Father Alexander Schmemann defines theology as “the expression of faith in rational terms; not its subordination to reason, but the extension, rather, of reason itself to the dimensions of revelation.” (p72)
At the time of Origenism in the east and Montanism in the west, “thought had not yet caught up with faith, and words were helpless to express experience. Faith comes before theology, and only for that reason may we speak of theological development as the gradual acceptance, discovery, and refinement of faith, which has been complete from the start…It was difficult to find words to express the faith, and centuries would be required to remake thought itself in the spirit of Christianity.” (p 74)
(P 98) Christianity adopted and assimilated many forms of pagan religion, not only because they were the external forms of religion in general, but also because the intention of Christianity itself was not to replace all forms in this world by new ones, but fill them with new and true meaning. With Constantine, the Christian Church emerged into full view and ceased to be a place of semi-secret meetings, so that gradually it became the center of religious life in the city. In the Church building, man’s whole life received a religious sanction. The Church gatherings in it gradually came to coincide with gatherings of citizens. The martyr who had suffered in this city was naturally distinguished from the throng of martyrs as its own saint, the spiritual patron of the city. “For all and in behalf of all” naturally came to include their daily needs and embraced man’s whole life; government, social, or economic. The idea itself was admittedly borrowed from paganism…BUT by responding to all the needs of this world and assuming the function previously performed by paganism, the Church united everything from within with the Good News, and placed the Image of Christ [read: example of Christ] in the center of life. The cult of the saints provided the Church with the same signposts to Truth as Hindu polytheism provides towards an Atman. The difference is that when citizens follow saints they are led towards eternal and immutable words about the Savior crucified for our sins – about the perfect love God has shown us – and the goal for each individual as a living being. The sins of the Saints retain their personal application; their prayers live on not as some universal application to a truth into which we dissolve post-mortem, but instead to a call for each human being to recognize their individuality, not only as a sinner falling short of their potential thru-Christ, but more importantly as an individual with gifts he or she is failing to provide for a common stranger on the roadway.
A delicate balance exists between the appearance of our veneration to those lacking initiation / illumination and the significance of venation to the inner Spirit of an Orthodox participant. “Any divergence between form and content, or the emergence of form as value and goal in itself, is paganism.” (p186)
