[Greapyjeory]

Dear Michael,
The reaction of your brothers & sisters in Christ to the points you brought up seem to show a defensiveness and minds already made up. As Orthodox Chrsitians we are obliged to try through humble searching to discern the truth of what the world presents to us, even (or more) what is presented as 'religious'. A mind made up can indicate a degree of self-will. In this sense we must come with minds open to being guided by the Church; otherwise the risk is great to us.
I watched the interview this week with Mr Gibson & the American media. I simply wanted to see what he is like in order to discern further. First he seems like a genuine, well-intentioned man. And he is truly committed to his traditionalist Roman Catholic faith. Several things he said however gave me pause: first he said openly that the movie was his own vision (exact words) of the Passion; ie he was guided in some sense by his Roman Catholic faith but also the particular image seen thru the movie is the result of his personal view of Christ's Passion. While Mr Gibson was speaking about this it was quite easy to see that his view of the Passion was definitely based on the Roman idea of the atonement theory, but with a greater emphasis on Christ's sufferings AS A MAN. This indeed is a crucial point I would have missed otherwise. Mr Gibson has given Christ's Passion a further humanistic turn; it is in fact relying on a deep & human sympathy for Christ's suffering and in fact this greatly informs his 'vision' of the Passion, its meaning and its presentation. This is also why Mr Gibson relied on the writings of Emmerich (which he openly admitted) to emphasise what he felt was a necessary stress on copious amounts of blood & gore. Now I do believe that all of this points to something very problematic for us as Orthodox Christians if we accept this movie as reflecting in truth what the Evangelists say or more crucially if we take this as being equal to a Churchly presentation of Christ & what lead us towards Himself. So Michael I very much agree with you- perhaps we could see this movie like 'The Ten Commandments'; or like 'Touched By an Angel'; but this is not the Church; it is not equal to the services of Great Friday.
Lastly let me point out something that should be important to us: the connection between the image & its human creator. In Orthodoxy we know that this relationship must be ascetic; at one point however in the interview when the issue of one of those who criticised Mr Gibson was brought up he revealed his great anger- not just irritation-and the fact that he had referred to him with foul language, for which no apology was offered.
'The Passion of the Christ' is not an icon of the Passion of our Lord and Mr Gibson is no iconographer; he is simply a well-intentioned Roman Catholic trying to convey in his own terms his love for Christ as he sees Him.
In Christ- Fr Raphael