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Dear
Sir,
It
is refreshing to see such a level of scholarship in
the pages of the ATHENS NEWS. Tim Wilson's reply to
the Mallinson letter is astonishing in length and content.
While I am not certain that I agree with everything
he writes, he makes intelligent reading and begs the
question who in fact lays better claim to the title
‘Professor’! I would like to recommend that readers
of the paper who wish to follow up this debate should
read the two books by Timothy, Bishop Kallistos Ware,
published both in Greek and English. ‘The Orthodox Church’
gives a Western perspective of the History and Theology
of Orthodoxy and was recently revised to take account
of developments in the Russian Church following the
collapse of the USSR, and ‘The Orthodox Way’ compares
Orthodox thought to Western. The Bishop gives more details
to the question of East / West relations but does not,
I think, examine a few questions that Mr Wilson raises,
in particular that of the reception of Catholic converts
to Orthodoxy, and I wonder if Mr Wilson has checked
his own facts on this matter! I am interested to know
what he believes should be an Orthodox attitude to non-Christian
religions. He raises the point (Sept 12) that the Holy
Synod should not make recommendations about the building
-or otherwise- of Mosques, but he does not say what
his ‘preferred position’ is to non-Christians. How,
for example should we deal with mixed marriage between
a Buddhist and an Orthodox? Is he a crypto-dogmatist
himself who only wants to be "friendly" or
does he actually promote greater dialogue, and if so,
to what ends?
And
with respect to the Papal visit I feel that the heated
polemics are not only beside the point but also indicative
of the predicament of the so-called ‘religious’ institutions,
their earthly delegates, their sects and their ‘sectarianisms’
(1): the fact that they are closer to being political
organisations with egocentric and self-perpetuating
intentions rather than spiritual communities whose main
aim is the alleviation of the suffering of mankind.
Indeed, if we meet a person who by his or her actions,
character, spiritual maturity and integrity strikes
us as the embodiment of altruistic love would it not
be foolish to refuse recognition to such a person because
he or she uses a terminology different than ours? (viz.
‘filioque’)
The
greatest danger threatening religions (apart from their
own ‘entropy’ - to use a rather benign expression) is
the dogmaticism of small sects which imagine themselves
to be the sole proprietors of the ‘pure doctrine’ and
who believe their way is the only way. ‘Love’, not only
‘casts away fear,’ but it also casts away arrogance
–
so that if there is spiritual ignorance, then at least
it cannot be harmful to self or others.
And
to round off this letter allow me to quote from the
Lankavatara Sutra (recently translated in Greek by Dr
F. Rossis and published by Pirinos Kosmos Publications):
‘May
every disciple take care not to cling to words, as if
they were a perfect expression of the meaning; because
truth is not in the letters. When a man points to something
with the finger, the tip of the finger may be mistaken
for the thing pointed at. In the same way the ignorant
and simple-minded are like children, incapable of giving
up the idea that in the finger-tip of words the actual
meaning is contained’.
(1) ‘Let sects multiply; but sectarianism must
go. Narrowly conceived ideas have done as much harm
in religion as they have done in politics’. Vivekananda
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Meaning
"lost for the fingertips" 
