The Forerunner (Winter 2004)

Our Fellowship marked its twenty-fifth anniversary by holding a conference on 'Orthodoxy in the West: Today and Tomorrow' at Swanwick, Derbyshire, on 6-9 August 2004. Attended by more than 150 participants, including two bishops - Bishop Basil of Sergievo and myself - and by over twenty Orthodox clergy, this is by far the largest assembly that the Fellowship has so far organized. All of us can agree wholeheartedly with Bede Gerrard's remark, to be found later in this issue, that it proved to be 'a landmark conference for the Fellowship'.

This issue of Forerunner is devoted to the proceedings of the Conference. After the message from Archbishop Gregorios of Thyateira and Great Britain (who was unable to be present), there follow the three main addresses (given in full), some concluding reflections by the Revd Bill Snelson, General Secretary of CTE (Churches Together in England), and an account of the worship at the conference. But the present issue of our journal is far from reflecting the richness and variety of the programme. In particular there were eleven workshops, embracing a wide range of topics, among them 'Mission and Evangelism', 'The Married and the Single Life', 'Christian Unity', and 'Living in a Multi-faith Society'.

The liturgical services formed a high point at the conference, and for this we owe a great debt of gratitude to our choir leaders, Fr Michael Fortounatto and James Heywood. Bishop Basil was a skilful chairman at the main sessions, and ensured a remarkably constructive level of discussion during the question-and-answer periods. Nicholas Chapman provided a comprehensive and popular bookstall, and Aidan Hart showed a selection of his icons; there were also displays from several parishes and other organizations. We were well looked after by the staff of the Hayes Conference Centre. Zina Wilson gave valuable help with the preliminary publicity. Above all our warmest thanks are due to Bede and Jenny Gerrard for the care and hard work that they devoted to the practical arrangements for the conference. Because of them it ran smoothly and with striking efficiency.

Among the aspirations voiced at the conference was the need for an Orthodox Information Centre and Press Office. We were all of us conscious of a serious weakness in our gathering: the relative absence of younger participants. What, we have to ask ourselves, can the Fellowship do to overcome the 'generation gap', as it was termed by Esther and Rebecca Hookway? We also realized that the Fellowship would benefit from closer links with the Fraternité Orthodoxe in Western Europe and with Syndesmos. This would make our future conferences more international and more authentically pan-Orthodox.

Yet, while noting areas for improvement, we have every reason to bless God for the deeply encouraging achievements of the conference. In a report posted on the British Antiochian website, Fr Gregory Hallam commented that 'the Swanwick Conference surpassed all expectations both in terms of attendance and [in] the practical vision it inspired…. We can be wholly positive about the ongoing work of the Fellowship in serving the mission of the Church…. The input was of the highest order.' The news-sheet Orthodox Voice recorded the words of one participant, 'The best conference I have ever been to', and it continued: 'Many of the people who went to Swanwick on what was the hottest weekend of the year left with the feeling that a new era for Orthodoxy in Great Britain and Ireland was about to begin…. The lasting memory of this conference was laughter and a sense of togetherness. It seemed that all the participants genuinely enjoyed each other's company.'

'It is good to be here': so Fr John Breck affirmed at the start of his talk, recalling that the conference began on the Feast of the Transfiguration. That was certainly the general conviction of the participants. We hope to hold another large-scale conference in three years' time. In the interval, let us all work together to build upon what, by God's grace, has been achieved this year at Swanwick.

+ BISHOP KALLISTOS OF DIOKLEIA

Chairman of the Fellowship

The future of Orthodoxy, of the fullness of the Faith 'that was once for all entrusted to the saints' (Jude 3) in these islands is a subject that needs deep and serious consideration; and it is a subject to which those who live, work and worship in our Churches have a great deal to contribute - and this I what you have chosen to study for the next few days.

It is a subject on which both those who have been Orthodox since birth and those who have become Orthodox by rebirth can speak with equal authority. Indeed, those of us who have been Orthodox from birth frequently need to listen to those who have entered Orthodoxy in later life, since their knowledge of the faith and those practices that have been sanctified by time is deeper and wider than our own. This is not to say, however, that w have nothing to contribute. Indeed, there must be a sharing between those for whom Orthodoxy has been a living Faith since the very first moments of their existence, one that has been part of their lives from before they can remember and which has been received with their mother's milk, and those for whom the theory and tenets of Orthodoxy are well-known and sincerely held, but who lack the early family environment with its day-to-day practice of the Faith in a spirit of overflowing love and devotion.

A lot of material - either in the form of correspondence or in the form of magazine articles - crosses my desk about the future of Christian Orthodoxy. In Greece, as in other parts of the Orthodox world, there is a growing interest in Orthodoxy outside its traditional lands - not only to the West but also to the East. There is great interest in the Greek-speaking world in the lives of the saints who shone forth in these islands before Orthodoxy was rent by schism and heresy, since the Faithful find it both interesting and inspiring in renewing their own Faith. We must not forget that a period of British history has been called the 'Age of Saints'. And, indeed, in at least one Athenian parish there exists a group of young people who meet regularly to study our local saints and to translate their lives.

However, other material that I receive is of a different nature and tries to limit the freedom that an Orthodox Christian experiences in his or her Faith to heartless rules and regulations - as though Christian life and salvation depends solely on minutiae and an exact observance of the Canons, together with the sayings of a number of spiritual fathers. It is true that to be an Orthodox Christian involves a certain asceticism and discipline. But this is to assist us in having a foretaste of the life that is to come. Do we not receive a glimpse of this during the Divine Liturgy? Do we not see this revealed to us in the Lives of the Saints?

A few days ago we celebrated the Synaxis of a number of newly-glorified martyrs of the twentieth century, all of whom lived a part of their lives in France. These would have known the problems and difficulties of life in the West; and they must frequently have asked themselves, 'How do we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land?' (Ps. 136 [137]: 4). That they achieved it, even if at least one of them was seen by her contemporaries as being very 'unorthodox' in her outlook, sets the seal on the life of Orthodox Christians in the West. However, we must not rest on our laurels! There is work to be done if we are to continue into the future with an unsullied Faith, giving witness in our daily life to our belief in the Triune God and to the virtues of His friends, the Saints, chief among whom is His All-Holy Mother.

There needs to be far closer co-operation between the so-called 'jurisdictions' in giving Orthodox Christian witness - not just among the leaders but among the faithful as well. Perhaps there should be more 'Sundays of Orthodoxy', when we come together to share in worship, throughout the year. We must also remember how our leaders regularly condemn the 'ethnicity' which bedevils many of our congregations. Indeed, His All-Holiness Patriarch Vartholomaeos reminded us of this only a few days ago, in an interview that he gave to Hellenic television.

At the same time, however, there needs to be greater carefulness in the way in which we behave or present our Faith at local inter-confessional gatherings. It is sometimes the case that we make fools of ourselves and cause affront to our Orthodox brethren by the way in which we deport ourselves and by the inaccurate and unorthodox things we utter in a way that can only be described as 'dogmatic'. On the other hand, we must not look upon ourselves as the 'poor relations' at such gatherings and we must certainly not allow ourselves to become decorative elements on such occasions. What is needed are people who are in a position to give a clear and effective message of Christian Orthodoxy. Here, the work of the various theological study centres will surely bear fruit.

We need also to think about the way in which we worship. While many of our older congregations feel happy using the language they knew from worship in the lands from which they originate, there is now a generation that wants to worship in the land in which they are now dwelling, which wants to take in the richness of Orthodox hymnography, poetry and prayer in a language which they feel to be their own. We have to look sensitively at both their demands and the needs of the older generation and of those who have more recently arrived in these Islands - but, I believe, without splitting the parishes into simply linguistic ones. Our worshipping communities, in whatever form, need to be vibrant congregations in which Orthodox Christian Witness is made manifest with a giving and sharing among its members, cutting across barriers of age, language and outlook. And it is here that we need experienced translators, ones who are able to convey the depths of meaning contained in the original liturgical texts in a form of the English language that is acceptable to our congregations (while having particularly in mind the needs of our younger people).

We need to think a lot more about our Orthodox Christian Youth movements. If we turn to France, we can see what can be achieved. It is a truism to say that our future is with our young people. It is self-evident! But we must decide what heritage we are going to pass on to them and in what way.

The discussion of such questions is the use and purpose of gatherings such as yours; and I look forward with eagerness to learning the results of your deliberations.

May Almighty God, Who is Three in One and One in Three, through the prayers of His All-Holy Mother and of all the Saints who have shone forth in these Islands, bless you and guide you as you study this important subject. For your deliberations are to His glory and honour, which is everlasting and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

In this present year of grace 2004, we Orthodox are remembering a number of anniversaries, some unhappy, some happy. Exactly nine-and-a-half centuries ago, in 1054, there took place the bitter exchange of anathemas between Rome and Constantinople. Eight centuries ago, in 1204, there occurred the yet more bitter sack of Constantinople by the fourth Crusade. In a happier spirit, we are celebrating this year the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of our Orthodox Fellowship of St John the Baptist; and to mark our first quarter-century, we are holding what may justly claim to be the first Pan-Orthodox Congress in Great Britain.

There is, however, yet another anniversary that falls this year, which can give our present conference a particular inspiration and a specific sense of direction. Two hundred and fifty years ago, in 1754, St Seraphim of Sarov was born. (His date of birth is often given as 1759, but recent research has confirmed that he was in fact born five years earlier.) In the spirit of our Holy Father Seraphim, I salute you with his customary greeting that is so full of light of the Transfiguration and of Pascha: 'My Joy, Christ is Risen!'

'My joy', says St Seraphim; and, without any doubt whatsoever, it is certain that there will be no future for Orthodoxy in Britain - or anywhere else - without the joy of the Resurrection. In the words of Fr Alexander Schmemann, 'From its very beginning Christianity has been the proclamation of joy, of the only possible joy on earth…. Without the proclamation of joy Christianity is incomprehensible. It is only as joy that the Church was victorious in the world, and it lost the world when it lost that joy, and ceased to be a credible witness to it. Of all the accusations against Christians, the most terrible one was uttered by Nietzsche when he said that Christians had no joy…. "For behold, I bring you tidings of great joy" - thus begins the Gospel, and its end is: "And they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy" (Luke 2:10; 24:52). And we must recover the meaning of this great joy.'¹ In the same spirit Fr Dumitru Staniloae affirms: 'The deepest foundation of the hope and joy which characterize Orthodoxy and which penetrate all its worship is the Resurrection. Easter, the centre of Orthodox worship, is an explosion of joy… - of cosmic joy at the triumph of life over death…. "Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult, and let the world invisible and visible keep holiday, for Christ our eternal joy is risen." All things are now filled with the certainty of life, whereas before, all had been moving steadily towards death…. If Christianity were no longer to give this joy to the world, then its justification for existing would disappear.'²

The joy of the Resurrection, however, goes hand in hand with the sacrificial suffering of the Cross. As we proclaim each week at Sunday Matins, 'Through the Cross joy has come to all the world.' Through the Cross: there can be no other way. There will, then, be no future for Orthodoxy in Britain - or anywhere else - without Cross-bearing. There are two contrasting statements of St Seraphim of Sarov that we need always to keep equally in view, if we are rightly to discern the shape of things to come. To his disciple Nicolas Motovilov, as they stood together in the glory of the Transfiguration, with the snowflakes falling round them in the winter forest, the saint said, 'The Spirit of God fills with joy whatever He touches.' But on other occasions St Seraphim insisted, 'No sorrow, no salvation.'³ It was because in his own life St Seraphim held in creative balance these two things - the joy of the Resurrection and the sorrow of the Cross - that he is truly to all the world a light of hope, shining in the darkness.

The theme of the conference is 'Orthodoxy in the West: Today and Tomorrow'. It is indeed my expectation that at this conference we shall discover more clearly what is our Orthodox vocation in the Western world. But at the outset let us honestly admit: in the face of many questions posed to us in the contemporary West, we Orthodox do not have as yet a ready-made set of answers. We simply do not have a detailed master-plan, accepted by all of us. We are a pilgrim Church, firm in our ultimate hope, but by no means sure about the road that lies immediately before us. The words of St John apply not only to our personal lives but to our situation as a Church community: 'Beloved, even now we are already God's children; but what we shall be in the future has not yet been made manifest to us' (1 John 3:2).

Yet, if our ecclesial future is in many ways a mystery, it is definitely a mystery that concerns all of us. As the Eastern Patriarchs affirmed in their Answer to Pope Pius IX (1848), 'The defender of the faith is the very body of the Church, that is, the people (laos) itself.'⁴ The defence of the faith, and the living out of that faith in the contemporary world, is not the responsibility only of the bishops and synods. Much more fundamentally, it is the responsibility of the Holy People of God, of the laos or laity, in its totality; the responsibility of all who have been baptized in Christ and sealed at Chrismation with the gifts of the Spirit. In the words, once more, of St John, 'You have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things' (1 John 2:20); or, following a reading attested in the most ancient manuscripts, 'All of you have knowledge.'

At the Divine Liturgy, following the Dismissal of the Catechumens, the deacon continues with the words Osoi pistoi, 'As many as are the faithful…'. We need to give full value to this word, the pistoi, 'faithful'. It is not to be taken merely in a sentimental and moralizing fashion; it does not just mean 'loyal', 'obedient', 'persistent', 'determined not to give up'. It has on the contrary a much more positive and dynamic sense. It signifies 'responsible for the Faith', in a personal and conscious way, responsible through our prophetic witness, through our imaginative action, through our self-sacrifice and martyrdom. As 'faithful', are we fulfilling this responsibility with sufficient seriousness?

Let us come now to three questions: What? Where? and How? What is our hope? Where are we now? How can we find the way forward?

'Always be ready', says St Peter, 'to give an answer to everyone who asks you the reason for your hope that is in you' (1 Peter 3:15). What, then, is the hope that is in us, you and me, as Orthodox in Britain today? The human animal. it may be said, is not merely an animal that laughs and weeps, not merely an animal that is logical or political, not merely an animal that creates symbols and expresses itself through myth and ritual, but an animal that entertains hopes. Without hope we are not truly human. What then is our hope? 'Forgetting what lies behind,' states St Paul, 'I reach forward (epekteinomenos) to what lies ahead.' Towards what, then are we British Orthodox reaching forward, as we embark on a new millennium? What is our epektasis?

For myself, I am in no doubt at all about our eventual aim. We hope for a single local Orthodox Church in the British Isles, embracing all the Orthodox who are living here. Such has been my own conviction ever since I became Orthodox forty-six years ago, and even before that. We need not specify at this point whether this single local Church is to be styled 'autocephalous' or 'autonomous'; or whether it is to have some special status as, for example, an Exarchate under the Ecumenical Patriarchate; or indeed whether it is to form an independent unit within a larger 'Orthodox Church of Europe'. These are important questions, but they are secondary. Let us concentrate on what is essential. Whatever may be the precise canonical status of the future local Orthodox Church of Britain, there are three features that I see as vital and indispensable for its existence.

First, such a future local Orthodox Church will be organized on territorial, not ethnic, principles. The present multiplicity of overlapping 'jurisdictions' will be replaced by the only structure that can claim to be truly Orthodox: one bishop in each place.

Second, such a future local Church will elect its own bishops. If there is to be a requirement that such elections are, in some or all cases, to be confirmed by a higher ecclesiastical authority such as the Throne of Constantinople, then it will be clearly understood that this confirmation will not be withheld except for a specific reason.

Third, such a local Church will have power to make binding decisions concerning its own internal pastoral life - always, needless to say, in full concordance with the doctrinal and canonical norms of universal Orthodoxy. The kind of decisions that I have in mind are, for example, rules concerning the manner of receiving converts; regulations for mixed marriages, and for marriages between an Orthodox Christian and a non-Christian; conditions for the granting of divorce; requirements for ordination; the right to convene clergy-laity conferences, to endorse parish statutes, and to approve statutes (typika) for monasteries.

More profoundly, however, any future local Orthodox Church in the British Isles will be a unity-in-diversity, following St Paul's vision of the Church as a single Body with many limbs (1 Cor. 12:12-17). In Britain today, we are a multi-cultural society, and we are likely in the future to become even more so. This pluralism is to be reflected in our ecclesial life. In any future local Church, all the Orthodox faithful in each place are to be under one bishop; yet within each diocese, as within the local Church as a whole, full scope is to be allowed for cultural and ethnic diversity. Individual parishes may preserve, for as long as this is pastorally desirable, their own liturgical and linguistic heritage, whatever that may be: Greek, Slav, Arab, Romanian, Georgian or Albanian. At the same time all parishes without exception would recognize the same local bishop.

There might, it is true, be an intermediate stage when all the bishops belong to a single local synod, yet there still continue to exist parallel ethnic or national dioceses. But such an arrangement can only be regarded as temporary and provisional.

Certainly we Orthodox in the West should not in any way undervalue the immense benefit that we enjoy from the variety of national traditions that the Orthodox immigrants have brought with them to our lands. This variety is not in itself a problem but an opportunity, not a burden but an enrichment. It is our privilege as British Orthodox to learn from all these traditions, to distil from each what is precious and distinctive, and to assimilate this into our own spiritual experience, At the same time we must not allow ethnic diversity to impair our all-embracing unity within the one Orthodox Church. Diversity, yes; division, no.

While honouring the different national traditions that the Orthodox in Britain have brought from their Mother Countries, at the same time let us hope that gradually, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, there will emerge a new form of Orthodox ethnic identity that will be distinctively British. (Or should we say: distinctively English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish? When we speak today of national loyalty, we are not always clear what out ethnic identity actually is.) Precisely what form this emerging British Orthodoxy - or English, Welsh, Scottish or Irish Orthodoxy - will take as is as yet no more than dimly apparent, but here and now let us begin to explore. Care is required, however, to ensure that the future 'British Orthodoxy' (or its variants) does not become yet another form of ethnic separatism.

The true order of priorities is wisely indicated by the Greek theologian John Karmiris, who died in 1991. 'We should not speak', he writes, 'of a "national" Greek, Russian or Romanian Orthodox Church' or, we may add, of a 'national' British Orthodox Church. 'Rather we should speak of the one Catholic Orthodox Church in Greece, in Russia, or in Romania [or in Britain], and so forth. To be sure, Orthodoxy does not reject nationalism, correctly conceived, but this nationalism exists and acts within the framework of the Church's catholicity and is defined by it.'⁵

Let us honour and love our nation, whatever it may be. But let us ensure that Orthodox Catholicity comes first: 'There is no longer Jew or Greek… for all of you are one in Christ Jesus' (Gal. 3:28). Let us make our own the eucharistic vision of Church unity that is affirmed by St Ignatius of Antioch: 'Take care to participate in one Eucharist; for there is one flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, and one cup for union with His Blood, one altar, just as there is one bishop together with the presbytery and the deacons my fellow-servants.'⁶

There are no reliable statistics indicating how many baptized Orthodox there are in Britain. Sometimes their number is estimated at around 280,000;⁷ but this, I suspect, is a figure plucked out of the air. In any event, the number of practising Orthodox is much smaller than this. According to a survey carried out in 1998,⁸ on an average Sunday there were in England some 25,200 Orthodox attending church. This represents an increase on previous years: in 1979 the figure was 10,000, and in 1989 it was 12,300. But it gives us little reason for complacency: on an average Sunday the number of Orthodox attending church is less than a tenth of the estimated total of baptized Orthodox, even though - according to the same survey - at Easter the proportion of those present in church (or standing outside) rises to about two-thirds. What is sadly true, and can be confirmed by any impartial observer, is that we are losing our young people on a massive scale.

These 25,000 regular worshippers are divided into nine different 'jurisdictions'. (I would prefer to say 'ecclesial families': the only place in Scripture in which the word 'jurisdiction' is used is Luke 23:7 [King James Bible], where it refers to Herod.) By far the largest group is the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain (Ecumenical Patriarchate), with 111 parishes and eucharistic centres; next come the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), with 35 parishes and eucharistic centres, and the Serbian diocese, with 24. Altogether there are 215 parishes and eucharistic centres in the British Isles.⁹

A striking fact in this connection is the newness of this parish network. In 1827 there was in the whole of Great Britain only one Orthodox place of worship, the Russian Embassy chapel in London. Here is a description of the Sunday Liturgy by an anonymous visitor, writing in The Classical Journal:

In 1827, then, the entire Orthodox presence throughout the whole of the British Isles amounted to no more than a single chapel, attended by about a dozen worshippers. By 1914, at the outbreak of the first World War, the number of Orthodox places of worship had risen to five: the Russian Embassy chapel and four Greek parishes churches: (in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Cardiff). Twenty-five years later, on the eve of the second World War, there were still only five Orthodox churches: one Russian and four Greek. But in the late 1940s and the 1950s, following the influx of Greek Cypriot immigrants and of Slav refugees, there was a significant increase: by 1962, there were 26 places of worship, with 57 clergy. From 1964 onwards, with the arrival of Metropolitan (later Archbishop) Athenagoras II of Thyateira, there was a rapid expansion of the Greek diocese. By 1988/9, counting all the different 'ecclesial families', there were 143 places of worship, with 147 clergy. This has now grown, in the present year 2004, to a total of 215 places of worship, with 208 clergy (7 bishops, 168 priests, and 33 deacons).

It is true that the roots of the Orthodox community in Britain date back to the early seventeenth century. But, as can be seen from the figures just quoted, the greater part of our Orthodox communities are of very recent foundation. No less than eighty-five per cent of our parishes have been established in the last forty years. So far as our grass-roots organization is concerned, we are a new presence on the British religious scene. For the moment, the number of our parishes and clergy continues to grow. But how much longer will this expansion continue? What can be done to halt the tragic loss of our young people? As I visit the large ethnic Greek parishes in London, I ask myself: Who will be in our churches in thirty years' time?

One remarkable feature of the present situation of Orthodoxy in Britain is that a surprisingly high proportion of the clergy are converts of western background. According to my calculations, allowing for the possibility of a slight margin of error, approximately forty per cent are converts, 83 out of a total of 208. Of these, 29 are in the Moscow Patriarchal diocese, 26 are in the Greek archdiocese, and 16 belong to the Antiochian diocese. Among the laity, however, the converts amount to a far lower proportion, probably no more than 2-3 per cent.

'Monks are the sinews and foundations of the Church', said St Theodore the Studite.¹¹ We Orthodox in Britain are greatly blessed to have in our midst a relatively large and flourishing monastic community, with both men and women: the Monastery of St John the Baptist at Tolleshunt Knights in Essex, founded by Archimandrite Sophrony (Sakharov), disciple of St Silouan the Athonite. This generous and hospitable community, pan-Orthodox in character, is an inestimable blessing to all Orthodox in this land, and to countless others outside its borders. But, apart from Tolleshunt Knights, the Orthodox monastic presence in Britain is relatively weak, when compared, for example, with the situation in France. We do well to ask why this should be so.

It is also disturbing that we in Britain have no regularly constituted theological school, comparable to the Institut S. Serge in Paris, The effects of this lack are painfully evident, at any rate in the Archdiocese of Thyateira. Although this has existed as an archdiocese for eighty years, scarcely any of its clergy are Greeks born and brought up in Britain. Almost all of them (apart from the converts) continue to be imported, already ordained, from Greece and Cyprus. We are failing to meet our pastoral needs from our own local resources, and this cannot be considered a healthy situation.

Recently two efforts have been made to fill this gap. First, a modest 'seminary' has been opened by the Archdiocese of Thyateira at Wood Green in North London for Greek students, some of whom, although not all, are candidates for the priesthood. Classes are held on about three evenings each week, but there seems as yet to be no regular syllabus, and no academically recognized degrees or certificates are awarded. Secondly, and more significantly, there is a lively and rapidly expanding Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies at Cambridge, which functions on a pan-Orthodox basis, with the blessing of six of the Orthodox bishops who have pastoral oversight in Britain. It has at present about fifty part-time students who are studying for the certificate and the diploma awarded by the Institute (both of these qualifications are validated by the University of Cambridge). It also has about nine students working (in principle) full-time for the Master's Degree in Pastoral Theology at Cambridge University. While the Cambridge Institute is not itself a school for training priests, its work may help to fill the ranks of the clergy.

Such in brief is our present situation. We are only a small minority in the British religious scene, but we are none the less an established presence. Yet this presence is still but little recognized by the British public as a whole. We are marginalized. To give one out of many possible examples: a standard work of reference, A History of English Christianity 1920-1960 by Adrian Hastings, in the course of 720 pages devotes no more than a single paragraph, running to twelve lines, to the Orthodox in Britain.¹² This may help us to see ourselves as others see us (or rather as they fail to see us).

The progress, or lack of progress, on the part of the Orthodox Church in Britain and elsewhere in the West can best be mapped out by distinguishing three successive stages:¹³

1.  There is, first, the situation in which the different 'jurisdictions', existing side by side in the same territory, maintain friendly contacts on a personal level; as yet, however, they have no institutional structure whereby these contacts are developed on a regular and formal basis.

2.  There is next the stage when the representatives of the different Church families, coexisting in the same area, co-operate on a semi-official level, by meeting in a committee or conference which functions under certain defined rules, but which falls short of constituting a local synod in the full canonical sense. In the USA, for example, there has existed since 1960 the 'Standing Committee of Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas' (SCOBA); in France there is the 'Assembly of Orthodox Bishops of France'; and in most countries of Europe, as also in Australia, there are similar inter-Orthodox committees.

3.  Eventually the moment will come - such at any rate is our hope - when these semi-official episcopal committees transform themselves, each in their own area, into a local canonical synod, embracing all the hierarchs in a specific territory, with power to elect bishops to vacant sees and to regulate pastoral life. Before attaining full self-governance, such a synod might exist for a time in a transitional situation. Individual hierarchs might continue to preserve links with their respective Mother Churches, maintaining in this way a dual canonical loyalty, both to the local synod and to the Church authority in the land from which they or their predecessors came. This would involve a delicate balancing act; but with good will, and under the guidance of the Paraclete, it would not necessarily result in conflict. Alternatively the synod might function under the omophorion of the Ecumenical Throne. There are many possibilities. In the radically new situation of Orthodoxy in the western world let us not be afraid to look for radically new solutions - solutions which are in accordance with Holy Tradition, yet which are genuinely adventurous and imaginative. Let us emulate the wise householder, who 'brings forth out of his treasure things both new and old' (Matt. 13:52). 'The Lord's mercies are new every morning' (Lam. 3:23).

Clearly the crucial point of transition lies between the second and the third of these stages. So far, nowhere in the West have the Orthodox crossed this vital frontier. When the Moscow Patriarchate in 1970 granted autocephaly to the Russian Metropolia (the OCA, 'The Orthodox Church in America'), doubtless it hoped that other Mother Churches would take a similar step, thereby making possible an advance in the USA to the third stage. So far, apart from the Antiochian Church (to some extent), the other Orthodox Churches have not followed Moscow's example. Evidently they have felt that it is not yet the kairos, the critical moment for decision and action. When will the time come?

What I have just been saying about Mother Churches and a canonical synod may well lead some of you to respond: All of this is a matter for the higher ecclesiastical authorities; it lies altogether outside our competence as parish clergy or laity; let us not bother about such matters. Such a response is understandable, and even in some measure justifiable; but it is inadequate. If we ask ourselves, 'Will Orthodox unity in the West come from above or from below?', then surely the only correct answer has to be: 'From both'.

From above: The solution has to come from a 'Holy and Great Council', representing the entire Orthodox world. But when, we ask, will such a Council actually be convened?

From below: Even if a Holy and Great Council does meet, it will be able to achieve little or nothing unless it has support at the grass-roots level from the total Church community, clergy and laity together. The preparation for a Holy and Great Council is the responsibility of all of us without exception. We need to make ready the way through local contacts and mutual discussion between parishes and dioceses, and above all through personal friendships across national and 'jurisdictional' boundaries. Our Orthodox Fellowship of St John the Baptist was founded twenty-five years ago precisely in order to foster such wide-ranging friendships.

Let us not expect Orthodox unity in the West to descend from heaven as a deus ex machina. Unity is not only a gift but a task. Canonical unity will come about when, and only when, there is a burning desire for such unity at every level of Church life, an overwhelming and compelling sense of urgent longing among the local flock in each place. The establishment of local Churches in the West is the responsibility of the people of God in its plenitude - of all the faithful who constitute the 'royal priesthood' (1 Pet. 2:9), who have received 'an anointing from the Holy One' (1 John 2:20), and who, as the Patriarchs insisted in 1848, are collectively and individually 'the defender of the faith'. There will be unity only when all of us feel personally involved in the quest for unity.

Here let us remind ourselves that neither an Ecumenical Council, nor the Ecumenical Patriarchate, nor any other Mother Church, can create an autocephalous Church. The most that any of these can do is to recognize such a Church. But the act of creation has to be accomplished on the spot, locally. The higher church authorities can guide, test, confirm and proclaim. But the creative work can only be brought to pass on the local level, by the living eucharistic cells that are called to constitute gradually the body of a new autocephalous reality.

We must work not only from above but from below. Certainly, there can be no local Orthodox unity without the blessing of our patriarchs and hierarchs. But equally there will be no unity without the prophetic witness of the laity. We bishops hope that you will listen to us, but we must also be willing to listen to you. Let us keep in mind the fine statement of St Innocent (Veniaminov), the Apostle of America: 'The bishop is at the same time both the teacher and the disciple of his flock.'¹⁴

Let me conclude with a question. Just now I distinguished three stages in the journey toward the establishment of a local Orthodox Church. At which of those three stages are we Orthodox here in Britain? The answer is disturbing: we are still only at the first stage. Almost everywhere else in the western world where there is an organized Orthodox presence, there is some kind of inter-episcopal committee or assembly. This is the case in the USA, in Australia, in France and in most countries of Western Europe. But not in Britain. Why, when others have advanced to the second stage, do we in Britain still hold back? What distinctive factors of this land have hindered the development of a forum for inter-Orthodox consultation and co-operation? And has not the time come to set up here in the British Isles our own local 'Assembly of Orthodox bishops'?

I can vividly remember the advice given to me in 1966, as I was about to return to Oxford from the Monastery of St John the Theologian, by the geronta of the island, Fr Amphilochios. I had been ordained priest three months before. 'Do not be afraid,' he insisted. 'As an Orthodox Christian,' he continued, ' you find yourself in a small minority, whether in the university or in the English community as a whole. But do not let fear make you either aggressive or defensive; simply be yourself.' And he repeated, 'Do not be afraid.'

His wise words of counsel, given to me nearly forty years ago, apply also to the mission of the Orthodox Church in the West during the twenty-first century, here in Britain as elsewhere. 'Do not be afraid', the Saviour says to us, 'I am with you always.' And St Seraphim confirms the Saviour's words: 'My joy, Christ is risen!'

1. Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1988), p.24.

2. Dumitru Staniloae, 'Orthodoxy, Life in the Resurrection', Eastern Churches Review 2:4 (1969), p.321.

3. See Archimandrite Lazarus Moore, St. Seraphim of Sarov: A Spiritual Biography (Blanco, TX: New Sarov Press, 1994), pp.126, 199, 259.

4. Answer, § 17: in I.N. Karmiris, Ta Dogmatika kai Symvolika Mnimeia tis Orthodoxou Katholikis Ekklisias, vol.2 (Athens, 1953), p.920.

5. John Karmiris, 'Catholicity of the Church and Nationalism', in Savas Chr. Agouridès, Procès - Verbaux du Deuxième Congrès de Théologie Orthodoxe à Athènes 19-29 Août (Athens, 1978), p.473 (translation modified).

6. To the Philadelphians 4.

7. See SOP [Service Orthodoxe de Presse] 291 (September-October 2004), p.5 (figure for 1992).

8. See Peter Brierley, The Tide is Running Out: What the English Attendance Survey Reveals (Eltham: Christian Research, 2000), pp.34, 35, 36.

9. Here and subsequently, my figures for the year 2004 are based on the 2004 Directory of Orthodox Parishes and Clergy in the British Isles, issued by the Orthodox Fellowship of St John the Baptist. I have made some small adjustments to allow for recent changes. While the church attendance figures given above (note 8) are for England only, all other figures refer to the British Isles as a whole. Even though there has recently been a rapid expansion of Orthodoxy in Ireland, the great majority of our members continue to be English residents. If the Orthodox in Wales, Scotland and Ireland are added, the attendance figure probably needs to be increased by no more than 1,000-1,500.

I use the cumbersome phrase 'parishes and eucharistic centres' because, out of the 215 entries in the Directory, only about 80 have a celebration of the Liturgy every Sunday, and many have a service less than once a month.

10. The Classical Journal, vol. 36, no. 72 (1827), p.179.

11. Shorter Catecheses 114.

12. Adrian Hastings, A History of English Christianity 1920-1990 (London: SCM Press, 1991), pp.605-6 (originally published in 1986).

13. Here I am summarizing ideas that I first put forward more than thirty years ago, at the Institut S. Serge on the Sunday of Orthodoxy 1983 (see SOP 77 [April 1983], pp.14-20: cf Forerunner 43 [2004], pp.3-4). It is sad but true that the remarks which I made then are still applicable today: so meagre is the progress that we have made in the last decades!

14. Quoted (with approval) by Alexis Khomiakov in his essay Quelques mots par un chrétien orthodoxe sur les communions occidentales (Paris, 1853), p.36: see Alexander Schmemann, Ultimate Questions: An Anthology of Modern Russian Religious Thought (new edn, Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1977), p.56.

My intention is to address some of the most pressing ethical challenges we as Orthodox priests and laypeople are called to face today, and to suggest ways we might faithfully respond to those challenges. Because the number and complexity of ethical issues facing the Church and its ministry are so great, I will have to limit myself to discussing a few major problems that are currently emerging in the field of bioethics. This is the science that deals with technological and other concerns that have a direct impact on human life, particularly at its beginning and at its end.

How is the Church to respond to the awesome challenges posed by recent developments in the burgeoning field of bio-medical technology? How do we as pastors and other members of the Body of Believers provide adequate and faithful answers to questions that until the middle of the last century had never even been posed: questions concerning medically assisted procreation, experimentation using human embryos, and manipulation of the human genome; and at the other end of life's spectrum, questions of euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, organ transplantation, and pain management for terminally ill patients?

Most of us, of course, have no formal medical training. Consequently, we have very limited means for assessing the moral implications of today's 'new medicine.' Embryologists are still arguing over the point at which human life actually begins (fertilization, implantation, quickening, birth, or even later?), and what this means for manipulation of the human embryo. Geneticists are discovering new ways of controlling gene expression, while they offer us sex selection and other possibilities for creating 'designer babies.' Neurologists are devising ever more sophisticated techniques for blocking nerve paths, to provide relief to patients in chronic pain. And gerontologists are scrutinizing chromosomal telomeres and other phenomena that affect the ageing process, in an effort to extend by a third or more the human life span.

Such people are highly trained specialists, and most of us don't count ourselves among their number. Yet as priests and concerned laypersons, we are frequently called upon to offer guidance - to medical professionals, to patients and their families, and to the general public - regarding the moral consequences of this and related research. It's a daunting challenge, one that requires us to become increasingly conversant with medical technology and its potential for good and ill, while we ground our reflection ever more deeply in Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. Scripture and Tradition will not give us pat answers to questions concerning the use of specific, newly developed medical technologies. But they will provide us with the perspective - the 'ecclesial mind' - needed to make moral judgments and to offer pastoral direction to those who are involved first-hand with critical issues that affect us from conception until death.

Biomedical technology has grown immensely in the past few years, providing new possibilities for healing as well as new threats to our well-being. Two areas are of particular importance, especially in light of recent legislation that sanctions practices that pose a serious and imminent danger to human life. These concern: 1) manipulation of the human embryo, and 2) end-of-life care. Briefly, I want to spell out the chief ethical problems that arise within each of these two areas. At the same time, I would like to suggest ways that we as Orthodox priests and laity can speak to those problems so as to remain faithful to our Tradition, while we offer appropriate guidance to those who attempt to make life and death decisions in accordance with the will of God.

From the perspective of Orthodox Christianity, all research on human subjects, like all treatment of the terminally ill, should be guided by the Christian understanding of human persons as created 'in the image of God'. That is, decisions concerning the Christian's moral life can be made only on the basis of theology. God alone establishes ultimate meaning and purpose in human existence. Therefore it is only God who provides the framework by which we can make moral judgments with regard to medical technology and to the manipulation and treatment of human persons.

In today’s secular, post-modern and highly pluralistic world, this kind of affirmation sounds sectarian and retrograde, if not absurd. How can we as Christians impose our own standards of moral conduct upon a society that has abandoned those standards in favour of a philosophical relativism that rejects the very existence of absolute values and truths? Indeed, how can we even speak of a 'Christian perspective' regarding moral judgments, when Christians of various confessional backgrounds hold very different opinions as to how we are to interpret Scripture and early Church tradition, and how we should apply our interpretations in specific cases?

Given this diversity of perspectives, we as Orthodox Christians can only bear witness to what we know and hold to be true. This means that we turn to Holy Tradition, with the conviction that God has revealed His will, and continues to do so, in and through those traditional sources that serve as the ground of our faith: the Old and New Testaments, early patristic teachings, the Church’s Liturgy, and others. In other words, in this post-modern world, we need to hold, with unwavering conviction and determination, to 'the faith once and for all (hapax) delivered to the saints' (Jude 3).

Such a commitment may sound self-evident. The term 'post-modern,' after all, originally signified the abandoning of 'modernist' trends - in art, literature and culture in general - in order to return to more traditional values. In recent years, however, the term's meaning has shifted, so that now, in popular usage, 'postmodernism' signifies something more akin to 'relativism.' It implies, basically, a rejection of absolute and objective values and truths, in the belief that all subjective interpretations of what is good and true are of equal standing. One person's notion of what is right or appropriate in any given situation is as valid as any other's, whatever that notion may be. If, in my opinion, human life only really begins at birth, then I am free to dispose of foetuses as I please, with no moral consequences. Your conviction that life is sacred from conception may be important for you, but you have no right to impose that conviction on me.

The same holds for our treatment of those who are disabled or terminally ill. If I feel they would be better off dead, then I have no moral qualms about euthanizing them. If I can persuade the public and the courts to agree with me, then my relativistic perspective becomes enshrined in law. The result is legislation in the United States such as Roe v. Wade, which sanctions unrestricted abortion, and Oregon's Measure 16, which authorizes physician-assisted suicide; and in England, the proposed 'Joffe Bill', authorizing physician-assisted suicide, together with creation of the stem cell bank, hosted by the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control in Hertfordshire, which will offer lines of embryonic stem cells for research purposes. Each of these, popular as they are in today's 'culture of death,' flies in the face of traditional perspectives on the sanctity of life.

As retrograde as it may sound, our responsibility before God and neighbour, in this post-modern world, is nevertheless to preserve and to proclaim precisely 'the faith once and for all delivered to the saints.' The chief ethical question that arises for us is just how we apply the 'givens' of that faith in specific situations that involve the beginning and end of human life.

When the laws of the marketplace govern medical care and medical research as they do in the United States, the potential for innovative therapies is matched by the potential for abuse. During the past few years, for example, secular voices in the medical and pharmaceutical fields, together with much of the media, have tried to convince us that the human embryo, especially in the earliest pre-implantation stages of its growth, constitutes something less than a human person. The embryo, they assert, is to be regarded as mere tissue, with no claim to individual identity or, a fortiori, to legal protection. This is merely an extension of the reasoning behind the pro-abortion movement. If a third-term foetus can be aborted with no ethical or legal consequences, then it seems only reasonable to conclude that embryos can be created and destroyed with impunity. A growing consensus sees such a conclusion as self-evident because of the potential usefulness of embryonic stem cells for creating medical therapies for a wide variety of neurological and other diseases. Even if embryos can be considered to be incipient human life, people ask, isn't it more reasonable - and more ethical - to use their stem cells in order to relieve the suffering of countless patients of Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease, even if harvesting those cells inevitably destroys, that is, kills the embryo?

Similar considerations are changing the way we regard and treat the disabled and the terminally ill. In a world increasingly devoid of ultimate meaning, where comfort and entertainment are primary goals in most people's lives, suffering, whether physical or emotional, is regarded as the 'last enemy.' In such a world, it only makes sense - it's only reasonable and compassionate - to eliminate suffering by any means at hand, including euthanizing the handicapped and the infirm. The inevitable outcome is the legalisation of everything from partial-birth abortion to physician-assisted suicide. Here, too, economic considerations have contributed to the pendulum's swing. If we can legally terminate human life at any point, from the womb to the deathbed, we can, with moral impunity, harvest organs from the not-quite-dead, and spare families from the financial and emotional burdens associated with the education and support of a handicapped child or the end-of-life care of an elderly parent. Isn't it more reasonable, people ask - and more ethical - to euthanize, that is, to kill a profoundly disabled child or comatose adult, rather than allow them to suffer and to make others pay the bill?

Such is the postmodernist reasoning that has produced today's 'new eugenics'. In the perspective of Orthodox Christianity, the response to that reasoning is unambiguous, although it goes very much against the reigning mentality in today’s culture. In Romans 3:8, the apostle Paul lays down the basic moral principle that governs the Church's approach to the question: We may not do evil so that good may come. A good result does not justify an immoral action.

From the viewpoint of the Church, to destroy embryonic life is to destroy a human person. Even if we consider the potential good that can be derived from embryonic stem cells, insofar as the harvesting of those cells destroys the embryo, it involves the killing of a newly created person. Since that act itself is inherently evil, there is no ultimate good to be derived from it. No moral calculus that weighs the good against the bad in this case has any validity, because before God we may not do evil in order to obtain a good result.

Then again, if Orthodox ethicists similarly condemn various forms of euthanasia, it is because the personal quality of human life is indelible. It is lost neither with sickness nor with death. Created in God's image, the individual human being bears that image in full, whether he or she is disabled or comatose: afflicted with severe physical or mental retardation, dwelling in the never-land of permanent unconsciousness, or existing in a persistent vegetative state. Even anencephalic children and persons whose physical existence is maintained solely by life-support technology 'bear the image of God'. While appropriate care for them would be different from the care given to disabled or comatose patients, they too are created in the image of God, and that fact needs to be respected at every moment of their life, however infirm and even meaningless that life may seem to us.

For many Orthodox Christians, the conflict between the perspective of our post-modern culture and the traditional perspective of the Church reinforces their sense that we are actually living in two different worlds, one governed by utilitarian expediency and the other by the Gospel of Christ. We speak different moral languages because we fail to share the same moral perspectives and commitments. With radically different moral presuppositions, traditional Christianity and post-modern, secular ethics remain worlds apart with regard to any resolution of moral conflicts. Although each one may be able to understand the other's position, we share no common basis, no 'canonical content-full moral vision' that makes it possible for us to resolve bioethical or other moral disagreements.¹

To paraphrase Dostoevsky: Without God in this secular, pluralistic environment, anything is permissible, particularly if it can serve utilitarian ends such as improving human health and extending the life span. With God, on the other hand, and in obedience to God, we accept the moral requirement to refuse even the good, when that purported good is purchased at the cost of destroying human life. From the perspective of the Gospel, we simply may not save or ameliorate the conditions of one life by sacrificing another. This is the work of Christ, accomplished once and for all by His sacrifice on the Cross. As for ourselves, it is essential that we hold to the truth that human life finds its ultimate value and purpose beyond the limits of biological existence. Good health and a long life are desirable and worthy goals. They are so, however, only to the extent that they exist to further our growth toward what Orthodox Church tradition calls theosis or 'deification': eternal participation of the human person in divine life, the life of the Holy Trinity.

Our rejection of procedures that lead to the destruction of embryonic life, then, like our rejection of active euthanasia, is grounded in our vision of the true purpose of human existence: not to improve or extend our life as an end in itself, but to relinquish that life - together with its suffering and its limitations - into the open arms of God.

At this point, I would like to turn to a few practical issues, in an effort to provide at least tentative answers to frequently raised questions concerning the beginning and end of life. Specifically, we shall consider the moral implications of embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) and therapies derived from it, then issues surrounding the treatment and accompaniment of the terminally ill.

Unlike their Roman Catholic counterparts, Orthodox theologians have never tried to specify at what point God endows the newly created embryo with a soul. Western thought is marked by a certain dualism in this regard, holding that the soul is co-created with the body, or that the soul is infused into the body at some point after fertilization. To the Orthodox, this reifies and objectifies the soul, distinguishing it from the body as a separate entity. From the holistic perspective of the Greek Fathers, it would be more appropriate to speak of the body, not as 'having' or 'possessing' a soul, but as being 'ensouled.' It is animated by the God-given psychê or life-principle at every stage of its existence. Neither body nor soul ultimately exists without the other, even if physical death involves a certain separation of the soul from the flesh. The body (sôma) embraces flesh, soul and spirit; and although the flesh 'returns to dust,' the bodily or somatic character of our existence abides into eternity. This is why, adopting biblical imagery, we affirm that Christ's victory over death results not in the 'immortality of the soul,' but in the resurrection of the body.²

Therefore, rather than affirm that the human person receives and possesses a soul, as an entity distinct and separate from the body, it would be more accurate to say that the person is an ensouled being, and is such from conception onward. The 'soul,' in other words, is to be understood as the animating principle in human life that guides development of the person from fertilization through death, and into the Kingdom of heaven.

This way of thinking leads to an important conclusion: that human life is sacred from its very beginning, since from conception it is ensouled existence. As such, it is 'personal' existence, created in the image of God and endowed with a sanctity that destines it for eternal life.

This traditional understanding of the human person and the relation between soul and body is derived from a particular interpretation of Scripture, especially among Eastern patristic writers. With recent discoveries in the field of embryology, however, many scientists, including Orthodox and other Christians, are proposing that we rethink the notion of 'conception' and distinguish it from fertilization. To explain their argument, we need to take up the ancient debate concerning the actual beginning of human life. We need to address the question whether animation or ensoulment is immediate or delayed, that is, whether fully individuated - and therefore 'personal' - existence is present from the time the nuclei of sperm and ovum unite or, as many hold, only from the time at which the embryo becomes embedded in the uterine membrane. Stated another way, the question is whether 'conception' is complete with creation of the unicellular zygote, or whether it requires implantation, which occurs a week or more after the zygote is formed.

There is no doubt that genetic uniqueness or 'genetic individuality' exists from 'syngamy,' that is, when the nuclei of the male and female gametes unite to form the single cell zygote, marking the first stage of embryonic growth. That fusion produces a unique arrangement of twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, which contain the DNA - the 'genetic blueprint' - that will determine the organism's development throughout its lifetime.

The most important question we need to consider is whether genetic individuality signifies developmental individuality. By developmental individuality, we mean the development of a specific human individual as a result of cellular differentiation. Most embryologists hold that the cells of the developing embryo do not begin to differentiate - that is, to become specialized so that they can produce specific organs and tissues - until the embryo begins to implant itself in the uterine wall, about ten days after fertilization. Others, however, hold that a phenomenon called 'methylation' indicates that cellular differentiation occurs from the second stage of mitosis, and therefore we must consider the embryo to be characterized by both genetic and developmental individuality from that stage, and not only from the point of implantation.

This entire debate has been waged throughout history as one between 'immediate animation' and 'delayed animation.' Immediate animation is the theory that holds that ensouled human existence begins with fertilization. Delayed animation, on the other hand, implies that the soul does not exist - that the embryo is not an ensouled being -until some time after implantation.

With the great majority of Orthodox ethicists, I have supported the theory of immediate animation for two basic reasons. First, because of the genetic uniqueness of the zygote, and secondly because of the significance of methylation. Methylation is due to the presence of a methyl (CH₃) addition to the cytosine base of the organism's DNA. It occurs from around the second stage of mitosis or cell division and signals the onset of gene expression, that is, the way genes are turned on and off to direct the growth and development of the embryo. Methylation, in other words, is a marker for the beginning of cellular differentiation: it demonstrates that the so-called 'totipotent' blastomeres produced by segmentation or cell division are not genetically identical but are already - in the pre-implantation stage of growth - programmed toward specific functions. (Since each blastomere contains the entire genome, it is potentially possible for each one to develop into a complete organism. This produces the phenomenon of identical twins- whose parents well know they are not 'identical' in any strict sense of the word. What makes identical twins different from each other is largely the difference in their cellular composition, which is due to the fact that their genes expressed themselves in divergent ways during the first days of their existence, prior to their implantation in the mother's womb.)

There is no doubt that methylation indicates cellular differentiation in mice and other lower organisms, and there is good evidence that it functions in a similar way in human embryos. With regard to the 'status of the embryo,' methylation demonstrates that the embryo is an individual human existence - a 'personal' identity - from the very beginning, that is, from fertilization. As such, the pre-implantation embryo must be regarded not only as human life, but as a genetically and developmentally unique human being, endowed with the 'image of God'.

Nevertheless, most scientists who work in the field of embryology today hold a different view of the matter. They maintain that the pre-implantation embryo is not a human individual, it is rather the essential substratum of human life. Although it is fully human, in their eyes it does not yet constitute an individual human being. This view is based on several considerations that likewise reflect recent discoveries in the field of embryology .

First, each of the cells or blastomeres of the early embryo is 'totipotent': that is, each separate cell is capable of developing into a complete individual being, since it contains the entire genome and supposedly is not yet differentiated. (This view denies the significance of methylation and holds that cellular differentiation begins only with implantation.) Second, there is the problem of a high rate of 'wastage': the fact that from 50% to 70% of all embryos are spontaneously miscarried prior to implantation, before the mother ever knows she is pregnant. Such a massive loss of embryos argues intuitively against the idea that each one is an ensouled human being. Thirdly, prior to implantation monozygotic or identical twinning can occur, and occasionally those entities can recombine. This appears to throw into question the very notion of 'individual' human existence at this point. And fourthly, a profound transformation of the embryo occurs with implantation: totipotency is lost, and with it the capacity for twinning; the neural streak or primitive body axis appears, which marks the beginning of the development of the central nervous system; and new epigenetic information is provided to the growing embryo by the uterus itself. The result of this transformation, which occurs with implantation, is 'gastrulation' and the beginning of 'organogenesis' - that is, it marks the beginning of neurological growth and organ development. These factors lead many if not most embryologists today to argue that the true beginning of human life, with completion of the process of conception, occurs not at fertilization, but at implantation of the embryo in the membrane of the mother's uterus.

This is, of course, a very technical and difficult debate. But it is one that has the most serious consequences for the way we treat human life at its earliest stage of growth. If an individual human being appears only at the point of implantation and the appearance of the primitive streak, this allows us to manipulate the early embryo with moral impunity. It means we can have little or no moral objection to in vitro fertilization, even when the so-called 'extra embryos' are frozen for future transfer or used for experimental purposes. And although embryonic stem cells must be harvested from the embryo at the blastocyst stage, before implantation, it means that the resultant destruction of the pre-implantation embryo likewise has no ultimate moral significance. It also means that embryos may be cloned (i.e., created in vitro by nuclear transfer) in order to provide stem cells for therapeutic purposes.

There is no doubt that embryonic stem cells and possibilities for cloning hold an extraordinary potential for developing therapies and medicines to combat a broad range of diseases, including Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, ALS, muscular dystrophy, and even AIDS. While most scientists and medical professionals firmly oppose reproductive cloning (that is, creating live human babies), they just as firmly support therapeutic cloning and embryonic stem cell research precisely because its potential to heal is so great.

In this regard, however, we have to come back to the admonition of the apostle Paul in Romans 3:8, 'We may not do evil so that good might come.' If the pre-implantation embryo is indeed individuated human life, a true human being and thus a person who bears the divine image, then any manipulation of that embryo, for therapeutic or other purposes, is inherently immoral and must be condemned as such by the Church.

If, on the other hand, conception is in reality a process that comes to completion only with implantation, then our opposition to embryonic stem cell research and cloning is unjustified, since those procedures involve only 'pre-embryos.' Unwittingly, we are opposing valuable medical research on grounds of a misunderstanding, one based in part on a misreading of Scripture. Although the Psalmist declares that God 'knit him together in his mother's womb' (Ps. 138 [139]:13), that implies the uterus, since the ancient Hebrews knew nothing of ovulation and fallopian tubes. The biblical witness, in other words, can easily be understood to affirm that human life begins with what we call implantation.

Let me say that I remain convinced that animation is immediate, beginning with fertilization. It seems clear that an unbroken continuum exists from fertilization, through embryonic and foetal growth, through birth and beyond physical death, reaching its fulfilment in the Kingdom of God.

Nevertheless, an increasing number of Orthodox scientists and physicians today are persuaded by the arguments for delayed animation. They are convinced that actual human life begins only with implantation and appearance of the primitive streak. It is imperative, therefore, that we call on embryologists, geneticists and other specialists to do all in their power to answer the question of the actual beginning of individual human life, in a way that corresponds to empirical reality. But this also means in a way that corresponds to the truth: to the way God actually creates individual human persons. As I read the evidence, I can only conclude that God in fact brings a new human being into existence through the process of fertilization that leads to the onset of gene expression. There simply is no other point, including implantation, at which we can affirm: 'Human life begins here.'

One of the most difficult issues our priests have to deal with these days is whether or not it is morally acceptable for a couple to resort to in vitro fertilization and other forms of medically assisted procreation. Artificial insemination, using the husband's own sperm, seems to present no real problem from a moral point of view. The technique is simple to the point of being routine, and no third party is introduced into the procreative process, as it is in 'heterologous insemination,' using donor sperm.

In vitro fertilization, however, poses problems of a different order. The procedure is typically referred to as IVF-ET, in vitro fertilization with embryo transfer. It usually involves a technique known as zygote intra-fallopian transfer (ZIFT), by which a zygote or early stage embryo is transferred from the petri dish to the woman's fallopian tubes, where it will journey toward the uterus and, in some 20% of cases, implant and continue to grow. To harvest ova, however, it is necessary to perform ovary stimulation. This produces numerous ova that are then mixed in culture with specially treated sperm. The chief moral problem posed by IVF is the creation of 'extra embryos'. Of some six to ten viable embryos selected, only two or three will be transferred to the womb. The rest are either frozen for future transfers, if the first did not 'take', or else they are used for experimentation or for providing stem cells. Transplanting every viable embryo raises the risk of a multiple pregnancy, with the consequent need for 'foetal reduction', that is, the killing and extracting of one or more of the growing foetuses.

The relatively new procedure known as intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) was devised to permit a single sperm to fertilize a single ovum and thus produce only one embryo. Sperm tend to be selected for the procedure, however, based on their motility. There is often no way to know whether the given sperm (or the selected ovum) contains defective genes, that in a normal pregnancy would usually lead to an early miscarriage.

Despite the success with Louise Brown and thousands like her, the problems posed by IVF are such that it is best to avoid the procedure altogether. Costs are prohibitive for any but the relatively wealthy, the invasiveness to obtain both ova and sperm is considerable, production of extra embryos is almost inevitable, and chances for success are barely one in five. When parishioners and others ask whether it is morally acceptable to resort to IVF, these reasons give us grounds for being hesitant, at the very least. It is true that many Orthodox and other parents give thanks every day for the children born to them through IVF technology. Nevertheless, my own feeling is that the best recourse, in cases of infertility or other problems that prevent a pregnancy, would be for the couple to adopt. As much as parents may want a child who carries their combined genomes, we also have a moral responsibility toward the countless children already living throughout the world whose own parents, for whatever reason, cannot or will not care for them.

Let's move now to the other end of the spectrum and note a few of the most important issues surrounding death and the dying process.

Embryonic stem cell research is often touted as a potential panacea that will heal neurological illnesses and lead to the manufacture of new organs to replace old ones. We can only feel compassion for victims of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, for example, who believe that ESCR should receive government funding and public backing for its extraordinary potential. To date, however, very few if any successful therapies have been developed using stem cells taken from human embryos. (There are recent reports, nonetheless, that those cells have been instrumental in restoring the myelin sheath of nerve fibres.)

Far more effective, and far less problematic from an ethical point of view, is the use of adult stem cells, or those taken from placentas and umbilical cords. These have already proved their worth, and they can be found in a great variety of tissues, including muscle, liver, brain, and bone marrow. They have been found even in baby teeth. It was originally thought that adult cells could only reproduce their own kinds of tissue: hematopoietic cells, for example, that can produce colonies of blood cells. Recent research, however, has shown that pluripotent adult stem cells can be differentiated so as to produce a vast variety of cells. Some scientists, in fact, are convinced that within a few years it will be possible to extract a person's own somatic cells, restore their pluripotency, and use them to provide a nearly limitless number of therapies. Before long, therefore, we may be able in the most literal way to obey the ancient admonition, 'Physician, heal thyself!'

Regarding the matter of public support of stem cell research, then, - and until the question of immediate or delayed animation is finally resolved - we can only conclude that therapies based on embryonic stem cells pose an insurmountable moral problem, in that they require the sacrifice of countless thousands of fertilized ova. That is, they require the destruction of what the Church traditionally regards as incipient human life. This is not the case with adult stem cells, which, by the way, have been used in the last few months to create three-dimensional tissue structures. Within a decade, this new technique for forming tissues in the laboratory will lead to the production of entire organs. Thereby it will obviate the need to extract stem cells from embryos, and at the same time it should drastically reduce, if not eliminate, the need for organs harvested from dead and dying patients.

A final word needs to be said about a pastoral issue that is becoming increasingly acute in most Western societies today because of increased longevity. It is the question of how we most appropriately accompany dying patients. To what degree is it morally permissible to intervene in the dying process of a terminally ill person, either to hasten their death or to palliate pain and suffering?

In cases of terminal illness, a fundamental distinction needs to be made between 'killing' and 'letting die.' The term euthanasia, which originally meant 'a good death,' should be used to designate only the former, the act of intentionally ending a patient's life, to avoid further suffering, exorbitant costs, or a drain on limited medical resources. In fact, the term 'euthanasia' has been so abused in recent years that it should probably be avoided altogether - or used only to signify active intervention that aims to hasten the death of the patient. With physician-assisted suicide, the doctor provides the patient with lethal medication, and the patient takes that medication at his or her own discretion. Active euthanasia, on the other hand, is often performed when patients are comatose, in a persistent vegetative state, or otherwise unable to take the initiative in ending their own life. It is a well known if seldom reported fact that, despite legal safeguards, significant numbers of people have been euthanized without their informed consent. This can be due to pressure from the family, who bears the financial and emotional burden of the patient's care, or it can be the result of a decision made by the medical team that the life of the patient lacks sufficient quality for it to be preserved. Tragically, victims of such decisions tend to be the poor, the marginalized and the abandoned elderly, who have no one to speak for them and defend their right to life over against the convenience in having them put out of the way.

Orthodox Christianity can never bless active euthanasia, not even in cases of severe pain and suffering. Nevertheless, the principle of 'double effect' is relevant here. If the intention of the medical team is not to kill, but to facilitate the natural process which is leading inevitably to the death of the patient, then to provide opiates and other means of pain management is thoroughly ethical and indeed mandatory, even if such opiates, such as morphine, tend to repress the respiratory system and bring on death somewhat more quickly than would otherwise be the case. We may not kill, not even to relieve intractable pain. But we may 'let die', that is, allow the patient, without the burden of life-support technology (including CPR), to succumb to the inevitable. And we may - in fact we must - do so with appropriate medication, including sedation. There is a time when the human body, the human person, is struggling toward what the Church's prayers speak of as a 'peaceful separation of soul and body'. To recall an observation of the writer Stewart Alsop, 'A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist.'³

That time should be acknowledged and respected. Once that time has arrived, medical 'heroics' are simply out of place. Indeed, a great deal of medical intervention at the end of life merely prolongs the dying process. And much of that intervention represents not so much care as abuse.

Among the various forms of medical heroics, we can include the artificial administration of food and water. Dying patients often refuse to eat, and even tear out feeding tubes - which well-intentioned but uninformed medical personnel immediately reinsert, thinking the patient is acting irrationally. In fact, patients in a terminal state usually refuse nutrition and hydration because intuitively they know that they do more harm than good. Forcing food and water keeps the body's cells and organs from shutting down spontaneously, and results in increased pain and discomfort for the patient. Withholding food and water or withdrawing the IV lines, however, allows nitrogen wastes to build up throughout the body, producing azotemia, a natural analgesic. With other transformations in the brain, this allows the patient's system to shut down gently in its progression towards death. Some hydration, particularly of the mucus membranes, is needed throughout this process, and that can be adequately supplied through use of glycerine swabs, or ice chips inserted into the mouth.⁴

Then again, a medical team will often decide, even in terminal cases, to administer antibiotics to fight the onset of pneumonia. Yet in such cases, pneumonia may be considered a God-given means to help ease the dying process. Any distress and discomfort can be minimized by mild sedation, and the patient passes gently into a coma, and from there, to death. Accordingly, patients often request that their charts be inscribed with a DNR ('Do Not Resuscitate') order that includes a refusal of antibiotics if pneumonia occurs.

If these clinically established facts were better known and more widely respected by physicians, nurses and families, patients in a terminal state would have a far better chance of enjoying a peaceful end to their life, free of unnecessary suffering.

It is the moral obligation of the medical team, working with the family of the terminal patient, to do all possible to maintain the patient with a maximum of consciousness and a minimum of pain. Consciousness is to be preserved as much as possible so that the person can make a final confession and receive communion, then say goodbye to loved ones. At the same time, it is our moral duty to palliate the pain and suffering of the patient in any appropriate way possible. Too little emphasis has been placed on this vital aspect of end-of-life care. (Medical schools are notorious for their lack of attention to pain management, although that trend is slowly being reversed.) Before God as before dying patients, we are bound to do everything we can to insure for those patients a death that is truly 'painless, blameless and peaceful'. For this reason, special support needs to be given to those involved in the hospice movement, whose concern is to offer the level of compassionate care that dying patients need and deserve, without subjecting them to the pain and indignity of medical 'heroics'.

Manipulation of the embryo and care for the dying patient. These are just two of the multitude of ethical issues we need to grapple with today. Yet they are among the most important of all, since the approach we take depends on our understanding of the meaning and value of human life itself. In this post-modern world, there are enormous pressures to treat life as a commodity, one to be used and exploited for strictly utilitarian ends. It is our responsibility, as members of the Body of Christ, to perceive and proclaim a different truth: that human life derives from and is destined to return to the transcendent Life of the Holy Trinity.

However we may finally define 'conception', and however we may resolve the tension between putting the terminally ill to death and allowing them to die, human life - from the womb to the deathbed - is a sacred gift, destined for a greater and more glorious existence than our minds and hearts can imagine. Our moral responsibility, before God and before each other, is to acknowledge that sacredness by preserving and protecting human life at each and every stage of its existence. It is to behold the presence and purpose of God in the developing embryo as well as in the dying patient, and to minister to both, with unfailing love and compassion. Thereby we can honour the divine image in all human persons, from conception to death, as we surrender them into the merciful hands of the Author of Life.

1. The expression in quotes belongs to Tristram Engelhardt. For a highly perceptive analysis of the problem of differing moral languages and intuitions that separate traditional (i.e., Orthodox) Christianity from ethical perspectives with a different value content, see his work, The Foundations of Christian Bioethics (Lisse, The Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger Publishers, 2000), esp. ch. 1. As he points out (p.37), 'Moral acquaintances can be moral strangers.'

2. See, in this regard, the thought-provoking article by Fr John Garvey, 'Ashes to Ashes. Toward a Christian Understanding of Death', Commonweal, vol. CXXXI, no. 2 (Jan 30, 2004), 16-19. A discussion of the biblical and patristic concept of the body can be found in J. Breck, 'Corps Vivant, Corps Mort, Corps Glorifié', Service Orthodoxe de Presse – Supplément, no. 280, July-Aug. 2003; excerpted in Glaube in der 2. Welt, vol. 37 (11/2003), 29-31.

3. Quoted by Mary Lee Freeman, 'Caring for the Dying. My patients, my work, my faith', Commonweal, vol. CXXXI, no. 2 (30 Jan., 2004), p.12.

4 From The Merck Manual of Geriatrics, 2nd edn (Merck & Co., Whitehouse Station, NJ, 1995), p.243: '…the patient and family need to understand that in certain circumstances, a patient receives more comfort and satisfaction from forgoing nutrition and hydration. After the decision has been made to forgo nutrition and hydration, supportive care is imperative. Such care includes good oral hygiene (brushing the teeth, swabbing the oral cavity, applying lip salve, and providing ice chips for dry mouth). An important physical and psychological comfort measure, providing oral hygiene can give family members a valuable role in caring for the dying patient.'

It is our view that the answer to Bishop Kallistos's questions is ultimately related to how we understand what it is to live the Orthodox faith, firstly in the family and in the parish, and secondly in the various youth and educational activities of our Church. So, Esther and I are now imagining that we are two Orthodox youth officers talking over a kafedaki after the Greek Liturgy - following the early English Liturgy celebrated by our brother Fr John - on a typical Sunday morning at his parish of St Demetrius in North London.

Esther  We have both worked with young people in the Church at the camps of the dioceses of Thyateira and of Sourozh in Britain, and as staff members in Syndesmos, the World Fellowship of Orthodox Youth. Now of course I am doing so at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge.

B In fact, our journey to Orthodoxy began much earlier, even before we were born. Our parents met the Orthodox Church in the 1960s. Ten years later they were received, and theirs was the ambition to bring up their four children in the newly discovered Orthodox faith. At the time, this was by no means an easy task. The local parishes lacked the structure to cater for English families, and there were no provisions in the Church for the upbringing of children.

E That's right, Becky, and yet somehow they managed. Here we are some thirty years later, in the Orthodox Church, which we have grown to know and love, reflecting on our journey.

B But will we manage to do the same for our children? The whole situation has changed. Does today bear any comparison to what it was then? Are local parishes better prepared for the needs of the English Orthodox? Do they provide for their children? Do they want more young people in their communities today?

B First, let's set the background of our reflection. Let's clarify what we mean when we talk about 'being Orthodox'. Here I think of that amazing priest, Fr Cyril Argenti, the French-born Greek missionary, who worked in Marseille after the second World War, most of all with young people and with poor immigrant families. He is quoted as saying: 'Je suis sans cesse en train de… devenir orthodoxe' ('I am continually in the process of becoming Orthodox').²

E He sounds like Fr Sophrony, who used to tell the children when questioned at school about whether they were Orthodox, to reply that they 'try to be'. So let's speak not just of being Orthodox, but rather of becoming Orthodox in Britain today. That is, we remember that we are confirmed members of the Orthodox Church, but what we want to emphasize is that we see our journey, the journey of our parents and of our family, as a continuous, daily striving to become more fully members of the Church.

B 'Being' through 'becoming'; but becoming what? What should we mean when we say 'becoming Orthodox in Britain today'? We are English. We do not yet have our own English Orthodox Church. Can we become simply Orthodox? And what would that mean?

E Let us compare our Orthodox baptism with a pledge, with the issuing of a passport. Since we are here, let us apply for a British passport. Remember that Frenchman who married into an English family. He is standing at the British Consulate in Paris, has never visited Britain, knows little of its culture, even less of its language. Once secured with a passport, he will soon realize that in order to become British, he must visit the country personally, and learn about the people and their ways at first hand. He must taste their food, learn something of their history, enjoy their weather and soak up the atmosphere of the place. Then, slowly, he will stop being nominally British, and will begin to feel British from within. Yet, as we British know so well, he will never become English.

In the same way, if a Welshman is received into, say, the Romanian Orthodox Church, he will become Orthodox, but never Romanian. Just as the Frenchman will quickly learn never to mistake his British passport for English identity, and run the risk of ridicule from his adopted family, so our Welshman should consider his joining the Romanian Orthodox Church only in terms of it being his sacred door to the Church, and only a door, not itself to be mistaken for the pan-Orthodox family house.

B I like the image of a pan-Orthodox family house. But how, as a young person, can you become a lodger in such a house, and not forever remain at the door? What would attract you in there and what would put you off entering?

E As far as I am concerned, it all begins at home. Think of our parents: with very little experience of Orthodoxy themselves, and with very few friends in the Orthodox world, it was a challenge for them to set about bringing up their children in the Orthodox faith. They were concerned about how to transmit the faith to their children, and this desire was their prayer. Was it not that inward disposition, which was so genuine in them, which made the Church attractive to us as children? Were we not attracted to follow what was authentic in them?

Certainly, much more than anything else, it is generally the example of the parents that children are drawn to, at any rate initially. For example, I will always remember how Dad used to pray at home.

B Yes, and I remember that letter they received from a priest friend, containing a particularly valuable piece of advice, which was that the parents' work begins when the children have left the house in the morning for school. Then they must start to pray, commending their children's lives to God, the Mother of God, the angels and the saints on a daily basis.

E Reflecting on our childhood, on the one hand that is the only way for parents to cope with their own anxiety for the safety of their children, and on the other hand, because we believe in the reality of prayer, to secure real help for them,.

B So, then, does bringing the Church into the home mean prayers together as a family, grace before meals, icon corners in the rooms, marking feast days, trying to keep the fasts?

E But these external things will only fulfil their potential if they are lived in a way which comes from the heart, and when the prayer of the parents sustains them. The kind of prayer I mean is, for example, 'Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin…'.

B So, it is in the home that the creativity of the parents can flourish. Remaining in the Orthodox tradition, as an English family not fixed to any one of the particular traditions, there is potentially so much to draw on - Russian, Greek, Romanian, and of course our own Christian tradition in Britain. This pan-Orthodox creativity in the home also remains a daily task, and it will certainly be attractive to children. But what happens when they go to their local church?

E I know what you're getting at. The prevailing atmosphere in many parishes is still overwhelmingly ethnocentric, and English is used very little. I know of a Serbian boy, who in his mature age decided to leave the Church because the constant talk about the 19th- and 20th-century national heroes of his grandparents' homeland did not appeal to him. Even today, Orthodox communities can have a short-sighted vision of their calling in Britain.

B But that's not the necessarily the whole story. Think of Elena who has now moved back to Cyprus with her young family. The Church has helped her to preserve her Greek identity and language, even though she was from the third generation.

E Yes, but the perspective of returning back to the homeland is not the most attractive one for encouraging a young person to remain in his parish. We all need to see our future here in Britain, where in fact we are in a really privileged position exposed to a number of Orthodox traditions. This pan-Orthodoxy would allow us and our parish to experience the breadth and depth and integrity of the Church, if only we chose to do so.

B Yes, it will also enable us to put everything into perspective: not to lose faith in the Orthodox Church as a whole, just because of the inevitable problems in our home parish. I admire priests who encourage their flock to draw sustenance from other communities without seeing this a challenge to the integrity of their particular parish. It is dangerous for parishes to be excessively turned in on themselves, embracing one form or expression of Orthodoxy as the only right and acceptable one. We are very fortunate to have this glowing pan-Orthodox opportunity on our doorsteps and, if we really decide to make the most of the possibilities open to us, however unlikely that setting might be - for example, old ladies in a provincial Greek parish - this will actually help us on our journey towards acquiring the authentic taste of Orthodoxy in its diversity.

E Another feature - peculiar, but as we came to see it, also essential - of the life of the Orthodox Church is its monasteries. As new Orthodox, our parents received from some of their Church friends the clear-cut advice not to visit monasteries,. Yet, from an early stage our family slowly made close links with various monastic communities in England and abroad. First was the Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex (Mum walked the six miles from the train station to the monastery when she was four months pregnant with you, Becky!), and of course Fr Barnabas's monastery in Devon which in the mid-1970s then moved to Wales.

B You are right. When we speak of 'being Orthodox in Britain', we cannot not mention this Monastery of St John the Baptist - the finest example of a pan-Orthodox house that we have visited. The links with this monastery were our lifeline with the Church - while worshipping in our home-parish, we always continued to nurture these contacts.

E So, just as in the home, this is how the creativity of the parish is expressed. Making the most of the variety of expressions of the faith available, helps to inculcate an open and generous vision of Orthodoxy - rooted in tradition, but leaving us at the same time free in our expression and experience of it. And this is certainly attractive to young people.

B But, as with every acquired taste, this takes time. It is also not something that can be learnt except by living, nor lived except by learning - to acquire a vision, a taste, to live the all-embracing experience of life in Christ. And here comes what can be referred to as the 'ten-year rule' of the journey to a certain fullness or maturity in the faith. In case this seems too abstract, let me give a concrete example. The first instinct of our friend Charlie (who discovered Orthodoxy as a young man at college) was to re-invent himself: to change his friends, his interests, his tastes, even his hairstyle. You remember how he took himself off to Mount Sinai to be baptized and seriously considered becoming a monk. Certainly, there was a good deal in Charlie's life that needed changing. He himself now says that he was a classic case of the zèle du converti, that initial enthusiasm that confuses outward change with interior transformation, and can even lead to fundamentalism.

E It's true that he became a bit of a bore, more interested in being Orthodox than in being a Christian. When I last met him he told me that, after much questioning, difficulty, study and simply living (or attempting to live) the life of a Christian, he realizes now that it was only some ten years later that he felt he had come to the beginning of a more internalized, a more natural, faith. He realizes now that being Orthodox does indeed mean a way of life and is not a question of abstract knowledge, or adherence to dietary regulations, or any of the other ways in which we tend to (ill-) define our faith. Doesn't this also remind you of our friend who, on being received into the Church as an adult, was told by the priest to hold his peace for ten years: to speak neither of his former Christian confession nor of his new life in the Orthodox Church, but rather to strive to live this new life as fully as he could?

B Yes, and don't you think that for ourselves, it took a long time before we started feeling that we were indeed trying to live in the Orthodox Church ourselves, independently? Dad often used to tell us that what matters is just being in the church. Even if you can't change anything, don't stop going. You may be falling asleep, but you will still come away having received the blessing! In time we have learnt how true that is.

E Yes, we did go to other parishes, apart from our home parish, where we were indeed falling asleep, unable to follow the Liturgy celebrated in Greek, and yet somehow, later in life, we came to appreciate those parishes. And what do you think was decisive in helping us to appreciate this variety of Orthodox expression? It was not just our home and parish life, but more especially life at the Church youth camps to which we were sent every summer from an early age. It was at the camps that we first met with the variety of Orthodox traditions, and made long-lasting friendships with children of our age from all sorts of backgrounds.

B You are right. Thinking about it now, it was the camps, that after our home, and despite the difficulties of our parishes, laid open for us the riches of the pan-Orthodox family house. The prayers and troparia that we learnt at the camps from the age of nine or so upwards are the same ones that we now see our brothers singing at home with their children. Fr Michael Fortounatto managed to ingrain these onto our minds and hearts.

E Indeed, all that we received in the camp took deep roots within us: the games, the songs, the campfire, the stormy nights in the tents…. But what above all has remained with us are not only overflowing address books and the memory of these wonderful days. What we were given is something more than just a memory: we were actually linked to the golden chain of Orthodox holiness as it is expressed in the Church's liturgical life. Leaving for the camp, we left behind all ethnic and linguistic divisions on our part. We stopped feeling humbled because of being English Orthodox. Though we used to have fights about other things, the Church in the Big Tent was able to reconcile and unite us in what really mattered.

B Through our home parish, generous spirited and open to such youth activities as it was, we came to meet yet another side of the life of our Church when we started attending the Orthodox youth camps in France.³ This opened our eyes to a whole new group of young people with whom we have lasting friendships to this day. Thinking back, we can clearly see how positive it had been for us to visit other worshipping communities and to share in their life. We saw yet another wing of the big Orthodox family house.

E Yes: it is precisely through personal contacts between young people that such life-long relationships develop. This purely human phenomenon can be extremely fruitful in the Church, in building the vital and necessary links between the members of different Orthodox Churches in various countries.

B It was precisely with this aim that Syndesmos was created: to promote 'unity in diversity' between the youth organizations of the various Orthodox Churches. Syndesmos operates on a pan-Orthodox level in creating opportunities for young people to meet, discuss, share in the liturgical life and to exchange their views and church experience. So Syndesmos offers young people a vision of the Church which they may never receive from their parishes, and is designed to inspire them to be witnesses to the universality of the Church back at home and in the world as a whole.

E My years in France working for Syndesmos confirmed me in this. I found that it was the only platform that exists for the sole purpose of pan-Orthodox youth co-operation. Yet, what we experienced in Syndesmos was in a way a continuation of our understanding of the universal Church that we had lived in the youth camps at home. The way it works is clear to me now: the camps take children aged 7-17 years, and Syndesmos events are open to all from 17-35 years. Following from the home and the parish, the children's camps and pan-Orthodox youth events could provide the context for being an Orthodox youth in Britain today.

B This could certainly be the case if only there was the necessary input from Orthodox circles in Britain. The sad reality is that the three camps for children currently organized in Britain are not generously supported, and the numbers of children that do attend do not reflect by any means the number of Orthodox children in Britain. And Syndesmos activities, despite the fact that four British Orthodox organizations are nominal members, are far from being a fixture on the Orthodox map in this country.

E Are you trying to say that the Orthodox Church in Britain lacks inward mission as regards youth work? I could only add to this, that to the best of my knowledge the different Orthodox Churches represented in Britain have not developed their youth structures, nor established any effective youth offices. Consequently, information about youth work and youth activities on the national and international level is simply not transferred to the local parishes.

B For me it's unbelievable that, in a country like Britain, whose Orthodox communities have by now reached a certain level of maturity, and whose leading lay figures, for example, have played such a decisive role in the past in the founding of Syndesmos, we can be so primitive in our support of the needs of Orthodox youth today. Think of it! There were deaconesses in the time of Justinian's Great Church, so surely the youth workers in Great Britain today, many of whom are women, should have the official blessing and full support of their bishops, priests and communities? Parishes should support and mandate their young people to take part in youth activities outside their parish. Realistic funds for the continuation of youth work should be earmarked in the budgets of the respective dioceses on the national level.

E But is this 'crisis' not due to the lack of general education about the life and needs of the Orthodox Church in Britain?

B Yes, certainly so. And in my view this is because we have not had a recognized body dealing with education in the Church - one which would unite the different dioceses in Britain, and which would provide a forum where information could also be circulated on Church-related activities on a national level.

E In the generation of our parents there was not really anything of this kind. Only since the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies (IOCS) in Cambridge has come into being do we have such a forum in Britain. The Institute is affiliated to the University, and was conceived and founded as a pan-Orthodox centre for the education of the laity. Although administratively independent, it has received the blessing of all Orthodox Churches represented in Britain. If the home, the parish, the camps, and Syndesmos can provide our young people with the fundamental framework of Orthodox life, the Institute now offers a huge potential for meeting the clear need for theological education.

B For me this is crucial, and I do not know how we have managed to survive all these years with no centre whatsoever of theological education in Britain. I suppose one of the effects of this is that we are still not producing many of our own home-grown priests (though I understand that the Institute is not there to train clergy as such). But what about the Seminary in London, designed specifically for that purpose?

E On a day-to-day basis, just like our two parishes in Cambridge, it seems that we are operating in different, but parallel, universes.

B Don't you think that we are ready to make a step forward? Don't you think that the Institute has the potential for bridging the gulf between the ‘parallel universes’ that you mention?

E We can certainly speak of such potential.

B But how do you see this happening?

E It is already happening with the Institute. We have now around fifty registered students on our part time courses - and, reflecting the pan-Orthodox reality of Orthodoxy in Britain, these students form a marvellous cross-section of Orthodox people from a wide range of backgrounds and nationalities, young and old,. I don't want this to sound too much like an advertisement, although in another way I hope that it is. I feel the Institute to be a remarkable thing to be part of. Let me simply say this: in the five short years since its doors opened in October 1999, our students have managed to form a community with a strong Orthodox ethos, rooted in and faithful to the Church.

The Church, however, having blessed the foundation of the Institute has not been very active in promoting its mission. The respective clergy, with whose blessing the Institute began, have not been systematic in recommending it to their communities, primarily for the sake of the young people who would benefit from the quality of the courses and the open Orthodox ethos there.

B Do you think we could take the successful creation of the Institute in Cambridge as one of the first signs of the maturity of the Orthodox Church in Britain? How would that reflect on the situation of our youth?

E Well, so far we have yet really to make an impact on the youth in Britain. We need to do more presentations in parishes and to make our activities more widely known. The pan-Orthodox nature of the Institute is what should attract young people to it.

B It's a pity, isn't it, that such an event as the pan-Orthodox Vespers in London, for example, only takes place once a year. When it does happen, the Church is always packed and mainly with youth - they, we, all try to go. We could be seeing much more of this. But how does the Institute promote its vision of attracting young people in practice?

E At present we are working on the publication of written papers and of audio recourses of some of the best talks that have been delivered at the Institute. In my view, this is fundamental, because such resources offer the necessary help in the area of theological education, as well as generating well-needed publicity. There is, however, another group of young people that the Institute has been nurturing. The majority of our young students who come on full-time courses are mainly from Eastern and Central Europe. Reflecting on their situation and on the historical road of Orthodoxy in Britain we can now see a new development taking place, which we can take as an indication that the Church in Britain has reached a certain level of maturity.

B What exactly do you mean?

E In the past we could speak of two main groups in our churches: the Orthodox who came to Britain as Orthodox from their countries and settled here, bringing the Church with them; and the British people who converted to the Orthodox faith. Now we have a third group, namely people from traditionally Orthodox countries brought up in atheism, who discover the Orthodox faith here in Britain, and want to take it back home with them. What happens to these people is particularly interesting: it shows that Orthodoxy in Britain has reached a certain level of maturity and is able to give ripe fruit back to what have been and still remain her Mother Churches.

Our friend Boris is a good example: he came to England to seek his (economic) fortune, without any direct sense of his own Orthodox background. He came to discover the Orthodox Church in his university town and in the nearby Monastery of St John the Baptist in Essex. This discovery had a radical impact on his personal life. He took to studying theology seriously, joining the Institute's Certificate course at this point, and from his experience of the vibrant Orthodox student life in Cambridge, a strong desire has grown in him to bring this understanding of life in the Orthodox Church back to his own country and people, who only now are shaking the dust of atheism from their shoulders. Thus, as opposed to in the past when Orthodoxy was primarily imported to Britain from the outside, we have now become, as it were, 'exporters' of Orthodoxy in this prov