Charity

JUSTIN M. LASSER

The Orthodox response to poverty is manifested in a variety of ways. Charity (eleemosyne, almsgiving) in the form of a “coin in the coffer” represents but one of the church’s responses. The Orthodox Church inherited the Old Testament’s witness to God’s defense of the poor and disenfranchised. One of the earliest testimo­nies given by the Lord of Christ is his reading from the Book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives” (Lk. 4.18–19). The terms of the first apostolic mission ordained by Jesus instructed them to go through the towns of Galilee carrying nothing for the journey but trusting in the hospitality of those sympathetic to their cause. If a house received them, they were to eat whatever was put before them and heal the sick among them and proclaim that the Kingdom of God had come near (Mt. 10.5–14; Mk. 6.6–13; Lk. 9.1–6). In this early period the apostles did not donate money to the poor but offered an exchange. The apostles would heal the sick and pro­claim the kingdom, and their hosts would provide a meal, “for laborers deserve their food” (Mt. 10.10b). In this sign of the “healing exchange” the Kingdom of God was made manifest.

The gospels also speak of the Lord insti­tuting a common purse among the disciples out of which poor relief was dis­bursed (Jn. 12.5–6; 13.29). However, he strictly instructed that when one offered charitable assistance, one was to do it qui­etly (Mt. 6.1–4). This apostolic model of forgiving indebtedness and sharing the wherewithal to have enough to eat daily is also reflected in the prayer that Jesus taught the church. There the faithful beseech the common Father to grant them daily bread and to forgive the debts (opheleimata) that drive a person into pov­erty, just as those who hold accounts against debtors also forgive them. The symbol of shared meal in the Orthodox Church thus not only represents the kingdom, it manifests it. In the Lord’s Prayer the faithful are not taught to operate on the basis of “charitable giving,” but on a more substan­tive and radical concept of debt alleviation. Almsgiving, in this sense, is a more tempo­rary measure. It does not correct injustices, merely alleviates the pain associated with them. Hospitality is also one of the church’s primary forms of active charity. Hospitality permeates many of the teachings of Christ, as in Luke 14.13–14: “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.”

In the post-Pentecost era an ideal state of the church is evoked as when “no one claimed private ownership of any posses­sions, but everything they owned was in common. ... There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands and houses sold them and brought them the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to those in need” (Acts 4.32–34). This founda­tional vision provided the Orthodox Church with certain principles which were manifested in the office of the bishop and the institution of coenobitic monasticism. In Orthodox thought the bishop oversees the wealth of the faithful and through his deacons distributes it to those in need. From the 4th century onwards bishops were known as Philoptochoi (“friends of the poor”). “Distributed wealth” remains a guiding principle in Orthodoxy in so far as it believes that all benefits that humans enjoy (wealth and property included) belong to the Lord, just as the Promised Land in the Old Testament was the Lord’s property.

The rise of imperial Orthodoxy occasioned a clash with Classical Greek ethics. According to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, citizens were encouraged to show love to their cities through their lavish gifts. This was a public service or leitourgia. The primary forms of leitourgia were public feasts, the giving of wine, and the establish­ment of gymnasia. The leitourgia was a way of procuring favor and establishing patron- client relationships. The ancient economy was essentially a whimsical beneficence economy. Into this system the gospel came as a radical new voice. The demands of Christ now required the governing bodies of the Roman world to care for the poor as icons of God (see St. Gregory the Theo­logian, Oration 14, “On the Care of the Poor”). From now on the ideal aristocrat was not a “lover of the city” but a “lover of the poor.”

The fathers of the church established an obligation to give to the poor, not out of civic pride, but as a way of earning the intercessory power of prayer that the poor could command. The Chris­tianization of the empire succeeded in cre­ating hospitals and similar institutions to alleviate the effects of poverty. The church also owned many bakeries and lands with which it aided the poor. There were even occasions in Egypt when the bishops distributed wine to widows (one of the most influential groups in the ancient church).

The pre-Christian attitude toward poverty is best exemplified in the words of Plautus: “He does the beggar bad ser­vice who gives him meat and drink, for what he gives is lost, and the lives of the poor are merely prolonged to their own misery” (Trinummus 339). In marked con­trast the great St. Gregory of Nyssa responded by pleading: ‘’Do not despise those who are stretched out on the ground as if they merit no respect. Consider who they are and you will discover their worth” (On the Love of the Poor). Orthodox charity is exemplified most clearly in such words and in the lives of the countless saints over the ages who have embraced Christ’s call to alleviate the conditions of the poor through selfless giving and charitable actions; in so doing offering to those who suffer an icon of the love of God for humankind.

SEE ALSO: St. John Chrysostom (349–407); Wealth

REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS

Chrysostom, St. John (1984) On Wealth and Poverty, trans. C. P. Roth. Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

Holman, S. R. (2001) The Hungry are Dying: Beggars and Bishops in Roman Cappadocia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Holman, S. R. (ed.) (2008) Wealth and Poverty in Early Church and Society. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic.