A Slow and Generous Conversation: One Layperson's Interim Reflections on What Orthodox Christians are Saying about Universalism

John Maddex of Ancient Faith Ministries interviews Fr. Aidan “Fedora” Kimel

Occasionally, I compare things to each other in ways that I should not. For example, I like to watch how Catholic Christians negotiate their public conversation about universal salvation (an example here) and compare it to how my own Orthodox Christian brethren do so. As I think that I have mentioned once already, I’m delighted that Ancient Faith Ministries recently posted (July 15, 2024) a documentary series “Will All be Saved? Examining Universalism and the Last Judgement” consisting of eight videos. I was especially impressed to see three thoughtful advocates of universalism featured with Robert Fortuin, Fr. Aidan Kimel, and Fr. Michael Gillis (although I’m not sure if I’ve categorized Fr. Michael correctly). In his interview about Saint Isaac, for example, Fr. Michael Gillis carefully explained how “Saint Isaac believed that everyone will be saved but that some people will only be saved through an eternity in Gehenna.” Most of the voices in these interviews have written or spoken on the topic before. I have commented a little myself in this space on one occasion (about a year ago) when Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick and Fr. Stephen De Young spent three and a half hours critiquing the universalism of David Bentley Hart and not only condemned it as heresy but heaped up a rather extensive pile of additional vitriol against Hart.

The most distinguished participant of the recent Ancient Faith documentary, Archbishop Alexander (Golitzin), also gave an interview over two years ago (January 14, 2022) entitled “Universal Salvation?” in which he explicitly spoke of David Bentley Hart’s book That All Shall be Saved as a work that “draws upon some very prominent and worthy and holy teachers” in the early church who held that the “love of God will ultimately overcome the capacity of the creature to say no to God.” In this most recent interview, Archbishop Alexander reiterated again that there are universalist saints and fathers, but he contrasted this with other saintly teachers who said that creatures in God’s image can say no to God forever. The archbishop concluded from this: “So, I don’t know. Take your pick.” Asked if universalism is a heresy, Archbishop Alexander said that he did not know:

Well, the church expressed itself at least to the extent that it condemned, in the Fifth Ecumenical Council, their, at least, understanding of Origin of Alexandria’s notion of universal restoration, the apocatastasis, and that is normally taken as a condemnation of universalism. I don’t know. I suppose, you could. Myself, I rather like Kallistos Ware’s remark that we can’t teach it as dogma, but we can hope for it.

Circling back on the topic of God’s nature, Archbishop Alexander repeated that God never punishes anyone but that God simply is God and that God’s love and light are experienced as a fire of torment if we seek forever to close ourselves off from it. While his comments were consistently open-ended and noncommittal, they were, by virtue of this fact, in line with his opening remarks that the debates over universalism can be a distraction from gazing upon Jesus Christ and from learning to open ourselves to God’s love. Thinking about universalism, said Archbishop Alexander, “misdirects us” when “our attention as Christians should be focused on Christ.” Despite this concern from Archbishop Alexander, however, he was willing to speak candidly on the topic for half an hour and to say that he does not know if universalism is a heresy.

I’ve not entirely finished listening to the series, but I’m close. Despite that fact that the quality of the contributions is rather mixed, I do encourage folks to pursue it:

• Confident Christian Universalism - with Robert Fortuin (1:02:33)

• Making the Case for Universalism - with Fr. Aidan Kimel (1:20:45)

• Learning from St. Isaac of Nineveh - with Fr. Michael Gillis (59:48)

• Origen and the Fifth Ecumenical Council - with Dr. Cyril Jenkins (52:07)

• The Church's Teachings on Universalism - with Fr. Stephen De Young (1:00:08)

• The History of Christian Universalism - with Dr. David Bradshaw (48:28)

• The Fire of the Divine Presence - with Archbishop Alexander (Golitzin) (28:09)

• Will All Be Saved? Examining Universalism and the Last Judgement (Documentary) (1:32:42)

Finally, in his hopefully never-ending service to the church from the rather well-informed sidelines of ecclesial conversation, Fr. Aidan “Fedora” Kimel has been posting a series of extraordinarily thoughtful and heartfelt replies from himself and others (including an Orthodox Christian theologian and author of several books on this topic Bradley Jersak):

• None Are Coerced, All Are Saved: A Response to David Bradshaw’s Reading of Gregory of Nyssa’s Universalism by Mark Chenoweth

• An Open Letter to Dr Cyril Jenkins: Was Origen Condemned for Teaching Universal Salvation? by Fr. Aidan Kimel

• An Open Letter to Fr Stephen De Young: What is Orthodox Universalism?

  by Fr. Aidan Kimel

• Revisiting the Gospel by Bradley Jersak, Ph.D.

All four of these are absolutely worth a close read. There are beautiful depths of insight into the gospel of Jesus Christ and into the requirements of its proclamation from Bradley Jersak’s essay and Fr. Aidan’s letter to Fr. Stephen. One the topic of Origen, the open letter to Dr. Jenkins inspired my own recent plea here. Finally, in what I would have to say is my favorite response so far, do not miss the reply to Dr. Bradshaw from Mark Chenoweth (who is finishing his Ph.D. dissertation on universalism in St Maximus the Confessor under Paul Blowers and Christoph Schneider at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies). I’m currently reading a little of Saint Gregory of Nyssa on the image of God with a class of sixteen college freshman who are all bright and devout students in an honors program. It breaks my heart to see how far short I and most others are of having any basic categories of engagement in place when it comes to reading Gregory of Nyssa. We need all of the help that we can get, and Mark’s survey of Gregory’s thought in this recent essay goes beyond just a strong answer to Dr. Bradshaw and serves as an excellent survey of Gregory of Nyssa (no easy feat).

While not engaged in scholarship myself, I have a graduate degree in history from St Andrews in Scotland and have read a fair amount about and by Gregory of Nyssa including twice through the recent translation and notes by Fr. John Behr in Gregory of Nyssa: On the Human Image of God (Oxford, 2023). It seems clear to me that Gregory of Nyssa should be a household name among Christians for a long list of reasons including as the first person in recorded history to proclaim the categorical monstrosity of human slavery:

Nowhere in the literary remains of antiquity is there another document quite comparable to Gregory of Nyssa’s fourth homily on the book of Ecclesiastes: certainly no other ancient text still known to us—Christian, Jewish, or Pagan—contains so fierce, unequivocal, and indignant a condemnation of the institution of slavery.” [From “The ‘Whole Humanity’: Gregory of Nyssa's Critique of Slavery in Light of His Eschatology” by D. Bentley Hart (Scottish Journal of Theology, 2001).]

There is so much about the history of Christianity that is filled with sadness, and this includes how it so often fails to recognize, to correctly remember, or to have the courage to celebrate its greatest heroes. However, in recent weeks and months, I have been blessed to be surrounded by an overflow of conversations taking place—both publicly and in my own private life—that do address great thinkers and serious topics with care and openness. I’ve been encouraged and uplifted by the openness and interaction that I sincerely hope will continue. There are few things more encouraging to me than to see leaders who are willing to communicate openly about difficult topics in earnest yet gracious ways, and I am sure that I am far from alone in this feeling among lay people. Amid the richness, however, my own personal problem of late, has become an inability to keep up with it all and a need to decide, with more care and honesty, where I spend my own bit of time. If I am tempted to withdraw too much, however, I remember how much it has blessed me to follow these kinds of conversations as closely as I can for several years now, and I know that many others are only just picking up with the topics involved. You are joining during a good time when the feast is spread with increasing generosity.