The Spring 2007 issue of The Handmaiden: A Journal for Women Serving God Within the Orthodox Christian Faith addresses the theme of "Loneliness, Isolation, & Community". The cover story is authored by Fr. Christopher Metropulos, and is reproduced here in full. For more information on The Handmaiden, visit the magazine online at Conciliar Press .

A few years ago, author Robert D. Putnam came out with a book entitled Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. Putnam writes about how we have become increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and our democratic structures. He reports that in the past 25 years, membership in clubs has declined 58%, families eating together at dinner has declined by 33%, and having friends over has declined by 45%. We live in an increasingly isolated society. No wonder many report "feeling lonely" as one of their main problems.

The siren song of our culture, relentlessly sung by our media, is that we should "look out for number one." We should put our own needs first, serve ourselves and see to ourselves before thinking of others. We should avoid entangling ourselves in commitments, relationships. and groups that might make demands of us.

Sadly, this cult of individualism is not restricted only to unbelievers. Many people who consider themselves Christian have signed on as well. In a new book titled Revolution, well-known religious writer George Barna identifies a growing trend among Christians, a movement that centers on a rejection of community and an embrace of individualism. Many of our neighbors have come to believe that the best way to live a Christian life is in isolation from any parish or church, figuring out for themselves how they should pray, act, and understand their faith.

"There is a new breed of Christ-follower in America today," Mr. Barna announces. "These are people who are more interested in being the Church than in going to church." His research has "discovered and described a growing national population of more than 20 million adults who are committed to living their faith and making God the top priority in their life. Some are doing so through the ministries of a local church, but many are not. The emphasis is upon allowing God to transform them in every aspect of their life."

We Are Not Meant to Be Alone

Now, what is wrong with this? Don't we all believe that we should allow God to transform us in every aspect of our lives? Of course we do! The problem is that these Christ-followers, perhaps with the best of intentions, have asked a false question, set up a false choice. As Orthodox Christians, we understand that we can't choose between "being the Church" and "going to church." The Church is not only an invisible, mystical union. It is a physical body of believers who are bound together as a holy community in communion with God and His saints.

While this trend saddens me, it does not surprise me. The temptation of individualism has a long history, and as we know it is supported in countless ways by our culture. But the true calling of Christ and His Church offers us a very different path.

We were not meant to be alone. Over and over again God has communicated to us His desire that community and loving relationships be the norm, not the exception. In the very beginning He declared that it was not good for man to be alone, so He created a "helpmate" for Adam-someone fitted to his needs for communion, for fellowship, for love. All through the history of the Old Testament we see God calling the prophets to preach to the nation of Israel to stay together, to be a community of believers, to be a new society, so that the whole world could see what a godly community looks like.

God continues to call mankind to relationships in the New Testament, as Christ gathers around Himself a community of believers. He reminds the disciples that the world will "know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). The whole New Testament is built around the work of the Holy Spirit to create this new community, the Church, to show the world just how people are supposed to be in community together.

Of course, there is one great challenge in living as part of a community. Can you guess what it is? That's right-other people! Why is it so tempting for us to isolate ourselves, to avoid church, to want to flee from any relationship that might make demands on us? Because when we become involved with others, we will be hurt. There's no getting away from it. Relationship means pain. It means people will hurt us, and we will hurt them.

C. S. Lewis put it well:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is Hell.

What We Can Do

So, what can we do to reverse this drift into isolation and spiritual poverty? Here are some practical steps toward unity and community.

First, Know God. A person who puts his or her best energies into knowing God will discover that God, as Trinity, is the model for community. But knowing God isn't the same as knowing about God. A relationship with God is not simply an intellectual pursuit. It requires opening your heart to an intimate knowledge of God founded on personal communion with God Himself. Embrace with true love the Person of God in Christ Jesus. The Church is packed with resources to help you in this lifelong work.

Second, Allow God. Let your work toward intimacy with God transform your life. St. John the Beloved Disciple pointed out, "If someone says, ‘I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?" (1 John 4:20). Know that the work of being an authentic, purposeful Christian will lead you to reconcile with God and man. This spiritual journey will take you towards authentic communion with God and your neighbor. If you will cooperate with God's work in your life, He will heal your relationships. He will empower you to be a faithful part of His new community, the Church.

Third, Serve God. A passive response to Christ's invitation to be joined to His eternal Body, the Church, will never produce the results that lead to authentic community in your life. We cannot think that true Christian lives are the result of simply standing in church and calling ourselves Christians, any more than standing in your garage makes you a car. Your true desires are seen in your actions and choices. If you are really allowing the work of the Holy Spirit to change you into a Christlike person, one of the ways you will demonstrate that is in truly choosing no longer to be isolated from your brothers and sisters. God has wisely chosen to use the hard work of relationships to force us to confront our own spiritual poverty honestly and in a safe and loving community.

Koinonia

The Greek word koinonia contains the essence of these truths. Koinonia means community, in its most profound and mysterious sense. God Himself is koinonia.

The great Orthodox teacher Bishop Kallistos Ware has said, "The human person is created for relationship." At the heart of this teaching is the recognition that we are created in the image of God. What does this mean? As Christians, we proclaim that when we say "God," we mean the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We understand that God Himself is not in isolation. "God is love" (1 John 4:8). God is love because God Himself is community, is relationship. Bishop Kallistos goes on to say, "God is not a unit, but a union. God is love in the sense of shared love, the mutual love of three Persons in one."

We can only truly understand ourselves, we can only lay claim to the image of God within us, when we recognize that like God the truth of who we are is centered in community. The truth of our very nature demands that we fully embrace our relationships with others.

Another Greek word opens this truth for us-prosopo, "person." We encounter the centrality of relationship in the most fundamental of places. The Greek word for person literally means "face."

One of the Desert Fathers, St. Macarius the Great, was walking in the desert one day. He found lying on the ground the skull of a dead man. He nudged the skull with his walking stick, and the skull spoke to him.

St. Macarius said to it, "Who are you?"

The skull replied, "I was a pagan high priest; but you are Macarius, the Spirit-bearer. Whenever you take pity on those who are in torments, and pray for them, they feel a little respite."

St. Macarius said to the skull, "What is this alleviation, and what is this torment?"

The skull answered, "As far as the sky is removed from the earth, so great is the fire beneath us; we are ourselves standing in the midst of the fire, from the feet up to the head. It is not possible to see anyone face to face, but the face of one is fixed to the back of another. Yet when you pray for us, each of us can see the other's face a little. Such is our respite."

Think of what this teaches us. St. Macarius learned that hell's greatest torment is the denial of the sight of another human face. It is the experience of not being able to relate to anyone else. It is deeply significant that we cannot, without a mirror, see our own faces. Our faces are only seen by others. Without relationship, without koinonia, our faces are like flowers in the dark. In facing others, we find our own face, our own personhood, our own prosopo, revealed.

Before the time of the Greek Fathers of the Church, the word prosopo had a connected but different meaning. In the time of the ancient Greek tragedies, it meant "mask." Prosopo referred to the mask actors wore in the theater, the false face they took on to play their role. Only later, as the great revelation of the Gospel began to shine in the Greek-speaking world, did the word come to mean our true face.

We have a choice. We can let our true face be formed by entering into holy relationships in the koinonia of the Church. Or we can refuse to let our face be formed and instead wear masks of our own construction, in a selfish attempt to make our own way in the world. We must leave behind our masks. Only then can we truly face God.

Fr. Christopher Metropulos is founder, host, and executive director of the Orthodox Christian Network (OCN) and the Come Receive The Light national Orthodox Christian radio program (www.receive.org). He is pastor of St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he and his wife Georgia are raising their six children.

This article is expanded from "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?," originally published in AGAIN Vol. 28 No. 3, Fall 2006.