Cooperation Among Professionals.

        Now a few words pertaining to Christian professionals, especially those who occupy leadership positions in the Church such as priests, teachers, administrators, missionaries — all those who share in the guidance ministry of the Church — and others who work outside the Church but who take the adjective Christian seriously. What benefits can we derive from the above paradigm of Christian life and growth so integrally representative of the essence of the Orthodox way of life? First, we must be vitally concerned with our own continued spiritual growth to the attainment of spiritual discernment. We may remember the exhortations of Saint Gregory the Theologian and of Saint John Chrysostom that those who seek to guide others to purification must themselves be first purified. The chief qualification of Church leadership is spiritual life. From this viewpoint, for example, it is a question whether or not one should in the first place be ordained unless one has reached at least the beginnings of the stage of illumination or theoria. How can God's people be guided with spiritual discernment otherwise? The spiritual vigor of the Church and the efficacy of its witness as Church to society is directly related to the depth of spiritual life of its leaders.

        Secondly, Christian professionals can work together to develop patterns of diagnosis based on Orthodox spirituality to be used in teaching, counseling, and pastoral care. Such work would not guarantee higher degrees of spiritual discernment to anyone on the basis of professional credentials alone, but would surely support the process of spiritual growth. The Church Fathers have already conducted extensive analysis of personhood and life, and have written detailed instructions on basic virtues and vices, making various diagnoses, and offering diverse therapies for healing and growth. Saint Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain composed a handbook on confession discussing the person of the confessor, the nature and dynamics of various sins, and the application of spiritual therapy. A number of handbooks on confession have been written in our own century. All of these resources need to be studied, compared, interpreted, and presented in a form useful to the ministry of the Church today. If the professionals in the fields of psychiatry and psychology have devoted such ongoing, systematic attention to the dynamics of the human personality, should not theologians do the same on the basis of the riches of the Christian tradition? One of our great sins of omission as Orthodox leaders and theologians in modern times is our virtual surrender and abandonment of the Church's ministry of counseling to secular psychiatry and psychology which have eagerly filled the vacuum.

        Various models or patterns of discernment and diagnosis could be proposed. One is the above paradigm of the three stages. Another might be a paradigm constructed on the basis of fundamental relationships which define the meaning and quality of human life. There are four such fundamental relationships, namely, to God, to self, to others (including the Church), and to things. These can serve as structural categories for the development of flexible and dynamic diagnoses and application of therapies toward spiritual growth. For example, under the category of the relationship to God the pastor could appropriately assess a Christian's or even a congregation's depth of relationship with God in terms of specific criteria such as formal or living faith, personal trust or doubt, love or fear, and sense of distance from or communion with God. He then could apply therapy with genuine openness to the Holy Spirit through renewed emphasis on worship, prayer, and relevant topics in preaching and teaching.

        Under the category of relationship to self, the pastor could explore with a Christian the degree of honesty, self-acceptance, willingness to take responsibility, self-critique, participation in the sacraments, and evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in a Christian's life. Under the category of relationship to others the defining criteria of diagnosis might be openness or capacity to enter into relationship with others, respect for the personhood of others, service to others, responsibility for and enjoyment of community, and the like. Under the category of relationship to things the critical referentials might be degree of attachment or detachment, use or abuse, whether self-worth is derived from things, whether things have become more important than people, and degree of appreciation of things as God's gifts to be enjoyed, shared, and protected. All of these elements could be flexibly organized and prayerfully offered to Christian professionals as they seek to fulfil their ministries with constant openness to the Holy Spirit.

        In this essay we have not touched on issues pertaining to psychopathology, demonology, or addictiveness to substances such as alcohol. To lift an example, there is a strange case reported by Dorotheos of Gaza in his Discourses. A brother came to him and confessed that he constantly stole food to eat. Dorotheos asked the steward to give the man all the food he wanted so as not to steal. But the brother kept stealing and hiding scraps of bread, dates, figs, and onions under his bed and in other places, or just giving the food to the monastery's donkey. “My dear brother,” Dorotheos asked, “did I not give you everything you wanted? Why do you steal?” The brother replied, “Forgive me, I don't know why. I simply feel the urge to steal.” Dorotheos lifted up this case as an example of the plight to which indulgence to passions can lead but provides no detailed diagnosis or specific therapy. The poor man who was stealing obviously suffered from kleptomania. In such areas it may well be that the modern sciences provide specific discernment and diagnosis, as well as therapies, which go further than the wisdom of the ancient Christian tradition. Such cases deserve special attention and close cooperation between pastors and professionals in the medical and psychological fields. Since all truth in life is God’s truth, theologians, pastors, doctors, therapists and others, all can cooperatively and fruitfully engage in the enormous, ongoing process of understanding and healing in human development.