FRIENDSHIP AS A REFLECTION OF THE DIVINE

By Hieromonk Dionysios

Friendship is indeed a reflection of the divine. However, we must examine what exactly true friendship is in comparision to other relationships which are either lesser friendships or which masquerade themselves as friendships.

Let us define the levels of friendships:

The friendship of use is a friendship of utility, one which has the possibility of being led to a true friendship, however in most cases it goes no further than a relationship for a limited period of time in order to fulfill a particular need. An example of such a friendship of use would be a high school student who is poor in reading skills seeking a tutor. The next type of friendship is the friendship of pleasure, and this type is most unable to develop into a true friendship as it can be selfish when lacking in virtue, and as pleasure is impermanent yet pain inevitable, it cannot last very easily when it is faced with pain and suffering or any slight disturbance. Such friendship can be ‘junkfood friendships’ if they exist apart from friendships of virtue, away from a striving for true friendship. Apart from this, they only fill a void in our life yet do not truly nourish and sustain us. An example of such a friendship of pleasure would be a sexual relationship without a commitment, ‘beer drinking’ buddies, or even a relationship where the persons find pleasure not really in each others compay but in a particular activity. The highest level of friendship is the ‘alithees philia’ which requires a transformation of the persons, it is as two souls united in the path of salvation, seeking the highest good for one another. In Orthodox Theology, the term ‘theosis’ applies as well in the context of the true friendship as theosis implies the process of becoming a partaker in the divine nature, of a transformation of our nature. This is the process of a true friendship, both persons are transformed, and we must realize that the true friendship cannot exist apart from virtue. A true friendship is attainable by any person. To develop towards a true friendship there will be a need for pain and suffering, this is the testing by which the friendship is ‘tried by fire’ to see if it will stand, and through this pain and suffering, kenosis, the self emptying, by which we give up our own will and seek to be fully united our friend and ultimately to God. This idea of kenosis reflects the Divine as this is what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished in His Incarnation, in which He emptied Himself and took upon our human nature as the philanthropic God, the lover of mankind. The pain and suffering are reflective of the Crucifixion by which later the joy and fruits of the Resurrection were made manifest.

As Archimandrite Glykerios says, " The whole purpose of creation and the Divine Economy of the Incarnation is not only that we be saved, to be united, each of us separately, with God, but to unite all of the Faithful with one another; and indeed, to come to such love and unity among themselves, that they will resemble and mirror the inseparable, eternal, and blessed unity of love of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity." As Saint Gregory of Nyssa states, "Christianity is an imitative exemplar of the Divine nature." Before joy can blossom, before a friendship can blossom, it must first endure and understand the opposing force, for then it is pointed to the more profound and the more lasting understanding of what joy is all about. The other necessity for the true friendship to blossom is commonality Commonality does not mean sameness, it does not imply that we must be identical in order for the friendship to last and be meaningful, rather that we must have a goal in which we share in common. The main building block of the true friendship is trust, without trust there can never be a bridge from the lesser friendships to the realization of a true friendship. The need for friendship exists within our nature itself, as we are created as social beings needing others for our own physical, emotional, and spiritual survival. Indeed, the key to the Kingdom of God rests in our neighbor and friends.

Having said that friendship is within our nature, then we must realize that our nature is meant to be divine, we are called to be partakers in the divine nature, to achieve theosis. In a friendship, we are slowly growing and transforming our relationships into the ultimate end- the love of our true nature- the love exhibited by the Divine Hypostases. We now love God because He first loved us, likewise we begin to love our friends in reponse to the love they show to us. Monasticism is the ideal example of a life of friendship, not to say that married life is not to also be valued. However, in the monastic life, we see the cenobium, the gathering of individuals from varying backgrounds and with various talents and faults striving towards a common goal, and this goal being the salvation of one another. Salvation is not an individual experience but rather a personal experience in the context of community. The monk develops patience, humility, love, and must endure hardships of his brothers in the community. Here he is able to seek Live, for God is Love, and He who knows God knows love and vice versa. The freedom of the human person in the communion of love is the monastic ideal. According to the Holy Fathers, the first monastic community was indeed the one the Lord Jesus Christ formed with His Holy Apostles. For the hermit, he is not truly alone, but has the friendship of the Church.

Friendship is indeed something that survives the grave. For example, Archimandrite Gerasim of New Valaam was said to live ‘alone’ yet he lived at the site where Saint Herman of Alaska labored and had in his mind the constant remembrance of Saint Herman. Thus, he was not alone but had this saint as his co-worker in his ascetical life. Even as a lay person, we must realize we can have the ‘monastery in our own backyard’, we can take the virtues and the ideal of the monastic life and incorporate it into the dealings that we have each day. In the married life, the family becomes as a house-church.

The Eucharist is the Holy Mystery of Friendship, as the Lord gave it to those who were His disciples, and those who are His disciples are known by their love for one another. The Eucharist is the Mystery by which we express our common bond together and common path in salvation. By it we are nourished spiritually with one another, but we also are actually being transformed, achieving theosis by being united ‘where two or three are gathered in My Name, I am in their midst’ with the Lord and with one another. We are actually mystically partaking of the Lord Himself, taking part in both His human and divine natures, and being transformed into "New Adams’ by the New Adam Himself. When the Eucharist was instituted, Judas was the only not to be fully united in this Mystery and through him only having a friendship of use with the Lord and not developing kenosis, his friendship moved into the downward spiral. This means that a severing of friendship can occur when virtue is not present or has been lost or when a relationship ends with ‘unfinished business’. This downward spiral can then lead to no future mending of the relationship and the relationship can then become adversarial. However, even in the case of an adversarial relationship, the one on the path to true friendship, still maintains a love for the adversary. Even when a friendship is ended, the love cannot fade, as there will always remain a connection, a remembrance of what once was.

Saint Maximos the Confessor gave the following quotations in regards to friendship:

"Nothing can be compared to a faithful friend. This is because he regards his friend’s misfortunes as his own and supports him in hardships until his death." He continues by saying, " You are to love every man from your own soul, but in God alone are you to place your hope and serve Him with your whole strength." As Saint Maximos states our highest hope and our highest friendship is in God, we must question whether a true friendship can ever exist with one who is not destined to the same place, and does not love God, the source of all true friendships.

Saint Maximos says, " The friends of Christ love everyone sincerely but are not loved by everyone. The friends of Christ maintain the continuity of love until the end. The friends of the world, on the contrary, maintain theirs until they clash with each other over the world’s goods." Therefore, we must realize that a friend of Christ will never be and cannot be a friend of the world as the true friendship exists apart from the world and has its fulfillment in the spiritual, in Heaven. The friends of the world have a ‘sense of love’ but it cannot endure suffering, and when there is conflict it goes into the downward spiral and becomes immediately adversarial. Saint Maximos states, " A faithful friend is a strong defense, for when his friend is prospering he is a good counselor and sympathetic collaborator, and when he is in distress, he is his sincere supporter and most sympathetic defender…Many people have said much about love, but only in seeking it among Christ’s disciples will you find it, for only they have true love, the teacher of love, of whom it is written, ‘If I have prophecy and know all mysteries and have all knowledge but do not have love, it profits me nothing.’ Therefore the one who possesses love possesses God himself, since God is love."