- Article published in Arabic on Feb 18th, 2020 -
I write these lines having just returned from Broummana, from the archdiocese, from a visit that, each time I make it, floods my soul with a cascade of emotions. This house was once my own, a place where I was a daily student for nearly two years. In all the years that followed, it has remained my pilgrimage, a journey toward the precise word, and toward a love that is distributed both with precision and without measure.
This reflection is prompted by an anniversary. This month marks fifty years since Metropolitan George (Khodr) was consecrated as the shepherd of the Archdiocese of Byblos, Botrys, and their dependencies in Mount Lebanon. Nearly two years ago, he stepped back from the duties that had been laid upon him. In a quiet meeting, I asked him, “Can a bishop truly resign from his service in our Church?” He answered with the exactitude that defines him: “No. But, if the years weigh down his body, as they have mine, he steps back from his administrative responsibilities.” Here is a man of the precise word, one who does not know how to improvise, save for the season of love. For in him, love alone is both precise and spontaneous, poured out lavishly, without reservation.
A Pilgrimage to Freedom
To have been granted the grace of God to feel, always, that you are still a student, a seeker of “the truth that is in Christ Jesus”, is a profound gift. Here, in this place, are friends. And in this turbulent land, the friendship that endures speaks a language foreign to those who have given themselves over to artifice, who see their own small selves as the entire world. It speaks of faithfulness. It speaks of loyalty. It speaks of being accepted and loved, even when you feel unworthy of either.
Here is an expanse that, the more you ascend to it, the more God, in your rest in Him, grants you an ascent of another kind. If you know that this other ascent is impossible without a guide, a face and a word, a face and a word and two strong hands, open both to embrace and to release, then here you will find them. Here is the word, the face, and the hands that are still masters of a love that desires, always, for you to be free.
The True Nature of Spiritual Authority
One cannot summarize a great man. But I will dare to say that I can find no image more fitting for Metropolitan George than this ladder of ascent. This elder, who watched over Mount Lebanon for nearly half a century, is a teacher of the truth that a person’s freedom is impossible unless you first give them a permanent home in your heart, through a gentle word and a sincere love. It is from the mouth, from the heart, that is, from the eloquence of love, that people are launched into the vastness of the “glorious liberty of the children of God.”
I have heard some speak of Metropolitan George as a manager, with a coldness they mistake for logic. I await the day when the theorists will serve us with their definitive model of Church administration. I do not wish, on this noble occasion, to offend anyone with my words. But I cannot see how anyone can be a truly effective manager of the Church’s affairs, with decency and order, if he has not first mastered that confident love which liberates people from the shackles of their own insecurities, a love which refuses to let them remain “children in their thinking.”
I do not believe any of us are ignorant of the fact that the Apostle’s words, that all things in the Church be done “decently and in order”, come at the conclusion of the fourteenth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians. Its placement is telling. It is the culmination of a profound teaching on the gifts of the Holy Spirit (chapters 12-14), whose beating heart is the command that we must love (chapter 13). Administration, then, is to love. It is to empty ourselves for the sake of the other’s greatness, so that they might become the icon that God intended them to be. This is a confession of God’s right in His people, and of their right in Him. There can be no administration that is not moved by the reality that God is here, wanting each of us to be a pillar of glory.
A History Written in Love
The Church, therefore, is not a worldly institution. It is a community for which Metropolitan George lived, so that every soul within it might be raised up in God. Every person is accepted and called to be great; without this foundation, there is no administration, either in the Church or in the world.
There is something in this man that you see only in those whom God has fashioned for Himself, and for Himself alone. It is this: though you sit before him, confident that he is great, he makes you feel that you are the one who is great. You may even notice that in these lines, written to honor his anniversary, I seem to speak more of myself than of him. Consider it a testimony, a witness that asks for nothing but that God, who loves to be glorified in His people, be glorified. How is it that in his presence, whether in a long meeting or a fleeting encounter, you see yourself as greater, more understanding, more beautiful? Is this the work of pride, which corrupts the soul, or is it the effect of love? If it concerns Metropolitan George, the answer is the very ink of these words. He is a man who knows only how to love.
Fifty years a metropolitan. As I said, he stepped back from everything two years ago, everything, that is, except for love. This is what compelled me to offer these words to this esteemed journal, which he and some of his companions helped bring into being. I know I am likely echoing what many other Antiochians who love him might write. No matter. This is a blessed repetition. For there is no history greater than one that is known by love.
