Catholics and Eastern Orthodox and Orientals in Ohio that we have such an association, and I was there. I wasn’t speaking, but I participated, listened to the talk about Cardinal Newman’s history, teaching on the development of dogma or something. Anyway, as I was leaving, some of the guys were walking out to the car, and they didn’t know that I heard what they said. One of them said to the other, “Geez, isn’t it a shame that Fr. Tom’s not very straightforward?” [Laughter] Being ironic, obviously? But in any case, we’ve got to be straightforward, and when you’re straightforward, you can’t worry about nuance, and you’ve got to look at the clock. So this is what I would say, straightforwardly.

First of all, we all have to be doing this, and this never stops. This never stops until our last breath, but it’s certainly where everybody has to begin. First of all, there has to be a desire to know, and a person has to be willing to count the cost and pay the price and make the sacrifice. It doesn’t just happen. It doesn’t just happen. We are free beings made in the image and likeness of God, and as one of my friends likes to say, “We do not believe—Christians don’t believe in the Magician, the Mechanic, and the Fairy Godmother.” We believe in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and we are free, and it’s a battle, and the world, the flesh, and every demon in hell is trying to get us to be crazy, insane, lost, deluded. So we’re engaged in something incredibly difficult, and of course, to jump ahead here, we’d definitely say that for the Christian tradition that I come from, Orthodoxy, and I come also, at least by blood, if you’re talking about blood, from my four grandparents went to four different churches… [Laughter] Mama’s mother was a very staunch, I would even say fanatical, Ukrainian Catholic; her husband was a Ruthenian Greek Catholic, and they went to two different churches their whole adult life. [Laughter] My father’s father was a follower of Alexis Toth, and he founded the Russian Orthodox church in his town, but then when he grew up, the Carpathian-Rusyn group made their church, and because of singing and stuff they moved to that one. So I had four different churches in my blood system.

In any case, what I’d want to say is that the desire is everything. According to the Scripture, if a person is hungering and thirsting after righteousness, they will find it. However, it’s a matter of blood. Theology is not written in ink; it’s written in blood. Theology isn’t studied; it’s suffered. It’s suffered, and it’s only through many afflictions that you could come to a knowledge of the truth. It’s not a walk through the park; it’s not.

So there is a great cost, and so I would say, if a person is not ready to pay the price, is not ready to do what they would clearly be told to do if they came to a Christian and asked them, “What should I do?”… For example, on Pentecost, a voice in the crowd says to Peter, “What should I do?” Well, he told them! He said, “Change your mind. Repent. Believe! Trust what I say to you, and be baptized, which means die.” Die! Die with Jesus. I can’t resist saying here, because it’s Andrey Sheptytsky Institute, that one of the most marvelous—I used to teach hagiology, too—one of the most marvelous legends of saints is Andrew, St. Andrew the Apostle. It’s marvelous, because when they’re finally going to kill him, the tyrranos, the persecutor says to him, “You know, I can crucify you. I can crucify you, and I will, unless you recant of your insanity.” And Andrew answers and says to him, “If I were ashamed or afraid of the cross and being crucified, I would not glory or preach the One who was crucified!” That’s what he told him.

So then this persecutor looks at him and he says, “You are totally insane! You’ve lost your mind.” He said, “How can you believe that the corpse of a bloody Jew, rejected by his own people, thrown out of the holy city, put to death at the hands of the Roman government, with malefactors and thieves as some kind of alleged king, which is a shame according to every possible human condition including the law of Moses—how can you claim that that is the truth?” He said, “You’ve lost your mind.” And Andrew answers and says to him, “No, Your Excellency, I found my mind. I have found my mind. I have found it. I didn’t lose it; I found it.” And then he says to him, “How can you possibly believe such a thing? How can you possibly be ready to be crucified for such a conviction?” And the answer of Andrew is probably the only thing we need to learn or hear today; if we don’t hear anything else, we’ve got to hear St. Andrew’s answer. He says to the persecutor, the tyrranos, he says to him, “Become his disciple, and you will know—but don’t become his disciple and you’ll never know.”

So you have to trust him, take his mind, give yourself to him, whatever the cost, and be ready to pay it. Now here there’s a big mystery, which perhaps we can’t get into, of why certain people are motivated to do that and other people don’t seem to be, and sometimes including, I don’t know, children of committed Orthodox or Catholic or Christian people or priests or whatever. There’s a mystery here of how that happens, which maybe we can talk about it later. I frankly think that the mystery is very simply solved, is that we do what we do in life because of people that we meet. And how happy are those who met someone who said, “I want to be like that. I want to have what that person has. I want to see what that person sees,” and they’re ready to do what’s necessary to have that happen. But who knows how that happens?

But in any case we’ve got to be ready, vowing to do what it takes and—this is important, for number one—following what we learn and see. You can’t get into it to discuss it, as one of the Desert Fathers, Felix, said; you’ve got to be in it to do it. Some people went to see this old man, and they said, “Give us a word,” and he said, “There’s no word for you.” And they said, “Well, why not? We came all the way across this desert, and came all the way out here to Ottawa… to ask you a question: give us a word, and ‘there’s no word for you’?” “No, no words,” he says. “There’s no words for practically anybody any more.” And they said, “But, Father, why? In the old days, people went to the old man and asked the old man for a word, and the old man gave them a word. And now there’s no words?” And this Abba Felix said, “Yep. There’s no words.” And they said, “But why?” And he said, “Because, in the old days, they came asking for a word in order to do it. Now they come asking for a word in order to discuss it.” In discussion groups, with motivators, directors, facilitators, leaders, and feedback and input. [Laughter] If that’s the case, there is no word. There is no word. God does not waste his words; he doesn’t waste his breath, his Spirit; he doesn’t waste his divine energies on people who are messing around. He doesn’t.

Therefore, we have to not only do what it takes to hear, but we have to be ready to do! And here there’s lots of stuff, but most of the stuff we don’t really understand, can’t get it, and are still confused about at the age of 69. But there’s plenty of stuff that’s clear enough, and the parts that are clear, you’ve got to do. You have to do.

The second thing is there has to be hungering and thirsting, and that’s called prayer. You know the cliché already—it’s a cliché by Evagrius, by the way, who was himself not canonized—said those who pray are truly theologians, and theologians are those who pray. And a creature is, by definition, a person of prayer. If God exists and I’m his creature, then my life is prayer. My life is a relation with God, to do God’s will; that’s what it is. So there has to be prayer.

Now, if a person is really doubting even whether God exists, they still have to pray, or at least that’s what I tell them: You’ve got to say, “To whom it may concern…” [Laughter] “If you are there, teach me, guide me, but I want you as you are. I don’t want a figment of my own imagination. I don’t want something that my parents or my culture or my tradition foisted on me. I don’t want the lies that have come across even through churches. I want you as you are, and kill me, but I want you—you, nothing else!” So that kind of prayer has to be there. If that prayer is not there, forget it: we’re playing games. So prayer is absolutely essential, and then that prayer has to be: whatever happens, happens.

Then, in addition to prayer, number three would be: You must—we must—be constantly reading the New Testament. Not the Fathers, not the canons, not The Rudder, not the Typikon, not the Ustav—the word of God. And I would say that if a person is at a point of crisis, like someone who would send an email, even if they’re asking about why do you worship Mary and believe that babies are burned or something, I would say: I’d like you to read it through slowly at least three times. At least three times, very slowly. Take your time. Whatever you don’t understand, let it go, but what you do understand, put it into practice. And be willing to make that experiment. Be willing to make that experiment.

And here, this will be something that I will really stress as soon as I finish these introductory points, and that is that the whole of Christian doctrine begins with the Person of Jesus Christ as given to us on the pages of Scripture that, according to our Church Traditions, is according to the canon of faith of Christ and the Gospel, of the apostles themselves. So in other words, the New Testament, particularly the gospels, are an interpretation of the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, because Jesus of Nazareth, with whom we have to deal as a Jew, and he’s Israel’s Messiah. Some people near the Carpathian mountains still don’t like that, but he’s a Jew. [Laughter]

Now here reading while praying this way and desiring, you have to do it slowly, not be bothered with what you don’t understand, and put into practice what you do. During this time, I’d also ask you to go to church. Stand there. Listen to it. If you’re having troubles with the saying during this period, do not sing, do not serve, do not chant, do not be on any committee, and don’t go to any organization, and do not discuss religion at all during this period of your life. Go to church and stand there, and if you hear one more “Lord, have mercy” and you feel like throwing up, throw up! [Laughter] But stand there. Stand there. And let the word of God lacerate you. It’s a two-edged sword, and you go there to get lacerated. It ain’t relaxation, rest, and prayer. If you see a church with a sign like that, sue ‘em. [Laughter] Liturgy as we learned it is hard work, and it’s blood to the end.