Comments

152 responses to “A Crisis of Beauty”

1. 

   Alan

   March 25, 2013

   @ Coffee Zombie,

   Why can’t a town have a beautiful church and a Walmart? somehow, I think all of the early WM employees who retired as millionaires, thanks to Sam Walton’s generous profit sharing plan might disagree with you about employee morale.

   But I digress. I would like you to answer something for me though. Does paying $75 for a shirt at a boutique shop make a person “more beautiful” than buying a shirt at WM for $12? I get the point of this blog post but I fail to see how it relates to WM. Sam Walton’s vision was to give people in rural areas the same access to low cost goods as people in the big cities had. I’m amazed at how many rich people resent that. I have to say, I also find it highly hypocritical how many people hate WM with a passion, but love Apple. Who do you think is making all of those ipads and ipods? Factory workers in American making $100K per year?? When Steve Jobs came back to Apple as CEO, one of the first things he did was to virtually eliminate all corporate charitable giving.

2. 

   CoffeeZombie

   March 25, 2013

   Alan,

   You have a very good point. Sam Walton, himself, was (from what I’ve heard) a good man. Certainly, in his vision, Wal-mart would be a force for good in the world. And, in some ways, it has been. I know a family, a mother whose husband left her with two young children not long after they’d arrived in America. Speaking very little English, this mother did the best she could, and the job she got at Wal-mart was what put what little food they could afford on the table. It wasn’t really enough to make ends meet, and she had to ultimately rely on the kindness of other families at church, but it was something.

   However, and maybe this is due to a change in the nature of the business after Sam Walton left the helm, there have been a number of complaints, easy to find, about the way they do things. Ranging from the way employees are compensated and paid to pushing for special privileges from local governments and so on.

   As simply one example, in my local area, there was a Wal-mart (actually, I have at least 3 Wal-marts within a 30-minute drive) that was surrounded by plenty of space to expand the building. It did eventually expand into a Super Wal-Mart, but it did so by building and moving to a totally new building nearby, and leaving the shell of its old building behind. Actually, that has happened with two of the Wal-marts nearby.

   By contrast, a nearby Target (itself not exactly a paragon of goodness), which had very little space for expansion, also expanded into Target’s equivalent to a Super Wal-mart. But, despite their constrained area, they managed to find space to expand, partly into their own parking lot. Their expansion kept them in the same place, and also didn’t simply leave behind an eyesore of an empty building.

   Anyway, don’t confuse me with any of those rich people who supposedly resent poor people buying cheap goods. I’m far from that. I used to shop at Wal-mart, myself, though I generally prefer to shop at Target. It’s just a more pleasant store to be in. Also, if you were to ask any of my friends, I am *far* from an Apple fanboy.

   As far as your question, no. And I never said, nor implied, that it does. Personally, I am willing to pay more for quality clothes that will last me longer, even if that means I have fewer clothes (and, really, who needs 20 different shirts, whether they be $75 or $12?). Sadly, it appears there is less and less of a difference in quality between the $75 shirt and the $12 shirt. Heck, I buy most of my clothes for cheap at Target right now. Then again, I am, myself, part of this culture; perhaps I, too, am part of the problem.

3. 

   fatherstephen

   March 25, 2013

   I do not mean to be a Walmart basher, particularly from a political point of view. The danger at present, and this I know from good information, is that Walmart is truly huge, their size creates a distortion in the market (much like are created by monopolies). Only the distortion is almost the other way – it squeezes every bit of profit out of suppliers, cutting their margins to such an extent that it is difficult to make a reasonable profit (sometimes going out of business as a result). Walmart doesn’t make anything. It is just a middle-man, but it is a middle man of such vast measure that it can often control certain aspects of the market. The response to this, of course, is that the purchaser benefits, but only if price is seen as the only benefit, while, in fact, there are many other things to consider.

   This is the nature and complaint of “globalization.” It has to do with economies of scale. For example, how does McDonald’s restaurant chain distorted the beef market in America? Or, how does Monsanto’s control of the corn genome translate into the market? The economies of extremely large scales distorted the benefits of a truly free market – which should normally include variety, true competition (not dominance), etc.

   Sam Walton, in the initial growth during the 70’s, championed “Made in America,” when it was difficult to find such products in many places. I challenge anyone to find more than a handful of American products in a Walmart today. I recently tried to buy American farm-grown fish there, and was only able to buy Chinese. How on earth can fish raised in China possibly be cheaper than fish raised in America? In fact, I noted in that shopping adventure, as I went to every chain grocery in town, that only Chinese fish were available in that particular farm-raised variety. I was staggered.

   The Orthodox critique of globalization (which as I noted earlier is rather common, especially in European Orthodoxy) is focuses primarily on these globally-scaled businesses and their effect on the economies in which they set up shop. How can a small chain in Greece possibly compete with a Walmart, and what happens when its cultural shopping experience is driven out of business in favor of American prices for Chinese goods?

   The internet also changes things. This year, my family (meaning my wife and I) did pretty much all our shopping online, and primarily through Amazon and Zappos. They’re just hard to beat (of course, I did make a table-top catapult for my Grandson’s Christmas!). But it truly distorts the market. I’ve researched the growing phenomenon of Amazon (again, they make nothing) and what it is doing to the market – particularly its effects on many of its smaller suppliers.)

   We have recently, in the last 30 years, crossed new market lines because of the evolution of technology. I believe in the market, but the market today and the market of my childhood are not at all the same thing, much less the market of Adam Smith. We have to continue to think about reality and not just theory (else theory is useless). Most people focus on things that actually obscure the nature of the problem.

   My state currently has a “voluntary” sales tax on Amazon purchases. Amazon sends you a once-a-year email telling you how much sales tax you owe my state, and you can decide whether to pay it according to your conscience. How’s that working out for you, Tennessee? But we have a really huge distribution center in East Tennessee and there’s concern not to create any discomfort for Amazon – as well as other issues. But size can always distort a market.

   There were, arguably, good reasons to bust up the trusts in the early 20th century. Most people agree that those distortions would have been problematic. It’s not just trusts, but globally scaled dominance that is a new phenomenon.

   I recently purchased a number of Church items from India (where brass work is good and a fraction of the price). Because of the internet, it was quick, reliable and satisfactory. It will begin to change the heretofore European dominated market for these things. I’m not sure it’s good in the long run. These questions are important, I think, and require information and a consideration of the whole of an effect and careful attention to the shifting ground of the modern market world.

4. 

   Rick

   March 25, 2013

   This seems related to our concerns both far and near…

   “… universal benevolence is a feeble and occasional emotion in the ordinary course of events. Not many of us would send relief money to victims of a flood in Indonesia if it meant that our own children would go hungry. We would look on someone who did so as eccentric, if not immoral. Yet such people exist. Charles Dickens gave us the literary archetype of inverted benevolence with the character of Mrs. Jellyby in Bleak House, whose attentions to the natives of Borrioboola-Gha (“on the left bank of the Niger”) left her no time to spare for her own kin. Says the narrator of that novel: “It struck me that if Mrs. Jellyby had discharged her own natural duties and obligations before she swept the horizon with a telescope in search of others, she would have taken the best precautions against becoming absurd … benevolence, when elevated from its proper place as a private practice to a social policy, tends to mutate from being a commendable virtue into a being a deplorable vice.”

   ~ Roger Kimball

5. 

   simmmo

   March 25, 2013

   Father S, I’m currently wading my way through a book by a Roman Catholic historian, Brad Gregory entitled The Unintended Reformation. One of the points he makes is that the Reformation ushered in a radical repudiation of the sacramental worldview. This paved the way for the natural world to be viewed as something to be exploited. I think it’s a persuassive argument. The ugliness of urban centres around the world is testament to the Reformation’s disenchantment of creation, specifically the view that physical things can be sacramental. This is quasi-Gnostic. Perhaps the ugliness we see is one manifestation of the old Gnostic heresy. Afterall, who cares about the natural or built environment if this world is not our true home? It’s telling that in secular Western Europe, a lot of the beautiful structures are religious. Where would their culture be without the Church and the beauty she provides?

6. 

   simmmo

   March 25, 2013

   It’s almost as if beautiful architecture is for yesteryear – centuries gone by. But today it’s either all about the lowest common denominator on the one hand, or esoteric minimalism on the other. Minimalism and brutalist architecture is almost an icon of the complete and utter otherness of God (Calvinism’s four white walls). It is almost completely unable to deal with a God who works in and through creation. Again, perhaps another reincarnation (pardon the irony of that term!) of the Gnostic heresy. And, I think, beauty falls by the wayside in such a worldview.

7. 

   EPG

   March 25, 2013

   Simmmo, I think you are right about some of the unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation. I once heard, over the radio, a sermon by an Evangelical Preacher, who, on contemplating Heaven, said something to the effect that he could not wait to get off of this dump (the Earth). Not exactly someone who remembers God’ pronouncement over Creation (It is Good!).

   The ugliness in architecture (and much of the other arts) probably arises from this, and also from an insatiable desire on the part of the artist to elevate ego over all else.

   When I was in my teens, I admired Le Courbusier. Now I prefer Palladio. I like to think that I have learned something.

8. 

   fatherstephen

   March 25, 2013

   Stephanie,
   I understand your concerns and your heart for God’s children. However, it’s a false choice, I think. I don’t know about the “massive” amounts of money being spent – though considering the devastation of the Church’s by the state in the previous 70 years, there were needs for the restoration of the Churches. However, the false choice is to assume that money for the children was spent on Churches. There were doubtless many other allocations that could have been properly given to the children.

   It has certainly not been the case of the Church having massive amounts of money that it could have done something with. In many cases the money has come from elsewhere (state, private businesses). The church had very, very few resources. But the Church is also a leading advocate for social needs.

   In the former-Soviet areas, you are looking at a situation in which the infrastructure was in ruins. Some parts of the infrastructure had been demolished for several generations. Restoring a post-Soviet normalcy has been slow and difficult, not up to our American impatience – and the price has been borne, as always, by some of the weakest.

   Of course, American resources abounded for the financing of Protestant missions to grow at the expense of the native Christianity. There were very few American resources that were willing to help with essential infrastructure such as rebuilding a devastated Church. I was aware of fantastic efforts on the part of the Society for the Propagation of the Christian Gospel (SPCK), a historic Anglican group, that provided money for printing presses, education of priests, reconstruction of seminaries. When I was an Episcopal priest my parish supported 12 Russian seminarians for the education. It was relatively cheap – certainly a bargain! But there was very little of this.

   Money for adoptions by Americans was available, but not money to build orphanages and reconstitute a social structure. It’s still not solved. A wonderful example of a work being done by the Church in Ukraine is seen in the film Forpost. I recommend it.

9. 

   fatherstephen

   March 25, 2013

   Simmmo,
   I like the phrase “disenchanment” of nature.

10. 

    simmmo

    March 26, 2013

    Father, I must admit that the phrase came from Gregory’s book. It’s very good, by the way and I thoroughly recommend it.

    EPG, The Evangelical theology of rapture is halfway to Gnosticism I think – probably more than halfway.

11. 

    Stephanie

    March 26, 2013

    Father, I understand it was my assumption to think the money spent on church restoration was denied the orphan, and it can be unwise to assume, however, I am not being “impatient”. The church is allowing its special needs orphans to die every day in eastern bloc countries, denying them the most basic of needs. There are many scriptures God gives us, telling how much He cares about this situation, and yet the Orthodox Church there and here is so easily brushing off this crisis. Why is there absolutely no church intervention at the institution my daughter was going to silently die in, but a few months from now if we had not adopted her? I am honestly asking the question. Why is the American Orthodox Church taking a stance of its only a matter of time before things will get better? In Deuteronomy 27:19, scripture tells us, “cursed is anyone who denies justice to foreigners, orphans, or widows”. I have learned the Orthodox Church is the second largest church, and yet its most vulnerable orphans are dying in deplorable conditions in Orthodox countries, and now it feels the crisis is being brushed off again by American Orthodox as well.

12. 

    John

    March 26, 2013

    Based on the topic under discussion, this “leftist” Orthodox architect (as someone earlier up the thread referred to my profession), I thought I would share this:

    http://www.archdaily.com/207501/st-nicholas-church-marlon-blackwell-architect/

    An ugly, industrial shop building that has been reclaimed as an Orthodox church. A nice that ugliness can be transformed into beauty (I think even haters of modern architecture will find the interiors beautiful in their simplicity).

13. 

    fatherstephen

    March 26, 2013

    Stephanie,
    I do not want to defend the neglect of orphans – it’s tragic and wrong. I was simply saying that I think it’s easy to overestimate the ability of the Church (either there or here) to act in the manner of wealthy organizations. The Church in Eastern Europe is not rich – quite the opposite – and it is struggling to meet a spiritual need that is itself a crisis. I have spent time with a Russian nun from Moscow who works in the Church’s Social services area and I know of their concerns – and there is much, much to do. And more must be done. But, there are many things to be done that cannot be neglected.

    The American Church is not wealthy either. In the OCA (of which I am a priest), a large number of our clergy are part-time and often self-supporting. We are a missionary Church.

    There once was wealth associated with Orthodoxy in Eastern Europe. It was confiscated by the State. Thousands of its buildings were shut down, destroyed or turned to other uses. In Russia, about 30,000 buildings have been restored since 1989. But it is a tiny number to serve a nation of many millions. In 1989 there were only a couple of printing presses to serve that Church and only 2 seminaries. There were only 2 or 3 monasteries (and now many hundreds).

    The leadership of the Church (that part of the infrastructure least thought of) had been decimated. There were only a handful of bishops, and then only with experience of life under the State. Until 1989 the Church had been forbidden (!) to engage in any social work. So you’re looking at a Church that has almost no experience with these things. It’s learning and it cares – but it’s poor, still getting organized, ill-trained.

    Do you think the Ukrainian people care nothing about orphans? What an evil culture that would be. If this were true, it would not be the failure of the Church, but the fact that the Church has only begun to be able to do any work. There are generations of official persecution, neglect and anti-Christian agitation to overcome. If I speak of patience, it’s not about the orphans, but about understanding where these societies have been.

    There is a frightful amount of work to be done – and it must not be neglected. The American Church, despite its poverty, has been training and sending “missionaries” to help in Eastern Europe. We do not need to take the gospel to them. They have needed expertise. My parish sponsors a number such people. They have helped establish work with unwed mothers, alcohol treatment, daycare – a range of things that we have a lot of experience with. Many people are giving their lives to bring about the needed training and change. They are there because the Orthodox Church, in both Europe and America want them there. But the need is so great and the laborers are few.

    There’s no brush off.

14. 

    Stephanie

    March 26, 2013

    Thank you Father. Your explanation is very enlightening to me, and helps me view the aid of the Orthodox Church in this crisis more accurately. When I was recently in Ukraine, the sacred was very beautiful, and I enjoyed my time there in many ways. The city we were in was amazingly clean, the culture was slower and more family oriented–it was very refreshing. Many of the buildings, and churches especially in Kiev were very beautiful and they were the heart of the city, it was really neat. In many ways, I would love to go back. I spent time at the Caves in Kiev, and the artwork inside was very beautiful, the food was wonderful, and the worship was very profound. The singing was angelic. The iconic artwork was a part of the culture and very beautiful. It is a relief for me to begin to understand where the true crisis of this situation lies. We heard story after story of the fallout of Communism and the wars, the famine imposed by the government, the evil the people faced. Twenty years after freedom, the scars were still very deep. Yes, the need is very great, and the laborers are few. Perhaps that is were the truth of the crisis lies today.

15. 

    fatherstephen

    March 26, 2013

    Yes, Stephanie. I think that our Western experience tends to think that when we see beautiful buildings and exquisite things, there is a rich and large bureaucracy behind it all. Sometimes I think people believe the conspiracy stuff of the DaVinci Code and let their imaginations run away with them. 🙂

    The great structures of Orthodoxy should be seen for what they are: leftovers from a once-great institution. They do not represent the reality behind them. The Church is great, but not wealthy. And it is coming out of a very long nightmare. Orthodoxy across the world has endured many things – the history of which is completely unknown (and generally ignored) by the West. The current attitude of the US and Europe to Russia is insane (in my opinion).
    But Eastern Europe and Greece only began to come out from under centuries of rule by the Ottoman Turks – a repressive and murderous regime – in the 19th century. The rebuilding of an Orthodox world has been slow – and greatly hindered by Wars (both WWI and WWII) and the Communists. That Orthodoxy has survived is simply a miracle. The peoples of those lands are heroes. Nothing less.

16. 

    Michael Bauman

    March 26, 2013

    Amen Father, and the oppression continues in the Middle East: the Jewish state really doesn’t like us being in Israel; the Moslem radicals hate us; the U.S. will sell us out in a minute if they need to (the last President who took a principaled stand against Islam and for Christianity was Thomas Jefferson, go figure). Only Russia and (sometimes) France what sided with the Chrisitan population in Islamic lands.

    I have families in my home parish that come from southern Syria driven here by the Moslem persection of the early 20th century. These families can trace their Orthodox Christian lineage back to the time of the Apostles for that is when the diocese from which they came was founded.

    They endure, they and their faith are of the land in a way that we can not even imagine in the US.

    “The babuskas and the sittis (Russian and Arabic for grandmother) never die.”

17. 

    Alan

    March 27, 2013

    @ Coffee Zombie,

    Thanks for your kind and gracious response. That’s one of the things I love about this blog, the fact that not only Fr. Stephen, but just about everyone else always has kind and gracious responses. I’m hoping that if I hang around this blog long enough, then maybe someday I will post kind and gracious responses.

    I would like to add a couple of comments. I must say, I am always amused by people who refuse to shop at WM “on principle” but instead shop at Target. Target pays the same wages as WM and they buy the same products from China that WM does. The two companies have the same business philosophy. Further, as I pointed out previously, the same people who won’t shop at WM “on principle” love Costco, Amazon, Apple, etc. I was glad to see Fr. Stephen admit that Amazon inherently has many of the same issues.

    I would like to submit that much of the anti-WM views come from the many hatchet jobs done by the likes of Dateline, 20/20, etc. Yes, the same shows that famously rigged the gas tank explosion and then used that stunt to claim that GM made faulty cars. Side note, for all of the media circus about the Toyota Prius a few years back, nothing was ever proven to be wrong with the Prius. All of the documented cases were shown to be user error. Yet our wonderful mainstream media left the impression that the Prius was a faulty made vehicle. The point is, just because it’s on TV, don’t necessarily believe it. For the sake of consistency, I would prefer those who avoid WM “on principle” to also avoid Target, Costco, Amazon, Apple, etc.

    Finally (no surrpise here) I previously worked for WM for almost 9 years. The company treated me very well and I left with no complaints (I only left due to moving across country for family reasons). I had a job with WM where I traveled around the country to different stores. I noticed that as I talked to store employees (particularly the ones in the stores in small towns) and asked them how long they had been working at that store, I would first get back a puzzled look followed by an answer of “18 years” or “22 years”, etc. Finally, one time, I responded with “wow…that’s a long time.” To which the employee responded “well, this is the best place to work in this town.” So again, the perception and hatchet jobs often don’t match up with the reality.

    I apologize Fr. Stephen for the rabbit trail.

18. 

    Paula Hughes

    March 27, 2013

    Henry David Thoreau said that the perception of beauty is a moral test.

    and praise God , Orthodoxy has prevailed all this time against the gates of hell.

19. 

    Michael Bauman

    March 27, 2013

    Architect John: The building is certainly more beautiful than it was, but I find it off-putting as an Orthodox Church and the sanctuary gives me claustrophobia.

    Here is an example of a small Orthodox Church that went a different route: They built their own. It is tiny but warm and open, qualities that, the pictures you linked to, don’t have. http://unexpectedjoychurch.org/photos.html

20. 

    fatherstephen

    March 27, 2013

    I would unreservedly recommend the Orthodox Arts Journal for anyone interested in the topic of art, beauty and Orthodoxy (architecture particularly).

21. 

    George Engelhard

    March 27, 2013

    The Pascal Joy video at the bottom of the website is glorious!!!

22. 

    Neil

    March 27, 2013

    In regards to the discussion with Stephanie, who is my wife.

    We certainly saw a lot of the effects of communism in Ukraine while we were there. Dilapidated, bombed out, burned out, abandoned buildings. The scars everyone carries around with them. Certainly the communists and bolsheviks left tremendous damage there, in the Orthodox body as well as in the culture.
    One of the legacies is a shocking lack of care for orphans, especially those with special needs. This is not American provincialism or believing some sort of conspiracy theory. Here’s some facts about the reality of the situation, which we witnessed first hand.

    Most children with special needs are given up to become wards of the state. Many of these go to mental institutions if not adopted by the age of 4. One of our children was from an institution like this, the other was about to go there. 80% of the children transferred to these institutions die in the first year due to malnutrition or medical neglect. When we adopted our older girl, she weighed 22 pounds as a 6 year old. The 4 year old weighed 1 pound more. Our 1 year old, biological, weighed more than both of them. In institutions like these, children are strapped down to small beds and – like fish in small aquariums – their bodies often stop or drastically slow growth. So you have children who remain about the size of infants or small children even into older ages. All 3 of our daughters – 6, 4, and 1 – are about the same size and weight and all wear the same diaper. You may presuppose this has to do with their medical conditions. They told us our 6 year old would never walk – although she was already walking with help when we got there. They told us she had cerebral palsy – she does not. She has a clouded cornea in one eye and had a cataract in the other. We had the cataract removed and now she sees – and is starting to walk around on her own, 5 months after they told us she would never walk.
    Maybe you do not realize the holocaust that is occuring in these post-soviet and communist/socialist countries (China, Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, etc etc). These children are treated worse than animals and warehoused and starved and neglected so they will die. I personally think it has to do with the proletariat ideal, that they will never be “productive citizens”. Old people are treated in similar ways if wards of the state. And those orphans who are able to survive these “concentration camps for children” (as a Ukranian worker described it) remains wards of the state, being used as a virtual slave labor, unable to gain citizenship, to marry, or to have children. If they do happen to have children illegally, those children are also wards of the state – even if they have no special needs – and under the same persona non-grata status.

    I am not demonizing the people of these countries, who as you rightly say have suffered under evil governments for decades. I do believe there are many martyrs and heroes who were persecuted under the communists, the bolsheviks, the fascists, etc. As a child of European immigrants to America, I can appreciate this. And I understand what you say about other pressing spiritual needs – many of the Orthodox there explained it to us as missionizing their own countries again. But this is not just another social need or social program. This is one of the main moral compasses instilled by God. How a nation or people treats it’s weakest members displays it’s relationship to God. Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because they neglected the plight of the orphan and the widow. Care is a verb. It is not a lack of funds that is the problem. It is people giving up the children to the state, it’s the whole system of voluntary orphanizing, and the toleration of it, just as it is with legal abortions, even late term, in America. Look at the adoption ban in Russia, used as a political tool. God will judge nations, peoples, and all of us, in part, to how we respond to His clear calls to protect orphans and widows in their distress.
    If you care about what God cares about, then you should prioritize care for these orphans. If the native Orthodox churces want to grow leadership in their ranks, they ought to prioritize saving these children from willful and pitiful deaths – they should be leading the culture in this. Indeed we have come across a few that are – for example, the linked, which we had already seen – but the workers are very few.
    On this blog people have been lamenting the lack of beauty in America, driven by economic forces etc. (Which by the way is a global phenomenon.) What is ugly to God? Ignoring the plight of the oppressed and the orphan. These countries – as America should with it’s abortion laws – need to repent of this grevious sin and instill basic human rights for these children, who are precious to God. If you prioritize other matters before them, even clergy infrastructure, then you are not caring for these children. The disgrace caused by the communists – illustrated in the plight of these children and the lack of human value assessed to them under that evil Godlessness – ought to be removed by grace from the native Christians. Anything less is just a brush off, nothing else, no matter how you paint it. If you had ever been to one of these institutions, interacted with any of these children, I would hope that you would make a different choice. It only takes a few in leadership that care enough to make a point of it. It is not a resource issue.

23. 

    Rebecca

    March 28, 2013

    Michael-

    I attend the church you’re referring to, and I’m sorry you find it off-putting. We did the best we could with the (very limited) resources we had to make it a place of beauty. Hopefully, as the Lord blesses and the church grows, we will be able to build a proper, more traditional-looking building someday. If our current sanctuary makes you claustrophobic (as I would expect someone used to the grand space of the Wichita cathedral might), you should have seen the converted doctor’s office we used to be in! 😉

24. 

    Rebecca

    March 28, 2013

    Also, FWIW, quite a few quality icons have been added since these photos were taken. And the angle at which the photo of the sanctuary was taken makes it look much narrower than it actually is. Come visit us sometime, I’m sure you’ll like us better in person. 🙂

25. 

    Michael Bauman

    March 28, 2013

    I was received in a small parish and was quite intimidated by the size of St. George at first. I love worshiping at Unexpected Joy which is quite small. I still prefer smaller, more intimate parishes. I’m sure the pictures make it look tighter than it is. The perspective of the picture seems not quite true to me somehow.

    I’m also sure that the worship is full of joy which is the important point.

    I really like the Panocrator you’ve got. Reminds me of my first parish.

    You obviously did a lot of transformation of the space. Forgive me if my comments offend. I get claustrophobic easily.

26. 

    EPG

    March 28, 2013

    To John the architect (and Rebecca) — I followed the links, and would greatly love to see St. Nicholas in person. It is a beautiful church, and demonstrates that a beauty does not consist of aping traditional forms. The planners used the resources at their disposal in a compelling way (as far as I can tell). I have been attending a parish that recently build a new facility. It follows traditional forms, but somehow misses the mark for beauty. I think one could say that it is pleasant — it is certainly not ugly. But it is lacking something. It lacks authenticity. For example, the floor plan follows that of a basilica, but the interior columns are not functional. They are actually made of some sort of foam, and, if you are not careful, you can insert your thumb into them. In some ways, the building is almost a stage set representing a church. The building in Arkansas appears to be a more authentic response to the problems presented by the project, and (at least in that sense) closer to beauty.

27. 

    John

    March 28, 2013

    All-

    (Michael) – I like the self-build as well and it appears to fit well with it’s surroundings. Did the congregation actually build it themselves also? My larger point was that even a derelict McDonald’s franchise building has the potential for beauty with some care.

    (Rebecca) – I really like the re-use of the existing shop building – it’s an architect sustainability thing. Renovating an already built structure is pretty much always more sustainable than building brand new “green” buildings. I have your church bookmarked as a very nice example of how to renovate and re-use – I hope you enjoy the space!

    (EPG) – I like your point that “beauty does not consist of aping traditional forms” – might add that to my e-mail signature.

    If you like updated versions of traditional Byzantine forms, then these are your guys: http://www.newworldbyzantine.com/

    Father – sorry for digressing your comments section into a discussion of architecture.

28. 

    fatherstephen

    March 28, 2013

    Neil,
    Thank you for your comment. It requires an answer. I will answer the question of a “brush off” first.

    The article itself is by an American priest observing an aspect of American culture and commenting from the point of view of Christian theology. It offers no comparisons and does not say that “somebody does it better.” It stands on its own.

    The point concerning the tragic (and worse!) warehousing of handicapped children that is common in the East was brought up by Stephanie with the point being that the work being done on Church buildings in the East was taking resources away from these children. I have pointed out that this is not the case and have simply tried to say more about the historic situation of the Church in those lands as well as other elements of their history. I did not do so to justify the treatment of the orphans, or to brush it off. Simply to say, it’s a false choice. Both can be done and should be done.

    I have also noted that the American Churches, though small and relatively poor themselves, are indeed involved in the rebuilding of infrastructure and human rights. We are not doing “nothing.” But the article was not about the American Churches or the problem of orphans. Instead, in my comments I’ve tried to widen our understanding – which is better than just condemning. How is the problem to be healed without understanding?

    The problem of the warehousing of the handicapped is not a resource problem – it’s a cultural and spiritual problem. I do not know the origins of some aspects of the cultures in those countries. I do know that individuals often think of serious illness and handicaps as being the result of “doing something wrong.” Of course this is not true, but they experience it with a deep shame. The giving of children over to the state is a response to their shame – people cannot bear shame and they do terrible things to flee from it. The result is the tragedy of these institutions.

    The video I linked shows a completely opposite response. There, a monastery has raised these children (of whom others would feel shame) to a focus of love and devotion. Just seeing them in the Church, seeing a priest touching them, hugging them, everything that is pictured in that video, is directed towards changing this irrational wound of shame that seems to have been covered by a conspiracy of silence (a typical response to shame – if we don’t talk about it maybe it will go away). The making and broadcast of the video was a very noted event – it’s an example of preaching the gospel in which the Church is engaged.

    Such a change is the only long-term solution to the terrible practice of warehousing. The culture must be changed. And the Church is engaging it – though, no doubt, many within the Church need to be changed themselves.

    I haven’t written in response to Stephanie to brush off the problem (or to brush her off), but to increase understanding of the nature of the problem. Each child is a temple of Christ, Christ’s image, and must be loved, cherished and adored. Nothing less than that is ever acceptable.

    I could have easily written about the crisis of beauty in the treatment of the weakest citizens – it’s a sermon I’ve preached very often in my priesthood. The 50 million+ American abortions, the 300 million+ Chinese, is beyond staggering. It is another “warehousing” of our shame (unwanted pregnancy, inconvenience, whatever) – only warehousing by killing them. Like every Orthodox priest I know, I work and labor for a change, both in the laws, and in the conscience.

    But you are writing with false choices. That these problems exist and must be addressed, doesn’t mean that all other discussions of a crisis of beauty, or anything else, are forbidden, or that the mention of these problems should somehow bring all conversation to a stop and that anything else is a brush off. It’s not true and it’s an unfair choice.

    That I care about beauty of every sort – and see in it the hand of God – doesn’t mean I don’t care and am doing nothing about these human tragedies. Nor does the building of Churches in the Ukraine and Russia mean that the Church doesn’t care and is doing nothing. But I won’t hold the Church in those lands up as ideal, perfect and without need for repentance. I saw the linked video as an example of repentance and would want to trumpet that example. It needs to be multiplied thousands of times! But it’s not an either/or buildings versus children. It’s the children, plain and simple. They have an infinite worth and the need for repentance in our time is vast.

    It is worthwhile, however, to actually understand people. Were you aware of the cultural aspect of shame in this regard? Do you understand the dynamic? To move someone from such a demonic and psychological bondage requires understanding so that our actions are wise and effective – bringing about true repentance. The legacy of human destruction left in the wake of the Communist Yoke is deep. In many ways America rejoiced at the fall of the Berlin Wall and began to act as though now everything would be fine. We also (at least our political leaders) began to expect Russia to behave as a political puppet and have begun demonizing them again because (I don’t even know why!). Our international political games and wars have obscured the vast humanitarian and spiritual need. Many American Christians saw the spiritual need of the former Communist lands as an opportunity for them to preach the gospel and build Churches. Those lands rightly saw this as a cultural assault and an effort to destroy its native Church and simply Americanize them.

    We’ve got to get beyond that. We need to understand them and actually be of use as they struggle towards repentance. At the same time we ourselves need to continue to struggle towards repentance. And in the meantime, we need to do all that we can to relieve the plight of the innocents who are cast aside, victims of our many insanities.

    Thanks. God bless your work for His children.

29. 

    George Engelhard

    March 28, 2013

    Father Stephen,
    I thank God for the clarity of insight He has given you! You have on several occasions corrected me, and so have others, and I am grateful for it. We who read and participate in this blog are truly blessed to do so.

30. 

    CoffeeZombie

    March 28, 2013

    @Alan,

    Indeed, and it may be some of the things I think I know about Walmart are wrong. And, certainly, I never meant to imply that Walmart is alone in badness. Then again, I suspect Target, Walmart, etc. are not the only ones that are getting cheap clothes from China. As I mentioned, I’ve noticed even the quality of higher-end clothing seems to have degraded over the years.

    The only reason I prefer to shop at Target over Walmart is that the store is actually just more pleasant to be in. Nicer lighting, better aesthetics, and they don’t stick displays and such right in the middle of an aisle so everyone has to walk around it (as I understand it, this is an intentional practice, with the idea that, if you slow people down they’re more likely to see other things they want and grab them). Not that Target is perfect; my wife worked there in college, and hated it. She would complain about being given more hours than she could handle with her school load, while other people who needed the hours were passed over (mostly likely because her pay was lower).

    Anyway, my point was not to single out Walmart as a unique example. Only to say that, in Walmart, in the physical ugliness of its stores, is an obvious example of the ugliness of our whole consumerist culture, and that I suspect this, as much as anything else, is why Walmart often does get singled out. It’s not that they’re inherently worse, it’s that they’re the most obvious.

31. 

    Stephanie

    March 28, 2013

    Thank you, Father. It’s true, we can’t be of greater help, until we lovingly meet people where they are, there or here. Love builds.

32. 

    fatherstephen

    March 28, 2013

    John,
    The guys at new world byzantine are among the contributors of the Orthodox Arts Journal that I linked to. Andrew Gould is doing some wonderful work.

33. 

    RiverC

    March 28, 2013

    By the way, I should think that beauty is the feeling of proper order; now, I don’t just mean order in the workaday sense of schedules and standards, but rather, in the sense of which a plant is orderly, for instance.

    There is an excellent set of books on this very topic “The Nature of Order” by Christopher Alexander (of A Pattern Language fame) which suggests that the problem is not human, but rather, one of will, imagination and vision. He presents fifteen properties of ‘order’ in the built world which once you see them, you cannot unsee them.

    The corollary is that he starts by getting us to use our ability to ‘see the wholeness’ in something as simple as a dot on a sheet. It reminds me of my artistic training, but more rigorous. I’d say that if he is correct, the so-called moderns with their computers and vast industries are ignorant savages when compared with a simple medieval craftsman.

    The book is somewhat expensive; I bought the first volume used and my wife and I are going through it.

34. 

    Karen

    March 28, 2013

    Father Stephen, Stephanie and Neil,

    An observation I’d like to add to Fr. Stephen’s comments, which were so on the mark in terms of what I have observed/experienced as well especially in regard to the role that shame plays in this heartbreaking and horrifying tragedy of human misery, is that it is not so very long ago that our own western and American cultures handled our mentally ill, disabled, and handicapped (or otherwise unwanted, i.e., “illegitmate”children) in much the same way as Stephanie and Neil found in the Ukraine (or Romania). There have always been some wonderful Christian visionary exceptions, but the reality of the “rule” isn’t pretty. Go visit a state institution for the profoundly handicapped here in our nation (as I had to do in college while doing my Psychology internship), or a nursing home for the poor (even one of the better ones). Visit one of our prisons (if you dare). Sure, there’s likely enough food, there will be a bed and a (very cramped, maybe even stark) room and washroom facilities, but none of these in the variety you’d necessarily enjoy eating or using on a daily basis. There are caring and competent CNAs and professionals, but there are also abusive or apathetic ones who slip under the radar, and the good ones are always overworked and underpaid and these institutions in general under-resourced. I could go on, but you get the picture.

    This problem of the lack of quality care for the most needy among us, with varying degrees of severity and expression, is a universal problem. We can’t blame any particular ethnic or Christian group without also condemning ourselves. I say this as the sister of a sibling who is mentally ill (and half a century ago or even less would have had to have been institutionalized their whole life). My parents have spent the last 25 plus years trying to educate folks (especially church folks) about the needs of the mentally ill and serve as advocates for this (rather hidden) population, but even to this day a congregation that makes room for these folks and handles them well is the exception not the rule. I am also the mother of a special needs child, which has brought me into contact with parents of children with much more severe special needs than my own, and I can’t imagine having to go through what they face on a daily basis. I am also the friend of someone with very few material resources who is confined to a nursing home.

    In some ways at least in terms of the most basic physical needs, it is hard to compare our situation with that in the Ukraine. But as Mother Teresa observed, we are often starving in this nation (and in those institutions) for love and real spiritual nurture even if where we are not starving (literally) for food and other basic necessities of physical life.

35. 

    Alan

    March 28, 2013

    Neil,

    Yours is a very compelling account. You’ve obviously seen horrible things that I have never even imagined.

    But I would like to offer up one point. Sometimes, I think in our current day in age, we’re guilty of being short-sighted. If something doesn’t get rectified in 12-15 months, we get frustrated and angry. Things sometimes just take time. The people in the former communist lands were taught for SEVENTY years that human life is worthless. A people don’t just recover from that type of intense indoctrination overnight. Sadly, it’s going to take time.

    The hard part though, is that we don’t take what I just wrote (as true as I believe it to be) and throw up our hands and say, “well, there’s nothing that can be done. Too bad.” It’s extremely important that people like you are making the rest of us aware of what’s going on. That’s a part of the process that will cause things to change, IMO.

    As hard as it was to read, thanks again to you and your wife for sharing your account.

36. 

    Alan

    March 28, 2013

    @ CoffeeZombie,

    Thanks for the gracious dialogue, you’ve served to expand my thinking and for that I am grateful.

    Your last paragraph (in particular) was dead on and that will be my big takeaway from this discussion.

    Thanks again!

37. 

    Theodossia

    March 30, 2013

    Father Stephen,

    Thank you for sharing this link about the Monastery where orphans and handicapped children are taken care of … It is very touching to see so much love… the kind of love that heals. It brought tears to my eyes… This is real beauty in the midst of so much ugliness… Glory to God!!!

38. 

    Stephanie

    April 1, 2013

    Happy Easter to my brothers and sisters who celebrated our Lord’s resurrection yesterday, and happy Lenten Paschal to my brothers and sisters of the Eastern Tradition. On behalf of God’s children, I feel I must boldly speak for the orphans locked away from our view in the Eastern countries on the other side of the world. I must help the Church to take steps to care for the least of these who are suffering in horrible conditions, this very day. I found a news video in mainstream media, ABC News, that explains this plight: http://abcnews.go.com/International/hidden-angels-american-families-saving-children-syndrome/story?id=15234109 Being a part of the adoption world for the last year, I have witnessed countless families’ stories in bringing children from these conditions. Last week I met a woman who adopted a little 6 year old girl 9 months ago from a Bulgarian orphanage who was only 12 lbs. I could post more horrifying footage, but I hope the Church will simply understand the aweful plight. To engage the Church, I wholeheartedly recommend the two ministries linked inside this news story: http://www.reecesrainbow.org and http://www.bibleorphanministry.com We found our girls on Reeces Rainbow’s website. They are an advocacy group that photolists special needs children from many countries, mostly in Eastern Europe, to help save them from the institutions through international adoption of Americans and Canadians. They raise funds for the children’s adoptions, and have helped save over 900 orphans now, I believe in just over 5 years time. Please take some time to explore their ministry and website. It is absolutely saving lives, and 90% of the funds go towards the children’s adoption funds, and once a family commits to a child, 100% of the funds go towards that family’s adoption of the child. Bible Orphan Ministry is doing wonderful things for the orphans of Ukraine, including a new ministry they recently began of funding two servants of Christ to help directly in a boy’s mental institution. The video they posted months ago of a room jam packed with little boys with sad sad hollow little faces and absolutely no love and very very little care still haunts me. But this ministry is truly devoted to the children, as the leader is a former orphan herself. Please please please, on behalf of these children, we must help and be Christ to them.

39. 

    Stephanie

    April 2, 2013

    To Christ’s beloved Church to whom He showed great mercy, desperately pleading for God’s children who suffer for our mercy (Jeremiah 22:6)
    This link is to Bible Orphan Ministry’s ministry to a boys’ institution.http://www.bibleorphanministry.blogspot.com/2012/12/caretakers-to-mental-institution-new.html This institution desperately needs our help. They only have 2 workers per 20 children, and in January were able to hire 2 more for the year for only $6000. As a mom of 5 young children, two with special needs, it is IMPOSSIBLE to take care of that many children and meet even basic needs every day. Even if they absolutely loved the children and worked extremely hard, it is impossible to meet these boys’ needs. Please look at the boys in the pictures as if that was your son or daughter suffering. Please watch the videos. Please see the truth so we can fully love in action and in truth. One particular video still haunts me. If one thousand people from Christ’s merciful Church gave $20 a month to the boys’ institution on this website today, today Christ could put 6 more servants in a place comparable to a concentration camp. God weeps every day for these children.
    I have one more plea for Christ’s most merciful Church, strong in prayer and availingeth much in petition: Please pray the children from my daughter’s institution–that the children would be photolisted on Reeces Rainbow’s website so they could be pulled as children from burning flames of injustice to safety and freedom by American families.

40. 

    Stephanie

    April 2, 2013

    Please also pray Ukrainian orphans would not be denied adoption by American families as happened so recently to Russian orphans who desperately wail behind closed bars of injustice. The book, “The Boy from Baby House 10” tells this haunting story of the plight many Russian orphans are sentenced to, being denied the justice they rightly deserve by adoption in every willing home. Please pray Russia will reverse this modern day Herodian decision, especially for it’s special needs orphans, and that Ukraine will not follow in Russia’s footsteps. http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/pavlenko-to-visit-families-in-us-who-adopted-children-from-ukraine-322578.html

41. 

    Stephanie

    April 2, 2013

    Unfailing beauty: a scripture verse I actually painted on a picture for my husband years ago:

    The Lord loves righteousness and justice. The earth is full of His unfailing love. Psalm 33:5

    Love, mercy, and justice are beautiful reflections of God. God’s mercy and love endures forever. His justice reigns forever. May we execute mercy to the fatherless. May we be the beautiful reflection of Christ in the world. May the Church’s architectural and iconic beauty be the same reflection of it’s beautiful, just, and merciful heart. The heart Christ showed us when He carried the cross of mercy. Mercy is beautiful. Mercy for the Fatherless is the pupil of God’s eye. May we not wound it.

42. 

    Stephanie

    April 3, 2013

    My former comment was deleted, but I will try one last time, and one final plea. If anyone wants to know the full truth of the mental institutions, please key in the search words: “shocking from orphanage to mental institution”. Here you will find a video that spells out the cold hard reality for many children on the other side of the world. My final plea is there ARE two ways we can currently help, one is through Bible Orphan Ministry’s project of hiring christian care takers in a boys’ mental institution (the link is in a comment above), and the other is donating to children’s adoption funds through Reece’s Rainbow. We can all even give to their “Child of the Month” fund and fully fund at least one child or sibling group’s adoption. There are hundreds of families in America and Canada willing to save these handicapped children, but most don’t have the $25,000 it requires to rescue each child. This is my final plea for Jesus’ precious lambs. May we remember Jesus’ instructions to Peter to feed and care for them. God Bless.

43. 

    CoffeeZombie

    April 3, 2013

    Stephanie,

    At risk of driving this thread even further off-topic, I decided to post this, because I had wanted to tell this story much earlier in this thread, but never did. So I will tell it now.

    I understand your concern, and I am glad you are so desiring to see good done to these orphans. However, I do want to point out one thing. You refer to orphanages in Russia refusing to allow Americans to adopt the children. I understand why you see this as a bad thing, but let me suggest a slightly different way of seeing it.

    There is a family in my parish who, after the death of their young daughter, decided to look into adopting a child in Ukraine. After a few false starts, they came across the file of a boy who caught both their eyes. Only problem was, the director of that particular orphanage had not allowed any foreign couple to adopt the children under his care.

    As I recall, one of the main reasons for this was that this director was devoutly Orthodox, all the children in the orphanage had apparently been Baptized into the Church when they came to the orphanage (if they weren’t already Baptized), and it was very important for him that these children be raised in the Orthodox Faith. He certainly did not, I believe, want these children to be taken by an Evangelical American family and raised outside of the Church (even, though I don’t know if he was aware of this, but I expect he would have been, raised in a faith that insists that the Orthodox Church is a false church).

    In this case, the director could see that the couple were, themselves, devout Orthodox Christians. In the end, they not only adopted this boy, but ended up coming back and adopting a friend of his, and his friend’s older sister. Also, as a result of their visit, our parish has begun a collection to send money to help this orphanage.

    Many of the former Soviet countries have gotten a short shrift from American missionaries and such. Just at the time that the Orthodox Church, their ancestral religion, was able to start rebuilding, to start working publicly again, they were inundated with Evangelicals, Baptists, and so on from the West (particularly the USA), who went about attempting to convert everyone without discrimination, even Orthodox Christians.

    I have heard many stories along these lines, not only from Orthodox who have a very dim view of such practices, but from Evangelicals who think they’re doing God’s work, and I believe them, because I have seen (and, sadly, partaken in) similar actions in primarily Roman Catholic countries in South and Central America. If the missionaries in Russia were anything like what I saw in the Americas, they were likely telling Orthodox Christians they met that their faith was not based on the Bible, was just “words of men,” was merely “works salvation” and that they were still going to go to Hell unless they abandoned such things and “got saved” (by the Evangelical definition).

    This is something, I think, that doesn’t make much sense to our secular ears. Why keep children in a place that struggles to meet their basic needs, when American families want to adopt them and give them the whole world? But, then again, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his soul?”

    I don’t mean to say that every case where an orphanage director is reluctant to adopt children to foreign couples is due to such noble attitudes. I don’t mean to insist everything is rosy and happy, and don’t worry about those kids’ physical well-being because they’ll go to heaven. At the same time, we should be very slow to judge, because we may not know, or understand, the most important part of the story.

44. 

    fatherstephen

    April 3, 2013

    Stephanie,
    I deleted the last comment because I generally do not allow commenters to raise money on the blog. This is only a blog and it exists for a fairly narrowly-defined purpose. I appreciate your sharing of information.

45. 

    Stephanie

    April 3, 2013

    If these children are not adopted by families, most will end up on the streets, be slaves to child traffiking, be sent to mental institutions for life where most young children die their first year. If you are trying to tell me God desires this over a child being brought into a loving, caring, Evangelical family, then I actually have no words. Families on Reece’s Rainbow are by no means missionizing these countries, they are RESCUING these kids. Please type in the key words on my comment above of “shocking from orphanage to mental institution” and watch the movie. If you do not believe the families rescuing these kids are doing Christ’s work, again I have no words.

46. 

    Stephanie

    April 3, 2013

    The decision to ban American adoption of Russian children was not made by Church leaders or orphanage directors, but by the Russian government. There was one little Russian boy I advocated for and prayed for for months, who needed immediate medical attention, whose family was almost done with the adoption process, but the adoption fell through at the last minute because of this ban, and now he is unjustly kept from the medical attention and family he deserves and needs. If you honestly think it’s better for these children to be raised in orphanages (or much worse, concentration camp institutions) than loving christian families, may I say God puts the lonely in families. He desires justice and mercy for these kids in His Holy Habitation. We Evangelicals are often doing all we can to RESCUE these kids from the flames. Please take a hard look and be fully educated first. We are not missionizing the church. We are rescuing the kids.

47. 

    fatherstephen

    April 3, 2013

    Stephanie,
    No one should argue against the adoption of these children. May God have mercy on them. There are policies of the American government that need to be addressed as well – Russia has plenty of faults – but did not remove this privilege of adoption in a vacuum. As the politicians of both sides bumble around – children die. May God have mercy.

48. 

    CoffeeZombie

    April 3, 2013

    To be clear, I was not trying to justify the terrible conditions or treatment of these children. The conditions at the orphanage friends’ children came from were nowhere near what you’re describing. What is happening to these children is nothing short of a tragedy.

    However, it is far too easy to look at the things a foreign government is doing and make judgements without considering that there may be reasons behind those actions that we don’t know about.

    Part of why I wrote about the actions of American missionaries was to indicate on of the many reasons Russians and other former Soviet countries are often suspicious of Americans in general. As Fr. Stephen said, these decisions are not made in a vacuum.

    Perhaps one of the things that can be done for these children is to work to change American attitudes and actions toward Russia so that they will feel able to be more open toward us.

49. 

    Neil

    April 3, 2013

    CoffeeZombie – first of all there is a distinction to be made between the orphanages and the institutions. There is definitely a wide range of care in the orphanages. The one we adopted our younger child from seemed to have a lot of care for the children. They in fact were one of those orphanages that baptized the children, we have the baptism card. Not all orphanages are like that one or your friends.

    Others have truly horrible conditions. For example, one of the orphanages another (Protestant American) couple adopted from. Their child has lesions and scars on his body from blunt trauma, cigar burns. So, it varies.
    The institution is where the unadoptable unproductive children are sent. It’s a sad and often repeated story of children from there being, for example, 10 lbs at the age of 10. This is not exagerration. This are the medical facts of flesh and blood real living children. This seems unbelievable, but it’s true. And with weights like these, there is no other explanation than that this is slow, hidden, and intentional murder.

    Go onto those websites and links. Look at the faces of the children who have had their growth intentionally stunted for life. Look at the faces of the children who were listed for adoption that have been removed due to their death. One boy I saw looked like he just came out of a WWII Nazi death camp. It is not because of medical conditions, a common excuse. Our older daughter, so far, has none of the laundry list of conditions labelled on her except for blindness – and that due to a cataract. It’s amazing to think she would have been starved to death over a cataract. Ignoring these children and doing nothing is willful disobediance to God.

    We were the first to adopt from our our older daughter’s institution, as I metioned she was 22 lbs at 6 – relatively good to some cases. And yet outside there were fruit trees everywhere and inside the smell of bread baking for sale at market – ‘we give the older ones jobs’, explained the director. The country we adopted from is one of the largest producers of grains in the world.

    Even our adoption facilitator, who has been doing this for more than a decade, was shocked at the institution, comparing it to a prison to the director (without our prompting). She said, repeatedly, in shock, “this is not adoption, this is rescue”. That’s the point. Our younger daughter – the one in the good orphanage – was to be transferred to her institution for her 4th birthday, since she was not yet adopted. And yet you imply that she would have been better left unadopted by Protestant Americans.
    What happens to the kids in those good orphanages you keep referencing when they get older? Either put to work as a virtual slave force, on the streets, or, for the unadoptable and unproductive, murder in the institutions.

    As covered previously, this is not a resource issue. To use these as a basis of leverage to pit Orthodox against Protestantism or Catholicism (for example, your ‘secular ears’) is an abuse of the Gospel and a perversion of reason, a diversion designed to detract from the real issue at hand.

    This is not an international relations or political issue. The problem actually has nothing to do with American attitudes towards Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, etc etc. You say that Americans changing their attitudes towards Russia will help the children. How, exactly? By reopening the country for adoption, so we can save their children, again? You also say that decisions like this are not made in a vacuum and that there may be more to the story that is not public knowledge. Let me ask you this: when is it ever acceptable, especially for a church of Jesus, for a government to decide that disabled children should die for the sake of utilitarianism or convenience?

    The real problem is the attitudes and actions of those post-soviet countries towards these children – their own children. The lack of action from those cultures, including the Orthodox church within, maintains a culture of death for these children – their children – giving tacit approval of this vestigial heritage of communism. The Protestants and Catholics are coming from America to those countries because of the lack of action from those countries to correct grievous human rights violations. This is not adoption, it is rescue. This is no cultural invasion or a disrespect to the Orthodox church, or an attempt at creating western or Protestant proslytes. This is rescue of the children who are otherwise being left to die by their own countries.

    Now that you know about these conditions, it’s your responsibility to do something about it, and to get your church leadership in those countries to do something about it. You know a tree by it’s fruit. The church ought to lead in this critical and urgent restoration of grace. This ought to spurn the leadership of the native Orthodox churches to take away this shameful vestige of communism and remove this disgrace, this stench from God’s nostrils. If leaders in the post-communist countries want to heal their lands and regain their constituency, perhaps this is the correct starting place – fruit that can be seen, children of God saved. So we are exhorting you as the native church – lead, follow, or get out of the way. Those standing around while these children die, watching, making divisive commentary and obscuring the issue, or ignoring it and pretending it doesn’t exist – this is the real crisis of beauty. And Jesus – the creator, author, and perfector of beauty – is watching.

50. 

    fatherstephen

    April 4, 2013

    Neil and Stephanie,
    Everyone here on the blog has patiently and politely heard these points, and we take them seriously. We agree about the conditions and the importance. There is no argument. However, both of you continue to hammer away as though sending notes to the blog will change the situation. There’s no argument here about the tragedy and the need. I have explained things that Orthodox in America are doing to change things – and I’ve patiently looked at some of the reasons things are as they are – not to excuse them – but to understand why they are as they are and why it is difficult to change them. But they must change. I appreciate and applaud your concern. But this is pretty much the end of the discussion. I’m not sure what more there is to be said. You’ve made your point.

    As for others, just let the conversation end.

51. FRIDAY EDITION | Byz Pulpit

    April 5, 2013

    […] A Crisis of Beauty – Glory to God For All Things (OX) […]

52. 

    Burckhardtfan

    April 26, 2013

    Dear Father Stephen,

    You might like this article. It’s written by a secular humanist who has noted the link between beauty and the divine – and its mirror image of desecration and sacrilege.

    http://www.city-journal.org/2009/19_2_beauty.html

    Joseph de Maistre was on to something when he said that wherever an altar exists, there exists civilisation.