An American Orthodox pioneer

It takes extra luggage to hold the Byzantine miter and all the ornate vestments an Orthodox archbishop needs on a road trip.

Packing is even more complicated when Archbishop Dmitri Royster heads home to Dallas, because the faithful always give him gifts to please his hardcore Tex-Mex palate. Just before his suitcase snapped shut last week in Knoxville, Tenn., he slipped several bottles of fiery pepper sauce in among the layers of purple, gold and white silk brocade.

Archbishop Dmitri is a real Texan, even though his flowing white beard makes him look like an Orthodox archetype. But when the 75-year-old prelate speaks, the voice isn't from Greece, Russia, Eastern Europe or the Middle East. He grew up Southern Baptist in tiny Teague, Texas, before moving to Dallas.

"I think my sister and I were the first people who showed up at the Orthodox church in Dallas and wanted to convert," he said, laughing. "There might have been one other boy who married a Greek girl, but that was about it. ... It was three weeks before anyone noticed us."

That was 1941, decades before a rush of Orthodox converts in America and England began making headlines. The young Robert Royster was an American Orthodox pioneer.

The archbishop spoke fondly of his Baptist roots, which gave him a "deep commitment to Jesus Christ" and a love of scripture. However, he and his sister became disturbed when they noticed other churches had a radically different and much more ancient calendar. This was especially true just before Easter.

"Holy Week seemed to pass with little more than a nod," he said. "We really started asking questions when our church had a picnic – a hamburger cookout, no less – on Good Friday. ... There wasn't too much to Easter, either, other than singing 'Up From the Grave He Arose.'

The two teens found a history textbook, did some homework and began visiting the Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans and others. The Orthodox sanctuary was full of icons, the air was full of incense, the music was Eastern chant and the rite was, literally, Greek to them.

"It was a total assault on the senses and a real culture shock," said the archbishop. "But there was also an incredible sense of reverence. It seemed like we were taken outside of time. Soon, it didn't matter so much that everything was in Greek."

During World War II the young Texan learned Japanese and was trained to interrogate prisoners of war. Then he taught Spanish literature at Southern Methodist University. In 1954, he learned Old Russian and was ordained a priest in the Orthodox Church in America, which has increasingly emphasized worship in English. Dmitri became a bishop in 1969 and, years later, his Bible Belt heritage still makes him stand out in the Orthodox hierarchy.

While there are 250 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, the 5 million in America have remained a well-kept secret, in part because the flock is divided into a dozen jurisdictions, each with ethnic and historical ties to a mother church abroad.

Dmitri watched in the '50s and '60s as Orthodox children slipped into American culture and a trickle of converts married into the church. Then many Orthodox Christians – especially retirees – moved into the Sunbelt and, in 1978, the Orthodox Church in America formed the 14-state Diocese of the South, with Dmitri as its bishop, and began mission efforts. The diocese newspaper includes pages in Russian, English and Spanish.

The growth of convert-oriented churches continued when a network of evangelical churches – led by several former Campus Crusade for Christ evangelists – joined the Antiochian Orthodox Church in 1987. Then, a controversial 1994 assembly of the Western Hemisphere's bishops issued a call for a truly American Orthodox Church.

"Orthodoxy now has a unique mission in America. We are past the age of the Diaspora," said Dmitri. "We are surrounded by so many changes in this culture. We used to be able to count on other churches to hold on to the major doctrines – such as the Incarnation and the Trinity.

"But now it seems that many churches do not want to hold on to anything. ... So the Orthodox Church is having to come to the rescue."

Great souls, great truths

Soon after the 1961 breakthrough of "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," with its hellish first glimpse inside a Soviet labor camp, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn published a radically different kind of story.

"Matryona's Place" described a peasant woman who quietly, but persistently, refused to be corrupted by the numbing policies of the Stalinist regime. Some people were evil. This elderly woman chose to be good. It was a matter of virtue, character and soul.

The story ended by saying: "We all lived beside her, and never understood that she was that righteous one without whom, according to the proverb, no village can stand. Nor any city. Nor our whole land."

Some people touch villages, while others mysteriously touch the world, notes journalist David Aikman, in his book entitled "Great Souls: Six Who Changed The Century." It offers portraits of six moral leaders whom the veteran foreign correspondent has either interviewed or studied during his nearly three decades with Time and other news publications. In addition to Solzhenitsyn, Aikman searches for common themes in the stories of Mother Teresa, Elie Wiesel, Nelson Mandela, Billy Graham and Pope John Paul II. The first four have been awarded Nobel Prizes, an honor many believe the last two shepherds deserve as well.

"We can definitely see an element of the transcendent in each of these lives," said Aikman, during lectures this week at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Ga. "These are people who believe that there are solid, absolute truths that are worth living for and they were willing to die for those truths as well, if they had to."

Aikman focuses on one transcendent virtue or theme in each life. For millions, Mother Teresa became the embodiment of compassion. The pivotal moment in Mandela's life is when the once-arrogant revolutionary emerges after 27 years of imprisonment and, instead of spewing venom, consistently preaches messages rooted in forgiveness. Despite all odds, Graham has remained focused on salvation.

As Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize, he said: "One word of truth shall outweigh the whole world." Pope John Paul II has, in word and deed, consistently returned to the defense of human dignity. Wiesel has, after surviving the Holocaust, dedicated his life to the virtue that Aikman calls "remembrance," demanding that the living never forget the reality of the suffering and death caused by human evil.

While these portraits cannot replace full biographies, Aikman manages to highlight unforgettable details and images – always pointing toward issues of faith, obedience, discipline, courage and hope. Each person wrestled with doubts and came to accept a unique, even holy, calling that could not be denied.

As a boy, Wiesel meets with a great rabbi to receive a blessing and then sees his mother emerge weeping from her private talk with the rabbi. The elderly man had prophesied that the boy would grow up to become "gadol b'Israel" – a great man in Israel, a great leader of the Jews – but that neither the rabbi or Wiesel's mother would live to see it.

There is the image of the Solzhenitsyn as a child, drawing comfort from an icon of Jesus hanging near his bed. Later, young Marxists rip his baptismal cross from around his neck. There is Karol Wojtyla, long before his papacy, falling spread-eagled on the floor to pray for deliverance as Nazi police miss his Warsaw apartment door. There is Mother Teresa, refusing to leave a Calcutta hospital until the staff surrenders and admits a dying woman whose body had been attacked by rats and ants. There is Mandela, praying and studying the Bible with a prison guard's son, then comforting the guard after the son's death. There is Graham, refusing billionaire H.L. Hunt's offer of $6 million if the evangelist would run for president.

"Greatness of soul is not the same thing as being a celebrity," said Aikman. "It's a matter of character. Each of these great people had the kind of character that, at some point, it began to affect and to infect those who were around them. Now, it's almost impossible to imagine what our world would have been like without them."

George W. Bush learns to 'testify'

George Bush never did learn to open up when anyone asked about his faith, salvation, family values and all those messy spiritual issues.

On one campaign stop, he was asked what he thought about as he floated alone in the Pacific Ocean after his plane was shot down during World War II. His response was chilly: "Mom and Dad, about our country, about God ... and about the separation of church and state."

Eventually, the Kennebunkport Episcopalian ran into a Little Rock Baptist who could preach, pray, weep, hug, sing and confess with the best of them.

Now, Bush's heir is poised to make a run at the White House. However, George W. Bush is a Bible Belt Methodist and appears to have learned a big lesson: it helps if a candidate can stand tall in a pulpit and, as born-again folks say, "give his testimony."

"Faith gives us purpose - to right wrongs, preserve our families and teach our children values," said the Texas governor, speaking to about 15,000 during a March 6-7 visit to Houston's Second Baptist Church. "Faith gives us a conscience - to keep us honest even when no one is watching. Faith changes lives. I know, because it has changed mine. I grew up in the church, but I didn't always walk the walk."

Bush then described a backslider vs. the preacher showdown he had in the mid-1980s with evangelist Billy Graham. Bush said their talks inspired him to "recommit my life to Jesus Christ" and to end what he has previously confessed was a rowdy era in his private life. Bush's testimony also included nods to Promise Keeper orator Tony Evans, Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson and other prominent evangelicals.

Yes, this Bush also pledged his allegiance to church-state separation.

"The church is not the state and the state is darn sure not the church," he said. "Any time the church enters the realm of politics the church runs the real risk of losing its mission. ... Politics is a world of give and take, of polls, of human vision. The church is built on the absolute principles of the Word of God, not the word of man."

Bush's sermon on religion and politics was quickly buried in news about an Associated Press interview about abortion. As he has throughout the 1990s, Bush called himself a "pro-life person," yet he said most Americans do not share his convictions.

"America is not ready to overturn Roe vs. Wade, because America's hearts are not right," he said. "So, in the meantime ... what we ought to do is promote policies that reduce abortions."

Speaking to the press through a telephone news conference, Focus on the Family leader James Dobson urged Bush to be specific. "Don't give us double-talk. Tell us if you'll support pro-life judges. Tell us if you'll oppose giving money to Planned Parenthood International." At this point in the Bush campaign, Dobson said, "we don't know what he believes."

Bush's approach does resemble the fervent, yet vague, approach used for years by Bill Clinton. Back in 1986, Clinton even said he agreed with the "stated purpose" of an Arkansas constitutional amendment to "promote the health, safety and welfare of every unborn child from conception until birth." Clinton has preached many sermons on faith's positive role in public life.

It's easy to offer positive words about faith. The problem is that so many people – both progressives and traditionalists - - currently believe their religious beliefs are under attack.

Bush stressed the positive at Second Baptist, calling for church-state cooperation that would unleash "little armies of compassion" to transform "one heart, one soul and one conscience at a time." Still, this strategy will raise questions. Some critics insist that cooperative efforts using tax money, or even tax incentives, blur the line between church and state. Others want to know why Bush welcomes faith-based alternatives to costly government social programs, yet shies away from similar alternatives in education.

Bush's remarks in Houston will be dissected by one and all.

"We have learned that government programs cannot solve all the problems in our society," he said. "Government can hand out money, but it cannot put hope in our hearts or a sense of purpose in our lives. It cannot fill the spiritual well from which we draw strength day to day. Only faith can do that."

For my father, a pastor

Anyone who grew up in a parsonage knows that "PK" stands for "preacher's kid."

Early on, I rebelled against that label. But I wasn't rejecting my father, my family or the faith. When people called me a "preacher's kid," I told them that my father wasn't a preacher – he was a pastor. There's a difference.

My father passed away last week at the age of 82 and I thought this would be a good time to say, once again, what I said to him and to others many times – I have always been proud of his work. Of course, it had been some time since the Rev. Bert Mattingly retired from the pastorate and from his post-retirement work as a hospital chaplain. That didn't matter. In Texas Baptist lingo, he was always "Brother Bert."

My father preached, but that wasn't what defined him. The joy, and burden, of the job is that there's more to it than that.

The job seems to be getting tougher. Ask Jim Dahlman, a veteran editor at Focus on the Family who has specialized in issues linked to the ministry. During one research project he read many letters from clergy and their families, some of which left him weeping. Some pastors weren't burning out – they were crashing in flames.

"I read one letter after another from pastors or their wives talking about this overwhelming sense of loneliness and isolation," he said. "Over and over, they'd write things like, 'We're totally alone. We can't talk to anyone about what's going on in our lives or the pressure we're under. We're out here twisting in the wind.' "

The big pressure is for pastors to be ready and available to handle each and every crisis, no matter how minor. With family and friends far away these days, who do people call? Oprah? The all-night therapist?

Dahlman said people also expect pastors to be "lifestyle role models" with perfect homes and perfect spiritual lives. But it's a problem if the pastor spends too much time at family events or on prayer retreats. Church members expect well researched, practical and, preferably, entertaining sermons. But it's a problem if the pastor spends too much time studying and writing.

The clock is always ticking.

I'm convinced the main reason stress levels are so high is that so many people – in pews and pulpits – have forgotten that pastors are defined by who they are and what they stand for, not what skills they possess and what tasks they perform. Pastors can't be shepherds if people expect them to be superheroes.

Why was I proud to be a pastor's kid? This may sound simplistic, but I believe churches need to hear it – again.

* My father was a pastor – not a preacher, CEO, entertainer, clinical counselor, self-help guru or crisis-management consultant.

* He preached the Bible, not his feelings and experiences. Today, many urge pastors to make their lives open books – often forcing a faked extroversion that has little to do with reality. This has more to do with life in an era of mass-media confessions than solid teaching or evangelism.

* My parents were united – for 58 years – by their love and commitment to ministry. Today, many churches place so much pressure on clergy schedules and spirits that they weaken the very foundations of their personal lives. This has led to clergy divorce rates that are as shameful as in society as a whole.

* My father wasn't a workaholic. It wasn't until college that I talked with other "PKs" and discovered how unusual it was that I spent many, many hours with my father. I'm convinced this was linked to a more balanced, realistic approach to ministry.

* He kept on loving God, his work and his people. I have never known a pastor who didn't wrestle with fits of melancholy. Good pastors are realists who face the reality of pain and sin. And then many heap criticism on them, micromanage their lives and expect miracles.

Truth is, I rarely saw my father move mountains. But I did see him preach, teach, pray and embrace sinners. I was proud that he was a pastor. I still am.

Oh be careful little hands what you do

It's amazing how Sunday school songs can stick with people for the rest of their lives.

"Oh be careful little hands what you do! Oh be careful little hands what you do," sang social activist Tony Campolo, as he led a recent Milligan College (Tenn.) chapel audience in the hand motions that children have learned for generations. "God is up above. He is looking down in love. So be careful little hands what you do."

This song may sound silly, but it's not.

"That song! That song ruined my dating life," shouted Campolo. "You know, I'd be out there in a car and just when I'm ready to make the move, this voice from heaven says, 'Be careful little hands, what you do.' "

This kind of slapstick sermonizing always brings howls of laughter, especially on college campuses. The 64-year-old storyteller delivers more than 400 sermons and lectures a year and few people are better at making students laugh, think and cry at the same time. But he also wants to inspire tough questions.

Campolo has heard one question more than any other, ever since the Labor Day call from the White House asking him to serve as one of President Bill Clinton's three pastoral counselors. The question could be phrased this way: Has he sung "Oh be careful little hands what you do" recently in the Oval Office?

"Everybody wants to know what I say to the president and what the president says to me," said Campolo, who is both an ordained Baptist minister and a sociology professor at Eastern College in St. Davids, Pa. However, he has honored the confidentiality of this relationship, because "I don't think that you can talk about the president and to the president at the same time."

In the pulpit, Campolo's thundering voice and hot emotions often threaten the volume needles on tape recorders. He has admitted that the president often endsup shouting back at him, even though Campolo is an outspoken Democrat and a sworn foe of the Religious Right.

While the preacher won't discuss these sessions with the press, his sermons frequently address issues that are at the heart of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. At Milligan College, for example, he noted that many believers forget that it's "quite possible to be forgiven and not to be cleansed." Many also forget that, when they wallow in their sins, they bring pain to God.

Christianity teaches that Jesus is truly divine and that his life and ministry - such as his sacrifice on the cross – transcend human time. Thus, Jesus is constantly carrying the sins of the world and of individual sinners. During a visit to another campus, Campolo said he met a young man who was a perfect example of those who fail to take this doctrine seriously.

"He said, 'Yeah, I do a lot of things that are wrong, you know, a lot of stuff sexually. I'm really into it. But, you know, I believe it's all taken care of on Calvary,' " said Campolo. "I was furious. I said, 'The next time you're screwing around, I hope you can hear Jesus screaming in pain! Because at that very moment, as he hangs on Calvary, he feels your sin and is absorbing it!' "

It's normal to hear preachers use this kind of language. But during the past year, it has become common to hear the likes of Geraldo Rivera and Larry King leading discussions of sin and grace, repentance and forgiveness. While this has been a troubling experience for many people, Campolo believes it has been good for the country.

For one thing, people on both sides of the political aisle are being forced to seek common ground on moral issues.

"All of a sudden we realize that no one sins to himself," said Campolo. "When you commit a sinful act, it has a rippling effect that goes around the world and back. We recognize that there is no such thing as private sin, anymore. It's all connected. And what is more, we have this sense now that there are a set of absolutes out there. There is a right. There is a wrong."