Orthodoxy

I cannot begin to sum up this utterly fascinating account of a mystifying and ultimately tragic chapter in the history of ideas, so the best thing for you to do is to go, and go now, to read Oren Harmon's review essay in the The New Republic about how an arguably heretical sect of Russian Orthodox monks on Mount Athos inadvertently led to amazing breakthroughs in mathematical theory -- until the Russian mathematicians doing the revolutionary work on the concept of infinity were killed by Stalin. Excerpt:

Throwing himself into set theory back in Moscow, Luzin maintained strong ties with Florensky, and here is where the escapades of the monks of the Aegean return to our story. It is not clear precisely when both men first learned of Name Worshipping, but already in 1906 they enjoyed calling each other by names other than their own. When news of the rebellion on Mount Athos reached Russia in 1913, Florensky spoke up publicly in its favor, and befriended monks who had endured firsthand the navy’s brutal attack on St. Pantaleimon. Soon two worlds were becoming entwined. Lebesgue had asked whether a mathematical object could exist without defining (meaning naming) it, and now the answer was becoming clear. Just as naming God via glossolalian repetition was a religious act that brought the deity into existence, so naming sets via increasingly recursive definitions was a mathematical act that conferred a reality in the world of numbers. Cantor and before him the ancient Neoplatonists had shown the way, but this was only the beginning. Infused with mysticism, Florensky believed, new forms of mathematics and religion were being born, ones that by rejecting determinism would rescue mankind from catastrophe. In both cases—God and infinity—the key to bringing abstractions into reality was bestowing upon them a name. 

The book Harmon is reviewing is a history of science called "Naming Infinity: A True Story of Religious Mysticism and Mathematical Creativity." Judging from the review essay, the book makes a powerful case for why the search for knowledge has to include insights from the world of religion. One never knows where creative sparks can come from. Think of what the militantly atheist Bolshevik regime cost the world of mathematics with his violent anti-religious bigotry! It's also interesting to contemplate the effect on intellectual history, for better or for worse, of the Russian Orthodox hierarchy's condemnation of the so-called "Name Worshipping" sect on Athos: they condemned them and had the Imperial Navy haul the Name Worshippers back to Russia and punished. Harmon:

Understanding what lies beyond the beyond is a problem that demands extraordinary talent, perhaps even genius. But as Naming Infinity so sensitively shows, escaping the world we live in, and the exacting parameters of reason, can sometimes lead to surprising results. As powerful as the gift of rationalism may be, there is still more in heaven and earth. 

Here's a long video talk that MIT historian of science Loren Graham gave about religion, mathematics, creativity and related ideas in "Naming Infinity," of which he's a co-author.

Via The Ochlophobist, here's a searingly honest testimony from a middle-aged Orthodox man who can finally admit to himself that he does not have a true calling to the priesthood. This should be printed out and handed by priests to anyone who comes to them thinking that they are being called to ministry. Excerpts:

You see, even in grade school I wanted to be a priest so I would be seen and regarded as "a priest".  For nearly 50 years the priesthood was a goal that would fulfill my self-perception.  I "knew" I was called to the priesthood at age six, and I continued to "know" it for the next 50 years. It didn't happen in the Catholic Church. I did a stint in ministry in a protestant church. But as sure as I knew I was "called", I also knew I wanted other people to know I was called.  Someone once asked, "How do I know if the fire I have inside is from God?"  It is whether you want other people to notice the fire.  I know this because I confess that I wanted people to notice the fire. And a lot of people did. And it both confirmed my "knowing" and convicted me of my falsehood.

Since becoming Orthodox, over the years laypeople, monks, abbotts and abbesses, priests and even bishops fed my delusion by trying to get me ordained. But I knew with a knowing deeper than my private lies to myself that it was my ego calling me, not God. In a dark place I knew that those who wished me the priesthood were responding to a well crafted facade, an illusion of piety, a chameleon-competence in putting on appearances and role playing. They only knew me for minutes at a time, perhaps a few hours now and then. Construction work paid well, it is honorable labor, but the priesthood would give me a true identity, the robe would affirm to others my self perception as a "spiritual person" better than paint crusted jeans and a stained T-shirt. I would be at the altar, I would be talking up in the front.
 

He goes on to talk about how in his first marriage, he wanted to be an ordained minister so badly that it came between him and his wife, who told him he didn't have a calling. His marriage ended in part because he resented her lack of support, but today he says:

After 35 years, I now know she was right and all the bishops, monks, priests and elders since her were wrong.  I am not fit for the priesthood.  My intimate community knew what those who have "authority" didn't.  But I didn't want to hear my community, I wanted to hear what I wanted to hear, even if I knew it was false.
 

More:

 On a spiritual level, I look at what it means to be the "husband of one wife" and to "rule one's household well" as a qualification for the priesthood and I see the genius of the requirement.  It is simply Ephesians 5: if I am not willing to give up the priesthood for the sake of the love for my wife, then how can I imagine that I will be able to love the Church and my spiritual family with maturity and with integrity and in truth?  In the one case I am posing as a husband, in the other I am posing as a priest. The proving ground of the priesthood of the Church is the priesthood of home and family. If I do not love my wife enough to sacrifice myself for her sake, I am a poser as a husband. If I cannot sacrifice in marriage, I cannot sacrifice myself for the Church. In both situations it is about "ME", not love... and in the end a man will lose both his first church and his second ordination and spiritual family.

There are stories of men who were forcibly dragged to the altar and ordained.  I have been forcibly dragged to my true altar. I now wear the vestments of my true priesthood willingly. These are the vestments of a true priest.  These are the most difficult to wear because they have a hidden glory.

A lot of this resonates with me. When I was in my twenties, and a Catholic, I thought a lot about becoming a priest, or a monk. I think a lot of it had to do with the romance of monasticism, inasmuch as reading Merton's "The Seven Storey Mountain" was instrumental in my conversion. I wanted to be a family man too, though, and I struggled with giving up that dream. More deeply, I find I have trouble loving people whom I don't find lovable, and that is not a disposition a true priest can have. Of course I eventually married and started a family, and came to understand that I didn't actually have a vocation to the priesthood. Over the years, I've thought back on the longings I had to be a priest in my single days, and I believe that they were mostly egotistical, along the lines that the man above, Steven Robinson, confesses.

That really hit home with me a couple of years back when I read something the late Orthodox Father Alexander Schmemann recorded in his journal. If I remember correctly, a young man had come to him expressing a desire to become a monk. Father Schmemann recommended to the man that he go rent an apartment in a poor part of town and live as the poor do, sharing their lives and experiences, and ministering to them in ordinary street clothes. I don't remember how that ended up, but when I read that, I knew in my heart of hearts that I didn't have it in me to be either a priest or a monk. I am far too vain and selfish and a lover of comfort. Maybe I could have lived that kind of life had I been able to wear a monk's robes -- something to mark me out as in that life, but not of it. But the brilliance of Father Schmemann's test was to see if the aspiring monk had the humility to live the life of a poor man without the outward status of a consecrated religious.
 

Earlier I blogged about the gay priest situation in the Catholic Church. Maybe the Church is wrong to expect celibacy and chastity from its priests. I think priests should be allowed to marry, and thought that when I was a Catholic, but I also believe it is completely unacceptable, based on Scripture and Tradition, for ordained clergy (or anyone, but especially ordained clergy) to have sexual relations outside of Christian marriage. Whatever one's view of celibacy is, as long as the rule mandates clerical celibacy, then honorable Catholic priests are duty-bound to observe it. If a man is not willing to give up everything for the priesthood -- including his sexual freedom -- then that is prima facie evidence that he does not have a calling. Period. The priesthood is a sacred vocation, not a career. We all have opportunities to serve God and others in our own lives, but we are not all called to serve as ordained priests. Not even if we want to.